First Skype. Now Gizmo

[Caneri]

Hi William,Charni, et al,

Hey...I wonder if the Gizmo project from Charni and now William could be a recording solution Lobster is looking for so as to record pawcasts and conferences.

Best,
Eric

[tombh]

Gizmo looks interesting, I didn't realise it was such a competitor to skype. Well mcewanw's dotpet works in wNOP (3.01), though I haven't made a call yet -- no contacts! My gizmo name is tombh. It's a shame you can't call skype contacts with gizmo. I don't think there is video in this version of Gizmo, perhaps you have to have that version 5 -- maybe it's just in windows?

[Caneri]

Well Tom and Sharon and myself had a good test run with Gizmo.

Recording seemed to work according to Tom...and we solved world peace and made everyone safer from nuclear attack...lol

EDIT: Thanks Charni and William...looks good so far but I crash although the voice connection keeps on going..no loss of voice and the bandwidth is much smaller than Skype...so slower connections may work and work well....good stuff guys.

Eric

[mcewanw]

I don't think there is video in this version of Gizmo, perhaps you have to have that version 5 -- maybe it's just in windows?

Yes, I was too busy building the dotpet to check out the docs. Video isn't available in the Linux gizmo version 3.x yet, needs to reach Gizmo version 4.x for video, and no info about when that upgrade is likely.

I haven't tested gizmo out much myself yet (other than the record message and test numbers) so can't comment on the crashes that some have experienced. It hasn't crashed for me the little I've used it so far.

[Lobster]

we solved world peace and made everyone safer from nuclear attack

Well done. Trust Puppys to come up with solutions.
Thanks guys

I successfully and easily installed Gizmo.
There are some advantages:

• We can record interviews.
  Gizmo is less of a bandwidth hog and is possible to use with dial up . . .
  You can connect to and install on mobile phones . . .

My gizmo name is crusty_lobster
Shall we set up a gizmo conference - probably Wednesday 11 June 2008 . . . I think we should . . .

[Aitch]

@Lobster

I find the change of thread title, nearly as confusing as whether the god/dess exists, saga

aside/BTW:
Did you hear about the dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac?...............

He stayed awake all night trying to figure out if dog exists


end/meanwhile, back at the ranch......

I mean, the thread starts out about almost development progress and a need to chat about things generally

anyone else?

Aitch

[Lobster]

@Lobster
I find the change of thread title, nearly as confusing as whether the god/dess exists, saga

Tell me about it . . .
Use Gizmo or skype

[mcewanw]

I haven't tested gizmo out much myself yet (other than the record message and test numbers) so can't comment on the crashes that some have experienced. It hasn't crashed for me the little I've used it so far.

Gizmo doesn't seem to crash most of the time on my system s (on two machines Puppy 4.00 and Puppy 2.17.1). However, I find (in Puppy 2.17.1 at least) that if I push the fifth icon button to the right near the bottom of the screen, it crashes. I have no idea what half of these buttons are for or I'd describe the problem one better. Just try them and see for yourself (maybe), and avoid it later...

[HairyWill]

surprise surprise, I'm hairywill
that button is for preferences
you can also access preferences from the menu
both methods cause a crash for me in puppy 4.00

Code: Select all

# gizmo 
gizmo_segv_handle: signum: 11 - SIGSEGV in_segv: 1
gizmo_segv_handle: PID: 8396
gizmo_segv_handle: Exiting..# 

[mcewanw]

@HairyWill

Yep, I'd worked out what the button was for, because on Puppy Linux 2.17.1, it actually works (well, it crashed on leaving Preferences, but only the first time I used it. Since then I haven't been able to make Gizmo crash on Puppy 2.17.1). However, I tried it on Dingo again, and it crashes every time; never gets as far as opening the Preferences window.

I don't have broadband or I'd check both of charni's dotpets in Dingo to see if they do the same thing. Actually, I still have one of his two gizmo dotpets still (the one for libstdc++6). I'm hoping the libstdc++5 one might make a difference, though I'm just hoping... with no reason to imagine that should make any difference. But why Dingo and not Puppy 2.17.1 and what about Tombh's WNOP based on 3.01?

[mcewanw]

After checking and verifying the Preferences crash problem with Dingo, I rebooted to Puppy 2.17.1 to see how it was there. Although I thought I had experienced a crash in Puppy 2.17.1 when leaving the Gizmo preferences dialog, the effect was very different to that in Dingo. I think now that it hadn't actually crashed on that earlier Pup 2.17.1 occasion, but instead Gizmo was waiting for some internet communication before shutting down. Anyway, one thing for sure is that Gizmo is not crashing at all, as far as I can see, when run on Puppy version 2.17.1, but it crashes everytime under Dingo when Preferences is selected...

I also tried charnisingh's gizmo...stdlibc++6 version, and it crashed in the same way when run under Dingo.

Not having broadband I'm reluctant to download charni's gizmo...stdlibc++5 version to try, but if anyone else has the time to do that it would be good to know if it crashes on Dingo too (assuming it runs on Dingo; charni seems to suggest Dingo has the stdlibc++5 lib too; I haven't checked). Anyway, it "seems" to be a Puppy 4.00 problem rather than a gizmo one according to the above results. I'll be interested to know what tombh reports back about running gizmo on his wnop version.

[Caneri]

Hi All,

I am running a test of gizmo-project-3.1.0.79-req.libstdc++5.pet from Charni's original .pet on tronkel's 2.16CE.

Hooray...it all works and no crash. The menus are all visible and function as they should. I didn't try the voice or my headset yet but this combination is very nice. I always did like Jack's 2.16CE.

Great!
Eric

[mcewanw]

Hi All,
I am running a test of gizmo-project-3.1.0.79-req.libstdc++5.pet from Charni's original .pet on tronkel's 2.16CE.
Hooray...it all works and no crash.

I presume that 2.16 and earlier don't have libstc 6?
Otherwise, I'd imagine that gizmo...libstdc++6.pet would work without crashing on that system too, since it does so on 2.17.1

The problem seems to be with Puppy 4.00. I suspect that it may be something to do with the gtk2 library version used in dingo, but I'm just guessing. I might try using the gtk2 lib from Puppy 2.17.1 in Dingo, though maybe that combination won't work at all. I'll try that tomorrow and report back; not that it is a solution, but it would be good to know what is causing the problem with gizmo in Dingo.

Actually, it would really be great if someone could try that libstd++5 version in Dingo, just to see if that is a solution. I could easily rebuild a less than 10 MByte version of that version thereafter if it charni's one happened to work. I just don't want to download that by dialup unless it proves worthwhile in the end. Still, my gut feeling is that won't solve the Dingo/gizmo crash problem anyway.

[Caneri]

@Aitch,

olo...rats..lol

[smokey01]

I have the same problem with Gizmo crashing in puppy 4.0. The bigger problem is now it won't run at all. It reports "GDB could not be found on your system".

Anyway I uninstalled it through package manager then re-installed it, same problem. I guess there are parts of the software that wern't removed as it still remembered my username and password

I might give Charni version a try and see what happens.

[smokey01]

I have just uninstalled mcewanw cut down version and installed charni 15M version and to my disappointment it reports the same problem.

"GDB not found on your system". I have just discovered this is a debugging program, not actually part of the gizmo package.

I am no wiser to what the actual error is except it says it's unexpected.

Anyone got any ideas?

I might try it booting from the CD in case my frugal install has been corrupted.

Charni if you see this I wouldn't mind trying your SFS version. Does it include both orbit and Gconf?

Thanks

[charnisingh]

Dear Smokey-1,

please uninstall it completely and manually also and make sure there are no traces lef of gizmo or its dependencies.

install again in this order first-GConf2 then orbit2 and lastly gizmo-project
or best is to use fresh save file

as for as sfs file i have to look into and i will post here again
no i have not uploaded gizmo sfs file so far.

the minimum gizmo containing sfs file i have with me is about 64 mbs as it contains beside gizmo -complete ,
is skype-complete , vlc, xmms,
mplayer and audacity.

the other one containing gizmo-complete is quite big as it contains all my applications which i tried in puppy 4 but it should work from 2.14 onwards it is about 334 mbs. but i have not uploaded any these.

I UNDERSTAND MANY WHO ARE TRYING TO USE GIZMO FIND IF THEY TRY TO CONFIGURE SOME THING WHICH I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT
AND TOUCH PREFFERENCE BUTTON GIZMO CRASHES, IT IS TRUE AS THERE IS NOTHING TO CONFIGURE FROM PREFFERENCE BUTTON. GIZMO
MAKES ALL THE ADJUSTMENTS AT THE TIME OF REGISTERATION AT THE FIRST TIME CONNECTION AND THE PREFFERENCE BUTTON BECOMES REDUNDANT, SO DO NOT TOUCH THAT BUTTON, OTHERWISE IT IS LIKELY TO CRASH. IN THE NEW VERSION WHICH I USE IN WINDOWS, THEY HAVE REMOVED THAT BUTTON.

let us hope William may come up with a better solution.

thanks and regards.

[mcewanw]

I have just uninstalled mcewanw cut down version and installed charni 15M version and to my disappointment it reports the same problem.

"GDB not found on your system". I have just discovered this is a debugging program, not actually part of the gizmo package. :cry:

OK. I can clear a couple of things up here.

First of all, as far as anyone has reported, there is only one crash occurring with gizmo, and that is in Puppy 4.00 Dinglo. If you try to select Preferences from either File->Preferences, or from the "Preferences" button, gizmo will crash. This occurs whether you use my dotpet or charni's.

When the crash occurs you will get one of two messages (as far as I know).

1. If you are not doing any development work, and don't have the devx_400.sfs loaded up, then the debugger gdb won't be present, so the message you will get when gizmo crashes is: "GDB not found on your system"
Gizmo has nothing to do with gdb not being on your system; it has not corrupted gdb...

2. If you have devx_400.sfs and thus gdb present, the crash message you will see instead is:
"Gizmo Project has quit unexpectedly" etc...

If you don't try and change Preferences settings, the crash does not occur and Gizmo should work fine for you. So, if you are using Puppy 4.00, just don't try and change preferences. It is no big deal.

If you really want to change preferences, anyway, you can do so manually if you wish. You will find all the individual settings in various xml text files inside the following location:

/root/.gconf/apps/gizmo/settings

But I'd suggest backing up the original of any such file before trying to edit manually, for obvious reasons.

Second Point:

There is no major difference between charni's dotpet and my one, except that mine is smaller to download by about 4.5 MByte, which means that its installed size is about 9 MBytes less. So how is it smaller? Well, the executables are identical (they are provided from the gizmo website (we don't compile them), but I have stripped them of unnecessary debugging info. Also, charni, had accidentally duplicated two folders containing exactly the same files. I fixed that, which gave a further space saving. That's all; the two dotpets should work exactly the same.

Finally, when you use petget manager to remove the dotpet, the config files that gizmo itself creates are left behind. They are just simple text files (in xml format), and take up almost no space and I can't imagine that there is any way they could corrupt your system's operation. Leaving behind profile info is very common (mozilla and firefox also do that) - useful if you then reinstall later or upgrade since you don't need to type in all the profile info again.

After uninstalling gizmo you can always remove these small leftovers profiles manually if you wish. As far as I can see they consist of the following directories (i.e. folders):

/root/.gizmo
/root/.gizmo-cache
/root/.gconf

I can't guarantee anything; I didn't write the gizmo application. Rather, like charni, I just put it into a dotpet container for use on Puppy. However, I don't myself think that you have a lot to worry about. In view of the above details, Gizmo crashing in dingo is just a minor inconvenience IMO.

I hope the above helps address your concerns.

I would be grateful if someone would try charni's gizmo...stdlibc++5 version in dingo as an alternative to the stdlibc++6 version to see if it crashes too on selecting Preferences. I expect it will. As I've said, I suspect the version of the gtk2 libs in Dingo somehow don't behave with gizmo (though that is just my guess). I still plan to try the gtk2 libs version from Puppy 2.17.1 in dingo, since there are no crashes in 2.17.1. I'll let you know later if I have any success with that experiment.

Happy Gizmo-ing!

William

[charnisingh]

Tanks William,

you did a better job explaining the crash, actually one does not gain any thing by touching that button.

i have just uploaded sfs of gizmo which is inly about 13 mbs. for some who wanted it. it is complete in itself and one does not have to bother with its install.

i think it is pointless to test gizmo-project-stdc++5 for only to check
crash, as it would. gizmo5 version 4.xxxx does have that button any
more.

thanks and regards.

[mcewanw]

i think it is pointless to test gizmo-project-stdc++5 for only to check crash, as it would.

Good to hear you have produced an sfs charni.

I still think it is worth trying the stdc++5 version; we only assume it will crash too. Do remember that pressing the Preferences button DOES NOT cause a crash in either Puppy 2.17.1 (or in 2.16CE according to Caneri). I'd try the stdc++5 version myself were it not for the time it would take me to download that one too via dialup (I may yet if no other kind soul does). After all it is very easy to backup a pup_save file and test things like this.

Anyway, the crash problem is hardly a big issue and no doubt the next version of gizmo for Linux will fix it one way or the other (by not having the Prefs button being one way!)

I did by the way try using the Puppy 2.17.1 version of libgtk-x11-2.so.0 in Dingo. It was just a shot in the dark. I hoped Dingo but they do have slightly different kernels (2.6.21.5 in Pup2.17.1 and 2.6.21.7 in dingo). There is probably more to it than that (compiler version libs and so on maybe, I don't know...) Well, Dingo did start up and go into X okay and the JWM menu bar was there, but nothing else (!) and apps wouldn't run with that substitute library. Not so surprising I suppose. Oh well, nothing won, nothing lost there... :-)