Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I haven't been able to access it for several days. I get the: "The site is currently under maintenance." message when I go to http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php

I hope it is known and understood that 90% of all search queries on the entire internet relating to Puppy Linux resolve to murga-linux, not to here. In addition, shutting down the murga-linux archive deletes 99% of the Puppy knowledge base.

I have been monitoring the download counts on my apps posted over on the murga-linux site. In the past 8 months, 99% of downloads happen from there, not here. Contrary to what may be assumed, THAT site is what is providing the public with the majority of Puppy information, not this one. It MUST be preserved, or we lose the vast majority of public interest in Puppy Linux.

Ideally, merging the databases would be the best outcome, but barring that, it should stay up. That is, after all, the implied FOSS directive ..

It appears that there is a database failure on the VPS server.

There is no way to merge the 2 databases. Forums are totally different in design and layout, posing topic positioning problems in a big way.

I have converted the murga-linux forum into the latest version of forum software. Due to the database size, the attachment save directory size and avatar save directory it takes literally days to upload to the host servers because it has to be done in chunks.

I am sure @Jafadmin you realize this fact. Once all the components are ready and all systems are a Go, I will launch the site and you will have the murga forum on line in all it's glory.

Until then, let me work on it. Read my topic -> viewtopic.php?f=127&t=2459

P.S. Your Welcome

Finished and can be viewed here -> https://oldforum.puppylinux.com

The murga-linux.org domain name will be transferred to our host server in June. Then the forum can run under both URL's to stay backwards compatible for all the links to function as they are.

The forum is Read-Only
Users are able to login and use the PM system.

But until then please use https://oldforum.puppylinux.com

@rockedge So for the next couple of months most puppy search requests are going to resolve to the "maintenance" page? Not ideal.

I'm sure you realize you have the gratitude of puppy devs and insiders, but we are not the ones doing the internet searches for puppy solutions. The public is. A two month information blackout is pretty drastic, and last summer showed us that puppy queries won't "magically" translate to here.

I'm not being ungrateful, dude, just analytical ..

@Jafadmin

Here's analytical.....the domains are Locked like a vault until end of June. Nothing can be done, not even the Registrar can unlock them. Only after the time expires will they unlock.

This has happened due to lack of payment which occurred because no one could access the accounts. After much effort we've gained control and I paid the past due and paid forward until next year. Lucky we have the domain name at all. Now that is fact and there is nothing we can do about the murga-linux.org domain until then. It's some tough luck how it came to be this way, which must be considered. I brought all of this up over a year ago. So now it is what it is and we'll have to adjust.

Eventually the Bots will continue to change the URL's anyway and the murga-linux.org domain will be pointing to the right location.

Only possibility would be to access the VPS directly and add a .htaccess redirect or reconfigure the Apache server for a reverse proxy to oldforum.puppylinux.com

I have no access to the VPS or server that the original murga forum resides on.

rockedge wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 4:04 am

Only possibility would be to access the VPS directly and add a .htaccess redirect or reconfigure the Apache server for a reverse proxy to oldforum.puppylinux.com

I have no access to the VPS or server that the original murga forum resides on.

I seem to recall that possibly Barry Kauler & jamesbond had access to that server to fix the database error, so the credentials used may be current unless the domain expired.

@rockedge

I have no access to the VPS or server that the original murga forum resides on.

I do (maybe)

perdido wrote:

may be current unless the domain expired.

I have paid in full what was owed and renewed the registrations for another year. Also we now control those domain names. Problem is due to lack of payment and the registration was past due plus the expiration date was passed, the domains became "Locked". And like a bank vault these domains are on a Time lock, meaning NO ONE not even the Registrar can unlock them until the date in June that they will automatically unlock. So until then even while they are alive and well, no one can alter anything with the DNS name servers and what they point too.

It is only a matter of time now until the domain name transfer can be initiated. Once that happens the Puppy world will be unified.

rockedge wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:02 pm

It is only a matter of time now until the domain name transfer can be initiated. Once that happens the Puppy world will be unified.

A day I'm sure we all look forward to. I guess some of the 'impatience' may, perhaps, be due to the fact that the vast majority of the Puppy user-base are no longer in the first flush of youth; you'd think the opposite would be the case, but for some it never quite pans out that way!

C'mon guys, have a little patience. Rockedge has been working his socks off, trying to consolidate everything under one umbrella for a while now, and I for one think he's making a pretty good job of things so far. Especially considering t'internet of today (and doubtless domain-providers) are very different beasts to what were around when JM originally set the old forum up. We have much to be grateful for.

Mike.

@rockedge

Many thanks for your work!

mikewalsh wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:56 pm

rockedge wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:02 pm

It is only a matter of time now until the domain name transfer can be initiated. Once that happens the Puppy world will be unified.

A day I'm sure we all look forward to. I guess some of the 'impatience' may, perhaps, be due to the fact that the vast majority of the Puppy user-base are no longer in the first flush of youth; you'd think the opposite would be the case, but for some it never quite pans out that way!

C'mon guys, have a little patience. Rockedge has been working his socks off, trying to consolidate everything under one umbrella for a while now, and I for one think he's making a pretty good job of things so far. Especially considering t'internet of today (and doubtless domain-providers) are very different beasts to what were around when JM originally set the old forum up. We have much to be grateful for.

Mike.

Mike, I appreciate your sentiment. We are all grateful for @rockedge's efforts. But you guys are missing my point.
Granted, I am using one of my apps to demonstrate the problem, but I'm not the one searching for or wishing to download Puppy software. The public is. This is happening to everything Puppy. Since the JM site went down then became RO last year, over 700 copies of the LotsaLuks app have been downloaded from there. Only 17 from here during the same time period. Why?

Try this: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lotsaluks .. How many links do you see to this forum? None. Try the same thing with google search. Same result. EVERYTHING in the public search engines resolves to the [archived] JM domain name. Now try the same thing with other Puppy apps.

The PUBLIC is NOT being referred to here.

I too am grateful that @rockedge stepped up and volunteered to become steward of the Puppy Linux public trust. But the continuity of that "public facing" trust has to be a key part of the stewardship commitment.

I personally don't want to see a situation where all the server/db/zone record/forwarding stuff results in a shiny new forum that leaves the PUBLIC clueless as to WTH ever happened to Puppy Linux.

Leaving the RO archive site up was brilliant. The public could get to it. They could read about Puppy Linux and the hosting problem and what was being done. Now it's just "lights out". Go ahead. Click on the search links ..

What you fail to understand is the system is broken. And we're trying to keep the ship afloat. Without these efforts this was all dead 1 year ago for good.

Nobody....want those links to work more than myself. But they won't ever again unless this process is gone through.
If anyone has a better idea on how to revive the software and system which is NEVER going to be really fixed, and to avoid the search engine index losses, step up and let's see what you have.

Do you think this is easy or not time consuming in a huge way? Put your fix on the table

I think there is some confusion as to what's happening with murga forum.

What has happened at the actual VPS that hosts the forum that John Murga set up is completely different to any changes @rockedge has made.

The long term goal is to have the old forum at both the oldforum url and the murga-linux url, but hosted on the same host as this forum. rockedge has spent many, many hours (he keeps me up at night) working to get the old forum completely up to date on the latest version of phpBB. Then it and this will work on the same host.

The old murga forum was recently migrated onto a new server by the host. They did that as a result of an internal upgrade that had nothing to do with anyone in Puppy land. It would appear that in that process there have been a couple of glitches, which is why the murga forum is playing up. It is currently up after @jamesbond rebooted it about an hour or so ago.

The timing kind of makes it look like rockedge did something to kill the old forum, as he is introducing the updated old forum. To be clear, what rockedge is showing as the updated murga forum is a copy of the actual murga forum, just updated to latest version. In fact, rockedge has no access to the old forum's host. It is just a coincidence that his work has coincided with the migration issues at the old host, which kind of makes it look like rockedge broke it. He didn't.

@Jafadmin your concerns are very valid. The murga forum has been the home of Puppy for 15 years. Everything points there. There was some discussion to let it slip away, but it was decided by the pupilluminati to keep it as a read-only reference in perpetuity. Hopefully in time, this active forum becomes the go to for everything puppy related.

catulus diu vivere

I've been confusing my internet provider......my neighbors all stream content...downloading gigs of data.....and here at my house all of our gigs of data are being uploaded. I have little bandwidth usage downloading which is what it appears interests the ISP people and not so much the upload data stream. Also still using an ADSL line no one really pays attention too and I'm never 'throttled" in bandwidth. My neighborhood is almost all Fiber Optic and I'm using copper...but is that not the Puppy Way?

P.S. I pay less than a quarter of the monthly fees my neighbors do. And I watch TV the old school way.

All this new fangled technology for the young'uns while I'm frugally installed

rockedge wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 1:10 pm

Also still using an ADSL line no one really pays attention too and I'm never 'throttled" in bandwidth.

I'm having 1Gb Internet now at home! I had 200 Mbit and paid more than now fot the Gig. Just checked my current ISP for some special proposal. Please check your ISP possibilities to migrate from ADSL! May be it will happen the price will be lower and the speed higher )

p310don wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 12:47 pm

I think there is some confusion as to what's happening with murga forum.

What has happened at the actual VPS that hosts the forum that John Murga set up is completely different to any changes @rockedge has made.

The long term goal is to have the old forum at both the oldforum url and the murga-linux url, but hosted on the same host as this forum. rockedge has spent many, many hours (he keeps me up at night) working to get the old forum completely up to date on the latest version of phpBB. Then it and this will work on the same host.

The old murga forum was recently migrated onto a new server by the host. They did that as a result of an internal upgrade that had nothing to do with anyone in Puppy land. It would appear that in that process there have been a couple of glitches, which is why the murga forum is playing up. It is currently up after @jamesbond rebooted it about an hour or so ago.

The timing kind of makes it look like rockedge did something to kill the old forum, as he is introducing the updated old forum. To be clear, what rockedge is showing as the updated murga forum is a copy of the actual murga forum, just updated to latest version. In fact, rockedge has no access to the old forum's host. It is just a coincidence that his work has coincided with the migration issues at the old host, which kind of makes it look like rockedge broke it. He didn't.

@Jafadmin your concerns are very valid. The murga forum has been the home of Puppy for 15 years. Everything points there. There was some discussion to let it slip away, but it was decided by the pupilluminati to keep it as a read-only reference in perpetuity. Hopefully in time, this active forum becomes the go to for everything puppy related.

catulus diu vivere

Thank you for shedding much needed light on the situation.

@Jafadmin The search results and links with murga-linux.com as the target should be working now.

Soon the search engine Bots will re-index the pages.

I think that on the oldforum.puppylinux.com should be link to new one with information like on old PHP version.

@puppy_apprentice I like the idea as well! I will be adding a "Link" menu like on this forum that has the Blog, wiki and this forum's links provided.

rockedge wrote: ↑Fri Apr 16, 2021 3:16 pm

@Jafadmin The search results and links with murga-linux.com as the target should be working now.

Soon the search engine Bots will re-index the pages.

They DO, dude! Outstanding! Thanks for all your efforts ..

Thank you Rockedge for all you've done! Just a small point.....I was maintaining my Puppy bookmark to the old Murga-Linux URL, because often what I wanted to find was there. If I needed to come here, I just followed the big red lettered announcement of a moved forum and its link.

Today I went to the old forum as usual first, and saw the upgraded style and address, and the the title mention in big red letters that this is an archive-read only forum. But no mention of a new forum or link.

Since I already knew the Puppy story, and about our present forum, I looked around the front page and eventually tapped on the Links dropdown and found our new forum's link.

But I don't think that anyone unfamiliar with Puppy will realize the existence of our new forum if it isn't announced and linked in a more obvious way than that. Most people going there will only think it's a deserted forum. I know that was the impression I got, even though I knew better.

So suggestion -- maybe just add a big red lettered announcement and link to the new forum at the top of the main page -- as it used to have.

Thanks again, for all the hard work put into this difficult move!

@rockedge :-

The addition of the 'Links' menu up the top of the Murga forum is certainly appreciated. However; I've discovered a 'quirk' which you may have missed? (For all I know it may even be intentional....)

Most folks probably won't bother, but when changing board 'themes', if either

"AllanStyle-SUBSILVER", or
"prosilver"

.....are selected, all is well. However, if the older, original Murga-style

"subsilver2"

.....is chosen, the 'Links' Menu disappears..!

Thought it ought to be mentioned, at least. If nothing else, you can investigate what's going on if, as & when you have the time - AND the inclination! - to do so. I can't be the only one who might conceivably want to 'play around' with the Forum settings.....

Mike.

@mikewalsh Good catch! I did not add the "Links" menu into subsilver2 because I might remove it. Reason being, the breadcrumbs navigation does not work and is difficult to fix in subsilver2. This particular style (theme) was developed for phpBB2 and I experimented with it to see if I could get close to the original murga forum's "look". But the changes in phpBB3 made subsilver2 not function fully. The AllanStyle-SUBSILVER style is based on subsilver2 and even this style is not fully compatible with our most modern version of the forum's software. BUT I found Allan's variation on Github that had all the code changes needed to fully operate in a phpBB 3.3.3 environment.

Perhaps a code guy could look into getting subsilver2 breadcrumb navigation to work in phpBB3.3.3 or perhaps there is one already floating around Cyberspace. AllanStyle-SUBSILVER might be the closest we can get to the original look and feel AND still works with our forum.

I keep subsilver2 on the list because when I do get a second of inspiration, I try out a code change to see if I can squeak out some acceptability level of functionality. It most likely is not going to happen but it is a good training exercise...and I think the "original" style would be part of the tribute to the long long survival of the murga site. Though the AllanStyle-SUBSILVER is growing on me.

Another thing I noticed is some users were purged that shouldn't have been. This is due to a quirk of phpBB2 and how it places users on the "Inactive" list. When I trimmed the database down to a size that is usable for transfer, I removed those "Inactive" users who are mixed in with the thousands of never finished registering (Bots and hackers) users. I do have intact databases if this ever proves to be a problem and could be swapped in with some effort.

@rockedge :-

Ah, that's fair enough. As it is, you've also answered what my follow-up question would have been, i,e. was it specifically made for the older software?

I don't mind the other two, though, like you, feel it would be nice to maintain the old forum's appearance as close to original as we can.....as a tribute to its longevity. However; I'm going to request a favour.....if I may? Any chance of adding the "ne-blackgreen" board theme into the mix as an option, since the underlying software is now up-to-date?

I adore this theme, and use it all the time. Truth to tell, I switch all websites to dark themes where I can, and run dark themes across the kennels.....legacy of a former occupation which has left me with permanently sensitive eyesight. Light themes tend to give me a headache after a while.....

Mike.

@mikewalsh Sure! I can add the ne-blackgreen style. It should be ready in a few moments

rockedge wrote: ↑Thu Apr 29, 2021 1:49 pm

@mikewalsh Sure! I can add the ne-blackgreen style. It should be ready in a few moments

@rockedge :-

Just got back in from a short trip down town, and found this. Murga now running with "ne-blackgreen"..! Yay!!

Thank you SO much! !t's very much appreciated, believe me....

Cheers!

Mike.