pcPuppyOS RC3 Now Available - 29 Jan 2008 EDIT: 30 Jan

For talk and support relating specifically to Puppy derivatives
Message
Author
friedsonjm
Posts: 208
Joined: Sat 10 Mar 2007, 14:49

pcPuppyOS RC3 Now Available - 29 Jan 2008 EDIT: 30 Jan

#1 Post by friedsonjm »

Currently up on puppylinux.ca - will also post on pcpuppyos.com
thanks, Jeremy! jf http://www.pcpuppyos.com

http://www.pcpuppyos.com/pcpuppyos_3.01-rc3.iso

or

http://www.puppylinux.ca/pizzasgood/pcp ... 01-rc3.iso

md5 is
ab6011304ebd2d14a983f11bcefa6dbd pcpuppyos_3.01-rc3.iso

reverted xorgwizard/xwin to normal probing
added support in Conky's default configuration for more batteries (BAT0-BAT3)
set RFC_1122_COMPLIANT="no" to enable "stealth" mode
added rp_pppoe-3.8-patched1 from Dingo (somebody using pppoe still
needs to confirm that it works!)
added Epson printer utilities gui, courtisy of mikeb
added the gxine plugin to Firefox
Last edited by friedsonjm on Wed 30 Jan 2008, 11:42, edited 1 time in total.

geneven
Posts: 87
Joined: Thu 04 Oct 2007, 19:36
Location: Agoura Hills, California

Strange...

#2 Post by geneven »

I tried to download twice to my Desktop directory in Suse Linux, and both times got a message saying download failed, apparently because of insufficient disk space! And suggesting that I try downloading someplace else.

I've downloaded lots of stuff to my Desktop directory, and there are many gigs of free disk space. (like 30 or so)

But this is a beta version of Suse, so you never know.

Just thought I'd mention it in case it happens to someone else.

geneven
Posts: 87
Joined: Thu 04 Oct 2007, 19:36
Location: Agoura Hills, California

It works now

#3 Post by geneven »

It turned out that though my system THOUGHT it couldn't complete the download, it DID complete the download. It added a .part extension to the iso name.

So I just renamed it so it had a .iso extension and it works fine.

NathanO
Posts: 210
Joined: Fri 23 Feb 2007, 00:03
Location: San Antonio, TX

#4 Post by NathanO »

Took a while to download, I guess everyone was trying at the same time.

Worked on the tower, but all versions have so far. Only problem was having to auto dhcp several times.

Worked on laptop, xorg worked, Battery worked. Once more had to auto dhcp several times. Do not have WIFI here, will have to try when I get downtown in the near future.

On both Gzine still give me some problems as i reported in the thread I started on that, but that is a Gzine problem, not yours. Will try and download Mplayer later an try that. Running on laptop right now.

NathanO

eccentric
Posts: 186
Joined: Thu 05 Jan 2006, 11:44
Location: Khon Kaen Thailand.....NOW back in the UK
Contact:

RC3

#5 Post by eccentric »

Thank you gentlemen, I am pleased to say that the PPPoE works fine as i am writing this
using RC3. An anti-virus program has just told me it has updated my records.
I am limited to what i can test but will look later in the day.

thank you Michael.

NathanO
Posts: 210
Joined: Fri 23 Feb 2007, 00:03
Location: San Antonio, TX

#6 Post by NathanO »

Is there a way to add support to conky for external UPS's that have a USB interface?

I have an APC Back-UPS XS-1500 on my tower that is detected in Win. I am willing to be a tester for this.

User avatar
Pizzasgood
Posts: 6183
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
Location: Knoxville, TN, USA

#7 Post by Pizzasgood »

I haven't the foggiest. I don't think it has that built in, so you'd have to get or write an external program to gather the relevant info, then use some of Conky's options to call that program or read it's output file.
http://conky.sourceforge.net/variables.html
http://conky.sourceforge.net/config_settings.html

As for the need to use dhcpc several times, I'm not sure why that might be. Is it pcPuppyOS specific, Puppy 3.xx specific, or generic? They all connect immediately on my wired network. When I was on wireless at my mom's over break I did have to try it a couple times now and then, but I assumed that was just a poor connection. Even so, I connected much easier there than I do with my grandma's and my campus's wireless networks. And those have trouble with all Puppies.

@eccentric: great, I wasn't sure if it would. :)
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]

swarnick
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue 26 Dec 2006, 03:21

pfix=noram doesn't appear to be effective

#8 Post by swarnick »

Hey Pizza Guy---

I am trying to get pcpuppyos to boot from a usb key on a system with 256 MB RAM. I set pfix=noram in my syslinux.cfg append line. The directive seems to have no effect. The init routine always tries to copy pup_301.sfs to ram, then dies with a kernel panic, 'out of memory and no killable process'.

I know you want a single CD boot so that users can boot up and work even when they are not on the internet. That means the pfix=noram has to just plain work because the option of loading a small core followed by a suite of sfs files is unavailable.

I am also confused by these pfix options. I think that pfix=ram is how you start without a save file so pfix=noram will work OK.

I can send you my syslinux.cfg if that will help find the problem.

User avatar
Pizzasgood
Posts: 6183
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
Location: Knoxville, TN, USA

#9 Post by Pizzasgood »

The options are a little confusing. pfix=ram disables the pup_save.2fs file. pfix=noram disables loading pup_301.sfs to ram, and has no "dependencies". So you should be able to use it alone. Using them both at the same time (pfix=ram,noram) would result in not loading the pup_301.sfs file to ram and also not using the pup_save.2fs file.

I'm not sure why it isn't working for you. As far as I can tell, there's only one place in the init scripts where it will try copying pup_301.sfs to ram, and that's inside this if statment:

Code: Select all

 #if there's heaps of ram, copy pup_xxx.sfs to a tmpfs...
 if [ $RAMSIZE -gt 655360 ] && [ ! "$NORAM" = "yes" ];then #640MB system. note, only checking physical ram.
(the ! means "not")

Check that your initrd.gz file is the correct one:
md5sum initrd.gz
Should return this:
a28aabe0846f798374c95defc316afdb initrd.gz
If that's correct, then post your syslinux.cfg file. Later tonight if I get the chance I'll do some testing on my end to make sure it still works. Also, I've never tested it with USB, mainly because I don't have a large enough drive. I'll have to see if my SD card in USB adapter is bootable. (I tried doing that over Christmas break, but was away from home and it turned out none of the machines I had access to could boot from USB in the first place, and forgot to test it after getting back).
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]

User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#10 Post by MU »

I had patched initrd.gz because of this issue.
see:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=23381

You can download it there.
Mark

klu9
Posts: 344
Joined: Wed 27 Jun 2007, 16:02

#11 Post by klu9 »

have you guys thought about releasing xdelta patches for new versions of pcPuppyOS, so people don't have download 600MB every time a release candidate with only a few relatively small changes comes out?

it's already happening with NOP (2MB xdelta vs. 90MB ISO) & Wobbly NOP (27MB xdelta vs 128MB ISO).

it would really save users who already have a previous ISO a lot of time, and save the Puppy hosts a truckload of bandwidth.

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/XdeltA

swarnick
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue 26 Dec 2006, 03:21

usb boot of pcpuppyos

#12 Post by swarnick »

The checksum doesn't look good, although it's the one from the iso I downloaded.

F:\pcpuppyos>md5sum *.gz
8124865d22380d845f9747650a0f7102 *initrd.gz

While we're at it let's check the iso
F:\pcpuppyos>md5sum *.iso
648a1229817dd737e5d2950cc9e4db2e *puppy-3.01-Firefox.iso

The checksum listed on the download link for the site for RC3 is
ab6011304ebd2d14a983f11bcefa6dbd pcpuppyos_3.01-rc3.iso

Aargghh! My fault, and I'm sorry to bother everyone with the problem before finishing my homework.

With that said, I really don't want to undertake a 600 MB download again. I will try downloading the correct initrd.gz that Pizzasgood sent and see if that cures my problem. I know that pcpuppyos comes up and runs on my laptop with 2GB of RAM, I've already tried it.

Just for reference, I am including my syslinux.cfg. I am wondering if having two puppies on the same key might be an evil influence, but let me get the checksums straightened out before we take this any further.

timeout 500
default pup301
display bootmsg.txt
menu Please select the operating system to boot
label pup301
menu label pup301 Boot Standard Puppy Linux 3.01
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz pmedia=usbflash
label pcpuppyos
menu label pcpuppyos Boot pcPuppyOS (based on Puppy 3.01)
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.gz pfix=noram pmedia=usbflash psubdir=\pcpuppyos
prompt 1

User avatar
Pizzasgood
Posts: 6183
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
Location: Knoxville, TN, USA

#13 Post by Pizzasgood »

I will try downloading the correct initrd.gz that Pizzasgood sent
I didn't send anything...

Unrelated to the problem you posted:
For your append line, it needs to either say vga=785 or pfix=nosplash,noram, otherwise the bootsplash program will have errors. The former enables the framebuffer while the latter disables the bootsplash.

@MU: I did have it set to require 640MB of ram, but that's a good idea. Puppy 1.xx used to behave like that, except it demanded 50MB "extra" to give the user some legroom. So I set it up like that just now.

@klu9: No, I'd never heard of Xdelta. I'll check it out this weekend. Too bad that still won't save me from making 600MB uploads :roll:
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]

klu9
Posts: 344
Joined: Wed 27 Jun 2007, 16:02

#14 Post by klu9 »

Pizzasgood wrote:@klu9: No, I'd never heard of Xdelta. I'll check it out this weekend. Too bad that still won't save me from making 600MB uploads :roll:
no cure for the uploading blues :lol: but maybe you could just upload & release xdelta patches until you go gold (telling people to just upgrade previous ISOs).

then upload & release the final ISO & one last xdelta patch for those who've been testing.

swarnick
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue 26 Dec 2006, 03:21

initrd.gz troubles - continued

#15 Post by swarnick »

Pizzasgood--

No, you didn't send anything. :? I was thinking that you had posted a link along with MU but that's not so.

Since I do have a bootable USB drive which is known to bring up both standard puppy 3.01 and pcpuppyos (3.01 version) I will be happy to test usb booting for you.

The download of pcpuppyos that I have boots up and runs fine on my work machine (2GB RAM). It always tries to copy pup_301.sfs into RAM which of course is the original problem.

I was unclear about the file MU posted. Here's why. I know that initrd.gz is what determines which version of pup_xxx.sfs gets loaded into the ramdisk. Doesn't that mean that if MU patches the standard initrd.gz, his fix is only good for vanilla Puppy 3.01? To get a fix for pcpuppy os wouldn't I need to download an initrd.gz specific to pcpuppyos?

The questions are kind of moot, though, because if I'm going to test I need a known-good download of the whole iso so that we know what I'm testing.

I will keep trying the download until I get good checksums for both the whole iso and initrd.gz and then let you know the results.

Also, thanks for the tips on syslinux.cfg. I will edit them in before my next boot.

User avatar
Pizzasgood
Posts: 6183
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
Location: Knoxville, TN, USA

#16 Post by Pizzasgood »

I was unclear about the file MU posted. Here's why. I know that initrd.gz is what determines which version of pup_xxx.sfs gets loaded into the ramdisk. Doesn't that mean that if MU patches the standard initrd.gz, his fix is only good for vanilla Puppy 3.01? To get a fix for pcpuppy os wouldn't I need to download an initrd.gz specific to pcpuppyos?
Yep. But the one you already had should have refused to load into ram with less than 640 mb anyways, since I modified that by hand. MU's fix will be in the next iso, but it shouldn't make a difference on the user end. It just means that I don't have to manually adjust the size every time I make the iso bigger. Which is nice.
but maybe you could just upload & release xdelta patches until you go gold (telling people to just upgrade previous ISOs).
Nah, it's not a big deal. And if for some reason I really couldn't stand the idea of not being able to reboot or restart X for a couple hours, I could just shunt the ISO over to my other machine via ethernet, then upload it from there to leave my main machine free.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]

swarnick
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue 26 Dec 2006, 03:21

RC3 Niggle

#17 Post by swarnick »

I'm not sure I was supposed to even try this but what I did got me into trouble so in the interest of sparing others I'll describe the problem.

1. I tried to change to JWM in pcPuppyOS RC3.
2. Once I exited to the prompt, the X-server would no longer start.
3. I tried setting back to icewm (xwin icewm) but X still wouldn't start.
4. I finally traced the problem to the current window manager file in /etc. It was set to jwm. Specifying another window manager to xwin didn't change it. Since X wouldn't start I could use a graphical tool to fix it.
5. I edited the file to make icewm current and X started.

User avatar
Pizzasgood
Posts: 6183
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
Location: Knoxville, TN, USA

#18 Post by Pizzasgood »

JWM was removed, so I'm not surprised you had issues when trying to use it. Though I am surprised that xwin icewm didn't modify the file. You should have been using xwin starticewm but the file should still have changed.
Since X wouldn't start I could[n't] use a graphical tool to fix it.
So are you saying you powered down then booted with pfix=ram to check the file? Instead, you could have used mp which is a very handy CLI text editor that uses "normal" keyboard shortcuts (ctrl+s, ctrl+q).



I made a new iso tonight with the dynamic size detection MU mentioned, the latest Wine (0.9.54), updated ClamAV virus definitions (as of Feb 6, 2008), Xdelta, and a fix so that Firefox shows "open with ghostview" on pdf files (finally tracked down the file to edit: /etc/mailcap).

I'm in the process of uploading now. Will be providing an Xdelta .delta file too, weighing in at only 16 MB. Good stuff :)
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]

swarnick
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue 26 Dec 2006, 03:21

#19 Post by swarnick »

So are you saying you powered down then booted with pfix=ram to check the file? Instead, you could have used mp which is a very handy CLI text editor that uses "normal" keyboard shortcuts (ctrl+s, ctrl+q).
Nope, I just worked from the command line using e3vi. I have to work on a lot of Unix and Linux systems on my job using remote terminal connections so vi and vim have become my friends.

xwin icewm didnt' switch the current wm in the file. Neither did startx icewm. I think it's really a bug, but if we aren't ever supposed to switch window managers it doesn't really matter.

Does your response mean that if I loaded jwm as a pet it would work? Sorry to be a window manager bigot but I have grown very fond of jwm and I think other people have to. In fact, I think that switching to icewm might actually cut down on the number of users/adopters for pcPuppyOS, because it's just one more set of new things to learn and do before you can get down to working comfortably. I spent about 20 minutes learning how to add apps to the icewm launch bar. It turned out to be really easy but it wasn't new knowledge I was eager to acquire.

I miss Blinky--can he only run in the jwm tray or there another good reason he's turned up missing?

To conclude: Please consider supporting multiple window managers. You are already at 600 MB, so I don't think the space for jwm is an issue.

User avatar
Pizzasgood
Posts: 6183
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
Location: Knoxville, TN, USA

#20 Post by Pizzasgood »

Yes, installing it from PETget should work. The menus may look odd though, and the "fixmenus" option might be missing.

Tray apps that work in JWM don't necissarily work in IceWM. But I thought we had a patched Blinky included. I'll look into that later today, along with the xwin thing. Though looking at the code, I don't see why it would fail. Things don't get much simpler than this:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
#(c) Copyright Barry Kauler 2003,2004,2005,2006,2007 www.puppylinux.com
#2007 Lesser GPL licence v2 (http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/lgpl.html)

[ -z $DISPLAY ] || exit #v2.11 from GuestToo.
echo "This script will run X windows for you..."

#variables created at bootup by init script in initrd...
. /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE #v2.02
#PUPMODE=current operating configuration,
#PDEV1=the partition have booted off, DEV1FS=f.s. of PDEV1,
#PUPSFS=pup_201.sfs versioned name, stored on PDEV1, PUPSAVE=vfat,sda1,/pup_save.3fs
#PMEDIA is a broad description of the boot media, ex "usbflash" or "idehd".

#0.9.9 enables to start a specific w.m. from commandline...
if [ $1 ];then
 echo -n "$1" > /etc/windowmanager
 #note, /root/.xinitrc uses this file.
fi

One thing I just noticed though, is there is a line at the end of /root/.xinitrc that only runs if the /etc/windowmanager turns out to be a dud. As a last resort, it tries running jwm. It doesn't modify the /etc/windowmanager file or anything though, but I could at least change that to starticewm.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]

Post Reply