Built and Testing Brand New woof-CE Fossapup64

[greengeek]

Just connected my bluetooth speaker in about 5 seconds and started playing my music after setting deadbeef as the default player. Awesome - so easy!

Also - have been testing tonight with Midori browser and has been much better than Palemoon.

So far so good.

[greengeek]

Tried installing Opera via quickpet but seems to be a missing dependency:

Opera_No_install.jpg (35.14 KiB) Viewed 1260 times

[rockedge]

@greengeek I'll check it! I have been using an Opera-portable that is working well.

[dimkr]

This happens when you try to install a .deb with missing dependencies but didn't run apt update to fetch the package lists first. apt has nowhere to get the dependencies from.

[RSH]

Maybe you'll be able to get apt working out of the box if you set BUILD_BDRV=yes in _00build.conf. Trying this now.

In my test built of Noble 64bit Woof-CE had this enabled by default.

[greengeek]

This happens when you try to install a .deb with missing dependencies but didn't run apt update to fetch the package lists first. apt has nowhere to get the dependencies from.

Thanks. This is my first time using anything other than PPM. Is there any way to automate the apt update so it doesnt trip up the user?

[dimkr]

Thanks. This is my first time using anything other than PPM. Is there any way to automate the apt update so it doesnt trip up the user?

You can also click the Reload button in Synaptic if you're afraid of the terminal. But no matter how you do this, the package lists are very big, so I don't think it's a good idea to automate this and force in all users (some refuse to use apt and insist on using PPM, after all).

[greengeek]

You can also click the Reload button in Synaptic if you're afraid of the terminal

Thanks for the tip about reload. Will try that.
No - I am not afraid of the terminal at all. But how would I have had any idea to run "apt-update"?
Perhaps a prompt could be built in somehow - rather than just a roadblock message that "we cant find a dependency"

But no matter how you do this, the package lists are very big, so I don't think it's a good idea to automate this and force in all users (some refuse to use apt and insist on using PPM, after all).

Actually - in this case I think I DID try to use PPM and it did the apt thing by itself. Will have to try again and confirm.
I suppose my point is that reliance on these other package managers does not seem to have improved on the old PPM (at least from my point of view of a first time user of something other than PPM).

Anyway - is the missing dependency something that should be in a woof-CE pup by default? Should we be able to download an Opera deb from their website and have it install without a lib hunt? What is your perspective?

[dimkr]

What is your perspective?

All package managers I know have this concept of "fetch the package list" and can't install anything before you do this. And Opera is a third party package, not something you get from the Ubuntu repos, and that's what makes this scenario possible in first place: Synaptic won't let you install anything before it downloads the package list.

[greengeek]

All package managers I know have this concept of "fetch the package list" and can't install anything before you do this. And Opera is a third party package, not something you get from the Ubuntu repos...

I don't think i fully understand your answer. For months/years now I have seen so much appetite on this forum for the apt/synaptic package manager concept - and negativity towards PPM - yet on my first try of a woof-CE pup - using the non-PPM approach - I can't even get Opera running.

Opera is a recognised browser, with a long history, and I can download it from their website into a cutdown puppy like Fossa 9.5 Mid (from Ozsouth) - and it runs with no problems.

So - is this just a case of one missing dep? Or are there deeper issues that I dont understand?

I feel very distant from where Puppy has gone over the last few years.

I don't doubt that my hardware is outdated and many changes have been driven by the need to match new hardware. But is woof-CE now only focused on some new fangled hardware? Is it a guaranteed fail on Vista-era hardware (eg 4GB ram, legacy grub boot)

I would expect a woof-CE pup to be immediately able to download and run Opera and also Midori (from Astian) - RELIABLY. Or else what is the point?

Seems to be so much effort to link to the repos of the big distros (I understand this desire) - but it doesnt seem like it's making life any easier.

Anyway - ignore my rant - I am thrilled by what cutdown pups (using PPM) let me achieve - so my lack of familiarity with modern pups (and woof) is not important.

Just wanted to highlight the oddity of Opera not finding basic deps in a woof-CE pup.

[dimkr]

The problem is not Opera, but the way you use the package manager. Any package manager, including PPM, needs package lists to be able to get dependencies for you. This is not new, and I don't see a good way to make this more user friendly: these lists are huge and change often, so including them in the ISO won't help (will only increase size).

[LateAdopter]

these lists are huge and change often, so including them in the ISO won't help (will only increase size).

This is the issue I noticed when testing APT in Jammypups. Trying to install anything takes a huge amount of savefile space that is out of proportion to the problem. And the savefile is not compressed.

Adding an initial package list to the APT SFS would make it more practically useful.

[dimkr]

Adding an initial package list to the APT SFS would make it more practically useful.

Maybe, but:
1. If SFSs are copied to RAM, this will waste some RAM (they're really big)
2. They will be out of date, days or weeks after the ISO was built you'll need to apt update to be able to install anything, because all packages in this "initial list" won't exist anymore (because they've been updated)

I really don't see a good solution for this, one that doesn't increase size, doesn't increase RAM consumption, and works in the long term.

[LateAdopter]

because all packages in this "initial list" won't exist anymore (because they've been updated)

I'm not an expert on Ubuntu or APT, but I think this in incorrect. My experience is that Ubuntu package archives keep multiple versions of packages available after updated versions have been added. So the original package list should continue to work for most packages, unless APT checks whether the list is up to date and blocks access to older versions.
Ubuntu doesn't do rolling releases and avoids breaking changes. Old package versions should work as well/badly as they ever did.

My experiment in Vanilla UPUP was trying to test either of the Gnome browsers that use webkit2-gtk. I had tried installing the Puppy way but they didn't work. So I tried a new Vanilla UPUP installation using APT. The savefile got to 700MB by the time APT had finished. And they still didn't work!

[dimkr]

@LateAdopter The problem is when you do a single apt update because one package (!) you need is gone from the repos. You can no longer install any packages without updating everything to the versions in the repos, because packages depend on specific revisions of their dependencies. You lose a lot of space, and the RAM/disk space spent on the "initial" package list is 100% wasted becuse you're not using it anymore. Yes, it makes life easy when you install the first package, but somewhere down the road the advantages go away and you're left with the disadvantages.

[Clarity]

Preliminary test: F96CE v5a4 ISO file booting
Bare Metal boot via Ventoy + SG2D

Upon pristine desktop after FirstRun changes, and minor tray changes: I opened a terminal and did the following. See its results 'echo' messages.

Code: Select all

# apt update
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu ...
# 	o
# 	o
# 	o
# apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information...
# 	o
# 	o
# 	o
# echo "Repositories updated and upgrade is checked"
Repositories updated and upgrade is checked
# 
# apt install fastfetch tldr btop 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package fastfetch
E: Unable to locate package btop
# echo "Some admin packages not available"
Some admin packages not available
# 
# echo "SAMBA Management Utility does not start from system menu"
SAMBA Management Utility does not start from system menu
# smbd start
# smbclient -U% -L localhost

	Sharename       Type      Comment
	---------       ----      -------
	Downloads       Disk      
	IPC$            IPC       IPC Service (Puppy Samba Server)
SMB1 disabled -- no workgroup available
# echo "Above command is REQUIRED to start local sharing to the LAN"
Above command is REQUIRED to start local sharing to the LAN
# 

Additional desktop notes

• PPM repos also updated via its option in Menu>Setup>PPM(Legacy)

• Session saved+accessed without issue: Both via PSAVE= Persistence... (when booted from Ventoy) and via SAVESPEC file (when booted from SG2D)

[Clarity]

Preliminary test: F96CE v5a4 ISO file booting
QEMU VM boot via Ventoy + SG2D USB as well as directly from the ISO file

Boots from all "launches" without issue

[Marv]

these lists are huge and change often, so including them in the ISO won't help (will only increase size).

This is the issue I noticed when testing APT in Jammypups. Trying to install anything takes a huge amount of savefile space that is out of proportion to the problem. And the savefile is not compressed.

Adding an initial package list to the APT SFS would make it more practically useful.

I had this problem both in Bookworm64 (10.0.6 and 10.0.7) and in NoblePup64 (#8 from GitHub) when using APT in a pup with a savefile. My savefiles are small, usually 256Mb, and the APT package lists, stored at /var/lib/apt/lists, would fill my savefiles pretty much by itself. To prevent this, at first I would update APT, download the packages I needed using the ability to make a download script in synaptic, delete the lists, and install the packages. Later I just added a wrapper to the script that saves to savefile with a line to delete the huge lists before saving. Not an issue at all in my usual non-savefile ydrv only puppies. Clumsy but working. With my reasonable but not lightning fast VDSL updating APT when needed doesn't take long.