OS-Tan Fanfic: The Tragedy of Windows XP

[grant_p]

Oops, it just clicked...I'm an idiot.  The $10 is a desktop, not a laptop, that's probably why I had an easier time getting parts.  I don't know how I got that mixed up.

I do wonder if Puppy would work better on it, Ubuntu's fine but rather slow.  Not as bad as the XP install I've seen on similar equipment but I can still outrun it.  I like the computer to be a bit faster then I am.

Does Puppy have a Live-CD?

I'm very much a Linux beginner, so I do, unfortunately, need the hand-holding Ubuntu's known for (which is why i try to give her the suspiciously helpful personality in my stories that creeps out the other OS-Tans.

[C-Chan]

Yo Grant-san!  

Does Puppy-chan have a LiveCD?  @v@
FUFU!!! The young girl has a Live everything!  ^__^

She can be run from CDs, DVDs, USB sticks, SD cards, Virtualboxes, Windows partitions,... And at only 88megs, she can even be installed directly to RAM and run like the wind!  ^v^

Just two drawbacks:

1)  She IS a minimalist distro, so vanilla Puppy is going to look and feel a bit dated.  There are remasters that pretty her up a bit and add larger more feature-rich applications, but of course they're going to up the file size.

2)  Not derived from anything in particular (even though she picked up some Slackware influence recently), she's not exactly a standard Linux distribution.  Using her will be very different from using Ubuntu or Mandriva or Fedora, even though you can build her up to be similar.  Package Management in particular seemed to be handled a little differently, last time I used it.

Still, you can't beat her speed and hardware recognition, and her efficency is charming beyond belief.  And despite the dated feel, there is plenty of hand-holding for new users -- I mean, the website alone is enticing.... ^.^

http://www.puppylinux.org/

Any way you look at it, she's quite the cute little munchkin.... ^.^



Ubuntu's cousin Mint-san is probably a better hand-holder,... but also inherits the bloat, and also has a tendency of skirting the law with preinstalled media codecs.  ^^;

[grant_p]

An 10 MB distro?  That might be GREAT for the ten buck machine!

Then have a story about Ubuntu moving out, after finding a new caretaker...

"Why do you want to live in the closet?  There's a lot more to the house, you know?"

"There is?  WOW!  There's another room!"

"There's more rooms if you actually leave the storage room, too..."

"WOW!"

Of all the people who historically live in tents, you chose Ryoga Hibiki as a template?

Edit:  Like above..

WOW!  From a Live-CD it's faster then the XP 2-gig setup next to it!

I've got to check this out further...I wonder if I can duel-boot the thing with Ubuntu so if I do need the extra stuff it's there...

I've found my next character...

[C-Chan]

Fufufu... I'm liking what I hear.  ^___^

Actually, she's only cosplaying in that picture -- she normally dresses like a normal human being (or as normal as you can get when you're half-puppy).  I came up with the inspiration when Bella and I were drooling over the Aleutia:

http://www.aleutia.com/

You won't know how AWESOME Puppy-chan is until you see her running on solar power!  And she's Australian too boot....  

Well,...  you know I'M gonna be hovering around your thread like a vulture for the next couple of weeks, itching to read about adventures and/or misadventures with Puppy-chan.  

BTW, you should be able to dualboot quite easily with Buntu,... and if you're feeling VERY adventurous, you can even try getting it to dualboot with Buntu WITHOUT creating a new partition.  

[grant_p]

Well, it'll take some time before I know much of anything but from what I've done so far (I'm posting from the ten dollar machine using the Puppy Live-CD NOW) it's great!

Don't worry, worse case scenario I blow up the whole drive, that's why my personal 'play' machines are ALWAYS open-source based, so if I blow away something by mistake, I just grab the CD and try again.

My VM has had four lethal crashes thus far...

It'll likely be at least a week or so before I can write anything, due to school, but I'll certainly try after I find out more about both the program and it's history.

Quick, to the gallery!

[C-Chan]

Please take note of the attached picture.  

I finally got my Synch RAM needed to modernize that old Compaq 500mhz AMD K6 processor I was given a little while back.  However, while 256MB made TinyMe work better, your story inspired me to offer the entire machine to Puppy-chan.  Given all she's done for me, it's only fair that she show me her full potential in at least ONE machine.  

Certainly 8.5GB of storage (+ 1GB swap) is a veritable mansion for her!  

BTW, I'm using a "puplet" (their fancy take on "remaster") that's called MacPup for very obvious reasons.  I was just itchin' for something a little.... different.....   :smoke:

[attachment deleted by admin]

[grant_p]

I'm working on mine, too, how do I set up swap?

We may want to move THIS part of the thread to the computer talk area, depending on how long it gets...

But I did accidentally kill the machine again, I did something that made it unbootable, so I gave the whole jalopy to Puppy and it runs SO much better!  I'm still setting up my stuff, I'd like OpenOffice for starters, and I have Firefox now, but I love it thus far.

Only issue is MPlayer makes it hang up...haven't tried DVDs yet.

I'm definitely happy!  Though if/when I do the Puppy story, I think I'll portray her as living in one small room, and the other OS-Tans are very disturbed by how utterly empty and CLEAN the rest of the house is.

"Listen...you're living in a CLOSET!"
"No...you're standing IN my walk-in closet.  I'M in the living room!"

A different world view.

[C-Chan]

I'm working on mine, too, how do I set up swap?

But I did accidentally kill the machine again, I did something that made it unbootable, so I gave the whole jalopy to Puppy and it runs SO much better!

If you already installed Puppy to that 80GB HD, it's probably safest to do this from her LiveCD again as it requires repartitioning (not good to repartition from the same drive your repartitioning).

While in LiveCD, go to Start>System>GParted to open up the Partitioning tool.  I'm assuming that after your Buntu installed bonked, you cleared out the entire drive into one monolithic Ext3 partition to install Puppy-chan.  In that case, use the program to create a small partition at the end of the drive, and then format this as "swap".  What it will do is resize the existing Ext3 partition in order to create a trailing one.

Regarding the size of the swap partition, the general rule of thumb is to create one twice the size of your RAM size.  But with 80GB to spare, you're free to be more generous (although anything past 2GB is a bit too excessive for Puppy-chan).  

On the other hand, if you simply performed a Full install over the original Ubuntu drive, then there should already be a swap partition (this can be confirmed from within Gparted too -- swap partitions are usually amber-coloured).  If this is the case, though, chances are your Puppy files are intermixed with the Ubuntu ones (unless you chose a Frugal Install, although it wouldn't be worth it with 80gigs).  ^^;

Since the Puppy Universal Installer is designed primarily for external media (or installing alongside existing systems), it doesn't have a habit of reformatting drives (and clearing out the data) prior to a full installation.  In other words, she's too nice to displace anyone, so you have to kick them out manually (again, by reformatting the Ext3 partition as Ext3 in GParted) ^____^;

We may want to move THIS part of the thread to the computer talk area, depending on how long it gets...

Agreed, although this is certainly a grey area since we're collectively brainstorming ideas for your next fanfic.  ^^

I'm still setting up my stuff, I'd like OpenOffice for starters, and I have Firefox now, but I love it thus far.

The PetGet package manager seems to be the closest equivalent to Apt with Synaptic. While clunky, it basically offers a convenient list of programs to install with literally one-click.  They do seem a bit old, though (Inkscape 0.46?!!!)  

I trust this is what you did to install firefox:

http://www.puppylinux.org/manuals/puppy-40/english/how-install/deinstall-programs/how-install-official-programs

OpenOffice should be on there though; if not, perhaps its available as an unofficial PETget package -- in which case you can do the following:

http://www.puppylinux.org/manuals/puppy-40/english/how-install/deinstall-programs/unofficial-petgets

...To install it securely.  Unofficial Packages are the equivalent of Contrib packages in Ubuntu, or those from Debian Lenny, so no doubt you'll find more modern software choices there (or on the forums).

http://www.puppylinux.org/node/9

There are also DOTpups, but I believe they're being phased out.

Only issue is MPlayer makes it hang up...haven't tried DVDs yet.

MPlayer actually did work on my machine -- but the processor was too slow to play new compressed videos (e.g., divx, xvid) properly.  Video was fine, but audio lagged far behind until it downright crapped out.  Older video formats (like the kind that were around in Hacchan's day) work fine, though.  Youtube wasn't bad either.  ^^

Here's hoping I can find VLC in one of the unofficial PETgets.  

I'm definitely happy! Though if/when I do the Puppy story, I think I'll portray her as living in one small room, and the other OS-Tans are very disturbed by how utterly empty and CLEAN the rest of the house is.

"Listen...you're living in a CLOSET!"
"No...you're standing IN my walk-in closet. I'M in the living room!"

A different world view.

BWAHAHAHA!!!!!  ^V^

This is going to be rich.  ^___^

I've had discussions before whether she should be considered "smaller" than Windows 95 or not, since that system too had very modest requirements.  Its minimum install called for 8MB of RAM, 24MB of space and a 486 processor, but I do recall it being almost unusable with that.  A decent system really needed a Pentium 75mhz, 32MB of RAM and 120MB of disk space.  Puppy-chan 4.00 skirts similar specs (for GUI mode, 32MB minimum, 64MB recommended) and uses 90MB of space.  But when you really think about it, that's 90MB with TONS of applications already preinstalled, and of course support for all the conveniences of modern computer life (USB/SATA support, DVD playback, wireless capability, file system journaling, server capabilities, etc).

So for all intents and purposes, Bella-hime's cute and innocent portrayal of Puppy-chan in this pic is spot-on (note: she's the young girl in the bottom).  ^.^

[NejinOniwa]

Puppy Linux is really a charm. The times I've used it on old, crappy hardware are kind memories.




...actual puppies, on the other hand, are...well, let's just say they share the cuteness, but not the usefulness or cooperativeness of their OS counterparts...




I NEED A DAMN GRAVEYARD FOR MY PANTS NOW, DAMNIT
ಥ_ಥ

[grant_p]

The System Goes To The Dogs
   An OS-Tan Fanfic.

   I've often thought I was unusually fortunate in my computers.

   Admittedly, I've had a LOT of problems.  Hard drive crashes, three lightning strikes, several systems just conking out.  But from my old Coleco Adam to my Dell Inspirion, I've always managed to have SOMETHING on hand that would do the job.

   My 'ten buck system', as I call it, is a case in point.  While it was rather archaic, and dug out of the trash, AND partially rebuilt with pieces from my lightning-hit computer, it at least WORKED.  The only trouble was finding an OS and a software package that could handle the low specs and still get the performance I wanted.

   Turned out it was easier then I thought.

   
*   *   *

   XP closed her external HD, having finally got everything packed properly, and started dragging the oversized case across the street to Ubuntu's place.

   â€œI've got to get one of those things with wheels...or get the user to just spring for a wireless network, whatever...”  XP muttered, hauling her HD up to the front door to ring the bell.

   She jumped back as a lot of barking sounded off, and what looked like a somewhat slippery couch cushion popped out of the pet door.  At least, it sort of looked like a cushion, the hard looking part at the front of the soft area opened up to bark at her again, extending several different mouthparts at the time.

   The large grub heaved itself the rest of the way out of the door, making more yapping sounds at XP, then reared back to wiggle its little legs at her expectantly.

   â€œIt's me, you slimey-whoops.”  XP said, moving away from the insectoid creature as the front door opened to show another girl, smiling in a way that suggested she'd taken something that would eventually lead to withdrawal.  Ubuntu had been unusually giddy that day.  It would have gotten on XP's nerves except that she'd had these sorts of days herself and could well understand it.

   â€œ2-gig!  2-Gig!  Ubuntu sang happily, bouncing out the front door of her new mobile home, nearly running right into XP.  â€œOH!  Hi!  Sorry, I was going too fast and wasn't paying attention-GRUB!  Stop that!”  Ubuntu snatched up the pillow-shaped creature that was now moving towards XP's shoe with slobbery intent.

   â€œHappens to everybody.”  XP told her, being careful not to go near Ubuntu's weird pet (now extending what might have been a tongue to lick at her, but she wasn't sure) and dragging the case inside.  â€œOk, here's what I got.  Copies of all the music, some movies, and the like.  It should be enough to get you started...the user had a lot of useful old appliances in the other place, did you want those too?”

   â€œNo...to be honest, I never understood your packing formats unless I had a LOT of wine first...”

   â€œI don't understand yours at all, so I can relate.”

   XP had been helping Ubuntu move from the really old house down the road to a nice, new mobile laptop that the user had won in a contest.  Ubuntu had been elated.  For the first time, she had two full gig of memory, and more storage space then she knew what to do with.  The user had been very happy with her performance in several crisis over the past few years, and had given it to her as a reward.  The problem had arisen when the user wanted to put on some music and Ubuntu had no idea where it was.

   XP had come to the rescue, packing copies of all her stuff up and taking it to the new place, figuring that while they were not really in the same family at all, Ubuntu had helped her out of some jams several times and she could finally give something back to the annoyingly helpful girl.

   â€œThank you!  I have no idea why I didn't carry any over, I think my own luggage might have gotten lost.  I had some of it, but it was all out of date.”

   â€œSounds like you didn't repack it often enough.  It happens to everybody.”  XP said, now unzipping the storage bags to see if everything made it intact.

   â€œYou've been a huge amount of help in this.  I don't think I've ever seen you do like that, it's sort of scary...”  Ubuntu told the Windows-girl, who was shooing a Pidgin off the shelf so she could put up the texts she was pulling out of the case.  

   â€œWell, I've sort of understood where you're coming from...”  XP said.  Ubuntu noticed the other girl seemed to look worried as she said it.

   â€œAre you ok?”

   â€œWell...no...you remember ME?”  XP asked.

   Ubuntu nodded.  XP's older sister had been the first resident in the older house down the street that Ubuntu had been housesitting.  She'd been, to put it nicely, deranged.  Ubuntu had taken over management of the house after the user had got it, only to find that XP's sister had largely demolished it by accident before loosing her mind.  It had taken her a while to fix everything.

   â€œWell, ME sort of went...around the bend...when our father quit talking to her.  He's sort of prone to doting on the youngest, you know, so when I was born, ME lost a lot.  And now, Vista's running around and making a general nuisance of herself.  Father's ok, so far, but I'm afraid that it might happen to me too...”

   â€œOh, don't talk like that.  You have lots of fans!”

   â€œYeah, but I think most of my fans are in the geek community, I'm wondering if the only reason my father's still talking to me is that he's afraid a lot of my ex-boyfriends will hunt him down if he doesn't...Ah, well, no one should complain about what color their life preserver is, I guess...”

   â€œDon't feel bad, I think ALL my friends are geeks.”  Ubuntu said.  She did see where XP was worried, but she was never sure why.  Almost all her supporters were in that camp, and she had about a thousand siblings, of sorts.  It didn't bother her, and no one seemed to raise issues with any of them.  Plus cousins and other relatives, some of whom were so diverged from the family line they didn't even speak the same language.  Diversity in the Linux family was usually seen as a healthy thing, even if a few of them refused to hang up the phone and drive.

   â€œYeah...maybe.”  XP wasn't entirely convinced.  Sure, it seemed to work for Ubuntu, but she also had about a billion godparents who thought it was their job to take care of her and her siblings, as well as a lack of stalkers.  XP thought she had almost as many crazy stalkers after her as she had fans, and it wasn't a good feeling, one of the reasons she locked her house at night..  â€œHey, wait a minute, if you're here, are you still taking care of the old place, or what?”

   â€œNo, one of my relatives said she'd take it, she's sort of a funny one, from what I hear, but I've heard she was hunting a small starter home and the user let her have it.”

   XP looked in the HD, and shrugged.  It couldn't hurt to meet more of the Linux family, really.  Maybe she could pick up a few tips to impress her admirers.  â€œWhile we've got all this, you want to swing by and see if she needs anything?  Since we've already got it packed, we might as well save ourselves another trip.”

   â€œGood idea!”  Ubuntu said, grabbing the case.  Carrying it between them, the girls headed down the road.

*   *   *

   â€œWhat...happened?”  XP asked, as she stared at the old house.  Ubuntu just shook her head.

   The garage door was wide open, and a disk was parked there, but when they had looked inside to see if the new tenant had gone in or not they found that the car was nearly empty.  REALLY empty.  There was only one seat, and everything else had been pulled out, and paneled over.  It was really clean, true, but in a flat, blank way.  

   Also, it appeared that the driver must have been very short.  There was a booster seat in the driver's side, the airbag had been removed, and all the equipment for operating the disk had been crammed in close to the seat to make what almost looked like an enclosed cockpit within the disk.

   â€œMaybe she didn't get enough RAM as a child...”  Ubuntu suggested.  â€œLet's ring the-the....erm...”

   The doorbell was gone, too, and the place where it had been was so carefully filled, sanded, and painted that it was hard to tell there had been one.  Trying the knob, Ubuntu found that it was unlocked, but what was inside shook both her and XP to their kernels.

   It was EMPTY.

   â€œAre you sure anyone actually moved in?”  XP whispered.  She wasn't sure why she was whispering, but there was something about the emptiness of the room they could see from the door that gave the impression that any sound might echo in infinite space.

   â€œI thought so...I saw her pull in.  Her disk is right outside!”  Ubuntu whispered back.  â€œWhat do you think we should do?”

   â€œWhy are you asking me?!”

   â€œYou're the one with all the security training!”

   â€œI don't know netbeans about security!  I have alarms on all my windows and doors BECAUSE I don't know anything about it!”

   â€œThen what did you learn about in Redmond?!”

   â€œUm...modeling...copyright law...eyecandy lessons...more copyright law...”

   â€œNever mind...”  Ubuntu said, fishing through her own bag.  â€œLet's see...I know I had this somewhere, my Uncle gave it to me...”

   XP jumped back as Ubuntu pulled out a six-foot steel tipped spear, and leveled it.

   â€œWhat the heck is that?!”

   â€œAn Asagi!  A girl shouldn't go out without protection...here, let me turn it on.”

   XP's eyes got wider as a small amount of fire shot out the tip, then stabilized to a small blue pilot light.

   â€œYou're insane...and you can go first...”  XP said.

   Ubuntu nodded, slowly looking in.  Taking a few steps did nothing.  Entering fully did...equally nothing.

   She looked around the corner, and through several rooms (made easier by the fact that the doors had been removed and everything was nicely whitewashed) and finally shrugged.  â€œI have no idea what this is about.  It's like everything's stripped down to the root.  Look, even the wallpaper's missing.”

   â€œThis one's different.”  XP noted, moving towards what, in ME's time, had been a walk-in closet.  Ubuntu put out the tip of her Asagi and moved to look as well.  This door was, indeed, different.  Actually, it looked like the front door of a house, complete with pet door, bell, etc.  The only other thing visible was a small sector of the floor with a boot rack.

   â€œIs that yours?  Did you forget to move it?”

   â€œNo, it was here when I got here, I thought it belonged to ME, so I just left it in case she needed-”

   Both girls stared at the door as an explosion of barking went off behind the door, and the pet flap opened to reveal-”

   â€œA grub!”  Ubuntu and XP both yelled, one with delight, the other with loathing.  

   â€œWhy do you think those things are pets?!”  XP griped, as the grub continued to yap at them, then spit something that began to dissolve what was left of ME's boot.

   Both paused, though, as the grub went silent...and the barking continued.  The pet flap swung, but whatever tried to get through it seemed to be slightly too large.  It backed off,  they heard a distinct “Ow...”  then the door swung open.

   XP realized by the look on Ubuntu's face that she actually, for once, had a better idea of what she was dealing with then Ubuntu herself.

   Her father, a long time back, had decided that his daughters odd ability to wind up in a lot of trouble no matter how many times he bailed them out might be due to a problem of loyalty to the family.  She'd heard that to help this he'd started using brainwashing.  She didn't believe that, despite sometimes waking up with a splitting headache thinking there was some sort of Genuine Advantage to it all.  The fact that Vista's last CAT scan had shown up with an implant in her brain didn't really seem to prove anything either.  But it was true that her father had tried once to use genetic engineering to instill loyalty by fusing dog DNA with one of her older sisters.  Windows NT had definitely been an oddball.

   The girl in front of them, despite having some similarity to Ubuntu, seemed to show that the Linux community was not as far above such experiments themselves as they'd claimed.

   The girl before them was very, VERY short, only coming up to their waists, but seemed healthy enough.  She certainly moved very quickly, running circles around both of them in the cramped space of the small house, seeming to go over every detail, then, trying to shove her face right up to XP's (being forced to stand on tiptoe to do it and still failing, XP took a step back to avoid an embarrassing situation) she sniffed rapidly, shook her head (causing her longer-then normal ears to flap) and finally spoke:

   â€œWhy are you two standing in the closet?”

   Ubuntu's mouth was open.  Her asagi was hanging at her side, it seemed that self defense wasn't occurring to her right now.  XP tried to fill in the gap.

   â€œNo...we're inside.  YOU'RE in the walk-in closet...”

   â€œDon't be absurd.  Here, look!  Oh, I'm Puppy, pleased to meet you!” she said to Ubuntu, shaking her hand.  â€œHello again!”  she said to XP.

   XP could have sworn that the ribbon hanging off the back of the bow on her skirt wagged briefly.

   â€œAgain?”  XP asked.

   â€œYeah!  I lived with you, remember?”

   â€œNo.”  XP said honestly.  â€œWhen?  Where?”

   â€œIn your guest house!  The one in your bedroom!”  Puppy looked confused at XP's lack of comprehension.  â€œThe blue one?”

   â€œBlue...room...”

   â€œIn your basement!”

   â€œWait...that's not a guest room!  That's an old ice chest!  When I heard something move in it I thought it had rats!”  XP protested, but the dog-girl had already turned around and threw open the door.  

   â€œCome on in!”

   Puppy had modified the closet beyond all possible recognition.  It had been subdivided into many smaller rooms, almost a miniature house that her own small stature seemed to be made to treat as normal-sized.  XP and Ubuntu, trying to squeeze in and largely failing, wound up taking turns looking at it all.

   It seemed to have everything that one could want, but all crammed into the tiny space.  A pidgin much like XP or Ubuntu's was sitting on a shelf asleep.  Puppy poked at it till it woke up, handed it a message, and threw it out a window that she'd cut in the wall leading to the outside.  XP could see, from her wedged-in-the-door view, a small pile of RAM chips, looking like they were unpacked from some luggage.  This observation would have been confirmed by Ubuntu, as she could see Puppy's backpack, but as she was stuck on the other side of XP facing the opposite direction, she never saw the chips.

   Both girls finally, with considerable effort and exhalation, got themselves out of the door to collapse outside.  Puppy had reacted with delight at the site of the case and, without asking, began to carefully take things out one at a time to place on the floor of the oddly blank house.

   â€œThank you so much for bringing these over!  I wasn't sure if I'd have them all if the user needed them, and I have so much closet space...this place is HUGE!  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it all, I won't even have to take Grub outside to walk him, he has so much play area.”

   â€œAre you sure you're ok living in a closet?”  Ubuntu finally manged to say, looking very worried.

   â€œNo...why would I want to do that?  I'll just live in the house.  Um...if you don't have any place to go, you can live in my closet till the economy gets better if you want...”  Puppy said, looking worriedly at XP and Ubuntu.  XP suddenly realized that the girl thought they were both homeless.

   â€œNo, no, we're ok!  We live right down the street!  Look, if we can get you anything, let us know!  Do you have any way to get mail?  Do you have a fox?”

   Puppy perked up.  â€œI have all this closet space, I was thinking about getting a fox, but I wasn't sure if I can take care of it yet or not, but don't worry, I think I have a pet that can carry lots of messages, all at once!  I grew tons of them just in case!”

   â€œWhat sort of pets?”  Ubuntu asked, as Puppy raced back into her house and came out with a jar.

   â€œSEAMONKEYS!”  Puppy said happily, shoving the jar towards Ubuntu triumphantly.

*   *   *
   â€œSo...what do you think?”  XP asked as both shell-shocked girls walked slowly back down the road.

   â€œShe's nuts.”  Ubuntu said bluntly.  â€œHappy, though.”

   â€œThat's all you can ask in this world.”  XP noted.  â€œAnd I love how clean she made the place.  When ME was in it, I honestly thought the whole house was cursed.”

   â€œThat's true...that's true...”

   Both girls suddenly screamed as a boomerang whizzed by their heads, followed by a high pitched barking.  XP turned to see Puppy standing on her front porch.  She didn't look quite right, now...in fact, her eyes were glazing a bit.  A second boomerang she was preparing to hurl was dropped to the ground, as she went to all fours and sprang.

   â€œI TOLD YOU THAT HOUSE WAS CURSED!”  XP screamed, she and Ubuntu breaking into a full run as Puppy snarled and took off after them, biting at their heels.

*   *   *

   Puppy Linux was AMAZING!  I'd never got this sort of performance out of my 2-gig XP machine, much less expected it out of something with only 350 MB of RAM.  I quickly sent a thank-you note to the OS-TAN board for the suggestion, and went back to playing with it.

   Oh...this was interesting.  An upgrade was available, version 4.0.  I began the upgrade sequence.  After all, even if I broke it the systems was so easily reloaded it should be easy to fix.  Funny name, though, I was used to Ubuntu's odd wildlife named.  I wondered why this new version of Puppy was called 'Dingo'.

[C-Chan]

Oh my GAWD, this is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!  8D

Clearly, I think you have your standards set to high -- though I admit some bias, and while there are some rough spots to polish (I'll detail them later), I can easily make the case that this is your best work to date!  Even the ending has the same kind of comedic impact as the tiny scream from Chapter 1, but with twice the geek-centric, knee-slapping humor!  

I'll dissect this a little later (as promised) -- the only thing that may require an immediate adjustment is Puppy-chan's height.  "Up to their lower chests" still doesn't do justice to her youth or the smallishness that allows her to live in an icebox or move freely around in a walk-in closet.  "Up to their hips" is probably more appropriate for the lovable child-type doggirl, and also would be cuter to illustrate.  

[Plus, being physically unable to sniff XP-tan's face, she'd be forced to sniff another body part more appropriate to her canine senses.   ]

Already the creative juices are starting to hit overdrive mode here!!  I have another comic I'm working on, but.................... oh what the hell, I'll see what I can do!!  ^v^

*frolics with giddiness*

[grant_p]

Well, I didn't want her TOO short, and there's enough wackos on the forum already without giving them too much help in the 'odd semi-perverted behavior' department.  I see your point though, I'll alter that a bit.  Maybe have XP jump back to avoid that little issue...

[C-Chan]

Coolness!  ^.^

Don't worry, though.  95% of the wackos just focus on breasts (particularly large bouncing ones, either from XP or any of the more well-endowed Vistans).  ^_____^

Admittedly,... there might still be pedobears lurking about....  Â¬Â¬

[grant_p]

Someday I will make a few VISUAL art attempts, such as an XP promotional poster:  "My eyes are up here."

Followed by "There are no USB ports there, so stop trying to look."

[C-Chan]

BWAHAHA!  That'd be great.  `v'
BTW, having reread your adjustment to the story, I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding regarding the part Puppy-chan sniffs, but I'll detail that later.  I still owe you a reply though -- sorry, been a bit sick.  ;__;