Good reviewers make clear the hardware on which they are doing the test, and explain whether that hardware configuration is representative of the target hardware of the distro. Your review missed this requirement.

Your review asserted early on that Puppy should behave nicely (ask no questions) because it is a live CD, but you spent the rest of your review finding fault about its installation. A big inconsistency there, IMHO.

So which is it that you’re after?

If you’re really reviewing live CD distros, please pick distros that you can run as live CD. In this regard, is Windows 7 a live CD?

If you are able to address these issues, then perhaps we can begin discussing the merits of your review.

As I am a complete novice regarding linux, and certainly no computer guru, I think I might have a better understanding about what is difficult for inexperienced users.

First, while I have found the initial boot with Puppy to be slightly tedious (monitor settings and network connection), there is no way in hell that Puppy only deserves 1 out of 5 stars on user friendliness unless maybe Linux Mint, Ubuntu, and Mepis are the only other distro’s you’ve tried. For example, when Slitaz booted, I could not even figure out how to access any monitor settings, atleast I could do that with Puppy, is that not a useability thing? 1 star out of 5 implies the worst of the worst for user friendliness, so is Puppy no easier to use than Gentoo, Arch, and Slackware? 1 out of 5 is the final result when all other aspects of Puppy is included?!?

I don’t think I have ever felt compelled to respond to a review before but I have tried a lot of distro’s and this doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

This is what happens when someone uses Windows, Ubuntu and all the so-called “user-friendly” distros out there. They become brain-dead.

I enjoyed your review of puppy lupu, which is a 5. release, which means you tested an alpha puppy linux against two established ubuntu versions of linux. You also tested a 100mb mini-linux against two 700mb full-feature linuxes. I think I recognize what happened, from your classifying the puppy a ubuntu clone. You appear to have assumed you were comparing three comparable live-cd ubuntu variants. Puppy linux only uses the ubuntu package repository, somewhat as ubuntu used to use the debian repository, but with less connection than ubuntu-debian, since puppy is a wholly different linux with a wholly different development, and as a bantam-weight mini-linux.
You also missed that puppy uses “live-cd” differently. A puppy live-cd is one you can run demo-style from, but also install from. All that old-fashioned non-mousy stuff at the beginning is install stuff. It threw you, undoubtedly, as it does most modern users who meet it, for having no mouse-option. If feels weird to have to do everything with arrows and enter, even when you used to but haven’t for years. But all of that at the beginning sets all of that stuff, which your review indicates you didn’t get back in again to notice: At the end (or in some variants right after all that stuff, at the beginning, there is a make a save-to file, which you can put anywhere, in Windows, in another linux, in its own partition. Once you have done that you have fully installed your puppy linux. What they call a “frugal instal”. From then on your cd only installs a ramdisk which searches and finds your save-to file, then loads from that. You never see those set-up screens again after the first time, unless you log out “do not save”. You don’t have to screw around with making partitions or installing grub or messing with MBR and all that.
You also didn’t install any extra SFS files, like Open Office, Opera web browser and others. You just download those and put them where the puppy files are on your disk, in Windows even, then run the puppy start-up wizard to tell your puppy to load the SFS files at boot. You can then use the installer that you praised to install what you made to a cd or mem-stick and run your own separate full-featured puppy system on any computer you can plug into and restart, save all your dirty-picture downloads to your stick, shut down and walk away taking your browsing history with you in your pocket, so you can find the girls again without having to remember their www names! Not only that, once you have done the little web-connect wizard for a site and saved your settings, your puppy-on-a-stick will connect you automatically at start-up, just like you expect from a demo-live-cd install.
Your 20-point test appears to test mostly your familiarity with the system interface you are dealing with. If the controls are where you expect and what you expect it gives a high score. Puppy not being a ubuntu clone, it has different things in different places, and being a 100mb, instead of 700mb base, it uses light-weight programs, that arre a little different, instead of the usual heavier ones you are used to.
If you think about it, a 100mb distro able to hold its own against 700mb ones, even one-to-five, indicates phenomenal performance by the bantam-weight. Especially when the referee is totally unfamiliar with the light-weight’s moves. If you get a little used to puppy and then review and run your tests, without the misunderstandings and misconceptions, it will rate at least a three of five, if not a four.
There is, too, that the bantam is an alpha, less than a month from initial release, still being sorted and having its wrinkles ironed out. Many of the wrinkles are for the range puppies 4. and 5. can cover, from pentium 1 machines to newest triple-core with full feature video. And it does need to be admitted that 5. seems to have been released a little prematurely. 4.3.2 and 4.4.3 are more mature releases and so are more appropriate for testing with general users in mind. Try one of those, frugal-install (just follow the directions), then install a few SFS files, set them to load and compare with any full-size distro. And don’t forget to put it on a stick and carry it around, even if you don’t download porn, so you can rate its pretty much exclusive features in that department. If you do that the off-set for where it is apples to oranges with others will take the puppy up to five-on-five, I suspect.

Quintin,

I’m glad that you’ve done of a review of one of my favorite distros. You seem keen on having discourse on the subject, so I’d like to address a few things.

One of your big complaints seems to be the non-automatic network configuration. I also think that auto configuration should be the default, but Mr. Kauler did have a good reason for originally omitting it. Back at the time, many Puppy users did not use an ethernet connection for internet access. Also people using it for a rescue CD did not always need (or want) a network connection. He decided that the time wasted was too much for these people. His solution was to not automatically connect the first time, but to give the option of remembering the ethernet settings for future sessions (only if you create a save file for persistent storage, of course). Thus on subsequent boots it will be remembered and auto DHCP will be run. This is not something a new user will “just know”, so I kind of agree with your evaluation.

A point where I disagree with you somewhat is on the matter of the setup. You say that the setup is too advanced, but with the exception of the X settings Ubuntu asks largely the same questions, doesn’t it? Keyboard settings: yes it asks that; locale: I can’t remember if Ubuntu asks that one, but it isn’t too difficult for one to find their own language; timezone: yes Ubuntu asks that one, too. That just leaves the X settings. The confusing part here is the choice between Xorg and Xvesa, but I think the choices are well explained. With Xorg Puppy will usually detect your video card and monitor and give you a list of valid resolutions to choose from. With Xvesa it boots straight to X at some lower resolution (one that should work on all monitors) and then presents you with a graphical choice of resolutions. As you are aware, the last version of Puppy tried to automate X setup, but it did not work correctly on some users’ hardware, so it was reverted to old setup. Is the setting the resolution really that advanced? I guess it would be for the old lady down the street, but she wouldn’t be setting up her own computer anyway.

I think a lot of your complaints about the setup comes from the notion that Puppy is meant to be a live CD and should therefore just get you straight to a desktop so that you can get to work. Puppy’s primary purpose isn’t as a normal live CD, though. It is mostly used as a persistent live CD/flash drive or as a frugal install (same as the flash drive install but on the HD instead).

Then there’s the setup that only happens when you install. Here I tend to agree with you, there’s some jargon that isn’t explained (not everyone knows whether they have an IDE or a SATA drive, etc.). There’s no automatic partitioning option, but unless you are wanting to install Linux the sole OS on a drive, you couldn’t use Ubuntu’s automatic partitioning either. Puppy may not even need to partition anything, since it can live alongside another OS peacefully on the same partition when installed as a frugal install (probably the most common installation method, but it’s completely different from how most distros install). The grub setup can be a bit confusing.

You scored the PDF reading abilities low, but I don’t see where you said why. I’ve never liked the default PDF reader in Puppy, but I’ve never actually had a problem opening a PDF with it. I’m curious what file(s) you used to test it.

One last note, I believe that you tested 5.0.1 and not 5.1 as I do not believe the latter has been released yet.

Although I would probably give Puppy more points in some areas, I guess that I would agree with Puppy not being the best distro for absolute beginners without any technical inclination. Once one has gained some basic familiarity with the way Linux functions (what X is, etc.), I think it’s a pretty good distro (definitely the best portable distro).

Puppy evolves pretty quickly and a number of issues you’ve addressed are currently being worked on for the near future, so I think you should keep an eye on Puppy.

I don’t get why people do not want to learn anything anymore. I love everything about Puppy. I have it running on a P3 with 96 megs of RAM. Sure it took a little set up,is it too hard to have a little knowledge about the Operating System you are intending to use,so that if something goes wrong you can fix it yourself?
Why do people expect everything to be done for them?

Has Redmond removed any sembalance of thought process other than just forking over cash and then waiting for them to release patch upon patch? No this is not an Anti-Microsoft rant.
There are computer users and computer operators. I find the operators are the ones the users take their machines to because they have NO understanding or comprehension, they just want it to automatically work.

It’s the dumbing down of society. I swear they are putting something in the water.

For it’s size and it’s price Puppy is an awesome bargain any way you look at it.I use Windows 7 and XP along with Ubuntu full distros and find (as did others) that comparing Puppy to them to be very lopsided.

Just my thoughts,take them for what you will.
Best regards,
linuxacalypse

Hi,

Your post says this.

======================================================================Interesting fact – Puppy can “live” with any other installed OS without needing a partition of it’s own. You might need to fiddle with the Operating System’s own bootloader, but you can install Puppy on a Windows C drive, or Ubuntu partition, and have both running together with each other.
======================================================================

Can you please tell me how do I install puppy in one of my windows partition with out messing up with partitions? Also, do you know any other linux distros (I already have wubi installed) that I can install in a windows folder? I have a 1TB HDD and I would like to dedicate an entire 200 GB partition for linux and I would like to install as many distros in that partition (if at all possible).

Thanks,
Balaji.