Puppy for RP, alpha3

[BarryK]

Alpha3 has arrived! See my blog announcement:

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02899

Hot-pluggable USB devices should now be working. In alpha2, hot-pluggable USB Flash and hard drives work, but now just about anything, including wifi and wireless broadband modules should work.

Please do read the Release Notes before running this pup. In particular, note that you will have to modify the 'config.txt' file if not using HDMI video output.

This is working so well, I was tempted to release it as the first beta, but there are still a few things to sort out, so being cautious for now.

As always, please monitor my blog for updates
http://bkhome.org/blog/

There has already been some (positive) feedback on alpha3 on the Puppy Forum:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 708#639708

Regards,
Barry Kauler

[antiloquax]

A big thank you to Barry and everyone involved in this project.
SAP is a great success.

[itimpi]

Not sure if I have missed something, but is there any way to configure a bluetooth keyboard in this release? I have a bluetooth dongle and a KeySonic bluetooth keyboard I would like to get working.

[antiloquax]

I haven't tried this yet (I hadthe same idea).
If I get it working, I'll post back here.
mark

[Montala]

Thought there might have been a bit more feedback on this one... might give it a try tomorrow, and see how I get on.

I am very interested in the wi-fi option though... should this 'work' automatically, or does it require a separate specific input?

[drgeoff]

I am very interested in the wi-fi option though... should this 'work' automatically, or does it require a separate specific input?

I would expect it to be as an x86 Puppy with a setup wizard which says what Wi-Fi devices it has found on the computer, searches for Wi-Fi APs, you select one and fill in the security details, then choose DHCP or manual for the IP address fields.

[troombatzia]

hi. is Puppi hard-float optimised as latest Raspian --> http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1565 ? thanks.

[MadHorseman]

After Debian (Squeeze & Wheezy) this is a very good system for relative noobs...

Quick setup of WiFi (and auto-reconnect), recognizes an external HDD, Logitech 400 keyboard & trackpad, HDMI Video working fine.

Sound is a bit crackly and not via HDMI (despite changing the setting mentioned in the release notes) , which I presume is ALSA related, but to be able to listen to Radio 4 - nice!!

Can't wait for Beta!!

Well done.

[BarryK]

hi. is Puppi hard-float optimised as latest Raspian

No, Puppy is built from standard Debian Squeeze armel packages.

Don't let that one factor sway your decision. There are many factors that affect the startup speed of the operating system and applications, and general responsiveness. I don't think that hard-float will cause any noticeable difference for most apps.

You really need to try each distro yourself, and find out.

Puppy is very fast on the RasPi. Bootup speed of alpha3, from power-on to desktop fully loaded and ready to go is only 27 seconds using a a Class 6 SD card, and the apps start very quickly and respond quickly.

Puppy has Chromium as the default browser, which is a cut above Midori, and runs very nicely, though users have reported that you should not open more than 4 or 5 tabs with heavy content -- after all, we are running in a system with only 256MB of RAM.

Note though, after a user had reported this problem with number of tabs, I tested for myself -- I opened about a dozen tabs, and Abiword, Gnumeric, and all the other big apps, and it all worked, no apparent slowdown, no crash. But, I only opened fairly static web pages, and web pages with very heavy content like javascript and flash animations, would be more of a drain on resources.

[troombatzia]

@BarryK

Thanks for detailed answer.

[BarryK]

I am very interested in the wi-fi option though... should this 'work' automatically, or does it require a separate specific input?

There are kernel drivers for many usb wifi modules, with the required firmware. They should "just work".

Puppy has a "connect" icon on the desktop, and if you click this and follow through to "Simple Network setup", it should be a matter of just choose the wireless network, enter password, and click "OK".

USB wireless broadband modules that connect directly to a wireless Internet service (not your home/business wireless) are more of a work-in-progress. These have two ways to connect in Puppy, either by Roaring Penguin pppoe or by PupDial (which uses wvdial).

PupDial is also used for analog modem dialup.

I have tested with my Optus mobile wireless module, and wvdial reports that it cannot talk to it. However, my modem is working and responds to "ATZ" with an "OK". So, wvdial seems to be a problem -- I am wondering if there is anything in wvdial that expects something PC-specific in the hardware.

Note, Puppy has a little utility named 'modem-stats' that can be used to send Hayes commands to a modem -- that is how I sent the ATZ.

if there is anyone reading this who has a few clues about wvdial, you are most welcome to investigate this!

[dancytron]

Barry,

If you haven't seen this, they are scripts to control the file system partition and memory split that might be something to incorporate. I assume you can choose between puppies on usb or sd card or different distributions etc.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 24&t=10814

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... t&start=50

[pygmy_giant]

Tried this approach to getting mobile brodband working on puppy: http://shkspr.mobi/blog/index.php/2012/ ... i-success/ as it is working on presumably the debian distro. Annoyingly there appears to be so many interlocking dependancies missing on puppy alpha 3 that I gave up as shuttling packages via a memory stick to my pi was just taking too long....

Good news is that 3g appears achievable.

[BarryK]

Tried this approach to getting mobile brodband working on puppy: http://shkspr.mobi/blog/index.php/2012/ ... i-success/ as it is working on presumably the debian distro. Annoyingly there appears to be so many interlocking dependancies missing on puppy alpha 3 that I gave up as shuttling packages via a memory stick to my pi was just taking too long....

Good news is that 3g appears achievable.

Thanks for the link. Good to know it is achievable. I had a quick play with sakis3G, yes, there are some problems to sort out.

One thing, the Sakis3g docs state that it will use wvdial if it is available, but that may be broken, so you have to use a commandline option to force Sakis3g not to use wvdial and to use pppd directly, I think it was this:

--pppd

But, there are other issues, haven't fixed those.

[pygmy_giant]

I forgot to say thank you - I'm happily programming on alpha 4 using geany and devx - thanks again for your work so far.

[bastian94]

i tryed to use tp-link tl-wn722n and it dindt start on puppy linux alpha 3

[bastian94]

what can i do to get it to work

[Mr.Dave]

I'd like to try this build but download speed is like dialup ?

[dancytron]

There are lots of mirrors.

try this one http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/di ... /arm/test/

or look on this page for others

http://puppylinux.com/download/

[JpDeValen]

Hello to everyone,

Puppy is working OK here with my logitech wireless USB keyboard/mouse.
Internet is OK via ethernet port.
I have a problem with my wifi USB dongle BELKIN SURF N300.
Does anybody know how to set up.

Thank you for your help.

Jean-Pierre

[Joeledmund]

i dont know if it is me or the 512Mb Rpi but i cant get puppy to work at all the little green light doen't even turn on but i got wheezy to work 8gb sd , tiny core linux to work 256Mb sd, and fendora to work 4gb sd

i even tried the new alpha 3 so i dont know what to do