Getting more users to use puppy

[mikeslr]

Almost easier done than argued about. I recently remastered Xenialpup64. One of the things I did was to change the name "Puppy Universal Installer" to "Legacy Installer" both as the name of the /usr/share/applications/...desktop file and within that file in the Name= argument.

In Xenialpup64, and as far as I know, all recent Puppies, opening that application presents the choice of running the Installer or running Bootflash USB Installer. Whether the latter choice should be replaced or supplemented with, for example, Frugalpup/Stickpup by gyro, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 85#1005485 I'll leave to others more experienced. But, as far as I know gyro's pet does what it purports to do; and adding it/them as an option shouldn't be any harder than the change which added the Bootflash option.

One thing which will have to await resolution of that question is updating /usr/share/doc/installation.htm. That's the "Help" file which opens in the default web-browser if the "Installation Introduction webpage" button on the Installer is clicked. [Suggest changing that name to something like "Installation Introduction Guide". Calling it a webpage suggests that an internet connection is necessary, which it isn't].

That document hasn't been updated since, IIRC, 2014. Consequently, it lacks any information about booting from a UEFI computer. Bearing in mind that I'm more biased toward Frugal Installs than the person who last wrote/edited it, I'll volunteer to present for discussion a revision once how Puppy can adequately deal with UEFi computers has been resolved.

I'll leave to others the task of getting the revisions into Woof.

That there are 5,000+ versions of Puppy, and God alone knows how many of their ISOs in the Wild and Webpages on the Web presenting misleading information doesn't justify not making the necessary changes as we move forward.

[sc0ttman]

Another suggestion:

Some small changes to the forum sections, to make it easier for newbie users, and newbie developers, to get stuck in and find what they need.

1. Rename some sub-sections a bit:

House training

Code: Select all

* Beginners

* Users (for the regulars)  <--- Could be renamed to "Troubleshooting"
(configuring, problems, fixing broken things)

* Tutorials and Solutions  <-- bit of a cleanup to header and sub-header
(how to, guides, recipes, examples) 

* Bugs 

2. Add some new sections:

- Official releases:

In House Training, we could (should?) have an "Official Releases" section, with sub-sections for each official release...

Maybe this already exists on the forum in some form (in the "Bugs" section?), but I feel we could make it clearer which are official releases, and where to find specific info about them..

- Test releases:

We could have a "Test Releases" section, below (or above) official releases, and move ISOs and whole pups from cutting edge to there .. ?

"Cutting edge" could be more a playground for future Puppies - new ideas, new programs, new designs, future features, etc.. Basically as it is now, but with fewer specific Puppy releases in there, and more ideas/features common to all future Puppies.. maybe we can update its sub-heading to make that clearer..

I don't know if having an "Official releases" or "Test releases" section would duplicate the "Bugs" section, or make it redundant though...

- Contributing to Puppy:

Also in House Training, above "Bugs", maybe we could have:

Code: Select all

* Contributing to Puppy
(for developers, designers, coders, bug fixers, tinkerers, helpful souls)

- we could move the "Compiling" section from Advanced into it, as it now contains lots of kernel stuff, non PET stuff.. ?

- we could also move all the stuff about the Gtkdialog development, stuff from the "Programming" section that pertains to Puppy apps or system scripts, etc .. ? ...then rename "Programming" to "General Programming" (or something?)

3. Also maybe we can do:

- An audit/sharing of the best posts, which are not yet, but should be sticky posts in their relevant sections,

- and an audit of any outdated sticky posts which should be removed as sticky.

- come up with some ideas about new posts that we want[//i] to be stickies..

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Obviously, these are mere suggestions and thoughts, and the community and ultimately forum moderators will be the best judges ..

The goal is simply to make it easier to navigate for new users to the forum, without losing the structure/layout/setup the rest of us are familiar with.

[Moose On The Loose]

And of course anyone elses suggestions about "Getting more users to use puppy" are as welcome/valid as mine, to be clear .. this thread wasn't mean to be a soapbox.. I just see some easy wins (IMHO)..

I made a Puppy that is somewhat specific and runs under VirtualBox.
I may start working on a more general version but here is what I have done:

1) There are 3 SFS total involved.
2) The base one is a slightly shrunk Puppy
3) The other two hold everything anyone may need for the intended purpose
4) I have made a "Help" that looks for extra directories in /usr/share/doc/help and automatically creates the index (deleted on exit)
5) I made many scripts for many tasks that are specific to the need.
6) There is also a lot of my own "C" and "Pascal" stuff on there.

So far, at least 4 people have used it.