Revision [31795]
This is an old revision of WhatPuppyLinuxIsBestForYou made by s243a on 2017-12-29 18:52:07.
Page Changes
Previous dates were most applicable to 2012. This older version of this page has been moved and this page has been updated on January 2018
Which Puppy is right for you?
The following dates and system specs are only guidelines and aren't firm limits for the lower or upper recommended specs for puppylinux. Puppylinux works very well on hardware that is 5 years older or more than the release date (or if applicable the version of linux that it was designed to be compatible with). All versions of puppylinux are small and light enough to run off a small USB drive or DVD. Old versions of puppylinux [3] have been known to run as little as 64MB of ram.
The suggested specs are a starting point for which version of puppy to try. Puppylinux allows several versions of puppylinux to coexist on the same drive by either using either separate SaveFile save files or save folders. A person looking for a lighter weight distribution may wish to try an older version than is recommended below [4] and a person looking for compatibility with newer software may wish to try a more recent version than is recommended below. A person may even use different versions of puppylinux on the same computer depending on their application.
You have 4GB of ram or more (~2012 or newer) then first try:
Xenial Xenialpup Pup CE, Was officially released as Xenialpup 7.5 on December 4, 2017 and is Currently the newest official version of puppylinux.
Slacko7 Slaco 7 (Under Development).
You have 2GB of ram to 3GB (~2010 to 2011 hardware) then first try:
Xenial pup w/ older 4.1 Kernal (Form Thread).
You have 1GB to 2GB of Ram (~2007 to 2009 hardware) then first try:
Tahrpup, originally released in 2014 is a fairly recent version of puppylinux which runs well on old hardware and was updated as recently as 2017-Feb-15. 32bit and 64bit versions are available and it works with a wide variety of kernels.
Tahrpup is one of the puppy6 Puppy 6] generation version of puppylinux. Another version of puppy6 (e.g. Slaco) may be used in lieu of Tahrpup. Check the puppylinux forums to see which Puppy 6 versions have been most recently updated.
You have 750Mb to 1.25GB of Ram (~2004 to 2006 Hardware) then first try:
Lucid Revitalized
Lucid is a Puppy5Index Puppy 5 version. In Lieu of "Lucid Revitalized" check the form for recent updated versions of Puppy 5 (or Racy) if one is looking for a simmilar era pup to try in Leu of Lucid (e.g. Slaco 5X).
You have 250Mb to 750Mb of Ram (1.8 CPU or similar ~ Year 2005 [1]) then first try:
The recommended minimum ram for wary Wary is 521mb (1.8 CPU or similar). Suggested Maximum 750mb[2], however it will work with less than 256MB of ram in frugal mode if set to not run in ram. A swap file may also be required depending on the application. Wary was a long time supported pup and remained quite popular well beyond the support life of Wary (Last ISO Date: 2013-Mar-02).
A version of Puppy3 Puppy 3 (Last Updated 2014) or Puppy4 Puppy 4 (Last Updated 2009) may also be suitable for this range of computer specs.
You have less than 256MB ram (~2003 or earlier) then first try:
- LegacyOS LegacyOS is a puplet, designed for older hardware
- Puppy214X Puppy 2.14X aka (Classic Pup) updated and supported continually by one of our experienced developers
64 bit (32 bit Puppys are fine on 64 bit machines)
- Fatdog Stable and solid
- Lighthouse pup 64-bit
- Mariner development of Lighthouse
- Most versions of puppy6 Puppy 6 e.g. (Tahrpup CE & Slaco 6X) have 64bit versions of the operating system. Keep in mind that if you don't have sufficient ram you may get worse performance from a 64bit Operating system than a 32 bit operating system.
Categories
CategoryTutorialNotes
1. Computer memory in a given year may very largely but on average the variation may be small. In 2005 the average ram for a begginners was about 400Mb and expert Users 600Mb according to pcpitstop.com. However, the actual ram capacity of computers was more than this by year 2000.2. Once you start getting to 1GB ram or more a newever version of puppy is strongly recommend then Wary given that support for Wary stopped in about 2013. However, wary was a very popular puppy so it would be worth trying to update it with a newer browser, in which case some advanced users may prefer it due to the lighter weight nature of older operating systems. Some members have successfully got recent versions of palemoon to work on wary.
3. In the article by BarryK on How Puppy Works (External Link) 64MB was given as an exmple Low Ram spec which will work with Puppy 2. As noted above Puppy214X Puppy 2.14X is currently maintained.
4. Trying an older version of puppylinux then recommended above may not always work. The older kernel may not support your hardware, or it may not have the required drivers for newer hardware. Additionally if it is not recently updated it may not have a current web browser and this may prevent one from accessing many web pages. Some issues with an older browser could be lack of support for HTML 5 or outdated SSL encryption. A workaround might be to visualizer (or alternatively chroot) either either the newer or older version of puppy if one isn't able to sufficiently revitalize the older version of puppylinux.
