Quirky7-light 32&64 bit - April 2020

[gabtech]

Thank you jrb for the update of april64-zoom iso. Zoom working with no problem, held a test meeting with it. Audio problem though, zoom wants pulse audio - where can I get pulse audio for april64.

[jrb]

Thank you jrb for the update of april64-zoom iso. Zoom working with no problem, held a test meeting with it. Audio problem though, zoom wants pulse audio - where can I get pulse audio for april64.

Just to clarify, you say "Zoom working with no problem". I take this to mean that audio worked in your test meeting? I know Zoom asks for pulseaudio but does it really need it?

I am unaware of anyone who has pulseaudio working in any Puppy (perhaps in the Dog series?) but you can check pulse audio site:http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/ and see. If it can be done then pulseaudio from Ubuntu 14.04 Tahr64 is probably the most likely to work.

Good Luck, J

[gabtech]

Now audio in zoom is working after installing pulseaudio downloaded using tahr64 ppm from ubuntu repository.

[step]

I know Zoom asks for pulseaudio but does it really need it?

I believe it needs pulseaudio if you want to share (as in Desktop sharing) the local computer audio with your meeting attendees. For basic computer audio voice conversation pulseaudio isn't needed.

[jrb]

Now audio in zoom is working after installing pulseaudio downloaded using tahr64 ppm from ubuntu repository.

Good! Would you mind listing the files you installed and any special setup mods you had to make?

Thanks, J

[jrb]

I know Zoom asks for pulseaudio but does it really need it?

I believe it needs pulseaudio if you want to share (as in Desktop sharing) the local computer audio with your meeting attendees. For basic computer audio voice conversation pulseaudio isn't needed.

Thanks Step, much appreciated.

[glene77is]

.

Sheldon and JRB,
Thanks for the side talk among old guys.
At 75, I have cycled 48 years.
Can't keep up with young rabbits, and refuse to ride with the ladies.
Bicycling around the county has become my "Quiet Time" .
Helps keep my mind less cluttered, so my Linux code work is better.
We should do what we can, and be very thankful for the Experience.
Barrie Gilbert's last letter to me was encouragement to :
Explore our opportunities, Experience as our talents allow,
and Appreciate the Life Time we have.
JRB, thanks for working up the April-7 .
My equipment is 32bit,
and I can now run your April7 32bit 'light' version of BK's distro,
and read through the code.
So now, Back On Topic !

[jrb]

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Sheldon and JRB,
Thanks for the side talk among old guys.
At 75, I have cycled 48 years.
Can't keep up with young rabbits, and refuse to ride with the ladies.
Bicycling around the county has become my "Quiet Time" .
Helps keep my mind less cluttered, so my Linux code work is better.
We should do what we can, and be very thankful for the Experience.
Barrie Gilbert's last letter to me was encouragement to :
Explore our opportunities, Experience as our talents allow,
and Appreciate the Life Time we have.
JRB, thanks for working up the April-7 .
My equipment is 32bit,
and I can now run your April7 32bit 'light' version of BK's distro,
and read through the code.
So now, Back On Topic !

I find no matter how I feel when I start out, when I get to where I'm going on my bike there's a smile on my face. Helped a lot when I was going to work.

Glad you're finding A7-32 useful. Most of my computers are 32bit and I refuse to chuck out perfectly good machines because of planned obsolescence. Now that Palemoon has announced they're dropping 32bit I've gone back to Seamonkey, hoping that they will continue to support the 32bit community.

Cheers and keep pedaling, J

[glene77is]

Sheldon and JRB,
Thanks for the side talk among old guys.

I find no matter how I feel when I start out, when I get to where I'm going on my bike there's a smile on my face. Helped a lot when I was going to work.

Glad you're finding A7-32 useful. Most of my computers are 32bit and I refuse to chuck out perfectly good machines because of planned obsolescence. Now that Palemoon has announced they're dropping 32bit I've gone back to Seamonkey, hoping that they will continue to support the 32bit community.

Cheers and keep pedaling, J

Quirky is interesting, and as I read through the code
I find some different approaches, as I expected.
Xorg does not recognize as many video systems/sizes
and Geany is still not setup right. Both are earlier versions.
Mainly I write/exlore BASH and so I noticed these things.
For the most part, I peruse research papers and science articles.
So, Quirky 32 works and this is good experience. JRB did OK.
< I think PeeBee outshines all with UpupBB >

The German "IRON" browser is my favorite, up to v.56 now, 32 bit.
Mozilla U-Light browser , now at v.46, 32 bit, runs well.
I wrote Shell script to clear out the .cache and a dozen other
places where extraneous data is dumped and forgotten,
which only bloats the Puppy saveFolder.

Some major sites, like Google and FaceBook
warn me that they will out-write my browsers.

About the bike, my favorite is the '71 Schwinn Sport Tourer,
with all Campy and Simplex components and a wonderful Cobb saddle,
and home-made aerobars.
I keep it on the Trainer Stand for an hour each day
and a 10 miler around our edge-of-the-county town on sunny days..
Used aero bars since '76, when our engineer bent some T-9 tubing for me.

The '92 Look KG, all Campy, is a superior bike.
It is a good fit and with aero bars and Cobb saddle
My choice for week-end rides of 25-62 miles, way out across the county.

I can measure the time/speed/distance changes over these many years, just as you can do
... and I am thankful to be here to complain about it !!!

I realize that 'cycling' as a sport is 'not about the bike',
it is about me and 're-creation' and 'quiet time' .
The "bike" is a nice tool to use during my "Life-Time".

Over the years, your many pages of website writing have been good info.
It is good to meet up with you, Sheldon.

Give Thanks every morning that you greet,
Cheers!

[gabtech]

Where do I download April64 devx.sfs and kernel-headers.sfs.

[Mike Walsh]

@ glene77is:-

Actually, 32-bit Iron is now up to v81..!

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117747

However, since I haven't had any luck in running the 64-bit version in Quirky64, I suspect you'll probably have just as big a problem getting the 32-bit version to 'play nice...'

EDIT:- No, I tell a lie..! I remember now; I primarily run with Opera & Vivaldi in Quirky, simply because they had been very recently updated to current versions when I began setting it up.

SRWare have in recent years been leaving very long intervals between new Linux releases; often 3 or more Windows releases will come and go before a new Linux version appears. No idea why, but it does mean that I tend to concentrate on those browser packages where releases are both more frequent and more regular. This means poor old Iron tends to get sidelined, and looked-at more as an after thought.....which is annoying to me, because it's one of my favourites, too. I call it the "poor man's Chrome", because it'll run on 32-bit systems where Chrome itself quit doing so almost 4 years ago.....and if anything, I actually find it more stable than its better-known and more illustrious sibling.

To confirm, then; the Iron v81 'portable' package fires straight up in Quirky 64.....so there's a very good chance the 32-bit version will do the same for you.

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@ gabtech:-

Where do I download April64 devx.sfs and kernel-headers.sfs.

AFAIK these don't exist.....but jrb can confirm (or deny this statement).

[jrb]

Where do I download April64 devx.sfs and kernel-headers.sfs.

devx-7.0.1-april64.pet. You can convert this to a .sfs by:

• 1)Use Uextract to extract the .pet to devx-7.0.1-april64.pet.extracted.
  2)Go inside the extracted file and then into devx-7.0.1-april64 and delete pet.specs & pinstall.sh.
  3)Go up one level, back into devx-7.0.1-april64.pet.extracted and right click on devx-7.0.1-april64 and choose dir2sfs_nover-xz.

This should give you devx-7.0.1-april64.sfs. Or just install the .pet.

Are kernel_headers the same as kernel_sources? If so, kernel_sources-3.14.54-tahr64.sfs

[jrb]

Actually, 32-bit Iron is now up to v81..!

Good work Mike!

[Mike Walsh]

@ jrb:-

You're very welcome - as always.

Shame about the devx and kernel sources. Neither you've linked to would work for me, since this Quirky is a bit of a "FrankenPup". You remember I had to upgrade to Xenialpup64's kernel to get audio working, since this audio chip didn't even exist when Tahr's 3-series kernel was compiled.....

(And I still can't figure out why all browsers, with the exception of Palemoon & Firefox, crash upon trying to download/upload anything. I keep getting error messages when troubleshooting via the terminal; always something to do with 'Glib-gio modules', though as far as I can tell, all the relevant bits are installed.....

No matter; Iron, Opera, Vivaldi et al all work fine in every other respect; YouTube works, NetFlix works.....I just fire up Palemoon for downloads/uploads. Now I've upgraded to 16 GB RAM, this Pentium G5400 is easily capable of handling multiple browsers at a time. It's not the solution I'd hoped for, but it's a viable 'workaround'.)

Hang about; I've just had a thought.....though I don't know whether it would even work. Smokey wrote about summat called the 'Axel download accelerator' in an early edition of the Newsletter; a standalone downloader with multiple connections. I've got a version I complied for Slacko 570; I'm in Sailor's excellent Slacko 5.7.1 tonight, and just tried it.....seems to work fine. I'll have to compile this in Xenialpup, since I'm using its kernel.... I'll get back to you; let you know what happens, like.

Watch this space.


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Well, that works nicely.

I downloaded the latest v2.17.8 tarball of Axel from Github, loaded the devx & compiled it in Xenialpup64. Threw together a .pet for it using the existing Slacko package as a template; this uses the GUI Grant put together for this a few years ago:-



Booted into Quirky, installed the package.....it works a treat. Of course, I could simply use Firefox instead; Youtube, NetFlix, upload/download without issues.....but I'm not a Firefox fan, not really.

N'em mind; at least I have multiple options that do work now.


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Afternoon, gang.

Here's another screen-recorder option for 64-bit Quirky7-lite:-

Vokoscreen

This is the v1.9.0 release, "date-sympathetic" from around the time of Tahrpup, since a lot of Tahr-related stuff works nicely here in Quirky. The current release of Vokoscreen is now called VokoscreenNG, and is based around Qt5.....and y'all know my feelings with regard to Qt5 by now.

This older version is a "standalone" package based around Qt4. I was playing around getting it to run in Quirky last night - massive 'lib-chase', though that's all it entailed, happily.....those I can handle!

Booted up into a pristine Quirky this morning with "pfix=ram", and built the package itself....





That said, it's not so big, TBH, since we're looking here at dozens & dozens of very small dependencies (though they do all need to be 'present & correct'!) One tip; from experience, the best recording combo seems to be

- Codec: libx264
- Format: mkv

There's only two codecs & two formats available, but this combo works best anyway; I find libx264 to be a superior codec to mpeg4, and YouTube have been accepting mkv (also known as Matroska) -formatted vids for years. They're quite happy with them. The other container option is AVI, which in my experience always seems to result in huge, barely-compressed files.

Pulse & ALSA options are both available for audio.

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If anybody's interested, you can find the .pet package here, at the "Drive":-

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mlzugA ... sp=sharing

Have fun!


Mike.