Puplite 5.0

[musher0]

HI, sc0ttman.

All the best for the New Year, incidentally, to you and all who read this!

Me again! or maybe

I gave your pup a quick try-out and these are my initial impressions:

* fabulous grub opening screen and choices
* I like the "open space" on the desktop and the drive bar
* the choice of browsers

Some things I need getting used to:
* the columns sort in rox instead of simple top-bottom
* xarchiver!
* the closing screen panel to create the pup_save

Disappointed about
* the inability to create a menu bar with rox (improper version number for libxml2.so, apparently; that may be also why you're having trouble showing the conky panel). Maybe you stripped down rox v.2.10 on purpose? In any case, some sort of menu bar is needed (I think) to gain quick access to always used essentials like rxvt, pfind, an editor, the browser. Will wbar or tint work with your setup?

Workarounds I used:
* installed an already unzipped copy of peazip 3.2 that I had (lucky me!) since the included xarchiver did not appear to respond properly
* a copy of icecat 3.9.6 I already had handy. I tried to download it with your browser download utility, and it did. But then PPM indicated that icecat missed lots and lots of libs, whereas icecat is usually a self-contained package; that's strange. The good news is that the latest icecat downloaded from the icecat site works very well in puplite.

In short, I got the impression that puplite is a diamond -- really! -- but still a bit in the rough. And of course my review is very incomplete.

I hope you will receive this as positive criticism.

Sincerely,
musher0

[sc0ttman]

Firstly, yes, the devx_420.sfs is the one to use with this..
I will update the first post with a link to it.

I gave your pup a quick try-out and these are my initial impressions:

* fabulous grub opening screen and choices
* I like the "open space" on the desktop and the drive bar
* the choice of browsers

Glad you like it, I like the GRUB live CDs as well... Looks lovely.. More up to date...

Some things I need getting used to:
* the columns sort in rox instead of simple top-bottom
* xarchiver!
* the closing screen panel to create the pup_save

You can change the ROX options so that icons are not small and vertically listed by default, I like it how it is, but others may not

Disappointed about
* the inability to create a menu bar with rox (improper version number for libxml2.so, apparently;

I don't know what you mean...
Create a menu bar with ROX? Can you give a screenshot?
As far as I've tested the only 'error' with ROX is the fact it reports the lack of a lib xml version (as you said)...
But it didn't appear to actually affect anything...

that may be also why you're having trouble showing the conky panel).

Good suggestion, but goingnuts already found it is the jwm version which matters.. I will roll back jwm to an earlier version to make PMconky work...
And thanks for the conky attachment, I will definitely play with it...
But will probably go with PMconky, as it is sooooo light...

Maybe you stripped down rox v.2.10 on purpose? In any case, some sort of menu bar is needed (I think) to gain quick access to always used essentials like rxvt, pfind, an editor, the browser. Will wbar or tint work with your setup?

I didn't strip ROX of anything, just updated its version and settings... Cos it looks nicer and has more mime types than the previous version..

A menu bar with links to essentials IS included - simply click on the desktop to see it, or the 'Apps' button in the bottom-left...

And yes, Wbar will work fine on Puplite... It may needs a few libs to be installed as well though..

Workarounds I used:
* installed an already unzipped copy of peazip 3.2 that I had (lucky me!) since the included xarchiver did not appear to respond properly

Hmmm.. I never had problems with xarchiver... I used the version ttuuxxx made, which works really well... What was your problem?

* a copy of icecat 3.9.6 I already had handy. I tried to download it with your browser download utility, and it did. But then PPM indicated that icecat missed lots and lots of libs, whereas icecat is usually a self-contained package; that's strange.

I'll check Icecat, which worked fine last time I installed it... (Not on the latest Puplite, but during the build process...).. Firedog and Firefox also report lots of missing libs, but they work fine...

In short, I got the impression that puplite is a diamond -- really! -- but still a bit in the rough. And of course my review is very incomplete.

I hope you will receive this as positive criticism.

Sincerely,
musher0

Thank for the info, it is very much appreciated... I'm gonna double check a few things, and see how we go...

[musher0]

Hello, sc0ttman!

Thanks for your reply.

This is a rox panel (at the bottom of the screen). jemimah also makes it avaiable in her "Fluppy" It's activated with the command

Code: Select all

rox -b=bottom-panel

This one also has some rox-applets: tray, mem counter, cpu activity check, desktops.

xarchiver exited with an error when I wanted to unzip the archive in another directory than the one it was in. (I'm more used to the other one, XArchive; that may be another cause of the problem!)

[sc0ttman]

Hello, sc0ttman!

Thanks for your reply.

This is a rox panel (at the bottom of the screen). jemimah also makes it avaiable in her "Fluppy" It's activated with the command

Code: Select all

rox -b=bottom-panel

OK I created a rox panel, don't know how to edit what goes in it yet, but it loaded fine..

However, to use a ROX panel nicely, you would need to move or disable the jwm tray (edit/rename /root/.jwmrc-tray) and move the drive icons (edit /usr/sbin/create_jwm_drives.sh)

Both of these are do-able, if you are interested in going that way..

[musher0]

Hello, sc0ttman!

Thanks for your reply.

This is a rox panel (at the bottom of the screen). jemimah also makes it avaiable in her "Fluppy" It's activated with the command

Code: Select all

rox -b=bottom-panel

OK I created a rox panel, don't know how to edit what goes in it yet, but it loaded fine..

However, to use a ROX panel nicely, you would need to move or disable the jwm tray (edit/rename /root/.jwmrc-tray) and move the drive icons (edit /usr/sbin/create_jwm_drives.sh)

Both of these are do-able, if you are interested in going that way..

Hi!

Without going into the fuss of moving or disabling stuff, here are a couple of solutions you get through configurations:

to put the rox bar on the left :

Code: Select all

rox -l=left-roxbar

on the right :

Code: Select all

rox -r=right-roxbar

, or
on the top :

Code: Select all

rox -t=top-roxbar

If you choose to keep the roxbar on the bottom, you may want to male the jwm panel disappear and reappear by changing the first line of /root/.jwmrc-tray to:

Code: Select all

<JWM>
	<Tray autohide="true" [...don't touch rest of line...]

You may want to make the above into little scripts, which you'll put in ~/Startup, so you have your rox-bar at each boot.

To populate the rox-bar, you simply drag an icon or a program to it.

For example, say you want to put pfind in the roxbar.

Open rox-filer;
go to /usr/local/pfind;
drag the program "pfind" to the roxbar.

That's it!

Additionnaly, you may want to to add an icon. Right-click on the desired item in the rox-bar: a sub-menu appears. Go up to the 'name-of-item'; another sub-menu appears; go down a bit and click on 'icon". A little window opens: leave it open for now.

Then, use your ROX-Filer and open
/usr/share/pixmaps or
/usr/share/icons or
/usr/local/lib/X11/pixmaps
to find and choose a suitable icon for your program. Drag your icon to the rectangle in the window you have left open. The little icon window will close, and it's done: you now have an icon for your program in the rox-bar. (Incidentally, some programs have ready-made icons, so you don't need to do the above.)

Enjoy!

[sc0ttman]

Thanks musher0, useful info for anyone who wants to enable a ROX menu for their desktop..

[nooby]

Tested again to get out on internet but failed. Tested all three different Network tools.

It works on all the other puppies I ahve installed except for yours and one more. Think it is TXZ that lack the driver needed. Maybe you use same kernel them do?

[sc0ttman]

Tested again to get out on internet but failed. Tested all three different Network tools.

It works on all the other puppies I ahve installed except for yours and one more. Think it is TXZ that lack the driver needed. Maybe you use same kernel them do?

Thanks for checking again nooby,

What about a standard Puppy 4.2? What about TurboPup?
Do they connect to the internet for you? (if you tried already...)

Puplite has a totally standard zdrv (4.2), so Puppy4.2 and TurboPup should also *not* work...
But if Puppy 4.2 works, or TurboPup works, then I will be very surprised, (and I will fix it!!)

[nooby]

I guess me tested these Puppy4.2 and TurboPup one or two years ago. But on another computer.

So I have to download and test them again to answer you

I've tested Puppy4.2 and TurboPup extreme now. Both failed to get internet. they simply don't see my ethernet card on the Acer D250.

I remember vaguely that Barry or somebody did help me get internet way back in 2009 or 2008 and the puppeee was the only one able to get me internet on the Acer?

I am not sure. I think I remember that it is was very difficult to get internet going on D250.

Jolicloud which is a Ubuntu nettop remix that one was the first to manage it for me using linux on that Netbook.

what was the CLI code for knowing what hardware driver one needs?

[sc0ttman]

I guess me tested these Puppy4.2 and TurboPup one or two years ago. But on another computer.

So I have to download and test them again to answer you

I've tested Puppy4.2 and TurboPup extreme now. Both failed to get internet. they simply don't see my ethernet card on the Acer D250.

I am not sure. I think I remember that it is was very difficult to get internet going on D250.

what was the CLI code for knowing what hardware driver one needs?

Thanks for checking nooby, I thought that would be the case, as I didn't remove any drivers..

So, I'm thinking a kernel change, to the Wary kernel, may be a good thing to do for Puplite... Wary also uses Xorg 1.3 (like Puplite)...
(This is my preferred choice...)

Or I could try upgrading to the fluppy kernel, and also upgrading the Xorg version as Fluppys as well (Xorg 1.6 or 1.7, I think...)..

But I am learning as I go about drivers and kernel modules, and am still a total nooby myself!

[nooby]

Upgrading to Fluppy kernel would be best because that one boot Acer Aspire One small Netbooks while Wary and Quirky and Puppy boots now and then and some never.

Snowy Puppy by pemasu he made use of Fluppy and maybe iguleder on his Inpu also did.

Snowy also always boot so that is a good thing.

Oooooops very naive question.

On other puppies not your puplite yet but on others I have made use of a Firefox .mozilla directory placed on mnt/home and that way It keeps the bookmarks and set up and so on from puppy to puppy. One only have to make a symlink back to the root from mnt/home and

Could I not do something similar for the way one get access to the Ethernet card. or are these things buried too many layers deep and not reachable from outside?

[raffy]

Great job!

I noticed that the screen saver is not on - is this intentional, or perhaps is it because my Intel (Atom combo board) graphics is not supported in Xorg?

[nancy reagan]

Hi Sc0ttman and all other Puppians first of: Happy and Healthy New Year

Like your new Puppy, kinda Lucid.

Some questions and remarks though.

R Miss the icon with the desklight-ico with which you can go straight to desktop. from within an app..

R Miss the numbers of the drive icons on desktop

R Edit: Disks are not shown as mounted or not with me.

Besides I miss the nice menu you had in your 1st Firedog.

R No boot options are shown on bootup.

(Full install on usb -on hub- starting from cd.)

R Miss menu entry for SFS converter.

(Just "came across it" by browsing for something else).


Q When booting on my very old Toshiba Tecra, which I use most of the time, after hitting the OK button for the mouse, it reports something like "starting X with video mode o xo 114 and mouse tty s0", Similar when I tried to launch Teenpup.

This book only runs xorg. Anyway to avoid this ?

(Tried to make a personal save file on other book on usb and thus, but prefer to go straight. This Tosh only does xorg.)

Q1 Is there a way to go straight to xorgwizard ? - with no boot options ?


Tried sfs converter.

Dragged and dropped the sfs on the icon. Then tick the sfs convert icon. Then msg pops up where I tick the X (in a box), Then the msg screen turns blank and "mksquashfs" black screen turns up, but nothing happens, no messages whatsoever.

Q2 What do I do wrong ?

[sc0ttman]

On other puppies not your puplite yet but on others I have made use of a Firefox .mozilla directory placed on mnt/home and that way It keeps the bookmarks and set up and so on from puppy to puppy. One only have to make a symlink back to the root from mnt/home and

Could I not do something similar for the way one get access to the Ethernet card. or are these things buried too many layers deep and not reachable from outside?

That would mean mixing kernel drivers from different kernels (potentially), so would not work.

What would be lovely (but surely impossible) is having 1 kernel (of your choice) which boots any puppy you tell it to...
Not gonna happen anytime soon I think, but we dream, right?

[sc0ttman]

Great job!

I noticed that the screen saver is not on - is this intentional, or perhaps is it because my Intel (Atom combo board) graphics is not supported in Xorg?

I think the screensaver was disabled by synth way back when this was TurboPup...
(The first ever Puppy I used was 4.2.1, but I didn't like the bling, so quickly turned to TurboPup, and have built stuff using TurboPup as my base ever since..

So actually, I have never seen the screensaver - I always turn my monitor off, as soon as I stop using it...

[sc0ttman]

Firstly nancy, thanks for checking it out, and giving feedback, much appreciated...

I miss the icon with the desklight-ico with which you can go straight to desktop. from within an app..

You mean a button in the tray which minimizes all windows and shows the desktop? I would also like to have this, but the 'showdesktop' command which jwm uses in other Puppies, doesn't seem to work in 4.2/TurboPup... Can't be too hard to get it working though...
(Added to my to do list!)

I miss the numbers of the drive icons on desktop

Not sure what you mean...
Puplite shows drive labels and mount points for each drive listed, when you hover the cursor over a drive - other Puppies only started doing this recently.. This should be enough to identify your drives... I also want to show different icons for USB drives on the desktop, will do it soon... I hope.

Disks are not shown as mounted or not with me.

Pmount will show which drives are mounted, but the drive icons on the desktop will not (yet)

Besides I miss the nice menu you had in your 1st Firedog.

then install the new Firedog, using the 'browser installer' app (Menu->internet)
( or the old one from http://ppm.scottjarvis.com/internet/bro ... dog1.2.pet)

No boot options are shown on bootup.

The live CD uses grub4dos, press the 'e' key to edit any menu entries exactly how you like..
..or edit menu.lst once booted to make the changes permanent (in a frugal install)...
Grub4dos has many settings and features.

Which boot options did you want that were missing?

Miss menu entry for SFS converter.

Puplite is still Puppy 4.2 - Trios SFS convertor has not yet been made to work with 4.2 so it is not installed... but I will get on it.
(Also, ttuuxxxs sfs convertor works weird - using drag n drop - not suitable for menu entry unless I, or someone else, want to code a file browser for the menu entry...)

Q When booting on my very old Toshiba Tecra, which I use most of the time, after hitting the OK button for the mouse, it reports something like "starting X with video mode o xo 114 and mouse tty s0", Similar when I tried to launch Teenpup.

This book only runs xorg. Anyway to avoid this?... Is there a way to go straight to xorgwizard ? - with no boot options ?

Not really - to edit the boot sequence/settings (example, delete /etc/videomode), you first need to boot it up! (or remaster it from a different puppy, using woofy or edit-sfs-1.2)

...but presumably Xvesa fails for you on your Toshiba, and you must then use Xorgwizard, right?
Well.. This would be the default behaviour if booting to Xvesa was disabled, so disabling this feature won't change or improve anything for you... (much)

Tried sfs converter.

Dragged and dropped the sfs on the icon. Then tick the sfs convert icon. Then msg pops up where I tick the X (in a box), Then the msg screen turns blank and "mksquashfs" black screen turns up, but nothing happens, no messages whatsoever.

What do I do wrong ?

Not sure, maybe you dragged the sfs to the wrong icon, or maybe the tool isn't working as expected...
(But it should be fine..)

So.. Just to make sure::

You drag the sfs file to the icon which matches the version of puppy it already works on! (A bit odd, I know... That's why I want Trios converter working in Puplite..)

Example:
If you have a sfs from lupu, drag it into the 'series 5' icon, then run the convert tool...

Hope that helps..

[shinobar]

Congrats, sc0ttman!

- smaller, faster, more "up-to-date" Puppy 4

Its almost what i dream
Sfs on-the-fly is fascinate!

But i wonder why you take the Puppy-4.2 as the base.
Hope to update some applications and scripts from 4.3.1 or 4.3.2 of ttuuxx.

I am busy on the Wary-500 Japanese edition for now, but i will back here to see what is the most cutting-edge Puppy 4 series.
Keep your great work!

[JIGNESH_MODI]

is it support bsnl 3G usb datacard modem? If yes than it will rock..........every 6 outof 10 indians use bsnl 3G datacard .. Mostly of teracom company.. & u know india is big county so better provide solution for it...

[sc0ttman]

Congrats, sc0ttman!
Its almost what i dream
Sfs on-the-fly is fascinate!

haha thanks, sfs-on-the-fly is from goingnuts - I just stole it from the PupnGo thread (thanks goingnuts )
goingnuts said its still at draft level, and he is still improving it, but its already great!

But i wonder why you take the Puppy-4.2 as the base.

Simple - I wanted something light and fast, I am lazy and I am not an expert; with 4.2 I had lots of work already done for me - in TurboPup, then Puppy Arcade, plus stuff from PupnGo...

I could have used 4.3, but then I would have lost many great changes from TurboPup/PA10, and I am more familiar with 4.2 than any other version.
(But still no expert!!)

Also, I wanted something for myself that was totally functional and minimal - something that was very efficient.. With Puplite I can know and control exactly what is running and what is not. I can load/unload additional apps very quickly.. With Puplite I save lots of RAM and CPU usage - I like efficiency..

In Puplite, there are no icons, deamons, scripts or tools running that I don't use.

I plan to upgrade the kernel, if possible, to the Fluppy kernel..
(or other kernels with good wifi, smp, rfkill, realtime?)

Hope to update some applications and scripts from 4.3.1 or 4.3.2 of ttuuxx

When you have time, I would really like to hear which scripts can be updated - and most important - which features you would like to see put into Puplite (from 4.3, etc)..
(You know more about it than me..)

( I cant find your new puppy desktop improvement thing on this forum... But I want to try it.)

I am busy on the Wary-500 Japanese edition for now, but i will back here to see what is the most cutting-edge Puppy 4 series.
Keep your great work!

Please do, any feedback will be greatly appreciated..

[sc0ttman]

is it support bsnl 3G usb datacard modem? If yes than it will rock..........every 6 outof 10 indians use bsnl 3G datacard .. Mostly of teracom company.. & u know india is big county so better provide solution for it...

I have no idea... But I doubt it... Try it though, I may be wrong...