Discussion, talk and tips
https://forum.puppylinux.com/
hi, i'm a devoted puppian going back a long way.
these days i want to know how to make our 64bit
pups look and act like 32bit while being 64 underneath.
the gui of the 42* - 5** era is still a clear, efficient thing.
rox / jwm strong, simple way of organizing info
best wishes, mm
hello @mmmrr Which 64 bit variant are you interested in making the desktop more like those of the 4.2+ and 5.2+ era.
Did you use Tahr 6.0.5 or Precise 5.7.1 at all?
hi rockedge,
longtime user/fan of precise 571
my hardware is all 64bit
i could only find
one specific browser [ last inhouse
portable by palemoon]
that works in this precise 571.
lack of 32bit browser is issue
i tried the 4 big 64bit pups
over a week and a half a couple
of months ago.
they were all overdressed
overcomplicated creatures,
so whichever looks simplest to simplify
i'm willing to try.
thanks, mm
---i have to go out for about 6 hours--
Hi mmmrr,
This may not be what you asked. But it may be the simplest way to achieve your aesthetic goal. Both Fossapup64 and Bionicpup64 include radky's Menu>Desktop>JWMDesk and the newest version of that application can be found here, viewtopic.php?p=32274#p32274. radky's companion applications can be obtained here, https://www.smokey01.com/radky/PupMates.html, including PupMenu-6.3. PupMenu is a great application for removing from the Start Menu the display of applications you never use. It just toggles them off thereby removing 'clutter'.
IMHO, removing unwanted applications from the Menu makes more sense than uninstalling/removing builtins: posting.php?mode=edit&p=4070.
This thread, https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtop ... 101460&i=1 on the Old Forum has screenshots of JWMDesk's GUI. Using it you can customize your desktop pretty much to emulate that of the 'old puppys'. In particular, you have complete control over what desktop icons appear --from none to default to some default plus those you've chose to add. FYI, you can install any icon theme used by the 'precise era' Puppys. Many can still be downloaded from the 'Old Forum'*. You can add a 2nd panel, hidden when not in use. Indeed, you can have the 'Taskbar/1st Panel' also hide when not in use.
The ISO of Fossapup64 includes a file named adrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs. You can delete/(move out of fossapup64's folder) that file and still boot to desktop with what is essentially a 'bare-bones' version. But my experience is that it took longer to install some basic applications I always want available than to employ the adrv.sfs and use PupMenu to hide those applications I didn't want.
-=-=-=-=-=-
* If you can't find an icon theme but have it on an old-puppy, you may be able to use jpeps's gnewpet, https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=75437.
You can disable Conky and picom/compton, drive icons, etc, and select a simpler wallpaper.
Easy to do, takes only a minute or 2.
Attached, a screenshot of BionicPup64 with the default icons and a simple solid colour wallpaper.
To me Bionic64 is pretty simplistic and it runs better on my hardware than Fossa. You like precise 571, if you’ll dig around, someone updated it with newer components. It’s still named precise but at version 572
Hello mmmrr,
One thing that might be worth investigating is EasyPup.
Built from the BarryK Woof continuation, rather than Woof-CE, so looks rather retro and nostalgic in a way
But uses 64bit Debian Buster packages, so should be fine for all the latest browsers for some while yet.
I know BarryK has stopped developing it now in favour of EasyOS only
I believe EasyPup version 2.5.1 may have been the last
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/easypu ... ter/2.5.1/
I think this is the Precise-puppy GMBudwrench referred to. https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtop ... c#p1024458. But the usable web-browser problem you noted about 32-bit operating systems will still be there as it is a 32-bit system.
Just having spent a couple hours working with Puppys that don't use all of radky's applications I've finally figured out how to customize without them; and why some might prefer the alternate JWM desktop manager. But I still like radky's suite of tools; could be they're just what I'm accustom to.
The Puppys I worked with did have Menu-manager.
first; thank you all a really touching response
i will need some time to take it in
off the top i agree that simplifying menus is
better than removing applications.
half of the menu items from pups 213 to 571
were never Clicked by me. when i considered
remastering i realised that inactive, ie unused
programs did no harm, that for my level of knowhow
i was better off letting sleeping dogs lie.
rox/jwm is the must-have for me. i've looked
at other stuff.
by the way, a couple of years ago i put an early pup iso
07*onto a cd and booted. wow brilliant picture quality
and nosebleed fast faster than anything since ,really.
limited function ,obviously .wifi issues. fast.fastfast.
okay, thanks again. i'll be back. best wishes, mm
I still use only 32-bit Puppys. I'm running Palemoon version 28.14.2 on all my 32-bit Puppys and all the websites still work just fine with it. I think 28.16 was the last official 32-bit version from Palemoon (thereafter Steve Pusser compiled unofficial, newer versions). I use an upgraded version of Precise but the Palemoon versions mentioned should work out of the box with the original, official release of Precise. I also use Bionic 32-bit which will run relatively new Firefox versions and Chrome. I have Firefox 80 and Chrome 90 which works just fine with Bionic 32. There are ways to speed up your performance. A simple thing to do, is to recompress all your sfs files with gzip (the newer Puppys were compressed with xz). Gzip decompresses faster than xz compression making for better performance. If you have lots of RAM the default behaviour would copy your Puppy files to RAM at startup which will also speed up things a bit.
@amethyst
There is a 32bit version of palemoon which brings it up to 29.4.1,it is one of mike walsh's portables and it runs just fine on my 32 bit pup. 
Season's greetings to you.
xenial wrote: Sat Dec 25, 2021 9:17 am@amethyst
There is a 32bit version of palemoon which brings it up to 29.4.1,it is one of mike walsh's portables and it runs just fine on my 32 bit pup.Season's greetings to you.
Yes, thanks I know. It's one of Steve Pusser's creations. I have one of his 29 versions but I found it unstable in comparison to the one I'm using. Maybe the problems have been sorted with this newer version but I still use the very stable official Palemoon release of 28.14.2 which works fine for me so no need to upgrade at this stage. The other thing is that the slightly older version I'm using, works out of the box on an old Puppy like Precise without any system upgrades and I tend to share the same version between older and newer Puppys.
@mmmrr :-
Um; have to ask this, just to be certain.
You are aware that even though you have 64-bit hardware, you can still run a 32-bit Puppy on there as-is, exactly how it comes OOTB? In other words, you can boot from a 32-bit ISO or LiveUSB or however you like to do things, just like normal.
64-bit processors have the usual 32-bit registers, but also possess extra registers to cope with addressing 64-bit software. When running like this, they run in what's called "long mode". They will auto-detect the architecture of whatever's running on them and, under normal circumstances, will switch automatically to accommodate it.
Only 64-bit processors are capable of doing this. You cannot run 64-bit software on a 32-bit CPU, because the additional 64-bit-capable registers simply aren't there to begin with.
(Just be aware that not all older Puppies will boot to desktop, though this is not a limitation of your Puppy OR your CPU, but rather the BIOS/UEFI. Some recent iterations of the UEFI standard no longer support the VESA BIOS extensions.....and nearly all older Pups that I've tried booting on this new HP rig of mine are looking for this at boot time. When they don't find it, everything grinds to a halt.....)
Mike. 
One of the great things about Puppys is that they boot from a folder; your choice hard-drive or USB-Key. That means there's much less work involved in trying one out than 'full install' distros.
If you have any functioning Puppy and a USB-Key (16 Gbs+, but even 8 Gbs should suffice) what you can do is install grub2config, viewtopic.php?t=3360 in your functioning Puppy, then:
Format the USB-key so that it has a small (150 Mb +/-) 1st Fat32 partition Flagged boot, the rest Linux Ext3.
Download the ISOs of several Puppys you may be interested in and unpack each into a different folder on the USB-Key's 2nd partition.
Run grub2config, selecting the USB-Key.
Not including download time, in less than a half-hour you'll be able to test each of the Puppys you downloaded and compare how well they do on your rig.
I usually stick to Puppys which are binary compatible with Ubuntu or debian: easier to find or fix some applications which others might not consider essential* than Puppys which are binary compatible with Slackware. But TBH, Slackos have consistently provided better graphic displays on my rigs and others have said that about sound quality on their rigs. [My hearing is not that refined].
And that's really why I'm posting. From our previous posts it should be clear that you can start with any JWM-Rox Puppy and achieve the aesthetic you want. Peebee publishes Slackware Current, viewtopic.php?p=554#p554 and 01micko's Slacko 7.0. viewtopic.php?p=619#p619 will still support current web-browsers. [There are other fine 64-bit Slackos; but they're not jwm-rox].
-=-=-=-=-=-
* Publishers of AppImages don't test against Slackware; so fewer application in that format can be used OOTB. And Slackware expects its users to be more 'hands-on' that debian/ubuntu. Operating on the principle 'one application for one job' there may be fewer choices. But for a 'solid work-horse' for the tasks most of us engage in a Slacko might just be your best bet.
hi all,
thanks mikew i know that booting/running 32bit
gear is 64bit default behaviour, quite right to ask.
thanks mike the cat, the outline for using usb stick
most helpful.
two of my machines are without cd/dvd drives.
i bought them used, they have very well integrated,
stylus touchscreen behaviour: lenovo x61 tablet pc.
the pc is misleading, they are laptops.
alas all the clever integration comes with win7. old tyme
puppymeieister, pizzaisgood built a touch screen puppy
about ten years ago but no one has done it since.
best i could is/was dual boot and wonder if wine might
give me the wonderful writing and drawing capacity in
puppy. thanks. mm
@mmmrr :-
Nah, you're OK, mate. I know you've been knocking around the kennels for a fair few years, but I just had to ask, y'know? Even some long-term users seem to be unaware of the "32-bit will run on 64-bit, but not the other way round" thing..!
You may be best to use Fossapup64. PhilB has built it in such a way that by simply re-naming/disabling the adrv SFS, you're running a fairly basic Puppy; the main functionality is in the adrv, y'see. But even without it, it's still "fully-functional", and can, of course, run any 64-bit app you like.
As for simplifying it, well.....we're always here, you know that! 
Mike.
@mmmrr I recommend you to try Vanilla Dpup, http://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=4093 or https://vanilla-dpup.github.io. It's a boring Puppy, as in "boring is good", stylized like a 4.x-era Puppy but with modern technologies like GTK+ 3 and Wayland under the hood.
The 32 bit variant uses X.Org, GTK+ 2, etc', and it's very traditional. The 64 bit variant has all the cool innovations, but has the same look and feel.
Vanilla Dpup is a very nice Puppy. And much easier to work with than Fossapup64 without it's advr.sfs. IMHO, 666philb got carried away in removing applications from the 'core/base' SFS and relocating them to the adrv.sfs. Great for a 'bare-bone' Puppy; especially if you use MikeWalsh's and fredx181's portables as web-browsers. But when you set out to 'flesh-out' Fossapup64 sans adrv.sfs, a lot of the applications you'll want --even those you'll just want to build-on or with-- will have to be installed. It's just easier to have them and 'turn off' their display.
And there's a fundamental problem with adrvs, ydrvs and similar 'alphabet' sfses. Their applications can't easily be upgraded, uninstalled via PPM, or removed via 'remove-builtins'. They're really best for including those things which will never be changed. Examples, pkg-cli --a great application by sc0ttman who hasn't made an appearance on the new Forum; masterpdfeditor4: later versions were crippled; wallpapers, icons, and themes; and maybe Wine.
when i tried fossapup without the adrv i couldn't use it.
i'll give vanilla64 a spin, let you know how it goes.
many thanks, mm
I'm with GMBudwrench on this one. I've tried several more recent Puppys, and I have and like Fossapup64. It's on my boot-menu and occasionally I use it, especially if someone publishes a new application which looks interesting and too new to be built for Bionicpup64. Likely I'm sentimental. Bionicpup64 remains my 'daily-driver'.
As the previous posts indicated, you can customize it to meet your aesthetics.
thanks for that mikethecat.
in a lot of ways it makes sense
to try out two pups at a time.
browsing, writing, photos , movies, music
prefer to connect via wifi
though tested easyos with cable.
i have huge respect, etc for barryk
overwhelming amount of improvement
in the world..clearly a good bloke, too
i suppose the container security
required the lookingglass, insideout file structure.
i really liked the look, the snappy action.
no wifi, no file finding without pfind ...not for me
cheers, mm
Can't test this, so unsure of value to puppians, but recent 32bit firefox here:
https://www.filepuma.com/download/mozil ... versions/
May need gtk3 and other things.
Also the reason we can run 32bit programs under 64bit pups is our hybrid kernels,
which have CONFIG_X86=y and CONFIG_X86_64=y. Compatability libs are often needed too.
hi dimkr
when i click on 'DOWNLOAD' in yr post it
takes me to a listing of 10 'assets' under the heading
of what i assume is the most recent version.
i am not clear which of these assets might be
the one i want. it seems clear that they are
versions of the same thing. what is the diff.
in this context, between *.sfs & *.iso?
and the 6 other assets?
*-bios.img.gz & *uefi.img.gz seem a clear choice
i suppose i could plunge on bios without harm
except for having to coming back for some better suited asset.
cheers, mm
dimkr wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:25 am@mmmrr I recommend you to try Vanilla Dpup, http://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=4093 or https://vanilla-dpup.github.io. It's a boring Puppy, as in "boring is good", stylized like a 4.x-era Puppy but with modern technologies like GTK+ 3 and Wayland under the hood.
The 32 bit variant uses X.Org, GTK+ 2, etc', and it's very traditional. The 64 bit variant has all the cool innovations, but has the same look and feel.
vanillapup certainly looks interesting.Is there a 32bit version as i only see 64bit.
You have 3 choices:
1) vanilladpup-9.0.20-ext4-2gb-uefi.img.gz - an image you can write to a flash drive/memory card with dd (after gunzip) or a tool like Etcher, for computers with UEFI and secure boot off
2) vanilladpup-9.0.20-ext4-2gb-bios.img.gz - an image you can write to a flash drive/memory card with dd (after gunzip) or a tool like Etcher, for old computers without UEFI or computers where UEFI is disabled
3) vanilladpup-9.0.20.iso - a traditional ISO image, without UEFI support
The first two options give you two extra features: these builds include an updater which updates to the latest 9.0.x build, and a simple installer that re-partitions a drive and installs the Vanilla Dpup version you're running the installer from. In addition, unlike the result you get with ISO images (a read-only installation), these images produce writable partitions and changes are saved when you boot from the drive you wrote the image to.
xenial wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 9:09 amvanillapup certainly looks interesting.Is there a 32bit version as i only see 64bit.
There's a 32 bit release - just scroll down.
In https://github.com/vanilla-dpup/releases/releases, you can see both https://github.com/vanilla-dpup/release ... _64-9.0.20 (a 64-bit release) and https://github.com/vanilla-dpup/release ... x86-9.0.20 (a 32-bit one).
(These links will break when 9.0.22 is out, only the two most recent builds are kept when a new one is out.)
thanks dimkr
hi folks,
long time no squeak,
a lot of non-puppy stuff
happened before i was
able to return to this matter.
i decided to see if i could
simplify easyos to suit me,
before going down another
path. its visual style and speed
needed no tweaking.
my cautious adjustments
persisted through rebooting,
then upgrading. my desktop
links to the places in the os where
my stuff was kept worked fine.
i tucked all container stuff
out of sight without a hitch.
i'm very happy, and slightly
abashed to be using this superlative
system much as i used puppy 109e
many years ago.
thanks, cheers to 2022, mm
mmmrr wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 9:02 pmthanks for that mikethecat.
in a lot of ways it makes sense
to try out two pups at a time.
browsing, writing, photos , movies, music
prefer to connect via wifi
though tested easyos with cable.
i have huge respect, etc for barryk
overwhelming amount of improvement
in the world..clearly a good bloke, too
i suppose the container security
required the lookingglass, insideout file structure.
i really liked the look, the snappy action.
no wifi, no file finding without pfind ...not for me
cheers, mm
Not sure if you're into Ventoy, but you should check out this thread if you're into booting into multiple Puppy's, since Ventoy might make your life easier:
viewtopic.php?p=38449&i=2
This is the hands down best guide on Ventoy imo:
mmmrr wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 6:29 pmhi, i'm a devoted puppian going back a long way.
these days i want to know how to make our 64bit
pups look and act like 32bit while being 64 underneath.the gui of the 42* - 5** era is still a clear, efficient thing.
rox / jwm strong, simple way of organizing infobest wishes, mm
Also, you could probably just rip the themes from older Pups and use them in any of the newer ones. See if you could opt for using dotfiles via a Git repo, and roll with dotfiles instead.
thanks shortstop for the suggestions.
i'm going to see how i get on with the
present setup. in the past when i have
multi-booted puppies grub has worked.
i have always found an acceptable theme
in the onboard offerings on puppys.
keeping it simple suits my lazy ways.
cheers,mm