Woof CE Debian Stretch and Devuan Ascii Based Development

[OscarTalks]

Hi Sailor,
Yes, one of the major components of ndiswrapper is a kernel module so it always has to be compiled against the specific kernel version in a build. Not sure how this should be handled within the woof-CE config/specs. I see that some of the non-kernel ndiswrapper files are in there but of course these won't work without the appropriate module. Obviously without the full program you lose support for those wifi interfaces that don't have Linux drivers. I came across one of those once and ndiswrapper provided a solution. Always good to have it on board.

Latest ndiswrapper release is version 1.61 and the change log states "Added support for Linux kernels up to 4.8" so I presumed that it probably wouldn't compile in anything later. Highest of the LTS kernels under 4.8 was 4.4.x hence my choice. Next LTS up is 4.9.x which looked too high.

Hopefully most of the icons, desktop files, menu structure etc are all sorted out. Default theme is a lilac/purple which looks different but may not be to everybody's taste. Overall I think it is looking very promising. Let me know your thoughts if you get chance to give it a test run.

[fredx181]

In case anyone is interested I have uploaded my Dpup Stretch remaster.
This is NOT intended as an attempt at a release or anything like that.
....
This is just a personal derivative. Some elements are untested eg cups printing. Other versions of Dpup Stretch by other Puppy enthusiasts are available.
https://yadi.sk/d/nzC5YTU93MgVaf?force_show=1

Tried your dpup because of my interest in Debian and DPup development.
I must say, your version, it's really great !!

Why not official release ? IMO, there should be on every Puppy news page:
New Puppy Release:
Dpup Stretch by OscarTalks

Much talking I've seen about the future of Puppy and lack of developers.
Now, the best recent puppy is buried in a development thread, very few people know about.

Fred

[musher0]

Hello gang.

Just tested Oscar's variant.

Oscar did a fine job, and It's a good idea to include more than one media
player, people can choose the one they prefer or the one best suited for
the job. (vlc cannot sync the sound properly on some DVD's of old
European B&W movies or refuses to play some mp3's, for ex.)

But there are weaknesses in the DPup itself:

-- jwm is confused by the fact that I have a wide 1920x1080 screen
connected to a laptop with a 1280x920 screen.

The xrandr utility will let you select the wider screen and shut down the
laptop screen but you lose the icons at the far right.

Also, with jwm, when you click on the maximize button, the largest the
window gets is 1024x768.

This does not happen with the echinus or icewm WM's.

The moral of this story is: this DPupStretch should definitely come with an
alternative WM, whatever it is, that recognizes monitor dimensions right
off the bat and knows how to maximize a window properly.

-- The 4.4 kernel makes this old laptop as sluggish as molasses in winter.
You tick a box and the tick appears in the box 5 seconds later, for ex.
(Please see attached my lshw short hardware report.)

So sincere congratulations to OscarTalks,

but to jwm and the 4.4 kernel... not so much.

IHTH

[Smithy]

Hello OscarTalks.
I am trying out the new Debian Stretch.
Well it booted up nicely and quickly.

The usual shenannigans with multiple sound cards and puppy.
But everything seems great!

Just one thing. I can't get Qjackctl to run.
Updated the puppy package manager and let it install all the debs it needed. But each time I try to run Jack,
the machine crashes and I have to hit ctrl/alt/backspace =xwin again.

Qtractor also complains that the jack server won't run.

I've not tried a new puppy for ages, but if this is what can be produced from the woof factory, then all is well and good.

[OscarTalks]

Now, the best recent puppy is buried in a development thread, very few people know about.

Thanks for testing and for the really kind comments, Fred.
Although I don't feel qualified to propose a release on my own I certainly would like to see a Dpup Stretch available for people to play around with. My remaster is taking shape quite nicely but I am still finding some things that need correcting and certain features that I don't personally normally use need testing as well. The other day I found that psync is not working because of a missing libcrypto version (symlink) so I will be fixing that.

I am not a fan of GTK+3 but the way things are with the latest browsers I feel that we have reached a point where it needs to be included.

[OscarTalks]

Just tested Oscar's variant.

Thanks for taking a look, musher0.
Personally I haven't had any problems with jwm, but I wonder if the issue you have observed is the same as the one described in the thread here:-
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=111461
If so it looks like the problem is 2 different "screens" loaded and the solution is a configuration tweak.

Since IceWM can be installed via PPM I guess that is an option for people who want an alternative. You have obviously done a lot of tinkering with this so I was wondering, is there not quite a lot of work involved in setting up configs for the main menu and other stuff? The fixmenus script used to update icewm as well as jwm but I think all that has gone now. Wouldn't all this have to be resolved if we were to include icewm in the main distro?

Regarding the kernel, the 4.4.87 build was HIGHLY experimental so I don't expect to stick with it. I feel that it must be something later than 3.17 so the LTS 3.16 is no good. The 3.18 series is listed as End Of Life but an update was released the other day as 3.18.71 but I tried compiling it and found that it was freezing up so I had to ditch it.

I was wondering if you tested the 4.1.38 kernel in that same hardware and found that it ran OK?
If so the best option may be to stick with that for now.
Apart from the 3.18.71 they have all worked OK on the hardware that I have tried.
I built 4.13.2 as well and that seems satisfactory here.
The ndiswrapper from github compiles because of a recent new commit.
The multiple [bioset] processes are gone which looks like something has been fixed.

[OscarTalks]

Just one thing. I can't get Qjackctl to run.

Hello Smithy,
Thanks for testing.
Not sure about Qjackctl. I remember compiling it once ages ago in Wheezy I think but never really used it at all.
I have included some Qt libs in the distro, these are needed by SMPlayer and Transmission 2.92 but they are official Debian so shouldn't cause any conflicts with Qjackctl if installed from PPM. That is the only idea that springs to mind though. If I get a chance to test this out I will report back.

As for multiple sound cards, they can sometimes be a bit fiddly, but I was recently experimenting with switching my main audio output from the main motherboard to the HDMI port of an nvidia card and I actually found that the latest version of the wizard worked perfectly, once I figured out which of the available options was the correct one.

[Sailor Enceladus]

Regarding the kernel, the 4.4.87 build was HIGHLY experimental so I don't expect to stick with it. I feel that it must be something later than 3.17 so the LTS 3.16 is no good. The 3.18 series is listed as End Of Life but an update was released the other day as 3.18.71 but I tried compiling it and found that it was freezing up so I had to ditch it.

I was wondering if you tested the 4.1.38 kernel in that same hardware and found that it ran OK?
If so the best option may be to stick with that for now.
Apart from the 3.18.71 they have all worked OK on the hardware that I have tried.
I built 4.13.2 as well and that seems satisfactory here.
The ndiswrapper from github compiles because of a recent new commit.
The multiple [bioset] processes are gone which looks like something has been fixed.

Hi OscarTalks,

I haven't had any freezing with 3.18.69 in Slacko 5.7 and am compiling 3.18.71 now for it too. Just curious which config file you used to make 3.18.71 in dpup stretch? I used the one from here, then just changed the filename from 3.18.22 to 3.18.71:

https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... figs_extra

Perhaps a few parameters in it could be updated though? Yes it's nice that 3.18 is still being maintained despite it saying EOL.

Since IceWM can be installed via PPM I guess that is an option for people who want an alternative. You have obviously done a lot of tinkering with this so I was wondering, is there not quite a lot of work involved in setting up configs for the main menu and other stuff? The fixmenus script used to update icewm as well as jwm but I think all that has gone now. Wouldn't all this have to be resolved if we were to include icewm in the main distro?

I think a light alternative to jwm would be great too (ie. lighter than lxde). In Puppy 420 I remember you could select icewm or jwm. musher0 seems to have a lot of great ideas. If you guys get icewm working or another other light wm in dpup feel free to post your findings, I might try this later too. jwm 2.x has a big hiccup preventing me from wanting to keep using dpup woof-ce.

[OscarTalks]

Hi Sailor,
I used the 3.16.43 config as it was the closest one in the testing branch kernel kit.
I might give the one you suggested a try as I would quite like to roll back to 3.18.x or at least have that as a nonPAE option.
I am new to compiling kernels but I have to say the config situation is rather concerning. There are so many options, it would take hours to go through them all even if I understood what they all are, which sadly I don't. We kind of have to assume that the ones we have are close enough, but I presume new options creep in with the updates from time to time.

I have never experienced a problem with jwm. The big hiccup you mentioned is a strange one. If you suspect it may be a clash combination with the intel graphics driver, one test might be to use xorgwizard to switch to the modesetting driver and see if it still happens.

[musher0]

Hello OscarTalsk, Sailor and all.

About the icewm menu, I have a working prototype here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 808#966527

You may want to look at the script, maybe improve it a bit, but it works fine
as is. Requires the replaceit utility for fine-tuning of sub-menu titles. With
this script you don't need any xdg-template.

The script Is well commented, I think. If you have any questions, just ask.
I've included some screen captures.

About icewm, you may be interested to know that there is a continuation /
revival of it on github: https://github.com/bbidulock/icewm
I know the new icewm is also part of Médor's Toutou-Slaxen. (French Puppy
based on a recent Slacko).

I can provide my compilation if you like -- complete with the above menu.
It's the one I use on my multi-WM Stretch.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... ost#947366
The repo for it is here: (Thanks to forum member augras)
http://augras.eu/documents/ws-default/Dpup_Stretch

About kernels, this DPupStretch-7fr is available with a choice of 3.14.79,
3.16.43 and 4.1.38 kernels. (In the "ISOs" section in the augras repo.)
All three run fine on my old machine.

BFN.

[Smithy]

OscarTalks wrote:
"Not sure about Qjackctl. I remember compiling it once ages ago in Wheezy I think but never really used it at all.
I have included some Qt libs in the distro, these are needed by SMPlayer and Transmission 2.92 but they are official Debian so shouldn't cause any conflicts with Qjackctl if installed from PPM. That is the only idea that springs to mind though. If I get a chance to test this out I will report back."

And very fine it was (and is) in Wheezy
To save you time OscarTalks, I tried the ISO by recobayu,
and that has the same problem with Jack.
so I guess it's not your QT libs that you added to your distro.
A few Stretch marks..

[OscarTalks]

Hi Smithy,

I have compiled jack audio connection kit 0.125.0 and qjackctl 0.4.5
Since I already have the Qt libs I thought I would try adding these to my remaster as they are not all that big and they add to the functionality. If you would like to test it I have uploaded the modified .iso to the yandex storage site.
https://yadi.sk/d/nzC5YTU93MgVaf?force_show=1
Menu entry in the Multimedia section or qjackctl in terminal.
This now has kernel 4.13.2 which is still highly experimental

[Smithy]

Great, thanks OscarTalks, will give it a good test and see how it holds up.
If you have a pet available, that would be good too, just to see the structure. No problem if you don't want to make that available. Cheers.
Something flashed by on the bootup on the new iso version., a load of 000000's I think, don't know what it was but it got to the desktop ok.

[OscarTalks]

Hello Smithy,

I have uploaded the .pets to the same place in yandex disk.
I might not leave them there for ever so feel free to grab them to take a look or experiment with them.
https://yadi.sk/d/nzC5YTU93MgVaf?force_show=1
The qjackctl .pet does need the Qt libs (which are in my test distro) and contains the language support translation files which I left out.
The jack-audio-connection-kit is jack1

I think the reason why the PPM installation fails may be because there is a mixture of jack1 and jack2 libs in the distro build. Anyway, my attempted solution does run. Let me know if it works as it should.

[Smithy]

Thanks Oscar will pick them up.
It seems to be working well with Qtractor at 256 periods, but lower than that it is giving off massive xruns.
Whether that is the kernel or the libs routing or Irq threading I don't know. I set the cpus to performance mode but no difference.
The Jack you made is working well, but just not at the benchmark 128 periods for most puppies. Jack 1, Jack 2, why can't they make their mind up and just do Jack lol.

[B.K. Johnson]

Hello OscarTalks.
Thanks for the ISO. I installed to a CD then USB; both booted to the desktop without issue. The Grub4Dos menu did not show the options presented when booting from the CD. Perhaps they are available in the Advanced menu.lst which i did not check.
ndiswrapper works ok.
Did not like that there was only 1 virtual display panel but that's now resolved via Menu.
Missed the pmount icon in the notification area as in most puppies and saw no way to implement one in Menu. pMount from Menu worked OK, but it's not the same.
pcman is definitely not my favourite file-manager.

Just a short spin, a very good effort. The negatives are just personal choices.
I'll continue now and then to run it and report.

[foxpup]

In case anyone is interested I have uploaded my Dpup Stretch remaster.
This is NOT intended as an attempt at a release or anything like that.

I installed it on 2 machines: a new i5/win10 machine and a dualcore, y2008 and it works very well on both.
I had to get used to the lilac theme at first, but now I like it. I changed to a blue theme on one machine. The image is very clear and text is easy to read. It's all tastfull and nice looking.
For the old machine I compiled the latest 304 nvidia driver with getnvidia.

I had to throw in iwlwifi-7265D-19.ucode for the new machine.

Has anyone managed to get the auto-connect of ethernet at first boot to work?

On both machines the auto-connect to internet with SNS works on next boots when installed on first boot. On some puppies I have to put rc.network in ~/Startup, but not here.
On the new machine I have indicator lights for shiftlock and numeric lock. They don't work ootb. I had to add "modprobe input-leds" in /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

Regarding the kernel,

I have an opinion too. 4.4 is very good, since it runs on both my machines. I also tried the DpupStretch from ttuuxxx with a 4.1 kernel. It's fine too. For my new machine however, I would be interested in a kernel >=4.5 because it is an Optimus machine and there should be better support for this with kernel 4.5 and later. I did not try it out yet however.

I built 4.13.2 as well and that seems satisfactory here.

Where can I find this? Or can I just take a kernel from any other puppy (let's say LxPupSc) and switch kernels?
Or can I build it in woofCE or with makepup? (Haven't tried these, but might take up the challenge if I knew it is a possibility.)
I will also try this dpup on an old y2000 P3 to see what works.
For an official release I would recommend 2 versions, one with an older and one with a recent kernel.

The choice of apps is very good and rich (enough). I will explore some more.

I have to agree with fredx181: You may not intend this to be a release, but it would be a very strong one!!!

[OscarTalks]

I installed to a CD then USB

Hello B.K.,
Thanks for testing. Glad most of it seems to be working reasonably well. Especially pleased to know that ndiswrapper works because I wanted to make sure that I included it. Wasn't quite sure what you meant about pmount. PCmanFM is put there by the woof-CE build and I didn't try to remove it, even though I only use ROX myself. As you say, most of the options are just personal choices which are easy to re-configure as the user wishes.

[OscarTalks]

I installed it on 2 machines

Hello foxpup,
Thanks for the report. The theme is unconventional but I quite like it now too.
I did change the uploaded .iso the other day to include the 4.13.2 kernel so not sure which one you have. If you have the 4.4.87 then you might want to grab it again to extract the 4.13.2 vmlinuz and zdrv and try switching them. I haven't uploaded the kernel separately anywhere because I am rather unsure and inexperienced with such things. My kernels are built in woof-CE kernel kit using the closest available config file version number.

Peebee has some kernel builds which may be better. I believe his normally require a firmware fdrv which is easy to do. Mine have the firmware in the zdrv. There are reports that there has been a change in kernel 4.13.x which affects cpu frequency scaling in Puppy so this is something to be aware of.

[B.K. Johnson]

@OscarTalks
B.K. Johnson wrote:

Missed the pmount icon in the notification area as in most puppies

OscarTalks wrote:

Wasn't quite sure what you meant about pmount.

Misnomer. I meant the PartView icon which on click gives the size/free storage for each inserted storage device. Did I miss i? Is it select-able from Menu?
Update/Correction
The PartView icon is indeed visible. Sorry for the false alarm.