dCoreDog (uses Ubuntu Xenial Xerus 32 bit repositories)

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mcewanw
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dCoreDog (uses Ubuntu Xenial Xerus 32 bit repositories)

#1 Post by mcewanw »

Introduction

Since my HowTo dCore-xenial has become a project in which I've now started to "Puppify" the distribution (tailoring it to be able to use selected Puppy/DebianDog utility apps), I'm here now creating a general discussion/planning/bug-fixing thread for it in line with other "Puppified" distributions.

Distribution name dCoreDog (current edition "dCoreDog-xenial").

(All credit and thanks particularly to the tinycore linux team and contributors at http://tinycorelinux.net but also to the Puppy/DebianDog systems and utilities/applications developers)

It's a "Dog" since it has access to full Ubuntu repositories (note well: NOT dpkg/apt-based), including dependency checking package management, but is also being Puppified in the sense of providing ability to use Puppy and DebianDog gtkdialog-bash utilities (starting with weX and weav).

Opening this actual Project thread allows me to more easily keep track of the HowTo developments by means of a menu of links I'll put here to different and new parts of the work: most of that now being "tidying up" and "Puppifying" issues.

I've been using tinycore in somewhat puppified fashion since my early Puppy days but only ever published scant info in "Other distributions" thread. However, there is now a well-established fashion for mongrel Dogs in the kennels... wanderer's yet to be released "corepup" being another but completely separate tinycore variant being worked upon:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 231#923231

I don't plan to release any iso for dCoreDog since that would defeat the purpose of the building blocks approach IMO. The release will therefore continue to be provided as a HowTo series of steps (which, is how I remember wanderer first planned to detail corepup, but from what he writes he is now working on corepup privately with a planned polished package release).

Being built via a list of HowTo steps, dCoreDog can be easily modified/adapted by the system builder. In that form it should be somewhat future-proofed since easy to adapt to new/different tinycore development team dCore releases.


CONTENTS

1. Building the basic distribution; including webbrowser/wifi (STEPS 1 to 19):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 635#946635

2. Adding alsa/pulse-audio and audio/video player (STEP 20):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 636#946636

The above two items (steps 1 to 20), which take about ten minutes, are enough to get the system basically working with wifi connection, firefox browser, sound system, and mpv audio/video playing. The rest is just Puppifying, and polishing:

3. (Optional STEP). Adding simple C-programming capability with build-essentials (STEP 21):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 637#946637

4. Adding locales and additional non-official-Ubuntu repositories, with examples for cherrytree notetaker and minetest game (STEPS 22/23):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 638#946638

5. Puppifying the distribution. Starting with gtkdialog, bash, and DebianDog/Puppy gtkdialog-bash programs "weX" and "weav" (STEPS 24 to 31)

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 639#946639

6. Some tips and polish. Converting a tcz to an sce; installing flit, a small, ultra-efficient panel, with battery monitor, volume control, and clock/date (STEPS 32 to 35):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 589#949589

7. Further polishing. Install ntfs-3g to allow dCore to write to ntfs partitions (or boot from ntfs if all files later copied over to ntfs filesystem) since can otherwise only read from them; associate applications with file types in fluff filemanager (STEPS 36 and 37):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 590#949590

William
Last edited by mcewanw on Sun 02 Apr 2017, 09:05, edited 22 times in total.
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#2 Post by mcewanw »

Reserved for possible future additions
Last edited by mcewanw on Mon 27 Mar 2017, 21:29, edited 1 time in total.
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#3 Post by mcewanw »

Reserved for possible future additions
Last edited by mcewanw on Mon 27 Mar 2017, 21:29, edited 1 time in total.
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#4 Post by mcewanw »

Reserved for possible future additions
Last edited by mcewanw on Mon 27 Mar 2017, 21:29, edited 1 time in total.
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#5 Post by mcewanw »

Reserved for possible future additions
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backi
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#6 Post by backi »

Hi !

Sounds quite exiting !

mcewanw
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#7 Post by mcewanw »

backi wrote:Hi !

Sounds quite exiting !
Hi backi,

It is!
(exciting)

;-)

William
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wanderer
Posts: 1098
Joined: Sat 20 Oct 2007, 23:17

#8 Post by wanderer »

hi mcewanw

yes very exciting

following your awesome project as best i can

i will continue with my humble attempt of course

but i really consider what you are doing to be the point of the spear

thanks for all your work

best regards

wanderer

mcewanw
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#9 Post by mcewanw »

Thanks, wanderer.

I didn't actually intend developing this as much as I have done. But once it became the main distribution I found myself using (in parallel with XenialDog) it became important for me to start developing it further to allow me to enjoy using it comfortably.

Your corepup project, despite being based on tiny core, is very different in many respects anyway since, from aside from using CorePlus, from what I understand from what you have described, you are additionally modifying tc core scripts for added functionality. Corepup sounds like it will be a nice distribution to experiment with.

I'm not myself planning any changes to standard dCore scripts in dCoreDog (aside from the ones that have already officially occurred following my requests/declared-issues on the tinycore linux forum itself). Really dCoreDog is bog-standard tinycore dCore, albeit specially 'tailored' with gtkdialog-bash-Puppy-utils-capability. Particularly with dCore (since it uses official Debian/Ubuntu repositories) I think it is important not to change its underlying operation at all - so update command, for example, works as expected, and so on. So dCoreDog is pure dCore - the HowTo is just a description of how to build it and add stuff needed for Puppy utils, to make it more Puppy-like and familiar.

William
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mcewanw
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#10 Post by mcewanw »

6. Some tips and polish. Converting a tcz to an sce; installing flit, a small, ultra-efficient panel, with battery monitor, volume control, and clock/date (STEPS 32 to 35):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 589#949589
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Installing ntfs-3g and associating files in fluff filemanage

#11 Post by mcewanw »

Added today:

7. Further polishing. Install ntfs-3g to allow dCore to write to ntfs partitions since can otherwise only read from them; associate applications with file types in fluff filemanager (STEPS 36 and 37):

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 590#949590

William
github mcewanw

westwest
Posts: 72
Joined: Fri 10 Apr 2015, 04:32

B43 drivers

#12 Post by westwest »

I would like to try out dCoreDog,
but my old Lenovo requires B43 drivers for wifi.
How can I make those available for install?

mcewanw
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Re: B43 drivers

#13 Post by mcewanw »

westwest wrote:I would like to try out dCoreDog,
but my old Lenovo requires B43 drivers for wifi.
How can I make those available for install?
Hi westwest,

I presume you have tried installing to your old Lenovo. You only need to complete steps 1 to 6 of the HowTo to know if wireless is working successfully. I presume you followed the steps exactly and downloaded wireless-4.2.9-tinycore.sce (the big set of firmware/drivers) and wireless.sce. I'm surprised that B43 doesn't work out of the box, but I don't have hardware to test it on.

dCoreDog is pure tinycore dCore. The only 'unusual' thing I'm doing is to try and Puppify it by including gtkdialog and get some Puppy gtkdialog-bash apps/utils working on it. Best place to get answers for underlying firmware issues is on the tiny core forum where someone may have same hardware (i.e. need B43).

So I suggest you create a login account at that forum and search for an answer there.

However, I have myself done a quick search and maybe one of the following will help you:

The first link below suggests to me that B43 driver should be present and working if you followed the HowTo steps 1 to 6 accurately. You haven't said if you did so. You would certainly need to provide more details of what you have tried and results etc. Hopefully the first two links below will provide enough info to fix your issue.

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.ph ... #msg122725

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.ph ... #msg118203

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.ph ... #msg127161

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.ph ... l#msg98699

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.ph ... #msg114651

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.ph ... l#msg27494

http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43/

If you find from the above or elsewhere, the exact driver you need and only find a tcz extension version (which seems unlikely to me) then I can certainly help you change the package to sce form suitable for dCore loading.

I note that wireless-4.2.9-tinycore.sce at least contains Broadcom (bdcm):

BCM2033-FW.bin; BCM2033-MD.hex; bcm43xx-0.fw; bcm43xx_hdr-0.fw

You should be able to find wifi firmware info about your system from any other working Linux from a terminal with the command:

Code: Select all

lspci -vnn
of broadcom vendor specific:

Code: Select all

lspci -vnn -d 14e4:
Let me know how you go.

Cheers, William
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mcewanw
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Fixed a few missing bits...

#14 Post by mcewanw »

Modified some of the following because I had forgotten to detail some extra dependencies required for wexweavscrox (gettext and ffmpeg) and also needed to add /bin/bash as a valid login shell to /etc/shells:

5. Puppifying the distribution. Starting with gtkdialog, bash, and DebianDog/Puppy gtkdialog-bash programs "weX" and "weav" (STEPS 24 to 31)

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 639#946639
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westwest
Posts: 72
Joined: Fri 10 Apr 2015, 04:32

B43 wifi driver

#15 Post by westwest »

Thanks William,

lspci -vnn informs me that bcmr4312 is active in tahrpup.

Steps 1-6 and 7 followed to the letter without a hitch.
Step 8 returns: error=-11, firmware file b43/ucode15.fw request failed, etc.
Further, sudo wifi.sh returns no wireless present.

Normally when this happens in other linux distros,
i can add folder usr/lib/firmware/b43/(drivers from tahrpup or other),
reboot and voila. This time, no go.

I will try with wifi.tcz and wl-modules loaded, blacklisting b43,
and report back.

mcewanw
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Re: B43 wifi driver

#16 Post by mcewanw »

westwest wrote: I will try with wifi.tcz and wl-modules loaded, blacklisting b43,
and report back.
If no luck, maybe worth posting the wifi related part of command

Code: Select all

dmesg
which should show what firmware is not being found I expect.

and also check wifi interface with:

Code: Select all

iwconfig
and read carefully through these tinycore forum links I posted since answer may well be in there somewhere...

William
github mcewanw

westwest
Posts: 72
Joined: Fri 10 Apr 2015, 04:32

B43 driver

#17 Post by westwest »

All attempts to load various tcz's failed.
Message about missing B43-ucode gone, but only because of blacklisting.
Scoured the tinycore forums for clearer (to me) instructions, no luck.

dmesg returns dozens of lines flashing by and gone.
iwconfig confirms "no wireless device" accross the board.

All the same, thanks for your help.

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Re: B43 driver

#18 Post by mcewanw »

westwest wrote:All attempts to load various tcz's failed.
Message about missing B43-ucode gone, but only because of blacklisting.
Scoured the tinycore forums for clearer (to me) instructions, no luck.

dmesg returns dozens of lines flashing by and gone.
iwconfig confirms "no wireless device" accross the board.

All the same, thanks for your help.
Sorry to hear that westwest. I'm sure there would be a solution, but sometimes takes a lot of effort and not always worth it since so many distributions out there now.

I doubted blacklisting would work, but thought maybe one of the other firmwares mentioned in tiny core threads or the fw-cutter some of them mentioned. I guess bcom firmware code is proprietry rather than open-source drivers, hence all the fluffing around required.

As small puppylike distributions go, I'd recommend XenialDog32 as worth a try. That's what I use when not using dCore-xenial - or an earlier DebianDog if very old, slow hardware. Not sure how it stands with broadcom, but the XenialDog forum thread (under Puppy Projects) may have someone who has dealt with that.

William
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johnywhy
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#19 Post by johnywhy »

Greetings, i'm LazyDog,

Is there an ISO for dCoreDog?

thx!
[b]Now[/b]: X-Tahr 2.0! StretchDog! DevuanDog!
[b]Tops[/b]: TarhNOP Vlina-R2 Racy
[b]Used[/b]: Puppeee Precise Lucid Wary Tahrpup Quirky Slacko MacPup Saluki Puppy Studio LxPupTarh Lina-Lite Lina
[i]i ♥ Puppy[/i]

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#20 Post by mcewanw »

johnywhy wrote:Greetings, i'm LazyDog,

Is there an ISO for dCoreDog?

thx!
I haven't made an iso of it sorry. It is meant to be built step by step as per the howto. The way dCore works doesn't really lend itself to an iso in the sense that each application is self-contained as an sce (squashed filesystem) so media-storage space tends to be large for large number of apps. However, RAM use remains very efficient since though duplicated libs and dependencies in each squashfs, only one copy of used ones gets loaded into RAM.
Also the individual deps only get downloaded from repositories once and used in building each individual dCore sce.

No doubt an iso could be made, but I have no such plans and I'm not sure of tiny core team licensing policy in terms of distribution in that form.

Only takes 10 to 20 minutes to complete the first 19 steps of the howto, which gets you wireless connection as well as firefox. If you want to make an iso of that, go ahead! :-)

William
github mcewanw

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