Puppy Linux as primary OS?
Hi all,
I'm relatively new to Linux. I've tried many different distos (all by booting live using unetbootin). I've actually found Puppy to be one of my favorites, despite it being 'minimalist'. My question is, would it be a waste to install to HD? Would I get better use out of a more 'complete' distro with more features? Am I cheating myself? I'm planning on dual booting with windows, just for certain software I need to run. But I have a pretty new computer. Pentium Dual Core, 3GB RAM, etc. (No dedicated Graphics card though, just integrated) My computer isn't old by any means. I know I can keep puppy on my flash drive, but I really want to use linux on my HD. Would I be better served by something meant for HD installation, rather than using puppy (seemingly meant for live booting/older machines?) Puppy has just seemed to work for me, ie no hardware conflicts, really fast, etc. I'm new to these forums, so sorry if a question like this has already been posted. I tried searching but couldn't find anything. Cheers :) |
hi, Super
You should start from the answer to a question - What will you do on you computer? But in general - why not? As I see, Puppy has everything needed for common everyday work - office programs, pidgin, browser and so on. So, if you don't need anything extremely specific or working only with Windows, I think you may use your favourite Linux distro. |
Yes you can install Puppy to HD.
Puppy has a pretty unique way of installing, called a "Frugal Install". While you can install Puppy fully to HD just like any other distro, the frugal way is much more elegant and delivers a number of advantages, least of which is the usage of SFS files for large programs such as OpenOffice. This is how it's done http://www.puppylinux.org/main/index...-English05.txt Install Puppy on a separate partition formated as ext2/3/4. Then install grub via the menu and start Puppy from the grub splash screen at the beginning of the boot process; no CDs needed. The standard Puppy still is 4.3.1. If you want to live on the edge try these http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/vie...=406327#406327 http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=53897 http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=54455 |
I can add this version.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=53419 that one is cool too. If you love to do partitions and such then by all means do it but if you like me prefer to let the windows install to be left untouched then do frugal install without adding any partition. Works great. I have at least fifteen different puppies in frugal install plus a few other linux like debian mepis Antix and tinyCore and Slitaz and Sidux and Xpud. Quote:
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son of a gun nooby,
I thought I had a big Puppy setup. But my 6 Puppies plus XP pales in comparison to yours. Wow! |
One word in addition to nooby's setup:
It looks like you have it all on hda1 or C: One can do that, but if you want to keep things tidy, you might want to consider an extra partition for all the Linuxes. Make it an ext3 Linux partition and put all your Puppies into a subdirectory each. That way you have a clean order of things and keep C: in Windows free from a bunch of unrelated folders. In the end it boils down to a matter of taste and order. Either way works. |
Hi Super, basically Linux is Linux is Linux... the important thing is the applications... if Puppy has all the applications you need for your work/play (web browser, office, media player, whatever your needs are) then why not?
My only reservation about Puppy is that you are always the root user. This makes it too easy, in my opinion, to, for example, accidentally nuke your Windows data by clicking the wrong button, without having to enter a password. If you are the only user of the computer and are comfortable with the risk, then it is up to you. (note: I haven't tested Puppy in a while and have heard rumors that newer versions might fix this security flaw, so my info here might be out of date.) |
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I have Puppy, and I am running apache, mysql, and bind on it. I have found Puppy a very versatile distro. In answer to your question, the main difference between distros is the pre-installed programs -- and you can install more programs. I prefer to start with a minimal distro, and then add exactly what I will use. The only drawback I have found with Puppy is its lack of installed documentation such as man pages and info files. |
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