Newest Puppy Linux in Version 4.2.1

The Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) update to 1.3.10 brings some relief to printing problems in the Geany and Leafpad editors and the Gnumeric spreadsheet program in Puppy. The AbiWord 2.6.3 word processor with 2.6.6 plugins promises to provide better support for the Microsoft .doc and .docx text formats, with Liberation TrueType fonts required for some documents.

Pwidgets, Puppy's desktop widget tool, was updated to version 2.0.8. The Pcrypt GUI for file encryption that was updated to the May 17 release now requires Ccrypt instead of Bcrypt. Puppy's own Pmusic audio player is now in version 0.6.4 and the Pschedule frontend for cron is in version 0.7.

Puppy 4.2.1 also integrates previously issued smaller patches to nbtscan, mountcifs, jwjwm-tray, xsane, the network wizard, mtpaint-snapshot, gtk+ Xinput, the broadcom network driver and Puppy's own control panel (pcp). The Rox 2.6.1 desktop environment received updates to MIME types.

The new Puppy is the last one from project coordinator Warren Wilson, with Barry Kauler taking over again for this and 5.x versions, according to the project release notes. Kauler, originator of Puppy in the first place, had pulled back in an advisory role in March.

Puppy Linux is a lightweight distro tailored for systems with lightweight resources, such as older computers and desktops, and as a pocket rescue system. It starts as a LiveCD that takes up 100 MBytes no matter the software selected. The developers depend mainly on resource-saving programs. Thus it depends on Abiword for word processing, Seamonkey or Opera for a browser, and JWM for window managers tasks. The ISO image for Puppy Linux 4.2.1 is ready fordownload from the project homepage.