Vanilla D Pup quick notes

[PDP-8Member]

I named this since there are a huge amount of Puppies and wanted to put some organization to how one can quickly obtain it to check it out. This is a version by dimkr, ver 11.x. Another related project with it’s own vision is done by radky. Both are great. Here I focus on dimky’s VanillaDpup and a couple of setup notes. I’m going to avoid politics or super-tech info.

Most of this is self-explanatory and full details can be found in their own forum. The focus is with a lean wayland/labwc from Trixie onwards with the 11.x series. Here’s the quick scoop:

Project Page:
https://vanilla-dpup.github.io/

Example download by clicking on “Assets” to see all your choices. You can choose between bios and uefi, in both Full, Mini, or Barebones. As with antiX, I’d suggest the FULL option to get your feet wet.

https://github.com/vanilla-dpup/releases/releases?q=vanilladpup-x86_64-11.0

Here, you’ll also find the build-system and source code readily available.

Images, not Iso’s:
The distribution from Trixie onwards is released in an archived image format which one should dearchive, and then easily dd that to a spare usb stick. Use your favorite method. After boot, one can continue to use this newly created stick, BUT I prefer to consider this the “install image” for kicking the tires a little, and then use the Install icon on the desktop to create my actual working stick.

This activates the “Bootflash” utility, and from there one can choose their choice of filesystem (ext4, or F2FS) Yes! Also save to file, or folder for persistence. Uefi or bios again. Encryption. etc, so this is why I prefer to make a second stick after the first successful dd after a download.

Of course you can add things the debian way, although I used the Synaptic gui for most additions when I ran into something I’m overlooking with cli usage of apt and authorization. I’ll figure that one out.

Note: if you are using the system which requires some root level configuration, the default (which is not a secret) is “woofwoof” without the quotes when you are asked for it in a terminal.

FOOT TERMINAL FONT:
Easy to change your font size in this lightweight terminal. Edit
~/.config/foot/foot.ini
to a font size you like. One can always use ctrl/shift/+ and ctrl/- to change font size on the fly. Fuller-strength terminals like Sakura I added via synaptic in the GUI mode.

Bluelight – Redshift
A very simple solution similar to how I use xrandr in Xorg, is to use gammastep. Gammastep needs to be installed from the repos.

A simple “night” time command for me became:

gammastep -O 4500 -b 0.7 &

Update 2026: For daytime use (merely disabling gammastep and letting it go back to my monitor’s own setting) I created a simple script switch to toggle between day and night:

#!/bin/sh
pkill -USR1 gammastep

UPDATE: A gammastep indicator relying on geoclue showed up in my menu. I don’t need that since I rely on a simple shell script gammastep command re above. So

Remove a menu listing:
~/.config/labwc/menu.xml

Searched for any line containing “gamma”, and simply removed these:

<item label="Gammastep Indicator" icon="gammastep">
    <action name="Execute"><command>gammastep-indicator</command></action>
  </item>

GREAT. I don’t use the geolocation features of gammastep, but just the simple manual toggles here. Like owning a weather-rock to predict the weather.
So I’m pretty much set with these minor tweaks, but wanted to kind of put this all together. Fun.

• This topic was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by PDP-8. Reason: Added on the fly font reminder
• This topic was modified 11 months, 2 weeks ago by PDP-8.
• This topic was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by PDP-8. Reason: 2026 update mainly for gammastep pkill

[PDP-8Member]

Possible issue with F2FS?

I’ll have to make one of these with ext4 and see if I run across this. For now, I can only use the gui synaptic to do my normal routine instead of at the commandline. Trying to su to root with the normal “woofwoof” results in failure. But synaptic has no problem.

spot@puppypc:~$ apt update && apt upgrade
Error: Could not open lock file /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (13: Permission denied)
Error: Unable to lock directory /var/lib/apt/lists/
Warning: Problem unlinking the file /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin - RemoveCaches (13: Permission denied)
Warning: Problem unlinking the file /var/cache/apt/srcpkgcache.bin - RemoveCaches (13: Permission denied)
spot@puppypc:~$ su
Password: 
su: Authentication failure
spot@puppypc:~$ 

Waaaah! It’s a longshot, but I’ll have to remake a stick with ext4 and see if this is not truly an authorization issue, but related to the filesystem. Otherwise, my F2FS systems fly. Crossing fingers it is not that.

This drives me nuts. Do I need to add sudo from the repo? Is there some other secret-handshake password? Is it my filesystem? Ugh. Followup test later.

The DANGER of secret (or not so secret) passwords: One may publish their build-system, but all it takes to lock out the average user who is not going to pour through that, is to change that password in later builds. Security through obscurity, if that is the intent, is a false sense. Sorry – trying not to be political.

UPDATE: THE F2FS filesystem is fine. This problem is repeatable with ext4.

I’ll find the magic fix. Synaptic works fine. CLI locks me out to punish me for not knowing about sudo, su, su -, doas, not part of the right group, yadda yadda. This is why vanilladpup is NOT a puppy. When the energy-drink wears off, maybe I won’t call it l33t. 🙂

• This reply was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by PDP-8.
• This reply was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by PDP-8.
• This reply was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by PDP-8.

[PDP-8Member]

ROOT TERMINAL ISSUE RESOLVED!

Slaps forhead. You can’t su or otherwise get into root from the desktop foot terminal icon. Hampers cli-based operation of apt, lockfiles, and so forth.

BUT, since the system is integrated with the zzzFM file manager, you get a root terminal there:

zzzFM > File > Root Terminal

Now you can apt update and upgrade that way if you don’t want to do it with synaptic.

Update: what if you bork the zzzFM icon itself or remove it from the desktop? Tested:

1) From within the non-root default foot terminal, you can launch zzzFM as spot.
2) Fire up a root terminal with File > Root Terminal
3) Make mental note to protect zzzFM from being messed with as you go back to fix what you did. 🙂

Ok, I’m back to cool now.

• This reply was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by PDP-8.

[PDP-8Member]

Password Notes

One may change from the default of woofwoof to one of their own choosing as the normal user (spot). Follow the prompts.

passwd

[PDP-8Member]

Waybar simple tweaks:

I want the waybar height to be taller, the minimized font icons larger, and the text and icons to be larger. Here are the pointers, not a total explanation. After making these changes, I checked them by logging out (leaving), and “Restart Graphical Server”.

1) Increase the height and minimized icon size in the waybar: Edit:

~/.config/waybar/config.jsonc

Look for these – I changed larger already

"height": 40,
"icon-size": 36,

2) To change the text height in Waybar for clock, connman, sound, etc, edit:

~/.config/waybar/style.css

Look for right at the beginning:

font-family: FontAwesome, sans-serif;
        font-size: 22px;

Pretty easy. Leave and restart graphical server. Haven’t found the cool cli only way to do this. On the burner…

3) DESKTOP Icon Fonts:
Tied into zzzFM (kinda like how rox was tied to pinboard), we can change the desktop icon fonts easily enough:

zzzFM > view > Preferences > Desktop > Font

[PDP-8Member]

Application Menu Fonts:

Increasing the size of an applications own menu fonts (like Gimp, Librewolf, Geany, LibreOffice), etc is pretty easy.

We need to add a file to this empty directory

~/.config/gtk-3.0/

I titled this new file “gtk.css” and it consists of

label {
    font-size: 18px;
}

Crank it up! 🙂

[PDP-8Member]

Wrap-Up

Yeah, this is lean and clean. I could drive this. I’ll figure out how to change the corner menu-font size, and I’ll be set.

Of course my mind is boiling over itching for the day when a new antiX Core comes about, and maybe a thread started about “Just Enough Wayland” with Labwc – if we can keep the antiX ideals healthy.

And I LIKE having those device icons on the desktop, despite them being represented in zzzFM very nicely. It’s a touch of “soul”, that helps keep this from being just a sterile robotic desktop.

[techoreMember]

@pdp-8, thank you for sharing. I have not looked at puppy for a long while.

Which init does it use?

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

[PDP-8Member]

Yeah, like which one? So many, but great question. I believe it is busybox (for this), but some part of the init uses non-busybox larger commands?

This is “VanillaDpup” by dev dimkr. So I ran a pstree on it, here’s a snippet:

spot@puppypc:~$ pstree
init─┬─acpid
     ├─bluetoothd
     ├─2*[busybox]
     ├─connmand
     ├─cupsd
     ├─dbus-daemon
     ├─dconf-service───3*[{dconf-service}]
     ├─fakelogin───bash───dbus-run-sessio─┬─dbus-daemon
     │                                    └─startlabwc─┬─labwc───7*[{labwc}]
     │                                                 └─pipewire───2*[{pipewir+

I think I can cut to the chase in that community without denigrating their work. There is a contingent that want to run GTK2 and Xorg forever. Lotsa’ work! That’s cool, even Barry (Easyos) stated that recently but a newcomer would never know that’s the intended philosophy in some pups. Then there are those that also want their vintage gear support. CD’s, floppies, zipdrives, and 9-track mag-tape. I’m joking of course, but I understand. Then there are some that are slipping in systemD/elogind through the back door. Whatever.

VanilladPup is just doing a clean break, and I suppose so am I in some sense. I appreciate it, but no guru-worship! 🙂

[Brian MasinickModerator]

I’ll say one thing about Barry and his infrastructure for creating the broad range of Puppy alternatives: for those who like trying various packaging styles and alternatives the Woof distro making tools.

In this one area Puppy wins for originality.

These are a nice alternative to antiX.
I still prefer my antiX setup but it doesn’t make me abandon Puppy; I have a few of them in my Flash Drive (and old VD/DBD) collections.

--
Brian Masinick
Alternate "Search B":
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[PDP-8Member]

Exactly. Run what you like. These days, who needs additional stress?

But wait, there’s more!

TITLEBAR height and spacing

Here is where titles and things like the minimize, maximize and quit icons appear. There are 4 themes one can pick, however on my 1920×1080 monitor, those are a bit cramped and could use a little breathing room. Now I won’t have to be lazer-focused with the mouse on them.

You can choose these from:
corner-menu > desktop > labwc theme switcher

The first one is “Flat-grey-rounded”. Let’s tweak the themerc file with that one. Just edit:

/usr/local/share/themes/Flat-grey-rounded/openbox-3/themerc

I edited a few variables to give me the breathing room I need:

window.button.height: 30
window.button.width: 24
window.button.spacing: 5

The neat thing is that you can see the change in real-time. Just edit your values, save them (but no need to quit your editor), and once again hit up the corner-menu > desktop > labwc theme switcher, and choose it again. Tada.

[PDP-8Member]

Corner Menu Font Size !!

Nailed it. I had to like, read stuff to figure this one out. No “just zoom to the font section” for this one! 🙂

Easy. Just edit:
~/.config/labwc/rc.xml

Look for the THEME section. NOW ADD a missing line for containing a specific font!

<theme>     
    <icon>Adwaita</icon>      
    <fallbackAppIcon>application-x-executable-symbolic</fallbackAppIcon>
    <cornerRadius>0</cornerRadius> 
    <font><name>sans</name><size>14</size></font>
  </theme>

This was the line I had to manually insert to choose my larger font size.
<font><name>sans</name><size>14</size></font>

I think I’m there! All the rest is gravy!

• This reply was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by PDP-8. Reason: typos
• This reply was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by PDP-8.
• This reply was modified 11 months, 2 weeks ago by PDP-8. Reason: Changed font from 12 to 14 to force a difference

[techoreMember]

PDP-8 wrote:

I believe it is busybox (for this), but some part of the init uses non-busybox larger commands?

Neat. I have used busybox but never on my main box. At some point, I am writing a script or doing a task where I try to use a command from coreutils which isn’t supported by busybox–let’s call it muscle memory and not laziness :). I really like the idea of busybox. Someday, I may dedicate myself to build out an install using it from scratch. Maybe.

• This reply was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by techore.

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

[PDP-8Member]

I changed my login shell to pure busybox with antiX, and it was fun, but reverted back to normal.

I still mostly use it for a simplified vi editor, because I don’t use even 1/100th of the features VIM has – as neat as that was.

And, on systems where the bc and dc calculators are missing, I’ll call those up too. Thanks Lorinda Cherry wherever you are. The very first unix “apps”. Who needs Galculator? 🙂

HA! Check this out – vanilladpup does not supply the dc calculator! Well!

busybox dc

2
2
+
p
4

• This reply was modified 11 months, 3 weeks ago by PDP-8.

[Brian MasinickModerator]

I still mostly use it for a simplified vi editor, because I don’t use even 1/100th of the features VIM has – as neat as that was.

I realize that this might not be the easiest, most automatic way to get “vi”, but if you look at the “Fresh” text editor thread that I started, @brgs mentioned, quite some time ago to me, that “Gritter” put together a build that is essentially the original vi editor with just a few bug fixes to improve the interpretation and movement of arrow keys. This means that in input mode arrow keys move around normally as expected, and when in edit mode, the h and l keys, while you can STILL use them to navigate left or right, you can also use the arrow keys.

Now TRUE vi heavy hitters will STILL choose the h,j,k,l keys to move left, down, up, and right because they are right under the fingertips of keyboard users who use the original typewriter key positions, whereas the arrow keys, though not too far away, are “away” from the home key row. To all that I say, “balony”, because I believe it is healthy to vary the hand position:

1) Never rest your wrists while typing: this puts your fingers at times above your wrists. While that’s OK for brief moments, it’s a good way to get hand/wrist damage if done often.

2) Moving your hand from the keyboard to the mouse, (or getting up and moving around, not at the keyboard constantly), is a good thing to avoid other forms of stiffness and damage, including eye damage. Move the hands, and move the body too.

Nevertheless, the original vi, even with it’s modal design, is much more ergonomic than the original Emacs. That’s why I built my own function key bindings with Emacs long ago, but these days I oscillate between vi and Emacs key bindings using the Doom Emacs configuration.

When on Puppy, I don’t believe I’ve even seen Emacs, though it might be available as an installable program.

Anyway, nothing wrong with using Busybox; the comment about vi just “drove me” into making another divergent comment.

I’ll say this: Vanilla Puppy has it’s advantages: it’s smaller and leaner than some of the BIG DOGS that are barely Puppies any more! 🙂

--
Brian Masinick
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