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Announcement and release notes for Quirky 1.4

Quirky is built from a "Puppy builder" system named Woof (http://bkhome.org/woof), which can build a Puppy Linux distribution from the binary packages of any other distro. There are many "puppies" built with Woof, and this image gives an appreciation of some of them and how they fit into the Woof time-line:
Woof time-line
Each "Puppy distro" built by Woof is a distinctive distribution in its own right, with unique features. You choose a puppy based on your particular needs, be it specific hardware, software, or access to and compatibility with the package repositories of a particular distro.

Woof release notes

Woof is the substratum of all puppies built from Woof, so these notes are common to all. To see the complete history of Woof, go to my blog: http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewCat=Woof
Since the commencement of the Woof project in November 2008 there has been rapid development, too much to list on this summary page. However, here are highlights since the release of Puppy 4.3.1 (2009-10-17), in no particular order:
  • Significant improvements in using the Aufs layered filesystem 1 2
  • Improved automatic detection & configuration of analog & 3G modems 1 2 3 4 5
  • Samba printing issues resolved 1
  • The Xorg Wizard has improved detection and configurability options 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  • Many improvements & bugfixes for bootup & shutdown scripts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
  • Simple Network Setup (SNS), very simple wired and wireless setup 1 2 3 4 5
  • Recovery after improper shutdown (such as power failure) 1 2
  • Single location for GPL licenses 1
  • Integrated handling of all the network setup tools 1 2 3
  • New small GUI utilities 1 2
  • PET package creation tools, package management, improved 1 2
  • Some system utility scripts are improved 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
  • System services can now be enabled or disabled 1
  • Improved hardware detection and localisation in the initramfs 1 2 3 4
  • Woof hosted on Bones version management system 1 2
  • Major enhancements to the Woof build scripts, new GUI 1 2 3
  • New Woof logo 1
These are highlights since the release of Quirky 1.0 (2010-05-05):
  • Puppy Package Manager can now list all packages in a repository 1
  • Simple Network Setup has improved surety of connection 1
  • CUPS printing with Samba now works properly 1
  • First-boot welcome page now starts quickly in low-resource PCs 1
These are highlights since the release of Quirky 1.1 (2010-05-15):
  • Gtkdialog-splash is a great replacement for yaf-splash 1
  • Bug fixes 1 2 3 4
  • Database of files builtin to the SFS read-only filesystem* 1
  • For the first time, now supports hardware clock set to localtime or UTC 1 
  • Improvements to detection and dialing, analog and 3G modems 1 
  • Widescreen support for Intel GMA3150 1
  • Tweaks to CPU frequency scaling, trying on-demand as default 1 
These are highlights since the release of Quirky 1.2 (2010-06-05):
  • Extended help at bootup 1
  • Rationalised Puppy filenames and streamlined find at bootup 1 2 3 4 5 6
  • Enhanced yaf-splash 1 2
  • Analog/3G modem detection/usage improvements 1 2 3 4 5
  • Utilities improved, bugs fixed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 
  • Xorg-related improvements 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  • Pup Advert Blocker builtin to Woof 1
  • Network transfer monthly logging 1
  • Improved 'man' utility 1
  • Woof supports Slackware .txz packages 1
  • Clean unmount of 'savefile' 1
  • DejaVu fonts upgraded 1 
  • Samba CUPs printing, smbspool replacement 1 2
These are highlights since the release of Quirky 1.3 (2010-09-22):
  • Analog/3G modem detection/usage improvements 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
  • New Video Upgrade Wizard 1 2 3
  • Many little bug fixes and improvements 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
  • DejaVu fonts improved 1
  • Improved file locating and handling at bootup and shutdown 1 2 3 4 5 6
  • Ask before upgrading a save-file 1
  • Dialog to install Flash Player 1
  • /etc/modprobe.conf finally retired 1
  • The welcome-first-boot window starts fast, low resources 1
  • New GUI for the ALSA Wizard, bugs fixed 1
  • Accumulated monthly network transfers, improved 1 
  • The on-again/off-again UTF8 saga 1 2 
  • File downloading that works 1 
  • Proxy server setup 1 2 

* If you are interested in remastering the live-CD, there is an experimental tool that can "uninstall" built-in packages 1
Please note that some puppies that are not built from the latest version of Woof, or remasters of an earlier release of Puppy, may not have all of the above features.

Quirky 1.0

I, Barry Kauler, the founder of Puppy Linux and Woof, created Quirky as an avenue to explore new ideas. There may be some features in this distro that you won't find in other puppies, either different applications and utilities, different system scripts/behaviour, or even some fundamentally new underlying behaviour. This is very much a moving target. Quirky is currently built from packages compiled in T2. Some of the ideas may be a bit strange, hence the name "Quirky"!

Quirky introduction and download links: http://bkhome.org/quirky

This first release is quite straight, not very "quirky". Some of the interesting ideas that I want to try are still to come. The focus for now is to test a lot of the new stuff in Woof, such as rerwin's analog and 3G modem detection/setup scripts. Also, I have attempted to build a "multimedia special" that can play just about anything, despite the approx. 100MB size of the live-CD.

Quirky 1.0 release notes

Quirky is built from the latest Woof, so all the above Woof features apply. In addition, here is a summary of features specific to Quirky 1.0, in no particular order:
  • Both Grub Legacy and Grub4dos, take your pick! 1 2 3
  • Flsynclient, synclient GUI configuration of touchpad 1
  • Openbox, Fbpanel, JWM window managers/panels 1 2 3 4
  • Numerous updated applications (Abiword, Pmusic, etc.) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
  • 2.6.33.2 kernel, updated firmware, bugfix patches 1 2 3 4
  • New tray applets: Traytemp, Powerapplet, Freememapplet, Retrovol 1 2 3 4
  • Blinky network monitor converted to proper tray applet 1
  • New Retrovol mixer (and tray applet) 1
  • Gecko-mediaplayer, Gnome-mplayer multimedia players 1
  • Mplayer, Ffmpeg with the bells and whistles: plays "everything" 1 2 3
  • Numerous updated and new utilities 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
  • Alternative intel_drv.so and i810_drv.so Xorg drivers 1
  • The proprietary Nvidia Xorg drivers 1 2
  • Updated Xorg drivers 1
  • Gtkam: can finally access my camera without app crashing 1
  • lameSMBxplorer: new Samba share browser 1 2
  • New GtkLP printer management GUI 1
  • pupRadio and pupTelly: play streaming media 1
  • Precord: simple audio recorder 1
  • FFconvert: multimedia file format converter GUI 1
  • You2Pup: Youtube.com downloader 1
  • CPU-Frequency-Scaling-Ondemand GUI 1
  • Floppy Formatter handles internal and USB floppy drives 1 2
  • gHasher: simple GUI for generating md5sum, etc. 1
  • Misc. bugfixes 1 2 3 4 5 6
Note, when you run the Puppy Package Manager and look in the 'puppy-quirky' repository, there isn't much, however we do plan to improve that. Alternatively, there are OpenOffice, Skype, 'devx', etc. SFS application "combo packs" available for Quirky 1 2

Please give feedback on the Puppy Linux Forum: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/index.php?f=10. Also, monitor my blog for the latest news: http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewCat=Quirky

Quirky 1.1

The main focus was to fix bugs in 1.0, but I also upgraded many applications. Most importantly, SeaMonkey has migrated from the 1.x series, after we solved some bugs with the 2.x series. JWM is now the default window manager and tray, as it is noticeably faster (and looks nicer) than Openbox/Fbpanel. Two showstoppers were Ayttm and You2pup did not work, both fixed.

Quirky 1.1 release notes

  • The 'xfontsel' utility was missing although had a menu entry 1
  • Upgrading (and rollbacks) of the Xorg drivers 1 2
  • Partview utility (to view free space in partitions) fixed for >11 partitions 1
  • Ayttm chat client did not work, upgraded and fixed 1
  • New PZCHMView CHM help viewer 1
  • New Snap2 backup tool 1 2
  • Osmo personal organiser upgraded 1
  • SeaMonkey upgraded to version 2.0.4
  • Zombie-keys and Sqlite-Manager addons for SeaMonkey 1 2
  • BaCon BASIC compiler in 'devx' file, text-editor support 1 2
  • Homebank personal finance manager upgraded 1
  • ROX-Filer upgraded, drag-and-drop and focus bugs fixed 1
  • JWM is back as the default window manager and tray! 1
  • New Hunspell common spell-checking system for Abiword and SeaMonkey 1 
  • You2pup YouTube downloader was broken, fixed 1 
  • Beautiful new background image 1
Note that there is one significant area that I am targeting for 1.2: a major upgrade of all the multimedia libraries, utilities and applications. 1.0 does a pretty good job of playing a wide range of media files and streams, but there are some gaps -- you are welcome to post to the Forum to help us make Quirky's multimedia support even better. I also intend to improve support for printing and scanning.

Quirky 1.2

This continues bug fixing of 1.0/1.1, but also many packages are upgraded and new packages and ideas incorporated. In particular, a wider range of video/audio formats are supported, which is the main reason the live-CD iso file is a little bigger. There is now a very small HTML viewer for displaying local help files -- this has basic CSS support.

Quirky 1.2 release notes

  • Many utilities and small applications upgraded 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
  • Multimedia packages upgraded, also new 1 2 3 4
  • Many bug fixes 1 2 3 4
  • Simple local-help HTML viewer with libgtkhtml 1 2 3
This release is supposed to play just about any audio/video file, DVD, embedded or streaming media, but not yet WebM/VP8 -- I am targeting that for Quirky 1.3.

Quirky 1.3

A small amount of package upgrading since 1.2, but mostly this release is a testbed for the advances in Woof. In particular, 1.3 is built with the "simplified filenames" -- see Woof release notes above, also see my relevant blog post. Apart from simplified names, there is also an id-string appended to the files, plus streamlining of the search-code in the 'init' script. 'Rerwin' has also made many advances in analog and 3G modem detection/configuration/usage, that are in Woof. Build 1.3 is for us to thoroughly test these new ideas.

Quirky 1.3 release notes

  • ffmpeg supports webM 1
  • Applications upgraded 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
  • Application/utility bugfixes 1 2 3 4 5 6
  • 2.6.30.5 kernel recompiled with patched Aufs, for Quirky-Retro 1 2 
  • Samba smaller, improved (also see Woof notes) 1 2 3 4
  • Network disconnect/reconnect 1 2 
  • Thanks to 'stu90' for the great desktop image!

Quirky 1.4

The main purpose of releasing Quirky 1.4 is to test my experimental simplified module loading and interface configuration boot scripts (codename 'zzz') 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
This is supposed to improve the detection and setup of sound, analog modems and 3G modems, and maybe more peripherals. Note, this complements the considerable earlier and ongoing development by Richard Erwin.

1.4 differs from 1.3 in that it is built from the Wary5 PET packages, of which the main diference is Xorg 7.3. Also an older kernel is used, 2.6.31.14 and the live-CD includes the complete collection of analog modem drivers as used in Wary, plus SCSI drivers. Thus, 1.4 will behave almost the same as Wary except for the 'zzz' component.

There are some new features in Woof that are debuting here for testing. In particular, a "heavy duty" file downloader backend for the Puppy Package Manager and Video Upgrade Wizard (for now), which should fix any problems with downloading packages.

Something new in Wary that has not yet been officially released, so is also being debuted in 1.4, is support for developing BaCon BASIC programs.  1 2 3 4 

Another thing inherited from Wary is the excellent multimedia support. For details on the applications in the as-yet-unreleased Wary, read my blog: http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewCat=Wary


Other puppies

Puppy 4.x

The packages for Puppy 4.0 were compiled from source using T2 (http://t2-project.org) back in November 2007. There have been upgraded packages since then, however the original base packages (such as Xorg 7.3) are still being used. The latest official release, 4.3.1, has been and continues to be one of our most popular puppies, and is still "going strong", with many puplets (other puppies based on 4.3.1, such as Puppee, NOP and Lighthouse Pup).
Puppy 4.3.1 release notes: http://puppylinux.com/download/release-4.3.htm

Wary

Wary is intended to be state-of-the-art, built with the latest Woof and recent packages, except for some rollbacks where newer packages are considered less than satisfactory. Currently, Wary uses the same T2 packages as Quirky, but Xorg is rolled back to version 7.3 (as, quite frankyly Xorg 7.4 and 7.5 have a lot wrong with them). Wary may be your better choice for older video hardware. Wary is (or maybe) also offered with various kernels, back to 2.6.27.x. -- again, this may suit older hardware, also we have a large collection of drivers for old analog modems with the older kernels -- we are unable to compile many of these drivers with later kernels.  Wary intro. page: http://bkhome.org/wary/  Wary blog: http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewCat=Wary

Upup (Karmic, Lucid)

"Upup" is our generic name for puppies built with Ubuntu packages. Our latest is "Lupu", built with Ubuntu Lucid Lynx binary .deb packages. What you get is a very small distro (the live-CD is about 130MB) yet with just about every application you would need and the speed and ease-of-use that Puppy is famous for. All of the advantages of Puppy, plus binary compatibility with Ubuntu .deb packages -- Puppy's own Puppy Package Manager will install any packages from the vast Ubuntu repositories!
The official release of Lupu (Lucid Puppy) is 5.1. Forum thread

FatDog64

FatDog64 is compiled from source using T2 and optimised for the Intel 64-bit x86 (and compatible) CPUs. This built tends to be leading-edge in terms of features and application versions. Forum thread

Puppeee

Puppeee is a remaster of Puppy 4.3.1, optimised to run on the EeePC netbook. A lot of work has gone into compatibility with EeePC hardware, so this distro is a good choice if you have one of these netbooks. The developer is also planning "Fluppy", which will target a wider range of netbooks. Website: http://puppeee.com/

So many more puppies!

It is so easy to create a custom Puppy, either by using Woof or remastering the live-CD (there is an super-easy remaster program in the Setup menu), and this has resulted in a huge choice of custom puppies. The main problem is finding out just what is available. A good starting point is the Community News page:
http://puppylinux.org/news/