Cross 'Puppy' 64 bit pets and sfs for Fossa64?

[peppyy]

Just wondering how many other pets etc. from other "Puppy' distros" could be installed as compatible pets and sfs / pre-built that would work on Fossa64?
For instance, would something from bionic64 or xenial64 work on fossa64? Is there a standard cross-reference or is it all done through testing and trial and error. I understand they are all built independently and require different libraries and dependencies and some are built on different kernels, baseline distros, and "brands", Ubuntu, Slax etc.

I know that I have used several apps /programs from my older computer "Tahr64 6.05" that I grabbed from the old hard drive and they have fired up and run perfectly.
Just curious since I am a much older pup than I was back in 1.08.

[GMBudwrench]

I’d say create a second save file, name it something like test and try them out. If they work, implement them into your primary setup. That’s what I do.

[mikewalsh]

Hi, @peppyy .

Oh, it's largely trial & error, mate....seasoned with a generous portion of luck. There's no hard & fast "rules"- or even unofficial ones come to that. Some apps just seem to work everywhere; others are HIGHLY-specific, since they seem incredibly sensitive to a slight difference in dependencies 'n' stuff.

Chrome's a good example. The Chromium Project always build the thing against the very newest of everything, since it's their 'cutting-edge' playground for testing things out. As it stands there, it needs to be run on the very newest distros.

Google, though.....once their R & D department has released a stable version of Chromium, they grab the source code, re-compile it against a considerably older set of dependencies, add their proprietary crap & the Chrome 'badge', and release it as the newest version of Chrome. This way, it's accessible to a far wider userbase; not everybody religiously updates stuff the instant it's pushed out the door. Joe Public, if left to his own devices, probably wouldn't ever bother to update....

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Something like Zoom appears to be at the other end of the scale. Successful installation can come down to summat as basic as whether you installed via the .deb file built for Ubuntu.....or that which was built for Debian. Yup; THAT 'fussy'.

More Puppy-specific stuff, umm.....okay; here's an example. Geoffrey built a 64-bit version of HotShots several years ago (I think it was Geoff, but it could have been somebody else). Anyway; I've used this same .pet package successfully in Tahr64, Xenial64, Bionic64 and now Fossa64. As long as you have Qt4 somewhere on the system, it's guaranteed to run. And here's another one; some Puppian years ago - probably during the Puppy 4-series - compiled and built a screenshot package called ScreenGrab. 32-bit only in those days, obviously.....but it runs here in Fossa64 under the 32-bit compat_libs SFS, without a hitch.

All you CAN do is experiment, but it's surprising the number that DO seem to 'survive' across the Puppy generations.

Mike.

[Clarity]

Hi @peppyy

Just wondering how many other pets ...

I am not aware of ANY cross-refernce charts that ID PETs, subsystems, or programs that work across distros and even versions within a single distro.

Linux has always provided a base framework, while each distro takes it upon itself to setup library structures for the operating environment the developer(s) envisions. Each of the BIG Popular distros have their "OWN UNIQUE" library layouts that the developer wants programs to operate in.

Since those are unique library structures, this is cause to "why" it is not recommended to take programs built for one particular structure and 'installing' it in another; namely Issues that arise when a PET/program expecting one distro's layout and 'trying' to run in another distro's layout.

App, Flatpaks, portables and other methods of packaging programs are some well known efforts to try to get around the multiple-many library structures in the Linux distro kingdom.

Hope this is helpful to signal some of the issue we run into when we try to move a PET from one distro/version to another...and why developers of both the distros and the programs discourage that behavior.

Further, I know of no program available that advertises to be an adaptive change programe which would allow one to take a single PET for one PUP distro, interrogate it, and re-PET it (output a new PET) for use in another distro.

The big problems ... ISSUEs!

[bigpup]

Welcome to Linux software.
Needed dependencies, missing or wrong version, is usually the problem with software working.
But really it is no different in Windows.
Windows is 4 GB in size, so it can have all possible dependencies, needed by all possible Windows compiled software.

In general, I have found that a lot of the Puppy software programs, specifically coded by Puppy users/coders, are simple script files.
Those script files do not try to use exotic stuff to make them do what they do.
Very common processes and commands are used.
So, they will usually work on a lot of Puppy versions.
Being script files, they do not care about 32bit or 64bit OS.
Only that the commands, in the script file, are available in the OS.
Example:

Screenshot.jpg (22.31 KiB) Viewed 516 times

[peppyy]

@bigpup I have had good luck over the past 10+ years getting things to work from one puppy to the next. Any "tiny" scripts I have written don't seem to care as long as the linked application is there. Sometimes I need a symlink or two. I have learned a lot about dependencies too, some aren't too easy to track down but I usually find them.

@Clarity I am running several appimages and a couple portables however I have yet to try any flatpacks, I should read the forum on those.

@mikewalsh I agree it is surprising how many do work with little or no change to them. I have also noticed that some don't even mind the updated libs. I sometimes test them live first, then add them to my system.

I guess I should fire up one of the newer old computers I have and play with some from other puppies just for fun when the winter sets in.