This community has had an impact (in my view) across the Linux world. I am not going to suggest that the Linux world has copied what we've done, but, I'm sure many in this community haven't noticed the number of Linux distros which now ship full PAE enabled distros for use on 32bit platforms.
PAE is a technology that was instituted by the hardware (h/w) vendors to address a rising need to meet Moore's law about OS, application, and subsystem futures. At that time, 1994, development of 64bit systems was in its infancy and was not projected to meet the demands of the business, government, or education community. What PAE really does is to allow 32bit system to provide access up to 64GB of RAM to the OS. It began arriving into 32bit PCs in 1995.
Next, it was a couple years gone by when the OSes began being constructed to take advantage of all RAM that could be crammed into PCs and servers. Unix, Windows, OS2 and then Linux began provisions to use all RAM it would see in any 32bit PC.
15 years went by, when a little over a year ago in this forum, this community
was asked to look at a phenomenon where a member could not access all the RAM on his PC, even though, Windows was able to use all the RAM. In doing so, it was discovered by the community that a kernel feature was missing, and as such, enabling it to allow Puppy Linux to access and use all of the RAM on the PC.
This community is responsible for
- problem discovery
- investigation
- building a demo distro platform
- development of PAE kernels and a generally available distros
- Hardware
- All PCs build since 2006 have more than enough RAM to accomodate a PAE Linux. Most all members in the Puppy community have such. And, most of these PCs have 32bit CPU h/w that is built with the PAE feature. (There are a small number of PCs which do not have the PAE feature.)
- Measurement Observations and Reports
- The community testing showed no negative performance impact in using a PAE kernel. Many testing members reported unexpected performance increase.
- Future Distro Protection
- No matter how much RAM the PC owner adds to his system, PAE Puppy Linux will not have to be change the distro or its features to use all RAM it finds in the system. (32bit PCs without PAE CANNOT make use of these any RAM above 4GB, and thus, are limited in this way. There are no OS available today that have technology for non_PAE PCs with loads of RAM.)
If Puppy want to increase its leadership as a desktop subsystem, it must make some minor necessary changes to become the Linux contender of choice. And to preface this "It does NOT lie in its ability to download packages for non-experience users to modify." It lies in its ability to produce OOTB experiences where most subsystem are present as a beginning PC experience. And, PUPPY MUST change its view from one that see itself as one who selfishly takes from its LAN surroundings to one which fully participates in its LAN surrounding in the same manner as most all of the other desktop systems do.
For starters, over 99% of ALL LANs in the world have SMB PCs and devices on its LAN. These devices come already designed to fully share stuff on the LAN. But, until May 2012, there was NOT one 32bit Puppy distro that comes OOTB with full sharing capability. (In fact, I remember some one of our community attempting to make fun of that 32bit distro developer for doing so.) It is the ONLY Puppy distro (thanks to its developer) that has taken a piercing look at OSX and Microsoft and produced a Puppy that does most everything that those OSes do...."Share" and have a creditable Office packaging. His distro has SAMBA built-in, OOTB. Puppy 2 64bit distros already do this.
But, just as it took a little while for Puppy to take advantage of PAE, it may take a little while, as well, for the development community to embrace SAMBA. SAMBA does not slow a system's performance, while adding a feature that almost all Microsoft users have come to expect. Sharing changes Puppy from a selfish user taking the best of what the LAN has to offer and instead, it becomes a participant along with everyone else on the LAN.
We, in this community, should NOT expect that new users will come to this community with Linux understanding, not Linux development experience, nor Puppy packaging understanding, nor Puppy problem resolution experience when problems arise from incorrectly adding packages. No user should turn away because of a short-sighted Linux experience when they start with Puppy. And, since Puppy is a LAN system, it should be or it should become a full LAN participant on the LAN, same as all other devices and systems on the LAN without some "new/dumb" user trying to understand what's wrong.
Thus far, there are 3 Puppy distros that provide the closest thing to that leadership we need. They are
- LightHouse64 - this modern 64bit distro comes in two editions: BASE/Mariner
- FATSlacko - this distro is a full featured 32bit PUP that embraces ALN sharing
- FATDog - another 64bit distro
On this LAN subject, heres a bit of history: LANs began, so to speak, in 1985 when some of the earliest products began to surface as an add-on. It took until 1995 (Windows95) when an OS had LAN technology built-in using an international standard, SMB. Note: this was the same year as PAE started. It is now 2012 and we have our first 32bit Puppy, FATSlacko, that comes with SAMBA and PAE built-in. No Puppy user should have to think about these features in his/her PUPs.
I can only hope that more and more of this community's developers will produce PUPs where no-one has to think twice about whether the distro is a full-participant on their LAN....no-one!
Its our job in this community to assist and describe beneficial uses of Puppy. If anyone has purchased a modern PC or Xtablet or Xphone, they ALL come LAN aware n both h/w and OS. So should Puppy....without a 2nd thought!
Our community leader(s) needs to expand Puppy's view, "a wee bit" to incorporate full LAN sharing in a way that is a consistent model with other PCs and devices found on today's LAN.
01Micko and TaZoC have each produced visionary products that we can all touch and evaluate for how they make easy the PC's ability to fully participate with ALL of your LAN's devices. In fact, 01Micko's FATSlacko makes sharing so obvious that no user gets confused when he initially goes to share.
Maybe the rest of our distro developers, both 32bit and 64bit, can review their accomplishments and how they easily connect and share on your LAN. Then, bring to the table additional full LAN participant Puppy distro systems that no user must think about when wanting to share something from the distro PC with others on the LAN.
And, don't be fooled by arguments that somehow having this either carries negative security implications or negative performance impact. SAMBA was built by another Australian, Andrew Tridgell, in 1992 in "lock-step" with Linus Tovalds. And the open-source SAMBA subsystem has continued to be actively developed and supported across the world by its many members who have integrated Linux into our LANs via their distros. It continues, today, to include the additions that the international standards body for SMB have advanced; namely now SMB2.
The hardware vendors produced a 1999 PC model which indicated LAN on the Motherboard of all PCs sold from 2000 on. Thus for the past 12 years, this is NOT a nice to have subsystem, it is one which allows your Linux to participate fully on the LAN with all Microsoft and Apple PCs.
In 2012 and beyond, we should be doing everything we can to make any user who comes to Puppyland to have no reason whatsoever to want to leave the Dog-Pound.
I love Puppy Linux and I want to see all of us insure its survival and expansion.
Here to help.