Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[dinky]

@technosaurus
Thanks! You are truly awesome. What did you meant that was the closest you could get using online petch? I don't understand. Also, do I need to install any dependencies (glitz, etc.) for puppy 4.1?

And how did you manage to compile the bloody thing? Spent hours the other night, then gave up after getting the shits. Had problems with glitz... kept getting error messages that it couldn't be found. Could you please tell me the steps you took, so I can figure out what I'm doing next time? Anyway, thanks alot. Won't get a chance to test it tonight, but will get back to you soon.

@afgs
Great idea! I love it! I'd like to edit Compiz-fusion's splash screen with something like that, it's a gret idea for a logo. My thoughts were that it would say Ripple the have a cool wavy logo behind it. Cheers!

[dinky]

[wow]

My thoughts...

I use cairo-dock as a launcher, I don't need its taskbar, applets, menu, etc. So probably I won't compile it.

Puppy has its own menu structure, if you want to use another main menu launcher (xfce-panel, gnome-panel, kicker, lxpanel, cairo-dock, awn, etc.) you must hack/edit/rewrite the way this new menu is generated.

[dinky]

Thanks for that. Any thoughts of how I could use the existing menu within puppy for Ripple? (you mentioned lxpanel before, which I still need to look into) Is this possible without using JWM? Can you tell me where the menu generation scripts are currently in Puppy, so I can find what to hack?

Also, can you either tell me in brief what steps you took to compile Cairo Dock for Puppy, or point me in the direction of a good compiling tutorial myself? Currently I feel like it's a bit of a black art... there must be more logic behind it than this. Cheers Wow,
~dinky

[technosaurus]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CairoDock

start here--->http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=924242

http://www.cairo-dock.org/bg_forumlist.php (en francais? -->google translate?)

(no sudo required & not sure if you need to add --enable-compiz)

I recommend using debian (or ubuntu) for source packages just because they are easy to find - make sure you get the unpatched versions unless you want to sift through the change logs since many of the patches are distribution specific

[dinky]

Thanks mate, I'll give that a go. I'll start with the Ubuntu packages... I'm running Ubuntu anyway so it should be easy to do. Out of curiosity though, if I want to compile this from scratch, where can I find a list of all the dependencies I need for Cairo Dock? It's difficult to navigate thorugh the french page with google translation... and it seems that the dependencies are listed as .deb packages for Ubuntu. Do you know if there's any list for the actual programs? Cheers.
~dinky

[technosaurus]

http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/intrepid/cairo-dock

shows all dependencies, recommended and suggested (each one has a link to its package page)

on the right hand side of each packages page is a link to the source, its home page, bug reports and all sorts of other useful info

http://packages.ubuntu.com/ (or debian) is where I always go first to find source packages - just because it is so easy to find all of the useful stuff using the search box

general puppy packaging 101
1. Download the package to directory ../package_name
2. tar xvf "package-name".tar.bz (Extract the package)
3. cd package_name (Change to the directory)
4. ./configure --prefix=/usr (Configure package for the installation-library /usr/lib)*
5. make (Compile package
6. new2dir make install (Install package, create pets including dev, doc, nls)
6a.In Step-3: choose option 3
*some packages will require extra tags in step 4

[dinky]

Thanks so much for that... so now the fun begins...lol. Step 4 of the puppy packaging process makes me balk a bit.... so simple to configure...right? (sigh) It's those few little tags necessary in step 4 that can really suck, particularly if you don't know what they actually are.... Often source packages come with instructions of tags to try, often they don't... are there any magic turorials you recommend that talk about different tags to try? Also, how do you go with installing Ubuntu deb packages in puppy. I know how to do it, but do you find them compatible most of the time? Or... any of the time? Undeb is my friend...lol

[afgs]

Project Ripple logo (revised)

[technosaurus]

[fabounet]

@dinky you're right there are more applets in GDesklets than in Cairo-Dock, of course, after all the project is only 1 year old, and it's essentially a dock
but the fact is that it's simple (in term of code) to detach any of the applets to make it a widget, so it's worth using it when possible.
also Cairo-Dock can use OpenGL, which drops the CPU charge.

to help you with glitz you can follow this link :
http://www.cairo-dock.org/bg_topic.php?t=1437
it never posed any problem for me, actually you can even compile the dock with the old and deprecated glitz-0.5.6 (you won't be able to run the glitz backend then, only the cairo one), and probably even without glitz.

and after you succeed, you will see that the Deskets look much nicer in the latest version, a big work has been made on them.

[technosaurus]

I almost forgot about wbar (found in MacPup) which is a very similar dock
http://puppylinux.ca/tpp/bugs/wbar-1.3.3.pet

or check out Macpup's homepage for a nice demo video

[dinky]

I'm very familiar with wbar. Actually, it's the default launcher for both TigerPup and eeetiger, pupplets of mine based on a remaster of tombh's wNOP. So there is a bit of history behind this project. In a way, the setup isn't that new, though it's different from other pupplets. I've been wanting to rebuild TigerPup from puppy 4 anyway, and to do the same thing as before I'll either need tombh's help with scripts for compiz on multiple computers, or to build them in myself. So to take a step into Ripple and only use compiz-fusion as a window manager isn't a huge step for me. Re wbar, I love that it's light and functional, but there are several drawbacks. The main ones are that it's difficult for a total novice to configure, only untilises false transparency, and only works as a launcher. Occasionally it has a tendency to eat cpu, which I've yet to see with Cairo dock. Cairo dock is a much more complex project, (as evidenced by my difficulty actually compiling the bloody thing!) yet has heaps more functionality. It's possible that once I get this running, we won't need much else.

@tombh
Have you disappeared into the depths of cyberspace my friend?

@ afgs
Great work! Are you running compiz-fusion? Can you play around with getting this working as the compiz flash image? It utilises 2 images, one in front and one behind, then does funky things with them. Let us know what you come up with, because this one area I think your logo could be great for. Was also thinking about an image of ripples on water, with the word Ripple in front of it.

@ fabounet
Thanks for the encouragement. I'm getting closer. wow gave me the dev files for glitz, so I'm only getting errors spewed back about dbus-1 and dbus-glib-1. Have had a go compiling dbus-glib and dbus from source. dbus compiles beautifully, but dbus-glib complains about not having a dbus package....lol. More research. The good news is that as I go I'm making pet packages of all these, so hopefully they'll be useful to someone someday. Looking forward to seeing the new desklets, however I wonder if they will work as planned with Rox? In Ubuntu the clock is fine on the gnome desktop, however in Rox there's a border around it. Any thoughts on this, and if it will change with 1.6.3 of Cairo Dock? Great work for a project that's only a year old. I didn't realize that.

Thanks for everyone's encouragement. It's never been my intention of taking over this project, I still consider it tombh's. Looking forward to when he's back again...lol. Anyway, currently my thoughts are that it would be good for Ripple to have as much compatibility with the default puppy setup as possible, thereby saving us lots of work. Puppy will be doing interesting things over the next couple of releases, so it would be good to integrate that. I think what Ripple can be is a scaled down version of the base puppy (I find many of the included applications unneeded), with alot of added functionality, especially on the interface front. I think tombh originally wanted it quite small, around 100mb, so it's also possible that the base iso of Ripple will have less features, and to have sfs, pet, and program folder add-ons for people, much like puppy has now. Anyway, lets see where this goes.
~dinky

[tombh]

Sorry I've not been in touch so much, I've been using Debian!

I'm thinking of becoming less involved with Puppy What I'd like to offer here in this project though is the updated cfwizard script. I'll also be following the thread and give any advice where I can.

Basically I well impressed with where you're going with this dinky, sterling work It's all about the marriage of CF and CD really isn't it.

[dinky]

@tombh, thanks for your involvement with puppy matey, you've done an ace job. Actually, you wNOP is what originally inspired me to have a go with Puppy, and delve into the community. TigerPup still remains a wNOP remaster, as does the more used eeetiger (yeah, that surprised me too, amazed at all the places eeetiger has shown up on the web... thanks again to you mate)

I totally understand the directions you're taking; not long ago I switched to Ubuntu for my main desktop environment. I love using Puppy, but just not stable or well supported enough for a main desktop distro. Personally I think this will change over time, however as puppy currently stands it still has use for me. Concepts that impress me; it's size, portability, usefulness for the eeepc, ease of use on a usb stick, possibility of running INSIDE Windows XP for travelling, and YOUR CF SCRIPTS!

So thanks for not totally pulling out, but utterly understandable where your at. I've never tried Debian... could you leave some feedback on it somewhere on these forums?

Anyway, re Project Ripple, full steam ahead. I'm this much emboiled that I'm happy to take over, though that feels weird. If anyone else wants to step up with me to run this, that would be appreciated. It's so nice to throw ideas back and forth with other people! I've had various thanks to the TigerPup and eeetiger "team", which is just me. Would be much nicer to have that team actually exist for Ripple...lol. Below is an outline of where I see this current project headed:

1. Closely linked with Puppy 4.1, and future developments. While I'd like Ripple to remain a complete rebuild from unleashed, as much as possible I'd like to use the current configuration options of Puppy; wallpaper chooser, Rox, desktop icons, installation, network tools, etc. As Puppy improves, so will Ripple.
2. In-built support similar to wNOP and it's derivatives. That means your CF scripts tombh!!! Lol.
3. Updated desktop using minimal desktop icons, and relying heavily on Cairo Dock for launchers, system bar, extra functionality, etc. Basically, the only icons I want on the desktop are the trash and the drive icons. Everything else goes into the dock.
4. Support on machines that CAN'T run Compiz-Fusion, or for when Ripple is being virtualized inside windows. I think this can be a cool one. Cairo Dock supports fake transparency when used without compositing, and I think this is a key. I'd like Ripple to be fun to use, look good, and still be a great tool without compiz-fusion. Likely this will rely on JWM, as it's so small, however I'm open to other options here. Tombh had originally created wNOP so that it would default to a plain xfce desktop if Compiz-Fusion wouldn't work... I'd like to do the same with JWM, though currently have no idea how to go about this.
5. Easy installation onto a usb drive. This may involve puppy's universal installer.... if it's working now.... or it may not. It would be great to have a script which can be run from ANY Linux system, without the need for booting into Puppy first. I think this is a key for getting Ripple out there. I know some scripts like this exist, but will have to hunt them down, any advice is welcomed.
6. Continuing tombh's vision of only using Compiz-Fusion as the Window Manager. I'm not fundamental about this, but still think it's a good idea. Lets keep this small folks! I think we'll need JWM as a backup, but as puppy's version is only 200kb, I'm not fussed about this.
7. Very smalll size, around 100Mb. Tombh was adamant about wanting to keep this under 100mb, while I'm not. I AM however still adamant about it being small. 130Mb perhaps? Lol. See how we go. I think an initial install of Ripple should still be tiny, but with lots of add-ons available to increase functionality. Some of these will of course tie in with Petch, and all puppy's installation tools, and others will need to be Ripple focused. I think sfs addons, program files, pets, etc, designed to be added on after an install would work really well. We can get away with keeping Ripple small, and stripping back extra functionality.... providing there are easy ways of adding that functionality back after an install! Those options need to be easy to find, in one location on the web.
8. OTHER DEVELOPERS NEEDED!!!!!
This last is really important, as the pace of Ripple will otherwise crawl, likely being outstripped by other developments in Puppy. With tombh drawing back his activity in Puppy, currently that leaves only me for Ripple. Do you like this project? Then consider getting involved! Currently I'm working on this as a build on top of 4.1, and would welcome help. I'm happy to leave remasters about what I'm doing on this forum until we release the first stable version. The biggest drawback is that until we get those Compiz-Fusion scripts from tombh working, each person who runs the remaster will need to fiddle around to get Compiz-Fusion running on their machine. Not impossible, just technical. So this is really important to get running soon.

Wow! Lots of words. That's it from me today folks, cheers to everyone who's taken part so far in Ripple, your enthusiasm is wonderful. So to sum up the above:

1. WE NEED MORE DEVELOPERS
2. Cheers to tombh!
3. First Priorities are getting Cairo Dock 1.6.3 running, and getting tombh's CF scripts in place. Tombh did leave some information about them in the wNOP forum some months ago, so if he can't upload them for us, it may be possible to trawl through. Personally, I hope you are able to get those to us tombh.

And for me? I run a theatre company, and have a gig tomorrow in Melbourne to prepare for. The actress I'm working with arrives in about 30 minutes, So I've gotta get props for our rehearsal together. Cheers folks!

~dinky