Suggestions for the section "Next Puppy Development"

[ecomoney]

@Drongo Ok, I get it, Im not going to be able to use the term "most" users/people/puppiers/developers/engineers. I think also when you use the term "nobody"/"Anybody" and "nobody ever", you should back it up by being able to say you've only given it to engineers (bar 2). Puppy is used in a great many ways, and it makes a great engineering tool. Your gonna have to have a lot of data to go on to argue against google!

My use of Puppy is generally different, and I can see many others use it in different ways, and its important they are accommodated too. I recognize this.Thats why everyone that uses puppy, for whatever purpose, has the ability to contribute things they wish to see for the next edition....not only a "Council".

In this case there would be no conflict, as a "redesigned to make it easier for newbs "installer wouldnt be any bigger, and wouldnt mean you would have to lose any of your engineering tools. I actually believe one of the ways of making Puppy more popular overall would be to include engineers tools. (=http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewt ... suggested). Puppy already has many already. This is a good thing.

"Engineers" advise others users what OS to use, their word is trusted by newbs/users. A Windoze engineer, presented with a broken XP computer has two options, spend 4 1/2 hours (insert own estimate here) of sheer hell on earth installing XP/Vista, or a twenty minute job installing Puppy Linux easily.....what are they gonna prefer?

Since over 9 out of ten computers in the world are still running with a Micro$oft OS (which breaks "frequently") then that makes sense if we wish more people to use Linux...

Back on topic...

Yes, if we make statements, and quote in general terms, we really need to back them up. With some kind of figures/data/observations/reasoned arguement. Otherwise theyre never gonna get past the council for approval.

[James C]

Just for the record, I boot into Puppy more than Windows, but............

I have never had a Windows install get "broken" and never had to reinstall because Windows is "frequently broken".

I prefer Linux in general, and Puppy in particular, not because Windows is defective or unusable.......... I disagree with their restrictive EULA. I , however, don't claim to speak for all the "windows refugees" and/or newbs coming to Linux or Puppy.

Mainly though, Puppy is FUN.

[ecomoney]

I have never had a Windows install get "broken" and never had to reinstall because Windows is "frequently broken"

Then you must know a lot about how to fix it....therefore its not "broken" to you.

No, I wont claim to speak for all "windows refugees"...no one can. I believe Ive met "more than most" though....and got them to use Puppy instead.

Back on topic, I suggest a sticky for section posting guidelines containing something of the like....

When posting a feature/change request, please state your case why you believe the change/feature is needed, making reference to any observations or information you believe this would make puppy linux better fulfill its mission statement. If this change will effect other peoples use of Puppy Linux, then this must be doubly backed up

@James C: Yes, their EULA is only in their own best interests not ours. And if Linux fails, we will all have to live under it.[/url]

[drongo]

ecomoney,

I don't want to start another flame war on this Forum. For what it is worth, I think your work is admirable.

However my use of terms like "nobody" or "anybody" was supposed to be ironic. The two non-engineers I showed Puppy to have no interest whatsoever in operating systems and would not know, or care, what to do with a Live CD.

My point was a simple one. My needs are not those of everybody. My circumstances are not the same as everybody else's. Puppy's users are probably too diverse for anyone to say anything meaningful about them except in the most general terms.

I don't suppose we can even say how many users there are. What is a user, someone who boots into Puppy every day - and no other operating system? Or someone who dual boots Puppy and something else? Or someone who only uses it as a rescue system?

Are the majority of users live-CD users, full installers, frugal installers or multi-session users?

Most forum polls are inconclusive. Hardly anyone responds and there is rarely an outright landslide winner.

I don't know how many people use Puppy. I don't know how they use it. I don't know which features they want to improve, expand or remove.

And that is my point. Anybody who claims otherwise is probably deluding themselves.

This has not stopped a whole bunch of people claiming that they do know "what is best". They can't possibly know.

[ecomoney]

Thank you for clarifying, irony doesnt come across well on a forum! I get where your coming from now, and I agree. No one person does know every way puppy is used, and everyone has their own idea of what it should do/does need, to be more useful to them. Im on your wavelength here.

Therefore whoever co-ordinates must be a good listener, with no particular bias for any type of puppy user

I am also sorry if I come across as egotistical with my reports of what I have achieved with puppy (£30 cybercafe etc). When I reported back this and other sorts of things, I was intending for it to be a message about exactly how powerful the technology the people on here develop actually is.

Ok, my work is "admirable".....but simply not possible without you guys to create it. As I tell my clients, I am just the "delivery boy". How much do you think I admire you guys?

[canbyte]

PG, let me try again.

Recognize we are different animals. I am noob, knownothing wannafix. You are expert geek gottafix. Your time is more valuable but i keep hearing (hoping?) that us noobs are important to puppy's future. Soooo, . . . .

Where you see 349 impossible sections, I see about 100 items on the menu divided into just 13 sub menus. So why not 13 new sections under software. At least divide software into system and apps. Add a handful under hardware and its done.

But i see your point that the valuable guy should not have to hunt for bugs to fix. I notice there is a forum tool called 'unanswered questions'. Can't you make a similar tool for you to find bug reports? Then all you need to ask us to do is to place a tag word on the subtitle line - "bug". Problem solved.

But those general categories! As i tried to get across, i see no / little distinction between all those general section descriptors - & your idea of a "usability issues" section -- well i must have a mental block since some folks actually liked the idea. Again, consider that a newb with a problem probably considers it a bug, is annoyed at having a usability issue possibly related to software or hardware, wants a howto to deal with it, thinks a developer should remove the problem in the next puppy so it should be posted under suggestions!!!! A whole buncha ways to say the same darn thing - so tell me where the user is supposed to post his/her problem? If a beginner has the exact same problem as a regular are they really supposed to be posted in different places? Ok, why have ANY subsections in the first place, why not just one giant-free-for-all forum space. Yjeeesh. No wonder the forum is so inefficient.

Please, just one new section today. Any section. Just one.
Pretty please? !:-)

[gposil]

drongo said

So I'd like to state with great authority that nobody ever installs Puppy, whether frugally or fully and nobody uses multi-session. In my experience everyone who uses it is an electronics engineer or software developer. And nobody is scared of a command line interface.

Whilst I agree with a lot of what drongo said, I have consciously made the decision that Puppy is my first OS..full hdd install with Windoze running in VMBox for my cross OS compilation work. This is obviously not the norm, but I am proving to myself that Puppy with a little work can be a distro of choice for users. I'm not going to say that anyone else should go my way , but just outlining another alternative(there are always different ways of going about things).

[Lobster]

The most important section we need is something called Kennel or 5.xx

[drongo]

gposil,

I would never dream of restricting how anyone uses Puppy (or any other linux distro). I think one of Puppy's strengths is the fact that it can be used in so many different ways.

What has been bugging me about the Forum for years is the number of posters who think that the way they use Puppy is the only "right way". Many of them think that they have an exclusive right to have developers fix their particular bug right now.

Unfortunately one of Puppy's weaknesses is also the fact that it can be used in so many different ways. People using live-CD (puppy pfix=ram), pupsave, frugal, proper install, USB etc are all going to experience different bugs and problems from time to time. They probably can't all be fixed on the same time-scale.

No one way of using the Puppy is "better" than any other but an intractable bug that only affects a few users may not get fixed very speedily.

But, obviously, live-CD is best so my problems must be more important than everybody else's.

[gposil]

drongo

I would never dream of restricting how anyone uses Puppy (or any other linux distro). I think one of Puppy's strengths is the fact that it can be used in so many different ways.
....
No one way of using the Puppy is "better" than any other but an intractable bug that only affects a few users may not get fixed very speedily.

Agree wholeheartedly, but we can only hope that with constructive input the most important people will be catered for (I think that's everyone... )

.

[Aitch]

PG
/out of the box

I know JohnM has said an update to the forum software is imminent, however, would it be possible to link to the phpbb admin site & see if the 'user preferences console' can be improved

It seems to me to be a failing which we are misinterpreting as a Puppy forum organisational problem

Suggestion:
I would like, for example, to be able to view threads/posts ALPHABETICALLY, rather than by ascending/descending..... that would help me [possibly] by pre-sorting posts in a familiar format
{I'm not suggesting new categories/sections as I see that as admin hell!}
Oh, how I yearn for an intelligently accessible database of posts.......
Can it be done? [or some other preference I may choose, to make my choice of viewing the forum ........ personal - but still communicable to other users]

Though I realize that [probably] most people have their preferences set to 'default'

Then of course, there's wordpress, bbpress, vbulletin, yabb, pupbb, invision.....etc
We don't HAVE to use phpbb 2, 3 or xxx otherwise

It could be suggested to JohnM, if there were another popular user preference
Perhaps a poll?

Thanks

Aitch
Edit: concur with canbyte May 05, 2009 2:21 am
sorry Rob this forum software doesn't cater for edits/sequencing

[ecomoney]

Phpbb is a pretty flexible system (and its open source).

If were moving towards more of a "team game" with puppy development, its possible to arrange members in "teams" or roles. This would make it easy to spot if someone was say a "developer", a "tester" or even a "newbie expert"

I think a thread discussing "teams" might be imminent

[Pizzasgood]

Sorry, been busy enjoying my week of free time between the end of spring semester and the beginning of my internship (which begins "for real" tomorrow - orientation was today).

Aitch: Try Profile->Preferences->Reading Topics
I haven't tested that myself yet (I'd rather go to bed that much earlier, sorry). But it looks like there's an option in there for setting the ordering.

Lobster: Yeah, I think tomorrow evening I'll set up separate 4.x and 5.x sections.

ecomoney: The forum does support groups of users. I don't think we're at the point where that would be worth using much. The main thing it would be nice for is simplifying permission management - if there were a set of sections where only testers should be posting, or only devs, etc. and we had dedicated teams of those types of people led by trusted individuals, then that would be a good way to do it. Currently however, that isn't the case. People can still identify what they do in their sig though.

I did consider using that system for the NPD mod, so that I could just set the permissions for that group and then change whoever's in it when the coordinator changes. I might still do that, especially if we wind up with several subsections in here.

[Pizzasgood]

Alrighty. There are now separate 4.x and 5.x sections, each with a bugs section and a usability issues section, with simple descriptions of what a bug and what a usability issue are. These areas are for issues with versions UNDER DEVELOPMENT, not released versions, so the people using them should generally have enough sense to be able to distinguish the difference when provided with those descriptions.

I've made Lobster and Barry moderators in 5.x. Barry because he's in charge this time around, so he may find it useful. Lobster just to have a generic moderator to take care of spam if Flash or I don't catch it, since Barry will hopefully be too busy for mundane stuff like that.

[battleshooter]

Alrighty. There are now separate 4.x and 5.x sections, each with a bugs section and a usability issues section, with simple descriptions of what a bug and what a usability issue are. These areas are for issues with versions UNDER DEVELOPMENT, not released versions, so the people using them should generally have enough sense to be able to distinguish the difference when provided with those descriptions.

Good stuff PG, those are good sub forums to make out and your descriptions of what they're for are practical and sensible. Posting "bugs" and "usability" problems should be heaps clearer now. Thanks for the work you do on the forum!

Battleshooter

[ecomoney]

Fantastic PG!!!

This is really what we need...a usability section...a major focus for puppy and something that would take relatively little (programming) effort to sort out. It should stop all those pesky "what is a bug and what isnt" debates.

If something "doesnt work" or something "cannot be worked" its amounts to the same thing in real life.

Much Kudos your way.

[markofkane]

This may not be possible, but putting all applications in one folder, instead scattered about. Also, a way to remove installed stuff to make more space, if desired.

[Pizzasgood]

FYI, this thread is about suggestions for this section of the forum, not suggestions about Puppy's content.

But as long as we're here: for removing built-in packages, it isn't as simple as it may seem - all things included in Puppy are inside a read-only compressed file. If you attempt to delete them, Puppy just hides them from you, because he cannot actually delete them. However, since Puppy can't see them anymore, if you make a remaster Puppy won't include those "deleted" items in the new version, so that new version will be smaller. I made a program called "Pet-Be-Gone" to remove packages so that you could remaster without them. More recently, pa_mcclamrock made a program called "Remaster Express" that I believe combines the same functionality as Pet-Be-Gone with an improved remaster script, in one handy program. I haven't used it myself so I can't vouch for how good it is, but it was included in Puppy 4.2, so I would recommend trying that before resorting to Pet-Be-Gone.

(Exception to the above: if you have a full-hd install, Puppy can and will truly delete things when you tell it to, so using Pet-Be-Gone would, in that case, allow you to free up space without the need to remaster. Though, a trimmed-down full install probably still takes more space than a "full-blown" Frugal install, because in a Frugal install the pup_xxx.sfs file is compressed to use less than half the pace required by a "full-blown" full install. Of course, you'd also need to have your pup_save.2fs file, which is generally bigger than a full-blown full install, but mostly filled with emptiness until you fill it with your own data....)

[James C]

PG, I also want to thank you for the work you do on the forum.It now appears that it should be easier to keep the "bugs" in one section where they can be easily found and addressed.

Keep up the great work!!!!!!

[satishbhawra37]

This Bugs section is ONLY for official Puppies that are still under development. If you have bugs to report for an existing Puppy, do it in the Bugs section of the main forum, not this one.