Coming Soon: Fluppy for netbooks, widescreens, smallscreens

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jemimah · #61 Post by **jemimah** » Thu 08 Oct 2009, 19:30

Apparently, he's already found himself one... $160

http://www.searsoutlet.com/Eee-PC-12GB- ... &pid=30332

jakfish · #62 Post by **jakfish** » Thu 08 Oct 2009, 19:34

The price is right, to be sure. But check that ssd speed. Asus released a 16gb "slow disk." My 900 has a 4gb "fast" sd and an 8gb "slow" sd.

I've never seen an eee with a single 12gb ssd, so can't vouch for its speed.

Jake

jemimah · #63 Post by **jemimah** » Thu 08 Oct 2009, 19:57

Either way, it'll be about 10 times the speed of my husband's crappy Dell. That's how I discovered Puppy, LXDE on Ubuntu was slow and unstable on it. Now he tells all his friends how awesome Puppy is, which makes me very happy, since his description of Ubuntu was "it's about as good as Windows 98."

01micko · #64 Post by **01micko** » Fri 09 Oct 2009, 00:05

jakfish wrote:01micko--

I'd be very interested to hear your results. I also, belatedly, see that BK relented and released a 4.3 with the older kernel.

I just don't know what's making it burn hotter--the kernel or the OS, or maybe my machine itself.

But at any rate, I'd be grateful for any insight from users more learned than me.

Jake

I'm not getting much sense out of powertop. Maybe it needs to be compiled in 4.3? The version is up to 1.8 now too. No hang on, the download is still at V1.11 but the screeny on the website suggests 1.8

Cheers

jemimah · #65 Post by **jemimah** » Fri 09 Oct 2009, 01:33

There's a kernel parameter you need to turn on to get good output from powertop. It's not on in the stock kernel.

jemimah · #66 Post by **jemimah** » Fri 09 Oct 2009, 16:39

I've managed to implement a kind of Poor Man's Expose' for Fluppy. I'm using the Tile utility that I found here: http://www.unixdev.net/projects/tile and added a bunch of features to. This is extremely fast because it's all written in C using low level X calls, and it's totally window manager agnostic.

With a little clever scripting we can have Expose' functionality that neither requires graphics acceleration, fast hardware, or Compiz. Now it's not as flashy and animated, but it is fast and convenient.

I promise you will not miss the taskbar.

Next on the docket, Pwidgets-Dashboard!

jemimah · #67 Post by **jemimah** » Sun 11 Oct 2009, 06:10

So I found an Eee 4g in the clearance bin at Compusa and I couldn't just leave it there now could I? Sadly, it's missing the F7 key (I guess that's why it was on clearance), hopefully Asus support will send me a new one.

I'm posting from the 4G right now. My kernel works perfectly on it! Network, Xorg, all problem free. Wpa_gui found my wlan automatically, suspend works flawlessly. Surprisingly, the hotkeys even work.

This is very encouraging! I love the challenge of finding apps that work on a small screen with limited resources. I had a Libretto that got me through college and this really brings back all the fun that I remember having with that thing.

I'd post the kernel for others to test but I'm having issues compiling the eee module. It'll probably be a couple of days before I figure it out. Suggestions and hints welcome.

omskates · #68 Post by **omskates** » Tue 13 Oct 2009, 08:22

Any possibility of considering creative use of multiple virtual desktops? Particularly I'd like to have some of the more frequently used applications assigned to their own desktops with immediate switching when the app is selected. Maybe even each desktop having its own catagorical identity, not that I'm suggesting modules like linpus, moblin, etc. just that the multiple desktops can be a great tool saving screen space. If I'm way off base here just say,"shut up", I don't mind

jemimah · #69 Post by **jemimah** » Tue 13 Oct 2009, 14:06

I agree with you omskates, though I usually just implement this mentally by always opening email on desk1, firefox on desk2, etc...

Flwm is too lightweight to support this kind of thing on it's own, but it's probably possible to script it a la Devil's Pie, though I can't think of any way to make this behavior standard that most people wouldn't find irritating.

Are you familiar with Yakauke and similar? It's a terminal that hides and unhides when a hotkey is pressed. I have a way to make any application do this. This concept is sorta similar to multiple desktops, but possibly more along the lines of what you actually want.

Thoughts?

jemimah · #70 Post by **jemimah** » Tue 13 Oct 2009, 14:26

Does anyone have an interest in a puppy version of lxlauncher? The following screenshot is a proof of concept but the application needs work if it's going to be fun to use (favorites is the most obvious thing missing).

Do people want this? Or do you switch to Puppy because you're trying to get away from this?

T_Hobbit · #71 Post by **T_Hobbit** » Tue 13 Oct 2009, 16:33

Hey! This looks like Acer Aspire One Linpus' desktop...

magerlab · #72 Post by **magerlab** » Wed 14 Oct 2009, 05:27

lxlauncher was in No name pupplet by wow
maybe if compiled for puppy it will work
i tried to crab a debian package and it crashes ....

omskates · #73 Post by **omskates** » Wed 14 Oct 2009, 07:40

jemimah wrote:Do people want this? Or do you switch to Puppy because you're trying to get away from this?

Keyboard shortcuts combined with terminal emulators are the most efficient IMO but then there is the learning curve so I think it depends on the target user. A 10" screen really begs the need for using fullscreen. If multi-tasking with all fullsize windows you're either resizing windows, switching workspaces, or clicking on tabs like the LXlauncher has. If I were introducing a netbook user to puppy I think the LXlauncher could be more immediately accepted as being a very easily navigated UI. It would be nice to have an OS using that type of UI that is actually truly 'light weight' e.g. Moblin is, what, 772MB? Linpus 1.2GB, UNR still too bloated and GoS is just plain annoying. Maybe integrating the custom FLWM with LXlauncher to give the user more control and options than most of these other netbook distros do. Overall I think Fluppy already looks very intriguing

.

jemimah · #74 Post by **jemimah** » Wed 14 Oct 2009, 13:49

Regarding lxlauncher, the one pictured is an old version that I modified to work with Puppy's menus. The newest versions look and act exactly the same as the old version but depend on menu-cache which crashes on Puppy. I will probably investigate why, because I think menu-cache allows you to update the menu while the program is running and I want that.

I have plans to borrow code from rox that will pass desktop clicks to the window manager so that lxlaucher could be run instead of the rox desktop.

The vanilla version of lxlauncher is not very good because the work/learn/play motif they stole from Asus doesn't cover nearly all the categories of programs Puppy has, so almost nothing shows up in the launcher, the icons don't show up, etc...

jemimah · #75 Post by **jemimah** » Wed 14 Oct 2009, 14:18

Another possibility is Launchy which already sort of runs on puppy (although some things don't launch, not sure why). I was thinking to use vertical dmenu instead because it's lighter, but I admit it is very ugly. This combines omskates' idea of terminal emulators and keyboard shortcuts with less of a learning curve.

It's hard to have all full-size windows with a drag-and-drop DE like Rox. Hopefully I can figure out a way to make the tiler user-friendly enough to get around this problem.

The good news is, I've made sure Flwm does everything it can to make sure windows don't open too big. And when it's impossible to make a window small enough, the side titlebar is extremely helpful. Also, Flwm lets you drag using any edge border, no requirement to press Alt. I, for one, find Alt-dragging very difficult to do on a trackpad. I've ditched the idea of force-shrinking windows, though. All the components sort of stack up on eachother and it looks like a bug. I'll probably just try make sure all the default applications fit on a 7 inch screen.

jemimah · #76 Post by **jemimah** » Wed 14 Oct 2009, 14:31

I'm pretty excited I finally got the bluetooth applet to work! The applet is needed because it takes care of asking you for your pin when a device tries to connect. I've having a heck of a time making a working package though. Hopefully I'll sort it out soon.

jemimah · #77 Post by **jemimah** » Sat 17 Oct 2009, 17:00

Tempestuous recently posted some acpi scripts for the EEE but they didn't work all that well on atom EEEs so I've given them a bit of a makeover and added a lot of features. The hotkeys are slightly different on each model so if people want to test these I can make sure they work for everyone.

These scripts should make your hotkeys work, you computer suspend when you shut it, power down when you press the power button, and switch to powersave mode when you unplug it.

I plan to release an EEE Celeron version with the new features as well but I need to test that still.

Install the synclient below if you want your touchpad button to work (assuming you have a touchpad button). You need acpitool for suspending and cpufrequtils for performace/powersave mode. Installing Tempestuous' eee-control package will make the super-hybrid-engine key work.

You can also install lxtask (in the puppy4 repo) to make the task button work and zarfy for a nice resoluion changer. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=47603. If you want your bluetooth to work, I've posted the package here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=47842 and the network manager thread is here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=47838

Let me know what works for you and what doesn't.

Edit: This package now supports both Atom and Celeron EEEs. Acpitool is now required for proper functionality. Celeron users will need the eee kernel module for overclocking functionality.

Edit - 11/23 - Uploaded newest version. Overclocking celeron is now disabled because it hangs some celerons and is irrelevant on others. If you have a 630Mhz celeron you can comment the clocking code back in in the /etc/acpi/performance and /etc/acpi/powersave scripts.

Edit - 12/01/09 - Uploaded newest version.

note: With the stock kernel, toggling the touch pad won't work on elantech touchpads.

jakfish · #78 Post by **jakfish** » Sat 17 Oct 2009, 17:02

Looking forward to trying out your EEE Celeron version.

Jake

jemimah · #79 Post by **jemimah** » Sat 17 Oct 2009, 19:50

Ok jakfish. I updated it to work on both CPUs. Please let me know if all your hotkeys work.

If anyone downloaded the previous version, update to the new version as I found a couple bugs and made a couple improvements as well.

jemimah · #80 Post by **jemimah** » Sat 17 Oct 2009, 22:13

I've posted my experimental EEE kernel here:http://www.jemimah.net/files/linux/flup ... nel.tar.gz

This works on both my 1005HA and my 4G/701. It does not come with a lot of modules for external hardware devices at this point, but the basic stuff should work. I tried to make it as monolithic as possible for reliable hardware detection and faster booting, but I modularized anything I thought would need to be unloaded occasionally.

The tarball contains the initrd, the zp.sfs, and vmlinuz. You can install fresh or just replace the files of the same names in /mnt/home on a running puppy, reboot, and run depmod -a. You should have a recovery strategy planned in case this kernel won't boot your machine.

If you want to store your pupsave file on a usb drive, you need to boot this kernel with the usbwait=1 parameter so it will wait for your usb drives to load before booting. I also recommend adding the fastboot paramenter and using the pdev parameter. Your kernel line of your boot loader should look something like this depending on your hardware.:

kernel /vmlinuz pdev=/dev/sda1 pmedia=ideflash usbwait=1 fastboot

Ask if this doesn't make sense to you. Skipping the usbwait should save you about 10 seconds boot time. You can also save about another 10 seconds of usb waiting by using the attached rc.sysinit file (just uncompress and replace the one in /etc/rc.d).

I've attached the eee kernel module here. This is safe on a Celeron AFAIK, but it crashes my 1005HA so be careful with it if you have an Atom with a newer BIOS.

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Coming Soon: Fluppy for netbooks, widescreens, smallscreens