Fatdog64

Fatdog64 is an open source, versatile and small distribution of Linux based on the well known Puppy Linux operating system and designed from the ground up to provide users with an independent, fast and efficient multi-user distro suitable for low-end machines.

Designed only for 64-bit platforms

It is distributed as a single, dual-isohybrid Live CD ISO image of approximately 250MB in size, which means that the user must burn it onto a CD disc or write it to a USB thumb drive of 512MB or higher capacity in order to boot it from the BIOS of a PC. It only supports 64-bit (x86_64) hardware platforms.

The boot loader of the Live CD will allow the user to start the live environment with default options, with multisession support, with LVM (Logical Volume Manager) and mdadm support, without savefile, without graphical desktop or with support for machines with low memory (RAM). In addition, it provides support for Nvidia and AMD Radeon video cards.

Traditional desktop environment with powerful applications

We believe that the graphical desktop environment is a mix between the Openbox and JWM window manager, comprised of a single taskbar located on the bottom edge of the screen from where the user can access the main menu, launch applications and interact with opened programs. The distribution supports Pet and SFS packages.

Default applications include VLC Media Player, ROX-Filer file manager, Mozilla Firefox web browser, Fotoxx image viewer, GIMP image editor, AbiWord word processor, Geany IDE, Gnumeric spreadsheet editor, Pidgin multi-protocol instant messenger, gFTP file transfer client, Transmission torrent downloader, SeaMonkey all-in-one Internet suite, and Armagetron Advanced.

Bottom line

Summing up, Fatdog64 lives up to its name, as it provides users with a very fast and lightweight operating system suitable for low-end machines that are powered by an Intel or AMD x86_64 CPU. It offers some of the best open source applications and a fun-to-use graphical desktop.

What is new in this release:

• Linux 4.14.6
• WpaGui now supports wired Ethernet and static IP configuration
• Complementary Wifi monitor (Fatdog Wireless Antenna)
• A much improved SFS Manager
• libinput now drives all Xorg inputs (replacing evdev and synaptics)
• LICK Installer included in the ISO (thanks noryb009)
• Updated and expanded Help and FAQs documents.

What is new in version 720:

• Linux 4.14.6
• WpaGui now supports wired Ethernet and static IP configuration
• Complementary Wifi monitor (Fatdog Wireless Antenna)
• A much improved SFS Manager
• libinput now drives all Xorg inputs (replacing evdev and synaptics)
• LICK Installer included in the ISO (thanks noryb009)
• Updated and expanded Help and FAQs documents.

What is new in version 631:

• Updates:
• Firefox-29.0
• Seamonkey-2.26
• Flashplayer-11.2.202.356
• New Features:
• Multisession now also supports device:label:uuid (old format still supported)
• Savefile.sh: option to create ext4 without journal (thanks mavrothal)
• Add options to boot Fatdog on low memory machines (kernel boot param: rootfstype=ramfs)
• Edit acpi action scripts add switch debounce and shutdown confirm dialog.
• Disable auto connect to unknown open network in wpa_supplicant.conf

What is new in version 610:

• Updates:
• libdrm-2.4.39
• libxcb-1.8.1
• Mesa-9.0-x86_64
• xf86-input-evdev-2.7.3
• xf86-input-keyboard-1.6.2
• xf86-input-mouse-1.8.1
• xf86-input-synaptics-1.6.2
• xf86-video-ati-6.14.6
• xf86-video-intel-2.20.12
• xf86-video-nouveau-1.0.2
• xf86-video-nv-2.1.20
• Seamonkey-2.14
• Firefox-17.0
• alsa-lib-1.0.26
• alsa-plugins-1.0.26
• alsa-utils-1.0.26
• VlC-2.0.4
• Flash Player 11.2 r202
• Geany-1.22 w/plugins
• Linux-3.4.18
• qt-4.8.1 (partial in iso, full package available as pet)
• Transmission-2.73
• peasyport 1.7
• scanner-share 1.2
• Pburn-3.7.7
• Remove Transcoder FFMPEG GUI, VLC does this stuff better.
• peasypdf update to 2.3
• New features:
• Hacked Lxpanel volumealsa plugin to have a right click option to launch alsamixer.
• Hacked Lxpanel cpu plugin to have a right click option to launch lxtask.
• transmission running as spot
• multisession: can save session without having to shutdown
• spin down disks before shutdown (prevent data loss on usb disks)
• gtksudoer configuration file for gtksu, options for non-root to run root-only programs
• Add right-click option to wpa_gui to launch the Network Wizard. Some behavior of
• wpa_gui has changed. See new "How to connect to a network" in the FAQs.
• Add a very hacked down HAL, just enough for Flash player on Amazon Prime and other web sites.
• Replace Kino with Avidemux-2.6git
• Added ELANTECH and SENTELIC touch pad support to kernel.
• And numerous bug fixes.