Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

gary101 · Joined: 08 Oct 2006 Posts: 539 Location: Boston, Lincs. UK

My thanks to VendaVision for coming up with this whilst adapting puppy to run in kiosk mode. (I trust he has no objection to me using this for a workaround).

When puppy is unexpectedly shut down due to a power cut or similar it is often the case that xorg refuses to play nicely when the computer is rebooted.

As an example, I have 2.16 on a full hard drive install and after a power cut today I could not reboot into xorg. The xorgwizard did not make any difference and using xvesa created problems with my mouse. Even booting from cd and overwriting xorg.conf with a backup I always keep did not solve the problem.

This is where vendavisions post helped.

I edited the file /etc/rc.d/rclocal and added the following line:

echo -n "false" > /etc/.XLOADED

This seems to bypass the standard check on boot and allows you to go straight back to the dektop, presuming of course that your xorg.conf has not been corrupted.

My thanks again VendaVision. This will save a lot of frustration in future.

raffy · Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 4636 Location: Manila

Simple and effective, which can also be done by "rm -f /etc/.XLOADED". Only, nobody thought of doing it before VendaVision. Smile

HairyWill · Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 2949 Location: Southampton, UK

I find it odd that puppy goes to the effort of including a mechanism to avoid a boot-crash loop that users then have to go to the effort of disabling. This fix has been around since I've been on the forum.

It would be much more user friendly if when .XLOADED was present, there was a 1 minute pause with explanation of how to abort before X was started regardless.

This question must come up at least once a month.

Pizzasgood · Posted: Fri 01 Jun 2007, 00:33 Post subject:

In Pizzapup and Puppy 2.15, there was a dialog instead of the "Xwindows may have a problem, blah blah blah" message. It had two options: "try again" and "commandline". That way the proverbial Granny could hopefully just "try again".

Since then I've realized that the dialog program has an option for a time-out. So it could be enhanced further by having it continue as usual after a delay, as HairyWill proposed.

ecomoney · Posted: Wed 06 Jun 2007, 22:14 Post subject: xwin problem

This issue, more than any other, has caused more mayhem at the cybercafe than anything else!!!!

Its definetely a "feature" I would love to see removed in the mainstream puppy, and I was glad to see it had been in the puppy 2.15ce community edition, even if the wording was a little "technical".

In the new 2.15ce cybercafe setup, Ive modified /usr/bin/xwin (which runs when the window manager starts up at boot and does the checking) to this (from about line 287)

GuestToo · Puppy Master Joined: 04 May 2005 Posts: 4078

you could try changing:

dialog --yes-label

to:

dialog --timeout 5 --yes-label

and change:

if [ $? = 0 ]; then

to:

if [ $? -ne 1 ]; then

ecomoney · Posted: Wed 06 Jun 2007, 23:18 Post subject: Thanks

Thanks Guestoo, worked like a charm!!!

My /usr/X11R7/bin/xwin file now reads

legendofthor · Posted: Wed 29 Oct 2008, 17:37 Post subject:

/bump

cheers
martin

BarryK · Posted: Wed 29 Oct 2008, 19:54 Post subject:

Why did you bump this thread (and waste my time)? Puppy4 has that code.

ecomoney · Posted: Fri 31 Oct 2008, 07:34 Post subject: Why?

It was good to have a reminder of just how open source works. I work (and continue to work) with the "linux newbies" on a day to day basis, and since this feature was implemented, Ive seen the takeup rate of puppy linux on computers double from what it was - that is, twice as many people continue to use it after theyve tried it (that makes about 80% in my experience hehe).

Its down to developers (and distro managers) who will take on feedback from the non-technical/non-programmer users of puppy that makes it such a successful distribution, and makes linux in general ever more popular.

Thanks Barry + Developers for all your hard work

alienjeff · Joined: 08 Jul 2006 Posts: 2290 Location: Winsted, CT - USA

Eyes-Only · Posted: Sat 01 Nov 2008, 10:58 Post subject:

-I deleted my own comment before it disappeared-

Wink

aj

ecomoney · Posted: Sat 01 Nov 2008, 18:46 Post subject: Point

If im interpreting AJ's post correctly....the point hes making is....

It shouldnt have taken a year for a basic useability fault this serious shouldnt have taken a year to be fixed.

Maybe I should blame myself for not being persuading enough...

Puppy is one of the more challenging distros to work on for developers, because it requires both a high level of technical expertise, coupled with the ability for them to listen to the needs of the least technical of users.

Colonel Panic · Joined: 16 Sep 2006 Posts: 1225

Thanks, I've had problems with powerouts in the past so this will come in very handy.

ernie · Joined: 06 Apr 2009 Posts: 7

Just an FYI -

Someone mentioned that this was fixed in 4.xx releases -
I installed the latest release on two different laptops and the the laptops get stuck at the bash "#" prompt on the next boot up when the power is cut or it is shut down abruptly. I see no message and nothing happens if i wait for a while.
The user needs to type reboot to fix it.

I will try this fix later - Its is exactly what I needed to make hand off systems - THANKS!

Ernie