Quirky Xerus pre-alphaThe last time that I played with the Raspberry Pi was back in 2011 - 2013, and I got Puppy Linux running on the Pi1. Then I moved on, and my Pi languished in a cupboard.When the Pi2 was released, I bought one, but never did anything with it. Then the Pi3 was released and I bought that also. Late August 2016, I suddenly got inspired to port Quirky Linux, my fork of Puppy, to the ARM architecture, specifically armv7, and to get it running on the Pi2 and Pi3. Quirky 8.0.x is based on DEBs from Ubuntu 16.04, Xenial Xerus. Hence, I often refer to this series of Quirky as "Quirky Xerus". InstallationI am providing image files for an 8GB micro-SD card. The file is compressed, using 'xz' compression. To write to the SD-card, running Linux, do this:
Information about each release follows: Version 8.0.7, September 7, 2016This is the first upload. It has lots of issues. It is uploaded so that those who are keen to see Quirky on the Pi, can do so, play with it, and maybe even fix a bug or two.These are some issues:
...that's for starters, I am sure there are heaps more issues to resolve! Note, I have not uploaded a "devx" PET package, so you can't compile anything. I discovered a strange problem with the devx, hope to fix it soon. Version 8.0.11, September 17, 2016This one is looking good. From the above table, Retrovol, keyboard-keys and Abiword are fixed.Various other fixes, also I improved the bootup speed on the first boot -- it is now as fast as subsequent boots, creating a very good "first impression". There have been some package updates, including zigbert's pMusic and pFilesearch. There are still issues to resolve, such as wifi and bluetooth, but the rate at which bugs are getting resolved, it is likely that the next release will be a "beta". if you wish to experiment with compiling a source package, there is 'devx-8.0.10-xerus.pet'. Download and click on it to install. Version 8.0.18, September 20, 2016This has to be the last "pre-alpha", as it is really beta-quality. There has been a lot of very helpful feedback on the Puppy Forum and I have fixed many bugs.I have been hot on the trail of fixing wifi. See my wifi fix here: http://barryk.org/news/?viewDetailed=00410 I have also been hot on the trail of fixing bluetooth. I have put the fixes into 8.0.18, but have not yet tried it. My earlier post on bluetooth is here: http://barryk.org/news/?viewDetailed=00408 The really big surprise for 8.0.18 is that I have removed Abiword and Gnumeric, now have Libreoffice. In addition to Writer (word processor) and Calc (spreadsheet editor), there is Draw (vector graphic editor), Impress (Powerpoint equivalent) and Base (database manager). The default database in Base is HSQLDB, which needs Java, which is not in Quirky. Instead, I am wondering if Firebird is adequate? Ubuntu has 'libreoffice-sdbc-firebird' DEB, that I have not included in Quirky. It does not require Java. This is an experiment for someone! The 8.0.11 download is 321MB, 8.0.18 is 388MB. I reckon that is not too much of a size penalty to attain the power of Libreoffice, just an extra 67MB. Raspian has Libreoffice, but the download is 1.3GB. Quirky, as a Puppy derivative, continues the tradition of including the "kitchen sink", that is, just about every application you would need, in a very small download. Feedback please, bug reports, fixes welcome. The Puppy Forum thread, page 4: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=108132&start=45 Blog announcements here: http://barryk.org/news/?viewCat=Linux Regards, Barry Kauler |