Copyright Notice
The documentation I wrote and most of the scripts I wrote that are included in this package are under the GNU General Public License v3.0. There are also some scripts by me (usually short and simple) which are in the public domain.
Other things in this package that aren't by me are under other licenses - see License Info and Icon Info.
The below copyright notice only applies to things by me, except things in the public domain.
Copyright (C) 2014 Apollia
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
Contact info: http://astroblahhh.com/contact-apollia.shtml
A copy of the license is included in the section titled GNU General Public License.
GNU General Public License
The documentation I wrote and most of the scripts I wrote that are included in this package are under the GNU General Public License v3.0. There are also some scripts by me (usually short and simple) which are in the public domain.
Other things in this package that aren't by me are under other licenses - see License Info and Icon Info.
Why did I choose the GNU General Public License (GPL) rather than the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) for the documentation I wrote?
Because the terms in the GFDL about invariant sections made me uneasy. I didn't want modified versions of this page possibly acquiring unremovable new sections. If people want to use or modify relatively small parts, I want them to be free to do so without having to also reproduce the entirety of all the invariant sections too.
Warning: Any Software Can Be Dangerous
What is Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit?
Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit (or APSK, for short) is a compilation of scripts - mostly Perl** scripts, and a smaller number of Bash** scripts - plus many things those scripts can install, such as software and settings - which make it so you can go from a totally uncustomized Puppy to an extensively customized Puppy in minutes, just by clicking a single script. That single script will launch tons of other scripts, which will install a lot of a different software and settings, and sometimes ask you what you want installed.
APSK makes it possible to bring back all your settings and installed programs without having to save sessions to a Puppy Linux live disc, without having to save things to a Pupsave file, and without having to use a full installation of Puppy Linux.
Apollia's Puppy Setup Kit is intended for use with a Puppy Linux live disc without saved sessions, or a Puppy frugal installation without a Pupsave file.
Warning: DO NOT USE with an existing frugal installation with a Pupsave file or a full installation of Puppy Linux, unless you don't mind them possibly getting messed up! And it's probably best not to save your session to a multisession disc after running Apollia's Puppy Setup Kit, unless you're really sure it didn't mess anything up.
Most of the software Apollia's Puppy Setup Kit installs isn't included in the official download, so, Apollia's Puppy Setup Kit includes some Perl scripts to optionally download that software for you.
Currently, APSK is only specifically designed to set up Lucid Puppy Linux 5.2.8 version 004. But, theoretically, APSK might make it faster, easier, and more comfortable to switch to, upgrade to, or at least try out, a different (but similar) version of Puppy Linux. That should work if the Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 version 004 components of the setup kit are compatible enough with other Puppies to work properly with them.
I, Apollia, have been working on making the setup kit capable of setting up Lighthouse 64 Puppy Linux 6.02 Beta 2. As of 9/29/2014, the LH64-related stuff partly works, but is not in a releasable form yet. But, hopefully that stuff will be included in future versions of APSK.
The contents of Apollia's Puppy Setup Kit don't have to all reside on the same disk. I made it so you can store private setup kit scripts, software, and settings inside a separate encrypted volume or volumes, in case some of the stuff you'd like to install is too private to keep on an unencrypted disk.
Or, if disk space is a concern, you could store things on multiple volumes simply for space-saving purposes.
Apollia's Puppy Setup Kit was put together by me, Apollia of Astroblahhh.Com.
The software and settings files APSK installs were mostly not by me, but, the Perl** and Bash** scripts which do the installations (among other things) were mostly by me, except for snippets of code from elsewhere.
APSK's scripts - nearly all located in the "Woodland" folder - are free, libre, and open source. The rest of the APSK is mostly free, libre, and open source also - including the installable software in the "Waterfall" or "Fjord" folders, and the installable settings located in the "Spring" or "Hot Spring" folders.
However, some of the software APSK can install is non-libre - such as the Flash web browser plug-in, and the Chromium web browser, which has Flash built in. To make it easier to avoid or get rid of the non-libre things, I made it so everything that I'm aware is non-libre (or likely non-libre) gets stored in a separate folder - the "Weir" folder.
It might be possible to modify Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit to work with any Linux live disc or any Linux frugal installation which doesn't automatically save anything.
I'm not sure how difficult or easy that would be, but I might attempt it someday. And anyone else is welcome to do so also, because APSK is mostly free, libre, and open source (with the exceptions explained above).
Benefits of Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit
Below is a brief summary. (There's more in the Apollia's Puppy Setup and History With Puppy section of the page Some Puppy Linux Basics which I wrote in early 2013.)
Since 2011, I've utterly preferred having my computer's operating system (OS) loaded into RAM, instead of installed on a hard disk or installed any other way that automatically and permanently saves changes, such as a Puppy Linux frugal installation with a Pupsave file. The latter, more traditional ways of doing things are bad for me because I like to experiment, and Linux sometimes seems rather fragile and easy to break compared to Windows XP.
So, since I find it way too easy to accidentally wreck my Linux system, it's wonderful for me to be able to start over with a totally clean slate just by rebooting my computer. Then I can just run my setup kit to effortlessly get back my nice, normal, comfortable setup in just minutes.
Another reason I like running my OS in RAM is because I assume that not relying on a hard drive or Flash drive as much as a traditional OS would will probably make my drives last longer and not wear out as fast. And relying on RAM is often much faster than waiting for things to load from a physical disk.
It's also nice that running your OS in RAM increases privacy. With a normal, more traditional installation, you might have a lot of old web browser cache files and other private stuff automatically saved to your hard disk. But with the entire OS itself and temporary files stored in the RAM disk, lots of private stuff simply vanishes into thin air as soon as you reboot or shut down.
Another possible benefit of Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit is that it might make it much easier to change to a different (but similar) Puppy. I was able to use an older version of my setup kit with Puppies similar to Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 version 004 to quickly make those different Puppies as nice as my usual Puppy. I haven't tried that with my current, drastically renovated setup kit, but I assume (perhaps wrongly) it would likely still work, or mostly work.
And another benefit of Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit is being able to relatively easily have different setups for different purposes. This can be done using custom blueprint scripts.
That's particularly useful if you have a limited amount of RAM, so little you can't install everything you might ever like to use. It's also useful if you have limited patience and don't want to wait a long time to install every piece of software available, much of which you might not even intend to use at the moment, or anytime soon.
What is a Setup Kit Blueprint Script?
"Blueprint" is my term for the setup kit scripts which decide which parts of the setup kit to install, and when. Generally, you run a blueprint script when you first start your Puppy. (Though depending on the blueprint's design, it might be suitable for running later if you prefer.)
Imagine the Puppy Setup Kit is an architect. You could theoretically have this architect build you absolutely everything he knows how to build - but, you probably have limited patience and space, so, you're most likely to ask him to only build you a smaller subset of everything that he knows how to build.
Likewise, at a restaurant, you generally wouldn't order absolutely everything available on the menu, but instead, only what you really want at the moment. (Though I guess you could order everything if you really wanted to, and could afford it, and could also afford to wait for as long as it would take to cook so much food.)
Like your order at a restaurant - a setup kit blueprint can be as small and simple, or huge and complicated as you want.
The way you can make different custom setups is by creating your own custom blueprint scripts. You can have any blueprint install as much or as little as you want, and you can design them to only install software oriented toward a specific task, or whatever you like.
For example, one of my computers has only 1 GB of RAM, which, if I recall correctly, can't comfortably fit both VirtualBox* and a decent web browser at the same time.
So, if I just want to watch Netflix (and/or run VirtualBox) on that computer, I could use a setup kit blueprint which installs just VirtualBox and my custom VirtualBox settings. Then, whenever I want to get some work done, I can reboot my computer and run a setup kit blueprint which installs a web browser, my custom web browser profile, and whatever other things I want.
With my computers with more RAM, I don't even have to reboot. I just run additional setup kit scripts to install the stuff I need when I need it, or to change my settings to something preferable.
Usually, the additional scripts I run aren't even full-fledged blueprints - maybe just a branching script (my term for a a script which does nothing except launch a bunch of other probably related scripts), or even an individual script.
Most every Puppy Setup Kit script can be run independently just by double-clicking on it, without it having to be launched by a blueprint or branching script.
What Puppy Linuxes will Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit work in?
Apollia's Puppy Setup Kit v1.0 (APSK) definitely works in this Ubuntu**-based Puppy Linux**:
APSK might at least partly work in these Ubuntu**-based Puppy Linuxes**:
Unless I'm mistaken, I tried an old version of APSK with the above Puppies, and it seemed to mostly work, but I definitely haven't tried the newest, current APSK with them.
I've been working on making APSK capable of setting up Lighthouse 64 Puppy Linux 6.02 Beta 2. As of 9/29/2014, the LH64-related stuff partly works, but is not in a releasable form yet. But, hopefully that stuff will be included in future versions of APSK.
Memory Requirements
The official tarball of Apollia's Puppy Setup Kit is pretty small - about 2.5 MB, which expands to around 11 MB. But, it won't be very useful until you use the included downloader scripts to retrieve software for the setup kit to install.
If you download absolutely everything, it will be around 1600 MB of stuff. But you don't need everything - especially not the stuff which is only for 64-bit Linuxes or Lighthouse 64 Puppy Linux 6.02 Beta 2, since currently, APSK is only specifically designed to set up Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 version 004.
As for RAM requirements - those are currently unnecessarily high, because the blueprint scripts I included are for my computer which has 4 GB of RAM, and I don't really have the time or energy right now to create good blueprints for computers with less RAM. After running my typical blueprint, I am left with about 1.2 GB of personal storage space. (My maximum personal storage space is 1.7 GB.)
However - theoretically, APSK's RAM requirements could be very small, if you create your own custom blueprints which install only a small amount of software.
License Info
Most things are probably under free, libre, and open source licenses. Stuff in the Weir folder probably isn't.
The documentation I wrote and most of the scripts I wrote that are included in this package are under the GNU General Public License v3.0. There are also some scripts by me (usually short and simple) which are in the public domain.
Other things in this package that aren't by me are under other licenses. It would be far too time-consuming for me to individually document everything myself. However, you might be able to find some license info by following links from the Partial Contents List page.
Other license info can probably be found easily enough by searching the web.
Despite the name, the Partial Contents List page is mostly about things that actually aren't contained inside the official tarball of Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit. Instead, that page mostly features things that need to be downloaded via the included downloader scripts.
See also: Icon Info
Icon Info
The icons included with Apollia's Puppy Linux Setup Kit were downloaded from IconArchive.com.
On the Icon Info page, I included links to the IconArchive.com pages about the icons.
The icons are by a variety of authors, and under a variety of licenses. Unless I'm mistaken, the icon's licenses permit my usage of the icons, so I didn't have to ask for permission.