Using Puppy - my perspective

[cobaka]

On another thread - @bert07 - wrote about his overall impression of Puppy Linux. He described a problem or two and suddenly the theme of that thread changed from "overall impression" to "let's help @Bert07". My intent, in writing this, is to describe the impressions of another Puppy Linux user - me, Cobaka. Perhaps I'm a 'typical' user of Puppy Linux; I'm certainly a non-technical person. If my experience is typical, perhaps the development gang may read this and understand the relative importance of the various functions offered by Puppy Linux.

I have used Puppy Linux exclusively for longer than I can remember - errrrr about 4 years now. I had some older laptops that were quite functional - in terms of hardware - functional but stuggled with Windows. My pocket struggled in sympathy. I installed Puppy Linux from a CD and after that I went on to install Puppy Linux onto thumb drives. Thumb-drives, plural. In a short time I found that not all Puppies were equal; after that I loaded ONE Puppy (uPupBB32) onto the hard drive and strange problems vanished. Moral #1. If you mix different versions of Puppy Linux on the same machine and don't manage the save-file properly - be aware that bad things can/will happen. Moral #2. Unusual implementations of any software (and especially an operating system) must be well documented - and especially the 'gotchas'.

Puppy Linux is not Windows. The brilliance behind the design of Windows comes with the work that has gone into removing 'gotchas' for the ignorant. As an example of this, in the Windows filing system a 'magic' process transparently makes file names case insensitive. MYfile == myfile (and so on). Or (another example) in the filing system: The naming convention used by Windows is simpler. I see C: or D: or H: Easy-peasy. The Linux directory organisation is a little more difficult to understand. Sketching a map on paper helps. I had little problem with this but a well educated friend still struggles to navigate around the directory tree.

Nothing is free. The eternally popular Windows has a LOT more source code than Linux. This amounts to more potential (and actual) bugs. Add to that a slower overall response when booting and running. I prefer Puppy Linux - but I had to spend a little time learning detail that Microsoft diligently hid. That said, I was delighted when Puppy Linux ran while Windows acted like a fly swimming in treacle. The moral: do the essential things only. Being 'clever' has a cost.

Installation: Now that I understand the process whereby Puppy Linux is installed - I find it more convenient to install than Windows. This comes, in part, because Microsoft had to protect it's investment, Puppy Linux doesn't do that. I have a directory where I keep one master Puppy Linux file. For me - it's uPupBB32. I have used this one file dozens of times - yes dozens - as the installation base. Even on this 64bit desktop I'm using uPupBB32. Yes, I rarely use more than one or two PCs at a time - but I just love the ease of installation. I understand what gParted does. I understand what GRUB2 does. Connecting to the internet is just soooo easy.

More on installation. For a newbie, installation is the most important thing. Initially I installed Puppy Linux using Windows. For any-one migrating from Windows to the Puppy some method of 'jumping over' is essential. The essential items (for me) were (1) the ability to down-load "puppy.iso" (2) Nero burning - that could burn a bootable CD from Windows (3) the ability to boot whatever-PC from the newly-burnt CD and (4) the ability to return to Windows without pain. After that I learnt how to burn (and boot) a thumb-drive. That was more difficult because I didn't understand the significance of detail in gParted and GRUB. At that time I used laptops with BIOS. Later, I had to learn about UEFI. The process of abandoning Windows and taking up Puppy must be simple and bug-free.

The thing I like most about the Puppy is that I (generally) understand where everything "lives" on any particular PC/laptop and this knowledge is most useful when I install "my" Puppy to some desktop/laptop I dragged in from the cow-paddock. Sometimes the hardware found in the cow-paddock is old - maybe 15 years old. Sometimes the clock is only 1.2GHz. Sometimes it has only 2GiB of RAM but Puppy seems to run this old 'stuff'.

$$ I try to remember to re-imburse who-ever developed uPupBB. [hello @peebee!] I try to do that every year - there is certainly a lot of work in packaging a complete Puppy. I might have 4 or 5 desktops running from the same download and I got this for a very reasonable annual 'donation'.

A bigger/better Puppy? @BarryK & @bigpup (and others) talk about developing Puppy further. Well - Puppy does everything I need - pretty well - at the moment. Why develop it further? Answer: Because no technology stands still; obsolescence is obscurity and oblivion. At the same time I believe "apps" are as least as important as the operating system. With limited resources should we work on the system or on "apps"?

Things I don't do: Never played a game on this desktop or on Puppy Linux. Not even Tetris. Certainly not multi-user, internet-based games. I'll bet others do!

My main uses: Office-suites: word-processing, text editing, spreadsheets. Browser-based activities, esp e-mail, viewing public transport schedules. I spend some hours a week looking at You-Tube - mainly history/science lectures. I spent some time learning how to use bash and the terminal. Windows has something similar, I believe, called "powershell". Powershell sounds impressive; "bash" or "sh" is just another Linux buzz-word, but the terminal is very useful. I use it daily - sometimes for an hour or so switching to (and from) Geany. Couldn't live without them. Started to lear "C". Got a small amount of most useful help from the forum. Sometimes older versions of Puppy Linux no longer have a net-compatible browser.

Things I want to do but haven't yet. Become sufficiently competent in "C" to compile/debug source code. This is a 'me' problem, not a Puppy problem. Use/draw in some small CD package. Have done this under DOS and in Windows after that (TinyCAD). Use TinyCAD to lay out time-lines for historical events. Again, this posting isn't a 'let's help Cobaka' thread. It's a general comment on PL.

I didn't understand the significance of *.sfs files. Down-loaded & used Firefox for some time. Then a friend wanted Firefox on her machine. Easy-peasy! I erased Foxfox from my PC. I had a plan. After erasing Firefox I would re-install it, writing a 'how-to-do-it' note as I did each step. Uh-oh! I didn't know something! I am living in the 1990s - where erasing a file means that the file is erased. Puppy Linux (sfs files) work differently! To this day I haven't re-installed Firefox. The moral: never second-guess how The Puppy works!

This brings me back to the topic of installation and re-installation. I spent a lot of time understanding a small number of technical points about installation. Formatting. Bootloading. Flags. UEFI. BMR. Partitioning. GRUB & GRUB2. After that I found installing Puppy Linux easy and convenient.

Hope the few who develop Puppy Linux find these notes useful.
Why don't you write your experience using PL?

Cobaka.

[amethyst]

I agree with the switching over from windows for a new user. We should settle/agree to one specific method and promote and give very clear and comprehensive instructions for that chosen method of installation. Apart from the rather strange names for partitions and numbering therof, I actually think the actual linux file system is simpler to understand than Windows'.

[wizard]

@cobaka
@amethyst

I dragged in from the cow-paddock.

Got a real laugh out of that as I have actually saved computers from dumpsters (trash carts).
There are some efforts being made to help "just users" here viewtopic.php?t=5114
here viewtopic.php?t=5126 and note the new top section of the forum. Also, you can check this viewtopic.php?t=4681 for an example of a Puppy with upgraded help files.

Thanks for your insights.
wizard

[JASpup]

$$ I try to remember to re-imburse who-ever developed uPupBB. [hello @peebee!] I try to do that every year - there is certainly a lot of work in packaging a complete Puppy.

Does uPupBB seem blurry at all to you? I noticed LXDE right there in the bootup sequence. It presents dilemmas to me out front: LXDE in Lubuntu is a bit crisper while whatever that takes is not worth the overhead, but it presents the idea of what is possible.

I casually made uPupBB look like Xenial and the older JWM desktop is crisper.

UI is the first thing users confront. Resolution is must.

[williams2]

the older JWM desktop is crisper. ... Resolution is must

Usually, when a user complains about crispness, it is antialiasing that the person does not like.

text-rendering-methods.png (20.35 KiB) Viewed 522 times

At the left is aliased text (made up of blocks)
In the middle is antialiased text (the blocks smoothed out)
At the right is antialiased text using sub pixels (each pixel is actually 3 sub pixels, rgb.)

I do not like aliased text, I find it harsh and unpleasant, but it's probably what you want.

Puppy's font manager:

a1.jpg (43.49 KiB) Viewed 522 times

[JASpup]

the older JWM desktop is crisper. ... Resolution is must

Usually, when a user complains about crispness, it is antialiasing that the person does not like.

I consider you in the pantheon of users who can get to the bottom of the blur problem. Surely peebea knows too but seems too experienced and productive to be chatty with non-technical users about broad issues. What I'm referring to here is the entire desktop.

When the average user doesn't notice or care, you can get away with it, but based on what I've booted thus far, I will use JWM or XFCE. LxPupSc is acceptable for Slackware users. When I boot Lx or Slackware, it's only just to test something or a special feature.

The serious font problem I have is fontconfig missing from Barry's remaster script. It's probably easy to add before finalization if you know where to find it. Thanks to 666 for that pointer. The difference is dramatic.

Holistically it feels like when you advance a distro, you're giving something up. Without making uPupBB look like XenialPup JWM, the latter to me is the last full 32-bit uPup.

[cobaka]

@peebee
Your Q:

Does uPupBB seem blurry at all to you?

My answer: No.

My monitor: Hewlett Packard HP L1950g. Screen resolution 1280 x 1024.
My eyes: Need prescription glasses - but I don't wear them.
The image could be sharp and clear, but how would I know?

Cobaka
PS. See the model of my monitor? 1950g. This means the model was introduced only one year after I was born and 20 years before the early releases of Unix. Amazing what they had back then. Now, today, before your astonished eyes - it's running on my desk. A genuine part of history. Jealous? I'm not surprised!

(below: My splash screen. I don't know if this is the latest, but it's good enough for me).

PL_splash-screen.jpg (10.26 KiB) Viewed 509 times

[JASpup]

Your Q:

Does uPupBB seem blurry at all to you?

My answer: No.

My monitor: Hewlett Packard HP L1950g. Screen resolution 1280 x 1024.
My eyes: Need prescription glasses - but I don't wear them.
The image could be sharp and clear, but how would I know?

Directly answered and good question. Sometimes democracy is a bane, but others we lack consensus or at least majority sentiments.

[amethyst]

Could be the themes used that creates that perception. I also use the default Xenial theme with Bionic and it does have a clean and bright look. I had to add/copy the "Shiny" gtk theme from Xenial. The tray/menu/window theme is "Stark_blueish"

[JASpup]

Could be the themes used that creates that perception. I also use the default Xenial theme with Bionic and it does have a clean and bright look. I had to add/copy the "Shiny" gtk theme from Xenial. The tray/menu/window theme is "Stark_blueish"

The GTK themes make a significant difference in appearance.

As written in an earlier post it's the entire desktop.

Can anyone address:

• LXDE in the boot sequence text?

• A gui look beyond the cursor theme that's not like previous JWM pups?

• No common understanding of how to implement the simplier desktop?

I tried LXQt with hopes but it's not an improvement over JWM in Puppy. How to remove? Delete the ydrv. Yet if LXDE is builtin?

Then as discussed in other current threads, browser compatibility beyond just dependencies are an issue in newer pups. As theoretically anything older should work in anything new, this is often not the case.

So why have I been in Tahr recently? Dependencies like your experience in Precise making it compatible with the new while not losing the old and a full 200mb pup (still happy to .xz Xenial).

[amethyst]

Could be the themes used that creates that perception. I also use the default Xenial theme with Bionic and it does have a clean and bright look. I had to add/copy the "Shiny" gtk theme from Xenial. The tray/menu/window theme is "Stark_blueish"

The GTK themes make a significant difference in appearance.

As written in an earlier post it's the entire desktop.

Can anyone address:

• LXDE in the boot sequence text?

• A gui look beyond the cursor theme that's not like previous JWM pups?

• No common understanding of how to implement the simplier desktop?

I tried LXQt with hopes but it's not an improvement over JWM in Puppy. How to remove? Delete the ydrv. Yet if LXDE is builtin?

Then as discussed in other current threads, browser compatibility beyond just dependencies are an issue in newer pups. As theoretically anything older should work in anything new, this is often not the case.

So why have I been in Tahr recently? Dependencies like your experience in Precise making it compatible with the new while not losing the old and a full 200mb pup (still happy to .xz Xenial).

My adapted Precise Puppy's base sfs is 85MB in size (that's with a glibc2.20 upgrade included).

[JASpup]

My adapted Precise Puppy's base sfs is 85MB in size (that's with a glibc2.20 upgrade included).

Good for you. Quick response.

[mouldy]

I wander a bit time to time. Used BusterDog (liked it) until a botched attempt at merging a storage partition into main one for more space made half the SSD unusable. Then been using MX19 for while. I like MX19, dont like the sudo craziness too much but except for Puppy family and Knoppix, they all do the big brother thing "for our own good". Yea giving myself permission to use my own personal computer really makes me feel safe....

Recently tried Manjaro. I think its ok. It came with adb and openvpn preinstalled so that helps me a lot since I tether my phone with Azilink which requires both. EasyTether which I mostly use with windows only requires adb. But it doesnt play nice with some linux distributions. It too worked well with Manjaro.

Today installed FossaPup64. Ah felt like home again. It doesnt come with either adb or openvpn, but I just statically copied files over from MX and it worked. Using it now tethered with Azilink. Alas couldnt get EasyTether to work. When your only connection is tethering to a phone, its annoying to manually install downloaded software to make it happen. Didnt take nearly amount files Fedora did. Fedora35 now there is a big brother system. Bleh, right up there with Ubuntu. But any linux is fine, some just take lot more work to make livable. The sudo craze can usually be undone at least to where you dont have to enter the password even if you still have to type sudo all the time.

[JASpup]

Booted uPupBB today for memory jog --

The LXDE reference related to the kernel, lxpup pae 4.x etc.

The desktop renders clearer than I remember it, but still not as clear as Tahr or Xenial and looking a bit like LXDE.

From what I remember, the +D pups are back to standard JWM desktop rendering.

Ergo, the curiosity here is just about what makes uPupBB look different.

I'd still have browser compatibility issues to resolve to use it.

[mikewalsh]

Today installed FossaPup64. Ah felt like home again.

@mouldy :-

Oh, yeah. It's nice to 'come home', every once in a while, and just immediately feel 'comfy' again......ain't it?

Keep the faith, bro..!! Puppy roolz, yeah?

Mike.