puppy linux distrowatch page

[wanderer]

hi all

i am posting this in the announcements section
so that it is brought to the attention of the entire puppy community

as some of you may know the puppy linux distrowatch page
and the version of puppy listed on it
has not been updated in over 2 years

this means that in distrowatches eyes puppy linux is dormant
and they removed it from the rankings list
it disappeared

dogcat contacted them and they placed it back temporarily
to give us a short reprieve
it then reappeared

i have been in contact with jesse at distrowatch
and he informs me that if there are not regular updates
to the chosen version on our page
it is considered dormant

the only one that has access to the page is the puppymaster
we have tried to contact him but he has failed to respond

i asked jesse if we could make a new page
so that others have the ability to update it
and it appears that this is possible
and it can be linked to the present puppy sites
so there is no confusion

i intend to do this because

as barry k said this is a do-ocracy

1. our distrowatch page gets over 300 clicks per day
making it number 26 in the rankings
and it would be a shame to lose that exposure

2. those 300 people who come to puppy from distrowatch
would not know what has happened

3. the puppy linux page would be placed in the dormant category
and many people would be led to believe that puppy linux is dormant

i am asking for input from the entire puppy community
on how they would like me to proceed

i will ask rockedge to help me since he knows what he is doing and i dont

a related question is what distro are we going to put on the new page
remember this distro will have to be updated regularly

i await your input

wanderer

[dimkr]

Puppy is a dormant distro, mostly. The number of developers is extremely low, some development is done behind closed doors (the build system is not open source) and most developers are working on their project alone.

People who find Puppy on DistroWatch and grab the latest release are unlikely to become satisfied users or contributors. Why force it?

[puppy_apprentice]

wanderer deserves the title of Puppy Evangelist

I see no reason for the pushy presentation of the Puppy in Distrowatch. LM #265 just came out with an article about Puppy. Let someone ask for free access to the article?

The column should run in #265 of Linux Pro Magazine. If anyone wants a copy, write to:

cs@linuxpromagazine.com

I can't speak for customer service, you understand, but if you mention you contributed to the article, you may very well get a free copy of the article.

Let's see what Mr. Byfield wrote (we will decide whether we need to punish him or build a monument to him ;p)

[mikewalsh]

I'm afraid I have to agree with @dimkr on this one.

I'll estimate that there's a lot more Puppy users, world-wide, than come anywhere near this forum. But I'd also hazard a guess that the vast majority of those users are happily running older versions, and aren't too bothered about constantly-appearing new releases.

Most Linux users prefer the mainstream releases, because these are what get all the attention from the tech blogs, and most go out of their way to try and appeal to Windoze refugees (i.e., as user-friendly as possible). And the majority have far more folks working on them than Puppy does...

Unfortunate, but true. That's not to say that some Puppy enthusiasts wouldn't like to have all the latest gadgets and new ways of doing stuff, but we don't have the developer base.

Mike.

[bigpup]

I would suggest to tell Distrowatch that Puppy Linux does not do releases based on some kind of time scale.

Puppy versions get released when someone decides to produce a version.

The big problem I see is non of the developers are trying to get there version designated as an official Puppy version.

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 862#p60862

To be "official" a pup should meet these 4 requirements:
1) It must be built using Woof-CE and its build “recipe” should be on GitHub in woof-distro.
2) It must be endorsed as “official” by the Puppy Master.
All the “official” Puppies since version 2 are hosted at Ibiblio.org

Hosted on ibiblio.org is one important thing.
That is the official Puppy repository.
With a Puppy version stored for download there.
It is always available and from a recognized official secure location.

If you have never been to ibiblio.org Puppy repository. Here it is:
https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

Maybe 01micko is the problem

[geo_c]

I would suggest to tell Distrowatch that Puppy Linux does not do releases based on some kind of time scale.

Puppy versions get released when someone decides to produce a version.

The big problem I see is non of the developers are trying to get there version designated as an official Puppy version.

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 862#p60862

To be "official" a pup should meet these 4 requirements:
1) It must be built using Woof-CE and its build “recipe” should be on GitHub in woof-distro.
2) It must be endorsed as “official” by the Puppy Master.
All the “official” Puppies since version 2 are hosted at Ibiblio.

Maybe 01micko is the problem

Does VanillapupD fit that description? I recently fired it up, and made a save folder, so I plan to load it up and work with it. Everything about it says, "Puppy-linux" to me. It uses ptheme, etc. But in that regard it's very "vanilla" (by design I assume.) And not loaded up with a ton of tools and features.

@dimkr maybe you would consider adding a vanillapup-deluxe with a few things added like some extra desktop backgrounds, gtk-themes, another music/media player like deadbeef or mpv.

Just a thought.

It seems like there should be a way to list distros offered by the "Puppy-linux community" like an example from the first-rib branch, or the Dog incubator branch, etc...

Vanillapup seems like a good option because of its being updated and actively developed.

[dimkr]

But in that regard it's very "vanilla" (by design I assume.) And not loaded up with a ton of tools and features.

Yes, it's a very "vanilla" Puppy by choice: I concentrate on the core stuff that must appear in any Puppy (like a working browser or a working package manager), and let users take it from there.

@dimkr maybe you would consider adding a vanillapup-deluxe with a few things added like some extra desktop backgrounds, gtk-themes, another music/media player like deadbeef or mpv.

I don't have extra time to do something like this, but if anyone wants to contribute extra artwork to woof-CE, I don't mind adding it.

If somebody wants to create a more complete Puppy worthy of "official" status based on Vanilla Dpup, the woof-CE tree and the configuration files used to build it are publicly available at all times (as far as I know, it's the only Puppy like this) at https://github.com/vanilla-dpup/woof-CE. A new "official" Puppy won't just happen, somebody needs to do this work first.

(By the way, I submitted Vanilla Dpup to the DistroWatch waiting list, so it doesn't interfere with new Puppy releases and cannot be forced to become an "official" Puppy.)

[geo_c]

@dimkr maybe you would consider adding a vanillapup-deluxe with a few things added like some extra desktop backgrounds, gtk-themes, another music/media player like deadbeef or mpv.

I don't have extra time to do something like this, but if anyone wants to contribute extra artwork to woof-CE, I don't mind adding it.

I am working on a themepack that will have individual directories for backgrounds, gtk2, gtk3, and gtk4 themes, standard pup icons, xfe icons, xfce icons, xfwm window manger themes, and jwm themes.

The elements can be used as a library and pieces grabbed individually, and I'm planning on a set of install scripts to install symlinks to the themes in the collection, in a couple locations depending on the file structure of the distro. I kind of plan for it to be a resource, as I have a couple hundred themes and lots of icons, organized under one directory.

(By the way, I submitted Vanilla Dpup to the DistroWatch waiting list, so it doesn't interfere with new Puppy releases and cannot be forced to become an "official" Puppy.)

Ah, I hear you saying that you do not wish for vanilla pup to be an "official puppy" distro. So I won't bring that up again. But it does fit the description.

I'd build a distro myself, but since I never it did before, not even once, I think that it would result in heart-ache for anyone trying it out!

[rockedge]

Maybe 01micko is the problem

I have asked about the existence of any type of account and/or login information and I am told that 01micko does not have any account or login credential.

Also I have no idea how Distrowatch works. How does one update the information on the Puppy Linux page? I have not yet seen a place to actually login to Distrowatch.

I was told that BarryK may have made the original page but Mick wasn't 100% sure if that is the case either.

Is the page dependent on a form submission or email to the admin's of Distrowatch? If so, who does Distrowatch expect to hear from in the Puppy Linux community as acting Puppy Master?

If the Vanilla Pup series isn't supposed to be an "official" Puppy Linux release then what version is?

If so, then I say we push immediatley VoidPup to the front and as successor as the latest official Puppy Linux release.

[puppy_apprentice]

I think that there is no account on DW.

A new version of a distribution was released, but it wasn't announced on DistroWatch. Why?

This situation can happen for one of the following reasons:

• The release was not announced on the distribution's own website. Before we publish a release announcement on DistroWatch, we require that the distribution publish an announcement on their website. This can take the form of a press release, release announcement or, at the very least, a changelog. It must be published either on the main website or in a publicly available community section, such as a mailing list, user forum or Wiki.

• The release announcement was too brief. Some distribution maintainers do announce their releases, but with only one sentence saying that "Version X.X has been released". This poses a problem for us in that we find it difficult to turn a simple sentence into a full paragraph for publishing on DistroWatch. If the distribution maintainers are unable to produce a decent release announcement, giving at least a basic list of new features and updates, then we do not have anything to work with. Unannounced (or minimally announced) releases are listed on our sidebar on the front page.

• We didn't know about the release. Although we try our best to traverse the Internet continuously in search for new distribution releases, we do miss some on occasion. In this case, please let us know about it - the preferred way is to simply e-mail us.

• The release announcement has been published, but the distribution's ISO files have not been made available yet. Some projects announce new releases before updating their download page and/or before their download mirrors synchronize. We sometimes need to wait a few hours before a mirror near us has the new version and we can confirm the download links work.

• Sometimes, when a distribution publishes a lot of minor updates, we will skip one version to avoid filling up our front page with very similar release announcements. We try to space out the announcements we publish from a project to one every three months.

• The new version is actually just a new edition of a version we have covered previously. If a project releases version 10.0 and then uploads a new edition, for instance 10.0 "GNOME", we usually skip publishing an announcement for the new edition as it is the same operating system, just with a different default desktop.

• The developers have published a new ISO, but its packages are all the same as in the previous ISO. Some projects push out download media with a new version number, but no significant changes in order to boost their download statistics. We typically skip mentioning these releases.

[wanderer]

hi all

as to our account on distrowatch

jesse at distrowatch is very attentive and helpful
he emailed me back within the hour last time
all we will need to do is email him and he will help us straighten it out

so now all we have to do is decide what we want to put on the page
and i will email him and he will walk us through the process

wanderer

[wanderer]

also it is important to realize
that the distro updated regularly
only means once a year