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Chubby Puppy Linux "fills out" the regular Puppy Linux release with the addition of the OpenOffice.org suite of applications. It's a full figured Linux version in a fast, lightweight liveCD package. It will put a little bite into that shaggy old retired desktop.

It loads completely into 128 MB of RAM and has most of the applications found in the Rottweiler-sized distros. Mozilla and the three main OpenOffice.org programs all show up on the desktop. Various mainstream file managers, graphics tools, Internet, and multimedia offerings appear under the Start button. And the programs run faster than many hard-disk based installations, even on older hardware.

The distribution's web page says that it is ideal for older hardware with limited resources. I thought it would be interesting to see how the liveCD worked on my aging 266-Mhz 256-MB RAM equipped PII Thinkpad. For a little variety, I also gave it a quick whirl on my fire-breathing HP Pavilion Athlon 64 notebook.

It has everything you'll need to get lots of work done on your computer. As you'll see, it's a good choice in many, but not all situations.

Since I was a dog in another life, please note that my bad puns are rendered with a certain amount of affection.

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