Using Puppy Linux

Linux operating systems come in different flavors and size. Every linux distro that is available or comes out into the market are unique and are accepted by a wide variety of people. I basically love Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is robust and at the same time is light and easy to use. It is also a very stable operating system and doesn't crash or hang. In the past I have used Fedora 2 and Knoppix 3.2. I felt that Fedora is a very very heavy operating system. Knoppix was a revolution as it brought the live CD concept into the market. Still it was not up to the mark for me. It has been years since I have started using Ubuntu.

Recently I came into a situation where I had to have windows on my laptop to test windows based softwares. But I wanted to have Linux as my operating system. The only option was to have a live USB stick. Hence I did a google search to see which Linux OS would be suitable for me. I came across, DSL(Damn Small Linux), Puppy Linux and a few more. Some time in the past I had created a Puppy Linux live CD and had tested it. It was good but at the time I needed a OS like Ubuntu and hence settled for it.

So Puppy Linux being familiar I decided to go for it. I went to the Puppy Linux website and downloaded the ISO file. It was just 128MB. The download got over in just 30 mins. I then used Ubuntu's default CD writing software to create a live CD.

The next step was to insert the live CD into the CDROM and reboot the system through CD (you can change the relevant settings in the bios settings page). I was really impressed to see a attractive page. Puppy Linux had indeed has improved by leaps and bounds. Now I had to create a bootable USB stick for my actual use. To prepare a usb stick with puppy linux you need to boot through.

There are two options here to prepare a bootable USB stick.
1. Using the default option Bootflash Install (available under the setup option.
2. Using the Universal installer.

The default Bootflash option is a application provided by puppy linux to create bootable usb stick. The other option is using the universal installer. You can use the universal installer to create a usb stick for any linux based OS. The only requirement is that you need to have the downloaded ISO file. I use a compaq mini netbook and a 4GB hp usb stick. I initially tried using the bootflash option but somehow that did not work for me. I was not able to boot using the usb stick. The default boot loader did not wrork for me.

I then tried creating the usb bootable stick using universal installer. This time I read the steps and prompts carefully and there laid the explanation to my problem. In the universal installer application I had the option using a different boot loader. I tried using it and yes it worked. It booted flawlessly and now I carry my OS where ever I go and 98% of my files sit on the cloud.