@mikewalsh @mikeslr
Thank you for your input and feedback. I'm sorry to say I didn't understand parts of the last reply. If this is the level in Beginners Help, I guess I will not move to Users any time soon...
I have done some more testing. I tried to install gdebi using the Puppy Package Manager. The installation was aborted du to missing packages. I followed the suggestion to update the package database and now the installation of gdebi was successful. Now the machine had also turned very slooooow, and I couldn't even get the browser up and going to download a .deb file from anydesk.com. I did a "hard shutdown" without saving and booted up again.
Next I downloaded the 32bit portable from mikewalsh's drive. After some initial attempts to open by single- or dubble clicking, I managed to unpack it using UExtract (what's the difference between UExtract and pExtract?). In the folder Anydesk-portable32.tar.gz.extracted I found the familiar AnyDesk icon. I moved it to the desktop and klicked it. AnyDesk now started successfully.
At first installation FocalPup32 idled at a RAM usage of 87MB. With AnyDesk installed the RAM usage increased to 99MB (why, there's nothing else running?). With AnyDesk up and running RAM usage went up to 108MB. A very reasonable increase. When I connected from my desktop RAM usage went up to 120MB. Still very reasonable. With abiword, Gnumeric, mtPaint and Geany open at the same time RAM usage went up to 160MB. Still very reasonable and remote control working well, even if there was a slight delay every once in a while. So far so good!
The computer was left running overnight. To my great surprise, RAM usage was now over 300MB. Why? Repeating the process, I see how the RAM usage slowly increases, one MB after another. What causes this, and how can it be prevented? When I closed down the remote support session, RAM usage immediately dropped back to 120MB again.
Working with people with limited experience and interest in computers, I have learned that if it's possible to screw things up, sooner or later someone will. For this very reason, I would like the starting point of AnyDesk to ALWAYS be in the same place, wherever that might be. It's the one thing that will make it possible for me to get connected so that I can see what's going on and hopefully offer some help. In this one particular situation, flexibility is a big royal PITA!
This is about as far as I have come with my testing. Some questions remain to be answered.
What, if anything, went wrong with the attempt to go the gdebi - .deb package route?
The portable app downloaded to ~/Downloads. UExtract extracted it to ~/Downloads/32-bit. The actual app was in ~/Downloads/32-bit/Anydesk-portable32.tar.gz.extracted. Can I remove any parts of this to "clean up"? Should all or parts of this be moved elsewhere?
What is the best and/or simplest way for me to ensure that AnyDesk is ALWAYS found in the same place?
Can the name under the AnyDesk icon be renamed from Anydesk-portable32 to just AnyDesk somehow?
I have used TeamViewer before, but since they started to try to "bully/blackmail" people into buying a license eventhough it was only used for private use (I'm still waiting for their explanation to how NO use can be commercial use...), I've switched to AnyDesk. Remmina and DWService booth look very interesting and I have put them on my list for future testing, but I see them more as Remote Desktop applications than Remote Support applications, the main distinction here being twofold. With AnyDesk I don't need any knowledge af the other computer and/or user except the nine digit number, and with AnyDesk, the remote user has full control over if and how long I get access to their computer.