Applications such as AbiWord, Gnumeric and MPlayer are included, along with a choice of lightweight web browsers and a utility for downloading other packages.

[8] Barry Kauler started Puppy Linux in response to a trend of other distributions becoming stricter on system requirements over time.

His own distribution, with an emphasis on speed and efficiency and being lightweight, started from "Boot disk HOWTO" and gradually included components file-by-file until Puppy Linux was completed.

It has no UnionFS, extremely minimal persistence support, and has no package manager or ability to install applications.

[11] Puppy 1.0 series runs comfortably on very dated hardware, such as a Pentium computer with at least 32 MB RAM.

[12][13] Puppy 2.0 uses the Mozilla-based SeaMonkey as its Internet suite (primarily a web browser and e-mail client).

[16][17] Puppy 4.0 is built from scratch using the T2 SDE[18] and no longer features native Slackware 12 compatibility[19] in order to reduce the size and include newer package versions than those found in 3.

[19][20][21][22] Puppy 4.2.0–4.3.0 feature changes to the user interface and backend, upgraded packages, language and character support, new in-house software and optimizations, while still keeping the ISO image size under 100 MB.

Woof includes some binaries and software derived from Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, T2 SDE, or Arch repositories.

Tahrpup is built from the woof-CE build system, forked from Barry Kauler's Woof late last year after he announced his retirement from Puppy development.

[41][42] Puppy Linux is a complete operating system bundled with a collection of applications suited to general use tasks.

It can function as a live USB for flash devices or other USB mediums, a CD, an internal hard disk drive, an SD card, a Zip drive or LS-120/240 SuperDisk, through PXE, and through a floppy boot disk that chainloads the data from other storage media.

[46][47] It also uses a sophisticated write-caching system with the purpose of extending the life of live USB flash drives.

This ensures that a bug or even unknowingly incompatible software won't corrupt the contents of such devices.

Since Puppy Linux fundamentally runs in RAM, any files and configurations made or changed in a session would disappear otherwise.

However, it is possible for it to run on a PC with only about 48 MB of RAM because part of the system can be kept on the hard drive, or less effectively, left on the CD.

Because one of the aims of the distribution is to be extremely easy to set up, there are many wizards that guide the user through a wide variety of common tasks.

[63] Easy – A puppy variant in which the init script is completely rewritten and which uses originally developed application containers aside the conventional package management.

Fosdick concluded "I like Puppy because it's the lightest Linux distro I've found that is still suitable for end users.

Install it on an old P-III or P-IV computer and your family or friends will use it just as effectively for common tasks as any expensive new machine.

Always being the administrator has its advantages for convenience, but it means that the user is always one careless click away from deleting their files and one exploit away from a compromised operating system.

He concluded, "Puppy's diversity and flexibility make it a great community-driven system for computer enthusiasts, hobbyists, and tinkerers.

"[67] An April 2020 review of Bionic 8.0 by Igor Ljubuncic in Dedoimedo concluded, "Puppy Linux delivered on its happy message, and even exceeded my expectations.

What really amazed me was not that this is a lean and fast little distro - it's the fact it manages to keep its relevance despite the obvious lethargy in the Linux desktop space.

You may say, well, why bother - but if you have older hardware or travel a lot, Puppy gives you your own, complete work session that will boot and run pretty much anywhere, with tons of goodies and excellent configuration tools.