The Pick of the Litter
Slacko Puppy 7.0
Two versions of Slacko Puppy are among Puppy's official distributions, with the Slacko Puppy 7.0 being the most recent. Built on Slackware 14.2, Slacko runs a MATE/Gnome 2 desktop. Although its default browser is Firefox, Slacko Puppy's menu contains links for installing LibreOffice and the Brave, Chrome, and Vivaldi browsers. Its menu is also full of tools for configuring the install from the desktop, many of them unique, making Slacko Puppy 7.0 the ideal choice for those who like to heavily customize their systems (Figure 4). In my experience, it is also the fastest Puppy distribution.
Figure 4: Slacko Puppy is perfect for those who want to heavily customize their installation.
Tahrpup
With a desktop resembling FossaPup's, Tahrpup is based on Ubuntu 14.4 (Trusty Tahr). It installs a moderate number of default applications, many of which are not found outside of Puppy distributions. Like XenialPup, Tahrpup's mouse is erratic before being adjusted (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Like many Puppy distributions, Tahrpup is built using an Ubuntu LTS release.
Vanilla Dpup
Vanilla Dpup is built on Debian 11 and uses a modified MATE/Gnome 2 desktop environment. It installs a minimum of default applications, which includes Firefox, but leans towards utilities and lighter tools like the Sylpheed email browser. The first thing you will probably want to do after installing Vanilla Dpup is to open the Default Applications Chooser and select your preferred word processor, spreadsheet, and utilities from the drop-down lists (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Based on Debian, Vanilla Dpup is an unofficial Puppy distribution that leaves the selection of packages largely up to the user.
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