I already posted a little about Puppy Linux in the past - but, it seems
appropriate and particularly on topic to mention it again now, because, at
least from my not-very-technical perspective, one of Puppy Linux's
strengths appears to be compatibility with a wide variety of hardware,
usually without requiring the users to fiddle with settings much or at all.

With Puppy, the most elaborate thing I ever had to do to make some hardware
work was compile and install a driver for a USB wireless internet adapter.

(Oh, and then there were the things I was only able to figure out how to
use with a Windows XP VirtualBox rather than natively in Linux - a scanner
and an HPNA internet adapter.)


Puppy (at least the Puppies I tried) unfortunately doesn't tell you if it's
using anything non-free, nor give you the option to exclude those non-free
things.

But, other than that, it has usually been close to ideal for me. I haven't
tried it with an incredibly wide variety of hardware, but it has usually
worked fine with most things I tried, even some rather surprising things,
like old Macs. :-)

Maybe Puppy has some hardware-related scripts or something which Devuan
could use or modify?


I don't know many details, but there is apparently already Devuan support
in woof-CE, the community edition of the software used to build Puppy
Linuxes.

This page is from last April:

https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/528

I don't know if anyone has yet released a Devuan-based Puppy ISO. But, if
I understand correctly, woof-CE is the software anyone can now use to build
such an ISO.

Maybe stuff from that could be used in Devuan itself?


As for how Puppy deals with legal issues related to distributing non-free
firmware - I haven't been able to find many details so far just from
searching the web.

But, on the blog of Barry Kauler (creator of Puppy Linux), there's a post
from May 17, 2008 where he writes:

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=00099

"Anyway, I now have compiled 'slusb.ko' but apparently I can't legally put
it into Puppy for distribution. I have mumbled some appropriate expletives,
won't type them here."

So, judging by that, I assume Puppy probably is mindful of such issues and
probably follows the law, yet still manages to do a good job of being
compatible with a wide variety of hardware.


One of my top suggestions for a specific, existing Puppy distro to look at
and maybe use stuff from would be Wary Puppy, since it's specifically
designed to be compatible with old hardware.

http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/wary-5.5/release-Wary-5.5.htm

Wary is the Puppy that worked best for me on an old computer that even some
somewhat recent Puppies didn't work quite right on - a Toughbook CF-28
whose screen blacked out after X started while running Lucid Puppy 5.2.8
and Slacko 5.7.

If I recall correctly, the worst problem I had with the CF-28 and Wary was
that the CF-28's touchscreen wasn't properly calibrated out of the box (and
I never figured out how to calibrate it).


My other top suggestion would be Lighthouse 64 Puppy 6.02 Beta 2, my
favorite of all the 64-bit Puppies I've tried.

http://www.lhpup.org/ - Lighthouse 64 Puppy's home page


I was astonished when I was able to get Puppy to work on some old Macs,
with very little trouble at all (if I recall correctly) - just by booting
from a CD or DVD.

I actually was able to use Lighthouse 64 Puppy 6.02 Beta 2 on a 2008 Mac
Pro desktop!

A model of Mac that some describe as being like a giant cheese grater. :-)

http://www.souledesigns.com/blog/2013/06/mac-pro-kitchen-nightmare


And I got both Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 and I think also a Lighthouse Puppy
(forgot what version) to boot on a MacBook from 2009.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70855
Official discussion thread for Lucid Puppy 5.2.8


Another nice thing about Lighthouse 64 Puppy 6.02 Beta 2 is that right out
of the box, it somehow manages to perfectly calibrate the touchscreen of my
Toughbook CF-C1 (a newer and far less rugged Toughbook than the CF-28).

No other Puppy I tried did that, though at least the touchscreen somewhat
worked, even though I couldn't figure out how to calibrate it. (Actually,
I might only have tried one other Puppy with the CF-C1 - Lucid Puppy 5.2.8.)


Anyway, I hope this helps. I guess I'll go back to being mostly quiet
again, since I can't think of much else to say besides praise, thanks, and
things like "I agree". :-)

Thanks to everyone for all your wonderful efforts!

Best wishes,
Apollia