Can Puppy Linux Still Hold Its Own? Here’s What I Found

General Discussions
1

Hey everyone, just wanted to throw this out there because I’ve been testing some lightweight Linux distros on an old laptop (1GB RAM, no SSD), and Puppy Linux Puppy Linux still surprised me.

:check_mark: ISO is under 300MB
:check_mark: Runs completely off a USB stick
:check_mark: Snappy performance even with ancient hardware
:check_mark: You can choose your own apps to keep things light

I didn’t expect much, but it boots quick, connects to Wi-Fi, and handles basic tasks like a champ. It’s honestly a great rescue distro too if you ever need one handy.

But I’m curious…
Is Puppy Linux still the go-to for low-spec machines, or have you switched to something like AntiX, Bodhi, or Tiny Core?

Would love to hear what worked best for your old rigs — especially now when most distros feel bloated even on newer hardware.

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Puppy Linux is super light, but if you want even lighter, check out Tiny Core Linux (TCL). TCL is tiny, around 11MB for the Core version. It’s much more hands-on, though. Tiny Core Linux

Lighter than Puppy, but expect more manual setup! So, yes, Puppy’s a nice middle ground with ease of use and lightness. Choose based on how much you want to tweak and your hardware. Here’s a summary of memory usage including other options:

  1. Puppy Linux: ~100-130MB,
  2. Tiny Core Linux: Core ~11MB, TinyCore ~50MB, CorePlus ~75MB,
  3. SliTaz: Base ~25MB to 100MB,
  4. AntiX: ~75-150MB depending on setup,
  5. Porteus: ~60-100MB depending on modules,
  6. Bodhi Linux : Typically around 100-200MB,
3

This post is great and if you are just trying out then you use docker such as $docker pull linux image_name and the raw size is less than 10 MB and then you can mount as much storage as you want by adding the node and even swarm much to it.

Gaurav

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4

As someone has already mentioned, Tiny Core Linux, it comes highly recommended. Checked out the latest version released this March and it packs just 16MB. It is ideal to run very stably on computers that have RAM lower than 128MB.

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5

@Slys thank you and i didnt even know about the puppy linux :smile: . After reading yours, i came to know. I am going to format and install a new os soon on my system.

thank you and have a nice weekend,
Gaurav

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I think RAM lower than 128 MB is old releases of computer because this doesn’t work perfectly with new system of exploitation that requires 400 MB RAM or more.

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8

Some really solid distro suggestions here. Always cool seeing how people breathe new life into old hardware.