Precise Puppy 5.6.1-final, May 29, 2013

Please post any bugs you have found
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n1mnal
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Joined: Tue 15 Jun 2010, 18:48

difficulties

#101 Post by n1mnal »

Machine: Dell D410 Laptop

Machine already has Lucid 511 and Lucid 528.004 installed, no problems.
Downloaded the Precise 5.6 iso using Lucid 528.4, md5sum was ok.
Mounted the iso, copied its contents to a toplevel dir on /mnt/home (sda1),
edited /boot/grub/menu.lst to add new entries. Rebooted into Precise 5.6.

The reboot chooses the intel video driver, and finds the desktop icons ok
(but see below); I set the timezone, choose an unencrypted ext3
savefile and try to shutdown; the shutdown script prints only 1 line (something like "Precise is shutting down") then hangs without shutting down (fan still full on 5min later). Hit power button, reboot.

This time no icons found, text message "can't find file ..." appears then
disappears before it can be fully read, desktop screen has only triangles.
Try to shutdown, same problem as before. (Early puppy 4.x and 5.x
would also give incomplete shutdown progress messages on this machine,
but problem was cured before 5.11, perhaps about when ext3 savefiles
were introduced.)

All the above was done in a location lacking network access, which is normally not a problem. Came to this forum for clues, no luck.

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elch
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Location: Mar del Plata - Argentina

Re: Precise Puppy 5.6-FINAL

#102 Post by elch »

Hello BarryK,
I've tested the latest /usr/sbin/xorgwizard-cli.
I could switch from the Nouveau driver to the nvidia-glx-319.17-k3.2.44.sfs.
:D This is OK!!

The netbook is an asus-eee 1201n / nvidia-ion

Thanks for all puppy!
:D "alca, alca, ...al carajo!"

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rjbrewer
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Re: difficulties

#103 Post by rjbrewer »

[quote="n1mnal"]Machine: Dell D410 Laptop


I have a full install of 5.6 on my Inspiron 700M.
Had same reboot-shutdown problem.
Added "pfix=acpi force" (no quotes) to kernel line in grub menu.lst.
Fixed the problem.
Edit:
Maybe it was just acpi=force.
Removed it after the reboot was working and it's still good.

I wanted 1024x768 res. instead of the native 1280x800.
Used xorgwizard to choose Vesa instead of Intel driver.
It actually outperforms the (accelerated?) Intel driver now.

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

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BarryK
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Location: Perth, Western Australia
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Re: difficulties

#104 Post by BarryK »

n1mnal wrote:Machine: Dell D410 Laptop

Machine already has Lucid 511 and Lucid 528.004 installed, no problems.
Downloaded the Precise 5.6 iso using Lucid 528.4, md5sum was ok.
Mounted the iso, copied its contents to a toplevel dir on /mnt/home (sda1),
edited /boot/grub/menu.lst to add new entries. Rebooted into Precise 5.6.

The reboot chooses the intel video driver, and finds the desktop icons ok
(but see below); I set the timezone, choose an unencrypted ext3
savefile and try to shutdown; the shutdown script prints only 1 line (something like "Precise is shutting down") then hangs without shutting down (fan still full on 5min later). Hit power button, reboot.

This time no icons found, text message "can't find file ..." appears then
disappears before it can be fully read, desktop screen has only triangles.
Try to shutdown, same problem as before. (Early puppy 4.x and 5.x
would also give incomplete shutdown progress messages on this machine,
but problem was cured before 5.11, perhaps about when ext3 savefiles
were introduced.)

All the above was done in a location lacking network access, which is normally not a problem. Came to this forum for clues, no luck.
I can't do much about this kind of problem, unless I can reproduce it on my hardware. Sometimes, I can ask questions, until finally may be able to narrow it down.

One question, does the problem occur if you choose ext2 for the save-file?

Personally, I always use ext2, so if any problems come up with ext3 or ext4 I rely on others to discover them. I don't really see how that can be the cause of your problem, though.

I am planning to test Precise on more hardware. I have a few more PCs in storage in my garage, I will set them up, maybe tomorrow.
[url]https://bkhome.org/news/[/url]

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BarryK
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#105 Post by BarryK »

lvds wrote:Hi Barry,

I've tested the new xorg crash recovery mechanism (as explained here)
The Woof-level notes above state that this pup has a new Xorg Video Wizard and a "recovery mechanism". if you bootup and do not get a graphical desktop, and the keyboard/mouse have hung, which can happen with some troublesome old video hardware, press the 'reset' button on the PC or hold down the 'power' button for 4 seconds to force a shutdown -- at next startup the "recovery mechanism" kicks in, forcing the Xorg Video Wizard to run. Then, you can try an alternate Xorg driver.
As this is a new feature, I welcome feedback, especially tweaks for the /usr/sbin/xorgwizard-cli script, if you know Bash coding!
...tested on my Asus 1225c which is equiped with Atom cedar trails. And it does not work for me. At first pass: black screen. Reboot. Second pass: black screen.

So far, the only puppies that could boot were Racy v5.5 and upup-precise 3.8.3. These two boots into 1024x768. Then when running xorg video wizard manually and ask for a probe, will allow the 1366x768 ; Important to note: the screen in text mode to chose between probe, test... is too big and goes out of the screen ! So you need to type in blind (enter the first time, because hopefully this is the default, then enter again when the screen resolution is selected) because you don't see the buttons. It seems the issue is common and most people when having video problems get down to 1024x768 so maybe it would be good to adapt the message for that size so anyone can see the buttons to press.

Best regards
Laurent
Does the black screen occur after the boot-up? That is, do you get all the startup messages, then finally it starts up Xorg and the graphical desktop -- but not in your case, but if you do get the messages right up to that point, then it does mean that Xorg is trying to start.

If you get the black screen earlier, then it would seem that you have an incompatibility with the Linux kernel.
[url]https://bkhome.org/news/[/url]

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BarryK
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Re: Precise Puppy 5.6-final, May 21, 2013

#106 Post by BarryK »

Billtoo wrote:Installed lots of applications with ppm.
Precise 5.6 is working well, no problems.
I installed Scribus yesterday, which is a Qt4 desktop publishing application. It is so nice as Qt-based apps now come up with the same theme as GTK apps, makes them look so much better.
[url]https://bkhome.org/news/[/url]

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BarryK
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#107 Post by BarryK »

peebee wrote:In parallel with BK's changes for nvidia described here, Shinobar has released getnvidia 0.9.2 which creates an sfs which loads successfully onto the current Precise 5.6 and after a reboot the nvidia driver is being used and also is displayed as an option by xorgwizard.

Hopefully the changes made by BK and Shinobar will prove to be complementary....

Cheers
peebee
Probably there is no clash.

But, not having looked at what shinobar has done, I cannot be certain.

The latest xorgwizard will work with the official NVIDIA installer, regardless of whether the installation chooses to blacklist the 'nouveau' kernel module or not.
Also, the wizard will now work with NVIDIA PETs that don't do anything to blacklist the nouveau module.

...the above is referring to the very latest xorgwizard-cli script that I have posted about above.
[url]https://bkhome.org/news/[/url]

PaulR
Posts: 249
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 18:45
Location: UK

#108 Post by PaulR »

Further to my earlier post I've put 5.6 on a CD instead of a USB stick but the problem remains (although I can now opt to save to the HD):

Everything works fine but it hangs after X has closed and the saving message is on screen. I've rebooted and tried it with acpi off but no joy. A save file is created but it obviously doesn't get finished properly.

This is on a non-PAE Thinkpad T42 that runs all other versions of Puppy that I've tried to date, right up to the latest Slacko.

Paul

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lvds
Posts: 340
Joined: Tue 23 Jan 2007, 15:15
Location: Near the window

#109 Post by lvds »

BarryK wrote:
lvds wrote:Hi Barry,

I've tested the new xorg crash recovery mechanism (as explained here)
The Woof-level notes above state that this pup has a new Xorg Video Wizard and a "recovery mechanism". if you bootup and do not get a graphical desktop, and the keyboard/mouse have hung, which can happen with some troublesome old video hardware, press the 'reset' button on the PC or hold down the 'power' button for 4 seconds to force a shutdown -- at next startup the "recovery mechanism" kicks in, forcing the Xorg Video Wizard to run. Then, you can try an alternate Xorg driver.
As this is a new feature, I welcome feedback, especially tweaks for the /usr/sbin/xorgwizard-cli script, if you know Bash coding!
...tested on my Asus 1225c which is equiped with Atom cedar trails. And it does not work for me. At first pass: black screen. Reboot. Second pass: black screen.

So far, the only puppies that could boot were Racy v5.5 and upup-precise 3.8.3. These two boots into 1024x768. Then when running xorg video wizard manually and ask for a probe, will allow the 1366x768 ; Important to note: the screen in text mode to chose between probe, test... is too big and goes out of the screen ! So you need to type in blind (enter the first time, because hopefully this is the default, then enter again when the screen resolution is selected) because you don't see the buttons. It seems the issue is common and most people when having video problems get down to 1024x768 so maybe it would be good to adapt the message for that size so anyone can see the buttons to press.

Best regards
Laurent
Does the black screen occur after the boot-up? That is, do you get all the startup messages, then finally it starts up Xorg and the graphical desktop -- but not in your case, but if you do get the messages right up to that point, then it does mean that Xorg is trying to start.

If you get the black screen earlier, then it would seem that you have an incompatibility with the Linux kernel.
Yes, I get the black screen AFTER the boot-up.

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dennis-slacko531
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I'm mirroring Precise too...

#110 Post by dennis-slacko531 »

If anyone wants to get the ISO from my Godaddy server, it's pretty fast.

http://www.beok.com/lnux

NICE JOB BARRY -- thanks man
devx_precise_5.6.sfs also ready

fyi, LNUX.COM also has the download & video!
Last edited by dennis-slacko531 on Sat 25 May 2013, 02:23, edited 2 times in total.

artsown
Posts: 403
Joined: Wed 12 Sep 2012, 18:35

#111 Post by artsown »

Barry, perhaps you have ideas about a problem I've experienced on one
of my computers .... a old Dell Dimension 8200 having a P4 2 ghz cpu and
768 meg RAM. This PC runs earlier pups and Windows XP ok. With later pups
such as your Precise, the machine hangs during the initial startup.
The last screen message is: Recognising media devices... optical input_

I found that pfix=nox on the kernel line gives me a workaround. I can
then run xorgwizard and get a GUI. After creating a Save file, I delete
pfix=nox and the pup then starts up straight to the GUI thereafter (frugal
install).

Art

algol68
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Joined: Sat 25 May 2013, 07:52

Precise Puppy 5.6 Won't Boot in a VirtualBox (Win7 64 Bit)

#112 Post by algol68 »

Hi Guys,

It's my first post on the Puppy forum, firstly my thanks & complete admiration for what you have all achieved, especially Barry K, it's completely awesome...

Anyway, my apologies if this has already been logged as an issue or is otherwise inappropriately filed.

The Isuue:

I tried booting Precise Puppy 5.6 in a VirtualBox (4.2.12) under Win 7 64 bit Ultimate on an HP XW6200 (Dual 3.2 GHz Xeons, 4GB ram, NVidia 9500GT graphics)

It fails during boot on the following step
"Making the Filesystem usable..."

Setting loglevel=7 doesn't display anything after that either.

For reference 5.5.93 didn't boot on the same rig but 5.4.90 did.

Also booting directly from a CD with 5.6 worked.

I'm more than happy to provide further info if that would help.

Thanks again for an amazing demonstration of what collaborative efforts can achieve when people come together. Truly heartening.

starhawk
Posts: 4906
Joined: Mon 22 Nov 2010, 06:04
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...

#113 Post by starhawk »

Poulsbo driver needs work, at least for me... "TEST_X_NOW" results in some sorta logfile that basically means it doesn't like me today. Consistently.

Axiomtek PICO820 motherboard
Atom Z530 CPU
US15W chipset (GMA500)
2gb RAM
SATA (in IDE mode because that's all the board can do) 16gb SSD
Output is VGA

Running from CD with a USB CD setup that the board can handle. I used it to install Upup Precise 3831 (kernel 382 in my version) and it worked fine... of course the glibc in that version of Upup isn't new enough for jejy69's GNOME2.32 SFS... hence the desire to upgrade a little...

Sorry if I sound ticked off, I'm not -- just frustrated and disappointed. I was really hoping this would be working now. Oh well :(

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don570
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Location: Ontario

#114 Post by don570 »

report-video for Precise Puppy 5.6-final - success with both nv and
nouveau video driver

When I booted up a fresh frugal install...
Chip description:
VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (rev b2)

Requested by /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
Resolution (widthxheight, in pixels): 1440x900
Depth (bits, or planes): 24
Modules requested to be loaded: dbe

Probing Xorg startup log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log):
Driver loaded (and currently in use): nouveau
Loaded modules: dbe dri dri2 exa extmod fb glx kbd mouse record shadowfb
Then I tried booting with pfix=fsck,nox
and then launching 'xorgwizard-cli'

I installed the nv video driver and rebooted as instructed.
Here is report-video
Chip description:
VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (rev b2)

Requested by /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
Depth (bits, or planes): 24
Modules requested to be loaded: dbe
Drivers requested to be loaded: nv

Probing Xorg startup log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log):
Driver loaded (and currently in use): nv
Loaded modules: dbe ddc dri dri2 extmod fb glx i2c int10 kbd mouse ramdac record vgahw xaa
__________________________________________________________

backi
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Location: GERMANY

#115 Post by backi »

Hi !
Maybe my question is naiv .
To make it clear Precise is an awsome distro .

What makes me wonder is ...when testing Glxgears on Lucid Puppy 528 or Threeheadeddog or Macpup or Dpupexprimo --it gives me ten times higher framerate than on Precise Puppy . I am using a Toshiba 3000 notebook .
Same situation for my Desktop Pc .

What could make the difference ?
How to accomplish same good results with Precise .

Anybody some advice ?
Last edited by backi on Sat 25 May 2013, 19:21, edited 1 time in total.

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don570
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Location: Ontario

#116 Post by don570 »

backi wrote:it gives me ten times higher framerate than on Precise Puppy
To find video driver type in console...

Code: Select all

report-video
Low rates imply VESA driver that xorg supplies

You should boot with option 'pfix=nox' and then type 'xorgwizard-cli'
to launch Barry's new xorgwizard. See what video drivers are available.

_________________________________________

n1mnal
Posts: 17
Joined: Tue 15 Jun 2010, 18:48

Dell D410 problems, partial update

#117 Post by n1mnal »

BK wrote: One question, does the problem occur if you choose ext2 for the
save-file?

The problem with not finding the desktop icons (and consequently showing
them as red triangles with a "?" inside) seems to be due to the savefile
existing but not being correct. As soon as I delete the savefile (from
another installed puppy) and reboot into precise-5.6, I'm back to the
first-time boot situation and the desktop icons are there and ok.

To answer your question, the incomplete shutdown problem is the same
whether I choose ext3 or ext2 for the savefile. However, looking at the
savefile, I find that although I always selected 512M for the savefile size,
that wasn't the size I got, which was about 32M for ext3 and about 8M for
ext2. (With the Lucid 511 and 528 installs on the same machine, which
are still there and still work, when one requested 512M, one got 512M :-)
In this particular case, there must be an additional problem with writing
(or reading) the savefile, since even though it's not the size I requested,
the amount of state I was trying to save was tiny - just the timezone
setting. I can't tell if the TZ is restored correctly (until the other problems
get fixed) as I keep my hw clock in local time.

@rjbrewer - thank you for your clue about acpi; I tried applying it naively,
but it didn't work for me. Can someone point me to documentation about
what the acpi status (as read from /var/log/messages and/or the /proc
filesystem) _should be_ to obtain correct shutdown, and what the exact
usage of pfix with grub (0.97) is? I've read the boot message files in the
precise-5.6 iso image, and they are way too terse and incomplete to
include the obscure details which seem to be needed here.

backi
Posts: 1922
Joined: Sun 27 Feb 2011, 22:00
Location: GERMANY

#118 Post by backi »

Hi don570 !

Followed your advice (pfix=nox etc. )
used another xorg option with no vesa drivers ...but only increased glxgear rates to some degree but not as high as lucid puppy or Threeheaded Dog .

Is there away to increase Framerates further ?

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rjbrewer
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#119 Post by rjbrewer »

backi wrote:Hi don570 !

Followed your advice (pfix=nox etc. )
used another xorg option with no vesa drivers ...but only increased glxgear rates to some degree but not as high as lucid puppy or Threeheaded Dog .

Is there away to increase Framerates further ?
If you want to compare different Puppies, use the benchmarks
in menu > hardinfo.
GLXgears is completely meaningless as a benchmark or
performance indicator.

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

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lvds
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#120 Post by lvds »

Hi Barry,

Can you give us a file DISTRO_PKGS_SPECS-ubuntu-precise with only the needed packages marked 'yes' for a barebone for puppy precise 5.6 ubuntu compatible ?
I have hard times with woof2 :D
Many thanks

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