Every time I write a review I get comments and e-mails asking me to review Puppy Linux. Puppy has lots of people who really seem to love and zealously support the distro. I invariably download a copy (most recently 2.17) and try and run it. I invariably give up on it very quickly. I Here’s what I recently shared by e-mail with someone on why I haven’t reviewed Puppy:

“Puppy certainly works on desktop hardware. I can make X work on almost anything in most distros but his [Barry Kauler’s] is an exception. Austrumi is another exception because it relies entirely on XVESA. XVESA doesn’t work on Toshiba laptops using Trident chipsets (CyberBlade and newer) but fbdev does. The net result is that I can make something like Damn Small Linux run with the proper cheatcode. Similar codes don’t work with Puppy even running full blown X.org for whatever reason and they should. Puppy is also the only distro other than Austrumi that I can’t get running in X on the 64-bit Gateway I’ve borrowed.

As far as repairing other OS’s [including other Linux distributions] I find that Mustang Linux, built with the sysadmin in mind, is probably the best pocket distro for that. It runs entirely in RAM on any machine with >256MB and just plain works. Slax is

also good but Slax 6rc6 requires 1GB to run in RAM. Both get X right with no intervention on any of the three laptops currently in the house.

I get regular requests to review Puppy. The review would be so incredibly negative (X isn’t my only complaint) and the Puppy fans are so zealous in their defense that I decided any such review would be a flame fest and I passed on writing it. Yes, if I spent time in the forum I might get help making X on Puppy work on this laptop. (I’m out on the deck writing this on a beautiful day.) So many other distros just work on this box that I don’t see the point. There is nothing particularly compelling about Puppy.”

I have my fire extinguisher handy…

P.S.: If someone out there can explain to me why making Puppy work would be worth the extra effort and time (with time in short supply right now) without resorting to flames I might well download the latest and spend time in the Puppy Linux forum to figure out why it doesn’t work for me. Consider that a challenge because I don’t think it can be done. Remember, you have to explain to me what Puppy will do for me that other small Linux distros can’t or won’t do.

Original post by Caitlyn Martin