Puppy & Gentoo

[Leachim]

We made big advantages in the afternoon session, repairing a lot of packages I damaged in my size-reduction-session on Saturday.

My students tested a lot of games, personal messengers and desktop tweaks - they were allowed to install and configure whatever they liked!

I synced the portage tree. It now contains an up-to-date package list. I also installed and tested the 3D-accelerated nVidia graphics drivers - I can test them at school only.

Things to be done (for the first public alpha):

* ensure stability

* ensure CD-size - currently there are some MB "overweight" ...

* ensure that package installations and updates work well on PCs with "only" 1 GB RAM ... (you can work well and install small to medium size packages on 512 MB machines, too)

* improve xzwizard to replace OpenGL-drivers automatically if hardware has changed (nicely, most of this job can be done by a Gentoo script)

* write an installation script

I hope to get most of the above points settled tomorrow. Then on Wednesday another group of students will continue testing. If all works fine I might upload a first version on Wednesday evening - let's see!

[Leachim]

I upgraded, rebuild and checked the whole system. Everything looks absolutely stable again!

If nothing unforeseen happens, I will offer the download tomorrow evening.

And then I need a few days rest ... ^^

[Leachim]

Finally done!

While I am writing these lines Simplux Alpha 1 is uploaded onto my web-server.

I had a two days struggle with cd-rom-drives. First I found out, that I unintentionally removed IDE-drivers when I upgraded to kernel 2.6.24 some weeks ago. Then the kernel contained the wrong cd-rom-driver. The init-script attempted to mount the cd with write-access and a lot other strange things happened ... - I burned the poor CD at least for twenty times until I had a fully working version!

The CD has two purposes

* beeing an installation platform for Simplux

* boot Simplux on PCs that cannot boot from USB-devices (in this case insert CD and pen-drive, the boot will start from the CD and then continue booting from the pen-drive)

It is not meant to be used directly. It is ultimately slow compared to versions running from an USB-pen-drive.

To install Simplux onto a FAT32-formatted device enter

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install_simplux <device>

on a shell prompt. The device should not be mounted! The installer installs the SIBLO-bootloader and copies all necessary files to the destination-device. There are no files removed - except there would be a name clash, which is very unlikely because all files are stored in the subdirectory simplux or contain the string "simplux" or "siblo" somewhere in the filename.

To detect onto which device to install use MUT (the icon in the upper left corner). In case your pen-drive is shown as /dev/sdc, just enter the follwing command:

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install_simplux --verbose /dev/sdc1

Please ensure that at least 1GB of free space is available on the target-device! The more the better! 4GB will allow a rich environment of installed packages.

I will add more detailed instructions on the simplux-homepage within the next few days. I also want to setup a Simplux-forum.

For short:

To install addtional packages use the Gentoo commands

eix - for gathering information about packages
emerge - to install or deinstall packages

The system menu also contains porthole - a graphical frontend to the package-manager.

For all commands are man- and info-pages available.

The download site is

http://simplux.org

I will add the download link, when the upload has been completed.

I will need some rest this weekend - the last few weeks were rather stressful!

I hope you enjoy Simplicity as much as I do!

But don't forget: It's an alpha version! This doesn't mean that it is unstable (I use it for my everyday work) but it might not work at all on some hardware. My students reported problems with USB-devices (mice and keyboards).

Edit:

I forgot to mention some essential commands:

Use reboot and shutdown to ensure correct shutdown of Simplux including copying all data back to the pen-drive.

There is no automatic save (every half an hour) as in Puppy. Use merge_ramdisk whenever you want to copy files from the ramdisk-layer to the save-file. Files are moved if possible, so after calling merge_ramdisk, the ramdisk should be (nearly) empty again!

Edit 2:

Upload finished!

http://simplux.org/downloads/simplux.iso

Please use wget for downloading to prevent useless retransmissions in case the connection breaks!

[Lobster]

at least 1GB of free space

My present HD is only 1 GB
Will get new one soon . . .
. . . meanwhile congratulations
Looking very much forward to feedback and screenshots
will put a link on our wiki news
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LatestNews

sounds amazing

[klu9]

Hi and congrats!

For some tips on distributing your ISO (inc. MD5), see here:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/DistributingYourPuplet

To begin, here's a CoBlitzed download link:
http://coblitz.codeen.org/simplux.org/d ... implux.iso

[raffy]

Amazing development - thanks for working hard on this project.

[elraven]

just got done looking it over and its great ! I think i can give you a leg up on the keyboard problem . With me its loading de.gz for the keyboard map an not en.gz . don't know the command in terminal to change things around though . But hey its a super great system !
Elraven

[Leachim]

Sorry, about the keyboard. It should habe been autodetected, but maybe something went wrong! And I of course use a german keyboard ... ^^

There will be no need to ever download the whole iso-image again. I will supply updates instead. As soon as possible these updates will be available as regular packages.

I will supply the md5sum of the iso-image in the download-section!

Edit:

The X11-keyboard is autodetected from the console keyboard and that is set to "de" - not very clever indeed! ^^

I will try to fix this soon.

[Leachim]

I added the md5-file to the download section.

To change the keyboard settings, please edit "/etc/keymap". You must also delete "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" and "/etc/X11/db/*" to remove all wrongly stored keyboard-settings. As an alternative you can edit "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" directly.

The current xwizard doesn't work with intel-graphics-chips. The first update (available Sunday or Tuesday) will fix this.

[mac84]

ok so this is my experience so far:

burned to cd with UltraISO, ISOrecorder, and Magic ISO maker
all three report:

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check "/dev/sdc0" for boot-signature
PANIC: timeout exceeded - no boot device found

I used winrar to extract the iso to a pendrive. booted from the CD, it found the CD boot signature on the usb though???

well anywho for now...It runs as a "cd" off the usb and I can't install it like that. Good news is that I have my Xpress 200 5955 running with 3d accel!!!

yay

I then copied the files to another pendrive and boot the same as prev. Now I get this error:

I tried to install simplux and this is the error report I get

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/sbin/simple:
file ''/lib/simple/misc/standard'', line 88:
extern command install_siblo failed with error code 1
detailed error information:


#

and unfortunately, I can make out what is sorta going on in there but I'm still new to linux.

anyhelp? need any other info or logs? should I post /lib/simple/misc/standard? I already googled

thanks alot!

[Leachim]

First of all, thanks for reporting. I have only limited hardware available for testing!

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check "/dev/sdc0" for boot-signature
PANIC: timeout exceeded - no boot device found

This means that the init-script cannot find your CD! How is your CD-drive connected? IDE - or something else?

I used winrar to extract the iso to a pendrive. booted from the CD, it found the CD boot signature on the usb though???

You can just copy the contents of the iso-file onto a stick. I decided to provide an iso, because it was wanted this way!

Here is an exact list of changes you have to do, when copying the contents of the iso-image directly onto a pendrive:

* make the pendrive bootable using SIBLO or syslinux

* rename isolinux.cfg to siblo.cfg or syslinux.cfg

* rename simlux.cd to simplux-flash

* create /simplux/distfiles/.locks as an empty directory

This should do!

well anywho for now...It runs as a "cd" off the usb and I can't install it like that. Good news is that I have my Xpress 200 5955 running with 3d accel!!!

Completely automatic 3D-acceleration is currently available for nVidia and ATI based graphics adapters. Intel-support will be added soon.

I will also add support for compiz or compiz-fusion - my students like it!

I then copied the files to another pendrive and boot the same as prev. Now I get this error:

I tried to install simplux and this is the error report I get

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/sbin/simple:
file ''/lib/simple/misc/standard'', line 88:
extern command attach failed with error code 1

There are two reasons I can think of:

* the device you specified is not connected

* the device you specified is already mounted

The mount-command is the most silly Linux-command. It's error report are "really helpful" ... ^^

______

Don't forget: The most amazing thing about Simplux is not its automatic hardware recognition and support for 3D-graphics but it's support to install or deinstall any out of more than 12.000 Gentoo packages!!!

(Please do not deinstall packages installed in the base-system with the exception of Firefox, Thunderbird or Extreme Tux Racer! Extreme Tux Racer is supplied for instant testing of sound and graphcis acceleration.)

[mac84]

thanks!

extracted and bootable, created save-file

now it's saying mount:

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Mounting /dev/loop0 on /base failed: Invalid argument


Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

as far as my laptop, it's a Compaq Presario V2410USspecs
I can only assume my cd drive is IDE. and I'm using a 4gb usb as storage... my hd died.

all my drives worked when I booted off the cd and loaded from usb as in my first post

[alienjeff]

* ensure that package installations and updates work well on PCs with "only" 1 GB RAM ... (you can work well and install small to medium size packages on 512 MB machines, too)

Ahem ... I trust you'll be replacing a key line in /etc/rc.d/rc.local0 from

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aplay -N /usr/share/audio/2barks.au

to

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aplay -N /usr/share/audio/2oinks.au

Seems appropriate ...

[Leachim]

@mac84:

I hope to get more replies about problems detecting the boot-media to figure out why this happens!

@alienjeff:

That's the superb thing about Linux: You get one for every taste! Puppy is a great distribution for aged PCs and runs really fine on modern PCs, too. Simplux on the other hand works great (if it works at all ^^ - it's an alpha version) on modern PCs. Simplux is meant as a PC-in-the-pocket. Carry you're desktop with all you're data and applications around and use it whereever you are. Simplux should boot on 128MB-PCs as well (I did not test the lastest versions for this, of course), but that's not the primary target.

Technicalls Puppy and Simplux share a lot features. But they're designed with different goals in mind!

[mac84]

all my drives worked when I booted off the cd and loaded from usb as in my first post.

Is there a init-script i can look at?

[Leachim]

The init-script (written in Simplicity) resides in the initial-ramdisk in /sbin/init_simplux. It is the same for CD- as for flash-boot.

It looks for some media containing a file named simplux.cd (read-only) or simplux-flash (read-write). It it finds both, the boot continues from the read-write media.

You can find the ramdisk contents in /usr/src/initrd.2624. To create a new ramdisk on the boot-pendrive (from the contents of /usr/src/initrd.2624) you can use the command

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mkinitrd 2624

Maybe I forgot to include some needed modules into the kernel. On monday I will have my students check pendrives and CDs on every PC we can get hands on!

_____

Software tip: torcs - a 3D car-race-simulation. Dirt Track #3 looks awfully great!

[mac84]

I also tried tried this on sony VGN-A290 and the same results.

I also tried it on a MSI ati Xpress 200 desktop
booted off the cd no problem, usb boot also resulted in

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Mounting /dev/loop0 on /base failed: Invalid argument

from mesglog:

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daemon.notice modprobe: WARNING: Error inserting cdrom (/lib/modules/2.6.24/kernel/drivers/cdrom/cdrom.ko): Invalid module format 
user.err kernel: cdrom: exports duplicate symbol cdrom_get_last_written (owned by kernel)
user.warn kernel: sysfs: duplicate filename 'sr_mod' can not be created
user.warn kernel: WARNING: at fs/sysfs/dir.c:424 sysfs_add_one()
user.warn kernel: Pid: 1740, comm: modprobe Tainted: P        2.6.24 #11
user.warn kernel:  [<c01bc0a0>] sysfs_add_one+0xa0/0xe0
user.warn kernel:  [<c01bc3e4>] create_dir+0x44/0x90
user.warn kernel:  [<c01bc479>] sysfs_create_dir+0x29/0x50
user.warn kernel:  [<c020870b>] create_dir+0x1b/0x50
user.warn kernel:  [<c02088e6>] kobject_add+0x46/0x150
user.warn kernel:  [<c011b51f>] module_finalize+0x14f/0x170
user.warn kernel:  [<c01505d4>] mod_sysfs_setup+0x24/0xc0
user.warn kernel:  [<c0151c78>] load_module+0xc68/0xe90
user.warn kernel:  [<f88a8a24>] fbstart+0x34/0x50 [aufs]
user.warn kernel:  [<f88a6c94>] au_reval_and_lock_finfo+0x2a4/0x2c0 [aufs]
user.warn kernel:  [<c016b163>] vma_merge+0xd3/0x1d0
user.warn kernel:  [<c0151f01>] sys_init_module+0x41/0x120
user.warn kernel:  [<c01043b2>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5f/0x85
user.warn kernel:  =======================
user.err kernel: kobject_add failed for sr_mod with -EEXIST, don't try to register things with the same name in the same directory.
user.warn kernel: Pid: 1740, comm: modprobe Tainted: P        2.6.24 #11
user.warn kernel:  [<c0208996>] kobject_add+0xf6/0x150
user.warn kernel:  [<c01505d4>] mod_sysfs_setup+0x24/0xc0
user.warn kernel:  [<c0151c78>] load_module+0xc68/0xe90
user.warn kernel:  [<f88a8a24>] fbstart+0x34/0x50 [aufs]
user.warn kernel:  [<f88a6c94>] au_reval_and_lock_finfo+0x2a4/0x2c0 [aufs]
user.warn kernel:  [<c016b163>] vma_merge+0xd3/0x1d0
user.warn kernel:  [<c0151f01>] sys_init_module+0x41/0x120
user.warn kernel:  [<c01043b2>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5f/0x85
user.warn kernel:  =======================

Puppy 3.01 and SabayonLinux 3.4 mini load on all three all three so I know they can work, just gotta find out how

thanks you for your help! if there is any info about my hardware I can give you let me know! of even if you send me off in the right direction that would be awesome too.

I'm gonna go poke around in the ramdisk[/code]

[Leachim]

The message log output seems to stem from a system that already succeded in first stage boot. Is this right? I concluded this from the Pid 1740 - the init-process has Pid 1.

As I understand the log message, some process attempts to load the cd-rom-driver as a module but this driver is already included as a builtin. - I forgot to remove the module ...

I definitely have no such messages in my kernel log. - Hmm, maybe I should test on a system with a cd-rom-drive connected ... ^^ (I have booted from the Simplux-CD on several PCs before, but never checked the kernel-log.)

[mac84]

ok this is what I found after looking at the init script

nothing??? from what I know(almost nothing) and just googling and searching it all looks good, so then I turned to the save.2fs

I'm installing this on a 4gb usb and it created a save.2fs at about 2gb as told to do in the init. I replaced the 2gb 2fs with a 256mb....and shazam! working!!!

maybe you can give an option to create our own sized save file? I think I was reading in puppy if it's over 1.5gb it could have problems?

[Leachim]

Simplux tries to handle everything automatically, but does not overwrite user defined settings. So just manually create a save-file and Simplux will use it instead of creating a new one.

You can create a save file using

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> dd if=/dev/zero of=/initrd/mnt/base/simplux/save.2fs bs=1M count=<your-desired-size-in-MB>
> /initrd/bin/mke2fs /initrd/mnt/base/simplux/save.2fs
> sync

Important: You must use the mke2fs from /initrd!!!
_____________

I added an update-script for easy updating of the Simplicity core system. Please enter (or paste) the following commands on a Simplux shell prompt:

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wget -O /usr/local/sbin/update_simplux http://simplux.org/downloads/update_simplux
mkexe /usr/local/sbin/update_simplux

From now on you can easily update Simplux using the command:

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update_simplux

______________

The first update fixes a bug that prevented X-startup on machines with Intel-graphics-adapters.