Barry Kauler, the father of Puppy Linux, announced last night the immediate availability of Puppy Linux 4.1, a major version that includes a lot of updated packages and new features. But first, let us talk a little about its developer, Barry Kauler, who decided to step down as the leader of this popular Linux distribution. "I have decided to bow out from my position as leader (also known as ‘Benevolent Dictator’) of the Puppy Linux Project (held since I released v0.1 in mid-2003), and take a back seat. Version 4.1 is my final release as leader. A small group of trusted developers will take over, although the details are still to be worked out - there are a couple of threads on the forum discussing this." said Barry Kauler, the Puppy Linux developer. However, he will not disappear from the Linux world, as he will concentrate on a new distribution based on Puppy Linux, called UniPup.

And now, let's have a look at the new features brought by Puppy Linux 4.1:

· Two ISOs available (one with Linux kernel 2.6.25.16 and the other one with 2.6.21.7);
· Lots of hardware drivers;
· Built-in SCSI drivers;
· The 2.6.25.16 kernel is LZMA-enabled;
· The PCMCIA support was greatly improved;
· Improved boot speed;
· Pup_event, a new service that detects more hardware components than before;
· Upgraded SeaMonkey to version 1.1.11;
· Support for the Multitech USB GPRS modem;
· Better modem support;
· Psip VOIP, Puppy Linux's own VOIP chat/telephone/instant messenger software;
· PPLOG blog, Puppy Linux's own blog;
· Pmusic, Puppy Linux's own audio player;
· Improved Network Wizard;
· Added Xfprot, f-prot GUI (virus checker);
· Many bugs were fixed and a lot of applications updated (Geany, ePDFView, Pburn, Pfind, hiawatha, Figaro's Password Manager, Gnumeric, Abiword, gphoto2, Sysprof, Xsoldier, Glade3, Pmirror, Pschedule, ndiswrapper, ntfs-3g, Fotoxx, unionfs, aufs, Pnethood, Xlock, Pwireless, pupX, mtPaint, inotify-tools and many more).

Puppy 4.1 is approximately 95 MB in size, and comes with all drivers built-in for scanning and printing, digital camera, audio recording/editing/conversion. Also, it has a complete office environment and a large collection of utilities.

Download Puppy Linux 4.1 right now from Softpedia.