Quirky 7.x "April"

Quirky started life as a fork of Puppy Linux, to explore different ideas. Thus, there could be major changes from one release to another. However, certain features have solidified, such as support for full installs only (dumping SFS layers and the "save-file").

Quirky 6.0 was released in December 2013, followed by many improvements. Read about the background of this early Quirky here: 1

Quirky Tahr built on the same ideas, except was constructed with binary DEB packages from the Ubuntu Trusty Tahr repository. Quirk Tahr debuted at 6.0, though chronologically later than the above Quirky series. The latest Quirky Tahr is 6.0.5, released February 16, 2014, read about it here: 1

After a hiatus of several months, I created Quirky Unicorn, which is built from Ubuntu Utopic Unicorn (version 14.10) DEB packages. The "Unicorn series" debuted at version 6.2, released October 25, 2014, latest is 6.2.1: 1 2

Now we have Quirky 7.0, which is whole new ball game.

Introducing Quirky 7.0

I created Puppy Linux back in 2003, but there was never a toolchain for compiling Puppy completely from source. Instead, Puppy is built from binary packages of another distro, plus PET packages compiled natively.
We did use the T2 system right back at Puppy v2, T2 being a system to compile from source, however it only compiled a big chunk of the packages, not all. We still used manual compiling to create many PET packages.

Until now. In early 2015, I tackled the formidable task of compiling everything in T2, and I had to introduce 105 new packages into T2. It took a couple of months, but I eventually was able to compile every package required for Quirky (or Puppy), over 600 packages.

T2 is able to compile for various CPU targets, and the proof of concept was when I compiled for a x86_64 CPU (all previous builds had been for i686). I was able to build a x86_64-based Quirky, and it works the same as the i686 build (after some tweaks).

Great! I decided to jump this new Quirky to 7.0, and gave it the codename "April".

The name "April" has an origin. She is a little dog, now the mascot for Quirky 7.0:
mascot

The April-series, which is version 7.x, has been gradually refined. Successive releases have been 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, 7.0.4, etc, keeping the same code-base, but fixing bugs, improving, adding new features and applications, and updating applications.

It was intended to keep the same code-base, that is, gcc, glibc, etc., for at least a couple of years, for ongoing compatibility of packages.

Quirky, like Puppy, has the policy of providing the "kitchen sink", in a very small size. That is, you get everything in a remarkably small download -- this has to be experience to be believed.
Then there is the exceptional speed, the ease of use -- find out for yourself!

7.0+ announcements and release notes

All releases get announced on my blog, with detailed release notes, or a link to them. Here they are:

Version	Date	Blog announcement
7.0	Feb. 26, 2015	http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00174
7.0.1	Mar. 5, 2015	http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00175
7.0.2	Mar. 19, 2015	http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00181
7.0.3	April 9, 2015	http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00187
7.0.4	April 27, 2015	http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00195
7.0.4.1	April 30, 2015	"
7.2	Oct. 7, 2015	http://bkhome.org/news/?viewCat=Quirky

Note, there was also 7.1, released Aug. 18, 2015 (http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00236). This was a special build for Android developers, a deviation from the normal April 7.x series.

Download and installation

The primary download site is here:

x86_64: http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/releases/
i686: http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/x86/releases/

There are faster mirrors, for example nluug in Europe:

x86_64: http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/quirky/quirky6/amd64/releases/
i686: http://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/quirky/quirky6/x86/releases/

There are various ways to install Quirky, please read this:

How To Install Quirky

Developers

Unlike Puppy, Quirky does not use SFS files. Therefore, the "devx", the package that turns Quirky into a complete compile environment, is a PET package.
Similarly, if you need the Linux kernel source, it is also a PET package.

You can find the appropriate devx PET here:

x86_64: http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/packages/pet_packages-april/
i686: http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/x86/packages/pet_packages-april/

Just check in /lib/modules to see what version of the kernel Quirky is built with (or run "uname -r" in a terminal), then grab the "kernel_src" PET from here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/noarch/packages/pet_packages-noarch/

As with all my Quirkies, I don't go through a long bug-fix cycle with users/testers. Instead, I just release a Quirky when it seems OK to me, and maybe release updates (Service Packs) later.

Feedback

I am really retired from Linux development, just doing this Quirky thing as an occasional entertainment. But, there are threads on the Puppy Forum where you can provide feedback and discuss with other users, and I will likely also read these threads.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/

...please look in the "Bugs" section for a feedback thread for Quirky April 7.0+.

Don't report bugs direct to me, unless you have a fix. There are expected to be bug fixes and upgrades. Monitor my blog for news about these:

http://bkhome.org/news/?viewCat=Quirky

Regards,
Barry Kauler
October 7, 2015