Linux Pro Magazine Questions With a Deadline of Oct 7

[rockedge]

Please add your contributions as posts to this topic.

Thanks for coordinating this for me. Anyone should respond should include
a name or handle, and a brief description of their involvement with PL. If
an existing blog or FAQ answers a question, just a link will be fine. No
one should feel obliged to answer any question; I know there are a lot.

I will, of course, be doing my own research, but as a newcomer I may miss
things, so guidance is much appreciated.

I will need all answers by Friday, October 7 to give me time to write. My
apologies for not posting sooner, but a family crisis came up.

My goal is to depict distributions as they see themselves, and to represent
their group opinions so far as possible within 2000 words. For those who
are nervous about my coverage, I suggest you contact Devuan, whose project
was satisfied with my coverage earlier this year.

- On the forum, some people said that coverage of Puppy Linux always misses
some important facts about PL. What do other writers miss?

- How would you summaize the principles that unite PL?

- How and why did PL grow into a family of distros?

- How would you describe relationships between family members? What
distinguishes family members? (Note: if I get a fairly complete list, I'll
include a table with the article.)

- What features or apps are unique to PL?

- Any stats about users, downloads, or developers?

- Given the memory on systems of the last decade, why is a compact distro
like PL relevant today?

- How is PL organized? How are stewards chosen, and what are their
responsibilities? How are decisions made?

- Is there any roadmap for the future?

- Is there anything else you would like people to know about PL?

Looking forward to the answers! And thanks for everybody's time.

- Bruce Byfield

[mikewalsh]

- What features or apps are unique to PL?

To start the ball rolling, I think the most obvious feature that is unique to Puppy Linux has to be the way in which Puppy saves any configuration changes from one session to the next. This is of course the 'save-folder/save-file'.

This is made possible by the aufs layering file-system employed by Puppy, in which different layers are merged together to present a homogenous "whole" to the user. Since the 'save-folder/save-file' contains all changes between sessions, in conjunction with the 'read-only' system files, it follows that this is the one item which needs to be saved and/or backed up.

Although Puppy is supplied with various backup tools, it's perfectly possible to back this item up with a simple copy/paste operation; this is my own preferred method, which I do across the kennels once a fortnight. This one item, added to a 'vanilla' install of your Puppy - as it comes, OOTB, from the ISO - will restore your Puppy to its fully-functional & personalized former glory.

The 'save-file' was the original method of implementation; it contains a full Linux file-system within, and thus allows for installing to, say, a factory-formatted flash drive (always FAT32). It's limited by its initially-created size; although it CAN be enlarged as time passes, it cannot easily be shrunk.

The 'save-folder' was brought into being to make this all easier; it's a simple directory, which will of course expand/contract as and when required, up to the maximum space permitted by whatever partition your Puppy is installed to.

Mike.

[geo_c]

- Given the memory on systems of the last decade, why is a compact distro
like PL relevant today?

I'd like to address this question from an avid puppy user perspective, as I'm not a developer.

As a self-employed musician and educator, I use computers constantly for many tasks, and at many locations. I currently have 7 active laptops, all which are able to do resource-intesive pro-audio recording, live music performance, sheet music creation and editing, video and image editing, as well as typical office document creation and contact management. None of these laptop computers are newer than 4 years old. In fact the most recent is 4 years old, the next 6 years, the next 10 years, and backward. The processors range from i5-7th generation backward to a single 1.6ghz cpu. The highest ram capacity is 8gb on two of those machines, the lowest is 2gb.

After years of using MS Windows and trying mainstream distrubutions like Ubuntu, I stumbled on puppy-linux. It was a revelation to me 15 years ago that my systems could be easily installed, backed-up, broken and restored without a care, and experimented with thoroughly. I not only have literal identical saved user settings/applications on 7 machines, but on an equal number of portable storage media. In that respect, a personal puppy system can evolve for years. I'm currently using Fossapup, and for the past 2 1/2 years I've refined my personal system and kept it in sync across all my computers. Until these machines suffer major hardware failure, they will always work with this OS, and all will be virtually the same computer, with the same theme changes, applications, data.

Puppy's small size and hardware backwards compatibility give life to machines that most large distro users might throw in the garbage.

Not only do I have 7 laptops, but 4 of them were "hand-me-downs." Other people's garbage. And certainly with Windows installed they were useless. Installing puppy on a hard drive will perform better than the machine originally did with Windows. I'm sure other distros out there perform well also. But puppy offers a world of possibility in the productive use of older hardware.

Of course on newer hardware, puppy is blazing fast. For pro-audio this means one can record 32 tracks of 24/96 wav files on a machine with an intel i5 and 8gb of ram. That's almost ridiculous. But I do it daily. And the software is free. I don't even have to install the OS on the hard drive to achieve these results, because the system runs in ram. The only limitations are USB port speeds and storage medium write speeds.

So the answer is that compact also means portable, which means syncable, which means amazingly versatile with great longevity of use.

George Christopher: @geo_c

[williwaw]

- How is PL organized? How are stewards chosen, and what are their
responsibilities? How are decisions made?

Organization (some info at the wiki needs updating)
Project Statement
DoOcracy

Barry turned the Puppy reins over to the community ten years ago, and still develops EasyOs here

- How and why did PL grow into a family of distros?

Primarily though the use of build scripts

- How would you describe relationships between family members?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgLLKSL-S1s

What distinguishes family members? (Note: if I get a fairly complete list, I'll include a table with the article.)

Active projects Listed in the "Mainline Puppy Linux Distros" section of the forum are considered pedigree Puppys by some and include
666philb 's Fossapup64
Peebee's LxPupSc64, SCPup, VoidPup
01micko's Slacko
dimkr's Vanilla Dpup

While active Projects Listed in the "Forum" sub section all have strong followings, but are often described as not true Puppys while sharing similarities and/or heritage
Debian Dog,
EasyOs
Fatdog

[bigpup]

Been using, working on, codding programs, helping people fix problems, testing, fixing bugs, etc... since 2009

What features or apps are unique to PL?

On the forum, some people said that coverage of Puppy Linux always misses
some important facts about PL. What do other writers miss?

1. That Puppy loads the complete Puppy OS into RAM.

The Puppy save file/folder is loaded as read/write, but not loaded into RAM.

2. The main operating system files are read only and cannot be changed.

3. All changes are done inside a read/write capable save file or save folder.
This save file/folder is a complete Linux file system inside it.
However, it only has Linux file system parts, that provide different stuff, from the actual working file system.
When the save is loaded (layered into) the operating file system, everything is as one complete operating Linux file system.
Example:
Save has a changed /usr/share/themes directory, with some new themes, in it.
When the save loads, it's /usr/share/themes gets layered into the operating file system, and to the user looking at the file system, this stuff will be seen as part of it.

4. Puppy has a lot of programs that are specifically made by people that use, work on, develop, code software, etc... that are specifically only found in Puppy Linux.
Most are specific programs, to do specific things. not multiple stuff.
Most are simple script files, that can easily be edited, if anyone want to tweak them.
Usually the person that produced the program, does the tweaking.
A few examples:
Pup-Sysinfo ->A complete information program, providing info about everything in the computer.
Network connection programs. Several different ones.
Pfind ->A file search program.
Just about all the programs offered in the Applications Menu -> Desktop or System or Setup or Utility.
About half the programs in the rest of the menu sections are made by people for Puppy specifically.

5. With the Puppy frugal install method. Frugal is the name, it is still the complete Puppy OS, just installed inside a folder.
A frugal install can be installed to any drive partition, with any format.
It can be frugally installed inside of another operating system location.
Example:
Inside Windows C drive. To Windows it is just another folder, on C drive.
Can have multiple frugal installs of different Puppy versions, on the same partition of a drive. A boot loader, with menu entries to boot each one.
The most I ever put on one partition of a drive was 32, but the only limit is free space, on the partition.

6. Puppy does not auto mount drive partitions, except for the one the save is on, which is usually, also the one the Puppy install is on.
The desktop has icons for all the drive partitions, the computer has.
Left click on one to mount it.
Left click on the icon mount indicator to un-mount it.
There are settings in Pmount program, to make specific partitions, always mounted, on boot up.

7. The look of Puppy Linux desktop, and about anything else is fully adjustable.
All kinds of adjustments to look, can be done.
Example:
This is a highly modified theme, desktop, program windows, etc....

Screenshot.jpg (60.23 KiB) Viewed 3802 times

.
8. The Rox file manager, that comes with most Puppy versions, does not have a trash option.
So, Puppy has a trash icon on the desktop, to provide trash operations. (puppy trash)
In a Rox window, to put something in the trash, you drag and drop it onto the desktop trash icon.
For options, you right click on the trash icon, and get a menu of options.
Click on a item in the trash and you see options for what to do with it.
Some Puppy versions have added a trash option, in the Rox right click menu.
But the trash it goes into is this Puppy trash.

[bigpup]

How would you summarize the principles that unite PL?

- How and why did PL grow into a family of distros?

this answers both questions.

Puppy Linux is an operating system, that anyone can develop a version of.
Everyone can code software programs for Puppy Linux.
When you become a user of Puppy Linux, you also become a member of the Puppy Linux team.
You can do as little or as much as you want to.
Just use Puppy Linux.
Help test new versions.
Help find fixes to issues.
Suggest stuff to have in Puppy Linux.
Suggest changes to how it all works.
Add a feature to some Puppy program.
Develop your own version of Puppy Linux.
Modify any version of Puppy Linux to how you like it and then offer it to others to use.
Help people new to Puppy Linux.
Get involved in helping someone produce a new Puppy program.
Everything is open to everyone.

Also this forum, where anything and everything Puppy, can be done.
We all help each other and do something for Puppy Linux.
This forum gives us a place to do it.

I have seen many new Puppy users, come to this forum for help, and soon,
they are providing bug fixes, help to others, testing software and Puppy versions, providing their modified version of a Puppy version, etc....

It got to be a family of distros.
Because you are free to make any version of Puppy you want to and have whatever you want to in it.
So, there is always more than one new version being offered.
They all follow the basic setup and operation, but after that, it is a free for all, what they are.

Also, a size of 400MB operating system, cannot possibly support every computer, ever made.
So one Puppy version, may support your computer and hardware, better than another version.
Most computers are supported, by a lot of Puppy versions, for basic operation.
Some specific hardware problem, is usually a missing driver or firmware, but it can usually be found and added.

No Puppy version is ever not available to download and use.
The old versions work OK on older computers.
The biggest thing driving a new Puppy version release, is needed support for very new computers.
They need the newer Linux kernel, newer firmware, etc...
But the newer version of Puppy will also have the newest changes, to everything in Puppy that has been tweaked, improved, added, etc....

[bigpup]

bump

[mikeslr]

Wikipedia can provide specific dates regarding the publication of Puppy Versions, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_Linux#History as can this page at ibiblio, http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/. I don’t know when the Original Puppy Linux Discussion Forum was first published. I only became involved about the time Puppy Version 3 appeared.

By now you’ve probably been advised that a do-orchy develops Puppy Linux. That’s because almost from its inception "Puppy Linux" has been two things in a symbiotic relationship: the technology and the Forum. The Forum would have little purpose without the technology; but without the Forum the technology would exist somewhere buried among the billion or so blogs on the Web.

The technology was devised by Barry Kauler as a means by which a Linux operating system could co-exist on a computer manufactured to run Windows. All the components of first Puppys were compiled by him from ‘scratch’: the operating system, the file-manager, the Window-manager, the applications and the ‘infra-structure’ which linked them together. Co-existence with Windows was established by employing the technology, later aufs, which merged file-systems in RAM. As currently evolved, this post explains how the technology now works. https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=5818

An early 'fan' of Barry Kauler’s work, John Murgha established the first Puppy LInux Discussion Forum and maintained it until his passing.

Sometime early on --at least by 2007 with Version 3-- the Puppy Linuxes Barry Kauler published contained an application enabling a User to remaster it: to exclude from it applications which weren’t wanted and include within it those which hadn’t been. John Murgha’s Forum became the place on the Web where users could discuss their problems, projects and successes; and provide links to the Remasters they published.

In Version 3, Barry K decided not to compile everything ‘from scratch’ but rather employed binaries from Slackware; still, however, using the ‘infra-structure’ unique to Puppy. Although with version 4 Barry K again compiled everything from scratch, by Version 5 he had created Woof. Woof is an application which theoretically can use the binaries of any distro* to create a Puppy. The Puppy so created would still employ Puppys unique ‘infra-structure' and its technology. Barry would publish three Puppys employing woof [wary, for older computers, racy for newer computers and quirky which included some then cutting edge technology that interested Barry K.]

By then Barry Kauler had devoted 7 years to Puppy Linux. Desiring to be relieved of the burden of producing it --so as to explore more cutting edge technologies-- he officially retired [for the 3rd and final time]. With that announcement he ceased to even be fondly referred to as ‘Beneficent Dictator’ and became a ‘mere member’ of the Puppy Linux Discussion Forum; appearing from ‘time to time’ to provide advice, but often to discuss several Puppy-forks he developed. The latest is EasyOS,
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 672#p67672

With his retirement, Puppy ceased to be an operating system limited only by his great imagination, capabilities and interests. It became a family of operating systems limited only by the interest, capabilities and imagination of anyone who chooses to participate. And Puppy Linux Discussion Forum became their vehicle to communicating to others the projects they undertook.

Jemimah, a ‘mere member’ used Woof to create a new Puppy, Saluki. With it she spurred on Puppy’s modularization: removing drivers and firmware from the ‘core’ sfs and locating them in a zdrv.sfs which is loaded into RAM on boot-up. With that evolution it became easy to ‘swap kernels’. It was no longer necessary to replace your Puppy with a newer one in order to have the latest kernel's capabilities and security fixes; or --when required by a computer limitations-- swap in an older kernel with the benefits of being able to use much of the latest software. Forum members –among them rockedge, ozsouth and peebee-- chose to produce and publish kernel packages which could be employed in such swaps. While even a ‘newbie’ can perform a swap manually –it only involves renaming files and substituting the new for the old-- another forum member (I believe 01micko) published an application to automate that.

Need, or just interested, in some ‘old’ Puppy? Unlike others, Puppy abandons nothing. Thanks in part to ally at archive.org, almost all old Puppys have been archived. And Puppy Linux Discussion Forum members will help you get the most out of the computer you have and any Puppy it can run.

With Barry K’s retirement, forum member 01micko and several others took on the responsibility of maintaining of Woof (now called Woof-CE). You’ll have to ask him, dimkr or rockedge about the current makeup of Woof-CE's maintainers and developers. Woof-CE is maintained at github and I’m not a member. But even if you are not a member of the ‘woof team’, you are free to clone woof-CE to your computer and modify it in order to create the Puppy you imagine.
Woof-CE
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE

Because Puppies employ their own infrastructure –not entirely that of its binary-compatible-- not every application published for that binary-compatible will work under Puppys out-of-the-box. Some forum members have stepped-up to provide Puppy versions; others to provide technologies to use applications not designed for Puppys; and others still to explain and guide forum members on how to make use of such ‘alien’ technology.

Even under John Murgha Puppy Linux Discussion Forum was not restricted to the Puppys Barry Kauler or others published. Discussion of other portable operating systems, such as the ‘debian dogs’, was welcomed. The ‘debian dogs’ are true debian or Ubuntu systems, portablized and otherwise adapted to function similarly to Puppies. That inclusion has benefited both Puppys and 'debian dogs' thru cross-fertilization of ideas, to some extent technologies, and by efforts of fan/users who contribute to both.

With the passing of John Murgha, rockedge stepped up to create the current Puppy LInux Discussion Forum. Continuing John Murgha’s ‘open door’ policy, The Forum now provides a home to other portablization technologies and the operating systems they enable, such as wiak’s ‘weedogit.sh’, viewtopic.php?t=5205&sid=5c3a7f74df9f31 ... 9de0ce484d and its product, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewfo ... V-Airedale, a ‘Puppified’ void.

A do-ocracy is the least efficient type of organization for providing A solution to a known problem. It is the most efficient and human way to provide a variety of solutions to and for a complex and ever-changing environment.

-------
* Although in theory any distro can be used –arch and mandrake Puppys have been published-- in practice debian/Ubuntu, Slackware and recently Void have been the sources for binaries. My guess is Slackware for its stability, debian/Ubuntu for their wealth of applications, and recently Void for it modern take on an operating system’s technology

[bigpup]

Given the memory on systems of the last decade, why is a compact distro
like PL relevant today?

Because it is small, but still has all the programs in it you probably want to use.
It completely loads into memory, so it runs very fast.
It can be installed anyplace and not take over a partition.
The core operating system is read only files and only changes are made in the save file/folder.
Etc.....

Why not have a small operating system.
If Puppy Linux can work only being around 300MB to 500MB in size.
Why are 4GB+ operating systems better to use?

To really understand the appeal of using Puppy Linux.
You have to use it!

I can install a Puppy version in about 5 minutes and have it booted and setup.
Having all the programs I needed.

Last time I installed Windows 10.
It took 3 + hours and about 3 reboots to finally get to a working desktop.
I still had to install programs to get it providing what I needed.

[bigpup]

How is PL organized? How are stewards chosen, and what are their
responsibilities? How are decisions made?

This info on the puppylinux.com web site is about the best info on this.
https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/team.html

Woof-CE members:
The only one on that list, that I know for sure, is a good one, is 01micko the Puppy Master.
Well some of the others probably are still good, but people come and go.
It is a little slow, keeping this list updated, and no one gets that bent out of shape, if they are not on the list.
dimkr sure should be on it.

Documentation updating, is one of the weak areas, in Puppy Linux.
Someone has to volunteer to do it.

As far as who produces a Puppy version and what is in it.
Anyone can do it!

There are several people that have done it for years.
Their names are the ones, that provided some of the Puppy versions, found in the forum section: Mainline Puppy Linux Distros.
viewforum.php?f=114

[wiak]

Even under John Murgha Puppy Linux Discussion Forum was not restricted to the Puppys Barry Kauler or others published. Discussion of other portable operating systems, such as the ‘debian dogs’, was welcomed. The ‘debian dogs’ are true debian or Ubuntu systems, portablized and otherwise adapted to function similarly to Puppies. That inclusion has benefited both Puppys and 'debian dogs' thru cross-fertilization of ideas, to some extent technologies, and by efforts of fan/users who contribute to both.

With the passing of John Murgha, rockedge stepped up to create the current Puppy LInux Discussion Forum. Continuing John Murgha’s ‘open door’ policy, The Forum now provides a home to other portablization technologies and the operating systems they enable, such as wiak’s ‘weedogit.sh’

Yes this forum is not the Puppy Linux development site. It is a discussion forum started with discussions about Puppy Linux, but login-registered members tended to discuss what they wanted to.

I wish to make it clear that the previously named weedogit.sh or any FirstRib Linux released components have nothing to do with Puppy Linux distro at all (the old discussion threads remain as an archive only under this forum 'Other distros' section for the convenience of rockedge's KLV-Airedale users and others). At the time I developed FirstRIb in early 2019, which started as a build script to produce a pure Void Linux root filesystem via busybox and Void Linux official package manager xbps, the host system I myself had been almost entirely using for over six years at the time was DebianDog, which used Porteus Linux aufs-based initramfs boot mechanism. I used DD because it was otherwise a small pretty much pure Debian Live based system, but any Linux host would have sufficed for my developments. I then designed an initramfs from scratch (using overlayfs not aufs) to boot the FirstRib Void root filesystem my initial build script created. I was no doubt influenced by the features I was used to that were provided by Porteus Linux initrd, but not consciously, and I didn't know the internal workings of aufs-based Porteus initrd anyway though I believe that has an open-source license too.

FirstRib Linux and its development also has nothing to do with Puppy Linux woof-CE development site. Furthermore, FIrstRib components, such as its overlayfs-based initramfs, which is generic enough in design to work with most mainstream distro root filesystems, are published with a MIT license, so of course KLV or any distribution is free to use it or any part of it per these open-source license conditions.

[mikewalsh]

dimkr sure should be on it.

Mm! I agree. I think Dima has for long enough been very underrated by our community....

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Dima+Krasner&t=h_&ia=web

Credit where credit is due, huh?

Mike.

[wiak]

dimkr sure should be on it.

Mm! I agree. I think Dima has for long enough been very underrated by our community....

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Dima+Krasner&t=h_&ia=web

Credit where credit is due, huh?

Mike.

Em... I really don't understand these kind of posts. It is clearly stated in the team link bigpup posted:

Dima Krasner (iguleder)

being dimkr as most anyone here already knows?

Wayland, Pipewire, and so on, are just apps. It sounds almost as if adding a new app to woof-CE, requires mammoth and near impossible months of hard work. Eh? I suspect adding a new app to woof-CE isn't so difficult, but if it is I am glad I don't use it.

Anyway, there you have it - dimkr, that some say should be on Puppy Team as a steward ... is. He is apparently too busy adding Wayland and pipewire 'into woof-CE' to involve himself in the OP request for steward help.

With KLV, adding pipewire is pretty much a matter of typing: xbps-install -Sy pipewire (or using octoxbps gui package manager frontend), or double your effort and add alsa-pipewire - similarly for Wayland and selecting suitable wayland compatible desktop and if you want legacy X then xbps-install -Sy xorg-server-xwayland. Similarly for Arch Linux FirstRib-initrd-based distros: viewtopic.php?p=26198#p26198

Maybe Puppy struggles a bit in this modern world? But I think modifying scripts in a build system does not involve any superman efforts, not for me, not for anyone doing such scripting.

The real heroes are all upstream and we all just take what they give us and install the new stuff provided onto our wee distros (no idea why some describe what they do as if they wrote wayland or pipewire and so on - it is not as if anyone on this forum is writing these components - no, these are just components that can be installed on any modern Linux distro. Perhaps I make such work sound simple - that's because basically it is - upstream provides all the hard work and recipes for such additions and should be given the actual credit. It is not as if Wayland developers haven't been working on that for 14 years now and I doubt much code for pipewire or Wayland has been contributed from here - maybe a little, I don't know - no reason why not, but no big deal.

More general Linux problem lies with Nvidia (historic lack of) support for Wayland - woof-CE nothing to do with that of course - we wait on upstream to fix and support...

So back to the OP request for any Puppy Linux steward for assistance to write blurb about Puppy Linux distro - they are so busy I hear - ask again later.

As for submitting 'inventions' to have them patented... hmmm... so very much against open-source 'freedom' community approach. But yes, if you can word something as a new invention and pay the submission you might get a patent for it and become the next Linux Monsanto (or Linux Bayer). University research groups tend to patent anything and everything they can (I know, I was in one - pretty much every completed project was drafted up and patented by the group... some made money because of the resulting patent rights, most not, but who knows when an old patent may end up able to control the market somewhere or other). A new thread comes to mind: What can the Puppy Linux forum patent in relation to the way Puppy works? Please patent woof-CE. Maybe forum donations left over from paying for hosting should be sent to dimkr - at least as an encouragement for him to provide help to the OP of this thread (assuming other stewards remain so noticeable by their absence here)?

[dimkr]

- On the forum, some people said that coverage of Puppy Linux always misses
some important facts about PL. What do other writers miss?

Most writers just focus on BionicPup or FossaPup, and ignore everything else.

- Given the memory on systems of the last decade, why is a compact distro
like PL relevant today?

Memory is no longer the bottleneck in my cases, that's true. Many old computers have at least 4 GB of RAM. But these computers don't get faster as they age and software bloat makes them progressively slower.

When built right, a Puppy can be lighter, more reliable and more efficient than other distros. For example, the default settings in most distros favor machines with plenty of RAM and don't mind waste of RAM (e.g. CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE_ALWAYS=y), text rendering can be faster when hinting is disabled by default, zram swap is much faster than disk-based swap when the disk is an old hard drive, unreliable Bluetooth adapters (like the one in my 11 year old Thinkpad) work so much better thanks to PipeWire (despite its size), and some old computers with slow CPUs are much more usable with Wayland and a browser with VA-API support, because some of the rendering and decoding work is offloaded to the previously under-utilized GPU. Most distros don't come pre-configured like that.

Also, Puppy reduces writing to disk and can run just fine from an external drive, if the internal one is dead. Some cheap or old laptops have slow SATA SSDs or even eMMC: unlike other OSs, Puppy flies on these machines and doesn't crash often when the SSD is sick.

- How is PL organized? How are stewards chosen, and what are their
responsibilities? How are decisions made?

They choose their responsibilities. Those who want to do find a way to contribute (report a bug on the forum, submit a woof-CE pull request and so on). It's a do-ocracy.

My "responsibility", the way I see it, is securing Puppy's future. I focus on automated infrastructure and dpup with PipeWire, Flatpak, Wayland and overlay support:

• I set up an automated pipeline that build kernels (https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... el-kit.yml), to reduce the maintenance burden of Puppy kernels. Puppy developers who don't want to maintain their own kernels can use these ready-made kernels.

• I set up an automated CI/CD pipeline that rebuilds legacy Puppy builds like BionicPup64 and Slacko 7.0 using the latest woof-CE, to ensure that woof-CE is still backward compatible and works for those who want to do things "the old way". This protects the "status quo" that allows woof-CE to build a variety of Puppy family distros.

• To democratize Puppy development by reducing the requirements for running woof-CE and making builds more reproducible, I set up an automated pipeline that runs woof-CE directly on GitHub (https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... -on-GitHub) and added a mechanism for building packages from source inside woof-CE (https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/1984).

• I work on Wayland support (https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... nd-Support) and decoupling of Puppy from aufs (https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... sions/3362). I write and merge Wayland-related or overlay-related changes that don't affect other developers' work, and Wayland support in woof-CE is clearly separated from X.Org related things like xorgwizard and .xinitrc. When I change something that may break other Puppy flavors or introduces risk, I ask somebody else to review it before it's closed and abandoned, or merged.

• Puppy is slower and heavier than it used to be, and I'm constantly looking for ways to make it faster and lighter. https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/2435, https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3440 and https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3461 are good examples.

• I fix "traditional" Puppy usability issues (that some people who use Puppy for many years see as cute little quirks), like https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/2543, https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/2057 and https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/2899.

- Is there any roadmap for the future?

I can only speak of my own work. Most of my work these days is inside these three:

https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... lestone/17
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... projects/1
https://github.com/orgs/puppylinux-woof ... /1/views/1

Completed items appear in Vanilla Dpup 10.x development builds in https://vanilla-dpup.github.io/, usually after a day or two.

- Is there anything else you would like people to know about PL?

The latest "official" release doesn't reflect the the development in woof-CE in the last 2 years. The next "official" release will be so much better, and some "unofficial" releases provide a sneak peak.

Anyway, there you have it - dimkr, that some say should be on Puppy Team as a steward ... is. He is apparently too busy adding Wayland and pipewire 'into woof-CE' to involve himself in the OP request for steward help.

I don't have numbers, but I find most of your posts in this forum to be unconstructive criticism of Puppy or other developers and I don't see how your comments help answer the questions.

[wiak]

And there you have it... from the mouth of woof-CE,

You've done plenty of 'attacking' dimkr. Expect the karma back and the challenge to many of your best of the best claims - easy to claim such perfection to a mostly not-particularly-technical audience. You even rubbish other Puppy devs the way you often put things - bad idea.

[dimkr]

And there you have it... from the mouth of woof-CE

Please, just get yourself a forum if you're here to troll. Oh wait, you already have one!

[wiak]

And there you have it... from the mouth of woof-CE

Please, just get yourself a forum if you're here to troll. Oh wait, you already have one!

And maybe when Puppy forum members make requests here for something they belief should be supported or continue to be supported in Puppy Linux, you should not with a wave of your hand dismiss them as if only you know what is best. This is a forum. This is not the Puppy Linux dev site.

But don't worry, now that you've chosen to be a steward per the OP request you will be left alone here. I only dropped by this thread because of a post categorizing my own family distro work in a way that made Puppy Linux something to do with it, which is isn't and good to have one of these woof-CE 'team' saying something to clarify what Puppy Linux is and what it isn't.

[dimkr]

And maybe when Puppy forum members make requests here for something they belief should be supported or continue to be supported in Puppy Linux, you should not with a wave of your hand dismiss them as if only you know what is best.

It's a do-ocracy, I choose where to invest my time and don't have the resources to support every possible feature and use case. I guess sometimes it's best for users to have one thing that works well instead of two half-broken things.

Do you have hobbies? Do you prioritize sometimes, too?

This is a forum. This is not the Puppy Linux dev site.

So let's discuss how to make Puppy better, or how to answer these questions.

[bigpup]

Is there anything else you would like people to know about PL?

Keep this in mind when you start trying to use Puppy Linux:
viewtopic.php?t=5722

[bigpup]

I do not know how much you want to get into the actual way Puppy operates.
But for the information you can read this:
http://bkhome.org/archive/puppylinux/de ... works.html

The first part is about the principles of operation and why.

About halfway down is the summary.
Specific info on how the different possible ways it works.
The operation depends on what pupmode it is running in.
Also what device you are booting from.

Note:
This refers to a live install to a CD/DVD or USB stick.
This is having all the files that are in a Puppy ISO placed on the CD/DVD or USB stick.
A boot loader to boot it, and the Puppy OS, are in the Puppy ISO, for this type install.

Frugal install.
The common recommended way to install Puppy to an internal drive or really any read/write capable drive.
Is called frugal install.
All the Puppy OS files inside a folder.
A boot loader is installed to boot it.
It operates first in pupmode 5.
After making a save file or folder and boot using it.
It will run in pupmode 12 or 13, depending on drive type it is on.

[mikeslr]

If you still have a little time, before criticizing the 'plain out-of-the-'80s' default desktop, scan thru Show Us Your Desktop, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=429, perhaps stopping at

https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 736#p10736
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 251#p12251
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 294#p47294
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 12#p63212
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 671#p13671
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 476#p21476
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 45#p23645
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 129#p47129
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 511#p53511
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 515#p53515

As with much of 'Puppy' the limiting factors are interest and imagination.

[geo_c]

If you still have a little time, before criticizing the 'plain out-of-the-'80s' default desktop, scan thru Show Us Your Desktop, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=429, perhaps stopping at

As with much of 'Puppy' the limiting factors are interest and imagination.

Oh, but my gtk high contrast themes are SO much better now than the one you included.

[bbyfield]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer. Between these detailed answers and my own explorations, I hope to portray PL with some accuracy.

The column should run in #265 of Linux Pro Magazine. If anyone wants a copy, write to:

cs@linuxpromagazine.com

I can't speak for customer service, you understand, but if you mention you contributed to the article, you may very well get a free copy of the article.

[mikewalsh]

@geo_c :-

Just as an aside, George, I have to commend you for your sheer dedication and attention to detail on your icon sets and themes. As a graphic artist myself, I can appreciate the amount of work that's gone into them.....and that's despite the fact that I personally loathe the modern 'fad' for the 'flat look'.

I use a very eclectic range of icons, it's true (I have an icons directory with, at present, over 730 icons to choose from!), but then my tastes run more to the time period around the late 2000's / early 2010s; Vista/early Win 7-era.....when icons had some depth and a 3D aspect to them. No criticism of your efforts; that's just me.

(Even with so many to choose from, I still often find myself wanting something new.....and if I can't find something suitable online, I'll often create my own from scratch, or by combining multiple elements from several web searches. I'm a bit like a woman here; a wardrobe full of clothes, yet still haven't got a thing to wear! )

Keep up the good work, mate. You're a credit to the community, and I know your work is appreciated by many here.

Mike.

[geo_c]

I use a very eclectic range of icons, it's true (I have an icons directory with, at present, over 730 icons to choose from!),

(Even with so many to choose from, I still often find myself wanting something new.....and if I can't find something suitable online, I'll often create my own from scratch, or by combining multiple elements from several web searches. I'm a bit like a woman here; a wardrobe full of clothes, yet still haven't got a thing to wear! )

Funny, because I'm at this very moment combing through xfce-look.org for themes and icons, and in the icon department I just have a hard time getting behind very much. I've grown used to the sheer clarity of the blocked monochrome flat icon. It's a pure symbol, like a street sign, or a cave drawing. I see so many icon sets that require a good deal of examination to get the gist of what it represents.

But I do see a lot of gtk3/4 colorschemes that are appealing. And since I'm using KLV-airedale with an Xfce desktop, I can really see what they do. Interesting though, that with the JWM/GTK combination in other pups, there really is more control, especially with our community written tools, JWM theme maker, and GTK theme maker. However for GTK3/4 themes one needs to delve into the rc files and do some tweaking. Barry K posted a thread where he talked about using a popular GTK theme builder tool, and the resulting themes were enormous in size. I've just tended to download themes and check out their structure, and if constructed with modular scripts that are included in the master script, a lot of tweaking can be done, though time consuming.

[puppy_apprentice]

Has anybody read the article?

[rockedge]

Has anybody read the article?

Yes!!! I bought the article because I couldn't wait for an answer to my request for a free copy. Which in fact did come with a nice email and a PDF attached.

I thought throwing a couple of bucks their way was the right thing to do and I do have a free copy. I will have to find a way to share without disturbing the powers that be,

I think the article is pretty good.

[mikeslr]

I also bought the article and agree with rockedge. Thanks to the author for taking the time to really understand what Puppy is about. And thanks, bigpup, for succinctly capsulizing the salient points others of us tried to make.

[bigpup]

They should have put Puppy on one of the two DVD's that come with the magazine issue.

Seems they had to provide one DVD for Manjaro 21.3.7-220816 and one DVD for Arch Linux 2022.10.01.

That would be something to show off Puppy!

Here is a complete DVD needed to hold the complete Manjaro 21.3.7-220816 or Arch Linux 2022.10.01.

Here is the complete Puppy OS ISO, inside a directory on the DVD, taking up a very small amount of space. 300 to 500 MB of space.

[peppyy]

Was this the one?
https://www.linuxpromagazine.com/Issues ... article_f2