Afternoon Everyone:

Let me inform everyone that I'm a noob to "puppy". OK, so maybe you'll bear with me a bit. I came to "puppy" after numerous problems getting LinuxMint to run properly from a pendrive. So, here I am and must say, Puppy is running infinitely better from a pendrive...so far(?) Being a rookie, I cannot find "synaptic pkg. mgr." that is standard on Linux O.S.'s. I've D/l'd VLC for puppy, have it saved yet having trouble getting it installed. Which bring up "how-to install/uninstall pkgs". Also, terminal takes a bit of getting used to. I guess the crux of this thread would be, what "advice/procedures/tutorials would you suggest that could be of help to my setting up Puppy? PuppyTahr 7.5 on a 4GB(2.0)pendrive

Appreciated:

Rick

Just a bit of advice in general: Linux does not need packages to be downloaded like Windows: every Linux distribution I have used over the past 20 years has a package repository and you use this repository to install whatever software you need. I am sure Puppy has this ability. Downloading and installing software outside of a distribution's package repository is complicating things and asking for viruses or malware. Linux distribution packagers have measures in place to ensure the validity of the packages they distribute. Random downloads do not.

Not saying you can't download and install like Windows users have to, but I would advise against it.

Docs on Puppy's software manager: https://puppylinux.org/wikka/software

RE: sevendogsbsd

Thanx for replying. I'm well aware of installing the Linux way. It's just, sometimes, I find certain pkgs. that are not available via the repositories; ..i.e. Opera browser (just for one). And, in saying that, also, some pkgs, when run via "puppy" do not work well..i.e. VLC media player. Now, I finally figured out where the repositories are on puppy--PPM (I was looking for synaptic package manager) Ok, as I'm a rookie with Puppy, it's gonna take a bit of searching and experimentation, so I come here and hit the "web" often until I get familiar with puppy and get it set up as I wish. I DO take care when D/l'ing outside of the "pkgs. mgr." and ALWAYS find programs that are (supposed to be) compatible w/ Linux distros. Appreciate the link you sent. I believe you replied to one of my posts over at LinuxMint forums where I was having such a problem w/ LM 17-18-19 working properly. Seems, so far, "puppy" had eliminated the extreme lagging issue and is operating much the way one would expect.Right now, I'm working on "cleaning up" the task bar as it seems a bit cluttered (to me). Always appreciate good help/advice.

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@ 69Rixter:-

Welcome to 'the kennels'.

You won't find Synaptic in Puppy. Puppy may make use of binaries, etc., from Ubuntu.....but Puppy is very, very unique..

Many of the build features in use by the current 'Woof-CE' build-system are used by other distros, to be sure.....but the 'recipe' is very definitely a 'Puppy' special.

Pup uses its own repositories, and also makes use of those of its 'parent' (sometimes Ubuntu, sometimes Slackware). However, the caveat is that they may not always work straight away. Tweaking is often required, and this leads to the other main reason for Pup's existence; it's a 'hobbyist' distro, first & foremost, with the ultimate aim of keeping very old hardware still useful. It'll run on newer hardware, certainly.....but unlike so many of the mainstream distros, which are slowly dropping support for really old hardware from their kernels, Puppy will never do that.

The other thing which stumps many folks who come across from the 'big boys', is Pup's terminal. Pup employs Busybox, a 'multi-call' binary, which behaves in different ways according to how it's called. The vocabulary is somewhat stripped-down; many 'common' commands just aren't there, though there's a handful which are specific to Puppy, and will never be found anywhere else.

The most comprehensive listing of software packages available for Puppies of all generations (even going all the way back to 2003) is to be found on the Murga-Linux 'Puppy' Forums. TBH, that Forum is likely to be of more use to 'Puppians' than any other world-wide.

Additional Software sub-forum at Murga-Linux

We have 'Puppy' users at LQ.org, yes.....myself included. I run around a dozen Puppies, and Pup's been my daily driver for almost 5 years. But for specific information and help, you can't beat an entire community dedicated to one distro (or family of distros); Puppies number in the hundreds, if you count all the many 're-spins' and re-masters that have been published over the last 15 years.....

(FYI, there are Puppy-specific builds of current VLC available from the above link. These have been tweaked to work with Puppy's /root model.....which, coming as you do from a 'mainstream' distro, probably horrifies you. Especially given that you've like as not had it drummed into you, 'Never do anything as /root.....always be just a 'user'')

Finally; which are you actually running here; is it Tahrpup, or is it Xenialpup? Current Tahrpup is at 6.0.6; 7.5 is the current release of Xenialpup. I'm a bit confused..!


Mike.

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RE: Mike

OK, now I'm getting "somewhere". OK, did manage to find "packages" in xenialpup; it's called PPM(puppy package mngr....DOH!)Using the install/uninstall package mngr. is getting a bit frustrating. I'm not able to delete some of the preinstalled pkgs...yet. And, I needed a ppapi flash for opera browser and am still trying to figure out how to install it. Puppy is quite different from Linux, but that's not a bad thing. Will look for those puppy specific VLC players. As far as user vs. root...your correct. But then again, why not learn to "root"? I'm beginning to learn a somewhat different O.S. anyway plus I think that's the way the terminal operates too(???).Cut/paste is a trip and doesn't always work. Oh, and one other thing that's bugging me. In order to have persistence, I let the O.S. create a "save" file. That's OK except when the folder(alloted space) is 'full". I then went to find the culprits because I couldn't believe that after 2 sessions, it had filled 3/4 Gb. I did find 2 D/l's and deleted them, but they were not big enough to account for approx 750 Mb's. Hmmmm... So, increased file allotment to 1.75Gb. and after 2 more sessions, somehow I've compiled almost .5 Gb more???? Need to get in there and find all the B.S. it's(save file) accumulating.Still reading 'tutorials", still learning new stuff every session, and STILL fighting with it LOL!!! But, it's OK 'cause, like I said before, I'm learning(???) So, Mike, my THANX for your help and anything more you or anyone would like to share, like "Big Brother", I'm "listening". And lastly...sorry for the confusion ...it's Xenialpup 7.5

Rick


another day...another dollar...in debt

You're in good hands with good old Mike knows his stuff. Welcome to Puppy.

@ 69rixter:-

Rick:-

Let's see if I can answer these in some kind of order. Firstly, not being able to delete any of the 'pre-installed' apps/programs...

You're running this as a 'frugal' from a pen-drive, I think? Well, you can certainly delete stuff from a session, yes; but as soon as you re-boot it's going to be back. That's because the 'built-in' software (which Puppy reads in from the main Puppy SFS file at boot-time), is 'read-only'. There's two approaches to dealing with this.

There is a method (detailed somewhere on the Puppy Forums) whereby you can remove built-in stuff.....but it involves a 're-master' of the ISO itself. Or, the other method is to employ what's known as a 'bare-bones' Puppy (a very minimal install).....and to simply install just what you need.

----------------------------------------

Ppapi.....better known as PepperFlash. Oh, boy. Here we go.....again.

The main problem with PepperFlash is that, unlike 'standard' Flash (which always lives in one fixed location), different Chromium-based browsers tend to expect to find it in different locations. Which is annoying as hell.

Chrome takes care of PepperFlash automatically these days; it's internal to the browser process. It runs, and updates, from inside the default profile.

Chromium itself (the open-source browser all the others are based on) doesn't come with Pepper. You have to install it manually, then specify, in the launcher 'wrapper-script', where the browser should look for it!

SRWare Iron wants it to be in /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin. In Puppy, this is a sym-link to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins.

FlashPeak's Slimjet has the PepperFlash directory inside the browser directory itself.....

See what I mean?

Do this for me, would you? Go into Menu->Filesystem->pFind file finder. Type 'opera' into the search bar, then check the radio button to the right for 'System Files'. Hit the 'Search' button.

I think (from memory) that Opera installs to /opt (a 'catch-all' directory for a lot of stuff that doesn't neatly fit anywhere else).....but I could be wrong. It's a while since I looked at Opera. I'm pretty familiar with the Chromium-based browser gang, having been a Chrome user since day 1, back in 2008. I'm not so conversant with the Mozilla-based browsers.

I'm asking this because one of the Puppy Forum members developed our own auto-updater for PepperFlash.....but you need to know the location of PepperFlash for Opera, in order to set the correct 'path'. Once set-up, it'll look after itself. So if we can find where Opera's installed to, we should then be able to figure out where Opera expects to find Pepper.....

I HATE Adobe...!! (*grrr*) I'll be glad when the web finally goes all-HTML5; life will be so much easier, I tell you.....

BTW:- Where did you obtain the Opera package from?

--------------------------------------------

As for the save-file filling up, that's almost certainly the browser cache. You've not 'tamed it', have you?

Is Opera your preferred browser? Do you use it most of the time.....or do you use something else? Need to know, 'cos the procedure is different for each browser 'family'....but the longer you continue to use your browser without 'configuring' your cache, the larger it will surely become.


Mike.

Well said and I completely agree. Flash was a monumentally bad idea: let's send a binary executable anonymously to clients and run it in their browser, that's a great idea! No one will ever exploit THAT!

RE: Mike_Walsh sevendogsbsd

Appreciate your responses. OK, I've got to go out of town for a few days and will take up with this thread when I return. THANX ALL!!!

RE: Mike_Walsh;

I "think" I've found one of my answers. After several attempts/hours on the "net", I came across this... https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/03/create-persistent-storage-live-usb-with.html I would ask your and others opinion before I proceed. And, should that link prove to be what I need, then I have a few know-it-alls who will be hearing from me. Appreciate all your and everyone's help.

Glad to know you found the same thing I handed you in your other thread:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...6/#post5971621

An entire thread on the Mint forums, about how to install Mint to a USB drive, specifically using the same mkusb package. Your 'numerous problems' with getting Mint to run, were (and are) due to improper installation to the thumbdrive, and the speed of the thumbdrive itself. Again, USB 2.0 speeds aren't great to run an OS from, and read/write cycles will render that device useless pretty quick.

I've maintained, for years, that if you must run an OS from an external drive, and you only have a thumb-/flash-/pen-drive, then Puppy is by far the best option. There are precious few machines around these days that don't have sufficient RAM for Puppy to load into FULLY at boot time. And Pup only saves back to the save-file/folder at user-specified intervals, in order to preserve the NAND flash elements of a USB stick.

If you want to run a mainstream distro, by far the majority of which are expressly built with the full expectation of running from a hard drive/SSD - the continuous read/write cycles make any other form of media impractical - then get yourself a portable USB HDD/SSD. Even though these are almost all USB 3.0, they will still run faster through a USB 2.0 interface than a purely USB 2.0 drive will.....because they approach, far more nearly, the theoretical maximum 'throughput' of the USB 2.0 standard.

The Puppy 'full install' option was developed as a workaround; a way of permitting the OS (tiny as it is) to run on seriously under-powered hardware; stuff from the late 90s/early 2000s, with PIIs/PIIIs/K6s/K7s, etc, and very small amounts of RAM (typically anywhere from 64-192 MB or so).....because it will only load into RAM that which is actually needed at any given time. However, the Puppy 'full' install is unable to make use of many of the features which are purposely designed specifically for the 'frugal' install - yet many 'newbies', unaware of this, still go for the 'full' install, believing it to be the better option.

It's a perfectly understandable mistake to make; Puppy is somewhat 'odd', even by Linux standards (though marvellously flexible, once you get the hang of it). Even so, you still have to be 'sympathetic' with your expectations for such elderly warhorses, and respect their obvious limitations....


Mike.

Agreed totally; right tool for the right job should always be the case.

But I believe the OP thinks there is some way to get Mint/Ubuntu/Whatever to run fully from a USB 2.0 thumbdrive with ZERO lag, and full desktop. Just not what it was ever designed to do, and the thumbdrive itself is a limiting factor. Puppy is sorta-kinda like Knoppix, designed to run from removable media from the get go, which is exactly why it runs OK from such a device.

TBOne, it's kinda nice to find somebody else on here who actually seems to comprehend what Puppy's really all about. Though it does gel with what I've always said about Pup....she's somewhat 'odd', even by Linux standards.

(Which is why many Linux 'long-termers', coming to Puppy from the mainstream distros, have so much trouble with it.....and these are in fact the very ones we get the loudest complaints from!)

Good on yer!...


Mike.

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Will somebody please give me some links re frugal installs? I presently have BionicPup 32, and 64,(both full), and FatDog64 loaded on pen drive using MultiBootUSB. I'm favoring BionicPup32 the most, and am wanting to tryout, and also, read all I can re the virtues,etc., of frugal installs. Thanks for any assistance.