(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Update: After playing around with the font sizes Firefox now appears to be rendering correctly.

I just love this testing stuff.................

Update 2:

The mtPaint problem appears to be a missing lib.......# mtpaint
mtpaint: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
#

I found a fix for that, I posted it in Barry's blog already.
It's because the package is dated back to the 4.x series, it wants the old libjpeg.

playdayz and micko01: I started messing with Woof and Lupu, as you can see. I'm trying to find all small mismatches and fixes needed for a totally sane Lupu. I think I'll make a fixes PET with all the fixes I find.

I'll try to recompile things like Ayttm, Viewnior and mtPaint for Lupu with updated versions, so we don't have to face those old library problems anymore.

Also, I'm working on some addition to Woof, a stripping and optimization step to 3builddistro, that optimizes all PNG images and all gzip-compressed stuff, plus strips all executables/kernel modules/libraries in a better way, that shaves much more than the traditional one. Should reduce the total size of Lupu. That's good, should improve boot times, image (icon/wallpaper) loading speeds and make us a little bit closer to the mythological 100 MB limit

EDIT: tiny request/suggestion - can you convert all graphics (mainly wallpapers) used by Lupu to PNG? Could save some size.

...................setting is not retained and must be redone on every reboot.

TomRhymer, Yes. xwin, which is the script that starts X, has a section now that checks for a complete xorg.conf, and if not then it runs xorgwizard. But because of the problem there is never a complete xorg.conf, so xwin runs xorgwizard every time it starts X. That problem will disappear when we get xorgwizard to write a complete xorg.conf.

@micko

I generated one with Xorg -configure. It places xorg.conf.new in ~/
But I had to add:

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "false"
Option "DontZap" "false"
EndSection
at the top

and

#PuppyHardwareProfile=ATI_MACH64
at the bottom to keep xorg.conf from being automatically overwritten.

It works when copied to /etc/X11/xorg.conf and persists. But just dickin around on ver 5.0

upnorth, That is good to know that Xorg -configure generates the xorg.conf. The big mystery is still why xorgwizard does not. If we can't get it in a few days, I will try to interest Barry in the problem

Also, for some reason in Lupu the "X -config /root/xorg.conf.new" test always fails but x starts normally with xwin after the file is copied as /etc/X11/xorg.conf

It is probably the extra test in xwin, you can see it very near the top, that checks if there is a ServerLayout section in order to test for a complete xorg.conf.

just wonder....

Where is the info about driver, screensize, and all that other stuff that is in xorg.conf in a standard Puppy kept in Luci?

I am just wondering if I can write a script that completes the xorg.conf with the correct info and is executed before X starts on first run. I think that would do it...

I am sure you could 01micko, but we would still need for xorgwizard to do what it is supposed to do in order to keep compatibility with Woof.

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

The mtPaint problem appears to be a missing lib.......# mtpaint
mtpaint: error while loading shared libraries: libjpeg.so.7: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

James1911 and Iguleder, Thanks for catching that. Just so you know, this kind of thing will happen because we update the Ubuntu files and they must have updated mtpaint so that it requires the new libjpeg.

Concerning bugs that don't get fixed. Some bugs just can't be fixed by us--those are built into Xorg, for instance.

That's not the problem. The problem is finding and reporting bugs, and not even being told that it is built into Xorg, or whatever. The problem is never having your bug report acknowledged, never mind fixed. After enough of that, one starts to feel like, "Why bother?" Great way to keep a lot of testers working for ya.

Since I've drifted away from being an involved Puppy tester to just a user lately, I haven't kept up on all the latest talk. But some of the stuff I've read around here just sounds crazy. Why do we have Quickpet? What's wrong with PPM? Do we really need two ways to install the same package? Wouldn't it have been better just to put a help button in PPM? Gnumeric is an excellent spreadsheet. The only way we need OO Calc is the same way Barry made it available, as part of an SFS that you can load once in a blue moon when you absolutely need it, then dump it when you are done. KDE in Puppy? Absolutely insane.

Heck, when we boot we have the boot cheatcodes, or whatever they are called. I don't think there has ever been so much as a simple list of all the available boot codes, explaining what they do, available where you need it, at boot. Why not? Is this so hard? That's assuming the codes actually work, which they often do not (I've never seen the fsck code work on encrypted pupsaves).

I'm not completely opposed to new features. I proposed putting the main browser in its own SFS file so people can easily pick the browser they want, but that went nowhere. Maybe there are some drawbacks to that that I'm unaware of. And Pizzasgood put together the multiuser Puppy, why not have that (defaulted to single user)? The one thing that Puppy always gets bashed for, in reviews, is not being multiuser, forcing people to run as root. Sure, maybe that complaint is silly, but it's still a major factor stopping wider acceptance of Puppy. One gets tired of defending Puppy on this point in discussions, over and over. And encryption? Why are we still stuck on crappy old cryptoloop? Why never any pets for gpg, or enigmail? (Maybe fixed in lupu, I don't know.) Why no way to encrypt disk partitions? And pupsave backup, it's still a pain in the ass. Even I managed to cook up a way to make it easy, but no one has ever put that into a standard Puppy that I know of.

Lupu addresses the main drawback of all the Puppies since day one: not having a decent repository. If I can get a solid Lupu I will be on board immediately, but if it turns into one of these "bells and whistles" exercises, I will not bother. 4.3.1 still works well enough for me.

Paul, the grump

Paul the grump, I just had a feature idea for Lucid Puppy--One-Click Locale. Including all of the many Locales and languages for every Puppy program is too much, it takes too much space, so many are left out. However, if someone could open Quickpet, just for example, and click one button to download the French for all of the programs (assuming they have it available of course), it seems like we could have the best of both worlds, small fast Puppy with ones' language of choice. Has this already been done?
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Paul, all I can say is watch us. Quickpet and PPM might evolve together--but already I would say that the Browser-chooser and Quickpet, seem to have been very popular with Puppy users (and I ma not the one who created Quickpet--that was 01micko). If they make Puppy easier and more fun--that seems like a good thing to me--and IMO the Browser-Chooser is fun... which one do I feel like using today...
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Good news today. Cups-1.4.3-1 worked for the first time without any cheating. That is big to me

Geany won't be needing any cheating either (by cheating I mean special customization--some of which is inevitable but the less the better).

It looks like we got the problem with xorgwizard. There is a new file named displaylink_drv.so in /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers. If you remove it then xorgwizard behaves. Thanks everyone. Whew!



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There are several files named ps2pdf12,13, etc in /usr/bin. And one named ps2pdf. Maybe linking those other files to ps2pdf would change the problem with abiword not printing the graphics properly in some pdf printing. So that ps2pdf12 was linked to ps2pdf, or 13, etc. Or it might never work again. Just a wild thought.

Paul the grump..

Which is it?

You don't want new features.. right?

Since I've drifted away from being an involved Puppy tester to just a user lately, I haven't kept up on all the latest talk. But some of the stuff I've read around here just sounds crazy. Why do we have Quickpet? What's wrong with PPM? Do we really need two ways to install the same package? Wouldn't it have been better just to put a help button in PPM? Gnumeric is an excellent spreadsheet. The only way we need OO Calc is the same way Barry made it available, as part of an SFS that you can load once in a blue moon when you absolutely need it, then dump it when you are done. KDE in Puppy? Absolutely insane.

Or you do want new features?

I'm not completely opposed to new features. I proposed putting the main browser in its own SFS file so people can easily pick the browser they want, but that went nowhere. Maybe there are some drawbacks to that that I'm unaware of. And Pizzasgood put together the multiuser Puppy, why not have that (defaulted to single user)? The one thing that Puppy always gets bashed for, in reviews, is not being multiuser, forcing people to run as root. Sure, maybe that complaint is silly, but it's still a major factor stopping wider acceptance of Puppy. One gets tired of defending Puppy on this point in discussions, over and over. And encryption? Why are we still stuck on crappy old cryptoloop? Why never any pets for gpg, or enigmail? (Maybe fixed in lupu, I don't know.) Why no way to encrypt disk partitions? And pupsave backup, it's still a pain in the ass. Even I managed to cook up a way to make it easy, but no one has ever put that into a standard Puppy that I know of.

We provide easily for picking a browser a user wants. And we can do it while still running in ram. How's a newby going to figure out sfs in the first 5 minutes?

I suggest, if you want these new features (or not) that you jump on board and help out... instead of being a grump!

Have a nice day!

Cheers.

One-Click Locale

Mick probably knows about this
I believe we have xdg (I think it is called)
menu items that were initiated by rarsa
So I step locales would be possible and welcome

Hope you can make the developer meeting starting shortly
off to get a cup of tea and then meeting . . .

01micko wrote:I suggest, if you want these new features (or not) that you jump on board and help out... instead of being a grump!

Have a nice day!

I blame playdayz (Larry) ... he said there had been little or no negativity in the Lupu development process. I think he probably jinxed you!

playdayz wrote: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul, all I can say is watch us. Quickpet and PPM might evolve together--but already I would say that the Browser-chooser and Quickpet, seem to have been very popular with Puppy users (and I ma not the one who created Quickpet--that was 01micko). If they make Puppy easier and more fun--that seems like a good thing to me--and IMO the Browser-Chooser is fun... which one do I feel like using today...

Hm, I understand that having an easy way of installing programs is necessary, so having quickpet is a good thing from that perspective. On the other hand, using PPM isn't that hard either. Having Quickpet will also will draw away manpower from the development of PPM which opens up puppy to the vast ubuntu repositories. If people still want to make customized pets for lupu- why not put these (after a thorough quality control) in the puppy 5 repositories inside PPM. Why add another half finished packet installation gui tool to lupu?

playdayz wrote: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good news today. Cups-1.4.3-1 worked for the first time without any cheating. That is big to me

Good news....

Christian

zenfunk wrote: Hm, I understand that having an easy way of installing programs is necessary, so having quickpet is a good thing from that perspective. On the other hand, using PPM isn't that hard either. Having Quickpet will also will draw away manpower from the development of PPM which opens up puppy to the vast ubuntu repositories. If people still want to make customized pets for lupu- why not put these (after a thorough quality control) in the puppy 5 repositories inside PPM. Why add another half finished packet installation gui tool to lupu?

From my perspective as the developer of Quickpet, you could be correct.

The good thing is that Quickpet is so simple. It is basically hard coded to a few configuration files such that the leader of a distro can change with relative ease, without diving into the guts of the program.

It's pretty much only my resources consumed by Quickpet so that argument is void. We did alot of alpha and beta testing and as far as I know the only issue left is the updating. That's not to say it's perfect, my coding is far from it, but it is stable for a new app.

I am now working on localising Quickpet and all the apps in Quickpet as well as all the apps that have a menu entry or an icon in Puppy. Ok, that consumes some resources! Especially since I only know English! You are certainly twice as far ahead of me in that respect Christian! (um.. little help from some of your German speaking friends please? )

Thanks for your comments.

Cheers

Mick

It's pretty much only my resources consumed by Quickpet so that argument is void. We did alot of alpha and beta testing and as far as I know the only issue left is the updating. That's not to say it's perfect, my coding is far from it, but it is stable for a new app.

Well, since that there are not so much devels working on the project actively I think that my argument isn't void .
I never questioned the quality of your work. All I can say is that quickpet installed firefox on my machine flawlessly.

However- why don't you simply add a "lupu quickpet" repository to PPM. Just make sure that the packets are of better quality than the ones in the Puppy 2, 3 and 4 repos (e. g. the various mplayer versions in there never worked for me for different reasons (compiled for the wrong cpu) etc...). Since you only have to make pets for lupu and no other puppy version- it should be much easier to get it right.

Starting a seperate packet installing gui projects is IMHO a duplication of efforts. Also it kinda defeats the purpose of building a distro from the Ubuntu packages. Firefox, Seamonkey- it's allready there (in the repositories). Just provide a simple way of installing them via a (relatively) bugfree PPM. If PPM doesn't work then it's back to packet hunting in the forums.

If you need testers for your localization project, drop me a pm, I can easily free a partition for Lupu.

All the best, Christian

Ok Christian, can we agree to disagree on Quickpet?

However, the main PPM repo definitely does need work. It needs to be separate from all the dpup and old uj stuff and of course needs to be populated.

*************

Anyone reading this....
Compatible packages can be made in 2 ways.
1) Compiled from source in Lupu, and packaged with either new2dir, or packaged manually ensuring to keep NLS (locale) files in a separate package, and optionally DOC.
2) Grabbing the Ubuntu package and tossing out all the fat and stripping bins and libs BUT keeping any NLS (locale) files in a separate package, and DOC files.

**********

Thanks for your offer with NLS stuff, coincidentally mave has just done Quickpet translation. I know that Sigmund (zigbert) still needs a couple of German translations for a couple of his apps. I think Pwidgets and, PCD.

I would also like to localise PPM and Simple Network Setup as these are going to be very commonly used apps.

Shinobar's SFS in the "localisation " forum is a very useful resource too. It almost works perfectly in Lupu.

Cheers

Mick

I'm working on my first wizard for Lupu, see here -> http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 208#423208.

Can anyone with good gtkdialog skills help with this?

Hey Iguleder

Nice job! So long as it works the fluff can come later

My first stand-alone gtkdialog effort is here ... , but I maintain it and it's still useful to some.

Plenty of good info on formatting in zigbert's thread in the programming section of the forum.

Cheers

01micko wrote:Ok Christian, can we agree to disagree on Quickpet?

Seems like it...

However, the main PPM repo definitely does need work. It needs to be separate from all the dpup and old uj stuff and of course needs to be populated.

Jupp, some new pets in the PPM repos are needed. A lot of good packages seem to be floating around in the forums. Probably an extra thread in the forums where the pet- creators can apply for inclusion of their pets in the repositories. After thorough testing they might be accepted.
A bit more dynamically maintained repositories can't hurt either. If too many bug reports about a pet are filed they have to be fixed or kicked out. This can ensure a high level of quality in the repositories.

Cheers, Christian

Today's Good News.

Finally, for the first time ever, Xorg is running with DRI/GLX correctly in Lucid Puppy. I will post that as another highly experimental build in a day or two. What I mean is that even when dri/glx was "working" in versions of Karmic and Lucid Puppies--it was not working correctly--that was my reason for taking it out of the release version of LP 5.0. Remember the problem with full-screen youtube movies? That was dri/glx not working 100% correctly.

The difference on one test machine between working and working correctly is 2000 fps vs. 19000 fps. (19K by the way is what this computer gets from hardware acceleration--so that tells me that the open source radeon driver can now do hardware acceleration--when it is set up properly.) The GLX files total 36 MB though.

I built a Luci pup with Midori today--because Webkit is 15MB, we only save about 8MB, from 18 to 26 from the Seamonkey stripped version we have in 5.0. But, in addition to the small savings in MB, we also get a current browser that we can update--many people might want to just stop with Midori which in addition to running Cups and sytem help files can also serve as a day to day browser. I want to continue looking though, just in case one of the even smaller browsers might pass the "running Cups" test. But, and I am about to test this, Midori and WebKit together take 18MB--how much does a current version of Firefox take? And can Firefox be stripped any?

To sum up the last few days of good news. Cups is running as it should. Xorg is running as it should. DRI/GLX are running as they should. Midori will meet our needs for a help browser that will run cups, and also serve as a fulltime browser for some people.

However, the main PPM repo definitely does need work. It needs to be separate from all the dpup and old uj stuff and of course needs to be populated.

Jupp, some new pets in the PPM repos are needed. A lot of good packages seem to be floating around in the forums. Probably an extra thread in the forums where the pet- creators can apply for inclusion of their pets in the repositories. After thorough testing they might be accepted.
A bit more dynamically maintained repositories can't hurt either. If too many bug reports about a pet are filed they have to be fixed or kicked out. This can ensure a high level of quality in the repositories.

I agree. This was one thing I always thought Puppy needed and Quickpet was an initial effort in that direction: to provide good programs that had been tested and configured for Lucid Puppy. 01micko did all the heavy lifting, while I tested and configured most of the programs.

What comes next will depend on the people who have an interest--The PPM is part of Puppy traditionally--People do expect us to use the Ubuntu repos--In my experience somewhere around half (under half) of the programs in the ubuntu repos will install and run. Redoing PPM from the ground up would be crazy imo--but setting up some new repos with the programs that had been tested seems like a good idea. But it would require at least a couple of people with a lot of time to devote. I would personally rather offer users 30 good programs that had been tested and do their jobs, over hundreds that may or may not work. \

Big question is, what will be the relationship between PPM and Quickpet? Ubuntu does have three levels of package management: a command line apt, then synaptic, and then a new thing, right, somewhat like our Quickpet--very simple, but containing 95% of all the programs people would ever need.

Playdayz, you need to get Technosaurus to build you a small Midori - his builds are like 5 or 6MB total. Also Midori runs about 10 or 20 times faster than Firefox - it's not just size that matters.

I think there'd be a good deal of interest in a community repository. We need somewhere with the bandwidth to host it, and a QA team. QA is mostly non-technical unless there's a problem so I think it would not be hard to find volunteers.

Iguleder thanks that looks promising indeed.