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Puppy: mix-n-match
Wary 0.7 (070) mix-n-match
Wary 0.7 is the latest in the "Wary" series of Puppy Linux, considered as beta quality. Note that
the final release will be version 5.0, as it belongs to the same 5.x
generation as Lucid Puppy and Slackpup, except has some "retro"
features (Xorg 7.3+, GTK 2.16.6).
Xorg 7.3+
Later versions of Xorg might not play nicely with older hardware. Also
Wary has alternate Intel 'i810' Xorg driver, and Xvesa X server, that
cannot be provided with later versions of Xorg -- again, these may be
needed for older video hardware.
Wary 0.7 includes the full 'mesa' package, giving hardware-accelerated
direct-rendering (DRI) and the openGL libraries. For Nvidia and ATI
video, there are drivers supplied with Xorg, however I do plan to
provide PETs with the commercial drivers -- these are kernel-version
specific, and you may find PETs already created if you hunt on the
forum -- but do be sure that it is designed for your kernel version.
Mix-n-match
This is a new experiment, not to provide live-CD ISO files for
download, but individual files. There are four files that you need to
build your own live-CD or to install Puppy.
wary-070.sfs
You must always use this file. It has all the Puppy files.
Choose the remaining three files from one of the following directories.
'vmlinuz' is the kernel, 'initrd.gz' is the initramfs (also
historically known as the "initial ramdisk) -- this is a mini-Linuz
environment that the kernel loads into RAM at bootup, and this in turn
will load the 'wary-070.sfs' complete Puppy system. 'z*.sfs' is
referred to in Puppy jargon as the "z drive" or "zdrv" -- it has all
the kernel drivers (modules).
kernel-2.6.27.47
Three files: vmlinuz, initrd.gz, zw070747.sfs.
This older kernel may (or may not!) work better on older hardware. It
is for uni-processor systems, but will still work with multi-core CPUs
(will only use one core). The main reason that you might choose it is
that is has a very large number of analog modem dialup drivers. If you
have an internal dialup modem, then this is a good kernel to try.
This may not be a good choice if you have an ext4 filesystem on your
hard drive, and btrfs is not supported at all. Squashfs 4.0 is standard
in the 2.6.29 and later kernels, but the 2.6.27.47 kernel has been
patched to support Squashfs 4.0.
Compiled: Wary/Quirky PET: linux_kernel-2.6.27.47-tickless_uniproc-q1.pet (repo: puppy-quirky)
kernel-2.6.30.5
Three files: vmlinuz, initrd.gz, zw070305.sfs
This
is the same kernel used in Puppy Linux 4.3.1. It is SMP, meaning
that it supports multi-core CPUs. This also has a big selection of
analog modem drivers, as many as the 2.6.27.47 kernel, and has more
than the 2.6.27.47 kernel in other areas such as wireless networking.
Note that the 'aufs' driver has been updated, compared with that used
in Puppy 4.3.1 -- this has been done to support direct writing to the
savefile in Flash installations, and PUPMODEs 6 and 7. This kernel has
been a great workhorse.
Compiled: Puppy 4.3.1 PET: linux_kernel-2.6.30.5-tickless_smp-11-p4.pet (repo: puppy-quirky)
kernel-2.6.33-git7
Three files: vmlinuz, initrd.gz, zw070337.sfs
This one is rather specific. I had it working very nicely with the
Gecko Edubook netbook -- it supports video, audio, networking, and
powers-off properly. I wrote this page awhile back, you might find it
helpful: http://puppylinux.com/baby-laptops/gecko-install.htm
Compiled: Wary/Quirky PET: linux_kernel-2.6.33-git7-tickless_uniproc-q1.pet (repo: puppy-quirky)
kernel-2.6.34.1
Three files: vmlinuz, initrd.gz, zw070341.sfs
Has SMP support. The advantage of this kernel is very recent drivers,
also many more drivers then earlier kernels. However, there are less
analog dialup modem drivers (Intel, Conexant and Pctel drivers for
example are absent, but there is still a small collection including
ESS, Smartlink and Lucent drivers). This kernel has the most wireless
networking
drivers. Generally I have found it not-true that the recent kernels do
not support older hardware as well -- give this one a go on your old
system!
Compiled: Slackpup (Slackware 13.1) PET: linux_kernel-2.6.34.1-smp-1-s131.pet (repo: puppy-quirky)
Build a live-CD
This needs a running Linux, just about any Linux should work.
Download 'build.tar.gz' into a Linux partition, and expand it:
# tar -zxf build.tar.gz
Download 'makeiso.gz' and expand it:
# gunzip makeiso.gz # chmod 777 makeiso
Download your choice of four files into the 'build' directory.
Create live-CD file 'cd-puppy.iso':
# ./makeiso
Frugal install
The so-called "frugal" hard drive or Flash drive installation is the
most popular mode of installing Puppy. It is easy-peasy, just download
your four files into a sub-directory (say /wary070) and create an entry
in grub.lst (if you have GRUB installed). Notes on configuring GRUB are
here: http://puppylinux.com/hard-puppy.htm
Of course, if you have already got a Puppy installed frugally to hard
drive or Flash drive, you can simply replace the old files with the new
ones and that's it, you've installed Wary 0.7.
Notes
Live-CD
When Wary gets to release status, I am thinking of releasing this
mix-n-match as a live-CD, where you choose which kernel you want at
bootup. Afterward you will be able to burn a CD with only the kernel
you want.
Zdrv
Most puppies are built with the kernel drivers inside the main SFS file
(which in this case would be wary-070.sfs). When it is an separate
"zdrv" SFS file, the 'init' (startup) script in the initramfs is
supposed to find it and load it, however there have been reports that
this is not working reliably. Wary 0.7 is an opportunity to eliminate
this bug, if there is one.
Build scripts
Downloading the individual mix-n-match files is fine if you are
familiar with installing Puppy, however we really need something more
to assist newbies. Especially if they don't have a running Linux
installation, only Windows.
PET repos
The Puppy Package Manager lists various online repositories, named
'puppy-wary5', 'puppy-woof', puppy-quirky', 'puppy-5', 'puppy-4'. The
first one is packages compiled specifically for Wary, but the "cupboard
is bare" -- I will compile some PETs, but contributions are definitely
welcome. Quirky is my experimental distro, which has the same code-base
as Wary except has Xorg 7.5, so it is highly likely that PETs from this
repo will work in Wary -- again though, not much there. The 'puppy-5'
repo has PETs that may or may not work properly, so I might remove this
one. 'puppy-4' is the main repo for Puppy 4.x, and likely the PETs will
work but we might have to create a blacklist for PPM of those that
don't -- I'm guessing that some of these older PETs might have issues
in Wary -- let me know!
Note that there are also 'puppy-3' and 'puppy-2' repos and these PETs
may also work but again as they are even older some may not.
Work-in-progress
To keep up-to-date with the development of Woof, Wary and mix-n-match, monitor my blog: http://bkhome.org/blog/
Kernels
The brown text above explains in
what environment the kernel was compiled, for example 'Slackpup' (also
Slackware 13.1). If you want to compile a 3rd-party kernel driver for a
kernel, you must be running that same version of Puppy (or if the pup
is built from a host distro as in the case of Slackpup then you can
compile in that host distro, at least technically, but it is usually
better if you are running a kernel configured the same as used in Puppy
so practically you need to be running the Puppy distro). The consequent
binary PET package is also named, and on what repository it can be
found. All the repos named 'puppy-*' are to be found here http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/ except for 'puppy-quirky' which is here http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/quirky/. You can find the patched sources and third-party drivers for these kernels here http://bkhome.org/sources/ (username: p#up#p#y password: l#in#u#x -- remove the #'s).
Regards,
Barry Kauler
September 4, 2010
© Copyright Barry Kauler 2010 bkhome.org All reproduction rights reserved
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