Okay. So, just how secure IS Overlayfs....? (a wider discussion about future Puppy development)

[wiak]

Given the powers of the administrators as stipulated by yourself you should actually have dismissed/banned YOURSELF a long time ago.

Yes, as was pointed out, Puppy Linux development has individuals assigned as stewards, meaning they have admin say over the direction Puppy Linux takes and have rights to include or remove anything they decide, including control over its membership.

In a similar fashion, individuals who have been appointed as administrators of this forum can 'control all facets of the board operation' so, whilst in that position, I can of course remove myself and pretty much anyone else.

But then again I don't need to remove myself. In fact any member can choose to remove themself or ask to be removed and of course that would be done.

However, I need to have this discussion stopped. It does pertain in a way to security of the forum and on its future membership constitution, but I do not believe the request(s) you started, requesting me to leave the forum, have their place in this thread. As I said in response it is you who should leave, and goodbye is the usual farewell; whether anyone would miss you or not is not something I feel obliged to state an opinion about either.

I do hope you understand me.

[amethyst]

Oh yes, I understand. You are threatening to ban me then (which I suppose you can do). However, a word of caution - what message would that send out given your own poor prior conduct on this forum (over a long period of time)? You shouldn't be anywhere near these powers you have been bestowed upon given your own poor track record. But be it as it may. I'm finished posting for now, I have work to do. Do as you please.

[dimkr]

I consider it in the best interest of all distros discussed on this forum that Puppy does well.

Only consider it to be in the best interest, or translate this into actions by doing things in the interest of Puppy and paying attention not to do things not in the interest in Puppy?

Unfortunately, some Puppy users (and it seems to me, dimkr himself) still can't stop thinking about other forum distros as a 'competition' - as if their very presence and existence on this forum is an on purpose threat to Puppy Linux.

Competition is not a problem. Competition is good, if developers find a way to work together, no matter if it's on one codebase or not. Asking a developer of another project for a clear changelog to see why a line was added (because it may be useful elsewhere) or short usage instructions is one thing, but criticizing another project for being unmaintainable and buggy without providing any evidence or specific examples is another. If it's unmaintainable or buggy, and you spotted some issues nobody else did, let's fix it together.

free-riders

When I introduced the term "free-riders" to this thread, what I meant is, non-Puppy distros that don't help Puppy grow: distros that benefit from Puppy's SEO to get people here, share the same forum and have nothing to do with Puppy development other than frequent mentions of Puppy (in negative light mostly, if not in all cases).

[wiak]

When I introduced the term "free-riders" to this thread, what I meant is, non-Puppy distros that don't help Puppy grow: distros that benefit from Puppy's SEO to get people here

Anyway, lets assume rockedge's stated interpretation, which you are saying was indeed your meaning, is correct.

Calling other distros 'free-riders' was an unfortunate term to use then; perhaps I personally think Puppy (a distro belonging to the community) is tending to become a 'free-rider' that relies on these 'Other' distros to keep its forum relevant, but would me calling it that be appreciated by those who use and help develop it, whether the belief of some or not?

I don't myself have much if anything to say about Puppy Linux when I join in discussions in the KL threads. In more general forum discussions, concerning topics such as overlayfs versus aufs, security, matters that effect the popularity of this forum, I have my opinions like everyone else and express my feelings on such matters. Once again, if you re-read the thread, however, I was not attacking Puppy Linux whatsoever, but then the comments about free-riding FirstRib came up, so I replied. What do you expect?

As for the ganging-up behaviors, despite my being used to that painfully re-occurring when I post outside of KL section, the bully-boy gang-pal behaviour is not acceptable to me, and I don't need to keep letting it go on.

I do not have time or wish to help develop Puppy Linux, but I do like to see it progressing beyond the supported traditional old Puppy situation, which certainly, to me, threatens the popularity and usefulness of this forum. I don't care if that also meant that projects I do spend some time on were not noticed or becoming used by anyone - I am not as a person free-riding on anyone... (and no distro has any soul I believe, not even if AI is involved). I only support FR-based distros here nowadays because others put time into that KL-related work so it is only fair to go along with that, and help when I have time. If it were better for the forum as a whole to concentrate on Puppy Linux discussion, that is fine to me, but I don't make such decisions at all.

Once upon a time Puppy Linux was the creative efforts of a single person, who provided it in opensource form to those who wanted to use it (and if they wish add their own enhancements, for their own use, though Puppy Linux creator did emphasize trademarks and so on). Nowadays things are certainly different when it comes to Puppy Linux - it is a product of a build system that has been given to the Community, (to you, and to me, to all) a Community-owned distribution (maybe), for the good and bad of that.

FirstRib is young and not in my opinion of any importance to the outside Linux world; not at all like Puppy Linux was in its BK benevolent dictator years. It is a family-oriented distribution (build system), for my own and family's use, but released as open-source for anyone that finds it useful. I don't make any fuss about trademarks in other usage; it isn't an important enough distro to me or anyone really, but it is (liberal MIT) licensed and since I wrote the main build system code, copyright to me. With that license I also have no issues with it being used for commercial purposes - I can't guarantee some of the code doesn't fall under GNU restrictions - some parts might - I think I do, for example, use readline somewhere. I'm not sure - the matter doesn't concern me personally. Certainly no programmer should copy anyone else's hard work without polite acknowledgement, but legalities and lawyer talk is nothing I am ever interested - would be ridiculous in such a small venue. Like rockedge, I have little or no time for lawyers or those who claim to be in that field somehow - so frightening not. FirstRib has no value or importance in my view - but I enjoy it for various reasons in my own use.

So, no, FirstRib (the build scripts and initrd I have created) are not like Puppy Linux in terms of now being a community-owned system; it's open-source, like Puppy was, but I have not retired from developing it and I have family members who will likely take it over from me from our family's point of view. Of course, lots of utilities and much of the individual new distro plugin build code was not written by me at all - my family have no copyright over any such work of others, but that has to be same liberal MIT licensed.

I don't value FirstRib in any big dream sort of way at all. It is what it is, but what it isn't is purposively free-riding on anyone else's back.

Nor does its existence (in KL form here) prevent me having opinions as a long-time Puppy Linux Discussion Forum member about the Community-given distro, Puppy Linux. As a released to the community system, Puppy belongs to me too, and if I think some aspects of it are awful and need improved, then I can and will say so, just like you, whether you support, create, or use other distros too, or not.

So hope that answers some questions and demands. It's not owned by the community. It is my family's build system. What others add to using it, is theirs. No-one outside my family has a right to demand to know who its developers are or force how it is managed (tho there are no secrets); no right whatsoever to change-logs and so on - none of my family time will be wasted on such demands or matters beyond what we chose to release when we feel like it. Since those who have made the demands for information and so on have no interest in FirstRib anyway, and no rights beyond its provided MIT license there is nothing more that should need said on that topic, here or anywhere else. Puppy Linux as a community-given distro/build-system is different - its appointed stewards have inherent responsibilities to the community they represent (to me and to you...), and also to this forum since they have designated it as official and it promotes Puppy Linux first and foremost.

Until Puppy Linux was released as a community build system and distro to you, and me, we had no such rights either. I haven't read the small print for a long time, but I have a feeling Puppy Linux remains under the claims trademark of its creator. FirstRib isn't into any such claims, so at least you don't need to worry about that.

[dimkr]

What do you expect?

Nothing. Actually, I'm disappointed with myself, because I already know this pattern of "discussion" and had a sliver of hope that this thread won't become yet another thread of this kind. I'm too old to bang my head against the same long reply, with slightly different wording, in yet another thread.

Let's agree to disagree about the nature Puppy Linux, the best ways to develop software, and the intentions of the contributors here.

[wiak]

Let's agree to disagree about the nature Puppy Linux, the best ways to develop software, and the intentions of the contributors here.

I'm fine with that. It is correct I believe to say that we do not disagree so much on what would be a better Puppy (in terms of technology, package management and so on, built into it) than the (once excellent for its time) traditional Puppy - however I also prefer to simply agree to disagree and basically avoid conversation with each other. Pity you have no control over that other person and could all agree to disagree.

[Grey]

Maybe there are more than one bus driver now?
that can drive the bus out of a ditch.

Yes, the topic is very interesting. Just a small correction. It is not the bus driver who needs to be saved - he is a "villain" - but the guy who runs in front of the bus.

In addition, it's a shame that everyone was swearing and no one comments on the video above with the dog costume

[retiredt00]

Dear all,
This is a very entertaining thread I must admit.
Is interesting how everyone looks things through its own distorted glasses.
So here is mine!

Let's start with the new "puppylinux" forum.
Is own by the developer of Kennel Linux with support from a historic "opponent" of puppylinux and developer of First Rib and the current developer and maintainer of Debian/Ubuntu Dog linux.
Long time puppy enthusiasts but not developers, serve as moderators.
No puppy developer past or present has any saying in it. Best case scenarios they can manage their own build threads.
In this forum about 100 persons enjoying playing with puppylinux and friends, which means about 50 different flavors.
Most of these puppies and pupplets have one "developer" and 2-5 active "users".

On the other end, in the woof-CE side there is not really any collaboration or coherent direction in spite of the occasional calls for collaborations and brain storming.
The reality shows that after the initial burst driven by Micko with the involvement of Zigbert, Mavrothal and few more, from 2017 to 2018 wdlkmpx/aaaaa (a person no one knows anything about) pretty much on its own and without any input from the rest, changed in 2 years almost 1 million lines of code and never produced any puppy. Being "criticized" by forum members disappeared.
Then mid 2019 dimkr took over changes and so far has changed ~ half a million lines of code trying to make puppylinux a Debian derivative.
Again pretty much on its own as the sole developer. At least this time puppies are released.
Interesting If you look in the puppylinux site or distrowatch, none of the forum or woof-CE activity is showing and after the puppylinux blog went down there is not even an official announcement of puppylinux'es (assuming there is something official).

Bottom line, currently puppylinux is more a name that gets google hits and less a specific distribution.It is all over the place without any specific direction and coherence.
Is really a toy linux that (fewer and fewer) people have fun with.
This is absolutely fine with the exception of the "fewer and fewer" part, but some people here see themselves too seriously and this generates threads like this one which is amusing but I think it also drives the "fewer and fewer" part.
Hopefully, you do not want to be chiefs without any Indians.
Do you?

[peebee]

Most of these puppies and pupplets have one "developer" and 2-5 active "users".

I think your estimate of users is way too pessimistic........ for example look at how many downloads (>800) there have been at:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pb-gh-releases/files/

and these are just since 29 July 2023 when the last releases were imported from Github.

And these are all "very traditional" Puppy builds (in the main).....

[dimkr]

Then mid 2019 dimkr took over changes and so far has changed ~ half a million lines of code

There are some inaccuracies here, and this sentence can be misleading.

According to https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... ntributors, it's more like late 2021. At the time, I needed a lightweight distro after years away from Puppy, and all recent Puppy releases I found were rebuilds of the same Puppy, again and again, with ancient .pet packages (some from the Puppy 4.3.x era), no Bluetooth audio support, a broken package manager and a new wallpaper. Since then, I added 133K lines while removing 176K lines. Most of them probably come from kernel configuration files and patches, things like https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... 142-x86_64, https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... wire.patch and https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... s.patch#L4, so this counter gives a misleading picture of the true amount of code in woof-CE, or the scope of changes I made.

Most of these lines replace years old kernel and .pet packages with build scripts and reproducible packages (sometimes, also Puppy-specific patches), so if you look at overall maintainability of Puppy, these lines make it more maintainable and not the opposite. Today's woof-CE is much healthier than it used to be back then, and anyone can reproduce dpup easily (good for the bus factor).

trying to make puppylinux a Debian derivative.

In some ways, dpup was a Debian derivative even without my involvement.

90% of my work was migrating it to GTK+ 3, Wayland, PipeWire, overlay and apt, plus automation for the entire build process. Any Puppy can adopt these features, and they're not mandatory. I set up automated build pipeline at https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... py-builder, to ensure that the "old way" of building a Puppy (X.Org, JWM, GTK+ 2, aufs ...) doesn't break, although I recommend anyone interested in Puppy development to opt-in of course.

At least this time puppies are released.

Not only released, they're even released with fixes for years-old issues and poorly written code (sometimes, code that didn't work even when at the time it was pushed):

https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3867
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3475
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3443
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/4087
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3888
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3885
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3783
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3585
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3587
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3452
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/2880
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/1995
...

If you look at the commit log closely you'll see I'm less active nowadays (spending my time in https://github.com/vanilla-dpup/woof-CE ... pup-11.0.x instead), and I hope Puppy development won't stall again.

[retiredt00]

Dear peebee
when I said 2-5 users I'm referring to the forum regulars.
I really wish your builds to get a good traction but I just looked to what you pointed at and 55% of the downloads are from windows machines and another 5% from Android!
Do you have a sense of how many individual IPs the Linux downloads are from and how many of the builds each one gets?

Dear dimkr,
I stand corrected. I looked at the exact page that you pointed but I misread each increment as one year instead of 2. So wdlkmpx/aaaaa from 2016 to 2020 and you from mid 2021 onwards.

Regarding the work per se, both you and wdlkmpx before, focused on the build process, maintainability and stability but not the user and its needs. And that is what created the gap with the forum people I think (besides the power game of course).
I understand you are an IT security expert, but if one wants to have an internet facing machine would you recommend to run puppylinux and friends? Would you recommend it to someone that has a 4 core, 8+ GB machine that want to use for anything other than playing/testing (even if some forum members do this but how many)?
You target your builds as primarily run from a thumb drive so is rather unlikely I would think
So really having another Debian favor without anything distinct makes little sense in the era of MXlinux/AntiX (just to mention the most popular linux according to distrowatch that is also the closest to puppy)

In my mind, even if problematic at times, puppy is a distribution that can install anything from anywhere, can load and unload major parts of the OS with a click of a button, holds the user hand and describes everything that is to be done and how, installs and runs from everywhere, uses considerably less resources from anything else out there and is fun to mess with and learn from a forum of well intended people (not those that tell you to change to something else of course).
Something to install on an old machine and she how much life you can squeeze out of it (even with the highly demanding browsers of today).

If all your dreams come true, how YOUR Puppylinux Debian favor would be better/different than anything else Debian out there?

[Grey]

Bottom line, currently puppylinux is more a name that gets google hits and less a specific distribution.

The half of me responsible for romanticism is opposed to such a formulation. The second half of me, who is responsible for realism, pushes me to agree. That is why I should abstain from voting.

[dimkr]

So really having another Debian favor without anything distinct

In my mind, even if problematic at times, puppy is a distribution that can install anything from anywhere, can load and unload major parts of the OS with a click of a button, holds the user hand and describes everything that is to be done and how, installs and runs from everywhere, uses considerably less resources from anything else out there and is fun to mess with and learn from a forum of well intended people (not those that tell you to change to something else of course).
Something to install on an old machine and she how much life you can squeeze out of it (even with the highly demanding browsers of today).

You asked a question, then answered it.

My dpup builds are way more Debian-compatible than their predecessors, because they include apt and various build system changes to make the result capable of installing more Debian packages without issues. Yes, they're more "Debian" than other Puppy builds, but my intention was never "rebasing" Puppy on top of Debian, but to build a "healthier" Puppy that's very easy to build, reproduce and maintain, with a very wide selection of drivers and firmware, with security updates and bug fixes (not just one release that's frozen in time), where applications "just work" without re-running PPM to hunt down missing dependencies, forcing applications to run as spot manually or forcing audio to work using apulse, among other annoyances.

However, this doesn't mean they don't include the things Puppy Linux is famous for: you can install .pet packages, load SFSs, run things as root, install on a flash drive, run from RAM, boot a random computer without having to add drivers or firmware, swap the kernel, load a SFS (under PUPMODE 5 or 13, which is what you have if you boot from a flash drive) ... and they're optimized for reduced RAM and CPU consumption at the cost of bigger size on disk, which sounds to me like the right compromise for modern software on old computers.

Some people prefer a smaller Puppy, because it feels right, because they think it's faster or because they're low on disk space. But I'm not trying to win them all

[rockedge]

Let's start with the new "puppylinux" forum.

On the Murga forum. I was all about Puppy and Zoneminder.

How about I pack it in and you take over? You'll need $500 in a few weeks to pay the rent for starters. You find it amusing? Well I don't.

I made the effort because I thought the community around Puppy Linux was worth saving....but now you have helped make it very clear where I stand.

You think it was easy getting the Murga forum functional and preserving the original database????? Setting this new forum up....preserving the original links to the old forum?

Didn't see you make a single effort in an around the broken Murga forum and the server going down forever in 30 days after John died.

but some people here see themselves too seriously......

I must not.......since I do the work and listen to how it could be better all for free.....or actually at a financial loss but still expected to care about posts like yours.

[retiredt00]

Dear rockedge
Apologies if my post bothered you.
I can appreciate the effort but I did not see you addressing any of the issues and is not clear to me what you disagree with.
In contrast you appear to say that since you pay the rent and did the effort to make this forum, you have the right to dictate which way it goes.
Sorry, but Murga was paying for ever and Barry was building for ever. They never tried to dictate anything, even when some people were trashing the place and puppylinux per se (some of whom you may know well).

If you are indicating that you may close down this forum because of posts like this one, I will just say, look at the posters' count list and tell me who is going to be really bothered most by it.
The community around puppylinux that you thought to save, is less and less about puppylinux.
So I am not sure whom are warning here.
Besides if you remember, there were alternative forums in the past and whenever a problem was appearing in murga they were bursting with new posts and users. Even Burry had one for some time.
So if a real need for a puppylinux forum exists I'm sure will materialize.
If there is no need, so be it.

Bottom line, I honestly do thank you for having this forum up, but it is not getting you any papal infallibility (that's wiak's ).

[mikewalsh]

@retiredt00 :-

It's super easy to criticise, ain't it? But when it comes to "doing" something to help, it's amazing how many folks suddenly clam-up and have nothing to say all of a sudden.

Understand this. There is one hell of a lot of unseen, 'invisible' effort that goes on behind the scenes, to hold this community together for the benefit of all. Nobody's getting paid for it, and hardly anybody even gets much in the way of just a simple 'Thank you.' Those of us that do contribute, in whatever way we can, do so because we want to. But it can be very demoralising when certain people seem to do nothing but constantly grumble.

Just spare a thought for all the "unsung heroes", please.

Mike.

[ally]

I've been watching with amusement

I find it really difficult to understand why anyone who dislikes Puppy and or the forum insists on staying

I take it for the most part that users here are grown arsed adults, maybe take a minute and read your posts again and reflect, its the same folks again and again so you know who you are, you sound like a bunch of pussies

maybe make your own forum and waddle over there and rant all you like, I suspect the problem would be nobody would visit

I'm sorry for rock' having to put up with this shite over and over again, my respects to you mate

[wiak]

I find it really difficult to understand why anyone who dislikes Puppy and or the forum insists on staying

Because, mr ally, the discussion has nothing to do with disliking any distro, or shouldn't. My comments early in the thread were in support of some of the new direction Puppy is being taken.

Not about disliking any distro - the traditional Puppy was very popular in its heydey.

You and some others on the forum simply voice persona dislikes, whereas my concern, feeling, and yes voiced opinion, is that Puppy has not been developing fast enough to remain relevant (despite much work in the background, against a fair amount of resistance to change from some others however).

You are not a developer, as far as I understand it, so that is your excuse for not contributing to woof-CE in order to implement needed change (yes, needed change - technology does not stand still, nor old build systems). I do development work, but do not contribute to woof-CE because I already spend too much time in such work for my own developments. But users and currently non-users alike are all entitled to their say about the future development direction of a distro that was released to the community in the form of woof-CE (to everyone in the world) to do what they like with it.

My being a member of this forum has nothing to do with whether I have a right to voice my opinion about the development of any public community-released distro - we all own the rights to that distro's future. Maybe that means it becomes a DebianDog - that's up to everyone, but you can't silence anyone simply because they do not use the current versions of Puppy and think it needs changed.

[wiak]

What I might do, but no promises. Since I don't have time to contribute to woof-CE because I am short of available time for my FirstRib developments (and have no selected-steward rights there), I might, next year, when I have more time, do what others have done, and, as a first step, fork the released-to-the-community woof-CE. I don't like current official woof-CE, but that's okay, I (with the help of some KL others) would modify/change its organisation, and create a forked version of the distro that is driven by FirstRib components. That strategy of making the forked Pup variant a FirstRib-based distro means it would be a part of my focus on FirstRib developments and thus I'm happy to give time to that.

In that forked variant it would still use Puppy system underneath apart from being FirstRib initrd driven with FirstRib system utilities included. So that would be a new FirstRib distro offering, which we can also turn into a KL with the inclusion of some KL-developed system utils. That means a variant with no adrv, fdrv, ydrv and so on, but rather up to 199 numbered layers (albeit Linux system limited) that can be either sfs compressed or uncompressed addons.

We always remain free as owners of Puppy Linux build core (not its trademark/brand) to voice our opinions of official woof-CE Puppy Linux development of course since that build system belongs to all of us following its release by BK. Up to everyone thereafter if Puppy adopts/merges any of its forks as the official Puppy, but until then with a different name.

Is it possible to use aufs instead with FirstRib? Yes, but a half dozen lines of code alterations would be needed for that option - I don't myself favour it, but someone else could do that I'm sure.

[retiredt00]

Dear mikewalsh
I would appreciate if you point out which one of my observations was inaccurate (besides the time line)
If indeed accurate I would think "demoralizing" may be the wrong characterization for reality.

Regarding doing things, very few people have the right to change anything in the forum.
On the woof-CE front, pull requests are heavily advertised but if you look at the authors of merged and unmerged requests you see that might not be as simple as suggested.

So sometimes pointing to issues is the only thing that can be done.

[wiak]

Bottom line, I honestly do thank you for having this forum up, but it is not getting you any papal infallibility (that's wiak's ).

I didn't realise I was quite so religious, but thank you if that means I will go to heaven afterall

I do however note that: Infallibility must be carefully distinguished both from Inspiration and from Revelation.

Come to think of it, (one of) my grandfather was Scottish Catholic, but my grandmother a hard-nosed Scottish Presbyterian (it must have been interesting when Celtic played Rangers); I result from that overlay.

I can only imagine you are however referring to the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” (“Lumen Gentium”) of Puppy woof-CE.

Religious switching seems to happen more often when there are a lot of choices—like there are in the United States. And it seems to happen more when people take religion very seriously and think it’s an important and distinctive part of their personal identity—like they do in the US.
...
Eisenhower made it a priority in his administration to promote belief in God and religion, in very general terms. He saw religion as a spiritual resource in the Cold War conflict with Communism.

[rockedge]

Regarding doing things, very few people have the right to change anything in the forum.

Show me any forum anywhere that has it where many users can alter it...........

I find NOTHING about this amusing.

[retiredt00]

Dear rockedge
I really do not want to continue this but I believe that you totally misinterpreted my writing and your apparent annoyance may be misdirected.

I was responding to the comment by mikewalsh that

when it comes to "doing" something to help, it's amazing how many folks suddenly clam-up and have nothing to say all of a sudden.

explaining that "doing" may not be so simple as implied.

I did not indicated at any point or in any way that the users should be able to alter the forum.
I was just stating the fact, the same way I pointed to some factual observations regarding woof-ce pull requests.
How did you surmise from these that I was suggesting that the users should change the structure of the forum?