Pup214R v1.00 - Puppy Linux 2.14 Revisited, is now available

[Dougal]

As to the meandering comments about distant collaboration, I leave response to pakt and Dougal.

The way I understood his comment is that the only reason he's actually trying it is because he knows me and that he can turn to me with bugs (same with Barry), whereas he never uses CE versions, since there's no specific person to turn to...

[Dougal]

Here's an updated installer.

I've (hopefully) fixed the problems with frugal installs.
I've implemented the copying of the contents of the zdrv onto the HD with a full install (I never heard of this problem before...).

[Dougal]

It boots as expected from CD, however, I can't get frugal to work ?!
rc.sysinit never gets executed; after the union thing, it said:
[...]
busybox v 1.6.1 [...]
usage: init
init is the parent of all processes. - and then nothing else happens.

Try the updated installer.

Note to everybody: if you have a problem booting, you should try booting with "pfix=debug" which will give you detailed output that can help me find out what the problem is.

[swarnick]

(I had trouble getting this to post. If it comes up twice I will try to delete the extra copy.)

I have two machines which won't boot any version earlier than 2.17. Actually that isn't quite true. They hang most of the time but if I turn them off and wait awhile sometimes they will boot up. They hang at "loading kernel modules". This problem has ruled out 2.14R for me. (It also rules out a personal favorite of mine, PuppyPro.)

I would like to help with fixing this but I'm not quite sure where to start. The first step would be to see what got improved in 2.17 to lower memory usage and let the modules load. The second step would be to gather info on CPU type, IDE disk type, memory size, etc. which I will do before posting again.

Vis a vis releasing: Point revisions are a good idea. Taking down the old iso isn't required as many people might not need a given fix. Waiting until everything is perfect to release is not an option as many subtle bugs will not emerge even during thorough testing. They depend on hardware/software combinations not available in the lab or on a pattern of use the testers didn't anticipate. When releasing to real users every development team must try to find the sweet spot: good enough for the vast majority of users but with niggles for obscure hardware or unanticipated usage patterns. Reaching perfection in any release of any product is an iterative process.

Finally, I can appreciate good work without being an acolyte, especially if that good work is done by volunteers.

[Sage]

Taking down the old iso isn't required as many people might not need a given fix.

Curious statement? Removing old saves server space. It would hardly be anticipated that the update would fail to do things the old one did?!

Otherwise my salt has been pinched.....

[gerry]

I'm a bit bemused by all this- what is the need for 214R? Isn't a more recent version better? Why is 214R better than all subsequent versions?

On the other hand... I notice that I may be progressing towards having a number of Puppies, all tuned to various specialities, rather than a BIG distro that does everything (when it gets round to it.)

Gerry

[raffy]

machines which won't boot any version earlier than 2.17

It must be some I/O chips. Recently, I've encountered this problem with a standard AMD Geode GX466 (this has CS5535* chipset) that has an enhanced IDE interface (the IDE drive is actually a CF). I guess I will have to open the monitor (it's an integrated PC/CPU) or use Dougal's hardware diagnostic dotpup (?). I recall that 2.17 is meant to be able to handle certain SD cards...

It will be good for 214R to also work in such machines.

* No problem using this chipset with Puppy.

EDIT: gerry, 2.14 is in the middle of various versions beginning with 2.12 (with major kernel upgrade in 2.12), and can combine the best of the old and the new. It also used XDG menus for the first time.

[cb88]

are you saying that 2.14R is getting the gtk upgrade or 2.12? to what version is it being upgraded? if there is a forum post i have missed a link would be much apreciated...

do these fixes conflict with 2.15ce? if not perhaps whodoo could release another full release of 2.15ce... probably best to wait untill all these fixes have matured

cb88 ...thinks of running compiz on 2.12 with a minimal gtk dock (no desktop environment...but lxde looks good) and emerald window manager..... would be much more lightweight than xfce

[twointo1]

tempetuous-

I tried your directions: booted, did the pet, and then reboot with a save. When the livecd booted it did not recognize the wifi adapter. I then, modprobed zd1211, and it still did not recognize it.

I then unplugged and replugged the adapter and looked at the dmesg. It showed the following:

zd1211: no version for "struct_module" found: kernel tainted
zd1211 - http://zd1211.ath.cx/ - r85
based on www.zdas.com.tw driver version 2.5.0.0
usbcore resgistered new driver zd1211
usb 1-1: usb disconnect, address 2
usb 1-1: new high speed device using echi_hcd and address 4
usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from choice

Hopes this helps with a path to get the zd1211b chip working.

twointo1

[gerry]

I tried it. I'm impressed. I like it.

Mind you, my needs are simple- no wifi.

I will need unrpm and cups to get my Canon i965 printer going, though.

Gerry

[tempestuous]

I then modprobed zd1211

No, wrong module. Now that we know your device ID is 0ace:1215 the correct module is zd1211b.
So the correct command is

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modprobe zd1211b

but Puppy may automatically load it anyway, so check first with "lsmod".

[Dougal]

I have two machines which won't boot any version earlier than 2.17. This problem has ruled out 2.14R for me.

Please try booting with "pfix=debug". I have much more verbose output that Barry, so it might help us find out where the problem is.

Point revisions are a good idea. Taking down the old iso isn't required as many people might not need a given fix. Waiting until everything is perfect to release is not an option as many subtle bugs will not emerge even during thorough testing.

The way Pakt and me do it is that we have what you might think of as "weekly builds" -- we use frugal installs and just keep updating pup_214R.sfs every time I fix bugs and send him the update... then we can test it by booting with pfix=ram.

[twointo1]

tempestuous-

I did a modprobe zd1211b and it is recognized. The wifi adapter shows as wlan0. I believe this is the first time it has shown up that way. If I remember correctly, in the other versions and some other distros it shows as eth1. Problem is now connecting. Even if I turn off wep or wpa, it will not connect. I could also do a iwlist eth1(wlan0 now) scanning, but now it says it doesn't support it. This is odd. In the wizard, it shows about 8 ap's including mine.

Well, I never got ahead by giving up and I'm not about to now.

Thanks

twointo1

[cb88]

I just booted up 2.14R and i have notice that JWM configuration is really cutdown... I don't remember if it allowed theme changeing in 2.14 but it doesn't now would be nice to get that working (nice gradient theme btw)

the rubix cube was somewhat of a selling feature for me....hehe doesn't matter

the new menu layout looks intuitive

transmisson is slow to shutdowm...

uexplor looks rather clunky... perhaps this would make a better option? http://pcmanfm.sourceforge.net/

i see the tabbed pmount is in... pdrive is nice too worth consideration

REALLY NEEDED: a menu entry for alsamixer it is a lifesaver (currently you have to be familiar with the command line to run it)

we that is all i see right now...

[cb88]

english spell checking is bliss...

I encountered the usb thing.... no drive was detected by mut or pmount but here is the interesting part... pudd did detect /mnt/ub1 just though you might like to know that...


the drives on the desktop are very user frendly... I like

@Dougal could you PM me a dotpet of Hotpup id like to use it in MATH PUP

[tempestuous]

twointo1,
In the next day or so I will package the original zd1211rw driver (with firmware) as a dotpet.
But in the meantime, there is some extra information you may wish to try. You could try to configure your wifi device from the commandline, as I explained in a HOWTO here -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=22469

this has the benefit of running setup commands one at a time, and it's easier to diagnose exactly where the problem is.

But there is one major deviation from those instructions I would suggest; you will see in the HOWTO this command

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ifconfig wlan0 up

This makes the wifi network interface active before running the iwconfig setup commands ... but I read somewhere that the Zydas driver won't work this way.
If true, you will see an error when you try to run the iwconfig commands.
So before running the iwconfig command, do this first -

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ifconfig wlan0 down

then run the iwconfig commands with the network in this inactive state. Hopefully the iwconfig command will now work.
If you get to this stage successfully, it will then probably be necessary to make the interface active before running the dhcpcd command.

[Sage]

Have been playing with Muppy008beta in the last two days. Although it's a lot bigger, Mark has worked miracles on what is, essentially, the same release. Everything works and for reasons I will never understand, he has been able to substantially speed up the whole procedure. Now that he is back on the scene, if it can be organised, a four-way collaboration might produce staggering results? It's got to be correct to fix everything, well - nearly everything - before moving forward?

[Dougal]

I just booted up 2.14R and i have notice that JWM configuration is really cutdown... I don't remember if it allowed theme changeing in 2.14 but it doesn't now would be nice to get that working (nice gradient theme btw)

I completely removed all the jwm-theme ingredients, as I consider it a cumbersome and inefficient way of doing it.

When you use the gtk-theme selector, pressing "set jwm" automatically generates a JWM theme from the gtk theme you selected. That way it is more flexible and can be applied to any gtk-theme you install (the only problem is that the gtk theme has to have the colours in hex triplets).

[Dougal]

A tip for people using s frugal install:
You can specify in the commandline (=grub menu entry) which pup_save to use.
You just need to add the PUPSAVE line from /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE, but remember to remove the quotes (').
Example: PUPSAVE=ext3,hda3,/pup_save2.3fs

Note that the script will assume that the pup_214R.sfs is in the same place as your pup_save, so if it isn't, you'll have to specify it:
SFSFILE=ext3,hda4,/pup_214R.sfs
(you can also specify the zdrv, but it's not critical: ZDRV=ext3,hda3,/zdrv_214.sfs )

So the grub menu line you end up with is something like this:

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kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEDIA=idehd PUPSAVE=ext3,hda3,/pup_save2.3fs SFSFILE=ext3,hda4,/pup_214R.sfs

What this is good for: if you specify the pup_save, the init script completely skip the part that searches your hard-drive, going directly to the PUPMODE calculation and mounting -- which can save some time.

Did I mention you can also specify PUPMODE? This way you can force it to run in PUPMODE=13 on non-flash media.

[davec51]

I love 2.14R, but a small request: How do I change the time format? I prefer the 12-hour display, with no date.