BIT METER OS 0.7.6 (stable) & 0.8.0 (experimental)

[davids45]

G'day Mike Walsh,

I have not tried bmsync-ing from another Pup on this my multi-Pup main computer to the other computers on my home network. Nor have I booted with another Pup on this machine since the successful bmsync to check if BitMeter is still working on those Pups I have had time to install it to (Friday is minding-the-grandkids day and we've been to the zoo).

So, when I do these checks (soon, now that 'they' have gone home with their mother ), I'll make a back-up copy of the main .db file just before I do anything.

I have only used the basic parameters so far:
- on the 'other computers', just the three command lines entered via the terminal or as a script.

bmdb webremote
bmdb webstop
bmdb webstart

Each line produced an encouraging text response in the terminal.
Still not sure if I should terminally stop the webremote once the data exchange has occurred or just shutting down the other-computer is adequate.

I then switched to my main computer (its IP address is not required (or actually known )). In its terminal, I typed just:

bmsync 192.168.2.xx

(that is, just the other computer's IP address after the bmsync - no extra parameter nor did I try the other computer's puppypc name)

And this added the other computers' BM data to the .db file on my main computer's data partition. When I run it again, I'll check if I see an ERR within the terminal text response as the sync occurs.

This bmsync process reminded me of an app for my wifi-ed android phone that enables it to transfer files to my data partition. The app sets up the phone as a local network server and displays the IP address I need to enter into my computer browser to access the android phone files (photos mostly) so I can download/copy them onto my data partition.

As I see it, BitMeter in sync-ing sets up each 'other computer' as a server of the BM data on it for the main computer as a client to add or update to its .db file.

Plenty to play with still.

David S.

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, David.

Oh, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the basic principle behind all this. It may be a glitch at my end; I've installed Dropbox over the last couple of days, and also added Comodo's AV for Linux to Precise. I know there's no need for it, but I like to check things about once a month.

The version I use is the one for 'other Linux', which comes as a self-contained, stand-alone tar.gz package from Comodo. I also have it on Tahrpup. I have a lot of friends with Windows machines, and like to make sure I'm not passing on crud to them, albeit unknowingly. Install was very straightforward in Tahrpup, but I made a bit of a hash of it in Precise initially, so that may have been responsible.....during the set-up (in the terminal), there was some stuff came up about BitMeter; I guess I should have paid more attention!

This could all be self-inflicted.....


Regards,

Mike.

[davids45]

G'day,

A few more days of bmsync-ing with just a few problems with BitMeter not running when or as expected. But mostly good results.

Updating bmsync data
Yesterday, as my first updatings after syncing my three 'other desktops' the day before, I again bmsynced two of my three 'other' desktops.

But before doing the bmsync, when I first opened BitMeter on my main desktop, and looked at the Summary, the 'Today' values for the three 'other computers' were a lot of "NaN PB". 'NaN PB' means there is no current data for that section of the table. Which made sense as I had not yet bmsynced these computers for 'Today' so I only had their prior usage values which were displayed in the 'Month' column.

I did not need to re-run the bmdb remoteweb scripts on these other computers as both responded to their bmsync call from my main desktop (e.g. bmsync 192.168.2.10). No changes in their IP addresses (yet - these are not static ).

New 'Today' data now appeared for these two on my main BitMeter 'Summary'. Attached screen-shot shows these and the final 'Today' rows for the third un-synced computer still as 'NaN PB'.

So today, I tried bmsync-ing the third desktop. On booting up this third desktop, I found BitMeter was running but not capturing as its 'Monitor' display showed no activity and its 'Today' was all NaN PBs.

So on this 3rd desktop, I needed to re-start bmcapture. In a terminal, I entered:

cd /etc/init.d/
./bitmeter restart

and saw the stopping and re-starting messages, and then saw the 'Monitor' was now active on the browser.

Computer #3 (at 192.168.2.9) synced without need for the bmdb webremote scripts and its data appeared on my main .db Summary. There was an ERR included in the terminal display (see attachment) but data apparently synced nonetheless.

The two un-synced desktops were now all NaN PB for 'Today' but had yesterday's synced values in their 'Month' and 'Year'.

NaN PB = no capturing = need to re-start bmcapture
I had the same 'no-capturing' problem at start-up with another Pup on my main computer which was fixed by this manual re-starting from /etc/init.d. I wonder if during booting a Puppy, BitMeter does not always start correctly, perhaps due to clashing occasionally other programs also starting up at the same time. Maybe a small 'sleep' in the BitMeter start-up script in /root/Startup would be helpful??

This no-capturing (=NaN PBs in the Summary) is really the only recurrent problem I've had with BitMeter, but so far, has been fixed with the terminal 'bitmeter restart' scripting .

I've also tried an export to csv of data which looked OK . I don't know if it is possible to sum all the data being synced as another set of rows as I am assuming the 'Summary' is only for the individual computers using BitMeter on the network.

Not ventured onto my Windows7 laptop (for Fitbit) with BitMeter yet.

BitMeter is still looking like a good package for Puppy.

David S.

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, David.

I think I'm getting on top of it. I re-ran bmsync from 'ChromeBook' Pup, thus:-

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bmsync -a MiqPup 192.168.1.65

MiqPup being the Dell's hostname for Tahrpup, which is the only Pup that will run on it! Didn't need to re-run 'bmdb webremote', as it was already set up. Like you, I too got an

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ERR -1

in the sync procedure, but, as you've found out yourself, the synchronisation still appears to go ahead; in this case with

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 2904 lines added

So; that all appears to be working smoothly (see attachment). Thanks for your help (and research) with all this; nice one..!! And, 'touch wood', so far, re-booting into my other Pups, BM is starting up as expected. I suspect the Comodo AV for Linux installation in Precise the other night messed things up, because I made a real hash of installing it initially, and had to re-do it a couple of times..! I installed it to 'TahrPup' about 5 months ago, and had totally forgotten the rather cumbersome routine you have to go through in order to get it working. And I use it maybe once a month...purely and simply as an 'on-demand' scanner, scanning whatever folder(s) you specify at the time.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As far as a 'sleep' delay is concerned, well..... If you recall, Geoffrey found out that the most effective way to get BitMeter up & running each time at boot was to insert a sleep statement into xbitmeter, thus:-

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#!/bin/sh

IFCONFIG="`ifconfig | grep '^[pwe]' | grep -v 'wmaster'`"
while [ "$IFCONFIG" != "" ]; do
   sleep 1
    ping -c 1 8.8.8.8
    if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
      break
   else
      ping -c 1 www.google.com
      if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
         break
      fi
   fi
done
sleep 15
/etc/init.d/bitmeter restart
/etc/init.d/bitmeterweb restart

Having

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sleep 15

inserted at line 16 in the original xbitmeter script, along with

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/etc/init.d/bitmeterweb restart

added at line 18.

But Geoff did say that the 15 second delay, although it worked for his set-up, might need adjusting for individual cases. So, I would suggest that you try increasing the delay for whichever of your boxes is proving problematical. Certainly can't hurt to try, can it?

Let us know if it works.


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, David.

I've also tried an export to csv of data which looked OK . I don't know if it is possible to sum all the data being synced as another set of rows as I am assuming the 'Summary' is only for the individual computers using BitMeter on the network.

You should find that the 'Summary' tab will show the aggregate total from the main, sym-linked 'common' bitmeter.db database. That's how it works for me, anyway.

I honestly don't know how you would go about presenting the 'Summary' total as a separate set of rows on your multiple read-out.....your BitMeter tab is already looking rather crowded..!


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Hi again, David.

Reading through the CodeBox forums, I came across the statement (from Rob) that some people have found problems with using bmsync in 0.8.0, but that using 0.7.6 didn't give such problems.

So; I'm now wondering whether it might be worth re-setting everything up again, but this time with 0.7.6...

Need to sleep on this..!


Regards,

Mike.

[davids45]

G'day Mike,
I still have a few un-bit-metered Full Pups and plenty of Frugal Pups (bitmeter sfs?) so I will try the pet of 0.7.6 and see if it is easier in starting and sync-ing.
I expect that 0.7.6 can use the same .db file as 0.8?

var/log/bitmeter?
I have an occasional problem with running the 32-bit 0.8 pet because it did not set up the /var/log/bitmeter directory. mikeb noted this problem in one of his posts (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... &start=146).

Bitmeter in older Pups?
I continually find PAE Pups have random kernel panics in my 2GB RAM desktops and have just about decided PAE is dangerous when not needed (<4GB RAM). So I have quite a few old non-PAE Pups to check out BitMeter (and new non-PAE Pups where I can get them).
I just installed Geoffrey's 0.8 32-bit pet to this Full SnowPup-016 (kernel-2.6.35) and had to manually create the /var/log/bitmeter/ directory to use the stop-restart routine. Otherwise everything looks OK in this slightly older Pup.

Will give 0.7.6 a try on some Pups and report.

David S.

PS:
Tried just now the 32-bit 0.7.6 pet in a couple of older Pups which:
- did not create the /var/log/bitmeter directory,
- gave no prompt at installation for a link to an existing .db file, and
- I had to add "index.html" to the localhost address to see the monitor running.
So I'm thinking the 0.7.6-all32 pet I downloaded today is not an updated version with these thread-mentioned bugs fixed in it?

[Mike Walsh]

Hi David.

Can't find it at the moment (so as to give you a quote), but I was having a read through the BitMeter Forums last night.....and came across one interesting tit-bit of information.

I expect that 0.7.6 can use the same .db file as 0.8?

Apparently not. If you're using 0.7.6, you can update to 0.8.0 quite happily; the 'bitmeter.db' file gets updated from version7 to version8, and all carries on as normal.

However; if you want to revert to the older version from the newer version, BitMeter won't play ball. It won't revert to the older version database without a complete uninstall, and re-install. If you do that, don't forget to delete /var/lib/bitmeter before you re-install.

There is one way to revert to the older database; you'll need to send your bitmeter.db file to Rob Dawson, and he'll perform a switch on it for you. Or perhaps he could tell you what code would need changing...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you go down the re-install route, I suspect you'll also need to delete (or at least move) your bitmeter.db file in your common data partition, or folder....whichever you're using. You'll have to start from scratch; uninstall all instances of bitmeter from every PUP, then with the first re-install of the older version, reset up your sym-linked bitmeter.db (just how we did in the beginning).

I'm guessing that Geoffrey's 0.7.6 bitmeteros-allpups .pet will work fine once you have 0.7.6 installed for the first time.....if you notice, we don't have a 0.7.6 bitmeteros-i386.pet, do we? That being the case you may have to install the .deb version initially (just like I did), and add the xbitmeter.tar.gz that Geoff provided early in the thread to 'Startup', manually.

Doesn't really surprise me that the newest version got all the development work, and the older one was just tagged on almost as an afterthought! We're so conditioned to expecting the newest version of everything, almost before it's hit the shelves; I blame Windoze for that...you have to have the newest versions of everything for your own safety! Here in Puppy-land, it's not quite such a 'must-have'...

I'll be honest with you. I, personally, prefer the interface of the older version. I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to sym-link multiple instances of 0.7.6's bitmeter.db file, same as with the newer version. And I've got enough experience with this thing by now, that I think I've got a reasonable chance of making it work. I don't think the setup will care whether it's working with 0.7.6 or 0.8.0; the files have the same names. You just need to make sure that you rename the appropriate bitmeter.db.new file (in this case 0.7.6's) when you do the initial re-install.

And of course, remember to edit xbitmeter to include the sleep statement.....after you've added it manually..!

I'll be trying this at some point in the next few days; I'm not fussed about losing data, as I haven't built-up any great amount at the moment, so..... Watch this space.


Regards,

Mike.

[davids45]

G'day Mike,

Thanks for the reply re my initial tries with the version 0.7.6 pet.

Based on your information and my couple of 0.7.6 tests with older Pups, I don't see any reason to switch to 0.7.6 from 0.8 for Puppy.

We seem to have our 'improved' 0.8 running in Puppies now without dramas - do you have any more detail about those problems reported from elsewhere with 0.8 ? Were these with the Linux or the Windows BitMeter-0.8 version, for example?

(Perhaps luckily) I hadn't got as far as trying to manually link the 0.7.6 installs to my main ( 0.8 ) .db file because of the non-appearance of the which-.db-option-dialog-box and the other minor glitches, making me think the 0.7.6 .pet was not the right or latest 32-bit pet version.
[edit 19/6/2015 - found 0.7.6 ran as desired in Frugal Slacko-5.9.3 so the non-appearance etc may be due to the 'oldness' of the Pups first tried with 0.7.6.]

So I will hold off doing any more with 0.7.6 for the present.

David S.

[Mike Walsh]

G'day, David.

"0.8 running well; why change?"

Absolutely.....couldn't agree more. It's all down to personal preference. I always liked the simpler interface of 0.7.6; I guess I probably got used to it, over the 12 months or so it was in use.

Just for your information, I went ahead and performed the change-over that I mentioned in my last post. I've now got all my 'Pups' running 0.7.6, sym-linked to the common 'bitmeter.db' file; as I suspected, it works flawlessly.

I appreciate that you're 'managing' more machines on your network than I am. I only have the two; the 'big' Compaq desktop, and the elderly Dell laptop....which doesn't get that much use, to be honest. It's just nice to know that she is there, ready to work & do all I ask of her, if & when I need to.

That said, I know I was initially saying, further back in the thread, about wanting to be able to measure network transfers as well as internet downloads.....but I'm not doing much in the way of LAN transfers in recent weeks. And 'bmsync' works perfectly with 0.7.6, too; no annoying episodes of non-starting. I'm probably going to stick with it, for now; but that's not to say I may not switch back to 0.8.0 at some point in the future. We'll see..!

I have the requisite software, and the knowledge & experience to swap things round, now. This is what I love about Linux.....it's much easier to set up stuff like this than I ever found to be the case with Windows.

I'm just pleased that other folk have showed an interest in not only using it, but also in developing it further, so as to make it more versatile, and even more usable...

I'll have a dig around, and see if I can locate that forum post for you. I can't remember which OS was referred to, either.....


Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Just installed rg66's X-Slacko 2.3.2. I like XFCE.....always have. Have installed bitmeteros 0.8.0-all-32bit-pups .pet; working perfectly. First time I've tried the .pet with database installer; nicely clear, and very easy to use. Well done, Geoff!

Will add this to the OP 'working distros' list.


Regards,

Mike.

[Atle]

I would be able to contribute here.


Give me some days and I shall come up with a list of tweaks that can be done with firefox in order to make it a reversible near text only web browser.

When I use mobile internet i spend ten minutes to set up firefox in order to use less data than ANY other modern webbrowser including Opera Turbo.

I would totally agree there is a great need for such a OS based on Puppy

[april]

I just get a page all set up but with no activity anywhere . All zeros?
Puppy Precise 5.7.1

It now does not show any activity at all in Seamonkey browser.

I get the same result in Opera too

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, april.

Coo, it's nearly a year old, this thread of mine. I didn't honestly expect to see any more activity on it.

I can understand this would be useful to you; I've been following your thread about getting your broadband dongle auto-started. Useful things, dongles.....but if they're the pre-pay type, it's all too easy to use up all your credit without realising it.

The main way in which this is useful, of course, is that although most of the major network providers, and dongle manufacturers, do provide built-in software for checking your credit balance, such software is of course designed to work with Windoze.....not Linux. And although Huawei do provide what they call their 'Mobile Partner' software for Linux, I have never been able to get this to work.

So as long as you know what amount of data credit you've applied with your top-up, BitMeter just lets you keep an eye on the data usage. It's set to auto-start at boot, from /etc/init.d/bitmeter & /etc/init.d/bitmeterweb (which starts the browser interface, in much the same way that the CUPS web interface is started at boot.)

I'll give you one tip, here. If you're just running the one Puppy, I, personally, have always found the .deb package of the older, stable, 0.7.6 version, to run the best in Puppy. (Definitely in Precise, anyway, since it's 'buntu-based.) Unless you're actually using a home network, and want to keep an eye on local data usage between machines, there's no real point using 0.8.0. LAN usage doesn't tend to get counted as web usage by ISPs.

With it auto-started, simply enter 'localhost:2605/index.html' into the browser's address bar and hit enter, and the web interface should appear. I have it bookmarked, and it's always the first thing I open, before I start browsing.

Now; when you say you're getting all zeros, where, exactly?


Mike.

[april]

Thanks for that - Semme sent me , blame him.

I tried the stable pet but after download it would not start at all. I will try it again though as you suggest.

On my present install all the pages are zero . Its like a wire needs to be plugged in to get it to run.

Here is a screen shot

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, april.

Thanks for that - Semme sent me , blame him.

Hah! Ah, Semme's a good lad, really; his heart's in the right place. I'm not surprised he sent you here; there were only ever a handful of us at all closely involved in BitMeter's 'Puppification' process.....with some rather mixed results. To this day, I've no idea how many people have ever bothered to download it, and try it out... I'd used it in Ubuntu for about a year before I came over to Puppy full-time; it was stable, and was extremely useful. At the time, we had a monthly data 'cap' of just 10 GB, so I really needed to watch what I was doing. That subsequently increased to 20 GB / month, and we've since switched ISPs and have an unlimited plan. I don't really need to use it at all now, but I've reverted to the 'one Pup, one BM-OS' set-up I was using originally. The reasons I really started this thread were two-fold; I thought it was a very neat, small, self-contained app, that would be useful to a number of people, and was amenable to 'Puppification'; the other being that I badly wanted a way to have multiple Pups write to a single common database, so as to obtain a monthly running total across all Pups in the kennel.

We got that working, though I, personally, have never managed to keep 0.8.0 running for longer than a fortnight, tops. The sQLite database that Rob Dawson, its creator, used when he wrote it, seems ( in the 0.8.0 version) to very easily and spontaneously corrupt. Or it could be that it doesn't like being moved, and then sym-linked.....perhaps they really are that sensitive. The older 0.7.6, on the other hand, is absolutely rock-solid, and will just run indefinitely.

So; the famous 'NaN PB' problem has reared its ugly head again, has it? Hm. I never really got into the 'nuts'n'bolts' of what made it tick. Davids45, who's also in this thread, a few posts back, did. He really dug around in the thing's guts, 'cos he was at the time trying to get it working across a small home LAN of about 5 or 6 machines.....and he managed it, too! He also has rather more experience than me with regard to what the various errors are, and how to get it running again. I'm going to shoot him a line, and see if he can be persuaded to come in on this, and give you the benefit of his experience.

The only thing that I know for definite is that the 'NaN PB' error almost always indicates that data is not being written to the database. You can try this:-

In the terminal,

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/etc/init.d/ bitmeter restart
/etc/init.d/bitmeterweb restart

If all goes well, you'll get a message something along these lines:-

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# /etc/init.d/bitmeter restart
Stopping BitMeter Capture daemon: bmcapture.
Starting BitMeter Capture daemon: bmcapture.
# /etc/init.d/bitmeterweb restart
Stopping BitMeter Web Interface daemon.
Starting BitMeter Web Interface daemon: bmws.

Close your browser, re-open it, then open BitMeter's web interface again; touch wood, this time, it should be working. If not, come back to me with the results, and we'll get this to behave itself one way or another..! It's just a wee bit temperamental, although I cannot fault Rob Dawson's concept.....that of combining some of the existing Linux command-line tools with an extremely neat GUI, and some rather inspired lateral thinking.

To be fair, I doubt he ever envisaged it being 'hacked-about' in quite the way we did..! If you scan back through the thread, you'll find a few posts by Rob himself; I kept him informed as to what we were doing with BitMeterOS, through his own 'CodeBox' website, having originally sought his advice with one or two issues.

http://codebox.org.uk/pages


Mike.

[april]

Did that twice but it gave the responses indicated but the pages remained the same.
I may not be here shortly so thanks for the help anyway.

[perdido]

April,
FWIW, the bitmetros_0.7.6-i386.deb that I downloaded from http://codebox.org.uk/downloads/bitmeteros/linux has worked fine in precise5.7.1, might be worth a shot.

The address for the bitmetros info page on my system is http://localhost:2605/index.html

.

[davids45]

G'day april,

The data base file storing the activity of the browsers is in /var/lib/bitmeter/
and is called bitmeter.db.

Do you see it?

If not, stop bitmeter (enter in a terminal "./bitmeter stop" whilst in /etc/init.d/), then make a copy of bitmeter.db.new (which should be there too) and call it bitmeter.db - so you have a new .db file.
Then restart bitmeter via the terminal 'restart' script, and see if it now logs browser transfers.

You could now watch the bitmeter.db file in a Rox window which should indicate regular 'Scanning' and, if you are browsing, the .db file should slowly grow in size.

Another option could be delete the original bitmeter.db file if it was there and try a new one via the copying step.

I've 0.76 and 0.8 running OK in different Pups and with different browsers (seamonkey & chromium).

But, like Mike, I now have a good ISP package so that bitmeter is not essential in avoiding any download excess (despite visits of device-laden children and grandchildren). I just keep Bitmeter there for occasional interest.

If you have only one Pup (Precise-5.7.1?), hovering your mouse over the globe/monitor icon on the Task bar may pop up a meaningful download report of monthly ups-n-downs.

David S.

[april]

G'day april,

The data base file storing the activity of the browsers is in /var/lib/bitmeter/
and is called bitmeter.db.

Do you see it?

If not, stop bitmeter (enter in a terminal "./bitmeter stop" whilst in /etc/init.d/), then make a copy of bitmeter.db.new (which should be there too) and call it bitmeter.db - so you have a new .db file.
Then restart bitmeter via the terminal 'restart' script, and see if it now logs browser transfers.

You could now watch the bitmeter.db file in a Rox window which should indicate regular 'Scanning' and, if you are browsing, the .db file should slowly grow in size.

Another option could be delete the original bitmeter.db file if it was there and try a new one via the copying step.
David S.

It was there but was not changing and was from yesterday when I installed it so I deleted it and went looking for

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bitmeter.db.new (which should be there too) and call it bitmeter.db 

I could not find that
Thanks . Going to try above link