Do you still use Windows sometimes? And why?

[Isis]

Hi, I'd like to know, if you still use Windows beside Puppy.
Why do you still use Windows, which applications?
Mark

I still use windows for:
1. Email because I hate webmail and because I can't find a way to export all my saved folders and emails to a readable form so I can get away from Earthlink.
2. I can't print anymore with Puppy 4.0, so any info I need to print, I have to email to myself and print it out in XP. I'm still using my old economical HP Deskjet 722C. It worked with Puppy 3.17, just. But it couldn't do any of the neat stuff anymore.
3. There doesn't seem to be a way to convert all my WordPerfect files to OpenOffice. And my DVD table/database took WAY too much time and energy to do it over from scratch.
4. This computer and/or Puppy 4.0 doesn't have any means of uploading video from my camcorder or phone info.

While surfing the internet is finally working for me, I prefer Clusty search engine to Google because they give me slightly less bad hits and a way to break down the hits to fine tune what I want out of the mess given.

I sure don't miss the constant computer crashes, updates and restarts required with Windows. Not to mention all the safety precautions and expense those precautions entail!

There are many operations I have not yet tried with Puppy 4.0 yet. Like transferring photos from my digital camera, recording music files, making back up copies of DVDs and I am still inept at trying to install software. I expect eventually I'll figure it out like with the Wi-Fi stuff, but it frustrating now. What exactly is the Puppy 4.0 file format that replaces Windows' .exe files?

Last night I even got the husband to go online with Puppy 4.0. He grumbled when I suggested it (because I had to use the Windows computer upstairs to burn some DVDs) but he had no problem with it and was on here the usual amount of time without once calling me to come fix something!!! I love Puppy!

[markofkane]

Yeah, if I was able to do everything in Puppy I could do in Windows, I would dump Windows, but I don't know enough about linux, and also, some programs simply will not work with linux, unless maybe you have a Windows emulator that can make Windows exclusive programs work in linux.

But it don't matter. I use puppy for web surfing, mostly. I use Windows for printing, and making videos.

I like running Puppy, because it's fast, (and not bloated) and the reason I think it's fast, is because it isn't bloated like Windows, although the bloat is neccessary to make all the programs work with ease.

[Chronos]

Do I still use windows....geez, do I ever.

My better half has a HP Pavillion Media Center with Vista on it (ugh). Thankfully, I don't have to bother with it often.

On my main box (AMD barton 3200, 1gig ram), I dual boot Windows XP Pro SP2 and Win 2kPro SP4. I use the 2k for mostly gaming and remote admining the other pcs. WinXP for office, creating graphics, video and audio editing, cd's, dvd's, e-mail, just about everything else I don't use the 2k partition for (which is everything).

On the other PC (Pent III 550, 640mb ram), I run win2k pro sp4. This is my home files server, ftp server and a quake 3 server for my clan.

On my good laptop (Pent 4 2ghz, 1gb ram), I run XP Pro sp2 for the same reasons I run it on my desktop.

On my not so good laptop, Thinkpad 600e (P-II 400, 64mb ram) I run puppy 2.16. I haven't switched completely to nix yet because I'm still a newbie. That's why it's on this laptop...to learn from. But, I'm going to be using it for RDP and....well, I dunno.

[battleshooter]

I think pretty soon windows is going to be in the "used less than 10% range " in this family. Puppy's been doing everything my family needs it to do and they're happy using it. It's quite funny cause mum's quite computer illiterate, all she knows is to get on the net, you click the "fox" She didn't even really know she was using a linux system with ease. That's really cool. My brother is the only major opposition against Pups, but I'll get him over on this side one day.

I think the only thing I use windows for is gonna be video editing, but I haven't done it in ages, so no windows for me.

Cheerio!

[Bruce B]

I use Windows 95 retail and Windows 98SE.

They only exist as software disk images and are run by emulation. Frankly I think I have them mostly for fun and testing.

But I do have some valuable software on them for image editing and web page development.

Moreover, I have MS-DOS running in dosemu. I have a C compiler for DOS and I enjoy DOS.

Mostly, it's all for fun and occasional testing. The exception being Photoshop. Having spent the money on Photoshop and learned it well, it's hard for me to make the change to Gimp.

[battleshooter]

Hey Isis,

When you say :

What exactly is the Puppy 4.0 file format that replaces Windows' .exe files?

Are you asking about the equivalent of a windows click and install exe file? If that's the case the equivalent is either a pup or pet file, which is very straight forward-Just click and install.

Hope it helps

[tadatada]

我是

[Isis]

Hey Isis,

When you say :

What exactly is the Puppy 4.0 file format that replaces Windows' .exe files?

Are you asking about the equivalent of a windows click and install exe file? If that's the case the equivalent is either a pup or pet file, which is very straight forward-Just click and install.

Hope it helps

Thank you, yes, that is what I was asking. The reason I'm confused by the issue is that I have downloaded several files with extensions of :
.tar.gz
.tbz2
.ppd
.tar.bz2
What do I do with those? .pup and .pet files are easy, as long as they show up in the getpet package manager. Unfortunately, I have downloaded several that weren't in there and I can't do anything with them either.

Geez, it sounds like I'm whining. But most of my time this week-end has been spend reading How-tos and watching Wink videos and reading forums. I feel like I might get the hang of this yet, but it is a steep hill I'm climbing.

Thanks again for your reply!

PS. Want to know my favorite thing about Puppy? It is so easy to find information. There is a place to go to ask questions. And somebody almost always answers. No one has ever made fun of my questions. Or belittled me for not knowing what most likely is common knowledge among experienced users. The only one who makes me feel like an idiot, is me! That is my favorite thing about Puppy.

[battleshooter]

Ohh, ouch, this might be a bit of a learning curve...

ppd, is if I'm not mistaken, is kind of like a printer driver, you use it with CUPS when you're installing a printer.

.tar.gz, tbz2 tar.bz2 all are extracted with XArchive. They were designed for Linux in general, not just Puppy so you usually need to compile them after extraction- which is where the learning curve comes in. If you do a search in Pups on compiling quite a few hits come up. These two helped me:

http://www.puppylinux.org/wiki/archives ... /compiling

and
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=31710

But feel free to look around.

I can't really give you a definite step by step how to on compiling because different files work differently. The most definite thing you'll need for compiling is a devx file which you can download from that first site I gave you. You just put that in the same file as your pup save file, if you're using a live CD.

No probs for the reply, I'm still learning too, it's just fun to give folks a hand after I've had a lot given to me

If I'm not making sense, let me know and I'll try to be more comprehendable.

Cheerio!

[hayagix]

I have a great printer but it will not work in linux - Canon. I was angry with Hp's junk at the time.
My scanner works in linux but I cannot be bothered to set xsane up. I seem to have a lot of problems getting the same results I get in windows. I have no patience with this chore and I just want to get it over with quickly and painlessly.

[Aitch]

PS. Want to know my favorite thing about Puppy? It is so easy to find information. There is a place to go to ask questions. And somebody almost always answers. No one has ever made fun of my questions. Or belittled me for not knowing what most likely is common knowledge among experienced users. The only one who makes me feel like an idiot, is me! That is my favorite thing about Puppy.

An alternative source in case no-one answers your need, also useful for hayagix

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29754

useful set of howto's, including printing

http://puppylinux.org/wiki/how-tos/general/howto

help for linux noobies/newbies

http://puppylinux.org/wiki/archives/old ... nuxnewbies

Aitch

[Béèm]

I still use a couple of programs for which there is no Linux equivalent.
- picture project that came with my Nikon camera
- bluetooth utilities for my mobile phone (didn't succeed yet to get bluetooth working with my phone)
- MyPhoneExplorer to handle my mobile phone calls and sms.
- some smaller ones more.

But I am quite often in Linux now.

[hayagix]

Thankyou for your very helpful links Altch. I found the "how to search" thread especially valuble.

You may have misunderstood my post. I was not looking for help - only stating why I still use windows(as per subject iine of this thread). I've been dealing with printer/scanner issues in linux long before I discovered Puppy. For the amount of printing/scanning I need to do, rebooting into windows is a small thing.

Thanks again.

[Aitch]

no probs, hayagix

[otropogo]

Essential and important uses, in no particular order (defintitely not exhaustive):

1. online banking - I use Quicken to download all my transactions from my banks, including all my credit card purchases, all of which are then automatically matched with my registry entries.

2. scanning - none of my three multifunction machines will run under Linux

3. printing - none of my three multifunction machines will install under Puppy (some distros will let me do a manual install of the printer function and print a test page)

4. OCR - still no decent OCR program for Linux/Puppy

5. Chinese OCR - no OCR program of any kind for Asian characters to run under Linux

6. ballistics - I have one freeware and one shareware program for generating ballistics graphs and tables. Haven't run across one for Linux, but haven't really looked hard...

7. pen tablet input for Chinese characters - readily available for Windows 2000 and up...

8. mouse character drawing input for Chinese characters - available in shareware for Windows, haven't heard of it in Linux

9. assorted car maintenance, tuning, and system check programs for automobiles

10. Pegasus Mail

11. AskSam database manager

12. LS-120 support

13. pcmcia_scsi support

14. (almost forgot) no support for my pivoting LCD (a biggie, and especially maddening because I'd like very much to edit my RAW files with GIMP in Linux, but will have to settle for GIMP in Windows)

[Béèm]

Pegasus mail is my mail client.
It runs beautifully in Wine.

[otropogo]

Pegasus mail is my mail client.
It runs beautifully in Wine.

That's good to know.

However, I've used Irfanview in Windows for years, and just recently tried running it under Wine in Puppy (and on a faster system), and it seems very slowwww.

Maybe when I get a new (ie. brand-new) machine...

[Béèm]

No problem to run irfanview in Wine either.
No performance loss versus Windows.
In fact I experience that Windows programs running in Wine run faster then in Window (XP for me)

[otropogo]

No problem to run irfanview in Wine either.
No performance loss versus Windows.
In fact I experience that Windows programs running in Wine run faster then in Window (XP for me)

OK. I'll test my perceptions with some timed tests.

[vattimo]

Sometimes with older equipment (P3 700mhz with 256RAM -- Compaq N400C) there are some Windows apps and hardware which are still useful ... Linking my iPaq 3950 works smoothly in Windows ... Also the Clie (Palm OS) linking works well there. And converting VHS to DVD with the hardware I have (DVD Xpress) works well with WIndows.

Specific tools/ apps I need, so Windows remains ... Which is one of the big reasons I am such a supporter of Puppy ... I use Live CD (2.14 up to 4.0) boots on my systems (have only been able to get the USB boot to work with a Verbatim flash -- No luck with PNY, Generic, Kingston, Memorex, Sandisk) and because the Live CD works so well I use Puppy for Internet (wireless,ethernet, modem all work great!) and work 'stuff' -- AND when the windows systems crap out I can use Puppy to rescue them. (I've saved at least 6 people's pics and data by using Puppy .. For which Barry and the 'Puppy Team' have my sincere gratitude!)

There are even times I still use DOS (in PC, MS, Free versions) for some older apps ... I have boot floppies with some old tools on them !!!

Soooo ... I just use what seems to work for what I need ... with the bulk of my time spent playing/working with Puppy.

Best regards!