Distributing your Puplet

It is very easy to make your own modified version of Puppy Linux and many people do it. Many people also like to offer their puplet to the world for others to try out. This guide will help with some of the issues of distributing your puplet to the world; a major issue being the cost of hosting large files.

Essentials

People will need 2 things from you: the Puplet itself, and a way of making sure the Puplet is in perfect condition/not corrupted.

1. The puplet itself

There are 2 ways

• Create and distribute an ISO file (the most common way).
• Create and distribute a delta file, based on your puplet and the ISO you based it on. See XdeltA for more info.

2. The checksum

• Create and distribute an Md5 checksum, so people can check they downloaded your file correctly.
  • You can just post the checksum's text in the forum, but if you also offer it as a file, it can be easier for automatic checking and for Metalinking (a way of spreading the burden among different servers).
  • If you have an ISO called, for example, puplet-1.0.iso, then host your MD5 checksum (in the same directory as the ISO) as puplet-1.0.iso.md5.txt.
  • See Md5 for more info.

Hosting

When you make a puplet and want to offer it to the world, you'll need a host/server for the ISO or delta file.
A good place to start for ideas on a host is the Hosts for Large Files∞ thread in the Puppy forum. Some suggestions to start you off:

• puppylinux.ca∞, run by Puppy user Caneri. PM him in the forums if you would like him to host your file.
• Tuxfamily∞, a site that specializes in hosting open source software projects.
• Sourceforge∞, a big network for hosting software.

Alternative sources for your files

If you only have one server, you might want to try a couple of things to avoid overworking that server when everyone :=) tries to download your puplet.

• CoBlitz: the easiest way to spread the burden: just put http://coblitz.codeen.org/∞ at the start of the direct download link. See CoBlitz for more info. It's easy, it's free, do it!
• Another host ("mirror"): there are several people & organizations that are willing to host puplets (see the Hosts for Large Files thread linked above). Try to have your Puplet on more than 1 host before announcing it to the world, or at least CoBlitz the download link you publish.
• BitTorrent: a form of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. See BitTorrent for more info.
• MetaLink: if you have your puplet on more than one host, then you can make use of Metalinks, a way of combining downloads from different sources. You can make a metalink yourself, or just add the link for the Md5 to the database at MetaMirrors.nl, then post a special link to there. See MetaLink for more info.

Xdelta patches

Imagine if someone could get your Puplet by downloading only e.g. 20MB instead of the full ISO of e.g. 115MB. Well, it is possible. And it can save users a lot of time and Puppy hosts a lot of bandwidth & money.

Your puplet is based on an existing ISO file. People who already have that ISO can download just the difference if you use xdelta to compare the 2 ISOs and create a delta that can be used to take an original ISO and create your Puplet from it. It's also great for distributing minor updates. See XdeltA for more info.

Posting

Finally when your ISO (and/or delta) and Md5 are hosted and ready, tell the Puppy world!
Post an announcement in the Puppy forum with the following:

• the link to download the ISO and/or delta (Coblitzed HTTP, Coblitzed FTP, BitTorrent, Metalink or all together!)
• the link to the MD5
• the text of the MD5