Thin Puppy Torture Test II, Day 1

As I look back on the past year's worth of Click entries, I see my adoption of Linux play out. The pace of free, open-source software development is so fast that it makes the year seem very long indeed.

The most fun I had writing these entries was during the month of the original Thin Puppy Torture Test, in which the converted Maxspeed Maxterm thin client ran on Puppy Linux (I think I was using 2.14 at the time) for a month with no hard drive -- in fact, no storage at all except the onboard RAM.

Since then, I've been able to create and access a pup_save file on an attached USB flash drive, and I thought it would be a good time for a second Thin Puppy Torture Test. This time, I burned a fresh Puppy Linux 3.01 CD, booted the thin client, and "upgraded" an existing pup_save file on the flash drive.

I've been planning to get a 2 GB or 4 GB Compact Flash module on which I can dual-boot Puppy and Damn Small Linux with frugal installs (copying the few and huge CD files over to the flash drive and making it bootable) and no spinning drives of any kind attached whatsoever, but in the interim, I'm doing this new rendition of the torture test.

One of the reasons I'm going back to a long-term Puppy test is the nagging feeling that running Puppy and/or Damn Small Linux from live CDs -- or going all-out and doing the same with Knoppix or Wolvix on a 1 GB RAM box -- is a very viable alternative to traditionally installed Linuxes for desktop computer users.

Having a recent Ubuntu Gutsy install go bad on me (twice!) didn't exactly endear me to traditional Linux installs, and from my use of all the live CDs mentioned -- all of which are designed to be used as live CDs rather than as sludgy demos of what a traditionally installed system will do much quicker -- running a live CD completely in RAM, with no spinning hard drives or whirring CD drives, is a refreshing change.

I originally wanted to do a Damn Small Linux Torture test, but I couldn't get DSL 4.0 (or any previous version; I have CDs for 3.2 and 3.3) to boot from CD without a hard drive connected.

So before I begin the torture, I'll give DSL another try with the USB flash drive connected ... but even as I close out this entry, I know that Puppy, out of the box, has more of the apps I want (AbiWord, MtPaint) even while DSL seems lighter on overall resources. (Note: since the original writing, Damn Small Linux has added MtPaint).

Final thought: The mere fact that you can run Linux in a traditional install, frugal install, as a live CD, and make it even quicker by running completely in RAM, illustrates the wonderful freedom of choice we have with a fully open and modifiable operating system.