Puppy Linux
Posted on Saturday, November 3rd, 2007 at 6:14pm. #
Photo: Kevin Miller. Used under licence.
If you’ve ever thought for a minute about how to get your computer to run faster, one of the things you’ll have thought about is adding more memory. Doubling your memory normally means that your computer will run much faster - a far greater improvement than purchasing a brand new machine in many cases.
The reason why your computer is faster when it has more memory is that it can store much more information in its memory, and dip into the hard-drive much less often. Writing to the hard-drive is slow and clunky; writing to memory is very quick in comparison, so it stands to reason that the more you can sling into memory, the faster your computer will run.
Secondly, you need a pretty meaty computer to run Windows these days - or, indeed, many flavours of Linux. The $200 gOS computer is getting people excited right now because it’s a cheap, low-spec machine, but running a slimmed-down operating system which still appears fast.
But I’ve found something faster still - and this posting is coming courtesy of it.
Puppy Linux has a pretty ugly website, but it’s a really neat idea. Download the CD image, whack it into your machine, turn your machine on, and it boots off the CD. So far, no difference to many Linux distributions on CD. But here’s the clever idea - once it’s booted, everything is in memory. It never uses the CD again. Which means that everything’s blisteringly fast.
Hit the in-built web-browser (SeaMonkey, rather than Firefox) and it loads virtually instantly. In fact, everything loads virtually instantly - double-clicking on anything results in two of everything loading instantly (bless).
It comes with a huge array of extra programs; but here’s the even neater thing - if your BIOS copes with it, you can make a version of it to run off a USB stick. Just plug in the USB key, turn the computer on, and there’s your computer - complete with your preferences saved to the USB key. Of the time I’ve been running it (I had an abortive attempt a few weeks ago to install it, but I’ve been running it for much of the day), it’s not touched my hard-drive ONCE.
It’s not the prettiest UI you’ve ever seen; and nor is it entirely trouble-free. Networking is, as always with Linux, not perfect - this machine won’t apparently play with WPA wireless networks, so I’m using my open FON connection instead - but it appears to work, and work well. And damn fast.
This is definitely something clever - and a great way to reuse old computers which are nearing end-of-life - or even giving your old laptop to the kids.
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