Laptop Online with Puppy Linux

After installing a 64 M memory module donated by KE4ID (thanks, Jack!), I powered up the Dell Inspiron 3000 and booted up with Puppy Linux. The resulting 233% increase in available RAM provided a nice boost to the laptop PC's performance -- much less frequent hard disk access. Puppy Linux is happy to run with the current total of 112 M of RAM.

I resumed efforts to get the PC Card (aka PCMCIA) Ethernet interface configured to enable LAN / WAN access. With some guidance from online forums about configuring Linux on older hardware, I got the Ethernet card working (as it did under Windows ME that I inherited with the PC). Here is a photo of the screen showing the Bell Ringers home page displayed by the SeaMonkey browser that is part of the Puppy Linux distribution.

I've now verified the PC's ability to access the Internet via Linux, for web browsing and email access. Next I will work on achieving Java applet operation.