Is Puppy Linux the best Linux distro?

[way12go]

Is Puppy Linux the best Linux distro?

I do know that Puppy Linux is the fastest Linux distro. Is it the best?

Why? or Why not?

Any other distro in your opinion counts as the best? In what way?

If you look at it in number of ways, is Puppy best?

[Semme]

Silly. Any thread with *BEST* in the title is always a "he says, she says" runaway. They all have their pros'n cons..

[mikeb]

I wouldnt say it was the fastest for example.... its not really a competition even though some may make it seem so
Its about what works for YOU.

mike

[Ray MK]

Puppy is the one that works for me best.
Better than any other. So for me:
Puppy is the best OS in the world.

[rufwoof]

One if not the best as a LiveCD.

Boot a factory fresh operating system and browser each and every time - a brand new 'install' all achieved within a few minutes. Do whatever you like, completely trash it or be exposed to virus ....and a reboot has you back to fresh again.

Many of the other LiveCD's aren't really usable as LiveCD's, they're more like demo's of what a 'installed' version might look/feel like. Or their support is relatively low/slow. Ask a question on these boards and likely you'll have a reply within the same day, if not within the same hour - 24/7.

When I go to my bank website I like to know that I'm using a brand new opsys/desktop and browser that's not been used to go anywhere else - all run from CD and within memory (no HDD activity). Not some other choice that's been around a while and been here and there - potentially having caught a virus/key/session/comms logger or that might leave confidential data sitting somewhere on the disk.

Better still, with just a few additional clicks (script(s) to load multiple SFS/PET's) the lean machine can become quite a comprehensive machine - Libre Office, Video/Audio editing ...etc).

A nice balance between leanness and functionality IMO. I can live with having to use textual edits to change how the desktop might look or act rather than the polished GUI/program to do the same that more bloated alternatives have - as after a while the number of times I make such changes are relatively few/infrequent. So much so that I don't even use a savefile (happy with my remastered version as-is).

Install it - no thanks. Then it no longer stays factory fresh. For me the HDD is for extra's (SFS's/PET's) and data (docs, files etc). For an installed version for the extra's things that Puppy might not be able to do I'd use something alot more bloated - accessed simply by removing the LiveCD and rebooting into that installed alternative. The thing is with me however, that alternative installed choice is infrequently booted, as Puppy generally covers all of my computing needs (surfing, email, docs, videos, music etc.).

[mikeb]

Hmm slax/porteus... a robust live distro ..works well and a better recovery tool for linux and windows....the xfce4 versions are smaller than puppy

thought I'd join in

mike

[rufwoof]

Hi Mike

Tried slax yesterday after seeing you mention it. Hung with the usual Nvidia graphics lockup - looked around for a whilst as to how to overcome that with no success, and lost interest - so never got to see what the desktop looked like.

Porteus is nice - one of the coasters that I have shelved. Alongside a Wary barebones + browser that weighs in at 56MB. Takes less than 10 seconds to download - obviously a bit longer to burn and boot though (but armed with nothing else than a few £'s/$'s to buy a blank CD, and access to the internet, you could have a Puppy downloaded and up and running within less than 10 minutes).

[mikeb]

hmm well this forum is full of nvidia problems and recent xorg/kernels so more a linux problem. I have nvidia and it works fine with the nouveau driver as it happens.

I suppose puppy is quick to get going at times... the snags show up later on

mike

[rufwoof]

Just booted Porteus now as I meant to have another look.

Straight to desktop and detected Nvidia etc all OK. 64 bit version. If I correctly remember, it had a nice download web page where you just tick all of the relevant bits for your locale/system and it downloads/sends you the appropriate iso. Or that might have been another??? (downloaded so many recently I tend to forget/confuse things).

Just updated its package manager and installed firefox ok.

Logon indicates that you can't savesession (only if writable which the CD obviously isn't). But there's probably a workaround that (copy a directory to HDD perhaps).

Of the (many) alternatives I've seen Porteus looks to me to be one of the best of the rest.

[rufwoof]

I suppose puppy is quick to get going at times... the snags show up later on

What sort of snags?

I have had thoughts that a Ubuntu base might have been a better choice than a Slackware one as the repository is 'better'.

[mikeb]

Hmm things like save file corruption and script quirks really.

Yes porteus does seem to be a more user friendly slax varient.

I am using slax 6 base but quite different than the original...it suits the hardware i have. porteus is newer kernel and binaries but similar boot wrappers.

saving is done by a boot parameter .... if an install was a folder on a hard drive then changes=/porteus for example would use that folder for persistant changes..needs to be a posix partition... similar would be say changes=savefile.dat (porteus might do it slightly differently) would use a precreated save file ..ok for fat32 and ntfs then. Without a parameter its tmpfs time so no saving ... Install is a case of copy the folder off the cd and arrange for kernel nd initrd somewhere handy and a menu entry...theres probably a script to do it for you.
toram is another one...all modules loaded to ram.
I did add an archive save option which uses a tar of the tmpff.

One thing you do have even if on hard drive is a truly clean shutdown... ie all drives unmounted.

By the way this equally applies to a usb stick

As for nvidia the older slax uses nv and I made a nvidia module using their (nvidias) driver installer since the dev/kernel module comes with the iso...I think porteus has ready made nvidia drivers if nouveau is not desired.

I tend to ignore the slackware soure aspect...yes a simpler system framework but debian makes better packages and they usually work fine. ..module making is easy. Theres a deb2lzm in slax 6 which knocks up a module in no time which can then be loaded on the fly.

mike

[bugman-2.0]

For me, yes. So that's 1 out of 7,162,783,239 people (and counting).

I like a driveless computer. That's all.

[mikeb]

Well since puppy is roughly based on slax either can run driveless ... I load to ram and run that way on a netbook so the hard drive can spin down... saves wear and tear and battery.

mike

[dk60902]

Best?

I think it depends on the individual's needs. I always loved puppy and it's quirks. It has a 90's era look, which is one of it's charms (to me). It took me a while to learn to adapt to it. It's simple and lightweight. It runs great on my old laptop. The speed is incredible. I like how it runs from RAM, and that it can be run from a USB stick. For websurfing, it's excellent. I've been thinking of trying Fatdog64 one of these days, and maybe run it from a USB stick on my HP desktop.

I had Ubuntu 10.04 on a desktop briefly before I sold it. It was one of my favorite distros. Aesthetically pleasing, easy to install, recognized my USB wireless dongle, ran dual monitors out of the box. It was smooth and ran like a dream. The later versions of Ubuntu made setting wireless printing a snap, as 10.04 didn't recognize my wireless printer.

[mikeb]

I think windows XP is the best puppy distro.... runs fast, boots from USB, good looks and a huge range of software to choose from and runs far faster than Vista on anything

mike

[MyPuppysaysWauWau]

I think windows XP is the best puppy distro....
mike

You said it!

For me Puppy IS the best distro ever I use it as a frugal installation, but only for Internet applications. All I need runs fast and smooth... some little problems were solve thx Mikes ans Semmes help.

BUT...

...I also use XP (offline) in the Virtual Box for my accustomed working environment. This solution is much better than Wine. And thanks Shinobars great job, the installation is done in a blink of an eye!

Regards,
Walter

[MyPuppysaysWauWau]

Btw., I made a short movie, see how fast XP in the VB is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drgZqV-8J1A

Puppy Preciese 5.7.1
A four year heavily used XP with a lot of applications
Virtualbox 4.3.8
Intel T7200 Dualcore @ 2.0 GHz
3GB RAM but I spent only 1 for XP
128 MB video memory

It's great, I love it

Regards,
Walter

[slavvo67]

No, it's not the best but it compliments other distros such as Ubuntu and Slackware (Slax, whatever). It happens to be my favorite but that doesn't make it the best.

Puppy' niche is still running completely in RAM, providing a fast interface that many users like. It's at least partially moving away from these roots but I believe that's still the main attraction of the Puppy platform.

I'm not sure how many users noticed but it slipped from its regular 10 spot on distrowatch to 11. Still, notably well with so many Linux distros out there.

[way12go]

Right now I'm absolute fan of Sparkylinux.

I think Sparkylinux is best Operating System in the World.

http://sparkylinux.org/

http://sparkylinux.org/download/

http://sparkylinux.org/forum/

Everything comes with unlimited pictures and, every picture has its place. - Sagar Gorijala.

[ttuuxxx]

Right now I'm absolute fan of Sparkylinux.

I think Sparkylinux is best Operating System in the World.

http://sparkylinux.org/

http://sparkylinux.org/download/

http://sparkylinux.org/forum/

Most of SParkylinux iso's are around 1.4GB around 10 times the size of puppy, They have a smaller 700MB one but its still 5 times larger, SparkyLinux 3.5 JWM (no-codecs) i486 <--- No Codecs, so its even broken out of the box, no Video, Really you might think its the greatest, but you added all that bloat to puppy and you'll have a better Os with puppy.
ttuuxxx