Why Do You Use Puppy Linux?

[jm03]

Hi everyone,

I've been using Puppy Linux for one day now, and some things have struck me about it...

Puppy Linux is nowhere near as polished off as a distribution such as Ubuntu.

With Ubuntu I can get things done quickly and easily.

But, with Puppy, doing the same tasks requires lots more work and more research to find out how to do those tasks.

I'm finding Puppy Linux to be quite a hassle to use, and the only reason I'm using it is because I have two old laptops that aren't powerful enough to run ubuntu (I was running ubuntu, but it was too slow) and I want to make use of them some how, even if just as a backup computer.

So, I'm really eager to understand: why do each of you choose to use Puppy Linux?

...especially when there's far more capable and polished off Linux distributions out there.

Kind Regards,

John

[01101001b]

Hi @John!

With Ubuntu I can get things done quickly and easily.
But, with Puppy, doing the same tasks requires lots more work and more research to find out how to do those tasks.

I know exactly what you mean. But it's not a Puppy related "problem". The underlying "problem" (so to speak) here is this: you're used to Ubuntu.

why do each of you choose to use Puppy Linux?
...especially when there's far more capable and polished off Linux distributions out there.

Puppy "makes" perfect sense to me. Honestly, I can do everything I need in Puppy. And I'd face your exact problem if I had to work in Ubuntu, Slackware, Arch, Void or FreeBSD (just to mention a few). All of them great products. But they're not for me.

Popular opinion is those distros are "far more capable and polished off" but truth is, they're not. They just have another target. They're not better, they're just different. Because people is "different". And that's why I use Linux, because Linux is choice. And Puppy is Linux in its "purest" form when it comes to "choice".

But truth be told: I have had my "share of losing" when using Ubuntu-derivatives Puppies (only exception being LxPupXenial). That's why I moved to Debian-derivatives Puppies: Dpup Stretch 32 first and DpupBuster64 now. Both of them are rock solid.

You don't mention what "Puppy" you are using. But yes, Puppy IS different but not unique. DebianDog, FatDog and to a very lesser degree, Porteus, share more or less common ground with Puppy. Maybe some of them "feel" more suitable for you. For starters, DebianDog and Porteus (if I'm not mistaken) update/upgrade via apt or apt-get. That's maybe something you may find more familiar. Give them a spin!

Good luck finding what you seek for!

[taersh]

I'm using Puppy Linux because to me it's the best operating system I've ever used.
Coming from windows testing some other Linux systems like Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint etc.pp.
I don't need all that polished stuff which is mostly unnecessary resource hungry.

None of them would let me do what I could do and achieve in Puppy Linux.
I have my own Woof-CE built of Bionic64 and it's pretty well setup as an Audio, Graphics and Video Studio
besides all the stuff like Office and Internet etc.pp.
Running it completely without a save file and/or save folder, though I can manipulate everything and choose what settings are stored persistent.

As long as there's Puppy Linux and it will run on my computers, I never want to use another operating system anymore.

[bigpup]

Like any Linux OS you need to learn how to do things in it.
Puppy does things the Puppy way.
Very much a hands on, you decide what to do and when.
Puppy has a lot of simple small programs, that do a very specific thing, with not a lot of flashy eye candy dazzle.

A lot of programs in Puppy can be adjusted on how they work.

The look of Puppy can be adjusted.
Look for stuff under menu->Desktop that controls how Puppy looks and some operation adjustments.

Puppy installs with a basic setup.
It is up to you to make changes you want to make.

We are Puppy!
Resistance is futile!

[ozsouth]

I can do all I want with ScPup64-20.06. I made tweaks to suit me. Having tried many others, personally I see big distros as 'Pretend Win' - corralling the user into fairly fixed ways of doing things, with endless updates which break my settings (sound familiar?). If I wanted that I would either use WIN or buy a MAC.
Having said that, if one likes big distros, best wishes - enjoy!

[lizardidi]

Why i use puppy as my main os (around 3 years currently):
1. I can boot my personal puppy os on any desktop/laptop in my office whenever i need to.
2. All my files/work always with me (in the pendrive ya know)
3. Very forgiving (i can test all sort of packages, tweaks, just reboot and my puppy is brand new again)
4. The .sfs system used by puppy is too good. I made and keep the sfs packages, and load it when i need it. The sfs file can be use or transfer to other puppy easily.
5. Easy to backup. (All u need is few clicks to backup ur savefile)
6. Extremely easy to modify to suit your need.
7. All my work can be done via puppy (office editing, photo/video editing, web browsing, movie... etc, no matter on new or old hardware, just plug in my puppy pendrive, and i got my familiar system for own use)

I can still list many more. Once you know how to use, you will like it.

[Jafadmin]

If you wish to have a distro that automates everything for you and has all the bells and whistles, stick to a "full" distro such as the Debian derivatives. These features come at a huge diskspace penalty, though.

The analogy I use is that the "full" distros are an assembly line, Puppy is a machine shop. Puppy adheres better to the original Unix concept of "toolchains" (Using scripts to "chain" together programs, utilities, and I/O devices to achieve a desired end-result.)

I primarily use Devuan, Mint, and Puppy for desktop. RH for servers. Puppy is my linux swiss army knife.

[DixieDog]

SLACKO on a thumb drive, very useful tool for fixing larger systems, fixing thumb drives,, formatting drives,,,
Then I tried TAHR PUP. Full install,,, was OK but I lost interest.
Then Bionic Puppy came along, I still go back to Slacko for repairs.
But Bionic has hit my wants 4 out of 6.
And the remaining two may happen yet.
Puppy is part of my life and will always be.

[DixieDog]

If you wish to have a distro that automates everything for you and has all the bells and whistles, stick to a "full" distro such as the Debian derivatives. These features come at a huge diskspace penalty, though.

The analogy I use is that the "full" distros are an assembly line, Puppy is a machine shop. Puppy adheres better to the original Unix concept of "toolchains" (Using scripts to "chain" together programs, utilities, and I/O devices to achieve a desired end-result.)

I primarily use Devuan, Mint, and Puppy for desktop. RH for servers. Puppy is my linux swiss army knife.

A machine shop,,,,I like that,,, heard it called Swiss army knife ,,, I just call it my tool

[cobaka]

@jm03
G'day John:

I use Linux because the OS is "socialist" in concept. When we form a team of 'equals' and work that way our society runs smoothly. When we run a competitive society the cost is enormous. Take my country - Australia - as an example. Let me underestimate the population at 20 million, ok? Now you do the maths. Compare the cost of providing a Windows-based OS for 'the population' with the cost of a comparable Linux-based system . Take into account that I am typing this on a 2006 vintage Pentium P4-m. Take into account that nothing later than Windows XP will run on this laptop and XP will run much slower than 'da Puppy'. Now multiply that cost by 5 or 10 million. Are you following? Good Do you like that argument? I do. Think of the money we wasted buying 6 editions of DOS and (after that) Windows 3, 95, Millenium, XP 7, 10 .... Then think of Barry K, working at home, creating Puppy Linux 'for free'. Do you like that argument? I do.

I use 'da Puppy' because I can install it on older hardware. The installation process is .... well .... fairly simple. A good deal simpler than re-installing Windows. I learned to partition a drive using gParted. I learned how to install a bootloader.

Windows is brilliant in design, if brilliance is gauged by 'being all things to all people'. It is the operating system with the lowest common denominator for a non-graduate IT user. Windows understands that when I type with the shift lock on I didn't mean to do that. Linux just thinks I'm stupid and issues an error message. On the other hand I can easily do things (in Puppy Linux) I can't do easily in Windows. Example: Partition a drive and install the OS on that thumb drive. Boot an older laptop from a CD I burnt myself. Copy the OS again and again and again until I'm fairly confident I won't lose all copies of 'my' OS.

Windows is brilliant in design if your measure of brilliance is the 'office' suite of software. Very cool. Very functional.

The Puppy Linux shell has cost me a great deal of effort to understand and I'm only about 1/4 of the way there at the moment. Here, Puppy is not different from the 'polished' commercial versions of Linux, and I remember our topic is Puppy vs 'polished' Linux. I might use Windows Powershell but then I would need a 'big' machine when I can use what I have on hand. Ditto for Linux Mint or Ubuntu. (And I might say I do have bigger machines lying around. Example: 64bit laptop with uPupBB64 loaded. Example #2: A modest I5 core 'thingy'. But they don't 'awk' or 'grep' better than my humble Dell. But .. even with my modest knowledge of shell scripting I can complete a task in one or two hours that might take me one or two days in Windows. (And no ... I'm not kidding or exaggerating.) But! It took time to learn how to do this and I got valuable help here - on this forum.

I'm not a socialist in everything - just in those things where a co-operative society works best. Like Puppy Linux. And for our American friends I remind you that the second amendment is more about 'a well ordered militia' than an individual running around with a deadly weapon. A well-ordered militia is a socialist concept. Puppy Linux (and free-software) is a socialist concept.

cobaka

[cobaka]

Consider a virus. (Not Covid-19, stupid - I mean a real virus that will infect your computer and bring it to its knees!!)

Never had a virus running Puppy Linux.
Can't get a virus booting from a CD. At least not in the OS part of the OS.
Don't run anti-virus software; in Windows, the a-v almost brought my computer to its knees.
Maybe a virus is not a big problem with 'out of the box' Linuxes.
A virus is a real and present danger with Windows.

cobaka

[bigpup]

Why do I use Puppy Linux
.

linux%20format.JPG (117.44 KiB) Viewed 1701 times

[Jafadmin]

And for our American friends I remind you that the second amendment is more about 'a well ordered militia' than an individual running around with a deadly weapon. A well-ordered militia is a socialist concept. Puppy Linux (and free-software) is a socialist concept.

cobaka

Amendment 42:
A balanced diet being essential to healthy families, the right of the
people to grow and cook vegetables shall not be infringed.

In your humble, socialist, opinion, does the 42nd Amendment (above) guarantee the people's right to a "balanced diet", or their right to grow and cook vegetables?

[cobaka]

@Jafadmin

Well ... this thread began with topic that a lot of people might be interest in and I cunningly and with malice worthy of a better cause managed to sneak in a few points "on the side". I don't wish to disrupt this rather interesting thread, so I moved your post into 'truly off-topic' where I'll have a go at showing I'm not socialist or capitalist. I'm just a country boy whose intentions are good,

cobaka

[jm03]

Hi everyone,

Wow! Lots of responses.

Thanks for your responses.

To those who asked: I am running Puppy "Tahr", which I believe is based on Ubuntu.

Many of you make some great points.

I forgot who said it, but it makes sense that I would have to get used to using Puppy Linux and doing things the Puppy Linux way.

But, I think that this argument is only partially valid, because the more polished off distros make it easier to do many things, which I have not found a way to do in Puppy yet.

For instance, I've been trying to get NFS working, with no luck as yet. I tried using my Linux script from my Ubuntu box, which mounts 3 different NFS shares that reside on my Microserver. On Ubuntu it was as simple as installing "nfs-common" package via "apt-get", and then the script would successfully mount the NFS partitions.

I don't know how to do this on Puppy. I've tried following some instructions I've found online (using the mount-FULL command), with no luck.

It's really great to hear that many of you can get all your work done on Puppy and are not missing anything from the other distros.

I must say, that when trying out different Linux distributions to install on my old ThinkPad laptop and Samsung Netbook, I would have tried about 10 to 12 different distributions, including Porteus, Damn Small Linux, Puppy Bionic, Puppy Slacko64, Puppy Xenial, Slax, Zorin OS, Peppermint Linux, etc....and, what I wanted to point out, is that I saw something in Puppy Linux that I thought was great. I'm not sure what exactly it is...but one of the things that I thought was great is that it runs really well on the older hardware.

I'm going to stick with Puppy, especially because there is a great support community on this forum, so I can seek out help from you guys anytime I get stuck doing something in Puppy.

To be honest, I feel very drawn to using my old ThinkPad laptop now that it's running Puppy. Right now I am typing this response on my ThinkPad rather than on my brand new Core i7 Lenovo Legion laptop.

[cobaka]

Hello @jm03

Look here for useful info about your variant of Puppy Linux. Applications > System > PupSysInfo.
Then use the pull-down menu. You can see, for example: Sys Specs:
Version number of this distribution: • DISTRO_VERSION=19.03
The distro whose binary packages were used to build this distribution: • DISTRO_BINARY_COMPAT='ubuntu'

or

Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.40GHz
Min/Max Speed: 600/1400 MHz
Current Speed of Core 0:1400 MHz
Core Count: 1

Good stuff! Lots more! Check it out.

cobaka

[jm03]

Hi cobaka,

I checked out your suggestion.

There is so much info in the PupSysInfo tool!

Thanks for the suggestion.

Kind Regards,

John
Melbourne

[taersh]

Hi.

Re: nfs-common.

Puppy has the Puppy Package Manager ---> PPM

The nfs-common package seems to be available for Bionic64, don't know about Tahr, but check the PPM.

Screenshot.jpg (25.64 KiB) Viewed 1657 times

When I'm activating the check-box for Tahr64 the nfs-common package also seems to be available.

Screenshot(1).jpg (21.9 KiB) Viewed 1656 times

[foxpup]

to enjoy the simple and the easy and the fast and the plenty
to learn a little
to do what I want
to be the boss of my machine
to be boss of any machine
to play a little
to mess up a little
to mess up big without harm
to begin all over anew with no fuss
...

We are Puppy!
Resistance is futile!

[cobaka]

Hello @foxpup

I think your answer is the best so far!
We humans get joy from creativity and discovery (as your answer suggests) but when when we crash The Puppy OS (I mean big-time) we just re-install, smile and continue. This is one of the great features of Puppy. Can't do that with any other OS.

Great answer!

Cobaka

[oui]

Running it completely without a save file and/or save folder, though I can manipulate everything and choose what settings are stored persistent.

This is the optimal method of course but not possible with other real Puppy's (but well with divers Quirky's / Racy's a good alternative to Puppy itself for this reason, a major reason !)

I have my own Woof-CE built of Bionic64 and it's pretty well setup as an Audio, Graphics and Video Studio
besides all the stuff like Office and Internet etc.pp.

is your build downloadable in the internet? link?

[mikewalsh]

I use Puppy 'cos it's great!

It's a great concept.
It has a great 'dev' team.
It's got a great community, with great support & help.

And the greatest thing about it is, you're positively encouraged to contribute back to that community, in whatever way you feel able to. There's absolutely no pressure, but it's always appreciated if you do.

And the ginormous range of software available for our favourite canine ain't half bad, either!




Mike.

[jm03]

Hi.

Re: nfs-common.

Puppy has the Puppy Package Manager ---> PPM

The nfs-common package seems to be available for Bionic64, don't know about Tahr, but check the PPM.


Screenshot.jpg


When I'm activating the check-box for Tahr64 the nfs-common package also seems to be available.


Screenshot(1).jpg

Hi taersh,

I have tried downloading nfs-common from the package manager, but it does not make any difference.

I still cannot mount my NFS shares.

This is the error I'm getting now:

mount.nfs: rpc.statd is not running but is required for remote locking.
mount.nfs: Either use '-o nolock' to keep locks local, or start statd.

I've tried the -o nolock but that doesn't make any difference.

Kind Regards,

John
Melbourne, Australia

[oui]

there are VERY DIFFERENT kind of nfs partitions depending of the Windows release having created it! so no definitive and in all cases successful solution possible...

it works on the one PC and not on the other else if they are same PC's with exactly the same security settings (don't forget this detail!)

[Moose On The Loose]

[.....]
So, I'm really eager to understand: why do each of you choose to use Puppy Linux?

This is going to be long so get some coffee:

I went with SuSE Linux waaaaaaaay back in time.
It was great and I figured that would be what I stayed with from then on. This came the "improved" desktop thing called "plasma" IIRC
Suddenly it was slow and hard to use and totally non-obvious.
I discovered that the folks involved were not very eager to solve my problem.

I tried out Puppy 4.10
It was fast and worked great.
I figured I should move over to it.
Back on SuSE I had started to learn how to hack up my own software so I worked on porting my knowledge over. I quickly found it was easy enough for me to do.

Right about here I made a Puppy for something I do at work.
Basically the "computer" becomes just a tool for a specific task. It pops up a little menu and lets the user click on that to do "the thing". When they are done, they shut it down for next time.

Next came Puppy 4.20 which fixed a few things and was basically "the same enough" that there was no trouble switching.

Somewhere in here, I got a EEEPC.
I found I could make it boot from puppy and look just like my main computer. This was great because I could take that when I traveled and do all the things like editing a picture. I could make 2 computers look alike so the travel one would be very easy for me to use.

Next came Puppy 5 and 5.28. Almost all the things I wanted to do worked almost perfectly.
After a bit of fiddling I got 5.28 working very well for me. It also works on the travel machine.
My custom box thing also ported with no effort at all.

Next came a new thing that was work related.
I wanted to make a Linux that allowed all sorts of old software to run and old things to be supported. The idea was that I could hand someone a CD or memory stick and a one page set of instructions and all the orphaned things would be available to them. This worked very well under 528. I got the old DOS stuff running perfectly well under DOSEMU. That problem was thus solved by Puppy 528. You could get a machine with the Win10 junk on it, install VirtualBox, run the Linux under that and then start DOSEMU within the virtual machine and use a DOS program if you wanted. The speed was good when doing this.

At this point is where I needed to solve the "flaky at best" network issues for SAMBA. After a fair amount of work on this, I figured out how to get a SAMBA to work well enough on a network with other machines that are being evil and some switches and routers that I am sure should have been fed into the dumpster long ago.

Next came "electropup" which started as making a distro for a friend to solve a specific problem for him. I took some of the stuff from the work related one and made sure to remove all proprietary things. This is still 528 at its heart. It has a great deal of stuff from me. It needs 2 CDs. I made it simple and easy to use. It is also good on a smaller display. This too works well under VirtualBox

I am looking to migrate to a newer puppy but so far each has seemed to have too many things that I would have to change. With some work, I think I can make ScPup-32 work on my travel machine and do what I need done. At the moment this looks to be the shortest path to a newer version. I am putting off doing a huge amount on this because there really is no need to move.

[user1111]

I have my own Woof-CE built of Bionic64 and it's pretty well setup as an Audio, Graphics and Video Studio
besides all the stuff like Office and Internet etc.pp.
Running it completely without a save file and/or save folder, though I can manipulate everything and choose what settings are stored persistent.

This is the optimal method of course but not possible with other real Puppy's (but well with divers Quirky's / Racy's a good alternative to Puppy itself for this reason, a major reason !)

I've used Barry's WoofQ to yield a 4.19 kernel version of EasyPup

https://easyos.org/forum/showthread.php ... 831#pid831

So far its working beautifully and I like having the option to do personal customisation/fixing in a local woofQ.

The iso link for EasyPup 2.3.3 is dead in the above link. Instead you can get is via https://bkhome.org/news/202007/easypup- ... eased.html

[cobaka]

@Moose On The Loose

(1)

This is going to be long so get some coffee:

or a cup of tea ...

(2)

I discovered that the folks [fr. SUSE] were not very eager to solve my problem. ....

(3)

Right about here I made a Puppy for something I do at work.

(4)

Next came Puppy 4.20 which fixed a few things and was basically "the same enough" that there was no trouble switching.

(5)

Next came a new thing that was work related. I wanted to make a Linux that allowed all sorts of old software to run and old things to be supported.

Ok, ok ... I see a picture emerging. But I'm not sure whether you are "buying" an OS that is small and portable or the info that allows you to configure an OS that is small and portable. One thing is clear. You don't like throwing away the past every time a new OS (or an upgrade) appears on the horizon. You are more interested in continuity between versions than having the latest OS. I'm wid ya bro on that one.

All in all - a great description of something you do with this Linux that you can't do with others. So - you're buying configurability, portability and info about what's under the hood.

Cobaka

[puddlemoon]

to enjoy the simple and the easy and the fast and the plenty
to learn a little
to do what I want
to be the boss of my machine
to be boss of any machine
to play a little
to mess up a little
to mess up big without harm
to begin all over anew with no fuss
...

We are Puppy!
Resistance is futile!

This^^
and @cobaka I really hear the deeper "philisophical" motivation. For me it is at least half of the reason I use puppy. It IS a revolution (or an aspect of).
I found puppy as a way to make old hardware wok well. Impressive enough for sure when xp offers such a bleak outlook. But when I found that the old gear running puppy was faster and more "free" than (almost) any new gear/os combo.... the deal was sealed. puppy on new gear is like a ninja.
And now, some years on I still shrug at the bloat and over regulation of the mainline os's while puppy just gets more and more "polished". I still use buntu and arch at times but not for long.

bottom line... puppy is empowerment!! (and a cyberninja) (and a brilliant and generous community that I am honored to be part of)

[oui]

All in all - a great description of something you do with this Linux that you can't do with others. So - you're buying configurability, portability and info about what's under the hood.
Cobaka

in that official Puppy forum probably else it is not needing: Puppy is a «self described configuration» about always the same since Puppy 0.20 (2003! I have my old CD with Puppy 0.27 I did use very long time. divers little differences but the actual mixture was, with less power, about the same as today). Different other distros did copy the mixture of Puppy with JWM, very soon the old mozilla suite, now seamonkey, didiwiki, mhwaveedit, mTpaint, a long time along skype, etc. rox came a bit later but is a friend without no Puppy can be possible (then, it is not a Puppy!). This mixture did grow constantly in choice and performances

thank you dear Barry Kauler for this perfection in the detail.

this environment is self describable as all main icons are on the desktop: also newbies can so start one second after the new desktop is appearing on the screen

and is always the (about) the same. the machine under the hood is not important (as far working well ): slackware, ubuntu etc.: it did have to work correctly for OLD as well as NEW hardware

we are perhaps at a point of separation now:

some new official (=bringing official Puppy's named in the list of official Puppys at the main Puppy site) developers are trying to abandon the billion of old machine having in her opinion enough archived Puppy's without to become in the future adequate software any more although the internet, for ex., but also the home office, the home school, the home banking require constantly new performances from the users). I suppose it was not the intention of Barry Kauler as he did retire himself from the list of Puppy developers, thinking that the young people, at this time, was becoming adult and fit enough to continue the tradition without himself and did name a small staff to do the job.

Puppy can't split into an old branch limping behind ...

... and a new one reserved by hardware selection for owners of new machines

certainly, the old mixture of Puppy goodies have to continue to be offered in new but for all machines at the same time.

that is the challenge made necessary by the NON-LINUXIAN (*1 decision of some to abandon, some kind, parts of the world

(*1 linux was the symbol of integration in one unix (unifyding) system where, if needing, over a small base distro around the kernel, all ways stays stay open else if necessary through compilation. but it is a long time that Puppy did not produce any more such small base distros around the kernel, our old onebone (or, if needing, nobone) isos. about since the staff did create his own new Woof named WoofCE: it was some kind the point of no disobedience towards our old Puppy traditions). Can WoofCE not produce onebones? Barry Kauler did tirelessly produce it in its experimental developments like Quirky unicorn etc.! There are Quirky's 64 bit with ISO size ab. 140 MB (and I did often and intensive use it since this year. That is development...

Not try to change the traditional mixture of Puppy to show to the Puppyist how stupid they are to limit themselves to the old...

[Clarity]

Understand your emphasis.

But, your comment early on of "BILLIONS of old machines" is a bit out of context. What is an old machine?

Maybe you are concerned of lumping 32bit PCs among 64bit PCs? Maybe you are concerned with old BIOS vs new BIOS (yes there is such a thing and it changed about the time that USB1 PCs went to USB2)? Maybe concerned lumping BIOS among EFI/UEFI? Maybe concerned that the manufacturers "mandate" a RAM that they support that no creditable user follows? Maybe the concern that for good reasons the Linux distro community has finalized development for 32bit and are not limiting their focuses on 64bit PCs which have been around for a decade and a half (yes a LONG time)?

Not sure, but as time moves, technology moves, and we, too, are moving along with that.

There are still methods to do what is old, focus has shifted to functionality and use in todays world of 15 year old PCs, both BIOS and EFI+.

This is not a post for abandoning the past, as that has already been shown to still operate. But we might want to look to where is the technology that Linux is moving into and how best to take advantage of it with the multiple devices moving into our home spaces. PCs and their missions have graduated into todays needs.

Distroworks shows the multitude of ideas where Linux has been presented for various of our home needs. Puppy is merely a subset of this world of today.