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Announcement and release notes for Lucid Puppy 528
Lucid Puppy 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

Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 is the fastest, friendliest, and most fun Lucid yet.  It is the fastest because it is the first Lucid (and first official Puppy) to use the C and ffmpeg libraries optimized for i686 computers rather than the older i386 computers.    It is the friendliest because special attention has been devoted to the user experience. For instance, 5.2.8 uses the Roxterm console which has copy and paste and other features like a text editor, rather than the older x-terminal.  Lucid similarly uses an entirely new Control Panel that makes it easier to customize and configure Lucid to one’s liking.  Speaking of customizing Lucid, that is why it is so much fun. 5.2.8 includes more wallpapers and themes than any previous Lucid.  

Lucid has also received a thorough going-over under the hood.  In addition to the faster libraries, there is new and updated firmware and drivers for many devices, especially modems, ethernet, and wireless devices.  Further, the hardware detection and configuration routines have been extensively tested and enhanced by forum member rerwin--who has tested the routines for over 3 months since prior to the release of Lucid 5.2.5.  Finally, the overall look and feel, the friendly and fun stuff, has been influenced by experiments forum member pemasu who has created a series of very popular Puppies since the release of 5.2.5. In his honor, Lucid 5.2.8 is nicknamed Finlandia.

Lucid 5.25 is the most leading-edge Lucid ever and a Five Digit Update from Lucid 5.2.  It has Bash 4.1.0, an upgrade from Bash 3, Syslinux 4.03, an upgrade from Syslinux 3, and e2fsprogs 1.41.14, the latest from Ubuntu Natty. It now has JWM 500, up from 493.  Gnumeric 1.10.13 (up from 1.10.12 in 5.2) is a necessity because our very own yarddog had posted a bug to Gnumeric that is corrected in 1.0.13.   Lucid 5.2.1 uses the Woof of FEB 28 replacing the Woof of NOV 28 for 3 months of progress in Woof development.

The first thing up is a very tidy Quickset dialog to accept or change video resolution, timezone, language/locale and keyboard.  Next up could be the Browser Installer--which of the major browsers would you like to use--even more than one, with Browser-Default allowing you to change which one you use as the default.  And then there’s Quickpet--with as much good stuff as a Swiss Army Knife.  There are three tabs worth of great Linux programs that you can install with a single-click, all tested and configured for Lucid Puppy.  There’s another tab to install larger programs in the Puppy sfs format, also with a single-click of course.  Still in Quickpet, there is a Drivers tab that will analyze your system and recommend which video driver you should use to get the best video--and click to install it.  Finally in Quickpet is LupuNews, with one-click instant updates, recommended Tweaks (with links), and the latest News.

Quickpet will also open the Puppy Package Manager which is chock full of even more programs tested and configured for Lucid Puppy, including language packs for 11 different languages.  PPM has other window managers ready to install, XFCE and Fluxbox, but Lucid even has JWM built in as an alternate--and of course a WM Switcher to make it all simple.  Puppy is still a compact distro, fast and lean, but with all of these resources there is virtually nothing it cannot do. We call it a full-featured compact distro.

Lucid Puppy 5.2.7 is nicknamed Finlandia in honor of the many contributions made by pemasu
Chief developer of Lucid Puppy - 01micko
Honored developers of Lucid 5.2.7 - rerwin and zigbert
Honored developers of Lucid 5.2.5 - ttuuxxx and radky
Honored developer of Lucid 5.2 - shinobar
Contributing developers - dejan555, iguleder, radky, tasmod, tazoc, coolpup, rhadon, smil99
Contributors - Jim1911, James C, JustGreg, CatDude, pa_mcclamrock, Tasgarth, ecube, gjuhasz, pemasu, Béèm, rhadon, rjbrewer , stu90, nooby, Lobster, 8-bit, tubeguy, prehistoric, smokey01, DaveS, Snail, aarf, gerry, Billtoo, darwinev0lved, Minnesota, Eyes-Only, enhu, rcrsn51, scsijon, ICPUG, Abnormalter, Stripe, gur, sata80, scruffy, live, alec78,Jades, jpeps, ilanrab, flexxx, don570, Bigpup, mikeslr, einar, scsijon, phdzaps, Sylvander, sszindian, yarddog, morgonzola, jinx100, mave, jbv, acrocosm, gcmartin, Bert, peebee,  scsijon, cthisbear, sm6lod, mikeslr, Gyle,Terryphi, maxpro4u, Jemimah, technosaurus, tempestuous, PaulBx1, rcrsn51, and BarryK
Coordinator - playdayz (My apologies for the incompleteness of the list  Thank you all.)

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.

Lots of 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

Quirky

Barry Kauler, the founder of Puppy Linux and Woof, created Quirky as an avenue to explore the latest 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 fundamanetally new underlying behaviour. This is very much a moving target. Some of the ideas may be a bit strange, hence the name "Quirky"!
Quirky introduction page: http://bkhome.org/quirky   Quirky blog: http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewCat=Quirky

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/