2 items in recent posts are of interest.
- OOTB browser
- a new technology for SFS selection at/near initial
boot
OOTB browser
Having been associated with Puppy for as long as I have, there are members who have taken OOTB browser to the "Holy-WAR" level. It really shouldn't have been, but, because we, people, can be very passionate about things the browser is such.
History.
Barry ships SeaMonkey. It is the initial Mozilla (really Netscape Open source) product for which Firefox, Thunderbird grew out of during times when Internet speeds were still in dial-up.
My view is that Barry did a very good thing for the community by including this full feature subsystem as it includes browsing, email services, web-building, and does everything that multiple packages must be brought to task to accomplish.
That being said, as an OOTB browser, it can launch a good start in the desktop for any user, as all of its features are consistent with each other.
Now, the problem:
Some people feel that their browser, and only their browser, should be the OOTB browser in their Puppy.
So along comes Playdayz (who wants to establish a middle ground by giving an awkward (really backward) browser forcing a Puppy distro users to go back to the Internet (PPM) to get, install, tailor before use a brand-new browser.
In Puppyland, he who builds the distro get to choose. And like others who build distro, this is an attempt to be neural in the browser war.
One option, since Puppy was Barry's original offering to this community is to go back to presenting Barry's model and, as is done for all PUPs, let the user select something other should he choose from the Repo. But, again, that is the choice of the distro developer.
My current finding is that all of the dstros which ship OOTB with SeaMonkey gives me a basis for starter operations without the need to take precious time in browser selection needs. But, I am just one who understands that this is an OOTB production, I understand, in part, why Barry initially selected it, and I understand that it is a full-featured browser with the same features as IE/Safari/Firefox/Opera, not to mention its email services rivals/exceeds them all.
In summary, Barry presents a standard model. And the distro developers can choose to be consistent with the model or to modify it.
new Boot-time SFS technology
There appears to be a move afoot to address dealing with SFS files throughout Puppyland. This has been going on, very actively, for past couple years in this community.
The most INNOVATIVE use of SFS for system starts is TaZoC's implementation that he provided in his Puppy LIghtHouse64 "Mariner" distro. From a developer's standpoint, the developer provides " his selections" SFS.
His technology, to me, in innovative because nowhere else in Puppyland have I seen this implementation. And, in using it I have found it to be sound in its operation, and the OS with the SFSs employed are stable.
I believe that his implementation was modeled in conjunction with Shinobar and others ideas on SFSs.
My only regret is that there seems to be a confusing picture in SFSs versus PETs in the technology world of 2012. In fact, some veterans seemingly are refusing to prepare PET versions for PPM use, tracking and management.
This post is, simply, presented as ideas of historical basis. NOT as a request of any sort.
Hope this helps