LETTERS WRITE ACCESS

Best of Small Distros? in email (mainly Windows Media Player DVD containing the best of them. I’ve been using for 11 months files). I also use dial-up Internet, and at John Van Gaans, Australia now. I have tried at least 40 distros from the time, Mepis 3.4 was the only distro Mandriva to Damn Small. that supported my Win modem. About a LM It is always nice to hear that some- As I have only been subscribing to month ago, I discovered that Puppy 2.10 one has found a personal favorite Linux Linux Magazine for a short time, I don’t Linux came with LT Modem support, so distribution. We agree with you that a know if you have done a DVD or review I installed it, although I wasn’t expecting compilation of small distros is definitely on the smaller Linux distros. At the much from a distro of only 70 MB. an interesting idea. Was I wrong! How could a small We’ve had small distro compilations in Windows 98ish-looking Linux do the past. The last one was in 2004. It’s so much? It played Encrypted definitely time to do something like that DVDs and even opened WMA again. Watch for a “Best of Small Dis- files. I found that its forum is alive tros” DVD in a future issue. with users who want to make Puppy better, and new packages DVD Suggestions appear for download on the forum I’m a regular reader of your magazine, all the time. If you have a problem which I enjoy for its content rather than or need advice, you will get it for the enclosed DVD. Like most Linux faster on Puppy than from any users, I have become tribal in my choice other forum I’ve tried. I found of distros, and I am not likely to be adding new packages (or Dotpups, tempted to try your monthly offering. as they are called) was as easy as (In my case I prefer and pressing a couple buttons. .) So why don’t you occasionally Figure 1: Puppy is a little Linux with a big bite. I now use Puppy 99% of the choose a Live DVD that is unique and time, having added Open Office, also useful in its own right, such as moment, I am running Mepis, Elive, and Java, Thunderbird, Opera, DrawSWF, Sabayon, Quantian, Scientific, or on my computer. I was The Gimp, and . As an experi- Agnula? One of these from time to time once a Mepis user, but I hated that it ment, I brought out an old Pentium 1 would still allow you to follow the major wouldn’t play encrypted DVDs or open 166 Mhz 32 MB RAM 1 GB HD computer releases of the big five. some attachments that were sent to me to see whether I could get puppy run- Des Sale ning on it, and with help from the Puppy forum, I did. LM Thanks for your letter. Our previous This has got me thinking that it would studies have shown that the majority of be nice to see all the smaller Linux dis- our readers are most interested in big tros – for example Alixe, Feather, Damn distros like Suse and Ubuntu, but we still Small, , Austrium, Puppy, MiniCD – have space in our schedule for addi- reviewed together, maybe even with a tional entries, so keep watching. We’ll certainly keep your suggestions in mind.

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20 ISSUE 75 FEBRUARY 2007 WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM