Puppy 5.3 Alpha [Now available]

Under development: PCMCIA, wireless, etc.
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scsijon
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#21 Post by scsijon »

gerry wrote:@Nooby- two examples of what I mean by slow. Using browser:

1- use mouse on right hand scroll bar. Does the page move smoothly, or does it move in a series of large jumps? Or, if I scroll from top to bottom in one go, do I have to sit and wait until it eventually takes one or two really big jumps?

2- Using Google. When I type into the search box, do I have to wait a couple of seconds for what I typed to appear, so that I can check it before I hit Search?

But yes, I agree, it is only subjective observation, but the examples above are conclusive enough for me. Of course the latest Lupu (or whatever it is now- I can't keep up) may go like greased lightning, but I don't feel like spending time and a cd on it, unless someone can convince me that I won't be disappointed.

EDIT: done some re-checking. It's only the Ubuntu- based ones that I tried that are that slow. The first (2009) dpup, spup099, and Wary are only subjectively (and, I think, actually) marginally slower than 4.3.1: but not enough to be annoyingly noticeable.

I did wonder whether the fact that the computer does not have a video card matters? And no NVIDIA so far as I can see. Video is looked after by circuitry on the motherboard. Could this affect display behaviour?

gerry
gerry, a couple of things to check please, may make life easier.

1/ browser: click on box in right hand corner between the _ and X, if it goes small do it again and it should be now set for the virtual screen size, sometimes the browser is set for the overall screen when built and not your own active virtal desktop size, it does slow things down if it thinks that it needs to work "outside the box" each time a screen of data is changed but only to display a part.

2/ Which Browser? I haven't come across this before and are interested, ?your not running out of cpu power are you, alternately it could be caching ram to swap-file and back or running out of both, ?what else do you have that is running at the time? You can often increase the video ram (at a loss of overall ram though) through your bios settings, maybe that is the problem.

From your startement I take it that your video is part of the chipset, a standard and not a problem today for the majority of motherboards that aren't high-end gaming boards. Start Hardinfo (system, system status and config), click on pci devices and look in the top right box for VGA Compatable Controller, click on that and have a look at the right bottom box for details of what you have, a specific driver may help or even just the xorg_high-lucid.pet in the ppm (don't forget a cold boot afterwards, not just a reboot).

hope i've helped
scsijon
flippin typos!

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wuwei
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spup

#22 Post by wuwei »

Very happy to read that you guys have started work on Puppy 5.3.

On your to-do list here
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy53
you request testing of spup.

So I did on one crucial issue, i.e. establishing an internet connection. In this case I am dealing with a DSL modem which requires an eth0 and a ppp0 connection.

First I downloaded the spup 100 ISO and did two different installs:
a) a manual frugal install to a linux partition with grub;
b) burned the iso to CD.

Then I booted into either one and tried to setup the internet. I have done this dozens of times (if not hundreds) so I am pretty sure that I did this the way I always do:
Network Wizard for eth0 and Roaring Penguin for ppp0.
Both are established successfully, as far as the ppoe-gui and ipinfo gui tell me.
Yet, browser opens and shows no connection! Stopped pppo and restarted without success.
I haven't had this problem since much earlier Puppies and me being much more inexperienced. So to run into this problem now, is quite a surprise.

The data of my PC is shown in the graphic:

Maybe this is a bit of useful information to you. Any other Puppy I am running currently (525, snow, quirky, wary, 432, 214x) don't have this problem.
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playdayz
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#23 Post by playdayz »

I have thought about some features I would like to see in upcoming Puppies.

1. An actual Recycle Bin. Deleted files go automatically to the Recycle Bin, which can be emptied. People expect this--numerous times in Puppy I have seen my mistake right after hitting Delete.

2. An Audio Control Panel. It should let me select which of my cards will be Default--and change that easily. It should also contain a nicer mixer--retrovol works, and alsmixergui works, but better looking, more intuitive apps. Because my M-Audio card is controlled through alsamixer my wife encountered it the other night and my Puppy work lost some credibility around this house ;-) This is another thing people have come to expect.

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#24 Post by scsijon »

You can add me in somewhere, testing, those few apps I 'package', a spare site to host the alphas/betas to spread the load, anything else I can do..

From your to-do list http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy53

?timeline...., do we have an approx proposed date for the 13.37 or a url even?

?wondering if 2.6.38 kernal should also be considered, 2 reasons, it handles the xz compression well but it can also handle the new Btrfs filesystem (see below).

! Firewall on by default can be done reasonably easy, but no linking devices or ports would work until it is rerun, ?you may loose usb, firewire and the like as it is for it to happen. Alternately, and a better idea is to ?maybe lockdown the system to using only lo (loopback), could be achieved by a ro file until replaced by a new first run process that includes both probe and firewall in the one action rather than having the default probe earlier. This means, I think, that apps such as cups would work from square one, just nothing to the outside.

!"Automatic 'personal storage file growth'/movement of a swap file" could happen. If as I understand what I have read so far, we use Btrfs for the swapfile to live on, as well as some other gains. I'm reading further and with some depth as barryk has only just pointed it out to me too look at, it will suit for my own puppy project. I shall write on it later, when I have digested it all, but it does at least theoretically seem 'dooable'. If alternates are wanted, currently the only one I can find that 'may' be able to do this requires at least a ext4 partition, which would affect those with ext2 or ext3 as their partition formats.

! Boot menu must still be dooable for those with both the old grub, old grub4dos and grub2. I do like the new graphical grub but I like my old grub menu also and to convert would not be practical in all cases.

!please watch it with torrent stuff, there is content that the nbn may 'cost' torrent users differently, because the way it will limit users-per-internetpipe. Thoughts, is that it may also affect other similar tools built-in or as addons for the browsers we use by limiting the parallels.

Now, I'd like to add a few items to the list, if I may.

Firstly, One Application per function by default. Most of my puppy users are seniors, who are not 'computer savy', they don't initially want multiples of applications that do the same function. The young'un's I give discs and help also want to 'play-with-it' before expanding out. Both groups tell me they would rather a limited set of applications to start with and then expand/replace as they get use to it or add extra functionality! Not the 'best' as that is subjectional, but the easiest to use to perform the task should be the rule to start with. After all the rest should be in the ppm.

Secondly, all applications on install give you the option of an onscreen shortcut. I believe this could be added not into the pet, but in the install scripts and therefore no affect existing pets.

Thirdly, onscreen-flashes, have them with a close button, not a timer, don't know how many times i've realized one was there and only half read it before it's gone, or had one of my users ring up, worried with the missed message. Very annoying!

Fourth, a ppm userset directory (?defaults to /root/pets) and matching auto-indexing ppm entry point that users can place pets from other sources into and install / remove via the ppm. I'd actually like to see a blockage to non-ppm installs at some time in the future, the number of overwrites by earlier versions of a package i've had to fix....

And lastly, for now, our lovely menu systems all need to be dragged up-to-date, such as giving the ability to drag application items between menu groups, create new groups, and hide groups not generally used until 'a menu spot is touched' or a new pet requiring that default group.

anyway, onward and upward

regards to all
scsijon

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#25 Post by Lobster »

scsijon wrote: ?timeline...., do we have an approx proposed date for the 13.37 or a url even?
Slackware follows the philosophy of 'Slack'
. . . so it will be ready 'any day now' and has RC4 status
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/O ... -425.shtml
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
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aarf

#26 Post by aarf »

Ok lobotomy you can have my vote but it is conditional on your naming your righthand man (or men as the case may be).

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Menu and applications

#27 Post by Minnesota »

"Both groups tell me they would rather a limited set of applications to start with and then expand/replace as they get use to it or add extra functionality! "

One way to solve this for everyone is have the basic menu's, then have an "ADVANCED" menu. Most new users do not go a menu that says SYSTEM, or similar. How about "Duplicate?" applications. or OPTION Items.

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#28 Post by Lobster »

basic menu's, then have an "ADVANCED" menu
m m m . . . now that is interesting and may be possible by incorporating a menu editor, with some options turned off.

Would this entail a modified and consequent modifying of
/root/.jwmrc

Has this ben done already in some way?

In fact we could have menu templates on first boot?
eg.
Noob/Beginner, Non-Geek, Secure, Fun, Tweaker, Business, Windows User, Ubuntu, Slacker, Minimal, Full/Advanced, Simple, Configure/Edit and so on
If each menu item is assigned an array position
then it would mean each template configuration can be assigned
without too much code bloat.

Some/most of this code should exist for those working on
language locale menu choices?
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
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scsijon
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#29 Post by scsijon »

Lobster wrote:
scsijon wrote: ?timeline...., do we have an approx proposed date for the 13.37 or a url even?
Slackware follows the philosophy of 'Slack'
. . . so it will be ready 'any day now' and has RC4 status
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/O ... -425.shtml
thanks lobster, tried the slackware site and they were only talking about 13.1 which is why the queery.

scsijon

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#30 Post by scsijon »

aarf wrote:Ok lobotomy you can have my vote but it is conditional on your naming your righthand man (or men as the case may be).
:P !sexest :lol: :lol: ?what's wrong with righthand women, or lefthand ones of any sex for that matter, they are around.

back on topic,

Relating to my earlier post

Firstly btrfs, from extra reading and chasing via emails back and forth, it seems that the first major problem with btrfs is that although it does work and will be directly available internally via the 2.6.38 kernal, it doesn't at this date have any fsck program and therefore is still considered experimental, to be used for fully backed up and stable systems only. The group involved consider it may be up to a year before a release product is out. Therefore I withdraw my sugestion, and it not even be thought about for 53 at least at this stage.

I'm also about to seriously get involved with eggwm, a qt windowmanager for puppy5 series. It uses only a 3-4meg footprint and most qt apps i've tried seem to only need the same qtlib to work. Maybe an alternative wm for 53? It will be created as a separate package.

As an outcome of this and previous posts and threads, I would like to put forth the idea of only one wm be built-in to 53(, jwm of course as most are able to use it and it's puppy's 'standard'), the others are to built and be available via the quickpet or ppm applications as pet's. Should mean a somewhat easier development of the base product, and those people that want other wm's could work as individual teams to concentrate on getting their's working, while knowing the underlying system behind it all is solid and stable. Also means they could deal with updates of individual wm's easier.

And a note for smokey01, your idea is on the way, been talking to barry on it and it's not as easy as wished, however an idea has appeared to me, I will update this reply hopefully tomorrow, when my brain has worked through to a proposal.

anyway enough of me for now

regards to all
scsijon

aarf

#31 Post by aarf »

scsijon wrote:

:P !sexest :lol: :lol: ?what's wrong with righthand women, or lefthand ones of any sex for that matter, they are around.
Buddhist don't even pretend to be PC. sexism and racism are an integral part of Buddhist society so much so that they must be part of the fundamental beliefs of Buddhist teachings. lob proclaims to be Buddhist so he probably wouldn't notice.

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#32 Post by scsijon »

just a note for all, there is a propper 5.3 thread now. It's listed on the 5.3 wikka entry.

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#33 Post by Lobster »

:)

Lucid 526 now in release candidate
5.3 Alpha 3 . . . any day now . . .

It is not up to technosaurus
to produce a base for Saluki
Anyone who can will
- we are still a do-acracy . . .

As for Buddhists being one thing or another . . .
some are even fellow trolls . . .
http://atheism.about.com/b/2009/05/28/w ... ddhism.htm :shock:

8)
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#34 Post by scsijon »

Since you've renoticed :lol: this topic Lobster.

I'll give you a thought.

6/ Change the way puppy stores additional applications and pets from using the personal storage file to using a predefined "applications.sfs" file that bases itself from /, and make it that only the /root components go into the personal storage file. This should decrease it's expotential growth and make it easier and faster to backup/restore. It will increase a rebuild time as you would need to reinstall your apps, but you should have a cleaner system in the end.

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#35 Post by Lobster »

Loading SFS in and out or some sort of module based Puppy is something
that has been proposed since the 2 series and before (Nathan experimented with this approach with the Grafpup fork). . .
http://pupweb.org/wikka/MeatyInfo

The use of a core of SFS in Slickpet (5.3 Quickpet)
is dependent on what is compiled and available . . . 8)
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
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