Puppy 4.4 CE - Phase 1: pet tests

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technosaurus
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#61 Post by technosaurus »

@ICPUG - I understood, just made some basic assumptions (I hear that's bad) that you would not need an option to only copy the sfs if it was auto-copied. Anyhow - autocopy is out but the ability to copy it will be part of the universal installer/remaster. I feel that is a good balance - easy but not automatic.
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

zachif
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Boot optimizations

#62 Post by zachif »

I wish there was an easy way (how-to document or GUI utility) to optimize puppy for my machine, once installed on it.
I mean - I would love to get rid of stuff I do not need (NTFS support, dial-up drivers, other drivers for HW I do not have, etc.).
The goal is to speed up boot time, and reduce puppy size in memory / disk.

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technosaurus
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#63 Post by technosaurus »

I have uploaded wine_lite-1.1.30 (now under 7mb with even more stuff)
http://www.puppylinux.asia/members/T/44 ... 0-i486.pxt

you will need pxtget - I have updated the mime types to handle pxt so you can just save it to disk and then click to install it
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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ttuuxxx
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#64 Post by ttuuxxx »

I just installed your latest Gnumeric/goffice and compared it with 2.14X gnumeric/goffice, and well your latest version is over 700KB compressed larger, it doesn't look any newer and also it looks like it has less functions out of the box, below is a screenshot
the top one is gnumeric 1.6.3 <--- older 2 series
the bottom is gnumeric 1.9.13 <--- Latest 4 series
I just opened both up, didn't configure any menus etc. 100% pure default settings.
700kb compressed is a nice saving, really I never use any spreadsheets at all, I personally think that wasting almost 3MB compressed on something that 1 out of 50 might use is a waste of space, Since the latest abiword can be compiled without Goffice, then Gnumeric is the only app using Goffice these days on puppy. Barry did have another spreadsheet app in the repo, but I forget the name now, also there's siag but that is so outdated looking and hasn't been upgraded in years. Anyways just an Idea.
ttuuxxx
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http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
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ICPUG
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#65 Post by ICPUG »

I don't want to get into a flame war on what apps to include. Everyone has their own (different) ideas. In the end Technosaurus will use his wisdom to decide and I will accept.

However, I DO use spreadsheets so I would like to comments on ttuuxxx's post.

The 1 in 50 statistic is a guess to back up a particular point of view. Some people use spreadsheets for the purpose they were intended. Others use them as a tool to create mini-databases. As a database tool is often asked for, Gnumeric can suit 2 groups of people. A real database tool is usually sufficiently complicated to be only useful to those who want to create big databases.

I think the other tool in the repos that ttuuxxx referred to was called Plan??? If so, I believe that had licencing issues. There is a note made in the help file.

I tried siag - hmm. I have also tried k-calc (No No No).

The one thing I really like about Gnumeric is its compatiblity with Excel. If you know what keystrokes to press in Excel the same usually work in Gnumeric. Also it can read and write xls files of course. So far I haven't found anything else that is small that is as good.

I cannot really comment on whether gnumeric 1.6.3 or gnumeric 1.9.13 is better. That 3MB must be used for something (well some of it outside of the natural bloat that seems to occur as software gets developed). Perhaps there are more in-built functions in the later version. I know some Puppies had the extra functions removed in the past - which is a right pain for those who actually use a spreadsheet.

All this talk of apps may be immaterial. If a choice pup type approach is introduced you can have an Abiword/Gnumeric sfs pack and add it to the basic puppy.

gyro
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SFS challange

#66 Post by gyro »

technosaurus wrote:On the fly sfs mounting: Choicepup style or symlink style
In a frugal install, there is one significant difference between ".pet" and ".sfs" that gets little attention. A ".pet" can replace any file, because it is "above" "pup-430.sfs". But since all ".sfs" files are "below" "pup-430.sfs", they only work for files that don't exist in "pup-430.sfs". e.g. if you add Firefox to the standard pup-430 with a ".pet", you can replace "defaultbrowser", but if an ".sfs" is used the new "defaultbrowser" is ignored because it is "covered" by the existing one in "pup-430.sfs" above it.

The ideal solution is to provide a facility to insert an ".sfs" into the unionfs "under" the rw layer but "above" the topmost ro layer, "pup-430.sfs".

If we can't manage the ideal solution, then it would seem that we maximize the flexibility of upgrading with ".sfs" files if we minimize what's in "pup-440.sfs", i.e. take all/many of the applications out of "pup-440.sfs" and place them in "pup_apps_std-440.sfs". And provide users with a facility to choose between several applications packs (.sfs files). So there might be a "pup_apps_firefox-440.sfs" application pack, which replaces seamonkey with firefox. I guess I'm suggesting a "barebones" release plus applications packs in ".sfs" files.

gyro

PS: I use several frugal installs on a single NTFS partition, please don't take away the facility of having a single repository of ".sfs" files, where they can be directly shared by many different installs. I can easily live with having all sfs4 files ending in "-sfs4.sfs" to distinguish them from the old version of the same file that ends in just ".sfs".

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ttuuxxx
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#67 Post by ttuuxxx »

Hi ICPUG Gnumeric is around 3MB of pet packages, abiword no longer uses Gnumeric deps, it did use Goffice but they dropped that, So now abiword and its deps is around the 1.8MB pet size. Together thats almost 5MB of the iso, but Abiword is more widely used on a day to day application, the only time I ever used a spreadsheet app was in highschool/college never ever needed at home or in a office, sure it has its uses, and if you like it great, I've read great reviews on Gnumeric, its even better than KSpread with ability to import Excel without error. But when your tossing 3MB out the door, I kind of like the idea of having it as a sfs or pet in the repo, like a full package including Goffice, one click install. lets face it, at one time puppy was under 100Mb now its 108MB it doesn't really give you much room to play with anymore. Drivers increase in size, the kernel gets like 5000 new lines of code a day. At this rate in 2-3 yrs time the default puppy iso will be around 200MB, unless we get better compression system than sfs who knows, I just know during 4.2Ce build it was real difficult to keep it under the 100MB mark. well I guess we could make it easy and just the everybody gets what they want and we'll keep it around 120MB max. lol
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

gyro
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request for init

#68 Post by gyro »

If work is being done on "init" in initrd.gz, could you please add the facility to mount pupsave files as ext2, ext3 or ext4, depending on the name of the file:
pupsave.2fs -> ext2
pupsave.3fs -> ext3
pupsave.4fs -> ext4

gyro

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ttuuxxx
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#69 Post by ttuuxxx »

Hi gyro are you any good at messing around with initrd.gz files? on the 2.14x forum thread there's about 4 of trying to get 2.14x able to load say like a max of 20sfs and like 20 partitions, but when we have the extra sfs in initrd.gz then the partitions won't work after 7 of them.
well if your interested have a look at http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 218#346218
thanks
ttuuxxx
http://audio.online-convert.com/ <-- excellent site
http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/A-codecs/ <-- Codec Test Files
http://html5games.com/ <-- excellent HTML5 games :)

raffy
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planmaker

#70 Post by raffy »

ICPUG wrote:I think the other tool in the repos that ttuuxxx referred to was called Plan??? If so, I believe that had licencing issues. There is a note made in the help file.
That is PlanMaker Free, but it can only accept 40 rows of data for saving. However, it opens Excel files very well. Its word processor sibling is TextMaker.

Whether we include a spreadsheet will be influenced by how we define "office software". If we define it to include word processing and spreadsheet, then the latter will have to be included.

How about presentations? For this, Barry has included FullerScreen (a PPT alike using HTML) in 4.30, but it needs to be installed by the user. This adds a new way of including must-have software in Puppy, compressed but requires installation. This will be good for:
- Flash (the version that works well with the included browser);
- GOffice (if ttuuxxx's size issue will be important).

As to size of the ISO, we can learn from Fatdog, whose size hovers around 128 MB. Some arguments in favor:
- Puppy can mount the pup-xxx.sfs from the drive if RAM is limited;
- New PCs today have 1 GB RAM; older ones have 512 MB RAM, which can comfortably load a ~120 MB sfs.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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technosaurus
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#71 Post by technosaurus »

@ttuuxxx I am coming from the same direction as you are with Gnumeric - I don't really use it much, so it is hard to say what can stay and what can go. Maybe only the excel plugin by default the rest as a separate package. I am also compiling with NLS support which does add some size. Either way I don't plan to use that particular version in a final release - it is for testing so that Puppy related bugs can be fixed when the stable version is released. I hope people are posting their bugs anyways.

also there are a couple patches related to ext4 init and shutdown neeeded
|ext2|ext3|... to be |ext2|ext3|ext4|...

if you are maintaining any packages that have similar or derivative scripts this should help fix any ext4 issues

I agree - everything should mount on top of the pupXXX.sfs and below the save file

There is no need to worry about a flame war - just post a link to a pet and let the feedback roll.
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

panzerpuppy
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#72 Post by panzerpuppy »

gstreamer = NO

Just update ALSA to the latest version and use the latest version of ffmpeg.

gstreamer is dog slow (compared to ffmpeg) and full of bugs.

Remember,we are Puppies. Leave gstreamer to the old fat dogs :D

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technosaurus
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#73 Post by technosaurus »

The one good thing about gstreamer is that it has vala bindings and the start of a media player as an example. Perhaps it is just the programs interfacing with it that are slow themselves. If a small vala based media player could replace gxine it would be nice to have support for the other programs that require it, one of which is Gcompris, which is great edutainment for the kids.

You can thank Sidders (and slapshot before him) for his work on the HSB puplet for bring tons of edutainment games to Puppy, and hopefully an addon pack for the 4.4 CE.

My philosophy is if you can provide a program that is just as small with the same functionality that also provides dependencies for other potential addons then it will make the user experience better since there won't be as much dependency tracking/downloading and filling up the pupsave files. This is the only reason I would prefer to use a QT based browser... for roughly the same size as Firefox/Seamokey you can now support many QT based apps (in the end it still needs to be on par with FF/SM though)
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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sullysat
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#74 Post by sullysat »

I've been following here as closely as I can and felt the need to put my two cents in on the Office/Gnumeric issue.

At least several of us use spreadsheets regularly and my preference would certainly be to see both Abiword and Gnumeric included. I also believe that ANY cut down version is basically useless, long term, so would politic heavily in favor of including full programs.

Having said that, I can certainly see the reasoning behind leaving Gnumeric out, but I would submit that a COMMUNITY edition should include the best options for the software needs of the community. In a distro that has a size goal, that may mean that spreadsheets get left out. I can certainly see that, but if so, it should be offered as a .pet with all the dependencies for those that need it.

The argument that using a Choicepup approach negates the issue is false because the .sfs thing just doesn't work the same for everyone yet, in application or concept (based on my observations).

If we need to take out Gnumeric, or anything else that Puppians are used to working with regularly, to meet a size goal, those apps should (IMO MUST) be offered as .pets. What concerns me is that we stink, collectively, at maintaining add-on software in a way that is consistent, convenient, and understandable by the masses. I would fear that such software will ultimately get lost in the shuffle.

FWIW,
Sully
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Jim1911
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#75 Post by Jim1911 »

I concur with Sully, many of us use both Abiword and Gnumeric and would like to see them maintained as full programs in the basic CE distributions.

Current and future hardware doesn't confine us to arbitrary size limitations. Don't let size hold us back.

Jim :)

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technosaurus
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#76 Post by technosaurus »

I have contemplated using abiword and gnumeric as a choice pup style goffice.sfs that would make it easy to dump and replace with openoffice.sfs or koffice.sfs. The big trick is getting the load_sfs working since there are significant difference in the structure. If someone hasn't started on it by the weekend that can be my weekend project. I would also likely add a dummy folder to the $PATH that contains loader scripts with the names of the executables.

PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/dummy

/usr/local/dummy/abiword
#! /bin/sh
{script/function to get sfs directory}
loadsfs $SFSDIR/goffice.sfs
/usr/bin/abiword $@

The first time you type abiword in a terminal (or click its icon) it will load the sfs and subsequently execute /usr/bin/abiword $@

then next time you type abiword it will automatically find the one in /usr/bin instead of .../dummy
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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#77 Post by BarryK »

Pizzasgood wrote:Regarding PET-Be-Gone, I haven't installed 4.3 yet so I'm not sure how the package database format has changed and where it is now located. I intend to look at that sometime in the next couple weeks.

Something that would be nice (if 4.3 hasn't already done so) would be to let the user optionally keep the HW clock on UTC time rather than localtime. This would have no impact on size or speed, it's just a minor change of a couple scripts.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=41680
pizzasgood,
regarding pet-be-gone, the Woof build system currently does not create that pet which has lists of the files in all the packages.

It will be necessary to pull that code out of the old Unleashed build system, to create such a pet. I should put that on my to-do list.
[url]https://bkhome.org/news/[/url]

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BarryK
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#78 Post by BarryK »

Bert wrote:To return to Technosaurus's topic, I was very pleased to see this as the first point on his wishlist:
On the fly sfs mounting: Choicepup style or symlink style
Yes, dynamic sfs mounting, a dream come true.
Yes, the guys had it working for aufs, however I think that I read a comment that it does not work for Aufs2? (as used with the 2.6.30.5 kernel) -- that would need to be checked out.
[url]https://bkhome.org/news/[/url]

raffy
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QT-based

#79 Post by raffy »

technosaurus wrote:If a small vala based media player could replace gxine it would be nice to have support for the other programs that require it, one of which is Gcompris, which is great edutainment for the kids.

My philosophy is if you can provide a program that is just as small with the same functionality that also provides dependencies for other potential addons then it will make the user experience better since there won't be as much dependency tracking/downloading and filling up the pupsave files. This is the only reason I would prefer to use a QT based browser...
These are very useful starting points, at least for this CE.

Given the latter point about QT, are we looking at VLC Media Player and Opera browser (as ready options)?
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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Slapdash
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#80 Post by Slapdash »

Regarding the gnumeric issue: without it or without its counterpart (a spreadsheet in any case) you don't really get an all-rounded distro. Or you get a less-all-rounded distro. It might be wise to keep it, if only to maintain the sense of wholeness Puppy now has, even at the staggering cost of 3mbs.

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