Puppy 2.15CE "Viz" - Development Ideas/Requests

Message

PaulBx1 · #91 Post by **PaulBx1** » Sat 24 Feb 2007, 16:00

Not automounting is by design. Puppy has one of the easiest mounting systems I've seen. However, I'll mention your suggestion for automounting because I've seen a few posts requesting it for removable media.

I don't mind that we move in the direction of Windows for a lot of things (there are good reasons for Windows dominance in the market, and anyway Puppy is for Windows refugees); however I think this is one that should stay "Linux". It is not hard to learn at all and sometimes you want control over what is mounted and what not, without having to physically plug and unplug stuff. After a while you don't want to go back to the windows model.

Anyway, windows does it half-assed: it auto mounts, but still requires a manual dismount (which I bet a lot of people forget to do on USB devices). Going manual both ways just reinforces the correct behavior.

Billcnz · #92 Post by **Billcnz** » Sat 24 Feb 2007, 17:56

Hi guys, I tested moving moving firefox to /usr/lib and deleting the seamonkey directory and re-linking /usr/lib/firefox to /usr/lib/mozilla (if firefox is really going to replace seamonkey in this release then we can save some space and apps that need the mozilla libs can use firefox's).

The fix for flash-9 is tested and working:
(added to start script)

# Include /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins in the plugin path:
if [ "$MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH" ] ; then
MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=$MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH:${moz_libdir}/plugins:/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
else
MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=${moz_libdir}/plugins:/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
fi
export MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH

Something that desertpuppy and I noticed is when firefox updates itself it will overwrite this script and loose customizations, to overcome this I renamed the firefox start script to mozilla-bin (also for consistency with what we were doing with seamonkey). You do need to edit another line in the script for this to work:
MOZILLA_BIN="${progbase}-bin"
change to MOZILLA_BIN="firefox-bin"

veronicathecow · #93 Post by **veronicathecow** » Sat 24 Feb 2007, 21:42

Manual mount?
Auto mount?
Would it be so hard to add a little setup gui to allow people to automount whatever partitions they wanted on boot up?

Me I want to automount my music.

Also I do a full HDD install and something that preserves setting would be really useful.

K3B is the best burner I have come across and totally reliable. Tried burning a DVD whilst compressing a vob, surfing the net, and watching a DVD all without a single error, I have never been able to do that on any machine or OS!

Love the little timers in 2.15

Would love to see something like Yankee clipper in there (Last 100 clipping stored and easily to hand), I really miss that.

Easy autostart of programs and files IMHO is essential.

many thanks

veronicathecow · #94 Post by **veronicathecow** » Sat 24 Feb 2007, 21:49

Another thought!

How about a bare bones and then

PUP collections. People could create collections of add ons. The user would then search the list for the "Collection" that best matched their requirement, click on that and it would install all the .pups (or whatever) in one go. Then afterwards they could add any others .pups that wern't in the collection that they needed.

Or a gui with tick boxes that once programed (A file with this list could also be saved for future upgrades). Then click on create and all the .pups get installed in one go.

Is that a silly idea or impracticle?

cthisbear · #95 Post by **cthisbear** » Sat 24 Feb 2007, 22:00

PaulBx1
"Puppy is for Windows refugees); however I think this is one that should stay "Linux".

I would wonder about being targeted on the Internet if my drives were automounted. Also would Puppy crash because Windows had an error on shutdown?
Chris

iscraigh · #96 Post by **iscraigh** » Sat 24 Feb 2007, 22:04

It looks great, the bcm44 driver still doesn't work with my dell nic, ndiswrapper does so it is no big deal. Like the icon set, the green wallpaper was pretty wild for me and didn't really go with the icon set. Perhaps the same icons a bit greener. Nice having firefox as the default and i really liked the weather extension I wil be adding that to my other boxes. I will continue to play.

Craig

iscraigh · #97 Post by **iscraigh** » Sat 24 Feb 2007, 22:05

Another post reminded me, Murga's autostart pup should be in for sure(size allowing)

Craig

puppyfan12 · #98 Post by **puppyfan12** » Sun 25 Feb 2007, 17:03

PaulBx1 wrote:I don't mind that we move in the direction of Windows for a lot of things (there are good reasons for Windows dominance in the market, and anyway Puppy is for Windows refugees); however I think this is one that should stay "Linux". It is not hard to learn at all and sometimes you want control over what is mounted and what not, without having to physically plug and unplug stuff. After a while you don't want to go back to the windows model.

Anyway, windows does it half-assed: it auto mounts, but still requires a manual dismount (which I bet a lot of people forget to do on USB devices). Going manual both ways just reinforces the correct behavior.

I think what we need to do is to take ecomoney's suggestions into consideration. He runs a linux cybercafe in Lincolnshire, England and probably has more experience than most other people on this board dealing with real end users. I do a lot of that on a 1 on 1 basis as well and I can relate to many of his dilemma's he's posted about.

I agree that automounting is not necessary. Automounting is used in windows products and it makes "My Computer" slow and crappy to access and freezes the explorer process when its trying to find media that wasn't unmounted properly. Also, Automounting combined with autorunning applications opens security issues which windows suffers from. (plug in a usb drive with a script that autoruns and copies all their usernames/passwords to the USB drive without displaying any dialogs...thanks futureshop, for those $800 worth of Windows and MS Ofifice license keys...as an example of whats possible)

As has been suggested previously by ecomoney's users this area of puppy needs work in order to remain as secure as it currently is but become as intuitive as windows and mac.

Nathan suggested auto detection/auto mounting requires the hal daemon to run and several distros consider the Hal daemon enough of a security risk that they still refuse to include it.

He also mentioned that he thought someone did a bit of work to create a shell script that periodically scans for newly inserted pendrives, but he didn't know where to start looking for it. Perhaps this is the answer? Then even though the user is presented with the mount window when removable media is detect, they still have to click to mount/unmount the media.

The current method of "Doing nothing" isn't very intuitive for the end user. For the power user it might be an annoyance. Having it as an option to be toggled satisfies everyone.

veronicathecow wrote:Manual mount?
Auto mount?
Would it be so hard to add a little setup gui to allow people to automount whatever partitions they wanted on boot up?

Me I want to automount my music.

K3B is the best burner I have come across and totally reliable. Tried burning a DVD whilst compressing a vob, surfing the net, and watching a DVD all without a single error, I have never been able to do that on any machine or OS!

Easy autostart of programs and files IMHO is essential.

I agree completely and that's another suggestion I wanted to add as well. Mut 0.1.1 included in Muppy 006 already detects the drives when they're available. It doesn't automount, however. Couldn't we expand on MUT with a checkbox/option next to the "mount" option called ""automount". All that would do is add the entry for that drive to /etc/fstab for the user doesn't have to manually mount local disks on every reboot or edit any scripts.

I've also heard good things about k3b. How big is it in comparison to the ones currently included with puppy? Do the currently included burning apps give you issues? I can't comment on them as I haven't tried them.

I agree a simple gui for adding startup apps is essential. The average person doesn't need to know about runlevels/init.d and that's not very intuitive.

Billcnz wrote:Hi guys, I tested moving moving firefox to /usr/lib and deleting the seamonkey directory and re-linking /usr/lib/firefox to /usr/lib/mozilla (if firefox is really going to replace seamonkey in this release then we can save some space and apps that need the mozilla libs can use firefox's).

The fix for flash-9 is tested and working:
(added to start script)

# Include /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins in the plugin path:
if [ "$MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH" ] ; then
MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=$MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH:${moz_libdir}/plugins:/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
else
MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=${moz_libdir}/plugins:/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
fi
export MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH

Something that desertpuppy and I noticed is when firefox updates itself it will overwrite this script and loose customizations, to overcome this I renamed the firefox start script to mozilla-bin (also for consistency with what we were doing with seamonkey). You do need to edit another line in the script for this to work:
MOZILLA_BIN="${progbase}-bin"
change to MOZILLA_BIN="firefox-bin"

Sounds good. Is anyone willing to script the process and make a dotpup so more people can test it?

cthisbear wrote:PaulBx1
"Puppy is for Windows refugees); however I think this is one that should stay "Linux".

I would wonder about being targeted on the Internet if my drives were automounted. Also would Puppy crash because Windows had an error on shutdown?
Chris

I don't see the relation between automounting a drive and being targeted on the internet. Can you please provide a link to information that explains further?

ecomoney also made some good points about mouse configuration. Could those mouse configuration options be available as GUI options? That mouse wheel click screws up too many new and elderly users to not consider it.

PaulBx1 · #99 Post by **PaulBx1** » Sun 25 Feb 2007, 22:22

As has been suggested previously by ecomoney's users this area of puppy needs work in order to remain as secure as it currently is but become as intuitive as windows and mac.

IIRC Knoppix places drive icons on the desktop; when you click them they mount. Maybe I'm not remembering that properly, but it might be worth thinking about. They might be one color (say, red) and also say "not mounted", and when mounted change color to green and say "mounted". That keeps the security while making it easier than searching for MUT or pmount in a menu (MUT's name isn't the most descriptive!) I don't know how flexible you can get with those icons though.

I don't know what the real answer is. I find the concept of manual mounting simple and intuitive, and I think the way Windows does it is asking for trouble. I don't think kids at an internet cafe are going to have any problem with it; it will take them 5 seconds to learn it. Then they will know one of the ancient rites of the unix/linux world.

veronicathecow · #100 Post by **veronicathecow** » Sun 25 Feb 2007, 22:29

Although I would still like to see the automount facility PaulBx1 idea also has great merit, so perhaps we could have both. Definitly Red, green icon idea.

#101 Post by **Pizzasgood** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 00:17

I agree about no auto-mount when you plug stuff in. I do like the idea of a checkbox to mount a partition on boot-up.

Nathan F · #102 Post by **Nathan F** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 00:33

IIRC Knoppix places drive icons on the desktop; when you click them they mount.

That feature is implemented using Hal, which I commented on earlier so I won't repeat myself. It might be possible to code something up for Puppy that knows when a new drive is inserted, but it would be remarkably similar to Hal anyway because it would have to be a background daemon that keeps scanning the system buses to find anything new. Also, adding a desktop icon is kind of complicated in ROX, it would be probably easier to implement a tray application probably. Bear in mind I'm not advocating doing this, I'm just providing some background information on the mechanics of it.

The idea to be able to mount certain things at bootup is a good one, though. I have that set up manually on my computer just by adding in lines to rc.local. A gui for setting it up would be a good idea though.

Anyone ever used vasm in Vector Linux? That has always been a shining example of a good overall control panel for a Linux distro. It runs in both cli and gui modes and can set up anything from user accounts to mountpoints to hostname.

Nathan

veronicathecow · #103 Post by **veronicathecow** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 10:55

Printing, definitely a weakness. Okay lets face it, it ain't working at the moment (okay I'm no guru but I've given it a really good go.) Perhaps latest CUPS might work. I've posted a request for a Dotpup for that. Otherwise I'm going to have to go back to Windows or someother distro. 8-(

WhoDo · #104 Post by **WhoDo** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 11:05

veronicathecow wrote:Printing, definitely a weakness. Okay lets face it, it ain't working at the moment (okay I'm no guru but I've given it a really good go.) Perhaps latest CUPS might work. I've posted a request for a Dotpup for that. Otherwise I'm going to have to go back to Windows or someother distro. 8-(

What's the difficulty you are experiencing? Does it relate to a specific printer make/model?

I can't get Puppy to print across my LAN to a Windows samba host with a HP PSC2310 all-in-one, but I have zero trouble getting Puppy to print locally, either with Xpdq or Cups 0.3.

I know you've probably tried a lot of things, but let's have one more go before you defect to the dark side, eh?

zigbert · #105 Post by **zigbert** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 11:15

Nathan F wrote:It might be possible to code something up for Puppy that knows when a new drive is inserted, but it would be remarkably similar to Hal anyway because it would have to be a background daemon that keeps scanning the system buses to find anything new.

The only thing we need to know are IF something is plugged in; THEN run mut/pmount.

rarsa · #106 Post by **rarsa** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 15:03

veronicathecow wrote:Printing, definitely a weakness.

On whose part?

Printing works quite nice with printers that support linux.

That is something that most users do not seem to understand.

It is the printer which must support linux, not the other way around.

Printers work in Windows not because Windows, it is because the vendors create the appropriate drivers.

If a printer vendor didn't provide a driver for Windows, Would you rate it as a Windows bug?

Mac users have known this for a long time, so they just buy peripherals that have the Mac logo outside.

That people have made some printers work in linux when the vendor does not support linux is a testament to the tenacity of those individuals, not something "to be expected".

If your printer vendor does not support Linux, take it with them. Advice your friends and acquitances to stop buying those printers.

And please do not respond with "the user does not care whose fault it is". Well, they should be informed so they know who to take their grief to.

If they want to use linux, they should get linux compatible peripherals. And that is true for Mac or Vista or whatever OS.

============
P.S.
Do not buy Lexmark printers. Lexmark is notorious for not supporting Linux. They are even late providing drivers for Vista!
Lexmark printers are expensive even when they come "free" with the computer. I pay $80-$100 to get new ink cartridges at least twice a year with very light use.

NathanO · #107 Post by **NathanO** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 15:16

I have an HP 1220C printer. Using CUPS under Puppy It was found and configured no porblem. I can print no problem. I also did not have any problems getting it to work under various other distors such as Fedora, Knoppix, and SUSE.

I have not been able to get the printer to work with the Puppy Printer Wizzard. Ihave tryed to get it to work starting with Puppy 2.11 right on through 2.14.

I know CUPS would be more 'overhead', but if it works with a larger group of printers, and we do not put all of CUPS in memory, just the parts needed to 'print the job', allowing all the other needed parts to be 'overlayed' when setting up a new printer or doing major changes other then things like paper size, Portrait or Landscape, then Puppy becomes to more people a more user friendly way to go.

NathanO

rarsa · #108 Post by **rarsa** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 15:44

NathanO wrote:I know CUPS would be more 'overhead', but if it works with a larger group of printers

Oh, I agree that CUPS must be available.

My comment was about printers not supporting linux. If they support linux trough CUPS. Great!

So in the true spirit of this thread:
Here are some Ideas for Printing:
- Someone should take the initiative for including a larger selection of printers for the guttenprint included with with puppy. Barry has already requested it.
- I think CUPS should be available as an oficial PET but not on the base LiveCD.
- CUPS should be split into a Core package, and then one package per compatible driver.
- Create a CUPS printer wizard which help the user choose the best driver for their printer.

A lot of that work has already been started. Patk has done a great job building on top of some initial packages we created. People can get it from here

Something important is that Creating a CUPS set of packages is going to require a lot of patience and testing. It was great that I had two awesome testers when creating the original packages, but It was quite sad that I only had Two testers.

Not all the things on this list may be doable for 2.15, but If someone with enough time takes it seriously this could be the Great big thing for 2.15.

Nathan F · #109 Post by **Nathan F** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 20:03

The only thing we need to know are IF something is plugged in; THEN run mut/pmount.

Yes, I understand, and that doesn't change a single thing I said. There would have to be some background daemon monitoring the system buses that would know when new hardware is inserted. Trust me here, I'm not making this up.

Nathan

puppyfan12 · #110 Post by **puppyfan12** » Mon 26 Feb 2007, 22:54

I've retracted my comment because it's off topic but is there a place that recommends which printers have the best support with puppy drivers?

Perhaps they could be listed in the puppy 2.15 manual? I still haven't had much luck printing from linux (even on reportedly working printers). I'm a graphics guy and print photos for dvd covers for lacrosse videos I film and edit and stuff. I had problems with email fonts using cups.

Is there a dotpup of hplip driver?

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Puppy 2.15CE "Viz" - Development Ideas/Requests