Home Page

 


EARLIER ITEM

 


FREE SOFTWARE MENU

 


LATER ITEM

 

Free Software Menu


10th October 2005

PUPPY LINUX - A MAN'S OR WOMAN'S BEST FRIEND

Brian Grainger

email.gif (183 bytes)
brian@grainger1.freeserve.co.uk


 

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this article is to introduce another version of Linux that comes initially on a Live CD. However, it is much more flexible to use than other Live CDs and, in version 1.0.5 released recently, has had extensive work performed to make it easy for the less technically aware to use.

I first introduced ICPUG readers to the concept of Live CDs two years ago when I reviewed Knoppix for the first time. I followed this with a further review when Knoppix was updated to the new 2.6 Linux kernel. Having done nothing more you may be forgiven for thinking I have gone off the idea of Live CDs. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have had little feedback from the earlier articles and I realise that, primarily, my readers use Windows. Consequently, most of my articles have related to Windows and the programs that run on that system. In the background, most of my time spent learning new things has been devoted to Linux and Live CDs. Knoppix is installed, (in the quick Poor Man's fashion), on both my PCs and is used regularly, especially for access to USB devices on my Windows 98 machine. My laptop now sports two badges, one of Tux the Linux penguin and also a 'Linux Inside' logo in the style of a well known microprocessor catchphrase. When I travel with my computer everyone knows what I support.

During the two years that have passed I have tried every Live CD that has come my way for compatibility with my equipment. I have an ancient desktop running Windows 98; Pentium 350Mhz processor; 128Mb RAM; 10 Gb hard disk. Last year I purchased a standard Centrino laptop running Windows XP Home; Pentium M 1.5GHz processor; 512Mb RAM; 60Gb Hard drive; Winmodem. The latter machine was bought for two reasons. Primarily, so I could access the Internet over Christmas at my mother's, but also so that I have a test machine for all you poor people who need help with Windows XP! These two machines are very useful for testing Linux in two distinct markets - (a) old equipment (b) a standard Windows machine. Very few Linux Live CDs work on both systems, whether developed by community enthusiasts or the major players such as SUSE, Ubuntu, Linspire, etc. After all the trials my attention has now focussed on three Live CDs - Knoppix, Kanotix and Puppy. Kanotix is primarily another Knoppix, but with better quality control in its build. I will talk about that another day. Today is about Puppy.

BACKGROUND

When the Linux Live CD market started it seemed to split into two sectors. The first, pioneered by Knoppix, was the full 700Mb CD package with as many tools as would fit on the CD. The second, was the sector defined by 50-60Mb Live CDs that would fit on a business card size CD. These distributions were leaner and a bit faster to run. In addition, because of their small size, storage on other media, such as USB memory sticks, became a possibility. There are fewer entrants into this latter sector and I have only sampled two. The first was Damn Small Linux. This, like most Live CDs, is derived from Knoppix. DSL was a perfectly adequate distribution. The second business card distribution I sampled was Puppy, when it was at version 0.98. This knocked my socks off, which goes some way to explaining why I have not sampled further small distros.

Puppy Linux is not derived from another distribution. It has been built from the ground up by Barry Kauler. Unlike most of the Linux distribution developers, Barry hails from Australia. I do not know whether looking at the Linux distro from down under is the reason such a unique distro has been created! What I DO know is that Barry is one smart cookie; Puppy is a fine piece of work; Puppy deserves a wide audience. During more recent times the Puppy community, represented by the obligatory forum, has aided Barry to introduce some wonderful ideas which results in the latest 1.0.5 version.

UNIQUE SELLING POINT

Q: What is it about Puppy that separates it from all the other distros out there?

A: From the outset Puppy was designed to load EVERYTHING into RAM and operate from there.

Q: Why does this make Puppy special

A1: It is fast as lightning!

A2: It is amazingly fast!

A3: You cannot believe how fast it is!

A4: It frees up the CD-ROM drive for other purposes.

A5: Did I tell you how fast the Puppy runs?

When you start using Live CDs the first drawback you notice is that applications are slower to load, because data transfer from the CD is slower and then files have to be decompressed. When you get serious with Linux you do like I do and use a Poor Man's install to put the CD-ROM contents on the hard drive. If you are really serious you install Linux to your hard drive properly, but this is not for the faint hearted Windows user.

Because Puppy is small, (and RAM is plentiful), it makes sense to load everything into RAM. There is a small delay while Puppy is booted, (not noticeable when compared to something like Knoppix), but once Puppy is running things are very much quicker. Anybody who has tried Open Office Org (OOO) will know the problem. Even if you load Writer, the OOO word processor, from a hard drive installed Linux, there is a noticeable time delay before it can be used. When loaded from Knoppix it took about 2 minutes on my ancient desktop and about 30 seconds on my laptop. A version of Puppy has been created called Chubby Puppy. This has OOO in-built. Time to load - faster than Microsoft Word.

OTHER DESIRABLE FEATURES

Here is a list of other desirable features of Puppy:

  • Being small it can be installed on many different mediums: USB Memory Stick; Flash Card; Hard Drive; Zip Drive
  • In version 1.0.5 it is much friendlier for your 'granny' to use.
  • Puppy will store you data and configuration automatically. No need to wrestle setting up permanent home files like Knoppix. It is done for you.
  • An effort has been made to provide some useful help files.
  • Puppy is very modular in construction. In the Unleashed version you can choose which modules of Puppy to load and make it as big, or small, as you want.
  • It has two package management systems. This makes it easy to install additional software to the basic system.

DOWNSIDE

So far I have written about the benefits. Are there any problems with Puppy? Well, yes, there are always problems with any software. Here are some.

Puppy is trumpeted as being able to cope with old hardware. To some extent this is true. Its size and speed help this. However, despite having the required specs, my old desktop will not work with it properly. The mouse on the serial port only works sometimes - usually the first boot of the day but never again! When I do get in, Window positioning does not seem to work. When I try to boot from my 'Poor man's' install the data storage file is not recognised so I lose all my data and settings between sessions. These are pretty major problems and normally I would stop using such software. It says something for the good features of Puppy, especially the speed, that I persevere and hope to overcome these difficulties.

My laptop, for some reason, will not recognise the boot CD. I am not the only one with this problem. It has been highlighted on the forums but there is no solution forthcoming. However, the 'Poor Man's Install' works perfectly here so I have full functionality on my laptop.

Will Puppy work with modern hardware? Wi-fi and SATA drives come to mind, but fancy sound and graphic cards can be problematic. There is lots of development going on among forum members to solve these issues but expect some problems out of the box at the moment. The hardware detection routines in Puppy are not as extensive as in Knoppix.

Winmodems are always a problem with any Linux. There is a procedure in place for getting Lucent/Agere modems to work with Puppy and reports of its success. I have not yet carried out the procedure, but I am hopeful.

The two other general problems with any Linux distro are availability of Help files and the different security model from Windows. As I mentioned above there is extensive help information within Puppy, which is easily found. However, because of their size, the help files for OOO have not been included in Chubby Puppy.

There are two main security issues that Windows users new to Linux have problems with. First, in Windows, a user is an 'Administrator' by default and can do anything. In Linux this is not normally the case and users are surprised when they cannot do some things. Puppy is like Windows in this respect so it will not be a problem. I must admit, I wish Puppy would follow the proper security model. I am sure even Windows will change this in the next incarnation, Vista.

The second security issue is the necessity in Linux to mount storage devices before they can be accessed. Windows users are very surprised by this and they do have to get used to it when they use Linux. However, the distro should help them. I have seen some Live CDs where I just cannot see how to mount my hard drive partitions - (Hello SUSE). Perhaps they expect me to use the command line! Well, Puppy has a lovely little utility to do this, Media Utility Tool, accessible from the desktop Drives icon.

SMALL MEANS LESS BLOAT MEANS EASY TO USE

Apart from making it easy to install and boot puppy from many different devices, the 50-60 MB limit on Standard Puppy ensure the distro does not become bloated. There is usually only one program for each type of application and it will usually be the most streamlined in size. Nevertheless, there is a program for all the common tasks:

  • Word processor
  • Spreadsheet
  • Image Editor
  • Web Page Editor
  • Instant Messaging
  • Address Book and Calendar
  • Web browser
  • E-mail
  • File Manager
  • Media player
  • Games

'GRANNY' FRIENDLY

I should point out that the term 'Granny' is not meant to be ageist, sexist or derogatory. It has grown up on the forums to describe the less technically aware person.

In the early versions of Puppy it had a simple Windows 95 like start menu and a seagull background. After prompting from some forum members that Puppy should be easier to use an 'ember' war ensued. This is like a flame war, but less fiery! The outcome was to keep the broad variety of programs to satisfy both the 'grannies' and the 'geeks', keep the menus the same, but to create some desktop icons to the common applications. Thus, the 'grannies' could easily see what to do to start word processing or hitting the web. The result can be seen in the following screenshot of the start up screen.

The desktop used by Puppy has changed from the Windows 95 like FVWM95. It now uses JWM, which is smaller. However, it still has a lot of similarity with Windows 95. Desktop managers are a personal thing and FVWM95 and others are available as DotPups or PupGets. (More of DotPups and PupGets later - they are package management systems). Barry does not seem to have finalised on JWM and I would not be surprised to see Puppy change to another default desktop in the future. With the desktop icons though, it doesn't matter much to Granny which desktop is used.

DATA STORAGE

Very soon after using Knoppix you ask the question, "how can I store my data and configuration settings?" Without this you lose the ability to work with the same files from session to session. Losing the configuration is even more annoying, having spent all the time to get it looking and working just right. Knoppix allows you to create a 'Permanent Home File' to keep your data and configuration from session to session. Puppy takes this process further by creating it automatically.

When Puppy is run for the first time it automatically looks for a suitable partition on which to create a file 'Puppy001'. Basically, it is looking for a Linux partition or a FAT partition. Puppy will not write to NTFS partitions, used by Windows XP, because of the possibility of data loss. There have been attempts to find ways of getting Linux to write to NTFS, most notably NTFS Capture, but there does seem to be evidence that it is not foolproof. The 'Capture' project is no longer live.

Windows XP users are not without hope. Your hard drive may have a FAT32 partition on it. I was surprised to find my laptop used a FAT32 partition as the storage for image files that enable you to restore the laptop to the factory setup conditions when Windows has really gone pear shaped. It was not a big partition but there was more than enough spare space for the Puppy image and the Puppy001 file, which needs 250MB by default. When there is no FAT32 partition, Windows XP users can follow a procedure to download, (via Windows), a file called Puppy001. You then expand it, again via Windows, to the appropriate size. Puppy will then use this file for storage BUT will not expand its size. This will ensure no data loss on the XP side.

Multiple users, not logged on at the same time, can be catered for by having Puppy002, etc. files. This would require a hard disk install of puppy and judicious editing of the configuration files, but it can be done.

MODULARITY AND PUPPY UNLEASHED

It is impossible to please everybody as to what a Linux distro should contain. Developers like development tools. Office workers like Office suites. Gamers like games. Grannies like something to write e-mail and surf the net. Even a single group cannot agree. Some developers like TCL, some like Python and some say that Perl is the ultimate development tool. Some users do not understand the subtleties of a single classification, like editors. What is good for editing words may be different for editing software and different yet again for editing office documents. When a distro is limited by the space available then the decisions on what a distro contains becomes important. Knoppix comes on a 700MB CD. When they moved for Linux kernel 2.4 to 2.6, with the subsequent increase in size, and from KOffice suite to Open Office suite, again with subsequent increase in size, something had to give. Klaus Knopper asked for candidates for essential packages and everybody had a different list. Ultimately, Klaus made a decision, but recently, to try and please everybody, a DVD version has been released, which includes just about everything. I think this is just bloatware and just delays the problem, as at some point a DVD will not be big enough.

Puppy, with its design aim of a 60MB distro, has this problem right from the word go. However, Barry has implemented a clever solution. Puppy is built up in modules. The standard Puppy is a set of modules chosen by Barry to satisfy most people. However, because of the modularity, a user could choose a different set of modules to suit their needs. To implement this solution Barry came up with Puppy Unleashed. Unleashed is a Puppy kernel with a basic set of modules. Additional modules are stored in the Unleashed repository on the web. Barry provides a script accessible from the desktop menus to add additional modules. A user executes this script while online and they are directed to the Unleashed repository. They choose what they want and the modules are downloaded and installed into the Puppy system. This Unleashed script can also be used to install components that have been precompiled and stored as a compressed archive on a users hard drive. Finally, when you have created your custom version of Puppy, you can create a new ISO image file to create your own Live CD. It is a very flexible system - in my opinion better than the Knoppix approach.

PACKAGE MANAGEMENT

A package management system allows users to install additional software in a simple way. It has been simple to install software into Windows for a long time. Linux has been playing catch up for some time an there is no standardised way. Each major distribution has its own method. Red Hat has RPM and SUSE has YAST, for example.

With Puppy there are two package management facilities. The first, used for the Unleashed concept and installing stand alone precompiled libraries is called PupGet. (I cannot help feeling that with the Puppy metaphor it should be called PupFetch)! PupGet also registers any additions so that when Puppy is upgraded it does not forget them.

Within the Puppy community another system has been developed called DotPup. This was developed to allow ANYBODY to create software for Puppy and allow it to be installed. It is a simple system where each installation is a single compressed library file with a .pup extension. In the latest version of Puppy (1.0.5) a graphical tool has been added to aid the installation of DotPups. I have not personally used this system yet and I am not sure whether DotPup can install .pup files located on the hard drive. This is important when you do not have internet access via Puppy, because you have a non functioning Winmodem for example. In such a case I would want to download the DotPup file using Windows and then install it from the downloaded file.

Update 7th December 2005
GuestToo, (forum name), the creator of the DotPup concept, confirms that you CAN install DotPups located on the hard drive. In fact, DotPup was designed that way to make installation in Puppy as easy as installation in Windows. The creation of the graphical interface mentioned above was done to make it easy to find a central repository of DotPup files, not to make the installation process itself any easier.

One exciting development of the DotPup concept is that community members are now releasing bug fixes this way. This means that any bugs found with a Puppy release can be corrected without having to wait until the next formal update.

HELP, FORUMS AND WIKI

The Puppy CD includes comprehensive help documentation. However, there comes the time when this is not enough.

When you run Windows and need help you ask your nearest geek. When you start running Linux and have problems the geeks are harder to find, usually unintelligible and possibly rude. For the good distributions various help facilities have grown up around them. Puppy is no exception.

The Puppy web site is at:

http://www.goosee.com/puppy

Apart from being the place to go to get the Puppy download it has some very interesting documentation about how Puppy is constructed, how it works and how to do basic tasks like boot it, using PupGet, etc. This is written by Barry so you are getting the best information there is.

The next major source of help is the Wiki, located at:

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyLinuxMainPage

A wiki is like a normal web site, but everybody can edit its pages. This means that anybody can create and amend the documentation of Puppy, which spreads the task a bit. The Wiki is building up a collection of all the information that may be found on the Puppy web site or the Forum, after problems have been solved.

The Forum is the last source of refuge for help. When all else has failed it may be that your problem is new. You need to tell someone about it and usually the community will investigate and come up with an answer for you. The Puppy Forum is located at:

http://www.murga.org/~puppy/

It is always sensible to search the Forums, in case your problem has already been solved, before asking a question. Failure to do so can be the reason behind the apparent rudeness of some Linux geeks. They get irritated by being asked the same questions over and over again and make known their feelings! I personally find the Puppy community one of the most knowledgeable and friendly communities in existence. It is quite pertinent, I think, that Puppy has grown with the ideas that the forum has generated. Puppy may have started as one man's vision, but it now includes contributions from a number of community members who initially put forward their ideas via the forum.

PUPPY AND BEGINNERS

I have been wanting to say that Puppy is the ideal Linux distro for the beginner migrating from Windows. Because I have found that it is less likely to work straight out of the box than, say, Kanotix, I cannot guarantee a beginner will have a trouble free experience. All the major problems are easily solved, but for a beginner nothing is easy. The majority of my readers are not beginners. With your expertise you will be able to get Puppy working and help any beginners who are unfortunate enough to encounter problems.

Once Puppy is working, I believe it entirely suitable for a beginner to use and, because of its speed, beginners will want to use it in preference to other distributions.

The Puppy community wants to see a cheap PC with the capability to preinstall Puppy Linux. Things are happening in this direction, but an alternative, for machines that will boot from USB devices, is to carry Puppy around on a USB memory stick and plug it in when you need it. Perhaps this is the way for the more knowledgeable to introduce Puppy to the masses.

CONCLUSION

There are lots of Linux distributions around, but I hope I have explained why Puppy stands out amongst them and is well worth a look. Puppy's ability to run entirely from RAM, which makes it incredibly fast, cannot be bettered. Nevertheless, Puppy is not compromised by a lack of features we all want, like a simple desktop, easy software installation and extensive help and support facilities. It is a gem waiting to be discovered by those who go to look.


 

 

 

 


TOP