Puppy Linux 4.2 released

The Puppy Linux developers have released version 4.2 (aka "Deep Thought") of their independent Linux distribution. Puppy Linux is a popular small release that traditionally weighs in at under 100 Mb, focuses on ease of use and can run entirely from RAM. It comes with a choice of two window managers, IceWM or JWM. Several themes are included in addition to the Clearlooks Gtk+2 theme engine.

The release features SeaMonkey, which includes the MonkeyMenu extension, AbiWord, Gnumeric, Pwidgets (continuously running desktop applications), Xarchiver and the Puppy Control Panel. Version 4.2 includes numerous software updates, such as Transmission 1.50, Bcrypt 1.1 and Flash Player 9.0.152. After installing Puppy Linux, The H advises that users update their Flash Player to version 9.1 to protect themselves from a previously reported critical vulnerability.

Puppy Linux can boot from several types of media, including USB flash drives, hard disk drives and a live CD. Built-in tools are included to create bootable USB disks, create new Puppy CDs or remaster a new live CD with different packages. It has a rather unique feature that allows it to run as a normal working environment on a single-write multi-session CD. It does not require a rewritable CD as it automatically detects changes to the file system and incrementally saves them on the CD. Once the CD becomes full, users can change to a new CD and carry the desktop environment and all of their files over.

More details about the release can be found in the release notes. Puppy Linux 4.2 is available to download under the LGPL license.

(crve)