each one here know, that this kind to describe the problematic is wrong because each one here did try SliTaz...jamesbond wrote:Puppy grows big for two reasons:
1. New version of the same software is always bigger.
2. Support for more diverse kind of hardware requires more drivers and firmware and make it bigger.
Use older software? E.g. browser: youtube doesn't work, bank websites reject you.
Don't include all firmware (and drivers)? Or use older kernels? Soundcards don't work, network cards don't work, graphic cards, don't work ... you get the point.
Don't use bloated software? Ok, now try to use dillo or netsurf or anything else about the same size. See if you can survive the Internet today.
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There are modern, complete Linux systems under 4MB today. E.g. those that runs on routers.
The catch? They support exactly *one* hardware platform. They perform exactly *one* function.
Long time ago, before I knew Puppy, I was mesmerised by a distro called Damn Small Linux (DSL). A complete Linux distro with everyday tools (wordprocessing, spreadsheet, watching videos) in less than 50MB. Compare this with Knoppix that as over 600MB. This is in the days of 56Kbps V92 dial-up modem download. What's not to like? So I got that. I burned that to a CD-R and boot it up.
1. My soundcard didn't work.
2. My network didn't work.
3. My screen resolution was odd (it supported only VESA resolutions, the X server being Xvesa).
4. The general UI was ugly (GTK1 or Xaw widgets - can't recall).
5. It can't open my Windows documents.
6. It cannot print to my printer.
Some of these weren't exactly DSL faults; back in the day many hardware didn't have Linux drivers. But when I booted Knoppix, all those things worked (to a certain degree).
Case in point? It's impossible to make a system that is general enough to satisfy everybody, and still keep it small. Compared to DSL, even the earliest functional Puppy (version 2.x onwards) were between 70 - 80% larger than DSL to begin with.
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As a comparison, Firefox 52 alone is 47MB, that's XZ-compressed (which compresses things on average 2x smaller than GZip compressed employed by Puppies of old). Do you know how was the size of Firefox 6, from 2011? It was 16M, gzip compressed, which if compressed with XZ, will only be about 8 MB. That's a growth size of 500% - on Firefox alone.
Today, for example, Fatdog's kernel + drivers + firmware alone is 69MB, XZ-compressed. That's almost the size of Puppy 1.x, all for the kernel alone !!
Wait a minute, you say. Modern Tiny Core Linux has its Core package at 11MB. Ok. Does it has GUI? No. Does it support wireless? No. Does it have any apps at all? No. It's basically just an installer. You run it, and before you can use it, you must install other things. Now, get the list of apps in Puppy, and count the total size of TC + TCZ when those apps is included. You will quickly see that the number will be more or less the same.
Now you can argue that "who stuffs up so much apps in Puppy, apps that I don't use and don't care"? Well as I said, just because you don't use or don't care about the app, doesn't mean others don't. It is hard to satisfy everybody.
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Conclusion: Puppy's size has nothing to do with Woof or Woof-CE. It's because Puppy's target audience grows (not only running in older computers but also in __new__ computers) and the demand of modern software computing (new browsers, new this and new that).
You want to make Puppy small, it's only possible (in general) by making it specialised. Specialised to your hardware, specialised to your needs with only software that you use. But wait! There is already such a specialisation tool, it is called "remaster tools" ...
SliTaz is known as a well working (*1 little distro smaller than DSL and long time enough having had Firefox in it's 22 Mb ISOm (at the tuime where Firefox did be in the ISO! (*2 )
your declaration on DSL remember baslin (*3 (in my eyes the juwel of small Linux distros), yes, you can't do all what you will in basic linux, it's true, but in 2 old floppy disks with 1,5 Mb, the second one normal let free room on the second one of the FD and baslin is graphical Linux, with drag and draw, with a calculator with well looking graphic sign for mathematical operations, with web connection, with a free hand drawing system and what a one (a modified version of Magic Point, the presentation of baslin, Puppy, Slitaz did never have a presentation!), with a smart looking file manager (a modified version of the browser links), etc. your description on DSL is about conform to some baslin experiences depending of hardware but baslin is
15
time smaller as the size you did give for DSL.
puppy before version 1.0 did be better and did also have between 20..30 Mb depending of the version, and work...
it is not a realistic approach!
(*1 with some exceptions ok, as especially with the graphic from intel , but the most linux have also had difficulties to manage them because linuxers don't like intel and intel doesn't like Linux
(*2 all the sources of the first SliTaz version build from sources, all extra packages (in big tarball for each version) from SliTaz itself, and all ISO's continue to be downloadable from mirror.slitaz.org !
(*3 is abandoned but seems to continue to be downloadable at http://distro.ibiblio.org/baslinux/ in two forms, especially a burnable ISO
. have you 3, and all a different webkit or somewhat equivalent then you have 3 x 50 .. 60 Mb ballast. one real big space-eater seems be for ex. VLC...
