A proper website for Kennel Linux?

[IdfbAn]

Should I add the site to Google Search Console, or is that a privacy concern? It'll probably help with indexing, though.

[rockedge]

Should I add the site to Google Search Console, or is that a privacy concern? It'll probably help with indexing, though.

Yes, I would recommend doing that!

[IdfbAn]

Should I add the site to Google Search Console, or is that a privacy concern? It'll probably help with indexing, though.

Yes, I would recommend doing that!

Alright, should be done now.

[rockedge]

@IdfbAn,
We should add the link to the Kennel Linux Forum -> https://kennel-linux.rockedge.org/ on to the Links page

[greengeek]

@IdfbAn @wiak
I built a specialized web page for KLV-Airedale in case I was going to submit something over at Distrowatch. Simple and assembled with Bootstrap framework.

Here it is: https://klv-airedale.rockedge.org/

This is a very nice page. Good info. Simple. Nice looking.
Only negative - upon clicking "Download" I hoped to see an iso I could burn to CD for trial boot.
Is KLV-A suitable to try in iso / bootable CD (or DVD) format?

[IdfbAn]

@IdfbAn @wiak
I built a specialized web page for KLV-Airedale in case I was going to submit something over at Distrowatch. Simple and assembled with Bootstrap framework.

Here it is: https://klv-airedale.rockedge.org/

This is a very nice page. Good info. Simple. Nice looking.
Only negative - upon clicking "Download" I hoped to see an iso I could burn to CD for trial boot.
Is KLV-A suitable to try in iso / bootable CD (or DVD) format?

The download button doesn't work because it's outdated. The current ones are sr15 and sr16.

[IdfbAn]

Shouldn't an announcement for this be made in viewforum.php?f=232?

[IdfbAn]

In unrelated news, the site now appears as the first result on both Google and DuckDuckGo!

[rockedge]

Is KLV-A suitable to try in iso / bootable CD (or DVD) format?

KLV-Airedale is suitable for burning to DVD-ROM and will boot on Virtual machines or direct ISO booting. Also Ventoy works well. Booting KLA should be the same.

Shouldn't an announcement for this be made in viewforum.php?f=232?

Yes we should make an announcement!

Also I have been pondering whether or not to include the link to https://kennel-linux.rockedge.org/ since the site is barely used and @wiak plans on creating a site for FirstRib. What are the thoughts on continuing having the separate KL forum?

In unrelated news, the site now appears as the first result on both Google and DuckDuckGo!

Excellent! Shows how well the site has been thought out. Nice work.

[rockedge]

I tried it out on Bing, with the same results, the site appears as #1 on the search results. Might be influenced since it is being done on a computer from the same IP that deals a lot with KL but never the less, really cool and possibly a game changer.

[wiak]

Shouldn't an announcement for this be made in viewforum.php?f=232?

If you are happy and feel all ready for first public exposure, then I second that announcement should be made. That is just the start of major Kennel Linux marketing really now that the new forum structure really helps that process.

[wiak]

Is KLV-A suitable to try in iso / bootable CD (or DVD) format?

Also I have been pondering whether or not to include the link to https://kennel-linux.rockedge.org/ since the site is barely used and @wiak plans on creating a site for FirstRib. What are the thoughts on continuing having the separate KL forum?

Honestly, rockedge, despite firstrib itself being first released in 2019, not real attempt at marketing it or the later KL/FR distros so hardly anyone outside of the Puppy forum will know about it so it would be a waste of time to use a separate KL forum at this time in my honest opinion...

Better to focus in one place, where some users currently are, which for the moment is here.

Much later, should KL become particularly popular, which may or may not ever happen (which is fine - sometimes a select group is a good user set and team) - then it makes sense to have own forum if significant number of people particularly already interested.

Websites such as homepage(s) are a different matter - these are building blocks for information and also marketing so, yes, I do wish to build at least one FirstRib-related site (since not all FR distros will really be KL, though then again, forum utilities are bound to be used to some extent because they are so good many of them). And it would be great if particularly good KL releases also had their own individual homepage such as KLV-Airedale does.

Having said all that, on reflection, it is good, even if just in preparation and for organisational and experimental purposes, to keep that Kennel-Linux.rockedge.org forum alive. So of course we could then use it when we feel like that. Would be interesting to see how often that happens, but again, the future may make that facility grow in importance depending on later user-interest.

[Clarity]

... Also I have been pondering whether or not to include the link to https://kennel-linux.rockedge.org/ since the site is barely used and ...

This does NOT answer the 'ponder', but I do regularly review that KL site for announcements, updates, requests for help, apps for/from the KL arena.

@IdfbAn, @wiak, @rockedge and @fredx181

Is it reasonable to have this new page as the opening (aka 'index') page for the kennel-linux site such that it is a part of that site. Would that have benefit in having all of the components together either as it exist on Github or on rockedge.org? If so, run with in. If it does not surface that way, I understand.

[rockedge]

@Clarity It's a work in progress......

@IdfbAn We need to add links to all of @Sofiya's assembled systems that reside on GitHub. Her distro's are cutting edge assembled in top quality and should have far more exposure to the public.

We should confer with @Sofiya to arrange adding the proper links to the Kennel Linux web pages.

[IdfbAn]

@IdfbAn We need to add links to all of @Sofiya's assembled systems that reside on GitHub. Her distro's are cutting edge assembled in top quality and should have far more exposure to the public.

We should confer with @Sofiya to arrange adding the proper links to the Kennel Linux web pages.

How, exactly? In one of the two existing pages (home and links), or a new page?

[Sofiya]

@Clarity It's a work in progress......

@IdfbAn We need to add links to all of @Sofiya's assembled systems that reside on GitHub. Her distro's are cutting edge assembled in top quality and should have far more exposure to the public.

We should confer with @Sofiya to arrange adding the proper links to the Kennel Linux web pages.

Links to my creations on Github

viewtopic.php?p=118127#p118127

[rockedge]

How, exactly? In one of the two existing pages (home and links), or a new page?

I think we should add a new page featuring all of these links:

Screenshot_2025-02-17_16-08-19.jpg (99.84 KiB) Viewed 1576 times

Then we can take a look and see how we can perhaps improve on the information organization.

[wiak]

Yes, the great but tricky issue with KL is that the mechanism encourages new creations and replacements for old ones.

That's why I strongly suggest that we no longer produce separate threads for new revisions of any of the multiple distros, but instead simply change the first post of any distro thread to announce and provide info on each new revision releases along with a post at the very end of that same thread containing the actual new revision announcement with a link back to first post of thread for download details.

Then the page or pages of links to each KL distro needs to be quickly updated to reflect the new situation.

My apologises for still not doing much myself KL/FR-wise. It is on my mind that it is time that I checked over build_firstrib_rootfs script for any needed changes - some of that is just a matter of checking current repo urls and similarly for busybox, but since that script is designed to build not only Void distros, but also Debian/Ubuntu/Devuan, Arch, and Fedora, my next revision is likely to be a bit incomplete since big job to test all of these.

I also had a couple of almost complete new items including that alternative build script that was specialised to start with Cloud images (initially for Ubuntu Noble); the script itself was completed but I became diverted due to some irrelevant arguments during the forum re-organisation that I am thankful, thanks to rockedge, finally took place to, I think, pretty much the satisfaction of everyone. I was also looking at mechanism to build Fedora Rawhide again, but became too busy and that is currently on the back-burner - I think, however, that the last firstribit release, contained an alternative method for building a Fedora (I'd have to check) and if so I may put that into build_firstrib_rootfs script as a temporary measure till I get round to using the oci container mechanism.

[IdfbAn]

I just had an idea, has a guide on "how to make your own KL distro" been written anywhere? If not, it probably should be somewhere, whether on this forum or the new website. I might be wrong, though.

[rockedge]

I just had an idea, has a guide on "how to make your own KL distro" been written anywhere? If not, it probably should be somewhere, whether on this forum or the new website. I might be wrong, though.

Yes! One of our major problems is keeping up with the documentation. As it is now there is some documentation already written but spread out over 3 sites and several different locations on those three different web sites.

To get started tracking down what exists:
viewtopic.php?p=98487#p98487
viewtopic.php?t=9545
viewforum.php?f=130
viewtopic.php?p=95702#p95702
https://kennel-linux.rockedge.org/viewtopic.php?t=41

And this one on the old forum -> https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtop ... 6#p1028956

What is really needed is a comprehensive set of documentation that details Kennel Linux and FirstRib that is all in one place and together. I know I for one think about it a lot but just never seem to get to the writing it. There is a lot to it now after 6 years of progress building and polishing KL distro's.

For example creating a huge style Void Linux kernel using the scripts designed to do the initrd building and kernel modules and vmlinuz extraction from a root file system assembled using the FisrtRib Build script and some PLUG file is actually quite simple when shown how it is done.

[IdfbAn]

That is just the start of major Kennel Linux marketing really now that the new forum structure really helps that process.

How would KL even be marketed? The website has been made, and now what?

[wiak]

That is just the start of major Kennel Linux marketing really now that the new forum structure really helps that process.

How would KL even be marketed? The website has been made, and now what?

Indeed, such marketing needs a lot of focussed effort. What can I say... we all wish we had time. I for one, despite having 'been' pretty much 'retired' from working life, now have a full on day job again (and often more than that). I'm even training a new employee, including use of Hugo, git and so on - at least that part of the job has been known to me for many years and sometimes much more. In practice, to be fair, I have written quite a lot of related documentation and some of it hasn't become too stale over the years since FirstRib began in 2019 (some has). However, most of that was inevitably written in a hurry, just to explain some of the details to other developers who were interested to use the build system; most development time has to go into 'development'. The hope was, that once the system was relatively complete, and reliable, there would be more time for then documenting rather than developing - but we can't control the non-hobby-interest part of our life, since work for a living tends to take priority...

Let's be frank. It is great anyone (and more than one) put in the effort to produce a small efficiently organised website(s). However, the major work actually needing done requires well-organised documentation about the very flexible FIrstRib-based build system, including several additional flexible optioned utilities such as wd_multi, KL_full2frugal, amongst others. That kind of documentation, unfortunately, needs writers with months if not years of experienced KL/FR build practice, and most of us are similarly busy. Best I feel any aspiring contributor to these docs can do is to do their best to provide better organised links to the many technical explanations and howtos that do exist (there are many) - unfortunately any writing of technical explanations that is not technically accurate would be problematic to say the least. Marketing, however, also involves the likes of an approach to Distrowatch, which simply seems to need certain key documents put together (including a website landing page).

More generally, the best way forward for any website itself was neatly explained by @rockedge here: viewtopic.php?p=143056#p143056
i.e. they are stored on git sites so contributors can and no doubt later will post any content or changes they wish to make there. No one can or could control when others choose to make such contributions - that is not anyone's 'job'.

[IdfbAn]

Marketing, however, also involves the likes of an approach to Distrowatch, which simply seems to need certain key documents put together (including a website landing page).

About DistroWatch, in your email to them, it needs: (from https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=submit)

• The name of the project or distribution.

• The URL of the project's website.

• A brief description of the distribution, such as its goal(s) and what other distribution it uses as its base, if applicable.

• A link to the distribution's installmedia media (ISO file).

We seem to have everything, except for the last point. Kennel Linux isn't one distro, so exactly which ISO image would I send to them?

[wiak]

We seem to have everything, except for the last point. Kennel Linux isn't one distro, so exactly which ISO image would I send to them?

Well, that's something the developer of the particular distro would need to be asked in the thread they use for their particular build. The only current KL distros seem to be those of rockedge and Sofiya. My releases tended to be more demonstrations than polished efforts (and needing revamped now) since my own focus has not been on distro production, but rather on improving the build system and FR initrd facilities and functionality.

i.e. I suggest asking Sofiya, which iso or iso(s) she particularly wants (if any) notified to distrowatch. Similarly for rockedge, though KLV-Airedale might well be his choice.

One good thing is, our small team remains here, despite a bit of a hopefully temporary slowdown on my part. We are not about to vanish, and neither therefore is KL/FR.

[wiak]

I'd suggest KLV-Airedale and one of Sofiya's recent KDE-based releases, but there are several from Sofiya of interest, and particularly some tiling manager based ones. Sooner or later, we will be more interested in publishing Wayland-based KL distros I feel though (KDE in that mould of course).

[wiak]

Funnily enough, one of the facts that makes KL/FR a bit difficult to document is that they are pretty easy to build.

Indeed, part of the documentation issue, is that you build them like using LEGO so there are several (most all relatively easy in practice) ways to build/bolt them together...

But that's just an excuse, for not documenting the different ways

[IdfbAn]

The email has been sent to DistroWatch.

[wiak]

The following (from KL HowTo area) was an example to explain how to build a KL distro.

I cannot myself vouch for all parts of that still to be correct since it refers to some addon plugs provided at the time by others:

viewtopic.php?p=98487#p98487

[wiak]

Note that there are also these two fine KL Arch-based creations by josejp2424:

KLA-Manjaro LXDE
viewtopic.php?t=12671

KLA Manjaro JWM
viewtopic.php?t=12833

It would be appropriate to ask josejp2424 if he wants them on DIstrowatch.

[rockedge]

That is a good point. These KLA-Manjaro distro's are really nice. Works well in the quick testing I did.

I just released a KLV-Airedale-sr17 and I have updated on PLUG file that builds a close to a sr17 model with the GitHub URL's to download the custom .xbps packages that provide the polish for the system.

Many of the PLUG files need updates for the URL's that were previously used for the custom KLV XBPS repos. @Sofiya has all of her PLUG files already set with the correct URL's for the complete distro build scripts to function.

So more or less some sort of how-to documentation and using previous PLUG's for examples, it is important to stress the power of using the build scripts to assemble custom KLV or any Kennel Linux variant!