Precise-light - 17March2019 - for older hardware

[perdido]

Hi jrb,
Menu-->Internet-->Transmission
The bittorrent client Transmission v2.22 in precise-light does not work (at least I can't get it to do anything useful)
Solution I found is replace it with Transmission version 2.60 from bionicpup32
https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/p ... _ta610.pet

It requires this small .deb package to run in precise-lite
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/m ... 1_i386.deb

Total size of both packages combined is 927k
and would add 584k to the build size of precise-light if used.

.

[Volhout]

Hi jrb,

Downloaded the -light version from post #1
Installed on 1Gb USB stick using Rufus

Test on HP Probook 4510 (dual core celeron) with 2 Gb RAM
-WIFI works (peasywifi) but does not automatically reconnect.
-Booted right to the screen (1366x768).
-Sound works
-Battery works (icons shows level)
-USB / SD card works

EXT2 save file 256Mb
Worked fine with my selection of tools (Arduino, Picaxe, Saleae, Simetrix, Putty, DOSBOX). Only GTK-term did not work. (missing some lib).

noticed
- at shutdown takes quite a while in "shutting down" before "saving".
- when ROX-options-pinboard grid=set to medium all drive icons are on top of eachother.
- the precise icon sets and puppy wallpapers could use some freshness. They really look outdated...has a charm of it's own.
- nagging messages about hibernated ntfs partitions.

But in general, a small and usable puppy.

Regards,

Volhout

[jrb]

1.I had to use Barry's simple network setup to make a wifi connection. After saving and rebooting a few times peasywifi_tray remains in the tray but it isn't doing anything as far as I can tell.
It still launches peasywifi when clicked. (/root/Startup/peasywifi_tray)

I've always had good luck with peasywifi, its much faster hooking to ethernet than puppy's default. But I have to confess I seldom connect to password protected networks, only when traveling. I live 300 meters from the nearest road and neighbors (I wouldn't mind if they borrowed my internet anyway and vice versa). I could write an opening script to give a choice of having the tray icon if you'd like.

[jrb]

I think this is a nice find: https://ethercalc.net, for our potential users.

Looks interesting. I've used some online spreadsheets, googledocs and zoho office, but my internet is so slow it can be frustrating. I'll try this one when I get a chance.

[jrb]

The bittorrent client Transmission v2.22 in precise-light does not work (at least I can't get it to do anything useful)
Solution I found is replace it with Transmission version 2.60 from bionicpup32
https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/p ... _ta610.pet

It requires this small .deb package to run in precise-lite
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/m ... 1_i386.deb.

Thanks perdido, I was just about to upload a new ISO when I read this. Will incorporate your fix and then rebuild.

[musher0]

Hello all.

Trying to replace ffmpeg with libav, if playmusic will have it.

On the face of it, already small Precie-5.7.1_Light|Min could be smaller
still by possibly 9 Mgs (unsquashed) just by doing that. Plus that new
libav-12.3 (Febr. 2018) is more recent than the ffmpeg libs and utils
presently offered (2016).

~~~~~~~~

Also I found some deadlinks concerning "sfs-activate" and "sfs-deactivate"
in /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/OpenWith/.application_octet-stream.

[~/.config/ro...t/OpenWith]>ls -Algor .*/sfs*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 40 avr 3 10:35 .application_x-squashfs-image/sfs_load -> /usr/share/applications/SFS-Load.desktop
lrwxrwxrwx 1 23 avr 3 10:35 .application_octet-stream/sfs-deactivate -> /opt/bin/sfs-deactivate
lrwxrwxrwx 1 21 avr 3 10:35 .application_octet-stream/sfs-activate -> /opt/bin/sfs-activate

I looked everywhere, and those sfs utilities are nowhere to be found.

~~~~~~~~

Back to playmusic, does anybody know if it is allergic to the opus format?
I am getting good results with other formats, but playmusic borks on opus
audio files. However, they play fine using avplay directly.

playmusic says it can't "mount" them. "Mount" an audio file? First time I've
heard of such silliness.

~~~~~~~~

BFN.

[jrb]

-WIFI works (peasywifi) but does not automatically reconnect.
noticed
- at shutdown takes quite a while in "shutting down" before "saving".
- when ROX-options-pinboard grid=set to medium all drive icons are on top of eachother.
- the precise icon sets and puppy wallpapers could use some freshness. They really look outdated...has a charm of it's own.
- nagging messages about hibernated ntfs partitions.

Thanks for testing Volhout.
I only have an open network to work on but In PeasyWIFI go to connect->Scan. Once it finds your network click Save, this will creat a profile. Then click the Restart button at bottom of window. Go to Auto->On and a small script in /root/Startup will autoconnect at boot.

Is shutdown time quicker after the first save? Not that I know what to do about it.

I'll leave the creation of a nice desktop up to the user. See Musher0's

I never work with hibernated ntfs partitions, don't know much about them. Maybe someone else knows?

Hope that helps. Cheers, J

[perdido]

1.I had to use Barry's simple network setup to make a wifi connection. After saving and rebooting a few times peasywifi_tray remains in the tray but it isn't doing anything as far as I can tell.
It still launches peasywifi when clicked. (/root/Startup/peasywifi_tray)

I've always had good luck with peasywifi, its much faster hooking to ethernet than puppy's default. But I have to confess I seldom connect to password protected networks, only when traveling. I live 300 meters from the nearest road and neighbors (I wouldn't mind if they borrowed my internet anyway and vice versa). I could write an opening script to give a choice of having the tray icon if you'd like.

Hi jrb,
Not necessary to change it if you have it like you want, was just letting you know about it and it is easy to remove.

.

[jrb]

Hello all.

Trying to replace ffmpeg with libav, if playmusic will have it.

On the face of it, already small Precie-5.7.1_Light|Min could be smaller
still by possibly 9 Mgs (unsquashed) just by doing that. Plus that new
libav-12.3 (Febr. 2018) is more recent than the ffmpeg libs and utils
presently offered (2016).

~~~~~~~~

Also I found some deadlinks concerning "sfs-activate" and "sfs-deactivate"
in /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/OpenWith/.application_octet-stream.

[~/.config/ro...t/OpenWith]>ls -Algor .*/sfs*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 40 avr 3 10:35 .application_x-squashfs-image/sfs_load -> /usr/share/applications/SFS-Load.desktop
lrwxrwxrwx 1 23 avr 3 10:35 .application_octet-stream/sfs-deactivate -> /opt/bin/sfs-deactivate
lrwxrwxrwx 1 21 avr 3 10:35 .application_octet-stream/sfs-activate -> /opt/bin/sfs-activate

I looked everywhere, and those sfs utilities are nowhere to be found.

~~~~~~~~

Back to playmusic, does anybody know if it is allergic to the opus format?
I am getting good results with other formats, but playmusic borks on opus
audio files. However, they play fine using avplay directly.

playmusic says it can't "mount" them. "Mount" an audio file? First time I've
heard of such silliness.

~~~~~~~~

BFN.

I'm not familiar with libav, looks interesting, but I would hate to give up the functionality of ffmpeg.

Deadlinks - busted I generally run Puppy with "Porteus boot" as used in fredx181's DebDog family.(very good for Puppy development) Those links are an adaption to that. I haven't had the courage to post about it as the explanation would be lengthy and possibly confusing. Maybe one day. I will remove those links. Thanks.

Precise-light doesn't have avplay, just ffplay but if avplay will handle them I imagine ffplay will too. Checkout /root/.playmusic/playmusicrc-ffplay. If you make an entry in there for opus files ala "ogg". It should play them. Let me know if it does and I'll update it.
Edit: it does play them and I have updated playmusicrc-ffplay Playmusic is not a media player. It is actually a file director, it sends file types to the app that you choose in playmusicrc, it also provides a small gui with some very basic controls. I have used it equally well with ffplay, mpv and mplay. BTW, I really like mpv-20150814-git-i686-precise.pet and have used it in everything from Precise to Upupbb.

[Volhout]

@jrb

Your precise booted right to the desktop on the ASUS X101CH. That is unique. Most cases I have to manually direct video to modesetting…..

Also on the X101CH shutdown is slow.

Cosmetics... trying to to do something about it... will show you once it's done

@musher0
Tried your conky and conkyconfig at 2 machines (asus X101CH and HP 4510), but neither show transparency. There is a fixed black background in the conky window.

Any idea …??

Volhout

[musher0]

Hi Volhout.

Yep. A couple!

Either you install qiv or teh and use them to set the background during
.xinitrc. Something like this:

Code: Select all

if [ "`which conky`" ];then
	FONDACTUEL="`cat /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin | grep '<backdrop ' | cut -f 2 -d '>' | cut -f 1 -d '<'`"
	qiv -z $FONDACTUEL
	sleep 1s
fi 

OR

That's what I did here. This will work only if you have somewhat of a plain
color area where the conky will be:

fire up gcolor2, use the color picker to pick the color in the background
area where the conky will be, and use that color as background for conky.
Like so:

Code: Select all

#############################
# - Window specifications - #
#############################
own_window_class Conky
own_window yes
own_window_type desktop
# normal # override # desktop

own_window_transparent no # yes # no
own_window_colour 8BB7D0 # pale blue

Nice little ruse, eh?

BFN.

[musher0]

@jrb.

Better stick with ffplay. It has more options. FFmpeg isd bigger than libav for
a reason! I tested playmusic with avplay, and it did not work consistently.

BFN.

[jrb]

@musher0
Tried your conky and conkyconfig at 2 machines (asus X101CH and HP 4510), but neither show transparency. There is a fixed black background in the conky window.

Here is the code that I use in /root/Startup/conk_start:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

#Setup transparency with feh
mkdir -p /root/.background
rm -f /root/.background/*
ln -s /usr/share/backgrounds/default.* /root/.background
feh --bg-scale /root/.background > /dev/null 2>&1

#Start conky if not already running
CNK=`ps aux | grep conky | grep -v grep | grep -v tty`
if [ "$CNK" = "" ]; then
  conky &
fi

sleep 3

#Wait until the network is active

x=1
while [ $x -le 180 ]; do
  NETWORK=$(route -n | awk '/^[0-9]/ && ($1 !~ /^0.0/) && ($1 !~ /^127.0/) && ($1 !~ /^169.254/) {print $1}')
  echo "Not Connected"
  if [ ! "$NETWORK" = "" ]; then
      break      
  fi
  sleep 1
  x=$(( $x + 1 ))
  if [ $x = 180 ]; then
	  echo "Timed Out"
	  exit
  fi
done

echo "Network Connected"

#Restart Conky
killall -SIGUSR1 conky

/usr/bin/feh provides the transparency. It is already in Precise-light. You may not need the lines after and including "sleep 3". They are there to restart conky after the network is connected since my /root/.conkyrc downloads weather info from the internet. Just right-click in /root/Startup, New->Script. Open it as text put in your code, save and you should have transparency on reboot. Or type "killall conky" in a terminal then click your script to test.

Good luck, J

[jrb]

@jrb.

Better stick with ffplay. It has more options. FFmpeg isd bigger than libav for
a reason! I tested playmusic with avplay, and it did not work consistently.

BFN.

Good morning musher0,
You posted twice while I was putting together my reply to Volhout. You write faster than I do too.

Still not sure where avplay is coming into this, do you mean ffplay? I did insert "opus" into /root/.playmusic/playmusicrc so that will be in next build. Do you see any other media missing from that file?

[jrb]

I have uploaded precise-light-5.7.1+0.iso. This will become the new base and (like peebee) any new updates will come as .delta files. I will rewrite the initial page 1 entries.
Thanks for all the help, J

[nic007]

Hi, jrb. I made a few changes of my own with some other sfs-addons and stuff I want to include and maybe release as another puplet. I've used your initrd.gz and edited it to give my "puplet" another name and renamed the base sfs, etc. accordingly. Everything seems fine apart from that it won't create a savefile at shutdown. Have I missed something?

[jrb]

Hi, jrb. I made a few changes of my own with some other sfs-addons and stuff I want to include and maybe release as another puplet. I've used your initrd.gz and edited it to give my "puplet" another name and renamed the base sfs, etc. accordingly. Everything seems fine apart from that it won't create a savefile at shutdown. Have I missed something?

Both the initrd.gz and /etc in the sfs contain a copy of DISTRO_SPECS. If these do not match things can get confused. If your pup boots then the name of your sfs must match what's in the initrd.gz copy. Make sure the one in the sfs matches. That's my best guess.

[nic007]

Distro specs are the same, everything boot as it should but problems with the creation of the savefile. I used your initrd.gz of min and edited the two distro specs sections (well two popped up) to make provision for the new names (actually just changed min to nicOS) .

[jrb]

Distro specs are the same, everything boot as it should but problems with the creation of the savefile. I used your initrd.gz of min and edited the two distro specs sections (well two popped up) to make provision for the new names (actually just changed min to nicOS) .

Are they the same otherwise? I think I would take the one from your sfs and put it in the initrd.gz. The one in my initrd.gz was made for a pup using a zdrv for the kernel. The one in the original Precise was not.

Pardon my asking, but why did you use my initrd.gz as opposed to using the original Precise one?

[nic007]

Distro specs are the same, everything boot as it should but problems with the creation of the savefile. I used your initrd.gz of min and edited the two distro specs sections (well two popped up) to make provision for the new names (actually just changed min to nicOS) .

Are they the same otherwise? I think I would take the one from your sfs and put it in the initrd.gz. The one in my initrd.gz was made for a pup using a zdrv for the kernel. The one in the original Precise was not.

Pardon my asking, but why did you use my initrd.gz as opposed to using the original Precise one?

The original does not make provision for the adrv and ydrv (or is that a vmlinuz thing?). I used your initrd.gz and your vmlinuz. I have an, adrv, ydrv and zdrv.