Bionic32-light - 27 April, 2019

[musher0]

Hello all.

If any of you experience the same non-US keyboard layout problem I had, I believe
I have figured it out,after much research and try-out of a number of keyboard-
related utilities.

I cannot say with absolute certainty that urxvt is the first upstream cause
-- maybe it is the way it was compiled?
-- Is it a glitch in version 9.22?
-- Is it the udev rules?
-- Is it some other language interface? ( E.g. i18n; MLterm comes with its own
i18n support. )
-- Is it the absence, in Puppy, of the traditional "kbd utils" found in other distros?
Whatever the ultimate cause may be, I now know that giving my CLI editors MLterm
support solved the problem.

The "ML" in MLterm stand for "multi-lingual". It was designed initially for Asian
languages, but if it can do that, it can accommodate "simpler" locales such as
fr_CA.UTF-8 and the ca keyboard layout.

MLterm has been around for a good while, but it is still maintained. As a matter of
fact, the devs have published a new version earlier this year.

MLterm lets me use the same ca keyboard layout in CLI as in GTK ( geany, for
ex., or any browser ), which urxvt seemed incapable of doing in the upupBB32's,
both jrb's and peebee's.

I will continue monitoring MLterm on my upupbb32-light for a day or two. If I get no
bugs, I'll make available a pet archive of the latest version, so other users of a
"latin" keyboard may benefit from this find.

BFN.

Hello all.

Tests conclusive. The only thing:
-- I'd recommend avoiding the transparency settings in mlterm.
---- Once, doing a long mksquasfs session in an mlterm console with transparency
on, the characters became blurry to the point they were unreadable.

Aside from that, it's a great console, with superior handling of accented characters
in languages using the Latin alphabet.

Please find attached. To reassemble the split archive:

Code: Select all

cat xa?-mlterm*.pet > mlterm-3.8.8_exec.pet

Then click on mlterm-3.8.8_exec.pet to install as usual.

I have also attached a simple mlterm configuration directory to get you started.
There are also in this zip file some docs explaining how to configure MLterm. IHTH.

Important note --
This mlterm was compiled on and for jrb's upupbb32-light and tested on same.
It may not work on other Pups.

Any constructive feedback appreciated. TIA.

Enjoy!

[musher0]

Hello again.

I'm not sure if I should be eating humble pie, or beating my chest saying "mea
culpa" three times...

What do you think is meant by "this configure option adds all non-mutichoice
options?" Anybody knows what "non-multichoice" really means? This is what Marc
Lehmann, author of rxvt-unicode, says about the "--enable-everything option" on
the configuration line of rxvt-unicode:

--enable-everything
Add (or remove) support for all non-multichoice options listed in
"./configure --help", except for "--enable-assert" and
"--enable-256-color".

Not terribly clear to me even after reading the listing provided by

Code: Select all

./configure --help=short | more

Source: Lehman's README.configure file in the rxvt-unicode v. 9.22 source package.

On a hunch, I recompiled the same rxvt-unicode v. 9.22 with only the --prefix=/usr
setting, and by magic, the expected behavior for the ca keyboard was back in urxvt
and any app supported by it (e.g. the joe editor).

Proof in attached scrot.

So... If you are using an alternative keyboard configuratrion and the accents in your
language are not at the place they used to be in urxvt, please replace my previous
compile of rxvt-unicode ( presented a few pages back ) with this one. ( Please see
attached files below. )

Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience.

I guess this problem is now solved, technically, but not scientifically.
By that I mean, we have a solution, although I'm not certain about which
parameter exactly in < --enable-everything > caused it previously. If you
know, please chime in: not knowing the ultimate cause is still bugging me.

In any case, in spite of what appears to have been a useless run-around,
we end up with two very good, up-to-date, console utilities and some
add'l learning in our grey matter.

BFN.

[jrb]

I'm heading out on a road trip for the next two or three weeks. Will not be able to offer support until I get back.

Cheers, J

[Sage]

Your "two or three weeks" are up! Good, worthwhile project, so look forward to more goodies...

[sheldonisaac]

[.. here is Update two.

How can I get the interfaces to be called the usual eth0 and wlan0?

Does it have to do with systemd (whatever that is)?
Can we get rid of that?

Thanks again,
Sheldon

[6502coder]

I read somewhere that adding "net.ifnames=0" to the kernel line in the boot stanza will do the trick. I can't find that article but here's a similar discussion:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/689070/ ... ev-changes

[sheldonisaac]

I read somewhere that adding "net.ifnames=0" to the kernel line in the boot stanza will do the trick. I can't find that article but here's a similar discussion:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/689070/ ... ev-changes

Thanks, will try that.

[peebee]

see:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 998#989998

[rockedge]

I read somewhere that adding "net.ifnames=0" to the kernel line in the boot stanza will do the trick.

it will. I use it on all my Bionic puppy versions and now with FirstRib aka WeePup

like this :

Code: Select all

title firstrib (Void Linux Flavour)
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /firstrib/vmlinuz  net.ifnames=0
  initrd /firstrib/initramfs.gz

Code: Select all

title Bionic64 (sda1/Bionic64)
  uuid 01cec708-a02c-4fce-8656-50f9700d951f
  kernel /Bionic64/vmlinuz   psubdir=Bionic64 pmedia=atahd pfix=fsck net.ifnames=0
  initrd /Bionic64/initrd.gz

this will force the network device count to start at eth0
_

[kschewe]

I have a question about getting sound to work on this version.
I am using an ancient laptop and so far It runs very smooth.
I was looking in the startup modules to see if there was one for opl3sa. I have tahr 6 arcade installed and I had the same issue. I was able to find the module in the startup and voila after a reboot it worked. This is probably the most modern OS this old laptop will see.
thanks

[jrb]

I have a question about getting sound to work on this version.
I am using an ancient laptop and so far It runs very smooth.
I was looking in the startup modules to see if there was one for opl3sa. I have tahr 6 arcade installed and I had the same issue. I was able to find the module in the startup and voila after a reboot it worked. This is probably the most modern OS this old laptop will see.
thanks

Not sure what kernel tahr 6 arcade uses. Bionic32-light uses the kernel-3.14.54 from tahr6.05. If your booting from usb or harddrive frugal you can use the kernel from tahr 6 arcade by copying the zdrv from it and the matching vmlinuz into the frugal directory and renaming it to "zdrv_upupbb_19.03.sfs". Then you should have your sound module.

Good Luck, J

Edit: I just posted two scripts to make kernel switching super simple.

[kschewe]

I have a question about getting sound to work on this version.
I am using an ancient laptop and so far It runs very smooth.
I was looking in the startup modules to see if there was one for opl3sa. I have tahr 6 arcade installed and I had the same issue. I was able to find the module in the startup and voila after a reboot it worked. This is probably the most modern OS this old laptop will see.
thanks

Not sure what kernel tahr 6 arcade uses. Bionic32-light uses the kernel-3.14.54 from tahr6.05. If your booting from usb or harddrive frugal you can use the kernel from tahr 6 arcade by copying the zdrv from it and the matching vmlinuz into the frugal directory and renaming it to "zdrv_upupbb_19.03.sfs". Then you should have your sound module.

Good Luck, J

Edit: I just posted two scripts to make kernel switching super simple.

Thanks I will try and report back. I have a full install of many pups, very old machine and slow cpu.

[kschewe]

I have a full install on this old machine.
What I did try is taking those files from the tahr iso. I renamed and put into the bionic iso. The machine boots up but no keyboard or mouse etc. I think my way does not load any drivers. To bad since the tahr files works with my sound and recently bought usb ethernet.
I will try investigating some more
Maybe copying individual files from one pup to another.

[jrb]

I have a full install on this old machine.
What I did try is taking those files from the tahr iso. I renamed and put into the bionic iso. The machine boots up but no keyboard or mouse etc. I think my way does not load any drivers. To bad since the tahr files works with my sound and recently bought usb ethernet.
I will try investigating some more
Maybe copying individual files from one pup to another.

I don't remember ever doing a full install of Puppy, I had enough grief screwing up other linux distros. So, I thought I'd give it a try:
1) I booted Precise-light from a usb stick and created a 10Gb ext3 drive on one of my old machines.
2) Then I used Menu->Setup->Puppy Installer to create a full install on the new drive, ran Grub4dos to create a new menu.lst, rebooted and there I was running a full install with kernel 3.14.56.

Now for the relevant part, I wanted to switch kernels so I:
1) Went into the frugal install directory of Bionic32 (I could have mounted an ISO) and copied its vmlinuz into the "boot" directory of my new drive.
2) Then I mounted the zdrv_upupbb_19.03.sfs (click and say yes) and copied the contents to / (main) directory of the new drive, overwriting whatever got in the way.
3) I rebooted and there I was running a full install with kernel 4.9.163-lxpup-32-pae.

With all this said I would still never run a full install. When you screw up a frugal install you lose the savefile, which is easy to backup. When you screw up a full install you lose everything. Worried about low memory, run frugal with a swap file. Run with portable apps installed on the harddrive. Enough preaching, this forum is full of experienced users saying not to use full installs, with good reason.

Cheers, J

[kschewe]

Thanks for the tips. I will actually try the frugal on a different partition. I was trying to add the driver or module to the kernel by modprobe... didnt have much luck at the moment. I can totally understand what you mean by the full vs frugal. I am just pushing the limits on an old machine for fun. Not really practical to use for daily. It will end up being just for music , puppy and deadbeef 1.8 on bionic works well. and programming in windows.

[Sage]

When you screw up a full install you lose everything

Full has other benefits - Clonezilla and a back-up disc is the smart move. Just as USB sticks fail, so do HDs. Too early yet to pronounce on SSDs. MTBFs depend on many factors but usage, storage, humidity, temperature, stray electric/magnetic fields, physical impact, etc. all constitute risk factors. But, then, I have some colour negative film which must be ~50+yrs old, stored in darkness in cool desk drawers, still in acceptable condition - hasn't been in the enlarger very often, though! Digital information is relatively new for a rational assessment. Cuniform on clay seems fairly robust...

[kschewe]

I though i would give a bit of an update on my puppy trials.
If i replace the kernel and zdrv with an old version like 3.4.x bionic will load but nothing will work just a frozen system. I tried this on xenial and same issue. They seem to be very similar. Tahr i can use an old kernel though.

I can replace it with newer kernels like 4.14.133 and no problems working. i might upload that one if anyone wants it works on many machines i tried.
For old kernels i think it might not be loading the drivers because of configuration in initrd.

I am checking though to see if i can get a ubuntu pack of drivers at the same time.