Lighthouse Pup 4.4.2 Final SMP 194M

[tazoc]

2009.5.15 Lighthouse 4.1.2 RC2 Base ISO 181M uploaded - Optional Compiz-Fusion - Screenshots

What's New: Significant changes for LighthousePup 4.1.2-rc2 - Xorg7.4 and SMP kernel 2.6.28.5 from Newyearspup 02. SMP is "Symmetric multiprocessing", or multiple CPU/core support. CPUs 1-4 visible in conky and htop.

Cpu cool & quiet/freq scaling configuration here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=28443

Up to 40 SFS add-on packs supported, (if you use Grub you'll need max_loop=40 in your kernel line.)

Note: Try not to mix different versions of LHP Base and Mariner SFS; both should be rc2. The kernel, mksquashfs and display drivers are new. If you have an earlier Mariner SFS, please delete it before booting LHP 4.1.2-rc2. No Xdeltas this time around--they were almost as large as the complete files.

Updated Pmusic to 0.6.1, Conky to 1.6.1

Updated Gslapt, slapt-get and repositories to latest versions

Mariner 4rc2 SFS - updated ATI Catalyst & nVidia drivers, FireFox 3.0.10

Sometimes X gives a blank screen upon restarting, wait ~20 seconds and if X hasn't started press Ctrl+Alt+BackSpace then Ctrl+Alt+F1.

KDE has no HAL or KDE media manager but--this is new for LHP4.1.2rc2--all connected drives except CD/DVD are automounted to /mnt during system startup.

Optional Compiz-Fusion-0.7.9-1.sfs eye candy available for KDE. 3 main types of video cards that can run CF; ATI (newer than 7000), Intel (newer than i810) and Nvidia (newer than GeForce2).

Development add-ons for rc2
-TazOC

[tlcstat]

Greetings,
Do you have any idea as to why this derivative won't work with my Intel 4 video chipset. It will boot all the way but the video isn't supported. The only derivative that has worked so far is Fatdog. With Lighthouse and also the others I have tried my Toshiba won't boot with either xorg or vesa. Fatdog boots xorg with the default settings. I would really like to try some of these other releases but I think there may be a Intel video support problem. Any help would be appreciated.
tlcstat

[Jim1911]

tazok,

Again, another superb job with another Lighthouse that runs great on my computer. It includes so many fine applications and updates. I especially like having control of my Ati card. Thank you.

One question, how do you turn off the automount feature? I'd prefer to only mount the partition that includes Lighthouse to prevent accidental corruption of files on my other partitions.

Thanks,
Jim

[tazoc]

@tlcstat,
I don't have an Intel box to test on, sorry no idea.

@Jim1911,
Thank you, I'm glad LHP is working for you. Good question, I'm working on an Automount-setup GUI. For now, you can open /root/.desktopchooser/app-settings/automount.use' with a text editor and change the '1' to '0'.
-TazOC

[Barburo]

Hi TazOC,
Thanks for the new rc2. I like it alot!
My HP tx1000 booted the new 2.6.28.5 kernel with no problems. (I could only get 2.6.26 to boot by pressing the power switch when it hung). I only have LH 3.01g to compare to, and this rc2 is fast in execution, has a quicker shutdown, and of course has more features. I can appreciate that you've also been increasing efficiency.
I started by booting the base LighthousePup-4.1.2-rc2.iso. In icewm I only got a basic menu - no applications. I then booted with the Mariner and Opera sfs files and menus worked OK.
I have twin processors but Conky only shows cpu1. I checked bootkernel.log which shows detection of both CPUs. Unnamed puplet when I boot it shows both working, so is it the Conky code? It certainly screams along fast enough for me to believe that both are being used by the new 2.6.28 kernel.
Switched to KDE - ran just great, but my previous problem persists - the wireless interface is not detected by any kernel after 2.6.21. All I get is eth0.
I will continue to test rc2 as I can move to a location where I can get direct Ethernet connection, and I'll try CF too (I know from previous pups that CF works on my machine).
However I would really like to get wireless working with the Broadcom card in this laptop, but I've reached an impasse where I've tried all of the recommendations in the Forum to no avail. I've tried installing the wl driver as Tempestuous suggests but bootkernel.log shows no wireless interface detected. Not sure where to go next with this problem.
B.

[tlcstat]

Greetings,

quote Barburo
"Not sure where to go next with this problem. "

The next step for me would be to find out exactly which Broadcom chip I was using. It's a big tent. In addition, if you by chance have this chip running in windows you could upload the bcm**.sys and the bcm**.inf files. Those files will identify the chipset. I have actually loaded a few broadcom chips in puppy but some of them won't load with the native drivers. In that case you will have to use your Windows XP drivers and ndiswrapper.
tlcstat

[Jim1911]

tazok,

Sorry to have to report this, however, there are some serious issues with your RC2 184MB edition, possible due to some missing files that are contained on your 5-LHP sfs. It loads and sets up fine and appears to run without any problem. That is until you try to rename a file. When you do, the cursor immediately moves to the extreme right side of the window and the processor makes a clicking noise while trying to keep moving the cursor. The only action you can take is to kill the process. One other problem, it will not shutdown or reboot, and the computer has to be turned off to exit.

Fortunately, these problems did not exist with the RC2 that has access to the 5-LHP sfs file, that I initially tested. With that combination, everything appears to be working properly except for some delay when you access a menu.

My tests have been conducted with frugal installations which were located on separate ext3 partitions.

I have deleted the installation that has no access to the 5-LHP sfs but will be happy to reinstall it if you need further information about the problems.

Jim

Clean frugal installation on this System: Dell Dimension 8250, Pent 4 at 2.40GHz, 1.5GB ram, 128 MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card with TV-out and DVI, Soundblaster Live with 5.1 audio, Intel Pro 100M Integrated PCI NIC Card, HP Photosmart 5280 All-in-One, Printer-Scanner-Copier

[tazoc]

@Jim1911,
If you are using Grub bootloader, please try adding 'acpi=force' to the kernel line (or removing it if it's already there.) That could possibly fix the shutdown bug. I have no idea about the file-rename behavior--I've never seen that. Was that in Rox-Filer, Konqueror, or a terminal window?

I can't imagine what files in the Mariner SFS would solve this, but I suppose it's possible!

@Barburo,
I appreciate your comments and hope that you can figure out how to get your Broadcom wi-fi working.

I'm working on a possible fix for Conky to display your CPUs. Htop process viewer in the System menu is another indicator. It should show CPU1 and CPU2 at the top of the window.

I don't know why the menus in IceWM would miss the applications. I think I saw that once before but I haven't been able to reproduce it. I wonder if Menu | Window Manager | Refresh Menus and Restart IceWM would help?
-TazOC

[Barburo]

@TazOC
I know I have two processors so I hacked the conky.rc file and sure enough I see both cpus now. Will keep testing when i have time.
@tlcstat
Thanks for your suggestions.
Have tried ndiswrapper - it gives me "invalid driver" when I direct it to the bcmwl5.inf file from XP.
I have left a query about wl driver elsewhere in the forum. 4.1.2 reports "tainted" when I try to use wl and falls back to bcm43xx.
B.

[Jim1911]

tazok,

I was using rox, and I've never seen anything like that before. I'll download it again, reinstall it and report back.

Jim

EDIT: With the new download, I experienced problems again, however, symptoms changed. The cursor wouldn't move at all and I was unable to enter text from the keyboard. Shutdown problem on exit was the same.
The problem is not caused by the download, but is caused by the video driver set up. I used no. 1 xorgwizard which appeared to be working fine, however when I deleted the save file and started over using no. 2 xorgwizard, force vesa (Default), those weird problems disappeared. That is the reason why I don't have the problem using the base + mariana sfs, because with it I'm using the ATI driver.

One other small problem, the menu comes up as follows:
Help
Windowmanager
Logoff
Windows
Settings

Was able to get the full menu by restarting icewm and now everything appears to be working great. I'm sorry that I failed to check further before posting, you've put too much hard work into this to be bothered with incomplete reports on it's operation.

Thank you again for Lighthouse,
Jim

[tazoc]

The attached pet is a recommended update for LHP4.1.2-rc2 only.

What it does:

Conky settings updated--slightly smaller font size, better SMP support and CPU speed reflects scaling. Prior config saved to '/root/.conkyrc.$$'. ($$ is a random number.)

New panels installed: 'Automount-setup' (in menus and in /mnt) and 'Set global font size' (in menus and updated Lighthouse LookNFeel.) This new dialog makes setting overall font size easier and adjusts both XfontDPI as well as KDE's forceFontDPI if KDE/Mariner SFS is present.

A quick version check of Mariner SFS for compatibility is added to pup-dip-gui. A message will appear on the desktop if Mariner needs to be updated.
-TazOC

[Roy]

I've tried installing the wl driver as Tempestuous suggests but bootkernel.log shows no wireless interface detected. Not sure where to go next with this problem.

Barburo,

Don't know if this is any help or not (as I do not know if Firmware is kernel-specific), but you might want to take a look at this thread:


http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=41169

dbock has attached a zipped Broadcom firmware module for downloading in the lower half of the first page with instructions further up in that thread's page for using it. I *think*, from Googling your computer specs, that you are using the Broadcom BCM4311 wireless card. That should use Puppy's stock BCM43xx driver, after you ensure the Firmware is present. (My own netbook has a Broadcom BCM4312 wireless card -- which is a different animal -- and requires the extra .pet driver in addition to the replaced Firmware in Puppy's 4.12 non-retro edition.)

tazoc,

I've got to tell you, I've been a great admirer of your work since first discovering LHP215! Thank you!

-Roy

[techtype]

Nice job as always!! Works well and looks good.

Just for your info: it suffers from the very, very slow network copy problem common to pups derived from wow's 1.1 pup.

Also, as near as I could determine, frequency scaling only works for AMD processors. Is that correct?

[dWLkR]

hi tazoc!

thank you for your very nice puppy derivate!

are u planning a release with KDE 4.x?

thank you in advance!

[tazoc]

@Jim1911,
Thank you for your update, your feedback is helpful. I also had weird results with Xorgwizard option 1 but couldn't sort it out. So I made option 2, force vesa the default. Glad that it works now! If anyone has success with Option 1, please let me know. Maybe I should remove it, just not sure if it is needed.

I haven't been able to fix the occasional bug with empty menus in IceWM but I'm glad the Refresh Menus and Restart IceWM still works in any event.

@Roy,
Thank you for your support and you're welcome!

@techtype,
I was not aware of slow network copy. I need to test that myself. Thank you for testing LHP and I appreciate your feedback. I don't have a newer Intel box to test scaling on. Erikson at this thread seems to have had success with a Centrino laptop. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=28443

@dWLkR,
Hi and thank you for your comments. Good question. I have no plans for KDE 4 at the moment. I haven't been real impressed with KDE 4 in Kubuntu so far--it's quite a change from KDE 3. Maybe it's the new menus or plug-ins, but it just doesn't feel comfortable to me. And I don't know how to make KDE 4 work in LHP or Puppy as yet. I tried today with Gslapt but got an invalid package format error. (.txz instead of .tgz).
-TazOC

[tazoc]

Another small update for LHP 4.1.2 rc2 only.

This pet includes everything in update1 plus a modification of the script /usr/X11R7/bin/xwin and an updated Conky configuration. As before, the current ~/.conkyrc is backed up in case you have customized it yourself.

No need to install or uninstall update1; update2 should work fine whether or not you have installed update1.

Because xwin is updated you may see a brief error when restarting X, but only the first time.
TazOC

[Barburo]

Hi TazOC,
Thanks for including the nvidia drivers - I now have a set up that allows me to use either my notebook's 1280x800 screen, or my external monitor at 1440x900. Similar to 3.01g but the drivers work a little differently.
I have applied both your .pets and things look good, but Conky is still not transparent, and for my setup, the file to test if CPU2 exists is /proc/acpi/processor/CPU1/info and so on for CPUs3 and 4 should they be present.

I get an error when I try to use Xsane scanner. I have a combined printer scanner unit Epson Stylus cx4800. It is recognized in CUPS and sets up as a printer just fine. It still works perfectly as a scanner in 3.01g. The Xsane error is
Failed to open device v4l:/dev/video0 Invalid argument. Not sure what this means exactly but I checked and /dev/v4l/video0 exists and /dev/video0 is a link.

I have successfully connected twice to wireless but most of the time the kernel reports an error with the firmware files. I am attempting to get resolution in this thread
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 539#309539
Can anyone in this thread think of a reason why the b43 firmware files are only sometimes recognized and the module loaded, but usually reported as in error as either missing or invalid format? The files don't change - the bootlog shows different results.

edit:
Tried the compiz-fusion .sfs and it seems to work just fine under KDE. I see that I have a choice of window managers and themes and I can switch away from CF on the fly. Is there a simple list of the key combos for the various special effects in CF? Can I change the "explode in flames" when you close a window to something else?

B.

[tazoc]

Barburo,
I'm working on a patch for Conky transparency in KDE. Workaround is to change wallpaper with KDE background Settings, Apply, then change back to desired wallpaper. Using the 'slide show' automatic wallpaper changer works even better, but still not ideal--you have to wait at least one minute.

No idea on the scanner, Wi-Fi.

Do you have Simple CompizConfig Settings in the Kmenu | Settings Menu? If not, run KDE Menu Updating Tool in LHP LooknFeel. (It may not find it, but click Apply anyway.) Click Animations tab | Drop down for 'Close Window' and choose a different animation.

I don't know of a good list of CF key combos but they are mostly in the CompizConfigSettings Manager ('Super' key is a.k.a. the 'Windows' key.) The ones I set are as follows:

Ctrl+Super+a Autumn Leaves (toggle on/off)
Ctrl+Super+s Snow (toggle on/off)
Ctrl+Super+f Fireflies (toggle on/off)
Ctrl+Super+b Bubbles (toggle on/off)
Ctrl+Super+t Stars (toggle on/off)

Super+Right mouse button Zoom In
Super+Left mouse button Zoom Out
-TazOC

[Barburo]

Hi TazOC,
Can you take a quick look - tempestuous has some suggestions here
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 247#311247
firmware.sh does exist. rc.sysinit contains this code and comments from Barry

#...read in /sbin/pup_event_backend_d, and pup_event_backend_modprobe (for udevd).

#v405 udevd calls /sbin/pup_event_backend_modprobe, which needs this...
echo -n '0' > /tmp/pup_event_alsa_cnt

#my intention is for puppy to work with either of these...
if [ -f /sbin/udevd ];then
/sbin/udevd --daemon
else
pup_event_backend_d >/tmp/pup_event_backend_errors 2>&1 & #hotplug daemon. my homebrew replacement for udevd.
fi

Seems like he's saying puppy should work with both udevd and pup_event_backend_firmware.

The pup_event_backend_firmware file has these comments

#NOTICE: If the full 'udev' package, with utility 'udevd' is installed, rc.sysinit
# will run 'udevd' instead of 'pup_event_backend_d' and this script will be used.
#v409 bugfix, FIRMWARE may have form 'subdir/firmware-file'.

Not sure if this has any significance for my wi-fi bugs. As I say in the other wi-fi thread

I find that most times on boot there is no wi-fi connection, but if I unload and load the b43 module several times and use Pwireless after each attempt, eventually the scan works and shows available nodes that I can connect to.

... so I'll keep testing and see if I can cobble a working solution for myself. Any comments you may have are welcom.

I am enjoying using rc2 but here's a few ongoing bugs:
I load these .sfs files at start-up in this order.
The Xscreensaver preferences will not load, and the more complicated screen savers give an error (?can't re--create right now but I think it was 11). Possible conflict with C-F?
Sometimes the taskbar in KDE won't lock.
Sometimes your fix for conky transparency doesn't work.
All small things but I guess you like to know.
The scanner error occurs whether i have it connected or not - so I'm thinking it's the application.
The open office apps show up in lost and found - they work OK. I transfer them to the KDE office sub-menu.

B.

[tazoc]

Hi TazOC,
Can you take a quick look - tempestuous has some suggestions here
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 247#311247

- Have a look in /etc/udev/rules.d
and check what rule is calling firmware.sh, because this is wrong.
There should be a udev rule called 50-udev-puppy-basic.rules which calls /sbin/pup_event_backend_firmware

Try deleting '/etc/udev/rules.d/50-udev-default.rules'. and rebooting. This does call firmware.sh. I will delete it in upcoming rc3 release. I didn't know these rules would conflict with pup_event_backend_firmware. What you and tempestuous have found is helpful. I wonder if we should also delete any other rules and /lib/udev/firmware.sh?

I am enjoying using rc2 but here's a few ongoing bugs:
I load these .sfs files at start-up in this order.
The Xscreensaver preferences will not load, and the more complicated screen savers give an error (?can't re--create right now but I think it was 11). Possible conflict with C-F?

In rc2 I had a flicker in Xscreensavers with C-F. This does not occur in my testing of rc3 so far, which has updated display drivers.

Sometimes the taskbar in KDE won't lock.

I haven't seen that--no idea.

Sometimes your fix for conky transparency doesn't work.
All small things but I guess you like to know.

I haven't released a fix for that yet. What I'm doing for rc3 should help, but it will only work properly if KDE's wallpaper position is set "Scaled". Other settings, such as scale & crop, centered auto fit won't line up with conky's background. I tried to find a conky setting for this without success.

The scanner error occurs whether i have it connected or not - so I'm thinking it's the application.

Is it a USB scanner? If so, be sure to try disconnecting and reconnecting while LHP is running. Maybe you already tried that. My USB scanner (Agfa Snapscan) works when I do that.

The open office apps show up in lost and found - they work OK. I transfer them to the KDE office sub-menu.

How does OxygenOffice compare with OpenOffice? I haven't tried it.
-TazOC