Discussion, talk and tips
https://forum.puppylinux.com/
Will one of the developers of the newer Puppy Linux versions, please submit your Puppy version for DistroWatch!!!!!!
BookwormPup64
F96-CE
etc...........
Something newer that is not based on Slackware!
Good example of why:
viewtopic.php?t=11290
maybe the forum should have a poll and make the distowatch decision and edit?
nominations for the poll candidates could be be in this thread
only nominations accepted by the devloper would be included in the poll
perhaps other kennel mates who are not already on distrowatch should be eligible for nomination
That is basically how it was done recently, but none of the developers are keeping it going.
The person(s) that produce the Puppy version really needs to be the one(s) to submit to DistroWatch.
They are the only one(s) that have complete knowledge of what is in the Puppy version and how it works.
But hopefully we can encourage them to do it!
Why would you expect a puppy dev to keep a distrowatch poll going?
Maybe more modest devs would like to have the community make nominations rather than promote themselves by grabbing for the Distrowatch spot.
I could care less about about Distrowatch, but if the puppylinux.com community thinks Its important thats OK, and those that think it's important should take the responsibility to maintain the Distrowatch Page.
I am not sure who has access to be able to make the change or what the procedure is to make any changes on Distrowatch. There has been discussions of this subject before on this Forum. Might be a how to do it briefing somewhere already posted.
Submit New Distribution to distroWatch (how to do it)
https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=submit
All you need to do is tell them it needs to go into the Puppy Linux distribution as a new Puppy Linux version.
If you want to stop about 80% of people from knowing about new versions of Puppy Linux.
Than do not add new info to the Puppy Linux distro section of DistroWatch.
If people running DistroWatch do not see some changes being made to the Puppy Linux distro section.
They will just close it down or maybe even delete it.
We have already been told this before by them.
Sorry to say there are many people that use this web site to find out about what is available in Linux OS's.
Too many think that hit ranking chart is a list of best to worst OS's.
So they think the number 1, 2, 3 etc...... in the list must be the better Linux OS's.
It seems to me if something needs to be done you just do it.
As I understand, the Puppy master idea of controlling Puppy Linux is dead!
Sure we could vote on what the next newest version of Puppy Linux should be shown on DistroWatch.
But no one votes on adding a new topic to this forum, about a new Puppy version someone develops and releases.
I have had a large number of downloads of Slacko 7.0a (all I did was update the kernel) - the only way folk would be drawn to it is that it is the 2nd offering showing on Distrowatch, after s15pup. I note that our Distrowatch number 1, currently s15pup64-22.12-240413 has had 240 downloads in 7 days - that HAS to be mostly DIstrowatch referrals, so a more popular (on the forum) pup would definitely benefit from being our number 1 on Distrowatch.
BookwormPup is the obvious candidate - nicely polished with some innovations
however I think radky is reluctant to promote / devote energy to BookwormPup64 any further than he already has
- and it is currently built by a mixture of Woof-CE builds + local remastering.
It really needs to be transferred to Github and fully built there.
BookwormPup32 is almost identical (it is difficult to exactly track changes made to BWP64 during local remastering) and is built on Github.
Well while I've read the stuff about why modern pups have to be produced using a particular recipe following specific rules but I'm not sure how important this is when recommending one to DistrosWatch. If this is going to be the first puppy that new users try surely it should be easy to install, use, add packages to, etc. New users need a decent experience as their first experience of puppy or they're likely to walk away. For me BookwormPup64 10.0.6 fits the bill. I'm sure others will claim it needs more "polishing" but I can't think of a pup of which this could not be said.
Regards,
Ken.
This is the previous thread on this "topic":
viewtopic.php?t=7204
Wanderer and BarryK were the people who liaised with Distrowatch........
Wanderer has not been active since Jun 20, 2023
The vast majority of 'official' Puppy releases including Fossapup64 didn't satisfy these requirements, and putting an unpopular Puppy variant in distrowatch and the top spot in puppylinux.com only because it's among the few that follow the rules, is absurd. New users are more likely to be happy with something else.
In addition, if the donations collected through various donation buttons in s15pup pages don't pay for yearly renewal of puppylinux.com and hosting the forum, this is really unfair 'free-riding'. I hope that at least some of these donations help fund Puppy as a whole.
s15pup is there because we voted on it at the time, peebee came through when something was needed, & nothing has been voted on since.
Neither the debiandogs nor KL distros have ever bothered thus far about distrowatch, yet debiandogs have produced solid releases since 2013 and continue to do so, and KL produce several, constantly updated and used, releases. No problem finding regular new releases there. KLU FocalFossa release was replaced by KLU jammy a year or two ago. KLV versions are regular published rolling releases; no-one of us using them are crying about no distrowatch presence; already too much dev work going on to bother seeking vanity enhancing publishing attempts. All we seem to want is solid, flexible, powerful and interesting, up-to-date with newer technology, distros for our forum use.
Indeed. I think that this forum is the best source to find the Puppy that suits you the most, there are many choices (ok, too much 
) (or/and any other "portable" or "frugal install concept' such as other 'Puppy-like' distros that are shared here).
I don't know if it is even possible, but to me it seems we need to have some idea of how many new users "find" Puppy Linux on DistroWatch.
I know from my own experience that DW was NOT where I went searching for something to replace the old Slax 6.1.2 I had been running on
my old Acer Aspire netbook. A simple search at DuckDuckGo steared me towards Puppy. How "valuable" is the time and effort that seems to
be necessary to keep DW updated? The primary reason I don't think it is actually worth the effort is that unlike other distros, Puppy and other
forum hosted distros (KL, the Dogs, Easy) we don't have just one release on a set schedule. Our distros are community based, built from a
variety of base systems, and don't really fit into DWs perception of a separate distribution.
Wiz
Wiz57 wrote:Our distros are community based, built from a variety of base systems, and don't really fit into DWs perception of a separate distribution.
Yes, well said. That's the reality IMO.
IMO puppylinux.com should either
1. Embrace this variety, change the wording, drop old info like the (wrong) list of developers, and link to a list of currently maintained Puppy family distros, without sorting by 'official'/not, a list that is not controlled by a single person (editable wiki page?) so every developer can add their stuff, or
2. Reduce the number of options (drop old releases?) and sort remaining ones by popularity, recency, hardware support, etc', while screenshot match the top spot
Already done long time ago......... the list was moved to the forum so that all Forum Administrators can edit it.
link to a list of currently maintained Puppy family distros, without sorting by 'official'/not, a list that is not controlled by a single person.
this.
a topic at the forum that is dedicated to, and moderated exclusively for posts by those that can point to projects with release announcements. Let the dev provide their own short description.
I can think of a few release announcements that need linking.
The index.html of puppylinux.com doesn't point to this list: it shows a different list, one with EOL Puppy releases and arbitrary omissions. And this list comes after big piles of text new users probably don't read or understand.
(By the way, I didn't add Vanilla Dpup to this list, and I can't edit its rows)
peebee wrote: ↑Sun Apr 21, 2024 6:24 amBookwormPup is the obvious candidate - nicely polished with some innovations
however I think radky is reluctant to promote / devote energy to BookwormPup64 any further than he already has
- and it is currently built by a mixture of Woof-CE builds + local remastering.
It really needs to be transferred to Github and fully built there.
BookwormPup32 is almost identical (it is difficult to exactly track changes made to BWP64 during local remastering) and is built on Github.
This is really no different in the way many Puppy versions have been produced. 
Woof-CE is much better in producing a working Puppy version, but it has never been 100% perfect.
So only using Woof-CE, to build a Puppy version, as only way to make it an official Puppy version.
Is a bunch of miss information and this has never been 100% true, with any Puppy version.
So stop using building only with Woof-CE, as a reason to not call it an Official Puppy version!!!!!
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Really the reason to call it an official Puppy version, should be about: is built up as a bunch of separate SFS files, how it boots, loads into RAM, stores changes in a save file/folder, generally operates, supports hardware, uses the same core programs, install as a frugal install, etc.............
That to me is a Puppy version.
No matter how it is built!
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IIRC, the only rule is that it has to be built using Woof-CE. There is nothing saying it can't be modified / customised afterwards. So a pup like BookwormPup64 is perfectly fine, IMO.
peebee wrote:however I think radky is reluctant to promote / devote energy to BookwormPup64 any further than he already has
I think we need to make sure that if we feature BookwormPup64 in distrowatch, then we must be prepared to support it in this forum. Not necessarily radky himself; many of the BookwormPup64 enthusiasts would do as well.
peebee wrote:It really needs to be transferred to Github and fully built there.
That would be nice for repeatability (as @dimkr has repeatedly encouraged), but IMO that's not a requirement for the pup to be featured in distrowatch.
peebee wrote:BookwormPup32 is almost identical (it is difficult to exactly track changes made to BWP64 during local remastering) and is built on Github.
Nice to have both 32 and 64 bit versions available (even if they're built by different people and not 100% identical).
bigpup wrote:So stop using building only with Woof-CE, as a reason to not call it an Official Puppy version!!!!!
This has always popped up each time "official" puppy is discussed.
I'm going to repeat it again, and it will probably trigger some of you again, but let's just think about it with cooler heads. I'm going to view it from different POV.
Okay here we go. Let's say we drop this requirement.
What, then, is the official puppy? Is it official because I call it to be official? Is it official because dimkr says so? Is it official because bigpup says so? Or because of peebee? Or is it official because it is listed in distrowatch (which is a chicken-and-egg problem: a pup is listed in distrowatch because it is official ...)? Or is it official by consensus? Then who make the consensus? Who are these people that can make the consensus? Who can determine that something is puppy, or not puppy?
Otherwise, what's stopping somebody from taking an Ubuntu ISO, modify its wallpaper to add a puppy logo into it, and then call it as official Puppy?
Or, shall we dispense altogether the word "official"? There is only Puppy Linux, and that's it. All puppies are equals - from Woof-CE pups, from forked-Woof-CE pups, remastered pups, remaster of remasters, test versions, release versions, development versions, or even those "inspired" from olden day puppies, or stuff from the original Puppy developer although it is no longer called as puppy ... including stuff that explicitly claims that it is __not__ puppy, because, basically if it is listed in this forum, then it __is__ puppy, one way or another, because, well, this is the Puppy Linux forum, isn't it? Not one of them is more official than the others; any differences in "degree of officialness" is purely in the eyes of the beholder.
To that end, we don't need to provide ISO link to distrowatch, just ask them to link to this forum, which provides hundreds if not thousands of ISOs. Prospective new users are expected to sift through the entire forum to find the version of puppy that suits his or her needs: download them one by one and test it and ask questions if they have problems. Or perhaps have them read through the reviews and comments in every puppy that has ever been published here before deciding what to use.
If you aren't a user today, will you want to go through that process, in other to become a puppy user? Would you even give puppy a chance?
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The above isn't a tirade against anyone. I'm just putting some scenarios of what would happen if we drop the requirements. At the end of the day, Puppy belongs to the community, and if the community decides to do that, irregardless of the consequences, then so be it.
@jamesbond 100%
The vast majority of 'official' releases are built with a private fork of woof-CE that is never published (with or without additional manual steps in the build process), so they're not 'built with woof-CE' as in 'built by unmodified upstream woof-CE'. I had to reverse-engineer old Puppy releases and extract these changes so newer releases don't feel like a step backwards (but I'm not doing this for BookwormPup64).
To make things worse, many Puppy release including s15pup contain various .pet packages built manually, years ago. There's no good way to rebuild all of them or ensure that the binaries match the source code (i.e no undocumented and potentially malicious changes). In some cases, the build procedure or the source code is lost to time.
If reproducible builds were a requirement, most versions featured in puppylinux.com or submitted to dw don't satisfy this requirement to this day (obvious GPL violations in some cases).
@jamesbond - agreed - open slather will not work for any length of time - would descend into (greater) chaos.
So we come back to the standard woof-ce with all it's warts (bad/incomplete additions; insufficient skilled or willing maintainers) which leads to
manual finishing, which some are doing. 'Based on woof-ce' seems to be the only likely standard we can insist on.
Maybe even a woof-ce-lite as a framework. Not ideal, but what is our real alternative right now? We have stewards, but no leader.
As Feyerabend said, "the only principle that does not inhibit progress is 'anything goes'".
Every developer (except maybe the one with the top spot in puppylinux.com) wants their Puppy flavor to have equal chance of success, based on its usefulness, competitive advantages and fan following.
Any set of criteria used to create a 'class system' that puts Puppy A and B above C and D, or leads new users towards A or B, will eventually harm the project, because users don't get a chance to benefit from features unique to C or D and the disappearance of the developers of A and B will cause mass departure of users.
I think it's absurd to put a Puppy that doesn't support Bluetooth audio in the top spot in puppylinux.com, just because it's 'official', while it has an 'unofficial' successor that does.
IMO the 'official' thing including all requirements (like 'using woof-CE') must go away because it only harms Puppy.
With all respect to the developers and those who keep this forum alive.
My opinion as a mostly simple user. Puppy only for 15 years.
@jamesbond +1
I don't really care how the puppy I use came about.
To DW: A friend of mine recently told me that there is no new puppy for him. He always just watched DW.
Since this conversation he has been using BookwormPup64-10.
I don't really know or care at all really, but I doubt a forum that featured only Puppy Linux as it stands nowadays would be particularly popular unless of course a new cohort of developers took interest in taking it forward from where the 'official' woof-CE stands today. I truly doubt a forum featuring Kennel Linux distros would be particularly attractive in terms of user numbers; there would be some, but hardly a very lively place. Same I feel goes for DebianDog, EasyOS, FatDog; they all have some 'fans' but in individual forums - well even this currently 'combined' forum doesn't appear to me to have a huge audience anymore.
Having said that, I really think it would be fine for Puppy Linux, even as it stands to try and stand on its own forum-wise. Many of us would have nothing to do with that forum, because that's just not our interest. I don't believe a Puppy Forum featuring only current state of Puppy Linux would be a very active forum at all though certainly some of the old Puppy faces would still be there, mikewalsh, mikeslr, bigpup, amethyst... and a few more regular Puppy fans beside, but the list isn't huge and what would be discussed seems pretty limited as things stand. It is surely not an accident that old Fossapup (and older releases) continues to be discussed, which is fine, but it seems to me also a symptom of how lacking development of Puppy itself has actually become.
So, no, I doubt the Puppy Forum would be a particularly active forum, outside that small circle of old fans, were Puppy to have forum of its own still. But nor would the 'other' distros be able to host their own successful active forum (despite some being regularly developed). A forum is first and foremost a place to discuss and share ideas and collaborate - that is the only reason this forum attracts a greater interest than the limited fan base each distro discussed here provides.
Those who keep trying to list Puppy distros as only woof-CE official or woof-CE derived in terms of what this forum is about continue to delude themselves.