Minisys-Linux Muppy 008.3 F (July, 12th, 2008)

[tlchost]

tlchost

I attach a PET that fixes the volume-button and the CD/DVD setup.
It adds some files for Tcl/Tk, that were not included in the new Tcl/Tk 8.5.3 I had added to be able to use the latest Amsn.

Applied the fix and it works fine.....
Remastered Live-CD....works fine
Created bootable USB drive from new Live-CD - used all default values ...works fine

However:

I set my time zone to -5, but in terminal mode DATE reports the time as +5

Setting the zone via setup to +5 causes DATE in terminal mode to report
-5

With time zone set for -5 in setup, the livecd that was created at 1153 hours in -5 zone shows a date in windows as 1253 PM

So, I am totally confused.

BTW, is there a 24 hour clockface available?

Thom

[GeorgR]

083F on NVIDIA 6150 and FullHD Screen:
F Version is first version I am able to run on this computer.
First Booting XORG max Resolution 1200*800,
after confirming using NVIDIA driver:
everything looks fine in FullHD!

But:
1.) I am not able to activate SPDIF Output - Problem of alsamixer version.
With the version in Puppy 4.0 it is no problem on this computer.

2.) When shuting down I am expecting questions for saving muppy, but after leaving desktop I have only a blue colourd screen.
With Pressing the enter key in the blind several times I succeed with saving the session. Next booting time myppy starts correct and direct into FullHD resolution.

[MU]

ok, that might be a bug with the nvidia-driver.
So Nvidia-users should:
run Muppy, choose xorg.
Then reboot to create the savefile.
Then go through the nvidia-installer to install the drivers.

I can add a warning about this issue in the next version to the nvidia-installer, thanks for the report.

Your spdif issue:
I think Puppy 4 uses a newer version of alsa.
I will try to use that, too, in version 0084.

Mark

[MU]

I set my time zone to -5, but in terminal mode DATE reports the time as +5

Setting the zone via setup to +5 causes DATE in terminal mode to report
-5

With time zone set for -5 in setup, the livecd that was created at 1153 hours in -5 zone shows a date in windows as 1253 PM

/usr/sbin/timezone-set
line: 98 to 102, if you change it to:

Code: Select all

#if [ "`echo -n "$ZONERETVAL" | grep 'GMT' | grep '\+'`" = "" ];then
# ZONERETVAL="`echo -n "$ZONERETVAL" | tr "\-" "\+"`"
#else
# ZONERETVAL="`echo -n "$ZONERETVAL" | tr "\+" "\-"`"
#fi

then "date" reports the same as the value you chose.
I wonder if the inversion is a relic from older versions?
Will this change have negative sideeffects?
If not, I could apply it to 0084.

BTW, is there a 24 hour clockface available?

Which clock?
Mark

[tlchost]

/usr/sbin/timezone-set
line: 98 to 102, if you change it to:

Code: Select all

#if [ "`echo -n "$ZONERETVAL" | grep 'GMT' | grep '\+'`" = "" ];then
# ZONERETVAL="`echo -n "$ZONERETVAL" | tr "\-" "\+"`"
#else
# ZONERETVAL="`echo -n "$ZONERETVAL" | tr "\+" "\-"`"
#fi

then "date" reports the same as the value you chose.
I wonder if the inversion is a relic from older versions?
Will this change have negative sideeffects?
If not, I could apply it to 0084.

Here are the results after the code change
Timezone set to -5 in setup
RVXT reports 08:59 GMT+5
Property of a file written at the above time shows
2008-07-16 08:59
Windows shows time of file as
08:59 AM

So, it looks like what the DATE command reports is not correct.

BTW, is there a 24 hour clockface available?

Which clock?
Mark

The clock face on the desk top .... my wall clock has a 24 hour dial, I set all my digital clocks to 24 hour time ... it't not a big deal...just cosmetic.

Is there a way to have the time appear in the taskbar(for five windows term)? The desktop clock is nice, but wth an application running, I can;t see the time.

Thom

[MU]

there are 2 clocks.
The simple analogclock on machines with 256 MB.
And the gdesklets with calendar, weather and analogclock on machines with more Ram.
You can force to run gdesklets in the utilities-menu, using "Muppy-Desklets".

Wich do you run?

I don't know 24 hour clockfaces for analogclocks in general.
Does it mean, that "12 am" then is located at bottom instead of at top?
This would require to enhance the code of the simple analogclock.

To get a clock in the Icewm-Taskbar:
edit:
/root/.icewm/preferences, around line 191, from:

Code: Select all

TaskBarShowClock=0 # 0/1

to:

Code: Select all

TaskBarShowClock=1 # 0/1

Mark

[tlchost]

I don't know 24 hour clockfaces for analogclocks in general.
Does it mean, that "12 am" then is located at bottom instead of at top?
This would require to enhance the code of the simple analogclock.

I am aware of two styles. I had to track them down for a newspaper pressroom.....because there were no windows in the building, one could not get a visual clue between day and night....so we based out operations on a 24 hour clock....Having a print deadline of 430am in the old days was now 0430, and the evening edition with a print deadline of 330 pm became 1530

One style is at http://www.jwodcatalog.com/imgLg/6645013425313.jpg
and the other one is at
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/images/gr ... rclock.jpg

The later style is found on many wrist/pocket watches.

I'm surprized that there isn't one available for computer use.

Thom

[tlchost]

To get a clock in the Icewm-Taskbar:
edit:
/root/.icewm/preferences, around line 191, from:

Code: Select all

TaskBarShowClock=0 # 0/1

to:

Code: Select all

TaskBarShowClock=1 # 0/1

And I found a post that explained how to get 24 hour format

in /root/.icewm/preferences
Code:
# Clock Time format (strftime format string)
TimeFormat="%H:%M"
Removing the # in front of TimeFormat should give 24hr format according to strftime format:
Code:
TimeFormat="%H:%M:%S"

Thom

[glocal]

I installed 008.3 F as frugal (since Mark insists ) and I must say it made a huge improvement over the previous Puppy v4 Full install. Most of the apps I need are there already and things are a lot faster -- not super-fast but viably fast. So, just to report back, it works OK on a system with the very low spec quoted in my sig. I could go for 007 but I understand I would have issues with non-English language support.

I played around with 008 and by way of feedback, in case it is useful:

* unlike Puppy v4, Muppy detects my exotic uhci_hcd USB port automatically.

* OOo starts in around 1 min and Firefox is fast, Opera is even faster. This is *much* better than before. In the default browser settings there is comment saying it is advisable that Opera remain the default browser because Firefox crashes too often. Is that still the case? Would it be better with Firefox v3? If yes, would responding 'yes' to Firefox (and OOo) offering to auto-update work?

* I tried the above TaskBarShowClock=1 setting to get icewm to show a clock, but the font is ridiculously large. The LXPanel does a much better job but I am trying to slim things down and save as much of the scarce ram as possible. Is there a way around this? Also, is there a way to make the Start button smaller? I understand of course these are Icewm, not Muppy, issues.

* While trying to slim things down I removed expose, icedock and desklets. Is there anything non-critical that can be removed? eg this laptop doesn't have a webcam, nvidia or a gameport. I very much doubt I will ever connect anything to the serial/parallel ports either (but I am not sure if the internal modem is connected to a serial port). Am I right in thinking that if I blacklist these modules and re-master Muppy, it may not detect hardware correctly on other machines?

* Certain dialogue windows are too big for 800x600 and the Confirm/Cancel buttons are not visible.

* what is that little square in the bottom-right corner?

* on a few occasions there were problems with loading the wm (eg the desktop icons didn't load, right-click didn't show the apps menu, the wrong wm loaded when I restarted, several icons overlapped). I think now that it is settled it all works OK.

* with icedock i had this problem: I enabled iceshutdown and every time I started Muppy it immediately shut down! I was effectively locked out, but I found a way to get in and change the settings manually. Why would anyone want to do a shutdown right after bootup? Shouldn't there be a mechanism to prevent/warn about this?

* on at least one occasion 'checking if version update' at bootup took suspiciously long to the point I thought it had crashed. But it continued ok eventually.

* Being new to this, I had major problems with grub. The installer said the text was copied to a newsomething file that didn't exist -- and I tried the installation several times. Then, editing the menu list manually is not the easiest thing for newbies. The fact that there are several (obsolete?) grub directories with conflicting instructions doesn't help. I noticed there were conflicting instructions for other settings as well (eg icewm, I think)

* like with Puppy v4, my wireless adapter (see sig) doesn't work with zd1211rw but there is some improvement. At least the USB scanner recognises the adapter by name (and shows it in red for some reason), but the network wizard still fails. Also, the Windows driver works with ndiswrapper now but makes everything so slow (as someone else reported in an Ubuntu forum) I had to drop it.

* other than taking HD space, do all these packages affect performance? I mean, it may be a luxury that there are 4 browsers with my spec.

Overall, a major improvement. Thanks, Mark! I will continue trying to fine-tune things now

[MU]

glocal,
glad you like it.
I will try to help you, where I can, if something remains unclear, just ask again

In the default browser settings there is comment saying it is advisable that Opera remain the default browser because Firefox crashes too often. Is that still the case? Would it be better with Firefox v3? If yes, would responding 'yes' to Firefox (and OOo) offering to auto-update work?

no, not longer valid.
Firefox runs stable, since I use "aufs" instead of "unionfs".
I must correct that text.

Firefox 3 currently has no advantages.
It uses a lot of space instead, as it manages the internal security database less efficient.

I never tried an auto-update of OpenOffice.
I fear, it would use a lot of space inyour savefile.
I plan to make a new SFS for OpenOffice 2.4.1 within the next 2 weeks.

I tried the above TaskBarShowClock=1 setting to get icewm to show a clock, but the font is ridiculously large.

You can set the fonts in /root/.icewm/prefoverride.
The menubutton is in /root/.icewm/themes/ACTIVE_THEME/taskbar/linux.xpm.
You can edit that in Gimp or MtPaint.
Some themes use a different one, like menu.xpm.

* While trying to slim things down I removed expose, icedock and desklets. Is there anything non-critical that can be removed? eg this laptop doesn't have a webcam, nvidia or a gameport. I very much doubt I will ever connect anything to the serial/parallel ports either (but I am not sure if the internal modem is connected to a serial port). Am I right in thinking that if I blacklist these modules and re-master Muppy, it may not detect hardware correctly on other machines?

Yes, the latter would be the case.
You can however on your machine move some files from /root/autostart/ to /root/autostart/off/ to avoid, that they load.
Like the nvidia-installer, or Muppywebcam.

* Certain dialogue windows are too big for 800x600 and the Confirm/Cancel buttons are not visible.

Yes.
You can move them by pressing ALT, then click in the window and drag it.
Or right-click the windowborder for dragging.
Or rightclick the corresponding entry in the taskbar - move.

* what is that little square in the bottom-right corner?

A dummy-window required by the internal clipboard.

* with icedock i had this problem: I enabled iceshutdown and every time I started Muppy it immediately shut down! I was effectively locked out, but I found a way to get in and change the settings manually. Why would anyone want to do a shutdown right after bootup? Shouldn't there be a mechanism to prevent/warn about this?

This I don't understand, what is iceshutdown?
How can I enable it for tests?

* on at least one occasion 'checking if version update' at bootup took suspiciously long to the point I thought it had crashed. But it continued ok eventually.

The way to generate the help-index is slow, as it scans subfolders.
Using my gnome.sfs I work on, it can take endlessly.
And it deletes .wh files from "unionfs", what is no longer needed with "aufs".
Will both be fixed in 0084.

* Being new to this, I had major problems with grub. The installer said the text was copied to a newsomething file that didn't exist -- and I tried the installation several times. Then, editing the menu list manually is not the easiest thing for newbies. The fact that there are several (obsolete?) grub directories with conflicting instructions doesn't help. I noticed there were conflicting instructions for other settings as well (eg icewm, I think)

Yes, I'm not happy either, this needs to be enhanced.

* other than taking HD space, do all these packages affect performance? I mean, it may be a luxury that there are 4 browsers with my spec.

You can check the Mini without the addons.sfs, to check, if it improves speed on your computer.
This depends a bit on the memory.

Thanks for your detailed report!
Mark

[glocal]

Thanks, Mark for all the comments. Most of my environment is now the way a like it. I think the defaults in any puplet I've seen make Puppy look too innocent. I mean, huge fonts (in 800x600 at least) and desktop icons. I reduced practically everything but I am still trying to figure out how to reduce the desktop icons to less than 50% even.

The good news is that I tested OpenOffice again and now it starts at 35 secs! BTW, once it starts, in case others haven't realised, the real-time spellchecker really slows things down to a halt. It's much better if you disable it and re-enable it when you want to spellcheck -- then the misspelt words are highlighted almost instantly.

Strange you find Firefox 3 less efficient. Every other account I read claims the exact opposite. The developers even say they fixed all sorts of memory leaks. In my experience, it is much faster than FF2 on Windows, or is it just on Windows?

So, once a puplet comes with pre-installed packages, any updates are added to the existing setup instead of upgrading the existing version. Is that what you mean? And pre-installed apps can't be uninstalled (eg 1-2 of the 4 browsers here, if that makes any difference).

You are right about linux.xpm. The problem is I don't know which theme the default icewm theme corresponds to. There is no 'Default' under /root/.icewm/themes/ . I unsuccessfully tried to locate where that Default might be defined.

OK, I disabled nvidia-installer and or Muppywebcam but I am wondering why nvidia is loaded by default just in case it's necessary. I mean what are the chances a system will in fact have a nvidia card?

So, I can move the dialogue windows to reveal the buttons but I cannot resize them, right? A bit odd.

Sorry, I meant icewmpoweroff, not iceshutdown. I can enable it in the Muppy Icedock wizard and lock myself out.

While trying to slim things down I read here: http://www.icewm.org/FAQ/IceWM-FAQ-8.html that a background image can slow down the system. If that is true, I am thinking of removing it but I can't locate DesktopBackgroundColor="" as mentioned on the linked page or how to define colour.

[MU]

OK, I disabled nvidia-installer and or Muppywebcam but I am wondering why nvidia is loaded by default just in case it's necessary. I mean what are the chances a system will in fact have a nvidia card?

This is just a small shellscript that checks, if an nvidia-card is present.
I will not use many resources.

Thanks, Mark for all the comments. Most of my environment is now the way a like it. I think the defaults in any puplet I've seen make Puppy look too innocent. I mean, huge fonts (in 800x600 at least) and desktop icons. I reduced practically everything but ...

So, I can move the dialogue windows to reveal the buttons but I cannot resize them, right? A bit odd.

Yes.
I wonder that still 800x600 is used.
Most scripts expect 1024x768, that usually any monitor can handle.
Also fonts/icons look ok in 1024x768 and 1680x1050.

But now with the webtops like eeepc this becomes an issue again...

I am still trying to figure out how to reduce the desktop icons to less than 50% even.

Look at /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/ROX-Filer/globicons to see, what icons are used.
Then you can scale them in Gimp.
Open in Gimp, choose "image - resample".

Sorry, I meant icewmpoweroff, not iceshutdown. I can enable it in the Muppy Icedock wizard and lock myself out.

I see, so I should try to remove that.

While trying to slim things down I read here: http://www.icewm.org/FAQ/IceWM-FAQ-8.html that a background image can slow down the system. If that is true, I am thinking of removing it but I can't locate DesktopBackgroundColor="" as mentioned on the linked page or how to define colour.

You can set a background with Muppys Backgroundsetter from the menu.
Setting a colour as in your tutorial does not work, as the background is managed by the Rox-Pinboard.
But my background-setter simulates a color by creating a bitmap with only one colour.
So it needs not many resources.

Mark

[MU]

So, once a puplet comes with pre-installed packages, any updates are added to the existing setup instead of upgrading the existing version. Is that what you mean? And pre-installed apps can't be uninstalled (eg 1-2 of the 4 browsers here, if that makes any difference).

yes.
If you install a dotpet example-0.3 , but example-0.1 is part of Muppy, then the files of 0.1 will be just "overwritten" (stored in your savefile).
This is achived using the layered filesystem (aufs).
But the original files are internally still present in the write-protected msy_083.sfs.

To delete those physically, you had to rebuild Muppy using the Muppy-build-System.
But that is intended for advanced people only, to build customized Muppys (like french versions).

Firefox 3 can be installed in addition to Firefox 2, just download it from mozilla.org, and extract it for example in /usr/local/firefox3.
But NOT in /usr/lib/firefox, as here resides Firefox 2.

I think the memory-management is enhanced in windows.
I personally see no difference on a Pentium 700.
Maybe on slower machines you'll see a difference.

You could try the current 0084alpha5 in addition, it includes firefox3:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=31373

You are right about linux.xpm. The problem is I don't know which theme the default icewm theme corresponds to. There is no 'Default' under /root/.icewm/themes/ . I unsuccessfully tried to locate where that Default might be defined.

/root/.icewm/theme
That file defines the default-theme.
In Muppy, this is VistaBlackIV-MU.

Mark

[nooby]

thanks for muppy.

survived youtube flooding without hanging or crashing which most other
puppys do at my place. But it lacks some media things I have through Nimblex.

could do my marvell youkon ethernet right out of the box that is impressive.

[MU]

But it lacks some media things I have through Nimblex.

What exactly?
I could add that to 0084, that will be based on Slackware 12.1/Gnomeslack.
For the Gnome-addon, I already downloaded several Multimedialibraries.

As Nimblex is based on Slackware, those packages should be easy to integrate.

Mark

[nooby]

Thanks Mark,

Unpolite of me to not make notation of the eror messages cause
if I give you url then it only says you live in Germany and me in Sweden so
the streaming media are only for us in Sweden due to copyright cost too much
to pay for the whole of EU?

But I remember it was Java in one of them and some add on to Mplayer in the other.

http://playrapport.se
http://nyhetskanalen.se
http://dr.dk but not sure what they wrote
but as I remember if failed.

I can test more this afternoon but will meet relatives now.

What I really liked was how it survived youtube in a way
that crash the other puppys. I have 1.5GB memory and it
never once crashed while regular Puppy do after some ten clips?
Especially if one go back in history to replay something.

[MU]

http://playrapport.se
http://nyhetskanalen.se
http://dr.dk

I just checked it 0084alpha05, but is uses Firefox3, Flash 10beta2 and Mplayerplugin 3.55.
Muppy 0083 uses older versions, I did not check it yet.
1.) ok
2.) cannot see it as german
3.) requires plugin.

I then activated the Mediaplayer-plugin in Muppys "internet" menu.
Now I can see the ms-asf livestream in dr.dk.

In Muppy 0083, please also try to activate that plugin for dr.dk.

Mark

[nooby]

First things first. Thanks indeed for wanting to help me.
such is appreciated indeed.

Could you describe how you did it. I mean if one click the wrong thing it will
make it impossible to set right again. I read a reviewer testing his Girlfriend and she pushed the wrong button. It is not so obvious for a noob as it maybe it is for the one used to do such and to succeed. If one never have
succeeded then it could be not obvious.

I don't criticise linux or puppy or muppy at all. I fail to set it up in firefox
in windows xp too. I use MsIE 7 when I look at the newschannel.

So give a little tip on where are you when you actuivate it?

Are you in the browser and go to tools and there do something
or are you at package manager and do some get pet for plugins?

it is 18.08 here. I do it today if you just tell me how.
I would love to stay with Puppy Muppy instead of using Nimblex.

I totallyu failed to make that one frugal install.

Muppy should be easy to do frugal would it not?

[MU]

No, it is in the Start-menu of Muppy on top of your screen.

It has the submenu: Internet.
That should have the entry: Mplayerplugin

If you start it, you get a dialog, and can choose "seamonkey" "firefox" "seamonkey+firefox".
So use "seamonkey+firefox".

Then exit Firefox and start it again.
Now videostreams are detected by the plugin.
I have set it up so, that the video will not show in Firefox itself.
Instead, Mplayer will be opened with it.
This makes it easier to run them fullscreen if desired.
Like this you also have access to all controls of Mplayer.

Mark

[MU]

concerning frugal install:
do you have a working Grub already?
If yes, please post the file /boot/grub/menu.lst.

This makes it easier to help you with the frugal install.

Mark