Puppy 2.15CE "Viz" - Look and Feel

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lvds
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#21 Post by lvds »

WhoDo wrote: It is my intention to carry into Puppy 2.14CE the best features of Muppy, Pizzapup and Grafpup. Obviously some things won't be possible, but most things will ... within reason. The CE edition is our opportunity to show the rest of the Linux community that Puppy is not just some querky little light distro, but rather a serious contender on the desktop - especially where hardware-challenged machines are involved.
Hi,

...Having tested all of these distro it reminds me i noticed each one was good but was missing something so i could use it professionally at work. I then made a list of software and have searched if a distro existed yet with everything i need and soon discovered the only way to have the software i need was to build my own distro. Along the path, i met other people having quite nearly the same need as me and i modified my list of software so that it could fit to my friends needs too.

I then discovered it was a big list of software, and i am trying to manage to have them all fitting in ram on a current pc 512 Mo ram. Sometimes i tells myself all i have to do is wait as a lot of people will soon have 1Go ram pc... But when i wake up i go back at work looking at the ram size, testing software to discard everything buggy.

I really think that we have to take great care of the software we choose when building a distro. It's the first point, having EVERY software perfectly running and tuned. Do not left anything untested.

The second point is to take great care of locales and inserting in the distro only software translated in the right language for the country it will be used. So at least german, english, spanish, french, italian and chinese HAVE TO be supported. And we need to be sure that when switching locale every menus in every software of the distro are finely translated.

The last point is to left out unstable technology and insert only working new high-tech things. It is better to tell people to wait for the next release than to insert a tools not working and having them spending night and days at trying hard to have it work ! So you treat people with RESPECT and they become confident in your work. You don't cheat at showing a software, letting people think it will work when they come back home, when in fact it only recognize one manufacturer-card for example.

Test everything. In deep. Check everything and list them so people can work all together. Become preofessionals. Think at industry grades and quality labels.

There are things that cannot be bought. And people testing Linux look at every programmers with a deep respect each time they find a valuable tool working fine. We need to give this back. Let us create perfect Linux.
Let us enlight the numeric world with real software and no more promises. The time has come. It's up to us.

Best regards,
Laurent.

TonshA
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#22 Post by TonshA »

lvds wrote:The time has come. It's up to us.
Oooh! Sounds like a call to arms. OK. I'm up for it.

I'd be happy to do a logo. First I think we need a catchy name for the release. Lobster normally does this this, so I would be happy to hear his suggestions. For myself I've thought of the following:

[Vista Competitor]
Victor
Vivid
Venus
Vertex
Vibes
Velvet or Vermillion if we decide to use WhoDo's 'red' Icewm theme.

[Really Good theme]
Supreme
Paragon
Prime
Elite
Champion
Zenith

[Beautiful Theme]
Stellar
Dazzler
Stacked

[Heroic Icon]
Paladin
Champion
Hero

Once we have a name, I can do a logo.

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WhoDo
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#23 Post by WhoDo »

TonshA wrote:I'd be happy to do a logo. First I think we need a catchy name for the release. Lobster normally does this this, so I would be happy to hear his suggestions. For myself I've thought of the following:

[Vista Competitor]
Victor
Vivid
Venus
Vertex
Vibes
Velvet or Vermillion if we decide to use WhoDo's 'red' Icewm theme

...[snip]...

Once we have a name, I can do a logo.
How about Puppy "Visa" - Your passport to a better future? :D

Watch out for Lobster, though. He has Puppy 2.14 branded as "Barbie" so he might come up with "Ken" for the CE version! :lol:

Keep it goin', guys! I'm lovin' it! :P

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Pizzasgood
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#24 Post by Pizzasgood »

Puppy is a puppy. It's a penguin too. Penguin means tux. A tux is supposed to be sharp and good looking (I guess, I wouldn't know). That's what this version of Puppy wants to be. This version should also have functional improvements.

So what do we have? A highly efficient, functional, and sharp Puppy. AKA Secret Agent Puppy. That doesn't roll off the tongue very well, so make it "Agent P.U.P."

Agent P.U.P. is a tuxedo wearing dog armed with a small tool-kit, a couple spare sticks of ram, a USB hub or seven, and a fully loaded jet-black jumpdrive.



As for working on this thing, like you said, we'd need forums. Once we have someplace to work, things will be easier. If nothing else, I could probably set another one up on my site. I'm not sure how many mysql databases I'm allowed, but I think I have at least one free.

Actually, try PMing Flash. I think he can do it too.


We're also going to need to know how this is going to be done. I'm assuming you will set up a Puppy Unleashed tree on your end once 2.14 is finalized? Then there are two ways to work on it. Either an FTP account can be set up somewhere and we just upload our work to it, or something like SVN can be used. I don't know much about SVN yet, but I'd go for something along those lines. During 109CE, we occasionally over-wrote somebody's changes. For example, say you download the most recent version of our XYZ package and start working on it. Then I download it too and do my own work on it. When you finish, you upload yours. Now if I upload mine, it will overwrite your changes, even if they were in a completely different area from mine. I think SVN is supposed to work around that. I don't know, I'd have to research a little. But from what Nathan was saying, that sounds like the case.

We're also going to need some kind of to-do list set up, and a suggestions list. Things from the suggestions can be approved and added to the to-do list.


Finally, some kind of mission statement. Are we just trying to give Puppy a facelift? Are we trying to add new things? Or are we trying to stabilize the existing setup? Also, some kind of size-restraint will be needed, or it will balloon out. There is an infinite amount of programs out there, and everybody is going to want different things. So restricting the size is a very good thing to do, especially in a community-built thing.


Personally, I'm a fan of small face-lift and stabilization. Best to leave the experimentation to Barry and the random puplets, and let the CE editions be a chance for Puppy to collect himself and become a refined, stable version. Not to say that small things shouldn't be added, like encryption, a save-file wizard, or IceWM, but the focus should be on ironing things out.
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WhoDo
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#25 Post by WhoDo »

Pizzasgood wrote:Personally, I'm a fan of small face-lift and stabilization. Best to leave the experimentation to Barry and the random puplets, and let the CE editions be a chance for Puppy to collect himself and become a refined, stable version. Not to say that small things shouldn't be added, like encryption, a save-file wizard, or IceWM, but the focus should be on ironing things out.
That's pretty much my vision, too! What I'd like to add are ease-of-use features. I already have Guesttoo's CTRL-ALT-DEL change in the working copy, so users get a choice of what they want to do. I'd also like to get someone to write a frontend for configuring a few things in Icewm - making the taskbar permanent at the top or bottom, changing particular fonts, etc. And I have a vision for a cutdown Wizard wizard that will run on boot and walk a new user through network, sound (if necessary) and firewall configuration, among other things.

You're right, we need a todo list and for that we need a forum. I'll PM Flash today to see if he can help.

Cheers

Hmmm... Puppy 2.14CE "Tuxedo" - a sharp looking, but practical, penguin ("Tux")offering an easy ("e") way to "do" what you want with your PC? I like it! 8)
Last edited by WhoDo on Sat 17 Feb 2007, 20:41, edited 1 time in total.

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lvds
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#26 Post by lvds »

Hi,

I agree with pizzapup statements, let's make a stable software available to the largest public. I think we have to leave the door open for great customization if one user wants but it is not up to us to include every recent funny tweak. Think SECURE, STRONG, RAPID software for enterprise use, matching quality grades. We will have time later to produce another release...

About the forum, isnt'it possible to have it here on puppylinux.com ?
by the way i discovered existenz of and add-on named "Topics everywhere" for phpBB so readers can also read news with RSS tools (as we discussed about it a while ago...) Perhaps this could be implemented here too ?

About the todo-list, i suggest the following subjects:
- internationalisation and translations
- setup a clean menu professionaly looking (i discovered many of us reorganize menus because of not being accurate)
- control panel configuration for easy and full working configuration of the window manager (because every user starts here, setup a desktop screen, a screen saver, a lock password, a theme, and starts the internet browser to look after other available themes... this IS the first step, if the Linux doesn't responds from here, it will be definetely left appart and never used again). This implies the careful choice of a window manager. I have worked a lot on this subjects lasts weeks and found the xfce4232 was very light in comparison with all it affords. As you may have read on another thread i begun about it, i had little luck with more recent releases of xfce, but this 4232 does the job great and leave the user full of possibilities to expand.
- Whatever window manager choosen, prepare ready to go packs for users so they can change to another one VERY EASYLY as this is for sure what they will do first !
- careful choice of softwares. here are strategic choices. When a kid starts internet browser and can't even play a flash game he will just reboot to windows. If your mother or wife cannot even read multimedia files attached to an email webmail, she will reboot to windows. If a company cannot get its usual java software working, it will flag the distro to "geeks only". Include Java may also open the door to very good software light weighted... Here every one of us could partake the best he have used. From others distro i have particularly noticed Firestarter firewall, GimpShop (for compatibility with Photoshop), Gqview, gnomebaker, inkscape, Xara, Audacity, Kino, SSLexplorer, TeamSpeak, Skype, galculator, EtherApe etc...
- while speaking of software, perhaps it will be good to have a pack abiword/gnumeric and another one OpenOffice ; as this is really a user personnal choice.

About the name, Tuxedo sounds good but anyway does it need a name ? I mean v2.14 Community Edition isn't self explanatory enough ? Ubuntu had great success partly because of the concept of people working altogether. I think we need a concept here. Something transmitting the idea that we have joint efforts from all over the world programmers to bring the very best linux for every day people and common enterprise useage.

Best regards,
Laurent.
Last edited by lvds on Sat 17 Feb 2007, 12:01, edited 1 time in total.

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WhoDo
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#27 Post by WhoDo »

lvds wrote:About the forum, isnt'it possible to have it here on puppylinux.com ?
I PM'd Flash, one of the senior administrators, and basically the answer is NO. He offered to make posts "sticky" but that doesn't address the issue of having a single point of access for CE project discussions. Maybe Ted Dog would consider making us a home at his forum instead.
lvds wrote: About the name, Tuxedo sounds good but anyway does it need a name ? I mean v2.14 Community Edition isn't self explanatory enough ?
"Tuxedo", or whatever other name we choose, would only be a project name to differentiate the Puppy 2.14CE project from the 1.10CE project and any future 2.xx CE or 1.xx CE projects. That's all. I wouldn't advocate advertising it as that outside of the community. For everyone else it should simply be Puppy 2.14CE, IMHO.

I haven't had time to digest your other suggestions, but I will look at them in detail and add them to the list of contributions. Hopefully we will find a home and be able to collect everything in one place instead of stuck all over the other forum discussions.

Cheers
Last edited by WhoDo on Sat 17 Feb 2007, 20:13, edited 1 time in total.

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lvds
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#28 Post by lvds »

...It seems a better idea to me to stay in this forum so people could find years after any discussion related to this subject ; looking at the index we could use "the cutting edge" perhaps ? We would just have to choose a topic accurate, and others people could easyly come and go to give their advice.

Best regards

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puppyfan12
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#29 Post by puppyfan12 »

RE: A Forum - I'd be willing to host a forum on my server if you're in need of one.

Control Panel Options - From a new user perspective it would be nice if there was simple GUI's to change options that commonly require editing config files or at least to have comments inside the scripts that explain the function of each option and a GUI that simply opens up the appropriate config file.
lvds wrote:GimpShop (for compatibility with Photoshop)
Actually gimpshop isn't required for compatibility with photoshop. Gimp has support for photoshop (.psd) files built into it as well. All gimpshop does is modify the menu and icon layouts to closer match photoshop's for people who are accustomed to that software.

While I am more comfortable with photoshop's menu's I don't think it's necessary to make the gimp layout mimic photoshop's layout. It would be neat if there was a way edit and save templates of menu layout so they were toggleable. I believe that request is a gimp specific one though.

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Pizzasgood
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#30 Post by Pizzasgood »

Codename "Tuxedo" sounds good to me.

Java is probably a little big (isn't it 80MB or so?). Gimp is possible, but you'd have to drop some weight somewhere to fit it. Tossing out mtPaint and maybe InkscapeLite might make enough room, but though I don't use it, I can see where InkscapeLite would be nice to have (Gimp is a raster editor, InkscapeLite is vector).

How much weight would localization add? Maybe it would be better to have that as an addon? Or maybe make two isos, an English version and an International version. With Unleashed it wouldn't be very hard to store the localization in a separate package and just build an iso with it and another without it.



A sub-forum would have been nice. Even if it was a sub-sub forum, in Cutting Edge. I do agree that staying here would be better if possible, because there's more chance for random people to pitch in advice.

A bunch of stickies in Cutting Edge could work. There aren't any other stickies in there, so it wouldn't be too confusing. We'd have to confine ourselves to only so many stickies so-as not to overflow it, but it wouldn't be too bad. Then we'd have the advantage of people who wouldn't bother watching some other forum dedicated to it seeing our posts, so we could get help and stuff easier.

But those are just my thoughts. I'd also be fine with our own forum. Two other places to consider are Barry's developer forum and the forum we used for 109CE (if that's still around).


EDIT: Maybe we could take over the Aardvark_1 forum? :twisted:
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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veronicathecow
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#31 Post by veronicathecow »

Hi Whodo, lovely looking puppy. I was wondering if you cvould post a list what programs will be in it. Currently I am using Rudy which is excellent.

For me it needed to have O.O. Firefox, Thunderbird, NVU, Gimp, Gxine, with all codecs, DVD and CD ripper to be a real replacement for XP etc. For average punters it has to work straight out of the box or they will give up. Hell it took me 7 years to convert and I'm an I.T. technician!

I'm so used to it now I completely forget I'm in Puppy (Apart from the blinding speed!)

Cheers
Tony

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WhoDo
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#32 Post by WhoDo »

lvds wrote:...It seems a better idea to me to stay in this forum so people could find years after any discussion related to this subject ; looking at the index we could use "the cutting edge" perhaps ?
Agreed. Puppy 2.14CE is a community project and it is appropriate that it remains where the community gathers. I'll PM Flash and ask him to move our main posts to Cutting Edge and make them sticky.
puppyfan12 wrote:Control Panel Options - From a new user perspective it would be nice if there was simple GUI's to change options that commonly require editing config files or at least to have comments inside the scripts that explain the function of each option and a GUI that simply opens up the appropriate config file.
Thanks for the offer to host a forum. We're probably where we need to be, though.

I'm all for simple GUI front ends that tie related things up in an easy-to-follow way. I want one to manage Icewm configuration, and one to manage basic setups on first boot. If you can think of any others we'll add them to the list.
Pizzasgood wrote:Codename "Tuxedo" sounds good to me.
When we get organised I'll create a poll with Tuxedo and a few other name suggestions for the community to vote on.
Pizzasgood wrote:Java is probably a little big (isn't it 80MB or so?). Gimp is possible, but you'd have to drop some weight somewhere to fit it. Tossing out mtPaint and maybe InkscapeLite might make enough room, but though I don't use it, I can see where InkscapeLite would be nice to have (Gimp is a raster editor, InkscapeLite is vector).
Yes, Java has to go. It's very big and it only offers clear functionality in certain limited areas, like databases under Open Office, etc. If users need it, or anything else specific, there will be MU's Puppy Software Installer for them to select and install with a single click.
Pizzasgood wrote:A bunch of stickies in Cutting Edge could work. There aren't any other stickies in there, so it wouldn't be too confusing. We'd have to confine ourselves to only so many stickies so-as not to overflow it, but it wouldn't be too bad. Then we'd have the advantage of people who wouldn't bother watching some other forum dedicated to it seeing our posts, so we could get help and stuff easier.
Agreed. Nice idea about Aardvark1, but then Flash could just delete our posts on a whim! :P I'll PM him today about moving our stuff to Cutting Edge and making it sticky. We only have two major posts so far, and a 3rd for CE Development Suggestions would seem appropriate.

Cheers

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WhoDo
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#33 Post by WhoDo »

veronicathecow wrote:Hi Whodo, lovely looking puppy. I was wondering if you cvould post a list what programs will be in it.
...[snip]...
For me it needed to have O.O. Firefox, Thunderbird, NVU, Gimp, Gxine, with all codecs, DVD and CD ripper to be a real replacement for XP etc. For average punters it has to work straight out of the box or they will give up. Hell it took me 7 years to convert and I'm an I.T. technician!
Hi Tony. Thanks for the compliment! 8)

Puppy 2.14CE will have Open Office, Firefox and Thunderbird are under consideration but I'd also like to look at the Seamonkey "Firefox" compile in the new release. Gimp will be there, but NVU will probably be an add-on option. DVD/CD ripper and other multimedia enhancements like XMMS will be there. Gxine is under consideration.

We're also looking at GUI front ends to some of the essential wizards and functions, so working "out of the box" is a high priority.

Cheers

xandas
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#34 Post by xandas »

I am trying 2.14. Some comments.
May help in developing the CE edition as there are some topics:

1. Mht files. Seamonkey doesn't open mht files. It shows the htm code.
Mht is a good format as it includes all the pictures leting the saving folders clean.

2. Multisession disks fills quickly. I am using multisession CD's. They fills quickly due to the cache of the navigator as it is saved with the rest of the session. Opera and Firefox have a menu that enable the user to clean the caché (and other personal things) before save, not Seamonkey .

3. Voip trouble. Zmixer doesn't allow to enable and disable the mic (the mic is disabled by default) as Skype and Xten-Xlite requires to work.
It is not enough to listen the mic speech at the speakers: is mandatory enable it.
The xtmix used in previous versions allows clicking in the small black dot located under the mic cursor to enable/disable the mic.
A comment: Xten-Xlite is a good configurable Voip phone to use with the voip provider you choose.
I use it with VoipStunt, -10 euros for 300 min/week (to certain countries) land phones during 120 days- and it exists a linux version that works ok.

4. Icons not shown. In Rox, e.g. /usr/local/lib/X11/pixmaps the thumbs are not displayed.

5.- Sound card selection. The card selected with the Alsa wizard is no stored. At the new boot, I must run the wizard again.
At the end of the card recognition is showed an error msg: snd_op13_synth and snd_seq_midi, not found.

I was using Puppy 2.02, by John Murga. It is a strong version: all works good.
And uses Opera, unsurpassed. Thanks Barry and John for your work.

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Pizzasgood
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#35 Post by Pizzasgood »

4: Image thumbnails are disabled by default now to speed things up a little. Right-click the eye icon in the ROX-Filer toolbar and they will come back.
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Pizzasgood
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#36 Post by Pizzasgood »

Here's a wallpaper I made with Gimp this evening.

Image
full-sized (1024x768)

EDIT: Fixed annoying bump
EDIT2: Fixed bottom link :oops:
Last edited by Pizzasgood on Wed 21 Feb 2007, 00:24, edited 1 time in total.
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#37 Post by wow »

:shock: I love it! :) finally something with style
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lvds
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#38 Post by lvds »

:arrow: http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/

...Ladies, this man is worth to known ! :wink:

Best regards,
Laurent.

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WhoDo
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#39 Post by WhoDo »

Is this what you had in mind? :?:

Image

BTW, that's Puppy 2.15CE Beta in the background. :P

Cheers

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Lobster
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:) so eh . . . how about an Alpha release?

#40 Post by Lobster »

The background is fine. I would also recommend jpg and other image display is ON by default in ROX . . .

The size issue . . . It is quite possible to create Puppy Viz (snipped) as well as the big dog . . .

Puppy 1.03 (I think it was came in 3 version)

:) so eh . . . how about an Alpha release? We certainly can move towards what everyone does agree on IceWM, Firefox and all up to date and patched
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
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