Fossa64-Low

[ozsouth]

30april2025. Due to EOL of Ubuntu Fossa, I plan to discontinue this pup later this year.

NOTE: Most of the posts following this one pertain to much earlier versions & may be irrelevant.

Fossa64-Low-9. 228mb. (v8 onward actually an upgrade of Small).
Hopefully (really) is the final version, finishing with this - the original pup in my fossa remaster series.
Thanks goes to philb, the originator of fossapup64. Use at own risk.

v9 here: https://puppylinux.com/ccount220/click.php?id=fossalow9

Has updateable non-avx Palemoon v33.7.0 (another adrv could be substituted if different browser desired),
which can also play most mp4 & mp3. (Small mediaplayers included in iso, vidplay & audplay, are better).
Has Kernel 6.1.116 (partially modified config, aufs/overlayfs), 30mb firmware (improved).
Has Online Document Viewer link in Documents menu (25mb max). Has Firefox get-run-update menu options.
Has ffmpeg, osmo, viewnior, pcdlite cd player 0.86, cups-gsij (basic printing), Ted rtf wordprocessor.
Ted is not linked directly to rtf, but right-click on an rtf in filemanager will offer Ted option.
Has Gparted, Pupsysinfo, calcoo, calendar, evince, gftp, leafpad, mtpaint, pupmtp.
Has setspot, setbkt, updatesfsf. Has cd/dvd blanker & iso-burner.

Has basic audioplayer - mp3, ogg, wav, au (audplay - click on file to play).
If bigger media player added, this is still available by running audplay (filename) from command line.
Has a basic ffplay-based mediaplayer (vidplay - click on file to play). Plays many video formats.
Useful keys: q=quit, p=pause/resume, left arrow=back 10 sec, right arrow=forward 10 sec,
down arrow=back 1 min, up arrow=forward 1 min, page down=back 10 min, page up=forward 10 min.
If bigger media player added, this is still available by running vidplay (filename) from command line.
Can convert formats via ffmpeg (i.e. ffmpeg -i my.rm my.mp4).
Has dvd vob player (unencrypted dvds only).

With overlayfs, can rename 2 application sfs's to docx_fossapup64_9.5.sfs & nlsx_fossapup64_9.5.sfs
& they load on boot, in addition to ydrv. This is not the intended use of these, but works for me, but
/usr/local/bin/defaultmediaplayer & similar from puppy .sfs won't be overwritten - need to do it manually.

devx is here: https://archive.org/download/puppy_linu ... 64_9.5.sfs

netsurf3.11 (tiny very basic browser) here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/3w42voyv ... 2.sfs/file

A collection of my latest fdrvs is here (must rename fdrvs to suit puppy to be used):
viewtopic.php?p=121635#p121635

Some extra .pets (use at own risk) are here:

abiwgnum: https://www.mediafire.com/file/e099bmel ... l.pet/file

• Has insert symbol fix.

clawsmail: https://www.mediafire.com/file/cpypztx1 ... l.pet/file

flshgms: https://www.mediafire.com/file/c9qb4w14 ... l.pet/file

gnome-mplayer: https://www.mediafire.com/file/m9afb2eb ... l.pet/file

• I have set x11 video, alsa sound, 8mb cache. Some folk may need other settings.

gutenp: https://www.mediafire.com/file/mp9qty5h ... l.pet/file

loffice: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ux4xadil ... l.pet/file

• Puts an entry in Document menu. Default saves to /root/Documents , in ms2007- format. Is set to US
• to change this, go to: tools/options/language settings/languages - edit locale & western settings.

mpv: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ujy7wy5n ... l.pet/file

mstrpdf4: https://www.mediafire.com/file/yoiu1wl1 ... l.pet/file

xine: https://www.mediafire.com/file/uvja0256 ... l.pet/file

• does not play rm, ogg, webm OR CDs (pcdlite can play CDs). Does play DVDs.

xpat2: https://www.mediafire.com/file/ygzvk9mb ... l.pet/file
.

[pp4mnklinux]

200mb, my ideal size , thanks for your work.

Hi:

I remember years ago, when I need to install a lot of software to do my work, to prepare documents for school, to made powerpoints to do expositions, to...

Nowadays, my dream is a opperative system with only a browser, only with Firefox / Chromium.

Then, my start-page will be https://palemoon.start.me/p/Vja59l/start-mnk and thats all I need, all I want, no Office suite, No claws, slimjet, Thunderbird or similar, no conversor, no mp3 editor, no openshot, no...

I understand you need a good internet connection, but if you have it... u must use it.

-----edited-----

This page is included at the previous link, but when you are bored..... GO DISCOVER, HAHA.- https://start.me/discover/gb

Of course I must test it, but its characteristics really motivate me to install it.

Thanks again, have a good day.

[mikeslr]

ditto pp4mnklinux's reply. A really nice base from which a User can just add what (s)he needs. Requests for a 'bare bones' are made frequently. Yours should fill the need.

[Jasper]

...........lol damn .......... must of missed your Mediafire link (?)

I have never really understood the use of additional drives eg ydrv

I guess being a newcomer I have only been used to the adrv in the original release.

[mikeslr]

...........lol damn .......... must of missed your Mediafire link (?)

I have never really understood the use of additional drives eg ydrv

I guess being a newcomer I have only been used to the adrv in the original release.

For about 10 years --since jemimah published Saluki-- Puppys have been modular: (1) vmlinuz & (2) zdrv.sfs holding the kernel & drivers --later (3) fdrv.sfs. holding firmware originally and sometimes still located in zdrv.sfs.-- (4) Window-Manager, File-manager and applications in the base/core sfs. But subsequent changes to initrd enabled the use of adrv.sfs and ydrv.sfs which are automatically copied into RAM on boot-up; just as are drivers and firmware. 666philb took the opportunity that provided to publish a 'bare-bones' fossapup64 with 'not needed'* applications in its adrv.sfs.

Most recent publishers of Puppys have only included a web-browser in adrv.sfs. Many Puppy-fans already have a web-browser and/or would prefer one other than that chosen by the publisher. Packaged as an adrv.sfs, the publisher's choice is easily disposable.

dimkr has used a modified initrd so that synaptic can be offered in a bdrv.sfs. mistfire has modified initrd further --in Quickpup-- so that different related suites of applications are provided by several different 'drvs'; one or more of which can be eliminated by the user.

-=--=--=--
The 'catch' is that what's 'not needed' is subjective.

[ozsouth]

New version (2) - see 1st post

[Jasper]

@ozsouth

Thanks for the new ISO and the MF link.

Just grabbing it now

[sonny]

I made a 199.6mb fossapup-based 64bit iso, with the original large adrv replaced, & bits borrowed from elsewhere for fdrv, ydrv, zdrv, so just the puppy sfs unchanged. Not sure if useful, or just a challenge completed.
- Thanks to 666philb, for original iso with this structure.
- Thanks to peebee for light browser & smaller fdrv & gnome-mplayer.
- Thanks to plinej for gpdf.
- Thanks to 01micko for base poorer* file.
Also included are calcoo calculator, mtpaint, xpat2 cards, poorercputemp, poorerbatlev (these are in ydrv, along with gnome-mplayer & gpdf). Also has my 5.4.159 kernel as zdrv. It already had leafpad text editor (in the puppy sfs).
Could replace adrv (light browser) with another browser sfs, so long as all needed libraries are in sfs.

Has no office/printing/scanning or video editing software, & can't easily add them (best to simply use original adrv without ydrv, if these things are desired). Print to file (pdf) is an option in both web browser & leafpad.
Security files are from 2020, so USE AT OWN RISK.

EDIT 8/6/23: Seems to be significant interest in this project, so I made version 2 - 220mb.
Set current Palemoon64-gtk2 v32.2 (instead of Light browser) as adrv, and in ydrv added mhwaveedit (record & edit wav files), a bit more firmware & made minor fixes.

Original here: https://archive.org/download/puppy_linu ... .5-low.iso

NEW version 2 here: https://www.mediafire.com/file/9jyzxt9y ... 2.iso/file

Let's call it "Bony"

[ozsouth]

V2 - 25 downloads in 1st 18 hours. Looks like a small puppy concept is popular.

[amethyst]

Nice one. I actually downloaded Fossa64-9.6's base sfs and adrv from archive.org the other day. I think the base sfs was 260MB and the adrv with the applications 72MB. I don't know the compression level, didn't check I just booted it up with an old Tahr64 huge kernel (very small in size) and my adapted initrd.gz for extra drives. It booted fine. I haven't spent time with it yet, will check over the weekend. I intend to make my own adrv or ydrv for the applications I want to use (or just load the applications as extra drives), using my package extractor tool.

[AntonioPt]

Can wait to rest it :d

Thankyou for the good job

[mikeslr]

Fleshed it out quite a bit, but it still boots to desktop only using 220 Mbs. Almost the first thing I did was change the wallpaper. This is what it now looks like:
https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 250#p91250
I recommend adding viewnoir. You can get it via Puppy Package Manager. mtpaint isn't really designed for just viewing graphics: At least on my computers it opens showing only a partial view of large graphics which then have to be resized to actually be viewed.

TAS (Take-a-shot) will pull down lots of dependencies. So if you want to keep things small, you can substitute 01micko's mtpaintsnatpshot, download/file.php?id=362&sid=0760287169 ... 3c56800532

[ozsouth]

@mikeslr - glad you're experimenting. Will be good to see results. Hopefully others will experiment too.
On mtpaint - another reason I added it is that pressing 'prt sc' keyboard button uses it to take a screenshot. Also, gnome-mplayer plays media files, cds, dvds & runs my tv stick. I was looking for multiple functions in smallish packages.

[Fossil]

I had the same problem with Mtpaint. Downloaded radky's JWMdesk 3.6 from https://www.smokey01.com/radky/JWMDesk-3.6.pet. Installed, then went to Default Apps, Multimedia. Changed the default image viewer from Mtpaint to the already onboard, imgview. Basic, but it does work, fast.
Oh! Almost forgot also used JWMdesk to 'update' the GTK theme with a heavier, bold, font. The eyesight ain't what it was!

[ozsouth]

@Fossil - glad folk can add their own options. With mtpaint's sizing, I just click the % arrow underneath Effects or maximise. Easy enough to remove it, though.

[ozsouth]

.

[Jasper]

@ozsouth

Thanks again for the updates.

Just wanted to inform you that it has been the hottest weekend here in the UK plus a lot of sport on the TV ................. so making the most of it whilst it lasts

Grabbed the alternative Ydrv , thanks for the MF link

*NB

Maybe SCROT could be used for screenshots???

[ozsouth]

@Jasper - When I visited UK in 2017 (my grandmother was born in Gloucs in 1890s), I landed late July & they'd had 35C in Bournemouth a fortnight before. Didn't get over 26C for the 6 weeks & 21C most days, very little rain. Absolutely glorious. I'd come every summer if I could afford to. We only had 6 days over 35C in our Southern Oz summer this year. Sport - yes - & Oz just won the World Test Cricket final!
As for scrot - worth a try. To keep files to a minimum, I've added executables, then run them in terminal, to see missing dependencies, then added them in.
I did it that way, as many normal fossa libs are in the original adrv, so missing from fossalow. Gnome-mplayer had 20 missing libs, so 20 restarts were needed. Normally, I would give up after 5 or so, but that one had too many uses & was small. If you copy in scrot executable, you'll need to do that too.
I included mtpaint as it's picture viewer/editor AND takes screenshots. Just press 'prt sc' on keyboard & mtpaint -s activates, taking a screeny.

[Jasper]

@ozsouth

Congratulations on the cricket, this morning I think India need 200+ runs and you need 7 wickets.

Gloucestershire, is a really lovely place to live in and I am glad you had favourable weather on your visit.

The Australian Government has big recruitment drive presently and is offering double salaries and Visa sponsorships to professionals here to emigrate to Oz.

BTW, can you use the default DevX for compiling applications?

[ozsouth]

@Jasper - I've thus far mostly added progs that were in the original adrv (in some form). Only gnome-mplayer is not in original. Original fossapup devx should be fine.

[ozsouth]

Version 3 - released - see first post. . Don't think I can make more small changes, so I think this challenge is done.

[Jasper]

Oh no............. just setup the 2nd ISO a few minutes ago

I added a few applications to this and I am sure that I most probably need a few more eg Aria2c, yt-dlp

What I have not checked is the need for these applications for additional dependencies.

Bash 5.2.15
Kmod-30
Parted-3.6
Alsa-Lib-1.29
Freetype 2.13.0
Gzip 1.12
Hdparm-9.65
Lockstate 1.5 (Displays Capslock on/off)
UExtract 4.11
Tree 2.1.0
Binutils 2.40
DBus 1.15.4
Openssl 1.1.1u
Wget 1.21.4
util-linux-2.39
Busybox 1.36.1
Squashfs-tools 4.61
Coreutils 9.1

It made me laugh with your choice of wallpaper ......... very funny and apt

I will grab the 3rd one now. TBH I will grab it just for the kernel. Going to play around with the 2nd one.

So far, so good

**Little bit of housekeeping ...2x entries for Palemoon - Network & Internet (easily fixed )

[Fossil]

@Jasper

Gloucestershire, is a really lovely place to live in.....

I couldn't agree with you more! Gloucester itself is a very old and fascinating city.
@ozsouth Didn't we have a short conversation some year's back regarding local (to Glos) ancestry?
Thanks for the update.

[Jasper]

@Fossil

Great pics

@ozsouth

I compiled a tiny archiver GTK2 here (04 May 2023):

viewtopic.php?p=90697#p90697

Source:
https://github.com/ib/xarchiver/

[ozsouth]

@Fossil - was good to chat about Gloucestershire. My grandmother lived next door to me for 17 years, so had plenty of talk about it then. Here's an Aug 2017 photo of me under the Dursley Council Chambers.

oz_in_dursley.jpg (55.93 KiB) Viewed 3667 times

[Jasper]

@ozsouth

Using the new kernel update (did not realise it was LTS )

At some point if I do not adopt a new build, I will have to strip out OpenSSL 1.x and then adopt the 3.x build

[Jasper]

@ozsouth

I have two questions to ask.

Will I need to add the Intel-CPIO (Spectre) to my boot configuration?

Also, can you let me know what the SFS contain?

The reason for this is that I wanted to extract the relevant SFS file and then add my core updates and then compress it back to use.

Adrv - applications (core binary updates to add here?)
Ydrv - browser (?)

[mikeslr]

"Fossa64-low adrv is replaceble - Google-Chrome works, but needs gtk3 & other libs. I failed with Firefox." https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 044#p91044

I haven't downloaded V3 yet. But under V2 the firefox64-esr from here https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 667#p90667 works OOTB (likely because it's merely a repackaged 'portable' courtesy of fredx181 and Mikewalsh, thus containing all necessary libraries. I'm posting from it now.

It can be used as an adrv.sfs by merely renaming it to adrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs. But read the post for info about keeping it portable and updatable.

[amethyst]

"Fossa64-low adrv is replaceble - Google-Chrome works, but needs gtk3 & other libs. I failed with Firefox." https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 044#p91044

I haven't downloaded V3 yet. But under V2 the firefox64-esr from here https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 667#p90667 works OOTB (likely because it's merely a repackaged 'portable' courtesy of fredx181 and Mikewalsh, thus containing all necessary libraries. I'm posting from it now.

It can be used as an adrv.sfs by merely renaming it to adrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs. But read the post for info about keeping it portable and updatable.

I'm using the latest Firefox portable. It seems this just updates automatically without asking even if I set it not to do so. Is this a known issue with the portables? I have another Firefox (not a portable but extracted tarball) which does not do this but asks permission as set.

[Jasper]

As FFMpeg is not included ........... which I need for the x264 codec for playback on websites (primarily the BBC). Youtube works fine.

I tried an old x264 compilation, but realised that was only the encoder from VLC.

Looked at the OpenH264 lib from Cisco and moved it into all the library directories with no success.

https://github.com/cisco/openh264

I will have a try at building the latest release and see if that works.

**UPDATE***

Not 100% sure this has been compiled correctly. It was installed easily enough on my PC but unsure if the PET works properly.

YouTube looks smoother IMO.

openh264-2.3.1-x86_64
https://www.mediafire.com/file/8r02g9j1 ... 4.pet/file