FatdogArm is a port of Fatdog64 to the ARM platform. Currently in Beta release, it is based on Fatdog64 and thus shares much of Fatdog64 features. Like Fatdog64, FatdogArm is intended for desktop-style operations but on the lower-cost ARM-based systems.

FatdogArm currently was originally built on A10/Mele A1000 hardware, although it can be easily adapted for other platforms.

These days, in addition to the Mele, FatdogArm is known to run on:

• Allwinner A20 / Cubieboard
• Odroid-U2, Odroid-U3, Odroid-XU3, Odroid-XU4
• OLPC XO-1.75
• OLPC XO-4 Touch
• Pandora
• Cubox-i i2 and i4pro
• Google Nexus 7 (2012 edition)
• Raspberry Pi 2
• Qemu (qemu-system-arm supporting RealView and VExpress emulation)

The porting process of FatdogArm (for Alpha version) is described in details here.
The current version of FatdogArm is built for ARMv7 VFPv3-d16 and was based on LFS 7.4.

 Features

Compared to other ARM distributions, FatdogArm comes with these unique features:

• Frugal install (entire OS is contained in a single compressed file)
  
• Simple to install
• Simple to upgrade
• Simple to restore and recover
  
  
• Layered filesystem operation by default
• OS partition can be made read-only yet the system is writable
• Optional RAM layer to reduce amount of stress to flash media
  
• Layered filesystem of choice is AUFS
  
• Less chance for catastrophic failure
  
  
• Distributed both as binary as well as meta-distributions:
• Binary distribution contains two tarballs: one single OS for all platforms, and one platform-specific kernel package (there are multiple kernel packages to choose from - you only need one that suit your platform)
  
• Meta-distribution comes with scripts and recipes to build your own binary tarballs - customise to the max!
• Package build system included to make it easy to build your own packages.
• Binary distributions contains regular files and not image files. No pre-defined SD-card size is required, you can install FatdogArm on 512MB card or 32GB card, no problem.
  
  

And these are the features of the standard binary distribution inherited from Fatdog64:

• Small (less than 300MB at the moment)
• Comes with applications for day-to-day use, such as:
• Web browser (Seamonkey browser - which uses identical code base as Firefox)
• Universal email client (Seamonkey Mail)
• Versatile media player (Xine)
• Word processing (Abiword)
• Spreadsheet (Gnumeric)
• PDF/PS/Djvu reader (Evince)
• Graphics editor (mtpaint)
• Printing system (CUPS)
• Remote connection clients (VNC, SSH)
• Text editor - IDE (Geany)
• HTML editor (Seamonkey Composer)
  

And many more will be included - FatdogArm has its own repository here. The list is still small now, but it is growing.

A big thank you goes to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for www.ibiblio.org and for hosting Fatdog64 and FatdogArm!

 Downloads

Click here for info on the latest release.
Click here to download the images which can be copied to your own SD card or USB stick.

 Packages

FatdogArm packages comes in two flavours:

• TBZ or TXZ packages (similar to DEB, RPM, etc)

  A TBZ/TXZ package is a compressed archive that contains a (usually) single application package. Upon installation the contents will be de-compressed and copied to Fatdog installation for use. You can install a TBZ/TXZ package by downloading it (from here) and then use the command "pkgtools" to install it, or you can use the Gslapt Package Manager.

  Note: Do not attempt to install directly from the web browser - the web browser does not have sufficient rights to install packages.

• SFS packages

  An SFS package is a file that contains a compressed filesystem (squashfs). Upon "installation" the contents of this filesystem will be merged with the rest of your filesystem but it is never copied or expanded; the content will be de-compressed on-demand when you use the applications contained in the package.

  To use it, download the package from here and move it to the same location as your save file, then go to the System tab in the Control Panel and click on System SFS Loader. Then choose which SFS file to load. You can also use SFS Manager (also in the Control Panel).

  An SFS package usually contains a large application (e.g. libreoffice) or contains multiple applications or libraries.

You can also get all the source packages used to build FatdogArm.

 Mirrors

Ibiblio has mirrors around the world. Click here to find a mirror near you. (This mirror is popular.)

 Documentation

FatdogArm shares most of its features with Fatdog64, so please refer to Fatdog64 documentation. Later on we will furnish a FatdogArm-specific instructions for cases where FatdogArm is different from Fatdog64. You may also want to review this Fatdog64's Beginner Guide, courtesy of smokey01.

 Forum

FatdogArm doesn't have its own forum, instead it piggybacks on Puppy Linux Discussion Forum.  FatdogArm posts are usually found in the Puppy Projects subforum.

 Legalese

FatdogArm is created by james and is currently maintained by him.
Fatdog and Fatdog64 is created by kirk; and is currently maintained by kirk and james.

Fatdog Linux, Fatdog64 Linux and FatdogArm Linux is copyright (C) Kirk and James 2008 - 2016, based on derived works from Puppy Linux, copyright (C) Barry Kauler 2003 - 2014 and many other contributors.

FatdogArm is distributed under GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2 or later. Note that individual programs and scripts contained in Fatdog may be licensed differently, please see their descriptions for details.