Lighthouse 64 5.12 Beta 1

[gcmartin]

Thought this might help as you continue forward. This note merely re-enforces your direction and my support of you.

You have and are creating a masterpiece for all of our use. I have no problems in any of what you do to help us.

But, sometimes it does help to give you a user perspective to validate your direction(s). This I've learned from all systems development and systems implementations I have done in the many-many times this has occurred in my career.

Firstly, your approach to providing 2 implementation of your distros is a very very good approach. For it does 2 useful things:

• Address a need for those who just want a barebones functionality
• Addresses a need that Mariner satisfies

Your direction for a useful, simple startup desktop implementation seems to be as follows:

1. Addressing the LH64 barebones
   Live media boots all the way to X destop with a "standing" FirstRUN "Personalize Setting" for simple system setup needs. ....Brilliant!
2. Addressing Mariner offering
   1. Live media boots to a text based screen offering an opportunity for a user to select some pre-desktop TOOLS that are not in the base.
   2. Then proceeding to a "standing" FirstRUN "Personalize Setting" for simple system setup needs.
   ....Brilliant Again!

I believe that any user, newbie or non-newbit, will wholehearted appreciate this OTB ability that you're providing.
What it does, is to give every users a comfortable and simple OTB solution to using his 64bit PC, usefully without installing anything or having the need to upgrade or replace any subsytem packages. This is what wins!

With the changes you are investigating, YOU are on the doorstep of a significant growth in your distro's use and all with very little complaints from users in product or system problems.

Take you time, for, we are here to help you. I think all of us appreciate how you are approaching your 64bit offering.

Thanks

[jim3630]

Thought this might help as you continue forward. ..

Here, here. well said. 1+

[tazoc]

I am having a problem with this pup.
I boot off my usb, (with all the .sfs files copied to my hdd)
...
if i type in "puppy pfix=vesa" at the boot screen, it boots to desktop, but when i restart i have no option to create a savefile when i reboot.

should i create the savefile from within lhpup somehow?

Please use

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puppy pfix=vesa nomodeset

to disable KMS until you have successfully saved your session and/or set up a video driver that works properly. For recent Nvidia GeForce/Riva/TNT (Codes NV04-NV50) that would be nouveau via xorgwizard-puppy from the CL (when X is not running).

For the latest Nvidia cards (NVC0 and possibly NV50 also) use NVIDIA-260.19.21-k2.6.35.7-L1.pet, click Update on the desktop. To get it working you may need to delete the nouveau kernel module like this

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rm /lib/modules/2.6.35.7/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nouveau.ko

and reboot.

As Jim1911 found, it may be necessary to continue booting with puppy pfix=vesa nomodeset until you have found a suitable display configuration. Getting the kernel, Xorg, your video card and monitor all working in unison can be very challenging. And today I found a bug in the xorgwizard script that could keep X from starting after choosing a driver in xorgwizard-puppy and then later using xorgwizard to auto configure X. I will try to post a fix if anyone has experienced this behavior. It will not fix the KMS bug discussed above, where X will start but then have a blank screen when logging out or rebooting.

First i would like to thank you for all the hard work Tazoc. It`s higly appreciated Many thanks from me. It will be used permanently on many of my systems.

I gave it a go yesterday on my main test laptop and my new test laptop. They are equaly speced. only differense is ATi and Nvidia gpu. On my Ati laptop everything worked, KDE with Compiz and the Ati drivers working great. On the Nvidia laptop i got the black screen when i loged off. I use Shinobars "pupsaveconfig" to fix the savefile problem. Installed the Nvidia pet and rebooted. Itstarts KDE, Compiz. but windows are borderless and i cant move them around. I have had the same problem on my ATi laptop in Lucid puppy. No idea how to solve the problem.

It sounds like C-F is starting, but the window decorator Emerald is not. Right-click fusion-icon in system tray -> Reload Window Manager. There are other settings in the same menu to experiment with. If that doesn't help, disable Compiz by choosing fusion-icon -> Select Window Manager -> Kwin (or Openbox.) C-F is unlikely to work on certain combinations of display adapters and drivers--it's been hit and miss in my experience. It won't work unless your current Window Manager has compositing support enabled. e.g., Fusion, LXDE with Compiz-Fusion, KDE or Xfce (Xfce Settings Manager -> Window Manager Tweaks -> Compositor -> Enable display compositing.) It may also need glx version 1.3 or later (Menu -> System -> Lighthouse 3D-Demo -> server glx version string.) Please check the Compiz tips page for more information.

-TaZoC

[Tman]

...

As Jim1911 found, it may be necessary to continue booting with puppy pfix=vesa nomodeset until you have found a suitable display configuration. Getting the kernel, Xorg, your video card and monitor all working in unison can be very challenging. And today I found a bug in the xorgwizard script that could keep X from starting after choosing a driver in xorgwizard-puppy and then later using xorgwizard to auto configure X. I will try to post a fix if anyone has experienced this behavior.
...

I am not sure if you read this yet, but Barry mentioned problems with Xorgwizard in his blog: http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02468

[rcrsn51]

Having the screen go blank on shut down for newbies will probably drive them away from puppy.

This has always been a problem with certain video drivers in Puppy. One solution is to boot with "pfix=nox". This takes you to a command prompt. Then type "reboot". Now you should get a chance to run the pupsave creation procedure.

[Sage]

Finally got a look at this 64bit yesterday; did Fatdog last week. Evidently, these are major undertakings still a long way from perfection! Got all the same video and additional issues as in FD, despite the cheat codes, and LH has the SiS video chipset included! Just cannot get the 1024x768 res. working properly, CTRL-ALT-BKSPCE is of limited use when used with xorgwizard. Pressing on regardless with the wrong res., discovered that FF browser was prone to crash when more than one tab opened. Hard reset required. Noticed a plethora of minor irritations that went unrecorded!
Carry on chaps - you're doing a great job...

Revisited.
Wow: took a quick peek this morning on the 939. With cheat codes, no boot, keeps pausing for 60s. With no cheatcodes, get woof woof, black screen and active right click. CTRL-ALT-BKSPCE/xorgwizard-puppy, selected modest 800x600: flashing Scrolllock+CapsLock (cf. my comments on FD64) - this is an absolutely unique 'feature' of attempts to put Puppy on 64bit: never ever seen it on any other machine from 8bit onwards.

[tazoc]

@All,
When you are able to get to CL, (command line or puppy pfix=nox) or in X (graphical mode) but things are still amiss, please run

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sys-info

before restarting and attach the report /tmp/root/sys-info-yymmdd.gz to your post or a PM. Report-video, Xorg and boot logs are included in the same file. This tool is included in Lighthouse and the latest Pet is at

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60462

sys-info -q (quiet mode) won't open any windows, it just generates the reports and archives a copy with gzip for posting to the forum. They are in /tmp so will not survive a reboot unless you move them elsewhere. This documentation makes bug fixing faster and easier.

It also helps if you can focus on just one or two bugs at a time--easy does it! There are so many combinations of hardware, software and peripherals out there, we aren't going to get them all perfect, but we'll keep trying...

Thank you.

Hi GC,
Thank you for the feedback and for putting in a good word for us with BarryK. Nice to have the mention and links on his blog. That reminds me I haven't updated the lhpup.org home page with 5.12 yet.

I've been busy updating to kernel 3.0.3 and Xorg 1.9.5 from Fatdog64-520. Was getting some file system errors from aufs so I recompiled aufs-util and so far, so good. Couldn't get acpi standby to work on my desktop, but I haven't tried that function in Fatdog 520 yet.

What I really like about the new kernel is the built-in support for xz compression with squashfs. With some changes to Pizzasgood's Edit-SFS I'm able to build both the main file and extra SFS files that are ~20-25% smaller and load into RAM even faster than before.

TaZoC

[cthisbear]

Toshiba Satellite C665 ( PSC2EA-01H00E )

First, boot with noparameters...

Get to desktop? = No.

"""

with >> lhp + parameters.

2. F2 boot with pfix=ram,vesa
Get to desktop?

No. Type xorgwizard...
see a brief Toshiba logo =no... it's not to be.

"""""""""

3. F2 boot with pfix=ram,vesa nomodeset

Get to desktop? + No.

I see a brief Toshiba logo...
but like a politician's promises,it is gone.

Type xorgwizard...why not .>> see a brief Toshiba logo.
xwin....zilch.

xwin jwm....nil

xwin openbox >> see a brief Toshiba logo >> zero

Tried xorgwizard-puppy
>> opens probe >> choose >> xvesa >>>>>Dialogue box

Probe returns 1366 x 768 x 24 or 16
OK! here we go >> Hit enter
dum dee dum...waiting = Big Fat Zero.

"""""""""

Select >> Choose

Go for Xvesa >> Enter = Sweet FA...

>> Hit >> Choose >> Intel = Zero.

ATI = Zero

Dummy= no

Smartie attempt...Choose >> xvesa >>16 bit...test = no.

Radeon...or Radeonh...no.

::::

4. F2 boot with pfix=nox.
Type xorgwizard and select vesa.

Will I get a desktop ... No...not to be.

xorgwizard-puppy = dialogue >> and xvesa fails....

xwin jwm....nil

xwin openbox >> see a brief Toshiba logo >> zero

:::::::::

Reboot.

Just 4 a laugh Try

Puppy 4.31 boots >> vesa works, but no soundcard etc

Fluppy 06
boots>> Xorg and sound work >>>
she was good..Miss Jem
No wireless...but the router blinks,

Maybe a false alert. Could just be my magnetic personality.
No need 4 Bugman or 01micko to comment.

""""""""""

Chris.

[bigpup]

In the end, it seems to be a bug in Lighthouse. For whatever reason, when you install lighthouse from CD ISO to a USB stick, it doesn't copy zWine-1.3.26-x86-64_512.sfs to the USB stick also. O just manually copied it over and everything works fine now.

From topic here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=71616

[gcmartin]

Don't know if anyone has noticed, but when I switch from desktop to a terminal, say, Ctrl-Alt-F2, when enough information fills the screen, my cursor is off the screen.

1. This is confusing as a user can/would wonder where his typed commands are.
2. Also, this presents a problem when at Shutdown, the text screen gets populated such that you see no activity from any of your keyboarding which leads one to assume that Shudown processing has locked up the system.

Hope this helps

[tazoc]

Gcmartin,
I've seen that occasionally with the vesa Xorg driver, but find it hard to reproduce. What I do is type

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setfont

and hit <Enter>. See if that helps when switching to vt2 or vt3.

It would be nice if we could create the save file before shutting down, but I don't know how to ensure all settings will be saved with that approach.

-TaZoC

[futurnet]

After using the LHP 503 on my old computer, I installed the 64 bit right now on my I7 laptop. I installed xfce as well as WM, All work fine except for the auto mount media on desktop. I had enabled this function in the removable disks section, but when I plug a usb stick nothing mount.
I read around something about udev rules to be setted in 4.8 version, but didn't understand so much.
Thanks for your great job Tazoc

EDIT: also the recycle bin even I have activated not show on desktop
I suspect that this version of XFCE is little buggy.
Any possibility to get the XFCE 4.6 64 bit?

[Q5sys]

probably wont be an issue once you go to the 3.0.3 kernel. But your kernel in this release was compiled with 4.4 However you've included 4.5 in the devx.
Doesnt the 2.6 series of kernels not allow modules to be loaded that are not built from the same gcc version that the kernel was compiled with?
Might be an issue for those wanting to build kernel modules. (IE those people who want to compile the newest gfx drivers from source)


also got this error when trying to run Vbox after compiling it



and for kicks... (click for larger image)

[pemasu]

Kernel modules compiling is sensitive for used gcc. It wants the same gcc version which was used during kernel compile time. Thats why compiling the distro kernel in the distro where it will be used is needed. You get troubles when you start to compile extra kernel module drivers. At least warnings, possibly non functional situations also.
Iguleder posted chroot environment guide for possible fix for that, if the distro uses kernel compiled in other distro.
The guide is in three headed dog thread recently.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 505#564505

[Jim1911]

My HP Photosmart C-5280 appeared to install fine and shows as the default printer, however it does not print from any application that I've tried. Attached is sys-info report.

Regards,
Jim

[rcrsn51]

My HP Photosmart C-5280 appeared to install fine and shows as the default printer, however it does not print from any application that I've tried.

What is the name of the driver PET that you used? What Lighthouse version are you using?

I just tested Lighthouse64-5.12-B1 with the hplip_print_fd64-3.11.5.pet and my HP Photosmart C4680. It worked fine. I also did a simulated test as a C5280 and it worked too.

I believe that you have this printer working OK in Fatdog with the above driver? There shouldn't be any difference.

[Jim1911]

My HP Photosmart C-5280 appeared to install fine and shows as the default printer, however it does not print from any application that I've tried.

What is the name of the driver PET that you used? What Lighthouse version are you using?

I just tested Lighthouse64-5.12-B1 with the hplip_print_fd64-3.11.5.pet and my HP Photosmart C4680. It worked fine. I also did a simulated test as a C5280 and it worked too.

I believe that you have this printer working OK in Fatdog with the above driver? There shouldn't be any difference.

I used hplip_print_fd64-3.11.5.pet and I've just tried your new pets for Fatdog that you mentioned on the Slacko thread. Although, the printer appears to install fine it still will not print. See message below.

[Barburo]

Hi Taz,
A few observations.
I tried your WM switcher - seemed OK for the most part although I did get it to fail one time while switching to LXDE. I find in LXDE I cannot change the background using either Set Wallpaper or the the Background switcher (as modified by you). Open box or Xfce will allow it.
I get this error message:

No pinboard was in use ... the Default pinboard has been selected. Use 'Rox -p=Default' to turn it on in future

I have tried to open several old wmv video files using Xine and also with VLC. Both fail with error messages. LHP 503 was able to play these files using Xine and VLC.
Also problem with PBurn - didn't recognize the DVD I inserted as a valid blank medium - switched back to LHP503 and PBurn works OK and burns the DVD image.

My next challenge - get CF working with either Xfce or LXDE.
B.

[tazoc]

probably wont be an issue once you go to the 3.0.3 kernel. But your kernel in this release was compiled with 4.4 However you've included 4.5 in the devx.
Doesnt the 2.6 series of kernels not allow modules to be loaded that are not built from the same gcc version that the kernel was compiled with?

I understand that's true, though I haven't seen any gcc errors myself when compiling modules with the mismatched kernel. However I did recompile Kirk's 3.0.3 kernel, same .config but against the newer gcc 4.5.2 over the weekend. Unfortunately I'm getting a few file system "file too large" errors even after recompiling the patched kernel, aufs3, aufs-utils and the rest of the kernel modules. The files affected are always in an extra SFS, vary with each reboot and all are under 1M. Accessing the files directly shows no error, only via the unioned fs. I have none of those errors in 5.12 B1...

also got this error when trying to run Vbox after compiling it

Might just need to make symlink from /usr/X11R7/lib64/libGL.so.1 to /usr/lib64/libGL.so.1.

Hi Taz,
A few observations.
I tried your WM switcher - seemed OK for the most part although I did get it to fail one time while switching to LXDE. I find in LXDE I cannot change the background using either Set Wallpaper or the the Background switcher (as modified by you). Open box or Xfce will allow it.
I get this error message:No pinboard was in use ... the Default pinboard has been selected. Use 'Rox -p=Default' to turn it on in future

Yes, LXDE uses PCManFM instead of Rox to draw the desktop. Just right-click on the desktop -> Preferences to set the LXDE background.

I have tried to open several old wmv video files using Xine and also with VLC. Both fail with error messages. LHP 503 was able to play these files using Xine and VLC.

By default, Xine runs as spot, so it cannot read files owned by root unless they have world read permission. So either use xine (as root) instead of xine.sh (Menu -> Setup -> Default-Programs-Chooser) or run something like

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chmod -R g+r MyVideos
chgrp -R spot MyVideos

assuming MyVideos is the directory containing the videos.

Also problem with PBurn - didn't recognize the DVD I inserted as a valid blank medium - switched back to LHP503 and PBurn works OK and burns the DVD image.

I haven't tried burning yet but it recognized a DVD here. I will do some testing on that from pfix=ram, in case the add-ons I have installed make a difference.
-TaZoC

[rcrsn51]

@jim1911: I can confirm your problem after I tried to print something more complicated than "hello world". I also got the "Bad %% banding box: comment seen" error.

What application were you printing from? My test was in Firefox.

Can you please confirm that the exact same print job works in Fatdog?

@tazoc: It appears that our fix for the GTK print backend is not as robust as we thought. You will either have to revert to the original GTK in Fatdog or compile the new GTK against CUPS.

[Edit] I did some more tests and couldn't get the error to happen again. I need to know the exact page that jim is printing.