Linux Distribution Spotlight

Puppy Linux is a mini-distribution, which was designed to be a portable (on a live CD/DVD or flash drive installation) operating system that can be carried from computer to computer, or used in a disaster recovery mode.  When installed to a USB connected flash drive, approximately 100 MB is used to store the operating system (with another 150 MB if you want to install Open Office/Libre Office and have access to a complete office suite).  Puppy can also be installed to the PC’s hard drive.

The distribution boots quickly (it will take longer on the first boot, while detecting hardware) based on the saved configuration file on a USB disk.  Instead of using the hard drive/USB drive, the OS runs in a RAMdisk, minimizing writes to the USB drive and prolonging its life.  It will even permit saving filesystem changes to a CD-R or DVD-R (not a CD-RW) to permanently add applications and write files to the disk.  The latest release is Lucid Puppy 5.2.5, available at http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/puppy-5.2.5/lupu-525.iso or http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/distr/puppylinux/puppy-5.2.5/lupu-525.iso. 

If you have a favorite flavor of Linux, please share in the comments!

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