wish list for next puppy release

[ecomoney]

@ dcbevins Thanks for the feedback

The idea of having access to a live support chatroom directly from the desktop is supurb IMHO, but it mustnt be mixed up with with IM via other methods. Users still need a separate Gaim/Pidgin for that task, and as one of the major purposes they use computers for they would need it installed by default, even if it meant losing the spreadsheet or the mail-reader! Who needs a personal wiki?

Perhaps a "pTheme" programme would allow a set of different predefined windowborders/gtk themes/icewm themes and backgrounds to be implemented in one click? Linux's theming capabilities are a big draw to windows users. Good to know it can be done.

[Colonel Panic]

I wish that Puppy stays as it used to be small, quickly and realible,..

The atands to put too many things into it I feel disturbing espezially there shouldn't change the primary Puppy feeling (JWM) , Seamonkey is a perfect joice (inkl html-editor + mailclient) please remain with Abiword (I don't like OpenOffice)

So the only changings I would like is Java, maybe Skype and a radio.

Maybe there should be a "puppy" puppy with just the basic software with the traditional <100MB and a "dog" puppy with the extra stuff that people like (open office ect) with bigger size (but still fits on a cd 650MB )

Also can someone make a just web puppy please just a web brower installed (Don't make me beg like a dog )

Todd Richardson already has; do a search for Surfpup

My main wish is for full control over the savefile. Specifically, I'd like to see a "manual" option, where Puppy only creates a savefile when you ask it to, and an "automatic" option where it saves to a savefile at predetermined intervals and also when you close Puppy down.

Also, it would be good if Puppy recovered better from crashes, booting back into X Windows when restarted after a crash or lock-up instead of booting back up to the console and then requiring you to set up XOrg again. I've seen a fix for this elsewhere on the forum.

[Pizzasgood]

@synth: I intend to look into getting proper multiuser working this summer, and if I succeed, I will release a puplet with the changes, along with directions on DIY. I'll also see what I can do about getting the capacity into Puppy itself (Puppy would still run as root by default). However, that is not a guarantee that the future Puppies would be anywhere near as thoroughly tested in multi-user mode as in root-only mode. But it would be usable at the least.

I personally prefer running as root. But there are definitely times when proper multiuser would be handy.


For now, I suppose something like this would work. Note: I haven't tested this stuff so I'm not entirely certain it will work, but I think it should.

Add a script to /etc/init.d/ that runs looks to see if /tmp/POWEROFF exists. If so, delete it and then run 'wmpoweroff'. Else, check if /tmp/REBOOT exists. If so, delete it and then run 'wmreboot'. Else, sleep for five seconds.
/etc/init.d/powerdaemon

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#!/bin/sh
if [ "$1" = "start" ]; then
  while [ 1 ]; do
    if [ -f /tmp/POWEROFF ]; then
      rm -f /tmp/POWEROFF
      exec wmpoweroff
    fi
    if [ -f /tmp/REBOOT ]; then
      rm -f /tmp/REBOOT
      exec wmreboot
    fi
    sleep 5
  done
fi

Be sure to set it executable. Note: that code won't take effect until the next time you boot.

Then to power off or reboot the computer, all they would need is to create one of those files using the command 'touch /tmp/POWEROFF', for example. Basic scripts could be set up to show a dialog and then create those files, like so:

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#!/bin/sh
Xdialog --yesno "Shutdown computer?" 0 0
 [ $? -eq 0 ] && touch /tmp/POWEROFF

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#!/bin/sh
Xdialog --yesno "Reboot computer?" 0 0
 [ $? -eq 0 ] && touch /tmp/REBOOT

Then set the menu entries to point to those, or add desktop icons. There will be up to a five second delay between pressing "yes" and the actual powerdown or reboot, unless you decrease the length it sleeps in the first chunk of code I posted. Maybe three seconds would be better. It does almost nothing, so it wouldn't be slowing the machine down or anything.

[river~~]

A downlaoadable iso with qemu and the windoze files to provide an autorun menu, one of the options on that menu would start qemu & puppy.

Then you'd use it as a stand alone boot CD just as now, but also if you put the CD into a running winbox, it would be one click into Puppy.

This would not be the standard download, but an "optional extra". Yes, I know we can each make this for ourselves, but the person who most wants it is the newbie who doesn't yet know how.

River~~

[river~~]

I'd like the download .iso to include choices on the boot menu. There would be a fairly short time to choose (~3sec) and the default would be to boot the cd as at present.

Other choices would be:
- boot the live cd into cli instead of the gui
- go into submenues for:
--- boot into puppy on hard disk (more than one option here to cope with different partitions)
--- boot into usb stick (again, is there more than one place grub can find usb? if so include all the likely ones)
--- chainload into NTLDR on various likely partitions

Again, most of the time these would be ignored - but they would be *very* useful for the newbie who finds their usb stick doesn't boot, or who breaks their MBR, or whatever. And again, those who'd benefit most would be those who are least able to do it for themselves.

The extra space taken up by the options would be minimal, so I'd suggest adding these to all the downloadable .iso files.

[Master_wrong]

I have tried to show puppy to all my friend which eager to learn puppy, and all of them have one similiar complaint... "why linux call my partition hda,sda, etc when they all have volume label ?"

thinking about it, puppy linux has great potential to be the beginners linux as we can use it with live cd and save the changes to hd instead of having to install with all those horror story about installing linux.

my suggestion is to include volume labels to the drive information on desktop and on pmount drive mounter...
so instead of seeing sda1... we will see data_1@sda1 or data_1(sda1) that would help those ppl running away from windo$

that's my 2 cent, Thank you

[ecomoney]

Good suggestions River, especially the chainload windows one. Puppy is used as a rescue distro already by many windows "professionals" (as I was too), until I eventually the rescuer was more worthy of rescuing than the OS needing to be (repeatedly) rescued. Windows is more than capable of breaking its own MBR.

I believe there is a "nox" boot parameter already...perhaps it is not worded clearly enough.

PizzasGood did some very good work on graphical boot screens specified in the 3.02CE project (that wouldnt I believe add to the memory requirement, just the ISO size). Im in two minds about the startup dialogs being shown without a boot parameter. If they do they should definetely show when .sfs's are being added to the squash file system.

Here is a vid of BackTrack livecd loading, which I believe offers a compromise between an informative AND attractive first impression.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it98r5NHZG4

@ Master_wrong

I agree, I have seen that about the drive icons (weve only had them since 4 series...before it was a real pain!). Your idea would be great....perhaps with a tooltip to say "first partition on primary master hard disk" when hovered over.

Puppy is an excellent starter distro, and Ive tried a few on people. Real world feedback is greatly needed thanks for posting.

[nubc]

In developing cutting edge software towards Puppy 5, I hope we don't get too big for our britches and abandon modem support. Of all the ways to trim Puppy, connectivity should be off the table. An OS doesn't amount to much if it can't make a connection to the internet.

[straypup]

A choice of either the new popup shut-down menu or the old mouse over/click version. Saw a solution somewhere in the forums, but can't find it again.

[ttuuxxx]

A choice of either the new popup shut-down menu or the old mouse over/click version. Saw a solution somewhere in the forums, but can't find it again.

Here's the one for 4.2 but I have newer themes I'll start uploading soon
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=292977
ttuuxxx

[aragon]

@ river~~

- boot the live cd into cli instead of the gui

it's there: pfix=nox

here's the boot-option page (4.2) that you reach if you press <F2> on start of the live-cd (within the first seconds).

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Boot options:
If you need particular boot options, type puppy then a space,
then each boot option. Some boot options:

acpi=off      Default on for PCs >2001, may give boot/shutdown probs.
loglevel=<n>  Bootup verbosity. 7 is high verbosity for debugging.
pfix=ram      Run Puppy totally in RAM - ignore saved sessions.
pfix=nox      Commandline only, do not start X.
pfix=noram    Do not copy pup_xxx.sfs to RAM (Puppy may override).
pfix=copy     Copy pup_xxx.sfs to RAM (slower boot, faster running).
pfix=<n>      Blacklist last <n> sessions (multisession only).
pfix=fsck     Do filesystem check on pup_save (and host part. if ext2).
pfix=clean    File cleanup (simulate version upgrade).
pfix=purge    More radical file cleanup (to fix broken system).
pfix=rdsh     For developers only (initramfs shell).

Examples:
puppy pfix=nox,ram         Run in RAM, do not start X.
cpuppy acpi=off pfix=3      Disable ACPI and ignore last three sessions.

aragon

[jabol240]

Hello everyone:))
I love you all for this great distro!!!
...I know it may be a spam, what I write here, but I would like to add my wishes to this wish-list...

Multiuser, other desktop environments like xfce, lxde easy to install from pupget, rather than from the forum, and set as default, login screen to handle the above. Another file manager like Thunar or PCMan is minimum! Also Firefox 3, Opera, Wine and others easy to install via one click. Necessary: automounting partitions! In my opinion, these FEW changes would change Puppy into a very user-friendly and "I-am-new-to-linux-and-want-something-normal"-friendly distro, to win with Ubuntu! Why not exceed 100MB a little bit? Isn't this limit crazy? The computers run faster, the programs are bigger and bigger... Maybe some useful things could get in instead of counting every byte.

Lots of love

Jabol from Poland

[Pizzasgood]

Spam is stuff like offers to sell iphones and other pointless pieces of trash with antennas. Not suggestions for improvement!

You think Puppy has a small limit now? When I first started using it in 2005-ish, Puppy was about 46 MB, and the "limit" was 50. Over the years it has inched up to 60, 70, 80, 90, and now 100. So I wouldn't worry about that. Over time it will inch up higher, as the average "old" computer becomes more powerful.

[ttuuxxx]

Hello everyone:))
I love you all for this great distro!!!
...I know it may be a spam, what I write here, but I would like to add my wishes to this wish-list...

Multiuser, other desktop environments like xfce, lxde easy to install from pupget, rather than from the forum, and set as default, login screen to handle the above. Another file manager like Thunar or PCMan is minimum! Also Firefox 3, Opera, Wine and others easy to install via one click. Necessary: automounting partitions! In my opinion, these FEW changes would change Puppy into a very user-friendly and "I-am-new-to-linux-and-want-something-normal"-friendly distro, to win with Ubuntu! Why not exceed 100MB a little bit? Isn't this limit crazy? The computers run faster, the programs are bigger and bigger... Maybe some useful things could get in instead of counting every byte.

Lots of love

Jabol from Poland

I hope we never change Rox, its a perfect file manager, it takes very few resources, provides a pin board for icons etc, most file managers don't provide environments, ROX is more than a file manager. You can find thunar in the software section, we had a hard time keeping puppy at 100MB during 4.2. Due to extras we added, it looks pretty good, compared to the rest of the 20-150MB Linux's its the best looking, distro you can get.
If anything I would like to see some sort of openbox, blackbox xfce with rox version in the next version, that would be ideal, xfce still has xdg .desktop issues but each release its getting better.
I'm more for resources over size, if a program is twice the size and takes 1/2 the resources, then we would be better off with a 130MB puppy that older pc's could really enjoy.
VLC is like that with gxine. VLC is about 4MB larger but takes something like 50% less resources when playing dvd's on older pc, basically it would allow older pc's that can't play DVD's be able to, But size does matter with puppy.
Pfind Vs Search Monkey, Search monkey is 118kb pet and is maybe 3 times larger but takes 1/2 the resources because it isn't using gtkdialog3.
I still think a cut down version of Gimp would be great also, I think I have one at 3.2Mb pet. How many people actually install that? tons, I would rather see Gnumeric and inkscapelite out the door and replaced by Gimp. Or BMP instead of Pmusic and alsaplayer. Plus Bur2iso should have 'Quick Format Disk', really if you have to open Pburn to format the disk then why not use PBurn to burn the iso? well unless its a new disk, but people using cdrw/dvdrw must find this pain, I know I do.lol
we don't use automounting partitions due to security reasons, if its unmounted its way more secure, I think in the forum theres a hack for that also.
ttuuxxx

[CavedOOde]

hallos,

1) SMP (enabled in the kernel)

2) Wine

3) Virtualbox (as a working pet)

4) NVidia /Ati drivers (although thats already there for every release)

end

It would be bigger and it will most likely shock alot of people but it would be worth it =P Ow well.... if nothing changes i will live to LOL

Greetz
Caved

[jamesjeffries2]

SMP i think would be great. gives the users with newer machines that extra little kick, but doesn't affect the users with older machines particularly.

[tunyawat]

I'm a non geek user but a big fan of Puppy, so my request for next Puppy will be a bit non-technical.

1. The success of Puppy relies on its light weight. Not only its size but its capabilities to run fast on an old computer. The next version of Puppy should be more careful on selecting what will be included. Anything that slow Puppy down should be revisited. Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed with Puppy 4.2 because of Pwidget and Ptray utilities bar. (I've just found the way to remove it.)

2. If possible, the next release should come along with a barebones version. User like me would be more than happy to utilise the uPup for any software he/she wants.

3. Better hardware support. Linux Format magazine in UK suggests that puppeee is one of alternative distro for eee pc. However, it did not get the verdict to be the best alternative distro because of puppeee H/W support is not perfect.

4. Customisable graphical booting screen . I feel like entering the matrix everytime with text booting, which is good. However, since Puppy allows user to remaster a CD. Graphical booting screen will encourage user to spread out there own version of Puppy. Easy marketing.

5. Be more user friendly. Puppy is already user friendly. More friendly is a plus. Mouse and Keyboard auto-detection...may be?

6. Internationalisation. This should be native, at least a non-english alphabet website should be readable. Precisely, international fonts should be made available.

Recently, Puppy is one of the top distro in distrowatch.com. Its position is getting higher every month. The first one is Ubuntu. It has been there and will be there forever. However, Puppy would take the top 5 position soon.

[trio]

I think we should put more lghtweight bling in the next puppy. 4.2 is still lightweight and fast with pwidgets and ptray built in! So we should have more of that "sex", like micko said "sex sells". And 4.2 is big hit, partly because of the new bling. And they actually can be turned off if you want to! So, we have to get more of those bling

Found these sites praising pwidgets useability and bligliness:

http://www.larrywinfield.com/sundownlounge.htm

http://riadyawan.wordpress.com/2009/03/ ... p-thought/

http://beginlinux.wordpress.com/2009/04 ... -addition/

http://www.bloggersbase.com/articles/te ... st-100-mb/

maybe more

PS: I will be answering things like this, as for the freedom of speech, everyone has the right to say they don't like blings and I also have the same right...anything (not only blings) will have 2 sides of the coins...

[Master_wrong]

Can we have V4L included in puppy... ?

i really want to see puppy as dvr recorder, media center and compact OS altogether...

[tuxfriend]

I'd like cpufreq working out-of-the-box. I got an Acer Extensa 5630Z and the fan is going 24/7.