puppy 1.0.5 help file, wizards, and XP

Using applications, configuring, problems
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moXXXXXX
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puppy 1.0.5 help file, wizards, and XP

#1 Post by moXXXXXX »

hello
i was wondering whether Puppy 1.0.5 will have a new help file? also, I was wondering whether the changes to the wizards in this new release will automatically partition and format the drives and remember and apply these to any other machines "birthed" from a custom CD made from this computer.
i've another question too (a pretty subjective one though) which is what do puppies out there think about putting on the XP looking windows manager on Puppy machines in my project (my project is building these machines to be used in for Bangladesh). I had a look at the screen shots and it looks very nice but for some reason the idea of putting it on didn't sit well with me. are there any great advantures to using it? i'd really appreciate some thoughts on this.
cheers,
b/w I also thought i'd put Skype on the machines. anything else???

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rarsa
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#2 Post by rarsa »

mohoohoo wrote:what do puppies out there think about putting on the XP looking windows manager on Puppy machines
Look and feel of the desktop is a very personal matter.

As for using an XP lookalike theme, here are my comments:
Advantages:
- Familiarity for windows users
- The colors are neutral and pleasing, a lot of research went into them.

Disadvantages:
- Lack of indivituallity (arguably)

I will comment on the advantages:
If I understood correctly you are going to be delivering this computers to people that does not have previous windowsXP experience. Then having whatever theme will be the same for them.

The XP colors are neutral and pleasing to the northamerican audience. Different cultures find different colors pleasing.

To achieve familiarity and create raport with the UI you can try using themes and colors familiar to your target users. Here I'll venture into unknown territory so forgiveme if I fail in my stereotypes:

As a background a famous scene/actor/actrees of an Bollywood movie. Maybe include a collection of backgrounds with local animals, scenes, sights.

Colors matching festive colors for the region. Include more than one theme.

For sure include some mp3/oggvorbis, etc with some big local hits.

Don't bring 'foreign computers' that will look alien to them, you may have more success if people think of them as 'their computers'.

Even if they use the compters in a 'time shared' environment (school, library, community centre), you want them to feel comfortable and be able to customize it for the time they will be using it.

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rarsa
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Re: puppy 1.0.5 help file, wizards, and XP

#3 Post by rarsa »

MoHooHoo wrote:I was wondering whether the changes to the wizards in this new release will automatically partition and format the drives and remember and apply these to any other machines "birthed" from a custom CD made from this computer.
Remember that the HDD installation does not make any assumptions about partitions, it will use what you tell it to use. When you remaster puppy, you can modify the HDD instalation scripts to do exactly what you want. I think is that doing it in the generic Puppy remaster script is not practical nor advisable as. Actually, unless your target computers are all the same the partition schema for one computer may not work for all of them.

If you want to 'clone' a HDD puppy installation I think it's better to have a tar.gz image of the contents of your original puppy installation and then just untar it into the destination one. You will still need to install the boot manager of course.

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Flash
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#4 Post by Flash »

Rarsa, I use a program called "Drive Backup 3" to make on a bootable DVD an exact copy of a Windows system partition (the one with the OS in it, usually the "C" drive.) To restore everything in the partition, including the boot sector and MBR, you just boot the DVD and tell it to restore. It can also be used to clone, if the hardware is close enough (although it would be illegal to clone Windows.) Do you know of an easy way to make a bootable CD that would do the same thing for Puppy? O'Reilley's "Linux Cookbook" details a way to do it, but I haven't tried it.

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rarsa
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#5 Post by rarsa »

Well, what I described in my previous post is the poor-mans way of doing it. but quite effective. Of course you may need a secondary partition to store the tar.gz

The tar method is sufficient for most backup purposes.

Of course you may be looking for the same functionality as the windows tool. I'd recommend to have a look at Partimage.

I haven't tried to compile it for puppy. It does not have many requirements that aren't in puppy, so it may be not so difficult.

Do you want to do it? Do you want help? It sounds like an interesting project.

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Flash
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#6 Post by Flash »

I'll do what I can. I haven't done any programming but I have two computers with completely different hardware and chipsets, and both have DVD burners I can test with. And I have cable internet.

Ultimately I'd like to end up with a stripped-down and specialized Puppy which creates on a bootable DVD (or CD) an exact copy (including the MBR and boot sector, if they exist) of whatever partition it's pointed at. To restore or clone the partition I'd simply boot the DVD and a menu would pop up with check boxes.

There are two reasons I want to do this with Puppy: Drive Backup 3 only works from within Windows, and it takes much longer for the bootable DVD to restore the partition than it took to burn the DVD in the first place. NTI says that's because the OS on the bootable DVD is some form of DOS. They say they chose DOS for its compatibility with hardware. Puppy may not be quite as compatible, but it'll be close.

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moXXXXXX
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also keen to help

#7 Post by moXXXXXX »

i'm also keen to help. i am piecing together the info everyone has given me in the forum and i'm digesting that with the info i've gleaned from elsewhere in combination with some great hints and existing tools to do this too. i'll keep you informed of how i go and will happily through this in to the backyard for all the puppies to enjoy.
:-)

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