First off, I am a total noob when it comes to puppy/linux, so I'd appreciate any help you can provide!

I tried v2.00 but never could get it to see my USB devices, sound or internet. I tried 2.02 and everything is solved except the internet issue. Here is what I can relate:

The setup wizard correctly sees that I have an Nvidia mobo/ethernet chip and installs the nvidia driver. Upon testing, it says it finds the network. Auto DHCP never works, so I called up my NETGEAR router manager, switched it to static IP and wrote down all the IP adresses. Booted back into Puppy, selected the static IP option in the wizard, entered all the correct ip settings but still does not connect. When I try to call up a webpage (google) it tales about 30 seconds and I get a "DNS cannot solve google" message.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Sounds like you are having the same problem with the Nvidia hardware that we had. Two things you can try - first go to the main puppy forum at www.puppylinux.org and use the forum search to look up posts by stlchuck - one of his posts about six months ago went into this very problem and there was a driver posted for the puppy 1.xx series that worked. Unfortunately due to differences in the kernel between the 1.xx and 2.xx series it won't work for the 2.xx series. The other and only long term workable solution for us was to go to Best Buy and pick op a Dynex 10/100 ethernet/NIC PCI card and install it - cost was about $20.00 - when you come down to it any generic 10/100 NIC card should work and some can be had for as little as $10 to 15.00. Once you have installed the card and loaded the driver in Windows connect your ethernet cable to it and in the network settings in Windows disable the Nvidia card/network connection. Puppy should detect the new card during bootup and your ethernet wizard will be able to get you connected. You should not see any difference preformance wise in Windows when using that OS from a connection standpoint.