eBoxPup-2.13-0.1alpha released

Message

drongo · #76 Post by **drongo** » Tue 01 May 2007, 18:59

Rob,

I've never posted a link before in this Forum, so if this doesn't work just go to Additional Software (Pups, n' stuff) and look for "Updated Universal Installer".

Here goes.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=17500

pakt · #77 Post by **pakt** » Tue 01 May 2007, 19:00

Sorry I haven't replied earlier but I've had too many projects going lately...

Anyway, I'll try to help. If you've got all the necessary files on the CF card but it still won't boot you can manually do the following to try to get the card to boot.

Running any recent Puppy (eBoxPup should also work) and with the CF card in a USB-to-CF card adapter, do the following from a terminal (assuming the device is 'sda'):

To fix the Master Boot Record (MBR):
# dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbrfat.bin of=/dev/sda

To make it bootable:
# syslinux /dev/sda1

Hopefully the card will now boot.

Paul

raffy · #78 Post by **raffy** » Tue 01 May 2007, 23:12

There are other easy options. See below, and note that 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive starting points.

1. Boot from USB (this assumes that you have a Puppy Linux installed in USB drive). To make sure the box allows you to do this, remove the CF before booting, and insert it after Puppy has completely booted. Then partition and format the CF as /dev/hdb1 (hdb1 or hda1 - whatever it shows in Media Utility Tool) and finish with the Universal Installer.

Formatting: Use Gparted in Control Panel and format it as FAT16. If you have no Gparted, do in console "mkdosfs /dev/hdb1" (or is that hda1?).

Booting: From what I know, the ebox boots to USB or IDE, whichever is available. Perhaps it uses IDE first, so make sure that a bootable (say, MS-DOS-bootable) IDE is NOT there when you attempt to boot from USB.

2. (What you have done) Preparing for IDE boot with CF, using CF-USB adapter and Universal Installer, is already good, the usual problem here is the filesystem, the sure thing being the use of FAT16. With FAT16 (done in "Formatting" above), just use the default options in Universal Installer and you're OK.

The usual difficulty in moving to these boxes (from the traditional PCs) is the ebox's lumping together of USB and IDE booting, so you have to isolate your chosen device at boot time. Note further that you can't simply transfer the USB parameters to CF (IDE). You have to get Universal Installer to install Puppy to "CF as IDE" or "CF in USB - later move to IDE".

Once you get the CF to work, updating its Puppy installation is easy. Just replace the pup_xxx.sfs, initrd.gz, vmlinuz, and zdrv_xxx.sfs with the newer files (xxx=Puppy version number, from 212 up). You can do this in a normal PC using a CF-USB adapter and a newly burned Puppy CD/DVD. If you have no CF-USB adapter, just use an updated USB drive to boot the ebox (see #1 above).

Hope that helps.

lvds · #79 Post by **lvds** » Thu 03 May 2007, 11:54

pakt wrote:To fix the Master Boot Record (MBR):
# dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbrfat.bin of=/dev/sda

To make it bootable:
# syslinux /dev/sda1

Hi Paul and all,

-- I found that sometimes using other Puppy distros i was not able to run syslinux as it reports an error related to mcopy. mcopy reminfs me of something like the mtools for msdos, is it related ? Does syslinux needs mtools to runs fine ?

That would be useful to have syslinux working under puppy linux as i always have to switch to windows to use syslinux.exe

-- For something else, i discovered also another interesting thing. I always had to boot msdos to fix a FAT partition with chkdsk.exe but i have found that one could use FSCK to do it the same. Here again, when i run fsck it reports an error ; does the partition have to be unmounted or mounted to use FSCK ? Did anyone experienced this also ?

-- Last, but not least, I have not been able to use a USB mouse correctly. Most of the time the usb mouse is not recognized and USBVIEW reports nothing on usb. In a few cases with other puppys distros a mouse could be loaded but was totally unusable. At first i thought it came from the mouse being to recent model, so i changed the mouse and tested many, then i tested on other computers, then i tested on others distros.

So i would like to ask, is there someone using with success a USB Mouse ?
or is there something i am not doing right ?

Best regards,
Laurent.

raffy · #80 Post by **raffy** » Thu 03 May 2007, 12:20

Using USB mouse is the only way if you have no "Y" connector to the ps2 port. With version 2.16, the mouse issue has been fixed. Check out http://puppyos.net/news

As to checking DOS partitions, you can use in console: dosfsck /dev/sda1 . It will be good to have it unmounted first.

Use Find to locate syslinux - it should be in Puppy as that is used by the Universal Installer.

lvds · #81 Post by **lvds** » Thu 03 May 2007, 16:40

Hi Raffy,

Ok thank you very much for replying.
As to usb mouse, i had not seen this thread so i will check Dougal's work and will test on my side, thank you very much for pointing me to it, this forum place is so huge

As to syslinux, yes i know where it is in /usr/lib/syslinux but i am looking for why it does not work, as this is also perhaps why puppy universal installer has a few problems and does not install correctly when i choose the "coexist" mode...
I think it is related but i don't know how to solve this.

Best regards,
Laurent.

lvds · #82 Post by **lvds** » Thu 03 May 2007, 16:41

By the way i am interested in eBox performances as we have many thin clients at work, so could everybody post their Bogomips results from Xproc system information test ? so we could compare with standards pc...

Also does anyone know of something like this but portable with screen and keyboard ? the goal would be to reach the best performance with the minimum noise possible...

Best regards,
Laurent.

pakt · #83 Post by **pakt** » Thu 03 May 2007, 17:47

lvds wrote:I found that sometimes using other Puppy distros i was not able to run syslinux as it reports an error related to mcopy. mcopy reminfs me of something like the mtools for msdos, is it related ? Does syslinux needs mtools to runs fine ?

That would be useful to have syslinux working under puppy linux as i always have to switch to windows to use syslinux.exe

Laurent, your mention of mcopy made me check the wizard script. Yes, the wizard does use mcopy for copying files to a floppy disk. I don't know how that would affect syslinux though. Anyway, I checked the packages I used in eBoxPup and saw that I didn't include the mtools package (which includes mcopy) because it's normally used with floppy drives which the eBox doesn't have.

I don't have the 2.13 unleased packages left on my hard disk and I don't know where you can find them but you could try installing the latest mtools package and see if it works. Here's the link:
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributio ... .10.tar.gz
Just download it and install it locally with the package manager.

HTH,
Paul

pakt · #84 Post by **pakt** » Thu 03 May 2007, 17:59

lvds wrote:By the way i am interested in eBox performances as we have many thin clients at work, so could everybody post their Bogomips results from Xproc system information test ? so we could compare with standards pc...

Laurent, I don't think BogoMIPS would actually say a whole lot. Afaik, it's just calculated by multiplying the CPU speed in MHz by 2. For example, my Starbox thin client is running at 333MHz right now. Checking dmesg, BogoMIPS=666.21 (the CPU speed isn't exact so the BogoMIPS result is usually off a little).

lvds wrote:Also does anyone know of something like this but portable with screen and keyboard ? the goal would be to reach the best performance with the minimum noise possible...

I think we'll start to see fanless, low-power laptops in the not distant future thanks to the OneLaptopPerChild project and the need for inexpensive computing in the developing world. Once these are mass-produced they'll become available to our part of the world. Linux not Vista will make this possible

Paul

stephenljk · #85 Post by **stephenljk** » Fri 08 Jun 2007, 13:15

Hi, I'm somewhat new to linux and puppy. I've gotten myself a ebox2300 and has installed the eboxpup downloaded from http://www.bexa.org/pup/index.htm#202R, the OS is running fine but can't seems to be able to detect the sound card and run Flash (been trying to view youtube), can anyone help me to solve the problem? Thanks in advance.

voytek · #86 Post by **voytek** » Sun 08 Jul 2007, 12:31

bobn9lvu wrote:

You know, all the systems talked about need ONE thing added to make em
viable ( my feelings ) is the ability to add and onboard DVD writer or rom drive...

in-fact they do, just open one up, get a 44pin to 40pin IDE cable, DVD writer, old PC power supply(for the writer), and of you go.

Voytek

bobn9lvu · #87 Post by **bobn9lvu** » Sun 08 Jul 2007, 14:31

"ONBOARD" is the idea I was trying to express

...

Bob

hillbillycletus · #88 Post by **hillbillycletus** » Sun 26 Aug 2007, 23:58

I have an ebox 2300, and have tried several different versions of puppy including 2.13 , 2.17 and eboxpup. And they are all very sluggish. However i have also installed windows me, and it works 10x faster, and all the drivers for it are provided by ebox manufacturer. I tend to install and setup an operating system then ghost it, so i can come back to my favorite. DMP also has made a version of linux espically for the ebox called xlinux. It comes as a ghost image or manual install. It doesnt contain Xwindows, but im sure some enterprising person could get it to work on it. I took their xlinux and expanded it by adding packages from spb-linux, slackware 10.2, and debian in some cases. Slackware 10.2 and xlinux use the same kernel version. The xlinux kernel doesnt have a framebuffer compiled in, but you can use a slackware kernel and modules. The mplayer package from spb-linux comes with a framebuffer AND vesa driver builtin so it will work without X or svgalib or framebuffer ! I have got rdesktop under svga lib to work, directvnc under framebuffer to work, links2 graphical browser under svgalib and framebuffer to work. I can boot my ebox2300 into links2 in about 10 seconds. zgv also works good. framebuffer seems to be much faster than svgalib, but i have trouble with my mouse when i have to load usb with modules under a slackware 10.2 kernel, which has framebuffer support. Anyway just adding some of my observations incase it of use to anybody. I may try to integrate puppy and xlinux into a fast ebox 2300 version, but i will have to learn more about puppy first. Links2 seems to be better than dillo for browsing. Anyway thanks for making puppy and eboxpup. Oh i also have booted geexbox on my ebox.

raffy · #89 Post by **raffy** » Mon 27 Aug 2007, 01:23

That's a good project hillbilly. Most of Puppy's packages for pre-2.14 versions are available at Barry's packages-1 directory of ibiblio, like here:

http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/di ... ackages-1/
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributio ... packages-1

As they are tar.gz files, just decompress them and add the files to the proper directories. Every package has a shell script that does the installation.

Maybe you can share now what you've already built so that other forum members can help out directly. I can help in hosting the file/s.
--------------------
EDIT: Some interesting links about Console Puppy:

Suggested applications
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=3674

Elinks browser
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=671
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=668

pakt · #90 Post by **pakt** » Mon 27 Aug 2007, 08:43

hillbillycletus wrote:I took their xlinux and expanded it by adding packages from spb-linux, slackware 10.2, and debian in some cases.

Anyway just adding some of my observations incase it of use to anybody. I may try to integrate puppy and xlinux into a fast ebox 2300 version, but i will have to learn more about puppy first.

Very interesting! I'd love to try your modified xlinux. Could you provide it as a ghost or iso image? You can contact Raffy to host the file (see his message above).

Integrating xlinux and Puppy sounds like a great project. Please let us know how you get on.

Paul

hillbillycletus · #91 Post by **hillbillycletus** » Mon 27 Aug 2007, 14:51

Well the ghost images from dmp are less than 3mb at

http://www.dmp.com.tw/tech/os-xlinux/

you can add svgalib from debs from debian, 7zip can open .deb if you make it and you can then extract the data.tar from the data.tar.gz then install it by tar -xf on the ebox. So open the .deb with 7zip search for data.tar in data.tar.gz extract the .tar to the dos partition (the xlinux ghost has two partitions a dos and ext2) then mount it under ebox and copy it to root then extract. Its not too hard. Most packages can be installed that way. Of course dependencies are a pain.

My .gho is 14MB which would take me about 2 hours to upload at home. I will try to thin it down or upload it when i go somewhere with a better connection. BTW the links2 package from spb-linux http://www.spblinux.de/2.0/spblinux1.htm can be run in text mode not requiring directfb.

soarland · #92 Post by **soarland** » Tue 04 Sep 2007, 08:06

close

frankpky · #93 Post by **frankpky** » Fri 14 Sep 2007, 11:38

hi all,

I found the lowest price for ebox at http://www.compactpc.com.tw, but :
1. shipping and handling can be quite high depending on where you are;
2. payment by telegraphic transfer to be made in advance; and
3. 1+ month for your order to be ready.

ebox-2300-H (support 2.5

Bert · #94 Post by **Bert** » Sat 15 Sep 2007, 11:07

frankpky wrote:
I have prices for other models as well, it there are expressed interests in the prices I'll post them.

Yes please...

I would like to know the ebox-4 series prices. Do you have shipping cost estimates, eg to Europe?

Thanks!

picatrix · #95 Post by **picatrix** » Sun 16 Sep 2007, 14:22

Hi Bert,

I bought mine ebox 4853 from epatec.es (try also epatec.de, depending if you live in northern Europe).

Model 4853 is sold as "firewall", because it has two ethernet interfaces, but it has also a CF reader on IDE2: just set a jumper to work as master, disable lan boot & IDE1 from Bios...and Puppy 2.15CE just flies from the Compact Flash, with 512MB DDr2 Ram & VIA Esther 1.2GHz processor, even with 1280x1024x24 resolution.

The only problem for me, at the moment, is the audio: alsa configurator recognise the soundcard as hda-intel (from the manual it is a AC97v2.2 Via Vynil VT1708), but all is silent...any hint?

Best Regards

Picatrix

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eBoxPup-2.13-0.1alpha released

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usb mouse

eBox 2300 soundcard not found

While not strictly related to puppylinux ...

good project

Re: While not strictly related to puppylinux ...

CF TO IDE,SATA-CF adapter

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