Puppy Linux 3.0: tiny Linux distribution you can run from a thumb drive

Puppy Linux 3.0 was released this week, and like earlier versions of Puppy Linux, it's a tiny distro, weighing in at under 100MB. But it's packed with features, making it an excellent distribution for older computers with small hard drives and slow processors. You can also run Puppy Linux from a LiveCD or throw it on a flash drive and run it from any computer that will boot from a USB drive.

Eagle-eyed readers will note that OpenOffice alone is larger than 100MB, so what kind of applications does Puppy Linux 3.0 include?

• AbiWord for word processing
• Gnumeric for spreadsheets
• SeaMonkey for web browsing
• Pidgin for instant messaging
• XFinans financial management

Of course, if you want to install OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, or other programs on top of Puppy Linux you're free to do so. But you might want to take it easy, seeing as the more apps you add the more memory you'll use, which kind of defeats the purpose of having such a lightweight operating system.

It looks like some Puppy websites aren't responding at the moment, so here are a few alternate download links.

Tags: gnumeric, osupdates, pidgin, puppy, puppy-linux, puppy-linux-3.0, seamonkey