All Puppy Developer's could Consider This Guideline

What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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gcmartin

All Puppy Developer's could Consider This Guideline

#1 Post by gcmartin »

Many Puppy Linux support questions-answers over the years have arisen where a distro may be not matched for a users hardware. Yet, many dont find out until it is too late. This cost both developer and user unnecessary man-hours on the forum.

Several developers over the past couple of years are taking steps to alert users what requirements they expect and support for the distro builds they do for Puppy users. I have always viewed this as one of the positive additions in developer assistance for user awareness. Excellent.

Even though many do this now as a matter of course, the manner in which it is present is different one PUP builder to another.

I propose and offer an idea that takesthe guesswork out of information offer to the user and present the user a common table that developers can use for every distro they produce. This makes something consistent for users to look to as they insure that they are testing or using a PUP on platforms that the developer intend as minimum.

A Sample Form for developers

Note that values seen at each line of the form, below, are fictitious. A developer would modify to match what they believe to reflect good distro use. This is a sample form to be modified to present useful information to users.
  • Supported Minimum System Requirements
    • CPU: Pentium III 500 MHz or higher processor (Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or higher or any AMD64 or Intel64 processor recommended)
      RAM: 384MB physical RAM (512 GB recommended)
      Disk Space: 1GB for a frugal/full installation (more recommended as packages may be added)
      Sound and Graphics Card: Most modern cards are supported
      Live Boot media: DVD
    Summary:"Description/area" of any additional specifics for clarity, if needed, in the distro's opening post.
Offered to help add consistency in understanding across the PUPPY distro line.
Last edited by gcmartin on Thu 31 Jul 2014, 18:53, edited 8 times in total.

darry1966

#2 Post by darry1966 »

Hey GC sounds like a good idea for old and new machines when a perspective user is "shopping" for a Puppy to suit their machine.

Of course it is also a good idea for said person if they have rather exotic hardware to ask here at the forums for advice on the best Pup for that setup.

Jasper

#3 Post by Jasper »

From BarryK intoducing Precise 5.7
The "retro flavour" is an upgrade path for those who have used our Wary Puppy, that targeted older PCs and analog modem dialup -- unlike most other Linux distributions, it continues to support a wide range of analog "winmodems". It also has two web browsers, SeaMonkey and Opera, the latter preferred for PCs with less than 256MB RAM.
The "modern flavour" only has one browser, SeaMonkey, and forgoes most of the analog modem and true-SCSI drivers, and is the choice that will suit most people with a PAE-capable i686 CPU, no ISA cards, and 256MB or more RAM. You also get the benefit of a much smaller download, the live-CD .iso file is 155.7MB.
Hopefully, enough is enough.

gcmartin

#4 Post by gcmartin »

Thanks @Jasper for that idea.

Words similar to what BarryK shows could also be a form entry for a developer to elaborate on packaging.

I add your suggestion to the opening post.

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Minimum System Requirements

#5 Post by shinobar »

I don't understand what gcmartin intends, but my thought on the minimum system requirement:

I think the minimum system requirement is not demanded by the Puppy but by the nowadays web circumstance. One of my check for the PC performance is watching the YouTube.According my tests with Precise Puppy 571JP, 256MB RAM + 500MB swap works. 512MB RAM + 200MB swap works fine. 1MB RAM is enough even without any swap.

I think the minimum is 256MB RAM, 512MB is comfortable, 1MB RAM is enough at this point of time.
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gcmartin

Re: Minimum System Requirements

#6 Post by gcmartin »

Thanks @Shinobar, I concur that much of what we are doing, today, is centered in the cloud (internet). And, I concur with configurations you show.

But, where the problem(s) come is from users, over the years, is in their use and tests with configurations that have NEITHER the RAM or the CPU that a distro developer is expecting as minimum when he designed his distro. When users report, say, trying a "full function" PUP distro on a 128MB PC, they approach the forum for assistance when experiencing boot or operational-performance issues.

Some/many developers have been adding a comment in their opening thread of the minimum for their distros, it becomes apparent to the user before he downloads whether his PC in beyond the recommendation of the developer. And, it negates the user from frustrations in attempts. This is excellent practice.

This thread is started, as wondering if there is a "common" comment form that every PUP developer could use, in his opening forum thread, to present a safe minimum PC for what each develops for user use. Thus, it supports continue the excellent practice with a simple idea of a informal form with elements that will attract users knowing their PC meet developer target.

It does NOT intend to rule out anyone or impose restrictions. Its a documentation, not a directive. It intends to reduce user and developer issues with a simple consistent picture from the developer to user. And, it intends to do so with no impact on developer workload...just a form entry.
Last edited by gcmartin on Thu 31 Jul 2014, 16:14, edited 5 times in total.

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#7 Post by Iguleder »

Maybe Bill Gates wrote:640K ought to be enough for anybody
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#8 Post by jamesbond »

All I know is that it works on my machine :lol:
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gcmartin

#9 Post by gcmartin »

I think I see a problem in misunderstanding of the opening post. That form shown is a "SAMPLE" it is NOT to be used as is. The intent is that the developer could modify AND substitute the values for items as they feel appropriate.

I will modify the first post to reflect this and clarify any misunderstanding that is occurring of that sample form.

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Non-specs

#10 Post by ozsouth »

Wireless is a huge problem & Printers a signifcant issue too.
Perhaps reminders that new driver support is often 3+ months behind & suggestions of what NOT to use would help also.

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#11 Post by saintless »

Wireless, printing and hardware incompatible problems should come from testing reports. The developer can confirm what works or not only on available own hardware. Most of this problems will be fixed if Jamesbond's separate kernel module method becomes standard for all future puppy versions. Like Slacko 6 started. Then changing the kernel with proper one will be simple and easy.

The main problem I see is adding more and more information results in less and less reading. Then answering simple questions like "how to use save file" without any details given from the user about what exactly is the setup is endless process. Nothing will prevent this "less and less reading" problem unfortunately, but adding Supported Minimum System Requirements does no harm.
The problem is how to define what is the real minimum for proper working system. Is it proper working system with all built-in packages in the iso? Or proper working after installing OpenOffice and latest Firefox and new games? This makes big difference for minimum requirements.

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Re: All Puppy Developer's could Consider This Guideline

#12 Post by nubc »

gcmartin wrote:RAM: 384MB physical RAM (512 GB recommended)
512 GB would be a LOT of RAM.

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#13 Post by technosaurus »

I've said it before and I will say it again.
Packages should indicate resource usage (ram, devices, etc...).
The system requirements should be enough to run the desktop and the highest resource app.

The xdg specification for .desktop files is also lacking one key delineation for mime types; There should be separate mime entries for view and edit/modify and that should be indicated by packages as well.

So when you click on some file type, it should open it for viewing in its default handler (right click menu should have the edit option)
If no handler is installed for that mime type, the package manager should open and display an install menu for programs that handle that mime-type (and can edit it if the edit selection was chosen) with any apps that require additional resources grayed out (reason given in tooltip).
If I am trying to edit a png it should provide the option to install mtpaint and gimp but not viewnor or gqview.
If I try to open an html file on a computer with 128Mb ram, It should show dillo, netsurf, links and hv3, but gray out firefox, seamonkey, opera and chrome.
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#14 Post by Ibidem »

If anyone's wondering how to test with lower ram, Linux has a "ram=xxxxx" parameter. There is one catch: you need to specify ram in kilobytes.
The other alternative is using qemu.

I'm inclined to second technosaurus's proposal for including RAM in the package meta-information. But some distros probably wouldn't like it since you usually can't get it automatically...
I'm not sure what that bit about "packages should indicate resource usage...devices, etc." is referring to: does that mean things like

Code: Select all

needs-devices: /dev/fb0;/dev/input/mice;/dev/video*
for a framebuffer webcam viewer that uses the mouse directly?
RPM supports file dependencies, if so. They are generally used for libs.
I suppose part of the package manager bit would require adding tags for input types and actions (so that you can tell the mime types xyz needs, and whether this is an editor or a viewer.)
In theory, there should be a way to grab this from *.desktop files, though they may not make it convenient.

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#15 Post by technosaurus »

Additional actions can be set using:
http://standards.freedesktop.org/deskto ... ra-actions

It looks like:

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Foo Viewer
Comment=The best viewer for Foo objects available!
TryExec=fooview
Exec=fooview %F
Icon=fooview
MimeType=image/x-foo;
Actions=Gallery;Create;

[Desktop Action Gallery]
Exec=fooview --gallery
Name=Browse Gallery

[Desktop Action Create]
Exec=fooview --create-new
Name=Create a new Foo!
Icon=fooview-new
I think the spec should also allow different MimeType= parameters in the [Desktop Action *] sections though, since not all programs can edit everything they can view. Honestly though I think it would be better to have separate .desktop files for each action and just put NoDisplay=true for the ones that shouldn't get menu entries ... just for adding to right-click (context) menus.

Interfaces The Implements= parameter is typically used for dbus services but it might be adaptable to use for indicating: =webcam (for programs like cheese)... Here again it is possible to have an application that only views, or one that records ... and may be able to record in different formats
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