Quirky7-light 32&64 bit - April 2020

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jrb
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Quirky7-light 32&64 bit - April 2020

#1 Post by jrb »

Final (Sort of) Releases:
april-7.0.1F-uefi.iso
Size: 117 Mb
md5sum: 6cae0db87dfcbb107a4ab4c033fe9454

april64-7.0.1F-uefi.iso
Size: 121 Mb
md5sum b25d72366d31bbc63ab812828053552f

Special Zoom Edition (2nd Attempt):
april64-zoomB-7.0.1-uefi.iso
Size: 194 Mb
md5sum ab2b63e8779ec1fca5f85b806456e735
See here

In my continuing quest for small, efficient OS's suitable for use on older ram challenged machines, I have reworked the two Quirky Aprils from BarryK, the master of efficient, unbloated compiling. They are the direct descendants of Puppy Wary5 and Racy5 and share much of the same characteristics. Both of these include mesa graphics accelerations so should meet your video needs. (unless you have nvidia?)

My adaptations use the initrd.gz, huge-kernel, pupsave and other features of WoofCE. With these they can be frugally installed, will save to a folder on a linux filesystem drive or onto the boot CD/DVD. You can switch kernels with "Change Kernels" on the Setup Menu.

I have included my PortaBrowseInstaller with your choice of FireFox, Palemoon or Vivaldi. Just click the Browse icon on the Desktop or go to Menu->Internet. You may choose to make one of them your DefaultBrowser at the end of installing. You can also use Menu->Setup->DefaultApplicationsChooser at any time. So far they have run every browser I have tried (except for Slimjet :x, FIXED :D ). Run as Spot is included as well.

Cups printing, Xsane or Peasyscan scanning, Libreoffice, Abiword, Gnumeric, etc. can be installed with PuppyPackageManager. Just be careful, Quirky-April has redundant packages, look at the dependencies listed and make sure there are no duplicates. Softmaker Freeoffice runs quite well. ted-2.23-i386.deb & ted-2.23-amd64.deb are very lightweight wordprocessor alternatives.

I'm looking for feedback so please give them a try. :D Thanks to everybody whose helped so far, most especially to watchdog who has spotted several problems :oops: and provided the solutions as well.

Cheers, J
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jrb
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Notes and Comments

#2 Post by jrb »

Notes and Comments (hopefully kept in alphabetic order)

Compatibility - Quirky7 seems to be very compatible which PuppyTahr and also PuppyPrecise. If you look in /root/.packages/added-packages you will see that I used packages from both to get up and running.

Cups Printing - I have posted standard Cups-1.7.5 packages for both 32bit and 64bit. I will leave the directions below in case you want to do a custom install.

many of you will want to be able to print of course, here are a few observations:
1) If you go to PuppyPackageManager, "Install" on the desktop or Menu->Setup->PuppyPackageManager, and type "cups" in the "find" window you will get a number of choices. Cups-1.7.5 will only offer to install the basic cups package. Choose cups-filters-1.0.58 and it will offer to install cups and its dependencies but due to the nature of the Quirky7 repos it will list multiple copies of those dependencies. Go through and edit out the duplicates and the ones you don't need. Best to stick with the ".pet" files and in the case of 64bit make sure they have "64" in the name.

2) Gutenprint is not one of the listed dependencies. You can search for it separately. It contains the PPD's for many printers. You will need a PPD to install your printer but they and much more are availble at openprinting.org.

3) rcrsn51 has posted improved versions of ghostscript:
32bit is ghostscript-9.05-s14.pet
64bit is ghostscript-9.05-x86_64.pet

4) If you have a newer wifi printer it may only require the basic cups package. They have an embedded linux system inside which supplies the rest.

5) watchdog has got his printer up and working. I'm a little worried the older cups-1.3.11 may conflict with newer apps but we'll let him test for that. :wink:

FreeOffice - I can’t emphasize how much I like this office suite. Easy to use and it works flawlessly. I will explain how to install it as a portable on one of your drives and use it with all your Puppies. (You might have to install both 32bit and 64bit versions if you have both of those kinds of Puppies.)

1) Go to https://www.freeoffice.com/en/download/applications and download the .deb package. You will have to give them an email address. They will send your registration number to unlock the App (and also occasional notifications and ads for fonts, new programs, etc.). You don’t have to use your primary email account.

2) Extract (Uextract) the .deb package, doesn’t matter where. Go into it and get /freeoffice2018 from /usr/share/. Move /freeoffice2018 to the location you prefer to operate from. Go inside and click Textmaker. You will be asked to choose a UI and then to enter your registration key. Once you do you’re up and running.

3) FreeOffice2018 creates two identical configuration files, /etc/SoftMaker and /root/SoftMaker. What I do is after the initial setup I close the App and then copy one of them into the /freeoffice2018 folder. Then I have a launch script inside /freeoffice2018:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

OF="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")"; pwd)"

ln -s $OF/SoftMaker_lnk /etc/SoftMaker 2> /dev/null
ln -s $OF/SoftMaker_lnk /root/SoftMaker 2> /dev/null

yad --center --window-icon=./icons/prl_48.png --title="Efficient Apps" --form --width=450 --text="QUICK APPS INSTALLER
--------------------------------------------------
Please choose your desired App:" \
--image="./icons/prl_48.png" \
--field="TextMaker":fbtn "./textmaker" \
--field="Planmaker":fbtn "./planmaker" \
--field="Presentations":fbtn "./presentations" \
--no-buttons --close-on-unfocus
This way I can launch my choice of the three Apps without having to install the Office suite in each of my Puppies. If anyone’s interested I will upload and post the Launch script.

4) If you want to work with files besides .docx and .tmdx, say .doc or .rtf, go to Tools->Options->Default_file_format and set it to your preferred format. That will put all available formats on the Save and Open menus. Bit of a nuisance, but that's life in the 21st century.
Last edited by jrb on Fri 24 Apr 2020, 12:33, edited 7 times in total.

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#3 Post by jrb »

Here are deltas (much smaller downloads) if you just want to upgrade the previous ISO with the accumulated fixes to date:
Place the previous ISO and the .delta in the same directory and click on the .delta
Here's a correction for the ZOOM edition
april64-zoom-7.0.1-uefi.iso___april64-zoomB-7.0.1-uefi.iso.delta md5sum 1bdde57dfc1b3b7c8129ebbec8a91f26

These are to go from the 5th ISO to the 6th:
april-7.0.1E-uefi.iso___april-7.0.1F-uefi.iso.delta md5sum 3885a5aff70309c265e4acc02ac09f49
april64-7.0.1E-uefi.iso___april64-7.0.1F-uefi.iso.delta md5sum 0011445daad1a42b65b67d790b3eba3b

These are to go from the 4th ISO to the 5th:
april-7.0.1D-uefi.iso___april-7.0.1E-uefi.iso.delta md5sum 7480cc948eb657235dfe0f7523d45075
april64-7.0.1D-uefi.iso___april64-7.0.1E-uefi.iso.delta md5sum 78850009bf4109ce1475c5ca9e5876ab

These are to go from the 3rd ISO to the 4th:
april-7.0.1C-uefi.iso___april-7.0.1D-uefi.iso.delta md5sum 527489aedf9a13130368f7d340d2563b
april64-7.0.1C-uefi.iso___april64-7.0.1D-uefi.iso.delta md5sum 45d6ea1aa067196aa94f8583cf489141

These are to go from the 2nd ISO to the 3rd:
april-7.0.1B-uefi.iso___april-7.0.1C-uefi.iso.delta md5sum e577ec25051d005ba6eef28dea8bd8c6
april64-7.0.1B-uefi.iso___april64-7.0.1C-uefi.iso.delta md5sum e72bdfa4a0c106634d3bf504aabea00c

These are to go from the 1st ISO to the 2nd:
april-7.0.1-uefi.iso___april-7.0.1B-uefi.iso.delta md5sum 7006453832e58dfde86c223650753385
april64-7.0.1-uefi.iso___april64-7.0.1B-uefi.iso.delta md5sum 0e8ea0ffe1060746d24478b34d5fff8f
Last edited by jrb on Mon 04 May 2020, 23:42, edited 17 times in total.

watchdog
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#4 Post by watchdog »

I have tested in a live session of slacko 6.3.2 and 5.7.1 the following sfs of firefox 74.0 running in a chroot jail from qAlight_32. Profile is in /cnt/usr/local/firefox/profile where you can copy current profile already used. The sfs is gzip compressed and about 175 Mb. I do not know how it can perform on old hardware. It shows in Internet Menu as Firefoxchroot. To close the chroot jail open a console and type:

Code: Select all

closechroot

Use at your own risk with the obvious precautions.

ff-74.0-qAlight.sfs:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N0MtdZ ... sp=sharing

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bigpup
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#5 Post by bigpup »

Thanks for working on and offering these Puppy versions!!
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
YaPI(any iso installer)

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TiredPup
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#6 Post by TiredPup »

Thank you for this. I am testing it on an EEEPC 901A 1.6GHz single core with 2 gigs ram.

It is running smoothly. I installed this to the internal drive on SDA1 with a save folder.

The menu only listed 2 items, exit & help. I ran fixmenu in terminal and that created a menu. I am posting from Vivaldi-Portable now.
Hardinfo reports OpenGL; Unknown

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ally
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#7 Post by ally »


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nic007
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#8 Post by nic007 »

Just as a matter of interest: What would the size of your distribution be if Cups, Xsane, Abiword and Gnumeric were to be retained? Just wondering if the exclusion therof and consequent drop in functionality is worth it. I know that Abiword and Gnumeric are not particularly large, don't know about the other stuff?

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#9 Post by mikeslr »

Hi nic,

I think you can get bye with gnumeric without abiword; the smaller size ted is actually a better word-processor for most purposes.

Cups and Xsane are another story. See the discussion on the Tahr64-Light thread from here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 23#1047923. If your interest is with the 64-bit version of Quirky7-light, jrb's post here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 31#1047931, may provide an immediate solution.

sheldonisaac
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Re: Quirky7-light-RC 32&64 bit

#10 Post by sheldonisaac »

jrb (in part) wrote:In my continuing quest for small, efficient OS's suitable for use on older ram challenged machines, I have reworked the two Quirky Aprils from BarryK, the master of efficient, unbloated compiling.

I'm looking for feedback so please give them a try.
Thank you, jrb. I downloaded, and hope to try and respond soon.

Sheldon
Dell E6410: BusterPup, BionicPup64, Xenial, etc
Intel DQ35JOE, Dell Vostro 430
Dell Inspiron, Acer Aspire One, EeePC 1018P

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#11 Post by jrb »

watchdog wrote:I have tested in a live session of slacko 6.3.2 and 5.7.1 the following sfs of firefox 74.0 running in a chroot jail from qAlight_32. Profile is in /cnt/usr/local/firefox/profile where you can copy current profile already used. The sfs is gzip compressed and about 175 Mb. I do not know how it can perform on old hardware. It shows in Internet Menu as Firefoxchroot. To close the chroot jail open a console and type:

Code: Select all

closechroot

Use at your own risk with the obvious precautions.

ff-74.0-qAlight.sfs:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N0MtdZ ... sp=sharing
Thanks watchdog, I'll give that a try this evening.

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jrb
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#12 Post by jrb »

bigpup wrote:Thanks for working on and offering these Puppy versions!!
You're quite welcome. I hope you enjoy them.

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#13 Post by jrb »

TiredPup wrote:Thank you for this. I am testing it on an EEEPC 901A 1.6GHz single core with 2 gigs ram.

It is running smoothly. I installed this to the internal drive on SDA1 with a save folder.

The menu only listed 2 items, exit & help. I ran fixmenu in terminal and that created a menu. I am posting from Vivaldi-Portable now.
Hardinfo reports OpenGL; Unknown
Good job with fixmenus. On modern pups its built into the bootup scripts, don't remember where right off hand. If it remains a problem I'll place it in /root/.xinitrc which is what I used to do with 431, wary and racy.

Edit: /root/.xinitrc now runs fixmenus just before starting jwm in the 1st update
Last edited by jrb on Thu 26 Mar 2020, 18:28, edited 1 time in total.

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#14 Post by jrb »

Once again, thanks ally. Your services to Puppy are MUCH appreciated. :D

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#15 Post by jrb »

nic007 wrote:Just as a matter of interest: What would the size of your distribution be if Cups, Xsane, Abiword and Gnumeric were to be retained? Just wondering if the exclusion therof and consequent drop in functionality is worth it. I know that Abiword and Gnumeric are not particularly large, don't know about the other stuff?
Roughtly 180Mb compressed based on the sized of the original April plus the extras now included in Puppy ISO's. Of course that means more that 3 times that amount of Ram is needed to run it.

Do you remember Choicepup? That's still my build philosophy. I won't go into too much detail here about Apps, I left some space at the beginning for that. I will say that I consider Abiword as a hazard more than an asset. :wink:

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#16 Post by jrb »

mikeslr wrote:Hi nic,

I think you can get bye with gnumeric without abiword; the smaller size ted is actually a better word-processor for most purposes.

Cups and Xsane are another story. See the discussion on the Tahr64-Light thread from here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 23#1047923. If your interest is with the 64-bit version of Quirky7-light, jrb's post here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 31#1047931, may provide an immediate solution.
Thanks mikesir, the packages involved in A64 light's printing are exactly the same ones mentioned in that post. A32 uses 32bit versions of those, even rcrsn51's ghostscript-9.0.5 is available in 32bit. I'll do a short writeup on Cups in the 2nd post.

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Re: Quirky7-light-RC 32&64 bit

#17 Post by jrb »

sheldonisaac wrote:
jrb (in part) wrote:In my continuing quest for small, efficient OS's suitable for use on older ram challenged machines, I have reworked the two Quirky Aprils from BarryK, the master of efficient, unbloated compiling.

I'm looking for feedback so please give them a try.
Thank you, jrb. I downloaded, and hope to try and respond soon.

Sheldon
You're quite welcome Sheldon. I'm hoping this will work even better than Precise-light. (Where's the fingers crossed icon?)

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#18 Post by nic007 »

mikeslr wrote:Hi nic,

I think you can get bye with gnumeric without abiword; the smaller size ted is actually a better word-processor for most purposes.

Cups and Xsane are another story. See the discussion on the Tahr64-Light thread from here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 23#1047923. If your interest is with the 64-bit version of Quirky7-light, jrb's post here, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 31#1047931, may provide an immediate solution.
TED does not support .doc files as far as I know. I have to deal with lots of .doc files. Also - it's quite a big download for essentially a rtf word processor. I agree that Abiword is not the most stable application I have ever seen (has never been) but as far as size and functionality concerned, still the best smallish standalone option for linux systems in my opinion. I actually use Atlantis Word Processor which I have been using for years with Windows. Need WINE of course to run in Puppy.

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keyboard problem it map qA32light

#19 Post by watchdog »

/etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc/it is missing. Copied from precise light 5.7.2. Also copied from precise /lib/keymaps/it.gz. Now "setxkbmap it" works.

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#20 Post by mikeslr »

"TED does not support .doc files as far as I know. I have to deal with lots of .doc files." I think you're right.

As an alternative to Abiword + Gnumeric, perhaps try mavrothal's 'light' versions of OpenOffice, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 930#671930. You'll find them on Puppus Dogfellow's repo, https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... sp=sharing

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