Puppy 4..2alpha "Deepthought" Bug Reports and Fixes

[WhoDo]

Is Dougal's remaster script included in this alpha?
(unlike Barry's default script,this one allows for making a *TRUE* remastered CD,complete with all settings and user modifications)

Investigating. My impression was that Dougal's remaster script was merged into the main Puppy remaster to produce what we have now. Of course I'm frequently wrong and now might be just another example. *sigh*

[WhoDo]

Having bad eyesight a larger brighter mouse would be very helpful. I cannot find any easy way of doing this?

See Pizzasgood's post in the Eye Candy forum.

You will be pleased to note that, as of now, I have 24 items to fix/update/change on Puppy-4.2a2, and a new mouse cursor (aero-ds) is #19 on that list. No, that is NOT a sarcastic response! It is a fact!

[WhoDo]

Where are the JQ8 icons???? Only 27kb.

One less complication for the first alpha. I have already mentioned they will be in the second alpha.

Ttuuxxx has persuaded jebaJQ8 to fix the weather font, ttuuxxx found that 'fontforge' editor, I extracted all the icons from the shareware font that we use, converted to SVG, packed 'em up and posted on Pwidgets thread. He said he is going to try to make his own design. I'm sure it will be a cracker! (Won't sigmund be surprised when he gets back. ).

This gives us a better than even chance of Puppy having its own weather font! Woohoo!

[WhoDo]

@WhoDo: Here are three issues.

Saved for inclusion. That brings my list to 28 and still counting!

I'm glad PG and ttuuxxx decided to take care of a few of the others!

[WhoDo]

Okay, here. These are both the actual init script and a diff between it and the "original" from 420 alpha 1.

Thanks, PG. I have it downloaded.

[WhoDo]

how about setting the hostname to "Deepthought-4.2" ? I think that would be a nice touch for future versions of puppy

#29 ....

[WhoDo]

I had MUT working on 4.1 with the tcl/tk libs from 2 series that I download from Eric's site, sure they might be older, But they work anyways and they are tiny
tcl 578KB
http://puppylinux.ca/puppyfiles/pet_pac ... -8.5a4.pet
TK 568KB
http://puppylinux.ca/puppyfiles/pet_pac ... -8.5a4.pet
thats a lot less than 4MB 1.1MB
As long as it works I don't care which version.

Gottem! I'll give them a spin. If they work I'd rather include 1.1Mb of libraries than 4Mb, regardless of age.

[aragon]

@WhoDo

Yes. MP and e3 don't really need to appear in the menu at all. I guess they're there to boost the impression that Puppy has everything but the Out house sink! We could lose them for usability's sake, IMHO. What does everyone else think?

Please remove them from the menu.

as i've learned mp and e3 are in for functionality so maybe only update them (if this doesn't break the functionality)?
- i've made a package of mp (v. 5.1.1) which is at 132 kb but includes ncurses and gtk version. if you want a leaner one, i could try to build with only ncurses.

another point is the handling of man-pages. i have never figured out how this works on puppy. i always add man2html and use a script like this with a right-click in rox

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

man2html $@ > /tmp/tmpman.html
defaultbrowser file:///tmp/tmpman.html  

cheers
aragon

[veronicathecow]

Hi Pizzasgood and WhoDo, my much appreciate your efforts. A good clean theme, cursor and font can make all the difference.
Keep up the great work
Cheers
Tony

[WhoDo]

another point is the handling of man-pages. i have never figured out how this works on puppy. i always add man2html and use a script like this with a right-click in rox

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

man2html $@ > /tmp/tmpman.html
defaultbrowser file:///tmp/tmpman.html  

Are you sure we even have "man-pages" in Puppy? Try this...

Code: Select all

help: help [-s] [pattern ...]
    Display helpful information about builtin commands.  If PATTERN is
    specified, gives detailed help on all commands matching PATTERN,
    otherwise a list of the builtins is printed.  The -s option
    restricts the output for each builtin command matching PATTERN to
    a short usage synopsis.

I thought our only other help pages were already in html format under /usr/share/doc? To quote an infamous Australian, red-headed, female politician ... "Please explain?"

[pa_mcclamrock]

You guys are more than welcome to include my up-to-date Tcl and Tk 8.5.5 PETs, derived from the Slackware 12.2 packages, in 4.2 Unleashed if you wish

Ok, that does it for me! I've got a shipload of tcl/tk games that I can't use in 4.2 as well, so that's a bonus! At 4Mb combined I'll find a way to shoehorn these libraries in somehow.

YES! Great decision! It would be possible to reduce the size of the Tcl and Tk PETs (which already add up to slightly less than 4 MB) to some extent by leaving out demos and man pages; let me know if you want "runtime" versions (and tell me exactly how they should be named, e.g., tcl-8.5.5runtime.pet, or what).

Dropping hiawatha, PPLOG and a few other oddballs seems the obvious solution.

Yes; I don't think you're likely to dump SeaMonkey in favor of Opera, or AbiWord in favor of TextMaker 2002 (so I'll have to create a puplet that does), but let's see (I'm looking at what appear to be built-in packages in Puppy 4.1.1):

Do Puppy users really need to have samba, pnethood, chmlib, chmsee, rsync, and gadmin-rsync built in? Aren't these packages of pretty specialized interest to "cognoscenti," such that anyone who needs the packages will have no problem finding them and installing them with PETget?

Likewise--this may be a bit more controversial, but--isn't the same true of glade3_DEV and glade2bas_DEV, which (I'm told) are needed only for the select few who write GTK2 programs, not for the many who run them? And is the Puppy BASIC interpreter actually used any more?

Are PicPuz and Xsoldier (over 1 MB together) such great games that everyone must have them?

Is CD ripping such a valuable activity that everyone must have cdparanoia and/or ripoff?

More generally, I would hope the self-imposed 100-MB limit would not be applied in a Procrustean manner to cut out things of considerable value to many present and future Puppy users. (You remember, I trust, the ancient Greek legend of the evil innkeeper Procrustes: if his guests were too short to fit his bed, he stretched them out, and if they were too tall, he cut them off to fit.) Any size that would allow Puppy to be used with 128 MB RAM, I think, would still count as a very small distribution.

Those who have been asking about a development environment for Deepthought, try tcl/tk and gnocl.

I would be willing to take a closer look at gnocl than I've yet done if there's someone who knows more about it than I do and can answer questions about it.

David McClamrock

[HairyWill]

Are PicPuz and Xsoldier (over 1 MB together) such great games that everyone must have them?

Where are you getting these sizes from?
Have a look at the series 4 package repository
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... ackages-4/
The file sizes given are for the pets in compressed format. Once inside the iso the files are also compressed so the size of a pet is a good indicator of the difference that the package makes to the size of the iso.

Obviously we all have different ideas about what the goals of puppy should be. My personal view is:
1: useability (don't ask me how to measure it)
2: filetype compatibility with as many common file formats as possible (.chm)
3: network/protocol interoperation
4: unified look and feel
5: demonstrator for innovative software

As to the argument about samba/pnethood I think you have it slightly twisted especially when compared to games. I think that most people understand that they usually need to install a game to play it. Many windows users utilise file and print sharing in some form. If you ask a linux newbie how to access their windows shares or printer they may well have difficulty and not know where to start. Windows has had the notion of workgroups and network sharing since 3.1 in 1992. People have had 16 years of expecting to be able to share things easily(ish) on their networks.

I would be surprised to hear someone saying
"I don't like puppy linux, it doesn't have a decent version of minesweeper"
I would not be surprised to hear
"I don't like puppy linux, I cannot access my windows shares, my printer doesn't work and I can't use that weird web browser on my favourite bank website.

[veronicathecow]

Hi, I must agree with HairyWill's last paragraph.
Working out of the box doing as many things as possible. (Especially web orientated as that is they was forward for many things including office suites etc) is one of Puppies best features. When I checked it out I wanted to be able to access all my web pages easily without having to add extras to, play my mp3s and Flac, watch a DVD and get my emails. Additionally formating and partitioning disks, torrents, burning media, and Office applications are great to have from the start (I love Abiword and Gnumeric which are perfect for most tasks)
Thanks for listening
Tony

[ttuuxxx]

Hi Hairy

pets converted to sfs are about 14% smaller .
devx_410.sfs is 79MB
when I extracted the files and made a pet package the end result was 91MB pet. I've noticed that a few times:)

ttuuxxx

[01micko]

Gotta agree with that, HairyWill, 100%.

Gave me an interesting thought your comment ttuuxxx, about the 14% saving with an sfs. For future puppies at least. It has probably already been thought of, but, on top of the basic unleashed couldn't most of the addons be inluced as an .sfs? I really don't know, but if what you say is true ttuuxxx then we could save around 7% of our space. Be nice if that's doable, but I'm looking a bit too far ahead.

[Pizzasgood]

Samba (the client anyway) and cd-ripping are pretty important. An os that can't rip a cd out of the box is a joke, IMHO.

[ecomoney]

Im eagerly anticipating trying this new puplet, along with a team of "linux newbs!". I have a problem however, my Toughbook CF18 doesnt have a cd drive. I usually just extract (using ISOmaster) the initrd.gz and vmlinuz to a folder, and unzip the pup_4xx file to the hard disk, and then and an entry to the grub menu.lst file. The files in this iso are all in capitals however, and wont boot in this way.

Code: Select all

default  0
timeout  10
color cyan/blue white/blue
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/grub-splash.xpm.gz

  title EcoPup
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/ecopup/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0
  initrd /boot/ecopup/initrd.gz

  title Puppy 4.2 
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /boot/puppy42/VMLINUZ.; root=/dev/ram0
  initrd /boot/puppy42/INITRD:GZ;1
boot

[SirDuncan]

Do Puppy users really need to have samba, pnethood, chmlib, chmsee, rsync, and gadmin-rsync built in? Aren't these packages of pretty specialized interest to "cognoscenti," such that anyone who needs the packages will have no problem finding them and installing them with PETget?

I suppose that you could argue that about rsync (which is a standard *nix command for making incremental copies/backups) and the chm viewer, but how can you possibly argue that about Samba and Pnethood? When a new user comes to Puppy he or she is going to expect to be able to see his/her shares on the other PCs.

Likewise--this may be a bit more controversial, but--isn't the same true of glade3_DEV and glade2bas_DEV, which (I'm told) are needed only for the select few who write GTK2 programs, not for the many who run them?

If that is all that they are used for, then I would think that they should be in the devx file, not the release ISO.

And is the Puppy BASIC interpreter actually used any more?

I don't know. Try making a remaster without it and see if everything still works.

Are PicPuz and Xsoldier (over 1 MB together) such great games that everyone must have them?

My opinion is that we can toss all the games, but that might make new users upset.

[technosaurus]

I was creating a script to make a puplet as an addon sfs script and found that there may be a problem(s) in /usr/sbin/remasterpup2 while I was hacking it down

1. hardware specific dialogue portion - needed to change the first 0 after the dialog to a 1

2. may need to add a couple lines to copy new background images, icons etc?

Maybe it works in the actual script though- haven't tried it that way yet?

[tom4jesus]

Greetings everyone,

I am a newer regular puppy user (3-4 months) and hope you don't mind my jumping in to the thread with a couple suggestions. I'm using the new alpha release and so far haven't found any specific bugs, other then what has already been reported. It is really looking good and I just want to say to everyone great job!
I do have a couple suggestions that I think may help new users, and since it is a major goal of Puppy to be friendly to new windows converts I thought it appropriate to post them here.

First, I would like to suggest bringing back the grid for the icons on the desktop.
I find it very difficult to line things up the way I want them without it, and in the past I noticed a few people in other threads request the same thing. It just makes for a much more user friendly environment.

Second, in keeping with the discussion of the applications in Puppy, Puppy has a lot of neat little programs included that I, and I am sure others, have never heard of before and therefore have no idea what they are for.
This has presented both an opportunity to try some neat applications that I found I really like and use a lot like "pctorrent torrent download", "pwget file down loader", but on the other hand there are many applications that I still have no idea what they are for or what they do such as; "xconsole monitor console" or "GWhere disc cataloger", and in the applications themselves there are no help files.
I am guessing these are more technical programs for developers and such, and I am not at all suggesting they not be included in Puppy because I am sure they are useful to those that need and use them, and no distribution can be all things to all people.
My suggestion is that somehow a list of the applications included in Puppy be put in the start up welcome screen with a brief explanation of what each one is. I do know that in the "help" button on the start menu there is such a list in the form of a drop down that links to Wikipedia articles about the applications, but in my two examples there is no Wikipedia entry for "GWhere" and "xconsole" is not listed. Although I was able to find them with the search option.
I am just trying to come up with a user friendly way for folks to know what things are. A lot of users just won't take the time to read through the documentation or go looking for it.
Please bear in mind I am only using these programs as examples and I am not looking for specific help for them, there are other programs I don't know what they do with poor documentation also.

Quote"

"I suppose that you could argue that about rsync (which is a standard *nix command for making incremental copies/backups) and the chm viewer, but how can you possibly argue that about Samba and Pnethood? When a new user comes to Puppy he or she is going to expect to be able to see his/her shares on the other PCs."

I don't even know what he just said, what is nix and samba? LOL

I am just trying to make a point. No need to answer that.

I am simply trying to look at Puppy with the "fresh eyes" as someone coming from using windows for years and looking through the list of applications and scratching my head. Yes, I do know how to read through the Wiki and posts on the forum, which I do almost daily, and I have learned a ton from this great community! But since making Puppy a newbie friendly distribution is one of the more important goals I thought I would make this suggestion for new users.
I just know from my own experience that after learning something it is easy to forget where you came from and overlook what you perceive as the obvious that is not so obvious to the new user.

Thanks,
Tom B.

P.S. I could do without the games too. I would rather pick the ones I want from the repository and download them myself. Which brings up another point if something comes "preinstalled" I have yet to figure out how to uninstall it, unless I installed something from the repository then it gives me an option to uninstall it.