Puppy for RP, Alpha2

[BarryK]

Heh heh, only a few days after uploading Alpha1, we have Alpha2, with significant improvements.

See my blog announcement for further details and download links:

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02879

The download file is now 85.6MB, which is perhaps even do-able by those on analog telephone dial-up.

Regards,
Barry Kauler

[obarthelemy]

I'm in awe. Thanks a lot for helping regular users get something that Just Works. I'd say it's magic but that's already taken :-p

[itimpi]

Been playing with this latest alpha and it certainly feels a lot more responsive than the other distributions that I have tried, and looks realtively feature complete.

Great work! Keep it up.

[lobster]

Guys
Do test and provide feedback on the murga Puppy Linux forum.
We also have Puppy's (Puppy users) using QEMU - supporting Puppy without Rpi hardware

What will alpha3/Beta1 be like?

BarryK is planning
- The image ISO created will be more reliable
- PPM improvements
- Gparted working (partitioning)
- Sound support (that is an educated guess)
- Bug fixes

[pygmy_giant]

You mean this one: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 941#637941 ?

I have got no solutions - the only observations I have so far are that:

- It takes an age to boot.
- It works well for an alpha and seems quite responsive.
- It does not recognise my Huawei E220 USB modem.
- The usable graphic area seems smaller than debian.

Everyone's a critic - keep up the good work!

PS sound support would be fantastic - my fetishes also include armhf support ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuzdWwQyJbo ) as on Raspian and I2C / SPI / GPIO driver support as on debian (+ interrupt support) , oh, and the moon on a stick...

[Anubis]

Hi

I've been using Puppy invarious forms on some very varied platforms and have always been impressed.

So I was very pleased to see that we are starting to get this option for the Raspi. Loaded this yesterday and used all evening with Chromium, used Gparted to fill the SD card (8Gb) with a seperate user partition, no probs. Did not have a single hiccup all evening, yes it's slow but as I use Puppy elsewhere I think it's probably limited by the hardware.

For those complaining about slow boot let it finish 1st setup shutdown and reboot - much faster. If it's still a problem try starting up your Windows Pc and the Raspi at the same time.

This boots from the box shows a nice friendly desktop and works. I for one offer my congratulations to Barry and the team. This is what Raspi needs, and no need for constant passwords yippee.

I look forward to the ongoing development.

I think the foundation should think of some support for what looks to be the simplest and most complete distro. I thought that was what Raspi was about.
LIZ are you reading this?

[ejsolutions]

A key issue with the current version is that it assumes a digital monitor is available. After attempting to boot and getting a blank screen, I discovered the forced HDMI in config.txt. Not a good default, IMHO.
Next issues are with the handling of windows, with many not fitting into the screen resolution, when using a composite screen.
Then, I'll need to figure out how to get the ralink wireless driver installed....

Great to see Puppi though.
[next stop tigerPupi?]

[BarryK]

From earlier post:
It takes an age to boot.

From earlier post:
After attempting to boot and getting a blank screen, I discovered the forced HDMI in config.txt.

Both of these are explained in my announcement and release notes. By now I should not be surprised that some people don't bother to read the release notes.

Extracting the relevant portions:

Note that first-time bootup is much slower than subsequent bootups. So, if it seems stuck at first bootup, just wait.

config.txt
The first partition on the SD card has this file, with "hdmi_force_hotplug=1" in it. This overrides autodetection of the monitor, and if you are not using a hdmi monitor then you will want to comment-out this line.

The announcement and release notes are not very long. I request everybody, please please please do read them first!

Regards,
Barry Kauler

[lobster]

For those who can not bother reading the release notes . . .
here is an alpha 2 based promo video instead
http://youtu.be/MR5OZUWKbqw

You might say it is an alpha video. Created on Puppi Sap Alpha2.

I am looking forward to alpha 3 and reading the release notes.
Keep an eye on Barry Kaulers blog for details.
http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02884
You can also keep up with Puppi Sap news here:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppiNews

By alpha 3 or Beta 1,
I may be able to watch Raspberry Pi TV (using Pup TV)
Wot no one done that yet? tsk tsk

A lot of Puppy programs and programming is exclusively bash script.
If you are involved in the raspberrian pursuit of programming initiation, I hope to provide a tutorial on creating a similar video (hopefully better). For the tutorial we will be using nothing more than a Puppy package manager download, a simple script and a higgs boson.

[pygmy_giant]

Apologies for not reading the release notes. After the initial boot this alpha Puppy takes two minutes and 4 seconds to boot on my Pi from my class 4 SD card on subsequent boots. It is worth the wait and I note that class 6 cards are recommended. I have managed to successfully control a stepper motor via bash using the same script that I used on debian.

[ejsolutions]

In the rush to rebuke, I notice that the salient points have been missed:
"Not a good default, IMHO."
"...handling of windows, with many not fitting into the screen resolution, when using a composite screen."

I'm well capable of hunting around for relevant information but I thought that Puppi was geared to make a pleasant experience for newcomers. I was merely making observations, to hopefully reinforce this. Back to Raspbian...

[BarryK]

Previous post:

After the initial boot this alpha Puppy takes two minutes and 4 seconds to boot on my Pi from my class 4 SD card on subsequent boots.

I'm using a Class 6 4GB SD card, "Essentials" brand, that I bought from my local Woolworths supermarket here in Perth Australia. It was A$7.99 I think, or thereabouts.

I have just now timed the bootup, from power-on until desktop fully loaded took 59 seconds.

[Sailing_Nut]

Just tried it for the 1st time last night. Works very well! Chromium browsing is better than on the Debian image!

Great work guys!

Quick question, what packages can I install for C/C++ programming?

(OK one more!) Are there I2C and/or SPI drivers available?

[darkcity]

Just tried it for the 1st time last night. Works very well! Chromium browsing is better than on the Debian image!

Great work guys!

Quick question, what packages can I install for C/C++ programming?

(OK one more!) Are there I2C and/or SPI drivers available?

To compile programs on Puppy you need to install the appropriate devx sfs package-

... to do any C/C++/Vala/Genie/BaCon compiling, grab the "devx" file (see Release Notes for more details) (117.8MB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/arm/te ... 6_5.96.sfs

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02879

---

Is Puppy configured as a 'frugal' install on rpi? Does it use the same pup modes as on i386?

[BarryK]

darkcity,
Puppy is running as a "full" installation on the RP, like the other distros. That is what we call PUPMODE=2. There is no initrd and no aufs/unionfs layers.

Installing the 'devx" for compiling C/C++/Vala/Genie/BaCon is easy, see instructions for the "full" install situation on this page:

http://puppylinux.com/development/compileapps.htm

...probably we will do something to make this even easier in the future. Maybe just an icon on the desktop. If anyone has any thoughts on a nice way to implement this, you are welcome to contribute.

Regarding the bootup time I reported 59 seconds, that was actually for alpha1. I have just now measured for the upcoming alpha3, and ...wait for it... bootup from power-on until desktop fully loaded and ready to go is just 24 seconds!

You don't expect that kind of bootup speed even on a desktop PC, and on the RP it is incredible!

Also, everything starts so fast and is very responsive, for example the biggest app, the Chromium browser takes about 6-7 seconds the very first start, after that, on subsequent bootups the first start is about 4 seconds, and restarts in the same session about 3 seconds.

[malc]

Can someone help please.

I downloaded the Alpha 2 release of Puppy from your blog page. Wrote the image file using win32 Disk Imager. It said write sucessful but when I put it into my Raspberry Pi nothing happened.

Now my main computer wont even recognise that I have an SD card plugged in.

Is it possible that it destroyed my SD card?

[hiramebike]

Downloaded alpha 2 on to 16 gig kingston type 4 card all seems to be working ok, but will not look to deeply into the system as alpha 3 is soon to be published and I will wait until then to have a proper play.
Most impressed with it so far for an alpha version but then again all the versions of puppy I have used work well for me.
I have seen mention of an add in for tv, is this just for online tv, or will there be an option for a usb tv dongle to be used? If not I will try and get something like ME-TV to work unless I am told its a total no go.
I am looking for an easy to use (like a PVR) for my wife to us who is technophobic, any idea's ?

Thanks for the hard work that has been put into this project already, Excellent work

Cheers
Phil

[drgeoff]

You did decompress the downloaded file to get the image file before writing it to the SD card?

[AlastairoRP]

Excellent job in a very short space of time. The only problem I had was that the new usb keyboard caused kernel panic. I used an older keyboard and it works great. Boot up time on class4 is 28 seconds. Thanks to all the puppy programmers.

[malc]

I think I extracted the file with winRAR. I ended up with an image file, but it wasn't a standard image file and windows 7 didn't show the little image icon that it normally does. The file ended with something like '.xz' or something.

When I went to use Win32 disc imager it didn't see the image file as standard, I had to use the other option in the drop down box.

I didn't realise it was possible to destroy an Sd card, I thought you could always just flash it.

[mahjongg]

How should we spell puppi Linux?
Puppi, or PupPi?

[drgeoff]

I think I extracted the file with winRAR. I ended up with an image file, but it wasn't a standard image file and windows 7 didn't show the little image icon that it normally does. The file ended with something like '.xz' or something.

When I went to use Win32 disc imager it didn't see the image file as standard, I had to use the other option in the drop down box.

I didn't realise it was possible to destroy an Sd card, I thought you could always just flash it.

After extraction you should have a file with a '.img' ending. I don't see .xz listed at http://www.rarlab.com/otherfmt.htm as being handled by WinRAR. I think there is a high probability that you have not destroyed the SD card. Try extracting again, using 7zip if necessary (http://www.7-zip.org/) and writing to the SD card again.

[malc]

The only problem is that my main PC doesn't recognise the SD card anymore, it doesn't even acknowledge there's a card plugged in. Also win32 DI can't see it either.

Putting the SD card in a digital camera makes the camera display a 'card error' and won't let me take photos.

[Green12]

@malc: Try to format the SD card in your camera, otherwise "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" may work (or not).
Greetings : Green12

[rhadon]

@malc
Good advice from Green12.

If it doesn't help, maybe the card can be detected under linux? In this case I would burn a LiveCD, e.g. GParted Live CD. If Gparted can see your card, create a new Partition Table, format with VFAT (FAT32) and set Boot Flag.

HTH
Rolf