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Puppy Linux

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Puppy Linux
File:Puppylogo.png
Screenshot of Puppy Linux 4.3
DeveloperBarry Kauler and the Puppy community
OS familyUnix-like
Working stateCurrent
Source modelOpen source
Latest release4.3.1 / October 17, 2009 (2009-10-17)
Marketing targetLive CD and aged systems
Package managerPetGet
Kernel typeMonolithic
Default
user interface		JWM / IceWM + ROX Desktop
Licensevarious
Official websitewww.puppylinux.com

Puppy Linux is a Live CD Linux distribution that is very small and focuses on ease of use. If the computer has at least 64 MB of RAM (depending on the version, up to at least 256 MB of RAM[citation needed]), the entire operating system and all the applications will run from RAM, allowing the boot medium to be removed after the operating system starts. Applications such as SeaMonkey, AbiWord, Gnumeric, and Gxine/xine are included. The distribution is actively developed by Barry Kauler and other active members of the community. Puppy is considered its own distribution, meaning that it is not based on any other Linux distribution, such as Debian or Slackware.

The latest release is 4.3.1, released on 2009-10-17.[1]

Features

Puppy Linux is a full-fledged operating system bundled with application suites covering a wide variety of tasks which can be used productively by general users. However, because Puppy is small-sized and can boot from many media, it is also useful as a rescue disk, a demonstration system, or for reviving old computers. Puppy can boot from:

Puppy Linux features built-in tools which can be used to create bootable USB disks, create new Puppy CDs, or remaster a new live CD with different packages.[2]

A unique feature that sets Puppy Linux apart from other Linux distributions is the ability to offer a normal persistent updating working environment on a write-once multisession CD/DVD. (It does not require a rewritable CD/DVD.) Puppy automatically detects changes in the file system and saves them incrementally on the disc.[3] This feature works particularly well with DVDs, partly because of the much larger space available. While other distributions offer Live CD versions of their operating systems, they do not allow programs to be permanently added nor do they allow files to be written to the CD.

Puppy also features sophisticated write-caching system designed to extend the life of USB flash drives that Puppy Linux runs from.[4]

User interface

Desktop with one of multiple integrated themes with XMMS, mtPaint and gxine running plus an opened text file under Puppy Linux 2.15 CE Viz (with default WM: IceWM)

Puppy comes with a choice of 2 graphical servers: X.Org (full-featured) and Xvesa (lightweight). A wizard during the start-up process guides the user through setting up a graphical server appropriate for their video card & monitor. At the end of the wizard the user will be presented with a desktop and window manager; the default WM in most Puppy releases is JWM.

Packages of the IceWM desktop, Fluxbox and Enlightenment are also available via Puppy's PetGet package management system (see below). Some derivative distributions, called puplets, come with default window managers other than JWM.

When the operating system boots, everything in the Puppy package uncompresses into a RAM area, the "ramdisk". The PC needs to have at least 128 MB of RAM (with no more than 8 MB shared video) for all of Puppy to load into the ramdisk. However, it is possible for it to run on a PC with only about 48 MB of RAM because part of the system can be kept on the hard drive, or in the worst case, left on the CD.

Puppy is fairly full-featured for a system that runs entirely in a ramdisk, when booted as Live system or from a 'frugal' installation; however, Puppy also supports the 'full' installation mode, which allows Puppy to run from a hard drive partition, without a ramdisk. Applications were chosen that met various constraints, size in particular. Because one of the aims of the distribution is to be extremely easy to set up, there are many wizards that take the user through the process of a range of common tasks.[5]

ROOT PASSWORD

Puppy Linux is one of the few distributions that doesn't use a root password, it doesn't make any distinction between normal user and root user, this makes the system easier to use, and grants complete control of the hard drives to the user, but is also a security concern because the user can format his own unit or freely erase system files that make puppy or other OS collapse. But this characteristic can also be used for tasks like save an image of a whole operating system or delete it from a hard drive for restore it later without pass for the format process. Beside, it can be useful to save files from a collapsed operating system. Also, since this system runs in ram, there is no restriction to modify any hard drive unit and it is easy to create and erase partitions in different systems.

Small advice

Since Puppy Linux runs in the ram, all the files and operations that are made on a session will disappear when the system is closed if no save file is created, this also applies for any download. This can happen specially to new users. To avoid this it is recommended to work and save all files to a disk instead of the file system, a hard drive a USB or even a floppy. All this media normally appears on the desktop, but if not, you can mount them and access them in the directory /mount/

Package and distribution management

wNOP v0.2 on EeePC: Puppy 3.01 & Compiz-Fusion

Puppy Linux comes with a specific package manager called PetGet. An older kind of package, DotPup, were used in previous versions of the system and is still compatible.

Puppy Unleashed is a tool used to create Puppy ISO images. It consists of more than 500 packages that are put together according to the user's needs.

Lately, a new script named Woof is under development. Woof introduces the ability to build a complete Puppy system from other Linux distribution's packages. Woof currently supports Puppy 4.x, Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware and Arch Linux packages, however, support for additional compatible Linux distributions is planned. Additionally, the PetGet package manager will feature full compatibility with the source distribution's package repositories (a Debian-Puppy build will support the Debian repositories, for instance). Woof will replace Puppy Unleashed in the upcoming Puppy 4.3 release and the future 5.x series.

Puppy also comes with a remaster tool that takes a snapshot of the current system and creates a remastered live-CD from it, and an additional tool for remastering Puppy that is able to remove installed components.

Puppy Linux uses the T2 SDE build scripts to build the base binary packages.

Release history

File:Puppy301screenshot.png
SeaMonkey, mtPaint, Gnumeric, AbiWord, Gxine running under Puppy Linux 3.01
Version Release Date
Puppy 1 2005/03/29
Puppy 2 2006/06/01
Puppy 3 2007/10/02
Puppy 4 2008/05/05

Puppy 1 series will run comfortably on very dated hardware, such as a Pentium computer with at least 32 MB RAM. For newer systems, the USB keydrive version might be better (although if USB device booting is not directly supported in the BIOS, the Puppy floppy boot disk can be used to kick-start it). It is possible to run Puppy Linux with Windows 9x/Windows Me. It is also possible, if the BIOS does not support booting from USB drive, to boot from the CD and keep user state on a USB keydrive; this will be saved on shutdown and read from the USB device on bootup.

Puppy 2.14 (86.5 MB) uses the Mozilla-based SeaMonkey as its Internet suite (primarily a web browser and e-mail client). It comes in different sized editions.

  • The standard edition uses AbiWord as the word processor and is 68 MB; a live-CD ISO file with Mozilla Firefox is 52.4 MB; with the full Mozilla suite it is 55.3 MB; with Opera it is 49.6 MB.
  • A 96.1 MB "Chubby Puppy" version includes the OpenOffice.org suite as well.
  • A 39.9 MB "BareBones Puppy" version contains no GUI,
  • and an 83 MB "zdrv" standard edition, which contains more kernel drivers and firmware.

Puppy 3 features Slackware 12 compatibility.[6] This is accomplished by the inclusion of almost all the dependencies needed for the installation of Slackware packages. However, this does not mean that Puppy Linux is now a Slackware-based distribution.[7]

Puppy 4 is built from scratch and no longer features native Slackware 12 compatibility[8] in order to reduce the size and include new package version than 3.[9]. To compensate for this, an optional "compatibility collection" of packages was created that restores some of the lost compatibility.[8]


  • Puppy 4.2 features changes to the user interface and backend, upgraded packages, localizations, new in-house software and optimizations, while still keeping the ISO size under 100 MB.

Puppy 5 is based on a project called Woof which is designed to assemble a Puppy Linux distribution from the packages of other Linux distributions.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ Kauler, Barry. "Puppy 4.3.1 released".
  2. ^ "Make your own Puppy CD".
  3. ^ "Puppy Multisession DVD/CD".
  4. ^ "How Puppy Works".
  5. ^ "AboutPuppy - Puppy Linux". Retrieved 2008-08-02.
  6. ^ Kauler, Barry. "Puppy 3.00 Released (Updated to 3.01)".
  7. ^ Kauler, Barry. "Puppy Linux release notes v3.00".
  8. ^ a b Kauler, Barry. "package management".
  9. ^ Kauler, Barry. "Puppy Linux release notes 4.00".
  10. ^ Kauler, Barry (9 February 2009). "Woof: the "Puppy builder"". Puppy developer pages. Retrieved 2009-02-13.
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