Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[tronkel]

Over in this thread:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=600302#600302

Aitch was talking about an ancient feature of previous Puppies called "underdog".

It occurred to me that somewhere in the sea of Puppies that have been built over this period of time, there is a need for stability and consistency.

An example of this is the Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx edition - an Ubuntu version that continues to impress with it's shear stability and speed - in contrast to the more recent versions that, while having all the latest stuff included, are not exactly paradigms of reliability. The next Ubuntu Precise Pangolin will have a shelf-life of 5 years. One of the all-time best-ever Puppy versions is based on this Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS - Puppy Lucid.

What about building an LTS Puppy version? Take a vote on which version of Puppy this should be based on and go for it. Any "service packs" built for it over its life cycle would also be subjected to stress-testing before they get released, as is done with the Linux Mint LMDE (Debian) edition.

[musher0]

I'm all for it.

Puppy is a great distro. However, by the time you get a particular puplet to do what you need it to do, populate it with the programs you need, customize the look and feel, etc., in short, by the time you get productive with it, 2 more puppies are out.

Frustrating, really.

Indeed, a long term version might make people more confident of their Puppy not becoming outdated. Hence interest more people.

Also, because Puppy is small, not all compatibilities with other programs can be or have been tested in a particular Puppy. That can be frustrating too, if you want to try other programs not already in the Puppy repos.

That would mean a stable team, though. And since Puppy is a community distro, maintained voluntarily, it would take very generous people with lots of time on their hands to undertake and sustain this.

Anyway, thanks for starting this discussion. TWYL.

[tronkel]

musher0 wrote:

[Lobster]

[musher0]

Hey, lobster, if you call me Jim, I'll call you Bones.

Wow, a herd of cats. My idea of hell... Imagine the screeching.

To some extent, the "popularity" of a puplet makes it into a kind of LTS. But "to some extent" only. Not the real thing. Not what tronkel had in mind, I think.

Unless you have a warning on the home page, something like:

Warning. Fast-changing environment.
Sensitive natures should not use the
latest Puppy, but the before-last Puppy
to avoid feeling outdated too soon.

Now, that's being honest towards your "customer".

(And yes, tronkel, I remember. You initiated Puppy 3.02, was it?)

[tronkel]

Musher seems to get the idea of what I meant.

Yes this would be presented to the "customers" on the front page of the Puppy website as a stable version - with conservative, maybe oldish packages. Use this version if you need it to just work and with as few bugs as possible. Think of the way Debian Stable is presented to its target audience.

Development of this version will be about serious bug-squashing, so any experienced testers/bug-hunters would be most welcome - again think of Debian and its triagers.

Why is this LTS version a good idea? It provides a port in a storm to users who are getting fazed with all of the "experimental" mainstream Linux versions at the moment. Ubuntu with Unity as well as those distros who have gone down the Gnome 3 route. Linux Mint has been only partially successful so far in easing the pain here for users less than satisfied with the usability of these versions.

Puppy being the flexible and free-thinking distro that it is, is well-placed to see this sort of thing through to a successful conclusion. It's no accident that Puppy has climbed to No 8 now on Distrowatch. Users are turning to it out of necessity these days with all the turmoil around Linux at the moment.

I'll bet this LTS would be appreciated by many users.

We need opinions on where the starting point would be and how to progress the idea. It's probably a job for the Community rather than for Barry.

[mavrothal]

The way I see there are basically 3 choices RHEL/CentOS/Scientific v6 (NOT Fedora), Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and Debian. RHEL is focusing on a different class of hardware, Debian is in the middle of its cycle, so that leaves Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

The "problem" with LTS releases though, is that after 3 months is all hard work and no glory for the developers and the alpha/beta testers. Most of the devs and the testers eg the people that generate most of the traffic in this forum would be "out of job".
See Debian that you mentioned. 50+ of linux users are running something based on Debian, but only a small fraction of them the official Debian.
Triage is not fun.
Following up on tickets is not fun.
Maintaining packages is not fun.
Getting submitted packages (pets) through quality assurance is not fun.
Who on his/her right mind wants to do that for free and then have the next person telling him the this is an "old and boring" puppy.

Seriously, though I do not know if there is a real need for that LTS release. Is there anyone that uses puppy in a production machine (eg a machine that money depends on it directly or indirectly)?
Is there anyone "forcing" a happy puppy user of version X to change to version Y?

Looks to me it's all fun and games. So the more puppies the merrier.

The only real problem I see with the explosion of puppies is that devs are consumed rebuilding puppy from ditro A or B and compiling pes for it, and there is very little advancement in puppy itself.

[BarryK]

As Lobster said, Wary (and Racy) is LTS.

[Flash]

Would someone please explain what LTS means in this context? Thanks.

[James C]

Long Term Support.

As an example, Debian Lenny 5 (the prior LTS release) was released in 02/2009 and wasn't replaced until Debian Squeeze 6.0 was released in 02/2011...basically the base remains stable for a long period with only periodic updates.In a word, more stability instead of frequent totally new releases.
HTH.

[Monsie]

Hi all,

Long Term Supported distro releases are tending now to be built with a linux kernel that is designated for long term support also... a period of two years minimum but possibly longer. In this sense, both Wary and Racy fit the bill because both have kernels that are officially supported over the long term by the maintainers such as Greg Kroah-Hartman. This recent article https://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/196-zonker/535313-updates-on-the-stable-and-longterm-kernel-trees explains a little bit about which kernels are currently being supported for the long term.

Cheers,
Monsie

[tronkel]

I don't doubt that Wary and Racy are intended as LTS versions - therefore either could be used as such.

Let's consider the"marketing" aspects of these 2 versions.

Especially in the case of Racy, this version is promoted as being more suitable for newer hardware (says so on the tin). This appears to imply therefore that this version is "cutting edge" and is then at odds with the adjective "conservative" as an LTS description would convey. Descriptively then. Wary appears to fit the LTS description better. Also in the case of Tuuxxx's 2.16X, this is a mixture of a conservative kernel and modern packages - so it seems to fall between two stools in this regard.

This LTS idea is more of a presentational concept than a technical one. Of course the kernel version used is fundamentally important for the implementation of the LTS version. As part of the sales pitch for the Racy and Wary versions there is no mention of a fixed term for providing support c.f. Ubuntu talking about 5 years for Precise Pangolin. Stipulating this fixed term has served Ubuntu well up to now, so maybe Puppy should also make available something along these lines.

Then there is the question about who undertakes this LTS. Barry has always been inclined towards the more experimental and creative side of Puppy development. No-one else can compete here. Seems as if this LTS would best be undertaken by the Community - thus easing the burden on Barry of providing support. In other words, the Community could relieve Barry of some (but maybe not all) of the donkey-work involved in providing support. Come on chaps - you can rise to the situation and learn new stuff as well!

Contenders for the basis of this LTS could be Racy/Wary as well as Lucid 5.2.8/3-Headed Dog and Slacko - the last two being stable relatively bug-free and providing stuff that suits a very broad range of users and their hardware.

[darkcity]

I think some kind of bug tracking system is more important than tagging on a LTS label - which couldn't be backed up as it is all community developed

bugs can be voted to be fixed - so developers get a taste of what users would like

github is an example
https://github.com/

[darkcity]

XO Puppy already uses github

https://github.com/mavrothal/Pox_git/

[musher0]

Hi, darkcity.