Puppy Professional just for business

Using applications, configuring, problems
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richard.a
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#76 Post by richard.a »

Lobster, I really love your by-line there ("A better Vista") :D

Would have replied earlier but I'm having problems with the forums.

At this time, I won't offer to do that job you asked for, because of time restraints, but would certainly be pleased to contribute. I have written operators' and technical manuals as well as magazine articles for the technical press.

Currently, I'm doing a bunch of other unrelated stuff, including struggling to build a digitised version of a library of cassettes... every time I look there seem more to create raw wav files from, let alone clean them up and create tracks!

Feel free to PM me, if you would like. This mail and forums machine (on win2000) is on most of most days.


Richard in South Australia
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#77 Post by richard.a »

I meant to respond to this before, sorry, ...
Lobster wrote:One huge and simple improvement that I have mentioned many times is to get rid of the geeky names. Every component in the Puppy menu is named. 'Paint program' people know - 'MtPaint image editor' - you do not need 'MtPaint'. Those are simple examples - look at some of the other names . . . now just think if Puppy is fulfilling its 'no-brainer' mission statement?
In Linspire, another distribution that aims for a typical windows user as it's target, they use KDE as a desktop, and so they were able to make use of its Control Panel to globally change (for example, using the puppy app you quoted) MtPaint and Image editor around, whichever is in brackets or parentheses, through the handy KDE menu tab which allows just the real name, or the real name (friendly name) or the friendly name (real name) format. The KDE menu editor is also straightforward to use.

The default there is the friendly name - so those who become familiar with the OS in due time are able to manipulate to suit their preferences.

The machine by my left elbow is running Linspire 5.0 and its menu cascades like this... Start > Run Programs > Audio & MP3 > Audacity (Sound Editor)

Now that is two - or maybe one - menu picks too many. Ergonomics was a forte of mine, I used to customise AutoCAD menus (including tablet menus) for a living :) However I seldom use the menu, preferring to double click or right click > open with... as a modus operandi. But the ergonomics wasn't my point; it was the presentation of the application name or its use in the menu that was the point :)

In the case of the greatly simplified, 2 level menu JWM (which is a major plus to the distro imho) it is relatively easy to use a text editor I suppose, but not by an ab-initio ex MS Windows user. Not so sure about the FVWM (sp?) as I haven't discovered how to change it, but it certainly has three levels, if not more, from what I've seen.

I might post an image or two of my menu attempt(s) in a few days.

However the interest in this thread shows that others are thinking along similar lines, and I suppose it should be emphasised that none of us are trying to cut the ground out from under each other.

Rather we are all coming up with ideas, which is the core of what open-source is all about, at whatever level one's contributions are pitched.

I still need to get back to Rhino when I get a moment to run his system on a couple of other computers. Feedback is good, we shouldn't download, look, try, and then forget what we did. We do owe it to the person who has "slaved over a hot stove" to put an evaluation project together, to respond - even if we don't like it!

From a looks perspective, I really like gliesl's contribution the best, far better than any of my attempts. Why? Because it looks more like Windows which is likely sacrilege to died-in-the-wool *nix afficianadoes but as other posts have mentioned, the look is important to woo users over. There being no quick-launch icons on the taskbar/panel is a pity though, and I wonder if they can be added. I use them a lot, personally.

Because I can't figure out - even with the helps and the author's website - how to customise Fvwm, I'm working on a JWM concept currently with just an alternative menu and some extra desktop backgrounds, and extra taskbar quick-launch buttons.

One could easily copy the custom menus to /root/.jwmrc (or whatever it's called, I'm not running a machine with puppy right now), but not if a newbie :)

I'd be interested in everybody's thoughts, and wonder if you feel a simple script to backup existing JWM menu files and replace them with customised ones would be workable? While I used to be competant at writing Lisp routines for AutoCAD and batch files in DOS, that was many years ago so am open to the syntax of what to use so I can try it :)
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#78 Post by Lobster »

Wot more windows managers?
http://xwinman.org/

With the XDG menu system - adopted first in 1.09ce and its possible inclusion in Puppy 2.11 we would I believe have a way of choosing layouts - with or without name credits . . .

Is that true? 8)
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#79 Post by Rhino »

I hope to be rolling our a new PuppyPro based on 2.10 this weekend. I dropped XFCE and just included JWM at this point, but I did quite a bit of menu customization and simplification as mentioned in previous posts. :D

My goal is to keep it under 256MB so it can fit on a USB key (although that may prove to be quite slow) ...testing will be required.
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richard.a
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#80 Post by richard.a »

great Rhino :)

fyi I did get half an hour to try your 2.02CE on an HP Pavilion 6617 (that's the one whose case is the height and depth of the motherboard and buckleys chance of getting anything extra inside the box :)

Celeron 566MHz, 256 RAM, 128 L2 cache, Intel 810 video onboard, AC97 audio and a PCI 3Com905B-TX NIC.

Sound and network great.

Video was interesting, though. W2KSP4 runs 1280x1024 with room to move upwards. The machine triple boots with Sun JDS2 (an early SuSE/Gnome/Metacity desktop) and SuSE 9.3Pro. Both run 1600x1200x16bit without batting an eye, the Sax2 config tool there is good.

Puppy in Vesa sadly won't do better than 800x600x16, or at a push 1024x768x8 bit;

256 colours I used to run in win3.1 and it approximated right, but the display in puppy was almost negative colour-wise. Ever looked at an old-time colour film negative? That's what I mean. Wierd.

Do some more again perhaps tomorrow; another intel mobo in another computer is next in line, but using an external video card. I think a lot of folk still have these old machines that modern Windows won't run well on.

Look forward to your next download, in anticipation.


BTW lobster, the MS Linux box on the wiki reminds me of a website I saw a while back... at http://www.mslinux.org/ ... I went and looked at it a few minutes ago. I've now saved a copy of it at http://micro-hard.homelinux.net/MSLinux if it gets forcibly taken down again.
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#81 Post by Lobster »

Thanks Rhino, Thanks Richard,

I am happy with whatever name you choose
but decided to use Puppy xp on the wiki
after a License fee required distro called Linux XP
(from Russia) went right to the top of Distrowatch.
Wow. Good luck Rhino, have a fun weekend.

We will get some more publicity for the beta . . .
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#82 Post by Rhino »

richard.a wrote:
Puppy in Vesa sadly won't do better than 800x600x16, or at a push 1024x768x8 bit;
Have you tired using Xorg rather than VESA?

My parent's computer has just onboard acceleration (no fancy graphics card) and I had the same problem with VESA using Puppy 2.02...horrible colors and resolution. I was able to reboot and run the Xorg Wizard and it ran just fine at 1024x768x16 or maybe even 24...can't remember exactly.

Thanks for the help :-)
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#83 Post by richard.a »

This double posted.

Could a mod please delete this post, thanks?
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#84 Post by richard.a »

Lobster wrote: ... but decided to use Puppy xp on the wiki after a License fee required distro called Linux XP (from Russia) went right to the top of Distrowatch ...
I rather like the splash screens shown on following that up.

We are going to need something like that, too, as well as a graphical user manager, aren't we?

Interesting to note that one of the screencaps shows the FreeBSD version of the "bliss" desktop wallpaper, and they are using (I think) the everaldo (that guy is brilliant imho) icons - or maybe the crystal ones.

Done some more checks on that other P3 550 I have, uses an external Nvidia 32Mb PCI video card and all three versions I looked at romp along with 1600x1200 loading fine (except for my eyesight!), so there was something funny on the Pavilion's internal video when associated with Puppy in Vesa mode. I tend to use Vesa rather than X-Org for simplicity.

A personal wish would be to see the Acrobat Reader (rather than GS) as default on any product aimed as "Professional" or "Office" or marketed as an XP replacement.

Edit
I think the Sane and XSane stuff should also be part of these packages, because I suspect there would be few office environments where scanning isn't undertaken.
/Edit

There seems to be occasional (not always) difficulties (on all of these three "office" type distros I've tried) over the removal of the CD so that a music CD or a DVD can be played. I wonder if this is fixable in a config file somewhere? It doesn't seem to be there on standard puppies.

Looking more closelyat Gliesl's distro, perhaps her pointer focus could do with being changed as default, as it follows the Unix standard whereas I think the target market would be confused with that method.

I remember in the Windows95 "Power Tools" add-on from the development team, there was the Unix style focus offered, but I've never seen a Windows user use it. I know some (myself included) tried it, but preferred the click to focus (and stay focussed) method.


Perhaps gliesl should consider doing a recompile for the benefit of those who don't use the US keyboard? ... doesn't worry me personally, but European keyboards might present a difficulty when booting it for the first time, live.

I'll post those comments in her thread, but include them here for a comparison. I still like the "look" of what she has done best lol :) But that's me :)

I've also modified the "Shut Down" section of the menu to conform to the Windows habit of placing a "Log Off" section above it. The code I've used is here, and it has worked in every instance I've tried it...
<Menu label="Log Off" icon="shutdown24.xpm" height="16">
<Exit confirm="false" label="Exit to prompt" icon="prompt16.xpm" />
<Restart label="JWM restart" icon="mini-windows.xpm"/>
<!-- <Program label="xxx restart" icon="mini-windows.xpm">restartwm jwm</Program> -->
<!-- <Program label="Fvwm95 restart" icon="mini-windows.xpm">restartwm fvwm95</Program> -->
<!-- <Program label="iceWM restart" icon="mini-windows.xpm">restartwm icewm</Program> -->
<Program label="X restart" icon="mini-x.xpm">restartwm</Program>
</Menu>

<Menu label="Shut Down" icon="shutdown24.xpm" height="16">
<Exit confirm="false" label="Exit to prompt" icon="prompt16.xpm" />
<Program label="Reboot computer" icon="mini-turn.xpm">exec /usr/X11R6/bin/wmreboot</Program>
<Program label="Power-off computer" icon="mini-stop.xpm">exec /usr/X11R6/bin/wmpoweroff</Program>

</Menu>

I also tend to annotate files as to when last modified, like many folks do with web pages. A good habit learned when working on complex drawings. I've taken to using a format like this on the jwm config files, and placed near the top so you don't have to scroll through the whole file to see what remarks have been added :)
<!-- Last modified 0850 Saturday 30th September 2006 -->
Just a warning though, you can't do that with the jwm tray config file, not sure why. But don't mess with that one :D

Hope this all helps, it's pretty verbose I'm afraid. But that's my middle name lol!

Richard in Australia
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Puppy is very close to a practical desktop for business

#85 Post by The Major »

I read the various threads on making Puppy "good enough" to be used in a business situation. If we put aside our theological comments about Linux vs Windows for a moment and look at the platform we have, it's very close in many respects. I work as a management consultant and programme manager, and Puppy Linux is my system of choice at home, and used in a lot of my work too.

After trying a lot of widow managers and "tweaking", I have come back to Barry's base platform i.e. Seamonkey, JWM etc because it's efficient. All the developers involved should be very proud of their work. I've expanded the base system to include the things I need to do my job - and these include applications that some people never use, e.g:

Open Office
Freemind
Ganttproject
Gimp

I also use Crossover for the same reason I use Puppy. It works. I find that Office XP is the best version to use, and I only really use Powerpoint for work. Word Viewer and Internet Explorer are needed occasionally when nothing else will work (e.g. my internet banking). Here's a screenshot of my desktop, showing what Windows applications I use. I find K3b a great CD / DVD burner.

Most people at home or in business only use a few applications. However, let's recognise that Windows has won the corporate desktop, and focus on where open source software can win in niche markets, for example, not-for profit organisations, charities, schools with budget challenges, local government, small business, developing countries .... mmm some niche. But that's not my battle.

I used to use Ubuntu, and that's probably a serious contender for large organisations. Personally I find it too cumbersome after using Puppy, BUT, they have really thought about making it easy for the end user e.g. automounting drives and adding printers. What we have is a great application, and in my opinion, it's good enough today for small businesses or sole traders as well as home users.

NOW, one final request. Does anyone know how to configure CUPS to link to a printer on a Windows home network? Do I choose http, ipp or lpd? If you know and can post the answer (or point me at the exact thread), you will be my friend for life.

Ian

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#86 Post by Auda »

Try this: http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... ight=samba
Sorry I dont know about cups. I use this at home to print on a couple of old lasers and by the look of the last post it will work for a printer connected to a windows machine.
Let us know if it works.

Auda[/url]

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Springer
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Finding out about Puppy innovations like ProCE?

#87 Post by Springer »

Is there ANY place to find a list of all the Puppy-based distros? Given the complete lack of usable structure on this wiki, it's next to impossible to find out about things like the various Community Editions - It was only after stumbling across one of those and looking for an update that I found out about Puppy Professional CE, which is pretty close to what I'm looking for.

There REALLY needs to be someplace with even just a simple list of links to the various Puppy-derived distros. (I realize technically they're all variations on the "Puppy Linux" distribution, but for the sake of argument here, I'm defining anything that comes on its own ISO as a "distro".)

This is why I hate completely free-form wikis: unlike wikipedia or the like, there's no structure or organization at all, so after a while, it becomes virtually impossible to find anything, even if good stuff is there *somewhere*...

This is a serious problem, one that I have seen nearly kill some other good Linux projects, including the once best-in-class and now hopelessly outdated and chaotic Contribs.org SME server (formerly e-Smith Linux).

BTW - I have Puppy 2.20CE loaded on an alternate HD for my old ThinkPad 570E, and so far, I'm about to decide that it's only the 2nd Linux desktop of the dozens I've ever tried over the past decade that could actually be a reasonable alternative to Windows. The Pro version looks like it might be even better, and since MS is dropping W2K support, I'm going to consider making the change, although only Windows fully supports the 560/570 series' rather extreme 2-stage docking modularity.

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#88 Post by richard.a »

Springer, a quick reply if I may.

I agree, I stumbled across puppy completely by accident, and found the same.

I tend to save pages as I see them, into a directory that's accessible on my LAN for the same reason - can never find things a second time... and search facilities even on forums are unbelievable bad in many cases. Maybe I just haven't got the hang of forum searches lol!!!

I think while links between a multiplicity of sites is great, it makes locating the answers to problems next to impossible in some cases.

This is not a criticism of a bunch of dedicated volunteers. Just a by-product of such a scenario that can easily happen.

Same, to a lesser extent, with PC-BSD which is another like of mine. Nearly got into hot water there for suggesting closer collaboration :(

BTW I've put a bot into #puppylinux on irc.undernet.org, to see if there's any interest.

Gotta run, back a lot later

Richard in (South) Australia
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#89 Post by Rhino »

I'm getting very close to releasing a beta version of Puppy 2.1.0 Professional Edition. I ran into a few problems with getting Java to work properly on the remastered cd's. I'm making progress though. So far, this version will be quite nice looking with a lot of cosmetic changes that should be favorable and possibly incorporated into the "real" Puppy. I tried to standardize many of the icons on Puppy applications, but I'm still not finished yet. I think an iso should be available for testing in a day or two as long as everything works as planned.
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#90 Post by Lobster »

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Java on remastered iso

#91 Post by The Major »

I'd be interested in understanding how you preserve Java after a remaster. I had created my own version of Puppy that I use on a daily basis, which is a form of Puppy Professional (basically to be a quick recovery disk), and although the java folder structure was preserved - I placed it below root - I still had to download Java again to make evrything work.

This is a minor irritation, but I'd like to learn how to do it properly.

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Preserving Java

#92 Post by jam »

The Major,

If you remaster using Dougal's new remaster script it should preserve your Java install. My remaster contains the latest Java 1.5.0_08 release. You can get the latest remaster script below. It only seems to work soothly with Puppy 2.10

Remaster Script Thread:

http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic ... t=remaster

There are some customized settings related to my distro, such as browser and desktop settings which it did not preserve, so I wrote a short script to copy them to /root during the remaster process.
Jam

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#93 Post by Springer »

[quote="Lobster"]I believe this commercial project evolved from Hancom Office
http://product.thinkfree.com/purchase/pc_tfo.html

anyone try them?

Not in a long time, but ThinkFree predates HancomOffice by many years. ThinkFree was the *original* online office suite, and has been around for the better part of a decade now (I'm pretty sure I was using it in 1997-2000), although both the product and the company have changed more than a little since then. I quit using it when my needs for collaboration lessened, and ThinkFree tried to go to a pay-per-month-of-access subscription model, so it just wasn't worth it to stay with it, even though it worked quite well. It's free again, but my old login doesn't work, and I've not bothered to get a new one, now that I use OpenOffice for a larger and larger portion of my work.

Like Berkeley Softworks' GEOS (which was a very usable, if necessarily basic Mac-like GUI OS and App suite for the Commodore 64 - something that should impress Pupsters!) , ThinkFree is one of those righteous hacks that inspires simply because it does what was previously believed to be impossible. ThinkFree is Java-based, with all the good and bad attendant with that, but without the slowness usually associated with Java apps of any non-trivial size. I used ThinkFree office many years ago on 150-300 MHz win 95/98 boxes and it ran surprisingly well - not as fast as MS Office, but not slow, either, and it was definitely usable for all documents short of serious power-user complexity.

AFAIK, ThinkFree was the first truly cross-platform office suite that had usable support for reading and writing MS Office files, even if somewhat limited.

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#94 Post by Rhino »

Java works great on my laptop that I'm using to remaster the CD. However, getting Java to work properly on a remastered CD has proven to be frustrating. I have tried both remaster scripts with no luck yet. I can get the Java plugin to work fine with SeaMonkey, but to get Java apps to run or to get it to work with OpenOffice seems kinda tough. I'm sure there is something I am missing here. Dougal's remaster script worked well, but still didn't get Java going as had been reported previously. I copied the /root/jre1.5.0_06 folder and contents to the remastered CD along with the hidden .java folder in /root. Any ideas? If anyone knows how to get Java working on a remastered Live CD , please let me know.

On a related note, I had considered just adding the Java installer with a desktop link so one could easily install Java if you wanted it, therefore keeping the iso quite a bit smaller. However, I tend to think Java should just work right out of the box.
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#95 Post by GuestToo »

you may need to add lines like these to /etc/profile or /etc/profile.local, if you haven't already:

export JAVA_HOME=/root/jre1.5.0_06
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME

so you can run java apps by typing:

java -jar a_java_app.jar

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