Other Distro's ???

[nanZor]

PClinuxOS update to my previous reply here:

In regards to their live-usb utils: (this is not a full treatise beyond the scope of this forum...)

In order to make a live-usb, one uses the "mylivecd" utility on their updated running system (or from the last release distro iso.)
Normally one would follow up after making the iso with "myliveusb". (install it if you don't have it)

However, after updating, there is a transitionary period between using unionfs and overlay, in which things like persistence hang after the major updates. Other options like normal boot, and install work as usual.

The fix is to use the older --ufs unionfs option when using mylivecd (or the gui mylivegtk) initially if you've updated. Of course at some point, one would have to do a remaster of their persistent stick eventually too as it would get full of changes upon changes upon changes. Us stick guys know how that goes.

And don't forget that there are community-respins for other DE's, and WM's (like Openbox, LXQT etc) for those of us who desire that. Kernels are not automatically updated, so one does that manually via cli or synaptic perhaps. There are stories of guys who have updated (DIST-UPGRADE always!) for 12 years, but never updated their kernel.

All of this is in their forums of course, so this is really just a pointer to get to things quickly.

[nanZor]

Ah, back to the original topic - Puppy Linux. I'm running a *modern* version of it at times on usb sticks.

Problem: there are so many now! The one I use (alongside PorteuX) is produced by dev dimkr, VanillaDpup:

https://vanilla-dpup.github.io/

I use the release and unstable versions depending on mood, which rely upon wayland and labwc. Kind of like the old openbox lightness. If one wants the xorg stuff, he keeps that updated too. Long gone in the modern version is support for user-supplied "pets" which present a security and most importantly, abandoned projects which go stale as one-off's.

The build-process is a *maintained* version of woof-ce. Also it relies upon Debian (Bookworm, Trixie, Sid) for packages that aren't already baked-in as "drives". Uses EFIbootmgr rather than syslinux.

Forum talk:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=183

Iso's are gone. They are img images now. So how to fire it up and kick the tires? Simple DD to a stick. If you like, consider that install media, and you can use the onboard installer that has more options. The way I do it:

1) unarchive the img with gzip:
gzip -dk vanilladpup-11.0.16-full-uefi-img.gz

2) DD the unarchived img to usb stick and boot.

Dev dimkr has done some really neat things to bring Puppy into the modern era. Slightly different scope than Porteus(X) obviously, but it's rockin' some of my usb/ssd's now.
Personally, I disable the firewall and the anti-ad utility. Set locale and timezone.

Oops - forgot: the default puppy password (well known) is woofwoof which you can change. To get to a root terminal / window, you access that through the zzzFM file manager. It's a security thing.

[vinnie]

I haven't tried it but someone pointed me to another distribution that should work like the list I had reported before (so live and modularized). It's called minios and it's based on debian.

Because of current events I was starting to think about trying bsd, only that there seems to be nothing like porteus for that operating system. I saw that there is a minimal distribution called smolbsd but I don't think it works in a similar way.