How can you run a full range of current applications on older

computers, netbooks, thin clients, and mobile devices? One way is to

install a lightweight Linux like Puppy, Lubuntu, or Vector Light.

Select the distro with the apps that meets your needs while matching

your computer’s resources.



Puppy is worthy of your attention because it’s pushed its way into Distrowatch‘s

top ten most popular operating systems by merit alone. It doesn’t

have a corporate sponsor or advertising budget. This article describes Puppy. Screenshots follow the article.

What’s Unique About Puppy



Puppy runs on many limited-resource computers. This includes Pentium

IV’s, III’s, M’s, D’s, Atom and Celeron netbooks, and even Pentium

II’s. I’ve used it in

refurbishing computers donated to charity yet I also run it on my

state-of-the-art computers. What makes it appealing is

how it combines three characteristics that normally force a trade-off:

1. A full range of applications 2. Ease of use 3. Good performance on limited hardware

Puppy supplies all the

applications most users need while running

on low-resource computers. It does this

while retaining ease-of-use. So you can install it for

consumers on low-end or older equipment.

Puppy combines high

functionality with minimal

hardware. These

two goals force a direct trade-off — typically you get one or the

other, but

not both. Puppy employs specific techniques to circumvent the

trade-off and combine these two goals. Among them:

Bundled applications are selected for high

functionality and minimal

resource consumption.

Puppy excludes all but the mandatory Linux functions, code,

services, and

daemons.

The OS and bundled apps automatically load and run from memory on

any

computer having 256 M or more. This executes code at in-memory

speeds and eliminates slow hard disk and optical

disc access. It yields good performance even on older computers with slow devices.

Graphical user interfaces are the most resource-consumptive

component of modern operating systems. Puppy dodges the GUI performance bullet with the

lightweight JWM as

its default interface,

based on X-server with either Xorg or the more limited but efficient XVesa.

Puppy’s frugal install

option copies the Live CD code into any Windows or

Linux disk partition and boots from there. This yields hard disk boot

speed without requiring disk re-partitioning.



Puppy doesn’t require the anti-malware software

that

overwhelms older Windows systems. You can take a Windows ME/98/95

system, replace Windows with

Puppy, and

have a secure, performant system running current software. Puppy is a prime candidate for reusing these old systems.





Flexibility



Flexibility is essential when working with low-end computers. You need

software that runs on the system you have, rather than requiring you to

upgrade, change, or fix hardware. Puppy doesn’t impose hardware requirements.

For example, Puppy installs and boots from any

bootable device and saves your work to any

writeable device. No hard disk, optical drive, or USB?

No problem. Want to use your old SCSI drive, floppy, Zip

drive, LS-120/240 Superdisk, or compact flash memory? Puppy does it.

It’s great to see a distro that leverages whatever odd old devices your system has.

Puppy can even use write-once

CDs or DVDs for persistent storage. It will

prompt you to insert a new disc when needed. It then carries all your

work forward onto the newly inserted CD or DVD.

Puppy gives you a choice of Linux kernels. It comes with the

latest one for

current equipment and older “retro” kernels for aging machines. So it

runs on computers most other lightweight Linuxes no longer support.

Puppy complements Windows. You can install and load

it from

within a Windows disk partition. Or install on its own partition using

Linux filesystems like ext2, ext3, ext4, or reiserfs. Puppy’s

boot manager, GRUB, recognizes all existing Windows install(s) and

generates a boot-time menu that asks you which OS you want to run. So

you can install Puppy on a computer that already runs Windows or

Linux without worry.

All this flexibility makes Puppy better suited for revitalizing mature computers than many competing lightweight distributions.

Apps Are the Name of the Game

I’ve described how Puppy achieves good performance on minimal hardware.

But what can you do with it?

Puppy bundles the applications to perform the same tasks as much larger

distros. I can comfortably use it for everything I do instead of Ubuntu. With Puppy you can —

Perform home and office tasks with word processors, file and HTML

editors, PDF viewers, spreadsheets, and HomeBank

finance manager. Puppy bundles GNOME Office.

Surf the Internet with your choice of browsers, and read, write, send and manage email with Sylpheed

Play, record, mix, rip and manage music

Scan in documents and pictures, read or scan photographs,

alter and manage images and graphics with image and vector editors

Write your personal blog with PPLOG and the Hiawatha web

server, or create your own wiki with DidiWiki

Telephone, chat, or message via Voice Over IP with Psip, and instant

message and chat with Ayttm

Manage your address book, personal contacts, and daily calendar

with Osmo daily

organizer

Read, write, and burn CD’s, DVD’s, and Blu-ray discs

Log in to remote computers with telnet and send & receive

files

Manage your files and data with file managers, a file finder,

and tools for backup

Manage your computer and its performance with a full set of

utilities for setup, configuration, and performance monitoring and

management

Here’s

a full list of Puppy’s bundled apps and their version

numbers. Of course, like any mainstream distro Puppy makes it easy to download and install addtional apps with its package GUI.

For smooth video, you need a machine running at perhaps 800 ghz or faster. In my experience Puppy runs video fluently

with a slightly slower processor than larger distros like Ubuntu, where

you need at least 1 ghz.

Where Puppy Plays



The current Puppy release — Puppy 5 or “Lucid Puppy” — boots in 128 M

ram and runs entirely from memory on

systems with 256 M or more. The CD download is 130 M.

(Older

Puppy releases are about 100 M

downloads and prior to version 4 Puppy boots in only 64 M).

Puppy is a performant system for Pentium IV’s, III’s, M’s, D’s, and Atom and Celeron netbooks. Pentium II’s

work well with many Puppy releases if you can maximize their memory to

256 M, which allows Puppy

to

run entirely from memory and perform optimally. You can actually use a

P-II for serious work! One important limitation is that

P-II’s

can’t run web video because the P-II line topped out at 450mhz. This is a processor limitation rather than a Puppy shortcoming.

If you have a really old computer in your basement or attic, Puppy

can help you revitalize it. Puppy also runs on P-II’s with less than

256 M and P-I’s. But here you forgo the speed advantage that comes

with

running the system solely from memory.

For my purposes — refurbishing older computers with software that

is user-friendly enough for end users — Puppy presents the right

balance of

usability with minimal hardware requirements. As long as you install

and configure Puppy, end users will be quite happy using it on Pentium IV’s, III’s, and even II’s.

I don’t want to leave the impression that Puppy is only

suitable for

low-end hardware. I install it as one of several operating systems on my state-of-the-art

computers. It’s a fun alternative to some of the full-sized distros like Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, or Fedora.

Puppy makes a handy

portable “rescue disk” on CD, DVD, or bootable USB pen drive. Just last

month my friend

corrupted his disk’s master boot record on a Windows computer. With a

Live Puppy CD, we fixed this fatal error in minutes. Puppy scanned the disk and regenerated

the master boot record for us. (My

friend could also have used the Windows recovery console with commands like fixmbr

and fixboot but he didn’t

know how).

I recently used Puppy to save data from a DOS FAT32 partition on a

failing disk. I booted Live Puppy CD, then used its tools to

rebuild the DOS partition’s corrupted file allocation table. After verifying the FAT structure was

good, I carefully copied files from the failing disk to a good one,

concentrating on the highest priority files first. Eventually we saved

all data from the bad disk partition except for two files that had damaged

sectors. Then we replaced the bad disk.

Puppy’s Profile

Puppy makes a nice match for computer

consumers — assuming a knowledgeable person installs and configures it

for them. It brings old equipment back to life. But it may not be the best fit for

corporate users who require software that changes little from

release to release, or for companies that need a distro with corporate backing. Puppy is:

Community-developed and supported

— Puppy originated with one individual, Barry Kauler. A small inner circle adds

to his

efforts. No corporation underwrites or directs Puppy. Free support includes videos, wikis,

how-to’s, online documentation, tutorials, web sites, and active

forums. With one or two exceptions it does not offer corporate support contracts. — Puppy originated with one individual, Barry Kauler. A small inner circle addsto hisefforts. No corporation underwrites or directs Puppy. Free support includes videos, wikis,how-to’s, online documentation, tutorials, web sites, and activeforums. With one or two exceptions it does not offer corporate support contracts. No “road map” — This is an

evolving distro. Every

version differs. There is no

long term “road map” for future development or set schedule for planned

future

releases and upgrades. The community develops Puppy as consensus evolves. Version upgrades only — Updates are traditionally

through point releases. Puppy

5 adds a push-button for downloadable software fixes like Ubuntu or

Windows. Root user id — Puppy runs as a

single-user system and this drives its development. The Puppy user

runs as the Linux root user id.

In theory this could be a problem — but in practice it presents

no downside. I’ve never heard of a single Puppy user suffering

a

problem due to this. If this concerns you, see the discussions

that explore all angles of this topic

in this

forum thread and this

one.

How to Run Puppy



In Puppy version 5.2, the Live CD download file is

127 M. Once you’ve downloaded the product, burn it to a “boot CD” and

you’re

ready to run.

Given its small size and quick boot time,

many run Puppy as a Live CD or DVD without ever

installing it. Puppy allows you to save your session work by asking if

you want

to create a Save File the first time you request a shut down. Place the

Save File

on any writeable device

(disk, USB, writeable CD or DVD, whatever). Next time you boot the

Live CD

or DVD Puppy finds the Save File to start your session. Ever after Puppy automatically saves your session work in the Save

File

without asking.

You can install Puppy to any

bootable device — disk (SATA, PATA/IDE or SCSI), writeable CD or DVD,

Superdisk, USB devices, Zip drive, or whatever will boot your

computer. You have two options here: a full install and the frugal

install.

The full install is a

traditional Linux install. You need to create a

disk partition for Puppy’s use. Puppy helps you do this with its bundled GParted

partition manager. Puppy also comes with GRUB for setting up an OS selection menu at startup. A Puppy partition need only be

500 M, though if you install additional apps, I’ve found 1 G to be a spacious

round number.

The frugal install simply

copies the Live CD files to

disk. Place these files in a single directory within

any

existing partition. This partition can be Windows NTFS or FAT32, or any

of the

common Linux partition types, such as ext2, ext3, ext4, or reiserfs.

The benefits to the frugal install are:

Puppy can reside in any existing partition (assuming sufficient

space) No need to shrink the Windows partition or create a new Linux

partition Easy to upgrade — just replace the older version files with the

ones from a newer version



These advantages make frugal installs more popular with Puppy than

full disk installs. USB boots are also quite popular. Puppy fits on any 512 M USB memory stick with space leftover for your data.

New in Version 5

Puppy 5.x presents some

big enhancements over previous versions. It was created from Ubuntu

packages through a

new tool inventor Barry Kauler calls Woof. Woof

builds Puppy from the package repositories of various Linux distros.

Right now the supported distros include Ubuntu, Debian,

Slackware, Arch, T2 SDE, and Puppy.

The result is that Puppy 5 runs any Ubuntu or *.deb package! This opens

up the whole word of Ubuntu and Debian applications to Puppy. Prior to

version 5, you could only install apps from Puppy’s own repository.

While this repository contains

hundreds

of common Linux applications, enough for most people, it does not

compare to the thousands of free apps now available in the

Ubuntu/Debian repositories.

Puppy 5 tweaks the user interface. It boots directly into a

pre-configured desktop for quick startup. It gives users the

ability to easily customize the desktop with choices for

common

applications such as the browser. The new QuickPet tool makes

one-click

installation easy. Wireless and internet configuration are also much

improved. Barry Kauler’s blog and the

Version 5 Release

Notes give full details on everything that’s new in Puppy 5.

You can customize Puppy into your own distro with either Woof or the Puppy re-mastering tool. These are

so easy to use that they have resulted in an explosion of Puplets,

customized Puppy-based distros. Puplets address all sorts of special

interests, including multi-user

Puppy, Puppeee

for the eeePC notebook, UbuntuStudio

Puppy, and many more

designed for gaming, scientific disciplines, religious interests,

international languages, etc. If you’re interested in

customizing your own

Linux version, Puppy is an especially good choice.

Time to Adopt Puppy?



Puppy Linux combines a full range of applications and performance

in an

easy-to-use

system. Given its light resource requirements, it works well on older computers, netbooks, mobile devices, and other

limited-resource systems. It’s a great hobbyist system for revitalizing an older computer. You can make an old Windows ME/98/95

box useful again with Puppy.

I like Puppy because it’s the lightest Linux

distro I’ve found that is still suitable for end users. Install it on

an old P-III or P-IV computer and your family or friends will use it

just as effectively for common tasks as any expensive new

machine.

At OS News, we’re all computer enthusiasts, so it may be hard to believe.

But many people see absolutely no reason to pay for

a new computer

every few years if their old one suffices. Puppy is a godsend for

these folks.

I’ve run Puppy for five years with few problems. Forum support

is outstanding. And Puppy really flies — when the entire system runs from

memory, even an

older computer is responsive. A P-III with adequate memory runs Puppy

as fast as my dual-core e5200 runs Windows.

Without advertisements or corporate backing, Puppy has risen to become one of the world’s

dozen most popular distros. If you’re looking for a lightweight distro you should

give it a try.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –



Howard Fosdick (President, FCI) is an independent consultant who

specializes in

databases and operating systems. His hobby is computer refurbishing as

a form of social work and environmental contribution. You can reach him

at contactfci at the domain

name of sbcglobal (period) net.

Puppy Links



Previous Articles in

This Series

Puppy Linux Screenshots

The Main Screen

The icons in the upper-left side of the screen

are the main

applications. The optional row of disk icons at the lower left-side of

the screen shows the mount status of disk partitions. I’ve changed the

background wallpaper here from version 5’s default to that of an

earlier Puppy release —

Bundled Graphics Tools

This screenshot shows Puppy’s bundled graphics tools. Just right-click

at any open position in the screen to see JWM’s pop-up application

menus —

Using Puppy



I wrote this article on several of old P-IV and P-III computers with Puppy.

Here’s a screenshot where I’m researching and writing using tools like the KompoZer HTML Editor, Firefox, the ROX-Filer

File Manager, and the System Tools menu. I snapped and resized the screenshot with

mtPaint —









The Package Manager

Puppy 5 now installs and runs applications from the

Ubuntu as well as Puppy repositories. You can install any *.deb package —

Quickpet

This easy tool allows for one-click app installation and is an

easy-to-use addition

to the Package Manager —

Network Connectivity Tools

Puppy Version 5 enhances Puppy’s network connectivity

tools. Wireless and modem configuration are much improved —