So you can teach an old dog new tricks after all
Posted in Puppy Linux 4.0 was released recently, but what changes have been made since Version 3.01?
Made by Australian developer Barry Kauler Puppy 3.01 was built from Slackware-12 binary packages. Puppy Linux 4.0 has been totally compiled from source utilizing the so-called T2-project. Because of that, this latest edition of Puppy is even smaller in size at 87.1MB (before 98.6MB).
Puppy Linux 4.0 is still using the very lightweight window manager called JWM (Joe’s Window Manager) and ROX-Filer as its file manager.
It abandoned GTK1 and Tcl/Tk in favour of GTK2-based system. This change was made to achieve user-interface consistency and to reduce the size even more. The wallpaper or desktop background is also new.
This latest version of Puppy now includes some valuable GTK2 applications.
There’s Fotox image viewer, Gwhere disk catalogger, Prename batch file renamer, gFnRename batch file renamer, Pburn CD/DVD burner, MTR traceroute, Pnethood Samba client, Pwireless wireless scanner, Pfind file search, Pprocess process manager, Chtheme GTK theme chooser, Pidgin multiprotocol chat client, Gadm-Rsync GUI for rsync, Wireless Autoconnect, Gtkam digital camera interface, Xsane scanner interface, ePDFView PDF viewer, Pschedule cron GUI, Osmo personal organiser, Pcdripper audio CD ripper, RipOff audio CD ripper, mhWaveEdit audio editor and more.
Abiword word processor and SeaMonkey web browser is still included as well as other important applications that were available in the previous version.
Installing additional packages is still handled by the much-improved PETget. The GUI window is fully refurbished, which now features categorized packages and allows easy access to multiple repositories. Puppy Linux 4.0 also worked well on the VM environment, with properly detected and fully working Ethernet, USB, CD ROM, audio and display
It would appear Puppy Linux 4.0 has had quite a major overhaul - even its distro logo is changed. The speed and responsive have improved considerably, and those added applications and features have really made Puppy Linux deserving to be among the best mini Linux distribution out there.
