Whats up in Puppy World

[wanderer]

hi williwaw

as i have said i agree with what you are suggesting

the distrowatch page should link to the puppy home page
that way we can keep our presentation updated
but also include more than 1 candidate
which is all that distrowatch allows

i think it is important to keep a page on distrowatch
because it does give us a lot of exposure
thats the place i look for distros i might be interested in

i also think its important to pick 1 candidate (64 and 32 bit) to be our flagship
because it gets everyone beyond the "what is a puppy argument"
and forces everyone to agree on a distro that they feel can represent puppy

its also important because anyone that is trying to review puppy
has to focus on only 1 distro to test

right now on distrowatch
1. the screenshot is of bookwormpup
2. the link to the homepage brings everyone to puppylinux and the download links
3. the link to the forum brings people here
and really no one pays any attention to the rest
because they just go to either the homepage or the forum

i will keep emailing distrowatch forever
in the hopes that they will update everything
but im not concerned or holding my breath
i assume they will eventually
and the place for them to get the info is the homepage

wanderer

[bigpup]

DistroWatch does not go out and look for info to correct.

You have to provide it to them.

What is missing is an announcement page for BookwormPup

You have to provide it written out for what it should say.

They will add it as an announcement, along with all the others, with a link to it in the main Puppy page.

Just like all previous Puppies:
https://distrowatch.com/index.php?distr ... l&year=all

Note:
Want to see how much Puppy has changed.
Go read announcement on first release (Puppy 0.7) and go up from there.
Wow, a huge 28MB in size!

Just like this one for S15Pup
https://distrowatch.com/?newsid=11706

Notice it is now wrong showing desktop of BookwormPup.
Well now they have all versions showing this desktop.

[wanderer]

hi bigpup

what the heck is going on with distrowatch

we have already sent them everything they have asked for
and it was very clear

we did not have this problem before

im going to have to think about the next move

i will email them again but first i have to see what they have messed up

i dont know why they are messing with any of the old stuff
that doesn't even make sense
and the distrowatch gallery on the other hand has all of the correct screenshots ( go figure )

the last link i gave them was to the new bwpup page rockedge made

wanderer

[wanderer]

hi everyone

clearly something strange is going on at distrowatch
this obviously has nothing to do with us
because they even changed all the screenshots on the old releases
but have all the appropriate ones in the gallery
which makes no sense at all

we have sent them everything they asked for
and the information was clear

there was no problem of any kind
when we submitted the last candidate to distrowatch
which i also did

they have a screenshot of bookwormpup
and a link to puppy.com
and a link to the forum
and the appropriate date we submitted the new candidate
on the front page
so at least those are accurate
and will get people to us
and we are up to date with our submission

edit
see below

wanderer

[peebee]

What is missing is an announcement page for BookwormPup

Available since 26-May:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/p ... ement.html

[wiak]

What is missing is an announcement page for BookwormPup

Available since 26-May:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/p ... ement.html

Two matters I'd like to bring to forum attention:

1. Above suggests a lot of talk about no intro page for Distrowatch is nonsense since 26 May, which is almost a month ago.
2. Even the person who started this thread and said by far the most on both (wanderer) appears now to be completely mixed up about which thread is which and what the two different threads are supposed to be about. The specific to Puppy Linux related Distrowatch thread was not this one, but this: viewtopic.php?p=117421#p117421

Meanwhile I have gone back to spending most of my distro time on actual development because without that there is nothing to use like alone promote.

[wanderer]

hi all

as wiak has done
i suggest we all go back to doing something useful

the distrowatch situation will get sorted out in time
we have done everything we can do right now

all the information is there for them
and has been for months
i will wait a while for them to get things sorted out

and then get 1 email together with all the corrections
and send it to them

there is nothing more anyone on the forum needs to do
except me
i will stay on it until it is done

wanderer

[Governor]

hi all

this is a thread to discuss the technical innovations that are occurring in Puppy World

that is all of the projects on the forum

i am hoping that this will bring all the projects together to exchange ideas
and to have a place where forum members can go to see what is happening

wanderer

And here is what is happening,

Invisible cursor.gif (176.29 KiB) Viewed 2417 times

[Clarity]

Hi @greengeek . Please do not take this as either offensive or ignoring your concern, as it is neither. I stated this earlier, and hope you may have read it.

... This community has a limited resource: Developers with time. If you plan, design, implement, develop, debug, schedule multiple releases and continue to support toward a final release...takes someone or multiples someone's time.

IF 64bit is what is in the hands of all who come here, ...

If the community had the resources who want to spend their time, I can understand the individual's personal desire for such.
...

This point, I think is rather obvious, though.

Some great new technology is coming at all of us, fast! Developers are already addressing much of it with what time they have.

[wiak]

Dear all
after 15 pages I would like to say that we went from a situation in the old forum that non-puppy distributions were met with "skepticism" to a new forum that Puppylinux (the distribution) per se, is "questionable".
In the mean time puppy's popularity and more important releases is precipitating and a multitude of puppy-aspirred distribution are developed but hardly known outside the few hundred regulars of this forum.
I wonder who is really satisfied with the current status other than wiak that through the years succeeded to push everyone that he did not agree with, outside this forum and puppylinux.
And now that the war is won we are looking for a Puppylinux release to increase traffic in this forum so all the 'rubbish' here get some more exposure
However, wiak is NOT the problem. He certainly has a strong opinion and he has succeeded to dominate the place and become the second in line in this forum, but everyone is entitled to an opinion and has the right to fight for it.
The real problem is that Puppylinux has NO developer and No direction.
...

Yes, it was amusing... some doubtful claims about myself and the effects of my voiced opinions I think though.

Certainly I have no plans myself to leave the forum any time soon. I have too much project work invested here such that I need to drop in quite frequently and also to see how FirstRib build system and extras are being used, because there are a few aspects of it all I still want to tidy up and consolidate, so I need to keep informed and need to ask or answer some FR-related questions every now and then.

Nevertheless, I really have begun to doubt I'll be doing much further in the way of coding. FirstRib and its combinable bits and pieces and useful special parts (such as the general purpose FR initrd, KL_full2frugal, firstribit/weedogit and KL_multi-instance) is enough for me, a mix of LEGO and Putty - and simple enough for me to maintain without significant time or effort. The KL team can now keep rocking for many years to come with what is already rock solid as a build system, but my life has changed (really a lot), I'm getting older and I suspect that my own peak (in coding) is almost certainly now in the past. I'm a bit tired of everything to do with the World of Coding (like alone the "Puppy" World) to be honest.

Developers come and developers go. Looking forward to KL producing some PuttyLinux releases though

Back now to firstribit (ex-weedogit), which is almost back/mainly-again-working (and in easier to maintain form). That will be the first of a few items I want to tidy up prior to turning off the tap of much more coding effort; leaving but a shadow to keep my part of the wheels oiled enough and running such that KL/FR can continue to blossom long into the future and with a lot of scope for that I'd say.

[wanderer]

hi wiak

we users really appreciate all the work you developers have done and are doing

firstrib is an enormous assest to the puppy linux community

and on a personal note i haven't needed to use windows for 20 years

so from me
and im sure everybody else

thanks and we hope you stick around

wanderer

[wiak]

thanks and we hope you stick around

Well I'm not going anywhere - I'm just noticing I'm not doing so much coding as I used to and don't expect to, but who knows really - sometimes after a coffee or after sleep we suddenly have some inspiration.

[wiak]

The ultimate in terms of a Puppy-parts-stealing KL distro: KL_BookwormPup64... Note that this uses apt, not Void Linux xbps, since BookwormPup provides apt support. Posting from it right now.

This was made with firstribit (ex-weedogit); making a FR initrd bootable version of BookwormPup64 will be first menu choice in soonish to be released firstribit. Most all of it works pretty much as expected but using FR modes (e.g. w_changes=RAM2) rather than Pupmodes. Save2flash WILL BE available for all distros converted to use FR initrd by firstribit (ex-weedogit).

I am making this available for fun and possible future developers/development experiment/polishing using a Pup root filesystem via the FR initrd. Shouldn't be hard to make a pretty much perfect KL/FR-based Puppy, but a small about of modification work will remain required to achieve that end. However, booted fine, posting from it now, used its apt capability to install cherrytree.

If you are a Puppy user you should feel at home with this since almost same look-and-feel as normal Pup, except FR initrd boot parameters and flexibility so useful if you want up to 99 sfs or uncompressed addons... for rollback distro experiments or whatever. Since FR booting it uses FR boot arguments instead of Pupmodes and the likes of psubdir, pfix and so on, which don't apply here at all and KL_BookwormPup64 provides full KL/FR facilities/overlayfs-features instead of standard Puppy ones.

Note that I had to use:
dpkg-statoverride --remove /etc/ssl/private
to get apt to install without error about ssl-cert. I don't know enough about dpkg to know what that is all about, but seems a simple enough 'fix' at this stage.

[rockedge]

@wiak This sure is interesting!

My attempts blending the puppy_bookworm64.sfs rootfs with the KL initrd "works" but it's very wobbly on it's feet.

This is like the "old days of lore" when the weedogit script did the heavy lifting! Very cool.

Looking forward to the return of this very powerful script.

[wiak]

@wiak This sure is interesting!

My attempts blending the puppy_bookworm64.sfs rootfs with the KL initrd "works" but it's very wobbly on it's feet.

This is like the "old days of lore" when the weedogit script did the heavy lifting! Very cool.

Looking forward to the return of this very powerful script.

Yes, I felt it was potentially far too useful to let it vanish into history. About to make a new firstribit of Linux Mint XFCE. A devious plan I also have in mind is to have a second version of firstribit for 'remastering distros'; I have nothing at all against remastering and that job can be scripted (and thus repeatable anyway); so my plan is to have a version of firstribit that allow uncompression of the main sfs for suitable mainstream distros followed by a PLUG file for firstribit such that user/builder can script the removal of packages and new additions as part of the firstribit build process. The remastered, perhaps Puppy sized result can then be made into an iso - always wanted a Puppy-sized Linux Mint and see this as one way of doing that.

[wanderer]

hi wiak rockedge and firstrib people

please consider making a single script version
that will make a minimal system
that will run from start to bootable completed iso
so us simple folk can have an entry point to learn your system

wanderer

[wiak]

Well my firstribit of downloaded Linux Mint XFCE iso worked fine and includes save2flash. I haven't yet made the planned second firstribit to handle final PLUG extension builds; that will come later.

Since Linux Mint FR build worked that means most of the other distros catered will too, so the facility almost ready to hit the streets again.

@wanderer The trouble with including iso build code, which is only needed to convert an already built and bootable frugal install is that it adds an extra host build system requirement: the host system has to have iso-making software installed, and various other bits and pieces concerned with EFI booting and so on. Usually that means you almost 'have to' use a certain type of Linux host specially thus prepared. FirstRib was designed to be like LEGO - one simple script to build the root filesystem, then add the vmlinuz, modules, and firmware, and finally FR initrd to boot it in a frugal install subdirectory.

In that LEGO-like fashion, making an iso is an optional extra stage (script) and one that has that special host build system requirement. As it stands KL/FR distros can be build on pretty much any Linux system, whether they include iso-making software or not. Maybe someone will make a script for creating an iso out of a KL/FR distro, but that depends on them; but will be a separate script probably since optional. Of course it is trivial in bash to write a glue everything to do frontend script...

Really, FR is a simple to use build system already. Many of the existing KL distros are in fact published via a single script builder, but no iso making is currently part of that though you may find it difficult to understand why. Simplicity is the overall reason - making an iso involves quite a bit of extra work and no-one bothered scripting that so far since pretty low (unnecessary for most of us) in the list of priorities actually. In practice, developers who want to publish distros either know how to make isos out of their build creations or soon find out how to (though some no longer care to.make isos of their work anyway).

KL/FR often provides a simple single script such that pretty much anybody can make a KL frugal install, which is more useful for most people (aside from the likes of Ventoy users who tend to want an iso made for them). Yes, I know, DebianDog script will, with suitably installed iso-making software, include making an iso for you, but what do you use the iso for? Don't you usually just make a frugal install with its contents??? If so, why need an iso anyway? But this is part of another story maybe - and has been discussed already on other threads concerning whether it is worth making iso releases nowadays.

[wanderer]

hi wiak

thanks

now i understand

no problem

i will simply add the components (iso build and bootloader) to the particular build i want

i only want to study/play with 1 simple system

not a the universal system

i will ask questions as needed

you guys have already given me most of it

wanderer

[wiak]

i will simply add the components (iso build and bootloader) to the particular build i want

i only want to study/play with 1 simple system

Put it this way: I often build new distros (as frugal installs), but I rarely if ever make isos of them or bother about installing bootloaders - instead I have a grub2 bootloader already on my system, so I just use that to boot the new distro frugal install - no additional bootloader is required; just the appropriate grub menu entry.

Yes, when some distro I make seems good enough, I then specially add bootloader code and make an iso of it, but that can be done later.

Several forum threads have been posted over the years with example relatively simply FR build system build usage. I'm sure you must have seen the ones rockedge made. Trouble is, I have a feeling very few if any actually tried the examples out, which would make the posts a 'waste of time'. If someone wants to try a KL/FR build, Sofiya published some single script builds of some of her releases, so bit like DebianDog make-live, except no iso gets made; rather they produce frugal install.

You should maybe start a separate thread on how to produce an iso since the process is pretty much the same for all distros. You could even read DD's make-live code and see how it is done (it will be the last stage of DD build) - DD uses software called xorriso for the purpose as far as I recall. KL/FR distro iso builders uses some alternative at the moment. Of course if a person wanted the iso to be bootable or written in bootable form to usb then they need to also include boot-loader software includng the EFI stuff that are usually wanted. In fact, you could probably 'borrow' the make iso part of DD make-live script to make a bootable KL/FR distro, though you do need to make correct grub config stanzas for the job.

[wanderer]

thanks wiak

clear to me now

will begin my project

will ask questions if needed

wanderer

[wiak]

thanks wiak

clear to me now

will begin my project

will ask questions if needed

But, on the whole, it is best forum etiquette to ask specific distro related questions on the appropriate section of the forum. This 'What's Up' is more of an area I'd have thought to state, or note, or discuss what is going on rather than requests for extras. Otherwise the thread loses focus and meaning.

[wanderer]

thanks wiak

i will ask all specific questions on the firstrib forum threads

just wanted to ask the general questions here

wanderer

[rockedge]

That's the beauty of it.....the ISO assembly is manual so the variety of options of components to put together a boot-able ISO is big. Some might need EFI some not and one can make as a complex set of boot stanza's as is needed...or the simplest.....

Saying one is not locked in to anything very specific. Making such a tool wouldn't be that hard to do and we have luck that @Sofiya has already made several examples that are current and on-going, Also @fredx181's DebianDog build script(s) are a great model to examine for a how-to do it right.

[geo_c]

The ultimate in terms of a Puppy-parts-stealing KL distro: KL_BookwormPup64... Note that this uses apt, not Void Linux xbps, since BookwormPup provides apt support. Posting from it right now.

This idea of weedogging puppies is really intriquing to me. And I had sense you might move in that direction.

The thought of two things, making a multi-install of a puppy ( which actually I don't see why that couldn't be done manually, and I should try it sometime) and the other is to do a PFI of a puppy. The latter may prove more difficult, but I believe @rockedge and someone else on the forum were already taking steps in that direction at one point.

Now do MsWindows.

[williwaw]

The ultimate in terms of a Puppy-parts-stealing KL distro: KL_BookwormPup64... Note that this uses apt, not Void Linux xbps, since BookwormPup provides apt support. Posting from it right now.

This idea of weedogging puppies is really intriquing to me. And I had sense you might move in that direction.

The thought of two things, making a multi-install of a puppy ( which actually I don't see why that couldn't be done manually, and I should try it sometime) and the other is to do a PFI of a puppy. The latter may prove more difficult, but I believe @rockedge and someone else on the forum were already taking steps in that direction at one point.

Now do MsWindows.

Windows,
@wiak , what edits do you have to do in firstrib to apply it to yet other distro?

[wiak]

@wiak , what edits do you have to do in firstrib to apply it to yet other distro?

Sorry, I don't quite understand the question. But can't FR Windows since vmlinux won't work with overall Windows apps/filesystem...

Above (whats up firstrib stuff) was about using FirstRibIt (i.e. new variant of previous weedogit) utility on BookWormPup iso, which automates a lot of the manual work otherwise required to boot that distro using FR initrd (and thus make an FR-based current Kennel Linux styled frugal install out of it). The coding generally requires a new function to be written in firstribit for the new distro added (but similar to other distro convert-to-FR functions usually).

In operation, the FirstRibIt utility extracts the main root filesystem from the target distro iso and makes a frugal install of that using FR initrd for the boot. The target distro iso has to already have been constructed of course; it is not originally built via FirstRib build system but by its own build system. (I have however recently suggested to rockedge the idea of ADDING a user editable PLUGin template file - the FR build system way of doing things - to woof-CE Puppy build process, perhaps via FirstRib build system frontend - that would be relatively easy to do; for that case the result would remain a normal Pupmode-type Puppy, but the final design and look-and-feel would end up as mainly under user/creator-plugin file control just like it is in all typical FR builds).

Apart from experimental fun, the purpose of using the FirstRibIt utility is that the result allows the user to use FR boot facilities like ability to use normal (uncompressed) directories for addon layers (and/or sfs addons) as well as up to 99 layers, plus the other facilities/features FR initrd provides (but instead, in BookwormPup case, of Pup modes and Puppy's own layering facilities).

FR initrd was designed to be general purpose so can be used to boot most all root filesystems no matter what distro they were originally intended for, and it is the root filesystem composition that determines most aspects (other than layer-related) of the distro look-and-feel. Hence the likes of a KL version of Linux Mint, for example, pretty much behaves exactly like normal install of Linux Mint (except the result is a KL/FR type of frugal install).

[williwaw]

Above (whats up firstrib stuff) was about using FirstRibIt (i.e. new variant of previous weedogit) utility...... which automates a lot of the manual work otherwise required to boot that distro using FR initrd (and thus make an FR-based current Kennel Linux styled frugal install out of it).

Does it add code to the new target distro or just automate whan can be done manually? Perhaps you explained the process in a different place or have posted the script?

The coding generally requires a new function to be written in firstribit for the new distro added (but similar to other distro convert-to-FR functions usually).

where can we see the function that needs to be customized for each new target distro?

FR initrd was designed to be general purpose so can be used to boot most all root filesystems

It works univerally or maybe needs a few tweaks with different target distro?

[wiak]

Above (whats up firstrib stuff) was about using FirstRibIt (i.e. new variant of previous weedogit) utility...... which automates a lot of the manual work otherwise required to boot that distro using FR initrd (and thus make an FR-based current Kennel Linux styled frugal install out of it).

Does it add code to the new target distro or just automate whan can be done manually? Perhaps you explained the process in a different place or have posted the script?

The coding generally requires a new function to be written in firstribit for the new distro added (but similar to other distro convert-to-FR functions usually).

where can we see the function that needs to be customized for each new target distro?

FR initrd was designed to be general purpose so can be used to boot most all root filesystems

It works univerally or maybe needs a few tweaks with different target distro?

It generally does not add code to the new target distro so on the whole scripts what could otherwise be done manually - albeit quite a bit to do manually so a person would need to know what they were doing...

However, to get it to work with BookwormPup and probably other Pups, it employs a new addon (uncompressed numbered directory - no need to sfs it) to bypass Puppy's normal /sbin/init script (and one or two other incompatibilies) since some Puppy boot and shutdown system scripts wouldn't work with FR initrd out-of-the-box. Most mainstream type distros simply work with no effort once the FR conversion has been completed (i.e. no special addon layer needed for the likes of Linux Mint, Zorin, Manjaro...).

The functions you are referring to are part of the soon-to-be-released firstribit script (pretty similar as in previously released weedogit script, but with bit extra, being another addon layer, to add save2flash).

It works 'universally' - no Distrospecs (or P modes) type connection to any root filesystem is involved. A few special distro constructions require special parameters being passed to them from their normal boot initrd, so FR initrd doesn't always work or some workaround is required - such as described above for Puppy Linux case, which otherwise requires Distrospec parameters I think - anyway it boots with FR initrd with the simply addon layer; easy to use new addon layers in FR since designed for up to 99 of these and can be sfs or normal directories of whatever you want to overlay.

The new firstribit code which contains all the functions showing how it is done will be released soon. Hopefully illustrates a lot of 'tricks' other aspiring devs can use in their own experiments.

[wiak]

The new firstribit code which contains all the functions showing how it is done will be released soon. Hopefully illustrates a lot of 'tricks' other aspiring devs can use in their own experiments.

FirstRibIT of BookwormPup64, EndeavourOS, Linux Mint XFCE, and MX Linux fluxbox all converted successfully so intend releasing tomorrow. Very similar (most of same code) to old weedogit utility, but now with addon to make save on demand work (save2flash/snapmergepuppy). One of the issues I had with weedogit (which is really why it has vanished from the scene for so long) was that upstream regularly publishes new iso releases so it was difficult to keep on top of the required URL changes - though I tried automating finding the isos that mechanism proved less than perfect in practice.

I have thus adopted a slight inconvenience in that the user now needs to first download the appropriate iso they with to convert to a FR initrd booted frugal install distro themself. Then they run the firstribit distro convert script and make sure to select the menu item corresponding to the already downloaded distro. Doing things in that two-step manner has the benefit for me that I don't need to regularly update the URLs in the script any longer since user is now finding and downloading the isos manually, which is a simple thing to do - just google the distro type and go to 'download' page for it... This change will definitely give the firstribit utility MUCH longer life since I don't generally have much time to maintain it beyond trivial matters.

[Clarity]

Thanks @wiak and all who have previewed, have used, and/or have reviewed the past productions in the KL areas of this forum. Those distro, there, are the outcomes of the magnificent FR (weedog) that makes it easy to do the productions found there.

This forum has a WEALTH of talent with GREAT imaginations that have and continue to lead the way in using Linux for the tasks set.

I look forward to testing the NEW KL's @wiak is showing us; in the power to create using "WeeDog".

I will produce 'testing reports' on ISO file boot results of the new KLs as they pop-up in the KL areas of this forum. The reports will show un-attended booting via the KL's boot Menu to their desktops, their session savings results, and their shutdown processing results for public review.

Thanks for the pathways you are showing all willing to look at the useful benefits of those contributors in the KL area.