Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[playdayz]

This article mainly discusses two methods of running OpenOffice. At the end it discusses using one of the methods as a way of updating browsers—that method, Program Folders, should also work with other software. Please regard it as experimental and practice safe computing. I've gone to school on the bright and creative people in the forums; the stuff that makes sense is due to them and any of it that doesn't make sense is my contribution. I have done a lot of testing and this works on my computers (Thinkpad T22, 900 MHz PIII Coppermine, 256MB, 4 GB Sandisk Extreme 4 CF to IDE disk formatted ext3 with frugal install--the majority of my test have been done on this thinkpad--my other machine is an Athlon 64 2.0 GHz, 1GB, SATA and IDE hard disks formatted ntfs). There is another article posted in Forums, House Training, Users that discusses the results of timing comparisons in the two methods of running OpenOffice.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29563

Why OpenOffice? In some obvious ways, OpenOffice is the antithesis of Puppy; OOo is big and slow, for instance. But for some users, Puppy needs OpenOffice because many if not most business and education users, for instance, need a full-featured office suite. They may admire and respect AbiWord and Gnumeric (which may be just the thing for most other users), but Goffice is not sufficiently full-featured for their needs. They need, for one thing, a presentation graphics program as powerful as Powerpoint. So Puppy needs OpenOffice and I think it is a wonderful symmetry that OpenOffice needs Puppy! In my experience OpenOffice has always been too slow to use, which left Linux without a full-featured office suite, but the first time I ran it under Puppy I was blown away—it was fast enough to use! Puppy is the best foundation I have seen for running OpenOffice, which I regard as yet another good reason for running Puppy Linux.

There are two ways to run OpenOffice under Puppy. One is the well-known and well-documented SFS file. Given a specific configuration (pfix=noram) this method can provide close to optimal performance. However I favor another method, which I have not seen discussed, which provides optimal performance under all configurations. I call that method “program folders” because all of a program's files are contained in just one folder.

Why SFS files?

SFS files are easy and use only half as much storage memory as a program folder. This is hard disk memory, not ram—they take the same amount of ram when running.

They are prepared and tested by people who know a heck of a lot more than I do.

Why I like “Program Folders.”

It is the fastest way (that I have found) to run OOo in all cases (except for a full HD install). The sfs file is only about 25-30% slower (to start) when pfix=noram, but in any other case (I.e., any boot with default options, cd or frugal) then the sfs file is significantly slower and IMO anything that can be done to speed up OOo is good.

SFS is easy but I think Program Folders are easier. Just drag one onto your disk and it is ready to run, no need to worry about boot options. There is no limit of three to the programs you can have available and ready to run. They will all just sit there unobtrusively until you start them with one click.

I like Program Folders. The Macintosh liked them too, for the first half of it's existence, until the transition to Next/Unix. A couple of years ago, and maybe still, Rox was trying to get people to adopt them. The ease of use is one reason MAC and Rox liked them. I also find them philosophically satisfying for their conceptual elegance.

I like to update my browser and Firefox, Seamonkey, and Opera are available in Program Folders—just download the tar.gz or bz2 version—not the installer—and unpack and use (instructions at bottom).


Instructions for both Program Folder and SFS file.

Requirements. A working install of Puppy4, with at least 170 MB free in your home directory and at least 430 free in /mnt/home (please note that your home directory and /mnt/home are different places/ /mnt/home is where pup_sav.2fs lives unless it has been put in a folder such as /mnt/home/Puppy4). Alternatively, you could have at least 600MB available in /mnt/home. You need the 170MB (actual 167MB) free to download the tar.gz version of OpenOffice and the 430MB available (actual 419M) free for the unpacked version.

To use OOo from a Program Folder.

1. Download. Click the file Ooo3beta.tar.gz to download. Seamonkey will default to ~/my-documents. You will need 160MB free to hold the download. If you don't have them in your download directory, you can use /mnt/home.

2. Unpack. When the download is complete, open the file manager and navigate to the directory containing the downloaded file (Ooo3beta.tar.gz). Click the file and Pupzip (Xarchive) will open. Select All and then Extract. Extract to /mnt/home which is NOT the default, so you will need to change it. (Alternatively, if you have enough memory (another 430MB in your home directory--usually /root) you can accept the default download location of /root/my-documents, You can run OOo from /root/my-documents but you will not get any of the memory advantage, so in almost all circumstances you should move it to /mnt/home. The file can also be placed on a usb stick or even burned onto a cd, etc.)

The best configuration I have found is to end up with the Ooo3beta folder in /mnt/home, and all the other riles deleted.

3. Reboot. The trick is that Puppy will not waste any memory in pup_sav.2fs on the program folder once it is moved to /mnt/home and the machine is rebooted. If you have the memory, you can run OOo before you reboot. Either way, open /mnt/home/OOo3beta and click one of the program icons to start. You can also drag the icons to your desktop. The program will be there ready to use until you remove it from /mnt/home.



http://www.diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy400/OOo3beta.tar.gz

http://www.diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy400/OOo3beta.tar.gz-md5.txt


To use OOo3beta from the SFS file.

1. Download (Save) the SFS file and extract it to /mnt/home. You can then clean up the intermediate files. It's probably best to reboot to tidy up the memory.

2. Mount. You can use the BootManager (under System) to arrange to mount Ooo3beta when you boot or you can go to go to /mnt/home and click the SFS file to mount it while you are running Puppy If you mount Ooo3beta when you boot, then go to /opt and click one of the program icons to run. If you mount the SFS file by clicking it after you boot, then go to /mnt/home and click the Ooo3beta folder and then one of the program icons.

http://www.diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy400/OOo3beta_400.sfs

http://www.diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy400/OOo3beta_400.sfs-md5.txt



Updating Firefox, Seamonkey, and Opera as Program Folders

1. Download (Save) the appropriate file (the tar.gz or bz2 versions—not the installer).

2. Extract it to /mnt/home (or to default and then move it to /mnt/home).

3. Delete the tar.gz file and reboot to tidy up memory.

4. Open the file manager, navigate to /mnt/home, click to open the Program Folder, and then click the program, firefox, seamonkey, or opera.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-rc.html

http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/seamonkey/releases/1.1.9/seamonkey-1.1.9.en-US.linux-i686.tar.gz

http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?distro=other%2Fstatic+deb&id=31079%2C31076&tgz=on&location=148&sub=++++&x=109&y=33

[disciple]

One thing to remember is that your "Program folders" method is not suitable for use on Windows partitions.

[raffy]

A little more tweaking and this will be the appdir feature of Rox - thanks a lot for this.

[playdayz]

@disciple

Could you explain please or direct me to a link that explains why the "program folders" are not suitable for use on a windows partition--and is that a fat32 partition or ntfs or both? I won't be a bit surprised that there is a problem but I haven't found it yet and have been doing this on an ntfs partition for a couple of weeks. I made a Puppy400 folder that contains the pup_sav.2fs and the program folders. My other computer, the laptop, has the sandisk cf to ide drive formatted in linux ext3. thanks.

[raffy]

One reason i know is that Windows parttions do not support symlinks.

If you work in pup_save.2fs, then fine as that is still a Linux partition. Placing programs in /usr/local will still be using pup_save.2fs.

You will be using Windows partition when you mount one (FAT, NTFS) and place folder/s in there (usually in /mnt/partitionname).

Note: partitionname can be "hda1" or "sda1", or "home" if it is where your pup_save.2fs is located.

[playdayz]

I did some more timings which might be interesting. I put them in the companion thread to this one. I don't know why I split them like this--it seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess I thought one was the performance question and one was the other considerations.

Companion thread --> http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29563

[Béèm]

Hello playdayz,

I wanted to try the program folders approach, but the link http://www.diddywahdiddy.net/Puppy400/OOo3beta.tar.gz isn't valid any more.

I tried then the versions from the OOo download site, but allI find are rpm and deb files and I don't see how these can be installed in a program folder as you advertise.

How do I get the 3.2 in a program folder then?

[Dingo]

try this script

for x in `ls ./*rpm`; do rpm2cpio $x | cpio -ivd; done

to extract all rpms content in une folder

[Béèm]

Dank u Dingo.
Worked very nicely.

[DaveS]

Bookmark

[Béèm]

Just bear in mind that the opt directory generated from the rpm's is 337MB.
As there are symlinks in the structure, it can't be installed on a vfat partition.