Going forward with Standard Puppy

This is where threads concerning the development of the next version of Puppy live.

Which Puppy or Puplet would you suggest as a standard?

Slacko
13
27%
Precise/Lucid (Ubuntu-based)
18
37%
4.x/5.x (Puppy Based)
7
14%
FatDog (64-bit or a possible 32-bit project like fatdog)
7
14%
Other (This can include Quirky if one so desires)
4
8%
 
Total votes: 49

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NeroVance
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Going forward with Standard Puppy

#1 Post by NeroVance »

I've been following Puppy for quite a while, and while I do know of the multitude of flavors such as Fatdog64, Slacko, Lucid, Precise, Quirky (well that's more of a spinoff by Barry afaik), etc...

But what I don't see is a standard puppy like in the old days. Perhaps I'm an idiot and can't see whats in front of me, but I do kinda wonder when the last releases there were in the 4.x and 5.x branches? Is Slacko the reincarnation of the 3.x branch that never happened? Could us puppians figure out which (or which couple) main branches should be built for a strong downstream distribution?

What I propose I don't currently have a name for, but I'll say it would be like if there was a Puppy 6.x.x branch that would continue where Puppy 5.x and 4.x left off? Anyone have any suggestions?

I'll leave a poll up for people to vote on their preferred branch and puplet, just that way we can see the usage of different ones if we do wish to go forward.

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Evil20071
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#2 Post by Evil20071 »

Agreed. The lack of a main trunk is depressing, in a way. There are many users who I have tried to introduce to Puppy who had little to no background experience with *nix based systems (unless you count Apple or Android) who didn't quite understand the concepts of an operating system being compatible with software from another os that is made by totally different groups of people. They didn't know if they would like Slacko for its Slackware compatibility, for example, because they didn't know what slackware is.

Having a main trunk based off of one of the last really popular base Puppy versions like 4.2, and moving on to continue that base trunk would be great. And since we now have the compatibility down for other distros, we may even be able to make some sfs files as compatibility packs for the other distros, or maybe come up with a way to get the kernel to load new modules after jts running already. I know there is a project for editing the initrd.gz files, which tells me that kernel programming is at least feasible for that. Basically, make conversion packs for a base trunk to turn it into say Slacko, of the user so desires.
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neerajkolte
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#3 Post by neerajkolte »

could you add a option of 64bit Ubuntu based puppy (Tahr, Precise or Lucid).
Or may be the standard pup should come with both ISOs 32bit and 64bit. User can choose what he wants.

- Neeraj.
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- Ken Thompson

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NeroVance
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#4 Post by NeroVance »

neerajkolte wrote:could you add a option of 64bit Ubuntu based puppy (Tahr, Precise or Lucid).
Or may be the standard pup should come with both ISOs 32bit and 64bit. User can choose what he wants.

- Neeraj.
In that case I'd suggest selecting Ubuntu-based. Me personally I'd suggest making both 32bit and 64bit available, though packages would be incompatible between these, except for arch-independent packages.

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NeroVance
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#5 Post by NeroVance »

Evil20071 wrote:Agreed. The lack of a main trunk is depressing, in a way. There are many users who I have tried to introduce to Puppy who had little to no background experience with *nix based systems (unless you count Apple or Android) who didn't quite understand the concepts of an operating system being compatible with software from another os that is made by totally different groups of people. They didn't know if they would like Slacko for its Slackware compatibility, for example, because they didn't know what slackware is.

Having a main trunk based off of one of the last really popular base Puppy versions like 4.2, and moving on to continue that base trunk would be great. And since we now have the compatibility down for other distros, we may even be able to make some sfs files as compatibility packs for the other distros, or maybe come up with a way to get the kernel to load new modules after jts running already. I know there is a project for editing the initrd.gz files, which tells me that kernel programming is at least feasible for that. Basically, make conversion packs for a base trunk to turn it into say Slacko, of the user so desires.
I like where you are going with this. Personally, I kinda like what FatDog has done, but that's just personal taste. Multiuser as an easy option in a mainline puppy could be useful for people who might transition from not just windows and such, but other distros. With the direction many have gone (systemd, etc.) I think Puppy could be where the stronghold for the Old *nix-like ways.

I do think JWM should stay, it's tradition, maybe even see if we could have an option to use the old non-rounded corners version.

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neerajkolte
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#6 Post by neerajkolte »

I came to puppy this Feb. Been using Fatdog since.
I do occasionally check out other pups. Mainly precise and the latest Tahr.
I do not know any thing technical, I just love the way Fatdog works.
I recommended Fatdog to some friends. They settled on Precise for it having Ubuntu repo in it's PPM.
"One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code."
- Ken Thompson

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.â€￾
- Amara’s Law.

wboz
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#7 Post by wboz »

I'm feeling free to weigh in despite not being an experienced gent in this subject. Hope in some way it's helpful. :)

First of all, good luck! I think it's said in these pages that Puppy is a do-ocracy, meaning, you want something done, you go do it. I am very curious if there will be a consensus on what a good "go-forward" puppy line looks like.

An observation: one of Puppy's strengths is its great flexibility. Depending on what is important to your target user, you might set up your distro very differently. Old computers? Graphic designers? Linux noobs looking for big selection of free software? Experienced developers looking to keep their Atom server on line for 320 days at a stretch? I think I am right in saying there is a Puppy to fit most people. Puppy is a family of distributions, not one; what they share is their architecture and mode of operation that makes them unique.

It seems that most of the variants are the work of one or slightly more developers who wanted something that was different from other puppies in development, so they constructed it. Made much easier by Woof!

Now, I know there is plenty of collaboration already. As a beginner it's not always clear to me what goes on behind the scenes before someone posts: "Announcing! Slacko 5.8!" :) But it seems like most are the product of someone going, "I know what I'd like to see and no one is producing it, so I'm gonna have to go build that myself." ... and that seems to work well. I do think there is one potential customer you don't want to target, and that's relatively unsophisticated consumers looking for a android-level-of-dummy-proofing-to-replace-their-windows-XP. That customer is way, way too hard to please (impossible?) given how Puppy is produced, ie ad hoc and unpaid.

I personally like the variety available. I am a big fan of Lucid because of the simplicity if not looks, and Tahrpup is probably the best for beginners looking for a nice-looking distribution. But I also find that Slacko is the current leader in sophistication, plus there is the upcoming spectre of systemd to try and figure out how to deal with ... a problem I need to leave to people in this community far smarter than myself! But could I say that Slacko should be a "Standard" Puppy? If so only in name, because, maybe another user really wants access to the Ubuntu repositories and so that's important as an alternative. And maybe a third user (etc, etc) ...

I never was completely clear what the break is between the 4-series "old puppies" and the newer ones. I thought it was simply that the newer ones are constructed with automated scripts for building (woof), but is there something else structurally different? I'd love to learn (feel free to point to another resource if that's easier).

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NeroVance
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#8 Post by NeroVance »

neerajkolte wrote:I came to puppy this Feb. Been using Fatdog since.
I do occasionally check out other pups. Mainly precise and the latest Tahr.
I do not know any thing technical, I just love the way Fatdog works.
I recommended Fatdog to some friends. They settled on Precise for it having Ubuntu repo in it's PPM.
I got a 64bit laptop, hence Fatdog on a USB stick could be a good idea to have.

chiron²
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#9 Post by chiron² »

I use FatDog most of the time for it's speed, but sometimes find it hard to come by the programs I need/want (eg I can't get my Philips based Astrocam to work in FD, works in LuPu, Slacko64 ...) and the recent FD700 again has issues with my meanwhile quite ancient radeon. That keeps me from updating, so I am still with 630. The 32bit machines use either lupu or slacko, and I like slacko better. Tried Slacko64, but it appeared sluggish compared to FD. Best for me would be FD with a 'compatibility pack' and package management -including dependencies- for any major distro, preferrably debian/slackware.

Voted for Slacko above, 'cause it's a very noob-friendly experience and thus better suited as a mainstream puppy.

Illutorium
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#10 Post by Illutorium »

Only 64bit's developments... (as a be One-Day-Updated...)
But if it now... FatDog64 or with Newest 64bit kernel...
Tahr are be nicest too for a 4GB RAM's...

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BarryK
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#11 Post by BarryK »

Hi,
There *is* a "mainline" Puppy!

Puppies built from woof-CE are following the "mainline".

woof-CE is the community-maintained woof, forked after I retired from Puppy development.

woof-CE github:
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE

woof-CE mail-list:
http://woof-ce.26403.n7.nabble.com/

Discussing woof-CE in this Puppy Forum:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90202

The latest "official" Puppy, built from woof-CE, is Tahrpup 6.0, which was released recently, and is announced on distrowatch.

My blog announcement for Tahrpup:
http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00097

before Tahrpup 6.0, there was also the "official" Puppy, Slacko 5,7, created by 01micko, also built with woof-CE (in fact, the first official release to do so):
http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00073

I understand the confusion. It really is not at all obvious these days that there is still a "mainline" pup forging ahead.

Tahrpup is built from Debian DEBs, Slacko from Slackware pkgs. It is in the nature of Puppy to be able to build from the packages of any distro, so future puppies will continue this diversity, including the official releases.
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#12 Post by rcrsn51 »

BarryK wrote:The latest "official" Puppy, built from woof-CE, is Tahrpup 6.0, which was released recently, and is announced on distrowatch.
It would be nice if Tahrpup was also listed on puppylinux.com as a Latest Version.

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#13 Post by BarryK »

rcrsn51 wrote:
BarryK wrote:The latest "official" Puppy, built from woof-CE, is Tahrpup 6.0, which was released recently, and is announced on distrowatch.
It would be nice if Tahrpup was also listed on puppylinux.com as a Latest Version.
Sorry, I forgot about that, will update very soon.

There are some other updates for puppylinux.com that I have been intending to do.
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NeroVance
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#14 Post by NeroVance »

BarryK wrote:Hi,
There *is* a "mainline" Puppy!

Puppies built from woof-CE are following the "mainline".

woof-CE is the community-maintained woof, forked after I retired from Puppy development.

woof-CE github:
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE

woof-CE mail-list:
http://woof-ce.26403.n7.nabble.com/

Discussing woof-CE in this Puppy Forum:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90202

The latest "official" Puppy, built from woof-CE, is Tahrpup 6.0, which was released recently, and is announced on distrowatch.

My blog announcement for Tahrpup:
http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00097

before Tahrpup 6.0, there was also the "official" Puppy, Slacko 5,7, created by 01micko, also built with woof-CE (in fact, the first official release to do so):
http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00073

I understand the confusion. It really is not at all obvious these days that there is still a "mainline" pup forging ahead.

Tahrpup is built from Debian DEBs, Slacko from Slackware pkgs. It is in the nature of Puppy to be able to build from the packages of any distro, so future puppies will continue this diversity, including the official releases.
Thank you Barry, I am quite happy to hear it :D

Though I will admit having multiple official puppies can get kinda confusing , even for me :?, but I do think there is value in having such. TahrPup sounds like what could be a good Puppy going ahead, though I do need to try it out first to make that kind of judgement.

Cheers Barry, and I am glad you still have an active role with this distro.

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vicmz
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#15 Post by vicmz »

BarryK wrote:Hi,
There *is* a "mainline" Puppy!

Puppies built from woof-CE are following the "mainline".

woof-CE is the community-maintained woof, forked after I retired from Puppy development.

woof-CE github:
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE

woof-CE mail-list:
http://woof-ce.26403.n7.nabble.com/

Discussing woof-CE in this Puppy Forum:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90202

The latest "official" Puppy, built from woof-CE, is Tahrpup 6.0, which was released recently, and is announced on distrowatch.

My blog announcement for Tahrpup:
http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00097

before Tahrpup 6.0, there was also the "official" Puppy, Slacko 5,7, created by 01micko, also built with woof-CE (in fact, the first official release to do so):
http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00073

I understand the confusion. It really is not at all obvious these days that there is still a "mainline" pup forging ahead.

Tahrpup is built from Debian DEBs, Slacko from Slackware pkgs. It is in the nature of Puppy to be able to build from the packages of any distro, so future puppies will continue this diversity, including the official releases.
That's actually what I thought. Thanks for clarifying.

As a simple note, 666philb's Tahrpup is from Ubuntu DEBs. Pemasu's Dpup Wheezy is from Debian DEBs.
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#16 Post by NeroVance »

Now that I think about it, Puppy 3x was supposed to be about Slackware Compatibility and 4x was due to being build using T2 for sources (at least that's from what I remember.)

Was Puppy 5x supposed to be basically Puppy using Woof?

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#17 Post by musher0 »

Hello NeroVance and everyone.

Correct me if I'm wrong and forgive me if this sounds disrespectful, but I
always had the impression that BK was using the Puppy 5 series as a "lab
mouse" while refining his woof process.

Just my 2¢. BFN.

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Re: Going forward with Standard Puppy

#18 Post by Moose On The Loose »

NeroVance wrote: I'll leave a poll up for people to vote on their preferred branch and puplet, just that way we can see the usage of different ones if we do wish to go forward.
Since lucid-528 does basically what is needed for a 32 bit machine I think an effort to make a better 32 bit system should spring from there.

A 64 bit system is quite a different matter and I think something from Fatdog would be a good way to progress in 64 bit.

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NeroVance
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#19 Post by NeroVance »

musher0 wrote:Hello NeroVance and everyone.

Correct me if I'm wrong and forgive me if this sounds disrespectful, but I
always had the impression that BK was using the Puppy 5 series as a "lab
mouse" while refining his woof process.

Just my 2¢. BFN.

musher0
That's okay, and that kinda makes sense, it could be a mix of both perhaps mate.

Bindee

#20 Post by Bindee »

Apart from the remaster and a cross script to make PET files compatible what do these projects have to do with puppy apart from the name?

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