How does Puppy compare to the Big Dogs?

Greetings to all of you Penguins (I mean that in a nice way)...

I've been a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user since it first started building Bill's empire, but I've finally decided to checkout Linux. In that regard I have a few older PCs around the place and after reading Mrk's glowing review of the latest edition of Puppy Linux I'm really anxious to try it.

However, I can't help but wonder how it compares to the likes of 'fuller' Linux versions (Ubuntu, etc.). In other words, what is the Puppy missing?

Thanks,
Aaron

 

Puppy is based on Ubuntu Lucid so it does mighty fine and runs on old machines quite well.

 

Thanks, but your reply prompts me to ask ...how is Lucid different from the 'regular' desktop edition of Ubuntu? (as I indicated, I know nothing about Linux).

 

It isn't. Lucid IS the regular desktop edition of Ubuntu....

 

Okay then, what about my original question? ...certainly a 130MB distro (Puppy) must have omitted lots of 'stuff' that's in an over 600MB distro (Ubuntu)!

 

Not really, its fully functional but its made it easier for older hardware to run it, run the LIVE distro and see if everything works for you, then install it if you like.

 

I'll try that tomorrow (I'm about to crash).

Thanks

 

That's not accurate.

There is a new Ubuntu release every 6 months, one in April, one in October.
Each gets a version number, for example 10.04 (04 for April, 10 for 2010) and an alliterative codename, e.g. Lucid Lynx.
Every release comes in several "flavours": a server edition (Ubuntu Server), a Gnome Desktop version ("The" Ubuntu), a number of alternative Desktop editions (Kubuntu, Xubuntu...) and some special purpose editions (Ubuntu Studio, Edubuntu, UNE).
The name Lucid can stand for any of these!

To make it even more complicated any of these editions can be used to create a new distro with its own name. In most cases I think people start with a "minimal" installation, yet another option not mentioned above. (You'd need to use a text based alternate installer and type "cli" at the boot prompt. It's basically a server installation but with the generic kernel and without any services configured or installed.) This kind of setup is more similar to Debian or even Arch, very lean and versatile and not at all comparable to the full blown Ubuntu "proper". The beauty of it however is that they are all using the same repos. That means in case you should be missing any kind of functionality in a more stripped down edition it's just on apt-get install away ;=)

 

Yep......

 

Hey guys, please don't take this the wrong way as I truly appreciate receiving feedback, but my 'information overload lamp' is glowing bright and as much as I've tried to digest what's been said, I don't think I have an answer to my question!

 

Linux is like women - never mess with more than one at any give time, max. two.

What you should do is: download Puppy Linux, burn the iso, boot from CD, and check how it works for you. Like most Linux distributions, Puppy is a fully self-contained, fully usable live edition, meaning you can run it entirely from CD.

Don't try anything else yet, go with what you first picked.

Boot, test, decide.

Mrk

 

Does one still run as root with this latest Puppy - can one create seperate user accounts ?

 

1) don't know, doesn't really matter much on a live cd, iirc backtrack does use root too although it's security focused
2) certainly as with every other distro out there (man useradd/adduser)