Puppy limitations

Puppy related raves and general interest that doesn't fit anywhere else
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peb
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Puppy limitations

#1 Post by peb »

There are many things I've grown to very much like about Puppy. It's small, fast, and robust (for the things it does), and the Lucid distribution does have a connection to Ubuntu that has at times been useful for packages outside the scope of .pets.

I like the security of a fresh "toram" install that doesn't accumulate cruft and possible mischief. It takes a tiny bit of setup during startup, but very minor with some scripts I use to restore some pristine settings.

Recently though, I wanted to move to linux for some AV work, and things fell apart quickly. Jack audio never worked reliably, the Qjackctl packages from Unbutue and a Puppy .pet didn't help. So I tried to use Puppy to use netbootin to try to install another distribution to a USB drive. Nothing doing. I simply couldn't get the current version to recognize any USB drive, and the Ubuntu version was dated and produced it's own "known" errors. It was a bit of a defeat to have to go to Windows where the software worked flawlessly. I've had similar problems with USB drives and gparted before with Puppy. Gpated simply didn't see them, or if it did, choked, coughed and mostly spit out numerous inscrutable errors if I tired VFAT. There's something screwed up about Puppy's implementation of the USB stuff, or gparted -- or both. Life's too short. I went to Windows, and began happily using the drives in Linux.

Then there's the difficulty of package aging. I'm not critical of anyone for not maintaining up to date packages. That's a huge amount of work, and pretty thankless too. I would have gladly used something like apt or yum, but there's really no way for Puppy to use those. Many of the Ubuntu packages don't install all the dependencies; usually it's a perl library or some other obscure library that I can't find easily.

Again. None of this is really a complaint about Puppy. It is what it is. But I don't think I can go much further with it until there's a package manager that will connect and use a major repository reliably. (I know I could compile packages myself, but the joy of that is LONG gone, and I just want to be a user.) Linux AV is marginal at best, particularly the video. But at least it would be helpful to have reliable updated versions of what's available; I haven't been able to do that with Puppy. Ardour is basically beyond Puppy for all practical purposes.

If I had one suggestion to make for the future of Puppy, it would be to connect it via something like apt, slaptd, or yum to SOME major repository rather than to keep rolling its own software packages.

I have 2 gb of ram. It's not terribly important to have the absolute minimum of ram footprint anymore. And while I love the small core footprint, that's not as critical as either.

I'm sure I'll keep Puppy for a while because I'm used to it and have it set up the way I want. I'm playing with Tiny Core Linux for a replacement platform where I want a pristine environment with email, a solid, reasonably updated web browser, some word processing and a game to two to waste what little time I have.

Puppy's been a good experience. And I think if it solved the package issue, it could find it's way to a much wider audience. Many people don't want the bloated Ubuntu or Redhat experience, nor the gnarly experience of distributions like Arch LInux or even Tiny Core Linux just to get some work done. Among its small distro peers in the "just want to be a user" class, Puppy still fares very well. And it's ability to run and stay tidily in ram is a security feature that most could use, but don't appreciate.

Anyhow. My thoughts, and my gratitude to all those what have and continue to contribute here to make Puppy, not only a geek attraction, but something actually useful.

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darkcity
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#2 Post by darkcity »

I've recently repackaged jack
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=78256

any feedback appreciated.

:idea:

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sunburnt
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#3 Post by sunburnt »

peb; You`re saying exactly what I said about 5 years ago.

That`s what I`d do if I wanted to build an orphan Linux distro. ( like Puppy ).
Rather than constantly having to build new app. packages, make it connect !

Debian has the largest repository and is well managed ( relatively ).
I made a Debian downloader gui front end that works fairly well.
But getting it to recursively parse out and fetch all the deps. was tricky.

Pussy is very Debian compatible, but I couldn`t get it to boot on my old PC.
It has Apt to handle packages the Debian way.

Now if Puppy had Apt in it, that would solve Barry`s packaging problems...
Then a nice gui to make sfs files from the packages. That would be trick !
Last edited by sunburnt on Tue 22 May 2012, 17:49, edited 1 time in total.

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Lobster
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#4 Post by Lobster »

I just want to be a user
:)
Familiarity.
It is why people are using an operating system (Windows) which is well past its sell date. Does Windows still have great commercial software? I should imagine so.

I decided to become familiar with one distro, for various reasons that was Puppy.
Audio visual programs:
Just been using Openshot. Still not completely stable. I may need more ram . . . It works well enough and I become more familiar and pleased with each version.

If it works use it . . . unless you are Richard Stallman . . .

I think Puppy Fatdog with Underdog into other distros and Windows on another partition might be ideal for you. Or get a Mac. :wink:

I have also been using Presentation in LibreOffice. The audio visual part needs java and I am loath to spend time on setting up the settings . . .

Thanks for the feedback. Just thought . . .
Saluki might be a good option for you
http://saluki-linux.com/
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

aarf

#5 Post by aarf »

pussy pussy here pussy

peb
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#6 Post by peb »

darkcity wrote:I've recently repackaged jack
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=78256

any feedback appreciated.

:idea:
The feedback is they worked as advertised. Nice job.

Reply to other comments.

I tried the "pussy" distribution. It said the kernel wouldn't work for my "older" computer. So no "apt."

I did see another thread here that makes me believe ardour might work sometime soon -- maybe as a pet -- but even a distribution might be OK. And maybe some up to date video editors will be included too. I'm just looking for some solid, near professional level, AV editing solutions that just work day after day.

The latest and greatest doesn't mean bleeding edge to me, just the latest rock solid edition with a good feature set that is very unlikely to crash and burn in the middle of things. Once a year updating is probably sufficient for good AV software that's robust. It's not a browser environment where failure to update means a security risk.

I'm sort of put off a bit when packages that stress crash recovery as a major feature. Crash recovery provisions are OK, but avoiding injury by not crashing in the first place is a much better overall strategy.

One of the features I like about running Puppy in ram without saving anything to a pupsave file is that however badly it gets screwed up or corrupted with settings and preferences that are stored in some package dependent location, it's just a simple reboot to a clean cold restart that I know for sure won't be bogged down in the aftermath of whatever happened. That feature is a strong advantage over Windows and other Linux platforms that tend to keep saving problems. And I know where my data is -- it's not slathered about in tmp files, log files, some etc file, swapfiles, registries or configuration files and who knows where.

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Flash
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#7 Post by Flash »

I've been running Puppy from multisession DVDs for at least 5 years. Rather than save an installed program to the multisession DVD, I've learned to save the .pet in a separate USB flash memory and reinstall it every time I need it. It takes hardly any time to install and configure most .pets. If I really knew what I was doing, I guess I could make a new .pet to replace the old one, and include my configuration in it. :oops:

My point is that this way of doing things makes it easy to upgrade to the latest version of a program. It's kind of like a ROX app, which is contained with all its dependencies in one directory.

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greengeek
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Re: Puppy limitations

#8 Post by greengeek »

peb wrote:Ardour is basically beyond Puppy for all practical purposes.
Did you have the same issues with Puppy Ubuntu Studio 2.1 or 3.1 or 3.3? I remember reading some positive comments about those distros (other than the fact that there were heated personality/ethics clashes)

mini-jaguar
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#9 Post by mini-jaguar »

There's also a new Ardour package in the multimedia section of the forum that seems to work.

But one problem I'm having with Puppy is that trashing huge files takes forever.

The problem with the video editors though is that in frugal you have to have a huge pupsave file. I haven't tried it yet, but expanding the file to at least 5 or 10 giga should help. Video editing works much better in full install though.

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darkcity
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#10 Post by darkcity »

mini-jaguar wrote:...
But one problem I'm having with Puppy is that trashing huge files takes forever.

The problem with the video editors though is that in frugal you have to have a huge pupsave file. I haven't tried it yet, but expanding the file to at least 5 or 10 giga should help. Video editing works much better in full install though.
I would put temp and document folders outside the PupSave file on frugal. Most programs can be configured to choose which directory to use for temp, though ext2 type partition may be required. If a temporary directory is in the Linux RootFS it can be sym-linked out, I do this with /root/.mozilla/seamonkey. I think these features should be standardized for frugal mode puppy - so they are accessible for more users.

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sunburnt
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#11 Post by sunburnt »

mini-jaguar; You really need to use a H.D. partition, not the Save file.
The Save file should be only for config. files, but Puppy uses it to install apps. too.
SFS files don`t take up space in the Save file like Pet files do.

In my /root I have /my-applications and /my-documents as links to /mnt/sdb3/apps and /mnt/sdb3/docs .
This way when the Save file gets hosed ( corrupted ) I don`t loose everything.
I also have a /root/my-downloads link pointing to /mnt/sdb3/dnld .

Video and audio files can be saved to a NTFS partition without problems.
But again, you really should have a Ext3 partition on a H.D. in your PC.

mini-jaguar
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#12 Post by mini-jaguar »

No, trashing huge files still takes forever even if they are on whatever partition and the Puppy is full install.

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darkcity
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#13 Post by darkcity »

mini-jaguar wrote:No, trashing huge files still takes forever even if they are on whatever partition and the Puppy is full install.
This is interesting. Do you know if it is slower than other distros? I wonder why?

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#14 Post by nooby »

I do have a poor memory but AFAIK Barry Kauler
does recommend that one do frugal installs.

So maybe that explains this: It is not recommended to do this:
"the Puppy is full install."
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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darkcity
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#15 Post by darkcity »

the question is what is slowing down the 'trashing huge files'

A. Frugal puppy with file in savefile

B. Frugal puppy with file outside savefile

C. Full install puppy

D. Linux?

8)

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greengeek
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#16 Post by greengeek »

darkcity wrote:the question is what is slowing down the 'trashing huge files'
I've seen a couple of posts about slow disk activity when working with large savefiles - I have no idea how this all works but I wonder if it has anything to do with high cpu load or high I/O load because of the fact that a savefile has it's internal filesystem, which is having to be overlayed on top of the disk filesystem, and requiring many directory/partition table updates as checkerboarding gets sorted out. Just tossing ideas here because I have seen the occasional v_e_r_y long delay when saving/copying savefiles (you can probably tell I don't understand how the filesystems work...)

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