eBoxPup-2.13-0.1alpha released

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pakt
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#31 Post by pakt »

ecosprog wrote:So, I given in and ordered an e3800 ffrom Epatec here in Spain. It should be here by Thursday.

Once the e3800 arrive I´ll post comments on its performance.
Today I ordered an eTC-3851 (eBox-3851) from EPATec in Germany. This is like the eBox-3800 (VIA EDEN Nano 800MHz fanless CPU and 256MB RAM) but is thicker with a parallel port, serial port, CF card slot, Mini PCI socket and 2.5" harddisk mounting kit. This should work considerably better than the 200MHz, 128MB RAM eBox-2300 as a Puppy PC. It should arrive next week.

This unit shouldn't need eBoxPup to run acceptably fast - can't wait to see how standard Puppy runs on it :)

This is what the 3851 looks like: http://www.copyall.com/ebox3851.htm

Paul
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ecosprog
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#32 Post by ecosprog »

pakt wrote:
Today I ordered an eTC-3851 (eBox-3851) from EPATec in Germany. This is like the eBox-3800 (VIA EDEN Nano 800MHz fanless CPU and 256MB RAM) but is thicker with a parallel port, serial port, CF card slot, Mini PCI socket and 2.5" harddisk mounting kit. This should work considerably better than the 200MHz, 128MB RAM eBox-2300 as a Puppy PC. It should arrive next week.
You won´t be disappointed. I got my e3800 yesterday and after 24 hours of playing I´m still a happy camper.

I loaded eBoxPup and the system really flies along. No comparison with the little MicroClient Jr. The setup was also easier as it works with VESA at high resolutions.

I have a 4GB microdrive in a CF/IDE adapter mounted in the 2.5" drive tray an there´s no noise from the unit. Now I just have to figure out how to do a convention hard drive install so I can use the whole drive and get a swap partition setup. Any pointers here would be greatly appreciated.

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#33 Post by ecosprog »

Sorry that should read eTC-3800 from epaTec.

And what´s interesting is that the prices on the epaTec website for Spain (http://www.epatec.es) list the eTC-3800 at 199.00euros which is 20.00euros less than the parent site in Germany.

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pakt
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#34 Post by pakt »

ecosprog wrote:You won´t be disappointed. I got my e3800 yesterday and after 24 hours of playing I´m still a happy camper.

I loaded eBoxPup and the system really flies along. No comparison with the little MicroClient Jr. The setup was also easier as it works with VESA at high resolutions.
Thanks for the early feedback, ecosprog. Sounds really good! Can't wait to test my unit :)
ecosprog wrote:I have a 4GB microdrive in a CF/IDE adapter mounted in the 2.5" drive tray an there´s no noise from the unit. Now I just have to figure out how to do a convention hard drive install so I can use the whole drive and get a swap partition setup. Any pointers here would be greatly appreciated.
Have you tried to format the 4GB microdrive as FAT32? If it is formatted as FAT16 you can't have partitions much greater than 2GB IIRC.

Paul
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pakt
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#35 Post by pakt »

BTW, here is a comparison table in pdf format of the thin clients that EPATec sells. Makes it easy to compare the different models.

Paul
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bobn9lvu
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Ebox-3851/Eway-TK

#36 Post by bobn9lvu »

Hey Pakt,

Do you know of any US distributers of the Ebox-3851/Eway-TK over here in the US of A????
I left a couple of emails at ewayco, over a week ago, and have not heard a thing since.... :x

Bob 8)

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pakt
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Re: Ebox-3851/Eway-TK

#37 Post by pakt »

bobn9lvu wrote:Do you know of any US distributers of the Ebox-3851/Eway-TK over here in the US of A????
I left a couple of emails at ewayco, over a week ago, and have not heard a thing since.... :x
Here you go - a source in North Carolina: http://www.wdlsystems.com/ebox/ebox.shtml

(I should get a commision for this :lol:)

Paul
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Bert
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#38 Post by Bert »

Pakt, ecosprog, nyu, would it be possible for someone to measure the eBox power consumption?

For the record, my 800Mhz/512MB Puppybox consumes between 14 and 28 Watts. Even clicking a link and opening a new page causes the power consumption to briefly go up to 28W! But this is via c3 Samuel 2, not the newer Nehemiah or better.

In general, I think it would be a good idea to collect and perhaps wikify info and data about ultra low power computers and their ability to run Puppy.

One last thing, Pakt, on my box I could indeed not detect a speed difference between eBoxPup and full Puppy 2.13. Opera is much faster than Seamonkey of course, but that's another story.
I switched back to Puppy Standard, as my bank doesn't allow netbanking from Opera and because my girlfriend wants to continue composing colourful html emails, something Opera can't do.

Wishing you all a nice weekend!

Bert
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nyu
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#39 Post by nyu »

Bert wrote:Pakt, ecosprog, nyu, would it be possible for someone to measure the eBox power consumption?

For the record, my 800Mhz/512MB Puppybox consumes between 14 and 28 Watts. Even clicking a link and opening a new page causes the power consumption to briefly go up to 28W! But this is via c3 Samuel 2, not the newer Nehemiah or better.

In general, I think it would be a good idea to collect and perhaps wikify info and data about ultra low power computers and their ability to run Puppy.

Bert
Bert,
How did you get the power consumption of eBox-38xx of 28Watts?
According to DMP Electronics Inc.'s product brochure, the power
requirement for 38xx seires boxes is +5v @4.5A. The max power
will be 22.5Watts.
nyu

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Re: Ebox-3851/Eway-TK

#40 Post by nyu »

pakt wrote:
bobn9lvu wrote:Do you know of any US distributers of the Ebox-3851/Eway-TK over here in the US of A????
I left a couple of emails at ewayco, over a week ago, and have not heard a thing since.... :x
Here you go - a source in North Carolina: http://www.wdlsystems.com/ebox/ebox.shtml

(I should get a commision for this :lol:)

Paul
Another place will be http://www.ewayco.com/
Sorry, you have mentioned it already. :oops:

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Bert
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#41 Post by Bert »

Bert,
How did you get the power consumption of eBox-38xx of 28Watts?
Hi Nyu,

I don't have an eBox 38xx, but I've build a similar, but bigger box based on the Via 2000+ motherboard. ( see my signature)
In our house we're trying to get our energy consumption down to an absolute minimum, without loss of comfort. That's a journey of many small steps. One of these steps I hope to realize is to run my bedroom-office on solar energy :lol: That's why I am very interested in new developments towards more power efficient computers like the eBox.

Bert
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pakt
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#42 Post by pakt »

Bert wrote:One last thing, Pakt, on my box I could indeed not detect a speed difference between eBoxPup and full Puppy 2.13.
No you wouldn't ;) I have simply replaced the applications that I felt were too 'heavy' for the eBox-2300 with 'lighter' ones that run reasonably well. It would take a tremendous amount of work to get Puppy to run faster on the eBox-2300 and I believe the difference would still be small. The problem here is the 200MHz CPU. Apart from possibly trying to 'overclock' the CPU, only a faster computer will improve performance I'm afraid :(
Bert wrote:I switched back to Puppy Standard, as my bank doesn't allow netbanking from Opera and because my girlfriend wants to continue composing colourful html emails, something Opera can't do.
Bert, you're running a faster machine so you'll find Seamonkey reasonably fast. On the eBox-2300, there is a noticeable delay in Seamonkey when typing e.g. a URL - it takes about a second before the character appears on screen :!: Opera, on the other hand, runs much faster and has no noticeable delay.

Paul
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Cheetah
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installing the iso, how to?

#43 Post by Cheetah »

Hi pakt, I've bought a TU-40 and I would like to install your ISO image on it, but I'm a newbie in Linux so I don't know how to proceed after I have downloaded the file from here http://puppyfiles.org/isos/eboxpup-2.13-0.1alpha.iso
How do I put it on my 4GB CF card? Do I need simply to extract the files and copy them on the CF after formatting it with fat32? How do I make the CF bootable (if needed)? Or do I need to masterize the iso on a CD, then attach the CD through usb port, boot it live and then install on the CF via Puppy Universal Installer? Or is there another procedure?
Moreover I noticed that the BIOS sees the CF as primary slave IDE hard drive, do I need to change some settings in the BIOS too?
Sorry for my dumb questions, I hope you can help me! Thank you very much!

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Re: installing the iso, how to?

#44 Post by bobn9lvu »

Cheetah wrote:Hi pakt, I've bought a TU-40 and I would like to install your ISO image on it, but I'm a newbie in Linux so I don't know how to proceed after I have downloaded the file from here http://puppyfiles.org/isos/eboxpup-2.13-0.1alpha.iso
How do I put it on my 4GB CF card? Do I need simply to extract the files and copy them on the CF after formatting it with fat32? How do I make the CF bootable (if needed)? Or do I need to masterize the iso on a CD, then attach the CD through usb port, boot it live and then install on the CF via Puppy Universal Installer? Or is there another procedure?
Moreover I noticed that the BIOS sees the CF as primary slave IDE hard drive, do I need to change some settings in the BIOS too?
Sorry for my dumb questions, I hope you can help me! Thank you very much!
If you can, open up the case, and attach a cdrom drive to the TU-40 via the ide connector...
Set the bios to boot the cdrom 1st, and with the cflash card in the slot, format it with a fat32 partition...
Then follow the directions in the installer..

Bob

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pakt
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Re: installing the iso, how to?

#45 Post by pakt »

Cheetah wrote:Hi pakt, I've bought a TU-40 and I would like to install your ISO image on it, but I'm a newbie in Linux so I don't know how to proceed after I have downloaded the file from here http://puppyfiles.org/isos/eboxpup-2.13-0.1alpha.iso
How do I put it on my 4GB CF card?
This is the way I do it. Burn the iso to a CD and boot into Puppy from the CD on another PC. Then put the CF card in a CF-to-USB adapter, plug it into the PC and run the Universal Installer.

Choose 'USB CF Flash drive, later move to IDE-adpter'. For Bootstrap loader, choose 'sys-nopart.mbr' (by JustGreg) and then choose 'syslinux' to make it bootable (just press 'Enter' in the warning window that comes up afterwards). Always works for me :)
Cheetah wrote:Moreover I noticed that the BIOS sees the CF as primary slave IDE hard drive, do I need to change some settings in the BIOS too?
You may not have to. Try the default setting first.

Paul
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cthisbear
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#46 Post by cthisbear »

(Bert, you're running a faster machine so you'll find Seamonkey reasonably fast. On the eBox-2300, there is a noticeable delay in Seamonkey when typing e.g. a URL - it takes about a second before the character appears on screen :!: Opera, on the other hand, runs much faster and has no noticeable delay.)

pakt..This might interest you..on Barrys' developer forum

http://www.puppyos.net/forum/?1170794341

I commented about Seamonkey's slow page rendering on Barry's blog so I decided to do a bit more investigation.
It turns out the "--enable-pango option in the build config is the culprit. Note: you can see the build options by typing about:buildconfig in the address bar. The official Seamonkey binary does not have pango enabled by default.

(Billcnz

I tested disabling pango by adding:
export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1
to the mozilla-bin file before it calls the seamonkey-bin. It makes a huge difference on older pc's with slow cpu's. My load time for rendering Barry's blog page went from 35 seconds down to 7 seconds.) Bill

Regards Chris

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pakt
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#47 Post by pakt »

cthisbear wrote:I tested disabling pango by adding:
export MOZ_DISABLE_PANGO=1
to the mozilla-bin file before it calls the seamonkey-bin. It makes a huge difference on older pc's with slow cpu's. My load time for rendering Barry's blog page went from 35 seconds down to 7 seconds.
Thanks for the link, Chris. I just tried the mod on the eBox and it makes a big difference :)

Still not as fast as Opera, but it's a lot closer in performance.

Paul
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sintot
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#48 Post by sintot »

I've got a brand new epatec e3800 with puppy 2.13 (I'm posting from it). Everything works out of the box with the regular puppy, except playing videos: both, gxine and mplayer die, with errors like:

Code: Select all

The program 'gxine' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadAlloc'.
  (Details: serial 375 error_code 11 request_code 140 minor_code 19)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
Do you know if it's necessary to install some module for the graphic card to work for videos?

Thanks in advance

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#49 Post by jac1d »

Congrats on putting this together for the ebox/tu-40. I am writing this via Opera on a box that I flash booted.

The only thing I don't have working so far is audio output?

I tried running alsaconf but it says it fails to find any devices.

How do I load the driver for the onboard ac97 audio?

As this build is meant for the ebox, perhaps auto-configuring the network for DHCP and auto-configuring the sound is a luxury we can enjoy since the hardware config won't change?

Your assistance is appreciated.

-Jeff

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#50 Post by pakt »

jac1d wrote:The only thing I don't have working so far is audio output?
Jeff, you didn't forget to put zdrv_213.sfs on the CF card? That file contains almost all of the Puppy driver modules. It is also needed if you want to run Xorg (recommended, instead of Xvesa) on the eBox/TU-40. Xorg uses a video driver specifically for the SiS graphics chip giving you best performance - Xvesa is a general video driver, not optimised for any graphics chip.
jac1d wrote:As this build is meant for the ebox, perhaps auto-configuring the network for DHCP and auto-configuring the sound is a luxury we can enjoy since the hardware config won't change?
Sound works out of the 'box' (no pun intended) with zdrv_213.sfs. You may need to raise the volume.

The eBox can also be used with dial-up networking, so auto-configuring the network is not such a good idea. It so simple to set up so it doesn't really matter anyway ;)

Welcome to the 'Puppy on a thin client' club :)

Paul
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