Last week I was really busy testing out the Ubuntu Quantal Quetzal releases on my Core i3 and Core i7 laptops. Lubuntu, inarguably, was the fastest of the lot and I was amazed by the speed it offered. However, there is a desktop in my house, from my student days, a 2.4 GHz Pentium IV (single core), 1.5 GB DDR RAM PC. Mostly it is used by my kid to watch rhymes or my wife/parents check their mails. I no longer use it for any production work. It runs Bodhi Linux but struggles a bit to play media files even in Bodhi. Last month I tested quite a few modern distros, but except Bodhi none of them did actually work smoothly on it. There is also a separate installation of Linux Mint Julia on it - just to play live stream of television channels or sports matches. Adobe flash plugin 11 actually runs really slow on my system and Julia still has flash plugin 10.
Why I am giving so much of an intro? Because yesterday I booted up Puppy Precise 5.4 on it and was floored by the speed and multi-tasking ability it offered! Amazing is a lesser word for it! I don't think I've ever used any distro faster than this on the Intel P4 PC that I have!
From Lucid Puppy to Precise Puppy, interface remains more or less the same - JWM desktop manager, but it is more refined in Precise. Booting time has reduced perceivably, wifi and display settings (1366x768) are picked up automatically now - no need for any manual settings. It has really a long list of applications to offer and you can access to Ubuntu repositories to download more!
Applications
Puppy Precise 5.4 ISO is around 165 MB but if you look at the application list, it'll keep you amazed! It may not have all your preferred applications but it has at least one app for your every computing need. Puppy has a long list of applications - some of the major ones are mentioned below:
Repositories
Puppy Precise 5.4 offers both Ubuntu Precise repositories as well as Puppy Precise apps. I downloaded VLC 2.0.3, GIMP 2.8, Pidgin, etc. from the repositories and they worked without any dependency issues. So, in nutshell, majority of the Ubuntu applications should work on Puppy Precise.
How Puppy performs on modern hardwares?
Understandably Puppy worked well with my antiquated system - but, isn't it supposed to work in that way? What's so great about it? How about a really really modern system? With these questions in mind I booted it up on my Asus K55V with Core i7 3rd generation processor and 8 GB RAM. To my amazement it worked equally good there as well - detected wifi within one or two setting changes, detected the touchpad automatically, played media files out of the box and I could browse youtube videos without requiring to download anything extra! Most amazing part - it detected my 8 GB RAM as well! So, the same Puppy can work on both 32-bit and 64-bit machines with equal efficiency. That is commendable!
And think about it, only a 165 MB distro! Truly, amazing is a less word for Puppy.
CPU and RAM Usage
Puppy Linux boots up entirely on RAM and the specs required for it to run is very low. I have run Puppy even on 128 MB RAM desktops. Puppy Precise takes about 47-48 MB RAM to load and have 0-2% CPU usage.
Even with Flash video running on Seamonkey browser, the RAM consumption is well below 230 MB and CPU usage ~4%. In the picture below, you can see that it detects the 8 GB RAM in my 64-bit Core i7 laptop.
Carry your own desktop wherever you go
Now with Puppy Precise live usb boot, I downloaded VLC Player, virtualbox, Skype 4, and a host of other familiar applications and saved them to the USB drive only before exiting. I can carry my computer with preferred set of applications in my USB only!
So, you can understand Puppy Precise is amazing! Offering the versatility of Ubuntu within an ultra-lightweight OS!
Pain areas in Puppy Precise
Is everything good about Puppy? Possibly no - there are improvement areas as well. Agreed that the operating system is highly functional and is more refined in Puppy Precise, but still there are improvement areas in terms of looks. Also, Quickpets were very handy in Puppy Lucid but are not there in Puppy Precise, though SFS downloader is there to download few applications like GIMP 2.8, Opera, Nvidia drivers, etc. I miss Quickpets!
Second, settings has too lengthy a list and also spread all over the place. These days most of the Linux operating systems are going for an integrated settings window and it is easier to use. Puppy, too, can have an integrated settings tab where I can find all the settings menu and choose which one I need to edit.
Third, it is a pain to take snapshots. Key button to take screenshot doesn't work and every time I had to scroll down the menu to take it. Added pain is that every time it kept me waiting for 13 seconds to take the desired screenshot! A smarter snapshot tool is urgently required in Puppy Linux! <---One correction - earlier I was using mtpaint-snapshot capture and it is painful. But, there is also another program Screeny, it is better and doesn't take 13 sec! However, the Print Screen button of keyboard still doesn't work!-->
Fourth, live usb works perfect but if I have to install it to hard disc along with other Linux operating systems, editing the grub requires some technical expertise and may not be be very conducive for Linux newbies.
Fifth, Puppy Linux never asks for any password by default, as the user login is by default as root. Hence, there is always a security concern in my mind though firewall and encryption options are there. The last distro I used which never asked any password to install any software, was Windows XP and I had such a nightmare with it that I now hate anything that even looks like XP! It may be only me but somehow I am more comfortable if the distro asks for password before installing any application.
Overall
In overall, Puppy Precise is an amazing combo offering best of both the worlds. No other distro works faster and offers a complete range of applications as Puppy Precise. It is definitely the best Puppy Linux ever and is recommended to anyone looking for a solid stable operating system with lots and lots of speed!
My association with Puppy Linux dates back couple of years ago. My parents have a PC (P4 with 128 MB RAM) with a damaged hard disc. They were about to sell it as scrap. But, I bought couple of 16 GB USB drives and installed Lucid Puppy in one of the USBs and used the second one as a storage. It is still working and good enough for most of their limited use! And the speed it offered can make my Core i7 with 8 GB RAM running Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon, hide in shame! Such is the power of Puppy Linux! And did I mention that Puppy Linux "Precise" is long term support OS with 5 years of support? That is truly icing on the cake!
24 Oct: I received a few queries on how to install Puppy Precise 5.4 on hard drive. Assuming you already have a Linux OS (like Ubuntu, Mint or Debian, etc.) installed, below set of instructions will give you a Puppy Linux boot option in Grub:
1. Note the partition where Puppy Precise is installed - opt for frugal installation
2. Go to your Main Linux OS (in case of multi-OS computers) and type the following command in the terminal
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
Note the uuid of your hard drive where Puppy frugal installation.
3. Edit grub by the following command:
sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom
Edit the 40_custom file to enter a menuentry. Say I installed Puppy Precise in sdb1 (with uuid 5ddaba1b-a977-4409-a78d-09f6993275a8) in root (hd1,0) folder /precise5.4frugal then my menuentry will be:
menuentry "Puppy Linux 5.4 (frugal on sdb1)" {
set root='(hd1,0)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 5ddaba1b-a977-4409-a78d-09f6993275a8 linux /precise5.4frugal/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=precise5.4frugal initrd /precise5.4frugal/initrd.gz
}
4. Update grub by sudo update-grub
5. Reboot and you'll see Puppy Linux as one of grub entries.
6. Happy puppying! Woof! Woof! If you need further details, please visit my article on how to modify grub in Puppy frugal installation.
28-Oct-12:
Puppy Precise is now the primary OS in my HP Pentium 4, 1.5 GB DDR RAM PC, along with Lubuntu as a backup. It runs with fantastic speed and stability. However, somehow I could not make a lot of programs from Ubuntu repo work even after resolving dependencies. But, a bit of research on Puppy Linux and Lucid Puppy packages came to the rescue. Puppy Linux documentation wasn't that helpful - more help came from the murga-linux forums. I downloaded sfs/pet files of Java, VLC, Chromium, Opera, Firefox, Asunder, Audacity, Audacious and a whole lot of other programs.
Further, the Puppy Precise desktop theme actually bored me a lot. Hence, I downloaded a lot of icon themes and JWM themes from different Puppy version repositories, changed the desktop wallpaper, added quite a few icons, changed default programs and finally to match the background, changed the icon font colors as well. Currently my Puppy Precise desktop looks like this!
I am trying to add a conky as well. Lucid conky didn't work that well in Precise, may be I need to tinker a bit with it. Will keep you posted once I resolve the conky and make it work.
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
From Lucid Puppy to Precise Puppy, interface remains more or less the same - JWM desktop manager, but it is more refined in Precise. Booting time has reduced perceivably, wifi and display settings (1366x768) are picked up automatically now - no need for any manual settings. It has really a long list of applications to offer and you can access to Ubuntu repositories to download more!
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
Puppy Precise 5.4 ISO is around 165 MB but if you look at the application list, it'll keep you amazed! It may not have all your preferred applications but it has at least one app for your every computing need. Puppy has a long list of applications - some of the major ones are mentioned below:
- Office: Abiword wordprocessor, Gnumeric spreadsheets, PDF creator & viewer, calculator, some financial tools, etc.
- Graphics: Mtpaint, scanner, JPEG Resizer, webcam tool, etc.
- Internet: Seamonkey browser with flash support, IRC chat, bit-torrent client, IP telephone, download manager, etc.
- Multimedia: Gnome MPlayer with all codecs, Music player, Blu-ray DVD player, Audio CD ripper, ISO editor/creator, etc.
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
Puppy Precise 5.4 offers both Ubuntu Precise repositories as well as Puppy Precise apps. I downloaded VLC 2.0.3, GIMP 2.8, Pidgin, etc. from the repositories and they worked without any dependency issues. So, in nutshell, majority of the Ubuntu applications should work on Puppy Precise.
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
Understandably Puppy worked well with my antiquated system - but, isn't it supposed to work in that way? What's so great about it? How about a really really modern system? With these questions in mind I booted it up on my Asus K55V with Core i7 3rd generation processor and 8 GB RAM. To my amazement it worked equally good there as well - detected wifi within one or two setting changes, detected the touchpad automatically, played media files out of the box and I could browse youtube videos without requiring to download anything extra! Most amazing part - it detected my 8 GB RAM as well! So, the same Puppy can work on both 32-bit and 64-bit machines with equal efficiency. That is commendable!
And think about it, only a 165 MB distro! Truly, amazing is a less word for Puppy.
CPU and RAM Usage
Puppy Linux boots up entirely on RAM and the specs required for it to run is very low. I have run Puppy even on 128 MB RAM desktops. Puppy Precise takes about 47-48 MB RAM to load and have 0-2% CPU usage.
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
Carry your own desktop wherever you go
Now with Puppy Precise live usb boot, I downloaded VLC Player, virtualbox, Skype 4, and a host of other familiar applications and saved them to the USB drive only before exiting. I can carry my computer with preferred set of applications in my USB only!
So, you can understand Puppy Precise is amazing! Offering the versatility of Ubuntu within an ultra-lightweight OS!
Pain areas in Puppy Precise
Is everything good about Puppy? Possibly no - there are improvement areas as well. Agreed that the operating system is highly functional and is more refined in Puppy Precise, but still there are improvement areas in terms of looks. Also, Quickpets were very handy in Puppy Lucid but are not there in Puppy Precise, though SFS downloader is there to download few applications like GIMP 2.8, Opera, Nvidia drivers, etc. I miss Quickpets!
 |
| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
Second, settings has too lengthy a list and also spread all over the place. These days most of the Linux operating systems are going for an integrated settings window and it is easier to use. Puppy, too, can have an integrated settings tab where I can find all the settings menu and choose which one I need to edit.
Third, it is a pain to take snapshots. Key button to take screenshot doesn't work and every time I had to scroll down the menu to take it. Added pain is that every time it kept me waiting for 13 seconds to take the desired screenshot! A smarter snapshot tool is urgently required in Puppy Linux! <---One correction - earlier I was using mtpaint-snapshot capture and it is painful. But, there is also another program Screeny, it is better and doesn't take 13 sec! However, the Print Screen button of keyboard still doesn't work!-->
Fourth, live usb works perfect but if I have to install it to hard disc along with other Linux operating systems, editing the grub requires some technical expertise and may not be be very conducive for Linux newbies.
Fifth, Puppy Linux never asks for any password by default, as the user login is by default as root. Hence, there is always a security concern in my mind though firewall and encryption options are there. The last distro I used which never asked any password to install any software, was Windows XP and I had such a nightmare with it that I now hate anything that even looks like XP! It may be only me but somehow I am more comfortable if the distro asks for password before installing any application.
Overall
In overall, Puppy Precise is an amazing combo offering best of both the worlds. No other distro works faster and offers a complete range of applications as Puppy Precise. It is definitely the best Puppy Linux ever and is recommended to anyone looking for a solid stable operating system with lots and lots of speed!
My association with Puppy Linux dates back couple of years ago. My parents have a PC (P4 with 128 MB RAM) with a damaged hard disc. They were about to sell it as scrap. But, I bought couple of 16 GB USB drives and installed Lucid Puppy in one of the USBs and used the second one as a storage. It is still working and good enough for most of their limited use! And the speed it offered can make my Core i7 with 8 GB RAM running Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon, hide in shame! Such is the power of Puppy Linux! And did I mention that Puppy Linux "Precise" is long term support OS with 5 years of support? That is truly icing on the cake!
24 Oct: I received a few queries on how to install Puppy Precise 5.4 on hard drive. Assuming you already have a Linux OS (like Ubuntu, Mint or Debian, etc.) installed, below set of instructions will give you a Puppy Linux boot option in Grub:
1. Note the partition where Puppy Precise is installed - opt for frugal installation
2. Go to your Main Linux OS (in case of multi-OS computers) and type the following command in the terminal
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
Note the uuid of your hard drive where Puppy frugal installation.
3. Edit grub by the following command:
sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom
Edit the 40_custom file to enter a menuentry. Say I installed Puppy Precise in sdb1 (with uuid 5ddaba1b-a977-4409-a78d-09f6993275a8) in root (hd1,0) folder /precise5.4frugal then my menuentry will be:
menuentry "Puppy Linux 5.4 (frugal on sdb1)" {
set root='(hd1,0)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 5ddaba1b-a977-4409-a78d-09f6993275a8 linux /precise5.4frugal/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=precise5.4frugal initrd /precise5.4frugal/initrd.gz
}
4. Update grub by sudo update-grub
5. Reboot and you'll see Puppy Linux as one of grub entries.
6. Happy puppying! Woof! Woof! If you need further details, please visit my article on how to modify grub in Puppy frugal installation.
28-Oct-12:
Puppy Precise is now the primary OS in my HP Pentium 4, 1.5 GB DDR RAM PC, along with Lubuntu as a backup. It runs with fantastic speed and stability. However, somehow I could not make a lot of programs from Ubuntu repo work even after resolving dependencies. But, a bit of research on Puppy Linux and Lucid Puppy packages came to the rescue. Puppy Linux documentation wasn't that helpful - more help came from the murga-linux forums. I downloaded sfs/pet files of Java, VLC, Chromium, Opera, Firefox, Asunder, Audacity, Audacious and a whole lot of other programs.
Further, the Puppy Precise desktop theme actually bored me a lot. Hence, I downloaded a lot of icon themes and JWM themes from different Puppy version repositories, changed the desktop wallpaper, added quite a few icons, changed default programs and finally to match the background, changed the icon font colors as well. Currently my Puppy Precise desktop looks like this!
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| From Puppy Precise 5.4 |
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