Wishlist for future builds

[markwiering]

Hello there!

I own multiple older computers that all run both Windows XP (for gaming) and Puppy Linux (for programming and accessing the Internet). Although I think Puppy Linux is an outstanding Linux distribution (small, elegant, fast), I have noticed some points of improvement.

For example:
1. For some reason, downloading and installing a program seems to be 10 times faster than removing a program. I would be waiting a minute to install something, and waiting 10 minutes to remove it. I don't know why this is, but I would appreciate it if the removing process could be sped up.

2. After using Kali Linux on my new laptop for a few years, I have noticed how convenient it is to install a program with a single Bash command ("apt install filezilla"). I thought: "Why doesn't Puppy Linux have this awesome feature?". It would be awesome if installing programs in Puppy Linux could be that simple as well: enter a simple command (preferably with "apt", since I am used to using apt) and install a program!

3. In Tahrpup, configuring the keyboard layout (US international with dead keys + Russian) while switching them with the right Ctrl-key and thereby lighting up the Scroll-lock LED, is possible, but a hassle. Sometimes, I configure everything the way I want, but when I test it, it's still the same, so sometimes I need to configure everything three times in a row to finally get it to work the way I want.

This is tedious, but manageable.

In later builds of Puppy Linux, however, (XenialPup and BionicPup), I don't see a possibility to do this at all. I can activate US International with deady keys, but once I add "Russian", the "dead keys" - part of the "US international" disappears, meaning that I can switch between US International and Russian, but I cannot produce letters like é, š and ž. If I don't add "Russian", I can use "US international with dead keys", but then I cannot quickly switch to Russian when I need it.

Not only would I like this bug to be fixed, but I would also like the menu of choosing your keyboard layout to be much simpler. For example, the way it is in MX Linux, is perfect. Puppy Linux could copy that style of simply choosing the layout. I would also like this system to be reliable. Once I have chosen something, I want it to work immediately. I don't want to reconfigure it another three times because it didn't work the first time.

Also, give the option for specific keyboard layouts in the beginning. Make sure that I can select "US International with dead keys" in the welcome screen. As it is now, I can only select "US international" in the welcome screen, after which I manually have to go to the advanced settings to be able to choose "US international with dead keys".

Make this process simpler, please.

4. Implement an option to "Restore default options". I have had multiple times in Puppy Linux that I accidentally changed something (like the font of the terminal). Then I thought: "Not good! Undo the changes!", but when I click on the font that the terminal window had before, it's still not the same as it was in the beginning, resulting in me, out of desperation, to make a whole new Puppy Linux saving file, just to have this single setting restored.

That is why I think it would be convenient to have an option to restore all defaults. In this case, if I do something stupid, I can just restore all defaults, meaning that all options (time, fonts, themes etcetera) change back the way they were, so that I don't have to create a whole new save file to revert one simple setting.

5. The process of copying and pasting text in the command line is pretty easy in Kali Linux, but it's a drag in Puppy Linux. I would appreciate it if you could implement the shortcuts "Ctrl + Shift + C" for copying texts in the command line and "Ctrl + Shift + V" to paste them.

6. HTOP and HardInfo don't agree with each other on RAM usage.
HTOP shows that only 66 MB of the 2011 MB RAM is used (which makes Puppy Linux more lightweight than Windows XP, which uses 107 MB), but HardInfo shows that only 1142220 KB of the 2059548 KB is free, meaning that far more RAM is being used than just 66 MB RAM. 66 MB of 2011 MB RAM is 3.3% of my RAM, while (2059548 - 1142220 = ) 917328 KB of 2059548 KB RAM is 44.5% of my RAM.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Which one of these programs do I trust? And why do they disagree with each other?

I don't know which program lies and which one tells the truth, but I know that at least one of them lies, so I would like to have this bug fixed as well. Either fix HTOP, or fix HardInfo (or both).

7. Make the RAM usage consistent.
Suppose that HTOP shows that only 66 MB RAM is used. Then I open a program. RAM usage jumps to 74 MB. After closing that program, the RAM usage drops to 70 MB, but not to 66 MB RAM, like it was before. Then I open and close GIMP (just to test) and then the RAM usage becomes 75 MB. :-/

I don't why why this happens and what causes this, but this behaviour is illogical to me. If I open a program that uses, let's say 50 MB of RAM, then why aren't all those 50 MB of RAM freed once I close that program? Why is only 45 MB freed? What happened to those 5 MBs? How can I get them back without rebooting the whole computer?

I would want this to be fixed in later builds: prevent the leak of RAM.

Windows XP doesn't have this sticky RAM problem. When I open and close a program, the RAM usage is back to its initial level (107 MB).

8. Don't make Puppy Linux resource-hungry.
I notice that with each and every version of Puppy Linux, my computer (running Puppy Linux) becomes a little bit slower. Puppy Linux Precise reacted faster than Puppy Linux Tahrpup. XenialPup became slower, and BionicPup became even slower still. I also notice the system requirements growing. First, an Intel Pentium II with 256 MB was advised to run Puppy Linux; then it became an Intel Pentium III with 512 MB of RAM, and now an Intel Pentium IV with 1 GB of RAM is advised.

I wonder: why is this happening? Why are you making Puppy Linux heavier?

One of the greatest features of Puppy Linux, is its light-weightiness and ability to run on older computer. Gradually, however, newer versions of Puppy Linux seem to require more RAM and faster processors. If this goes on, Puppy Linux will become unable to run on computers that it could easily handle in the past. There might even be a time that the newest version of Puppy Linux won't be able to run on my Intel Pentium IV 2.8 Ghz with 2 GB RAM any more, which would REALLY be a shame.

My request is: keep Puppy Linux as light as possible. Don't increase the system requirements any more than you already have. Make sure that in 10 years, my old computer can still run the latest version of Puppy Linux!

[s243a]

Hello there!

I own multiple older computers that all run both Windows XP (for gaming) and Puppy Linux (for programming and accessing the Internet). Although I think Puppy Linux is an outstanding Linux distribution (small, elegant, fast), I have noticed some points of improvement.

For example:
1. For some reason, downloading and installing a program seems to be 10 times faster than removing a program. I would be waiting a minute to install something, and waiting 10 minutes to remove it. I don't know why this is, but I would appreciate it if the removing process could be sped up.

You might like the doglinux series (e.g. strechdog). It uses dpkg which I think is better at removing packages than puppies package manager.

2. After using Kali Linux on my new laptop for a few years, I have noticed how convenient it is to install a program with a single Bash command ("apt install filezilla"). I thought: "Why doesn't Puppy Linux have this awesome feature?". It would be awesome if installing programs in Puppy Linux could be that simple as well: enter a simple command (preferably with "apt", since I am used to using apt) and install a program!

If you install scotmann's package manager (i.e. pkg), then you can simulate apt commands. Alternative you can use a version of doglinux which uses apt as the package manager. Regarding standard puppies, I believe that the plan is to incorporate Scotmann's pkg and I think that one of the recent dpup buster versions comes with pkg pre-installed.

...

4. Implement an option to "Restore default options". I have had multiple times in Puppy Linux that I accidentally changed something (like the font of the terminal). Then I thought: "Not good! Undo the changes!", but when I click on the font that the terminal window had before, it's still not the same as it was in the beginning, resulting in me, out of desperation, to make a whole new Puppy Linux saving file, just to have this single setting restored.

That is why I think it would be convenient to have an option to restore all defaults. In this case, if I do something stupid, I can just restore all defaults, meaning that all options (time, fonts, themes etcetera) change back the way they were, so that I don't have to create a whole new save file to revert one simple setting.

You might be able to do this with the remastering script. The standard remaster script keeps the default settings in /etc and /var. BTW, other options you have is to run puppy in ram and only save once you've tested a change or you can use fatdog64's multi-save usb option. With this multi-save option you can simply delete your last changes. Anyway, I think your idea is good here and maybe it will be implemented.

5. The process of copying and pasting text in the command line is pretty easy in Kali Linux, but it's a drag in Puppy Linux. I would appreciate it if you could implement the shortcuts "Ctrl + Shift + C" for copying texts in the command line and "Ctrl + Shift + V" to paste them.

This is normally how puppy works, or for even easier copy and paste you can try lxterminal or roxterminal.

....

8. Don't make Puppy Linux resource-hungry.
I notice that with each and every version of Puppy Linux, my computer (running Puppy Linux) becomes a little bit slower. Puppy Linux Precise reacted faster than Puppy Linux Tahrpup. XenialPup became slower, and BionicPup became even slower still. I also notice the system requirements growing. First, an Intel Pentium II with 256 MB was advised to run Puppy Linux; then it became an Intel Pentium III with 512 MB of RAM, and now an Intel Pentium IV with 1 GB of RAM is advised.

I wonder: why is this happening? Why are you making Puppy Linux heavier?

One of the greatest features of Puppy Linux, is its light-weightiness and ability to run on older computer. Gradually, however, newer versions of Puppy Linux seem to require more RAM and faster processors. If this goes on, Puppy Linux will become unable to run on computers that it could easily handle in the past. There might even be a time that the newest version of Puppy Linux won't be able to run on my Intel Pentium IV 2.8 Ghz with 2 GB RAM any more, which would REALLY be a shame.

My request is: keep Puppy Linux as light as possible. Don't increase the system requirements any more than you already have. Make sure that in 10 years, my old computer can still run the latest version of Puppy Linux!

For newer puppies "dpup stretch" and TazPup are both pretty light weight. It is a challenge to both modernize puppy and keep the resource usage down. There are people which make this a priority for newer versions of puppy and there are other people that try to solve the problem by revitalizing older versions of puppy. We all don't have the same goals here but we can make suggestions based your hardware about which versions of puppy to try.

[bigpup]

For memory readings.
Pup-Sysinfo>Devices>Memory

It gives a much better breakdown on what memory is doing.

I have never seen two info programs give the same memory info.

[nic007]

As for worries about messing up your savefile you can try this method:
1) Edit your menu.lst configuration file by changing the pmedia line to pmedia=ataflash and save your changes.
2) Reboot. You should now see a save icon on the desktop.
3) Click on Menu > System > Puppy Event Manager and click the Save Session tab. You can now choose at which time intervals Puppy should automatically save your session. If you choose zero "0" Puppy will never automatically save changes during a session (recommended). Whatever you decide here, you can at any time manually save the session by clicking the save icon on the desktop. Note that whatever interval you choose, Puppy will still by default save the session at a proper reboot or shutdown. However, you can bypass this behaviour by commenting out all instances of snapmergepuppy in the /etc/rc.d/rc.shutdown file like this:
#/usr/sbin/snapmergepuppy /initrd/pup_ro1 /initrd/pup_rw#

[markwiering]

@s243a
I never knew about the Doglinux series. Interesting. I will sure try it out!

I also never knew about Scotmann's package manager. I will try that as well!

@bigpup
I am OK with small disagreements on RAM usage, like 399 MB vs 402 MB RAM, but to have one program saying that 66 MB of RAM is used, while the other one states that it's 917 MB of RAM, that means that something is wrong. The margin between 66 MB and 917 MB is WAY too large to ignore. It's pretty obvious that one of both programs is providing me with false information, and I would like to know which one.

I would also like to have the lying program patched, so that it doesn't provide me with false information.

@nic007
Thank you for the suggestion.

I consider this to be a provisional approach, since it's not really convenient to do it this way. It has the downside of me changing some settings in Puppy Linux, after which a power failure occurs, resulting in all changes to be lost. The steps to accomplish this are also pretty geeky. I would never have figured this out by myself, since I always try to get things done via Puppy Linux's menus instead of jumping to seemingly random system configuration files to modify them.

Although I will follow your instructions, I still hope that the "Restore all defaults" option will be implemented.

[wiak]

The margin between 66 MB and 917 MB is WAY too large to ignore.

It is not really lying. You system is using 66MB. But that means a lot of the RAM isn't being used at all, which is a real waste, so Linux 'borrows' it from you for cache and buffers use (which it happily frees up should your applications themselves actually need more RAM later). So the 917MB includes the system borrowing free memory for use as temporary cache/buffers, that was otherwise just be sitting around doing nothing, but you get these hundreds of MB back as soon as needed, so no actual loss. 66MB, on the other hand is used, so you can't get it for other stuff unless you close whatever programs are using it.

wiak

[bigpup]

It is all about what the program is designed to provide for info and how it does it.
Also, is the program looking at bits or bytes and how it is rounding off the numbers for display.
If you do not like how it provides the info.
Use another program.
Again, that is why Pup-Sysinfo was developed.
This is how it shows memory use.

I had several very large programs loaded, so the memory used is high, but still about 1GB actually not free.

this is really all the info you need.

Actual Used RAM: 1090 MB Used - (buffers + cached)
Actual Free RAM: 14878 MB Free + (buffers + cached)

▶—— COMPUTER MEMORY ——◀

Personal Storage Folder:
Name: /bionicpup6480uefi/bionicpup64save-2
Total Size: 97G
Free Space: 77G
Location: partition sdc6

Memory Allocation:
Total RAM: 15968 MB
Used RAM: 2509 MB
Free RAM: 13459 MB
Buffers: 82 MB
Cached: 1337 MB
Total Swap: 0 MB
Free Swap: 0 MB

Actual Used RAM: 1090 MB Used - (buffers + cached)
Actual Free RAM: 14878 MB Free + (buffers + cached)

Memory Stats (/proc/meminfo):
MemTotal: 16351652 kB
MemFree: 13780376 kB
MemAvailable: 14276952 kB
Buffers: 84352 kB
Cached: 1370016 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 1140332 kB
Inactive: 1195732 kB
Active(anon): 968284 kB
Inactive(anon): 450128 kB
Active(file): 172048 kB
Inactive(file): 745604 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 112 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 613540 kB
Mapped: 358976 kB
Shmem: 536684 kB
Slab: 102968 kB
SReclaimable: 42628 kB
SUnreclaim: 60340 kB
KernelStack: 5168 kB
PageTables: 11936 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 8175824 kB
Committed_AS: 2188000 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed: 0 kB
VmallocChunk: 0 kB
Percpu: 1008 kB
AnonHugePages: 75776 kB
ShmemHugePages: 0 kB
ShmemPmdMapped: 0 kB
DirectMap4k: 145896 kB
DirectMap2M: 3971072 kB
DirectMap1G: 12582912 kB

▶—— PHYSICAL MEMORY ——◀

Installed Memory: 16 GB
Maximum Memory: 32 GB
Number Of Slots: 2

Memory Module 1
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 8192 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Locator: DIMM_A1
Type: DDR4
Type Detail: Synchronous
Speed: 2133 MT/s
Manufacturer: 0118
Serial Number: 00000000
Asset Tag: 9876543210
Part Number: 8GBF2X04JEEE36-12-K
Configured Clock Speed: 2133 MT/s

Memory Module 2
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 8192 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Locator: DIMM_B1
Type: DDR4
Type Detail: Synchronous
Speed: 2133 MT/s
Manufacturer: 0118
Serial Number: 00000000
Asset Tag: 9876543210
Part Number: 8GBF2X04JEEE36-12-K
Configured Clock Speed: 2133 MT/s

Internal Cache
Configuration: Enabled, Not Socketed, Level 1
Installed Size: 128 kB

External Cache
Configuration: Enabled, Not Socketed, Level 1
Installed Size: 128 kB

Cache Information
Configuration: Enabled, Not Socketed, Level 2
Installed Size: 1024 kB

Cache Information
Configuration: Enabled, Not Socketed, Level 3
Installed Size: 6144 kB

[nic007]

@s243a
I never knew about the Doglinux series. Interesting. I will sure try it out!

I also never knew about Scotmann's package manager. I will try that as well!

@bigpup
I am OK with small disagreements on RAM usage, like 399 MB vs 402 MB RAM, but to have one program saying that 66 MB of RAM is used, while the other one states that it's 917 MB of RAM, that means that something is wrong. The margin between 66 MB and 917 MB is WAY too large to ignore. It's pretty obvious that one of both programs is providing me with false information, and I would like to know which one.

I would also like to have the lying program patched, so that it doesn't provide me with false information.

@nic007
Thank you for the suggestion.

I consider this to be a provisional approach, since it's not really convenient to do it this way. It has the downside of me changing some settings in Puppy Linux, after which a power failure occurs, resulting in all changes to be lost. The steps to accomplish this are also pretty geeky. I would never have figured this out by myself, since I always try to get things done via Puppy Linux's menus instead of jumping to seemingly random system configuration files to modify them.

Although I will follow your instructions, I still hope that the "Restore all defaults" option will be implemented.

You do this only once and manually save this change to the savefile as suggested. Now, if you have indicated the "0" interval, your savefile will not be written to unless you do so manually. So there are really almost no chances of savefile corruption if you only make saves manually and only when you know everything is in place and you haven't messed up during a session. ALSO as a matter of interest: when you change pmedia to pmedia=ataflash, your savefile will be mounted at /initrd/pup_ro1 at bootup and any changes during the session will be recorded in /initrd/pup_rw. So technically speaking you will be able to retrieve the contents of your original savefile as it was at the beginning of your session from /initrd/pup_ro1. Another obvious thing to mention, is that you should of course backup your savefile.

An alternative is to not use a savefile at all but save your changes to an adrv like I do...

[markwiering]

Hello there!

I own multiple older computers that all run both Windows XP (for gaming) and Puppy Linux (for programming and accessing the Internet). Although I think Puppy Linux is an outstanding Linux distribution (small, elegant, fast), I have noticed some points of improvement.

For example:
1. For some reason, downloading and installing a program seems to be 10 times faster than removing a program. I would be waiting a minute to install something, and waiting 10 minutes to remove it. I don't know why this is, but I would appreciate it if the removing process could be sped up.

You might like the doglinux series (e.g. strechdog). It uses dpkg which I think is better at removing packages than puppies package manager.

2. After using Kali Linux on my new laptop for a few years, I have noticed how convenient it is to install a program with a single Bash command ("apt install filezilla"). I thought: "Why doesn't Puppy Linux have this awesome feature?". It would be awesome if installing programs in Puppy Linux could be that simple as well: enter a simple command (preferably with "apt", since I am used to using apt) and install a program!

If you install scotmann's package manager (i.e. pkg), then you can simulate apt commands. Alternative you can use a version of doglinux which uses apt as the package manager. Regarding standard puppies, I believe that the plan is to incorporate Scotmann's pkg and I think that one of the recent dpup buster versions comes with pkg pre-installed.

...

4. Implement an option to "Restore default options". I have had multiple times in Puppy Linux that I accidentally changed something (like the font of the terminal). Then I thought: "Not good! Undo the changes!", but when I click on the font that the terminal window had before, it's still not the same as it was in the beginning, resulting in me, out of desperation, to make a whole new Puppy Linux saving file, just to have this single setting restored.

That is why I think it would be convenient to have an option to restore all defaults. In this case, if I do something stupid, I can just restore all defaults, meaning that all options (time, fonts, themes etcetera) change back the way they were, so that I don't have to create a whole new save file to revert one simple setting.

You might be able to do this with the remastering script. The standard remaster script keeps the default settings in /etc and /var. BTW, other options you have is to run puppy in ram and only save once you've tested a change or you can use fatdog64's multi-save usb option. With this multi-save option you can simply delete your last changes. Anyway, I think your idea is good here and maybe it will be implemented.

5. The process of copying and pasting text in the command line is pretty easy in Kali Linux, but it's a drag in Puppy Linux. I would appreciate it if you could implement the shortcuts "Ctrl + Shift + C" for copying texts in the command line and "Ctrl + Shift + V" to paste them.

This is normally how puppy works, or for even easier copy and paste you can try lxterminal or roxterminal.

....

8. Don't make Puppy Linux resource-hungry.
I notice that with each and every version of Puppy Linux, my computer (running Puppy Linux) becomes a little bit slower. Puppy Linux Precise reacted faster than Puppy Linux Tahrpup. XenialPup became slower, and BionicPup became even slower still. I also notice the system requirements growing. First, an Intel Pentium II with 256 MB was advised to run Puppy Linux; then it became an Intel Pentium III with 512 MB of RAM, and now an Intel Pentium IV with 1 GB of RAM is advised.

I wonder: why is this happening? Why are you making Puppy Linux heavier?

One of the greatest features of Puppy Linux, is its light-weightiness and ability to run on older computer. Gradually, however, newer versions of Puppy Linux seem to require more RAM and faster processors. If this goes on, Puppy Linux will become unable to run on computers that it could easily handle in the past. There might even be a time that the newest version of Puppy Linux won't be able to run on my Intel Pentium IV 2.8 Ghz with 2 GB RAM any more, which would REALLY be a shame.

My request is: keep Puppy Linux as light as possible. Don't increase the system requirements any more than you already have. Make sure that in 10 years, my old computer can still run the latest version of Puppy Linux!

For newer puppies "dpup stretch" and TazPup are both pretty light weight. It is a challenge to both modernize puppy and keep the resource usage down. There are people which make this a priority for newer versions of puppy and there are other people that try to solve the problem by revitalizing older versions of puppy. We all don't have the same goals here but we can make suggestions based your hardware about which versions of puppy to try.

I have tried DogLinux "Stretch". It looked promising at first glance, but I couldn't configure the keyboard layout "United States International with dead keys", and I also couldn't configure a secondary keyboard layout.

I have also tried MX Linux, but MX Linux runs slower than Puppy Linux. It's less responsive, in the sense that opening a window has a delay of half a second, while Puppy Linux doesn't have that delay. MX Linux also uses the heavyweight browser Mozilla Firefox, which eats all my RAM and results in computer becoming extremely slow due to the swapping process, after which I have to reboot to be able to use my computer again.

If not using Mozilla Firefox, MX Linux is actually usable. I can install software through "sudo apt install [name]" and I can program in C++17, while in Puppy Linux, I have to program C++98, which lacks some really nice features that C++17 offers.

Also, Puppy Linux first came with Windows installers, which is the way I installed Puppy Linux on all computers. Now, the Windows installers are gone. Why? What has happened to the Windows installers of Puppy Linux?

I considered this to be an extremely handy feature. Why have the Windows installers of Puppy Linux been removed? :-/

[s243a]

Hello there!

I own multiple older computers that all run both Windows XP (for gaming) and Puppy Linux (for programming and accessing the Internet). Although I think Puppy Linux is an outstanding Linux distribution (small, elegant, fast), I have noticed some points of improvement.

For example:
1. For some reason, downloading and installing a program seems to be 10 times faster than removing a program. I would be waiting a minute to install something, and waiting 10 minutes to remove it. I don't know why this is, but I would appreciate it if the removing process could be sped up.

You might like the doglinux series (e.g. strechdog). It uses dpkg which I think is better at removing packages than puppies package manager.

2. After using Kali Linux on my new laptop for a few years, I have noticed how convenient it is to install a program with a single Bash command ("apt install filezilla"). I thought: "Why doesn't Puppy Linux have this awesome feature?". It would be awesome if installing programs in Puppy Linux could be that simple as well: enter a simple command (preferably with "apt", since I am used to using apt) and install a program!

If you install scotmann's package manager (i.e. pkg), then you can simulate apt commands. Alternative you can use a version of doglinux which uses apt as the package manager. Regarding standard puppies, I believe that the plan is to incorporate Scotmann's pkg and I think that one of the recent dpup buster versions comes with pkg pre-installed.

...

4. Implement an option to "Restore default options". I have had multiple times in Puppy Linux that I accidentally changed something (like the font of the terminal). Then I thought: "Not good! Undo the changes!", but when I click on the font that the terminal window had before, it's still not the same as it was in the beginning, resulting in me, out of desperation, to make a whole new Puppy Linux saving file, just to have this single setting restored.

That is why I think it would be convenient to have an option to restore all defaults. In this case, if I do something stupid, I can just restore all defaults, meaning that all options (time, fonts, themes etcetera) change back the way they were, so that I don't have to create a whole new save file to revert one simple setting.

You might be able to do this with the remastering script. The standard remaster script keeps the default settings in /etc and /var. BTW, other options you have is to run puppy in ram and only save once you've tested a change or you can use fatdog64's multi-save usb option. With this multi-save option you can simply delete your last changes. Anyway, I think your idea is good here and maybe it will be implemented.

5. The process of copying and pasting text in the command line is pretty easy in Kali Linux, but it's a drag in Puppy Linux. I would appreciate it if you could implement the shortcuts "Ctrl + Shift + C" for copying texts in the command line and "Ctrl + Shift + V" to paste them.

This is normally how puppy works, or for even easier copy and paste you can try lxterminal or roxterminal.

....

8. Don't make Puppy Linux resource-hungry.
I notice that with each and every version of Puppy Linux, my computer (running Puppy Linux) becomes a little bit slower. Puppy Linux Precise reacted faster than Puppy Linux Tahrpup. XenialPup became slower, and BionicPup became even slower still. I also notice the system requirements growing. First, an Intel Pentium II with 256 MB was advised to run Puppy Linux; then it became an Intel Pentium III with 512 MB of RAM, and now an Intel Pentium IV with 1 GB of RAM is advised.

I wonder: why is this happening? Why are you making Puppy Linux heavier?

One of the greatest features of Puppy Linux, is its light-weightiness and ability to run on older computer. Gradually, however, newer versions of Puppy Linux seem to require more RAM and faster processors. If this goes on, Puppy Linux will become unable to run on computers that it could easily handle in the past. There might even be a time that the newest version of Puppy Linux won't be able to run on my Intel Pentium IV 2.8 Ghz with 2 GB RAM any more, which would REALLY be a shame.

My request is: keep Puppy Linux as light as possible. Don't increase the system requirements any more than you already have. Make sure that in 10 years, my old computer can still run the latest version of Puppy Linux!

For newer puppies "dpup stretch" and TazPup are both pretty light weight. It is a challenge to both modernize puppy and keep the resource usage down. There are people which make this a priority for newer versions of puppy and there are other people that try to solve the problem by revitalizing older versions of puppy. We all don't have the same goals here but we can make suggestions based your hardware about which versions of puppy to try.

I have tried DogLinux "Stretch". It looked promising at first glance, but I couldn't configure the keyboard layout "United States International with dead keys", and I also couldn't configure a secondary keyboard layout.

I have also tried MX Linux, but MX Linux runs slower than Puppy Linux. It's less responsive, in the sense that opening a window has a delay of half a second, while Puppy Linux doesn't have that delay. MX Linux also uses the heavyweight browser Mozilla Firefox, which eats all my RAM and results in computer becoming extremely slow due to the swapping process, after which I have to reboot to be able to use my computer again.

If not using Mozilla Firefox, MX Linux is actually usable. I can install software through "sudo apt install [name]" and I can program in C++17, while in Puppy Linux, I have to program C++98, which lacks some really nice features that C++17 offers.

AntiX is supposedly lighterweight than MX Linux due to a different desktop enviornment. However, it would be worth getting stretchdog working. I suggest posting your suport questions in the appropriate thread:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=111789

Also, Puppy Linux first came with Windows installers, which is the way I installed Puppy Linux on all computers. Now, the Windows installers are gone. Why? What has happened to the Windows installers of Puppy Linux?

I considered this to be an extremely handy feature. Why have the Windows installers of Puppy Linux been removed? :-/

If your looking for a windows installer for puppylinux it is available in the following thread:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=61404

P.S. I find firefox-esr pretty lightweight. Here is a link to a protable version:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 57#1033657

[Mike Walsh]

@ markwiering:-

Interesting set of comments. You strike me as someone who likes things to be precise and exact all the time. One wonders why , if that is the case, you bother with computers at all! No two computers ever give consistently repetitive information, no matter how much you configure them and/or 'titivate' them.....

I hate to mention this point, but I'm always distrustful of the motives of people who pick Kali Linux as a 'daily' driver. It is not for the 'average' user, nor was it ever intended to be used as a 'daily driver'. It's primary intention was always as a penetration testing tool, to be used by professionals who perform such a task for a living.

Witness the very negative response toward newbies who post on the major Linux Forums. As soon as Kali is mentioned, most lose interest straight away. Some even become openly hostile.

Remember, too, that Puppy Linux is not a 'mainstream' distro. It may have binary-compatibility with certain mainstream releases, but Puppy is, and always has been, very much a 'hobbyist' system, for people who enjoying diving into the guts of the thing and virtually re-building it to make it do exactly what they want it to do. And when, as is usually the case with Puppy, you're the sole user of the system, there is absolutely no point at all in having to request access to your own system by means of all that 'sudo' malarkey...

Although the Woof-CE team do try to make it as user-friendly as possible, it's generally accepted by all that we, the community, do not want Puppy to be re-written into a 'clone' of every other distro out there; it's probably fair to say that the majority of the regulars here on the Forum seem to actively enjoy the quirkiness occasionally displayed by our favourite canine..!!

----------------------------------------------

I, myself, came to Puppy from Ubuntu and, in all fairness, was glad to see the back of it. Too restrictive by far, and I grew to absolutely hate the 'sudo' this, 'sudo' that, not allowed to do this, mustn't do that, really shouldn't do x, y, and/or z ethos of the entire thing.....like you can't be trusted with your own hardware.! My 6 months with Ubuntu was, looking back on it, too much like hard work.....and not at all enjoyable. I'm not a true 'geek', TBH; I dislike the expectation that everything should be done through the terminal; yes, I know the terminal is a huge part of what makes Linux as powerful as it is, but it's like learning another language....and languages were never my strong point. I'll use it where necessary (it does have it's uses, it's true), but I'm never happier than when physically moving things around in the file-system, setting up sym-links, deleting, copying, moving, etc., etc. To my way of thinking, trying to do stuff with the terminal has a very remote, 'detached' feel to it, as though you're not really there in person.....I dunno, it's hard to explain.

This forum is a darned good place to get help with any aspect of Puppy that you care to think of. Suggestions for improvements are always welcome, of course, but please remember that the users of this forum are not those who actually implement the changes. The 'devs' tend to frequent their own world, and I know I'm not the only one who finds the Github contact procedure (for communicating issues) to be bloody awkward to use.....

---------------------------------------

With regard to your requirement for easily switching between keyboard layouts, you may find this to be of interest:-

Xkb Configuration Manager

It permits easy switching between multiple, pre-defined keyboard layouts by means of an icon in the 'sys-tray' area of the taskbar, which can be set to show either a text-flag or a country flag for indicating the layout in use. I use this regularly myself, since I have occasional need of characters in the French alphabet.

Bearing in mind that the whole idea of Puppy is that the distro should remain as small as possible, and that during my 5 years or so on this forum this has never been a commonly-requested feature, it probably explains why this has always remained an add-on 'option' as opposed to being a built-in feature.

Hope it's of some use, though.

-----------------------------------------

As far as Ctrl + Shift - C & Ctrl + Shift -V for copy and paste, you want the 'Windows standard' behaviour, don't you?.....because I expect it's what you're used to. Urgghh. It's one aspect of Windoze behaviour I never liked; personally, I think the highlight followed by middle-click is about the simplest possible method you can get. There's plenty of alternative terminals available, however; Sakura being one of my favourites, which has the ability to set-up these particular key-combinations IF that's what you want.

And as for Puppy getting heavier, well; that's termed 'progress', I'm afraid. It probably all started around the time the decision was made to start basing Puppy on mainstream distros. They all get heavier as time goes by.....I've yet to see one that gets 'lighter' as the years progress. And a good bit of that is down to requirements for running modern web browsers, since the modern internet is getting more awkward to use.....and successive generations of web-browsers have 'heavier' requirements for navigating it.

And we none of us want to be without a secure browser, do we??

That's quite enough of this drivel. I'm outta here.


Mike.

[s243a]

@ markwiering:-

Interesting set of comments. You strike me as someone who likes things to be precise and exact all the time. One wonders why , if that is the case, you bother with computers at all! No two computers ever give consistently repetitive information, no matter how much you configure them and/or 'titivate' them.....

I apologize if I detect a defensive vibe here but in my opinion it is unnecessary. The original poster liked dog-linux and was able to get it working. (See post), which is a puppy-like distro that is part of this community.

I hate to mention this point, but I'm always distrustful of the motives of people who pick Kali Linux as a 'daily' driver. It is not for the 'average' user, nor was it ever intended to be used as a 'daily driver'. It's primary intention was always as a penetration testing tool, to be used by professionals who perform such a task for a living

Your defences will do little to protect you here. If someone is up to know good then they can always create a new account and social engineer you. It's better that people are honest and upfront about their interests. Besides just because something is created for professionals, doesn't mean that it won't be something that hobbyists won't enjoy. A hobbyist with pen-testing skills could help improve puppies security. In fact fredx181 has just proposed such a challenge:

Testing would be appreciated, it should be a challenge to hack this Smile (pretending NOT to know the root password) to get into the system someway as (unprivileged) user.
Any suggestions to improve are very welcome!

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 16#1037516

Witness the very negative response toward newbies who post on the major Linux Forums. As soon as Kali is mentioned, most lose interest straight away. Some even become openly hostile.

Perhaps Linux would be more popular if Linux users had a better attitude towards newbies. Don't get me wrong the attitude is somewhat understandable since the distro's with the some of the most well knowing names (e.g. Kali and Ubuntu) attract hordes of users that don't even seem to know how to use google but since the original poster has used Kali for a few years he/she has probably gotten well beyond the learning how to use google stage.

Remember, too, that Puppy Linux is not a 'mainstream' distro. It may have binary-compatibility with certain mainstream releases, but Puppy is, and always has been, very much a 'hobbyist' system, for people who enjoying diving into the guts of the thing and virtually re-building it to make it do exactly what they want it to do. And when, as is usually the case with Puppy, you're the sole user of the system, there is absolutely no point at all in having to request access to your own system by means of all that 'sudo' malarkey...

Although the Woof-CE team do try to make it as user-friendly as possible, it's generally accepted by all that we, the community, do not want Puppy to be re-written into a 'clone' of every other distro out there; it's probably fair to say that the majority of the regulars here on the Forum seem to actively enjoy the quirkiness occasionally displayed by our favourite canine..!!

I agree with you here here but there is a lot of subjectivity in determining whether something is a clone or an original.

And as for Puppy getting heavier, well; that's termed 'progress', I'm afraid. It probably all started around the time the decision was made to start basing Puppy on mainstream distros. They all get heavier as time goes by.....I've yet to see one that gets 'lighter' as the years progress. And a good bit of that is down to requirements for running modern web browsers, since the modern internet is getting more awkward to use.....and successive generations of web-browsers have 'heavier' requirements for navigating it.

And we none of us want to be without a secure browser, do we??

That's quite enough of this drivel. I'm outta here.


Mike.

It feels like we are swimming against the current here but fortunately the puppy community has many strong swimmers and some efforts to make lighter puppy and puppy-like systems include:
1. weedog/firstrib
2. tazpup
3. efforts to revitalize older versions of puppy
4. and possibly even some recent woof-CE changes.

That all said; tying woof-CE to the major distros makes this job harder even if the woof-CE team might have made some progress in this area (for instance dpup stretch runs lighter than Xenialpup)

[sc0ttman]

Hello there!

Hiya..

2. After using Kali Linux on my new laptop for a few years, I have noticed how convenient it is to install a program with a single Bash command ("apt install filezilla"). I thought: "Why doesn't Puppy Linux have this awesome feature?". It would be awesome if installing programs in Puppy Linux could be that simple as well: enter a simple command (preferably with "apt", since I am used to using apt) and install a program!

Puppy has Pkg (http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=112927), whic his a command line package manager (like apt-get) ... Pkg even has a apt wrapper, so that you can use apt-get commands in Puppy (and Pkg will take the place of apt-get)...

5. The process of copying and pasting text in the command line is pretty easy in Kali Linux, but it's a drag in Puppy Linux. I would appreciate it if you could implement the shortcuts "Ctrl + Shift + C" for copying texts in the command line and "Ctrl + Shift + V" to paste them.

Maybe you could try to use LxTerm instead of rxvt? Search for it in the repos, or on this forum, it's a nice terminal, lightweight, fast, nice menus, easy copy/paste, etc.

6. HTOP and HardInfo don't agree with each other on RAM usage.
HTOP shows that only 66 MB of the 2011 MB RAM is used (which makes Puppy Linux more lightweight than Windows XP, which uses 107 MB), but HardInfo shows that only 1142220 KB of the 2059548 KB is free, meaning that far more RAM is being used than just 66 MB RAM. 66 MB of 2011 MB RAM is 3.3% of my RAM, while (2059548 - 1142220 = ) 917328 KB of 2059548 KB RAM is 44.5% of my RAM.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Which one of these programs do I trust? And why do they disagree with each other?

I don't know which program lies and which one tells the truth, but I know that at least one of them lies, so I would like to have this bug fixed as well. Either fix HTOP, or fix HardInfo (or both).

7. Make the RAM usage consistent.
Suppose that HTOP shows that only 66 MB RAM is used. Then I open a program. RAM usage jumps to 74 MB. After closing that program, the RAM usage drops to 70 MB, but not to 66 MB RAM, like it was before. Then I open and close GIMP (just to test) and then the RAM usage becomes 75 MB. :-/

I don't why why this happens and what causes this, but this behaviour is illogical to me. If I open a program that uses, let's say 50 MB of RAM, then why aren't all those 50 MB of RAM freed once I close that program? Why is only 45 MB freed? What happened to those 5 MBs? How can I get them back without rebooting the whole computer?

I would want this to be fixed in later builds: prevent the leak of RAM.

Linux in general handles RAM very differently than Windows, and Linux is very efficient in using RAM.

In linux the situation is complicated a bit, as you can setup a "swapdisk" which is a partition on the HD that is used like RAM (once RAM is full) .. It's something like the Pagefile in Windows, but much more flexible (uses can have one or not, choose its size, etc)

In Puppy the situation is complicated even further by the fact the whole operating system is unpacked into RAM, not only the programs it loads.. Htop is most likely correct.

8. Don't make Puppy Linux resource-hungry.
I notice that with each and every version of Puppy Linux, my computer (running Puppy Linux) becomes a little bit slower.

Puppy Linux Precise reacted faster than Puppy Linux Tahrpup. XenialPup became slower, and BionicPup became even slower still. I also notice the system requirements growing. First, an Intel Pentium II with 256 MB was advised to run Puppy Linux; then it became an Intel Pentium III with 512 MB of RAM, and now an Intel Pentium IV with 1 GB of RAM is advised.

I wonder: why is this happening? Why are you making Puppy Linux heavier?

Basically unavoidable - all the underlying libraries and even the kernel also keeps getting bigger and (sometimes) slower... The best we can do is mitigate against by not including more than we need, not updating programs unless there is a good reason to do so, and avoiding slow implementations of things...

One of the greatest features of Puppy Linux, is its light-weightiness and ability to run on older computer. Gradually, however, newer versions of Puppy Linux seem to require more RAM and faster processors. If this goes on, Puppy Linux will become unable to run on computers that it could easily handle in the past. There might even be a time that the newest version of Puppy Linux won't be able to run on my Intel Pentium IV 2.8 Ghz with 2 GB RAM any more, which would REALLY be a shame.

I once developed Akita Linux - a puppy derivative based on an older puppy, in which I back ported a bunch of updates and fixes from the latest ones into the older Puppy Linux... This is a great way of giving older hardware a nice, long term support version of Puppy..

I would think Puppy land should offer official releases, some of which would be LTS (long term support) versions - which would receive backports and updates from newer pups (where possible), to that the older LTS pup stays up to date for at least 3 or 4 years..

My request is: keep Puppy Linux as light as possible. Don't increase the system requirements any more than you already have. Make sure that in 10 years, my old computer can still run the latest version of Puppy Linux!

The underlying ubuntu/debian/slackware stuff that Puppy is built from will always gradually increase the system requirements upon previous versions.. is the nature of computing .. As I say above, in Puppy world, the best we can do is to maintain older versions and backport fixes and improvements into them...

[markwiering]

[WARNING: LONG POST]

@s243a
I have tried that a long long time ago.

AntiX is supposedly lighterweight than MX Linux due to a different desktop enviornment.

I have tried AntiX, and I don't like it. AntiX was not able to see my other partitions; it only saw the partition that is was installed on. I thought the problem was ROX filer, so then I installed nautilus through apt, but nautilus also couldn't mount my other partitions. It gave a vague error message that didn't explain me anything. It just said: "Unable to mount [drive name]"

AntiX was also very hard to configure. Even simple, basic things as connecting to the Internet, require a huge level of effort, since it had to be done through some terminal instead of Barry Kauler's simple network setup. The screen didn't show any signs, like the Internet connection strength, activated keyboard layout, clipper board manager or other useful information. It was empty except for the sound sign. The basic appearance overall is rather strange, since some buttons are absolutely tiny, while others take up a huge portion of the screen. The whole graphical user interface seems incomplete and totally out of balance. Combined with me being unable to configure it the way I want and me not being able to access all of my drives, using this Linux distribution leaves me totally unproductive.

However, it would be worth getting stretchdog working. I suggest posting your suport questions in the appropriate thread

My keyboard problem with StretchDog was fixed thanks to @williams2 in http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... &start=165 , but StretchDog refused to connect to the Internet in Live Mode. It simply didn't see my wireless network adapter. I had the exact same problem with MX Linux before: MX Linux in Live Mode not seeing my wireless network adapter. Installing MX Linux solved the problem. After installing MX Linux, MX Linux found my wireless network adapter.

I thought that, since DogLinux is also based on Debian (just like MX Linux), I could fix this problem by installing StretchDog, but StretchDog couldn't be installed on my hard drive the normal way. Instead, I could only do a frugal install, so I chose that option. Somehow, however, StretchDog screwed up by boot loader, because my computer couldn't load ANY operating system after this. I had to live boot into MX Linux to restore the boot loader after this.

So, in short: no Internet connection via StretchDog and no way of using StretchDog after the frugal install.

I think this is a shame. DogLinux looked like a promising project: a project that could combine the lightweightness of Puppy Linux with the powerful features of Debian (apt repository). Unfortunately, it didn't work for me.

@Mike Walsh

Interesting set of comments. You strike me as someone who likes things to be precise and exact all the time.

I wouldn't describe myself that way. I am not one of those people who tries to plan their whole life. Life depends on many factors that you don't have any control over. Planning your whole future is therefore not possible. Even if it was possible, it would be undesirable. Why would anyone want this? It's much more fun to be surprised by what life gives you!

One wonders why , if that is the case, you bother with computers at all! No two computers ever give consistently repetitive information, no matter how much you configure them and/or 'titivate' them.....

I like to play with old computers: replace some parts to make them faster, installing Windows XP and Puppy Linux on them and then use them for playing old computer games and programming. This is really fun! I have turned the slowest machines into monstrous gaming machines this way!

Like, a computer that booted several minutes because the BIOS wasted several minutes on booting from a device that wasn't connected, that ran like shit because Windows XP was bloated to scary levels and that was slow with gaming because of the bloat and the lack of a graphics card (only an integrated one).

Solution: reconfigure the boot order of the BIOS, reinstall Windows XP, defragment the hard drive, doubling the RAM, putting a new graphics card into the computer and installing the appropriate driver for it.

Result: this computer boots amazingly fast and runs games (Need for Speed Most Wanted, Spore Galactic Adventures) that it could never run before!

Your question as to why I bother with computers is simple: I like computers!

I hate to mention this point, but I'm always distrustful of the motives of people who pick Kali Linux as a 'daily' driver. It is not for the 'average' user, nor was it ever intended to be used as a 'daily driver'. It's primary intention was always as a penetration testing tool, to be used by professionals who perform such a task for a living.

If you want to know the story behind it, here it comes (brace yourself!)

When I finished pre-university education in high school, I went to the University of Amsterdam to study Computer Science. That university had a policy: "Bring your own device". You had to buy a laptop that met certain criteria: at least an Intel Core i5, 4 GB of RAM, at least 128 GB hard drive space, support for both 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz connections etcetera: https://www.uva.nl/en/shared-content/st ... 3842139946

Quite some heavy requirements, right? Buying some old, second-hand laptop for a penny was not an option. The laptop had to be state-of-the-art. The laptop also had to be able to run Ubuntu 64-bit. I bought a laptop matching these criteria, but it had Windows 10 pre-installed, so I made a dual-boot with Ubuntu.

During my study, I began to hate Ubuntu more and more. I couldn't configure anything. Even configuring two keyboard layouts that could be switched when using a shortcut didn't work, because once I configured it this way, the settings instantly jumped back to their defaults afterwards. When I asked whether Puppy Linux (my favourite OS) would suffice rather than Ubuntu, I was told that switching to another Linux distribution was unadvisable. "We only officially support Ubuntu. If you install something else on your laptop, we won't be able to help you any more once something goes wrong!"

I still tried booting Puppy Linux from USB flash, but the display was so strange that using it was practically impossible. Running XORG wizard didn't solve anything. It was clear to me that Puppy Linux wouldn't be an opton for that laptop.

During the year, however, my dislike for Ubuntu grew to the point of me taking the risk of installing another Linux distribution. I opted for Kali Linux when I read about Kali Linux being used for penetration testing. It quickly turned out that Kali Linux was quite comfortable to use. I didn't have the trouble of entering commands like "sudo su" when trying to get something done. The graphical user interface was beautiful and much more usable than the GUI of Ubuntu. Unlike Ubuntu, changes I made to the settings of Kali Linux actually persisted. Installing software was just as easy as it was with Ubuntu: "apt update" followed by "apt install [name]".

Shortly after this, I started automating tasks in Kali Linux. I wrote a script that enters a certain folder, checks whether certain files exists, opens them if they do and creates them if they don't. If they don't exist, the created files are filled with standard C++ code. I also made a script that entered a certain folder, searched for a .cpp file, compiled it and immediately after that executed it. This way, I could speed up programming to levels I never experienced before. When other students were clicking all the time, I simply entered: "prog program1", after which program1.cpp was created in the right folder, filled with standard C++ code and opened right before my eyes. I then modified a few lines (the rest of the lines were already there) and then I ran "run program1", after which program1 was compiled and executed. This... was really awesome!

When other students wasted time on clicking, saving, choosing the right folder and re-entering the same commands dozens of times etcetera, I had created and compiled a fully working C++ program in a matter of seconds.

I also took two courses in ethical hacking on Udemy from Zaid. I didn't even have to install Kali Linux in a virtual machine, like he did, because I ran Kali Linux as my host OS. I learned how powerful Kali Linux was: disconnecting other people from the Internet with a few Bash commands, acquiring the password of WEP routers, creating executable files that reverse-connected to me when executed, man in the middle attacks (packet sniffer) and other awesome things that impressed me.

This still required me to type 7-10 commands per operation, so I automated this in scripts and aliases, allowing me to disconnect other people from the Internet with two very simple scripts.

I felt really powerful using my computer after this. There were so many things that I could do with such little effort.

However, like you said, Kali Linux was not made for day-to-day use. "It's for professional use only! Never use this as your day-to-day OS!", people said on the Internet. And... I don't know. Maybe they were right, because I couldn't deny that Kali Linux came with many pre-installed programs that I never or rarely used. For the course on ethical hacking, I only used a few programs of Kali Linux: not all. So, I started searching for another distribution. I tried Manjaro Linux, Linux Mint and Debian, but none of them were appealing. All of them had the same "acces denied" and "need to be root" problem, while I was used from both Puppy Linux and Kali Linux of being root. Furthermore:
1. Manjaro Linux seemed great, but it didn't add anything to me. Everything I could do in Manjaro Linux, I could do in Kali Linux. I saw no reason to switch.
2. Linux Mint was too sugar-coated. I had the impression like I was treated as some kind of imbecile that shouldn't come anything nearer than 100 meter radius of a computer. Everything was so... parental. Like: "We have restricted access to [name it] for you for security concerns", "Are you sure that you want to apply this operation?", "You need to be root to be allowed to brush your teeth", "Do your parents know that you have accessed an erotic website today?" etcetera.
3. Debian couldn't be installed because, apparently, my computer required non-free drivers to access the Internet. The installation wizard gave me the option to connect to the Internet to install those non-free drivers, which would have been nice if it were some other driver, but not the very driver I needed to access the Internet...

The non-free version of Debian worked, but... GNOME had less features than I expected. Many awesome features, like getting an overview of all my windows after slamming my cursor to the left-upper corner, didn't work. I was confused because of this. Only later, it turned out that I had grown used to a GNOME extension that was installed on Kali Linux by default, but not on Debian.

But, even if I were to install all GNOME extensions on Debian as I have on Kali Linux, there would still be problem of Debian whining about me not being root all the time. Even if I could overcome that obstacle, there will be absolutely no difference between using Debian and Kali Linux. Everything I can do on Debian, I can do on Kali Linux and vice versa. Why wasting many hours of effort to replicate Kali Linux on Debian if I can also keep using Kali Linux?

I have removed Windows 10 from my laptop. I did so because I hate Windows 10. I hate Windows 10 more than I hate Ubuntu. Now I have Kali Linux on 1 partition and nothing on the other. I could use the partition that previously had Windows 10 to install another Linux distribution, or I could use the whole SSD for Kali Linux.

I haven't decided on that, yet, but I am very satisfied about Kali Linux. It has everything I need.

Witness the very negative response toward newbies who post on the major Linux Forums. As soon as Kali is mentioned, most lose interest straight away. Some even become openly hostile.

Which is a bad thing. We should motivate and help new Linux users rather than downvoting their input, ignoring them or scold them for asking the question in the wrong format. People should never be hard on beginners, because nobody is an expert right off the bat. Even the experts were beginners at one stage.

The Kali Linux forum is awful. Hundreds of questions; no answers. People desperately reinforce their question under their thread daily so that their thread doesn't disappear on the second page, but it's all futile, because nobody answers them anyway.

There is a Dutch Linux Mint forum, but it's censored. When you post something, your message is not immediately posted. You need to wait a few days until a moderator approves your post, which is extremely frustrating when you need help.

On the other hand, Puppy Linux and MX Linux have very nice, helpful fora. This might partly explain the popularity of these Linux distributions.

Remember, too, that Puppy Linux is not a 'mainstream' distro. It may have binary-compatibility with certain mainstream releases, but Puppy is, and always has been, very much a 'hobbyist' system, for people who enjoying diving into the guts of the thing and virtually re-building it to make it do exactly what they want it to do. And when, as is usually the case with Puppy, you're the sole user of the system, there is absolutely no point at all in having to request access to your own system by means of all that 'sudo' malarkey...

I started using Puppy Linux because it was the only Linux distribution that worked on my Fujitsu Siemens Scenic E600 i865G computer with an Intel Pentium IV 2.66 Ghz, 1 GB RAM, 64 MB vRAM and 40 GB hard drive.

At the time, Ubuntu had a Windows installer, Wubi. The installation process took HOURS. Booting into Ubuntu took more than 20 minutes. Finally, Ubuntu refused to boot and instead gave me a terminal in which almost no command worked.

Linux Mint had a similar Windows installer, but Linux Mint had the same problem: hours of installation, extremely long boot time and at the end, it didn't even work.

Then I tried Puppy Linux, which also had a Windows installer. Puppy Linux was installed in a matter of minutes and it booted instantly into Puppy Linux, without any problems. At the time, I was amazed at how everything worked like a charm without any drivers. I hadn't installed a sound driver, yet sound worked. I hadn't installed video drivers, yet video acceleration worked. I hadn't installed network drivers, yet Puppy Linux could connect to our modem. Puppy Linux was very lightweight and responsive. Installing software was also easy: Puppy Package Manager. The only downside were the huge number of dependencies for some programs and the personal safe file that kept getting full. Other than that, I was impressed.

Despite of this, there was no real reason for me to use Puppy Linux, until we got our new modem. After we got a new modem, Windows XP couldn't connect to our modem any more. The only way for me to access the Internet on that computer, was through Puppy Linux, after which Puppy Linux became my day-to-day operating system. It was the operating system on which I checked my e-mail, watched YouTube videos, wrote Facebook posts, listened to music, watched pirated films etcetera. The only thing that I used Windows XP for, was printing and playing nostalgic computer games.

My conclusion is: even if Puppy Linux is not meant as a day-to-day operating system, is can still be used as one. It certainly saved me when Windows XP stopped being able to connect to the Internet!

Suggestions for improvements are always welcome, of course, but please remember that the users of this forum are not those who actually implement the changes.

I thought this place of the forum was especially meant to give suggestions. Even though most users on this forum are just users, I do assume that the developers of Puppy Linux sometimes visit this forum. It would be odd if the persons developing an operating systems never take a look at the place where people discuss the operating system, come with suggestions, write bug reports, ask for help etcetera.

With regard to your requirement for easily switching between keyboard layouts, you may find this to be of interest:-

I know that there is a way to get this done through the command line, but I prefer to be able to do this via the graphical user interface. I consider the command line as a last resort: a place I turn to to solve my problems if nothing else works. Whenever I set up a Puppy Linux personal storage file, I prefer to be able to configure it through a few clicks rather than thinking: "Oh, shit, what was that command again?"

@sc0ttman

Puppy has Pkg (http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=112927), whic his a command line package manager (like apt-get) ... Pkg even has a apt wrapper, so that you can use apt-get commands in Puppy (and Pkg will take the place of apt-get)...

Nice! Is this feature embedded in the latest version of Puppy Linux? Or do I need to manually install this PET package?

Maybe you could try to use LxTerm instead of rxvt? Search for it in the repos, or on this forum, it's a nice terminal, lightweight, fast, nice menus, easy copy/paste, etc.

Thank you for this suggestion. I will try this out the next time I boot up Puppy Linux!

Linux in general handles RAM very differently than Windows, and Linux is very efficient in using RAM.

The Linux kernel itself might be efficient in using RAM, but some of the programs running on top of it aren't. The newest version of Mozilla Firefox eats all my RAM, while GNOME eats almost a whole gigabyte of RAM on my Kali Linux installation.

I once developed Akita Linux - a puppy derivative based on an older puppy, in which I back ported a bunch of updates and fixes from the latest ones into the older Puppy Linux... This is a great way of giving older hardware a nice, long term support version of Puppy..

Interesting. Is Akita Linux still being updated? Where can I find it?

As I say above, in Puppy world, the best we can do is to maintain older versions and backport fixes and improvements into them...

In some cases, this might not be a bad idea. GIMP 2.10, for example, looks extremely ugly to me. It's all black. Finding the right tools always takes an effort, while working in GIMP 2.8 is much easier and more comfortable. In a case like that, sticking with the older version is preferable over updating.

[wiak]

Instead, I could only do a frugal install, so I chose that option. Somehow, however, StretchDog screwed up by boot loader, because my computer couldn't load ANY operating system after this.

I'm presuming you used StretchDog's frugal-install utility. Of course if you chose to overwrite your system's existing grub4dos you could very well end up losing your existing bootloader. That's not a problem with StretchDog, it is simply something you should be not to do (the facility is there to be used should someone want it).

I'm presuming you have chatted with Fredx181 on the StretchDog thread, or asked questions on that thread when you were attempting to get StretchDog working on your machine. If not, that would be the best approach to succeed. It may well be a very simple problem such as firmware driver missing for your particular machine.

I'm pretty sure StretchDog could be quickly installed frugal on your system without issue (without overwriting existing bootloader), if you get help from Fred on his thread, so the only problem would likely then just be a matter of identifying the missing firmware, if that's the issue. So best to sort that out on the relevant Dog thread (personally I use ubuntu-based BionicDog since I prefer that) though perhaps you have decided to use Puppy now or something else instead.

wiak

[rufwoof]

I dislike the expectation that everything should be done through the terminal; yes, I know the terminal is a huge part of what makes Linux as powerful as it is, but it's like learning another language....and languages were never my strong point. I'll use it where necessary (it does have it's uses, it's true), but I'm never happier than when physically moving things around in the file-system, setting up sym-links, deleting, copying, moving, etc., etc. To my way of thinking, trying to do stuff with the terminal has a very remote, 'detached' feel to it, as though you're not really there in person.....I dunno, it's hard to explain.

Many hereabouts prefer urxvt, personally I prefer tilda terminal for its Quake like show/hide functionality. I have set F1 as the show/hide toggle for my tilda setup. Press F1 and it shows to near full screen (just leaves the bottom gui desktop tray still visible), press F1 again and tilda hides (reveals the normal gui desktop).

mc is a great file manager/text editor, ncurses vlc (as per the above image) along with alsamixer and alsa equaliser, calcurse for diary, htop, bmon, iftop for system monitoring, a text file containing all my bookmarks where under tilda you can hover over a url to select it, click it to have it open in Chrome (or whatever), whilst being easy to edit (add new links/remove unwanted links). All in separate tilda tabs that I have across the top of screen given that my gui windows/tray is at the bottom of screen. I mount my android phone using sshfs so it appears as just another folder, as do I mount hashbang (my preferred ssh server) that I also ssh into and have tmux running that continually runs a number of programs (which I use for email, irc, bbs's ...etc. so when I ssh in and reattach to the tmux session they're all instantly back to as how they were left, but where I can scroll back and view all the irc posts posted since my last visit).

Overall I'd estimate I use chrome the most, but cli/tui (text user interface) a very close second. Other gui/desktop programs ... much less so. But I can also use my phone for gui likes programs/apps, and when running/doing things on remote boxes, cli wins by far compared to using X-forwarding or suchlike.

The ease of using a combination of both gui and tui/cli makes *nix great. Yes some predominately use just gui and hate to go anywhere near a terminal, but that's their choice. I personally see that as trying to do things with one arm tied down.

vlc ncurses even runs without X even loaded, video's display full screen (framebuffer) and left/right arrow keys move you through the video. If I want to see what network activity is occurring at any time, F1 to show tilda, select iftop and .... the details there

... or the bmon tab

... or see if I need to take a umbrella

... or htop, my calendar/diary ...etc.
To initially load/launch those tabs up, I have a ncurses menu tilda tab

... which being 'terminal' ... doesn't even need X to be running, works both at the 'cli' and within X.

... and all just a F1 toggle press away.

Oh - and then there is the Fatdog menu button in the bottom left corner .. that I do sometimes use ... for the likes of starting Libre Writer/whatever. But for me that's a relatively infrequently used Menu button.

EDIT: edited to cross link this post http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 77#1041977

[rufwoof]

BTW, other options you have is to run puppy in ram and only save once you've tested a change or you can use fatdog64's multi-save usb option. With this multi-save option you can simply delete your last changes.

Yeah! Great choice IMO (what I use). Boot from usb, multi-session saves back to usb, where each 'save' adds another (save) sfs. So you have a audit trail. Mostly once I've configured things as I like I don't use save, just boot, use, shutdown without saving. What's good is that you can have everything copied to and run from ram so the usb can be unplugged after bootup, so the MBR, bootloader, kernel ... etc are all physically isolated out of harms way.

When the number of save files (sfs's) becomes high, you can boot, delete all of the save sfs's, run 'save' and it consolidates all of those saves back into just a single sfs.

Fatdog contains Bulldog, a cli version (initrd, prior to the main Fatdog being loaded), which works great as a cli/tui system. I have a version of Bulldog that weighs in at 11.7MB, a single vmlinuz boot file that has all of firmware/modules for my hardware built into that kernel, along with the initrd (that gets me to wifi net connected, has mc, OpenSSH, OpenSSL, kexec ...etc.). I can do quite a bit with just that (email, browsing, irc ...etc.), and it boots really quickly (a second or so). And Fatdog is really stable/solid, the Fatdog team have done a really great job of improving it with each release.

[rcrsn51]

Somehow, however, StretchDog screwed up by boot loader, because my computer couldn't load ANY operating system after this. I had to live boot into MX Linux to restore the boot loader after this.

Multi-booting in the Linux world is always a challenge - even with the mainstream distros. You can't let Linux B's install procedure step on Linux A's bootloader.

I just finished a standard install of Mint on sda1 and some Pup/Dog frugal installs on sda2. I did NOT let the Pup/Dogs set up their own bootloaders.

Instead, I registered them in Mint's 40_custom GRUB config file. Now they launch from Mint's GRUB boot menu.