trying to think big

[Enrique Corbellini]

I'm using an old PC and a limited mobile phone (let's say, not a dinosaur but something limited anyway). It's obvious tablets made the last big jump on computers technology, thanks their touch screens and their amazing memory capabilities. So I'm planning to buy a tablet, as many other people do in a situation like mine.
What I wonder is, why can't I buy a tablet which I can program with my own system? Are there tablets which we can install puppy or others o.s. on them? And if they don't exist or are too difficult to achieve, how can we do something to obtain them?

[slavvo67]

This is a good question. I think the consensus is (or at least was) that if you get a good tablet, Puppy has little added value. I'm sure if you search the board, there will be plenty about Puppy on tablets. There are some Puppy programs for tablets. Maybe do a search for ARM in the forum. I'm sure someone will add to this question soon.

[disciple]

Personally I'd much rather run a proper linux like Puppy on a tablet than Android (or (God forbid) Windows or iOS).
But I'm the sort of person that wonders if tablets are popular largely because Windows and OSX are now so unusable that people pretty much just use them for buying stuff in the Apple store, so they figure a tablet is just as good

[8-bit]

In this house, the people with tablets seem to use them for games and Facebook.
And the games seem to be specific to running only on tablets and phones.

[wboz]

Make sure to try out that tablet at length before you buy. Something I didn't really "get" when I bought my first tablet is that they're much harder to create on; only consume. It didn't work for me, and I prefer some combination of desktops, small laptops and a mobile phone. Granted, only a tablet can "replace all of the above in one device," but not very well. Jack of all trades, etc ...

As far as your own OS, there are two big challenges.
1. UI. A touch device is fundamentally different and (so far) there are no linux distributions that focus on working with touch. Ubuntu is probably the closest but they're years away from the "convergence" which has been way more difficult than they thought, yes? You CAN probably hack Android or Chrome OS onto a Windows tablet, and both of those use touch.
2. Hardware. Related to #1 when it comes to touchpad/screen/clicks etc; but a separate topic when it comes to all the other bits of the tablet. Because a tablet has to fit to a package size, there's tons of customization that the manufacturer specifies. You know how hard it is to get the wireless cards working with a Linux distribution because there's a million cards with different drivers? It'll be like that, but with most components on the board.

Could you get Puppy to boot and run on a tablet? I'm certain you could. I think I'd want to be really familiar with the latest-edge Linux kernels to get it to run well, though, and I'm definitely (definitely!) not. Please do try and then give an update!

[gcmartin]

People will get offended by what I will share. But, try not to take it personal and step back a little to view.

There is a reasonable disconnect between PC users and tablet users. It may be an age thingy, but, real.

First, those of us who are traditional PC users have cut our teeth on the PC. Tablet and smartPhone users did NOT! They have come to be very comfortable with the smartPhone/smartTab devices and have embraced with little to no background rooted in PC world. As such, the comments and behavior of us old people is not the same for them. Thus, this is cultural, per se.

Next, these smart devices come to us in a framework that PC users still wrestle with. Namely, touch screens, 2G/3G/4G, bluetooth, FM, infrared, not to mention WiFi where the OOTB smart device actively already know how and what to do with these. The platform, how one uses it, how one manages it, and how one develops in such a way as to extend the smartDevices is not in the realm of the PC users mentality. Thus, we continue to view retrofitting in hopes that we draw the smart community back to the world of PCs where we old people exist.

If there is any lessons to learn it is in looking at Palm, Apple, Blackberry, Microsoft, Google, and the latest which have come into the smartDevice world as this technology begins to move further forward.

Touch and smart devices have a place in the world of today and tomorrow. Puppy can play in this world, but not as we have traditionally played. We have to begin to embrace the notion of having PUPPY be something a little different than we have come to use it. I see promise in Puppy not as a touch device, but rather a touch device and home device Manager. And, I would expect that there is a great upside to this.

Linux has enabled Puppy to begin its evolution into a Central Home participant. It members developers have placed in our hands a very powerful system that we are just getting around to seeing how it can be put to address our needs. Further, while a PC does not have/need the same things that a touch system provides, it still offers a platforms that the touch systems can only marvel at.

Look forward to an inter-working of Puppy and Linux, side by side, in the new world as we too mature. Look at your smart devices in terms of how it can be a partner in your home system...not as a replacement or as a platform for your home system. You wont need to recreate the wheel...you just add the wheel to your vehicle.

Over the last 3 years, there have been some very powerful subsystems that have been either added or demonstrated in this community that have not been exploited to a home user's advantage, at least not to a large extent in some cases. We, this community, is on the doorstep to begin a major new chapter in what a PUPPY can do for our lives in our homes.

There is still much to do to bring a new concept into Puppy usefulness in the home. Puppy has all the tools to do, today, especially with the current changes that are occurring. Its the concept that will leapfrog it to consciousness.

[8-bit]

My daughter bought a tablet with 8gigs of storage and when she went to get a game, the tablet showed a message of not enough storage space.
So she went out and bought a 16gig sd card and although the tablet formatted it and it was shown, she still got that same message of not enough storage space. And no provision was shown to be able to install the game to the SD card.
She ended up taking the tablet back and getting another brand that now works for her.
The tablet I bought for the wife had 32 gigs of storage space OOTB and it works very well as well as only showing games and apps that are compatible with it.
I do not know if the first tablet my daughter bought was defective. And all I remember about it was it was a NEXT something.
So be careful when buying a tablet.
Also, I have seen apps on the net that would allow one to install a different OS on them. But some are a one way thing with no provision to go back to the factory installed OS.

[greengeek]

Puppy can be loaded on some tablets. I have an Acer Iconia W501 which I run Slacko 5.3.3t and Lighthouse 64 on. Note that this is a Windows tablet, not an Android one.

I find S533t works well, but it does not use the touchscreen in the same way that Android does. It uses it very much like a normal touchpad. Slide your finger and the mouse moves, tap your finger and it registers a 'left click'. Multitouch " two finger" gestures are ignored.

By contrast LH64 responds to a touch as if you are clicking a mouse at the exact point where your finger is touching. In that sense it works 'better' than S533t, but in fact it is less usable because my fat finger obscures what I am clicking on. The screen needs much bigger icons.

The truth is that driving a touch screen is nowhere near maturity in Puppy - and in fact probably requires a completely different approach than Android or IOS uses.

Why then do I use Puppy on a tablet? Two reasons:
1) I know how to use Puppy for downloading files, whereas Android makes it difficult. I feel much more in control of a Puppy tablet than an Android one. This tablet also has Win 7 on it, but I am so used to the puppy environment now that I just don't want to use Windows.
2) Its a matter of pride. I love the way that Puppy gives me control of my computing environment and I just want to do as much as possible on this tablet using puppy.

Some Android tablets can be used with Fatdog - but I have no experience of that yet.

So - it is possible to use Puppy on a tablet - but you have to have a good reason for doing so, and lots of patience

[8-bit]

I have used a MS bluetooth mouse with the wife's Nook tablet. So that is a possibility for mouse control in Puppy if you have a bluetooth driver compatible with the tablet.

[gcmartin]

Tablets and Android
If one is NOT knowledgeable on Androids, here's couple of comments.

• Android OS is designated by version numbers.
• Versions are distinctly different in design from each other (almost like a completely different operating system).
• Do NOT purchase any Android, today, whose version number is less than 4.2x and expect that it will have all the system benefits. In the fall, do not purchase any version less than 4.3 and preferably choose 4.4+
• On some you CANNOT add storage cards
• On some you have to tell the system to use the new storage cards you add/upgrade
• On some you have a full complement of radios (cell, wifi, blutooth, etc)
• On some the radio version are different (know the versions you want)
• On ALL tablets/phones from Telcos, they will have the Telco's apps
• Applications to extend base system functionality is delivered via 'stores'. (this is in resemblance to Puppy's PPM but with a much different layout)
• Some mobile apps can be acquired via a browser
• For the mostpart, every Android can deliver Wifi service to other devices without cables; same as a WiFi router does.

No Android/iOS is like any Linux as you have come to know on PCs. The hardware is NOT geared for such.

Puppy on Touch PCs
Lighthouse64 (LH64) is still the ONLY Puppy distro which has allow you to get to the Puppy Menu on the taskbar by touching any open area the screen. LH64 is a 64bit x86 distro which may not work on non-x86 devices. But, if you have a Touch 64bit x86 like the ACER/HP/DELL/Microsoft/etc. you can expect a fuller (than all other current PUPs) operation using the finger for guidance/navigation/engaging on desktop. I have been using this for several years and have demo'd it to everyone who has a Touch all-in-one. The SECRET in LH64's sauce is how it has rearranged the mouse button behavior to provide the user the ability to gain the functionality one has.

FATDOG64 (FD64) can be made to work via documentation found here. But, unlike LH64 it is not built-in and mouse changes to make access to applications via the menu may not be present like the integration found in LH64.

Hope this helps

[RSH]

Hi.

Trying to think big, as the title suggests, of course is NOT what we need. Neither in Puppy Land nor in Real World.

Trying to think big usually leads direcetly into a disaster. Sometimes immediately sometimes very much later.

There were the .COM Bubble, Lehman Brother's, so-called European Financial Crisis and lots of similar events wherein people without owning enough money were trying to think big and -supported by Banks and Money Institutes like Lehman Brother's- e.g. do buying or building houses. Spain e.g. is filled up with ruins of houses that just wasn't completely finished.

All ended up into a big disaster.

Trying to think big or better saying trying to get/raise big will lead to collapse. This is true not only for Lifeforms on earth but also for Companies and Countries. Our history is filled up with such collapses.

If we will not learn from the past, we will be forced to repeat the past. Over and over again.

Humans and Puppy Lands leading maxime needs to be: trying to think small.

Trying to think big SUCKS!

RSH

[disciple]

Yes! That's the sort of thinking we need.

[Enrique Corbellini]

Humans and Puppy Lands leading maxime needs to be: trying to think small.

Ok. I wasn't trying to make a philosophical debate. And please don't interpret this word "philosophical" as trying to downplay, I do believe philosophy is very important.
But I like your point of view (sincerely!), so, how do you consider the world of tablets in relation to Puppy if we watch them in a "thinking small" way? Should we do something about them?
I find very interesting the comments made before. i.e. I didn't know puppy could run on some tablets.

[RSH]

But I like your point of view (sincerely!), so, how do you consider the world of tablets in relation to Puppy if we watch them in a "thinking small" way? Should we do something about them?

I really don't know, if we (or Puppy) should do anything on tablets.

Like you, I'm using an old Desktop PC (Hardware from between 2000 and 2008) and a limited cell phone just for doing phone calls and sometimes sending a short message. My interest in owning/using smart phones, tablets and dis-social networks is below zero, and I'm not going to change this.

In Germany we have already discussions about those people and their actings like heavy drug abusers.

Not to be online is pure distress!

Based on the words Apple, App and Epileptics I'm naming people using theses new technologies as Appileptics and/or Appleleptics. It puts me into fear and terror watching people sleeping on the AppStores boardwalk the night before a new iPPMP ( iPodPadMacPhone ) is entering the scene.

Its a bit like if you are going to your local prison and to demand for imprisonment.

These guys/girls are that much addicted to these new technologies, they drive cars and also bicycles while surfing facebook via smart-phones and/or tablets, so we had a few (not less) in the last years killing in the streets by car accidents, because them are crossing the streets (main streets with huge traffic) without to look at the road traffic because of surfing the web when crossing the streets. Btw.: they don't even hear anything because of listen to music by iPod's or iPhone's earphones as well simultaneously.

Something I didn't really "get" when I bought my first tablet is that they're much harder to create on; only consume.

As I saw the first tablet ever (and each of its successor) my first assumption was: nothing to create with/on; just a consumer device!

Sorry, if I can't give any useful hints for Puppy and Tablets, though I've made my reply just because of the topics title, trying to think big.

---

The latest disaster of trying to think big was Malysian Airlines MHL17. This happened just because of trying to think big.

Russia tries to think big and want back to the old size of the USSR.
United States tries to think big by expanding the Nato into eastern territories in opposite to the Nato's Announcements at times of the German's reunification.
Europe is trying to think big also by expanding into eastern territories (seems they want to have Europe going from Brussels to the Krim and the back way back to Brussels).

Result in this sort of trying to think big: 298 (hopefully) innocent people killed!

In my Opinion, we need to send Vladimir Putin, Dimitri Medwedjew, George Bush (sr. and jr.), Jaques Chirac and Francois Holland (plus the guy between them), Gerhard Schröder, Angela Merkel and a few more European Politicians up to the Court at Den Haag!

Indictment: responsibility for the deaths of 298 people!

After this we need to set them under a life-time-surveillance to make sure they couldn't get away with some future sort of trying to think big.

And, at least, a small but useful hint to the Secret Services around the World:

Hey Guys, you don't need to watch at Linux-Extremists in Linux-Extremists-Forums. You need to watch at the leaders of our countries and also at the leaders or the big companies in our countries.

Force them to trying to think small!

RSH

[ThoriumBlvd]

I'm using an old PC and a limited mobile phone (let's say, not a dinosaur but something limited anyway). It's obvious tablets made the last big jump on computers technology, thanks their touch screens and their amazing memory capabilities. So I'm planning to buy a tablet, as many other people do in a situation like mine.
What I wonder is, why can't I buy a tablet which I can program with my own system? Are there tablets which we can install puppy or others o.s. on them? And if they don't exist or are too difficult to achieve, how can we do something to obtain them?

Would you be willing to try a netbook? there is at least one Puppy (see signature below). One gets the small size, a lid and real keboard, and the ability to connect to anything (USB dial-up, Ethernet to Modem/Router, Wi-Fi, Printers, Scanners, All-in 1's, etc) These are older and used, so cheap. A good USB stick and a USB CD/DVD gets you eco-computing (10 Watts). Tablet vs. netbook is a close call inteerms of power, computing power, screen-size. Tablet has higher screen resolution, but netbooks are way better than desktops, so a compromise there.

I guess it will ultimately depend upon the Internet Connection Speed, and your location.

[starhawk]

I have an ASUS EeePC 1000HE -- it's rated 36w input from the power jack. Very efficient, yes, but not quite to the level of 10w, which is what I'd expect more of a RasPi-like device such as the ODROID, unless netbooks have become that much less thirsty since mid-2009? ...or perhaps the 10w in your post refers to the USB stick and CD drive only

ASUS EeePC 1000HE -- 10" screen, Atom N270 CPU, 2gb RAM (I upgraded) and a 64gb SSD (I upgraded again). Currently has X-Slacko Puppy 1.0 on it, but I should probably get around to changing that. I'm impatient and it's slow

It's remarkably rugged for what it is, though. That netbook has been through a lot... like the time I left my headphones plugged in and the headphones fell off the table and the cat spooked and ran right through them... wrecked the headphone jack completely. The netbook also used to suffer from the ASUS Netbook Touchpad-Button Curse -- there's a flaw in the design of most ASUS netbooks, the left-click button (rarely the right-click for some reason!) decides one day that it's going to be in a bad mood for a while. The cheap fix is to pull the switch apart, on the motherboard, and re-bend the part that has become unbent with use and time. I eventually replaced the whole board instead, which repaired the headphone jack as well. I've also accidentally dropped that netbook on a flash drive twice. All three falls were with its original hard drive, and that drive still worked fine when I sold it to help cover the SSD costs, at least a year after the last tumble.

The only thing to be wary of, if you ever replace the motherboard, is that the connectors for the camera and the digital microphone board, are identical except one has a flyout ground lead. There are no markings on the cables themselves, and if you switch them, you WILL destroy the mic board. If you don't figure it out soon enough you'll melt the camera board... I was lucky and figured it out soon enough the camera board is quite expensive... moral of the story: make sure you pay attention to that flyout lead, or make your own labels (I recommend colored electrical tape).

...sorry for the yarn. I'll stop now...

[slavvo67]

Guys,

I do need to comment that one of the developers at Bodhi Linux was making tablet ready distros like they were simple to do (a hobby). He had about 4 or 5 different versions and then decided to discontinue because of his focus on the main Bodhi system. He also pulled the posts with the distros so I'm wondering if there were some "outside pressures" involved in this.

At some point, there won't be any of these big boxes left so Puppy will either have changed by then or be a complete dinosaur. So, there's the perfect name for the next distro.... DINO

Best,

Slavvo67

[L18L]

So I'm planning to buy a tablet, as many other people do in a situation like mine.
What I wonder is, why can't I buy a tablet which I can program with my own system? Are there tablets which we can install puppy or others o.s. on them?

Assuming that by tablet you mean one of the Cheap Chinese Androids then this will be interesting:
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Fe ... e-to-Linux

If you would like to experiment before buying one: play with android-x86

PS: My Cheap Chinese is a 4core 2GB RAM system with 1280x800 on a10 inch display, All the tools for developing are free available on the web....

[ThoriumBlvd]

starhawk:

On batteries using wifi about 12 W. (my batt. 6.5 hr)

Plugged in including modem/router, yah about 30W... toss in the "portable" external (full-sized CD/DVD via USB --->netbk) 45W (12V wallwart), and the Laser-Printer, its getting up there.

But out on the road so to say using a hot-spot, fairly L.P.

Cheers,
ThoriumB

[ThoriumBlvd]

Guys,

At some point, there won't be any of these big boxes left so Puppy will either have changed by then or be a complete dinosaur. So, there's the perfect name for the next distro.... DINO

Best,

Slavvo67

This point quite likely happening now. I mean, big-box 'puters are for maxgaming, and quite power-hungry. But when I think of the distillation process occuring (smaller is better) that netbook phase will be next IMHO. These can do quite well with pups, and get some WP and SS work done, yet have just enough screen area to make it look OK. Easier to carry than a 15" lappy, lightweight, low power.

What gets me right now is the chrome-books that really don't do anything,and are not long-lived (ie no pups allowed).

+1 on "dino"