Puppy 4.3: Why Built on 4.1?

[brymway]

I rarely question Barrys decision of what he puts in an official distro. In my eyes he has the right to go back to dotmatrix style if he wants. This is his bag, and if it wasn't for his choices we would all be using something else. (oh the horror!)

In my opinion as far as feel goes 4.12, 4.2 and 4.3 are all different. I've used them all and 4.12 works and feels the best on my rig. When I used 4.2 I changed the things I didn't like to make it operate the way I like. But inside hardware issues prefered 4.12 so I've gone back to that.

I've always wondered about the multiple calculators. In my personal distro I did away with them and stuck in galculator like the rest. To date I've never heard Barry respond to why he puts so many of the same things in his distro. I like to think its his Alfred Hitchcock cameo thing. For all I know, after he releases the distro to the public and goes to bed, it gives him something to snicker about. It might be a sense of humor. Everytime I get a new release that's one of the first things I check and it's a source of humor to me.

Throughout the 4.xx series with both leaders in charge, I always have fun looking thru the new distro. Every one is fantastic.

Nice to see you again WhoDo.

[mulrah]

I rarely question Barrys decision of what he puts in an official distro. In my eyes he has the right to go back to dotmatrix style if he wants. This is his bag, and if it wasn't for his choices we would all be using something else. (oh the horror!)

I suppose this is exactly my point. I thought he'd retired and that Puppy was now purely a community-driven distro, even with Barry coming out of retirement to lead 4.3. Handing a project over to new leadership is always tricky, especially when you started it.

Having read the replies to this thread, Barry's blog, and other threads, it is now clear to me that Puppy really remains Barry's distro and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Knowing this, I'll probably end up switching to 4.3, because 5 will probably be more like it than like 4.2, as will 5.1 and so on. 4.2 works for me now, but, if I want to gain the benefits of future releases, I might as well get used to the Five Calculators and other quirks all over again.

[Gedrean]

Now, now, let's not fuss. See, when I get to be prolific enough with Puppy Development (and masochistic enough), I'll take over as "BV" for 6.7 or whatever version, and you'll have 50 CALCULATORS! HAHAHAHA! You thought 5 was extravagant?!?! This thing'll need a Blu-Ray disc for all the damn calculators I put in!!! AND FOUR SPREADSHEETS! Think two or three simple text editors is enough? No! Let's have FOURTEEN! Exactly fourteen, no more, no less.

[mulrah]

Now, now, let's not fuss. See, when I get to be prolific enough with Puppy Development (and masochistic enough), I'll take over as "BV" for 6.7 or whatever version, and you'll have 50 CALCULATORS! HAHAHAHA! You thought 5 was extravagant?!?! This thing'll need a Blu-Ray disc for all the damn calculators I put in!!!

Why wait? Somebody should do a PuppyCalc puplet.

[MinHundHettePerro]

...
Why wait? Somebody should do a PuppyCalc puplet.

It is hilarious (in a way).

Sad/true side of the story is that none of the offered calculatotors has ever been good enough, in some sense .

fwiw/
MHHP

[BarryK]

Dear oh dear, gossip and misinformation!

Regarding those five calculators, I have repeated many times that I sometimes throw in extra choices when they are very small. Like, Xcalc is 23KB and Ycalc is 37KB uncompressed -- you want to figure out how much that adds to the size of the live-CD? -- probably about 20KB onto a 100MB ISO file.

"Someone else on the bug fix forum described 4.3 as "recompiled" from 4.1."
That "recompiled from 4.1" comment was nonsense. Puppy 4.2 uses the same base of 4.0/4.1 binary pet packages as does 4.3. Both 4.2 and 4.3 have upgaded many of those packages. If you had followed my blog you would know that I upgraded many packages, so they are not just 4.1 packages.

I explained the way 4.3 was developed and how 4.1 and 4.2 are related, on my blog:
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/?viewDetailed=00823
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/?viewDetailed=00997
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/?viewDetailed=00805
...other posts on my blog report many more package upgrades.

So yes, I started from 4.1.2, then upgraded many many packages. I also looked at 4.21 and ported over whatever looked good. I was not interested in the bling of 4.21, also I considered the incorporation of tcl/tk into 4.2x to be a backward step so left that out (and whatever apps use tcl/tk).

There were some little details in 4.2x that I missed. In some cases, like the package manager, I had completely rewritten that for the Woof build system, so any improvements in that regard were not relevant. Pizzasgood made a valid point, I did overlook some scripts in 4.2x that had some useful bugfixes, the Xorg Wizard for example -- whatever I did miss, I needed to be informed of and I would have merged them. For example, when I was working on 4.3.1, when some people informed me of some fixes that were in 4.2x and not in 4.3, I applied those fixes. If I was not informed, then what can I do?

I do hope that any remaining fixes that are in 4.2x that are not in 4.3.1, will be reported to the 4.3.1 bugs feedback thread, with exact details how to apply the fix, and myself and the 4.4 developers can apply them.

In summary, it was a massive effort developing 4.3.x, involving many issues. The nit-pickers just see a few superficial details, like an app missing, or a little change in the menu (such as the shutdown menu), or some extra calculators, and then start criticizing. Or, they complain afterward, having not contributed solutions during the development phase.

mulrah wrote:
"If Puppy is going to evolve into anything other than Barry's distro, then the trust in a community-built release has to be there."

This is a valid point. In the case of 4.3.x, I followed my own vision and wound back what I didn't like in 4.2x. But I consider this to be a special situation, where I have the Woof build system and wanted to take control again while it is being introduced. Also there were leadership problems after 4.20 was released, which was another thing that prompted me to take the reins again.

My original intention was to retire from Puppy, or at least put it on the back-burner, early in 2010, and I'm still on-track to do that. My intention for 2010 is to focus on things like Woof itself, maybe learn more Genie coding, maybe also write an application. I think that the community will have got things sorted out regarding leadership (etc.) and can continue with developing and releasing future puppies.

Just a note: my experience with technosaurus is he is a very knowledgeable guy, and is proving to have excellent management skills. It is also pleasing to see the initiative that Gposil is taking with Dpup. Consider my effort with 4.3 to be a temporary thing, from now on it will be the community developing the releases. I will probably still do experimental builds, like my recent "Karmic Puppy" ...and if at some future date I ever get the urge to bring out an official Puppy, well I won't, unless there is some disaster and Puppy finds itself leaderless and a majority of the established community want me to take the reins again. But then maybe I won't, it may be time for me to really retire. If I really want to bring out another distro, maybe I'll start again, new name, new URLs, new everything -- you never know!

[Pizzasgood]

Coming 2012: Kitty Linux

For the record, I intend to take care of fixing xorgwizard myself later this week. So I didn't bother reporting it to the bugs thread yet.


Re the calculators, the thing I find funniest is how bent out of shape they get people, considering how negligible they are. I think that the vast majority of people using Puppy have no idea how little impact the majority of applications contribute. I was really surprised by the sizes back when I first started remastering.

[mulrah]

Re the calculators, the thing I find funniest is how bent out of shape they get people, considering how negligible they are.

For me, it's not about the size but rather the menu clutter. I'd gotten used to "removing" them with PMenu and was glad to see them gone in 4.2.

I just upgraded to 4.3, grabbed PMenu removed them. Not a big deal.

[mulrah]

I explained the way 4.3 was developed and how 4.1 and 4.2 are related, on my blog:
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/?viewDetailed=00823
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/?viewDetailed=00997
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/?viewDetailed=00805
...other posts on my blog report many more package upgrades.

Thanks for these links. As someone who uses Puppy everyday but follows its development less frequently, these links are exactly the kind of information I was looking for when I first posted this thread. I just wanted to see the reasoning behind the decisions. I'll be sure to follow your blog more closely in the future.

In summary, it was a massive effort developing 4.3.x, involving many issues. The nit-pickers just see a few superficial details, like an app missing, or a little change in the menu (such as the shutdown menu), or some extra calculators, and then start criticizing. Or, they complain afterward, having not contributed solutions during the development phase.

I fully accept that groaning about the calculators is nit-picking, but I made the point to illustrate the larger topic of how Puppy is or is not being transferred from its original creator to the community. It was particularly important because initial responses to the thread were focused on bling vs no bling, which was not the point.

With a better understanding of how 4.3 came about, I went ahead and upgraded. It has taken me a couple hours to get everything the way I want it, but it feels faster, and I appreciate the new features. I added PMenu so I can "remove" what I perceive as clutter in the menu. Note that "Refresh Menu" does not work anymore in that Utility; you have to manually execute "fixmenus" and then restart JWM.

My original intention was to retire from Puppy, or at least put it on the back-burner, early in 2010, and I'm still on-track to do that. My intention for 2010 is to focus on things like Woof itself, maybe learn more Genie coding, maybe also write an application. I think that the community will have got things sorted out regarding leadership (etc.) and can continue with developing and releasing future puppies.

Just a note: my experience with technosaurus is he is a very knowledgeable guy, and is proving to have excellent management skills. It is also pleasing to see the initiative that Gposil is taking with Dpup. Consider my effort with 4.3 to be a temporary thing, from now on it will be the community developing the releases. I will probably still do experimental builds, like my recent "Karmic Puppy" ...and if at some future date I ever get the urge to bring out an official Puppy, well I won't, unless there is some disaster and Puppy finds itself leaderless and a majority of the established community want me to take the reins again. But then maybe I won't, it may be time for me to really retire. If I really want to bring out another distro, maybe I'll start again, new name, new URLs, new everything -- you never know!

Thanks so much for your incredible work on Puppy, past, present, and--let's be honest here--future! It's an incredible distro, and I appreciate all the work you and others have poured into it over the years.

[WhoDo]

So yes, I started from 4.1.2, then upgraded many many packages. I also looked at 4.21 and ported over whatever looked good. I was not interested in the bling of 4.21, also I considered the incorporation of tcl/tk into 4.2x to be a backward step so left that out (and whatever apps use tcl/tk).

Just to clarify why I took that "backward step", we had a number of developers who wanted to contribute to the first official release without you at the helm, but they weren't prepared to learn a new language (Vala/Genie) to do so. It was either give them tcl/tk or something much larger or less well known, so I chose the lesser of those evils. Out of that we gained, among other things, Remaster Express (ReMaX) which I still consider to be one of the best new features of 4.2.x for the ease with which it allowed new users to remaster their own Puppy.

There were some little details in 4.2x that I missed. In some cases, like the package manager, I had completely rewritten that for the Woof build system, so any improvements in that regard were not relevant. Pizzasgood made a valid point, I did overlook some scripts in 4.2x that had some useful bugfixes, the Xorg Wizard for example -- whatever I did miss, I needed to be informed of and I would have merged them.

In my absence I doubt there were too many who knew what all of the changes were, so you can blame me for that.

mulrah wrote:
"If Puppy is going to evolve into anything other than Barry's distro, then the trust in a community-built release has to be there."

This is a valid point. In the case of 4.3.x, I followed my own vision and wound back what I didn't like in 4.2x. But I consider this to be a special situation, where I have the Woof build system and wanted to take control again while it is being introduced.

And I was very careful to leave that particular door open so you could do precisely that.

Also there were leadership problems after 4.20 was released, which was another thing that prompted me to take the reins again.

Now this one puts a burr under my saddle. There weren't "leadership problems" as much as there was one single user who insisted on getting his own way no matter how annoying he had to be to achieve that. I don't think ANY of the core developers had a problem with my "leadership" of the 4.2x project. I suspect very few of the community had any such issues either. Still the squeaky wheel continued to groan and grind away, questioning my choices in ways that would NEVER have happened to you, Barry, and eventually I'd had enough ... which also goes to explain my subsequent absence from the forum and the lack of input from me regarding bug fixes and script updates implemented. Mea culpa. I'd have been happy to fill you in on the features if you'd asked, and of course the release notes and wiki pages were pretty comprehensive thanks to coolpup.

I think that the community will have got things sorted out regarding leadership (etc.) and can continue with developing and releasing future puppies.

Just a note: my experience with technosaurus is he is a very knowledgeable guy, and is proving to have excellent management skills. It is also pleasing to see the initiative that Gposil is taking with Dpup. Consider my effort with 4.3 to be a temporary thing, from now on it will be the community developing the releases.

There is little doubt that technosaurus is better equipped than me, technically, to run the development of the project. His management skills are evident but remain to be tested in the crucible of user reaction to the product of his labours. I wish him well and am happy to offer him whatever advice and assistance he needs.

That said, I took the reins of Puppy leadership with your imprimatur and that didn't stop the nay-sayers from tacking my carcass up all over the forum. In any community there will ALWAYS be that element and while ever the community leaves one individual to deal with that sort of harassment alone, there will continue to be "leadership problems". The Puppy community needs a body of trusted members providing policy direction, formally or informally, and defending those decisions as a body rather than leaving the figurehead as the only one exposed to all the flack. Like I said, Puppy is your creation so you haven't had to deal with that. I have. I sincerely hope technosaurus doesn't.

I will probably still do experimental builds, like my recent "Karmic Puppy" ...and if at some future date I ever get the urge to bring out an official Puppy, well I won't, unless there is some disaster and Puppy finds itself leaderless and a majority of the established community want me to take the reins again. But then maybe I won't, it may be time for me to really retire. If I really want to bring out another distro, maybe I'll start again, new name, new URLs, new everything -- you never know!

That looks pretty final but it does leave the door open for people to believe they can have the new leader (BD) "sacked" if they want you back and they're loud enough about it. That can't be a good thing. I know you've had little interest in the Puppy Foundation, but what other way is there to insulate the developers and their leadership from the unreasoned demands of the masses? And just in case anyone thinks I'm angling to be involved in that, no thanks. I'm quite comfortable on the outer fringe. I've given my pound of flesh and it didn't tickle, believe me.

Now I've said my bit, I'll withdraw back into the shadows again. Those that matter know how to get in touch with me if they really need me for anything, and I'll continue to check in here every once in a while to answer the occasional PM. Good luck with your future endeavours, Barry.

[vtpup]

I hesitate to reply, being a bystander and admirer of all the present developers, but I don't think "leadership problems" was meant to imply poor leadership in any way.

I think it meant only that the leader stepped down unexpectedly, even if for understandable personal reasons.

Which, from a technical standpoint is a "leadership problem" for any software development effort, and thus one of the several motivations to come out of retirement temporarily.

Any person who volunteers to help others through software development, is admirable, for whatever period of time they do that. There are worse things people do in this world than coordinate, write, and debug software for others.

[BarryK]

Another extremely important point, that I did not clarify in my post, is that I was working on Woof right through, including while 4.20 was being developed. So of course 4.1.2 was my starting point. Many scripts were worked on intensely by me, especially all of those to do with bootup and shutdown. Even the Xorg Wizard got a couple of major bug fixes.

So, it was not a simple matter of just using scripts from 4.2. I read through much of the 4.2 development thread, looking for what improvements I could apply to 4.3, and incorporated them where I found something. As the case of the Xorg Wizard has been given, I could not simply use the script from 4.2, given how much work I had done on it, nor did I know any bugs had been fixed, that I could have applied. In the case of a few details like that, that was the purpose of 4.3.1.

The basic premise of this thread, that 4.3 was based on 4.1.2, is not correct, it is based on Woof, which had major changes from 4.1.2.
Woof provides all the underlying infrastructure.

Then there is the level of the packages, and as I already posted, they too underwent major upgrades.

[Caneri]

Before everyone rides off into the sunset I have a request.

If possible, could some of the top devs help jrb and his Choicepup efforts so we can have sfs on the fly in an official manner (modular Puppy)?

I don't mean to disparage jrb as his efforts are very good...I would just like to see a few top dogs help him out with the tricky stuff.

There is lots of interest if I read things correctly.
It just seems the Puppy thing to do....TY

OK..back to my sunset,
Eric

[timremy]

hello

i am a newcomer. but when people critize barry and his efforts,


its not right. why do people tear people down? barry has given


the linux community a great operating system, helped


countless people, and has given up countless hours for


us. if anyone wants to blame someone, blame the image


you see in the mirror.


timremy

[nic2109]

Also there were leadership problems after 4.20 was released....

.

This is probably just sloppy wording. Those of us who watched the whole painful episode might think it better described as "membership problems" !

Given that one of the principal bones of contention was that 4.2 was supposed to be the next "official" Puppy suitable for others to work with and create Puplets and that was why certain "nice to haves" couldn't be included; it's one of those strange little ironies that it was sidelined by Barry (for his own, quite proper reasons) and has now the status of a CE!

Never mind WhoDo; I reckon you did a great job, I miss the "bling" and hope it's back in for 4.4.

[downsouth]

Well said, timremy!
To Barry and Warren (in particular, but others too) this moderately techo person says a big THANKYOU.
Folks, let's be supportive - ask questions if you need, tell us all about your successes, but let's not bite the hands that feed us.

[headfound]

Man, I like the calculators - ever been offline in windows and tried to work out anything complex or tried to convert anything?
Puppy is still the easiest and (for its size) quickest and most comprehensive operating system around and thats why it will continue to be my everyday choice.
Thanks Barry!

[mulrah]

The basic premise of this thread, that 4.3 was based on 4.1.2, is not correct, it is based on Woof, which had major changes from 4.1.2.
Woof provides all the underlying infrastructure.

Then there is the level of the packages, and as I already posted, they too underwent major upgrades.

I knew that 4.3 was built with Woof before I posted and that this was a revolutionary step forward for Puppy. I was asking about the packages and used the phrase "based on" to describe 4.3's relationship to 4.1. I apologize for any confusion with the concept that 4.3 is "based on" Woof.

Based on the replies of late, it does seem like 4.3 used 4.1's packages as a starting point and justifiably so, while bringing in some but not all of the advancements made in 4.2. I figured Barry might have just started with 4.3/Woof before 4.2 was done or maybe there were specific reasons why specific decisions about packages were made or maybe something else I did not understand or maybe a combination of all three. Thus, I posted.

No criticism was intended, and I apologize if anything I've said has led to a misunderstanding. For my part, I've found most of the replies in this thread quite elucidating of not only my initial question but also a number of other issues.

[dawg]

If possible, could some of the top devs help jrb and his Choicepup efforts so we can have sfs on the fly in an official manner (modular Puppy)?

I don't mean to disparage jrb as his efforts are very good...I would just like to see a few top dogs help him out with the tricky stuff.

There is lots of interest if I read things correctly.
It just seems the Puppy thing to do....TY

Yes, that'd be really awesome!
Just without the desktop icons, please; it's enough the home directory is messy the way it is

[Lobster]

Being positive can be hard.
Many of don't or can not be bothered.
BarryK is bothered.
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/?viewDetailed=01184

We nearly lost 4.2
I am glad to hear that woof will continue and a new distro too

I am also inspired by those who help out by testing, encouraging and finding value in peoples efforts.