The successor to Lucid Puppy

Forum member puppyite sent me a pm expressing concern that the proposed next official flagship Puppy, version 5.3, might not be based on Ubuntu packages. See discussion on 5.3 here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=66820

The choice of which distro's packages are used is not really up to me. It is really a question of who will "run with the ball". playdayz had the determination and stamina to bring Lucid Puppy to release status and to coordinate a series of upgrades. Now he wants a rest and that is well-earned.
It was playdayz who choose Ubuntu packages, and the choice for the next Puppy (5.3) is also up to whoever is going to manage it.

For those who want to see a "Natty Puppy", well, it is up to you to do it. There is room for more than one mainstream official Puppy.
Currently we have two "official" puppies, Lucid and Wary, the latter built from packages compiled in T2. There is no reason why we couldn't have Wary, Upup and Spup going into the future, as long as each is targeting different audiences.

In my case, Wary has a well-defined audience, older hardware, especially for those on Internet dialup.

For those who might be thinking, isn't that weakening our development with three or more different puppies? Not really, if they are synced to the latest Woof then they all have the same infrastructure. The differences will be in the packages used and some user-interface/bells-and-whistles/internationalization enhancements. Plus of course binary compatibility with a particular distro and access to that distros repositories.
But underneath, they will all still be Puppy.

Note, building a Puppy with Woof is not for the faint-hearted, at least not at first. You need pretty good Linux commandline experience, plus a willingness to solve any problems yourself. I get pm's and emails from people who have tried Woof and they report that it failed and they want to know why -- I just don't have the time to respond. It is too much for me to walk newcomers through the intricacies of Woof. So, understand this before embarking on managing a project such as "Natty Puppy". However, we do have some Woof experts, such as playdayz, 01micko and kirk, who might be able to spare some time to provide individual walk-throughs. I recall, there was such a walk-through posted to the forum awhile back.

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Comments

EZ-Woof
Username: playdayz
One way to get started with Woof is to use EZ-Woof-525. This is a [b]stripped down version of Woof[/b]--all I did was to remove everything but the built packages and the scripts that assemble them into a working Lucid 5.2.5. So, to build Lucid 5.2.5, there is nothing else to download, just untar, start the woof_gui, choose a kernel, and Build the distro. After that success ;-) then you can learn how the DISTRO_PKGS_SPECS files work to build each distro by examining and experimenting with the one that builds Lucid 5.2.5, which is DISTRO_PKGS_SPECS-ubuntu-lucid. There is also a forum message for EZ-Woof-52. Please understand, EZ-Woof-525 will only build Lucid variants--if you want to build Spup, Dpup, or even Natty Pup, you will need to learn to use the full Woof (but EZ-Woof *might* be a good place to start for you). I should mention that the tarball is 411MB--but remember, that is the complete thing. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=67123

Footnote on Lucid
Username: playdayz
"As a footnote: Lucid up through 5.1.1 was a traditional Woof-based Puppy--all of the packages used to build it were either Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 binaries, or pet binaries. Beginning with 5.2 we included some Maverick packages, and more packages that were compiled in Lucid. Then with 5.2.5 we included some Natty packages in additions to the Maverick packages. even a Slackware package (gparted 0.8), as well as numerous programs compiled in Lucid. Just for instance, the gnome-mplayer in Lucid 5.2.5 is the latest version 1.0.2 (compiled by ttuuxxx) and it solved a problem with full screen in jwm that we had been fighting since Lucid 5.0. OK, enough, the point is that Woof is a flexible and powerful build system, and once you get up on the learning curve it is great fun. I second what Barry says, they are all Puppy's underneath because they are all built on the basic infrastructure in Woof. We have gotten beyond the misconception that Lucid was a Ubuntu clone ;-( BTW, There is a plenty nice looking Spup going on. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=67444

software support
Username: Puppyite
"Thank you for addressing my concerns Barry. I appreciate that the choice of which packages Puppy is based on is made by the lead developer. I wish I had the skill to participate. I have made a post in the forum where I elaborate further on why I would like to see the next release of Puppy Linux support Ubuntu software: [url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=67579]The Future of Puppy Linux

Upgrade vs Diversity
Username: johny why
"hi i'm a noob end-user, who wants a solid performer to replace windows. i've been using lucid, and it's great. but the improvements i'd like to see have to do with hardware support, user-interface, and file-system metaphor. if i upgrade to the "next version" of puppy, it should be just that-- an UPGRADE. automatic upgrades is one of my feature requests. if you move to a different package system, then would it be correct to say, that's no longer an upgrade. it's really a completely different system, which i must then get used to, and i must then reconfigure and re-setup my whole system. so, i think what i'm hearing barry say is that if i want to simply "upgrade" my existing system to a new and more powerful puppy, wilst keeping my existing settings and configuration and packages, then i must wait for somebody to do a natty puppy. is that correct? if so, that's a drag. on the other hand, if a different package system is truly an ADVANCEMENT over the existing packaging system, with significant advantages, then its worth it! thanks!

Numbering System?
Username: johny why
"question about the versioning system: what factor decides when you go up a decimal point to 5.3, vs going up an integer to version 6? shouldn't that be based on a qualitative difference in fundamental core structures, vs simply reaching 5.9.9? thanks!

Tags: puppy