Welcome to Puppy version PUPPYVERSION, released PUPPYDATE
Hi, I am Barry Kauler, the original developer of the Puppy Operating System, and you can find a complete
introduction to Puppy on the web at: http://www.puppylinux.com/ and http://www.puppylinux.org/.
You are going to be amazed at the quantity and quality of
applications in such a tiny Linux 'distro', as well as blown away by
the speed and stunned by the ease-of-use.
My aim is for Puppy to become a no-brainer to use (ie, no need to read
the
manual!). Just turn on the PC, and off you go... we're not there yet,
as some
configuration files may have to be edited, plus various apps have to be
"tweaked". Maybe some of your PC hardware doesn't work --
in that case, first browse through the online documentation, then
search the Puppy Discussion Forum -- as a last resort, post a question.
I would like to very briefly acknowledge all the guys whose programs I have
used in Puppy. Truly, I am standing on the shoulders of many others to reach
this new pinnacle that is the achievement of Puppy Linux. I have acknowledged
people throughout the documentation and on the web, and my profuse gratitude
goes out to all you guys who code just because you love doing it. I would
also like to send out a special thank-you for the help received from the guys
on the Puppy Discussion Forum.
In fact, if you look at the release notes linked-to above, what is immediately apparent
is that Puppy is now a team effort, a change that has been incrementally increasing so over the last couple of
years. Any acknowledgement now needs to go to our entire "Puppy Team" rather than just me.
Puppy help
All Puppy's local documentation is in HTML or plain text format and located in
/usr/share/doc. This page is the master index.
Puppy-specific help
Applications documentation
The pulldown menu provides easy access to online documentation of all utilities and applications in Puppy. Select and go!...
Note that although Puppy has Busybox, which is a very small toolkit of
utility applications, in some cases they do not have the required
functionality and are replaced by the full versions. These replacements
include: modprobe, cat, cp, gzip, gunzip, losetup, ls, mkdir, mv, rm,
sed, sort, tar, wget,
date,
find, grep, fgrep and egrep.
Note that Puppy applications are open source and under various GPL licences, however there are a few exceptions.
Planmaker Free
Edition (spreadsheet editor) and Textmaker Free Edition (wordprocessor) are PET packages. The licence
document is included in the packages.
We need to be able to open
and edit Excel-format spreadsheets, which Planmaker does admirably, and
the
Free Edition is just that, free, no embedded adverts, no usage
restrictions (except for a limited maximum size that can be edited).
I would like to do the right thing by the developer, Softmaker
Software,
though, and recommend that you consider the full edition if Planmaker
is to
be used for serious commercial purposes.
Some releases of Puppy have the Opera web browser, which is closed source but free.

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Some releases of Puppy include
the Macromedia Flash plugin for the web browser. This is closed source
but free. The distribution licence requires that I include the logo and
a link to the Macromedia site.
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Legal notice:
I, Barry Kauler, established the
'Puppy Linux Project' in January 2003, first website and product
release 18-June-2003, and I have trademark claim to the name and typed
drawing of 'Puppy Linux', 'PuppyOS' and 'Puppy' as it relates to
"computer operating system software to facilitate computer use and
operation", under Federal and International Common Law and Trademark
Laws as appropriate.
Programs
in Puppy are open source (except where noted above), and licences of
individual products are duly acknowledged. The name Puppy Linux", also
known as "Puppy" and "PuppyOS", and all artisitic creations thereof,
are copyright (c) 2003,2004,2005,2006,2007 Barry Kauler -- further
details in the online FAQ.
Disclaimer:
Very simple, use entirely at your own risk. Barry Kauler accepts no liability
or responsibility whatsoever, and you use Puppy with this understanding.