SwitchPup - puplet for the severely disabled

[greengeek]

Added new version of the Autostart switchpup to 3rd post on first page. Fixes failure of second boot due to pupdesk.flg being incorrectly set. Couple of other fixes too.
Probably the last version for a while till feedback suggests any other required changes.

[Ted Dog]

Thanks, will be burning those to dvds to give out. But will not be able to test much as I am getting ready to leave to demo this again to a new group and still need to get a treat to share from the store.

[mikeslr]

Hi greengeek,

I finally got around to testing verion 4 which I downloaded some time ago and was going to report when I discovered you were now on version 8. So I downloaded, unpacked and attempted to boot into it. "Fresh install": No SaveFile. Booting appears to do everything until, rather than displaying a desktop, it ends with a black screen except for a white "underline" in the top left corner. I checked the mdsum and it's correct, so it wasn't a bad download. This didn't happen with version 4. I'm currently downloading version 7 to compare.

Relevant facts about my system:
Processor: 4x AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 945 Processor
Memory: 3375MB
ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics supporting 1600x900 pixels

mikesLr

[Ted Dog]

Hi greengeek,

I finally got around to testing verion 4 which I downloaded some time ago and was going to report when I discovered you were now on version 8. So I downloaded, unpacked and attempted to boot into it. "Fresh install": No SaveFile. Booting appears to do everything until, rather than displaying a desktop, it ends with a black screen except for a white "underline" in the top left corner. I checked the mdsum and it's correct, so it wasn't a bad download. This didn't happen with version 4. I'm currently downloading version 7 to compare.

Relevant facts about my system:
Processor: 4x AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 945 Processor
Memory: 3375MB
ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics supporting 1600x900 pixels

mikesLr

Opps, I guess its good no one left with a copy. Got some volunteers to test and provide feed back...

[greengeek]

Thank you both for testing. I am wondering if some of the boot problems are related to the "pupdesk.flg" issue that I mentioned. BK has been experimenting with writing the pupdesk.flg file to the first (home) partition during the init and boot process and I have found that some recent versions of puppy leave this flag file sitting on the home partition and it mucks up the X server on next boot.

There has been some consternation that such a file would be left on the HDD, and that it could then affect subsequent boots - even the booting of a live CD using pfix=ram.

I did not realise this behaviour was present when I made my earlier versions of switchpup so it is likely that booting with an earlier switchpup may leave a "pupdesk.flg" file on the first partition. I have modified the firstrun008 and the Autostart005 versions so that they do not leave the pupdesk.flg lying around. HOWEVER, they may still be affected by any pupdesk.flg that happens to still be there from booting other versions of Precise or switchpup.

I have more work to do on this as it is very disturbing behaviour. I found various links that offer some detail about this, but this is probably the most succinct:
http://bkhome.org/blog2/?viewDetailed=00238

I do need to change the /usr/sbin/quicksetup script so that it is immune to the presence of pupdesk.flg, but I need to understand this issue further before I do any more tinkering.

In the meantime can I suggest that anyone having any issues check their partitions and rename or remove any and every pupdesk.flg file they find? (Bearing in mind that you may have some other installation that DOES use the pupdesk.flg in the way BK originally intended...). Please use caution. Personally, I think that it is perfectly safe to remove these flag files.

ALSO - in case there are other issues affecting the boot into X server I am very keen to know which machines work and which ones don't. I have done a lot of testing on 3 machines and they all work perfectly using firstrun008 and the Autostart005 so I am hopeful that a significant percentage of trial machines will also be fine.

mike - I think I can see the cause of your problem - you have 3GB of ram, which is clearly far too much. Can I suggest that you remove at least half and send it downunder so that I can test it at length for the next year or so?

[mikeslr]

Hi greengeek,

As visiting New Zealand is on my bucket list, if you'll mail me a ticket I'll be glad to hand-deliver lots of RAM.
I'd add a "smiley-face" but for some reason --current opera?-- they don't work right.
The specs are of my desktop which doesn't make me wait impatiently when I tinker with something. After building anything, I transport it to my Thinkpad T42 to give it a real test.
I'll hunt for the "pupdesk.flg" file.

mikesLr

[greengeek]

Done.
Gotta love google images - it makes international travel so easy...

[mikeslr]

Hi greengeek,

I apologize that I can not deliver the promised commodity as quickly. My staff seems confused about the assembling requirements.

mikesLr

P.S. Couldn't find a pupdesk.flg on any partition. Booted without difficulty into version 7. Am posting from it now via frisbee. SNS saw but failed to connect to my network. Not an unusual occurrence.

[greengeek]

Thats definitely a whole lot of ram, but Oh deer, Oh deer, Oh deer! They obviously didnt follow the insertion instructions correctly...


ps, I don't think the ram is new...looks a bit ewesed to me

[Ted Dog]

LOL that is one confused Ram, his 'junk' is not even close to where it needs to be.

[Ted Dog]

Looks like another demo has been requested mid August. Was asked for links, so we need to kinda quiet down the animal mounting, I figured their eyes would gloss over and never make it this far...

[greengeek]

You're probably right.
Mike - the image might need some pixelation...


As far as the links goes, I did actually include two of the oneswitch threads in the pre-installed Seamonkey bookmarks, but only the actual Oneswitch pet thread (software) and the keyboard modification thread (hardware), but not this particular one about switchpups.

[Ted Dog]

Gave them the original thread... Where the ideas started and had Will's video links

[Ted Dog]

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 26&t=72589

Added this pet to play with and noticed I could not get sound at all.. Is the a 'BK' bug or did something change?

Wanted to add speech to radar.. where is the source? its a script... never mind

[greengeek]

Interesting pet. Text-to-speech is one of the high priority functions I want to add as soon as poss. I won't be able to try that pet just yet and I would only be guessing about why it doesn't output sound on your system - but do you have ALL of your alsa "inputs" activated (ie: pcm etc etc). Maybe the particular audio stream output from the pet uses a different "line in" to what other software uses??? (Just a stab in the dark...)

EDIT : Current switchpups are based on Precise 5.6.1 so if strange behaviour happens it is worth comparing it with Precise561 to see if the same behaviour exists there. I don't think that I have changed anything that would affect the audio behaviour but then again, remastering can be a funny business...

EDIT2 : Brilliant! I couldn't resist trialling that pet and it works fine on my hardware (I've only tried it on an Acer netbook with the AutoStart switchpup so far, but should behave the same with the firstrun version too). The voice was a bit hurried, but better than nothing. I will come back to experimenting with this further when I'm happy the basic functionality of switchpup is solid and ready for enhancements.

[ETP]

Hi Ted Dog & greengeek,

Try this ( Recorded with Vocaroo. Played with ISpeech in MouseCam Pup V6)

http://vocaroo.com/i/s17FsZp9CGQ0

My original post is here:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 776#710776

I will certainly be including it in Obedient Pup.

[greengeek]

Very nice. She sounds lovely.
Actually sounds like Nigella Lawson - if she comes round to my place and makes my dinner I promise i will treat her better than that Saatchi chap did.


EDIT: For some reason I was not able to record on vocaroo when i first tried it a couple of weeks ago...something to do with flash version on my Slacko machine i guess. I will have to give it a try from switchpup.

[greengeek]

Added new version of Radar_firstrun to first post. This cures a bug with Abiword not opening a file when the icon was clicked, adds a "DragWindow" function (which is much easier than hunting for the title bar when you need to reposition the window), and also repositions the desktop icons to allow better visibility when navbar is in use.

[russoodle]

Hi greengeek....been wondering why you haven't used your ftp account and storage space, then i see you haven't yet retrieved the pm with your pawsword attached...do you still want this account and space?

cheers,
russoodle


PS: by the looks of things, that RAM could be having compatibility issues..

[Ted Dog]

Gave them the original thread... Where the ideas started and had Will's video links

Demo did well ( both mousecam and switchpup where DOA on the University Dell's ) it has to be a pp5.6.1 issue we really need to put our efforts on a stable base, What happened to the Wary base idea?

OK feedback and ideas flowed back and forth, got more practical insights into other types of disability that would benefit from OneSwitch. Cerebral palsy would benefit if we can 'cut the cord' having a dangling cord is dangerous, so came across two USB wireless keyboards (one is a TV remote looking thing )

http://www.amazon.com/SANOXY-Wireless-R ... f_se_s_t_9

and the other was a flexible keyboard (which we can remove and wire a single switch)

http://www.amazon.com/HDE-Silicone-Flex ... 7&sr=1-321

I like the second one since its not shipped from china (long wait) and looks easier to convert into a hand-held 'clicker', since someone already got that type of keyboard working.