Optimising Puppy performance

[WhoDo]

This is becoming quite common, a bug thread going off-topic by people who are self-appointed experts on the subject of Puppy's "mission".

Agreed. All too common IMHO. Hijacking any thread, much less a Bugs & Fixes thread, is poor etiquette at best and sheer rudeness and ignorance at worst.

That said, the discussion itself is important - at least while it remains a discussion. I have asked Flash to split the thread at SilverPuppy's first post and move it into Next Puppy Development.

BTW, thank you for the vote of confidence, James.

[runtt21]

WhoDO ,you Rock!!! You have done a great job with 4.2 !!!

Silverpuppy every version of puppy is a puplet.Even the one's that Barry made in his spare time as a hobby.That's right BUD this whole project is a HOBBY!!!!

And as far as the bling issue goes look what our good friend ecomoney found out from his "research",

"3. Looks "old", Grey Win98 look/console loading/Xorg config is unattractive to new users. "

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 3&start=15

Look is just as important as performance .Puppy needs to look good and work good.I have worked in retail for 22 years. Never underestimate the power of the packaging. New people are going to look at the screenshot before they decide to try it out or not.

[rjbrewer]

Concerning "Silver Puppy's" complaint about 4.2 using too much
ram: I have 4.12 and 4.2 (un-blung) on my lap top.

4.12 shows 52.1mb used by Free at desktop;
4.2 shows 53.6mb used......really trivial.

[runtt21]

Macpup opera ( Based on ttuuxxx's 4.2v2 with the enlightenment e17 window manager, MAXIMUM BLING!!!!!) OMG 65 mb of ram. ...And that s running two different animated backgrounds.

[mcewanw]

I've seen that expression used before - "4.2 is a Puplet" - and I think it came from a well-known member of this forum. That leads me to think that SilverPuppy may be an alias, and the very recent registration would seem to confirm that.

The accusation against SilverPuppy is keeping us in suspense. If the accuser can't bring himself to name the accused, I hope SilverPuppy will confirm or deny his guilt since hearsay/accusation is not a healthy attitude in argument and debate.

[WhoDo]

I've seen that expression used before - "4.2 is a Puplet" - and I think it came from a well-known member of this forum. That leads me to think that SilverPuppy may be an alias, and the very recent registration would seem to confirm that.

The accusation against SilverPuppy is keeping us in suspense. If the accuser can't bring himself to name the accused, I hope SilverPuppy will confirm or deny his guilt since hearsay/accusation is not a healthy attitude in argument and debate.

Hardly an accusation; more of a speculation.

I believe it was Dougal who used the subject expression in an earlier thread on Puppy 4.2 and "bling". Dougal has been notably absent from the forum for some time of late. Even his updated network wizards posted in April of this year have "disappeared" from the subject post. Again, that is pure speculation and there may be a perfectly good reason for that. Or Dougal may have felt his contribution was not being properly valued so he removed it. If that were true it would be a very sad situation indeed.

Even if SilverPuppy is Dougal by another name, it doesn't alter his right to an opinion ... even a dissenting opinion. I support that wholeheartedly. I also reserve the right to rebut speculation with fact where that is possible. If we are talking about my motives, and it seems we may well have been at the time, I reserve the right to clarify what my motives truly were regardless of how they may have appeared to some. Fair enough?

[SilverPuppy]

I've seen that expression used before - "4.2 is a Puplet" - and I think it came from a well-known member of this forum. That leads me to think that SilverPuppy may be an alias, and the very recent registration would seem to confirm that.

The accusation against SilverPuppy is keeping us in suspense. If the accuser can't bring himself to name the accused, I hope SilverPuppy will confirm or deny his guilt since hearsay/accusation is not a healthy attitude in argument and debate.

Hardly an accusation; more of a speculation.

I believe it was Dougal who used the subject expression in an earlier thread on Puppy 4.2 and "bling". Dougal has been notably absent from the forum for some time of late. Even his updated network wizards posted in April of this year have "disappeared" from the subject post. Again, that is pure speculation and there may be a perfectly good reason for that. Or Dougal may have felt his contribution was not being properly valued so he removed it. If that were true it would be a very sad situation indeed.

Even if SilverPuppy is Dougal by another name, it doesn't alter his right to an opinion ... even a dissenting opinion. I support that wholeheartedly. I also reserve the right to rebut speculation with fact where that is possible. If we are talking about my motives, and it seems we may well have been at the time, I reserve the right to clarify what my motives truly were regardless of how they may have appeared to some. Fair enough?

Haha, now that's truly funny. I've been called many things, some pleasant and some not, and Dougal has never been one of them. It seems the only thing I'm guilty of is having the same thoughts of genius as someone who shares my view of Puppy, apparently. Nope, I'm not Dougal. SilverPuppy is a play on my business name, Silver Dollar Business Solutions, and I have no idea who Dougal might be—I've been mostly ignoring the forums until this point, quietly playing with Puppies and not really saying much about it.

Sorry to whatever marketing guru did a study and found that the grey Windoze 98 look was unappealing, but I far prefer it. I'm a Charmin Ultra kinda guy, I guess: less really is more sometimes. Also, IMHO, the look never really evolved to look like Windoze XP; it still looked very Win98 as of 4.1.2 AND THAT WAS FINE WITH ME!!!!! I strongly dislike all the visual special effects that Vistuh uses; I find them very distracting. And after all, what is the point other than to be able to say, "Now prettier than ever!" That'd be great, if we were buying houses or dresses or something.....but this is an operating system we're talking about. Granted, Puppy 4.2 is NOT as downright silly with its visual effects as Vistuh, but it's still gone to the dark side on the "must be pretty" trend if you ask me.

Perhaps in the future this argument can best be solved this way: (I'm taking yes for an answer and proposing an exact methodology for it!) Keep the core Puppy basic, looking like 4.1.2 did. This will be the "Standard" version for maximum minimalism, keeping the original vision alive. Then create a .PET which, when installed, adds in the pretty colors, fancy window stylings, widgets, clock, and whatever else you bling people like. Basically it's an OS-level skin in a .PET file. Install the .PET, reboot, and voila! Looks pretty to appeal to........whomever you're trying to attract with all that ugliness. (Oops, I said that, didn't I? Well, it is my honest opinion....) Then also offer an "Enhanced" ISO file, which comes preloaded with the bling .PET as part of the package. This arrangement is ideal, because a) Those who like the simplicity and minimalism of the Win98 look can have it without having to re-engineer the thing, b) those who know they want bling can get it just as easily with it as without it, and c) those who change their mind later can go back and forth by removing or adding the .PET file. (Yes, I think that instead of being part of the core files in the "Enhanced" ISO, it should be a preloaded .PET so users can change their minds backwards in a savefile or installed environment.) Also, by doing it that way, you remove the need to build completely separate releases. Just build the basic Puppy, make the release, then install the .PET and remaster. Piece of cake.

I still don't get why you care so much about making Puppy look like Vistuh, but I think I've come up with a practical way to give us each the particular cake we prefer to eat and not have us at each others throats about this, because I know from this thread that I'm not the only one who feels strongly about this.

Exactly who do you think that all this bling will attract? Soccer moms? Old folks? Teenagers? I really don't understand the market segment you're after. I'd think that the people who wanted all the visual silliness (oops! I got too honest about my opinion again.....) that was added into 4.2 would have gone with something entirely different, something not minimalist, like Mandriva, or Ubuntu, or some other trendy-looking just-as-bloated-as-M$-but-lots-more-stable variation of Linus' great idea. I really don't think that just because you clutter it up with a bunch of colors and gadgets all the Ubuntu people are going to suddenly slap their foreheads and say, "How could I have been so stupid?" and jump on Puppy with both feet. I'm glad that Puppy is getting noticed, but I think speed has had, is presently having, and will continue to be the greatest draw that Puppy has. Gizmos will take away from speed, and negatively impact the draw of Puppy.......

.....BUT I'm going to take yes for an answer and shut up now. I do think my Puppy_Bling.pet solution is just about perfect; at least, as perfect as anything I ever thought up to accomodate something I despise..........but do know that I don't despise those of you who think Puppy having any official bling ever is a good idea......I just disagree with you.

[SilverPuppy]

Just to give you more proof that I'm not just being more irritating than necessary about the Win98 look, I do still have a box I run Windows XP on full-time, (I'm on it now) but to look at it at a glance, you'd guess it was Win98. Gray start menu, square gray windows, simple blue fade across the title bar, etc. I really do prefer that simple look. The standard XP look bugs me almost as much as the Puppy 4.2 look, which bugs me almost as much as the standard Vistuh look! I dislike the look AND I dislike the fact that the look uses up resources that could otherwise be doing something productive, like.....WORK. There's more to resources than just RAM, BTW; don't forget that CPU cycles are also precious on the older machines Puppy was envisioned for.

[trio]

No, it's fine that you have opinions (different ones), but your attitude is the problem You acts as if you own puppy community, and you you're the very pure & "must be right" person (as if you're Barry himself)...that's the problem..not your opinion...and you disrespect the hard works of all of us here (yuck you said?) ... then I'll "yuck" you back of your taste for "ugliness"... so you're gonna shut up? then shut up...

[WhoDo]

I do think my Puppy_Bling.pet solution is just about perfect; at least, as perfect as anything I ever thought up to accomodate something I despise..........but do know that I don't despise those of you who think Puppy having any official bling ever is a good idea......I just disagree with you.

YOUR solution? I suggest you check out EZpup and its author - that would be me BTW. EZpup is a pet package to upgrade the look of Puppy exactly as you've suggested. And if you don't think that Puppy ever went the route of looking like XP, then I also suggest you look at 2.15CE which included the three most popular XP themes in the package!

I think we all KNOW now what YOU do and don't like. I don't think you have any conception of what the real users of Puppy do and don't like; no offence intended. When I started with Puppy it was languishing at #19 on Distrowatch. Since we started getting to grips with Puppy's look-and-feel issues, around 2.15CE in fact, Puppy has climbed the rankings to be a solid Top 10 distro. The 4.x Dingo series has topped that off with much prettier themes, wallpapers, etc. And now we have Pwidgets just like the big dogs - KDE and Gnome-based distros.

And now? Well apart from Molinux Zero, Hacao's Puppy Pro - also based on 4.2.1 - is breaking servers in the rush for people to download, and Puppy now sits in the Top 5 at Distrowatch on the 7 day rankings since 4.2.1 was released. Have we got it wrong? I don't think so, Tim!

It's great that you like the grey, minimalist look. We get it! Can you at least accept that clearly not everyone feels the same as you? Are you able to be that magnanimous?

[WhoDo]

I dislike the fact that the look uses up resources that could otherwise be doing something productive, like.....WORK. There's more to resources than just RAM, BTW; don't forget that CPU cycles are also precious on the older machines Puppy was envisioned for.

Then you dislike Puppy in general because it is supposed to be FUN ... not WORK! It is and always has been a hobby distro. It is also morphing into a starter and teaching distro for those moving from Window$ to Linux. It has never been intended as a WORK-critical desktop environment.

As for the CPU cycles, DSL includes Torsmo and Conky by default on the desktop in their most minimalist format and the Linux geeks cry "What a great innovation!" We take Conky and make its output attractive, add Xonclock and suddenly we are pariah's in the Linux community. It's just that sort of irrational reaction to anything that even remotely looks like Window$ that makes it so hard for people trapped in the M$ upgrade cycle to break free and switch to Linux.

Yes, "older machines" are part of the equation but only while they are machines capable of running a currently standard OS load. That means Pentium and above. Puppy fills that niche with 1.xx series through 2.xx series. The 3.xx series was for the Linux geeks; to give them access to the resources of Slackware packages. Puppy 4.x series was a complete revisiting of the original specification, with a focus on more modern machinery (PIII and above) with only the retro kernel as a concession to older hardware. Puppy 5.x is also for the Linux geeks; specifically those who love Ubuntu but hate the performance hit you have to take to get there.

So what's stopping you from going back to Puppy 1.08 and getting everything you need from Puppy? Or what about 2.14R, just about the pinnacle of Puppytude for older hardware with many of the newer features and drivers back-ported and built in? Why insist that the rest of the Puppy world march to the beat of your clearly very "different drum"? Another thing Puppy is about is CHOICE. That's not to say that YOUR CHOICE is the right one, though, is it? You say you like the look-and-feel of 4.12? Why not stick with that? No-one is forcing you to upgrade to 4.2x are they? It's really YOUR CHOICE if you decide to upgrade. The same packages work on both versions, so what's the problem?

I may well build an EZpup dotpet for the 5.x series, but at the moment it isn't all that important. Pwidgets will be in the repository, thanks to the "bling brothers" team. The desktop icon switcher is now a standard concession to different tastes in icons. Wallpapers are also easy to add, with the new Wallpaper preview feature contributed as one of the many benefits of the Pwidgets development program - thanks to Trio. Despite your contentment to stick in the "dark ages" of Window$ look-and-feel, Puppy is moving onward and upward. If you others like you get left behind in the process, that will be YOUR CHOICE! We may mourn your passing ... but only for a fleeting moment between new releases of our beloved hobby OS as it soars up the rankings around the world! To paraphrase Rocky Marciano, "somebody (out) there must like (us)"!

[DaveS]

Somebody tell me why I keep reading this crap?

[WhoDo]

Somebody tell me why I keep reading this crap?

Masochism? In my case I'm naive enough to think that some trolls have simply been brainwashed, and a little common sense may see them return to rationality. I'm also an eternal optimist I'm afraid.

[DaveS]

Somebody tell me why I keep reading this crap?

Masochism? In my case I'm naive enough to think that some trolls have simply been brainwashed, and a little common sense may see them return to rationality. I'm also an eternal optimist I'm afraid.

Sure thing, and at the next election, we will all get honest politicians

[WhoDo]

Sure thing, and at the next election, we will all get honest politicians

Now that's an oxymoron! Even a naive optimist like me can't imagine making those sow's ears into silk purses!

[SilverPuppy]

Then you dislike Puppy in general because it is supposed to be FUN ... not WORK! It is and always has been a hobby distro. It is also morphing into a starter and teaching distro for those moving from Window$ to Linux. It has never been intended as a WORK-critical desktop environment.

Ummmm......excuse me? This is not a hobby distro in my mind. DSL might be, since there's not too many real-world uses for a 386/486 anymore, but I see Puppy as a fully viable "Home Edition" distro. Sure, it's not appropriate for large corporate environments where security must be managed and things like that, but it is a total waste to dismiss it as simply a hobby. I use it many days in a week to do actual work, as it is my favorite Linux distro due to its speed and ability to do everything I wish to do with it. I've used it to do everything from check my business email to scrounging files back off a corrupted Windoze Vistuh partition. If that's not WORK, I don't know what you would consider real work.

I have no plans to ever use 4.2, ever. Based on the discussion we've had here it sounds like 5 might be something I can live with, if it starts simple like 4.1 and visual effects and gizmos are added on-demand (which is the impression I get of it, from this discussion.) I love 4.1.2, but I also realize that even it has a few minor bugs and usability issues, and I'd hate to never be able to get a basic Puppy like 4.1.2 with current drivers, hardware support, and bugfixes. That's the biggest reason I'm so gunched up over this. I don't want people in the future to have to choose between having a TRULY minimalist Puppy and having the latest bugfixes and hardware support. In some ways I feel like people must make that choice right now when choosing between the 4.1 and 4.2 platforms. Reading the bugs in 4.2 forum, I get the impression that positive changes are taking place in the core system, but some will be left out because we refuse to tolerate that horrid look, don't want to re-engineer it, and don't want to play with Puplets. I hope that 5 solves this issue for good.

Please don't take my stick-in-the-mudding as intended to be offensive. I just look at 4.1.2 as a work of minimalist genius, and I was offended by 4.2 doing certain quite obvious things the M$ way. I hope that in version 5 we can find a way to all like the end result, and I'll be happy to work with you as I can to that end.

[DaveS]

Actually I use Puppy for real work too. I have a mission critical OpenOffice account program that has to be 100% solid. Puppy gives me this, plus all the speed and configurability I need. I get good results with Ubuntu too, but in the end, the whole 'sudo' thing gets too old, and how the hell does one back up Ubuntu? Backing up a Puppy re-master and pup_save file is simplicity itself. Thats the whole op system backed up on to a small USB. How cool is that!
Trust me SilverPuppy, your tone IS offensive. Maybe you dont mean it that way, but that is how it comes across, like you have no interest in the other guys opinion or something.

[SilverPuppy]

YOUR solution? I suggest you check out EZpup and its author - that would be me BTW. EZpup is a pet package to upgrade the look of Puppy exactly as you've suggested. And if you don't think that Puppy ever went the route of looking like XP, then I also suggest you look at 2.15CE which included the three most popular XP themes in the package!

I didn't say that it had never looked like XP, only that it doesn't now. I was aware that several of the Puplets had an XP skin as standard equipment, but not that they got it from an official distro. I am glad that it's not turned on by default in 4.1.2, though. Is it even present in the ISO? I never wanted it, so I never looked for it. And hey, it's my idea too, 'cuz I never saw your EZpup, 'cuz I don't even do themes, much less bling, so I guess great minds think alike. See? We have more in common than we thought.

It's great that you like the grey, minimalist look. We get it! Can you at least accept that clearly not everyone feels the same as you? Are you able to be that magnanimous?

As Strong Bad's computer said when it got a virus, "Very Yes." http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail118.html (Some nerdy computer humor to lighten things up here, anybody?) Jokes aside, I do accept that some people wish to have Puppy look in particular ways, but they need to also accept that some people (review this thread, it's not just me) don't like it that way, and not try to convince us to like something we don't and force us to live with it or go without.

It sounds like we've pretty much reached an agreement we can live with, so hopefully we can stop arguing about this and I can do something more constructive with my time.

[SilverPuppy]

Actually I use Puppy for real work too. I have a mission critical OpenOffice account program that has to be 100% solid. Puppy gives me this, plus all the speed and configurability I need. I get good results with Ubuntu too, but in the end, the whole 'sudo' thing gets too old, and how the hell does one back up Ubuntu? Backing up a Puppy re-master and pup_save file is simplicity itself. Thats the whole op system backed up on to a small USB. How cool is that!
Trust me SilverPuppy, your tone IS offensive. Maybe you dont mean it that way, but that is how it comes across, like you have no interest in the other guys opinion or something.

You back up Ubuntu with Partimage.

Sorry about the offensive tone. I guess I felt "shoved upon," which is a feeling I'm used to getting from M$, but unaccustomed to getting from Linux, especially Puppy. That plus the fact that I wrote several of those at 4:30AM probably didn't come out sounding too pleasant. I really am a nice person, really!

[SilverPuppy]

YOUR solution? I suggest you check out EZpup and its author - that would be me BTW. EZpup is a pet package to upgrade the look of Puppy exactly as you've suggested. And if you don't think that Puppy ever went the route of looking like XP, then I also suggest you look at 2.15CE which included the three most popular XP themes in the package!

Just thought of something: since you had already thought of this mechanism, why didn't you do 4.2 that way? What was the critical importance of putting it in the distro for 4.2? Was it just to show that world that Puppy doesn't have to be boring and ugly like I like it? Why was it so essential to put the bling into the ISO to accomplish that? I guess I don't understand your purpose completely.

Now I'll shut up and listen to what you have to say.