(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

When I was "benevolent dictator", I kept things moving, but now it has been 5 months since 4.3.1 was released, and there is no new official release coming along in the short-term.

I have posted about this on my blog:

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=01442

I welcome thoughts about this matter...

BarryK wrote:When I was "benevolent dictator", I kept things moving, but now it has been 5 months since 4.3.1 was released, and there is no new official release coming along in the short-term.

I have posted about this on my blog:

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=01442

I welcome thoughts about this matter...

4.3.2?

Of course, yes please!

That's wonderful news!

I'd say look to the long term, not the short term. Will Puppy more efficiently become what you and (probably) users would most like to see if you spend some time and effort on a 4.3.2 release, or if you don't? If 4.3.2 wouldn't be a noticeable improvement over 4.3.1, why bother? For me, at least, Puppy 4.3.1 is working really well--especially since I readily reinstalled some of the things from 4.2 that you took out, like Tcl, Tk, and Gnocl. Resist the craze for the mere appearance of something new and improved, which may have little or no basis in reality.

David McClamrock

I would need to have considerable positive response to do this. I don't want to move back in stepping on toes.

(quote from Barry's blog)

I think techno would be more encouraged by this, rather than annoyed.

Plus from me.

From my point of view short answer is:
YES and THANK YOU!
A bit longer answer, I think that puppy has reached such a level of "out-of-the-box-perfection" that a new version should:
1. bring little changes like adding transmission, or removing 4 calculators in favour of galculator ...I use ttuxxx's puppies4.31, I think he did a good puplet without changing the whole puppy idea (apart switching from sm to ff), and
2. update everything that can be updated, kernel, packages, libs and so on

Then, for the newbies, for those who don't know/use the forum, maybe work on the puppy installer and repositories, but that' a big work I suppose...

I kinda welcomed stepping of the distrowatch treadmill.
If you want to release something choose one of the most popular currently well tried and tested puplets and call it official.
Yes significant milestones and improvements have been achieved recently but a lot of critical testing is still to be done.
4.4 is suffering from google aversion and nonCE involvement. Summary: let it slide for now. 4.3.1 is still solid enough for the inquisitive newbs. Focus on your cutting edge.

Duplicate removed.
However which ever choice you take full support and participation is still assured.

Yes, yes, yes please

It's time a further step was taken with Puppy, on the 'updates' front, whilst we wait for 4.4 of course.

Yes, Please go for it.

I agree that the kernel and xorg stay at your 4.3.2 experimental level for now. The newer dpup, upup, quirky and etc do not work real well on my 2Ghz desktop computer with full screen flash and 4.3.2 experimental does.

Since this thread seems to be vaguely related to the topic of making a comeback, thought this might interest readers:
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Up-or-O ... risis.aspx

Barry, by my understanding, you decided to move on from the project because you felt that you have given what you can to the community, and given the change in its feedback at the time you left, contributing through Woof would work out for you better. If you do come back, you should remember what ultimately makes you happy and motivates you to contribute to 4.3.

Looking at the interests of the community in general, the sentiment I get from reading this forum and Barry's blog is that Puppy tends to be used by people who have a second system which they don't mind or are keen to experiment on. I think this is backed up by the demand for and availability of a wide range of Puppy variants.

As such, 4.3.1 can be seen as a stepping stone to the other Puppy distributions, and so, perhaps the only reason why a 4.3.2 should be released is so that the distance between the base and derivatives is not so far apart and to give the impression that Puppy as a whole is not dated.

Before all of you get excited read carefully it's supposed to be small update not change of whole system.

Small changes to fill in gap between releases? Well, if changes are really worth that version change then go for it, if it's only some small apps added/replaced and nothing important changed/updated in configuration itself (modules/libs/bugfixes) then i'm not sure.

I think the best tactic would be for Barry to continue improving on the basic official versions of Puppy with the aid of the whole community and release one of those with a few months gap. This would be the simple basic version with no bling or extra window managers etc., just bug and security fixes and program updates. Then leave it to community members like TazOC and zigbert and others to do their own excellent versions built on Barrys backporting their improvements into the official Puppy. Leaving the development of the main puppy to community members was a mistake in the first place. Then when woof and quirky and all those came into the picture I lost the overview completely. The only way to clean up this mess is to get back to the basics and try to create some order out of the chaos again. How about trying to create some order in this forum by giving major derivatives like Lighthouse their own subforums in the manner of Linuxquestions? There should only be one! official website only dealing with Barrys official! puppy. This official website could mention that there are derivatives and link them to the various subforums here where the first post would be the mission statement for the particular derivative and some screenshots. As it is now information is scattered all over the web and there's no consistency in the presentation of the material.

Artie

My very naive but sincere comment follows:

I have been active on many forums. LinuxQuestions, Ubuntu, LinuxMint, Nimblex, Goblin, Vector, Ulteo, Crunchbang, Joliclocud, etc,

what is clear to me is there are two very different needs of the linux crowd.

1. Pure FOSS version. With only Free Open Source and no proprietary code anyware.

2. newbies like me want an Out of the Box working distro that should have all kind of codecs and plug ins and just working with no CLI setting up of firewall and permissions and such.

3. Third versions is like now when ttuxx and sigbert and all the others make their own versions which is also needed but beyond my imagination to figure out what to name or describe at the moment. Derivative and bleeding edge versions.?

But the first two is really needed. If puppy should keep popularity I guess it should tend to both 1, and 2 described above.

Puppy431 is rather close to be a good candidate for 2. above.

Even clumsy me now have the things working in puppy that I liked so much about SuperOS (ubuntu + codecs and updates) Linux Mint KDE CE, AntiX, Elive,

But what all these others lack is the easy way to save changes built in from scratch. And they lack the friendly forum.

so I see Puppy as the winner if it can keep the purists happy with having a pure FOSS version and it would make us Newbies happy if it continue to provide an Out of the Box working version being updated.

I use Puppy 24/7 now except when I try out other distros. I spent 12 hours yesterday trying to boot AntiX and Elive on a PC dedicate to Linux. Only puppy could be relied on to work. The others too complicated for me.
Power to Puppy! So say we all!

Artie wrote:As it is now information is scattered all over the web and there's no consistency in the presentation of the material.

Bingo!

Hi Barry
YES YES YES please for 432.
I read your blog every day to see what you have been doing.
Much of what I read is still beyond my understanding (so much for me to learn)
but even as a n00bie I can see that all your little fixes and updates,
especially some of your more recent changes (fschk and recovery, mended GpartEd, auto time sync, easier wifi connection. etc)
are going to make the Puppy Experiance so much more pleasurable for absolute beginners.
Can't thank you enough for all that you do.
Am also inclined to think that a new updated 432 might encourage all the Puplet developers to do more because many of the more difficult fixes will have been addressed - thus helping them to move on.
A small suggestion if I may - Htop instead of top - why? - looks better to a n00bie (and it does have kill etc) if space allows inclusion.
A retro kernel (2.6.25.16 maybe) would also be very useful for older kit - only if thats not going to give you another headache.

Thank you again for Puppy - we are all forever in your debt.

Whatever you decide - we will be pleased.

Very, very best regards - Ray.

Please add better power amangement to the next release of Puppy/Quirly: laptop lid open/close, CPU power mode etc.

quirky应该是最好的，虽然我现在一直在使用puppy412。puppy431对无线网络的支

Yes, please.

Been following your blog and the forum daily. I will appreciate a new official Puppy from the creator. It will invigorate the perception of Puppy and thus participation. I was worried that Puppy would die on the vine. Your return, even if temporary, is very welcome. So, yes, please.

i think a lot of distros reconsider new cloud computing and use of mobile devices. i like the way i watch youtube in 431 but I can hardly install some sound cards with alsa and i find ancient pet pacages for skype or opera. they have kitts on official sites so why not a compatibility with their original istalation kitt?

Official 4.3.2?

Yes please.

Technosaurus (4.4) was ill for a while and is now back
4.4 is already in Alpha quite unique
Guy (Dpup) is moving - no internet yet

I tried the recent 4.3.2 woof test build and it was very good
If you add some of the new Quirky scripts - I feel 4.3.2 will be more of an update and improvement than you think

Developing Puppy, using Woof takes time and experience.
(I had a go myself - too stupid) then I found this:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 022#347022
Fortunately even our newest developer is doing great with Puppeee
- and may move onto Woof power and other netbooks . . .
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=48288

So the more time we can give developers the better
New Puppy. New Interest. New developers.