(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Just updated PTTR.html to not include the video files. I think a seperate entry would be more helpful for the videos. I rewrote the introduction. Do you think I left anything out?

Lobster, your puppy rescue dotpup has some html pages which aren't available locally. The links arent fully qualified so they are pointing to local html files which dont exist. I think I might modify the video link page so you can see the current version or the cached version of the page, and include all the pages and videos on the cd.

Yep that is possible - if you mean the video links then each would IMO be best downloaded and stored on the Rescue Puppy as you suggest. If you mean other links then they can be changed easily I hope . . .

Also, Im not sure the link to that page for jabber chat is very helpful.

You mean the IRC wiki link - it does not do jabber - true enough maybe rhino will do a video on that . . .
(if he sees this or someone sends a message . . .)

Is it possible to control gaim from the command line? If so we could automatically join the server, or write a basic app to request and pass on credentials to a jabber server.

A new version of Gaim (version 2 I think) has just come out. I did try to run Gaim from the Command line but was unsuccesful - I agree it must be possible to have the IRC or jabber set up - DSL do this so maybe they would know . . .
and Johnny Rebel is working on a secure version of Gaim which MU has compressed

As a seperate point, are there any DHCP, DNS, proxy, ssh, web filter, Jabber, voip servers available as dotpups?

This I do not remember seeing but GuestToo would probably remember or know . . .

What do you think about having a dotpup which is downloaded by the clients and automatically run? If included on the PTTR menu, single click update of any file on the machine remotely. Instant updating of bookmarks for example, or anything else for that matter.

m m m . . .
Sounds good - I would suggest an ajax site that gives the option to access and burn an ISO right from the web . . .
oh well - maybe later . . .

Yes that is a very good idea - there are two commands in Puppy wget and wput (I think the wput is a dotpup) that would help - in fact you only need wget
- but yes the dotpup would bypass that
- if you look in the help section (start /help) there is info on using a multiple click box option with gtkdialogue

Checkbox
========

The checkbox is a simple widget with a label and a check mark which
can be turned on and off by the user. Checkboxes are made with the
`<checkbox></checkbox>' directive.

`<label></label>'
-----------------

The label is the text shown beside the check mark. Every checkbox
should have a label.

`<default></default>'
---------------------

The initial state of the checkbox can be set by the
`<default>STATE</default>' directive, where the STATE can be either
`yes' or `no'.

I would have two dotpups, one with all server updates, one with all client updates from standard puppy.

The choice would then be up to the admins whether to use standard dotpups, a new iso with the dotpups integrated or just the .pup files added to the root of a puppy cd. Obviously integrated would be the default choice.

Once they had picked one of these, they could then update the dotpups to the latest versions by the simple click of a button which would go download and install the latest version off the web.

Integrated - lower size, all facilities of St Bernard Puppy available immediately, no user input, cant access full puppy

Download - existing puppy cds can be used, lower download size as latest version downloaded

.pup files on cd - Higher involvement (Mount and navigate to cd, run dotpups) but allows original puppy to be used and allows lower bandwidth usage

RMW wrote: As a grass roots movement this Puppy is a fantastic idea. It would allow older technology to be stockpiled for emergency relief. It provides an inexpensive alternative to trying to get modern machinery loaded with expensive commercial operating systems into place. It allows a general call by relief agencies for donations of old, obsolete computer equipment that they know they will be able to get running and connected almost immediately.
.

I rather like Robs idea of a downloadable Puppy. There is a HUGE difference between techies and users. The primary requirement for end users is "just works". Strangely techies also like "just works" - they can then fix other stuff . . .

When I first used Linux - to just get an on line browser in X windows was quite an achievement. For me the question arose "what is the point?" I have an OS and it works.

In a rescue/emergency situation, ease of use and generic working programs are important. Pizzapup recently commented - he does not have to learn Abiword - it just works. Does it print though?

If Gaim went on line (preconfigured) we would have more IRC users.

Puppy is designed for stand alone machines - that we now are trying to create more network type puppys - all to the good.

To create a viable Rescue Puppy requires this appreciation of flexibility and ease of use.

So yes, Puppy is grass roots because the corps and govs are bloatware.

Did I mention "Puppy is frisky"

So the plan is? As develops . . . all aid is most welcome

rob wrote:Although military comms are reliable, they achieve this by limiting the traffic going through.

Not precisely true. Military comms limit traffic only when necessary to maintain stable connectivity. When conditions allow traffic ramps up considerably. As an example, just about every US camp in Iraq has a "comms tent" for the use of soldiers which allows full video teleconferencing with family members, usually by connecting to a unit level computer room somewhere in a battalion headquarters back in the States. The connection to the unit's stateside hq is not a necessity though; if a family has the technology to support VTC at home the soldier can connect directly to his living room. The home HQ computer room is provided to support families without computers (or without computers good enough to support decent VTC).

The US Army tactical networks do indeed work through ad-hoc networking. Each tank (or personnel carrier, hummer, etc.) is a relay point, and tactical data can "hop" from vehicle to vehicle back to the command and control point, assuming no dedicated relay is in range.

Which is neither here nor there. The political point I was trying to make is that the government, or dedicated relief agencies, COULD provide connectivity if they wanted to. They simply don't want to spend the money (in the case of the government), or don't have the money to spend (in the case of the Red Cross or other agencies more interested in food, shelter, and medicine than in letting people know their family is safe.)

In the absence of a government behaving responsibly (I won't get started on the piss poor management of the Katrina situation which continues to this day), there needs to not only be an emergency OS, there needs to be a way to connect the systems, and a basic ad-hoc network isn't going to work. You're simply not going to get a computer every couple hundred feet to interconnect the network to the nearest access point, which may be many miles away. Case in point, when New Orleans went down the nearest connection for just about anything was in Baton Rouge, which is a pretty good distance.

Please don't take this as condescending, but having lived in Europe I understand that frequently Europeans don't comprehend the distances involved in the United States. Consider that in many cases one of our states is the size of an average European country. Towns are hours apart by car, not minutes. Major cities are even further. Visualize the US as a coalition of 50 seperate countries and you begin to get the idea of the scale involved. And remember we have a LOT of empty space, which might not even be covered by cell phones, let alone any internet access which doesn't involve a modem and a land line.

There has to be a way to connect everything to the internet. The government isn't going to do it. They just don't get it, and they won't pay for it. It is going to take either corporations (heck, Microsoft could completely rebuild New Orleans and barely feel the impact), or it is going to take volunteers going in with the proper hardware to allow an ad-hoc network to extend to an access point. Personally I have high hopes that in the future the new "wireless broadband" providers will step in to fill those gaps.

I am not trying to shoot holes in your idea for St. Bernard. I am merely pointing out that it is only part of the solution. A unified software/OS is a grand idea, but the hardware side needs to be looked at as well.

Hey

I like the concept, a couple of things to take into account ...

First of all for something like this I'd recommend a 128Mb build of Puppy, it boots on more hardware and you can be sure it'll load to RAM (although you can be pretty sure others will too).

Secondly I'd recommend a nice firewall/router config tool, so that a network may be set up quickly in situations where maybe you are sharing a modem or something.

Like this one :

http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=3753

(My 1.0.7 mini-cd build will include this along with a few other goodies).

Anyway, it would be pretty easy to create a Puppy that had start menu options along the lines of :

1 - Run as network client.
2 - Run as network server.

If you started a machine as "network server" first, the network clients could look for this server on startup and configure themselves to use it (and any local network services it may be providing).

Other posibilities include getting the live CD to boot all the other machines from one machine over the network (with PXE).

Mmmm ... Do I have time to play with these concepts

Cheers
JohnM

John what do you think of a wild grubber puppy (puptrix.org) that had DSL (for hardware recognition) as well as Mean 1.0.7 for this?

Other ideas all seem sound - and "Rescue Puppy" sure sounds good . . . Hope you get involved

Enclosed is the latest code for a PuppyBasic menu (though not sure how to get rid of the first menu part which is the activating part'. . .)
PS Did you get Real Basic working in Puppy? I tried without success . . .

nada

nada?

I have plagarised and half modified this:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/QuickDoc

and need someone to check and add, so we can have a two page Quick docs reference . . .



eh nada = nothing? If I put nothing there nothing will run? What do you mean?

nada = removed message.
I did not want to confuse you, I just first did not understand what you wanted to change.
But when i ran the program, i understood.

Greets, Mark

Much clearer - thanks Mark - prefer the case statement and makes it easier to update . . .

The mix of html and abiword docs is undesirable. I definitely think we need to standardise. Which way is still up for debate, I recommend html though. The additional flexibility of hyperlinks, templates, hidden code annotation and cross-platform editing make it for me. All those in favour? Any against?

I vote for HTML.

rob wrote:The mix of html and abiword docs is undesirable. I definitely think we need to standardise. Which way is still up for debate, I recommend html though. The additional flexibility of hyperlinks, templates, hidden code annotation and cross-platform editing make it for me. All those in favour? Any against?

I believe that standardising on something that isn't a standard (Abiword), would be a mistake...

So if it is between Abiword and HTML I'd have to go HTML too.

Cheers
JohnM

HTML or RTF. To the best of my knowledge there isn't a word processor in the world that can't import RTF (never did understand why it didn't become a universal standard; I blame Microsoft ). A lot of web browsers will also read RTF as is, and it can be converted to HTML easily enough.

Please go to the cutting edge thread on the ethernet wizard update. This will hopefully be intergrated into St Bernard with some modification to allow our mismtch of hardware to form a network as quickly and easily as possible. Please download their .pup and test it on as much hardware as you have available. Thanks.

Save the enclosed tar in my documents
untar and it should create a directory called code

* Have changed all the files to HTML (OK only tips is probably useful so far)
* the main menu is now linked to a scrollable html docs menu
* Tips.html has been updated (needs checking and bloat from abiword removed)
* anim Puppy added
* Puppy basic files (two renamed with .wxbs - wxbasic script extension)
*Online resources needs words (at end) linked to URL)

Please add content or documentation as it arrives . . .

Is this project active/being developed further?