I love this place! I can hardly step away and turn around before someone else come along willing and wanting to help, and one more obstacle gets overcome. Its like one great big creative playground.
jamesbond, anything you can do would be terrific! Good luck and keep us posted! I will anxiously await the fruit of your efforts
Thank you for trying partsman! I know I have tried installing more than a dozen different "Linux" speech recognition and STT packages without much luck; to the point that Gimp no longer works, and every time I download anything these days, the browser closes upon completion of said download and the download manager opens up and begins re-downloading the file prior to the one I just downloaded, so two downloads ago in my history of downloaded files. my whole system if totally jacked and will require a complete reinstall because I have installed so much "foreign" software and dependencies it stopped being funny ages ago...
..but I just pop in the CD and it starts right up again, easy as you like. Even when it crashes, it eagerly cranks right back up like nothing ever happened. Oops! My system crashed...is that smoke? ...oh well, I cannot be bothered to fix it now...gotta go online and check the puppy forum, you know...
I am reminded of this guy...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axC-7O4Yq-w
I used to be EXACTLY like THAT guy, except it was windows who killed my inner child.
To be honest and in all fairness, I decided I could set my prejudice against other Operating Systems aside, and I downloaded and burned a copy of Ubuntu last night after I found this article...
http://www.muktware.com/5412/how-get-pa ... ork-ubuntu
...of course today I go and find that the site seems to be down at the moment. Typical. I got 3/4 of the way through the instructions for setting it up last night before sleep took over...I still have no idea if it was successful and I wont until I have access to those instructions again...
Part of the problem I am noticing with Ubuntu, Knoppix, and other "Flavours" of Linux is that what is good for one user is not necessarily good for another, and I do not mean that in the "literal sense" you probably expect. What I mean is, Knoppix has a seemingly terrific text interface for those among us whom cannot see at all, but then what happens if my wife needs to use the computer I am using? She does not like the text user interface and prefers the GUI she knows and loves. Can the two not coexist?
It seems that maybe they can in Ubuntu, but then
I am using Ubuntu! The dash thing is confusing, everything is sudo this and login as root that, the close button is on the top LEFT of windows, not top right like Ive been trained---If I switch every machine around me to Ubuntu, my family will waste countless hours every year just hunting for a little red X button so they can close windows...
We ALL love Puppy around here. My wife, kids, nieces, nephews, parents, sisters and brothers all use Puppy Linux at my suggestion. If I switch to Ubuntu or Knoppix or anything else now, that will make me a hypocrite and a liar...so I really dont even care what Ubuntu can do...it isnt Puppy.
After I get the ndiswrapper ironed out later today (thank you again smokey01!) I can begin using fatdog as my main dog--tho I believe I will do a coexist install with lucid too because I still really like lucid. I will keep trying with regard to Ubuntu, not because I think it will work for me, but because I wish to be thorough and investigate every avenue, however unlikely. Maybe the website with the instructions will come back up some day...I will keep an eye on it.
Also, because I am keeping my options open and I wish to be thorough, I will investigate (and download and burn a copy of) Knoppix, and report to all here about my experience with it as well. Again, not because I think it will work for me, but because I want to be an informed bigot. As opposed to an ignorant bigot (which nobody appreciates)!
Thank you to everyone who is lending a hand with this!
Cheers!