PupFlux, PupFluxLite & now PupFlux421

[steve_s]

And although I am honestly in awe over this distro -- applying the patch seemed to have removed this Puppy's ability to use an honest 1024x600 screen (800x600 is the highest resolution possible by default). Is there a way I can restore the 1024x600 resolution?

Roy: this is how I solved the screen resolution here. WARNING: I would try this first with a livecd and see if it works for you, then you can change the same way using any installed version that you might have.

Oh, and I discovered this while at work using a Sony flatscreen on a pc via a livecd so, it's a wonder I didn't blow up the screen changing resolutions and what-not, but after messing with it for a while, these steps should work perfectly for you.

1. Open up a terminal and type

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geany /etc/X11/xorg.conf

We are going to edit your video resolution file.

2. Once it is open, scroll down to the area that says:

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Section "Monitor"

and look for the area that, on mine (could have a different default resolution for you) says:

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Option "PreferredMode" "1024x768"

and change it to:

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Option "PreferredMode" "1024x600"

Then scroll down to the area that says:

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Section "Screen"

and look for the area that, on mine (could have a different default resolution on yours) says:

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Modes     "1024x768"

and change the 768 to 600

Now, make sure you save the file. The easiest way is to type Ctrl + S.

3. We now want to exit to command line and start X again. The easiest way I know of is to type Ctrl +Alt + Backspace and that will take you out of X.

Once out of X and now at the command prompt, with your new video resolution file saved and ready to go, we are now ready to restart X using that file.

Type:

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xwin startfluxbox

Like I said, after trial and error, I wanted to come up with the quickest fix. I'm sure there are other ways to do it. But with a few clicks, editing a file and a restart of X you could be all set.

Post back if that solves the resolution problem...

[Roy]

With the lite version you CANNOT switch back and forth between fluxbox and jwm; part of the "lite" is the fact that I've removed JWM.

Ah, that explains it!

vg1: The original Puppy 4.1.2 retro starts out at 95M, but after applying the 52M patch steve_s uploaded earlier, the resulting .iso is only 84M. Those numbers may influence your decision as to whether or not it is worth it... or may not.

steve_s: I will do a search for the JWM Window Manager when I next find good connection speeds, and give it a whirl. In the meantime, I am EXTREMELY pleased with your work and offer my sincerest thanks!

-Roy

[steve_s]

steve_s: I will do a search for the JWM Window Manager when I next find good connection speeds, and give it a whirl. In the meantime, I am EXTREMELY pleased with your work and offer my sincerest thanks!

-Roy

Great, glad you like it! But did that screen resolution solution work out?

[Roy]

steve_s:

No, as a matter of fact, the screen resolution fix did not quite work out -- at least, not when attempting it from a Live CD -- but it was very close to a success. I followed your instructions to the letter and restarted X by typing xwin startfluxbox at the bash prompt and... a 1024x600 screen briefly appeared before jumping back to the original default of 800x600 screen -- and stayed at 800x600.

Now, the beauty of a Fluxbox window manager is that there are no icons to look stretched or deformed when screen resolutions are not quite right and, while I am by no means a pro Command Line Interface user, the right-click on-screen menu serves admirably for me.

I *think* there is another file somewhere in the system -- don't know where to even look without a thorough forum search -- that gives a complete list of screen resolutions available for the first-boot xorgwizard to use. (Maybe I'm thinking of the same file we temporarily edited above.) Dunno. I'll have to play with things when I get the time.

Regardless, you have created a beautiful distro that I truly admire.

-Roy

[aragon]

steve,

one question:
on your screnshots there is a knob down right. i assume that this is a volume-knob. if so, could you give me a link to that one?

aragon

[steve_s]

steve,

one question:
on your screnshots there is a knob down right. i assume that this is a volume-knob. if so, could you give me a link to that one?

aragon

It is...here is the thread that I used to install fluxbox, so I would start there. It seemed to come native with that version as I didn't do anything to add it...

[trapster]

@ aragon

Dockapps are for fluxbox's slit.

The one you refer to is Volume.app found under the audio section.

[steve_s]

@ aragon

Dockapps are for fluxbox's slit.

The one you refer to is Volume.app found under the audio section.

...thanks for the clarification, trapster..

[aragon]

thank you both, found it.

works also in pekwm's harbour, what is the equivalent to the slit.

aragon

[redandwhitestripes]

Hi Steve,
What is the simplest way to add a few keyboard shortcuts in Fluxpup?
I tried to use the "fluxkeys" utility but as I'm a novice, I found it confusing and I couldn't get shortcuts to work or even save.

I found this guide
http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title ... _shortcuts
which I will try tomorrow (my laptop is at work) but a very quick guide or basic example for Fluxpup would help so much. All I want to do is get a few shortcuts to open up things like a terminal or browser.
Thanks again,
Greg

[steve_s]

Hi Steve,
What is the simplest way to add a few keyboard shortcuts in Fluxpup?
I tried to use the "fluxkeys" utility but as I'm a novice, I found it confusing and I couldn't get shortcuts to work or even save.

I found this guide
http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title ... _shortcuts
which I will try tomorrow (my laptop is at work) but a very quick guide or basic example for Fluxpup would help so much. All I want to do is get a few shortcuts to open up things like a terminal or browser.
Thanks again,
Greg

Well, it's about time that someone gave me the excuse I needed to learn this. I'll play with trying this out today as I needed another project.

[redandwhitestripes]

Hi Steve,
What is the simplest way to add a few keyboard shortcuts in Fluxpup?
I tried to use the "fluxkeys" utility but as I'm a novice, I found it confusing and I couldn't get shortcuts to work or even save.

I found this guide
http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php?title ... _shortcuts
which I will try tomorrow (my laptop is at work) but a very quick guide or basic example for Fluxpup would help so much. All I want to do is get a few shortcuts to open up things like a terminal or browser.
Thanks again,
Greg

Well, it's about time that someone gave me the excuse I needed to learn this. I'll play with trying this out today as I needed another project.

I certainly appreciate the help. I'll have a crack at it too but I have less Linux experience than yourself I think

[steve_s]

Hi Steve,
What is the simplest way to add a few keyboard shortcuts in Fluxpup?

Ok, this is amazingly simple.

I followed this wiki here to figure it out.

Yes, you can do the same via fluxkeys command so I am including a picture of that so that you can see the end result, but it may be easier to explain without fluxkeys.

I opened a terminal and typed:

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geany /root/.fluxbox/keys

...as I intended to edit the keys file in fluxbox. Once that file is open I notice how it is written out.

Here is a basic explanation:
The first part is the first modifier. In this case Mod1 is the alt key. You can find out what each of the preselected modifiers are by running:

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xmodmap -pm

from terminal. You will see a list of modifiers that looks something like this:

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xmodmap:  up to 3 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):

shift       Shift_L (0x32),  Shift_R (0x3e)
lock        Caps_Lock (0x42)
control     Control_L (0x25),  Control_R (0x6d)
mod1        Alt_L (0x40),  Alt_L (0x7d),  Meta_L (0x9c)
mod2        Num_Lock (0x4d)
mod3      
mod4        Super_L (0x7f),  Hyper_L (0x80)
mod5        Mode_switch (0x5d),  ISO_Level3_Shift (0x7c)

As you can see, mod1 is defined as the left alt key and the right alt key, etc. Mod2 is defined as the num-lock key and so on. I do not know how to add more modifiers, but I didn't find that remotely necessary for what I wanted to do.

So, I am modifying the /root/.fluxbox/keys file. I wanted to have a keyboard shortcut to open a browser, one to open a terminal, etc.

Here is what mine looked like when it was all said and done:

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Mod1 Tab :NextWindow
Mod1 Shift Tab :PrevWindow
Mod1 F1 :Workspace 1
Mod1 F2 :Workspace 2
Mod1 F3 :Workspace 3
Mod1 F4 :Workspace 4
Mod1 F5 :Workspace 5
Mod1 F6 :Workspace 6
Mod1 F7 :Workspace 7
Mod1 F8 :Workspace 8
Mod1 F9 :Workspace 9
Mod1 F10 :Workspace 10
Mod1 F11 :Workspace 11
Mod1 F12 :Workspace 12
control t :ExecCommand rxvt  #Ctrl+t will open a terminal window
Mod1 s :ExecCommand seamonkey  #Alt+s will open the browser seamonkey to the default homepage
Mod1 n :ExecCommand net-setup.sh  #Alt+n will start the network settup wizard

The lines I added were the "control t" line and the lines after it. The parts I typed after the "#" are essentially just notes to myself (or anyone reading that file) that tells me what that command does.

Then I saved it, then closed it, then exited out of X by typing ctrl+alt+backspace. Then at the command prompt I typed

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xwin startfluxbox

to restart fluxbox.

I did this to reset the fluxbox commands. There is probably another way to do this, but I found this very simple.

Now my keyboard shortcuts are all good.

answer back if this helps...

[redandwhitestripes]

Thanks Steve,

I managed to get things working too. I did it a slightly different way but it's not important as you have explained your method clearly.

Just two things I want to do but I can't figure out the commands:

a) Start a specific console programme e.g. Nano. I can create a shortcut to open a terminal, but no more than that.

b) Open up the standard right click menu. This is a useful shortcut for when you have a window focused and maximised but you want to view the menu.

I'm sure there are solutions to these as I know it can be done in Crunchbang Linux so I'll keep on trying

Thanks again,
Greg

PS Might be worth mentioning your shortcuts guide on the Puplets page?

[trapster]

a) in a script try xterm -hold -e nano

b) not currently at my puter and can't remember what turns the right click menu on and off....though if you have a window maximized, don't you need desktop space for the right click?

[Eastern Counties]

PupFlux looks great. One hitch for me, though. I started PupFlux as usual, using pfix=ram, set it up and when prompted on exit, made a pup_save_pupflux.2fs file.

Next time I booted, with the same iso CD in, and choosing my pup_save_pupflux.2fs file, it opened as basic JWM Puppy.

What have I missed?

John

[steve_s]

PupFlux looks great. One hitch for me, though. I started PupFlux as usual, using pfix=ram, set it up and when prompted on exit, made a pup_save_pupflux.2fs file.

Next time I booted, with the same iso CD in, and choosing my pup_save_pupflux.2fs file, it opened as basic JWM Puppy.

What have I missed?

John

Very weird...ok, at that point, ctrl+alt+backspace to the command prompt, type in xwin startfluxbox and get back into the fluxbox settup. Then reboot and let it save it in the same save file (should do that automatically). that should take care of the problem as it should boot back into fluxbox the next time...

...that is a strange one for sure. Post back what happens...

[Eastern Counties]

Sorry for the delay in replying, steve_s, but I couldn't access the forum last night.

OK, I followed your instructions, but it reopened in JWM again. Incidentally, when it does this, the wallpaper is the old one of the dog sniffing the camera, not the lake and mountains. I tried both xwin startfluxbox and xwin fluxbox at the prompt. I then tried with a new PupFlux on a partition without any other Puppy files - same thing again. Fluxbox doesn't appear in the 'Installed packages' list in Puppy Package Manager, by the way - should it?

I then installed an earlier Fluxbox from a pet file and restarted x. This time Fluxbox ran but with the default Puppy wallpaper (the dog again). The plan was to reboot from there, but of course, there is no Puppy menu in the earlier Fluxbox - all you can do is exit to prompt.

I checked the md5sum and that was fine. Maybe I should try PupFlux Lite and then add packages I need like Gnumeric.

It seems nobody else has this problem. What do you think is going on?

John

[Eastern Counties]

Just out of interest, I ran PupFluxLite and saved it. Obviously it was fine when I restarted it since you removed JWM.

I then rebooted using my PupFluxLite save file, but with my PupFlux412-new CD in. In other words, I upgraded from Puppy 4 to Puppy 412, thinking this might get Fluxbox to run in PupFlux412. No luck, just the same as before - only JWM seems to be available, although now with the lakes and mountains wallpaper. Fluxbox seems to have disappeared from it.

Probably not relevant, but when I switch to Fluxbox in standard Puppy 412, I have to use "xwin fluxbox" at the prompt, not "xwin startfluxbox", which doesn't seem to work for me.

John

[Eastern Counties]

Its OK, steve_s, I've followed what you did in creating PupFlux, and converted my standard Puppy412 to Fluxbox. All working fine now.

John