Linux  and Free Software :: DSL vs. Puppy Linux



Well, my idea of what a minimalist distro is might be different from what another person's idea is. Other people wouldn't consider DSL a 'usable' desktop option if they don't have the command-line knowledge to get things done. I suspect there are a whole bunch of people who would be more comfortable using Puppy than any other distro. Also, there's the whole visual motif revolving around a cute little puppy. They are really like, the friendliest linux distro ever. Yes, I agree with you that GTK2 must be oppressively slow on a Pentium I, but still, that is way below median hardware specs nowadays..
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Other people wouldn't consider DSL a 'usable' desktop option if they don't have the command-line knowledge to get things done.
As I've said a number of times, I don't think DSL was ever developed as a clicker-friendly system, but I might be wrong about that. Having a Linux system that doesn't provide a fairly complete set of commandline tools (Puppy and Austrumi come to mind) makes for a less useable desktop for a power user, so again it comes down to what is and is not considered useable depending on whether you prefer mouse or keyboard control ("desktop" should not automatically imply click-controlled).

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GTK2 must be oppressively slow on a Pentium I, but still, that is way below median hardware specs nowadays
And again, DSL is targeted toward older hardware, including 486. Whether or not you use a pentium I is beside the point...these machines are still in use around the world.

I have nothing against Puppy, of course. I just wanted to emphasize that different users have different needs and different opinions of what "useable" is, in both software and hardware.
Definitely. It's not a 'Oh, this one is better than the other' thing.
FWIW, DSL runs great on my PII 166MHz, 32MB laptops.
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It's not a 'Oh, this one is better than the other' thing.

No, I think they differ with regard to a couple very important distinctions. I've had a little more experience with Puppy the last few weeks, and I've found some things I find entirely unacceptable which prevent me from recommending it beyond its use as a live CD (and then only without touching any other media).

First, while both are "safe" when run as live (read-only) CDs, they're markedly different in terms of inherent security when installed. Puppy (and dynebolic since someone mentioned it as well) runs as root only (user "spot" is also available by default, but pay attention to the login and the permissions: it's a root-only system). IIRC, neither Puppy nor dyne even uses a password. This isn't trivial. It defeats one of the major security advantages Unix has traditionally had in the form of permissions against single-user OSes like Windows pre-NT (and modern ones like Haiku or even OSX when set up for single user only). Puppy makes sense as an installed OS only if you think Win95 was the pinnacle of computing security. By contrast, DSL boots by default to user dsl with sudo privileges but not direct root privileges. This is the proper, more secure way of running a Unix/Linux environment.

Second, the underlying paradigms are 180-degrees different and it goes far beyond GTK1 v GTK2 and the acceptability of bloat. Puppy is aimed at ease of use (which is why it's single-user) particularly for those transitioning from Windows, not at maintaining support for legacy hardware. DSL's paradigm is usability without bloat: the extensions are supposed to be as bloat-free as the base ISO.

Along the lines of the former (root only, no password), I was working on a guide about hardening DSL (particularly traditional hard drive installation) beyond its already secure settings before a couple things at work got in my way and consumed all my time (I think I have some breathing room now). I'll post the guide either on my blog or the DSL Wiki as soon as I have a little more time to finish it.
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