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<\/a><\/p>\nYes, This is a story about a Linux distribution called “Puppy Linux<\/a>“.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’m not much of a 1337 H4XX\u00c1\u02dcR when it comes to Linux, so I pretty much stick to distros that I can install and use with a GUI.<\/p>\n And now that all the non-techheads have gone away from this blog post I can go into geekier, techier detail.<\/p>\n If you look below, you will see how my hardware foiled my attempts to try Mint.\u00a0 That means I’ve pretty much stuck to the two Ubuntu variants I like best – Xubuntu and Lubuntu.\u00a0 I haven’t used actual Ubuntu for years and I doubt I ever will.<\/p>\n But that’s another rant.\u00a0 And the reason I use Puppy Linux on one of my machines has to do with the rather low specs on that netbook.\u00a0 Ya see, it’s an HP Mini Note 2133<\/a>.\u00a0 That was made back in early 2008, and even Lubuntu runs like molasses on it.\u00a0 I’m sure Gentoo<\/a> or Arch<\/a> would run plenty fast, but I’m a computer user, not a masochist.<\/p>\n (Zing!<\/a>)<\/p>\n Anyhoo, the thing I love about running Puppy on that netbook is that I can run it from the SD card that fits snugly and hidden away inside a slot in the side of it.\u00a0 And without even installing GRUB<\/a> on the hard drive, I can choose which OS to boot by pressing F9 when the computer boots.<\/p>\n The hard drive contains Windows XP and some snazzy video game console emulators by the way.\u00a0 They all run just fine on the limited hardware, thanks for asking.<\/p>\n So when Puppy boots, it runs mostly in RAM like it’s supposed to, and it’s fast and lithe – even when running Firefox.\u00a0 Now I think I’ve mentioned text-to-speech on this blog before, but I’ll talk about it again.\u00a0 I like having stuff read to me.\u00a0 I dislike having to drag my eyes across a computer screen, because I actually find it easier and more enjoyable to absorb information and stupid jokes on Reddit when I hear them as opposed to when I see them.<\/p>\n So text-to-speech is a vital part of my computing experience.\u00a0 Sadly, text to speech in Linux is shit.\u00a0 It’s worse than that, actually.\u00a0 It shit with hot radioactive shrapnel mixed in and served up by Satan himself.<\/p>\n That’s pretty much one of the only reasons I still keep Windows XP running in Virtualbox on this computer… for a Windows text to speech program that instantly reads whatever gets copied to the clipboard.\u00a0 Handy for proofreading too.<\/p>\n Seeing as how my little underpowered netbook couldn’t possibly handle running a full OS inside Virtualbox, or even a windows application running in Wine for that matter, I had tried to install one of the admittedly abysmal text-to-speech applications for Linux that\u00a0 I had found over the years.<\/p>\n That was why I chose the version of Puppy Linux that had access to the Ubuntu Ah, my timeless, timeless art.<\/p>\n But if I couldn’t even have that… ugh.<\/p>\n But wait!\u00a0 (Is it me or is this blog post really long and rambling?)\u00a0 I actually needed to use my netbook for reading Reddit and news and Fembot Central and other stuff because I had a major backup project going on and it was taking WAY FUCKING LONG.\u00a0 like, WAY way fucking long.<\/p>\n Do you have any idea how long it takes to backup about 5 TB worth of data over USB 2.0?<\/p>\nsuppositories<\/del> repositories.\u00a0 But when I installed ESpeak and ESpeak GUI and all their dependencies… nothing happened.\u00a0 The application wouldn’t launch.\u00a0 I believe I’ve made fun of ESpeak before, and how it sounds like a drunken Scottish C3PO.<\/p>\n![\"Drunken](\"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Drunken-Scottish-C3PO-210x300.png\")
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