Woof-based Puppy builders wanted

[saintless]

It is easy and pleasant to make children. The important and harder job is to take care of them after that.
Experimenting and learning from your mistakes is one thing but the more important is to provide answer how to prevent and fix the mistakes from this experiments.

Software in this forum - it is very, very small and older part taken from much bigger repositories and is not universal even for all puppy versions... We can probably find more Puppy versions (experiments) than pets for them...

[mavrothal]

It is easy and pleasant to make children.

But that's exactly why we have them! Nature made sure for that.

Software in this forum -

But then why you think that distros like debiandog are in this forum and not in say, forums.debian.net?

Anyway, let's stick to the thread subject.

[stemsee]

It is easy and pleasant to make children.

But that's exactly why we have them! Nature made sure for that.

Man was given the ability to rise above nature! No one is forced to have kids - normally not anyway! Even so others can adopt your kids and look after as well if not better!! Especially if those kids are made of code!

i think you can only learn from it and if nothing else bring benefit to DebianDog, which if it was my child I would also be satisfied enough not to make others! And as you stated you are seeking to increase compatibility with puppy, as long as it doesn't break debian, I for my part support you 100%, but I am also going to develope my own sysems, and contribute to these new ones too, because i am bound to get ideas for my own benefit!

[saintless]

Software in this forum -

But then why you think that distros like debiandog are in this forum and not in say, forums.debian.net?

Because it is a product from the work of this forum members and this is what makes it Puppy project. There are very few programs from Puppy included and it is not the puppy software that gives puppy lookalike. It is the idea for small system based on any linux that acts like Puppy and it is right on this subject we discuss here.
Is it the core that makes Puppy linux what it is, or the software in this forum, or the idea for "independent, full-featured, fully functional OOB, with maximum installation flexibility but lightweight and efficient"? The last one has nothing to do with Puppy core and Puppy software.
We can't even change the core from one Puppy version to another without changes. Debian is much more flexible and universal in this case.
Keeping the same core and system structure will improve almost nothing for Puppy. But since it is not considered as disadvantage then I guess it is only my opinion and it is better to stop write about this.

[mavrothal]

Software in this forum -

But then why you think that distros like debiandog are in this forum and not in say, forums.debian.net?

Because it is a product from the work of this forum members

So hopefully you realize the validity of this forum with all its puppies, pets and derivatives. Why would you want to change that to become a monolithic debian derivative.

BTW puppy is the only distro forum I know that allows other distros to develop in it. To get frustrated because puppy does not become these "other distros" is a bit exaggerated I would say...

[saintless]

BTW puppy is the only distro forum I know that allows other distros to develop in it.

Allowed is not something that I feel comfortable with. If the thread is not something positive for Puppy, then this forum has the powers to delete it anytime.

[stemsee]

I don't like the underhand mechanisms being brought into play here. If anyone is willing to devote their time, knowledge and energy to a new project that is great! But does anyone have the right to dictate how one uses their own resources? If this forum is only about blackmail, subterfuge and leverage then i want no part of it.

And I have the where withal to do something about it on much broader platform!! Who wants to try their luck?

[Keef]

Calm down, calm down http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k2YEc6dozA

[mavrothal]

BTW puppy is the only distro forum I know that allows other distros to develop in it.

Allowed is not something that I feel comfortable with. If the thread is not something positive for Puppy, then this forum has the powers to delete it anytime.

I do not think that anyone want or implies anything of a kind but if you look around in linux world you'll soon realize that puppy is unique in that respect and everyone should be appreciative of John Murga, Puppy linux and the forum administrators for that.
Just to remind you though that the discussion started on puppy the forum and what is good for, after peebee's post.
It is not me that said that there is not much worth around here and that we do not need many puppies or that some other puppy/puplet is not good enough.
But I guess if you think that a specific puppy/pupplet is the only one worthwhile and there is not room for the rest, you sure assume that other may think that way too. Fortunately they do not.

[saintless]

...everyone should be appreciative of John Murga, Puppy linux and the forum administrators for that.

First post in DebianDog thread. Any suggestion what else should I do?
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=93225

I like to give my Thanks to Smokey for hosting DebianDog project,
to Debian team for keeping Debian such flexible system,
to this forum for the opportunity to work on a project different from puppy linux,
to our forum members working on DebianDog development: Fred (fredx181), Terry (sunburnt), William (mcewanw), Sergey (sklimkin),
and for the valuable advices to: jbv, sfs, catsezmoo, big_bass, emil, dancytron, anikin from our forum
and dzz from www.debianuserforums.org
And to Sickgut for his original idea that made possible DebianDog to exist.

It is not me that said that there is not much worth around here and that we do not need many puppies or that some other puppy/puplet is not good enough.

Is this what you read here?

Software in this forum - it is very, very small and older part taken from much bigger repositories and is not universal even for all puppy versions... We can probably find more Puppy versions (experiments) than pets for them...

Or something is not true and it is not written many times here over the years? Pointing again something that should be improved in Puppy should be good for Puppy.

It is not DebianDog I point here and it is not important what anyone thinks it worth or not.
The point is Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu... Puppy based on mainstream linux with much better compatibility is the way to improve Puppy. Most puplets have few programs changed and different compiled kernel. You can make 10 Debian Live versions in a day with the same differences. Is this improves something for anybody?
Yes, I do not say "Wow" when I see new Puppy version because it has the same problems. The time user spent to make some program work on Puppy is one of the unique sides of Puppy, but it is not of the positive unfortunately. And this is what I see as a way to improve Puppy. Independent system means one thing for the developer but sometimes the opposite for the user.

[Moat]

The point is Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu... Puppy based on mainstream linux with much better compatibility is the way to improve Puppy. Most puplets have few programs changed and different compiled kernel. You can make 10 Debian Live versions in a day with the same differences. Is this improves something for anybody?
Yes, I do not say "Wow" when I see new Puppy version because it has the same problems. The time user spent to make some program work on Puppy is one of the unique sides of Puppy, but it is not of the positive unfortunately. And this is what I see as a way to improve Puppy. Independent system means one thing for the developer but sometimes the opposite for the user.

I'm just a noobish, distro-hopping home desktop/enduser - but I so agree with Saintless' post above.

The real value of any OS, IMO, is ultimately defined by the useful, practical desired applications that it will run effectively - and the availability and ease of installation of those apps (i.e. - without headaches) by the enduser (me). I have personally found Puppy to not only be in contention in comparison to the big boy "heavy hitter" Linux distros as an everyday home desktop, but to actually excel in a number of distinct ways (default run as root [precious!], small size, run in RAM = speed, run frugal from tiny USB flash drive, easy savefile backup, choice to save/not save session, overall efficiency, etc...). Over time, I'm coming around to the conclusion that Puppy can, indeed, be THAT Linux distro. The One. Seriously.

But for me to get to this point (with a heavily tweaked Precise 5.7.1 Retro and Carolina 1.2) took a significant amount of time and effort. Therein lies the rub.

I want to scream to the rest of the world "Hey - look at this fantastic little fast, efficient, fully-functional workhorse OS running from my USB stick!!" - but know that for the typical enduser (i.e. - my buddies) there's likely too much time and effort involved to get to that point... a smooth-running, full-featured and (yes... Windows) user-friendly desktop environment. Why is that?

As what seems like an issue in the world of Linux overall, things appear to me as too fragmented - wonderful, abundant resources laid thin, scattered and almost lost amongst a sea of derivatives, development directions and forum threads... to the point of being anti-productive, at times.

Mick mentioned not enough testers... scattered resources. I love (!!) your Slacko, Mick - but am too deeply invested in my older Precise and Carolina to start over from scratch (ha - not that I know enough to be of much testing value, anyways! Just learning, here...). How many others are so, I wonder?

Package incompatibility between derivatives... so many derivatives = scattered resources/scattered compatibility.

Searching all over the forum and net for .pets that'll work properly in my Puppy... scattered resources (.pets). Some long lost in dead links.

Somewhat incomplete Puppy-specific-compiled .pet repos (so as to not pull in all of those unnecessary deps from the "official" repos) that could use additions/expansion/updating/support... scattered resources. Geoffrey (for Carolina) rulez in that regard - constantly making really nice, useful additions to the repo. I do understand that compiling apps is probably not nearly as fun as more cutting-edge stuff - but I feel it's an absolute requirement as to the validity of the OS, as a whole (as I mentioned above). Why not some sort of wider-scope "official" system of submission/testing/addition of user-compiled .pets to a Pup's repo? More = better!

Quite a few newbie forum threads re; hardware/driver/incompatibility issues - to the point of these potential users sometimes being recommended to try a completely different Pup in hopes of resolving the issue... scattered resources. With development/bug support focused on fewer (one-ish?) core official Pups, it only makes sense that these sort of issues would be more likely noticed and resolved, and for a much wider user base. Once and for all kinda' thing.

All are just some things that come to mind.

Ideally, this know-not-enough noob thinks...

1) A stripped-down core Pup, close to Barry's original ethos - maybe primarily two versions (like his LTSupported Precise and Precise Retro with additional drivers for older hardware/modems). To me, Ubuntu's LTS Trusty Tahr makes perfect sense as a base... generally solid, nice running system, most popular world-wide (including it's many derivatives), huge repo of apps, lotsa support, and the recent release of Tahr as a 5 year supported LTS - helping assure validity far down the road, of a Pup based on it. Call it "Trusty Pup". But - what do I know...?!

2) The Puppy user, hobby/tinkerer and dev community rallies around the official Trusty Pup.

3) Compile apps? Submit for testing - if passes, into the Trusty repo it goes. Not lost on page 4 of some thread I remember seeing in the Utilities sub-forum. Or was it System? Or Drivers? Nope - instead, right at the user's fingertips, via the PPM (Packdude!?).

4) Hardware/driver issues more likely to be addressed, as mentioned above.

5) Want to incorporate a different desktop environment? Instead of creating another re-spin, why not apply development of that idea to the core Trusty, as an installable .pet. Vicmz did this with Openbox/Lxpanel for Precise, as an example - and it works flawlessly. That would help assure compatibility with the (now huge and growing ) official Tahr repo apps. Xfce, Pekwm, Fluxbox, Mate, Cinnamon... all in the repo, ready to rock, a mouse-click away.

6) More, that I can't think of atm (lucky you...)

7) So - re; the topic... where does that leave Woof development/building then? With focus on a single(ish) Trusty core and it's support, why build more pups? I, of course, know not what I'm saying, so I'll ask - would it be realistically possible to continue development with/within WoofCE - with one eye always on the official (say) Trusty - and be able to offer Woof developments/fixes/additions as an installable .pet? Like, an "optional" upgrade system of sorts - via .pet - that leaves the user's installed apps and system tweaks intact (i.e. - compatible with existing savefile)? Probably asking for too much (idealistic), and coding mishaps/clashes could get ugly down the line, I suppose...

There are a number of great development ideas going on in the forum currently, and it would indeed be nice to be able to update a LTS Pup to incorporate those ideas as they come to fruition, over an official Pup's supported lifespan. A mechanism to do so would seemingly add incentive to both users and devs, to remain focused on continued use and support of the core, official Pup.

Please, no one here take any of what I say as any criticism whatsoever of what you do - quite the opposite!!! I have enormous respect and appreciation of the work every single one of you folks do (waaay over my head) - and it, frankly, is somewhat heartbreaking to see that great work sometimes get lost in the shuffle of forum activity and seemingly too many derivatives/directions.

As a lover of Puppy, just thought I could/should speak my mind and hopefully provide something of value, from a slightly different perspective (more as "enduser") - that's all! Sincere apologies for a lengthy rant on a thread I probably really have no business in... so, back to lurking.



Bob

[jamesbond]

Wow, quite a response! (though not like what I imagined it would be). Anyway, I'm happy to see these (sometimes heated) responses - it means people still *care*

This thread, and my own "proof-of-concept" script was born of a great concern for Puppy. Please read on.

My original post about the script is to *encourage* Woof adoption among puppy builders, current and future.
I think the reason *why* we need that is obvious, but perhaps not.
Here is my reasoning: first, I'm going to quote from mavrothal's first post of this thread:

Improvements in woof-CE are still going on but they are not implemented in any puppy.

My logic:
---------
Work going into Woof-CE not showing up in any puppy = waste.
Nobody's going to waste their time, so after a while = no contribution to Woof-CE.
No contribution to Woof-CE = Woof-CE dead.
Woof-CE dead = Puppy dead.

Proof: have anyone looked at commit logs of Woof-CE lately?
Arrgh! So how to avoid this doom?

Start from the top: make sure contribution to Woof-CE is *not* waste.
How? Get improvement in Woof-CE to the masses!
How? By releasing puppies based on Woof-CE, more releases, more often!
How? By making it easier to make puppies from Woof-CE .
This:
a) helps current builders to release more often
b) helps lower the barrier of entry for future builders

Now there are still good questions around this, too:
- is Woof-CE *the only* way to build Puppy?
- Is Puppy released *not* from Woof-CE effort, still considered a Puppy?
- But *Woof-CE* based puppy are problematic! Ubuntu packages don't work! Debian packages don't work! Can't build from Arch! They are bloated, etc etc.

Sure, Woof-CE isn't perfect. But that's what we have right now. It is *our* heritage. And obviously, Woof-CE needs work, a lot of them. But nobody's going to contribute to a dead codebase. We need live puppies. Live puppies means releases. So let's lower the barrier to entry to making puppies. Sure, a lot of theses puppies are going to die. But some will grow to adulthood. And these adult dogs will be a wonder to see

---

I worked on Ubuntu script first because I see that the main issue is Puppy's lack of packages, which I hope can be addressed by an Ubuntu-derivative Puppy.

But this doesn't stop you to work on anything else.

Woof-CE does have facilities to build puppies from T2. Or you can build puppy from LFS, if you wish. Saintless DebianDog's scripts can be made fully automated and incorporated into Woof-CE, making a puppy out of a Debian LiveCD. Iguleder's all-static packdude-based puppy can be merged into Woof-CE, too.

There is room enough for all in Woof-CE.

But, first, we have to make sure that it continues.

[01micko]

Well Bob (Moat) I'm posting from 666philb's Tahr (built from woof-CE) now.

He's done a good job. New kernel, all tahr packages, typical jwm/rox; sure there is bugs but it's proof of concept and basically works. A good foundation. Some goodies too with VLC included, pidgin and all for around 200MB.

Now Ubuntu Tahr still uses upstart init system so is unaffected by the systemd problem and if it's true LTS won't be for it's life expectancy. Utopic Unicorn is probably the first Ubuntu to feature systemd.That doesn't mean a pup can't be based on it's binaries but what it does mean that we are limited to using packages that don't depend on systemd. Unfortunately, that list is growing. Still, Lucid pup is a relevant distro and has stood the test of time. If the effort goes into a tahr/trusty based pup then there is no reason it can't do the same.

I started Slacko development more than 3 years ago, approaching 4 actually (Dec, 2010). At first it was a bit of a knee jerk to some wankers on distrowatch suggesting puppy is based on Ubuntu. I had quite a faithful little following with the spup series based on Slackware-13.1 and when I shifted base to 13.37 I was asked to go official. With development slow in other areas I accepted. I built a lot of software for slacko 5.3.0-5.3.3 and it's all still there at ibiblio and mirrors. The quality gradually increased too with heavy improvements and developments in woof and slacko testers reporting bugs, me and others fixing them, be thay mine, slackware's or at the woof level and feeding the patches upstream. The good old days.

I think the 5.4 to 5.7 series exhibit the same qualities however I simply didn't have the time for stocking fillers (repo packages). I relied heavily on Slackware, Salix and Slacky to fill that void but it doesn't do a quarter of what Ubuntu can do for Upup based pups with their vast developer base. Plus, Slackware itself is a distro on one DVD.. that's it. No more in the "official" repository. Salix and Slacky are 3rd party and often double up on packages with often subtle but sometimes major differences. I really do have to hand out thanks to those here that did do a great job building extra stuff such as peebee (broadcom, compiz, lx-sfs, carrying on Jejy69's work), vicmz (lx and tint2) and others.

So forward then eh? Tahr. Packdude (seriously!). I'll still play a bit with slacko64 as it's ground breaking for puppy (yes I know and respect kirk, jamesbond and tazocs' work but they are all "forks" if you will. Slacko64 is what you would expect if Barry built it.. more or less).

Another way would be T2 (or preferably LFS/BLFS) but we do lack the resources. Just ask jamesbond how much work it is.. lucky for him he's still married!

So tahr anyone? We have one builder, been here awhile. Give him your full support. I'm sure many developers will help out when they can, me included.

Cheers

(oh I see james beat me.. didn't read hitting "post" )

[mavrothal]

But for me to get to this point (with a heavily tweaked Precise 5.7.1 Retro and Carolina 1.2) took a significant amount of time and effort. Therein lies the rub.

I want to scream to the rest of the world "Hey - look at this fantastic little fast, efficient, fully-functional workhorse OS running from my USB stick!!" - but know that for the typical enduser (i.e. - my buddies) there's likely too much time and effort involved to get to that point... a smooth-running, full-featured and (yes... Windows) user-friendly desktop environment. Why is that?

As what seems like an issue in the world of Linux overall, things appear to me as too fragmented - wonderful, abundant resources laid thin, scattered and almost lost amongst a sea of derivatives, development directions and forum threads... to the point of being anti-productive, at times.

There are many discussions throughout the web about it. But here is a short rundown.
Linux dominates, servers
Linux dominates, embedded device (from refrigerators to "robots")
Linux dominates the mobile communications industry
Linux fails miserably at the desktop.
Why? because in contrast to the other sectors, there is no money to be made at the desktop computing (is all really free you see).
So is all done for the fun of it.
Both developers and users are do-it-yourself tweakers (do you know any productive environment with 3, 4, or 40 OSs on the same computer )

There is no point to change that. Just have fun and try your best and see who bites
And as a user if you like something try to give constructive feed back for any improvements. If not just walk away. But there is no point of saying to Debian "do it like Fedora". Use Fedora.
And if you just want a specific Fedora feature, see how you can implement it using/adapting/improving Debian tools.

So you want TahrPup help 666philb? (oops Mick beat me to it )

[saintless]

Debian based Puppy:

Code: Select all

drwxr-xr-x 81 root root     2048 Jun  1 07:46 root
drwxr-xr-x  19 root    root  1024 Mar 26  2012 man
drwxr-xr-x  43 root root 1024 Oct 20  2009 local
-r-------- 1 root root      256 Mar 24 11:08 gshadow
-rw------- 1 root root      301 May 25 14:22 shadow
crw------- 1 root root  81,   1 Aug 30  2002 video1
brw-rw---- 1 root root   7, 108 May 30 14:44 loop0
brw-rw---- 1 root root   7, 109 May 30 14:44 loop1
crw-r--r-- 1 root root   1,   1 Feb 13  2001 mem
crw-r--r-- 1 root root   1,   4 Feb 13  2001 port
brw-r--r-- 1 root root   8,   1 Feb 13  2001 sda1
brw-r--r-- 1 root root  11,   0 Feb 14  2001 sr0
crw------- 1 root root   4,   1 Jul 21  2009 tty1
crw-r--r-- 1 root root   4,  64 Feb 13  2001 ttyS0

Debian:

Code: Select all

drwx------ 20 root root  4096 Jun  1  2014 root
drwxr-xr-x  33 man  root  450 Jan 26 15:56 man
drwxrwsr-x 16 root staff  218 Mar 11 19:50 local
-rw-r-----  1 root shadow   597 May 26 17:35 gshadow
-rw-r-----  1 root shadow   949 Mar 20 20:32 shadow
crw-rw---T 1 root video    10, 175 Jun  1  2014 agpgart
brw-rw---T 1 root disk      7,   0 Jun  1  2014 loop0
brw-rw---T 1 root disk      7,   1 Jun  1  2014 loop1
crw-r----T 1 root kmem      1,   1 Jun  1  2014 mem
crw-r----T 1 root kmem      1,   4 Jun  1  2014 port
brw-rw---T 1 root disk      8,   1 Jun  1  2014 sda1
brw-rw---T 1 root cdrom    11,   0 Jun  1  2014 sr0
crw------- 1 root tty       4,   1 Jun  1  2014 tty1
crw-rw---T 1 root dialout   4,  64 Jun  1  2014 ttyS0

Hope it is constructive suggestion - without fixing this you are working (or having fun) with broken base.

[01micko]

I just want to make one point with this post - a very important point

(ha - not that I know enough to be of much testing value, anyways! Just learning, here...)

Wrong. Your ideas and reports are as important as any persons. Doesn't matter the issue, even if you think it is unrelated.

Every slightest bug report is important. When I do a release, I go over the whole previous thread and as many as I can before that and try to reproduce and eliminate the issue. No matter what you test, if something isn't right, report it. It may not be fixed immediately, it may never get fixed, but at least it is documented and will probably show up in a google or duckduckgo search.

[Moat]

Start from the top: make sure contribution to Woof-CE is *not* waste.
How? Get improvement in Woof-CE to the masses!

Completely, totally agree!

How? By releasing puppies based on Woof-CE, more releases, more often!

Now this is the part that worries me (the noob enduser) somewhat, as it seems all too often that new "releases" means non-functional packages and new bugs to chase...? I.e. - more of the same time/effort getting my system set up and running how I'd prefer, and more time/effort spent by you good folks/devs swatting bugs and helping us noobs out.

Hence my thought re; the possibility (would it even be??) of devising a mechanism to allow incorporating Woof-CE improvements (i.e. - "updates" via .pet or similar, installable packages) into an existing, fully-supported LTS Puppy - ideally, without breaking anything. Leaving the full available range of previously compiled, proven packages intact and functional... so all of that hard work wouldn't go to waste!

Is that even a possibility?

Seems like that approach could be the best of both worlds - getting these great Woof-CE improvements to the masses on a regular basis (via an update mechanism) AND preserve all of the previous time/effort/work that went before, in support of the base, core system and it's package/.pet collection.

And over a 5 year LTS support cycle... are you kidding me? In that environment, the potential of Puppy to develop and grow into a OOTB world-beating Linux distro could be mind=blown!

Not that it isn't, already - of course.

Bob

[Moat]

Well Bob (Moat) I'm posting from 666philb's Tahr (built from woof-CE) now.

Yes! Keeping a close eye on that one. Next trip to McD's for a coffee and burger w/the lappie (as I'm on dial-up) - I'll just have to snag it and have a peek...

Bob

[Moat]

There are many discussions throughout the web about it. But here is a short rundown....
Linux fails miserably at the desktop.

Yes - I'm coming to grips with that notion. Frustrating, though! I see so much potential as a fully customizable, all-around home desktop, that just falls this >< short... Part of the fun and attraction, I suppose... And it IS gettin' there!

Bob

[Moat]

Wrong. Your ideas and reports are as important as any persons. Doesn't matter the issue, even if you think it is unrelated.

Thanks, Mick - I'll take that to heart, and do better. Promise!

Bob