Puppy Linux is yet another Linux distribution. It is completely free and open source software. What"s different here is that Puppy is extraordinarily small, yet quite full-featured. Puppy boots into a ramdisk and, unlike live CD distributions that have to keep pulling stuff off the CD, it loads into RAM. This means that all applications start in the blink of an eye and respond to user input instantly. Puppy Linux is a full-fledged operating system bundled with application suites covering a wide variety of tasks which can be used productively by general users. However, because Puppy is small-sized and can boot from many media, it is also useful as a rescue disk, a demonstration system, or for reviving old computers. Puppy Linux enables you to save money while doing more work, even allowing you to do magic by recovering data from destroyed PCs or by removing malware from Windows.
How is Puppy Different:
- Small size, ~100MB! This lends itself to some very useful and unique features.
- Live booting from CDs, DVDs, USB flash drives, and other portable media.
- Runs from RAM, making it unusually fast even in old PCs and in netbooks with solid state storage media.
- Very low minimum system requirements.
- Boot time is well under a minute, 30-40 seconds in most systems.
- Includes a wide range of applications: word-processor, spreadsheet, internet browsers, games, image editors and many utilities. There is a GUI Puppy Software Installer included.
- Puppy is easy to use and little technical knowledge is assumed. Most hardware is automatically detected.
Puppy’s goals:
- Puppy will easily install to USB, Zip, hard drive or other storage media.
- Booting from CD (or DVD), Puppy can load itself totally into RAM so that the CD (DVD) drive is then free for other purposes.
- Booting from DVD (or CD), Puppy can save all work to the DVD (CD).
- Booting from USB flash drive (or other flash media), Puppy will minimize writes to extend its life.
- Puppy will be extremely friendly for Linux newbies.
- Puppy will boot up and run extraordinarily fast.
- Puppy will have all the applications needed for daily use.
- Puppy will just work, no hassles.
- Puppy will breathe new life into old PCs.
- Puppy will load and run totally in RAM for diskless thin stations.
Download: Puppy Linux 5.3.3 | 115 MB (Open Source)
View: Puppy Linux Website | Release Notes