Puppy linux

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MTSU Puppy Linux

Welcome to the MTSU edition of Puppy Linux. If you are here, you probably need help. I hope that I answer all of your questions thoroughly. But in the occurance I don't, please feel free to contact me at carl@cs.mtsu.edu . For more information from the original Puppy Linux site, please go to: http://www.goosee.com/puppy.

Puppy runs entirely in a ramdisk (that is, the entire system loads into the PC's RAM), and you are going to be amazed at what you can do with such a small operating system. I have not skimped on documentation, and the rest of this page contains links to all the documentation files.

My aim for Puppy is to be very small but very powerful and extremely scalable. Puppy runs from Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and any other Unix. If Puppy isn't powerful enough for you, it's very easy to resize the file system and start compiling from source. Currently, Puppy allows the users 12M of save space. This may not sound like much, but remember frank.mtsu.edu only allows you 11. So all the programs you write here should fit fine.

Installing

This is a bit misleading. Puppy doesn't need to be "installed," merely copied.

Mac

Insert the CD and go to it in Finder. Drag and drop the Puppy application to your Applications folder or anywhere else you like, e.g. thumb drive.

Go to where you copied the Puppy application and SINGLE click on it. Then press the key combination Command+I. This will open up the Get Info dialog. Expand the Ownership & Permissions section and change You can: read only to You can: Read & Write. Now you can double click the Puppy application to start it.

  • Changing the permissions on the application should only be need to be done once.

Linux

Copy the Puppy.app folder from your CD to anywhere you like. To start, enter the Puppy.app folder and execute FROM THE COMMAND LINE: ./Puppy.sh

Windows

Insert the CD and go to it in Explorer. Drag and drop the Puppy.app folder to anywhere you like, preferably your desktop or thumb drive. You may then start Puppy by entering the Puppy.app folder and double clicking on Puppy.lnk

Backing Up Puppy

I recommend highly that you backup your files that you create on Puppy on a regular basis. If you are new to linux it is easy to type the wrong command and blow up the system. With Puppy, this isn't as a big a deal as you can always reinstall, but it is possible to destroy all the programs you've saved. Now that I've convinced you to backup, let's talk about how to do that.

In the Puppy.app/Contents/Resources/qemu/ directory, there is a file called pup100 . This is the file that all your files get saved to. Everytime you write a program, back this file up somewhere on your system. If you accidentally destroy Puppy, just replace the current pup100 with the one you backed up, and voila. If you compile applications from source and install them to the Puppy system, those applications will be restored as well.

Bugs

Bugs are a pesky little things. They tend to show themselves when you least expect it. As there is no such thing as bug free software, Puppy is bound to have a few bugs here and there. I have very limited hardware to test with (and limited operating systems) so there's no way I can catch them all. Also, I have done my best to keep Puppy small. As a result it is possible I could have underestimated the importance of some software packages and chosen not to install them. If breakage or any other type of bug is found, please drop me an e-mail at carl@cs.mtsu.edu describing the problem you are having and we'll figure it out together.


Linux and Open Source

I would like to thank the wonderful world of Linux and Open Source Software (OSS) as well as the talented and devoted programmers that make it all possible. I would also like to thank the original creator of Puppy Linux, Barry Kauler, and the Puppy Linux team. I would also like to thank Erik Veenstra for thinking to combine Puppy with QEMU. With that said, let's talk a bit about Linux and OSS. In the 1980s, proprietary software became big business. Company's like Microsoft, Sun, and Apple were taking market shares fast. This is good but it threatened to leave the computer world without a free alternative. Understand when I say free, I usually mean free as in free speech. In a step to solve this, the GNU foundation was formed ( www.gnu.org ). GNU created all the software needed for an operating system with the exception of a kernel. All the software was UNIX based and the source code was freely (as in free beer) available to anyone who wanted to use it, modify it, and add to it. But without a kernel, they didn't have an operating system. In 1991, Linus Torvalds asked some programmers on the internet for help on a hobby project he had been working on. It was kernel designed to be UNIX clone. Many people got involved and eventually was coupled with the work from GNU. Together they made a complete operating system. Someone called Linus' kernel Linux (Linus + Unix) and the name stuck. The operating system is formally called GNU/Linux but most people just call it Linux. With Linux you can reprogram the OS to do whatever and act however you please. This is one of the major appeals of the OS. That and it's free as in free beer.

Puppy help

  • All Puppy's documentation is in HTML or plain text format and located in /usr/share/doc/.

This page is the master index.

Puppy-specific help

Applications Documentation

* pudd
* sftp


Note that Puppy applications are open source, however there are two exceptions: java jre_1.5.0 and Macromedia Flash Player 7

Image:flash_logo.gif

This release of Puppy includes the Macromedia Flash plugin for the Firefox web browser. This is closed source but free. The distribution licence requires that I include the logo and a link to the Macromedia site.

Copyright notice: 

Programs in Puppy are open source (except where noted above), and licences of individual products are duly acknowledged. The creation of the 
composite product named "Puppy" is copyright (c) 2003,2004,2005 Barry Kauler and all rights are reserved if not in conflict with other licences. 
Distribution is allowed, "hacking" is allowed, however Barry Kauler must always be acknowledged and the website [www.goosee.com/puppy Puppy
Linux] included in  the acknowledgement. Spawning of parallel or divergent projects must be with the agreement of Barry Kauler.

Disclaimer: 

Very simple, use entirely at your own risk. Barry Kauler accepts no liability or responsibility whatsoever, and you use Puppy with this 
understanding.
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