First Puppy is stripped down(no remarks), so you have to buy a copy of Puppy with remarks in the codes to fix bugs.

Puppy has its own architecture, using the latest kernels, but has its own applications and packages. Disk operating system from kernels is not changed. Drivers are not changed except Xorg and sialup mpdems. Network operating system has not been taken advantage of, like most distros, no wireless automatic connections. Wireless is easy, if kernel can be used to try one after another(down to 802.11b backward compatible drivers); until connection to a hotspot or your second computer is used.

The problem with stripped downed Linux distro is generally problem some because of the stripped down functions lacking support from the library, and bindings of files removed. I still use Puppy v0.93, the best of the stable Puppy(2.4.22 kernels). All newer Puppy versions are flavoured with sweet spots, that is functional, but buggy.

Puppy is very popular for newbies who like to tinker with their script skills, do a little gui layout, of add some tcl/tk programming for new applications. I recommend buying a cd from Barry so you have all the source codes to check out the full version of source codes before it was stripped down.

The kernels are defining architecture of directories and file names by compilers and scripts. Every time, Linus release a new kernel version, there are changes in architecture. The registry of files may be changed.

What this means is that you want to avoid as much as possible any changes in your distro from linux kernels. Otherwise, each version change will be too much work.

So, most small distros use mainstream distros as a base. The only change maybe window manager or browser. This make life simpler for volunteer developers. You only need a major distro, strip it down, add your own applications and remaster it, call it your own distro. If you do change kernel file names, then you have to do symlinks and alias names. Still it maybe too much conflicts and missing bindings. Eventually you get tired of fixing all the bugs you created and abandoned the distro project like many distros before you.

PcLos maybe at such a stage, of deciding whether to use Mandriva 2008 as a base? Rolling release is hard to upgrade to a new kernel version, upgrade on rolling upgrades.

On the other hand, Puppy is ready itself to upgrade to Slackware v12, but alas, Slackware has upgrade problems of its own due to BSD influence.

Often, it is impressive for developers to add minimized icons in taskbars on window manager.

The problems are synchronization with each refresh of taskbar along with jwm framebuffer. If atm(wait state) is not synchronized, then the packet is lossy on the taskbar framebuffer. And the icon may not appear each time hotplug is done.

It happens with Xfce as well, the extra taskbar may disappear sometimes. Its fixed by having a list of framebuffers, and making sure that each item is detected by layout engine and text rendering engine when the screen is refreshed.

In kernel 2.6.x, the hotplug event becomes a major issue. Whereas in kernel 2.4.x, USB drivers are initialized on boot up. Then you have to make sure unmount is done before you remove the USB device while power supply of USB connector is off, just to clear all addresses from any conflicts, and prevent voltage zap to destroy your flash card or USB device interface even if it is buffered(electrically protected).

In kernel 2.6.x, you also have to dismount your USB socket and serial memory address, before you insert another USB hotplug. USB has 128 ports, and the drivers do not assign the port address by itself? You maybe only using the first port address available, not being able to chose another unless you leave all USB devices on the hub. Too many USB devices will slow down the serial transmission of data(shared sequential packet delivery on pipeline).

Someday, Linux people will study the way to use all 128 ports of USB addresses, and the way to program hotplug will be easier if each USB device firmware has a port address of its own, or can be chosen sequentially when hotplugged to avoid address conflicts?

When you switch media in devices such as floppy, cdrom, dvd, and diskpacks, the hardware altomatically starts to work and deliver info to the cpu(or dma in drivers).

This is done by priority assigned by the operating system or rather the bios. IRQ determines the order of priority and any data in any IRQ is delivered to the cpu in turn.

Linux distros should not reinvent the wheels. Use hardware(bios) and software(OS) IRQs to operate the cpu(think multitasking audio and video codes).

Puppy is wonderful, then we can tell Barry what he needs to do for Puppy? Sounded familiar at Tuxmachines.org. We encourage all developers, to try a little more, especially if popular.

On scsi drives, we knew IBM(now hitachi) had heat problems that can be solved by an aggressive hdd fan(on electronics as well as disk and head thermal expansion space; that means airflow on both sides of hdd). SCSI drives are therefore so cheap, and should be wonderful for Puppy users, if they want faster hdd's capacity at minimum investment.

Memory stick or cards are slowly being obsoleted due to size(too big for digital cameras). Therefore XD is inheriting the earth. All others are dirt cheap. Naturally, Puppy users being astute will buy reader and all cheap memory cards available. Some will even work on digital cameras, if you collect cheap ones on ebay. More Puppy attention is going to be on camera drivers or Lphoto.

More and more components such as dialup modems using audio chipsets or DSP, Intel extreme video DSP, WiFi and other USB devices are ambiguous devices. they do not work without firmware which is the function of the hardware, whereas drivers are software instructions.

Meaning, ambiguous is missing both drivers and firmware. There is no list of files to be used for firmware and drivers. Before udev in /USR/drivers, you need drivers that load the firmware such as for Pctel dialup modem.

Today, you(kernel or bios) goto /USR to get drivers that will load firmware as well via udev.