Opinions wanted: Is Puppy only for older/low-power machines?

[northwood2.8]

I've been a sysadmin for a few years, keeping a close network of systems on my own network and working on friends' computers/networks as well.

Normally, and before, I would reccommend Windows 2000 as my choice of an OS - because the way I could do a system build, it would FLY on my 2.8ghz Northwood/768MB DDR266 (ew, I know). And it did, it ran very well. I've put it on everything from a lackluster 400MHZ Celery to a 3.2ghz AMD Dual Core...and although it runs pretty horribly with less than 256MB ram, and say 800MHZ proccy speed...I thought I'd found the fastest operating system, essentially.

Puppy 2.17's on here now...and I'd experimented with it on an 800MHZ Celery (!) laptop with like 350MB PC100 - I just could not STAND how slowly 2000 was running on that laptop, with all its background processes, services, and extraneous junk. I was simply amazed at how responsive, quick, and all-around-nice to work with Puppy was.

On my Pentium 4 2.8ghz, I dual boot - Win2000 and Puppy 2.17 (Have I mentioned, it's been about a week since I've booted into Win?) - and oh my GOD, is the Linux side so much faster. Seamonkey launches almost instantly, almost all GTK apps act the same...even switching from X to prompt is extremely fast, faster than switching to command line in 2000 on the same machine. I mean, I about shit a brick.

But yeah...I would totally, totally recommend puppy for running on pretty much any ancient trashcan you can find.

(And this is coming from a guy who got Windows XP Professional to install on a 196MHZ Pentium Pro/96MB of RAM. Just to do it. Warning: Worst. Experience. Ever.)

Cheers, hope some of this babbling was understandable.

[magerlab]

great thread!
i use an old computer and don't really want to upgrade!
i don't need because both systems i use run well
of course kde on alt linux( wich is on hdd) is not so fast, but i use icewm or xfce
and i like it
i use puppy about 80% of time as a live cd and save to file

[mcewanw]

I like to keep things as slim and fast and as environmentally friendly as possible. Puppy installs help with all of that.

I also need to have Windows for most of the jobs I've been in (also networking-related). So I tend to use a networked headless server for that, often also running virtual machines like vmware. I only switch the server on when I need it though, and use my Puppy Linux laptop as a thin-client (via either Puppy's vnc or rdp client offerings + Linneighbourhood Samba).

I prefer frugal installs of Puppy because it saves keeping a CD handy.

No harm having a bloated OS installed for the odd occasion if you have want or need for it. Puppy sits happily alongside Windows or another Linux and is, as everyone says, easy and quick to install and reinstall whenever trouble strikes. Puppy, I find, also works great as a rescue system for any underlying bloated OS. (Actually I used it to create a tar.gz backup archive of my other W2K laptop too).

[moncha]

I use relatively new, fast hardware.

I used to strip Windows XP down to the bare essentials before installing it. It would boot and run fast.

Then a few years ago I switched to Ubuntu. I would do a server install and add the bare minimum to that. It would boot and run fast, but slower than XP.

Now I use Puppy exclusively. It is way faster than anything else I've used. And I love how nice and small it is. I feel no need to trim it down. With EZPup it looks fantastic. It does everything I need it to do. It's the perfect OS for me.

[KevOB]

Puppy is delightfully fast but obtaining some applications can be a problem. I keep Puppy for a DVD/CD copier/burner workstation. Normal use now is PCLinuxOS2007 for me, and 2006 for my wife. The 2006 version is running well in a P3-700. My preference for PCLinuxOs is because it has always simply worked and multimedia apps like Cinelerra, mplayer, avidemux etc work in it. My application requirements are not the norm. The continuous updating of Puppy is a little frenetic and makes installing some specialist software problematical. Puppy is doing sterling work in providing a distro which can be easily carried around and for most people is all they need. I especially enjoyed seeing that it is available in Hanoi Vietnamese with a full office suite.

[Sage]

headless server

Can't let that one pass. Halloween beckons.
Definitely one for Lobster.
Excuse my interjection.

[swarm32]

Puppy is a great distro for older machines as well as new ones. The original reason I started using puppy is because it can run on very little ram from a hdd install given enough swap space. This is handy because I can simulate a network of 8 or 10 machines on my PC using VMware instead of 2 or 3 using a bigger distro. I am currently dual booting Win2k and Puppy 2.17 on my Toughbook Cf-37 (500mhz PII, 128MB ram) and its smooth for the most part.

Overall I'm quite pleased with this distro.

[Lobster]

Definitely one for Lobster.

Many thanks for linking me with decapitation [gulp]

Puppy is fine on an old machine with 128MB or more of Ram
What is more useful but takes some getting used to is running from CD /DVD and saving data on HD on USB drive.

This means (if you regularly backup your pup save file) you can have a fast and efficient pristine Puppy in minutes . . .

DVD's are faster at loading Puppy