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