01micko.com EOL

[dimkr]

You don't deal with the forum's email

Maybe you won't have to once puppylinux.com catches up with reality and becomes actually useful.

[wanderer]

hi rockedge

is there anything forum members can do to help you with the workload

wanderer

[mikewalsh]

If the last couple of developers go away, then all this discussion will be irrelevant.
In contrast there are at least 20 persons in this forum posting 1-5 messages a day, some very lengthy, so they have pleanty of time, linux experience and abilities.
May want to contribute in puppy development and building instead and who knows, THEY may become the missing puppy masters.

@retiredt00 :-

That is - if you don't mind my saying - something of a naive statement.....especially given that you're not a Puppy 'noob'. Time to spare does not automatically equal time for development.

Many of us are users, rather than developers. In my case, I'm mostly a 'packager', although I've turned my hand to the odd utility built from scratch. I know how much effort it takes me to develop a single small utility. I can only imagine how much commitment would have to go into not only building, but MAINTAINING an entire operating system. Personally, I have neither the time to spare, NOR the inclination or skill.

Yes, I'm logged-on to the Forum all day long. You know why? I'm a full-time carer by profession.....and by the very nature of the job, you simply don't know from one day to the next how much work you're in for. Some days I'm rushed off my feet, whereas others I'm twiddling my thumbs and looking round for summat to do. But it's NOT 'predictable'. So I log-on in the mornings, stay logged-on all day, and grab a wee while here and there when I get the chance.

But by no stretch of the imagination would I ever contemplate trying to actually contribute to the OS development side of things. I don't have the interest, and I definitely don't have the skills. So the next time you feel like making such an observation, please take a moment out to consider just HOW much work you're blithely volunteering others for.

Such statements are not fair on other members of the community, who may often be contributing TO the community in ways of which you're not aware.

(*shrug*)

Mike.

[d-pupp]

Here goes nothing

I would like to suggest the following changed to the Puppy Linux home page
1 That the downloads be replaced with a link to the forum 'Mainline Puppy Linux Distros'
Links to each Distros download could be pinned to the top of the page along with any other info the developer wanted.
2 That a link to the forum 'General information' be added
there is some very good information and how to
3 That a link to the forum 'Beginner Help' be added
and the post 'info we need to help' pinned to the top
Hopefully this would help new users to post for help.

[wanderer]

i agree with d-pupp

if the puppy linux home page could be kept very simple

it would be easy to maintain

and anyone could do it

people interested in puppy need to visit the forum anyway to see the full spectrum of puppy world

it should not make any more work for rockedge

since nothing would be added to the forum

the posts are already there

wanderer

[williwaw]

So the info here is still going to apply.
viewtopic.php?t=6247&sid=4d9e5c0f45fb09 ... 2656f886a0

I guess this needs to be a sticky topic someplace in the forum.

Maybe there can be a more objective sort criteria on puppylinux.com, such as suggested below? The addition of a simple "use case" or project mission statement would help the visitor choose. The new-to-puppy site visitor may not be that much concerned with the official vs. non-official nuance if it was clear which projects were actively maintained or better suited to their needs

No, this means two things:
1) The distinction between "official" and "unofficial" makes some Puppy family distros second-class citizens, and sometimes promotes the use of old releases that no longer work well. I think the downloads list should be re-organized so recent stable releases ("official" or not) take the top spots, while old releases nobody would recommend to new users are moved to some archive.
2) The decision what to put in that list should be more ... democratic.

Well said, and I agree with points 1 and 2

@bigpup
I am willing to help with the "how-to" aspects of Github, should you decide to undertake the democratic stuff.

[bigpup]

Up until some Puppy versions started being offered for download at other locations.

This was the official repository and location to put the ISO's for downloading.

ibiblio.org Index of Puppy Linux
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

Every Puppy version has it's own directory and the ISO located in this directory.
Along with anything else the developer wanted to offer and store along with the ISO.

Any specific software, made into a pet package for the specific Puppy version, has a pet package directory.
That directory is specific software, compiled for that specific Puppy version.

This repository is free to use and never goes away.
But it does require a registration process to be able to have the ability to put something in it.

Anyone can download from it.

I see S15Pup has a directory.
But instead of putting the ISO's in it.
It has htm files that provide the links to other locations.

[dimkr]

Anyone can download from it.

Yet, only few can upload to it. Puppy is more like a group of solo developers and less like a community.

[rockedge]

@dimkr and that's because saying over and over Git is easy to use does not make it so.

One issue is probably knowing how to make a contribution.

I believe it is because a team needs a manager in some capacity. Any football team with bad management or missing management usually will end up relegated to the lowest divisions.

There's no focus no planned direction so of course it is a solo dance. Difficult to build something as a team when there's no unified goals being set.

[dimkr]

@dimkr and that's because saying over and over Git is easy to use does not make it so.

I'm sorry but I don't see how git is related. It doesn't require any git knowledge (or a GitHub account) to download releases from GitHub.

However, trying to do any kind of team work using tools not designed for that (like file sharing via forums) instead of purpose-built, standard development tools (like git, diff, patch, etc') is unproductive and a waste of time. Those who want to collaborate have plenty of options and the problem is not lack of knowledge, given the huge variety of tutorials and free courses (including those offered by GitHub itself). I think the problem that lead to the current state of the Puppy community is not the lack of tools or lack knowledge, but lack of willingness.

[rockedge]

I don't agree completely with that.

I'm obviously not getting the point across with what I am saying.
Since some of the other devs are mostly hobbyist and do not do this professionally, it might be a reason for the reluctance to use the version control

[dimkr]

Most woof-CE contributors are not professional programmers, yet, they use git in one way or another. (I was a "hobbyist" when I learned basic git skills, back in my teenage years, and git was less accessible back then.). Today, even kids who play with Raspberry Pi have their git 101, and a fancy IDE with colors. It's not that hard to do some basic shell scripting, commit and push, if you just follow a tutorial.

I still think reluctance (and not only the particular kind of reluctance you're talking about) is the major obstacle to contribution, and not the lack of documentation or tools. There are other, technical obstacles, like equal access to shared resources like the puppylinux.com source code, but they have easy solutions.

[retiredt00]

Since some of the other devs are mostly hobbyist and do not do this professionally, it might be a reason for the reluctance to use the version control

Git is old enough even for me to know it and I can assure you that is much more important for amateurs and hobbyist!
The ability to go back and forth in your code is life/time saving.
Imaging permanent and unlimited undos and redos preserved through computer restarts, not only for one file, but all the files you may work on!
I can hardly imagine an amateur or a hobbyist that does not want this option when trying things out or learning to do things.

If versioning is done properly, which means one change per commit and clear commit messages with justification and explanation for the change, could be a wealth of knowledge not only for the person that is doing (and tries to figure it out 6 months later) it but also the others that can just look at the commits and understand how are things done and why! (I am sorry to point out here that woof-CE git is very poor in this aspect).

So if indeed you are a hobbyist coder, regardless of github or woof-ce, spend few hours to set up and use git. I can guarantee is going to save you many more hours down the road.

[peebee]

For various technical reasons, I'm not a fan of SourceForge. Sorry.

Interested to know what the problem is as I find them very good.

Despite your reservations - would they not be OK just as a repository of .isos??

[dimkr]

Despite your reservations - would they not be OK just as a repository of .isos??

Before I invest my (limited) time in automated upload of releases to a place other than GitHub, I want to understand the problems with download from GitHub and see if the alternatives solve them. Also, I don't know if a SF repo that contains ISO images of multiple projects essentially abuses SF, turns it into a file sharing platform and violates the TOS.

[williwaw]

I want to understand the problems with download from GitHub

Using older browsers may be the issue for some. Older browsers may not render all features on some pages at GitHub, including the download pages. Warnings used to be given, but not anymore, at least with Seamonkey.

Chromium seems to work OK

[stemsee]

Most woof-CE contributors are not professional programmers, yet, they use git in one way or another. (I was a "hobbyist" when I learned basic git skills, back in my teenage years, and git was less accessible back then.). Today, even kids who play with Raspberry Pi have their git 101, and a fancy IDE with colors. It's not that hard to do some basic shell scripting, commit and push, if you just follow a tutorial.

I still think reluctance (and not only the particular kind of reluctance you're talking about) is the major obstacle to contribution, and not the lack of documentation or tools. There are other, technical obstacles, like equal access to shared resources like the puppylinux.com source code, but they have easy solutions.

For my part I used to 'hangout' on github woof-ce, I forked woof-ce and I mainly pointed out typos in the build.sh kernel compile script! I remember one word in particular 'modues'. After adapting build.sh to nubuild.sh with automation and far better work flow I noticed that my almost exact arrangement was then adopted for the re-written build.sh script in woof-ce, again without any credit, but anyone can compare old build.sh with , nubuild.sh and then with new build.sh and see how obvious my work was plagiarised. Not only that even I did get a DOTconfig file accepted, I acknowledge that I didn'T submit it in the 'required' standard of the naming conventions .... my point here being that when I submit code on codeoverflow or somesuch site the editor corrects silly formatting errors and posts it.....so with non-professional programmers, willing to do some lifting work it may be a part of the 'deal' for the over seer to not only impose standards but also to make the adjustments when spotted. just saying... Encouraging participation but then crushing the naive enthusiasm of contributors may be counter productive. I recall mochimopel also recounting some such unappealing experience. I use linux but that doesn't mean I approve of Linus Torvalds and his style in any way shape or form, even if I bend my understaing to accomodate its short comings.

As for my scripting ability I feel it is at a level where I can confidently review woof-ce scripts and suggest improvements as well as pointing out mistakes and errors. Errors being systemic, while mistakes are one offs like typos.

But what needs doing?

[dimkr]

But what needs doing?

3 example of recently fixed, years-old bugs in Puppy:

https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3867
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3770
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3708

[bigpup]

I want to understand the problems with download from GitHub

Using older browsers may be the issue for some. Older browsers may not render all features on some pages at GitHub, including the download pages. Warnings used to be given, but not anymore, at least with Seamonkey.

Chromium seems to work OK

That is one reason to use ibiblio.org
It is as basic as you can get for a download location.
You can provide a direct link to anything in it.
Example:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pu ... 64-9.5.iso
Or this way:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-fossa/

Posting something to ibiblio.org is no different than Woof-CE, Github, Sourceforge, etc....
You have to make a login account and log in to be able to place something in it.
Just like this forum.

No login required to download from it.
Just click on some listed item and download it.
Uses the basic download process that is in any browser.

This is as basic as you can get for a web site.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

[williwaw]

No login required to download from it.
Just click on some listed item and download it.
Uses the basic download process that is in any browser.

I do not need to log in to GitHub to download (if thats what you mean), just need a recent browser to see the links.

Ibiblio has served the community well, but downloading from Ibiblio with a browser only works occasionally for me and wget (in update scripts fail). I have had to resort to using a full featured download manager (Uget) with ibiblio. I'm not saying we shouldn't use ibiblio, just reporting my difficulties with it

[rockedge]

I'm sorry but I don't see how git is related. It doesn't require any git knowledge (or a GitHub account) to download releases from GitHub.

It's not about downloading. It is that woof-CE is difficult to modify without deep study of it.

@dimkr are you putting distro's on Distrowatch generated by woof-CE? If true it is clear then why you decline to add all of your revolutionary work to be offered as a mainline Puppy Linux.

[dogcat]

My thoughts about Github are a bit different than most mentioned in this thread.

It has been 5 years, I wonder how long until Microsoft decides their Github acquisition does not produce the desired profit they originally envisioned? Corporations make decisions based on profit only. Was the acquisition of Github for other reasons than profit?

Will Microsoft do a Google and decide to charge for Github use? Or would they simply flip the kill switch with no warning?

[stemsee]

My thoughts about Github are a bit different than most mentioned in this thread.

It has been 5 years, I wonder how long until Microsoft decides their Github acquisition does not produce the desired profit they originally envisioned? Corporations make decisions based on profit only. Was the acquisition of Github for other reasons than profit?

Will Microsoft do a Google and decide to charge for Github use? Or would they simply flip the kill switch with no warning?

Microsoft bought github to promote azure, apparently. Gitlab is also reputable.

[dogcat]

My thoughts about Github are a bit different than most mentioned in this thread.

It has been 5 years, I wonder how long until Microsoft decides their Github acquisition does not produce the desired profit they originally envisioned? Corporations make decisions based on profit only. Was the acquisition of Github for other reasons than profit?

Will Microsoft do a Google and decide to charge for Github use? Or would they simply flip the kill switch with no warning?

Microsoft bought github to promote azure, apparently. Gitlab is also reputable.

Gitlab moved from Microsoft Azure to Google Cloud Platform when MS bought Github. Interesting bit of cat and mouse there.

[dimkr]

It is that woof-CE is difficult to modify without deep study of it.

Shell scripting, git, kernel building, etc' - all these things have tutorials and even books.

If the problem is the woof-CE codebase, these resources are not perfect, but that's what we have:

https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... /README.md
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/wiki

They're always open to contribution, and you can even edit the wiki if you find anything unclear. Constructive criticism can improve the situation, broad claims can't.

are you putting distro's on Distrowatch generated by woof-CE?

I submitted Vanilla Dpup to the Distrowatch waiting list, if that's what you mean.

you decline to add all of your revolutionary work to be offered as a mainline Puppy Linux

I have no idea where this suspicion comes from. All fixes I add to dpup are pushed upstream (https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=7656). In fact, these are pretty much the only bug fixes that go into woof-CE. At the time of writing, the difference between the woof-CE tree I use to build my dpup and upstream is a single commit that fixes a bug (!) and it belongs to an open PR.

[rockedge]

Shell scripting, git, kernel building, etc' - all these things have tutorials and even books.

I know. I can script and kernel build etc, etc..... Not what I'm referring too.

I have mentioned this before that I have not had a single run that completed. All attempts for some reason failed. Even with a dummy change to trigger a build. Don't know what I am doing wrong. Followed these instructions https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... /README.md

I've been doing attempts to have a good GitHub build since it was first offered. But I don't mind building on a local machine. I'm lucky I have a machine that can crunch the numbers and no problems trying out what modifications do.

[rockedge]

Posting something to ibiblio.org is no different than Woof-CE, Github, Sourceforge, etc....
You have to make a login account and log in to be able to place something in it.
Just like this forum.

Where does one register? All I have found was info indicating going through the Help page and submitting collection information via the contact form. Then their admin's will initiate contact if they feel what one has to offer is a good fit for the archive.

[williwaw]

Erik,
would you be kind enough to ask your build questions at https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... iscussions ?

theres a possibility the discussion would become undiscoverable at the bottom of 01micko.com EOL

[bigpup]

Posting something to ibiblio.org is no different than Woof-CE, Github, Sourceforge, etc....
You have to make a login account and log in to be able to place something in it.
Just like this forum.

Where does one register? All I have found was info indicating going through the Help page and submitting collection information via the contact form. Then their admin's will initiate contact if they feel what one has to offer is a good fit for the archive.

I have never done it, so I am not totally sure.

I see peebee has S15Pup and scpup directories at http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

I assume peebee put them there.

I would ask peebee how it was done.

01micko should know.

666philb should know how.

Barryk should for sure know how.

[peebee]

I would ask peebee how it was done.

01micko should know.

Barryk should for sure know how.

We are still logging in to ibiblio using @BarryK login details. He setup the original account way back c. 2007.

@01micko was/is the custodian of the login details and provided them as required and deemed appropriate.

I am happy to upload redirect files - e.g.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-dpup/

but note that this negates even the very limited mirror capability that ibiblio provides - i.e. mirror sites (e.g. nluug.nl) that have to be visited manually.

S15Pup and ScPup are also just redirects but to SourceForge which does provide "better" mirror mechanisms but even that can "go down" if the main site goes down as there is no direct access to the mirror sites.