It’s true that this blog is fairly Ubuntu-centric (though I try to incorporate tips that will work on any Linux distro), mainly because it’s what I’ve found to be the most productive distribution for me. Lately I’ve been using another distribution on my lower-powered machines that you may or may not have heard of called Puppy Linux.

Now, Puppy is very different from most distros you may come across is several ways. First off, you always run as root (GASP!). Second of all, the whole thing is about 75mb on CD. And third, it runs completely from RAM in most computers. That means it is blazing fast.

Looks
Although it uses the JWM window manager my default (a Win95-looking sort of thing) I prefer to immediately load up Fluxbox or IceWM, purely for aesthetics’ sake. I also like to find an alternate icon theme for the Rox file manager. Once that’s done, though, it looks really nice.

Included Software
Puppy includes a slew of software by default, including the lightweight Gxine media player, the HomeBank financial software, Abiword wordpocessor, and the Mozilla Seamonkey suite of Internet applications (browser, email client, etc.).

Additional Thoughts: What Puppy is and isn’t.

What Puppy Isn’t. Puppy is not a security power-house or multi-user environment. It’s not meant to run your corporate server. It doesn’t provide a multitude of packages and you will probably not be running the latest and greatest of most software (although they do use a very up to date kernel, which means fantastic wireless support!)

What Puppy Is. Puppy is great desktop oriented distro for those with limited hardware and those that don’t need/want the latest Amarok, GNOME, or KDE. It is, in many ways one of the best distros for Grandma to use. It’s easy, intuitive, and has a very active & friendly community behind it. Perfect for those that like and are used to the Windows95 style of computing (not a bad thing!)

From Productivity Standpoint
How will Puppy Linux help you get more done? 1) For starters, when you want a familiar Linux environment, but you’ve only got a Windows computer, just pop in the CD or boot from a Puppy enabled USB drive. Presto! You’re in Linuxland. 2) Puppy also makes a great system rescue disk for those flakey windows computers at the office. Boot up, mount the hard drive, and get those important files out of harm’s way. 3) Puppy also includes the Samba client LinNeighborhood by

default. This makes sharing files between Puppy and Windows computer (or two Linux computers) a snap. 4)Puppy is easily customizable. Use included utilities to create your own, custom Puppy flavor that is perfect for YOUR needs. That’s what I’m talking about!

More info at:
PuppyLinux.Org
Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Filed under: Uncategorized