Puppy 2.15CE "Viz" - Development Ideas/Requests

A home for all kinds of Puppy related projects
Message
Author
User avatar
WhoDo
Posts: 4428
Joined: Wed 12 Jul 2006, 01:58
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW Australia

#281 Post by WhoDo »

bobn9lvu wrote:Is it possible to add/change the theme(s)?
As it is hard to see some of the text.
I find it easier with a lighter background on the window bar(s)....
Menu>Settings>Themes and choose one. IcebergX and Abby are both light background themes.

You can also download a complete theme collection from the PSI repositories.

Hope that helps.

BTW. Right click on desktop to bring up the menu is back in the next release. You can add it yourself by editing /root/.icewm/preferences to read the following at about Line 158:

Code: Select all

#  Manage root window (EXPERIMENTAL - normally enabled!)
GrabRootWindow=1 # 0/1
[i]Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't![/i]
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

pupshock
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri 23 Mar 2007, 05:30

#282 Post by pupshock »

This very interesting thread has gone on for XX pages, and
may well hit XXX pages. This may not necc be a good thing.

There are plenty of great suggestions on this/that browser, editor,
theme, WM, etc. Unfortunately, they are not all compatible
in some way or other with Barry's mission statements,
eg a particular app may be 'big' but 'useful'.

May i respectfully suggest a poll, not based on the
specific app, but on which of Barry's mission statements for
puppylinux is the most important. Then we can move ahead
with the specifics, scoring each suggestion against the
community's expectations of mission statement importance.

Here is my order, in decreasing importance, of the mission statements:
1. It will just work, no hassles.
2. Totally in RAM
3. All apps for daily use
4. Run fast
5. save back to CD/USB if required
6. breathe new life into old PCs
7. easy install.

I dont know how to start a poll. If anyone thinks this is a
reasonable way forward, pls help. thanks

User avatar
veronicathecow
Posts: 559
Joined: Sat 21 Oct 2006, 09:41

#283 Post by veronicathecow »

Hi, pupshock, would you be prepared to set up a poll?
My own priorities would be
Ease of installation (If you end up with a broken install you are stuck)
Printing must work
Internet via USB, dial, wireless must work
Speed of bootup and shutdown (People just don't want to wait)
Must be able to coexist with Windows (Perhaps with a grub restore facility in case Windows gets re-installed and breaks Puppy
Runs fast (fully in RAM on older machines but does slow boot times)
Ease of configuring desktop (Time, resolution, adding shortcuts, auto start of programs)
ERGANOMICS. I suffer from RSI, Right mouse on desktop save times and movement. I also have poor vision 2 detached retinas and cataracts so while I appreciate fancy looking desktops a clean, high contrast, good fonts are essential (I'm writing this on a 23 inch monitor set to 1024x768)
Industry standard compatible programs for all common stuff used on Window, Office, GIMP NVU, Thunderbird, Firefox, XMMS, Gxine, MSN, CD/DVD writing, PDF (Achieved by a base Puppy and a CE edition?)
What would others like to see in such a poll?

pupshock
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri 23 Mar 2007, 05:30

#284 Post by pupshock »

Sure, i dont mind setting up a poll.
Problem is, the forum poll only allows voting for _one_ of the
option statements, not a ranking of the options.
Its tedious, but a method could be:
1st poll on the most important mission statement.
2nd poll on the 2nd most important mission statement
(with the most important mission statement omitted from the
options)
etc ...
any other ideas how to get it done?

User avatar
headfound
Posts: 371
Joined: Sun 25 Jun 2006, 00:58
Location: England
Contact:

#285 Post by headfound »

Thats a nice idea, but this thread is about 2.15ce which is already on rc2!
Its basically set in stone. A new thread about the next ce with a poll would be good, especially if Barry is going to be changing puppy's structure.
Download a better Computer :)
[url=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rDTLJYDHX3g]Puppy Linux Song[/url]
[url=http://www.letterbyletter.co.uk]www.letterbyletter.co.uk[/url]

User avatar
WhoDo
Posts: 4428
Joined: Wed 12 Jul 2006, 01:58
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW Australia

#286 Post by WhoDo »

pupshock wrote:any other ideas how to get it done?
How about providing a link to Survey Monkey? Their polling features are way more sophisticated than you could reasonably expect in any BB software, and it's free to use AFAIK.
[i]Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't![/i]
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

User avatar
richard.a
Posts: 513
Joined: Tue 15 Aug 2006, 08:00
Location: Adelaide, South Australia

#287 Post by richard.a »

veronicathecow - a set of very good points.

But, may I make the observation that all Community Editions historically appear to have been different in detail from the base version puppylinux distributions, and also from each other, as they all fulfil specific and different purposes.

And because of its completely modular nature, Linux in general is fragmented into hundreds of different arrangements of applications, utilities, and the bits and pieces which make each different group of users happy.

Discussion has occurred over browsers, email clients, and so on, for this particular Community Edition. In discussion changes from the "norm", it is essential that we should make sure that changes should only be "best practice". May I use as an example your thoughts on Networking; imho this is something which should not be tampered with, because we have finally got to the point where it works seamlessly, "with a minimum of fuss" as an airline used to say in its advertising.

What do I mean? Just that ethernet (using Cat5e cable) is the standard around the world, slowly being superceded by wireless.

If you ask specifically for USB connection, this is something not often encountered in professional installations, and is very different for setting up and so on, because it is technically a "poor man's LAN" type of connection.

In five short years of my networking experience, I've only seen one example of an USB networking connection, and that was done on the cheap by a fellow who had little expertise or experience in this field, and used second-hand hardware which had been discarded.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being critical of USB connections, merely this fellow's choice of hardware and his practical way of installing and setting up.

So I believe we should be very careful before polling what we would personally like to use, but rather (as the 2.15ce team leader -WhoDo - has pointed out), it must be our opinions of what the project should achieve.

Individually we can always apply add-ons to the programs in the standard puppy developed by Barry to suit what we want to use ourselves.

I hope nobody takes offence at the points I raised.

Richard in Adelaide.
[i]Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?[/i]

[img]http://micro-hard.dreamhosters.com/416434.png[/img]

pupshock
Posts: 140
Joined: Fri 23 Mar 2007, 05:30

#288 Post by pupshock »

Yessir, I'll look into a SurveyMonkey survey.
I think it'll be useful to give developers an idea
of what is important in puppy, and repeated surveys
can show how it evolves in time.
It's not aimed specifically for 1.5CE, or even CE at all.

pup2learn222
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed 23 Aug 2006, 02:20

puppy 2.15ce

#289 Post by pup2learn222 »

Hi all I been thinking instead of making the puppy iso so big, could it be done another way & in my oppinion get the same result at the same time.

Making the iso with everything on it seems a waste if some one will not be using those apps.

1. Why not concentrate the best of your work to fix the so called bugs & make the iso better & smaler. <which should load faster> and d/l faster too for dial up's.

(By bugs I mean why should a simple sound card like awe 32 or 64 be so hard to set up, the wizzard doesnt work cant find the isa card,however if you put modprobe sb in terminal then sound works.Only by editing a file & adding it will return on next boot, how is a newbie just trying out feeling about now.)
Shouldnt this be addressed while booting up without intervention.


2. Put the apps & the pup & pupget files on a seperate downloadable ISO with all the libraries to support the pups or pupget.For a dial up user if they need it.

3. Also combine the 2 above to be placed on the cd iso this way once it is burned everything can be added without the hassle of finding it on the servers out there.By doing it this way the servers will be less in demand & we users would have a copy on our cd's which may help others that need something when the servers are down. Maybe set something up with bittorrent use.

Just burning the iso for a light use & saving to hd file seems a waste of a cd why not put the cd to good use. <This way a person setting up a friends machine to hd can do the whole process without the internet service, just in case they are on dial up too. It just makes sense to me.

User avatar
richard.a
Posts: 513
Joined: Tue 15 Aug 2006, 08:00
Location: Adelaide, South Australia

Re: puppy 2.15ce

#290 Post by richard.a »

pup2learn222 wrote:Making the iso with everything on it seems a waste if some one will not be using those apps.
That is why the regular puppy does not do this. There are a few choices, yes. But nowhere near what is provided in larger distributions of Linux. We are discussing a specific customised version of puppy here :)
pup2learn222 wrote:By bugs I mean why should a simple sound card like awe 32 or 64 be so hard to set up, the wizzard doesnt work cant find the isa card,however if you put modprobe sb in terminal then sound works.Only by editing a file & adding it will return on next boot, how is a newbie just trying out feeling about now.)
Sounds like you have had difficulties with your sound card being detected.

The only "legacy" (ISA) card I can't get to work through running the wizard is an Aztech which came as OEM with HP's Vectras VL series. I've personally had no sound cards, either PCI or onboard (like AC97) that haven't been correctly detected. My Aztech card isn't detected by ANY *nix OS except for SuSE Linux, the first one which I tried was 9.0

pup2learn222 wrote:2. Put the apps & the pup & pupget files on a seperate downloadable ISO with all the libraries to support the pups or pupget.For a dial up user if they need it.
For distribution to friends, I burned the version 2.02 SeaMonkey edition to a CD AS AN ISO along with all the add-ons I thought they might find useful. I figured they could extract the ISO and burn it to their own CD to run.

pup2learn222 wrote:3. Also combine the 2 above to be placed on the cd iso this way once it is burned everything can be added without the hassle of finding it on the servers out there.By doing it this way the servers will be less in demand & we users would have a copy on our cd's which may help others that need something when the servers are down. Maybe set something up with bittorrent use.
Sounds like you are getting away from the Joe User concept of simplicity where someone who knows nothing about computers can slip it into the CD drive, start the computer, and try the OS without needing to do anything else.

pup2learn222 wrote:Just burning the iso for a light use & saving to hd file seems a waste of a cd why not put the cd to good use. <This way a person setting up a friends machine to hd can do the whole process without the internet service, just in case they are on dial up too. It just makes sense to me.
You could burn the ISO to one of those tiny CDs that hold just over 200Mb of data, which come in a plastic case the size of a floppy. However they will cost you more in $ and cents than regular CDs which you can buy in bulk for around 50cents each Australian.

I would rather use a full sized CD which has a decent amount of space to write a description of the contents on its surface.

Just my thoughts, hope they are useful, pup2learn222.

There's a fair bit written on the website... check out specifically what Barry (whose brainchild puppy is) has written in regard to your thinking. Enjoy puppy, it's a great distribution of Linux. Create your own composition and then remaster it yourself using the tools provided in the basic puppy :)

Richard in Adelaide
[i]Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?[/i]

[img]http://micro-hard.dreamhosters.com/416434.png[/img]

User avatar
Pizzasgood
Posts: 6183
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
Location: Knoxville, TN, USA

#291 Post by Pizzasgood »

I've played with RC-2 a little now. My list is much smaller, but I wasn't looking for problems this time, just trying to test my own stuff :roll:

1. Extra /root0 directory (now we use /root in unleashed)

2. The logout message in the IcebergX theme is still un-readible. The relevant stuff would be under the "dialog" settings in the theme file, I believe.

3. /usr/lib/libasound.so.2 a symlink to libasound.so.2.0.0-orig, which doesn't exist. Should it be pointing to libasound.so.2.0.0, or is there a missing file? The "orig" version does not exist in Puppy 2.14. Just pointing it to libasound.so.2.0.0 like it is in 2.14 fixes alsamixer.

4. I'm going by memory for this one, but I think ogg still didn't have a run-action.

5. MP3 still runs Madplay.

6. I had some issues with playing MP3 in Gxine. That was before I noticed the libasound issue though, maybe that fixes it. I'll find out later.


That's all for tonight. :)
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]

User avatar
WhoDo
Posts: 4428
Joined: Wed 12 Jul 2006, 01:58
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW Australia

#292 Post by WhoDo »

Pizzasgood wrote:1. Extra /root0 directory (now we use /root in unleashed)
If you are sure this isn't required for any application I'll remove it.
Pizzasgood wrote:2. The logout message in the IcebergX theme is still un-readible. The relevant stuff would be under the "dialog" settings in the theme file, I believe.
I need a tuit ... specifically a round one ... before I can fix this problem. :P
Pizzasgood wrote:3. /usr/lib/libasound.so.2 a symlink to libasound.so.2.0.0-orig, which doesn't exist. Should it be pointing to libasound.so.2.0.0, or is there a missing file?
It should be pointing to libasound.so.2.0.0 and I have already fixed that for the next release. There is also a reply on the forum regarding the fix for those running RC1/RC2.
Pizzasgood wrote:4. I'm going by memory for this one, but I think ogg still didn't have a run-action.

5. MP3 still runs Madplay.
I need the round tuit to fix this one too. Won't belong.
Pizzasgood wrote:6. I had some issues with playing MP3 in Gxine. That was before I noticed the libasound issue though, maybe that fixes it. I'll find out later.
Let me know how it pans out, but only when you get a round tuit.

Cheers
[i]Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't![/i]
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

User avatar
richard.a
Posts: 513
Joined: Tue 15 Aug 2006, 08:00
Location: Adelaide, South Australia

#293 Post by richard.a »

I have a drawer of square tuits, but only because I never got a round one :)
[i]Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?[/i]

[img]http://micro-hard.dreamhosters.com/416434.png[/img]

pup2learn222
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed 23 Aug 2006, 02:20

Re: puppy 2.15ce

#294 Post by pup2learn222 »

richard.a wrote:
pup2learn222 wrote:Making the iso with everything on it seems a waste if some one will not be using those apps.
That is why the regular puppy does not do this. There are a few choices, yes. But nowhere near what is provided in larger distributions of Linux. We are discussing a specific customised version of puppy here :)

richard.a
If the regular puppy doesnt do this then why so big.

pup2learn222 wrote:By bugs I mean why should a simple sound card like awe 32 or 64 be so hard to set up, the wizzard doesnt work cant find the isa card,however if you put modprobe sb in terminal then sound works.Only by editing a file & adding it will return on next boot, how is a newbie just trying out feeling about now.)
Sounds like you have had difficulties with your sound card being detected.
The only "legacy" (ISA) card I can't get to work through running the wizard is an Aztech which came as OEM with HP's Vectras VL series. I've personally had no sound cards, either PCI or onboard (like AC97) that haven't been correctly detected. My Aztech card isn't detected by ANY *nix OS except for SuSE Linux, the first one which I tried was 9.0

richard.a
Well add creative labs sound blaster awe 32 & 64 to the list not being recognised by the wizard, BTW pclinuxos detected it fine.

pup2learn222 wrote:2. Put the apps & the pup & pupget files on a seperate downloadable ISO with all the libraries to support the pups or pupget.For a dial up user if they need it.
For distribution to friends, I burned the version 2.02 SeaMonkey edition to a CD AS AN ISO along with all the add-ons I thought they might find useful. I figured they could extract the ISO and burn it to their own CD to run.

richard.a
I bring the actual disk & frugal install & setup & give them the disk.This way I set it up the way I like it for starters.I can demo what I know & like.I also leave with a working system for them to work with.Most of my friends wont even look at linux till I show them then they are fine with it.
pup2learn222 wrote:3. Also combine the 2 above to be placed on the cd iso this way once it is burned everything can be added without the hassle of finding it on the servers out there.By doing it this way the servers will be less in demand & we users would have a copy on our cd's which may help others that need something when the servers are down. Maybe set something up with bittorrent use.
Sounds like you are getting away from the Joe User concept of simplicity where someone who knows nothing about computers can slip it into the CD drive, start the computer, and try the OS without needing to do anything else.

richard.a
Joe User will have the working cd my way & I can install all the pups/apps before going on internet.
pup2learn222 wrote:Just burning the iso for a light use & saving to hd file seems a waste of a cd why not put the cd to good use. <This way a person setting up a friends machine to hd can do the whole process without the internet service, just in case they are on dial up too. It just makes sense to me.
You could burn the ISO to one of those tiny CDs that hold just over 200Mb of data, which come in a plastic case the size of a floppy. However they will cost you more in $ and cents than regular CDs which you can buy in bulk for around 50cents each Australian.

I would rather use a full sized CD which has a decent amount of space to write a description of the contents on its surface.

richard.a
I agree with you here :lol:

Just my thoughts, hope they are useful, pup2learn222.

Just my thoughts clarified, hope they are clearer & better understandable richard.a 8) . some day I will get the quote thing going.Best Regards.

There's a fair bit written on the website... check out specifically what Barry (whose brainchild puppy is) has written in regard to your thinking. Enjoy puppy, it's a great distribution of Linux. Create your own composition and then remaster it yourself using the tools provided in the basic puppy :)

Richard in Adelaide

User avatar
richard.a
Posts: 513
Joined: Tue 15 Aug 2006, 08:00
Location: Adelaide, South Australia

Re: puppy 2.15ce

#295 Post by richard.a »

pup2learn222 wrote:richard.a
If the regular puppy doesnt do this then why so big.
Regular puppy is around 70Mb in size afaik.

This one is a a lot bigger, with specifically chosen applications and features. It isn't a "regular" puppy release.

This is a Community Edition and it might be good for you to visit the wiki pages so you can see the difference between the two. There have been several very good ones that have been created, starting with the one by gliezl which looked very much like WindowsXP with the blue customisation turned off.
pup2learn222 wrote:richard.a
Well add creative labs sound blaster awe 32 & 64 to the list not being recognised by the wizard, BTW pclinuxos detected it fine.
I don't have those sound cards installed to the best of my knowledge. I may have one in a machine I haven't tried it on, and will look. It may take a day or two.

Remember that larger Linux operating systems (PCLinuxOS is around 650Mb in size on the CD) have generally more whizz-bang stuff that takes up more space on the CD and more overhead on the computer while running.

Actually, the basic puppy v2.02 recognises the ISA bus sound blaster SB16 in an old 386 100MHz computer I tried it on.

Out of interest, I wonder if you ran the ALSA wizard and tried a manual detect?
pup2learn222 wrote:richard.a
I bring the actual disk & frugal install & setup & give them the disk.This way I set it up the way I like it for starters.I can demo what I know & like.I also leave with a working system for them to work with.Most of my friends wont even look at linux till I show them then they are fine with it.
That's fine :)
pup2learn222 wrote:richard.a
Joe User will have the working cd my way & I can install all the pups/apps before going on internet.
That is good practice which you recommend. I do this myself. I have a repository at home on my LAN, copied to the second HDD on each computer, of the add-ons I would like to install.

Remember with Beta versions, and Release Candidates, you often need to download fixes. You are confusing a production version with a test version, perhaps.

We are working in this set of threads with a new version that is not released to the public.

People who do beta testing understand these things. In my case, I have been beta testing operating systems since 2002.



Richard in Adelaide
[i]Have you noticed editing is always needed for the inevitable typos that weren't there when you hit the "post" button?[/i]

[img]http://micro-hard.dreamhosters.com/416434.png[/img]

conradcliff
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun 11 Feb 2007, 00:54

#296 Post by conradcliff »

I hope I'm not offending anyone by asking about better support for toshiba laptops with trident display adapters. Is that just a really off the wall request? If it is someone can just tell me and I'll shut up I promise.

User avatar
WhoDo
Posts: 4428
Joined: Wed 12 Jul 2006, 01:58
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW Australia

#297 Post by WhoDo »

conradcliff wrote:I hope I'm not offending anyone by asking about better support for toshiba laptops with trident display adapters. Is that just a really off the wall request? If it is someone can just tell me and I'll shut up I promise.
It's not "off the wall" to ask at all, but may be beyond the scope of the Community Edition, which is meant as a CONSOLIDATION release - fixing bugs, enhancing usability features and polishing look-and-feel issues. Your request might obtain better play on the Developer forum where the guys are working on Puppy 2.16 at the moment. It doesn't qualify as a bug so much as a feature request.

BTW, have you searched the forum for those terms - Toshiba and Trident? My recollection is of a number of posts offering assistance to get video working properly on those machines.

Cheers
[i]Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't![/i]
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

User avatar
Sit Heel Speak
Posts: 2595
Joined: Fri 31 Mar 2006, 03:22
Location: downwind

#298 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

@conradcliff: Have you done a search on the terms "Toshiba Trident" with "Search for all terms" checked? This hardware combination question, IIRC, was done to death by, among others, designengineer. Did he ever get back to you with the step-by-step instructions he promised? PM me.

@WhoDo: the dark blue and black background looks wicked beautiful on a TFT or LCD monitor. On a CRT it's just too dark.

User avatar
WhoDo
Posts: 4428
Joined: Wed 12 Jul 2006, 01:58
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW Australia

#299 Post by WhoDo »

Sit Heel Speak wrote:@WhoDo: the dark blue and black background looks wicked beautiful on a TFT or LCD monitor. On a CRT it's just too dark.
I've included several lighter options in /usr/share/backgrounds for those whose preferences lean towards the lighter side. 8)

I'm not sure that ALL CRT monitors will react in the same way to the background. I use it on a couple of 17" monitors (IBM E74 and a clone brand) and it seems ok to me on both, but those monitors are set to my personal preferences and have a bright user lux setting (around 6500 from memory).

I'll have another look at it over then next few days. Maybe a shade or two lighter won't hurt the impression. We'll see.

Cheers
[i]Actions speak louder than words ... and they usually work when words don't![/i]
SIP:whodo@proxy01.sipphone.com; whodo@realsip.com

User avatar
Lobster
Official Crustacean
Posts: 15522
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 06:06
Location: Paradox Realm
Contact:

The Lighter Side

#300 Post by Lobster »

I follow the Lighter side . . .

However I am very pleased to report that even the dark side of the Puppy Force (in other words the default in Viz RC2) is most excellent.

I welcome the Light
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

Post Reply