Standardization of Puppy Linux Desktop and App Platform

[bark_bark_bark]

But since it is open source you can contribute to fix the poorly written software...

It may be open source, but it doesn't mean you can contribute to the code.

Some projects, like GNOME, don't really allow anybody to contribute to the code.

Note: GNOME is and always will be a buggy an unstable resource hog because the developers have an anti-user attitude.

Another note: GNOME is said to even struggle to run smoothly on really powerful gaming rigs and the fallback mode is even a bigger mess.

[mikeb]

hmm do I really need to repeat that standardization is not about using one particular DE/WM?

Windows win32 api has and had the option of alternative window managers...

For those who remember vinyl this topics severely stuck in thee groove...

mike


by the way for an example of buggy weird shite then look no further than JWM

[LazY Puppy]

Though I will admit, I am kinda a Tcl fanboy

I had stumbled lately over a posting -I think made by technosaurus- about the mess in GTK (especially of deprecating things and to replace them with NOTHING). He mentioned the use of Tk/Tcl instead of GTK/Bash (iIrc).

Is there a Tk/Tcl development package that will run in Lucid and/or Precise based Puppies?

Have a Link?

Some documentation and/or manuals also?

Ah, nice to see some others willing to learn the lost art of Tcl. I wonder if this is how most gurus in the *nix world feel when they see people willing to learn something you support?

Well Tcl/Tk is pretty easy to get setup and working, And I did create a couple packages for Precise of 8.6 here http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 486ac8e8ae

As for documentation, I can offer a couple superb places to not only get information, but where I first started Tcl. http://www.bin-co.com/tcl/tutorial/

I always suggest bin-co for newcomers, and those who wish to learn Tcl/Tk. And here is a major tip for making Tcl scripts run on a variety of platforms.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
#The next line executes wish - wherever it is \
exec wish "$0" "$@"

Now best of luck, and spread the good word off Tcl (Now I can't help but feel like some kind of preacher of the Tcl Religion ).

Thanks!

[NeroVance]

I had stumbled lately over a posting -I think made by technosaurus- about the mess in GTK (especially of deprecating things and to replace them with NOTHING). He mentioned the use of Tk/Tcl instead of GTK/Bash (iIrc).

Is there a Tk/Tcl development package that will run in Lucid and/or Precise based Puppies?

Have a Link?

Some documentation and/or manuals also?

Ah, nice to see some others willing to learn the lost art of Tcl. I wonder if this is how most gurus in the *nix world feel when they see people willing to learn something you support?

Well Tcl/Tk is pretty easy to get setup and working, And I did create a couple packages for Precise of 8.6 here http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 486ac8e8ae

As for documentation, I can offer a couple superb places to not only get information, but where I first started Tcl. http://www.bin-co.com/tcl/tutorial/

I always suggest bin-co for newcomers, and those who wish to learn Tcl/Tk. And here is a major tip for making Tcl scripts run on a variety of platforms.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
#The next line executes wish - wherever it is \
exec wish "$0" "$@"

Now best of luck, and spread the good word off Tcl (Now I can't help but feel like some kind of preacher of the Tcl Religion ).

Thanks!

No Problem mate. (Odd I say that despite being a Canadian)

[NeroVance]

hmm do I really need to repeat that standardization is not about using one particular DE/WM?

Windows win32 api has and had the option of alternative window managers...

For those who remember vinyl this topics severely stuck in thee groove...

mike


by the way for an example of buggy weird shite then look no further than JWM

Damn straight my good man Mike. I do find the latest JWM versions have been pretty good, even though I'm not that enthused on a rounded look, but I do like the improved taskbar and is it just me, or is maximization improved as well?

[mikeb]

I was being harse due to topic frustration

Does throw up the odd bug with softmaker office now and then but at least you can use full screen stuff now .... upward and onward.

Its not just pup stuff but the likes of gtk do not seem to understand the concept of consistency either ..... a major developers headache.

mike

[anikin]

On standards, desktops and frustration ... mince no words

Who said my raging was limited to games this time Linux has it right between the eyes, note foul language used a lot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnsXRdU98uw
Have a look at his other videos, this one for instance:
Debian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veLXI9DdSiw

[Q5sys]

wow... 4 pages and no one has posted this yet...

[bark_bark_bark]

There is no such thing as standard that can meet everybody's needs.

[battleshooter]

wow... 4 pages and no one has posted this yet...

That's brilliant Q5sys. xkcd sums it up.

[darkcity]

There is no financial backing to write and co-ordinate standards for Puppy. Niceties like ease-of-use across the whole system for non-technical people aren't something that developers make for the joy of it. You may be better off with a different distro or OS.

Having said that Woof community edition goes some way towards standardizing Puppy creation, for those Puppy versions that use it.

[mikeb]

There is no financial backing to write and co-ordinate standards for Puppy.

Well although that would help if there were some consistent frameworks the topic was about puppy adopting Linux standards rather than creating its own to make package building easier.

Seems the trolls have moved in so I doubt if there will be any further serious discussion here.

mike

[Q5sys]

There is no financial backing to write and co-ordinate standards for Puppy. Niceties like ease-of-use across the whole system for non-technical people aren't something that developers make for the joy of it. You may be better off with a different distro or OS.

Having said that Woof community edition goes some way towards standardizing Puppy creation, for those Puppy versions that use it.

I think that's less of a problem than the fact that everyone has their own view of what should be 'standard'. A simple glance at the massive difference between various puppy releases should show that.
Just considering the WM/DE alone, we various puppies use JWM, LXDE, Openbox, Razor-qt, fluxbox, KDE, Trinity, XFCE.

Agreeing on a standard will never 'work'. Barry has defined a Puppy as using JWM... so that's the historic standard, but that's one that many people diverge from due to the goal that they want to accomplish.

Now the WM/DE issue is just one, in ever facet of the OS... there are different opinions on what should be used and how it should be used. Just look at the debates that rage over GTK vs QT in the Linux world.

In my personal opinion... if we are going to agree on a "standard", it should be about a framework that makes different parts interchangeable with more ease. But I think that's impossible since we are dependent on upstream projects which dont care about that. That is unless we want to create our own home brew solution for everything. Personally I think that's a bad road to go down.

[mikeb]

Hey ho...repeat oneself time but why not...have any window manager that FOLLOWS XDG standards

after all do you not have bathroom fittings that FOLLOW PIPEWORK STANDARDS so the plumbing does not LEAK?

Is you car fitted with tyres that CONFORM TO STANDARDS regardless of brand and style chosen so they FIT the RIMS?


is this too complicated or something?

mike

[Q5sys]

is this too complicated or something?

mike

No, but some upstream projects could care less about your precious standards. Are we going to 'ban' software that doesn't conform? How exactly are we as a community supposed to control what someone does? We could all 'agree' on a standard, but that doesn't mean anyone has to follow it. Everyone can say that puppy will follow freedesktop's standards for a WM... and then I can go make a puppy that uses i3 or fvwm. A standard is only as good as long as people care to follow it.


Hell...

As the standards for setting default applications have been recently changed, not all programs will comply with them yet. Indeed, the programs provided by freedesktop.org's xdg-utils package do not fully follow their own standards!

Source = https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/De ... plications

If the people who are writing the damn standards they want everyone else to follow, dont even bother to follow them completely... I think this shows that it's just a free for all. Standards like this end up to be nothing more than suggestions with no weight behind them.

Do we really want to follow that path into making every decision a debate and have puppy development get weighed down by the stupid politics that we've seen other distros imploding under? Has anyone looked at the mess Debian is in recently? I'm sure in a year things will smooth back out for them... but the politics of open source always seem to do nothing but hurt projects.

[mikeb]

If the people who are writing the damn standards they want everyone else to follow, dont even bother to follow them completely... I think this shows that it's just a free for all. Standards like this end up to be nothing more than suggestions with no weight behind them.

Ok i was being hopefull....I always likes to think improvements are possible.

It's hard to admit that Iinux really is the joke that its claimed to be but thats being realistic.

It would be nice to have an alternative to Windows/Apple that can be taken seriously....
I use it myself but never offered it to business clients.

mike

[Q5sys]

If the people who are writing the damn standards they want everyone else to follow, dont even bother to follow them completely... I think this shows that it's just a free for all. Standards like this end up to be nothing more than suggestions with no weight behind them.

Ok i was being hopefull....I always likes to think improvements are possible.

It's hard to admit that Iinux really is the joke that its claimed to be but thats being realistic.

It would be nice to have an alternative to Windows/Apple that can be taken seriously....
I use it myself but never offered it to business clients.

mike

At this point the distros that can be taken seriously, IMHO, is Red Hat's offerings. Ubuntu while having some nice business solutions, still has too much of an air of 'linux for noobs', for some business to really take it serious. OpenSuSe is taken serious in Europe, but elsewhere its mostly ignored. I sometimes wonder how much life it has left it in before its aquired by someone else. But with all the Anti-US sentament due to all the NSA revelations, I'm sure their business has started to flourish again as European companies want to deal with a company that's not US based like Red Hat.

Outside of that... most of the distros are not taken seriously in the business world. And Puppy is certainly at the bottom of that list.

[mikeb]

I had suse enterprise on a new netbook...it lasted a week or so before starting to fail.... that phase of selling linux on machines was short lived..I wonder why.
I wonder if googles twist on linux with its 'standard' approach had any influence on its popularity.

Old saying..'united we stand divided we fall'... minorities have a hard time.

By the way the netbook worked nicely using XP run from an SD card though I ended up with slax and a 3 year battle to get video happy...Its sold now thankfully. If your time is free then a bargain is to be had...

mike

[B.K. Johnson]

@Mikeb

I am just seeking information. No flaming intended. And I think the questions are germane to the topic.

I note you have several machines with different puppies.
Can you set out a subset/all in your kennel with the key application(s)/features each has installed and what determines which of the machines you boot. i.e what occasions? for which purpose? why one over the others?


B.K. Johnson
tahrpup-6.0.2 PAE, slacko-5.7, frugal install, multi OS flashdrive SYSLINUX boot, CPU-Dual E2140. 4GB RAM

[mikeb]

That could be one boring list .....

apps depend on who predominately uses the machine in question...all except small core apps and utils are sfs files so each has a different set.

machines...presently 2 x compaqs pentium 3 1GHz maxed with nvidia cards, one atom dual core ITX 945 graphics but nvidia card added (spare machine in cupboard for future but the old gear keeps on running well ) and one lenovo x60s netbook... similar spec to the other dual core but centrino rather than atom...now living on a boat so use has changed somewhat.

default on all but lenovo is slax 6 based..xfce4 desktop.
laptop varies due to network arrangement...wifi or 3g or none.

All machines have windows 2000 and XP . Much of the software is the same on linux and windows for ease of switching (browsers/email/office etc etc... though obviously there is a pile that only work well on windows.)

All have puppies with a xfce4/rox hybrid desktop...lighter than the usual. ..notably 4.12 with slax kernel and lucid ... for testing /experimenting/development...working on updating the slax to lucid era core. All have archive save, save folder and multiple sfs loading and multiuser so similar to slax in terms of abilities but with the puppy type boot wrappers.

there's probably more to add but you get the gist hopefully. This arrangement has not changed much (apart from the laptop being new to the scene to replace the awfule HP netbook...2133 say no more) for several years.

mike