Many problems using, remastering Puppy 4.3.1

[green_dome]

Kogije,
I was able to compile a Nvidia driver following these instructions. Possbily you could too.

I now use getnvidia to get the latest drivers. Maybe 'shinobar ' could edit the getnvidia package to allow users to build any nvidia driver version?

[Kogije]

The WINE package I installed was 1.4.1 Stable and it came from that link
version 2 | stripped=false
wine-1.4.1-i486_v2.pet

I think there was more going on because of several missing packages in the 4.3.1 install.
It seems to have been missing alot of Libraries as well.
Every time I tried to install something there were missing packages or libraries.
PPM didn't help because none of the things that were missing were there.
I'm still not sure where the Volume Control Icon went, the Volume Control was still there, but the Icon for it was not.

I could probably recover the 4.3.1 Install, but, it seems to have more problems than I have time to fix.

I'm either going to try Lighthouse Puppy 4.43
or
I'm going to go back to 5.11 and see if I can get the Video Driver to work in there
5.11 wasn't hard to get all the Programs running, but
without the Video Driver I could only get 1 frame per minute on the Video Playback.

[linuxcbon]

- themes : it's better to ask the theme maker.
- You can ask shinobar to compile the nvidia drivers for racy or wary 5.5. (Sorry I dont have any nvidia card to do it.)
- wine works only for the puppy version it was made for. Same with firefox.
- to get 1 frame per minute, did you try the "nouveau" module or where does it come from , on which version ?
- did you check why racy-5.5 doesnt boot (error messages) ? Maybe misses the boot option "acpi=off" ?

[Kogije]

Themes - Changing Themes didn't help, it must be a problem with JWM or maybe a missing Icon...

Racy/Wary - If lighthouse puppy doesn't work (supposedly comes with WINE already on it as well as most/all the apps I want installed,) then I'm going to try compiling a Video Driver for Lucid Puppy 5.11

WINE & Firefox - Firefox ran after I installed a missing library, WINE was working till I tried to actually launch an installed app, the Windows 95 app crashed with no complaints, the DOS version complained about missing libraries including libmpg123-0. There seemed to be alot of missing deb libraries but I'm not sure where I could get a full set of them.

1 Frame per minute - The Video was playing back, I was getting the Audio as well, but the system is old and with VESA drivers running that's all it could handle. I just need to get the Video Driver running on the Card and OpenGL. That should fix it, it worked in 4.3.1.

racy-5.5 - I'm not sure why Racy 5.5 won't boot, the MD5 checks for the ISO and the CD verifies that it burned correctly. I do know that versions of Lucid Puppy after 5.11 don't boot because of the older CPU missing pae and cmov, I don't know if it's the same problem or not, or if it is because of some other old hardware that it doesn't like.

[linuxcbon]

- Themes : can you explain step by step how to get the error, so we can try it ? (details needed)
- Wine and firefox : with no exact details, nobody can guess what you need.
- 1 Frame per minute : did you try nouveau driver ? did you try different puppies ? and compare their performance ? can you give results ? and also which modules were used for video ?
- racy-5.5 : can you give your hardware specs ?

[CatDude]

Hi

@ linuxcbon

- racy-5.5 : can you give your hardware specs ?

Kogije povided them in the very first post of this thread:

Okay, I'm running a OLD
500 MHz AMD K6-2 with
512 MB Single Channel PC-100 RAM
32 MB Nvidia Riva TNT 2 Video Card
52x ASUS CD-ROM
80 Gig Maxtor EXT2 SDA1
60 Gig WD EXT2 SDB1
with Puppy 4.3.1 on SDB1

CatDude
.

[linuxcbon]

povided them in the very first post of this thread:

ok sorry, I didnt read it again.

[Kogije]

I'm going to add to those specs a bit, mostly because of the Volume Control

I have a ISA Sound Blaster 16 Audio Card
and a PCI NIC that hasn't had any issues (Linux loves NICs)
and NO USB PORTS as of yet

Step by Step for how the Volume Control Icon went poof

Booted 4.3.1
Selected JWM Theme Changer from the Menu
Selected the top Theme because it was darker and I want to use Brighter Fonts for a low light environment.
Poof, it was gone

Firefox was fixed except that it wanted to update to 19.0.2

The WINE I was trying to use was supposedly compiled on Puppy 4.3.1
I'm sure the issue has to do with missing libraries and old hardware

Nouveau driver wouldn't work in Puppy 4.3.1, I did not try it in Lucid Puppy 5.11
Puppy 4.3.1 was able to play back 320x240 MP4 Video at 20 fps
default modules were used that came with 4.3.1
Lucid Puppy 5.11 could only play back 320x240 MP4 Video at 1 frame per every 54 seconds
default modules were also used for 5.11

The same Video was used both times

There is one slight Variant which will only confuse the problem even more.

Lucid Puppy 5.11 was able to playback the same video using Flash in Firefox at 1 frame every 34 seconds (a marked improvement that I tested several times.)

[linuxcbon]

So you use 4.3.1 :
- In a fresh 4.3.1, can you run /usr/local/jwmconfig2/theme_switcher from console and change theme and "crash" retrovol to see the output ?
- Can you give last 20 lines of "dmesg" output (from console) ?
- Can you give the output of retrovol -v from console ?

By the way, please open one topic per question, otherwise it's too hard to follow.

[Kogije]

Next Install I will be sure to do 1 question per, however,
This install seemed to have many related issues because of missing libraries

As for Fresh Installing 4.3.1, it seems to have too much missing to try making it work

I'm just going to move on to Lighthouse Pup 4.43 with most/all Apps already installed
Hopefully the Video will play back at a decent enough rate and everything else will work

If I have too many problems I will just go back to Lucid Puppy 5.11 and see if I can fix the Video Driver issue and the Video
The Apps were not an issue in it, everything worked except the Video Driver and the Video Playback which was probably related to the Video Driver not working

[linuxcbon]

For nvidia, the "nouveau" module should be used, or try to make it work. If not, you can report it as a bug in the thread for Lighthouse or Lucid.

[Karl Godt]

linuxcbon :
1) Puppy-4.3.1 has as default audio user interface /usr/bin/absvolume and that should open /usr/local/bin/defaultaudiomixer that is in my case a link to zmixer . There is no retrovol in Puppy-4.3.1 or am I wrong ?.

2) Puppy-4.3.1 has no nouveau.ko kernel module and no nouveau_drv.so Xorg driver module. Only very few Puppies have these, even not so very old ones.

[linuxcbon]

I havent used 4.3.1 for ages, but not important, as he wont use it. I use racy 5.5 and it has nouveau and retrovol.

[Kogije]

Yes, it uses absvolume and I was using zmixer

I was using nvidia under Xorg

the nv option did not work

[Karl Godt]

I havent used 4.3.1 for ages, but not important, as he wont use it. I use racy 5.5 and it has nouveau and retrovol.

linuxcbon : We had already once a dispute somewhere.. Stick with Wary. This now still is about 4.3.1 .

*

Kogije :
I was using an older CRT monitor back then. My current Eizo L768 LCD monitor connected to an Intel(r)Q33/Q35/G33 Graphics Controller Hardware Version 0.0 Chip runs only the Xorg vesa driver.

It seems that you found a pre-compiled nvidia .pet somewhere and did not compiled it self as there a several instructions here on the forum, especially by vtpup.

Further: Puppy 4.3 Jwm windowmanager configuration is easy to corrupt the .jwmrc-tray file .
Get a copy of that file out of /initrd/pup_ro2 if in frugal mode and place it as .jwmrc-tray-orig next to it.

Also : There are some threads mentioning K6 having problems to run pre-compiled programs in -i686 arch.

I started installing Puppy full first and it took me a half year to start with the Puppy frugal experience.
I will dig out that old K7 tomorrow and fire it up and attach this LCD and see what happens.

[linuxcbon]

linuxcbon : We had already once a dispute somewhere.. Stick with Wary. This now still is about 4.3.1 .

I can install 4.3.1 to check more precisely, but I wont. You love to criticize people, it is your specialty. So I let you help him now, bye, mister "I love to criticize other people".

[Kogije]

What I'm going to do is backup the JWM files on the second Hard Drive like I have been doing with the pet files and libraries that I find are working.

I might end up compiling my own Video Driver for Lucid Puppy 5.11
I am more familiar with Ubuntu than Puppy so 5.11 is more familiar.

The Video Driver I found
NVIDIA-71.86.11-k2.6.30.5-1.pet
from http://www.revolutionvoice.com/dl.html
should work in Lighthouse Pup 4.43 because it is uses a k2.6.30.5

I am going to move on to that first, hopefully things will go more smoothly.

My goal is to get this system running with Video, Internet and WINE
I need it to be able to browse youtube
and Play some Old DOS games
I was able to get it to do this and run stable in Windows NT4
however, NT4 does not have (native) USB support and I want to add USB ports to it on a open PCI slot (for Printer/Flash Drive and possibly wifi)
I'm not sure if wifi will work on a USB port in Puppy or if I would need to install a wifi PCI card, but I have a USB wifi lying around so when I get USB ports on it I will try.
For now its Wired NIC, but when I am done fixing it up it needs to be wifi capable.
It doesn't have much in the way of resources, that's why I want to get Puppy working on it.
Also
The system will be for my younger brother so it needs to be very stable and low maintenance.
When I get it working I will make a backup Partition for it and add a Recovery Option to Grub. (or even better, make the whole OS READ ONLY!!! lol)
I'm sure this is possible to do and will look into it when I need it (at least the first part is, not sure on the second option.)

[Makoto]

If you're intending to run DOS games, you might need to use something like DOSBox, rather than Wine (I do note that you said you were running some Windows programs, as well, earlier). Wine is mostly just an interpreter for Windows programs, and has little to no DOS support.
DOSBox and other programs like it tend to assume some experience with the DOS command-line, though.

Actually, if possible, you might consider installing NT4 (how about XP?) on the drive, then set up a 'frugal' installation of Puppy over it... then, you can simply remove the CD to boot to Windows; some Puppies (like the 4.3.1JP version of Puppy I'm using) have a menu at boot that lets you choose what you want to boot, in a 'frugal' environment. No need to mess with grub, etc.
...of course, even if you know what you're doing, what you're installing, keep an eye on all running processes, and have anti-malware software running, etc., Windows is still a bit far from being 'low-maintenance.'

[Kogije]

Plus XP does not have a true DOS Environment and it's mostly Windows 95 and DOS games that I want installed and
the Windows 95 games all have a DOS version available after being Installed (for systems with less resources.)
But, I would prefer to get the Windows 95 versions running if possible. (I managed to do it on a Frugal install of Ubuntu over Windows 98 but with more resources.)
Also, some of the games will not install on XP, they detect it as Windows 5 and insist on having Windows 95, NT4 (with a patch) or 98.

WINE is mostly there to get things Installed, I am very familiar with DOSBox so that won't be a problem.

[Makoto]

Then, run DOSBox in XP.

I suggested XP because it's a little more up-to-date (security-wise) and won't have issues with USB (sure, make me even more wary of doing anything with that NT setup package I've had all these years but never used ), since you indicated you wanted to run as little maintenance on the system as possible.
I still have a Win98 tower connected to the net in the house, but I know what to look for on it in terms of malware, monitor running processes, etc. (And, I did have a frugal Puppy setup on it at one point,too. ) And, I'm quite used to reinstalling Win98, having done it enough times over the years. I certainly wouldn't recommend it as a low-maintenance system, of course.