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bark_bark_bark
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#16 Post by bark_bark_bark »

well simargl is a pain-in-the-ass-troll that we all have to deal with until his IP is banned.
....

wanderer
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#17 Post by wanderer »

how small an iso can woof make

can it just make an iso

that will boot into a basic x desktop

with x jwm and rxvt

can this speed up and simplify

the woof build process

anyone with advice

wanderer

gcmartin

#18 Post by gcmartin »

When Puppy was started, many still had 486s/586s (I know I did).

Persistence and boot sourced startup
What attracted me, at the time was the ability to run its OS without the need to install an OS which can be targeted from the external world. I had worked on several projects where this was done for both Windows and OS2. That is that the system, once booted negated the need for both the HDD storage and the booting peripheral (CD/DVD).

This type of operation still has merit for both that and other reasons. So we could insure that the future approach bring this technology forward.

Base system apps
This community has been constantly attacked by some on ideas of a base system. Everyone has an opinion...everyone. Some wont participate because the base's guidelines may not be consistent with their view. But, we must take into account the kind of community we want the distro to address.

In the interest of having Puppy have even a marginal member expansion, we, in this effort MUST consider some type of distro which will make Linux tire-kickers and users want, to not just come but, to want to continue participation.

There are only so many hours in a day and I have already witnessed that few,today, want to spend much of their time thinking about adding/modifying/changing/redesigning what they have in front of them. Many (including myself) have just enough time to run stuff rather that spend build a system to run stuff (until the next version is released only to build again).

Puppy has alway brought forth a goodly portion of General Purpose Apps. These apps can be broken into categories of which I wont address, for most already know of them. I think it is essential that we might consider carrying this foundation forward with the next PUPPY. And, if an experience user wants to discard lets provide a utility for that experienced user to do so. Inexperienced users do NOT want to do this, nor do they want to expand muchly, either. Puppy has done much in this arena.

In my years of Puppy use and Puppy display on the forum, 99% of the users have never called Puppy "bloated". It has only been experienced people who have done so. We may want to consider providing a system that address the 100% thru a base system that addressed the 99% of us.

LAN services
Puppy has NEVER addressed this in a way where its easy for it to participate on a LAN in the same way that Windows and Macs have done. Kirk, then TaZoc then 01Micko have been the ONLY community devs who have understood the value of this and have addressed it in a base system. No one, I repeat, NO ONE should have to think twice about being able to share a folder on the LAN of things that we collect or create on a Puppy distro. Many distro owners are in fear of doing so for being called out as if they have done something bad by a few of the others. LAN services has been apart of the LAN for almost 30 years. Its time the fear stops. All future PUPs should have SAMBA (a 25 year old Linux product) built in just as is in Fatdog, LightHouse64, and PhatSlacko. This reduce any and all burden on the user community to spend time trying to understand how to move information from their PUppy use to the remainder of the LAN PCs and devices who would need such.

A lesson from KNOPPIX
Puppy began its life doing things similar to what Klaus demonstrated to the world. Since version 5 of said distro, he somehow has managed to deliver a distro which allows you to boot in 32bit mode OR to boot in 64bit mode. I am not a developer, but, I've ofter wonder if the ability to do this in Puppy is hampered by Woof or by technology we dont have.

Touch
TaZoC has the ONLY PUP distro where if you have a touch screen PC you can touch the desktop and its apps to make things happen in the same way you can by using a mouse. This touch implementation by him was very simple (from my point of view). Using a mouse you can see why. Ever click mouse button 2 on an empty portion of the PUP desktop? Well, he move that from mouse button 2 to mouse button 1. A simple choice like this, by him, made all the world of difference so that anyone who has a touch PC can use the screen with mouse button 1 capability at your fingertip. It works. Maybe this can be evaluated for meaningful use.

Boot
This may sound really dumb to some, but, has others thought about why we need the ISO to be exploded to a DVD/CD? Why not have the ISO be booted by a boot manager either on the DVD or HDD or USB without the need to explode it? The present methods work find, though, so this is really a much much low item on a list of things to consider.

System Fixes
Puppy should adopt a method of fix roll-outs. Sometimes we have seen the testers and developers post in a thread resolutions of system/application issues. It would be nice if these ended in fix bucket and the system would periodically check and alert the distro user of these updates. When a distro is booted for the first-time, it should as a matter of course, check or ALERT the user of the need to run PPM to get any updates that may be available for system's update. Further, this should be built-in to the PPM service whenever it is started to alert the user of the availability of updates for the running distro.

Last
I started by mentioning 486/586. When PUPPY started many of us had these things. Today, NO ONE HAS THESE THINGS. We have much newer equipment.

When the new distro is created, the devs should be VERY CLEAR of the environment it is tested and the environment it is supported. It you target 99% of the PC in the world, say so! And, say so about the RAM needs you are addressing; both the minimum AND the maximum. And stop being afraid of what others in this community are going to say. It time we be clears and affirmative about what a distro is intended without fear of reprisals. If you're making it for newer PCs...say so! Stop this fear and the remainder of us should support the developers on this.

Let's make something "Proud" and forward thinking which is attractive!

These are just some ideas for consideration. I will work and do whatever I am capable of to assist those on this project.

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mavrothal
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#19 Post by mavrothal »

Would be ideal if we do not turn this thread as many others before it...
Lets try to keep to specific matters.
This is for a community edition of the good old puppy.
If you want a new/dream/ideal/blahblah puppy, go to another thread (there are many open already) or suggest improvements on the thread of your favorite pupplet.

Iguleder already said "Debian stable" and "woof2".
Debian we can do very little about :D
Regarding woof we can first just try to fix any existing bugs/omissions and then vent out hard-coding from woof2 tree and the standard/common puppy packages.
"root", "rox", various notification apps (lets stick to 1 or 2), etc
This would allow for a more flexible UI so other WM can be used latter.
We can also identify the 32bit binaries and provide 64bit versions aiming for a 32/64bit woof (using the debian 64bit toolchain).
Another consideration which I'm not sure is solved in current woof is how much localization we keep from the debian packages, if any, because it can add considerable size. If not any, how do we implement user-installed locals of the debian packages (most of the puppy code has its pets alright)

If/when a decent puppy comes out and the inevitable bugs are fixed then we can consider woof3 :wink:

If for example we keep the pup_even infrastructure with hard codded devices or we totally go with (e)uved.
The pup_event is a bit archaic by now but the way udev/systemd is going we may add unnecessary bloat on puppy and complicate device compatibility.
I remember techno having some ideas on that front.

Assuming that another decent puppy comes out then we can consider X vs Wayland assuming that by then should be more stable and then....
You get the idea.

For now lets stick with the (possible) minimal changes for v1
(Of course the "release manager" can decide otherwise :wink: )
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simargl5

#20 Post by simargl5 »

mavrothal wrote:For now lets stick with the (possible) minimal changes for v1
(Of course the "release manager" can decide otherwise :wink: )
The one who will setup and manage new Woof2 repository on github, should be Release Manager.

And you know that Iguleder has github account ...

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mavrothal
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#21 Post by mavrothal »

simargl5 wrote: The one who will setup and manage new Woof2 repository on github, should be Release Manager.

And you know that Iguleder has github account ...
Assuming we go with git, Git and Github are easy to setup and fairly flexible on who can commit what. But the same is true for mercurial and to some extend even fossil.
The release manager should certainly have commit rights but not necessarily be the one that originally opens the account.

Release manager will be the one that volunteers for the job and gets the support of the others involved.
Unfortunately Iguleder said is not interested (me neither, BTW).
Are you?
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simargl5

#22 Post by simargl5 »

mavrothal wrote:Are you?
Nope, I'm just silent follower... I hope many will apply for that role and then Puppy community can have elections for their first president, I mean Release Manager

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mavrothal
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#23 Post by mavrothal »

simargl5 wrote:
mavrothal wrote:Are you?
Nope
Please edit your post to show as above.
== [url=http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html]Here is how to solve your[/url] [url=https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html]Linux problems fast[/url] ==

jamesbond
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#24 Post by jamesbond »

gcmartin wrote:I will work and do whatever I am capable of to assist those on this project.
Please help to organise fundraising efforts for Puppy (indiegogo, kickstarter, or whatever), say for $100,000. You have list of features, put a $ to those features. Sum that $ up, round it to perhaps $100,000. Let puppy builders choose which items they want to do. Money to be handed out when the feature is complete (as judged by competent technical third person - not by you - to prevent personal bias). No organiser fees please - you aren't allowed to take the $ from the pool yourself.

That will help a lot to advance Puppy.

Think you're up to it?
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wanderer
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#25 Post by wanderer »

I would like to ask Iguleder

if he would consider taking the lead here

as he stepped up to the plate from the beginning

and has vast expertise in this area

he has made many great isos

not to mention all the work he has done

in developing a future puppy system

Iguleder or anyone

do you have any thoughts on this ?

please post

thanks

wanderer

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Iguleder
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#26 Post by Iguleder »

It's a very demanding role, which doesn't fit in my lifestyle and doesn't match my character. I'm an innovator - an R&D projects leader, not a release manager. This is who I am and I can't fight this.

I think someone like 01micko is exactly what we need. Realistic, thorough, careful and friendly.
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stu91
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#27 Post by stu91 »

I think perhaps to begin with the focus should be more along the the lines of a set of 'community tools' something that automaticly builds a consistent minimal sane base - then the community, individuals, groups or what ever can build and add to from there.

wanderer
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#28 Post by wanderer »

community tools

does that mean a woof debian template

i am not familiar with woof but will study it

does anyone either have a satisfactory old template

or have the time and expertise to build it

i also vote for a good old community pup

a very simple basic core

that we can streamline and add to

wanderer

gcmartin

#29 Post by gcmartin »

@JamesBond suggests that we find ways to raise money for the idea and strategies for Puppy LInux. And to use that money to disperse to those individuals who actually work on the package(s).

Maybe that is a good way to proceed. Dunno? At the very least, its a model that Canonical has made successful. Can that work here, too?

But, If he wants, I will help him do so. I'll assist anyone who has some ideas of how to advance this distro. And, new approaches to make it attractive to bring others on-board and advance Puppy Linux is just what is needed.

wanderer
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#30 Post by wanderer »

the reason i use puppy exclusively
is that it is small simple robust and flexible
i have no need for every cutting edge thing
that ends up creating bugs and not working very well
that is what all the other distros do
and they end up as bloatware
puppy was so well designed
that i was even able to learn how it works
tear it apart
and build my own versions
even versions that had nothing to do
with the original puppy design

i intend to keep working on puppy
or its derivitives
because of this elegant design

i'm sure that there are many other people that feel the same
if we just keep working together
we will end up maintaining/creating a distro
that is very useful (and hopefully in its own way elegant)

there isn't any time limit
because this is fun and informative as well as useful

now i'm going to take a look at woof
to see if i can do anything
to make a small simple core

but you know in the old days
we would just tear a puppy iso apart
and put it back together the way we wanted
that's how Barry K started

if anyone has any advice about woof
and has the time to post it
it would be appreciated

thanks for being a great community

wanderer

wanderer
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Joined: Sat 20 Oct 2007, 23:17

#31 Post by wanderer »

Hey guys

here is what i intend to do this weekend
i will download woof
and try to build an iso
from debian stable
i will try to make it as small and as simple as possible
only the core x jwm xrvt rox geanny
maybe dhcp
and the downloader for debs (i dont know how that works)

we will see how this goes
any advice or thoughts ?

wanderer

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Iguleder
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#32 Post by Iguleder »

By the way - I'm working on a tiny Puppy with musl, lazy-utils, loksh, Xfbdev and cwm. I'm curently trying to port tinyxserver to x86_64 - if this port works, we can use this tiny thing as a base - it's similar to pupngo, but modern, fully automated and 64 bit.

I think we mustn't give up the alternative to Woof, full independence, in case the community release model fails.
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wanderer
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#33 Post by wanderer »

here is my plan

1. build a core of woof debian --- command line only (busybox ash)
2. build an basic x image --- x jwm rxvt
3. build an basic apps image --- rox leafpad
4. build internet access image --- dhcpd
5. build additional apps image --- firefox mplayer
6. build (whatever else we want) image

loopfile symlink these images together to form a working distro
they can be compressed SFS or uncompressed ext2 image

we shall see if this can be done with woof
and if i can do it

any thoughts ?

wanderer
Last edited by wanderer on Thu 07 Nov 2013, 21:00, edited 2 times in total.

bark_bark_bark
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#34 Post by bark_bark_bark »

Why Debian?

Slackware is a much more suitable base.
....

wanderer
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#35 Post by wanderer »

sounds great
but a 32 bit will run on everything
both 32 and 64
is there a 32 bit version

wanderer

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