wish list for next puppy release

What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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peterw
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Joined: Wed 19 Jul 2006, 12:12
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Working Touchpad

#341 Post by peterw »

Hi

Don't know if this is the right place to raise this. Chromebooks such as the Acer C720, HP14, Dell machines have a Cypress touch pad. After kernel 3.17 the "driver" for the touch pad is in the kernel. As I understand it, when the kernel is compiled this feature has to be set to be included in it. Most recent distros work well on Chromebooks but Puppy ones (with the exception of Fatdog) do not. I know that Fatdog is different from the rest in that is uses "Linux from Scratch" sources whilst other Puppys use Woof. Could Woof be amended to include the Touch Pad feature? I might have got this wrong but it is what I understand.

I believe that Chrome books are a natural machine for Puppy in that they are cheap, are more than powerful enough for Puppy, etc.

peterw

darry1966

#342 Post by darry1966 »


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mavrothal
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Re: Working Touchpad

#343 Post by mavrothal »

peterw wrote:I believe that Chrome books are a natural machine for Puppy in that they are cheap, are more than powerful enough for Puppy, etc.
Is on the way to "mainstream"
You can actually build a chromebook puppy today from the rk3288 woof-CE branch
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peterw
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Puppy runs OK on Chromebooks with Intel Processors

#344 Post by peterw »

Hi mavrothal

I have never had any success at compiling the kernel. I have read much about it and ended up totally confused. I even joined the git site because that is what I thought I had to do. Anyhow I will have another go. I think that Tahr could be used as a base and then try and recompile the kernel for it. I may need much help.

peterw

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grr_argh
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Location: United Kingdom

#345 Post by grr_argh »

I can't speak for whats on some of the newer pups, but on the long-term supported Price, here's the wishlist of an end user...

* Replace Seamonkey as the default browser with either Firedog or Chromium. I understand the desire to keep the Seamonkey suite as it offers a lot of applications in a compact size, but there are better alternatives out there. (see below)
* Include Sylpheed as an Email client.
* Replace Osmo with Sunbird.
* Rationalise the number of calculator programs. Currently there's four of them by default. Gcalculator would be the best one to retain, being the most user-friendly and intuitive, as well as having the most mature GUI.
* Same with the text editors (four of them!).
* Refresh the default desktop theme to something a more neutral/modern.
Precise Puppy 5.7.1 on Thinkpad X201 (such fast, very wow)

B.K. Johnson
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#346 Post by B.K. Johnson »

grr_argh wrote:
Replace Seamonkey as the default browser with either Firedog or Chromium. I understand the desire to keep the Seamonkey suite as it offers a lot of applications in a compact size, but there are better alternatives out there
I use Seamonkey and Firefox. You give the benefits as a lot of applications in a compact size. You advocate Firedog or Chromium (neither of which I have used) but you give no reasons for your advocacy of them or name the "better alternatives out there". I've got an open mind; convince me to at least try one, both or anything else. While doing so, factor in the additional "weight" for an HTML editor to replace Composer in seamonkey. You know puppy's virtue of size, don't you? :wink:
[color=blue]B.K. Johnson
tahrpup-6.0.5 PAE (upgraded from 6.0 =>6.0.2=>6.0.3=>6.0.5 via quickpet/PPM=Not installed); slacko-5.7 occasionally. Frugal install, pupsave file, multi OS flashdrive, FAT32 , SYSLINUX boot, CPU-Dual E2140, 4GB RAM[/color]

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6502coder
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#347 Post by 6502coder »

grr_argh wrote:* Same with the text editors (four of them!).
WYSIWYG document prep, programming, and writing are three completely different tasks, so having at least three different kinds of "text editors" is justified.

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eric52
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#348 Post by eric52 »

I know it's old-fashioned, but I still use Puppy on DVD. It is slower than a pen drive, which I also use, but it is also far less expensive. I promote Puppy by providing a DVD with an OS configured appropriately to the particular needs of the recipient. Because SFS files don't load right from a DVD, I need to configure on a PET basis. New users don't want to hear instructions about loading SFS files after booting, and the dialogue screens are misleading and negative. Anyhow, Puppy seems to be moving away from the optical disk platform. I believe this is unfortunate, because I don't think any other OS devised robust persistence on a disk, and that makes the feature something of a hallmark. So I wish for a working SFS on disk or more PETS in future development, despite the backwardness of the technology.
Today only. Anger not. Worry not. Be grateful working karma. Be kind.

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greengeek
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#349 Post by greengeek »

eric52 wrote:Anyhow, Puppy seems to be moving away from the optical disk platform. I believe this is unfortunate, because I don't think any other OS devised robust persistence on a disk, and that makes the feature something of a hallmark. So I wish for a working SFS on disk or more PETS in future development, despite the backwardness of the technology.
I quite agree. Optical media can also be extremely valuable from the perspective of avoiding malware (if not using the persistence anyway). What could be better than a remastered pup on CD or DVD, loading extra pets as required - it gives excellent reliability, reproducibility and certainty of operation.

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01micko
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#350 Post by 01micko »

sfs loading *is* supposed to work from save back to CD/DVD installs. They are supposed to be saved at '/' but I think that is wrong. I might look into this a bit further. Maybe Ted Dog knows the magic, as he is the original writer of the 'save session to optical' routine.
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eric52
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#351 Post by eric52 »

Thanks, 01micko. SFS files do load, get "saved" at / live and work fine once, at least on Tahrpup +. Boot Manager won't accommodate until a disk save. If you do that and set up BM, it fails to load SFS on boot and delivers an error message. You can do it manually by ignoring error/save messages, but that's awkward and inappropriate for a glowing intro to Puppy. I'll contact Ted Dog to see if he has any applicable magic.
Today only. Anger not. Worry not. Be grateful working karma. Be kind.

unicorn316386

#352 Post by unicorn316386 »

Hi eric52,

What is the message you get when you try to load SFS? I think if it is only one folder deep in DVD, it should work (ie. /mnt/home/puppydir). Otherwise, it will have a prompt where you can just select "No Copy" and it will work (I think). I have never booted from CD/DVD though, and am curious if any of this isn't true for that setup. This is how it works for me on HDD in Slacko 6.3.

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eric52
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#353 Post by eric52 »

unicorn316386 - It's been months since I've bothered with SFS on DVD. As I recollect, it protests that it isn't there (/), then that it's already loaded (ignore), then suggests that you make another copy (no), then it works. SFS load/unload is flawless on hard drive (frugal/full) and depends on the setup with pen drive. I think memory serves right. I got everything working in July and haven't messed with it since. Except for the cluttered bits and pieces, it's a useful basement, man-cave system. Considering it's all from the dump, the price was right. I use multi-cores upstairs with Windows for my wife and disks for me.
Today only. Anger not. Worry not. Be grateful working karma. Be kind.

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nubc
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#354 Post by nubc »

I request a Virtual Keyboard for Slacko, backwards compatible to Slacko 5.5, called from menu tree, desktop icon, or taskbar quick launch. Likely candidate for implementation includes xvkbd keyboard.

Pelo

If you want to keep Puppy Linux an OS for everybody.

#355 Post by Pelo »

Nice idea to ask people what they would like. Then devs will try to make it real.
At work things were going that way.. Software was chosen depending on what was requested by customer.
Keep FFmpeg included, so many apps are based on it. that is my wish. And no linux to type in terminal, because English needed, but Linux knowledge too.
If you want to keep Puppy Linux an OS for everybody.

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dagreen
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Re: rc.shutdown suggestion

#356 Post by dagreen »

Pick wrote:My case is probably not unique. I am running from a USB stick with a swap file on a HD. Because my devices are static I put a mount statement for the swap file device in rc.local followed by a swapon /mnt/hxx1/pup.swp statement. Cool. Now I have an automatic swapfile brought up at startup. I could build an desktop link to a script to swapoff and umount (Actually I did this) but then I'd have to remember to pop that button before hitting reboot or shutdown.
If I read it correctly, rc.shutdown does a universal umount as it's last act but if the swapfile is still "on" I get a disk error complaining about the partition table when trying to restart..apparently has no consequence but I get nervous when I see HD error messages about partition tables.
The code to find an existing swapfile and swapoff it, would seem to be a relative easy addition right before the busybox umount statement in rc.shutdown. (I guess this presumes there is an easy way to find the *.swp file location) That way if a swap file were inadvertently left on at shutdown it would get turned off before the swap device was unmounted or more probably actually not unmounted before power off.
In my case since I know the location of my pup.swp swapfile I just hard coded a swapoff for that file into rc.shutdown and viola fixed. Not elegant but it works.
agree hahaha

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nic007
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#357 Post by nic007 »

eric52 wrote:unicorn316386 - It's been months since I've bothered with SFS on DVD. As I recollect, it protests that it isn't there (/), then that it's already loaded (ignore), then suggests that you make another copy (no), then it works. SFS load/unload is flawless on hard drive (frugal/full) and depends on the setup with pen drive. I think memory serves right. I got everything working in July and haven't messed with it since. Except for the cluttered bits and pieces, it's a useful basement, man-cave system. Considering it's all from the dump, the price was right. I use multi-cores upstairs with Windows for my wife and disks for me.
Merge your sfs-sddons into the zdrv, adrv or even the base sfs.

Sailor Enceladus
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Re: rc.shutdown suggestion

#358 Post by Sailor Enceladus »

dagreen wrote:
Pick wrote:My case is probably not unique. I am running from a USB stick with a swap file on a HD. Because my devices are static I put a mount statement for the swap file device in rc.local followed by a swapon /mnt/hxx1/pup.swp statement. Cool. Now I have an automatic swapfile brought up at startup. I could build an desktop link to a script to swapoff and umount (Actually I did this) but then I'd have to remember to pop that button before hitting reboot or shutdown.
If I read it correctly, rc.shutdown does a universal umount as it's last act but if the swapfile is still "on" I get a disk error complaining about the partition table when trying to restart..apparently has no consequence but I get nervous when I see HD error messages about partition tables.
The code to find an existing swapfile and swapoff it, would seem to be a relative easy addition right before the busybox umount statement in rc.shutdown. (I guess this presumes there is an easy way to find the *.swp file location) That way if a swap file were inadvertently left on at shutdown it would get turned off before the swap device was unmounted or more probably actually not unmounted before power off.
In my case since I know the location of my pup.swp swapfile I just hard coded a swapoff for that file into rc.shutdown and viola fixed. Not elegant but it works.
agree hahaha
Can't you just make a swap partition with Gparted? Sounds like the post you quoted is really old and obsolete.

boof
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firefox needs default adblocker

#359 Post by boof »

I'm somewhat aged, an it takes a while to remember that I need to install one after a new install. I know it bloats, but an anti banner and popup add on is essential these days.

Sailor Enceladus
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Re: firefox needs default adblocker

#360 Post by Sailor Enceladus »

boof wrote:I'm somewhat aged, an it takes a while to remember that I need to install one after a new install. I know it bloats, but an anti banner and popup add on is essential these days.
There is one at least in Slacko, in Menu -> Internet -> Pup-Advert Blocker. Handy tool for sure.

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