Puppy4 Alpha1

[Lobster]

Be aware this uses many new programs and ideas. It is cutting edge - not everything works.
It shows some of the innovation that Puppy is famous for.

http://www.puppylinux.com/news4/index.php

Small code. Big results
woof woof

[dittocookie]

I personilty did not like the desktop in the 3.x series, but this is worse. Enlightment is a good idea for Puppy 4

[SirDuncan]

I don't think it is such a good idea to start calling it the 4.x series already. I understand why Barry is doing it, but I also think that people outside the community are going to start thinking that Barry just increments the version to drive up Distrowatch rankings. I would think that a smaller increment would be in order, like say from 3.0x to 3.1x.

Still, I am glad Barry was able to decrease the size. The stuff that had been making Puppy grow was all put in there for a reason, so I know it was a hard job deciding what to cut. Unfortunately, I won't I have time to test it. It's the end of the quarter and I have all kinds of projects and finals to study for.

[opgoth]

It's true that people could think that's a ploy (the series change), but with a look trough the changelog (or the dev blog, for now) anyone can see that the "RawPup" is nothing like the series 3.

Alas, I think that when it becomes final, the changes between RawPup and Series 3 will be greater than between Series 3 and Series 2...

[veronicathecow]

Just looking at the screen shot it made me wonder why are we still calling it set up "Set up the X Video" than some text that will mean something to newbies like "Set up your screen size and resolution"???

[Lobster]

This is an alpha. The icons and environment will change. JWM is still the smallest and fastest - and is proving stable in the few hours I have used it . . .

Had to change the background (I think I was locked in the dungeon of that castle in a previous life . . .) See above

It is right to increment to 4, because the apps are different, it is compiled in k2

Remember this is an Alpha. It is for testing. Seeing what works and doesn't. I rather like the new picture viewer . . .

[ecomoney]

Where does this leave Talking Stick 3.03 Community Edition? From what I can gather from the forum and from my own experiences, and my research into computers/linux in general, people want long term support for their operating system, so they can get on with their work rather than having to spend time upgrading and waiting for packages to be built that are compatible. Weve had so many kernel changes recently, most of what has been done (wireless drivers, graphic cards etc) has been broken. Support for hardware has waned and common items like AC97 Chipsets, ESS and ISA sound drivers are no longer supported. It seems that more and more time is spent on sweeping revisions that only serve to decrease the useability, the support and the quality of puppy.

There are still MAJOR bugs in the 3 series puppy (gxine still doesnt work reliably). I had an assurance that these problems would be fixed and that support for the 3 series puppy would continue well into the future. I use puppy out there in the real world, and myself and the people/organisations I support cannot function with a hobby/experimental operating system. Size or internal architecture does not matter to us, its more important that our hardware works, works reasonably quickly, works reliably and works consistently. What actual real life benefit does this further sweeping change bring us?

Puppy linux is used by a great many the worlds poorest people, who cannot afford new computers. We cant just switch to another distro. Each decision like this one results in more landfill, and more people without access to the services of the Web and a personal computer, and the quality of life that this brings.

VERY ANNOYED!!!

[headfound]

Perhaps talking stick should be an 'Ubuntu' edition. That is to say, supported for 6 months at least with as many bugs knocked out and as many things as simplified as possible. If this means it bloats a little, so be it. Puppy bloated may be around 300mbs, compared to other distros that is nothing and it could still beat the pants off 'em.

[ARAN]

Question!

Is the Puppy 4 Alpha Unleashed build script allready uploaded to ibiblio ?

I would like to tweak Puppy 4 Alpha a little but for this i need the possibility
to build it and test it myself.
On the Ibiblio server i cant find the unleashed file.
http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/di ... .00alpha1/

Thanks for the Info.

[raffy]

@aran
No unleashed yet in the download site.

@ecomoney
Don't lose heart, it is for developers. I guess the challenge in Puppy is for "service providers" (ie, some enthusiasts) to be able to port new features back to their supported version. It's a surprise that you're now working on version 3+ -- couldn't the 2+ handle all your hardware?

In the future, what may be good for "service providers" is separating the Puppy core for loading to RAM, say through a big initrd, and using applications as appdir (complete package in its own directory). We can join efforts implementing this for a suitable version (kernel 2.16.18 started with version 2.12). For kernel changes, some guys here can help.

And use mplayer instead of gxine...

[opgoth]

I may be new here (posting), but I'm a lurker for some time, following puppy closely... And I'm on the open source/free software front for not a short time, too. So, I think I can say something about this situation...

Just looking around on this forum, we can see that the Series 2 is still very much alive. There are (amazing) puplets based on 2.15 and 2.16 still around and being released...

This is the beauty of this form of development, I mean, with the community: One puppy series doesn't have to be archived just because the next one was released. Even if the original creator doesn't do any work on the older series, anyone can pick any version of the series and continue working on it, becoming essentially, the new maintaner(s)...

Well, (for now) that's all folks!!! ^_^

[MU]

Dear Robert (ecomoney),
Muppy008 alpha will be released in the next 3 days, it is based on 301.
301 is a great base.
We also will offer optional commercial support for Muppy008 final, which is then called "Minisys-Linux".
In the companies we have as customers, you do not change releases very often.
There will be 1 or 2 stable releases a year.
So you can expect that there will be support for Puppy 3 based pupletts, at least from minisys.org.
Of course we will provide our Puppy updates and bugfixes as usual for free.
Only if you have a contract with us and request a special feature (we need THIS and NOW, especially concerning minisys-integration), we might not release that for free, cause we have to pay us somehow . But we will take money only for the business-components.

So Robert, please don't be angry.
Instead, try to see the advantages.
As Puppy4 is a playground for developers, this is an early possibility to start bughunting for enthusiasts, what might result in a stable release in some months.
That release then can be used as a base for extended pupletts in half a year or a year.

Concerning Gxine:
I use Mplayer instead, also in Muppy. So I cannot guarantee, that I will have a look at it.
But I will try, like certainly many others will.
Btw. we installed ecopup here not long ago, it is a really fantastic puplett.

Mark

[jimhap]

Wow.. that fast????

The interface looks a little too much orange (not a good icon set).

Puppy 3.0.1 was a bit of a pain....

The older Puppies (2.xx) are usable and workable. I wouldn't stop using that for now....

Is Puppy 4 going to be based on T2?

[Lobster]

P4A1 (Puppy 4 Alpha 1) - that looks like PAL - so will use that as a code name (Puppy Advanced Linux) started as an experimental release
Update: I completely missed the RawPup name - anyway it is now named "Dingo" and everyone like that

For example the icon set is created as SVG generating PNG images (or is it jpg?) Do other distros even attempt this? Not that I am aware of. Elements of Puppy are cutting edge and sometimes over the edge into new areas . . .

Talking Stick is based on a stabilising command set. Barry has said he will produce a 3.02 bug fix and that can be the basis or we can use the Muppy base.

The point is Puppy has grown, The buzz is at the frontier. I am using NOP and Compiz fusion and will go back into PAL in a moment. It is up to Talking Stick to use what is available, which will become apparant and create the real world environment for real people.
We have the infrastructure for Talking stick. Wiki, threads, developer etc.

It is not going to be based on an Alpha is it?

Talking Stick is about coming up with real community options and results. That will happen and develop if we make it so.

Meanwhile new lands are being explored . . .
At some point a Community Edition will be based on Barrys ideas and experiments, that is on Puppy 4

Clearly PAL is an exciting Alpha. Better apps. Innovations. T2 dependency checking and who knows what will be adopted and dropped as it moves into Beta and beyond . . .

[FuturePerfect]

Looks like I'm in the minority, but I LIKE the icons. I think the symbols are very good. The flat icons differentiate Puppy; could be the new cool.

Question 1: can someone clarify the differences between 4 alpha & 3.01?

Does 4 alpha have Slackware compatibility and all additions of 3.01 except apps have been cut in number and in some cases changed so are smaller via GTK2-only development (I'm not a developer)?

I applaud making Puppy smaller but still complete. I think Puppy would be smart to clearly target itself as a less-techy and more complete alternative to Damn Small Linux. Running in 128KB RAM with some wiggle room is great. I hope this Puppy 4 does this but have to wait (can't test an alpha). Puppy's RAM-based operation makes old machines usable--great usage.

Thus I prefer the Dillo browser for these old machines due to its speed, despite its rendering problems:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... eki-mu.pet

Question 2: will this existing Dillo run as is for Puppy 4? If not, could someone fix it so it does?

For real graphic browsing I feel the popularity and extensions for Firefox 2.0 would be the best choice for the Puppy 4 browser (not Firefox 1.0 like DSL has used). Not a fan of SeaMonkey, which doesn't appear popular with the average user.

Question 3: can SeaMonkey be removed from Puppy 4 and Firefox (or Opera) substituted for standard Puppy SeaMonkey functions without having to modify lots of config files?

I stick with Puppy because it has more really usable applications than DSL (Abiword and Gnumeric far surpass the meager Ted and SIAG).

And, mainly, there is no comparison between the content and attitude of the forums. The Puppy forum much more non-techy, friendly, and helpful than the DSL forum which can be abrupt and off-putting, in my opinion.

[cthisbear]

" abrupt and off-putting, in my opinion. '

That's me to a T

Chris.

[magerlab]

I ust switched to puppy 3.01 and see it's grown up much ( to compare with 2.16 )
i can now set printing and default design is good
and our russian puppy will be based on it

[BarryK]

I have tried to clarify the point on my blog that the puppy3 series will continue. I will differentiate them with different names and on my main page where I state the latest version, I'll put both, so there'll be Slappy (or whatever it gets called) v3.02 and Dingo (or whatever) v4.00.

It is good that MU and PuppyRus are using puppy3, it can keep getting developed as long as Slackware 12 remains viable.

We need to emphasise that despite the version number differences these are the latest of each breed. Slappy specialises in Slackware 12 package compatibility, with Gslapt and lots of extra libraries like Tcl/Tk.
Dingo is the latest libraries and packages compiled from source with T2, with a much narrower focus, GTK2 apps only and built for smallness.
From the point of view of hardware detection, startup/shutdown scripts, all the underlying stuff, they will be equivalent.

[ecomoney]

Hi, Ive calmed down slightly now (blame 3 full pup_saves and disgruntled customers in a week where I have no car!). Im worried that the focus of the developers will be pulled away from the 3.xx series to work on the 4.xx series. That will mean less support/additional software for this community edition, and the other projects based on 3.xx.

In my job I get a lot of feedback from "normal" users (puppy's target audience) about things that could be fixed with a fraction of the attention that the 4.00 beta must have taken, and will make puppy 1000% better. These are things like a better appearence, wireless (and recently even audio and graphics) support, restarting properly after a powercut, clearer wizards, full pup_saves and a simple way to install alongside the 98% of windows computers out there. Computers are getting more powerful (even old ones), and puppy is already more than fast and small enough.

Im frustrated at my own lack of knowledge (I used to be a crack windows coder in my younger days), and inability to fix things, along with the limited time that I have to learn in between support users and voluntary organisations. I strongly approve of all of the additional features/apps in 3.xx (especially the pdf reader and the lite browser), it just needs more thoroughly testing!

MU I am glad someone with your experience is using 3.xx series commercially (you must have won over your boss?) and you will be releasing your findings back to mainstream puppy. I look forward to testing the next Muppy. Please document your fixes well.

Apologies if my strong feelings and opinions have offended anyone.

[cthisbear]

" Apologies if my strong feelings and opinions have offended anyone. "

Well you've offended me old son.....for all of 5 minutes.

Good on you.....keep on choogling..................Chris.