There are many minimalist Linux based distributions but one in particular comes to mind when talking about minimalist distributions that can also exist as a persistent installation on a USB drive, Puppy Linux.
Now, a persistent installation is different than a LiveUSB in the sense that on a LiveUSB, when you download packages, change settings, and edit files, they all disappear when you reboot. This has it's advantages when it comes to recovering a broken system. These traits make it so that no matter what happens, the LiveUSB will always start up on reboot, allowing you to have a reliable and safe alternative to booting up your computer. A persistent installation is not these things.
A persistent installation operates as more of a full operating system that runs entirely off of a USB drive. You can download packages and write documents, and when you reboot, all of these files are still there. Its more like if you installed a full distribution on an external hard-drive that you could boot up. The advantage of this is that USB drives are small and depending on the brand, durable. For this reason, I keep a Puppy Linux persistent installation on a USB drive attached to my keys. It has 64GB of memory, which is an excessive amount of space for this particular distribution. Puppy Linux is covered by the GNU/GPL licenses and was first created by Barry Kauler in 2003. Since then, many different forks of this distribution have been released, with some being directly supported by the Puppy Linux Project. I opted for the 'Quirky' version and that what this review is based upon.
PROS:
-I literally have a Linux distribution that I can access everywhere I go. This has helped me at work with diagnosing problems on our Windows boxes, circumventing security software that is running on my school's library computer (not for malicious reasons but because it has such a strict rule-set, it deters any sort of good research. It's college for Christ-sake, sometimes I need to google unsavory things.), and test whether a Windows box needs new hardware or if its just Windows being awful (its always the latter, by the way).
-It runs completely out of the computer's RAM. That's right, entirely. So this means that system processes aren't causing constant read/writes to the USB stick, quickly wearing it out. It also means that it's very snappy, even on older computers.
-On boot, it automatically detects the computers hardware and loads the corresponding modules for just that hardware, again adding to its responsiveness. Every windows box I've plugged it into had booted without any issues. I also didn't have any issues using it on a MacBook Pro but I couldn't get it to run on one of those newer desktop macs (can't win em all).
CONS:
-It looks like you're booting a Linux system from 2003. It doesn't have a lot of the bells and whistles that more modern desktop interfaces use. Also, the desktop isn't very configurable. I can change things such as font, panel colors, and the icon set, but when it comes to adjusting the applications menu layout, I haven't had any luck. This is especially a drawback since, to me, the layout doesn't feel very intuitive and I often have to spend more time than I would want trying to find the package manager, which leads me to my next con.
-The package manager,
Puppy Package Manager. It isn't very intuitive and isn't something you could hand to a beginning user and expect them to be able to find and download the packages they are looking for. On top of that, it isn't friendly to the advanced user as it cannot be operated from the command line. It requires that it's run using the GUI, which I personally am not a huge fan of.
-I'm sure this is just me being nit-picky, but in order to install the OS, I needed to 'dd' the
.iso to one USB stick, live boot into this stick, then install it on the separate stick that I wanted to use it on. This felt like kind of a round-a-bout process but really isn't something I should be complaining about.
Summary:
Puppy Linux Quirky is a great way to have a Linux based distribution everywhere you go, especially if you are reliant on Linux-only tools. It's documented and supported well enough that you can find solutions to most major fixes. But this is not the distro I would pull out when trying to convince friends/family to switch to Linux.
What do you think? If you have any thoughts/questions/anger, please feel free to comment or contact me!
