Puppy 4.2

[vtpup]

@vtpup - using Puppy's layered file system it is easy to do both by having barebones + a buildback sfs ...using my example before, just have a symlink to standard.sfs in the /pupXXX directory

Yes and I really like the ability to build up one's own custom system.

But what I'm talking about is the nature of the standard version. It is essentially a presentation version for those who have never used Puppy Linux before. It should start up right off the CD and have all standard Puppy applications in place ready to click on and demo.

The option once that is played with and absorbed, should be to extend it, or actually remove components. But that must be an option, not the standard.

I think we are on the same page, I think it's great to be able to remove standard apps through a layered version of those, but all I'm saying is that they should not be removed from the main Puppy version, only removable.

The prior poster was suggesting, I believe that the primary distribution be a barebones one. I don't agree with that.

Barebones is a wonderful option. And one I'd like to use myself, after having initially cut my teeth on the standard Puppy.

But there should always be an initial standard fully featured LiveCD version with apps included that is Identifiably the Puppy Linux. Otherwise, it's as inviting to a newcomer as pure old Debian was.

"Okay, sure I can install 20,000 programs once I learn the operating system, but what does it do now? Can I connect? Can I write? Can I download email? Can I play my music and videos? Can I burn a CD?"

If the answer to that is no, you have to install something first, I may never bother to spend the time. Furthermore, If I do bother to try to install something, the liklihood is I will install the full version of what I'm used to, and never see the benefits of native Puppy apps.

I think every person who gets hooked on Puppy initially will want to later expand and contract their system -- truly customize it. But somebody new needs to just start running things off the CD or they will never be interested at all. The fine points come later, after they see how amazingly small yet full featured it can be to start with.

[Aitch]

Techno

Looks interesting to me!

vtpup

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting this as the mainstream PuppyLinux

I agree with you about Puppy being the Power & Go, fastboot, fastrun, frisky Puppy we all know & love

The idea, which I think Techno comes close to, is the sort of modularity referred to by peb, but I'm thinking way before X runs,.....

...... in fact I'd like a hardware recognition script that knows my hardware & asks if I changed anything, & when I say 'no', it gives me a wakefromsnooze type ready to run OS in about/less than 5 seconds, with a menu of SFSs [?] to run print/document/mail/phone/game etc as outlined earlier

I mention dos as the command line similarities with linux are key points to understanding what I'm getting at

a PC that asks, 'You want to do what?' at bootup would be brilliant IMHO

If you never used a 286 in dos, and can remember the speed [relative, mind you] that it did things - with all the modern chip improvements, all that's happened is programmers have nobbled all the power & ram for 'windowing' & masking function - do we get the 1000+ times increase in function? ......I think not....

Even to have some of our excellent coders think about the question/answer type interface, instead of,

'Well, here's all I can do, all at once - now select which you want [with the rider that I've wasted loads of time/power doing all the things you won't use right now ]'

But like I said, just a different perspective is all, otherwise everyone charges down the well trodden path, if you know what I mean

Good to go up in a balloon every once in a while

Even if occasionally coming down with a bump...

Aitch

[JasonFruit]

@Technosaurus - Is installing additional software such an essential function that it belongs on the bar, in its own special menu? I have my concerns about a menu-based installer - inexperienced users need a clear distinction between software that's on their machine and software that would have to be installed - but if you went with it anyway, I'd think it would be better to make it a sub-menu of the main Puppy menu. Neat concept, though.

[vtpup]

Code: Select all

If you never used a 286 in dos, and can remember the speed [relative, mind you] that it did things

Nope never had a 286. Did have an 8086 in the original IBM-PC, and before that I can remember the speed of a Z-80 at 1.778 mhz in TRSDOS, FORTH, and assembly. And before that a 6809.

I even built a computer from scratch. Programmed my own eproms off a parallel port, and erased them with a sunlamp. Built a printer from a used Selectric terminal. Of course this is all irrelevant. just a fun excuse to reminisce

A blank terminal screen asking what you want to do is fine if you know what you want to do. But if you don't (and if you are trying out a distro for the first time, you have no idea at all) it is simply either intimidating or irritating.

A demo is a demo. As a person popping a demo into the drive, I expect the distro to show me why it's so special, I don't want to have to answer questions to get it to do something. I want it to answer my question of why should I bother with this distro. What makes you special? What do you have to offer? How much work do I have to do to get you to do the things I commonly want from a computer? How fast are you? How easy to navigate? Do I have to relearn everything I know about a mouse and a menu or clicks just to open a program on this desktop?

Negative or complex answers to these basic questions are turnoffs.

I think a demo should just start doing amazing stuff easily. Then after that if you really want, you could put a big button in the middle of the screen saying "Don't like something? Want something else? Push me!"

Push that button and you can strip off programs or add others -- do your layered thing, or chop it to the bone and start over again.

Now, it's true, an experienced old timer with the distro would have to wait a few seconds after booting to create a barebones skeleton, rather than having it start that way -- seems like waiting a few moments isn't a huge price to pay for getting more converts to his or her favorite Linux flavor. Once he/she'd done that, it could start up any way they want.

But that button, or option, or menu entry or whatever -- dos dialog if you want -- should come after the initial whiz-bang firework shenanigans of whatever makes your LiveCD distro special. As a new user asking what the heck Puppy Linux is, I don't want to see that button without an initial experience and answer. The show.

I'm joking a lot here, of course. The show really is, tight, trim programs, that open and operate fast, are easy to understand, elegantly simple, and don't obsolete your equipment every 18 months. And the ability to drop them, change them, improve them, and make things the way you want them. The uber application --- the change button.

[Aitch]

vtpup

okie dokie - don't want to start another reminisce thread, we'll have Sage/Lobster/prehistoric/SHS and a few others throw their transistor pc memories in.... - [yeh, me too....]

just because you've already hotrodded an IBM 600, jealously, I'll agree, as I think essentially we want the same things - just I wasn't referring to a demo to show off what the OS can do, as I assumed the next stage of the game....

no problem

Aitch

[vtpup]

I was mostly exaggerating for effect -- joking, Aitch, too.

Of course any new version of a distribution IS the demo version. It's the one newcomers always download. The latest and greatest, they assume. Why would they burn something else to disk?

[technosaurus]

@jasonfruit
I initially got the idea from Mint's ability to uninstall programs from the menu. Thought it would be really easy for new users to figure where everything ended up in the menu if they got it from the same place in the start menu. I did try it as a submenu (it was much easier) but had to limit the packages to keep them from going off the screen. I have since abandoned the idea for Puppy's desktop - choosing instead to have it integrated into the web desktop. I just thought the work might be useful to others interested in doing something similar. It could easily be adapted to be a separate menu for a specific set of programs designed for a particular Puplet etc...

[J-Bob]

I had an idea for Puppy 4.2 to use for icon switching,

I used zigbert's theming idea and built a couple things that could go alongside this which could be used with any theme adding a menu button.

this is my jwm-tray file

Code: Select all

<JWM>
	<Tray  autohide="false" insert="right" x="0" y="-1" border="1" height="28" >


		<!-- Additional TrayButton attribute: label -->
		<TrayButton icon="/usr/local/lib/X11/pixmaps/start-button.png">root:3</TrayButton>
	<!--	<TrayButton popup="Run commandline" icon="gexec.xpm">exec:gexec</TrayButton> -->
		<TrayButton popup="Show Desktop" icon="mini-desktop.xpm">showdesktop</TrayButton>

		<!-- Additional Pager attributes; width, height -->
		<Pager/>

		<!-- Additional TaskList attribute: maxwidth -->
		<TaskList/>

		<Dock/>

		<!-- Additional Swallow attribute: height -->

		<Swallow name="blinky">
blinkydelayed -bg "#939191"
		</Swallow>

		<Swallow name="asapm">
			asapmshell -u 4
		</Swallow>

		<Swallow name="freememapplet" width="34">
			freememapplet
		</Swallow>

		<Swallow name="xload" width="32">
xload -nolabel -fg red -hl white -bg "black"
		</Swallow>

		<Clock>minixcal</Clock>
	</Tray>
</JWM>

i attached an altered icon theme switcher for usage with this.
as well as zigbert's deepthought icon.

NOTE: I removed the package from my machine, but i attached it to an earlier post, so i'll just link to it.

The thread it is on is
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... &start=210
it is currently at the bottom, but that might change.

- J-Bob

[JasonFruit]

@technosaurus: I checked out the revised version of the web desktop - that's a much smarter implementation of the same idea. Nice!

[PaulBx1]

@vtpup - using Puppy's layered file system it is easy to do both by having barebones + a buildback sfs

But what I'm talking about is the nature of the standard version. It is essentially a presentation version for those who have never used Puppy Linux before. It should start up right off the CD and have all standard Puppy applications in place ready to click on and demo.

Er, can't we have our cake and eat it too?

The main impetus behind the desire for more modularity, if I'm not mistaken, is the need for many people to get rid of Seamonkey, because they want another browser. I'm much less concerned about smaller applications.

Well (and perhaps technosaurus was suggesting this), can't we just have a pup_xxx.sfs file that is complete except for Seamonkey, and another sfs file called seamonkey.sfs? Both part of the standard iso, both normally copied down to the hard drive? And with seamonkey.sfs by default in the list of loaded sfs files in the boot manager?

Then, the newbie sees exactly the same thing he sees now. Yet those who want to dump Seamonkey can simply take it out of the bootmanager list, and substitute perhaps an opera.sfs.

Or am I missing something?

[WhoDo]

Er, can't we have our cake and eat it too?

I must have missed that suggestion, but it is a good one. I'll see what I can do for Puppy 4.2Alpha

[Lobster]

There is some cake (too big for Puppy) but MU recently created an SFS for UP (Unnamed Puppy) that works in 4.12 for my fav program XaraX.
Looking forward to the cake now your days as daughter taxi service are finished . . .

And now for my fav simplest gateaux recipe

Two choc sponge cakes
layer half an inch of whipped cream in between the cakes sandwiched
then cover in half an inch of whipped cream and grate chocolate all over
obscene!
delicious!

[Aitch]

Nice explanation, PaulBx1,

My thoughts were similar, & not just for Seamonkey.......

Lobster, that cake sounds gross

Aitch

[vattimo]

Hello all -- I do apologize if this has already been covered, but I wanted to offer this info in reply to a query about the need for the cd/dvd wizard. (I just read some of the posts and have to get back to work...) My machine is a laptop - Compaq N400C, 850mhz, with 256ram, no HD, a cd, and a dvd/cdrw. Puppy version 4.1.2 -- Live CD, remastered to include Firefox from the packages -- I use various USB drives for storage. If I play a DVD I have to identify to Puppy which is the cd and which is the dvd. I use the Wizard for that., otherwise I get an error message.
Kudos to the entire team for this version ... and my thanks!!!

[PaulBx1]

Since noscript and adblock are the most popular add-ons to Seamonkey (I think), you might add them to the Seamonkey sfs.

[vtpup]

Stuff I use in Seamonkey are CustomizeGoogle (to stop the user tracking, and make it behave the way I want, rather than the way they want) XSidebar, and DownThemAll (needed together. allows multithreaded downloads and a sidebar like Firefox) and the ubiquitous Mostly Crystal theme, to make it look good.

With these, I don't miss Firefox at all.

EDIT:

Oh one more thing. This is very important.

Please name the retro version of the Pup sfs fie differently than the newer kernel version!

EXAMPLE:

standard version = pup_411.sfs

retro version = pup_411R.sfs

The fact that different kernel versions have exactly the same name caused me some BIG problems troubleshooting some very odd system behavior this last week.

If you're curious, here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 885#259885

[BigPilot]

I would like to add:

- better (easier to use) harddisk installation (more like Ubuntu where you either pick 'take over the disk' or use GParted first and you set up the installation partiions manually). No other selections should be needed!
- a better looking Windows Manager. I really like Xfce, it's clean looking but it could use a nice Puppy theme. I've seen many excellent themes in this forum alone, so the most difficult part will be to pick the best one. I don't know if Xfce is light enough for Puppy, but it's certainly much nicer looking.
- the network manager could be made easier, like the one in Ubuntu. Let it find the hardware and corresponding driver itself and add an 'Advanced' button somewhere where you can probe and load drivers like in the current version. Users should only be made to enter their admin password, the EESID and pre-shared key. The Ubuntu network manager is as easy as you can get (better than Windows by far) although sometimes you need more fine grained control (loading of a driver or ndiswrapper .inf selection).

[WhoDo]

Hello all -- I do apologize if this has already been covered, but I wanted to offer this info in reply to a query about the need for the cd/dvd wizard. ...[snip]... If I play a DVD I have to identify to Puppy which is the cd and which is the dvd. I use the Wizard for that., otherwise I get an error message.

Relax, vattimo (Wow! Only 5 posts since 2006! The talk about removing the wizard must have really stirred you up! ). I can assure you that the CD/DVD wizard will remain in Puppy 4.2 Deepthought. We are going for better usability, so removing that or any other wizard would be counterproductive to our aim.

[PaulBx1]

I want to add one more appeal for automatic pupsave backup, since usability is the aim here. Let's face it, pupsave backup is currently a pain in the ass.

Here's an idea. When creating the pupsave on the first boot, ask the user this question: "Do you want the ability to automatically back up the pupsave file on every shutdown? If you answer 'yes', on each shutdown there will be a quick dialog in which you will be asked if you want to back up the pupsave as it currently exists. This saves you from having to boot puppy into ram just for the purpose of copying the pupsave somewhere manually."

If the user answers "yes", then ask him this: "Where do you want to save this backup copy? It is suggested you specify a location at least two layers deep so the backup copy will not cause Puppy, during boot, to ask you if you want to use the backup copy for the running pupsave. For example, if your regular pupsave is on /mnt/home, a suggested location for the backup copy would be /mnt/home/Backups/Puppy."

Then, save the backup location string (say, PUPSAVEBACKUPDIR) in PUPSTATE, and create the specified directory. If PUPSAVEBACKUPDIR="" then there is no dialog on shutdown and no backup copy will be made. If it is not null, then on all subsequent shutdowns the question will be asked (immediately after the shutdown command is given), "Do you wish to back up the pupsave file, as it currently exists, to $PUPSAVEBACKUPDIR?" You could even add in this dialog, "If you do not want to be asked this question, and have no automatic backups made, edit the file /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE and set the variable PUPSAVEBACKUPDIR to "" ."

If something got hosed in a normal session, the user would then have the opportunity to rename his backup copy so it does not get trampled, or at least to answer "no" when he is asked the above dialog on shutdown, or even just to rudely power-down the computer.

Of course the backup itself would be done at the very end when the disk has been sync'ed and everything flushed out to the regular pupsave. I notice that Puppy has the rsync command so there is no need for this backup operation to take very much time, and what time it does take will be unnoticed since it is a shutdown and the user has walked away from his computer.

<later>
An even slicker method occurs to me. Instead of the dialog on every shutdown, have two shutdown entries in Menu>Shutdown: "Power-off" and "Power-off w/ pupsave backup".

[vtpup]

Paulbx1,

I like it!

It would definitely be an advantage not to have to boot to another instance of Puppy to save the personal save file, then reboot again back to the original if you wanted to continue. That's two reboots.

With your method you would only have to do a single reboot back into the same system. Also, we wou;ld tend to backup far more often.

This would really work well with a multisession DVD or a CD RW.

With the multisession DVD, maybe it could record only a delta (if rsync could split that way rather than overwrite the last session). You could then have a script reassemble from any stage in the series to any backup point in the past. With the capacity of a DVD, that would be a lot of history before filling up.

I guess that's probably how Puppy already works in the multisession CD save mode? I haven't tried it yet so I don't know exactly how it works.

Backups are best made to hard media, sooner or later with an incremental rather than overwriting mode. If you just overwrite, sooner or later the backup may get clobbered at an unfortunate time. Particularly if the problem is a bad disk, or harddrive failure.

Asking where to put it each time is also a drag so if at all possible -- if a CD or DVD was specified for deltas, with auto incrementing, and a warning when the end of the disk was near, you'd have a dynamite semi-auto backup system.