Puppy 2.15CE "Viz" - Development Ideas/Requests

[WhoDo]

@WhoDo: what size range are you looking for with the sfs files? 40-80? 100-200?

Anything under 100Mb, so they take no longer to download than Puppy itself.

@puppyfan12:
The webdev.sfs idea was good but, with the limit of 5 files including pup_215.sfs and zdrv_215.sfs, capacity kinda lets us down at the moment. The way I see it is as follows:

Puppy 2.15CE Standard Edition + Open Office + Web = Office Edition

Puppy 2.15CE Standard Edition + Graphics + Web = Graphics Edition

Puppy 2.15CE Standard Edition + Multimedia + Web = Multimedia Edition

If we ever get past the 5 squash file limitation, say with aufs, then:

Puppy 2.15CE + all of the above = Puppy Mastiff Edition

[Pizzasgood]

If it fits, I'll certainly add Xampp. I do a little php-programming now and then, and It's really nice to have your own local server for testing. But only if there's room in it. I haven't used half the apps that will be included, so I don't know how well they'll fit nor how much I can strip out.

First you scoop the icecream, then you add the sprinkles. And if you haven't already gone over your sugar limit, you can put a little caramel on top. So we'll see where we're at when I get the basic stuff done (browsers, editors, java, etc.)

If nothing else, I think there's already a Xampp sfs file for Puppy 1.x.x. It probably wouldn't take someone much work to port it to be 2.15 compatible. Not me though, I've got enough going on as it is.

[raffy]

Nathan is working on a LAMP add-on to Puppy 2. I hope he has kept the momentum even with the new kernel and aufs he started lately.

For Apache+PHP sfs, try this. It's only 2 MB, but is prepared for 2.02R, so one or two lib files will be redundant in 2.14. In console, command the usual "apachectl start". The conf are in /etc/apache. There are PHP scripts in /root/www/htdocs.

[drongo]

Any chance of a "network_stuff" sfs? Most of the live-CD toolkits I have seen are Knoppix based and I have computers that will boot Puppy no problem but won't work with Knoppix or it's derivatives. (That's right, Puppy is better than Knoppix! Sort of.)

Tools required would be Wireshark/Ethereal and Pentoo type stuff.

If not, is there an idiots' guide to making SFSs?

Thanks.

drongo

[WhoDo]

If not, is there an idiots' guide to making SFSs?

Dougal did a pretty fair explanation of the process in this thread, and I think Sunburnt or Pizzasgood has developed a GUI for actually creating them.

[lvds]

Hi,

About network stuff i think EtherApe would really have its place inside a distro. In case you don't know about it you can test it on Zenwalk live-cd. It combines many tools all-in-one. Perhaps a guru could make a dotpup so everyone could evaluate it ?

Best regards,
Laurent.

[Nathan F]

I have to get back to work on my server packages again. I recently recompiled php to add in some graphics support through gd that I messed up earlier, and somehow screwed php in the process. It's coming but might take a bit to get it ready.

Pizzasgood - when I made Xampp into a squashfile for Puppy-1.xx I ran into a few problems with MySQL, because the permissions don't seem to work out right if it is in a squashfile. My solution was to tar up the directory that has the database files inside it and then modify the launcher script to untar it on the first run (in essence doing a conventional installation rather than residing in the squashfile). Just a little heads up. I was working a while back on doing this again, and apparently there is also an issue with sqlite.

Xampp compressed into a squashfile works out to @50MB, so if you can keep the rest under 50MB it should fit just fine. If I can find the time I'll get busy again with my Puppy compiled servers, which would provide a significantly lighter alternative. Xampp has too many things in it that duplicate what is already in Puppy.

Nathan

[puppyfan12]

@puppyfan12:
The webdev.sfs idea was good but, with the limit of 5 files including pup_215.sfs and zdrv_215.sfs, capacity kinda lets us down at the moment.

I was pretty sure I had read that but I've been taking a lot of information in a short amount of time. Thanks for clarifying. It's always something we can fine tune in a later version when we overcome the limitations.

[veronicathecow]

I don't know if anyone has already suggested this but can a single ISO have multiple OS's on it?
If so what about an ISO that has, Standard PUP and a Industry standard PUP (Office, GIMP, VNU, Azureus, Thunderbird, Firefox etc) together, version chosen at boot time? It means one ISO will fit many machines,
If downloading is set up as a Bittorrent then there should be plenty of seeders (rather than lots of versions needing lots of seeders) and hence good download speeds.
Any thoughts?

[WhoDo]

I don't know if anyone has already suggested this but can a single ISO have multiple OS's on it?
If so what about an ISO that has, Standard PUP and a Industry standard PUP (Office, GIMP, VNU, Azureus, Thunderbird, Firefox etc) together, version chosen at boot time? It means one ISO will fit many machines,

Sunburnt is working on a GUI and underlying script support to allow users to select and add squash files "on-the-fly", which would achieve pretty much what you're after.

You would have Standard Edition Puppy and a bunch of sfs files in the ISO that were only loaded if you nominated that you want them. That way Puppy could be a multi-breed, and the user could select features they needed on boot depending on "where they wanted to go today" - nothing wrong with M$ idea, just their execution.

No need to have two complete Puppy versions - one Puppy with multiple personalities will do!

Cheers

[bobn9lvu]

I have read about a cd or dvd that has multiple live distros on it that are selected from a menu on boot..
I did dl that image, to try it..
I will check on it and get back to you..

Bob

[cthisbear]

See if someone can post the boot script...Chris
.........................................................

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=14868

John Biles

http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/76

( drongo

Okay, I've booted up the DVD and (as tradition demands) am now typing this from Puppy. (I've been having a bit of trouble getting the wireless to work on Puppy recently. Don't know why, it was flawless this time. Probably a PIBCAK error, the wizard is fine.)
.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Multi Distro is Linux times 9 on a single CD-R

http://distrocenter.linux.com/article.p ... 39&tid=127

[veronicathecow]

Hi, does 2.15 have the speeded up (I.E. backgrounded network settings) and also can the rc.local files also be backgrounded. This knocked nearly 10 seconds offg my boot times.

Also I mentioned in another post that we could save boot up times if a standard boot did not Modprobe (checked for hardware) but used stored values from last boot. It then only ran modprobe if at boot up (or close down for next boot) you choose it or something went wrong on shutdown.

Puppy probably boots the fastest, lets keep it that way

[conradcliff]

Would it be too much to ask to get better support for toshiba laptops in 2.15? I've pretty much given up on trying to install it on my Toshiba with its trident display adapter.

[timhodkinson]

I would like to see Puppy remain a low resource/old hardware distribution. I've tried out a number of other distros for old computers and came back to Puppy because it was fast and installed very easily (as easily as Ubuntu) on my 450mhz, Compaq Presario.

I think Puppy currently fills an important niche in the world of Linux distros and enables many old PCs to remain useful when they're too slow to run the latest Windows or mainstream Linux distro. This makes home computing very accessible to people who can't afford new PCs, which is particulary important in developing countries and among people with less money in the richer countries.

If Puppy adds alot of the newer, heavier features, I think it will lose its reason for being, or at least, a better reason for being.

Puppy has a lot of potential as a "Green" distro; saving older computers from the garbage and allowing full featured computing to be accessible to lower economic groups. I'm not sure that was the reason for starting it, but it is definitely something Puppy does well, and very few other distros can claim to do.

[DavidBell]

Whodo: The webdev.sfs idea was good but, with the limit of 5 files including pup_215.sfs and zdrv_215.sfs

It may be an old idea but I was wondering if it would be better not use sfs to dsitribute application suites, and instead use a system multi-dotpups. It would sort of go

• * putget manager modified to handle multipups, which are just lists of dotpups. I had a bit of a look, while I don't know anything about scripting it doesn't look too complex.
  
  * when the user selects a multipup, the manager downloads and installs them one by one in the order of the list, and also creates uninstall data (which I think it does anyway)
  
  * DL'ed dotpups are stored in a special folder that it checks before re-downloading anything (so a CD/ISO version might have them all there ready).

I see a few things that need several dotpups to get going (eg Python & Beryl recnetly), and to me installing a single multipup in this way would be a lot easier. And it could be set up to deliver entire suites - eg in PuppyCE it could come as the base version with half a dozen multipup lists in Setup, that would install any or all of Web, Multimedia, Office etc (either from download or ISO). Or it might come with all the options installed, and you could use multipup to pull applications out. Finally it would also mean a derivative puppy would just be the standard PuppyCE with a custom multipup list.

I also wondered if all applications, including those aquired by dotpup/multipup were by default put in a separate apps.sfs, then after the user had got all their applications the way they wanted they could just backup apps.sfs. I think this may be do-able wioth multipup because it would free up a spare sfs or two. I don't know if this would really be an advantage though.

Just some thoghts. DB

[disciple]

I think it would be worth enabling Puppy to open Microsoft .url files. I wrote a script to do it http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=12262 but could never quite figure out the proper way to integrate it with Puppy. I know there are people out there that actually understand mimetypes and everything, and I imagine it would be fairly easy for one of them to do.

[veronicathecow]

Hi DavidBell, that was what I also suggested. It could mean less work also for custom Puppy creators when there are new version of the base Puppy (assuming no changes to menu structure etc) Many thanks

[dot]

May I just chime in here with my 2 cent's worth, adding another long list to a long thread:

Themes:

The Vista theme in the screenshot looks great to me; maybe use amber font colour for better readability. I wouldn't describe it as 'tacky' (KDE Keramik or standard Windows XP are closer to my idea of tackiness), but as someone who tries to get away from Microsoft I must say it is too ... Vista. Can we have something that looks different from either Windows or Mac OS X but is still intuitive? I know that's asking a lot; I'll go with whatever you have to offer.

Filesystem Explorer:

Could you please include XFE in the standard .iso, to replace the similar but uglier uXplor? As a Windows refugee, I'm used to working with tools like XFE; I like to see the filesystem tree and I do become annoyed with ROX's window clutter on occasion.

Codecs:

Isn't Gxine based on the same engine as MPlayer? Their homepage has a link to an extended codec pack, so what if the woof-woof page said something like: "If you need WMV / ASF functionality, get it from here ... Check the laws of your country first"? (I think the VLC has a line of legalese somewhere that says "users are responsible for paying MP3 licence fees to the artists" or something like that.)

Dialup:

One of the things I like about Puppy is that it recognizes my PCMCIA modem, something which Suse 9.3 and Ubuntu Dapper weren't able to do. Getting online via the Connect button, however, just doesn't work, at least on my hardware. Xeznet, on the other hand, does connect me, but not everyone will guess that the 'connect' button is here labelled 'Up'. (Oh, and the Edit button does not save edits, BTW.)

Browser / Mail:

Firefox and Thunderbird for me, please. They're bulky, but I really need the add-on functionality (Scrapbook! DownThemAll! Flashblock! CacheView!). Besides, their sleek looks and good reputation might be comforting for Linux newbies (like myself).

Automounting:

Personally, I'm fine with mounting manually, but I can see the advantage of having checkboxes. While we're at it, could, uhm, 'someone' include an XFE button besides the ROX button? Launching an explorer window from the mounting tool is very useful and I use it a lot.
Maybe there should be a very visible "If you want to access your drives, do this" hint on the woof-woof startup page.

Puppy versions:

My preference would be for one expandable standard version. As a user of Puppy 2.14, I keep seeing posts about how Pizzapup has this and Grafpup does it that way, and what awesome tools Muppy has - I want them all! I'm a bit tired of distro-shopping right now.
I'm fine with Abiword in the standard edition and OOo as a separate download. By the time you reach the limits of Abiword functionality, you will probably have decided that Puppy is for you and worth expanding.
Question to the kernel / startup experts: is it possible to specify and change preferences on which apps to load into RAM at startup?

CD burning:

Gcombust confuses me. Grafburn looks nice, but needs lots of temporary storage to make the .iso and then burn that. TkDVD is simple and does what it's supposed to do once you enlarge the window to find the previously hidden "Burn" button.
I haven't yet tried burning audio CDs, though.

Puppy community:

Can we (= you) work towards having a one-stop Puppy page that directs you to ONE .pup/.pet site, ONE Wiki and ONE Forum?

My contribution:

I don't just want to stand on the sidelines and make requests. I'm afraid my Linux and programming skills are extremely limited, but things I could do include:

- Localization. Give me something to translate into German, or from German into English.
- I don't want to promise too much, but I could try my hand at pawedcasting, like recording audio tutorials (English / German). I just need to find a mic and someone to tell me how to make audio files into a podcast.
- Debugging. I could test the dialup apps, for example. I can use the command line and have issued the ./configure - make - make install commands before, sometimes even successfully.
- Crypto: I'm about to test TrueCrypt (and cryptsetup, maybe), so if you're interested in how it went, I'll report back.


ta, Viz! [<-- sorry about that]

[iscraigh]

Just playing around and I noticed that the remote desktop client was not showing up in the menu. Rdesktop (RC1) is there but the gui appears to be missing.


Craig