Regarding pcPuppyOS, the ‘talented author’ was Jeremy Adelsgruber – I just paid for the work! I stopped development when it appeared that there was little interest in it. I’d be interested in getting it updated if I could get someone to help ‘pay the freight!’

As a multimedia OS I have had great results. The sound is a bit low but it plays ALL kinds of files that a vista machine I know of wont. The speed of the OS already in RAM is amazing. I LOVE puppy linux

The only issue with puppy is the lack of java.Does anyone know how to get java on this lovely distro i tried the latest Macpup it looks wonderful but unlike puppy could not find the network on one of my machines and I thought it came with java but it was not.

# su spot
# whoami
spot
# cd ~
# pwd
/root/spot
# exit
exit
# whoami
root
#

Quit your bellyaching now that Puppy Multi-User version is here!
http://puppylinux.org/news/puplets/puppy421multiuseriso/

It is best for low end computers and perfect for netbooks and sure it is best than windows 98. Now I can say it is a perfect windows killer.
To read more about Puppy 4.3 visit

http://distrolove.blogspot.com/2009/09/puppy-linux-43-linux-2u.html

Is there a user “spot” ?

how do we get to use spot ?

I am new with puppy and linux in general, however I have been using Windows
for many years and very comfortable with it. the only reason I am trying a small
distro, is windows forces me to upgrade my machine everytime a new version
comes out. so I got to a point where I had enough of it, wasting money and
at the same time doing something good for the environment.

Yeah it would be good to be able to use another user, rather than root. don’t
understand why it would be so difficult to implement that feature. Maybe
someone in the puppy community can explain it better.

thanks

@ Paul Eakins:
To Paul and everyone who notices that the Puppy desktop looks a bit bland and ugly..
There is a .pet file called “EZ-Pup” that is availble for just about all Puppy versions from about 2.xx – 4.xx. This adds the wonderful IceWM desktop to Puppy with a bunch of new themes and wallpapers. I’ve used it with Puppy 4.0 and 4.11 and it makes things look a lot nicer.
Actually, though you may not even need it with Puppy 4.2 and 4.21, because I believe IceWM is included with those versions. When you get to the logout dialog box, I think one of the options is to switch to IceWM. Puppy 4.2x, by default has a nice looking desktop though. With 4.3, it looks like they are going back to the basics, but that’s ok. Hopefully EZ-Pup will be available for it.

Dan

Indeed you are using puppy as root. But you can bypass this imaginary security flaw by changing the passwords of “root” and the user “spot.

Simply run all internet related programs, like your browser, IM programs, or the spyware called “skype” as restricted user “spot”, and it will have no acces to the system, or to mister root”s home.

I myself am a puppy linux fanboy.. yes, I admit it. Having a minimalism OS, that runs in memory. Fatser and more versatile then any other distro that I know of.

I have all the apps i need, and if it’s not there, i can search and compile it myself (or it can be found in thge forum)

Having an aprox 110mb operating system on my USB stick, running completely from memory, with some extra software enables me to run all internet related programs, my favourite games, like battlefield 2 with addons, footballmanager, The sims 3, and also all the multimedia software i need. That is simply amazing.

The only thing that you have to be aware of is that large programs, compile dirs, and other stuff that has large tempfiles, you be on a physical disk, and not in roots home. Because that will lead to problems. But, nothing is perfect.

Thanks for the info. Actually this all got me wondering about the root thing so I decided to inform myself a little better. There was a lively discussion about the merits of running as root or not at the puppy forum. I refer you to: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29358&start=45

I’ve had no issues so far from running as root and I’ve been using Puppy Linux for several years. One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that Puppy has a firewall, and this is easily setup by using the Firewall Wizard. I think a hacker would have to beat that first to get into your computer. Would that make the issue of root moot? Sorry for the rhyme but I couldn’t resist ;).

I’ve run some of the on-line checks of security and found the versions of the distro I’ve used to be both secure and stealthy.

From my reading Root mostly protects users from screwing up their Linux OS by requiring them to enter a password. If you have to enter that to configure the system and you don’t know fully what you are doing you are still taking a chance that you will do something improperly which might affect your configuration. The good thing about Puppy is that mistakes are easily recovered from using the Live CD.

I’m confident that my Linux system is secure enough for daily contact with the net (I never use Win 98SE for that). I’ve been using it for years without a hitch except where my knowlege of Linux falls short and I goofed up. I suppose one shouldn’t be too complacent about the potential for problems. However, I haven’t heard of any complaints from running as root.

Our Windows brethren are certainly plagued by their share of problems. In the past I’ve used Puppy to run Fprot on inactive Windows partitions and search them for virus. I can’t say I’ve had any problems in that regard with Linux. – Yorkiesnorkie

@ dragonmouth: