Pup214R v1.00 - Puppy Linux 2.14 Revisited, is now available

[tempestuous]

twointo1,
In the next day or so I will package the original zd1211rw driver (with firmware) as a dotpet.
But in the meantime, there is some extra information you may wish to try. You could try to configure your wifi device from the commandline, as I explained in a HOWTO here -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=22469

this has the benefit of running setup commands one at a time, and it's easier to diagnose exactly where the problem is.

But there is one major deviation from those instructions I would suggest; you will see in the HOWTO this command

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ifconfig wlan0 up

This makes the wifi network interface active before running the iwconfig setup commands ... but I read somewhere that the Zydas driver won't work this way.
If true, you will see an error when you try to run the iwconfig commands.
So before running the iwconfig command, do this first -

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ifconfig wlan0 down

then run the iwconfig commands with the network in this inactive state. Hopefully the iwconfig command will now work.
If you get to this stage successfully, it will then probably be necessary to make the interface active before running the dhcpcd command.

[Sage]

Have been playing with Muppy008beta in the last two days. Although it's a lot bigger, Mark has worked miracles on what is, essentially, the same release. Everything works and for reasons I will never understand, he has been able to substantially speed up the whole procedure. Now that he is back on the scene, if it can be organised, a four-way collaboration might produce staggering results? It's got to be correct to fix everything, well - nearly everything - before moving forward?

[Dougal]

I just booted up 2.14R and i have notice that JWM configuration is really cutdown... I don't remember if it allowed theme changeing in 2.14 but it doesn't now would be nice to get that working (nice gradient theme btw)

I completely removed all the jwm-theme ingredients, as I consider it a cumbersome and inefficient way of doing it.

When you use the gtk-theme selector, pressing "set jwm" automatically generates a JWM theme from the gtk theme you selected. That way it is more flexible and can be applied to any gtk-theme you install (the only problem is that the gtk theme has to have the colours in hex triplets).

[Dougal]

A tip for people using s frugal install:
You can specify in the commandline (=grub menu entry) which pup_save to use.
You just need to add the PUPSAVE line from /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE, but remember to remove the quotes (').
Example: PUPSAVE=ext3,hda3,/pup_save2.3fs

Note that the script will assume that the pup_214R.sfs is in the same place as your pup_save, so if it isn't, you'll have to specify it:
SFSFILE=ext3,hda4,/pup_214R.sfs
(you can also specify the zdrv, but it's not critical: ZDRV=ext3,hda3,/zdrv_214.sfs )

So the grub menu line you end up with is something like this:

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kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd PUPSAVE=ext3,hda3,/pup_save2.3fs SFSFILE=ext3,hda4,/pup_214R.sfs

What this is good for: if you specify the pup_save, the init script completely skip the part that searches your hard-drive, going directly to the PUPMODE calculation and mounting -- which can save some time.

Did I mention you can also specify PUPMODE? This way you can force it to run in PUPMODE=13 on non-flash media.

[davec51]

I love 2.14R, but a small request: How do I change the time format? I prefer the 12-hour display, with no date.

[Dougal]

But at first time, I reboot/shutdown Puppy from " Menu | Shutdown | Reboot computer or Power-off computer ", no damage done. Only black screen is
there. It seems power-off.

Maybe there's a problem with your graphic card when shutting down X.
You should try selecting "exit to prompt" from the menu, then type "wmreboot" and see if it reboots and gives you the option to create a save file.

[HairyWill]

I love 2.14R, but a small request: How do I change the time format? I prefer the 12-hour display, with no date.

for a brief explanation of the jwm clock see here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 480#157480

[Dougal]

I love 2.14R, but a small request: How do I change the time format? I prefer the 12-hour display, with no date.

If you open /root/.jwmrc-tray (hidden file) and find the clock entry, you'll find a comment explaining how to change it.

[HairyWill]

Dougal
apologies I wasn't in 214R at the time and had forgotten that you had already thought of the date formatting.

I couple of gnats you may wish to squash in the on going pursuit of perfection.

Whilst I was in .jwmrc-tray I noticed that the panel button declaration had got messed up. This was because I had used the jwm configurator to edit the buttons. I hadn't actually changed anything but I don't think the editor can cope with the comments round the TrayButtons. (this need fixing in puppy trunk as well)

Also man rxvt got me a 404 from
http://www.ece.umr.edu/web-cgi/unixsoft ... mmand=rxvt
I don't know how long this has been a problem. Relying on other people's man cgi seems a little fragile to me, (I know its the way Barry has always done it, linking to wikipedia seems even worse). I presume the reason that Barry doesn't host his own is because of the cost of maintaining it to be used by anybody not just puppy users.

I have an alternative suggestion that I may well implement if nobody else does first.
On the wikki a locked page with a list of man cgi servers like the PSI repository list.
If man doesn't find a local page, it downloads the list and starts hitting the servers until it finds one where the request succeeds.
Then it downloads the man page and saves it locally so the next time it will be found locally.
This trades off loosing some pup_save space against reduced bandwith (good for dial-up ) and could be more resilient.

[klu9]

a bit late to the party, but here are some additional ways to download the 2.14R iso:

Metalink (use Aria2):
http://www.metamirrors.nl/backend/get.p ... R-1.00.iso

CoBlitzed (use regular download method):
http://coblitz.codeen.org/www.puppylinu ... R-1.00.iso

[davec51]

Dougal and Hairy Will, you have solved my problem yet again. I should put both of you into my will, or something.

[cb88]

heh... but then they would figure out some way to have puppy electrocute you when you boot your PC

[HairyWill]

No worries.
Would that be worth much?
Are you intending on dying soon?
Do you need my address?

[fudgy]

Thanks Leon, thanks Dougal, frugal works fine now.
You need to have

root=/dev/ram0

in the grub commandline. It got redundant in later versions (2.16.1 I think).

[raffy]

Here's probepart results on Compaq Presario (with firewire). USB devices can't be mounted by 214R.

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sh-3.00# probepart

/dev/hdc|iso9660|0
/dev/sda1|vfat|10506446
/dev/sda2|ntfs|144793844
/dev/sda3|swap|1060290
/dev/uba|none|0
/dev/ubb|none|0
/dev/ubc|none|0
/dev/ubd|none|0
/dev/ube|none|0
/dev/ubf1|none|1003486

- the capacities shown are 2x of the actual capacity (ie, f1 is a 512-MB USB drive). EDIT: Barry has clarified this:

The sizes are in 512 byte blocks. You need the '-k' and '-m' parameters for KB and MB units.

- only one USB device (f1) is detected by probepart (ie, there is another USB device inserted there).
- pmount, hotplug and MUT all fail mounting USB devices.
- the extra line generated by probepart (at the top) is noticeable.

As to the GX466 machine where 2.12-2.16 Puppies can't boot, here's the info:

The Chipset used is AMD GX2 466 CPU and 5536.

For the I/O, it is Winbond W83627HF.

[prehistoric]

Tested the .pet to fix frugal install on a machine with no previous install. All files now get copied where intended, but the grub install produces an incorrect entry in menu.lst. I installed all files into hda3 which was formatted ext2 and empty, except for lost+found. Here is the original menu entry.

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title Linux (on hda3)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 vga=normal ro

Note that there is no initial ram disk, and the kernel is assumed to be in the /boot directory.
(This is as remembered, I am now on another machine.)
To get this to boot I modified it, as follows.

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title Puppy Linux 2.14R  frugal (on hda3)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 vga=normal ro PMEDIA=idehd
initrd /initrd.gz

After this everything worked as expected. I'll test an install on a partition which already has another Linux system next. We're almost there, just a little grubby work and it's done.

prehistoric

[swarnick]

The CPU is an AMD K6 3D with 384 MB RAM
Lots of IDE disk drives, lots of partitions.
I will try using pfix=debug

[Dougal]

- only one USB device (f1) is detected by probepart (ie, there is another USB device inserted there).
- pmount, hotplug and MUT all fail mounting USB devices.
- the extra line generated by probepart (at the top) is noticeable.

You should try booting with "blacklist=ub" (HairyWill has already reported a problem with the ub module).
If it still doesn't work, you should send me the output of disktype for that device.

The blank line at the top is irrelevant.

[Dougal]

Here is the original menu entry.

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title Linux (on hda3)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 vga=normal ro

Am I assuming correctly that Grub wasn't already installed? That entry seems like what the grub-installer adds, so it's probably a problem with that (which is more of a pain to fix! hmm).

[swarnick]

I downloaded the latest Pup 2.14 iso and did a frugal install (by hand) then booted with linld using pfix=debug. To my chagrin puppy came up flawlessy. I did notice that the messages around "loading kernel modules" have changed. It looks like the USB module load has been split out among other things.

Now (after apologizing to everyone for the false alarm) I have to admit that I am just confused. Did the changes to save memory when loading modules really happen in going from 2.13 forward? I think I saw something about this in earlier posts. I will read the whole long thread again.

I like 2.14R a lot and I have decided to make it my most-of-the-time desktop. I did see a niggle and I have a request.

1. Request: The petget installer should be on the desktop. I couldn't find it in the menus either and ending up typing petget at a command prompt to get it.
2. Niggle: I tried downloading and installing Firefox 1.5 using petget and got errors from the install when it attempted the download. I downloaded it from dotpups.de and it worked fine.