The picture is a Puppy-like desktop that I have running in Ubuntu 9.04 (JWM and Rox basically). I like the Puppy desktop because it is more responsive than Gnome (both quicker to open programs and quicker to run them--benchmarking Peacekeeper runs about 7% faster than in Gnome). I also like the Puppy desktop because I find it very well designed with the needed tools available and within easy reach. These are Linux tools such as the terminal and mounting tools, which some other distros try to hide.
![Image](http://www.diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy400/ISA-Puppy.png)
I am running the Puppy-like desktop in Ubuntu rather than simply running Puppy because some times I need an "Industry Standard Architecture" operating system. By that I mean I need to be able to install and run some programs that expect to see a certain configuration in the OS. One simple example is Firefox 3.5, which has in the past needed libgio in order to run in Puppy--I think it might now need libdbus-glib. Another thing that is important to me is Crossover Linux because I must be able to see the projects my students make exactly as they made them--I need to run MS Office, in other words. Now, I can and do run both Firefox and Crossover in Puppy, but with Crossover I lose the menus as well as having to make sure Puppy's devx is installed. And finally, I prefer to run an smp kernel with the proper drivers for my ati card. Other people will have other concerns, but all of those concerns could be addressed by one Industry Standard Puppy.
MU's NewYearsPup is the closest thing so far and I think it shows how easily the ISA Puppy could be created. I hope some people might undertake this project. As I understand it, Woof will not automatically result in an ISA Puppy, but it could be a step closer. I also understand that some of the things that make Puppy non-standard are what makes it fast and lean, so that would be the trick, keeping the ISA Puppy as lean and fast as possible.
Of course, these comments are not a criticism of Puppy in any sense, rather I would say, an expansion. I want something that runs as nicely as Puppy, with a more standard configuration, and I am prepared to accept a larger Puppy in return. From my experiment with Ubuntu it seems that there would be a significant benefit. I think it might even be possible to prepare a Puppy desktop that could be installed on *any* Linux system.