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Homepage > Components and HowTos / PuppyVersionIndex Puppy Version
Old version (circa 2012) of Which Puppy?
 | The information on this page is out of date and is kept for archival reasons only. |
The info on this page is applicable to about 2012 (at least based on the dates given). Although this page was updated as recently as 2015. Click on this WhatPuppyLinuxIsBestForYou link for the version which supersedes this page.
Which Puppy is right for you?
Older hardware (less than 256MB ram - more than 5 or 6 years old)
- Wary pup click here. For older computers with less than 256MB ram, do a frugal install and add a swap file.
- LegacyOS is a puplet, designed for older hardware
- 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
For newer computers try
Long Term Support
- Wary pup click here. For older computers with around 521 mb ram and 1.8 CPU or similar.
- Racy supports more modern computers with a later Linux kernel.
Specialised hardware
- PARM Puppy on ARM under active development
- Puppi Puppy on Raspberry Pi ARM board, under active development
- Puppeee eee computers
- Fluppy newer eee computers and netbooks
Other puppy os
- Puppy Linux news. Find out about some of the puppy builds
Once you have decided the best Puppy OS to use, consider what you use your computer for and what your needs are. Then determine what to install on top of default apps. eg basic emailing, looking up websites like facebook, youtube, chatting online, and other general Internet use, creating documents, editing photos etc.
There are different ways to install puppy
- Some just boot from CD/DVD and save configuration and data on the hard disk.
- A general overview click here for Frugal and Full installation
- How to create a Full Installation on an Internal Hard Disk Drive click here
- How to make a frugal Puppy installation click here
The size of your hard drive is not usually a problem for puppy Linux, neither is the flash drive size but the save file size (frugal install) you intend to use may be. Mostly with the save file you will not need more than 1-2GB but remember if you are installing puppy Linux on a flash drive that has a fat32 file system due to the limitations of fat 32 you can't save more than a 4GB save file. (Note that fat 32 is still good to use especially if you want to use the same flash drive to store you files on the go for access on any other computer.) It helps to have as little in the save file as you can. So what a lot of puppy users end up doing is saving things such as downloads, documents, music, photos etc, outside the save file, to hard drive or a flash drive.
Toshiba Troubleshooting
The real issue may be "which Puppy is happiest with the particular video hardware in this machine". For example Toshiba have used lots of different video boards in their various machines and it is often trial and error selecting the best mode to run the graphics board in. If you use it in a basic mode without acceleration you may find that Vesa is the best starting choice (Note that Xvesa is a different thing from Vesa).
(Different versions of puppy use slightly different formats of the video selection procedure at setup time, so explore the "probe / choose / test" options fully - sometimes the best option is accessed in a different order than you might first expect)
If you want it to run in accelerated mode (which is very useful if you can get it to work...) then you will need a special driver and need to get it correctly configured which can be a mission. Maybe leave that till later.
Different puppies will have different default video setups depending on what hardware the original creator of that version was using. For that reason it is worth trying a variety of versions to see if any get you a little closer.
Akita developed by forum member Scottman, who does a lot of work porting video games onto puppy and I have found that his video setup parameters have been better than most in various Toshiba laptops. Akita is available here
Another good one to try is Puppy 4.3.1
Although it is an older, more basic version of Puppy, it is renowned for being pretty rock solid and the key at this stage is to identify what will work with your video hardware, rather than finding the best overall Puppy at the moment.
One last suggestion: forum member ttuuxxx has vast experience with setting up puppy versions in special ways - I have had good success on Toshiba laptops with his special media version of Wary. You can find it here
Puppy Linux has spawned many different versions. Puppy was developed by BarryK Barry Kauler who releases or gives permission to release official versions. Puppy makes it easy to create your own personalised versions or Puplets. This has led to an explosion in unofficial releases and derivative versions.
There are many PuppyVersion different puplets out there now built on different versions of puppy Linux as well as the established builds.