Wary Puppy 0.9.4 (094) feedback

[myman_05]

Fresh frugal install.

See attachment

[Sit Heel Speak]

Well, I hope this is just some simple thing I'm forgetting to do, so everyone please do feel free to point out the obvious, but...

Running from live CD, and the .iso tested good for md5sum both when downloaded and in PBurn, on a homebrew box. Intel D865GSA mainboard, a correct P4-931 single core CPU for it, 1 GB ram. It has an nVidia FX5200 video card added-in (i.e. not using the mainboard's integrated Intel Extreme Graphics). I've been running Windows 98SE essentially 24/7 on it for a month now without a hiccup.

xorgwizard found the nv driver for it OK. Setup gave no glitches.

One initial turn-off: response to mouseclicking on desktop icons requires an exact hit on the center of the icon, and there is a distressing lag time before Seamonkey or whatever appears. Well, "distressing" is a relative term. I'll put it this way: wary-094 does not have the essentially instantaneous response of a t2 Quirky which I woof-built on September 5th. Nor is wary-094 as fast as tazOC's current Lighthouse Pup, version 5.00F, when running under Openbox.

The box is connected to the net and my home LAN (my LAN is all wired only) by the mainboard's integrated Realtek 8139. The 8139 works in previous Puppies and in Windows 98SE.

8139too shows in lsmod.

Dougal's network setup is able to find a live network.

DHCP does not succeed. DHCP service is provided by a DLink DI-604 router, between the box and my DSL modem. DHCP works as advertised on both Lighthouse Puppy 5.00F and the woof-built t2 Quirky.

Setting a fixed IP of 192.168.0.7:255.255.255.0, with gateway and DNS at the usual 192.168.0.1, succeeds. Or so the Network Wizard says.

Seamonkey doesn't work. No indication of any network connection. Tried every possible Proxy setting. No joy.

Ping no workee, either.

Can anyone see something obvious I forgot to do?

[tlchost]

Downloaded iso twice to create bootable USB with same results at bootup:

puppy pfix=ram
At first boot I see

Pausing Pausing
searching deeper, sub-sub-folder in partitions
above sequence repeats

boot partition not found
Dropping out to initial ramdisk console
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

Thom

[Sage]

Nice. Yes - snappy. Everything seems to work, even on 'new' stuff. Best yet.
Installing Firefox leads to two 'missing' files, allegedly, - a lib one which I didn't note down and, strangely, an alsa file. FF still not showing in menu. However, everything works including sound (not muted) and FF from console.

SHS: Never, ever use Intel kit! Some reports of DLink issues? Which nV driver?! It may be detecting the onboard video chip? Sever the power line with a scalpel and have done with it!

[Sit Heel Speak]

SHS: Never, ever use Intel kit! Some reports of DLink issues? Which nV driver?! It may be detecting the onboard video chip? Sever the power line with a scalpel and have done with it!

The DLink is fine, the nv driver is the one supplied with the live CD, these are not where the problem lies.

I quite agree with you, Sage my friend, that Intel ATX mainboards have been decidedly second-rate for about three years now.

But neither Windows 98SE (when correctly installed, using my fanatical 32-step procedure) nor the other two Puppies above-named, are slow on it like wary-094 is.

And the 8139too nic driver works on this box using these Puppies, but apparently does not work in wary-094.

[Sage]

about three years

thirty three? Remember all those recalls back as far as 286s, PI s, etc., all those chip microcode bugs appearing in full diagnostics lists?! Amazing that their shareholders have tolerated their behaviour for so long; most of them are users as well as receivers of dividends! Foot-shooters all.
So, sorry, my old cobber, everything works for me - you'll have to wait till the smart guys pick up the thread.

[tronkel]

Good version. LibreOffice works now. This is a keeper for me.

Only thing that could be tidied up is the 2.07 Seamonkey version. This version has been a tad unstable in general, but is supposed to have been sorted in the later versions. I compiled the last but one - version (2.0.9) in Wary 0.92 and this appears to be better in this regard.

In the meantime, Seamonkey has been bumped to 2.0.10 and Wary 0.9.4 has been born. So maybe a good time for another compile and pet build of this latest version.

I'm off to Bohemia for a week, but if I get the time before I go, I'll get it compiled again.

[gjuhasz]

I see that the Video Upgrade Wizard is displaying some wrong information.

In my case it is a bit worse. Video Upgrade Wizard is right. It tells me that my Geforce 6200 is not supported by the available nvidia drivers. It's weird because I run nvidia driver for all other puppies I installed and test (with some exceptions such as Quirky and Zen, for which I don't have driver compiled.)
Those drivers are compiled by forum members gray, JustGreg and/or 01Micko.
For some unknown reason, Barry's nvidia pets have never been applicable for my nvidia GeForce 6200 card. I always had to wait for others' pets - for example 01Micko's pet was OK for the previous wary.
Be sure I always follow the instructions displayed.

Barry, just FYI, I see that others use your driver(s) successfully.
Maybe they know better what to do differently to avoid black screen.

[peebee]

Wonderful - Agere HDA modem works OOTB with this Puppy - well done Barry and rerwin. Have also applied rerwin's pet but as my modem is "the default" 11c11040 this is not a real test.

Couple of funnies:

1. the pupsave tray indicator is only showing 1 green bar for a 512MB pupsave with >490MB unused

2. during the bootup sequence kernel module loading the following error is being displayed:

e1000e pci_enable_pcie_error_reporting failed 0xfffffffb

Cheers
Peter

[tlchost]

Created CD from iso and then used that to create bootable USB.

Bootable USB works...but it is most inconvenient to make a cd and then
use that to create bootable USB drive.

My goal is to have bootable USBs to distribute to senior citizens allowing them to run Eldy http://www.eldy.eu/

To date Eldy does not operate correctly on any version of Puppy I have tried, although others have reported success with Ubuntu.

Puppy and Eldy would be an ideal combination.

Thom

[DaveS]

So somebody tell me please: what do I need to do to compile seamonkey for wary? How would I begin etc?

[tronkel]

Get the latest Seamonkey 2.0.10 pet for Wary 0.9.4 from this thread:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 032#462032

[DaveS]

Is this the same configuration (options) as the current wary version, or is Barry's configured differently?

[tronkel]

@DaveS

See this thread for compiling seamonkey for Wary
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 816#460816

How about having a go at compiling Seamonkey 2.1?
Source is available at the mozilla.org website.

I've been having a go with compiling the latest Firefox for Wary. Seems much more difficult than compiling Seamonkey. Big problems with compile-time dependencies.

I did manage to get a functioning build for Firefox 4 Beta (Minefield) in Ubuntu (64 bit though)

This looks very interesting. Would be excellent to get this built for Puppy/Wary. Nice new interface features and fast. Seems stable as well.

[DaveS]

How about having a go at compiling Seamonkey 2.1?
Source is available at the mozilla.org website.

I did do a normal install for 2.1 but flash performance fell below acceptable on some sites, so I left it. Figured I would wait for a non beta.

[tronkel]

DaveS wrote:

Is this the same configuration (options) as the current wary version, or is Barry's configured differently?

This will not be the same configuration as Barry uses. These builds that I made use the default configuration as suggested by Billtoo in the above link to his forum message.

Would be good to experiment and see if any stuff can be disabled in order to get a smaller pet package. The default configure seems to work well though. The current pet is just under 16MB - so it's certainly overweight.

[DaveS]

And somehow Barry compiles without dbus.

[tronkel]

There may well have been serious crashes in previous recent Seamonkey versions that could have represented security risks. Mozilla seems to have been aware of this and have released security updates in short order.

This latest 2.0.10 version is playing much better with my hardware. I can leave Seamonkey open and reboot the PC without getting the "embarassment" message the next time Seamonkey restarts. I'll stick with this overweight pet for the moment and see how it pans out.

[gjuhasz]

How about having a go at compiling Seamonkey 2.1?

For users like me who have only 256 MB of RAM, there is no way to keep the full distro in RAM. So, why to prefer compiled alpha/beta version of a browser to nightly static packages simply downloaded to the HD?

* Performance? I don't think so. I have to reload such a big packages from the HD due to memory limitations anyway. And I have to install dbus for another reason.
* Stability? No. It's better to have the stable Seamonkey at its privileged place. Other programs directly use some SM modules.
* Libs duplicated unnecessarily? No problem. There is enough place on the HD.
* Makes others who have gigs of memory happy? Hm. Maybe yes. But imagine that there is a Puppy-specific, fat-free package created from a nightly build of Seamonkey/Firefox etc. Ready with lots of effort, valid until the next nightly build. ( ***** It's funny: my static Firefox 4.0b6 just asking me whether to update itself to 4.0b8pre. ***** I back up text of this post, auto-update completes, I continue using the new FF version ***** )
* Just for fun? If so, you are right. I could have bought another laptop with multiple cores and gigs of memory. But my old PII Toshiba Tecra runs Puppy fast enough. And I keep it alive for fun.

[Jim1911]

Frugal installation on ext3 and ext4 partitions. Tried it first on ext4 partition, and wary_094.sfs could not be located. Now, an identical installation on an ext3 partition works perfectly.

Except for the problem with an ext4 partition, everything, including printing and scanning works. Hardware detection, stability and speed is exceptional.

=== /initrd/tmp/EXTRASFSS ===

devx_java1.6.0.20-i586-sfs4.sfs
LibreOffice_3.3.0_beta2_sfs4.sfs
wary_devx_094.sfs
wine-1.2.1-i486-sfs4.sfs

=== User Installed Pkgs (PPM) ===
Package Description
hplip-3.9.12-scan HP Scanner Driver
pwidgets-2.3.0 Pwidgets tiny desktop apps
LHP_sys_info-0.3 Lighthouse System Information & Video Report
seamonkey_wary-2.0.10-i486 SeaMonkey web browser
wcpufreq-0.4 CPU Frequency Scaling Tool

Above list of installed software is taken from TazOC's LHP_sys_info-0.3, Lighthouse System Information & Video Report which provides a lot of useful information. TazOC has also released wcpufreq-0.4, CPU Frequency Scaling Tool that works fine on Wary.

LibreOffice works great and a sfs is available here for those interested in trying the latest beta2. Tronkel's latest Seamonkey is also exceptional.

NOTE: The problem with an ext4 partition is due to an incorrect entry that I missed in the menu.lst. Sorry for incorrect report.