Puppy Newsletter

Message

6502coder · #81 Post by **6502coder** » Thu 22 Dec 2016, 21:38

BK himself has always maintained that Quirky is NOT a Puppy.

Similarly, the DebianDog developers themselves have said that DDs are NOT Puppies.

Rather than simply ignore Quirky and DD, might I suggest that the newsletter include a standing notice pointing out that they are not Puppies and therefore are not covered by the newletter. A couple of courtesy links to the Quirky and DD home pages/threads would be nice. This would take care of those readers who may have heard of Quirky or DD but are not aware that they are not Puppies.

musher0 · #82 Post by **musher0** » Fri 23 Dec 2016, 00:15

@greengeek:

Regarding my position on BK's new Quirky and the Debian Dogs by Fredx et
al., 6502coder explained it better than I ever could!

Thanks, 6502coder!

As he said, I think we have to be courteous with the "cousins" and provide
links, but beyond that, the newsletter should only focus on the Puppies.

BFN.

musher0 · #83 Post by **musher0** » Fri 23 Dec 2016, 00:55

greengeek wrote:(...)
If you are limiting the newsletter to a specific form of puppy (even excluding the masters new offerings) then I do think it is worth defining what constitutes a puppy - for example - you like pekwm etc in preference to jwm. Does Barry's original puppy definition include alternative wm's?

What do you think about having a section for strict puppies as well as a section for other more expansive/alternative versions?

Hell again, greengeek.

In answer your first question:
No, Barry limited the choice of WM's for Puppy to jwm.

I believe BK used icewm as the wm in the very early versions of Puppy.
(This sentence needs fact-checking from users of that period, please.)

My understanding, and something I always rebelled against, since jwm is
very difficult to configure for the average user, IMO.

Not to mention that as an alternative to jwm, there's about a dozen small
wm's "out in the wild" that have sustained the test of time and which users
have found good and satisfying their needs. Pekwm or awesome, to name
only those two. (Sorry for the weird construction of those sentences, but I
hope that my meaning is clear.)

Perhaps by offering other wm's Puppy wouldn't have fallen as low in the
DistroWatch ratings?

In answer to your second question:
I'm against any "purism" or segregation. I can think of very talented Puppy
devs, past and present, who did not and do not fit into the Puppy "corset":
MU or jejy69, for ex.

jejy69's Puppies were excellent, although not readily identifiable as Puppies.
That of course if you equate the Puppy concept only with a certain look of
the desktop. IMO, there's much more to the Puppy concept than putting
program icons in sort of a triangle at the top left of the desktop.

Besides there are only two official breeds of Puppy left. Will the newsletter
have only two issues? Hopefully not.

Of course, editor Smokey01 will have the final say, I suppose. But as far
as I'm concerned, there you have it.

Best regards.

greengeek · #84 Post by **greengeek** » Fri 23 Dec 2016, 06:42

musher0 wrote: Barry limited the choice of WM's for Puppy to jwm.

I believe BK used icewm as the wm in the very early versions of Puppy.

My understanding, and something I always rebelled against, since jwm is
very difficult to configure for the average user, IMO.

If I had to put numbers on it I would suggest that a Puppy newsletter should put maybe 75% weight into true puppys (including jwm strict pups) and 25% into creative expansions of that original vision (especially if BK embraced icewm...)

The limited (woof?) definition of "puppy" has it's significant place, but life should not be that dry. An inclusion of hybrid pups would be great (imho) as long as constrained and relevant.

ps: your command of english is exceptional. Wish I could manage the same "en Francais".

musher0 · #85 Post by **musher0** » Fri 23 Dec 2016, 09:37

Hi greengeek.

Thanks for the compliment.

About the subject at hand, I find allotting 75 % of the newsletter section
devoted to official breeds of Puppy a bit high.

Me aside, a lot of creative Puppy-ists visiting this board have produced
valuable, innovative or interesting puplets that do not get much exposure.
The huge PuppyLinux section maintained by ally on archive.org is a
testimony to that. We could perhaps select one of those puplets every
month and do a review?

BFN.

jlst · #86 Post by **jlst** » Fri 23 Dec 2016, 16:00

It will be a nice christmas.

LazY Puppy · #87 Post by **LazY Puppy** » Sat 24 Dec 2016, 02:10

Basic definition for a Puppy Linux was: Rox and JWM.

...as it continues.

I think, it probably would be good to have the choice of different window managers to install. Though, would need someone to build the .pet packages already prepared for the Puppy menu structure out of the box.

To use a different window manager is not that easy by just installing the default .deb packages from e.g. Ubuntu.

I think, the creators of the lxde and/or xfce Puppies can tell so...

bigpup · #88 Post by **bigpup** » Sat 24 Dec 2016, 03:01

This was working as a news site for Puppy.
Some sections could use some updating.
http://puppylinuxnews.org/
raffy, I think, is the only one really trying to update it.
He could use some help.

Rattlehead · #89 Post by **Rattlehead** » Sun 25 Dec 2016, 14:05

Hi, I've been following this thread with a lot of attention; the title instantly caught my eye ("oh my God, there is a Puppy Newsletter! Why am I not subscribed to that already? Where I've been all these years? How do I sign in?"

). I have even contributed already a small piece to Smokey01 about Rox-Filer.

I have noticed an interesting drift in the direction of this thread; the newsletter idea started as a way of summarizing what happens in the forum; however, the content of the posts has soon uncovered a strong "hunger" for opinions and healthy debate about the Puppy world and its future.

In fact, I think that the very stuff that is contained in the latest posts, with just some trivial cut-paste work and a title in the lines of "mapping the Puppy universe", would make for a nice article in the newsletter; I've learned a lot from it already

.

The same goes for Jilst's comments on the current scarcity of Puppy developers. His post could be dragged into a Notecase section and used almost as is (I guess I'm speaking with my reader "cap" here: I'd love to read stuff like that in the newsletter).

About how to proceed, as my personal preference, I liked the suggestion by Kerl of starting by just gathering a few links, classifying them in sections and writing headings for them, because:

1) It's the minimal step, that thing "next to nothing" that allows you to start speaking of a newsletter. A foundation upon which you can build further.

2) It creates additional value from using mostly content that is already available (our prolific forum)...

3) It provides a "snapshot" of where are things hot currently in the community, like an "eagle view" for someone who is not in the habit of daily reading the forum, as some of us are.

The mixture of this monthly "snapshot", plus articles by whomever feels like to, would make, in my view, for a very harmonic balance.

Regarding my personal contributions, as I told Smokey01 in my delivery, my intention is keeping always an eye in the basic user. I'm checking my personal todo lists for very basic Puppy tasks and turning them into small howto guides. I also liked Musher0's suggestion of creating thematic issues, one month focused on file managers, other in wifi configuration, etc, and I will be more than happy to contribute to that, but my personal battle is keeping an eye on the basic Linux beginners, so my guideline for my texts is covering stuff that can be applied to any Puppies, not too specialized (for example: anything ROX or JWM related, one of Puppy's backbones as Lazy Puppy remarks).

Some people has also suggested creating a definition of what is a Puppy "in purity" and what is not, and then setting % quotas on the content to avoid deviate too much. To do that, I suggest, instead of starting with some arbitrary quotas, starting by monitoring the current reality of the forum first; making the first summary, and out of it trying to find trends there, like: hey, who knew, ~30% of the threads are about new puppies in development, ~40% are newbies looking for which puppy to install... things like that, and then work from there to taylor the contents according to the interests and needs we detect...

Just a few of my ideas, trying to give shape to this. Thank you for reading...

smokey01 · #90 Post by **smokey01** » Sun 25 Dec 2016, 22:44

Rattlehead wrote:Hi, I've been following this thread with a lot of attention; the title instantly caught my eye ("oh my God, there is a Puppy Newsletter! Why am I not subscribed to that already? Where I've been all these years? How do I sign in?" ). I have even contributed already a small piece to Smokey01 about Rox-Filer.

Subscription functionality may come later.

Rattlehead wrote:I have noticed an interesting drift in the direction of this thread; the newsletter idea started as a way of summarizing what happens in the forum; however, the content of the posts has soon uncovered a strong "hunger" for opinions and healthy debate about the Puppy world and its future.

In fact, I think that the very stuff that is contained in the latest posts, with just some trivial cut-paste work and a title in the lines of "mapping the Puppy universe", would make for a nice article in the newsletter; I've learned a lot from it already .

I'm sure it will continue to change for some time.

Rattlehead wrote:The same goes for Jilst's comments on the current scarcity of Puppy developers. His post could be dragged into a Notecase section and used almost as is (I guess I'm speaking with my reader "cap" here: I'd love to read stuff like that in the newsletter).

I'm sure newsletter expectations will be different for different people. Newsletters are usually only a few pages, this seems to be developing into a magazine. I'm not sure I have the puff to keep that going.

Rattlehead wrote:About how to proceed, as my personal preference, I liked the suggestion by Kerl of starting by just gathering a few links, classifying them in sections and writing headings for them, because:

1) It's the minimal step, that thing "next to nothing" that allows you to start speaking of a newsletter. A foundation upon which you can build further.

2) It creates additional value from using mostly content that is already available (our prolific forum)...

3) It provides a "snapshot" of where are things hot currently in the community, like an "eagle view" for someone who is not in the habit of daily reading the forum, as some of us are.

The forum is my daily newspaper however, I don't read every post so I probably miss a lot of good information. Newsletters usually have less content and are read in their entirety. Just my thoughts.

Rattlehead wrote:The mixture of this monthly "snapshot", plus articles by whomever feels like to, would make, in my view, for a very harmonic balance.

Seems to be working thus far.

Rattlehead wrote:Regarding my personal contributions, as I told Smokey01 in my delivery, my intention is keeping always an eye in the basic user. I'm checking my personal todo lists for very basic Puppy tasks and turning them into small howto guides. I also liked Musher0's suggestion of creating thematic issues, one month focused on file managers, other in wifi configuration, etc, and I will be more than happy to contribute to that, but my personal battle is keeping an eye on the basic Linux beginners, so my guideline for my texts is covering stuff that can be applied to any Puppies, not too specialized (for example: anything ROX or JWM related, one of Puppy's backbones as Lazy Puppy remarks).

Catering to the basic user is good.

Rattlehead wrote:Some people has also suggested creating a definition of what is a Puppy "in purity" and what is not, and then setting % quotas on the content to avoid deviate too much. To do that, I suggest, instead of starting with some arbitrary quotas, starting by monitoring the current reality of the forum first; making the first summary, and out of it trying to find trends there, like: hey, who knew, ~30% of the threads are about new puppies in development, ~40% are newbies looking for which puppy to install... things like that, and then work from there to taylor the contents according to the interests and needs we detect...

I don't think we need to get too specific here. As long as there is relevance I think it should be fine.

I'm looking for contributors for the Feb edition.

Thanks

musher0 · #91 Post by **musher0** » Sun 25 Dec 2016, 23:15

LazY Puppy wrote:Basic definition for a Puppy Linux was: Rox and JWM.

...as it continues.

I think, it probably would be good to have the choice of different window managers to install. Though, would need someone to build the .pet packages already prepared for the Puppy menu structure out of the box.

To use a different window manager is not that easy by just installing the default .deb packages from e.g. Ubuntu.

I think, the creators of the lxde and/or xfce Puppies can tell so...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, LazY_Puppy!

My point exactly. Many other distros have different "flavors", and are built
with another window manager than the "official" one. Ubuntu or Fedora,
for ex.

Also you are right in pointing out that installing a new window manager is
"not that easy" -- because you have to adapt the menu and provide a
taskbar if the wm does not have one. And all the other items that go
with a window manager.

However a well-thought out pet archive could ease things for the user.

Offering different window managers could prove the versatility of
PuppyLinux to everyone, widen horizons for the users and stimulate new
thinking in devs. It's all good, IMO!

BFN.

LazY Puppy · #92 Post by **LazY Puppy** » Mon 26 Dec 2016, 13:27

Thank you musher0.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you also, musher0.

Though I don't have holidays in between of Christmas and New Year.

Never mind.

Yes, well prepared .pet archives could solve a lot on the different WM's for Puppy issue. Though, it would need someone to create such .pet packages.

Also I can think of another problem related to Rox filer.

I think to use/setup a different window manager (except jwm, icewm and openbox) would need also (almost) to setup a different file manager (plus its mime types), as Rox filer may cause problems when using e.g. xfce, enlightenment etc.pp.

Lots of work to do for the WM package creator...

greengeek · #93 Post by **greengeek** » Tue 27 Dec 2016, 05:46

LazY Puppy wrote:I think to use/setup a different window manager (except jwm, icewm and openbox) would need also (almost) to setup a different file manager (plus its mime types), as Rox filer may cause problems when using e.g. xfce, enlightenment etc.pp.

In that case maybe the newsletter could carry an article regarding a suitable alternative pairing of WM and FM - who's got one they already use and like??

I have seen Sylvander and others recommend XFE as a good FM and occasionally I use it when I feel the need to be able to copy and paste instead of the drag/drop required by Rox.

It would be great if the newsletter could cover the benefits and pitfalls of WM and FM choices.

And what of DE choices? I struggle to even visualise what a DE is - let alone how it interacts with Rox and JWM.

Mike Walsh · #94 Post by **Mike Walsh** » Tue 27 Dec 2016, 14:12

Afternoon, all.

Those of you who are keeping up with the progress on the Newsletter will see that I've submitted a video tutorial for installing Pup to a USB drive.....in this case, the 'classic' Slacko 570. I admit, it's not top-notch post-production quality (!), but it seems to have been fairly well received by the editor.....

I'm thinking of doing some more like this.....but please bear in mind that even a 5-10 minute video entails several hours of uninterrupted 'faffing around'.....especially if it entails a 'sound-track' (which I record separately, then combine in Openshot, followed by transcoding for YT.)

Does anybody have any suggestions for further video tutorials they'd like to see? This is with the express intention of making things as easy as possible for newcomers (I'm remembering my own early steps with Puppy, and how alien it all seemed!)

Anything will be considered.....as long as I either already have it on one or more of my Pups, or am able to install it & get it running.

Mike.

LazY Puppy · #95 Post by **LazY Puppy** » Tue 27 Dec 2016, 23:36

greengeek wrote:
LazY Puppy wrote:I think to use/setup a different window manager (except jwm, icewm and openbox) would need also (almost) to setup a different file manager (plus its mime types), as Rox filer may cause problems when using e.g. xfce, enlightenment etc.pp.
In that case maybe the newsletter could carry an article regarding a suitable alternative pairing of WM and FM - who's got one they already use and like??

I have seen Sylvander and others recommend XFE as a good FM and occasionally I use it when I feel the need to be able to copy and paste instead of the drag/drop required by Rox.

It would be great if the newsletter could cover the benefits and pitfalls of WM and FM choices.

And what of DE choices? I struggle to even visualise what a DE is - let alone how it interacts with Rox and JWM.

Everyone being interested in a different plus nice combination of WM and FM other than JWM / Rox should definitely have a look at Yara OSX by fmiguel. It uses XFCE and Thunar plus some very nice desktop environment and window decorator stuff like Emerald and Slingscold (Slingshot). Also it comes with the plank desktop dock.

I had it running for a few weeks as my daily OS and then decided to make it the main OS at my 2nd machine at home (first I made it T.O.P.L.E.S.S.

).

Very nice.

The version I'm speaking/writing of is Yara OSX 1.6 (was based on tahr 6.0.2) - though, there is already 2.0.

However: on my main working and development machine I prefer still the combination of JWM / Rox - LOVE IT!

When there's a need to use a different FM I got some in .sfs Modules existing, like: XFE, FM4Pane, EagleMode etc. - all of them are very rarely used.

anewuser · #96 Post by **anewuser** » Thu 29 Dec 2016, 04:13

Mike Walsh wrote: Does anybody have any suggestions for further video tutorials they'd like to see? This is with the express intention of making things as easy as possible for newcomers (I'm remembering my own early steps with Puppy, and how alien it all seemed!)

Hmm, frugal install to pendrive? Already checked.

Wifi setting.

Maybe "my touchpad/mouse doesn't work" (only recently tahr 6.0.2 and saluki I believe detected my touchpad out of the box or at all) How do I get around puppy linux with spatial navigation (opera term) or keyboard based usage. I love keyboard based handling of OS/applications, so fast for text editing, not much for games/graphics, and if applications aren't sane.

Special charactering input/locale testing.

Emptying save file / increasing save file size.

smokey01 · #97 Post by **smokey01** » Thu 29 Dec 2016, 05:53

anewuser wrote:
Mike Walsh wrote: Does anybody have any suggestions for further video tutorials they'd like to see? This is with the express intention of making things as easy as possible for newcomers (I'm remembering my own early steps with Puppy, and how alien it all seemed!)

Hmm, frugal install to pendrive? Already checked.

Wifi setting.

Maybe "my touchpad/mouse doesn't work" (only recently tahr 6.0.2 and saluki I believe detected my touchpad out of the box or at all) How do I get around puppy linux with spatial navigation (opera term) or keyboard based usage. I love keyboard based handling of OS/applications, so fast for text editing, not much for games/graphics, and if applications aren't sane.

Special charactering input/locale testing.

Emptying save file / increasing save file size.

@anewuser
Can I expect some articles from you on the above

bigpup · #98 Post by **bigpup** » Thu 29 Dec 2016, 06:51

smokey01,

Just a suggestion.
If you are going to host this news letter and kind of be the publisher.
If you start a new topic. You can make changes to the first post in the topic.
This will allow you to edit the first post with links to the news letter and edit info about it.

Mike Walsh · #99 Post by **Mike Walsh** » Thu 29 Dec 2016, 11:34

@ anewuser:-

Mm. Okay. Leave 'em with me. I make no promises.....but I'll see what I can do.

Watch this space.....

smokey01 wrote:@anewuser
Can I expect some articles from you on the above

^^^ ....

Mike.

oldyeller · #100 Post by **oldyeller** » Thu 29 Dec 2016, 11:45

Hello Everyone,

If there is anything that I can contribute let me know.

Cheers

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

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