You struck gold, but didn't see

[vtpup]

Getting back to the original topic, I used to post a lot, but then I got my Puppy set up the way I wanted, with the programs and capabilities I wanted, worked out a few bugs with my hardware, found solutions to others on the forum, and...............

Have just been working with it. Doing work. That's why you hear little from me. Not because I've abandoned Puppy. But because I'm using it. I'm at 4.1.2 and have little interest in disturbing what I have, because by now it works for me.

That's what I'd like to suggest as the more accurate summation than "It just works." And, I think more important and truthful a description for ANY operating system.

The question in all systems is not whether the developers have intuited exactly what I want to do with a computer. Not one OS in 31 years has ever started up for me after installation doing exactly what I wanted. ALL had bugs, ALL required installation of supplementary programs, ALL required learning on my part to make them perform well, ALL required hacking at times to make incompatible hardware work, ALL that had affiliated or proprietary organizations were largely unresponsive to my own bug reports.

Why do I use Puppy now? Simple I understand it better. I know what I have. I know how to mutate it more easily than any other OS. It is set up to be more mutable on a level that I personally understand. I control it.

I suppose if I reverse engineered Windows, learned C, .dll structures, made a lifelong study of the registry, broke licensing agreements, delved into secret maneuverings of an OS, defeated automatic web connections, studied viral structures, and numerous other fields of esoteric and largely unproductive knowledge, I might not use Puppy.

Likewise for the Cadillac Linuxes --well meaning attempts to smooth the way for the uninitiated, yet complex enough internally, with 50 auto updating processes requiring gigs of memory a continuous high speed internet connection, and the latest processors to accept the yearly version upgrades that break more than they fix.

The reason I use Puppy is not that I want someone else's version of stability and usefulness. It is because I want my own. And that can only come from using a simple enough system, which begins at a high level of efficiency and economy, bugs and all, and a low level of automation, and learn it well enough NOT to depend on the operating system itself, but on my knowledge of it.

I like a simple vehicle with a small engine with lots of room under the hood to work on it. I've got it in tune now, and I'm spending my time driving.

[puppyite]

Good grief, am I going to have to lock another thread?

You have the authority, but AFAIK all but one respondent have been civil.

Edit: Fix spelling errors. Now I may have my cereal and hopefully go do something productive with this day.

[tlchost]

Good grief, am I going to have to lock another thread?

No...but you could always censor posts.

[puppyite]

<snip needless obfuscation and digression>

These facts remain:

1. No one here is forced to do anything they don’t want to, including participate in a bug tracking system, getting organized, etc, etc, etc.
2. Some people (and we may amiable debate who or how many) have expressed either support or interest in a bug tracker.
3. I support Puppy Linux as strongly as any in this forum. I have chosen it over all other OS. I use it as my prime OS now and I will use it exclusively in future as hardware availability dictates. As a consequence of this and for better or worse (I think better) I am stuck with it and you all are stuck with me for the foreseeable future.

Lets discuss our differences with comity and not attack something or someone out of ignorance or mistrust.

[Aitch]

It's been awhile since I responded to Volhout's original post, and it seems the thing which is being skated around is.....

Is there a better way to deal with problem solving?

Flash, rather than lock the thread or curb differing views by censure, wouldn't it be an idea to have a new section in this 'suggestions' section entitled
"Problem solving - 'to do' list:"

That way, things that are noted as problems NOT covered by current methods, could be put here AS A REQUEST, to be done....by anyone with more time & energy than the people who are doing as much as they can already...?


That's about as much 'organising' as I can see being acceptable


Anyone care to object/concur/offer an alternate?

I would remind folks of Jay's parting thread.....

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=45264


Aitch

[alienjeff]

Code: Select all

* Now talking on #archlinux-bugs
* Topic for #archlinux-bugs is: There are 92 fewer bugs in the Arch Linux project since the start of the bug day. Thanks to everyone who helped out. Special thanks to the Arch devs who participated.

"Structure" isn't a dirty, four (or nine) letter word.

[mikeb]

I, like vtpup, have my puppy that works for us but 2 points arose recently.

1) hardware/software updates.......both these meant that my puppy was not longer up to the task so I had to grab a newer puppy...4.12...fortunately this was a pretty solid release but I still had to fix /modify it for general use.

2) I am working on a project similar but different to ecomoney which involves putting out an alternative operating system to all who are interested in the benefits. Now, like ecomoney, I could use my puppy but that fits my needs and hardware and not necessarily other peoples...also I am limited in how much hardware/software testing I can do..this is something that is a major part of releasing a distro...or should be... so that for the majority it indeed 'just works'.
Another related fact is even if my puppy was ok for now what happens when they need an upgrade...do they grab the latest puppy that..erm..needs fixing/making friendly. This does not give me the confidence needed at this point.

Why puppy?..
well it is real world focused , for example it tends to be more successful at using wireless than most distros...ie it is closer to 'just works' than most.
It is small and fast and very flexible.....why offer say ubuntu when windows is faster..defeats the object.

One comment... Barry's focus is, as mentioned, 'cutting edge' and there's plenty around to play with but that in itself is a full time occupation and increasingly others are involved with ironing out the bugs of the latest release. I believe that was his aim when he popped off previously so why not make it official...an independant team who get their buzz from fixing and streamlining the official puppies. Creativity and organisation rarely mix .
Yer average electronics company has an r&d department and a production engineering department..one that creates and one that makes in a form fit for the public.

So perhaps the question is not so much 'how' to fix bugs but 'who'...

I also think this thread is being generally constuctive with the odd exceptions as usual so I see no reason to close it.

regards

mike

edit...the topic is 'You struck gold, but didn't see'
translated means this has such potential..let's not waste it...much of what we take for granted today came from 'fun' experiments or accidental discoveries.

[puppyite]

your goal and intention dot necessary translate into how your goal and intention will be perceived or consciously or subconsciously affect others. creativity is a fickle and unpredictable thing individual to each creator and if the person you are trying to help sees or subconsciously feels that something is restraining them then that is how it is for them and you have to respect that.

Even though I have the talent needed to craft language describing any goal I may imagine I am powerless to control other peoples thought processes.

unless you get a specific go ahead then the other alternative of tracking a separate shoot or branch as Barry has proposed should be your avenue forward.

IIRC this sounds like what MikeB suggested. RE: Inquire with ttuuxxx or whoever the responsible party(ies) for 4.4CE are about a bug tracker for those derivatives.

I know *of* ttuuxx but I don’t know who to ask about 4.4CE concerning a bug tracker. Could you or MikeB point me in the right direction? Maybe even put in a good word about the idea of a bug tracker if you feel so inclined? I would appreciate your help in this matter.

[aarf]

technosaurus is coordinator for 4.4CE an this is a thread to contribute to. also perhaps this one

other successful versions are macpup, teenpup, and hacao.

[droope]

[kitten]

alienjeff... and write on mikeb

Thanks for the pointer to ArchLinux, alien. A mere glance at their Wiki should make the case -- and the call for more organizer types over here in the kennels. And the very idea of a stable, centrally managed, rolling update of its core, that would not disturb user's side experiments, or decorations - enticing!

Does the super-organization required to provide a rolling update mean the death of creativity? Apparently not -- not even to (say) TinyCore where core can update but app packages get independently attached on every boot, or AntiX where stable core and Sidex "unstable" apps get carefully mated. (Are these 3 distro's *not* hobbyist driven?)

This whole "gold" topic, and better security -- these are so fundamental to our reputation as a distro.

(Kittens can seem to despise dogs and think... What puppy ever wanted to be house broken? A puppy untrained has boundless freedom, sure enough. But there's many a stray in the alley and pound. Cute gets old when it occasionally bites or defecates wherever it pleases -- when it refuses to adapt to the more intelligent order its humans require of it.)

[droope]

This thread has taken a hilarious note

[vtpup]

I, like vtpup, have my puppy that works for us but 2 points arose recently.

1) hardware/software updates.......both these meant that my puppy was not longer up to the task so I had to grab a newer puppy...4.12...fortunately this was a pretty solid release but I still had to fix /modify it for general use.

Mike, If there was a real way around this problem of fixing and modifying, I'd welcome it with open arms. But my experience with everything from TRSDOS, through PCDOS, Windows varieties, Kanotix, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, and 3 puppies is, that I had to fix and modify all of them. Bug tracking systems, or no. In fact I've never read a more frustrated collection of user comments than those attached to any typical bug report in any typical high class bug tracking system on any OS I've ever tried. Usually the forum flames are tame by comparison.

Generally bug reports are most useful for finding user workarounds posted by other frustrated users. If a bug is actually resolved by the developers at all, it always seems to appear in the next OS version release. Unfortunately, the next version release has even more new bugs of its own, and even breaks former workarounds.

Now, this doesn't mean I'm opposed to a solution to this problem. I'd welcome it! I'm just a realist. There aren't enough man-hours left in the world to adequately debug and test the current crop of popular OS's on every hardware combination users throw at them even if no improvements were ever contemplated.

2) I am working on a project similar but different to ecomoney which involves putting out an alternative operating system to all who are interested in the benefits. Now, like ecomoney, I could use my puppy but that fits my needs and hardware and not necessarily other peoples...also I am limited in how much hardware/software testing I can do..this is something that is a major part of releasing a distro...or should be... so that for the majority it indeed 'just works'.
Another related fact is even if my puppy was ok for now what happens when they need an upgrade...do they grab the latest puppy that..erm..needs fixing/making friendly. This does not give me the confidence needed at this point."

Well, this problem isn't limited to the fine effort you are trying to make. It affects all of us. We all have that upgrade problem when equipment dies and we can't replace it with an equivalent. Or when we'd like friends or spouses to try Puppy Linux. That problem exists, again in ALL OS's. I didn't upgrade Ubuntu 7.10 to 8.04 because of all the work it took to get 7.10 working properly, and because of the tremendous number of users reporting broken systems during the same upgrade. It was what actually moved me to Puppy, and what keeps me at 4.1.2.

So, my question is, and this is the really relevant one to this thread, not should, but how can an OS, any OS, continue to be used on old and new equipment alike, for lets say, as long as a person might own a car if he/she took care of it? What would it take? What would it look like structurally? Would it have versions, or would it just have service releases? How would a bug tracking system look that actually resolved bugs in the OS, the applications and dependencies (which themselves continually produce newer versions)?

I don't know. Looks impossible. If you or another can spell it out structurally and concretely, and organize it, I'll be happy to jump in and help. But what I see everywhere else is a user base through forums, creating workarounds and patches, and thus supporting the use of the OS. That, to me is a particular strength of Puppy, and the reason it is the most viable option

[mikeb]

Thanks for the reply

But what I see everywhere else is a user base through forums, creating workarounds and patches, and thus supporting the use of the OS. That, to me is a particular strength of Puppy, and the reason it is the most viable option

Well I did mention that if using a forum as a bugtracker works then so be it......my concern is towards patches/workarounds (and broken compilations of core libs) not carrying through to the next version.
Also perhaps this method would work better if the forum was not so burdened down with fragmented software sources and repeated questions that a wiki/faq could handle for example.

Hmm ..not all doom and gloom..I believe debian is renowned for it's stability...how do they manage it?

As for broad hardware compatability this is more a kernel issue though some kernel builds are better in this respect than others so is still a puppy issue.
Should there be a separate team focusing in this area?

This thread has taken a hilarious note

not really...It's healthy to question the status quo now and then even if the answer remains the same.

regards

mike

[hillside]

I believe debian is renowned for it's stability...how do they manage it?

To a large extent, they've done it by being very conservative -- by being rather boring. They are generally slow to develop new releases and spend a lot of time getting the "same old thing" working better. They tend toward being quite reliable. I would have to assume they have a group of people who like doing things that way.

Cutting edge is fun, but boring is stable and reliable. Like my niece says, "Date the wild guys, but marry a boring one."

[mikeb]

Like my niece says, "Date the wild guys, but marry a boring one."

...that makes me uneasy ....

To me there is nothing more boring than a computor that crashes every 5 minutes.....an automobile than never makes it as far as the beach is the biggest party pooper

mike

[puppyite]

So, my question is, and this is the really relevant one to this thread, not should, but how can an OS, any OS, continue to be used on old and new equipment alike, for lets say, as long as a person might own a car if he/she took care of it? What would it take? What would it look like structurally? Would it have versions, or would it just have service releases? How would a bug tracking system look that actually resolved bugs in the OS, the applications and dependencies (which themselves continually produce newer versions)?

I don't know. Looks impossible. If you or another can spell it out structurally and concretely, and organize it, I'll be happy to jump in and help. But what I see everywhere else is a user base through forums, creating workarounds and patches, and thus supporting the use of the OS. That, to me is a particular strength of Puppy, and the reason it is the most viable option

FWIW here are my observations, personal experiences about hardware & OS combinations:

I installed WIN98SE on my first home built PC in 1999. That PC which I named build1 began corrupting data in December '07 whereupon I subsequently took it out of service.

In November of '07 I built a new PC which I named build2. In January of '08 I built an exact copy of the prior PC and named it build3.

My wife's PC is a Gateway P2-233. It runs WIN98SE and frugal Puppy 4.1.2.

The other two PC both run WIN98SE and frugal Puppy 4.2.1.

I knew I was building the last two PC from all new hardware that would ever be built that would support WIN98SE, none will ever be built again.

What I also knew was that this would be the last time I would ever install WIN98SE on all new hardware. By the time these two PC failed I would either find a way to use Linux or I would never again own a PC.

What I want to point out is that prior to purchasing the parts to assemble build2 and build3 I first visited the manufactures product page of every part I bought and confirmed that all of it was clearly labeled as supporting Linux. This is how I knew in advance that what I was building would work with Linux.

I have never received support from MS for WIN98SE. I have not installed an update since '01. If something didn't work I either diagnosed and fixed the problem by myself or I consulted books or online resources. I never asked for or received help from any forum or online source for WIN98SE.

I first booted Ubuntu 7.10 in January of '07. I consulted countless books about Linux and made numerous posts in Linux forums where I received some help which resulted in partial but insufficient success. It was not until July '09 when by accident while searching for distros to test on my wife's PC that I came across Puppy. Which leads me to where I am today in this forum.

These things are clear:

• WIN98SE has worked reliably for me 10 years with no support other than that which I provide myself.
• Puppy worked right out of the box on all my hardware, new and old with only a niggling issue about ripping music CDs. Only with WIN98SE have I enjoyed comparable (slightly superior) success.
• If I hadn't found Puppy I would still be at risk of never successfully transitioning to Linux and thus would at some point in future have to give up owning PCs.

My take away is that an OS can last as long as a car but only if it is stable and reasonably bug free. Therefore IMO bug tracking and bug fixing is mandatory for the long term success of any OS. Needless to say I favor stability over cutting edge features.

YMMV

[craftybear]

Now, this doesn't mean I'm opposed to a solution to this problem. I'd welcome it! I'm just a realist. There aren't enough man-hours left in the world to adequately debug and test the current crop of popular OS's on every hardware combination users throw at them even if no improvements were ever contemplated.

Hallelujah and Amen! My sentiments exactly, vtpup. What that means, of course, is that the effort is inevitably wasted in some circles because it was doomed to fail. There will ALWAYS be someone dissatisfied with what is offered because it can never truly be perfect for everyone.

I love to volunteer to help on various projects for various reasons. I always do so on the understanding that it is up to me how much or how little I give and take from that. I never (strong word, I know) attempt to improve someone else's contribution for that reason - the outcomes for give and take are up to them, not me.

Bottom line: If you want to contribute to a volunteer project, by all means do so. If you start with realistic expectations you are unlikely to be disappointed. On the other hand, if your "contribution" is to interfere with the contribution of others, then you are as doomed to disappointment as that project is to losing some of the contributors whose contribution was interfered with, "organised" or otherwise disrespected. IMNSHO, the Puppy project really doesn't have enough serious contributors to risk losing any of them.

I honestly encourage puppyite to start a formal bug-tracking system and maintain it. I hope it works and works well. That outcome will depend on finding someone who is willing, able and interested in fixing the bugs found, which is what started my input in this thread; to wit, agreeing with another poster on that very point. Such people do exist around here; rerwin, Patriot, jesse, Pizzasgood, tempestuous et al. All can be found posting to Mr Kauler's developers blog, and they do so on the basis of what it pleases THEM to contribute NOT what someone else has organised them to offer, God bless their little cotton socks!

[raffy]

I honestly encourage puppyite to start a formal bug-tracking system and maintain it.

That can happen soon. I guess you will be the first tester of the system.

[Lobster]

Imagine if a developer
went through this forum
found bugs and posted them somewhere
invited comments
and if fixing bugs mentioned that too

You do not have to imagine how that works
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/
Yes it just works (a lot better incidentally
than the perfect imaginary system)

Now imagine someone creates something similar
but adds bugs from the wiki
from IRC and other sources
and then documents and maybe databases that resource
After a year or two it would become a resource
Developers might use it
and if very user friendly end users too. Hooray.

Setting up a bug reporting system (relatively easy)
that developers do not add data too has not worked

What might just work is if you did the
reporting for the developers
as they produced work

You want it? Create it. Do it.
You want it to be a success?
That takes a lot of time, work and commitment.
Are you up for it?