Puppy as a server...or stick to trusty Debian
 

So, just had a little idea pop in my head...sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing.

Been using Debian for years as my home file server. No GUI, Samba service installed, FTP services, and just whatever little geeky network services I wanted to play with. I have reached a point where the server is going to be getting some upgrades including a newer version of Linux.

So I ran Debian pretty stripped down, low resources, etc. And I thought, Puppy Linux is low resources as well...wonder how it'd do in the same type of setup. I have used Puppy off and on for a while...either as a way to revive an old desktop/laptop OR run it as a utility system to troubleshoot hardware.

So would it worthwhile to run Puppy as a Linux file server, with command line, Samba file server, and other home network uses? Any pros and cons between the 2 distros? I will probably just stay with my tried and true Debian, but I was just curious if this has ever been done with Puppy since it's lightweight.

YMMV but I wouldn't recommend puppy for a server, its designed to be portable not to run a tank etc...

Thanks for the reply ChuangTzu...I totally get where you are coming from. Although it does make me wonder if anyone has ever tried to run a portable system like Puppy as a server.

I have given it some thought, and I am going to stick with Debian. I have some older PCs that I may throw Puppy on and toy around with.

If you want something lighter then Debian (I assume you mean in terms of memory) then try Slackware or Salix. Slackware initially will require more hard drive space but it tends to run more efficiently, Salix install will be similar to what you are used to in Debian regarding installing what you want/need and not alot more. Play around with it in a VM first though.

found this for you:
Puppy linux with LAMP installed
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...talled-732550/

Even if it's only for a strictly local server, I would not use puppy Linux because of its design around running as root.
Essentially, Linux comes from a server context, puppy Linux stripped everything out to make it a local-machine-only distro (I know I'm badly paraphrasing here but I hope you get my point), and now you want to put it back in?
No, it must be better, lighter, easier to use sth like Debian.
Just start with the most sripped-down install available, then install only what you need on top.
FWIW, Debian (now oldstable) runs very well - with resources to spare - here on an 11-year-old single-core laptop.

Just helpful links

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60204
http://wikka.puppylinux.com/SshwithPuppy?redirect=no

Use your own search term
http://wellminded.net63.net/
Custom search Link

Ah yes...I forgot about Puppy's running around as root all the time setup. And yeah I picked up on the paraphrasing. :)

I love hearing about Linux on old machines. Better to try and put new life into old hardware vs seeing it in landfills. I revived one of my wife's old laptops with Linux Mint. It runs pretty good.

I think my Debian roots go as far as back as Etch which I am thinking I just played around with it then. I got more serious with Debian for my file server when Squeeze (6.0) was out. I am thinking I ran it on my file server for about 7+ years, same single 320GB hard drive, cycling through various CPU/motherboards ranging from a PIII 1 Ghz to P4 3.0Ghz. Absolutely stable system. Mainly just ran the core system and samba...and I would play around with other network applications/services on it sometimes. I remember discovering the "network install" side of Debian...so I'd just run that to install the base system, and then once installed, I'd then go and download what packages I needed. I'll do the same process when I reinstall the new version.

The new file server (new for it, but still older hardware) is a dual core AMD CPU at 2.7Ghz, 8GB RAM, and a collection of various unused hard drives ranging from 250GB to 500GB. This should get me by until I can pick up a few good sized terabyte hard drives next year around tax time. All this to run command line Debian Linux. :D Just as good as one of those NAS systems but cheaper. The only money I had to sink into this thing was a new power supply as the last one burnt up.

I would highly recommend puppy as server. My windows server ("my" I mean , written by hand (not multhithreding much, but implemented once for
compiling and execution other compiled application) has 500 KB (+6MB ram drive). Contact me for YT link (can't post here)

I call it "tool window" or "tool bar"