Puppy 4.4 CE - Phase 1: pet tests

[01micko]

Raffy,

You were talking about a codename... Googy or something? Goofy, nah, too Walt Disney..

4.3 didn't really have a codename, woof was bandied about but Barry differentiated between woof and puppy, correctly of course.

A codename is a good idea... mongrel? bitzer? I'm no good at this!

Anyway, techno, xpad is cool, using it already, not just testing it!

Cheers

[alienpup]

...The proposed solution (splitting out as many apps as reasonably possible into separate autoloading sfs) seems perfect to me. I really love the idea of a base pup_xxx.sfs that's ~50mb....Tom

I think we have to be careful with this one. Puppy needs to appear to newbies (and reviewers) as "fully functional" out-of-the-box. If something basic is missing, it's assumed "Puppy doesn't even have (whatever)".

A better and safer approach is to default to a traditionally "full" Puppy but to include the apps as .sfs packages. That way all users have complete control of what's "in" and what's "out". If you want bare-bones you simply disable the loading of all/some .sfs files.

I also urge that additional 4.4 apps (including third-party) be offered as .sfs rather than .pet (though 4.4 remains .pet capable). IOW, "modular".

[technosaurus]

updated Xcalc

[technosaurus]

testing fossil version control software (with builtin server via localhost on port 8081 and a lot more in a really small package)

http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/do ... index.wiki

I have hacked this version to use builtin sqlite (had to update sqlite3)

[gyro]

Since, most sfs files tend to be rather large, I don't understand how putting sfs files in PUPSFS is a great, neat improvement for frugal installs on ntfs or vfat filesystems, (that don't support symbolic links).
I can already use BootManager to specify which sfs files are loaded, and the order they are loaded, for each individual frugal install.

What might be a more flexible improvement, would be to facilitate a new variable in BOOTCONFIG called EXTRASFSDIRECTORY, that specifies the extra directory to search for extra sfs files.

If EXTRASFSDIRECTORY were set to be the same as PUPSFS, this would do what some folk want.
But it would also allow me to set EXTRASFSDIRECTORY to /mnt/home/sfs4 or /mnt/home/sfs3, and so neatly separate the different versions of sfs files.

gyro

[sullysat]

xpad (the sticky notes app) has been updated to v4.0.

Superpup says: compile the latest version and include it in Puppy 4.4 CE

I'd like to second this request. xpad is extremely useful for me.

Sully

[dogle]

BTW, am posting here 'coz I can't find the other "wish list" thread for 4.4. Sorry, am on the run.

A most illuminating wishlist source is the newbie comment thread
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42593

- but this has become lengthy .... I've sought to summarise the most common pleas in
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=47021

- but that's got long as well, so for those who haven't time, 30-second summary:

The overwhelming wish by far is for easy access to up-to-date information on Puppy, by intelligent newcomers who are eager to learn. Ease of installation came in a poor second (and that is perhaps contingent on shortcomings in the first).

(OK, this is not essentially a devs problem, but nonetheless it would do devs no harm to consider: How will a tyro react to my creation? Is there sufficient info? Can I test it on a newbie to find out?).

Some recent pleas have highlighted the problem of those with poor/no internet access; formerly Puppy was a star amongst distros in providing built-in information, but this seems to have slipped badly more recently. (This point has been raised by Aitch a couple of pages back, top marks to technosaurus & team for keeping it in mind).

(Bling? Forget it! Just not an issue, per vox populi).

Personal plea: please think hard about the default browser homepage. This is the go/nogo crunch for the new Puppy user who has internet access. If it is clear and simple and explicit with no confusing icon links-to-links, less bewilderment, more Puppy users. The way it is now is rather baffling to the raw newcomer.

Bottom line: this is about Puppy's popularity henceforward; big thanks to all those newbies who have spoken up and told us the way it is.

[technosaurus]

Lobster has been organizing contributions to the Wiki page with lots of support recently, so I think we are on the right track there.

We have been working on a simplified gui for installation - trying to incorporate a 1-click install (it may end up being 2 or 3 if necessary though)

How is this for a starting off page?... Let me know if it needs more tutorials etc...
http://pupweb.org/desktop

[dogle]

Yes, I too have great hopes for the new wiki but, especially for those with poor internet access, it is no substitute for good basic built-in information.

The suggestion of a future 'newbie version' with copious documentation included is very interesting, and if it ever happens I wonder if it might include a 'snapshot' of the future wiki taken just before release.

My 2c. on the Puppy Web Desktop: great job, but based on the feedback coming in I fear that, as it stands, it may be targeting the wrong 'market', at least for the time being. Our refugees seem generally to be bright people who want to understand how things work, and they are clamouring for information not decoration. Sadly, the non-thinking types are going to stay where they are, with a well-known commercial OS built specially to fleece non-thinking types, for quite some while yet ... ;-)

[Proudog]

updated Xcalc

Traditionaly, Xcalc is compiled with: prefix=/usr/X11, what prefix do you use?

RoxFiler is to old the actual version is 2.10, i think that is need upgrade.

[raffy]

I guess whatever URL is given for the user at first boot should contain complete and helpful information for beginners. (Ideally, it will be online and then downloaded to the ISO) before the final ISO is built.

The "manual" template am using for now is at http://puppylinux.org/main/index.php?file=Manual-English.htm
It is based on the draft manuals at the puppylinux.org/wiki site.

I can place parts of this manual in the wiki so that it can be updated for 4.4.

As to SFSDIRECTORY: Am in favor of the ability to define Puppy's default file location, as in having an ext2 partition that would be used by Puppy as /mnt/home. What we now have in /root should be there.

Saying "go to /home" and then the user actually sees "/root" does not really help the user. Why don't we try to hide /root and make it visible as "/home"? If that is difficult, at least use /root until that time when /mnt/home has been created (ie, Puppy has been installed to an ext2 partition). The least that we can have in /home in addition to the sfs files are /MyFiles and /Programs. Perhaps all the Puppy sfs files shall go inside /Programs?

Using /mnt/home in Windows partition may still help, but there should be a lot of warnings about doing it. Anyway, it should be a simple affair to install all of Puppy in a USB flash drive. We can use an installer script that assumes Puppy can do anything on the flash drive - a 1 GB flash drive is inexpensive anyway. Umm, perhaps include a small VFAT there that has a Linux file reader for Windows (plus some free VFAT space), so that the user can still read his files from the drive and put some Windows files there, temporarily at least.

[technosaurus]

Honestly I would prefer to eliminate the X11 directories entirely and have them in /usr (with symlinks back to /usr for backward compatibility) I am still debating on whether or not to try xorg 7.5.

Raffy- can you clarify that a bit?

[raffy]

Yes, it's a bit difficult to discuss "nix file system, as it is not too flexible. So when we talk about /Programs, we may actually be looking at just symlinks.

But let me describe my experience with Opera and Skype. I know firsthand that all it takes to install these programs is decompress the files to a folder and run the executable. Using the appdir approach in Rox, the whole directory can actually be made to look like one executable file.

So with the (small) core Puppy filesystem in RAM, the user just goes looking for large applications (programs) in /mnt/home/Programs, sees Opera[appdir] and Skype[appdir] and clicks on one of them. But we can also have there OpenOffice[appdir], VLC[appdir] etc. All it takes is for the user to download the application package and click, and (with the package installer script) it is placed in /mnt/home/Programs.

Now, I don't know if appdir will work in VFAT, so I recommend that ext2 filesystem be used. But even if appdir is not used, I guess we should now get the habit of using *nix filesystem in every opportunity. Let us start always with the flash drive and do what we want with it - we may assume a 1 GB drive.

Some files may fall out of the limited RAM, so the user may still see program files being saved in /mnt/home, which we may try to store in /Libs (symlinked to the appropriate *nix folder in RAM).

The package download/install script should be able to do this, copy the executables to /Programs and other shared files to /Libs. Use of symlinks will handle the rest.

If the user wants to use the Flash drive in Windows, then we will be obliged to provide a GPL Linux reader in the flash drive (for reading files previously stored in /mnt/home/MyFiles), as well as a small VFAT work space, say 25% of the drive space. The (small) puppy-440.sfs can still be placed in the VFAT drive - anyway, this is being copied to RAM at boot time.

[panzerpuppy]

+1 for trying / upgrading to Xorg 7.5 and Xserver 1.7.1

[panzerpuppy]

RoxFiler is to old the actual version is 2.10, i think that is need upgrade.

I'd love to see a .PET package of the latest version

[ttuuxxx]

RoxFiler is to old the actual version is 2.10, i think that is need upgrade.

I'd love to see a .PET package of the latest version

I made one up but forget where the links are in this forum. I know I made one for 4 series and upup/dpup. hmmm
it takes a bit of work to get rox working on puppy.
ttuuxxx

[Lobster]

This simple script idea from MU could be the default for our browser
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 238#353238

Those who have offered to help on the non programming side
Please join and update the wiki page
Detailed Objectives need updating - eh - what are they?
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy44

[panzerpuppy]

SeaMonkey 2.0 RC2 is out.

The FINAL version of SeaMonkey 2.0 will be released in a few days (launch date: 27 Oct 2009)
That means no more support for SeaMonkey 1.1.x on Linux.
Extension makers are forcing Linux users to stop using the 1.1.x series and upgrade to 2.0.

What browser is Puppy 4.4 CE going to use? SeaMonkey 2.0 or Opera 10.10?

Opera 10.10 is a much better browser than Opera 10.00.
10.00 was very good, but 10.10 is what 10.00 should have been when it was released : Tons of bugfixes, Opera Unite, much better compatibility with websites, further improvements to the default UI, better skin, improved performance and much more.

[clarf]

Hi Lobster,

The script idea for secure navigation is a good one, but it should be an option and not the default navigation.

If you run mozilla with a X user, then you could only download information to that users directory. You couldn´t use any other partition disk without assigning the right permissions first, because root user in Puppy mount those partitions, a standard user must know how to do those tasks.

I think a shortcut desktop or link should be added for secure browse, when users click this link a informational page should be loaded first inside the browser, indicating the limitations and download restrictions in this mode.

It´s a great idea but in my opinion we should polish it a little

Greetings,

clarf

[panzerpuppy]

xpad-4.0-i486|xpad|4.0-i486||Desktop|100K|pet_packages-4|xpad-4.0-i486.pet||Jot down notes for later|puppy|4|official|

The .PET works great on Puppy 4.3.1 , but it doesn't work on the older puppies.

Could you make another .PET package for the older Puppies (4.1.x / 4.2.x) that doesn't require libgio / libselinux ?