Projects/OLPC on Puppy Linux

Objective:

The Primary objective is to develop a Puppy Linux Educational derivative, specially built to run in the XO hardware.

Secondary Objectives:

   * Create a Puppy Linux distribution Extremely friendly, with easy to learn GUI.
   * Create a Puppy Linux distribution with a good pack of educative applications.
   * Deploy a good repository of Linux learning documents.
   * Develop a small, fast and easy to learn Linux distribution for XO hardware.
   * Distribute Puppy Linux for OLPC freely.

Why Puppy?

Puppy is a small Linux distribution that runs well on older PCs and small PCs. Their goals include special system like XO and the open source license makes it a perfect choice for the OLPC project.

   What is Puppy Linux? (from [1])
   "Puppy Linux is an operating system for computers. Other well-known operating systems are Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX 
   and MS-DOS. Puppy Linux is based on GNU/Linux. It is completely free and open source software."

How is Puppy Different?

       * Small size, ~100MB! This lends itself to some very useful and unique features.
       * 'Live' booting from CDs, DVDs, USB flash drives, and other portable media.
       * Runs from RAM, making it unusually fast even in old PCs and in netbooks with solid state storage media.
       * Very low minimum system requirements.
       * Boot time is well under a minute, 30-40 seconds in most systems.
       * Includes a wide range of applications: word processors, spreadsheets, internet browsers, games, 
         image editors and many utilities. Extra software in the form of dotpets can be installed by the 
         Puppy Package Manager. Bigger application programs are available as loadable squashfs files (SFS)
       * Puppy is easy to use and little technical knowledge is assumed. Most hardware is automatically detected.

Contributtors:

       clarf
       ttuuxxx
       mavrothal
       01micko
       jamesbond

Forum threads

Early development (Puppy Linux forum)
Available builds (Puppy Linux forum)
HowTo (Puppy Linux forum)
Builds (OLPCnews forum)

Builds

The PuppyLinux build, XOpup, that runs on the OLPC XO-1 and XO-1.5 laptops is now available.
XOpup, is a PuppyLinux 5.1 derivative.
Although fully functional, XOpup-1 is a proof of principle build, indicating feasibility.
XOpup-2.x decreased the minimal required size, added comparable support for the XO-1.5 and is trying to keep up with the progress in the OLPC software infrastructure. Currently the build is ~88MB
Newer puppy builds may be found here or here
Further development towards the objectives of the project will continue to include the ARM-based XO-1.75 and XO-4

Git

The puppy_linux_XO building files are now in Github
They will modify any recent puppy linux ISO image and produce the files needed (including the kernels) to boot the XO-1 and XO-1.5 from a USB stick or an SDcard.