Morning, all.
When tuxtoo first broached the idea of a website for these two elderly, yet well-loved Puppies - the culmination of the old T2 build process - my initial reaction was 'Yes; definitely.
Long overdue....'
I've been using Racy 5.5 regularly for well over 3 years now, and I continue to be surprised by how thoroughly
usable it is as a 'daily driver'. Okay, when you run as many Pups as I do, it's perhaps hard to choose a 'favourite'. The simple fact of the matter is, I love 'em
all, in their various guises; they've all got their own characters, that's for sure.
Yes, it's nice to be able to run the newest Puppies, I'll not deny that. Yet with the sheer number of different Pups available out there, it's a cinch to find something that'll work with pretty much any hardware, no matter what its limitations are. There's absolutely no reason why those of us with elderly hardware should have to be left out in the cold.
Just be sympathetic to it, and try to choose a Pup/Puplet that's within its capabilities to handle. It's probably because of the age of my own hardware why I prefer mainly 5-series Pups, and some 6-series.....though radky's DPup 'Stretch' is an exception to this rule, due to how light it runs. Even ye anciente Dell lappie will run it on a P4 & a gig-and-a-half of RAM. The big old Compaq, despite being 64-bit, and dual-core into the bargain, still needs to be treated with a certain amount of compassion; this is extremely early 64-bit tech, from the dawn of the 64-bit consumer revolution.....around 15 years old now, so quite basic for a 64-bit CPU. No virtualization, or SSE4.1s/SSE4.2s, etc; this baby tops out at SSE3s.....and that's your lot (although AMD's use of the very first on-board memory controller with these first-gen Athlon 64s made a huge difference to how responsive they are.)
I still prefer 32-bit Pups, 'cos they just fly on this hardware. 'Nuff said.
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Tuxtoo has the skills with website stuff, and I've always been a fiend for tracking down software that'll work with all the different incarnations of our favourite canine. Even with Racy, there's a
lot of it; I think Stuart was quite surprised by just how much stuff he needed to test out, before adding it to the site..! And battleshooter's glibc upgrade, originally put together to enable folks running Racy & Carolina to use the latest Chrome/Chromium some years ago, has extended these capabilities even further, without needing to go overboard with other core components.
I think my biggest surprise was finding an AppImage of the KDE Project's 'Digikam' photo-viewer/organizer that fired straight up and just worked in Racy. We
all know KDE stuff wants everything, including the Out house sink.....and
then some, before it'll condescend to run. Which goes to show that this particular AppImage has been constructed
properly.....though, curiously, despite running in pretty much all my Pups, it won't in either Tahr or Xenial, yet is seemingly quite happy again in Bionic..! Most odd.
My motto with Puppy software has always been 'Choice in all things'; I don't care if we DO have 50 ways of carrying out the same task, not everybody has the same requirements, or will wish to go about any given task in exactly the same way.
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@mistfire:- I guess the best explanation of what's been presented here is that it's not so much a case of 'reviving' Wary/Racy, as it is of 're-visiting' them.....and simply making new users,
and old, aware that these two veterans are still eminently suitable for 'age-related' hardware.
Mavrothal's 'PPM v2.0 'upgrade' package was one of the first things I suggested, since I've always found the original PPMs rather cramped,
and a bit confusing. I know you've done further work with it, and sc0ttman has come up with the CLI 'take' on the matter, but I felt it was probably best to stick with what most of us are used to.
And that's one of Puppy's biggest strengths, I feel; consistency.
Anyway; along with tuxtoo, I hope everybody will find some of the content useful. So, enjoy; Stu has excelled himself with the site, and it's a model of clarity into the bargain.
Nice one, mate.
[EDIT:-] If anyone has any further items they'd like to contribute, which they know work with these two Pups, and feel they should be added to the listing, don't hesitate to let either Stuart or myself know, please. All contributions gratefully received!
Mike.