Puppy 2.15CE "Viz" - Development Ideas/Requests

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richard.a
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#301 Post by richard.a »

I would think that a slight change in the gamma of the image might fix any perceived problem. However I thought I'd contribute a bit here on the subject, even though it is probably a bit off-topic, and I ask your indulgence :)

Gamma is effectively the transfer characteristic of light and shade, and can be anything from a straight-line graph to one more of a logarithmic nature - which suits human eyes better.

When I worked in TV broadcasting, back in the days of black-and-white TV - ie pre 1975 in Australia - monitor calibration was always a problem for around the station compatibility. Since colour arrived, it has got worse.

Monitor calibration in theory comprises setting black level (level at which the CRT gun shuts off its electron stream), and peak white level (a fully saturated mix of all three colours) which cannot get any brighter, since colour came in the various red, green and blue levels.

In monochrome TV days, a light meter was used to read that CRT emissions of white, black and the intermediate levels, and brightness control used to set black level, and contrast peak white.

Hence the colour bars signal at the head of a program tape, which include black and white references, meaning once the monitor is set correctly, the program will appear optically as the producers intended it should.

In the domestic environment, since adjustments are now available to the end user by menus on screen and buttons to tweak, it seems more than likely it's just about impossible to assume any user has not maladjusted the settings.

I created a set of "test signal" computer images for anyone who wanted to use them during the time I was writing for Echo Magazines in Brisbane in the late 1980s and all the 1990s. They were created at a resolution of 800x600 pixels because the 625-line/50 fields/second television signal approximates to slightly less than that. Which, of course, is why the Macintosh has an unusual optional resolution there :)

I came across them again after our move here in 2002, and posted them to one of my virtual hosts on an apache web server at http://micro-hard.homelinux.net/wallpap ... /index.htm

Image Image

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capoverde
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#302 Post by capoverde »

Hello,

I've downloaded Pupy 2.15 RC2 this morning, burnt it and just superficially tested it. WhoDo has kindly put my former comment about 2.15 Alpha on his page: here's the follow-up.

X still needs to be started manually as in 2.15 Alpha; nice looking "X-ray" icons on blue desktop, but will they be readable over clearer backgrounds?

Trying to change number of virtual desktops from the JWM setup wiz makes nothing - it should work on JWM but there's IceWM, right?
Trying to restart X from the JWM wiz also makes nothing; restarting X from the main menu freezes mouse & keyboard -- only way out is a hand reset.

SeaMonkey starts pretty quickly, nice looks; but scrolling is crappy and slow.
Pictures are entirely reloaded in the new position instead of just having their whole bitmap displaced up or down, as it happened normally. Same behavior with Dillo, though not as slow of course; possibly caused by IceWM?? Seems odd... Hadn't seen that on 2.15 Alpa.

Will carry out more tests. First altogether impression much better than 2.15 Alpha, but still some way to go; anyway my compliments & thanks to the whole Puppy CE Community, you're making some great work, folks. :)

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Fiberflinger
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Request

#303 Post by Fiberflinger »

I would like to have one of the film editing programs available. Like Kino, Live, or what ever is available.

Personally my preference is a program that is challanging. not beginners stuff.

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Sit Heel Speak
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#304 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

richard.a wrote:I would think that a slight change in the gamma of the image might fix any perceived problem.
It would if this monitor were newer. But it's vintage-1994, getting on, so using either the knob or a gamma-setting app to bring brightness up is no good. I'm forced to choose between color washout or insufficient legibility. Not the first impression to give a new seeker who has a less-than-film-editing-quality monitor.

I don't really know if dull old monitors are still common enough for this to be a valid concern. If so, then our chariot should in consequence swing deliberately low: a lighter desktop background, with traditional opaque icons, as the default. Keeping, of course, the fruits of Warren's et al pure unbridled design genius as an easily-found available option.

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richard.a
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#305 Post by richard.a »

Fiberflinger wrote:I would like to have one of the film editing programs available. Like Kino, Live, or what ever is available.
Sounds good. I'm wondering if there is a space limitation though? Any idea how much more space it would take up on the CD?
Sit Heel Speak wrote:It would if this monitor were newer. But it's vintage-1994, getting on, so using either the knob or a gamma-setting app to bring brightness up is no good. I'm forced to choose between color washout or insufficient legibility. Not the first impression to give a new seeker who has a less-than-film-editing-quality monitor.

I don't really know if dull old monitors are still common enough for this to be a valid concern. If so, then our chariot should in consequence swing deliberately low: a lighter desktop background, with traditional opaque icons, as the default. Keeping, of course, the fruits of Warren's et al pure unbridled design genius as an easily-found available option.
I understand, and wonder if the vast majority of folk being exposed to this may have more whizzbang equipment than many of us have.

I was thinking you could adjust the gamma on the offending desktop wallpaper yourself. I do most of my image editing in a similar vintage PaintShopPro (ver 3) running in MS Windows, for no other reason than I know exactly what it will do. I think mtPaint has a gamma change facility too, but would not swear to it. Or at it lol :)

Richard in chilly Oz
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perixx
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Flash Player alternative / User account levels

#306 Post by perixx »

Hello WhoDo and Lobster,


I've read your wee bit back-dated post on the Flashplayer crashes. Why don't you use some open source or free software alternative for bloated closed source apps, there must be some even in Linux....

I don't know if 'Mr Moh' would be willing to contribute to your project by porting the 'Mohsoft Advanced Flash Player' to Linux - most possibly not, since he turned his site into 'Mohsoft corporation' some time ago. But maybe there's another option - like Ghostview - somewhere out there. Just a thought.


A different story: Puppy's limitation to unlimited user accounts. One of the major reasons why I'm turning my back on Windows now is the restricted options with user accounts in the 'affordable' XP (Home) - I don't know of Vista and I won't ever give this one a try. I'm finally fed up with 'Trashbin Windows'. Apart from that, the full integration of TCG-standards in Vista in league with ALL hardware vendors gives me the creeps. :? Since it's said that only the OS can trigger the TCG routines in the hardware (for now at least), I'm switching to Linux, which I haven't heard of using such rubbish.

I've been using Puppy since version 2.12 now every day, but still not feeling very comfortable with surfing around as 'root'. Even people in IRC are telling me they can see me logged in as 'root' and this is careless at best. Once a security hole has been exploited (and there are always some in every kernel), there's no stopping the intruder or malware from anything. So I want to know if this is going to change within the next two releases, for I'm gonna upgrade my PC now and completely reinstall everything. If nothing changes, I'll very likely give Ubuntu a try instead.



Besides, I'm not pleased with the uncomfortable menu-handling of Seamonkey, that's why I'd like to see Firefox and Thunderbird as Inet-apps instead.

Another annoyance is the crashing issue of Seamonkey (or rather Gxine) when playing a large number of videos in a row - I've reported that some 2 months ago.
In addition, the audio won't play properly - only 100% volume, Zmixer isn't responding, and playing CD's/DVD's won't have any sound at all. I've reported all this back on 2.12 release, but I didn't get any response and it still hasn't changed.

That's pretty bothersome in the long run.

Otherwise I was pretty impressed by Puppy so far, I admit.


perixx

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Lobster
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Re: Flash Player alternative / User account levels

#307 Post by Lobster »

perixx wrote:Hello WhoDo and Lobster,

I've been using Puppy since version 2.12 now every day, but still not feeling very comfortable with surfing around as 'root'. Even people in IRC are telling me they can see me logged in as 'root' and this is careless at best.
You can change to user 'spot' - do a forum search
or check if this password changing from root is working
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Security
and Nathan is up to something great in the latest Grafpup Alpha, you can have a password and user name (persoanally I don't want one)

My security compromises of a hat made from a tinfoil covering left over from Christmas turkey and the Puppy firewall plus a router firewall

When I first used Puppy we did not even have a firewall. Did I feel more secure then using Windoors?

I did. See comments later on for the real situation and solutions ;)

Root Lobster
Last edited by Lobster on Fri 30 Mar 2007, 13:01, edited 1 time in total.
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richard.a
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#308 Post by richard.a »

keep getting told it's an invalid session
Invalid Session. Please resubmit the form.
Looks like I'm permitted to post one line at a time. This my 4th edit :(

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alienjeff
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Re: Flash Player alternative / User account levels

#309 Post by alienjeff »

perixx wrote:I've been using Puppy since version 2.12 now every day, but still not feeling very comfortable with surfing around as 'root'. Even people in IRC are telling me they can see me logged in as 'root' and this is careless at best.
It's easy to "cloak" the fact that you're running as root when on IRC; just reconfigure your IRC client.

If you're using Gaim, click on accounts, select account, click modify, click show more options, then edit "Real name" to something other than "root."

If you're using xchat, type CTL-S to bring up the server list, then edit nickname, second choice, third choice, user name and real name to whatever you so desire.

Then whenever someone issues a /whois perixx, they will only see what you want them to.

For a while I had used "knot_route" instead of "root." ;)
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richard.a
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#310 Post by richard.a »

G'day perixx,

If I may comment on one of your points...
perixx wrote:Even people in IRC are telling me they can see me logged in as 'root' and this is careless at best.
I wonder if you have allowed your IRC application to set defaults, rather than you actually setting them for yourself.

This is often the case with browser-associated IRC clients, and even a real chat client such as X-Chat.

There are several fields you should customise with what you want other people to see when they do a /whois on you - or one of the /ctcp enquiries that are valid.

While those on-line associates are to be commended for pointing it out to you, anyone who uses IRC is exposing themselves to the possibility of attacks of one sort or another, particularly if they haven't made their ship nice and secure - you'd be amazed at how many "watertight doors" the average unthinking IRCer opens for stuff to enter through.

A reassuring word though; a non-Microsoft operating system is fairly impervious to the sort of attack you get on IRC except for the possibility of being disconnected from the IRC server - DOS, flood-bot attacks, or other nasties - malware generally has very little effect on computers that are devoid of the problems that Microsoft operating systems present.

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Pizzasgood
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#311 Post by Pizzasgood »

In addition, the audio won't play properly - only 100% volume, Zmixer isn't responding, and playing CD's/DVD's won't have any sound at all. I've reported all this back on 2.12 release, but I didn't get any response and it still hasn't changed.
I don't know much about audio, but I do know that Zmixer doesn't always work. It's being replaced by Pmixer though. Meanwhile, try opening a terminal and using alsamixer. It's ugly, but it shows all the options. In my case, I have to tweak the front-volume setting. It varies with different soundcards/chips. That's why only some people complain about it.

I haven't tried Pmixer yet, but I think it should detect which devices to show much better.
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Fiberflinger
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#312 Post by Fiberflinger »

richard.a wrote:
Fiberflinger wrote:I would like to have one of the film editing programs available. Like Kino, Live, or what ever is available.
Sounds good. I'm wondering if there is a space limitation though? Any idea how much more space it would take up on the CD?
Couldn't tell you, I don't know how much space any of them take up. I just sent away for one of the cd's that supposedly has several applications on them. I'm not very good at programing only using them. Perhaps a dotpup download might be the way?

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Fiberflinger
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Re: Flash Player alternative / User account levels

#313 Post by Fiberflinger »

perixx wrote: Besides, I'm not pleased with the uncomfortable menu-handling of Seamonkey, that's why I'd like to see Firefox and Thunderbird as Inet-apps instead.
I have Deerpark and Seamonkey both on my desktop. Deerpark (firefox) is an old favorite with a good feel and looks really glitzy. However, I really prefer Seamonkey when I am going to different sites where I have several accounts in one place. It gives me the choice of which account I want to open where Deerpark does not and I find it very stable. Of course I am not using multiple proxies or other things. Sometimes simplicity is nice.

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ilanrab
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The Beryl-Project

#314 Post by ilanrab »

Start thinking about the BERYL project.

We'll need it.


It's me!

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cb88
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#315 Post by cb88 »

Is an sfs of beryl in the works? I have seen some talk about beryl on the forum is it actually working? How hard is it to setup currently. Keep in mind that I am talking about an .sfs module and it probably will be huge. maybe wait untill puppy moves to aufs from unionfs. Nvidia drivers (auto detect and install them) can be included just like those codecs that are being put in the multimedia sfs Currently the only thing I have done is an ice theme (stilll in the works). Even though this won't be part of the feature set for 2.15 it shouldn't mean that 2.15 won't be capable of using it in the future to vaporize the socks off M$ .
I could test it on a 300 mhz laptop :roll: but really I have two pcs's I can test on with nvidia gforce2 MX 400 cards one is AMD the other Intel.
cb88

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Vista Blue improved

#316 Post by cb88 »

Some of the changes suggested by whodo have been made.
the window menu icon repaired (it had been turned off in the config file), black window boarders, gradient title bar.
Attachments
Vista_blue_cb88_v0.2.tar.gz
(151 KiB) Downloaded 1443 times

nickdobrinich
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of mice and men

#317 Post by nickdobrinich »

Two small suggestions regarding user interface.
(1) Can any apps be compiled so that scroll bars are on the left where m/s should have put them long ago? I am right handed but almost always find myself working nearer the left side of the screen. Why traverse to grab the scroll bar a thousand times a day?
(2) Mouse cursor snaps to default button. Some windows machines offer this option in control panel > mouse > pointer options.
It is things like this that make people say: yep, shoulda always been like that.

Skipper
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mini-icons

#318 Post by Skipper »

Please simpler toolbar menu.

More icons in ~/.icewm/icons and corresponding lines in the ~/icewm/winoptions file.

Symlink to ~/.icewm as ~/icewm
There is a lot of configuration files.

Volume program for the systray (I configured IceWM for, and did include zmixer in the startup script).
Simpler systray, blinky and free memory are enough.

I don't remember, but... I think that I had to tweak something to get icewmtray to work. See that.

There is a lot more, but I don't remember all.

I do include an example screenshot.
Last edited by Skipper on Sat 12 May 2007, 16:19, edited 2 times in total.

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Pizzasgood
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#319 Post by Pizzasgood »

Which Mplayer skin is that? I might need to add it to the collection in Pizzapup.
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Skipper
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#320 Post by Skipper »

Hello!

"Productive" skin by Michael Zeising http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/skins/p ... .0.tar.bz2

The only thing of which I can be complained, is that it does not have from where grasping it.

Well, there is other point: Mplayer is better than GXine, because GXine is not friendly with old CPUs. Its splash video is heavy, ugly and annoying. With the DGA video output of MPlayer, I can watch videos like this: "RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 512 x 288, 25.00 fps, video: XviD, audio: MPEG-1 Layer 3 (stereo, 48000 Hz)" flawlessly, with my (very) old Pentium II 400 MHz CPU (if no other working process runing, no problem) and my "SiS 530/620 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter" onboard video card. I configured ROX with this command for AVI files: mplayer -vo dga "$1"

Also, great feature, it works from commandline. For example, for download streams, with "mplayer -dumpstream".

I can hear radio in Firefox, with MPlayer embedded by Mozplugger. It also works for embedded videos. In the other hand, there is some plugins like "Media Player Connectivity", which does the same work of gxine-plugin.

I suppose that you have already discussed all that. I vote for Mplayer.

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