Puppy Linux: Lightweight Operating System is Best of its Breed

The small, lightweight, and very cute Puppy Linux has recently released version 4 for of its operating system. Specializing in smallness (the entire operating system is only an 88MB download) and portability (it can boot from a CD or USB drive), this little wonder has been slowly gaining in popularity over the past few years. Now it's unquestionably a major contender in the "lightweight, small, and fast distribution" space.

I first loaded up Puppy Linux a few years ago (during the version 2 cycle) when I needed something small, lightweight, and easy to use on an aging Dell laptop. Puppy fit the bill, and I stuck with it for quite some time. While I'm not using Puppy as my primary OS right now, I will be replacing Windows95 with it at my primary place of employment. I've had a very positive experience thus with the version 3 releases of Puppy, so I was extremely excited to see version 4. To test it out, I loaded up in a virtual machine under Ubuntu, and started poking and peeking around.

First Impressions

It seems like this release has undergone a major overhaul in the looks department. It still uses JWM window manager, but now it ships with a nice metallic theme that's not quite as drab the old one. In addition, everything has been upgraded to GTK 2, and the accompanying theme is slick and polished. Previous releases of Puppy have been highly criticized for a very retro, Win95 look. It seems like the distro is now taking welcome steps toward a more modern appearance. New and refreshed tools for configuring themes for GTK, JWM, and the desktop icons add completeness to the cosmetic update.

Ease of Use