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Announcement and release notes for Slacko Puppy 5.3
Slacko 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, including Lucid, Wary, Racy, FatDog, and Slacko.
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 major 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) up to the release of Quirky 1.0 (2010-05-05), 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
At the date of release of Quirky 1.1 (2010-05-15):
  • 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
At the release of Quirky 1.2 (2010-06-05):
  • 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 
At the date of release of Quirky 1.3 (2010-09-22):
  • 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
At the date of release of Quirky 1.4 (2010-11-27):
  • 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 
At the date of release of Wary 5.0 (2010-12-29):
  • Scripts moved to new yaf-splash 1
  • Many little bug fixes and improvements 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
  • New GUI tool to remove read-only packages (for remastering CD) 1
  • Improvements to Puppy Package Manager (PPM) 1 2 3 4
  • 'zzz' Woof branch:
    • Bug fixes and improvements 1 2
    • Wireless 3G modem detection and setup 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    • Modified usb-modeswitch and JimTcl 1 2 3
    • PupDial enhancements 1 2 3
At the date of release of Wary 5.1 (2011-02-19):
  • Many system & utility script tweaks and fixes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
  • UTF-8 locale fixed for Xlib apps 1 
  • Many analog modem drivers for 2.6.32.28 kernel 1 
  • Zigbert's alternate PPM UI 1 
  • Netboot fix 1
  • 'zzz' Woof branch:
    • Improved SNS wireless scan 1 
    • Jimtcl extracted to a separate PET 1
At the date of release of Wary 5.1.1 (2011-02-25):
  • Minor bugfix of Puppy Package Manager 1 
  • Tweaks saving session to Flash drive 1
  • Remove duplicate listing of save-file choices at bootup 1 
  • nluug.nl repo removed from list (hopefully temporarily) 1
At the release date of Wary 5.1.2 (2011-05-25):
  • Woof now supports RPM packages, as does the Puppy Package Manager 1
  • Many bug fixes and improvements 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
  • 'pup_event' daemon major rewrite (based on 'zzz' PET) 1 2 3 4
  • 'fido' non-root operation introduced 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
  • Sound Wizard frontend window 1
  • Unlimited dotted version numbers, have broken out from 3-digit limit 1 2
  • 'welcome1stboot' window rewritten in BaCon 1
  • UTF-8 locale names changed from .utf8 to .UTF-8 1
  • SFS downloader GUI 1
At the release date of Wary 5.1.3 (2011-08-15):
  • Bugs fixed, scripts improved, utilities updated 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
  • Versioning support for dependencies 1 2
  • 'common' repository created 1 2
  • Enhanced desktop drive icons 1 2
  • New utilities: exploderpm 1 2 3 pngoverlay 1
At the release date of Wary 5.1.4 (2011-08-29):
  • Bugs fixed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
  • New 'findpkgs' script to find pkgs to use in build 1 2 3 4
  • Woof improvements for Slacko (Slackware-based) build 1 2 3 4
  • Unique hostname on network 1
At the release date of Wary 5.2 (2011-10-15):
  • Bugs fixed 1 2 3 4 5 6
  • 'pupdialog' drop-in replacement for 'dialog' when X running 1 2
  • PupCamera: automatic digital camera recognition 1 2
  • Woof general improvements/rationalizations 1 2 3 4
  • X GUI shutdown, even internationalized 1 2 3 
  • Support for JWM menu icon 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.

Slacko Puppy 5.3

Slacko Puppy Linux 5.3 is a child, or better a pup, of Barry Kauler's Woof build system. It has binary compatibility with Slackware-13.37, which simply means that it is a Puppy built with packages from the Slackware, Salix and Slacky repositories.
The main version has kernel 2.6.37.6 compiled with Aufs, layered file system support, in the typical Puppy manner.
Some new features of Slacko are a rebuilt gtkdialog, a program which allows bash scripts to run in GUI. A showcase of this is Pmusic and Pequalizer, tiny apps to organise and play your music collection and more.
Slacko Puppy introduces Frisbee Network Manager to connect wirelessly, familiar to Puppeee users. It utilises the WPA_supplicant daemon and is great for laptops and people on the move.
There is also Simple Network Setup and Network Wizard to offer choice.
The Seamonkey suite is the default browser and email suite but Firefox Aurora, Chromium, Opera, Netsurf, Dillo and Links are only a few clicks away.
Slickpet is a cut down version of Quickpet to get a few handy apps without diving into the well stocked Puppy Package manager. While on the Puppy Package Manager, apart from Puppy's native PET package format it can also fetch Slackware, Salix and Slacky packages in tgz or txz format.
Puppy's sfs format is supported by a program called sfs_load. Sfs are a way to load layered filesystems so that the filesystems can be unioned and act as one. Read more.
Slacko has Abiword and Gnumeric, latest versions to open those documents and spreadsheets to keep you working.
Lots of  types of multimedia are supported so you can play hard.
Slacko is aimed at reasonably modern machines up to six or seven years old. It may run on even older hardware.
There is also a later kernel compiled with PAE HighMem support, for machines with up to 64G RAM. This is recommended for the latest machines, less than a year or two old.
Slacko Puppy 5.3 offers something for everyone, whether for work or play, all in under 125 megabytes!
Time to get Slacko!



Coordinator - Mick Amadio (01micko)

Developers, contributors and testers
MinHundHettePerro, zigbert, James C, Daves, Stripe, playdayz, Lobster, Jim1911, rodin.s, pemasu, Iguleder, Billtoo, BarryK, mavrothal, gcmartin, rcrsn51, shinobar, Tasgarth, mave, jim3630, 666philb, emil, 8-bit, Tman, tempestuous, tasmod, charlie6, sszindian, cowboy, Jades, sc0ttman, Stu90, ttuuxxx, futwerk, pacer106, Brown Mouse, aarf, peebee, wuwei, mikeslr, JonT, Sage, Jasper, majorfoo, eternal-sunshine, bigpup, tubeguy, chrismt, Ray MK, grump, john3voltas, Roy, jpeps, Volhout, Puppeteer, Icyos, nooby, Sylvander, JackWagon,2ManyDogs, otropogo, soundNICK, MoebusNet, tater, L18L and many others.
 

Lots of puppies...

Spup (Slacko)

"Spup" is our generic name for puppies built with Slackware binary packages. The foremost right now is "Slacko", nearing release, and destined to be one of our official flagship puppies. 1 2 

Upup (Lucid)

"Upup" is our generic name for puppies built with Ubuntu packages. Our latest is "Lucid Puppy", 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 Lucid Puppy (also known as "Lupu") is 5.2.8. 1 2 3 

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 Xorg 7.3 (as, quite frankyly Xorg 7.4+ 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 2.6.32.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

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. Fatdog64 forked from an older version of Woof, but has implemented many improvements. Another feature of Fatdog64 is browser and other Internet applications run as user 'spot'. 1 

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/