I have tried several versions of Linux and the one I prefer to run is Ubuntu

It has the same features of Puppy as described by Zappdog here including running from CD, which is much slower than a direct install. Ubuntu can also install on another hard drive in your system so you can have a dual boot. It also checks the server for program and security updates regularily it will even upgrade to the latest version so you don't have to burn another CD. With Ubuntu's Add Remove feature you can browse the server for free games and programs that you might want to install, they have everything and its FREE! They even have a BOINC install which you can't get from BOINC.

This version is very user friendly but if you have any problems post them here and we'll get you the answers.

Sorry I forgot

Disclaimer:
No Puppies were maimed, beaten, tortured or abused in any way in the making of this thread.

Said the hungry Grizzly Bear.

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HEY GRIZZ
I HAVE TRIED UBUNTU MYSELF AND FOUND IT PRETTY DUMB. THERE WAS LOTS OF SETUP THAT PUPPY MAKES EASY. HAD UBUNTU ON A COUPLE OF SYSTEMS AT WORK FOR AN EMPLOYMENT WORKSHOP AND FOUND TOO MANY PROBLEMS THAT A NEWBIE TO IT WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND.
PUPPY IS ALSO A GREAT ONE FOR THE ELDERLY THAT WANT TO COMMUNICATE WITH FAMILY AND AVERAGE BROWSING BUT WANT A SIMPLE SYSTEM TO USE THAT IS PRETTY WELL MAINTANANCE FREE.
AS FOR AUTO UPDATES AND SECURITY, I AM USING NO SECURITY WHATSOEVER OTHER THAN THE FIREWALL IN MY ROUTER. I HAVE BEEN RUNNIN 24/7 SINCE DEC 06. NO VIRUSES. NO HACKS. SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE PORTING LEAVES IT REALLY SECURE. I REMEMBER READING IT IN A FORUM SOMEWHERE.
PLEASE DON'T GET ME WRONG, UBUNTU IS A DAMN FINE O/S AND I STILL KEEP A COUPLE OF LIVE CD'S OF UBUNTU AROUND. BUT AFTER INSTALLING AND USING BOTH I FIND PUPPY TO BE THE SIMPLEST TO SETUP AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING WORKS RIGHT "OUTTA THE BOX". PUPPY ALSO HAS AN ADD AND REMOVE FEATURE FOR "DOTPUPS" IN FACT I AM IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING A DOTPUP INSTALL PROGRAM FOR BOINC. WHEN I HAVE IT WORKING IT WILL BE POSTED HERE AS WELL AS ON BOINC AND PUPPY WEBSITES. THIS WILL MAKE IT A ONE CLICK BOINC INSTALL.
WELL LIKE I SAID BEFORE, I CAN BABBLE ON ABOUT PUPPY ALL DAY LONG.
LATER
DR.Z

Sounds good to me, I'll give it a shot sometime. I started this thread because Ubuntu seems to be getting really popular and there is some of us that use it, I believe Frank does. For the most part I still use XP. I do like the open office program though.

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YA I STILL USE XP ON MY LITTLE PII 350 WITH 2 HD IN DUAL BOOT MODE. FOR SOMETHINGS YA JUST CAN'T GET AWAY FROM BILLY GATES. ALTHOUGH I AM FINDING MORE AND MORE WINDOWS TYPE PROGRAMS THAT WILL WORK IN PUPPY SO I AM WORKING IN THAT DIRECTION. I DOUBT I 'LL EVER GET RID OF HIM COMPLETELY.
I AM CURIOUS ABOUT SOMEONE USING UBUNTU THEN TRYING PUPPY AND HEARING THEIR THOUGHTS. I HAVE FOUND A FEW PEOPLE THAT STILL PREFER WINDOWS OR A DIFFERENT LINUX DISTRO AFTER GIVING PUPPY A TRY. I'LL BE WATCHIN THIS THREAD.

LATER
DR.Z

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OH YA
BOOT UP TIME ON MY AMD 1.667 GHZ, 1G RAM 200G HD IS

37 SECONDS

The only Linux that works 'out of the box' for me is Ubuntu's 7.04 Feisty Fawn.

I just want a distro that worked right away so I could start playing with Linux
I found out I had small problem, most Linux distro don't play well with ATI GPU's
Most installations ended in a black screen
lacking patiences and sources on how to modify the installion to get it working I put it on the back burner for awhile

the lastest Ubuntu has gotten me over that hurdle
now I can start playing with Linux
have to figure out this tarball stuff

most of my boxes are newer stuff and I still have other problems to over come, SATA drives for one
sorry ZAPPDOG, I don't think Puppy Linux is mature enough for my big dogs WOOF

Win XP has caused me to become gun shy about what I run (had to phone twice to get Windows re-activated)
now that I have Linux going I can crash them worry free

I got a couple programs I downloaded that I want to try and I know it will take a few tries to get them working properly together

HEY FRANK
I ADMIT MY AMD IS A BIT OUTTA DATE, SO I AM NOT UP TO SNUFF ON THE NEWER BOXES.
AFTER A BIT OF RESEARCH I FOUND THAT THE NEWER VERSIONS OF PUPPY DO HANDLE SATA DRIVES ON MOST COMPUTES. THERE SEEMS TO BE A BIT OF CONFUSION ABOUT THE SUBJECT BUT FROM WHAT I CAN TELL VERSIONS FROM 2.13 ON UP HAVE IT WORKING GOOD. PRESENT VERSION IS 2.16 WITH 2.17 ON TESTING STAGE.
KEEP PLUGGIN AT IT. UBUNTU CAN BE PRETTY GOOD ONCE YA FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO STUFF LIKE TARBALLS AND COMPILING AND MAKEFILE. I HAVE THE SAME LEARNING CURVE FOR PUPPY.

LATER
DR.Z

HOWDY YA ALL
JUST A NOTE ABOUT WINDOZ NEW VISTA. I JUST DID A DUAL BOOT INSTALL WITH 2 HD. PUPPY OF COURSE ON ONE AND VISTA ON THE OTHER. FOR THOSE WANTING A BETTER O/S, DON'T LOOK TO VISTA (SIESTA). FIRST OF ALL IT IS HUGE ONCE INSTALLED. 6.8 G ON THE HD. XP IS BAD ENOUGH WITH A 1.5 G FOOTPRINT. (AND THEN THERES PUPPY, 90 MB) SIESTA BOOT UP TIME IS ABOUT 3.5 MINUTES COMPARED TO XP OF JUST OVER 2 MINUTES COMPARED AGAIN TO PUPPY WITH 37 SECONDS.
MOST OF MY WINDOZ PROGRAMS THAT WORK FINE IN XP DO NOT WORK IN SIESTA. AND ON PROGRAMS THAT DO WORK OK, THEY RUN SLOWER THAN IN XP. OH YA, THE TV COMMERCIAL IS RIGHT. "CANCEL OR ALLOW" IS A BIG PART OF IT AND I DIDN'T LET IT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET. THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN LOTS MORE OF THAT IF I HAD.
AND THE BIGGEST THING OF ALL, IS MY AMD IS BARELY ENOUGH MACHINE TO RUN IT.
SORRY BILL GATES BUT I DO NOT NEED TO BUY A NEW COMPUTE JUST TO RUN YOUR OVER INFLATED PROGRAM. FOR A JOKE A TRIED TO INSTALL SIESTA INTO MY OLD PII 350 AND AFTER ABOUT 10 MINUTES OF "ANALYZING MY SYSTEM" IT SPIT OUT THE DVD.
FOR THOSE STILL PAYING A LOT FOR WINDOZ, STAY WITH XP, ITS ALOT BETTER THAN SIESTA.
TYPICAL OF WINDOWS, TRY TO BURN A CD OR DVD AFTER FRESH INSTALL. YOU NEED DRIVER UPDATES, A NEW VERSION OF THAT BURNER PROGRAM YOU BOUGHT LAST YEAR AND ANOTHER HALF HOUR TO INSTALL ALL OF IT. PUPPY DOES IT RIGHT OUTTA THE BOX BY THE WAY.
I SUPPOSE THERE ARE THOSE OUT THERE THAT LIKE BILL GATES STUFF AND I USE XP (WHEN I HAVE TO) CAUSE HE HAS HAD THE MARKET FOR SO LONG THAT ITS A STANDARD. BUT IN MY OPINION HE CAN KEEP THAT VISTA. ITS A VERY FAT WHINING BABY. I THINK I'LL STICK WITH PETTING THE PUPPY FOR FREE AND SMILING ALL THE TIME.
SO MY SYSTEM NOW CONSISTS OF AMD 1.667G, 1G RAM, 200G HD, 12G HD,64MB GEFORCE RUNNING PUPPY AND XP AND NETWORKED TO A PII 350, 180MB RAM, 10G HD, 4.3G HD RUNNING PUPPY AND WIN 98. BOTH CRUNCHIN OF COURSE.
LATER
DR.Z

Hahaha... I recently purchased myself some new parts and built myself a new box. I thought long and hard about whether to put XP Pro on again, or try Vista. In the meantime, I tried Linux for the very first time in my life. I downloaded & tested both Ubuntu & Kubuntu, and was blown away at how a full operating system, PLUS all the programs that 99.9% of users ever need for anything, are INCLUDED in the OS install. I was amazed at how the complete OS took up so little space on my hard drive, and used so little resources, compared to XP Pro.

Why, oh why, does a computer need 200MB or RAM to display a desktop? Now, I haven't even tried Vista yet, and that's supposed to be an order of magnitude even HIGHER in resource-hogging? Well, the test of Ubuntu helped me to make up my mind. I went with XP Pro instead of Vista so all the increase of speed in my new CPU wouldn't be chowed down by the damn OS. One thing I did for the first time is to leave several GB (~70) free on my boot drive so I could do a full install of Ubuntu as well. I'm stuck with Microsoft for the moment because of all the files I've built up over time, and the need to stay operational while I put Linux through some more paces, but I think I'll be making the transition. It doesn't make sense NOT to. I already use Firefox. And Thunderbird. And any other Open-Source program I can find.

BTW, Thunderbird boots up and downloads my email before old (2003?) Outlook even gets past its splash screen - how retarded is that?

The way I see it, why is a computer that we were told was 'state-of-the-art' only a couple years ago all of a sudden useless in the face of the NEW 'state-of-the-art' computers? No reason, just to keep us all buying new hardware continuously. For most people, all that is required is a machine to check email, surf the web, listen to music, watch movies, burn CDs, and write documents. I can build a machine for $300 Cdn that will do all that and more, but adding Windows would add at least 33% to the price. I could also buy a used computer for probably only $100 that would do the same, and MUCH more efficiently to boot if I run Linux on it instead of Windows. The only applications that require the fastest processors are the latest games, and realistically, that doesn't involve a large percentage of the population.

Go Linux!!!

HEY KEN KING
ITS NICE TO SEE OTHERS LEARNING ABOUT THE JOYS OF LINUX. AS FOR EQUIPMENT, I LIKE YOUR STYLE. MY AMD SYSTEM WAS BUILT BY BUYING ONE MAJOR PART A MONTH TILL I HAD WHAT I HAVE NOW AND IT COST ME ABOUT 420 INCLUDING A DVD BURNER. IT WAS ALL CLOSE TO TOP OF THE LINE THEN. IT RUNS XP QUITE WELL BUT SINCE I STARTED PLAYING WITH LINUX (PUPPY OF COURSE) IT IS LIKE A MUCH NEWER MACHINE.
ONE OF THE REASONS FOR WINDOWS BLOATED SIZE IS ALL THE BACKDOORS THAT NEED LOADS OF SECURITY PATCHES TO TRY AND MAKE IT SECURE. LINUX (MOST) HAS ONLY ONE WAY IN SO IT IS MANY TIMES MORE SECURE. BTW I DO NOT RUN ANY TYPE OF ANTIVIRUS OR FIREWALL SECURITY. THE ONLY FIREWALL I HAVE IS THE MECHANICAL BUILT-IN TYPE THATS PART OF THE ROUTER. IN 7 MONTHS OF RUNNING PUPPY I HAVE NEVER HAD A HACK OR VIRUS OF ANY KIND. WITH WINDOWS AND NORTONS ON FULL ALERT YOU GET A HACK ATTEMPT ABOUT EVERY 30 SECONDS.
WELL LIKE I SAID BEFORE, I COULD BABBLE ON ABOUT THE JOYS OF PUPPY ALL DAY.
LATER
DR.Z

HEY Frank Encruncher
HERES SOME SATA INFO FOR LINUX. GOOD INFO FOR ANY DISTRO OF LINUX

http://linux-ata.org/software-status.html

ITS WORTH THE READ.
LATER
DR.Z

Tanks ZAPPDOG

As a temporary measure I went 'Old Skhool' and bought IDE drives

I've gotten a few favor's of Linux to run with IDE drives
Gentoo
Ubuntu
Fedora
Knoppix
yes I have Puppy but haven't tried it yet

HOWDY
WELL I JUST WENT ON A "UBUNTU" TRIP. I HAVE NOTICED LOTS OF PRAISES FOR IT SO I HAD AN OLD VERSION (5.04) LIVE CD WHICH I GAVE A SECOND TRY. THEN I DOWNLOADED THE NEW VERSION 7.04 AND BURNED IT THEN BOOTED THAT UP. BOTH BOOTED AND SETUP (IN LIVE CD) WITH NO PROBLEMS.
NOW MY OPINION. I MUST SAY I WAS QUITE SURPRISED HOW MUCH BETTER I UNDERSTOOD IT THIS TIME. MUST BE THE PUPPY EXPERIENCE HELPING THERE. ALTHOUGH ABOUT AS LARGE AS XP ON THE CD IT DOES OUTPERFORM XP IN MANY WAYS. I'M NOT SURE WHAT THE FOOTPRINT IS ON THE HD FOR UBUNTU. IN FACT IT OUTPERFORMS PUPPY IN A FEW AREAS AS WELL. THE NEWER VERSION 7.04 IS A FAIR BIT BETTER THAN FROM 2 YEARS EARLIER.
OVERALL I LIKE UBUNTU. IN FACT I HAVE ANOTHER COUPLE OF OLD HD'S COLLECTING DUST SO ONE WILL GET 7.04. FOR NOW PUPPY STILL RULES IN MY BOX BUT THE DOGHOUSE IS GONNA GET A BIT CROWDED NOW. I AM ALSO ON A BIT OF A QUEST TO TRY OUT A FEW MORE DISTROS OVER THE NEXT WHILE. YA FRANK, ALL THE ONES YOU MENTIONED ARE ON MY LIST TOO.
ANYBODY OUT THERE TRY ANY DISTROS THAT WERE TROUBLESOME OR NOT RECOMMENDED?? WE SHOULD ALL HEAR ABOUT THOSE TOO. ALSO TRY TO SPECIFY IF COMMAND LINE OR DESKTOP STYLES. PERSONALLY I DON'T CARE MUCH FOR COMMAND LINE.

LATER
DR.Z

I just spotted this site on StumbleUpon, Ubuntu now have a version that installs as a program in Windows and needs no drive partitioning, it installs in a folder in windows which contains a linux image and at boot up you just get a choice of windows or ubuntu, if you dont like ubuntu then you just go to add/remove programs and uninstall it like a program

http://wubi-installer.org/

@ TIMMYGADGET
I PLAYED WITH THIS ONE AND IT REMINDS ME OF "WINE" FOR USING WINDOWS PROGRAMS ON LINUX
WUBI IS ONE OF THE BETTER ONES OUT THERE.
THERE ARE A NUMBER OF THOSE PROGRAMS THAT WORK LIKE AN EMULATOR.
I'VE SEEN ONES FOR PUPPY RUN IN WINDOWS AS WELL
I THINK THEY'RE OK AS A TOOL FOR CHECKING OUT A DIFFERENT O/S BUT THEY WORK THROUGH
WINDOWS AND THAT SLOWS THEM DOWN.
I PREFER TO USE AN OLD HARDDRIVE AND INSTALL THEM DIRECTLY. THEN YOU GET A TRUE IDEA OF THE O/S PERFORMANCE.

I JUST UPDATED MY PUPPY AGAIN.
FROM VERSION 3.01 TO VERSION DINGO 3.99
UNDER 2 MINUTES FROM CD.
A BIT SMALLER, MUCH SMARTER, SLICKER AND FASTER.
[s]BETTER[/s] GREAT PACKAGE MANAGER
THIS IS THE BIGGEST IMPROVEMENT I'VE SEEN IN ONE VERSION
IT REALLY DOES JUST KEEP GETTING BETTER AND BETTER

Well I switched over my windows dual core laptop to Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) with the wubi installer, I will lose a cruncher on DepSpid though unless they are developing a linux application. I am very impressed that it had all the drivers for everything except my wifi pen but no worries I just plugged it into my router with an ethernet cable

Just do what I do for my Linux hosts - create a virtual PC using VMWare, install Windoze (usually win2k - I've several "old" licenses kicking around) and attach BOINC to nothing but Depspid. Since Depspid is non-CPU intensive it won't interfer with your Linux cruunching (except the minor CPU cycles for the Win install); the only thing you have to worry about is RAM reduction (hence Win2k instead of XP/Vista - can set to 256MB without much issue (can use 128MB or even 64MB, but RAMs cheap enough that 256 is doable for me)). You can configure the PC to startup/shutdown with your Linux OS so it's pretty seamless.

@ ZAPPDOG

Since I changed over to Ubuntu from Windows XP on my dual core laptop the temperature of the laptop has reduced dramatically and I have been able to increase the cpu percentage usage. When I was running Windows the laptop was overheating big time

HEY
THANKS FOR THE INFO ON THE LAPTOP. SINCE PUPPY IS MADE WITH THE SAME BASE KERNEL AS UBUNTU I SHOULDN'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS RUNNING A QUAD,
AS FOR HEAT ... I HAVE FOUND THE SAME THING. THIS OLD AMD RUNS ABOUT 170 F, WITH BOINC IN WINDOWS BUT ONLY 145 F IN PUPPY. SIMILAR DIFFERENCES IN THE DELL 2.0 G AT WORK. I RUN BOINC AT 100 % ON ALL 3 BOXES. XP REALLY GETS HOT IN COMPARISON.
THANKS
DR.Z

My dual core laptop is an Intel Core 2 1.73ghz Packard Bell. It has a power cut out when it gets too hot and its been switching itself off a lot, but not with ubuntu over the last week. To make things even better I took it apart tonight and vacuumed out the dust on the fan and sprayed a tiny amount of WD40 on the fan mechanism, the fan is much quieter now.

Are you on MSN? It might be a good idea if you are in case Sirius has installation problems with Puppy

@ ZAPPDOG

On a lighter note I still think MAC OS X Leopard on my Macbook kicks butt against Linux and Windows, I am definitely a macophile, I just wish it was possible to install Leopard on pc architechture but alas its not possible as yet without emulation

MY ONLY REAL EXPERIENCE WITH MACS IS LIMITED BUT FROM WHAT I REMEMBER IT REMINDS ME MORE OF LINUX THAN WINDOWS. BUT EASIER TO USE THAN MOST LINUX. I DO WISH I HAD PLAYED WITH MORE MACS ESPECIALLY IN MY EARLIER YEARS IN COMPUTES. I NEVER REALLY HAD THE CHANCE TO "GET USED" TO IT OR EXPLORE. THEY WERE PRETTY OLD AS WELL, BUT I LIKED THE WAY EVERYTHING WORKED. MAC O/S HAS BEEN AROUND FOR A LONG TIME AND IS REALLY STABLE AND POWERFUL. I'D ENJOY A CHANCE TO PLAY WITH A NEW ONE.