Desktop Linux (Puppy Linux 5.0): Reviewed

It’s time for a review of Puppy Linux 5.0!

Puppy Linux, in case you aren’t already familiar with it, is a lightweight version of Linux that is designed for portability.

The .iso file of Puppy Linux 5.0 weighs in at an incredibly petite 128 MB. It’s much, much smaller than all of the usual desktop heavyweight distros. But don’t let its small size fool you, Puppy Linux 5.0 is anything but an also-ran in terms of functionality and usability.

Puppy Linux 5.0 is built from Ubuntu Linux 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) binaries, so it’s…er…pet name is Lucid Puppy. Like a lot of other things about Puppy Linux, the name is cute and adorable. I felt like giving Puppy Linux a dog bone and a pat on the head when I started using it.

What’s New In This Release
Quickpet is a great addition to Puppy Linux that lets you easily add more programs and drivers with one click. You can access Quickpet by clicking on the icon on the desktop.

The Quickpet menu is broken down into the following categories of applications (pets):

Popular Pets
GIMP
Pwidgets
Audacity
Songbird
Wine
Clan Bomber

Internet Pets
Firefox
Seamonkey
Chromium
Opera
Thunderbird
Kompozer

Useful Pets
Lxmusic Versatile Music Player
Dia Diagram Editor
Cinelerra Video Editing
JRE Java Runtime Environment
Foxit Reader
Inkscape

Drivers
Radeon HD
Nvidia 195

Update
Lucid Puppy Update

Before you try to use Quickpet, be sure that your network connection is configured. I forgot about that and got an error message when I tried to download Opera. To configure your network, just click the blue Connect icon on your desktop.

Puppy Linux 5.0 also now boots right to the desktop (don’t worry you can personalize your desktop, see that section of the review for more information).

And you get to choose your default browser as well. Firefox, Sea Monkey, Chromium and Opera are all available. What you choose to use is entirely up to you. You can also opt to simply use PuppyBrowser, which is a version of Firefox.

Use Quickpet to install applications with one click.

When you click to install a pet, it will download onto your system automatically.

Hardware Requirements & Installation

Hardware Requirements
I could not track down the exact hardware requirements for Puppy Linux 5.0. There don’t seem to be any in the release notes or on the Puppy Linux site. It’s possible that I missed them. I apologize if I did. If you have the requirements, please feel free to post them in the comments.

Suffice to say that Puppy Linux is a lightweight distribution so it’s perfect for older hardware or less powerful contemporary hardware.

Installation 
You can install Puppy Linux in a number of different ways. Given its size, it’s obviously a prime candidate to be installed to USB key chains and other portable, bootable devices. Alas, my USB key chain is still missing in action. I know it’s around here somewhere but I’ll be damned if I know exactly where it went. Someday I’ll find it or I’ll get another one. But for this review I just opted to run Lucid Puppy in a VMWare virtual machine.

Booting & Login

Bootsplash
The bootsplash screen is unmistakably Puppy Linux. It looks like no other distro. Hit the F2 key for a list of boot options. You can hit Enter to boot right away or simply wait five seconds for Puppy Linux 5.0 to boot automatically.

You have to hand it to the Puppy Linux developers. The logo is adorable and adds a lot of humor and personality to this distribution.

You can't mistake Puppy Linux 5 for any other distro when you see the bootsplash screen

Login Screen
There was no need for me to login to use Puppy Linux 5.0. I just booted right into the desktop from the bootsplash screen.

Helpful information about Puppy Linux 5 that appeared after logging in.

The Desktop
When you first boot into the desktop, you’ll see the First Run Configuration menu. This lets you adjust your Locale, Time zone, Date and Time, Keyboard and Video Resolution, and Network Setup.

The panel contains a Menu button, along with icons for viewing the desktop, free space and launching a browser. You can also access multiple desktops, and volume controls.

Click the Menu button to access application categories, system settings, etc. See the software section to see more about the software that comes with Puppy Linux 5.0.

Desktop Icons
The Puppy Linux 5.0 desktop is definitely not an uncluttered one. There are a lot of icons on it. But if you look closely, you will notice that they are laid out in a particularly arrangement.

At the top of the desktop you have the following icons:

File
Help
Mount
Install
Setup
Edit
Console

Under that you have:

Write
Calc
Paint
Draw

Then you have:

Browse
Email
Chat

Then:

Plan
Play
Etc.

The desktop icons are basically grouped in functionality categories. This helps prevent the Puppy Linux 5.0 desktop from collapsing into a total mess of icons. But those who are used to booting into an icon-free desktop might be taken aback momentarily when they first view see Puppy Linux 5.0. Don’t let all the icons rattle you; it’s very easy to make sense of them once you take a closer look.

The Puppy Linux 5 desktop is filled with useful icons and colorful wallpaper.

Wallpaper
I love the Puppy Linux 5.0 wallpaper. It’s very cute and has the name “Lucid Puppy” on it. The wallpaper fits in well with the desktop icons and isn’t too over the top.

If you find that you dislike the wallpaper, themes, etc. just right-click your desktop and choose Desktop then Desktop Settings. You can make all the changes you want from the Desktop Settings controls.

Sound and Multimedia

YouTube & Flash
Flash comes with Puppy Linux 5.0. So I was able to watch YouTube videos without having to install it. Sound worked fine and my YouTube videos looked good.

Problems & Headaches
For the most part, I had a good experience with Puppy Linux 5.0.

However, I did have two lockups while playing YouTube videos. I was forced to restart Puppy Linux 5. I’m not sure what the problem was but FYI for those who want to use YouTube via Puppy Linux 5.0.

Another thing I didn’t like about Puppy was that it doesn’t auto-detect and configure Internet connections. I guess I’ve gotten so used to this in desktop distros that I find it annoying when a mini-distro like Puppy doesn’t do the same thing. I’m probably nitpicking or just being lazy here though.

YouTube videos played but Puppy Linux 5 crashed twice while playing them.

Where To Get Help
You can always post a note in the Desktop Linux Reviews Forum and we’ll do our best to offer feedback or at least point you in the right direction. You might also want to check out the Puppy Linux forums, install instructions, and the Puppy Linux technical and developer page.

Final Thoughts & Who Should Use It
Puppy Linux 5.0 was a real treat for me to review. I love this distro’s personality and humor. Everything from the lingo, to the logo, to the wallpaper radiates fun. You can’t help but smile when the Puppy Linux desktop pops up.

Puppy Linux 5.0 is perfect for intermediate and advanced Linux users. However, I worry about recommending Puppy Linux 5.0 to beginners. The network configuration might throw some Linux newbies off and the application menus in Puppy teem with applications. It might be overwhelming to someone who is new to Linux. But if you’re an adventuresome Linux newbie, feel free to give Puppy Linux 5.0 a shot.

Puppy Linux 5.0 is well worth a download, and it deserves a chance to become your preferred portable distro. Check it out.

What’s your take on this distro? Tell me in the comments below. Visit the DLR forumfor more discussions. Visit JimLynch.com for opinion columns.

Summary Table:

Product:	Puppy Linux 5.0
Web Site:	http://www.puppylinux.com/
Price:	Free
Pros:	Quickpet makes it easy to add applications, drivers and updates with one-click. Boots right to the desktop. Good selection of bundled software. Tiny file download size.
Cons:	YouTube videos seemed to lock up Puppy Linux 5.0 twice. Internet connection requires some configuration.
Suitable For:	Intermediate and advanced Linux users. Adventuresome beginners might also want to play with it and see if it’s right for them.
Summary:	Puppy Linux 5.0 is a terrific lightweight, portable distro. It’s well worth putting on a USB key chain or other portable device. Puppy Linux 5.0 is tiny but it packs a powerful bite.

Lubuntu and Puppy Linux : mini-distro

Early in 2009, Mark 'Space' Shuttleworth gave the nod to an Ubuntu project that would create a lightweight variant of the world's favourite distro. Based around LXDE, Lubuntu was on its way. And it still is. Well, getting a new distro sorted out takes more than a few months, so we shouldn't be too harsh.

It's also worth noting that at the time of writing, the current release was still an alpha version, so we're giving it extra latitude.

As with most of the other distributions here, the install media runs as a live CD first, which is a useful way to check that the system is going to work with your hardware before you go to the trouble of installing it. If you imagine that Lubuntu is going to look anything like Ubuntu, that idea will be destroyed the minute the desktop loads.

Lubuntu has more in common with the other LXDE distributions, with the LXPanel running at the bottom of the screen and a more KDE 3.x look to things rather than Gnome. The chosen apps aren't quite the usual – Firefox, AbiWord and Gnumeric are among those included, which seems to suggest that not everything in this distro is going to be pared to the bone.

Of course, the main selling point of this distro is that it will have access to the Ubuntu repositories for easy upgrades and plenty of extra packages to install if you need them.

We did have a couple of problems installing this to disk, so the figures in the table on page 35 that compare memory usage and disk space aren't that reliable. However, since this is still an alpha release, you couldn't really rely on them anyway.

Lubuntu is definitely one to watch for the future. With the backing of Canonical, it'll have the developer resources to make the other lite distro projects rather jealous.

Verdict: Lubuntu 
Version: Lucid Alpha 2 
Website: http://lubuntu.net 

Puppy Linux: is that a puppy in your pocket?

This sounds as though it ought to be based on Yellow Dog, but in fact, Puppy is a built-from-the-base-up independent distribution from down under. This is a middleweight offering – not as stripped back as some of the distros, but not bloated out to a full CD either.

Memory usage is low to average and a recent kernel gives a good chance of hardware support, although it'll run on i386 hardware. It runs direct from RAM on the initial boot and reveals a packed desktop with some thoughtfully selected apps scattered about.

There are loads of helpful scripts to guide you through things such as setting up display preferences and installing to disk, but you still need to perform some stages manually. As is so often the case, less bloat means less complete and helpful apps that do everything for you, so you will need to put a little bit of effort in.

Puppy manages to pack a lot of programs in to a small space. For graphics, there's a lite version of Inkscape, a few camera tools, MTPaint and Gxine. Browsing and mail is taken care of by a full version of SeaMonkey rather than separate apps, while Gnumeric and AbiWord should suffice for most office purposes.

Packages available for additional install include IceWM and Openbox if you don't like the default window manager, plus a selection of other tools. Of course, the distribution also has GCC, so you can build your own software – which may be necessary since the repositories only hold a few dozen extra apps.

While it may be restrictive in the number of programs available, there's still a lot to recommend Puppy – it runs like a solid, modern distro but in a fraction of the space. However, if you have specific application needs, it may be easier to look elsewhere.

Verdict: Puppy Linux 
Version: 4.3.1 
Website: www.puppylinux.org