Puppy Linux 5.0

Puppy Linux is a very good system for running Live, physically loading everything into RAM and running straight from RAM. Now that Barry Kauler has made good progress on the Woof infrastructure that he's been wanting to complete for the past two years, we can have systems based on Ubuntu, or for that matter, whatever packaging style the creator decides to use. For Lucid Puppy, that means we get the Lucid repository from the Ubuntu project. Puppy has used the Slackware repositories in the past, and there is a possibility that a future project using the Woof technology could, once again, use Slackware packages. They'd certainly be light and fast.

Jim, I don't know which browser and plugins you were using when you ran into problems. I ran Quirky last week and did not encounter any specific problems but I did not really beat on it.

I find no value at all to installing Puppy on a hard drive. Used in that way, I find Puppy, at least past releases, to be at a disadvantage compared to full featured distributions. When loaded directly into memory, however, Puppy is one of the most nimble and useful distributions available for routine tasks.

Now that the Woof infrastructure has been tied to a readily upgradable packaging structure, Puppy makes an interesting alternative to antiX, which I've felt has been a better, more complete system in terms of flexibility. I still feel that antiX is more stable and has a rich set of tools, but Puppy provides a strong alternative. If you want something smaller, Puppy wins. If you want something more initially complete, antiX wins. Both are flexible when it comes to installing onto a stick or removable device.

Jim, what is the situation with account/user management? In the past Puppy has not bothered at all with the concept of a "root" user. The entire system is open at all times. If we assume Puppy simply runs off its CD (or entirely in RAM) that is one scenario. If it is loaded on a hard drive that is another.

I tracked Puppy for a while and wrote several reviews. It impressed me as very clever with some very nice considerations for users who still had to use dial-up connections, for example. Is that still true?

BTW, Puppy also had just about the clumsiest tool I have seen for wireless configuration. I surely hope that is improved!

In the end I left it because I just could not get comfortable with the lack of a root user, which seemed to me essential for protecting the integrity of the system. But there is a lengthy discussion of this on the Puppy website. Barry Kauler does make a good case for his approach.

Forced to restart puppy 5 after lockup. Does ctl alt bsp and type xwin not work anymore.

I have to agree that the review did not address the key issues I had with Puppy (which I do love BTW) which was wireless configuration, the lack of user/superuser/root separation and a lower degree of hardware compatibility.

Puppy is great for working from a removable media source, and using that removable source to save both the ISO image and any modifiable content. In that context, either as a Live CD or SSD style system, loading it completely into RAM and writing to a writable media to save information (you can mount a hard drive, too, if you want to save information there) it is great. But to install this on a hard drive, you then run into comparisons with other more full featured systems and that's where Puppy might be found lacking.

Constrain the Pup to its leash and use it where it wanders the best - staying in RAM and saving its context on a removable device, and this is one of the best, if not THE BEST, system of its type. Use it out of that context, though, and Puppy, in other contexts, can show up looking incomplete, broken, inappropriate, and more. That's not fair.

Ubuntu, to carry the analogy further, to me makes a terrible Live CD. It boots up error free, but from CD I find it as slow as maple syrup in Maine in January, and that is slow. Install Ubuntu and configure it with the software that its consumer base uses, though, and it's great. Give Puppy the same opportunity, and use it the way that most of its followers use it, and Puppy is great too.

I rate Puppy near the top when used in its proper context.

For my purposes, I do tend to prefer antiX. It is a bit larger, so it loads somewhat slower live than Puppy, but it can do much more, plus it can run from memory like Puppy. I use Puppy when I am definitely going to be doing mostly Internet based browsing activity. I use antiX when I am looking for speed and access to my information, generally running from an installed image. Both are great at what they do best, and flexible enough that they can be modified and used in environments that are not the sweet spot of their original design intent. That speaks well for both Puppy and antiX, so for me I give Puppy a thumbs up.

Hmm, I hear a lot of these comments saying that puppy is good as portable system and making full install is out of context and bad but let me tell you there's nothing you can't have on puppy that you have on some other distribution. Not having bunch of apps by default doesn't mean you can't make it fat after install and use everyday as regular distro, in fact bunch of regular puppy users do it every day.

For example I made a puplet (customized puppy version - unofficial remaster) that is about 425 MB and has KDE 3.5.10 and bunch of kde apps - amarok, ktorrent and others, latest firefox, multimedia apps like hydrogen lmms, both mplayer and vlc with alternative frontend.

Being small and having root access means giving user choice to leave it lightweight or pimp it up with apps, modify the way they like and make it regular desktop OS.

Despite being friendly to users and having many small GUI tools it still doesn't threat you as an idiot.

Last night I was testing Puppy5 out on an old Compaq laptop I have. I've ran Puppy on it before to great success for how outdated the hardware is.

For the most part I think it works fine on older PC's but I did run into many problems trying to actually use the Ubuntu Lucid repositories. Every program I attempted to install ended up having missing dependencies and wouldn't run. I tried to install VLC, Calibre e-book reader, and a few other multimedia programs, and it didn't install all the necessary dependencies for them.

I've experimented with the Puppy V5.0.1 (Lupu) release after earlier experimenting with Quirky 1.0 just before that, ShepherdPup (from 09/25/09), and Puppy 4.3.1 before that.

This version is as good as any of the earlier ones. I am going to give it a bit of time again on my Virtualbox, and I will report any interesting new findings.

Side note, the BOINC zombie also works if you boot Puppy from a CD, and use the desktop or lappy's internal hdd as the storage bin for the BOINC projects and Puppy settings. I've done both ways…using a CD boot with hdd as storage, and another desktop missing the hdd which I just used a flashstick for everything.

Of all the lite distros I've tried, Puppy is the most complete. DSL was just too restrictive in trying to get wifi to work. Slitaz was a pain with hardware (and still pretty big for REALLY old hardware, like 266mhz's). Puppy is a very complete and fairly user-friendly distro. Maybe not for a beginner, but definitely for an intermediate or advanced who just wants an easy solution to old hardware or blazing speed.

Randy wrote:

How does Puppy Linux stack up against Damn Small Linux? Also, can anyone recommend a lightweight distro that specializes in running from a thumbdrive?

Damn Small Linux (DSL) has not been updated or upgraded a whole lot. I am not sure that it is completely "inactive", but it is definitely what I'd consider "dormant". In spite of that, a lot of people use it. Personally, I'd take Puppy over it any day. The only reason I'd go with DSL is if I could not get a newer system to work with aging hardware. Otherwise, Puppy is more flexible, has more current software, it can be used in a wider variety of ways, and I believe that there are more useful system recovery tools with Puppy than with DSL.

Pluses for DSL are that it is quite small and quick. Unless your system is really old though, Puppy is plenty responsive and modest in size, so I prefer it compared to DSL.

Years ago, there was a really nice, lightweight distro called Feather Linux. Too bad that one faded; I liked it best of the really small distros in its day.

These days, overall Puppy is arguably the best of the small ones. Ratchet up the size just a bit and I prefer antiX - which is what I actually use the most often on my systems when I want a system that's smaller than the "biggies", yet functional enough to do everything I want and need to do.

Thanks for a thorough review of Puppy 5. I like the reviews at this site because you provide more detail than the quickie opinions I find elsewhere.

I'm a longtime Puppy user because I can run it on older equipment and it flies. Based on this review I'll probably upgrade to version 5, mainly becaus of the link to the Ubuntu repositories (one of the few downsides to Puppy before was the limited size of its own proprietary repository).

There's been lots of discussion on the Puppy forums about using the ROOT user id. In practice it matters not a whit (though this could change someday).

Altogether, if you're looking for a low-system requirements OS you're really making a mistake if you overlook Puppy.

Actually, Puppy is not too difficult for beginners, and in one respect is almost perfect for potential Windows refugees: it does not need to be installed (and in fact, shouldn't be in most cases). It's one of the few distros that can be used for real work while still keeping that old Windows security blanket around. No dual-boot worries, just pop open the CD drawer. And any snags new users run into are usually answered quickly on the forums.

Puppy is not just "cute and simple". It harkens back to earlier days when your tools were just what you needed and no more, and when you felt you controlled your computer, rather than it being weighed down with bloat and malware.

Puppy's main downside is being a bit on the experimental end of things (it ain't Debian) and documentation is a bit scattered. But I've been using it as my main distro since version 2.0. Keep coming back…

The only reason to do a full install is for very old machines with small memories, that cannot hold the full puppy .sfs file. Many people make the mistake of doing a full install when conditions don't warrant it. It really is a live CD or DVD or USB Flash system and should be used that way.

great system for the kids, basic apps, works sort of out of the box with a bit of tweaking.Ubuntu repo's supplied if you don't mind searching for dependencies and lots of compiling. if you want a serious distro, this ain't it, as I said, great for the kids but grown ups look elsewhere. biggest draw back is the Puppy forum community, absolutely useless!!! I asked a simple question there and happened to mention Ubuntu and all I got was loads of idiots deriding Ubuntu rather than providing answers!! I have used various Linux distro's and have never encountered such a closed community as Puppy. hardly the Linux way!

I find this one of the best Linux distro's I ever used

But some may find the desktop too bloated already, (Like 15 icons on the desktop, very long list on menu etc…)

They noticed that and released the so called 'stardust desktop environment'. It adds lots of stuff like a complete 'control center' where you can change every aspect of the desktop (including hide menu items and icons), a windows-like 'most used programs' list in the menu and 4 nice full themes.

It can be installed by using the quickpet program as seen on the screenshot (It's the DuDE package).

i've d/loaded puppy iso, but my cd drive has broken, is it possible to set Puppy to Ubuntu 11.04 from iso. on hard drive? help pls :sad: