Pebble 1.0 BETA - simple bootsplash program

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dinky
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#16 Post by dinky »

Ok, so that was part of the problem. I'd forgotten that the remaster process resets most of the changes to /etc. The remaster works fine now apart from three issues (all with a pupsave file on a usb flash drive, booting from live cd):

1. For the initial boot with a previous pupsave file, it needs to be booted with the parameter 'puppy pfix=purge'
Not a huge issue, and this makes sense to do anyway, but some personal settings are lost. If this is not done, and booted normally, the boot freezes with multiple lines of code on the screen,(after bootsplash exits) ending with
'Clocksource tsc unstable (delta=127976628ns)
'Time: pit clocksource has been installed'
Works perfectly after this except for the following two issues.

2. When booting from a live cd with an encrypted pupsave file, splash works fine initially, displaying after boot message, and exiting when the choice screen is displayed for which pupsave file to boot from. When I choose the file on the usb drive, one of two things will happen. The splash screen will return (most common), leaving me to type in the password behind it, then press enter, or (less common) work perfectly by exiting again and asking me for the password.

3. Will only work booting from the usb drive if initrd.gz is copied to it. Otherwise sends kernel into panic.

So all up this works, but not perfectly. I'm unsure if I can use this for the release of the pupplet I'm making, though in every other way it's brilliant. Is there a way to fix the problem of not displaying properly with the encrypted password prompts for the pupsave files? Also, initrd.gz needing to be on the usb to boot properly is problematic. While easy when you know it needs to be there, I'm creating this for near total noobs.
Can you think of any easy ways to fix, or tell me how to fix, these issues? Is it possible for initrd.gz not to be need on the usb the pupsave file is on, or to write a script which automatically copies this to the usb when a pupsave file is saved on it?

Thanks again for your help. Cheers.

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Pizzasgood
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#17 Post by Pizzasgood »

Problem 1 I think is due to something in your particular customization. I've booted a great many times using a half-setup Pebble where the pup_save.2fs file hasn't been touched yet. All that normally happens is that halfway through (when it hits the switch_root/pivot_root) text starts covering the image, and then when the boot is finished the command line won't show a blinking cursor (the real commandline, not RXVT and co.). Maybe I should add some code to check if the save file has Puppy installed yet, and if not shut down Pebble gracefully instead of hibernating it. (Either way it actually terminates gracefully, but the hibernate doesn't restore the previous graphical settings).

For Problem 2, it seemed to work right when I was testing it, and I haven't been able to see anywhere in the code that would cause this. I'll look and test again when I get back on Monday, or else as soon as I have the time.

As for Problem 3, I haven't tested that particular situation, of booting from CD with the save file on the USB with no initrd.gz file. I never thought to. Maybe this influences Problem 2. I have no idea why it would change anything at all, since the CD specifies (to the kernel itself) where the initrd.gz file is. Maybe there's some path-finding code that depends on the initrd.gz file being on the drive or something. I'll check this out too. Worst case scenario is to modify the /etc/rc.d/rc.shutdown script to copy initrd.gz to the same place the pup_save.2fs file is created, which wouldn't be hard. Better to find the actual problem, of course.


Are you using the provided initrd.gz file, building a new one from the files I uploaded, or first editing things before creating it?
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#18 Post by dinky »

<Are you using the provided initrd.gz file, building a new one from the files I uploaded, or first editing things before creating it?>

I'm not sure what you mean here. My process has been to untar your full package (the one with everything on it), create the initrd.gz file from the scripts provided, copy all the other files to their various places, then place the new initrd.gz file in the right place. After that I set the vga=785, and reboot. Does this answer your question?

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#19 Post by Pizzasgood »

Yup. Thanks. I'll try to look into this when I get out of class today, unless I suddenly realize there's a big flaw in the robot-steering-assembly-code I wrote over the weekend, which would have to take priority.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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#20 Post by Pizzasgood »

Sorry, but I still haven't noticed anything like what you describe. Does it behave normally if you don't use an initrd.gz and pup_xxx.sfs file with Pebble? What about using them with Pebble, but booting with puppy pfix=nosplash?

This is weird.
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#21 Post by dinky »

pfix=nosplash works fine, it's just like turning Pebble off. Remember that it's a problem with the splash screen not displaying at the right times. Won't work at all without an initrd.gz file on the usb stick, and how on earth can I boot it without a pup_xxx.sfs (in this case pup_301.sfs)? If I take it off of the usb, then it's copied to ram from the cd. I thought those files were the compressed puppy, and utterly crucial...

I agree, this is weird... would it help to post up on a server the exact version of puppy I'm using, i.e. my remastered iso? I'll also try it with puppy 3.01, with the only changes being pebble added. Seems like there are more than a few bugs with puppy 3.01, at least where encryption is concerned, I wonder if this could be another one. Cheers,

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#22 Post by Pizzasgood »

The reasoning behind trying with the splash disabled but still installed is that even with it disabled there are some changes from the standard Puppy, so we could see if those changes are also messing it up.
how on earth can I boot it without a pup_xxx.sfs
I wasn't clear enough. I meant using a pup_xxx.sfs that didn't have Pebble in it, and no initrd.gz file on the USB at all. I wasn't thinking though, because that would be the same as before you installed Pebble, which you already confirmed works.


I'm basically just guessing at this point.


Yes, uploading it might help. If you don't already have somewhere to put it I can set up a temporary limited FTP account on my own site.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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#23 Post by dinky »

Thanks mate, I'll post it up later. Also have Uni work to do, and some other work I'm getting ready for tomorrow; I'm running a small theatre company and have a gig I've got to prepare for, so It might be a day or two. I'll put it on the public ftp section of our site, and let you know when it's there. Cheers,

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#24 Post by dinky »

HI Pizzasgood, I'm uploading my pupplet to our server as I type, should be up there in the next hour or so.
Go to:
http://www.curiouslegends.com.au/tigerpup

There are two iso's:
tigerpupversion1_3.iso &
tigerpupversion1_3splash.iso

The later one has pebble on it. Found out that initrd.gz isn't necessary after all on the usb drive when booting from a cd, I must have had the wrong initrd.gz file on the previous version I tried. Still having an issue with the bootsplash coming over the password, otherwise works great. Load the cd into ram, then on shutting down save to a usb drive with heavy encryption. Size doesn't seem to matter. I haven't tried it on a pc that doesn't already have pupsave files loaded on it, so booting up with the only pupsave file on the usb may get a different result (one less screen, etc.). Let me know what your thoughts are, and if you've got any ideas what needs to change. I like it alot.

Also, let me know what your thoughts are of this pupplet in general. Based on wNOP 0.2, I've updated several programs, and changed the user interface quite alot. It started out as a customization of wNOP, and has since turned into another remaster of puppy. Very similar to NOP, but as I hate XP's interface, I've changed it quite alot.
The basic idea is to make it as user friendly to complete noobs as possible. I still need to write documentation to describe all the features (how compiz-fusion works, etc.)m but that will have to wait until the next Uni assignment I'm procrastinating. It's about 172 Mb, and not intended to be a lightweight. I'm focusing on computers with at least 256 Mb of ram. Cheers.

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#25 Post by Pizzasgood »

Okay. I might not get to this for a bit. Turns out some things I thought were due next week are actually due this week, and my weekend was already pretty full to begin with. :(

But when I get some time I'll give it a go.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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#26 Post by dinky »

Don't you just hate it when that happens...lol. Time just has away of disappearing, or more accurately being procrastinated away. Good luck with your assignments. Lol.

olovram
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#27 Post by olovram »

Hey, i have a problem:).
When i type

Code: Select all

find / -name initrd.gz
in terminal to locate initrd.gz, it just moves to the line below, as if i have pushed enter.
And if i try to located it using Pfind, it doesnt find anything.
I think I dont have an initrd.gz on my sistem:S



---------Martin

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dinky
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#28 Post by dinky »

Hi Martin, do you have a full install to your hard drive? I've been working on a full hard drive install for a friend's ancient pc, and have found the same thing.... anyone able to shed some light on this?

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#29 Post by olovram »

yes, actually i do :D

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#30 Post by Pizzasgood »

Full installs don't use initrd.gz files at all. I didn't realize that when I wrote the original documentation. Since then I've corrected Pebble itself, but I forgot to correct that part of the doc, so thanks for pointing it out. I'll go fix that. Anyways, just skip anything referring to initrd.gz and it should work.


@dinky: Okay, I tried it out tonight. I don't know if this is good or bad news, but it's working flawlessly for me. I tried a save file with heavy encryption on a USB flash drive, both with and without another save file present, and booting from CD. I also tried copying the pup_301tigerpupv1-3splash.sfs to the harddrive just in case, but that didn't have any effect (other than greatly speeding the boot process).

The only thing I can think of is if you have some other stale files somewhere that are confusing it.


As for "other thoughts", overall I liked it pretty well. I'm too utilitarian to use it on a regular basis, but for a short term it was cool. I did notice that there are no run-actions set for audio and video files. You might also want to add a mention of pfix=nosplash (and maybe vga=normal) to the boot.msg file, in case a user doesn't want / can't use Pebble. Another thing you might consider is replacing Xproc with Hardinfo. There's a mostly recent version in PETget, but somebody (muggins?) posted a newer version in the forum, which if I remember right fixed the crashing that a certain category had (input devices or some such thing).


Tomorrow I'll put together the update that fixes the "flash" that happens right after the switch_root.
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#31 Post by dinky »

Thanks Pizzasgood, and how odd. I wonder if it's something to do with my system hardware itself...

I'll play around with it some more, and see if I can work out what's happening. For now I might just leave pebble as part of the pupplet, and write into the documentation (which I still need to create) that there can be an issue.

Thanks for the tip on 'Hardinfo', I'll have a look at it later. Thanks also for the tip about no run actions. Any thoughts on fixing this? I've put (or thought I put) the correct defaults into the executable files for default media player, etc, but couldn't figure out how to edit them properly for Mut. Currently if a dvd is noticed by mut, you can open xine, but I haven't figured out how to get it to start playing automatically, or how to get xine to start automatically for audio cd's. Is this what you meant? Thanks again for your input, it's really appreciated.

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#32 Post by Pizzasgood »

I meant that if I double-click (yuk) a media file, the filemanager doesn't know what to do with it. Except .mpg files, which it decides should be opened with the text editor. In case it matters, the file types I tried were .ogg, .mp3, .mov, .mpg, and .avi.

As for MUT, I've never worked with that before so I have no idea how it works on the inside. You've reminded me of another issue though. When unmounting a partition, it will open a filemanager window there first. My guess as to why is that MUT tries to close all ROX-Filer windows inside a mountpoint before unmounting it using rox -D /mnt/hda1/, but this file manager doesn't support that option so instead it just opens the directory. That's just a guess though.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
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#33 Post by Pizzasgood »

Okay, the tweaked versions are now uploaded. If you already have 1.0 beta installed, you only need to worry about updating initrd.gz. Technically, the new packages also have the altered versions of pebble and pebble-daemon for inside the save-file/pup_xxx.sfs, but unless you're obsessive about consistency they don't matter since the changes only apply for during the initrd.gz stage.

The new development file also contains an automated method for packaging all the pre-made stuff. Probably I'm the only one who cares about that. It's MUCH simpler than having to manually run tar over and over and over....
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#34 Post by dinky »

Ah! Of course, now I know what you mean. That's something I overlooked, but was planning on sorting out at some point...lol. Easy enough to fix, just time consuming... I'll have to put sorting run actions higher on that list... Re Mut that's probably due to my inexpert handling of the mut.tcl file. Will have another look later. Thanks for your feedback.

I'll try your updated pebble soon. Cheers.

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#35 Post by dinky »

Is there a pebble for Puppy 4 in the works?

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