BionicDog (updated: 2018-06-04)

[zaivala]

I have revisited my Puppy partition. When I fixed the boot using grub-configure under Ubuntu Mate (new install), it turns out that the ONLY thing Bionic Dog did was mess over my GRUB. There is no installation of Bionic on the partition requested, it still contains a working install of XenialPup 64. Which means it did not format that partition as requested, and only *claimed* to install Bionic. Any chance someone wants to tell me how to fix this? Bionic *looks* more like what I want to be using, but not if I have to reinstall Ubuntu MATE and fix the bootloader every time I try it.

Sorry to hear that, well, yes if you used the Bionicdog installer and chose a bootloader, e.g. grub4dos or extlinux, the GRUB (GRUB2 ?) bootloader will be overwritten.
Did you do a frugal install or a full install ?
I'd recommend a frugal install and if you don't want existing bootloader to be overwritten, just click Cancel at the point of chosing the bootloader (and then manually create entry in grub.cfg (if GRUB2).
After install there should be a "casper" directory on the root of the partition, no ?

EDIT: I didn't know yet about the sneekylinux review, thanks.
Here's the link for anyone who wants to watch it:
https://youtu.be/r9fuNL3gPMQ

EDIT2: Embedded sneekylinux review on the Bionicdog webpage now.
(Bionicdog is mostly approved by sneekylinux, nice ! )
https://debiandog.github.io/doglinux/zz ... icdog.html
Fred

As stated, the odd thing was that the bootloader was overwritten, but nothing on the selected partition was. I selected the partition, asked for it to be formatted and written with Bionic Dog, and (after repairing Grub), it has no BD but rather still retains XenialPup64... So I went through an entire installation, and got nothing but a dicked up Grub. I really had high hopes for Bionic, as it easily fixes a problem in XenialPup which escapes me (shutting off the laptop monitor when using an external)

Sorry I didn't ready Page 1 of a 15-page forum to see that I needed to add firmware, and I'm wondering (without reading it) why, after this amount of time, you haven't fixed it by adding said firmware into the iso. You could also have fixed it by (as I suggested) perhaps including 2 or 3 other methods (frequently included in other Puppies) to attach to your wifi or other Network host.

[edited to add] OK, I read the first post. Question: How am I supposed to download the SFS file that fixes Peasy WiFi when I don't have wifi? Again, needs to be included in the iso.

[backi]

Hi zaivala !

It is not quite clear if you tried to accomplish a frugal (which is the preferred Method ) or a full Install .
Also please report the boot Method which you like to prefer .
For frugal Install best just extract the Iso ----and copy the casper Folder manually to /----(root) or into a appropriately named (Sub)Folder (on / ---root)) and prepare your grub (or maybe Grub4Dos )manually with appropriate path to your casper Folder .
Please get familiar with boot methods :
Have a look here :
https://github.com/DebianDog/xenialdog/ ... rteus-boot

For 32 bit Repos go here :

https://fredx181.github.io/bionicdog/Pa ... 386/Extra/
https://fredx181.github.io/bionicdog/Packages-i386/

64 Bit Repo go Here :
https://fredx181.github.io/bionicdog/Pa ... 386/Extra/
https://fredx181.github.io/bionicdog/Packages-amd64/

Regards !

[wiak]

Sorry I didn't ready Page 1 of a 15-page forum to see that I needed to add firmware, and I'm wondering (without reading it) why, after this amount of time, you haven't fixed it by adding said firmware into the iso. You could also have fixed it by (as I suggested) perhaps including 2 or 3 other methods (frequently included in other Puppies) to attach to your wifi or other Network host.

[edited to add] OK, I read the first post. Question: How am I supposed to download the SFS file that fixes Peasy WiFi when I don't have wifi? Again, needs to be included in the iso.

Hello zaivala,

Pups and Dogs are cut-down distributions by design. It is very rare indeed (if ever) that any purposively cut-down distribution would include all possible firmware. Sometimes ones' such distributions happens to have the firmware inbuilt for our particular machine, sometimes it doesn't and we have to somehow add it. BionicDog provides that additional firmware squashfs. I don't know what device you are using to post to this thread, or what device you use to download BionicDog or XenialPup in the first place - but whatever that was you can simply use it again to download the firmware SFS.

As for your request for multiple wifi managers... again, this is a cut-down distribution. I know that Puppy itself does provide several such wifi managers but personally I wouldn't want that extra bloat on my own pristine dog. Fact is, I am familiar with many wifi managers and doubt greatly that any other (such as frisbee) would do better than PeasyWifi by design. The issue is much more likely to be that of missing wifi-related firmware.

wiak

[fredx181]

I selected the partition, asked for it to be formatted and written with Bionic Dog, and (after repairing Grub), it has no BD but rather still retains XenialPup64...

It's still not clear to me if you did a full or frugal install.
If you did a frugal install, the installer doesn't ask "to be formatted" the partition, it just copies the casper folder from selected ISO and installs the bootloader (if not canceled that part), again I ask: no "casper" folder you see ? Or did you do full install ? In that case there should be no Xenialpup folder anymore because the partition is wiped and should contain the full filesystem after install.

Fred

[rcrsn51]

@zaivala: Just to be clear, installing the firmware package doesn't fix PeasyWiFi - it fixes the driver for your WiFi adapter. Until you have that fixed, NO OTHER WiFi connection tool will work.

You can download the firmware package using another Linux, just like you did with the BionicDog ISO. Then insert it into your BionicDog install.

[stemsee]

Question: How am I supposed to download the SFS file that fixes Peasy WiFi when I don't have wifi? Again, needs to be included in the iso.

Well, how then did you download the iso?? ah ha ... should be able to find firmware elsewhere on your system!

Same problem here with really common realtek firmware. I know keeping size down is a priority, but newcomers will be put off. Ditto for soundcard setup. I believe that alsactl is not being applied after changing soundcard in alsamixer.

Apart from that truly excellent system.

[rcrsn51]

Ditto for soundcard setup. I believe that alsactl is not being applied after changing soundcard in alsamixer.

I gave you two solutions to your multiple sound card issue and you haven't commented on either of them.

The way to switch sound cards is through ~/.asoundrc, as already discussed.

BTW, if you want more system-type tools available OOTB, you should look at the Stretch-Live Starter Kit. It also has more WiFi firmware built-in.

[stemsee]

Hi rcrsn51

I have got a few things distracting me ... but yes I applied your solution to .asoundrc and alsamixer starts fine now. Thanks.

I routinely adopt the newbies perspective when things don''t work as expected from the outset ... of course I appreciate the excellent work put in to making this distro smooth, and in fact I know how to get things working, but at times it does seem to be for the expert rather than the novice type of distro, who could just be satisfied with Mint! Nothing wrong with that, of course, either, in fact it should be applauded. But sound and wifi are paramount for the vast majority of any platform users ... ! And those areas definetely need a rethink in how the available resources are advertised and made available!! But actually not a big deal ... but being British, we are programmed to complain!!!

No apologies for being selfish, lazy and honest!

cheers
stemsee

[fredx181]

Hi stemsee, next ISO release will have sound-card-selector included. About the firmware, I'm not sure, the ISO will grow to 400MB then, which can not be considered small anymore.

Any other suggestions to change for making it less "being for the expert" ? I won't see it as complaints

Fred

[wiak]

Deb packages for gtkwialog released. Details at:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 900#993900

Developed on XenialDog 32bit and 64bit systems. Should work fine on Bionic too. Install to /usr/bin.

Hope the deb packages are okay. A couple of simple test programs available at post 4 of that thread. Let me know if all okay.

Have created repository for Gtkdialog at Debian Dog Organization github site. I am currently working on tidying up the source code prior to uploading there.

wiak

[zaivala]

Question: How am I supposed to download the SFS file that fixes Peasy WiFi when I don't have wifi? Again, needs to be included in the iso.

Well, how then did you download the iso?? ah ha ... should be able to find firmware elsewhere on your system!

Same problem here with really common realtek firmware. I know keeping size down is a priority, but newcomers will be put off. Ditto for soundcard setup. I believe that alsactl is not being applied after changing soundcard in alsamixer.

Apart from that truly excellent system.

Downloading the ISO and writing it to a CD is easy. Including an extra SFS file, not so much, unless IT'S IN THE ISO.

[backi]

Hi !

Downloading the ISO and writing it to a CD is easy. Including an extra SFS file, not so much, unless IT'S IN THE ISO.

Sure !
So much is clear ....it seems you managed to download the the Iso somehow ....so you could download the Firmware (e.g. for WiFi ) https://github.com/fredx181/bionicdog/r ... e.squashfs
too .
But why not install the casper Folder extracted from Iso frugally on a Usb Stick or Hard-Drive and place the https://github.com/fredx181/bionicdog/r ... e.squashfs
inside the casper Folder -----so it will be loaded automatically during boot .

Don`t you know how to set up Bionic Dog frugally ?????..you leave me quite confused .

[zagreb999]

regards fred

400 mb is not too much...
but, can you add okular and vlc gtk versions?
-----------------------------------
is it possible to make frisbee that works
in bionic as in debiandogs?

any repositories as in ddogs?

--------------
thank you!

[stemsee]

Here zagreb999

Be the first to try my Wifi-TrayNet (with Wifi-Scanner ... multi-interface).
I made this .deb on BionicDog. As an alternative to the excellent peasywifi, which has very reliable performance and features once you get past the short learning curve.

stemsee

[fredx181]

@wiak

Deb packages for gtkwialog released....

Thanks, they are fine, added to Stretch, Xenial and Bionic custom repos now.
Installed on Stretch, created symlink in /usr/bin, gtkdialog > gtkwialog and tested some applications like pburn and pfind, and working fine without altering, compatibility is nice option you added to gtkwialog.

Just a little bit thinking about the future, would it be good to add symlink gtkdialog > gtkwialog inside the package ? BTW, there's also gtkdialog3, a lot of scripts have that.
Again, just some thoughts, no idea how to handle things yet, just dreaming a bit about that maybe once sh will be symlink to dash in the Dogs.... (which would be nice, but not a must of course).

@zagreb

can you add okular and vlc gtk versions?

I have no idea how, do you ?

is it possible to make frisbee that works
in bionic as in debiandogs?

Just install frisbee, no ?

@stemsee Re: Wifi-TrayNet Thanks !

I made this .deb on BionicDog. As an alternative to the excellent peasywifi...

From what you tested, does it work when Peasywifi is also still installed, or does it possibly conflict (specially after reboot maybe) ?
EDIT: I see that you specify full version in DEBIAN/control e.g. wpasupplicant-2.6-15ubuntu2, there's no need for that, can be just "wpasupplicant" (without quotes)

Fred

[wiak]

Just a little bit thinking about the future, would it be good to add symlink gtkdialog > gtkwialog inside the package ? BTW, there's also gtkdialog3, a lot of scripts have that.

Actually, I did originally put the symlink in the package but then thought twice about it since gtkdialog already there as actual binary on system.

wiak

[wiak]

Actually, in similar vein, I should maybe mention that if you have weX on a system or at least 'scrox' then you don't need scrot.

scrot can just be a symlink to scrox.

All I did in scrox was add extra functionality to scrot - the scrot functionality remained itself unchanged.

scrot isn't large, so no big deal that one I know.

wiak

[fredx181]

Actually, I did originally put the symlink in the package but then thought twice about it since gtkdialog already there as actual binary on system.

Yes, if you made it like that there would be a problem with dpkg finding the same file in another package, but could be solved with a construction: "Replace: gtkdialog" in control file.

I know it didn't go like that, but it would be a whole lot more convenient if your gtkdialog mod was an upgraded version of gtkdialog itself !!
How do you feel about calling your package just "gtkdialog" (name in control, so would replace existing "older" gtkdialog) with version something like "0.8.4-gtkwialog" and with the same description as you have in control file for gtkwialog ? EDIT: And in that case the package should contain symlink gtkdialog > gtkwialog and also gtkdialog3, gtkdialog-splash, Xdialog.
Sorry for being selfish, but something like this would be a lot easier for me to handle things in the future, I think
Or... maybe there's other good way to handle this that I didn't think about yet.

Fred

[stemsee]

Hi Fred

I have peasywifi installed and I use it, as well (it handles wep and wpa1 and has fewer dependencies ). I have not saved a profile with peasywifi so I didn't see if there was a conflict when Wifi-TrayNet and peasywifi both try to autostart. Wifi-TrayNet can switch on/off autocon (connect default profile at startup .. /etc/xdg/Startup/autocon) and autostart (start Wifi-TrayNet with X startup ... /etc/xdg/Startup/Wifi-TrayNet (link)). I generally switch when one doesn't do what I want at a given time!

So, both installed, both seem to work fine alongside each other ... I din't notice any stealing going on... but I wasn't looking for it!

Peasywifi by default uses udhcpc, last I looked, Wifi-TrayNet can use dhcpcd, on another interface, if need be, avoiding obvious potential conflicts. So could connect to a local network on one wireless interface and internet on another.

I should carry out conflict tests! I will look through peasywifi scripts to see how better to avoid likely conflicts with it. I will have to think about that further.

The main feature with Wifi-TrayNet is to have the mouse pointer hover over the tray icon to see the full sequence of notifications as tooltips. Clicking on the icon causes a scan....2 clicks if already connected to an AP; one to disconnect, then another to scan.

cheers
stemsee

[rcrsn51]

I know it didn't go like that, but it would be a whole lot more convenient if your gtkdialog mod was an upgraded version of gtkdialog itself

There has not been enough testing to guarantee the safety of that decision.

There is no reason why gtkwialog cannot exist as a separate package. Applications that are built (or rebuilt) for gtkwialog would simply show it as a dependency.