Whether it's supposed to be newbie-friendly or not, I think it's a much better idea to learn how Linux works on a "normal" distro, not one that runs as root all the time and works from RAM (at least that's what I heard, I don't know much about puppy apart from the fact that it's not like a normal Linux system).

i would agree that the root issue is a HUGE prob and even the mission statement itself

i'm curious what the recommendations (other OS) might be for the OP?

TobiSGD wrote:

Puppy in frugal install mode uses a save file for all settings and individual entries. This savefile resides on the HDD, a USB flash drive or even on a multisession CD.

So, if you did a frugal install and if you created the pupsave file with the first shutdown, then you have a file called e.g. lupusave.3fs.
Now, you can copy this file as many times, as you wish and name it slightly differently each time. Say...

lupusave-offline.3fs
lupusave-surfsafe.3fs
lupusave-unsafe.3fs

When you reboot next, Puppy will give you the choice which of the 3 savefiles to mount. say you choose lupusave-unsafe.3fs and open Puppy with this file. You can then surf all kinds of risky corners of the internet and no matter what malware you may catch (highly unlikely, but possible), it will at most only infect lupusave-unsafe.3fs, not the other 2! No way!

So tell me, what risk are you taking with this approach?

Frugal installs are described here
http://puppylinux.org/main/How%20NOT...ll%20Puppy.htm

Thanks MTK358, I am also using Ubuntu 11.04 and I do find it to be a lot easier as a newbie! I can't install Puppy or Ubuntu on my Vista laptop since Vista reportedly freaks out if you mess with the boot partition (resize or move partition). I only have one big partition on the Vista laptop. That is why I have been booting Puppy from a USB drive. Ash

I find that Ubuntu 11.04 meets those quoted Puppy mission statements (ease of use and all needed apps, etc) quite well, but I wonder how big a USB drive I would need to boot Ubu 11.04 and have some space left over on the drive. I wanted to use Puppy so I could boot off a 1 or 2 GB USB drive easily. I do have one large 60 GB USB drive I could use if needed. (Maybe I could try booting from a DVD-RW???) Ash

what are your 'pute specs? ram and stuff..

jonyo, I have several PC's, and a few laptops, but the one in question is a Toshiba Satellite A355-S6925 with Vista Home Premium 64 bit SP2, 4 GB of SDRam, a 320 Gb HDD with one big boot partition, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, T6400 @2.00 GHz. It has eSata and external USB ports.
Ash

might try this
http://www.puppylinuxforum.org/threa...-37.html#pid37

Thanks jonyo! Great idea. Ash