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This is freshly built with woof-CE using the defaults for the configuration. So far I've compiled several packages using a setup of this and all the runs were successful. Missing is some polished eye candy and several standard Puppy Linux tools and utilities.

Fossapup64-9.6-CE 378 MiB download size
SHA1-MD5.txt
fdrv_fossapup64_9.6.sfs
devx_fossapup64_9.6.sfs

This one or even a fresher build is my candidate for customization and remaster to supply a distro that we can offer as a solid exemplar of Puppy Linux as a whole. A reahttps://forum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=197l solid introduction to the World of Puppy Linux.

@amethyst's utility pack would be a way to go with remastering and I vote to include it in the release

Definitely needs a new kernel and possibly also offer a real time kernel made with @fredx181's recent kernel assembly script that uses a Debian kernel and will produce a full real time kernel. @ozsouth has several that can be used or those from peebee.

The idea here is to have the modules and firmware needed for the most modern machines and have kernels ready to go that are older machine friendly.

@rockedge, you've just hit a Home-run in the American World Series

This distro boots to desktop in 30 seconds in QEMU on this decade old PC. In SG2D also booting its ISO file, all features tested are perfect. SAMBA sharing and its utilities are fast and all is well. As well, saving the session works as expected.

Additions added for simples tests
These forum based FossaPUP64 additions many will find very useful. ... from @ETP

Question
Is there a way to get any of his contributions into the Repo?

VERY VEry, Very, very nice effort for our benefit

Although understanding that this is built recent from WoofCE, there's a couple from old v9.5 features missing; namely

• conky

• QuickPET Utility

.
Yes, I know of this.

rockedge wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 4:38 pm

Missing is some polished eye candy and several standard Puppy Linux tools and utilities.

Still, this effort is exemplary of the ability of WoofCE to generate distros. Thanks goes to @rockedge for this.

And to the WoofCE development team.

@rockedge Maybe you'll be interested in https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 202#p71202 and https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3571 (it's OK if not)

Hello rockedge, thanks for this.
I have tested it on my Intel Braswell box and it works normally at a first look.

I have tried with the Woof-CE Jammy 64 builds but I can't get my glxgears test to work properly on them and I can't locate the cause. This Fossapup64 version is OK though.

For those who prefer the tray in it's usual place... Desktop_Settings, Tray - file, open preset, xf_bot, load.

@ rockedge, FYI,
Having previously tested it on my earlier build of Fossapup64-9.6, I swapped into your build ozsouth's 5.19.11 kernel. viewtopic.php?t=6871 just published on 23 Sep 2022. There hasn't been any problems. It supports both aufs and overlays. [I don't know how to test overlays; one of the reason I haven't gotten around to trying his 6.x kernels.] That post also has links to that kernel's companion kernel sources, headers and an fdrv.sfs.

You mentioned remastering: IIRC --always in my case a BIG IF-- there were discussions about having woof use other than the standard kernels. There should also be a way to include desired pets in the 'local-repositories' folder woof creates, then having woof use them. But figuring out how is above my pay-grade.

Whether by way of remaster or woof-build, both your and my build of fossapup64-9.6 were similar to VanillaDpup with regard to their lack of Puppy's customary tools. See my post here, viewtopic.php?p=69513#p69513 and the one following which discusses tools created by others. They all work in 9.6 builds. But I'm sure you can figure out a more eye-pleasing way to provide dir2pet and dir2sfs on the Right-Click menu than I.

About conky. Frankly I don't use it. It only displays information available by clicking a launcher on the taskbar, but uses desktop space to do it. Consider substituting pwidgets. viewtopic.php?p=1512#p1512. I'm not sure how my version for fossapup64 (used in both 9.5 or 9.6) differs from one zigbert's original published --other than adding about a half-dozen analog clock skins-- but I'd be happy to make it available or figure out which of zigbert's originals I used.

I also have a rebuilt Osmo. IIRC, it's the one BarryK wrote for EasyOS. As BarryK suggested all it needed to manage Contacts was libgtkhtml libs.

Hm. Not quite sure what's going on, here...

As some of you know, I "woofed" Fossapup64-9.6 myself. Upon trying to set things up, I encountered a few issues.

- Ethernet keeps disconnecting. Never had this happen before.
- No apparent way to change font sizes within apps. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a way to access the GTK theme/font changer utility at all. I had to go into the file-system and manually dig it out.
- Even then, fonts won't change, and themes won't switch. And this wasn't just with my own themes; even the default ones wouldn't switch!

I thought perhaps I'd got a "bad build". So I downloaded Erik's build, swapped with mine, and tried again. Exactly the same problems. My eyesight is getting to the stage where on a 1920x1080 monitor (23"), the default 10px Dejavu Sans is simply way too small for me.....and I refuse to strain already precarious eyesight further.

Are we now at the stage where wireless is considered "the norm".....and Ethernet is just an afterthought?

Comments? I can't believe I've had two successive 'bad builds'.....

Mike.

Sorry, Mike, I don't know anything about your ethernet issue. And while I prefer radky's JWMDesk to ptheming, does this help with the font size problem? Open Menu>Desktop>font manager. When I remember, I set it to 108. Menu>Desktop>Desktop Settings, then click Font, opens a GUI to accomplish a lot more relating to fonts.

Don't feel too bad about your building problems. Woof wasn't really as easy as dimkr's post may have suggested. There were a couple of time I had to guess, and one in particular where something went wrong and I guessed it could be corrected by just re-running one of the scripts. So I may have just been lucky.

Edit: I'm dependent on wifi, so don't intensely follow discussions about ethernet. But I kind of recall a recent one. Maybe rerwin's latest packages haven't yet found their way into Woof. viewtopic.php?p=2241#p2241. Note to rockedge, check for possible inclusion.

dimkr's networking application in VanillaDpup? Don't recall its name and don't know from where it could be flinched; but at least its wifi handling is top-notch. Ethernet, not tested by me.

dimkr wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 9:33 am

Maybe you'll be interested.....

Most certainly I am interested! Exploring it all now.

@mikewalsh I use mostly ethernet so it has to work well for me. So far it is, But in KLV-Airedale networkmanager is used which can connect on my blade server both ethernet ports simultaneously and has not shown any issues connecting with a wide variety of WiFi cards. With Fossa 96 I have not been able to connect both eth0 and eth1 together on 2 different LAN's like in KLV.

I am looking to pull the testing branch of woof-CE and run another build. I am hoping to include some new commits.

Sorry, I haven't downloaded this just yet, but will do soon.

Can anyone let me know if the Bluetooth connection application works perfectly?

I have noticed an issue with recent kernels that load the mdio_devres kernel module that they downshift to 100Mb/s on my AMD system. It looks like a bug because the cable is short.

Nov  2 18:52:19 puppypc14982 kern.warn kernel: Generic FE-GE Realtek PHY r8169-0-2500:00: Downshift occurred from negotiated speed 1Gbps to actual speed 100Mbps, check cabling!
Nov  2 18:52:19 puppypc14982 kern.info kernel: r8169 0000:25:00.0 eth0: Link is Up - 100Mbps/Full (downshifted) - flow control rx/tx

The 5.4 kernels in Fossa 9.6 and fatdog 812 both connect at 1Gb/s. I don't get dropped connections but it might cause drops on other hardware

mikeslr wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 4:32 pm

Whether by way of remaster or woof-build, both your and my build of fossapup64-9.6 were similar to VanillaDpup with regard to their lack of Puppy's customary tools.

You need to understand that 9.5 was built not with woof-CE, but with a woof-CE tree with changes which were never merged into woof-CE, or not merged 100%. The various JWM configuration tools are not part of woof-CE.

Also, woof-CE pushes ptheme to every build, and ptheme conflicts with the alternatives. To make matters worse, ptheme has many issues (try to run it in the console) but nobody is fixing them. I really hate ptheme, but I don't have the time to replace it with something else or at least make it optional. To "fix" theming in Vanilla Dpup and these focal64 builds, you'll need to fix ptheme or woof-CE.

FossaPup 9.5 is my main Go To Pup since it came out. I was able to install and boot up FossaPup64-9.6 quickly in few minutes on my HP Pavillion X360 laptop. Laptop is little less than 10 year old.

Issues:
1) WiFi driver is loaded, but unable to configure WiFi.
2) Keyboard typing fails completely. I had the same issue with FP-9.5. I had to blacklist INTEL_VBN module to get around this problem.

@dimkr :-

dimkr wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 7:29 pm

mikeslr wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 4:32 pm

Whether by way of remaster or woof-build, both your and my build of fossapup64-9.6 were similar to VanillaDpup with regard to their lack of Puppy's customary tools.

You need to understand that 9.5 was built not with woof-CE, but with a woof-CE tree with changes which were never merged into woof-CE, or not merged 100%. The various JWM configuration tools are not part of woof-CE.

Also, woof-CE pushes ptheme to every build, and ptheme conflicts with the alternatives. To make matters worse, ptheme has many issues (try to run it in the console) but nobody is fixing them. I really hate ptheme, but I don't have the time to replace it with something else or at least make it optional. To "fix" theming in Vanilla Dpup and these focal64 builds, you'll need to fix ptheme or woof-CE.

A-ha. Glad to know I'm not the only one that never liked Micko's "alternative" desksetup utility..... I've nowt against Micko himself - the man's built some brilliant stuff over the years - but that wasn't one of his better efforts. Too complicated.....and not "intuitive" enough.

You're only ONE guy, Dima. There's a limit to what you can be expected to do, mate......and I'm sure I speak for the whole community when I say we're immensely grateful for what you DO accomplish.

(*shrug*)

@mikeslr :-

AFAIK, Mike, pWidgets uses conky to display those 'widgets' anyway. Fred's DogRadio also uses it to show the 'ticker' displays that run for 5 seconds or so every time you change channels. I figured out a while back that pWidgets must have a minimal version built-in; normally, I always have it installed, but on one or two occasions I've installed DogRadio without bothering with pWidgets, making use of gKrellM instead. In the latter case, conky needs to be installed separately....

T'other Mike.

@LateAdopter - it seems mdio_devres=m is in most kernels I released this year, except 5.4 ones. If you want to go 16 months newer than 5.4.53 Fosspup64 stock kernel, my 5.4.159 (Nov 2021) is here: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 22d#p50532

@Jasper I only have one machine with bluetooth and I don't run it much, so I have not tested any of the Bluetooth functions yet

mikeslr wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 4:32 pm

I'd be happy to make it available or figure out which of zigbert's originals I used.

I'd sure appreciate it! I could use what you've presented and will install in my copy and run with it a bit. I am not convinced that ptheme is the way to go and would prefer trying out the best JWM configuration tools that Puppy Linux has around in this 96-CE version.

Be great then to add those to the woof-CE recipe at some point that generates the Fossapup64. First things first.

Personally, I'm absolutely convinced that what is needed, by default, is radky's JWM DeskManager. It's an awesome piece of kit, which I've been using for around 7 years now.....and if the Puppy I install & use doesn't come with it OOTB, it's one of the first things I always add.

JakeSFR's current UExtract & Packit always get installed, too.

Just my two-penn'orth, FWIW.

Mike.

can we remove ptheme and look at putting in the JWMDesk package? I'll try out some stuff using the method of pushing commits between branches on my woof-CE fork on GitHub. See also if I can begin to run workflows error free or at all!

rockedge wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 1:51 am

can we remove ptheme and look at putting in the JWMDesk package? I'll try out some stuff using the method of pushing commits between branches on my woof-CE fork on GitHub. See also if I can begin to run workflows error free or at all!

I didn't like pTheme in the beginning but it seems more of a matter to learn how to use it properly. More difficult to use, it's a bit of a learning curve. JWMDesk does seem more user friendly (don't know which one of the two links to more applications).

ptheming vs. radky's work: dimkr is right about these conflicting. But only if you try to use both. What I've done is install JWMDesk, then use MenuManager to turn off the menu display of ptheming.

Which brings me back to the question I had before. While running woof locally applications were downloaded, then the downloaded files were used in the build. Likely there's a way to add applications to the 'download' folder and edit woof to use them.

OOTB, there are desktop entries for 'DefaultXXX". These don't appear on the menu because their xxx.desktop files contain the argument NoDisplay=true. Should be a way to automate that during the woof-build process. If no other, a simple edit of pthemings desktop-file, and repacking before building.

@ rockedge, will try to remember what I did to zigbert's originals to obtain my pwidgets for fossa. If I can't I'll upload it.

Edit:
Well that was easier than I feared.

Excluding the time it took to download dimkr's Fossapup64-9.6CE, establish settings and reboot creating a SaveFolder, it took just a couple of minutes to download zigbert's pwidgets-2.6.0-x86_64 from here, http://smokey01.com/zigbert/, install and configure it. The only thing it lacks is several analog clock-skins I frequently use so included in /usr/local/pwidgets/widgets/clock_skins, rebuilding the pet before storing. FYI, links to numerous analog clock-skins are provided on this thread, viewtopic.php?p=9280#p9280. By the way, clock-skins are simple 'pngs'. It's easy to open them in a graphic editor and change their color [probably redesign your own, of which I've been too lazy. AFAIK, the color of clock-hands is managed by coding I haven't examined].

pwidgets comes with 8 themes. Against an olive-grey background that was the best I could manage. But to a large extent the lack of clarity results from having to resize a Fullscreen screenshot down to a size I could upload.

You can't see it. But the screen-shot is of a desktop managed by JWMDesk. I installed it and used Menu Manager to turn off the menu listing for ptheming before I created the SaveFolder.

@rockedge
dimkr has made a Fossapup64 9.6 version
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 316#p71316

It has a few differences and different new programs.
Seems to be offering more in the way of new features, programs, ways of doing things, etc.....
Is using a different kernel.

It would be good to maybe combine the two and work on only one specific Fossapup64 9.6

dimkr is asking for the kind of help you can provide.

I'll ask again, before I move on to other things: any volunteers to test this ISO thoroughly, rebuild old packages, upload them to the repo and fix issues (especially quickpet)?

I can help test and anything else I may be able to provide.

@bigpup The one I made is a proof of concept. I'm about to start up dimkr's Fossapup-9.6 because it already has some of the changes and additions going into the CE model. Further testing and adding and testing some more is the plan.

I am about to make a new version testing out some methods of adding the components into the woof-CE structure then building the ISO. So the additions go in prior to the build, also I am going to put in some 6+ huge kernel into the directory the build scripts will look for and use the version copied to it.

See what comes out. Meanwhile I'll try out the @dimkr Fossapup-9.6 and try out adding some more of the tools and utilities.

Ah, that's better.

Still using dimkr's 9.6-CE. Added a wallpaper and corresponding icons for Save and Trash and a clock-skin for pwidgets. But the biggest change was to replace Osmo with BarryK's build of Osmo for EasyOS to which I've added libgtkhtml-2.so.0.0.0 with symlinks. Note the Contacts panel.

Sorry, just adding libgtkhtml doesn't enable the builtin Osmo to display/manage contacts. I tried just doing that a couple of ways. Neither PPM nor synaptics offered it --I don't think synaptics can just provide libraries. Apt or pkg-cli probably could, if I knew how to use them. So I copied the ones I had in storage [decompressed a pet I had named osmo-0.2.10-fossa64-9.6] and restarted-x, with the result as noted that the Contact panel was still absent. If I recall correctly Osmo has to be compiled to support it Contacts. Considering that exclusive of symlinks the libgtkhtml-2.so.0.0.0 library is all of 460 kb may I suggest that someone who knows how to compile create a new Osmo for fossapup64-9.6. IMHO, its one of those invaluable light-weight applications whose presence and full functionality distinguishes Puppy from other Linuxes.

Don't ask where I got the libgtkhtlm library. I don't think it was in Barry K's original or I would not have taken the time to rebuilt his pet for fossapup64-9.5. pkgs.org download?

rockedge, I look forward to testing your version. In fairness, I now have to boot into S15-R2 and explore it. Anyone anxiously waiting for the results of my exploration of an updated Tahrpup64 with gdrv containing current glibc and openssl, don't hold your breath. (a) It's currently on the 'back-burner' and (b) proving to be a PITA. Revising initrd requires that I unlock some mysteries I haven't previously dealt with.

mikeslr wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 2:39 pm

ptheming vs. radky's work: dimkr is right about these conflicting. But only if you try to use both. What I've done is install JWMDesk, then use MenuManager to turn off the menu display of ptheming...

You can't see it. But the screen-shot is of a desktop managed by JWMDesk. I installed it and used Menu Manager to turn off the menu listing for ptheming before I created the SaveFolder.

I'm conflicted about ptheme vs. JWMdesk. I hadn't used ptheme since Xenial maybe, at least I think that's what version it was. At any rate, being able to have a global theme is nice. JWMdesk may be a little more intuitive, though honestly, I think they are both a bit quirky when it comes it to opening multiple pop-up dialogs and getting lost in the maze. I was just playing around with ptheme in vanilladpup, and it took me a good while to figure out how to use it properly, once I did I began to appreciate the ability to store a complete theme.

I did notice in vanialladpup that symlinking gtk themes to /usr/share/themes did not work in ptheme, The themes were indeed available through their symlinks when opening in a file manager, but would not show up in ptheme. Actually, they would show up in the browser window if one clicked the "more themes" button, but I couldn't get them to show up in the menu list of themes on the left side of the chooser when using symlinks, and that menu seems to be where choosing has to happen. As a result I hard copied 50 themes into the pupsave.

So as I say, I haven't come down one way or the other on my preference, but I'm just sharing my observations.

If it's possible to have both available without crashing one or the other, then that would be valuable. As a note, I have periodically run into xwin hanging in fossapup when using JWMtheme chooser from JWMdesk. Eventually I figured out that using the keyboard to open a terminal, run htop and kill JWMtheme would bring back the desktop functionality. I'm also beginning to see that it might have something to do with the order of using the quit or save buttons after three different dialogs are open to get to the theme chooser. Ptheme opens similar multi window dialogs which can get confusing. For instance it's easy to open two or three "global theming" windows because the button is present on multiple pop-up windows.

geo_c, radky's new, version 3.5.4, JWMDesk comes with a themes manager.

There is a request for @radky's work. Although a great piece of work for XORG, this will need attention as Wayland continues to emerge for our use over the next decade. Maybe time to consider a good, modified, or better direction, TODAY.

JWMdesk might be redeveloped as a chameleon to be consistent with the directions at hand if its name is to be preserved in both environments. But developers know best as they weigh risk of such a chameleon versus a grounds-up direction.

FYI

mikeslr wrote: ↑Thu Nov 03, 2022 7:21 pm

geo_c, radky's new, version 3.5.4, JWMDesk comes with a themes manager.Screenshot.png

Yes that's the one I'm running, and when you want to choose a saved theme by clicking the icon to the right of the color bar, another window opens, and it's very possible to do things from there that make the dialog hang. I'm not exactly sure of the combination, but I've done it many, many, times, and I can't do any xwin related activities like close windows etc, until I kill that dialog.

Like I say, I'm not sure the combination, but because I do so much theme work I might have that dialog opened a long time and change things 20 or 50 times before encountering the hang. So it's probably not an issue for most people.

Just a thought before exploring S15. On the other thread retiredt00 had posted "...There are few things failing but the important one is that out of the 3 package managers (PPM, PM-ng, apt-get/synaptic) non of then work as they are all without repo info and they all fail to update their repositories." viewtopic.php?p=71249#p71249. dimkr replied, "apt update fails only because your clock is set incorrectly. I can't "fix" this without dropping SNS in favor of a proper network manager tool with NTP support and that's a big change..."

I wonder if temporarily changing time settings could provide a work-around. As I wrote, just a thought. Don't know enough to make further suggestions.

Like @mikeslr ... just a thought. Don't know enough to make a suggestion.

Does this impact positively?