PuppyTLC OS is a project by the Toowoomba Linux Community for old reconditioned computers to give to families in need or crisis. While talking to the Salvation Army I found out they have a need for this kind of service - and that they need 400+ computers for the families going through their crisis centre!
The OS is to be a complete model - that is, it shouldn't need any additions for the family's computer use. Also, that reduces the changes that, if they should install extra software, it break the system. Once a computer is done it needs to be self-sufficient until the time when those families are out of crisis. We hope within 12 months as a reconditioned computer only has a limited lifespan! PuppyTLC is a subset of my (nemesis) never-finishing Ultimate Puppy.
The applications were pretty straight forward. I tried to pick software which could be handled by PII computers, software which wasn't too complicated to set-up and use, and that meets the family's general computing needs.
Needs to be met:
*Students (big focus)
*internet (incl' email, messenger, skype) with a host of plugins
*multimedia
*entertainment (ie: games)
*Office (finance, documents and printing)
A result of this is that it's rather large (around 3gbs).
I have come to the conclusion that unless it looks good it'll probably gather dust and the family will just go and spend money (which they have to borrow) to buy a Windows based machine. So I spruced it up!
PuppyTLC is based on fat-free Puppy-3.01. I have updated with jwm2 and gtk2+. All applications work well on a very (very!) dodgy 400Mhz AMD 64mbs computer.
You will notice that the Help Section is very incomplete - currently in the process of creating it. There is also a Control Panel on the Icon Bar (far right).
I have provided a script to download untar and join the iso. But you can manually do this if your so inclined. Unlike my first attempt at Ultimate Puppy the download and join process works without a hitch. (multiple testings!). I have altered the initrd.gz to allow for pfix=noram. This works well if you don't have any frugal installs - it will load the pup_save file instead. After installation and reboot there's a second file to download and install to complete the installation. (Internet Connection Wizard is in the Control Panel)
In effect I was hoping if the people in this community could help us test this OS so we can bring an unmet need to families in crisis.
Here's a link to my developmental blog:
http://toowoombalinux.wordpress.com
For manual download here are the links:
Available soon
{Best use wget -c in a terminal)
After unzipping the tarball you will need to move the tarball to a different directory or delet them.
Then join these files using:
Code: Select all
cat TLCiso* > PuppyTLC-0.31b.isoUnzip this tarball to get the script to download and create the iso: (this script has been successfully tested)
For manual installation of the extra data file to the root directory:
To be provided
(best use wget -c in a terminal session)
After unzipping the tarball you will need to move the tarball to a different directory or delet them.
Then join these files using:
Code: Select all
cat TLCdata* > data_301.sfs[updated 4 feb 2011 - remastering this weekend taken down links for older version]
Cheers
Martin
