Puppy linux latest version. An In-Depth Look at Puppy Linux
Of the hundreds of freely available Linux distributions, have you chosen yours?
Make a list of your needs. What will you use your Linux for? What features are important to you? How would you prioritize them? What features do you not care about?
Once you have your custom needs list, compare it to different Linux implementations. The Linux OS is configurable and gives you full control (as you would expect from open source software) over itself. So, in theory, you can create almost any Linux distribution to suit your needs. But most likely it makes more sense to choose the most suitable Linux distribution from the hundreds available.
Puppy Linux is one of the twenty most popular Linux distributions in the world (according to disrowatch.com rankings). Puppy is created for those who want from Linux:
- Includes all applications required for daily use
- Works out of the box
- Easy to use and suitable for those new to Linux, as well as those who have recently switched from Windows to Linux
- Works great on limited hardware
- Works without problems on old computers, thin clients and diskless stations
- Installs and runs from any bootable device, including USB, hard drives, zip drives, LS 120/240 SuperDisks, CDs and DVDs, as well as over the network
Unlike other distributions, Puppy is not based on any of them. It was created to meet the above objectives.
Let's discuss the characteristics and, summing up, consider how it differs from other Linux distributions.
Fast and easy.
Puppy was specifically designed for limited hardware environments, including older computers, thin workstations, and diskless computers.
Puppy achieves this goal using several methods:
- The standard software included with Puppy covers all typical application needs while requiring minimal resources
- Minimum size of the operating system itself
- The entire system is loaded entirely into memory by default and executed there
- Puppy boots and runs from any available device - your computer does not need to have special devices such as a hard drive or CD drive
As a result, you can take your old Pentium III, install Puppy on it and enjoy its excellent performance. Memory access is much faster than disk access. Just make sure your computer has enough memory to run Puppy from RAM.
To see how it works, read what I wrote earlier about my experience installing Putty on a Pentium III 550MHz with 448 MB of RAM. Powered by Putty, this bygone-century hardware runs typical applications as quickly as equivalent applications on a 2.6 GHz Celeron with a gigabyte of RAM running Windows XP!
Puppy allows old computers to breathe new life again and work on diskless computers and thin workstations.
Flexibility.
As with many distributions, you can try Puppy using the "Live-CD" version and see how it will be compatible with your computer hardware. A Live-CD is a bootable CD that you can burn Puppy onto after you've downloaded it from the Internet. You must use the "Create a bootable disc" option in the menu of your CD/DVD burning program. (Options such as "data CD", "music or audio CD" and "video CD" do not allow the creation of a bootable disc.) The LiveCD version of Puppy also includes programs for burning CDs and DVDs, of course. If you're on Windows and need a CD burning program, you can download the free ImgBurn program to create a bootable disk with Puppy.
If you don't want to install Puppy on your hard drive (or perhaps your machine doesn't have a hard drive), you can run Puppy from a LiveCD. When you're done with Puppy, it gives you the ability to save your personal preferences, settings, and any additional software you've added to the base system on any device that supports data recording. This again could be a USB stick, a hard drive, or recordable CD/DVD discs.
If you run Puppy from a LiveCD, you'll quickly discover another advantage to running the system loaded into memory. You can remove the CD and Puppy will continue to work. So, after downloading, you can listen to the new audio CD you purchased today, or burn the data to a CD or DVD. Other versions of Linux free the CD drive when applications terminate.
You can also take advantage of Puppy's unique support for multi-session CD/DVD discs. Any type of CD or DVD (or -) is supported, which with Puppy you can burn your data into sessions to continue recording the next time you use Puppy. Puppy includes tools for burning multisession discs.
When installing on hard drives, Puppy offers two alternatives: full (or traditional) or "frugal disk" installation.
Peaceful coexistence with Windows.
Windows usually comes with many computers, so many users begin their computer experience through Windows. However, they soon discover that Windows has serious weaknesses despite its ease and convenience. The only great step in this case is the additional installation of Linux as a second operating system. In this case, when you start your computer, you get a unique opportunity to choose which system to work on - Linux or Windows.
The advantages of Puppy are also obvious in that you can run it from a Live-CD or from a USB stick, without replacing your existing hard drive system.
When you exit Puppy, it asks you if you want to save your settings and intermediate session data by selecting "save file" and specifying the path to your USB stick or recordable CD/DVD. You also you can write the settings file to any Windows partition of your hard drive (Under Windows, the Puppy save file will look like a single large file in the root directory).
Another option for running Puppy is to run it from Windows. Simply start Windows and unzip the Puppy file to install Puppy on Windows. Create a Puppy icon on your desktop, double-clicking on it will launch Puppy. Quit Puppy and you'll be back in Windows.
The GUI is launched using two graphic servers - Xorg and Xvesa. Their presence allows Puppy to provide video GUI support for a wide range of PCs.
Puppy's "helpers", which appear in the form of interactive forms, are another feature of its ease of use, making all aspects of system installation and configuration easier.
What separates some of the most user-friendly Linux distributions from others is their level of support. Puppy Linux was written and developed primarily by one person - Barry Kauler. Support is provided by the Puppy community, which consists of several active forums providing technical assistance and advice on the distribution. Puppy contains 3 MB of documentation. You can also view ( and ) extensive information on the system. An active community supports a Wiki, Wiki community news, and IRC chat. Puppy has tutorials written in Flash and instructional videos. Also here you will find Puppy documentation in HTML and PDF formats. There is support for various languages (not only English).
Puppy's abundance of documentation makes it on par with many common Linux distributions.
Adding applications.
Once the system has booted, chosen the installation type and saved settings, and coexisted with Windows, the key aspect of flexibility when using Puppy is how easily additional software can be accessed and installed.
Puppy also includes features that allow you to customize your system. Select "Remaster" from the menu to create your own customized bootable CD. Or use Puppy Unleashed to create a Live-CD with the programs of your choice, from over 500 official packages.
What Puppy is not for.
I extolled the delights of Puppy and described its capabilities. It's the Linux that users around the world love, and the size of its community proves it.
Still, sometimes we have to say that Puppy is not intended for something. This does not mean that Puppy cannot be used for some purposes. This suggests that they are not the main impetus in its development.
To begin with, remember that Puppy Linux is "small Linux". It doesn't have to include the extensive amount of software libraries that big Linuxes like Fedora or RedHat do, but you can easily turn it into one like them using the PETget package manager.
Puppy uses special methods to offer users applications for daily use.
Puppy is developed as a user system. You can of course install it on servers, since it has all the capabilities for this, but the goal and main focus of the project is the PC user.
For example, Puppy users always log in using the user ID "root". Comparing this to other Linux systems which, from a security and multi-user perspective, insist on using a different user ID. The Puppy community agrees that running the system as "root" does not pose any security risk. Test my own systems, powered by Puppy and open to the world as the ShieldsUp site! and, on the other hand, invisible to the outside world, thanks to the configured firewall.
Finally, keep in mind that Puppy Linux is evolving rapidly and each version has more significant improvements. You can choose for yourself any version currently available on the releases page.
The Puppy community is constantly moving towards releasing new versions. Typical applications and tools change with each release. This may not satisfy those who want a "frozen" system with minimal changes.
What's your verdict?
I've covered the features of Puppy Linux in this article to show its potential uses. But I missed one fact of life - Puppy Linux is just fun. With a friendly interface, easy-to-use "helpers" and built-in how-to information, it still has the ability, with your help, to become a full-fledged system that can be used to solve serious problems. Puppy is a fascinating system that has all the features that make it eligible to participate in the evolving user society.
You can download and test Puppy Linux using its Live-CD version, without making any changes to existing partitions on your hard drive and without fear that a third-party system already on the disk will be damaged. This way you can ensure that Puppy Linux is fully compatible with your hardware and ensure that it has the ability to manage video, system devices and have the interface you want.
Visit the main Puppy Linux sites located at and. Or download Puppy from here or from here. Many people try to buy Puppy, but "buy" is the wrong word, since Puppy is free and available. So let us just say that usually those who meet Puppy immediately want to take him home.
Screenshots of Puppy Linux:
Puppy Linux is a small distribution created by Barry Cowler. Its main task is to be similar in use to Windows, to contain all the necessary programs, but to be extremely small and simple. The distribution works great on both new and old hardware and is very fast.
Its peculiarity is that you can get a full-fledged system simply by burning a small installation image onto a flash drive and running it in LiveCD mode. If you think that this is also possible in other distributions, then no, here there is the ability to save a session, which allows you to save all the data you worked with.
The distribution also contains a very large number of utilities and tools for configuring the system, with which you can configure anything and you won’t have to go into configuration files very often. The last release was in 2015, Puppy Linux 6.3, codenamed Slacko, based on Slackware 14.1, but the distribution is still in development. In this guide, we'll look at how to install Puppy Linux on your hard drive as a full-fledged operating system.
System requirements
Puppy Linux hardware requirements are a bit surprising. It looks like it can run on almost any hardware. To run the system, you need 64 MB of RAM and a processor with a clock frequency of 333MHz.
Step 1. Upload the image
First of all, we need to download the installation image. The latest version is available on the official website. But there are two versions available here: 6.0.5, based on Ubuntu 14.04 and 6.3, based on Slackware. We will install the latest one.
Select the desired system architecture and download the image. The image weighs about 200 megabytes, so the download will be quick. Over time, there may be more Puppy Linux distributions. The fact is that this distribution can be created on the basis of other distributions and be compatible with their package base. Such distributions contain the same set of puppy utilities and all of them are considered official. For example, Puppy Linux, based on Ubuntu Xenial Xerus, is currently in development.
Step 2. Write the image to a flash drive
The developers recommend using the dd utility to write to a flash drive. The terminal command on Linux will look like this:
dd if=~/slacko64.iso of=~/dev/sdb bs=5M
Here /dev/sdb is the device name of your flash drive; you don’t need to add any numbers there. On the Windows operating system, you can use the Windows version of this utility. Here the command will look like this:
dd if=slacko64.iso of=\\.\f: bs=5M
Here f: is the drive letter of your flash drive. Don't forget that you need to run the command line with administrator rights.
Step 3. BIOS setup
When the flash drive is written, restart your computer. During the BIOS splash screen, press F2, F8, Shift+F2 or Del, to open the setting. There go to the Boot tab and in the item 1st Boot Device select your flash drive:
Step 4. Bootloader setup
At the first stage of loading the image, you can enter kernel parameters; if there is nothing to change, just press Enter or wait:
Step 5: Load LiveCD
Wait for the download to complete:
Step 6. System setup
Immediately after the start, the following system settings window will open; there is no point in configuring anything now, because after installation the settings will still be lost:
So just close this window.
Step 7: Run the installer
There is no installer shortcut, as we are used to; the installer is located in the main menu, in the Setup section. The menu item is called universal.
Step 8. Select an installer
At this step we can choose which installer to use, for a flash drive, for a flash drive with the f2fs file system or a universal one, we need a universal one:
Step 9. Select device type
In this window we have to select the type of device to install. If installing to a hard drive, select Internal (IDE or SATA):
Step 10: Select your device
Select the device on which we will install the system:
Step 11: Preparing the Section
The system installation is performed on one partition. If the selected device already has partitions, you can select one of them. Otherwise, click the button with the Gparted icon:
Step 12. Create a partition table
If your disk is not yet partitioned, open the Deices menu and click Create Partition Table:
Step 13. Create a partition
Create one new partition of sufficient size. One or several gigabytes is enough to install and fully use the entire system. You can use vfat, ntfs or ext4 and others compatible with Linux as the file system for the partition.
In the first case, you will not be able to install a full-fledged system. The installer will create an empty file, make the desired file system there, and only then proceed to installation. But we are not satisfied with this option, so we will use ext4.
Step 14: Applying Changes
Once completed, open the menu Edit and press Apply All Changes to save changes.
Step 15: Boot Flag
Check the box here Boot and press Ok. After this, Gparted can be closed.
Step 16. Selecting device No. 2
Select the device again:
Step 17. Selecting a partition
In the upper right corner, select the newly created disk:
Step 18. Confirm the partition
Confirm installation on this particular partition:
Step 19. Additional disk
If you have an additional disk with puppy linux files, you can now connect it:
Step 20: Installation method
You have two installation options. Installing puppy linux as a file, recommended when installing on ntfs or vfat, as well as a full installation (FULL). In this article we will use the full installation:
Step 21. Last confirmation
Confirm that the system definitely needs to be installed on this disk:
Step 22. Install Puppy Linux
Wait until the files are copied to the disk partition:
Step 23. Installing the bootloader
Select Yes if you want to install the bootloader. Grub4dos will be used as the bootloader:
Step 24. Bootloader setup
Select the partition on which the bootloader will be installed, and also set additional parameters if necessary:
Step 25. Kernel parameters
Enter additional kernel parameters if necessary, also here you can select the name of the menu item for windows:
Step 26. Confirm bootloader installation
Confirm that the bootloader needs to be installed in the MBR. Now the puppy linux installation is complete, all that remains is to restart the computer.
Step 27: Reboot
Reboot the system using the corresponding button on the panel:
Step 28. Starting the system
Select the first item in the bootloader menu and wait until the download completes:
Step 29: Setup Menu
After starting the system, the initial setup menu will open again. Here you can configure the language, time zone and many more system parameters.
First select the language in which you want to use the system:
Then select your time zone in the field below:
Step 29. Localization
To localize the system, it is not enough just to select a language; you also need to install a package with translations through a package manager, so launch Puppy Package Manager from the menu.
In the list of repositories, go to puppy-noarch, then search for langpack. When the packages are found, select the langpack_ru package and double-click on it, then click Do It in the top corner to begin installation:
After the installation is complete, all that remains is to reboot the system. Then everything will be in Russian.
conclusions
That's all, now you know how to install puppy linux on your hard drive and are a little familiar with the features of this distribution. As you can see, this is not an ordinary Linux distribution; it can be launched either in normal mode or using a LiveCD, and in both cases you get a full-fledged operating system. If you have any questions, ask in the comments!
Video with the puppy linux installation process:
Puppy Linux is a small, fast and functional Linux distribution. The distribution size is only about 300MB. Contains a large set of installed programs and has a full-fledged graphical interface. It can run from LiveCD and work entirely from RAM. Not demanding on computer resources.
LiveCD entirely from RAM
Puppy Linux can be run from a LiveCD or a USB flash drive, but unlike regular LiveCD distributions, Puppy Linux is loaded entirely into RAM, and you can remove the disk from the drive and use the drive.
The LiveCD image of the system is located entirely in RAM and applications open at lightning speed, since the access speed of RAM is much higher than that of a hard drive or CD.
Puppy Linux can be used on computers without internal permanent memory; the distribution will run in RAM. Another important feature of the LiveCD of this distribution is that it can save data to CD-RW/DVD-RW discs; when turned off, the system itself will prompt you to select a location to save the data (CD, USB, hard drive or any other available media).
An important feature of the distribution is that all data is saved in one file called pup_save.3fs. Even the apps you install end up in this file.
The basis
The Puppy Linux distribution is not based on any other distribution. The developers created the distribution from scratch, file by file - from scratch, based on the Linux kernel, of course.
Installation
Puppy Linux can be installed on a USB drive and run the system from it. All data will be saved to USB and you can always have a LiveUSB flash drive with your system and data with you.
Graphical environment JWM
By default, Puppy uses the JWM (Joe's Windows Manager) graphical environment, and Fvwm95 is also supported. There are enthusiasts who have provided support for IceWM, Xfce, but they do not come with an official build. The JWM theme resembles the Windows 95 interface.
For whom
The Puppy Linux distribution is suitable for beginners. The developers are trying to make it as friendly as possible. The distribution is supplied with a large amount of documentation. There are several active Puppy forums online.
On the official website www.puppylinux.com you can find a lot of useful information and documentation, including installation instructions.
There is a PuppyRus project - a version of Puppy Linux with Russian language support: http://uco.puppyrus.org
Creator and origin of the name Puppy Linux
The creator of the Puppy Linux distribution is Barry Kauler, a pensioner born in 1950. He now lives in Western Australia. Barry named the distribution after his Chihuahua puppy, who is now the Puppy Linux mascot. Unfortunately, Barry Cowler writes that one day the puppy ran away and never returned. Photo of Barry's house and himself on the right wearing a hat: 