Install

Puppy can be easily installed to many different media. Having downloaded the live-CD "ISO" file, you would normally burn that to a CD or DVD and then "boot" the computer from it, and you have a running Puppy. The "Puppy on a CD" link below explains all about that, but firstly, here is a link to download Puppy:
Puppy download page.

Puppy on a CD
Puppy on a USB Flash drive
Puppy on internal hard drive
Puppy on a Zip or LS120 drive

Great stuff, but we can do some more exotic modes of installation. Puppy is actually capable of booting off a CD/DVD and save back to the CD/DVD, which is what we call multisession Puppy. Then there's booting off a network or running in an emulator...

Multisession CD
Booting off a network
Emulated Puppy

Finally, Puppy is so tiny and fast, he is most at home on the new breed of baby laptops hitting the market...

Puppy running on the baby laptops

Warning to MS Windows users

In the Puppy Linux forum, there are a few reports of the files on the Puppy live-CD being incorrectly named. Especially "PUP_430.SFS" (in the case of Puppy version 4.3). What needs to be understood is that this is not a new "bug", all prior puppies have it. The reason that you are seeing the wrong filenames is because you are using MS Windows. That is, running Windows, you plug in the Puppy CD and view the files in Windows Explorer. I presume that you are doing this to copy the files for doing a frugal hard-drive install or USB Flash drive install. The Puppy live-CD ISO file (CD image) is created without Joliet extensions -- this is needed for MS Windows to read the filenames on a CD/DVD correctly. This is what causes the problem. The reason that Joliet extensions is left off is because I had experience that it breaks saving of sessions for the multisession-CD/DVD (saving sessions back to the CD/DVD, no hard-drive or other storage media required on the PC). So, the question must be raised, why are you running Windows to copy the files off the Puppy CD? You need to wean yourself off this dependence on Windows. Boot the live-CD, then you have a running Puppy! Alternatively, maybe you only have the downloaded 'pup-430.iso' live-CD image, you have not burnt it to CD, and you are running MS Windows, and you use a Windows application (Isobuster?) to view the contents of the ISO file and copy out the files. Really, you "should" be running Puppy or some other Linux, but if you really must be running Windows to perform this operation, then copy the files and then rename them... This is how Windows sees the files: BOOT.CAT BOOT.MSG HELP.MSG INITRD.GZ ISOLINUX.BIN ISOLINUX.CFG LOGO.16 PUP_430.SFS VMLINUZ ZP430305.SFS For frugal install, copy the required files to the destination then rename them to (note only some builds of Puppy have the 'z*' file): initrd.gz pup-430.sfs vmlinuz zp430305.sfs ...most important, rename PUP_430.SFS to pup-430.sfs! Note, viewing inside an ISO file when running Puppy is a piece of cake. Just click on it!