A lone fighter from the very active developer community around Puppy Linux published a new edition of the slim live system a few days ago. The special: Slacko Puppy Linux 7.0 continues the Slackware line from Puppy Linux after a good four years of development – the last “Slacko” edition (6.3.0) was in February 2015 published. The current release was preceded in September of last year by the Ubuntu-based Puppy Linux 9.5.

The new version 7.0 of the live system was canceled the sources of Slackware 12. 2 newly built. It lies in a 32 – as well as in a 64 – bit Variant (“Slacko 64”) and in the latter it now also boots in UEFI mode. The interface, which has turned out to be very simple even for Puppy Linux, includes the new version 2.3.6 of the “Joe’s Window Manager” (JWM) written in C, redesigned configuration tools and the new “FrugalPup” installer. The kernel of the 64 – bit version is, the status of Slackware 12. 2 accordingly, still with LTS version 4. 19, which still to 2024 Received bug fixes. The 32 bit Version meanwhile still uses Kernel 4.4.

According to the developer, the boot scripts of the initial ramdisk (Initrd) have been completely rewritten so that the system can also be booted from an ISO file using Grub 2. Slacko Puppy Linux 7.0 (6 pictures) Do not start everything as root: While the standard user in Puppy systems is always root, web browsers can be started via the unprivileged user account “spot”.

(Image: Screenshot) Slacko: The reduction of Slackware Puppy Linux is not a Linux distribution in the traditional sense, but rather a whole family of live systems. All official and unofficial members come from the build system “Woof-CE”, a collection of scripts that create minimal systems and the boot environment and tools from the package sources of Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware and now also from the Debian derivative Raspberry Pi OS for live operation.

While many projects use Linux systems as the basis, which are expanded with further additions, Puppy goes the opposite way and initially removes many system-specific components such as scripts for hardware detection, installers, network managers, desktop environments and programs. With Woof-CE you get a new selection of scripts and tools as well as minimal software equipment. The result are particularly compact live systems: The current Puppy Linux 7.0 “Slacko” includes in the 64 – bit variant for example only 343 Mbytes. Such systems are especially suitable for starting a functional Linux desktop even on particularly old PC hardware.

Software equipment: Not completely turnkey Puppy Linux is never completely turnkey and “Slacko” is no exception: In addition to its own tools Little is preinstalled for configuration and installation. In this Puppy edition, Firefox ESR is 68. 12 from August 2020 represented as the most extensive application. The alternative configuration tool “Frisbee” takes care of the WLAN connection instead of the Network Manager. Instead of an office suite, Abiword and Gnumeric are available as space-saving alternatives.

Puppy can add additional packages that can be installed during operation of the live system or with an installed variant. There is also a package manager in Puppy Linux 7.0 under “Applications -> System”, which is taken from the sources of Slackware 14. 2 scoops. Other browsers such as Chromium, Opera and Vivaldi can be downloaded quickly using a script under “Setup”. As in other Puppy versions, the standard user is logged in as root. If desired, the web browser can be started in an unprivileged user account.

Release notes and download In contrast to the many modified Puppy variants, Slacko Puppy 7.0 is an official release, which is why there are also release notes on the official Puppy Linux website stand by. There are also the 32 – and 64 – bit downloads linked .

Blog entry about Slacko Puppy Linux 7.0 Announcement and Release Notes Official Puppy website and download overview (ovw)