howto build a grand unified puppy

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SirDuncan · #41 Post by **SirDuncan** » Fri 02 Mar 2007, 15:24

We want these .sfs files to load from a live CD before we have made a save file. The idea is to seperate the program suite from the core OS and still be able to run Puppy like we do now. I often show off Puppy to others by booting from a CD on their PC without a save file. If you can only load additional .sfs files with a save file, then our plan won't work.

xwiredtva · #42 Post by **xwiredtva** » Fri 02 Mar 2007, 16:29

If I can I'd like to propose something here, maybe it's what everyones thinking but here it goes. Also been using Pup off and on since 1.02

One Solid Stable Base system, Barry has this covered.
Side devloped based of Base (we have this now)

One Package manager to handle all Pets/Pups with modifiable Repos... I know there is one but it's not built into the base.

One MASTER repository to get what you want, and spelled out better. I had to search left, right up and down to find Pizza and Graf...

I'd like to donate server space and bandwith as well as web design to the master repo for this. Subdomain was already setup at linux.simplistiksoftware.com and I'll setup anonymouse FTP access for the repo of Pups/pets. That is if it's OK with everyone.

I can take care of a Main Page with links to Barry's site, Grafs, Pizza but we should maintain all Master Distro's along with Base on ONE SITE to simplify everything.

Aside from that 2.14 is EXCELLENT! Kudo's to all developers! It's fantastic.

You can reach me on this board or linux (at) simplistiksoftware.com

While Linux is NOT what we do it is a hobby of mine since 1996. However the days with a 16 port KVM filled up in my second bedroom making PP&L rich are over. Really wish I had a picture of this setup, it was a mess.

sunburnt · #43 Post by **sunburnt** » Fri 02 Mar 2007, 20:07

SirDuncan; The Save file has nothing to do with anything except app. installs,
settings, & other stuff that's not saved on drive partitions etc.

The UnionFS stacks the sfs files together, with or without the Save file.
For Puppy-2 the union is made at bootup, Puppy-1 can swap sfs files anytime.
Any partitions, dirs., or image files you want to add, can be part of the union.

#44 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Fri 02 Mar 2007, 20:26

I don't know much about .sfs files, so I don't know if he's correct or not. But I think what SirDuncan is saying is that Puppy doesn't see the .sfs files to load them unless you have a save-file on the harddrive. I think otherwise it might ignore the harddrive.

I do know that Puppy does not see my devx_xxx.sfs file when I boot with pfix=ram. Only when I let it load a save-file. I don't know if it behaves the same way when there isn't a save file.

Eyes-Only · #45 Post by **Eyes-Only** » Fri 02 Mar 2007, 20:54

No, it doesn't see them Pizza. I can tell you this now so you can know.

I just downloaded your Pizzapup 3.0 (by the way---a brilliant piece of work which pleases BOTH you & I!) and what I did before even starting the disk was to move the two "pza" files from the CD disk onto my second partition where I was going to keep my "pza_save.3fs" file after I did all my settings.

In the bootup process it scanned my entire hard drive, all 4 partitions, loaded the two "pza" files from the CD instead of the 2nd partition, loaded my swap partition, and away we went.

I then did all of my settings and saved the "pza_save.3fs" to the 2nd partition and rebooted. It was then upon the reboot that it found the two "pza" files right beside the save file and loaded from there. Total load time: 10 seconds to working desktop.

Sweet!

I've likewise noticed this exact same behaviour with all Puppies and puplets Pizza. The save file must be created before it'll see the other two files from the hard drive. But until then it pulls from the CD disk.

I hope this helps?

By the way: I think your version and ToutouLinux are two of the most beautiful puplets out there. You've done excellent work in creating not just a highly functional and extremely useful puplet---but a gorgeous piece of art as well. Congrats!

Amicalement,

Eyes-Only
"L'Peau-Rouge"

sunburnt · #46 Post by **sunburnt** » Fri 02 Mar 2007, 21:38

Eyes-Only; The boot scripts sets this up, there's been alot of complaints about
how limited they are, however we must keep in mind all that Puppy does do.

To modify the boot scrips to fix this wouldn't be hard to do, & a DotPup or other
install package would be needed to apply the new boot script to Puppy-2.

It'd be nice if a Puppy-2 fix for swapping sfs files could be part of this package...
See my post:

http://208.109.22.214/puppy/viewtopic.p ... cd851b3530

amish · #47 Post by **amish** » Fri 02 Mar 2007, 22:34

We want these .sfs files to load from a live CD before we have made a save file. The idea is to seperate the program suite from the core OS and still be able to run Puppy like we do now. I often show off Puppy to others by booting from a CD on their PC without a save file. If you can only load additional .sfs files with a save file, then our plan won't work.

with regards to my diagram, this is true. with regards to your idea sunburnt, obviously this is also true. specially regarding my idea: core.sfs would load without a save file. the larger .sfs files (which could go in another folder to avoid detection on startup) would require a save file to activate them either from the cd or the hard drive.

i suppose then core.sfs (the thing that makes barebones into normalmedium puppy) could be Deactivated via save file, too- thus, barebones!

and again regarding Your idea please come to the irc meeting saturday the 12th (time looks like it may be 12 to 2 GMT+0/england time, let me know your time zone.) and propose your .sfs tool to be included in CE. i'm sure it's lightweight, BEGIN with the acknowledgement that it may take a while to get .sfs working in their puppy 2 again, so they can't shoot it down by saying it doesn't work- we Know that. i'm very interested in restoring puppy 1's .sfs flexibility to puppy 2's list of abilities, but i wouldn't know how to even remaster it if i knew that much about coding it!

sunburnt · #48 Post by **sunburnt** » Fri 02 Mar 2007, 23:44

amish; I assume your post was refering to me... (if I'm wrong say so)

I'm in Arizona, we're backward here, we don't use daylight savings.
So at the moment I think we're the same time as California.

The last line of the quote you posted is wrong.

Puppy boots to X that's in the "boot" sfs, so that sfs file CAN'T BE REMOVED!

Lets set some terminology here & call the first main (X) sfs file, the "boot sfs".
Other sfs files have apps. in them so they're called "extra sfs" files.
So the terms "base" & "core" don't apply anymore... just to avoid confusion.

Save file or none, boot order, etc. are all part of the boot scripts & can be fixed.

The sfsManager could only load sfs files at bootup in Puppy-2 with no "fix".
Puppy-2 already does this to some extent, I think...

The union setup: SAVE.3fs (extra).sfs (extra).sfs (extra).sfs pup_BOOT.sfs
The last one is the "boot sfs" file with X & core apps. in it, the rest can swap.
The Save file's always at the top so it's files "overshadow" the lower files.
When a file's changed in the Save file, it's the file that's seen & accessed.

==================================================
I'm not very good at getting packages working, not like MU & others are.
AUFS should be tried in Puppy-2 to see if it solves the swapping sfs files.
Knoppix dumped UnionFS for AUFS, so this should be a good indicator for us.

We need someone like MU, GuestToo, Dougal, Gn2, or other "guru" to help.
If they build AUFS into Puppy-2 & it works, then it'll be a slam dunk it's good.
At that point the likelyhood it'll be incorperated into Puppy-2 stands a chance.

Hopefully someone will reply to my post asking if anyone has a fix for Puppy-2.

Nathan F · #49 Post by **Nathan F** » Fri 02 Mar 2007, 23:51

What if we used a system of cheatcodes to do it, like in Knoppix or DSL? In DSL you can boot with the command "dsl tohd" and it will copy the disk to the hard drive and run it from there. Similarly you can type "dsl restore" and it will look for a copy on your hard drives.

I've tried very hard to stabilize the addition and removal of squashfiles while already up and running and, well, I don't think we'll be able to do that any time soon. However, if a module was present on the live cd and you set up the boot scripts it could probably be loaded right when the union was created. Basically you type "puppy modules=opera,openoffice" at the boot prompt and it loads opera and openoffice along with the rest of the os. With a bit more work it might be able to work with modules stored on the HD. Anyway it would be a start. What do you guys think of that as an idea? The implementation would probably be a lot easier than inserting the modules on the fly, but still be a lot more flexible than what is offered right now.

Nathan

sunburnt · #50 Post by **sunburnt** » Sat 03 Mar 2007, 01:02

Hi Nathan; It's good to hear from you... So no luck with UnionFS in Puppy-2 ?

I'd like to work with you on this, because I think it's fixable, & IT'S IMPORTANT!

If you have time, let me know... I think the first real step is testing AUFS,
as Knoppix has ditched UnionFS for it, this is a damn good indication to us.

I proposed testing a Puppy 1 version with the loop devices in /usr & then the
unioned file's mount points in /usr, so each is inside the union at a time.
If one of these test setups acts like Puppy 2 does swapping sfs files... Bingo!

My other proposals were:
1) A "false root" so loops and/or mounts can be placed outside the union.
2) Make Puppy-2's dir. structure like Puppy-1's (easy to do & is an instant fix).

But testing AUFS is probably the best idea, rather than messing with UnionFS.

==============================================
See my post of my updated sfsManager & my new SFS file maker:

http://208.109.22.214/puppy/viewtopic.p ... 04cb11451a

Cheat codes or better yet a console menu for boot control & SFS file loading.
Auto. copy to RAM & load, if can't & source is on CD then copy to HD & load.
Menu time-out reads a config. file that loads a list of sfs files & boot control.
This is about all all that can be done at bootup, because both of these items
must be done before starting X in ANY Puppy version.
After booting, sfsManager can swap SFS files for Puppy versions that'll do it.

There's quite the discussion going about a Puppy version with a "base sfs" file
with only core apps. (X, Xorg, Geany, etc., a browser & maybe a IM app.).
The base Puppy would be ~ 40MB to 50MB in size, & swap "extra sfs" files.
The extra sfs files would be groups of "like apps." less than 100MB in size,
most less than 50MB, like XMMS & Mplayer + codec pack = 20MB extra sfs file.
With many smaller extra sfs files, they'll easily load into & out of memory.

Nathan F · #51 Post by **Nathan F** » Sat 03 Mar 2007, 02:26

Believe me when I say that I've been giving it some thought. I think what I described with boot cheatcodes would be a start, however I'm sure at this point that Barry would veto a boot menu if it was on by default. Now if we had a boot menu, which could be switched to by pressing one of the function keys (not in itself that hard to implement) that might work. As for a config file, that would definately be part of my suggested setup. I just hadn't mentioned it as yet.

Anyway, I think coding something like this is within our grasp now, as in it could be done in a day or two if someone devoted the time to it. I'd suggest putting off any switch to aufs for the time being, or big plans for fixing this in Puppy-2.xx. Right now I think that's too much work to get done quickly, and believe me when I say I'm getting intimately acquainted with the boot scripts at this point.

I've been playing around with Slax a bit and all of this works, with the exception that they don't even offer to remove modules once loaded. There is something different somewhere with their shutdown scripts than with ours, because when I add a module in manually in Puppy (which I can now do just fine, BTW) shutdown no longer works. In Slax it shuts down without complaint. If you want a project try looking into that for me.

Unfortunately time is not one of the things I have in abundance right now. I just have a ton of projects going already. This is one I want to tackle, but frankly I have to prioritize a bit or nothing will get done. Grafpup-2.00 is taking a lot of time to get right, and I just planned to let squashfile insertion wait for my 2.01 or 2.02 release.

Nathan

amish · #52 Post by **amish** » Sat 03 Mar 2007, 11:00

The last line of the quote you posted is wrong.

Puppy boots to X that's in the "boot" sfs, so that sfs file CAN'T BE REMOVED!

Lets set some terminology here & call the first main (X) sfs file, the "boot sfs".
Other sfs files have apps. in them so they're called "extra sfs" files.
So the terms "base" & "core" don't apply anymore... just to avoid confusion.

i'm personally against using cheatcodes to do it... i'm all about intelligent defaults. (i was inspired by creationism... although we know that there is a puppy creator.)

by default, puppy takes 8 minutes to boot on my machine. this is a quantum leap from the 5 hours i let ubuntu's install disc try to load, so at first it was just an annoyance. the cheatcode "hdc=none" which i found after a few WEEKS, lets puppy boot at a reasonable speed. imho, cheatcodes are a necessary KLUDGE but nothing more, and should be treated as kludges, not a handy way for a newbie to boot VITAL configurations.

on the other hand, i see cheatcodes as a potential kludge for people with no save file. let me clarify (although this is in the diagram that i've had up for a while, highlighted in black text by yellow...) the stages in my version are barebones, core, and auxilliary.

"barebones" INCLUDES xwin... this may seem daft but it's quite common, mu's micromuppy is only 12mb and includes xwin and a window manager, barebones and xwin are available no matter what.

"core" is stuff that is included IN ADDITION to barebones but by default. the core looks like this:

auxiliary barebones+core.sfs .sfs files

and when you remove the core you are left with barebones (and xwin!)

so *by default* you have both:

Code: Select all

loaded: barebones
loaded: core.sfs
loaded if it exists: save file
not loaded: the aux .sfs files

and then via save file (and you can also do it via cheatcodes if you want) you can ignore core.sfs:

Code: Select all

loaded: barebones
loaded if it exists: save file
not loaded: the aux .sfs files

OR, via save file (and maybe cheatcodes too,) you can ADD to puppy, like you can in grafpup:

Code: Select all

loaded: barebones
loaded: core.sfs
loaded if it exists: save file
loaded: the particular aux .sfs files selected... 
(i.e. ooo and kde, or kde and usr_devx, or all three, just ooo, etc.)

how is it simple? it's simple because by default, you have something much like the puppy we have come to know and love... about 80mb.

with almost zero effort (or knowledge) you can run ONLY barebones (with x!) and with similarly little effort, you can bloat puppy all the way up to 390mb! imagine what TEENpup (not a terrible idea) or CE could do within those THREE options!

sunburnt · #53 Post by **sunburnt** » Sat 03 Mar 2007, 14:52

Yes, the menu/cc times out & boots to a config. file having user set defaults.
Defaults being: the wait time till defaulting, boot settings, & sfs file mounting.
A post boot GUI for setting the defaults in the config. file would be nice...

Nathan F · #54 Post by **Nathan F** » Sat 03 Mar 2007, 15:34

A post boot GUI for setting the defaults in the config. file would be nice...

Yes, absolutely. And in respect to those who want a full implementation now, as I said this much is achievable now, and the rest is probably achievable later. Let's at least try to get some kind of functionality rather than offering vapourware.

Nathan

sunburnt · #55 Post by **sunburnt** » Sat 03 Mar 2007, 18:01

NathanF; I understand your time constraints, seems like everyone's busy.

We need a wish list of "possable boot options" for the config. file (boot.conf).
Suggestions:
1) Option to set time-out till default boot (length of time delay).
2) Separate full paths for the: Save file, main Squash file, & extra Squash files.
3) Save, main & extra Squash file options for "load from": current, HD, or RAM.

The sfs file load list (sfs.conf) can be separate (my choice), or in the boot.conf file.
Code for the boot time hot-keys, or a menu, or maybe both (hot-key shows menu).
[Esc] key immediately jumps to defaults in config. files, bypassing time-out.

Anything else that might be added to the GUI to improve bootup?

amish · #56 Post by **amish** » Sat 03 Mar 2007, 19:20

Let's at least try to get some kind of functionality rather than offering vapourware.

this has nothing to do with vaporware. there are people in this community pushing new utils and derivatives out every week... there's nothing wrong with some lengthy discussion in the middle of it about ways to make it better. of course, i still realize the worth in what you meant... i just wanted to quibble over it

no, seriously, i'll stand by my point, and yours too- they both look fine to me.

sunburnt · #57 Post by **sunburnt** » Sun 04 Mar 2007, 08:32

amish; Being as this is your forum thread, I thought I'd ask what you think?
Does it make sense, & is there anything missing that you can think of?

I rewrote the sfsManager as it's very close to what we're talking about.
This is the third variation of sfsManager that I've made now...
It's just the bootManager GUI, the changes to Barry's boot code I figured
he'd want to do that himself so he has control over his code's development.
I'll leave a text header in the file to explain the variables & their uses.

amish · #58 Post by **amish** » Sun 04 Mar 2007, 16:30

that's a REALLY neat tool. i think you should GO AHEAD and include it, as is.

actually i think i could make it not just a little more simple in a way, but it would take a while to illustrate it. i need some time to think about how i would do it exactly, and maybe it will inspire future changes. hazard of rapid development

the way i'd do it you wouldn't even need a wizard, but a wizard could certainly help in a friendly and very useful way.

i really like some of the secondary features you have there that wouldn't have occured to me/thought possible/thought easily done. nice work, keep it up.

sunburnt · #59 Post by **sunburnt** » Sun 04 Mar 2007, 20:27

It could be reduced in size... the table at the upper left could just be a button
that pops up a file select dialog in the dir. specified by the [Set Extra Files Path].

My "sfsManager" searches all partitions in several dirs. for extra sfs files.
This "bootManager" only looks in the dir. set by [Set Extra Files Path].

I'm sure more options will occur to you, me, & others as we continue.

This isn't what you originally started this post about: an Advanced Puppy distro.
I'll start a new post here in Suggestions for this bootManager addon.

I posted for help to install AUFS into Puppy-2, so far no assistance offered...
I'm hoping it'll solve Puppy-2's problem swapping SFS files, but it may not...

Nathan F · #60 Post by **Nathan F** » Mon 12 Mar 2007, 03:47

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 607#103607
This is an aufs package for Puppy, for testing purposes to see if it will permit swapping union branches on the fly.

Nathan

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howto build a grand unified puppy