Puppy 4.4 CE - Phase 1: pet tests

[sullysat]

Regarding the gnumeric issue: without it or without its counterpart (a spreadsheet in any case) you don't really get an all-rounded distro. Or you get a less-all-rounded distro. It might be wise to keep it, if only to maintain the sense of wholeness Puppy now has, even at the staggering cost of 3mbs.

Exactly!

[charlie6]

Hi,
looking at the link for pets
http://puppylinux.asia/members/T/444/
I saw a heap of
abiword-plugin-grammar-YY-2.7.10-i386.pet with YY= en it de
A suggestion:
would be nice to have a
abiword-plugin-grammar-fr-2.7.10-i386.pet as well...
As a french translation of the puppy-final is expected and as I'm not able to create that pet, should someone do it?
Thanks in advance
cheers, charlie

[jabu2]

Gnumeric (& Abiword) full, not cutdowns, must surely be in 4.4? Reasons have been given by several , and there are more.

A 44 release which did not have the traditional foundation apps of wordprocessor, spreadsheet - and which are reasonably compatible with major products, would generate easy goal-scoring opportunities for critics. That would be regrettable.

[ICPUG]

Thanks ttuuxxx for your helpful comments.

While I would like Gnumeric to stay, the size issue is also important, I think.

It is not just a hardware related thing about the ability to load 120MB sfs.

First, you have to download the things as well. Fine for those on ADSL - not so fine for those on dialup - when the iso expands in size.

The other thing is that the size is one of the parameters that uniquely defines Puppy. How do we get so much stuff in such a small package. I look at other Linux's and find some of them really good but then the iso size is 200MB or more. My immediate question is why is it so big when it has no more capability than Puppy? The other thing is that, even though I have ADSL (at 2MBit), I dislike downloading large isos cos it eats into my sleep time!

There is a tendency in the kennels and elsewhere to think that because recent hardware is more powerful every body will have recent hardware. I don't really agree with this. Why should I impose my hardware requirements on someone else? There is the 'green' argument of keeping old equipment running as long as possible - as well as the economic argument that some are not able to keep up with the latest hardware.

If we find we cannot keep within the 100MB constraint we begin to lose one of Puppy's unique selling points- but it has to work as well! - life isn't easy!

[gyro]

Hi gyro are you any good at messing around with initrd.gz files?

ttuuxxx,
I usually can't resist a request, but my total experience with initrd.gz relates to Puppy > 4.0. And all I have done is edit the "init" script to support both ext2 and ext3 pup_save files.
So, I'm not your man.

gyro

[moogsydodong]

hi guys...

regarding the issue on what application to include in the final release...
I suggest we keep the size of puppy4.4CE as small as posible...
we can choose to put just the necessary apps of even just the default puppy apps included in puppy4.3 then we can focus on compiling extra apps as additional packages available for download at the repo...

we can do like..

fixed all fixable bugs in 4.3...then compile and test additional apps to be uploaded in the repo...those totally usable packages will be uploaded and can later be downloadable via PPM in the repo...

for a while I've noticed that many people who discovered/reviewed/test/used puppy is that not so many popular apps is available for download in the repo...

I know many TPP(third party packages) exist in the forum maybe this time we can all join our efforts and include all possible apps not in the final release of this puppy4.4CE but rather put them in the repo as optional/additional downloads...

just my thought...

[sullysat]

In reference to the repo and packages being available for the CE release, I've started a small mirror on my domain for a few things that folks have had trouble downloading from elsewhere.

I'll be happy to set up a directory with extra pets that are designed or are known to work (ie tested) on 4.4CE. ttuuxxx doesn't know it yet (okay, he does now!) but I've been trying to collect everything for the 214X puplet as I intend to use that distro extensively, so I'll also be posting as many apps and tweaks as I can for that particular version also.

If the project chiefs want to get with me on this as development progresses, we can discuss how to manage all that. I don't have the expertise to code and I'm just learning how to test things thoroughly, but I can contribute space.

Let me know,
Sully

[dogone]

Forgive me, but I don't see either side of this discussion getting much traction. It does not appear to me to be an "either/or" matter and the solution is as old as the hills. Permit Puppy to remain small, easily downloaded and low resource while making it *simple* to select and install additional applications.

"Already done", you say? Well yes and no. Yes, Puppy has PPM and a limited collection of apps. No, because that collection is only a subset of the .pet universe and PPM's user interface is a nightmare to the newbie. Strange package names, no descriptions, etc. Compare PPM to Mint's highly crafted MintInstall and you'll see my point. If Puppy offered users a package management tool as good as MintInstall, Puppy could remain small and easy to download while being simple to grow into whatever the user needs.

The discussion should then be one of improving Puppy's software management so the core can remain cute, sweet and small. Let's give Puppy's users the power to determine the optimum trade-off between size and feature set.

[technosaurus]

Abiword Grammar - I split out all the plugins that are availabe - this is based on link-grammar: I encourage anyone to get on board with that project if they would like to see grammar capabilities for their language.

Re: abiword/gnumeric These will be on a separate "office.sfs" that is automatically loaded at boot time if present (which it will be) This will make it easier to include/exclude/replace (for example with koffice or openoffice) The structure for this already exists in the form of the zdrv. To set those up it is basically a cut and paste job using zdrv as a template. "browser.sfs" is another one that comes to mind and maybe more

Re: vlc - yes vlc definitely will be considered - we need to build the recently released QT-4.5.3 first and then all of the other dependencies. I have been workin on those already.

Re: packages - We do have a lot of packages available in the forums that could be integrated into the main body. One thing that needs to first be done with most of them is quality control (dependencies listed in the .specs, properly spilt into DEV, DOC and NLS, binaries and libraries stripped, etc...) I can write something up for beginner to intermediate users to be able to do this and repackage them. ... will also need a place for them to upload or I guess if we go with Opera we could use Opera Unite.

[gyro]

I would also likely add a dummy folder to the $PATH that contains loader scripts with the names of the executables.

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/dummy

/usr/local/dummy/abiword
#! /bin/sh
{script/function to get sfs directory}
loadsfs $SFSDIR/goffice.sfs
/usr/bin/abiword $@

The first time you type abiword in a terminal (or click its icon) it will load the sfs and subsequently execute /usr/bin/abiword $@

then next time you type abiword it will automatically find the one in /usr/bin instead of .../dummy

Interesting approach, but I'm not sure if it makes it easy to replace "abiword" with "swriter". Surely that requires a method of influencing what "/usr/local/bin/defaultwordprocessor" calls.

Although, separating the large applications, that folk often seem to want to replace, out of "pup-440.sfs" might be a good place to start in making them easily replaceable with an ".sfs".

gyro

[technosaurus]

Surely that requires a method of influencing what "/usr/local/bin/defaultwordprocessor" calls.

That brings us back to how the file system is layered backwards, the pupXXX.sfs should be able to be covered by other files on a loaded sfs. This behavior makes it difficult to make useful addons.

[droope]

Hi there,

I've been reading this thread for a while, and I must say I am seeing a bright future everything is looking good.

On the Gnumeric issue, I would like to emmit an opinion, as well as an idea, that walks side-by-side with the on the fly sfs mounting.

Gnumeric is a very usefull app, and while some people have an internet conection, and could download the app if it weren't included in the main release, there are many that don't, so that would be a heavy inconvenience.

So, the idea: ¿how about if there are two versions of 4.4 CE? - wait, read on -.

One, that would have the puppy core, PLUS some specific software, such as Gnumeric, added to the iso as extra .sfs files, which could be on the fly mounted when requested (by a click on the menu item, for example).

And the other, which would have the core, and nothing else, specifically created for our dial-up users.

That way, we could separate the core from the software... and keep everyone happy, and perhaps lift the weight limitation a little for the with-sfs version.

I think mantaining this implementation of puppy would not be as hard as mantaining two different versions, since the core would be the same for the two versions. Another good thing about this is that if the user has an old PC, only the main core sfs would be loaded, so it should be easier on his resources.

It's just an idea, i know, i'm not the guy who is going to make it work!
I hope this is helpful, though.

Cheers!
Droope

[technosaurus]

Droope,

This is what I am planning to do once Barry has put out 4.3.1 bugfixes
1. Set up for *office.sfs *browser.sfs and possibly *wm.sfs (similar to zdrv)
a.) Option 1 via init and/or boot parameters
b.) Option 2 via load_sfs
2. office.sfs could be soffice.sfs, goffice.sfs koffice.sfs or ooffice.sfs...
3. browser.sfs could be smbrowser.sfs ffbrowser.sfs or operabrowser.sfs...
4. wm.sfs could almost be infinite
5. I would also like to have the zdrv back as a separate sfs for easier cutdown/addon for specific hardware.

[droope]

Great!

Do you intend to include all of these sfs with the main puppy iso? That was what I meant with my post, two different isos, one with the 4 usual puppy files, and one with them plus some extra sfs for some particular needs, in which, if you click (for example) Gnumeric in the menu, the sfs file would get mounted and Gnumeric would run.

If it were me, I wouldn't make the CD 700mb, though.

Sorry for my bad English! I really really tried to explain myself.

Also, whichever path puppy takes will be fine by me. Your alternative sounds pretty good (if I understood correctly).

Cheers!
Droope

[technosaurus]

Droope
700MB ISO not as the default, but I would like to publish a separate torrent as a puplet for developers that has the full zdrv, devx, docx <--new, nlsx <--new and all of the others that will fit... maybe it should accept *puplet.sfs as well?

No worries about bad english - I am recompiling most of the core programs with NLS support, it only adds about 5-10kb each and the NLS packages will be available as well

[Lobster]

from Barrys Blog regarding 4.3.1 release date
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/?viewDetailed=01122

I was thinking of setting the release date for the 1st of November . .

Also team resources growing - anything they can do
please ask . . .
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy44Team

eh . . . talking of asking . . . anyone feel like registering
and adding some of the plans technosaurus is planning?
be our communal guest
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy44

Many thanks

[Proudog]

The package osmo will be compiled with support libical (iCalendar) but on my install in 430 report that is disabled.

libical source:

http://freeassociation.sourceforge.net/

[Bert]

No worries about bad english - I am recompiling most of the core programs with NLS support, it only adds about 5-10kb each and the NLS packages will be available as well

That's great news for potential translators, I suppose..
Can someone point me to more info about this NLS? Googling it hardly helps.
I know it means National Language System, not National Library Service, nor oN-Line-System or National Longitudinal Surveys...

A Wellminded search shows there have been a lot of developers discussions about NLS, but how can a translator join in and start contributing? Or is it just too early for that?

Thanks!

[technosaurus]

libical is over 300Kb (over 600Kb with c++ support) so we need a fairly good reason to use it. What does it do for osmo? Can any other programs in Puppy benefit from it?

Perhaps I can link against it statically to save some space if nothing else can use it?
I was already able to shrink osmo from 866Kb to 554Kb so it should be doable.

[djnrempel]

Hi - I'm a relative newbie to Linux but am falling in luv with the puppy project. I've used Ubuntu / Linux Mint on and off over the past five years but am being won over to the puppy way (even if it sometimes takes more work, I just love that it makes my old P4 into a kickass desktop that only 25W of power).

I'm pretty familiar with PHP/MySQL, am starting to learn Javascript / AJAX, but when it comes to other programming I am a neophyte. I did some Turbo PASCAL in high school in the early nineties.

However, I'm eager to learn. Is there anything I can help with? Right now I'm trying to learn the ropes of compiling and packaging for Puppy.

(Also, I'm wanting to kick the Microsoft habit before the DRM-riddled Windows 7 is the only game in town)