Newyearspup 02 Micro, Mini, Midi, and Maxi RC10

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MU
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#101 Post by MU »

great!
Concerning the screen flicker, I have no idea at moment.
Maybe you can use the Nvidia settings program in the menu to set up something, that avoids it.
At moment, I use the Ati card, so cannot run it.
But sometimes, these settings programs have an option concerning "vsync", maybe that plays a role.

I could not compile 173.14.12 with Kernel 2.6.27.5, so maybe Ubuntu patched it.
I found similar patches in the past already for other drivers.
I can try to create a patched 173.14.12 in the next days.

Concerning the desktopswitcher, there might be a timing problem on older machines.
I encountered it very seldom on my new computer, if I clicked very quick on the different buttons to switch a desktop. After some slight changes for rc1, this issue was solved here.
I must investigate that on my old notebook this month, as we have several reports concerning this issue now.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

davesurrey
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#102 Post by davesurrey »

Mark,
I'll have a "play" around this coming week and if I see anything that is of help (including the flicker and desktop switcher) I'll let you know.

Now to dig my car out of the snow... :(
Global warming???

Have a good weekend
Dave

techtype
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#103 Post by techtype »

MU wrote: Concerning the desktopswitcher, there might be a timing problem on older machines.
I encountered it very seldom on my new computer, if I clicked very quick on the different buttons to switch a desktop. After some slight changes for rc1, this issue was solved here.
I must investigate that on my old notebook this month, as we have several reports concerning this issue now.

Mark
I found that if I customize the desktop under LXDE and then switch desktops a few times and then switch back to LXDE -- the customizations are screwed up or lost.

tlchost
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#104 Post by tlchost »

techtype wrote:
I found that if I customize the desktop under LXDE and then switch desktops a few times and then switch back to LXDE -- the customizations are screwed up or lost.
I notice that while you can disable desklets Under Desktop Options....you can't activate them again....which is annoying....

What file can I manually change?

I still can't save more than two sessions to a LiveDVD

Thom

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#105 Post by Tigger1 »

I hope that you will take my test results with a grain of salt as I understand thay are still in Beta form.Test machines are Eeepc 701,Hp2133mini-note,MSI Wind U-100,Dell XPS2010 lappy,Dell Optiplex 745.All systems are intell chips 2gig ram.Ati card HD3100 in Dell 2010,all others have intel grafic cards (ie) 915-945 series cards. Tested all flavors of your release on all systems at least an hour or till I gave up.All flavors seem to work ok but as stated before the load time is way long even with 2gig ram,Screen flicker is not so bad on the small screens Eeepc is best, worst is Hp2133 using Via chip and Dell 2010 uses Ati grafics.No USB mouse or keyboard on any of my systems usable(Switched to wired works) Logitech EX110 keyboard and mouse combos are used daily.Intel sound on Dell,Wind,HP no joy,ALSA reports no sound card,but worked around and now have sound.Agree with others about screen clutter(icons all over) but not a prob.Am very impressed with the Look and Feel of the Distros and will prob do and upgrade to them as soon as the Bugs are worked out,as I feel that It might be time to upgrade from Puppy 3.01 on our Office/field computers.Please dont stop your work! As this distro and its many options of programs,looks and styles is a winner.THANK YOU

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MU
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#106 Post by MU »

tlchost wrote:I notice that while you can disable desklets Under Desktop Options....you can't activate them again....which is annoying....

What file can I manually change?
Thom
you mean gdesklets?
It works here to switch them on/off.
/root/.desktopchooser/app-settings/gdesklets.use
should contain a "1".

If they don't start, please try to run "gdesklets" from a consolewindow to see, if they have a problem and report an error.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

tlchost
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#107 Post by tlchost »

MU wrote: you mean gdesklets?

If they don't start, please try to run "gdesklets" from a consolewindow to see, if they have a problem and report an error.

Mark
They run and now I can switch them on and off....thanks for the help.

Thom

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Remastering Again

#108 Post by tlchost »

Here's what I have discovered about remastering, or the inability to do so.

Either the Dougal script or the distro will not write to an ntfs partition

A remastered DVD will only save sessions to the DVD 2 times, then reports session not saved.

If one creates a bootable USB, saves to the USB drive work fine.

A Live-DVD will recognize the .2fs file on the USB drive.

If one attempts to create an ISO using the Bootable DVD and the save file on the USB drive, the iso is created, you can burn a DVD....it boots....but will not let you save the session to either the DVD or to the USB drive.

Thom

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MU
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#109 Post by MU »

Thom, concerning NTFS:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 578#274578

Please trywhat I suggest in th end of the message to fix the broken symlink, written in blue.
Simply type it in a consolewindow.

**edit, no forget it, see following message there :(
Thom,

Code: Select all

Either the Dougal script or the distro will not write to an ntfs partition
Can you write to that partition without the remaster scripts?
Or is it mounted read only in the filemanagers, too?


Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

tlchost
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ntfs partition

#110 Post by tlchost »

MU wrote:Thom, concerning NTFS:
Can you write to that partition without the remaster scripts?
Or is it mounted read only in the filemanagers, too?
Mark
When I tried to copy a file to the ntfs partition from the command line, I got a message
telling me it's a read-only file system

Thom

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MU
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#111 Post by MU »

Thom,

I attach servicepack 2 for release candidate 1.
It fixes a bug in Muppyquickmount that mounted NTFS partitions read only.
This also has effect on the automount option.

It includes servicepak 1.
Please let me know, if this fixes the ntfs issue for you.

Mark
Attachments
rc1-servicepack2.pet
(46.46 KiB) Downloaded 547 times
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

tony
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New Year Pup

#112 Post by tony »

Which is a shame as a lot of hard work has gone into it.

I found this pup the most user unfriendly pup ever.

Why :-

I run a Toshiba laptop and the xorgwizard does not work in it. Curious as the problem has been solved since pup 214r.

I solved it by getting xorgwizard2 into /root in the pup save file and used that.

Another problem is with the Universal installer. I tried to get it to install in an empty partition hda1. It would not do it. Probably it assumed I had windows installed there. No no no.

Time for bed now. I shall feel better in the morning.

Regards Tony

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#113 Post by MU »

I currently run some tests on my old notebook again (Pentium III 800, 256 MB Ram, Savage Graficschip).

I use a frugal installation set up by hand.

MIDI will not load - kernel panic, attempting to kill init.

I think this is a memory issue, as the swap partition is not loaded at this stage yet.

Workaround:
I tempoarily used MINI instead.
This boots, and I choose "Xorgwizard - force vesa".
Then in X, I logout and reboot - and create a savefile (128 MB).
I did not run the chooselocale program at this point yet, to avoid a restart of X - just to be sure...
Now I boot with Puppy 4.12, and replace the pup_411.sfs from MINI with the one from MIDI.
Now I can boot the Midi version.

I have no USB drives attached, the HOME partition is of type vfat.
At startup I get the "loading kernel modules 1 ... 10" delay.
So I must look at this part in initrd.gz again.

With all the default programs loaded, I have heavy CPU usage, much different from my modern desktop computer.
Also the desktop takes a long time to load.

By running "top" I can see, that "blendpics" from the weatherdesklet produces the unnormal high load. It also uses an abnormal high amount of ram in the swapfile. This is too much for this notebook with just 256 MB.
So I right-click the weatherdesklet, and choose "delete this icon".

Now the desktop loads *much* faster.
Ok, will reboot now to see, how long it takes to boot into the desktop... this takes long, as it updates the layered filesystem (as the bootmanagers choices are updated).
So I reboot again, to get the "final" time.

I can confirm, that it takes a while, to load the kernel modules for the drives.
From the grub menu until the savefile is searched, 30 seconds.

From the grub menu until cairo-dock is loaded: 2 minutes, 30 seconds.
A lot of time passes at "Starting kernel event manager", so to start the udev-daemon.

Now I deactivate in the desktop-options:
Analogclock and automount.
I logout, and choose as desktop: lxde-MU.
Then I reboot.
Now it takes 2 min, 10 seconds to load everything.

Conclusion:
the weatherdesklet must be optimized, or deactivated on computers without a lot of Ram.
The startup of finding kernelmodules must be optimized.
The part that probes for kernelmodules for the drives must be optimized.
The udev start cannot be optimized, as far as I know.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

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#114 Post by MU »

some progress...
the slow startup of loading the kernelmodules for the drives was caused by my patch to increase the speed.
It is quicker with Puppys original code in initrd.gz.

the usb 1..10 just should appear, if a pcmcia card is inserted (notebooks).
This can be speeded up by forcing to load 3 usbmodules in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit, around line 217:
old:

Code: Select all

if [ "$PCIUSB" != "" ];then #this may be slow to respond.
 echo -n " usb"  >/dev/console
new:

Code: Select all

if [ "$PCIUSB" != "" ];then #this may be slow to respond.
 echo -n " usb"  >/dev/console
modprobe ohci_hcd
modprobe ehci_hcd
modprobe uhci_hcd
So if you have a pcmcia card, all 3 usb modules are loaded.
On my system (after the desktop loaded), they were loaded anyway when I ran "lsmod", so now we just force to load them just a bit earlier, to avoid the long loop.
To boot the desktop, it now takes 1 Minute, 38 secs.

I now will test the desktopchooser.
No problems so far yet at first sight, so these tests might take longer to reproduce errors.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

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#115 Post by MU »

think I know, why the MIDI will not load with 256 MB:
initrd.gz, init around line 940 (here is my now bugfixed code):

Code: Select all

#MU this is wrong with big pup_411.sfs!
#[ $RAMSIZE -gt 220000 -a "$PCOPY" = "yes" ] && COPY2RAM="yes" #256MB system. note, only checking physical ram.
The check for 256 MB is ok for Puppy 4.x, where pup_411.sfs is around 100 MB, but not for larger versions.

With this modification it does not load to ram, only if you use the bootoption
pfix=copy

**edit: this was was not sufficient.
There are more occurences, where the script forces to load to ram. I now commented several of them, and must run more test-boots.

Mark
Last edited by MU on Sun 15 Feb 2009, 17:52, edited 1 time in total.
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tony
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#116 Post by tony »

Hi,

Can only get an American keyboard layout.

After bootup every partition is mounted on the computer except swap partition.

Regards Tony

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#117 Post by MU »

tony,
what graficsdriver do you use at startup?
I need more detailed info be able to reply.
The nvidia/ati drivers might require, that you choose first xorgwizard, then the propriatary driver.
Without running xorgwizard first, no keyboardsection might be created.

The integration of the proprietary drivers is new, and still has some glitches like this one.

swap:
this should be managed/mounted by Puppy, so the ne automount script does not look for swap in addition.
Please run "pmount" from the menu or console, then activate swap there.
Then check, if Puppy remembers this manual selection.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

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#118 Post by MU »

I uploaded release candidate 2.

To be honest: It still should be called "beta", as I could not check as much as I wanted.
The weekend was much too short :roll:

However:

- Midi/Maxi now should work on machines with 256 MB or less, as it is no longer copied to Ram.
If you have more Ram, and want to force it to load to Ram, use the option "puppy pfix=copy".
- added some fixes explained in the last messages (hopefully increasing startup speed, but it still is slower than Puppy 4.12 (by concept)).

- I successfully burnt a multisession iso, and could save 4 sessions (to DVD-R, on a computer with 2 GB Ram, as for multisession, it must be loaded to Ram completely).
I started to boot it with the option
puppy pfix=ram,copy
This option no longer is required, once you saved a session to the DVD.
I did however did not yet try it with a remastered version.

- NTFS partitions should be mounted read/write.

- The weather desklet is removed, I will add it as optional pet tomorrow for people with a lot of Ram (it temporarily requires a lot at startup, I must fix the code somewhen).

- nvidia driver 173 is included now


Bugs:
- if you use the "chooselocale" that pops up at startup, and confirm to restart X, you are dropped to console.
Simply type "xwin" there.

- if you run compiz on a card that does not support it, you get a white screen.
Hit CTRL-ALT-Backspace then, and type:
xwin 123
As "123" does not exist, you will get the desktopchooser again.

-added: BUGFIX: dougal's xkbconfigmanager http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... &start=225, but this is completely untested.
This might not work correct, because of changes in the xorgwizard for the proprietary drivers. So you must edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.YOUR_CARD and set the keyboardlayout there by hand. It will take a while to sort that out.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

tlchost
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#119 Post by tlchost »

MU wrote:I uploaded release candidate 2.


- I successfully burnt a multisession iso, and could save 4 sessions (to DVD-R, on a computer with 2 GB Ram, as for multisession, it must be loaded to Ram completely).
If you don't load it to ram, it refuses to save the session to the DVD

If you do load it into ram, and configure it....it does save the session to the DVD....but when you reboot from the DVD, the icons on the desktop have disappeared.

I noticed that the administrative icon that was in the previous version is no longer on the desktop.....

Perhaps the "restart the desktop" icon could be placed in the icon collections at the bottom of the screen.

Thom
Last edited by tlchost on Tue 17 Feb 2009, 00:24, edited 1 time in total.

Sage
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#120 Post by Sage »

Just had a quick look at mini & midi in rc2 - nice improvements, Mark, thanks.
Two trivial items: cr*p cursor remains and eth1 instead of eth0.
Vital flaw: the shutdown issue is a disaster for SiS chipsets and certain other machines. It absolutely must be fixed for the following reasons: If I choose the wrong nV driver and get 'Frequency out of Range message', I cannot use CTRL-ALT-BKSPCE on SiS systems because this signals an immediate hard shutdown. Furthermore, I cannot get a regular shutdown to work from menu - at all. Even when exiting to the 'Save' menu, which usually dumps me at the message Shut Down without performing that service, on NYPup spurious events occur.
There has been some more recent discussion of the no-shutdown issue and I believe Dougal may understand it(?) - but not me!
Since it is ONLY Puppy that gives this fault it is my view that BK should've solved it a few years ago.
Lots more things to try, including acpi=force. Will look again tomorrow.

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