Who's a Good Boy? A Puppy Linux Mini-Review

[Vox_Leone]

I bow my head to the eternal Puppy Linux.

Not that I want to see the end of Microsoft like many do. In fact, I don't care. But it could be in real trouble if the masses suddenly became aware of simple, easy, and efficient software like Puppy -- which makes people's dependence on MS even more inexplicable.

[sam345]

The thing is, not everyone is an engineer so to normies it's not simple. easy or efficient. There's a reason why people like windows.

[ukuina]

Can we take a moment to reminisce about the DSL and Knoppix era of running immutable Linux distros off of business card-shaped CDs?

[plasticchris]

I burned several Linux boot cds with some games on them and took over an unused computer lab at the community college for a lan party. It lasted until someone came around asking why these computers were running when their system showed them as off. Fortunately they laughed it off when they realized we were just kids.

[bbbhltz]

I do remember Knoppix. In particular, being able to recover my very important data (ok, fine, it was pirated music) from a computer that wouldn't boot anymore.

[doubled112]

Good times!

I fondly remember learning that I could run Linux off of a floppy disk. A GUI session took two. You had to format the disks to hold slightly more data. tomsrtbt maybe?

Getting my first CD burner and having access to a whole CD worth of data at once was such a jump forward, even if half of them became coasters.

[thekevan]

One thing not mentioned, although it is sort of implied if you are already familiar, is the ability to run Puppy's latest on absolutely ancient hardware.

>General hardware minimum system requirements are:

* CPU Type = x86, x86_64, AMD64

* 32bit Puppy's - CPU = single core Pentium 4 or equiv, RAM = 512mb

* 64bit Puppy's - CPU = 64 bit dual core, RAM = 1gb

[shiroiushi]

No one should be running a Pentium 4 these days unless they get electricity for free somehow. What a horrible CPU design.

[koe123]

Puppy linux was my first linux install back when I was around 13 years old, and I remember it fondly. I recall I even found it easier to get up and running than ubuntu. (Which is somewhat puzzling in hindsight?)

[Retr0id]

It was my first linux too, also at 13. I still have the boot CD I burned, framed on my wall.

[stodor89]

In my experience Ubuntu is one of the harder distros to get working when it doesn't work ootb.

[wilsonnb3]

if you like puppy, check out easyOS too - sort of a successor from the original creator of puppy linux.

https://easyos.org/about/how-and-why-easyos-is-different.htm...

[discardedrefuse]

And old version of Bionic Puppy I had lying around on a USB saved my butt on Friday when the Azure admin nuked my computer out of existence for not having a serial number.

[ajot]

Last time I heard of someone using Puppy Linux was this guy creating a Cursed™ NAS that works entirely on RAM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTSuSAn0o7c

[nick__m]

Puppy Linux made me think of the first distribution I used on a 486dx4-100: Peanut Linux !