I do not know why it uses sh by default instead of bash, or why a broken copy of dpkg is included on the system, lacking the /var/lib/dpkg* folder is missing, since its supposed to be using slackware's package management. From my Test, at Idle it only uses 219 MB of RAM, and with its included browser open, with a few tabs, and a few other things, it used about 660 MB of RAM out of the 2 GB of RAM my system has. The Installer was kinda hidden away in a menu inside of the control panel. Also the Firefox downloader didnt work for me, i got an 'Exec format error' when launching firefox using the lastest downloader, however this might be a me issue and not a fatdog issue. Overall, this kinda goofy pile of Puppy-like functions, a decent palette of built in programs, and a decent package library (in terms of independent Distro standards), I think this is a fairly decent, albeit kinda unclean distro
Version: 900 Rating: 10 Date: 2023-09-28 Votes: 3
I've had no issues with 900. For wifi I just clicked the tray wifi icon, located my SSID, entered my password and saved that configuration.
The extra ram usage even on my old laptop is well managed and goes unnoticed. Programs seem quicker. And the as-is install pretty much covers my needs excepting I install/use chrome. Much of the bloat isn't down to Fatdog, but rather the likes of Libre and extra libs in general. Bloat isn't the right word however as its still very lean compared to alternatives.
The developers are active on the message board, are pleasant and quick to help.
10 rating from me
Version: 900 Rating: 5 Date: 2023-09-14 Votes: 13
Wow, FatDog64 now if officially fat. FatDog64 ballooned from a very impressive 239 MB RAM at idle with
WIFI connected in v814 to 1036 MB RAM without internet connected in v900.
Where as WIFI was easy to establish in v814 it became a dark, arcane art in v900. Heck I still don't know how I eventually got WIFI connected in v900.
Simply put the v900 version of FatDog is truly fat and for what? I am missing the dramatic difference between v814 and v900 other than your RAM goes bye-bye. It seems FatDog64 has now drifted so far from its minimalist Puppy roots that it really should consider rebranding; may I suggest a bloated pig as the trademark? What a way to kill a once fine distro. This is just sad.
Version: 814 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-07-11 Votes: 5
Amazingly light distro, weighing in at 239 MB RAM (free -m) with wifi running.
I think a lot of what you think of FatDog is going to be correlated with how much you like the desktop; it made me an Openbox fan.
This could be a fun distro for the home user looking for a lighter distro. note they use Rox as a file manager so you may have to learn a thing or two but that is a good thing for most. Like all Puppy related things you become part of a family of Linuxers who walk to a different beat. I recommend you enjoy the camaraderie,
Surprisingly well documented.
I note they recommend 1GB RAM, I ran seamonkey browser with two instances of youtube running and was at 579 MB RAM s you might be okay on a 512 MB system.
A very nice distro with a fine set of applications.
tfb
Version: 814 Rating: 6 Date: 2023-07-06 Votes: 3
I would like to see more time spent polishing this distro and less on new features, for instance it would be great to see the back of recurring issues like kernel panic because it detected a lack of ram or insufficient ram even though this is not the case. This has been going on for a few years, time to fix it.
Those with some experience and just as importantly the patience to tinker in order to get this up and running find it to be a good, even with the rough edges. It certainly compares well with the many distros available intended to provide a portable option.
Version: 813 Rating: 9 Date: 2023-05-04 Votes: 4
You are on to something here... Fast, stable, flexible and It seemed to anticipate my most basic requirements. I have used it as a portable live usb system and it really does work. Savefile is a fantastic implementation, the fix-usb "program" a nifty trick.
The FAQ's have some real answers and lots of insight. Intelligent work has gone into this distro and the implementation is almost perfect.
Impressive. It inspired this "old dog" to keep digging, exploring and playing just like a youngin... For that, I wag my tail in gratitude.
This is a wonderful choice for someone tired of Windows but doesn't want the learning curve of most Linux distributions. It follows the Puppy ideas of generally operating as root (except online where spot is used) and omits the source compiling features (but can be added) so you have applications like LibreOffice, VLC and GIMP in a tiny 515 GB iso.
It is excellent as a Live USB stick using Rufus. The Puppy type Savefile collects all all your changes and settings without the performance loss of persistence On the next launch everything reappears as you left it. When your Savefile gets too full, just do a Remaster with all your changes incorporated in the new iso and add a new Savefile on exit. I've added applications including Firefox 108.0 to my current iso.
There is a Fatdog topic on the Puppy forum where your questions are answered quickly and often by the developers.
Puppy Linux has filled me up with inmense satisfaction and I learned from it a lot. However, despite my efforts, I couldn't make it "fast" or "frugal" (even more than it is, I mean).
It was quite a positive impression when I saw FatDog64 booting faster than Puppy in my low tier system:
My Puppy system: 45 sec; FDog64: 20 (!) sec.
Memory usage:
My Puppy system: 130MB; FDog64: 93 (!) MB.
MAGNIFICENT!
Not only that: Apart from FDog64 is amazingly stable, it lacks nothing. One of the first things one can notice is, apps quantity in repositories seems "scarce". However, that's only the first impression: There's plenty of ways to install software: Gslapt/repositories, SFS, pip install, compiling (works like a breeze).
But I digress. I'm marveled of the way it's thought and made. It's "natural" for me how it is done. Puppy is pure genius, no doubt, but FDog64 is "elegant". Moreover, regarding Puppy, one eventually miss some more "organized" way to learn more about the system; that's where FDog64 outshines Puppy: its origin being intertwined with LFS (another marvel) is a "plus".
I can't really be thankful enough for FDog64 not using pulseaudio or systemd BS (sorry Poettering's fanboys). I don't know how long will last this sound design decision, but in the meantime, I thank for it.
Recently I've read an article (from 2017) in LinuxInsider regarding a prior version of FatDog. I can really say FDog64 has done a long way since then.
Documentation and help is, again, amazing. Existence of man pages is a sublime decision (something I sorely missed in Puppy, despite the fact I could access a web version). They're SO useful to me!
As a personal note, Openbox/Lxpanel is a winning tandem for me (I could never get used to jwm). So, I took my chances and compiled lxpanel 0.10.0 (with a minor tweak to be able to close apps, clicking over them in task list with mouse wheel).
SUCCESS!
And last but not least, I'm pretty excited by how easy is to create packages in FDog64! A MUST! Thank you for the help!
Believe me when I say I could go on and on and on about the merits of this work.
Thanks Team FatDog64!
Version: 810 Rating: 7 Date: 2021-11-09 Votes: 2
Good looking distro with nice software collection and interesting options. Recognized all the hardware in all laptops I tried, can increase brightness from keyboard on HP laptop, that lot of little distro cannot do, very important option for me because of using of raster glasses, that makes tings darker.
Made a multiboot usb with FossaPup and BusterDog Xfce, but after install grub4dos from FossaPup cannot connect to the savefile folder of FatDog. Tried to append "savefile=direct:device:sdb1:/fd64-save" in menu lst of the bootloader on / of the usb. but not worked, boots always fresh without saved changes. Maby exist another menu lst on another location that I have append the savefile boot option to...
Version: 810 Rating: 8 Date: 2021-02-05 Votes: 9
This is mostly meant to be run from a pendrive in system memory. You can then save changes to a savefile and/or directory. Please specify whether you want it to the pendrive or to a computer that hosts that pendrive. I could see this working really well if you installed it on a 32 or 64 GB pendrive and it became your portable PC system.
Some issues:
I had issues with localization. It didn't work. Also, not much support for other languages, but at least I could get it to set for the use of a Japanese keyboard.
It comes with a rather old-looking Sea Monkey browser, You have to install Google Chrome or Firefox, and then get the savefile to work in order to save any downloads and changes.
If this had true multi-language support, it would make it one of the best pendrive Linuxes out there.
It is not really meant to be done as a full install on a computer. If you do that, you have no support and you lose features that are built into this to make it work well from the pendrive and system memory.
I do not know why it uses sh by default instead of bash, or why a broken copy of dpkg is included on the system, lacking the /var/lib/dpkg* folder is missing, since its supposed to be using slackware's package management. From my Test, at Idle it only uses 219 MB of RAM, and with its included browser open, with a few tabs, and a few other things, it used about 660 MB of RAM out of the 2 GB of RAM my system has. The Installer was kinda hidden away in a menu inside of the control panel. Also the Firefox downloader didnt work for me, i got an 'Exec format error' when launching firefox using the lastest downloader, however this might be a me issue and not a fatdog issue. Overall, this kinda goofy pile of Puppy-like functions, a decent palette of built in programs, and a decent package library (in terms of independent Distro standards), I think this is a fairly decent, albeit kinda unclean distro
I've had no issues with 900. For wifi I just clicked the tray wifi icon, located my SSID, entered my password and saved that configuration.
The extra ram usage even on my old laptop is well managed and goes unnoticed. Programs seem quicker. And the as-is install pretty much covers my needs excepting I install/use chrome. Much of the bloat isn't down to Fatdog, but rather the likes of Libre and extra libs in general. Bloat isn't the right word however as its still very lean compared to alternatives.
The developers are active on the message board, are pleasant and quick to help.
Wow, FatDog64 now if officially fat. FatDog64 ballooned from a very impressive 239 MB RAM at idle with
WIFI connected in v814 to 1036 MB RAM without internet connected in v900.
Where as WIFI was easy to establish in v814 it became a dark, arcane art in v900. Heck I still don't know how I eventually got WIFI connected in v900.
Simply put the v900 version of FatDog is truly fat and for what? I am missing the dramatic difference between v814 and v900 other than your RAM goes bye-bye. It seems FatDog64 has now drifted so far from its minimalist Puppy roots that it really should consider rebranding; may I suggest a bloated pig as the trademark? What a way to kill a once fine distro. This is just sad.
Amazingly light distro, weighing in at 239 MB RAM (free -m) with wifi running.
I think a lot of what you think of FatDog is going to be correlated with how much you like the desktop; it made me an Openbox fan.
This could be a fun distro for the home user looking for a lighter distro. note they use Rox as a file manager so you may have to learn a thing or two but that is a good thing for most. Like all Puppy related things you become part of a family of Linuxers who walk to a different beat. I recommend you enjoy the camaraderie,
Surprisingly well documented.
I note they recommend 1GB RAM, I ran seamonkey browser with two instances of youtube running and was at 579 MB RAM s you might be okay on a 512 MB system.
A very nice distro with a fine set of applications.
I would like to see more time spent polishing this distro and less on new features, for instance it would be great to see the back of recurring issues like kernel panic because it detected a lack of ram or insufficient ram even though this is not the case. This has been going on for a few years, time to fix it.
Those with some experience and just as importantly the patience to tinker in order to get this up and running find it to be a good, even with the rough edges. It certainly compares well with the many distros available intended to provide a portable option.
You are on to something here... Fast, stable, flexible and It seemed to anticipate my most basic requirements. I have used it as a portable live usb system and it really does work. Savefile is a fantastic implementation, the fix-usb "program" a nifty trick.
The FAQ's have some real answers and lots of insight. Intelligent work has gone into this distro and the implementation is almost perfect.
Impressive. It inspired this "old dog" to keep digging, exploring and playing just like a youngin... For that, I wag my tail in gratitude.
This is a wonderful choice for someone tired of Windows but doesn't want the learning curve of most Linux distributions. It follows the Puppy ideas of generally operating as root (except online where spot is used) and omits the source compiling features (but can be added) so you have applications like LibreOffice, VLC and GIMP in a tiny 515 GB iso.
It is excellent as a Live USB stick using Rufus. The Puppy type Savefile collects all all your changes and settings without the performance loss of persistence On the next launch everything reappears as you left it. When your Savefile gets too full, just do a Remaster with all your changes incorporated in the new iso and add a new Savefile on exit. I've added applications including Firefox 108.0 to my current iso.
There is a Fatdog topic on the Puppy forum where your questions are answered quickly and often by the developers.
Puppy Linux has filled me up with inmense satisfaction and I learned from it a lot. However, despite my efforts, I couldn't make it "fast" or "frugal" (even more than it is, I mean).
It was quite a positive impression when I saw FatDog64 booting faster than Puppy in my low tier system:
My Puppy system: 45 sec; FDog64: 20 (!) sec.
Memory usage:
My Puppy system: 130MB; FDog64: 93 (!) MB.
MAGNIFICENT!
Not only that: Apart from FDog64 is amazingly stable, it lacks nothing. One of the first things one can notice is, apps quantity in repositories seems "scarce". However, that's only the first impression: There's plenty of ways to install software: Gslapt/repositories, SFS, pip install, compiling (works like a breeze).
But I digress. I'm marveled of the way it's thought and made. It's "natural" for me how it is done. Puppy is pure genius, no doubt, but FDog64 is "elegant". Moreover, regarding Puppy, one eventually miss some more "organized" way to learn more about the system; that's where FDog64 outshines Puppy: its origin being intertwined with LFS (another marvel) is a "plus".
I can't really be thankful enough for FDog64 not using pulseaudio or systemd BS (sorry Poettering's fanboys). I don't know how long will last this sound design decision, but in the meantime, I thank for it.
Recently I've read an article (from 2017) in LinuxInsider regarding a prior version of FatDog. I can really say FDog64 has done a long way since then.
Documentation and help is, again, amazing. Existence of man pages is a sublime decision (something I sorely missed in Puppy, despite the fact I could access a web version). They're SO useful to me!
As a personal note, Openbox/Lxpanel is a winning tandem for me (I could never get used to jwm). So, I took my chances and compiled lxpanel 0.10.0 (with a minor tweak to be able to close apps, clicking over them in task list with mouse wheel).
SUCCESS!
And last but not least, I'm pretty excited by how easy is to create packages in FDog64! A MUST! Thank you for the help!
Believe me when I say I could go on and on and on about the merits of this work.
Good looking distro with nice software collection and interesting options. Recognized all the hardware in all laptops I tried, can increase brightness from keyboard on HP laptop, that lot of little distro cannot do, very important option for me because of using of raster glasses, that makes tings darker.
Made a multiboot usb with FossaPup and BusterDog Xfce, but after install grub4dos from FossaPup cannot connect to the savefile folder of FatDog. Tried to append "savefile=direct:device:sdb1:/fd64-save" in menu lst of the bootloader on / of the usb. but not worked, boots always fresh without saved changes. Maby exist another menu lst on another location that I have append the savefile boot option to...
This is mostly meant to be run from a pendrive in system memory. You can then save changes to a savefile and/or directory. Please specify whether you want it to the pendrive or to a computer that hosts that pendrive. I could see this working really well if you installed it on a 32 or 64 GB pendrive and it became your portable PC system.
Some issues:
I had issues with localization. It didn't work. Also, not much support for other languages, but at least I could get it to set for the use of a Japanese keyboard.
It comes with a rather old-looking Sea Monkey browser, You have to install Google Chrome or Firefox, and then get the savefile to work in order to save any downloads and changes.
If this had true multi-language support, it would make it one of the best pendrive Linuxes out there.
It is not really meant to be done as a full install on a computer. If you do that, you have no support and you lose features that are built into this to make it work well from the pendrive and system memory.
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