A review of Grafpup on Linux.com

[robert]

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/01/11/1634244

Robert

[Lobster]

Grafpup gets a well deserved 10/10

(Yes it really is that good) Now that is after only two releases AND all the problems with the server crash

Congratulations to Nathan (working on version 1.0.2)
I believe this proves how solid Puppy is as a development base.
Bombayrockers is waiting to do a version of Empty Crust (from Pizzasgood - yet to be released)

Very good news and well deserved

[david]

Excellent news. Congrats Nathan!

[Nathan F]

Thanks, guys. Congratulations to BarryK and everyone else who made it possible. Grafpup is just my take on the perfect Puppy, really, but Puppy itself is really revolutionary in many ways.

I'm just wondering why dotpup never resolved dependencies and added menu entries for me. I never realized what an advanced packaging tool it was until reading this review.

Nathan

[GuestToo]

I'm just wondering why dotpup never resolved dependencies and added menu entries for me

for such a super-simple tool, there is an amazing amount of misinformation and misunderstanding about dotpups

Grafpup includes DotPup, a Synaptic lookalike, click-and-install application

yes, dotpups are click-and-install
no, it's not a Synaptic lookalike or workalike
of course, they are referring to MU's DotPup DownLoader (tm)

The first time you run it, DotPup downloads the latest list of packages, then lets you install whichever packages you want

of course, they are referring to MU's DotPup DownLoader (tm)

DotPup also resolves dependencies

no, of course it doesn't
packages created specifically for Puppy tend to work for exactly that reason ... they were created specifically for Puppy

After installing a package, the application adds an appropriate entry in the IceWM menu

some do
most of the packages i made for Puppy don't

i don't mind anyone doing whatever they want
for myself, i don't like using sed, awk, etc to mess with configuration files, especially jwm and fvwm95 menus, which are in the wm's config file (if your installer accidently corrupts the config file, it can cause more problems than a bad menu item)

i really don't like editing config files directly using sed ... it seems to me that it's not Good Programming Practice

i don't mind that not everyone completely understands dotpups ... but i did try to make it as simple as i possibly could

the review's minor errors (most reviews seem to have them) are not important ... what's important is that Grafpup and Puppy are being used and appreciated ... and getting 10/10 is neat too ... Grafpup (and Puppy) must be doing something right

[MU]

I think future versions of the DPDL (no TM) based on .pet instead of .pup will help giving the dotpups back the basic focus of "click to install".
The new Dialog in Barrys 107-Menu already is a step towards that.
And true, it cannot resolve dependencies. This is a point even not solved with the .pet -system recently discussed in other threads.

Congrats to Nathan for this nice review

Mark

[GuestToo]

I think future versions of the DPDL (no TM) Wink based on .pet instead of .pup will help giving the dotpups back the basic focus of "click to install"

whatever you decide to do is ok with me ... you (and many others in the community) have contributed a great deal to Puppy

i guess there will always be some confusion about dotpups and about the DPDL, even though they are basically simple ... the way it is now completely takes care of the concerns i had before (there is still confusion, but it is no longer caused by the DPDL being the only "official" interface to dotpup packages)

i suspect a DPDL would work better with a more rigid structure like pupgets and a repository anyway ... i'm not sure that a repository is necessarily a good idea (there are certainly advantages, but there are also disadvantages) ... and i'm not sure that a more complex package management system is necessarily a good idea either (again, there are advantages, and there are disadvantages)

[raffy]

This thread is about GrafPup, but since the dotpup issue was discussed, maybe we can leave the "dotpup" concepts as conceived and being promoted by G2, and we can have an alternative, say "dotpet" system maintained my Mu? Then possibly someone can think about how to synchronize the two (plus other approaches, like pupget) in the future

[GuestToo]

This thread is about GrafPup

yes, threads sometimes go their own way

"dotpup" concepts as conceived and being promoted by G2

well, as conceived by G2 anyway

if Puppy users no longer find that dotpup packages serve a useful purpose, i would not object if the dotpup handler script was removed from the official Puppy

i think it does exactly what it was intended to do, and i personally find the dotpup installer system useful, but that's just me

how to synchronize the two

i tend to think of dotpups and pugets as different but complimentary

and general purpose package management tools that can be used by one system also could be used by the other

the major problem with dotpup packages was after Puppy decided that anything installed in /usr would automatically be removed when Puppy upgrades ... eventually, Barry was nice enough to allow packages to register with Puppy so that those files would not be removed ... i got used to making packages that worked around the problem, usually by installing files in /root and reinstalling symlinks in /usr every time the program runs, so i mostly continued to make packages that work that way