Here is a quick introduction for puppy linux. Puppy linux is an operating system, just like windows XP, Vista or Mac OS X. But what makes puppy linux different from other windows and apple OS is the fact that puppy linux is a free, open source software. Puppy Linux is one of the distributions of the Linux family of OS. Linux refers to Unix-like operating systems. Linux OS is free and open source. The name "Linux" comes from the Linux kernel which was written by Linus Torvalds. Now coming back to puppy linux, this distro is unique for some of the following reasons :
- It is a very small sized OS.
- Puppy linux upon start boots itself entirely into the RAM and hence is very fast.
- You can use puppy linux to create live cds, live dvds or live USBs. You can then use the USB to boot up your computer.
You can download puppy linux from here. More information about puppy linux can be obtained from the official puppy linux website.
Following are the steps to install puppy linux -
- The first thing to do is to download the puppy linux iso from the official puppy website.
- Once you have the iso downloaded, use some kind of cd burning software to burn the iso on a CD/DVD.
- Burning the iso on a rewriteable DVD is more preferable, as you can then use the same DVD to run multisession DVDs, which we will talk about later.
- Now that you have a CD/DVD with the puppy iso, all you need to do is pop it in and reboot your computer.
- Make sure, that your computer's boot options are set to boot from the CD/DVD before the hard disk.
- This can usually be done, when the start up screen of the computer flashes, by pressing DEL or a function key like F2.
- Now you have a choice of installing puppy linux on your hard drive or a USB flash drive.
- The choice is yours as both sides have their own pros and cons.
- With a hard drive, you always have more space, if you need to install anything.
- With the usb, you can use it to boot any computer and have all your customised applications in it.
- Any flash disk greater than or equal to a 512 MB should be good.
- Once your computer has rebooted from the CD/DVD, you will need to make some selections for date/time and a few user preferences. After that you will have the puppy linux welcome screen in front of you. This is the live cd version of linux, which is available in many linux distros.
- You can use this to run programs and surf the web or work on some office documents.
- Once again, if you have a rewriteable DVD media for the linux puppy iso, you can even save changes made onto puppy linux using the live cd.
- Now to install, linux puppy onto your media, you need to click on the Puppy Universal Installer icon on the desktop.
- This is a simple enough wizard, that lets you install puppy linux on virtually any media, including hard disks, USB drives and compact flash cards.
- You just need to follow step by step instructions from the universal installer to install puppy linux.
- Once the installation is done, you are good to go. You need to reboot your computer from the hard disk or the USB drive depending on where you have installed puppy linux.
So try this out folks, and have fun. Check back later for more articles puppy linux.
*For more information on installing puppy linux on to the hard disk, you can read the author of the Puppy Universal Installer application.