Puppy 2.15CE "Viz" - Development Ideas/Requests

A home for all kinds of Puppy related projects
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
WhoDo
Posts: 4428
Joined: Wed 12 Jul 2006, 01:58
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW Australia

#16 Post by WhoDo »

Nathan F wrote:
I have a collection that I have uploaded to MU's mirror as SuperGPLIconThemePak.
As of right now I am unable to reach dotpups.de, unless maybe you are speaking of a different mirror?

Nathan
Yep. MU has his dotpups temporarily mirrored here:
http://puppyfiles.org/dotpupsde/dotpups/

Here is a link to the SuperGPLiconPak file

Cheers

User avatar
Billwho?
Posts: 559
Joined: Tue 06 Dec 2005, 09:28
Location: still "In The Dog House" East Coast Oz
Trialing 4.20

Not just for secrity

#17 Post by Billwho? »

WhoDo wrote: I know that Abiword and Gnumeric will do the job
For most things thiis is correct but I do occasionaly find that I need the extra capabilities of OO, more so with Calc than Writer.
WhoDo wrote: I would love to include multi-user capability - as an option - to please those who are more paranoid about security. There are many of them coming from the MS environment that just won't feel comfortable without that Linus-blanket (pun intended).
Not just for the paranoid. I am quite happy running my live CD as Root but have run across a couple of projects that dont seem to want to install without multi user. So the ability to add multiuser as an option seems like a great idea to me.
Last edited by Billwho? on Tue 20 Feb 2007, 08:43, edited 1 time in total.
Linux = Learning through doing :shock: :? :D
The learning curve may be steep but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
You just have to pass the occasional oncoming train to get there.

User avatar
zigbert
Posts: 6621
Joined: Wed 29 Mar 2006, 18:13
Location: Valåmoen, Norway
Contact:

#18 Post by zigbert »

WhoDo wrote:I know that Abiword and Gnumeric will do the job, but that won't be the perception from our target audience. They will want a competitor for MS Office if coming from Windows and Open Office/KDE Office if coming from a more bloated distro. They might be prepared to do without Powerpoint, but not the other two.
I don't think most of Puppys audience wants OpenOffice. They are here beacause they want a small, fast, and well-featured OS. There are plenty of bloated, well working distros 'out there'.

Stripping down OO to only word and calc won't give us a Presentation-program (Impress), that is really missing in Puppy. Make a link in the welcome page, and people can download OO if wanted.

Building a ISO much bigger than the original Puppy will put many PuppyUsers outside, including myself.

A suggestion: The latest Pfind is built to work from any searchfield anywhere. Is there any place to put a entry-field on the desktop / taskbar / menu???
Think I read some place that MU's Muppy_rt73.pup installs a field in the taskbar (IceWM).

User avatar
WhoDo
Posts: 4428
Joined: Wed 12 Jul 2006, 01:58
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW Australia

#19 Post by WhoDo »

zigbert wrote:I don't think most of Puppys audience wants OpenOffice. They are here beacause they want a small, fast, and well-featured OS. There are plenty of bloated, well working distros 'out there'.

Stripping down OO to only word and calc won't give us a Presentation-program (Impress), that is really missing in Puppy. Make a link in the welcome page, and people can download OO if wanted.

Building a ISO much bigger than the original Puppy will put many PuppyUsers outside, including myself.
Ok, I think there is already a misconception here about what a Community Edition is all about. The last version, Puppy 2.03CE, was 180Mb and contained a full copy of Open Office. This isn't about creating a Puppy to rival the standard version. It's about taking the standard version, stabilising it, beautifying it, making it easy to use and complete, including adding common applications as standard.

Certainly size is an issue, but if all we were trying to do was to create a version the same size as the standard, what would we have achieved that was unique and worthwhile?
zigbert wrote: A suggestion: The latest Pfind is built to work from any searchfield anywhere. Is there any place to put a entry-field on the desktop / taskbar / menu???

Think I read some place that MU's Muppy_rt73.pup installs a field in the taskbar (IceWM).
Good idea. Hopefully MU will be able to enlighten us both as to how he did it, when he has a chance.

cthisbear
Posts: 4422
Joined: Sun 29 Jan 2006, 22:07
Location: Sydney Australia

#20 Post by cthisbear »

Doing a search for other Office apps. Maemo Word Processor

http://www.indt.org.br/maemo/#abiword

Even though it is based on Abiword, would this be better.
Apologies if this has already been mentioned. Or unmanageable.

Gripes list...basics I would like.

Why can't the Internet work out of the box?
Hacaos last effort was quite quick, internet worked straight away...but although I asked him I do not know if the firewall worked straight away as well. Where are you Hacao?...no slacking...and I liked his last start page
as well...really nice pic.
And personally for Dell laptops I liked Rudy Puppys default boot, worked
a charm. Can we have this boot option addded. Thanks Debernardis?
Another point....this irritates me...why do we have to type our command
preference?..Can't we hit a key...you choose...to pause the startup,
and have a list of boot options, with a tiny explanation...and just hit a number
to match....I know nothing about programming...but user wise, NEW user
wise, we have a Stone Age start for a New Age OS.

Don't bite my head off chappies....Ha! Ha!...
Back to the doghouse for me..
Regards to all ..Chris

User avatar
Lobster
Official Crustacean
Posts: 15522
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 06:06
Location: Paradox Realm
Contact:

#21 Post by Lobster »

cthisbear wrote:Doing a search for other Office apps. Maemo Word Processor

http://www.indt.org.br/maemo/#abiword

..Chris
Can someone compile this so we can look at it? The other possibility is textmaker (available as a petGet (very underated - but excellent)

I would like auto DHCP connection to the net BUT it would slow Puppy down. I would still like it . . .

maybe it can try to connect on the first boot only? Too complex?
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

Firefox
Posts: 172
Joined: Fri 03 Nov 2006, 12:38
Location: UK

Why the Rush?

#22 Post by Firefox »

How about getting Puppy to work?
I ask myself what I like about puppy and why do I keep downloading the latest version and the answer is to find one that works for me. The same applies to people who buy the linux mags and there freebies. puppy may look more and more pretty but I still cant run my HPDeskjet710C printer even with the Cups download. so what point fancy word processors spreadsheats paint programs. I want to listen to streaming media and we were told seamonkey would detect wma and offer to run it but in 2.14 it still opens a box with a `do not recognize type` and save to disc rather than open gxine to run. Also wher are codecs for realplayer and others not to mention newer formats like aac.
Has anyone tried all the downloads? pups and pets? it can mess up the menu some have an icons and some text only.Also saying its installed doesnt mean it will run. Gtksee freezes on me if i press its buttons and thats one in the standard packages, only one of the standard dialers work like gkdial but I can`t turn the sound of, so I have to get gnome-pp which can. Also inkscape .45 downloads with a menu item but when pressed nothing happens. I`m sure there are many more.
Concentrate on the basic needs, why the rush? Barry wants to concentrate on a new build of 2.2 so the 2.15 + is left for the community to develope.

User avatar
rarsa
Posts: 3053
Joined: Sun 29 May 2005, 20:30
Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

#23 Post by rarsa »

WhoDo wrote:We won't get a better offer than that from our lead developer, so as Project Leader I am changing our Community Edition project to 2.15CE as of now.
Another important thing to note is that whereas some CE releases are in fact pupplets (puppy derivatives), this will be an "official" release.

This fact makes it, in my humble opinion, a diferent kind of project, that's why I suggested no core changes (Browser, window manager, office suite, etc) but changes that will improve the main puppy and can be carried forward in official releases.

I like the idea of the pupplet-like CE version that replaces apps by community consensus so maybe we actually have two projects in our hands:

2.14CE <-- as it was originally deviced (Puppy derivative)
2.15 <-- an evolution of the main tree.

I just want to make sure we have the same goals in mind, and if we don't then understand that it makes it two different projects and that's also OK.
[url]http://rarsa.blogspot.com[/url] Covering my eclectic thoughts
[url]http://www.kwlug.org/blog/48[/url] Covering my Linux How-to

User avatar
rarsa
Posts: 3053
Joined: Sun 29 May 2005, 20:30
Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: Why the Rush?

#24 Post by rarsa »

Firefox wrote:How about getting Puppy to work? ... Concentrate on the basic needs, why the rush? Barry wants to concentrate on a new build of 2.2 so the 2.15 + is left for the community to develop.
This is a perfect example of what I mean by a core 2.15 release vs. a pupplet CE release.

There is room for both, it does not have to be an "or". Actually the skillset for each kind of project is a little bit different.

WhoDo
Is this what you had in mind?
Do you still want to lead the core 2.15 release or do you prefer to continue with the CE release?

Firefox
Did I interpret your post correctly?
Please note that "the community" is just individuals doing whatever they feel is right.
a) You want a puppy that just works, you can contribute to it.
b) Others want one that includes the applications they like, they contribute to it.
c) Others one that is nicely documented, they contribute to it.
etc...

Sometimes I'm in the mood for functionality, sometimes I'm in the mood for it looking better (look at my todo list), sometimes I'm in the mood for usability.
[url]http://rarsa.blogspot.com[/url] Covering my eclectic thoughts
[url]http://www.kwlug.org/blog/48[/url] Covering my Linux How-to

User avatar
Dougal
Posts: 2502
Joined: Wed 19 Oct 2005, 13:06
Location: Hell more grotesque than any medieval woodcut

#25 Post by Dougal »

I see you have ebraced the suggestion to make 2.15 the CE.

Why don't we make a condition for doing it: that someone take one of his long-postponed trips into the outback?

It could be good for Barry to take a break before getting into T2 again...
What's the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose
Some say your toes
But I think it's your mind

Firefox
Posts: 172
Joined: Fri 03 Nov 2006, 12:38
Location: UK

#26 Post by Firefox »

I`ve really no idea what a new build of T2, pup ver 2.2 might look like or even if the many programs currently in 2.14 would be found in it. So I suggest 2.14 be the last of the oficial line so to speak with 2.15+ being the community edition, why split into two?or divide the energy? Barry I am sure can take a break and when he finds new things that the community has found and made to work he would include them for the new build. I dont have a programing skillset mainly because there is no `in your face` puppy development environment ie an icon that brings up a gui that runs an easy to use scripting program with plenty of user contributed examples of how to code for puppy. These are big projects - I have ideas but not the skills that you posses yet. If many people can learn together a simple scripting language then bigger scripting projects can be installed like buttons that run a particular script to convert rpm`s into pets, debs into pets etc using the tools provided and build up a huge database of runnable pets.Any problems can be found in a particular script quickly and repaired because its familiar. This is getting the community to partake in the projects rather than being left to the few who are very much overworked so it seems to me.
Anyway just a few ideas. Maybe we can get a list together of `what if`s` for user friendliness purposes however unlinux they may seem to the dedicated.

User avatar
Nathan F
Posts: 1764
Joined: Wed 08 Jun 2005, 14:45
Location: Wadsworth, OH (occasionally home)
Contact:

#27 Post by Nathan F »

OK...This thread feels almost hijacked to me now, so I have to offer some kind of rebuttel.

Things like wma, aac, working out of the box, are both impractical and illegal in some areas. These are non-free proprietary audio codecs. If you have spent any time around Linux you should have encountered that fact already. I suggest using flac and ogg/vorbis instead, they are not only better codecs but are free (as in beer and as in freedom). As for what you find on the net, I have yet to find something in wma that can't be had in some other format, like mp3, which works fine in Puppy and in most other distros.

If you must have support for aac and wma, install it after the fact like others do. There are numerous audio conversion tools for use in Puppy now. Assuming there is no DRM in the files you want to play then you should not find this to be very difficult, but you'll have to look up the links yourself because I'm feeling cantankerous right now, especially after hearing the suggestion 'make a Puppy that works'. Puppy works fine for me, and has been doing so for a long time now. Some people apparently don't get what it's about, or are expecting things that just can't be delivered for legal or whatever reasons.

As for Seamonkey and streaming files, well Barry never promised that now did he? Someone on the forum may have mentioned the possibility of it working when we were looking at having Seamonkey-1.1 in the live cd. However, that upgrade was scrapped for some very good reasons. There are good things about the newer browser to be sure, but there were some other serious usability issues with it as well. It was better to wait until the project produces something better, more stable, and less buggy, than to force it on the users as the default.

Converting rpm and deb packages to pet is a bad idea in general, which is why we don't do it. You should not take a package compiled for one distro and try to run it on another, because the differences in base system libraries will almost surely cause problems somewhere. Many of us have spent a great deal of time compiling useful software specifically for Puppy. Take advantage of our efforts, please, we want you to.

As for an easy to use scripting gui, if you have any suggestions or examples I'd like to see them. Programming seems technical most of the time because it is technical. You wouldn't expect a 747 to be as easy to operate as a vespa, would you? The fact is, the easier a scripting language is to learn the less useful it probablyis. The easier a program is to learn, the less features it probably has. I could go on about this for a while.

My point is, and I know I'm being a little caustic here :!: , we need to return the thread back to generating some useful ideas for a community edition of Puppy. Right now it is degenerating into a gripe fest about Linux in general. Linux is not Windows and probably never will be. This is not the place to go into issues about getting streaming media to work in your browser, or using non-free audio codecs, or asking why we cannot have something that does the work of programming for you.

Nathan
Bring on the locusts ...

User avatar
Nathan F
Posts: 1764
Joined: Wed 08 Jun 2005, 14:45
Location: Wadsworth, OH (occasionally home)
Contact:

#28 Post by Nathan F »

Rarsa - I have downloaded and installed gnocl on my machine, and it looks pretty cool so far. I went through the examples and have taken a look at the syntax a bit, and the syntax looks like it should be fairly easy to pick up. I can't say when I'll be producing anything useful with it, but the idea has my blessing anyway. For what it's worth.

Nathan
Bring on the locusts ...

User avatar
WhoDo
Posts: 4428
Joined: Wed 12 Jul 2006, 01:58
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW Australia

Re: Why the Rush?

#29 Post by WhoDo »

rarsa wrote:There is room for both, it does not have to be an "or". Actually the skillset for each kind of project is a little bit different.

WhoDo
Is this what you had in mind?
Do you still want to lead the core 2.15 release or do you prefer to continue with the CE release?
There is room for both, indeed, and I would prefer they developed side-by-side as much as possible. I don't want the 2.15CE project to lose access to the expertise of yourself, Nathan, Dougal etc.

I'm happy coordinating the 2.15CE release. I don't feel qualified, despite a long-lost programming background in C and Basic, to lead a programming effort. If we can come together on these things there is nothing to stop us from producing a 2.15 Core consolidation edition, and a 2.15CE based on the latest available core release. The two projects are entirely synergistic, IMHO.

User avatar
rarsa
Posts: 3053
Joined: Sun 29 May 2005, 20:30
Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Contact:

#30 Post by rarsa »

Oh, by the way, I forgot to add another "ToDo" to my list:

- Internationalize Puppy scripts (add getmsg for bash scripts and ::msgcat:: for tcl scripts, etc) and create a mechanism for easy localization (e.g. standard installation of language packages).
[url]http://rarsa.blogspot.com[/url] Covering my eclectic thoughts
[url]http://www.kwlug.org/blog/48[/url] Covering my Linux How-to

jundis
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue 23 Jan 2007, 22:00

#31 Post by jundis »

Since this is a CE, i'll add my 2 cents. I think it would be cool to have profiles(the jwm config says it's coming soon), i share my pc with 2 others and it becomes a pain when icons on the desktop get moved around by others. Another thing is screensavers, i saw it had a screensaver option but it just goes black. The 3rd thing is a task manager shortcut. Sure you can double click on the mem. manager but sometimes something slows puppy down to a hault and i can't get to that icon. So something like Ctrl+Alt+Delete would be nice. There's my cents, i might have more though so watch out.

Peace

Jundis

laptopnewbee
Posts: 166
Joined: Sun 20 Aug 2006, 03:43

#32 Post by laptopnewbee »

my input:
user defined menu arrangement like rarsa asked people for input on in chat.
user selected icon sets.
user selectable cursors/pointers.
maybe a faster loading browser (don't ask me which one is faster, i really haven't reached the ability where i can compile things to test them).



btw jundis, the easy way to deal with an error in clicking the wrong posting button is to use the navigation arrow to return to the page where you clicked the button, nothing gets posted till you have clicked the submit button at the end of writing the post.
so much to learn, so late a start.

User avatar
Lobster
Official Crustacean
Posts: 15522
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 06:06
Location: Paradox Realm
Contact:

#33 Post by Lobster »

There is room for both, indeed, and I would prefer they developed side-by-side as much as possible. I don't want the 2.15CE project to lose access to the expertise of yourself, Nathan, Dougal etc.
I agree with Rarsa. Both will develop. For now 2.15 CE is already in 'Beta' on Warrens machine . . .

My pawed cast
http://tmxxine.com/sound/viz1-Feb20.mp3 Puppy Viz audio Pawedcast
. . . is already out of date . . .

Viz and V are now combined into 2.15CE

We have a project leader Warren (WhoDo)
We have an agreed direction - IceWM, FireFox, Themes, Patches and Updates.

I would suggest you go ahead and release an Alpha/Beta Warren according to your understanding . . .

If people want to remove CUPS, Open Office etc - well we can get to that . . .

Once we have something the community wants, other community members can also refine

So far now 2.15CE is gonna be 2.15CE Alpha/Beta
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

User avatar
Pizzasgood
Posts: 6183
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
Location: Knoxville, TN, USA

#34 Post by Pizzasgood »

My feelings are that anything in the "main" line of Puppy versions should be small, even if it's a CE. Spin-offs can be big, just not the main-line. So I'd go with the 'just make two versions' idea, one in the range of 70-90MB, and a deluxe one that's around 200MB with Gimp and OO.

They can both be made out of the same Unleashed tree. That way the deluxe edition would be the same as the normal one, but with extra apps and themes. That method also means there wouldn't be any effort dilution from getting split into two projects.

@Lobster: From what I understand, Flash 9 is too unstable. I like Nathan's idea, of using Flash 7 and offering Flash 9 as a PETget. And I highly doubt it's at beta status already. Maybe in terms of appearance, but nothing else. No rush. Lets take our time and do it right.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]

User avatar
Lobster
Official Crustacean
Posts: 15522
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 06:06
Location: Paradox Realm
Contact:

#35 Post by Lobster »

Pizzasgood,
I agree with Small and De-Luxe. Maybe the small could have a 'De-luxe upgrade' wizard'?
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

Post Reply