Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Miscellaneous Musings
Puppy Linux
Just tried to use Puppy Linux. Puppy Linux will boot from a CD-R, a DVD-R, or a USB thumb drive according to the Puppy Linux website, http://www.puppyos.com/.
When using a CD-R boot of Puppy Linux, it was very easy to login to my ISP for Internet access, accessing websites went just like normal, and it was super simple to get my mail from my email account, sending email was a piece of cake.
Puppy requires a "live-cd" boot. The "live-cd" of Puppy Lunix was created from an ISO download from the Puppy website. Puppy is a very interesting implementation of Linux. Puppy runs from a CD-R bootable CD or DVD-R bootable DVD. The OS loads into RAM where it lives. After you are done with your session, the data you created is written back out to the DVD or CD so that the next time you boot you have all of your information available. A very interesting idea. Puppy does not disturb the existing OS on the computer BUT can see the drives of the OS, at least it sees Windows XP drives and can read the data from the XP drives; Puppy is also able to write to the XP drive.
Puppy is very quick, duh RAM based, has almost all normal applications available: WP, Spreadsheet, Database, Photo, etc. If you have large files you have to make a partition on the computer hard drive for the files. But for normal email and typical business functions this is a very neat system.
Unfortunately Puppy is not all peaches and cream! Puppy is a truly brilliant idea!! But it is an IDEA!!! Not ready for Prime Time at all. Puppy will not boot a USB drive on ANY of my computers! One is a new BioStar AMD Sempron 3300+ which the BIOS says will boot USB-everything (Zip, CDROM, HDD,USB flash, ....); Puppy barfs badly; it can not find the hardware to boot.
My older eMachines(except for the T3256); seem to boot well from the CDROM ONLY!!; the Dells are similar; the MicroTel is happy booting from the CDROM(has no USB!); Puppy just will not cut it for anything except playing around at this time. But a really really neat idea if it could be made to work!!!
The Puppy Linux website suggested booting a floppy first and then reading the USB thumb drive. Tried the floppy boot first after the floppy boots the computer, the idea is to read the USB thumb drive; similar results to that above; where the CDROM works well the floppy/USB combination also works; nothing boots directly from my USB thumbs!! Evidently there are computers that do work; none of them are in my possession however! Bummer!!
Just tried to use Puppy Linux. Puppy Linux will boot from a CD-R, a DVD-R, or a USB thumb drive according to the Puppy Linux website, http://www.puppyos.com/.
When using a CD-R boot of Puppy Linux, it was very easy to login to my ISP for Internet access, accessing websites went just like normal, and it was super simple to get my mail from my email account, sending email was a piece of cake.
Puppy requires a "live-cd" boot. The "live-cd" of Puppy Lunix was created from an ISO download from the Puppy website. Puppy is a very interesting implementation of Linux. Puppy runs from a CD-R bootable CD or DVD-R bootable DVD. The OS loads into RAM where it lives. After you are done with your session, the data you created is written back out to the DVD or CD so that the next time you boot you have all of your information available. A very interesting idea. Puppy does not disturb the existing OS on the computer BUT can see the drives of the OS, at least it sees Windows XP drives and can read the data from the XP drives; Puppy is also able to write to the XP drive.
Puppy is very quick, duh RAM based, has almost all normal applications available: WP, Spreadsheet, Database, Photo, etc. If you have large files you have to make a partition on the computer hard drive for the files. But for normal email and typical business functions this is a very neat system.
Unfortunately Puppy is not all peaches and cream! Puppy is a truly brilliant idea!! But it is an IDEA!!! Not ready for Prime Time at all. Puppy will not boot a USB drive on ANY of my computers! One is a new BioStar AMD Sempron 3300+ which the BIOS says will boot USB-everything (Zip, CDROM, HDD,USB flash, ....); Puppy barfs badly; it can not find the hardware to boot.
My older eMachines(except for the T3256); seem to boot well from the CDROM ONLY!!; the Dells are similar; the MicroTel is happy booting from the CDROM(has no USB!); Puppy just will not cut it for anything except playing around at this time. But a really really neat idea if it could be made to work!!!
The Puppy Linux website suggested booting a floppy first and then reading the USB thumb drive. Tried the floppy boot first after the floppy boots the computer, the idea is to read the USB thumb drive; similar results to that above; where the CDROM works well the floppy/USB combination also works; nothing boots directly from my USB thumbs!! Evidently there are computers that do work; none of them are in my possession however! Bummer!!
