Linux Fans Unleash New Distro Called 'Puppy'

A retired university lecturer in Australia has come up with the latest twist on Linux, fielding a distribution of the operating system that takes little memory and can boot directly off of a USB thumb drive.

Dubbed Puppy Linux, the OS is one of dozens of custom and guerilla variants on Linux circulating throughout the broader software community. (Many are tracked on the Distrowatch open-source Web site.) But Puppy appears to be catching on, attracting recent attention on Slashdot in the wake of the release in May of Puppy Linux version 1.0.2.

"I think one of the key advantages of Puppy is the simplicity," said Barry Kauler, the developer of Puppy Linux, in an e-mail interview. "When other distributions start up, you see all these servers loading, but in Puppy it's really basic and bootup is remarkably fast. However, I still managed to stick to the requirement of it all loading into RAM and freeing up the CD drive, on a reference 128MB PC."

That small-is-beautiful theme is Puppy's raison d'etre, according to Kauler. "If I were pressed to list why I think people use Puppy, it would be that it's very simple under-the-hood, very easy to use, very fast, highly portable, and easy to install."

Puppy Linux can be downloaded for free from Kauler's Web site. Future updates to the distribution will be forthcoming every four to six weeks, Kauler said. Also in the works is a multisession version of Puppy, which saves everything back to CD

Full story: TechWeb

Amazing! Thanks for posting it. I'll try it ASAP.