Puppy build system alternative?

Puppy related raves and general interest that doesn't fit anywhere else
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s243a
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#41 Post by s243a »

wanderer wrote:i am trying to run it now

if i can get it to work

it will be the base of the alternative puppy build system project


wanderer
I suppose it depends on what you want but it might be easier to start with something that is already built like jamesbond's system.

wanderer
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#42 Post by wanderer »

hi jamesbond and everyone

i have successfully built jamesbonds puppy

it has some tweaks to do

but works

it is now the official base of the alternative puppy build system

thank you very much jamesbond

please consider checking

the alternative puppy build system thread occasionally

as i will have questions


once again

thank you thank you thank you

wanderer

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tallboy
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#43 Post by tallboy »

jamesbond, it is good that you revoke the search for an alternative build system. You say you abandoned your project only a few years ago, but I think you have had build-systems on your mind for a long time. I think you touched the subject about 10-12 years ago too, but that was probably before woof. :D
True freedom is a live Puppy on a multisession CD/DVD.

wiak
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#44 Post by wiak »

jamesbond wrote: It was command-line driven; all controlled by config file + package-list file. There was a clear separation between "puppy essence scripts" and "build scripts". It supported debian/ubuntu/slackware, 32-bit and 64-bit (arm was planned but was never materialised). Separate builder script for different parent distro. It builds everything up to an ISO, and it even has qemu script to boot and test that ISO. What else could you ask for :)

It did not use PPM. It used the parent distro's native package manager (apt-get/dpkg for debian/ubuntu, and pkgtools for slackware).

It sounds like it ticked everything in your box. I promoted it for about a year, few people tried it, some said they like it (=fast, etc), but that's it. No further traction. After a year and no traction, I decided to retire it 4 years ago.
In Dec 2013, I took an interest in saintless's "Light-Debian-Core-Live-CD-Wheezy", which progressed into the early DebianDogs. I continued to develop small app/utilities and made versions available for both these Dogs and also Puppies but otherwise wasn't following Puppy development itself for several years. For some reason, I utterly cannot remember, though following the ages I took to write wex, I took a look at woof-CE for the first time (perhaps I was comparing it to Debian debootstrap). However, I felt frustrated by its interactive design (constant user-input required), so wrote a simple frontend to answer all the questions automatically for me - that became makepup, but I never thought of makepup as anything but a fudge/workaround for something that annoyed me; as far as I was concerned woof-CE needed redesigned and re-written.

I did at that time then notice woof-next but no-one on the forum was talking about it by that time and I had no time myself to check what it's differences to standard woof-CE might be. It certainly sounds interesting though (indeed it sounds from your description to match almost exactly the features I feel would be good but which lack in woof-CE proper). However, like I've said recently and earlier, I've never personally been very interested in producing my own distro design so even playing with woof-CE for a while was not the sort of thing I'd usually bother doing.

As for now, aside from my frustrations with woof-CE itself, my real motivation simply comes from the fact that I decided to look into overlayfs operation for myself since I recognised I could use that to alter the operation of a running void linux, which was a distro I had become interested in because of its package manager xbps (which I noted had a commandline interface reminiscent of apt, at least from user's point of view) and independently-crafted repo; also, runit looked useful. Since I like learning by doing from first principles, I'm not myself interested in developing someone else's code (which is also another reason why I never involved myself directly with woof-CE). Indeed, everything I've ever developed was created simply because I wanted to practice with some new coding ideas or because I had a personal need for a particular kind of app/utility and liked writing my own.

wiak

wanderer
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#45 Post by wanderer »

hi jamesbond and wiak

i just made a distro with woof-ce next

it is a great system

just what we were always asking for all these years

very fast
easy to use
easy to download the blob
and easy to follow instructions

it needs to be developed

i am going to keep promoting it since it is too good to be neglected

but i cannot code so someone else will have to help me develop it

it makes a standard puppy

unfortunately for my project
like all woof-ce clones it weaves everything together
which is incompatible with a modular system

i will use my modular approach with my system
but will keep it as part of the alternative project

thanks again jamesbond for making it
and telling us about it
i had completely missed it when you made it originally


wanderer

Terry H
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#46 Post by Terry H »

wanderer wrote:i am trying to run it now

if i can get it to work

it will be the base of the alternative puppy build system project


wanderer
I had a read of the thread referenced by jamesbond and found this, from 5 years ago.

wanderer
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#47 Post by wanderer »

hi terry h

i have already run it and made an iso
which works fine

it is a fantastic system
very fast and easy to use
makes a standard puppy

i needs to and will be developed
at least by me

go to the alternative thread
if you want to follow my development
of jamesbonds woof-ce next

i am looking at it now
and seeing how to generalize its use of components

wanderer

wanderer
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#48 Post by wanderer »

hi jamesbond

sorry to bother you but you havent posted

are you still following this thread

i thankfully have no reason to ask you to do anything more

but i would just like to know your thoughts on all this

wanderer

jamesbond
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#49 Post by jamesbond »

wanderer, what aspects do you want me to comment on?
Fatdog64 forum links: [url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117546]Latest version[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/ke8sn5H]Contributed packages[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/se8scrb]ISO builder[/url]

wanderer
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#50 Post by wanderer »

hi jamesbond

where do you think the alternative puppy build system should go

what do you think about the community
trying to further develop your woof-ce next
with a more limited target
do you think that makes sense

i also will develop my much simpler modular build system as well
which will not involve very complex scripts
or automatically downloading from other distro repositories
so it will be very easy to build and maintain

just your general thoughts on what this thread has revealed

thanks for all your work and for bringing up this topic

wanderer

jamesbond
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#51 Post by jamesbond »

wanderer wrote:where do you think the alternative puppy build system should go
It will go wherever people want to take it. Puppy is a do-oracy.

My point with this thread is two-fold:
1. The value of having a build system. A handcrafted Puppy, as excellent as it could be, will stagnant and die when the author goes away. Anybody here still remember turbopup (and turbopup extreme)?

2. To document what build systems are available to make Puppy and Puppy-like systems. There aren't too many.
what do you think about the community
trying to further develop your woof-ce next
with a more limited target
do you think that makes sense
Be my guest. As I said, look at it, test it, learn from it, take it to pieces and use anything useful from it, fork it, improve it ... do anything you want to do with it.

My original intention when I wrote the post about woof-next is because you said "you wish there is a smallish woof-ce build system" so I want to say "well here we are, a 600-lines build system" which should be easy to learn (and perhaps adapt).

You __do not__ have to use it for anything if you don't like it; if you can learn from it to improve your own stuff that it has achieved its objective. But if you do want to improve it and use it as a base, of couse that's welcome too.
i also will develop my much simpler modular build system as well
which will not involve very complex scripts
or automatically downloading from other distro repositories
so it will be very easy to build and maintain
Definitely.
thanks for all your work and for bringing up this topic
You are much welcome.
Fatdog64 forum links: [url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117546]Latest version[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/ke8sn5H]Contributed packages[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/se8scrb]ISO builder[/url]

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Moat
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#52 Post by Moat »

Well, take this for what it's worth - from this muddy-headed, part-time, relatively inexperienced Linux tinkerer/hack;

Frankly, I see absolutely no reason whatsoever why Fred's brilliant Dog "mklive" script approach should not be the basis as the future Puppy build system;

It appears far easier to maintain (although Fred would have to confirm that point), the vast majority of the "grunt work" is already taken care of by the (huge, in the case of Debian) upstream distro's development community, it uses the base distro's native package management and update system (the powerful "apt", in the case of Debian) with full access to the sames full application repos/collection (also absolutely huge, in the case of Debian)... and it's a breeze for even a cloudy-headed, inexperienced dunce like me to - within an hour of downloading the tiny mklive script - produce a beautiful, fully-functioning iso - including the desktop of my choice (Xfce, in my case).

Installed to a USB stick and with a savefile created, another few days of playing around, testing, installing forgotten app additions and further polishing with icons/themes/etc - and then using Fred's also brilliant, incredibly easy (2-3 mouse clicks = new iso created) included remaster script, and... Voila! - a perfect small USB-running Linux distro that I'd put up against any Woof'd Puppy (and surpass in some ways).

Off of the top of my (puny :lol: ) head, the only thing I think it might be lacking in comparison to Puppy would be the inclusion of the full range of the so clever, useful and tiny Puppy-specific apps that are actually a large part of what defines Puppy, IMHO (and Fred's builds do already include a good selection of 'em). That - and maybe a bit of spit-and-polish on the pop-up dialogs in order to help clarify some of the functions/operation of Fred's included utilities (Barry was really great at that sort of "hand holding" dialog stuff). i.e. - Minor changes/additions.

(A GUI dialog for setting "save" and "save at shutdown" times and other default save options would be especially welcome... hint, hint... :oops: :twisted: )

Keep the base build small and light by using the Puppy apps... or flesh it out into a full-fledged Linux monster/build it up any which way a user/builder wants - quite effortlessly - either adding packages to the script pre-build, or using the base distro's package management system & repos later, and then re-mastering. That's "WTH?!" simple!

It's a no-brainer, IMHO, and appears to me as if it would greatly reduce the WoofCE complexity and maintainer's workload - freeing up Pup development towards fresh, new, fun ideas and iso polish. An entire new world of possibility opens with that flexibility and freedom - Puppy unchained. Let that puppy run.

But I'm just a sickly, inexperienced, muddy-headed dolt - so what do I know... :oops:

All IMHO, FWIW, my $0.02.

Bob

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tallboy
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#53 Post by tallboy »

To get some inspiration and ideas about alternative build systems, you may find an interesting approach in Gobolinux. The idea is that all Linux programs are basically without coupling to a specific distribution, so they could all be compiled to fit any distribution. An example of a build pattern which I find very sensible, is that to avoid files strewn all over the place, all binary files /bin/, /usr/bin, /sbin/, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/bin e.t.c. are gathered in simply /bin, the same with all libs in /lib. Each program has it's own file tree which includes all dependencies, and it's own user id, which allow several versions to run simultaniously, if you like. They are internally linked to basic file structures.
Hisham Muhammed was involved from the start, he made the special Gobolinux compiler. He is the same man that developed hTop, which we all(?) use. Some of the ideas in Gobolinux may be useful in a future Puppy, they are certainly breaking with a lot of the familiar Linux build patterns. There are recent live versions for testing, that can be run from USBstick or CD/DVD.
https://gobolinux.org/at_a_glance.html
True freedom is a live Puppy on a multisession CD/DVD.

wanderer
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#54 Post by wanderer »

hi tallboy

see what we will include in woof-next
on the alternate puppy build system thread

apps in folders symlinked to root

like gobolinux

like they say
we didnt make the puppy
we make the puppy better

wanderer

jamesbond
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#55 Post by jamesbond »

When I retired woof-next 4 years ago, as I said here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=94101, I said
PS: The build system which is the core of Woof-CE NG will live along elsewhere in another project called "Fatdog-Like".
I never released anything out of that "Fatdog-like" project, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

It did happen, and I used the same woof-next build system to build a "Fatdog" which uses Ubuntu/Debian/Slackware packages. I never released anything because I didn't have enough motivation to polish it enough into release quality; and eventually the project sat on the shelf, lying dormant for years.

The recent interest in woof-next motivated me enough to add Devuan support to woof-next --- if only to see how easy (or difficult) it was (and it turns out to be very, very easy). With that in woof-next, I've managed to muster some motivation to also add Devuan support to Fatdog-like too.

As as a proof that Fatdog-Like project did happen, here is ISO, for anybody who cares to see. It's based on Devuan Ascii. Note that this is a proof-of-concept: it is unpolished; lots of stuff does not work; and it still uses the old Fatdog 700 base from 4 years ago. So don't complain if it doesn't work. But in qemu, at least it will boot to desktop, connect to the internet (use net-setup.sh), and happily runs "synaptic" (and apt-get too). And oh: it's 32-bit (I used xenialpup 4.4.95 kernel). The last 32-bit release of Fatdog was in 2009 :lol:

If anything, this shows that once you have a proper build system, it's easy to transfer the project to build something else.
Fatdog64 forum links: [url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117546]Latest version[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/ke8sn5H]Contributed packages[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/se8scrb]ISO builder[/url]

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tallboy
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#56 Post by tallboy »

wanderer, nice to hear that alternatives are looked at. The future is bright! :D
True freedom is a live Puppy on a multisession CD/DVD.

wiak
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#57 Post by wiak »

jamesbond wrote: If anything, this shows that once you have a proper build system, it's easy to transfer the project to build something else.
Well, like I said somewhere earlier, actual current FatDog isn't all that much bigger than a standard Puppy nowadays (and I'm sure it would be easy to remove parts of it to match current Puppy size). And I believe you have a build system for it, and it looks and feels extremely like a traditional Puppy. So, assuming the build system is more user-friendly than woof-CE, wouldn't it actually make sense for FatDog to become the successor of Puppy (perhaps slimmed down slightly - just the opposite of how it was created really)?

Seems to me a lot of active dev work has gone into FatDog so much more chance of it continuing innovatively - better than all the re-inventing the wheel attempts to find some alternative new Pup build surely?

If people were encouraged to drop traditional Puppy and move to FatDog (as a new Puppy) then that would surely boost its support on the forum. I really don't get why so much effort (by so few) goes into re-hacking woof-CE package lists and recipes everytime a new Debian or Ubuntu comes out (leave that to the Dogs...).

wiak

wanderer
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#58 Post by wanderer »

hi wiak and jamesbond and everyone

i am sure you are aware of all the work s243a is doing
on woof-next

i am not a coderer
but it seems to me that woof-next

could be generalized

to point to
a fatdog repository
or tinycore repository
or puppy repository
or devuan repository

if the scripts
were kept simple enough
and were annotated enough

even the common man (me)
could learn them
and possibly even contribute

wiak
like your idea of a few simple scripts

the key in my mind is to keep components
in packages
in repositories
so woof-next could just find them and assemble them

i do like the idea of fatdog
which is a polished distro
built with linux from scratch is it not

tinycore also is a good candidate
because it is also a complete system
and is modular

but like i said if the scripts
were simple enough
and annotated enough
we could have the best of all worlds

wanderer

musher0
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#59 Post by musher0 »

Pipe down everyone! Any builder script will still be a "robot".

If the Pup created by this robot freezes at transition to Xorg, and nobody knows the
innerds of Xorg enough to explain it and debug it... the average user is stuck up
sh.. creek without a paddle, like I was.

What we need is a "Criticize and Explain" script that will burst in laughter at line
L that wanderer or myself or anybody has introduced in the woof builder script.

Remember the situation:
-- average user uses woof-Something to build a Puppy. ( Average user is just what
the words say: an average user. )

-- The woof-Something robot creates a Puppy.

-- Average user burns iso of robot-created Puppy and runs it.

-- Robot-created Puppy barfs at transition to Xorg.

-- Average user spends a year studying how Xorg works to debug the woof-created
Puppy. Is that what we want?

BECAUSE THE WOOF-SCRIPT CREATOR DID NOT ANTICIPATE ENOUGH
( ANY? ) GO-WRONG SCENARIOS.

Have you seen any automatic fall-back solutions in any woof script? I haven't.
Woof does some checking of the existence of source files, and that's it.

The scripts in the Puppy have to be made to auto-correct a bad scenario. How
about introducing a bit of an AI approach in Puppy scripts, eh?

Please note:
I mention the passage to Xorg ( desktop ) as an example, it could be any bug.

Before we think of making any woof that will create a Puppy that's as lean as a
Pierre Cardin or an Alexander Wang model, we need to think about solving the
potential go-wrong scenarios in the "wooves". Who cares if Puppies "Twiggy" or
"Laetitia Casta" or "Cindy Crawford" turn out to be a bit on the chubby side... if
the average woof user experiences a totally bug-free experience.

Strip this post of my fancy metaphors if you will: I still have a point.

BFN.
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

wanderer
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#60 Post by wanderer »

as to the inevitable bugs

we should setup one iso that builds to completion
in stages
from minimal to full
the bugs worked out

and leave it at that

then the common man (me)
can run it and have the thrill of creating a distro

if he wants to modify it
and introduce new bugs
then its on his head to try to fix them
he knows that one iso runs fine
so he he has a head start
and just has to find out how he changed things

i do appreciate that the gurus
have taken all this time and done all this work
to provide an alternative to woof-ce
which i have been whining about for all these years

but there is only so much
that they are able
or should have to do
they can provide a working system
the rest is up to the user (me)

wanderer

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