HanSamBen-a derivative of Edupup with Gcompris 8.4- Alpha V2

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ecomoney
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#91 Post by ecomoney »

Thanks for reporting it Sidders, I was going to put v 0.2 on the computers at my preschool on Monday when term starts again, I will hold off for now.

Enjoy your break you have earned it!
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Sorry, my server is down atm!

cj.veniot

HSB Light Alpha ... WOW !!!

#92 Post by cj.veniot »

Hello,

Just downloaded HSB Light Alpha yesterday. The Live CD works great on both Virtual PC and on a Compaq Evo N800C (both using XVesa).
EDIT: Also works A-1, without fiddlling, on a no-name box (Celeron 500, 192 MB RAM.)

I love it, plain and simple. I'll be showing this puppy derivative to as many friends, family, and coworkers as I can, and hopefully put a test group together for you in this corner of world.

Congrats to all involved with Puppy Linux and HanSamBen. You guys have produced some real jewels!

Cheers and best regards.
Last edited by cj.veniot on Thu 04 Jun 2009, 13:40, edited 1 time in total.

sidders
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#93 Post by sidders »

Ok i'm back and have been working. There is a gxmessage for the 3 dosbox games "please wait ......... is starting" and for Gcompris, as thats a heavy application.
There is a couple of small scripts in My-apps "hide menus" and "restore menus" to do just that. Or you could go to /etc/xdg/templates/_root_.jwmrc and edit that.

Its been a Linux scripting learning curve that needed to be tackled.

:?: The Install script. What would the panel think about taking out the Menu>Setup> Puppy Universal Installer and in its place the script to install (Frugal or Full). Or its own menu item. I am thinking of going along the lines of taking out the Universal installer, but doubt has crept in, as it seems to be taking something away from Puppy Linux.

Note. This is on the Full Fat v2, which hasnt been uploaded yet. I'm still kicking about in the sandbox.

Another note. I think this should be called Edupup. Antonio i wil PM you. y.

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ecomoney
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#94 Post by ecomoney »

I would say dont include ANYTHING in the menu's that may alter the setup of the computer in any way. I believe the menu could be taken out altogether leaving just the fixed desktop icons to launch the games. Remember parents need to have confidence that their little ones will not be formatting their precious files while their back is turned. What use would the PUI be to 3 yr olds?...its barely usable by most grown ups!

In that case....how to launch the installation script? The command line is inaccessible now that ctrl+alt+backspace is disabled.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=21288

May I suggest alt+altgr+i to launch the installer program? Easy to remember for parents/teachers (either side of the space bar, and it will be in the documentation too), but difficult for kids little hands to accidentally press :wink:

add the line to the install script

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cp /etc/X11/*.conf /mnt/sda1/etc/X11
This will make sure that the video settings that have been set up using the xorgwizard will be used in the new install, preventing them from having to be entered again.

Regarding the name...."Edupup" would be instantly recognizable to puppy users or those with linux experience (as in Edubuntu), but would it be recognizable/memorable to those that have not used *any* linux before? They are by far the biggest section of computer users out there (more is the pity)

Suggestions on a postcard please.....



[/code]
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sidders
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#95 Post by sidders »

Technosaurus more or less wrote the script i have put in for the install:

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#!/bin/sh
RAMSIZE=`free | grep 'Mem:' | tr -s ' ' | cut -f 3 -d ' '` #total physical ram (less shared video).
if [ $RAMSIZE -gt 220000 ]
then
frugal-install
else
full-install
fi
It works, i have altered the RAM value to test both for the Frugal and Full installs. It will not run with a click (even though the permisions are correct), i can only sumise that this is due to the lack of executables involved, its all script. Never-the-less i created a .desktop file which will run the script., or it will run from CLI.

I am struggling with the keyboard shortcut. I have edited and i think this is due to something i have mentioned above (not executable).
/.jwm/jwmrc-personal

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<Key mask="C" key="S">exec:install</Key>
I tried the exec:xterm just to make sure i have the jwm right and that worked, i then symlinked the .desktop file and ran the key to that, but no joy there. If someone knows then please let on.
I will play some more. I havnt figured a 3 ket combo either yet, i just wan to get this right first and then work on that.

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technosaurus
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#96 Post by technosaurus »

this works for pcp (running 4.2 so this was just a test)

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<Key mask="C" key="S">exec:pcp</Key>
In this file
/root/.jwm/jwmrc-personal

(I would avoid using ctrl + s however since it is the almost universal save... much like control + p to print)
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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#97 Post by technosaurus »

there could also be another program called install in /usr/bin - that would likely take precedence - maybe just create a symlink to your other install called "easyinstall" in one of the directories defined by

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echo $PATH
the set your keybinding to exec:easyinstall

my guess is that your other methods contain the full path to the executable script
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

sidders
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#98 Post by sidders »

After a lot digging around and reading tutorials i found the answer. I thought it would be a fundemental peice of code, but as i'm new to Linux scripting it didnt come easy. It needed another script to start the script in xterm.
Key combo points to easystart which starts easyinstall.

Easystart:

Code: Select all

xterm -e easyinstall
Just got to put it together and test it as i have now gotten a pile of blank Cd's.

For those script\linux gurus out there, i am sat in the corner with a hat on :oops:

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ecomoney
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#99 Post by ecomoney »

For those script\linux gurus out there, i am sat in the corner with a hat on


LMAO!!! Join the club.

Sidders/Technosaurus, great work on the install script! I will point crash/rcn51 (who are working on the installer script in the direction of this thread..perhaps they will help). The install script is a generally VERY useful thing to all of Puppy, but particularly to HSB.

Its half term here, the kids go back on monday. I would be nice if possible to have a version to update the computers at the preschool with then.
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sidders
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#100 Post by sidders »

I have updated HSBV2Full. It has all the trimmings (Cups and Firepup) A meaty 221mb.

Just tested the new script (see Brand New below) and it worked brilliantly on a full install. The only problem was i looked away and it had finished, I didnt know what to do, so i will build in a message tonight and retest and then upload.

:D Brand New
Easyinstall
Iinstall scripts from crash and rcrsn51 (Full and Frugal) the ram seeking part from Technosaurus and I can put my name to the script:
"xterm -e easyinstallstart" to get the ball rolling.

The install (easyinstall) can be accessed from either the setup menu or the key combo CTRL+ALT+I. (couldnt get the ALTGR)

Easyinstall will happily detect how much memory is in the machine, taking into account shared video memory, then wipe the harddrive install either full or frugal (depending on memory) and install grub.

The name easyinstall can be changed.

Bouyed by evenings in, trying to get my head around scripting, theres a couple more.
CTRL+ALT+H will hide the menus. To bring the menus back, navigate to /USR/BIN/RESTOREMENUS.

Gcompris is fully functional. There is still an error when run from the console, to do with gst-plugin-good and I tried several versions, but there are no adverse effects. It will also display a message “please wait,Gcompris is starting

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#101 Post by ecomoney »

Fantastic Sidders! I think its great that a specialist kids derivitive is now the easiest of all Puppy Linux's to install! This is when its Puppy Linux's first primary mission objective..... "Puppy will easily install to [...] hard drive media".

Im really looking forward to testing the new HSB, please upload even alpha or "in progress" versions and I will give them a run-through..."many eyes" :)

To link to a particular post in a thread, look at the number after the "start" in the url..like this...

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 0&start=57

basically, count how many posts down the one you want to link to add that number to post number. This forum displays in pages of 15 posts per page. To get the link above I had to add 12 to the 45 that was on the page, giving 57.
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ljfr
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Thanks, working great

#102 Post by ljfr »

Hi Sidders, thanks for this derivative, it's working great.
I tested the v0.2 with few feedbacks:
-Some help html files shortcut/menu errors: you might set the /usr/local/bin/defaulthtmlviewer to Netsurf to solve this.
-Few shortcut are missing in /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/OpenWith/, to be deleted/amended?
-there is no menu icons for Fatty bears, Playroom, Firepup. I don't know why, I made it worked by creating a fbear.png from the FBEAR.ICO with gimp, but there should be better solutions.

suggestion:
"cj.veniot is doing a guide", add this future guide in the menu "help" or the welcome1stboot.htm ?

I had just some problem exiting one dos game (don't remember which one), then I just killed X. I found some hints in my-documents afterwards.
If needed some guidelines could be put onscreen, starting the game with a script:
#!/bin/sh
yaf-splash -font "1x2" -placement top-left -outline 0 -margin 0 -bg grey -text "Alt+Q to Exit" &
X1PID=$!
fattybear
kill $X1PID

sidders
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#103 Post by sidders »

Full Fat at:
http://www.ecomoney.eu/hsb/

and

http://www.filefactory.com/f/4e743f02873f2576/

as described a couple of posts above.

ljfr- i have done the icons for the dos games and well pointed out in the nick of time, the open-with. I have ammended one and deleted the others.

cj.veniot

HanSamBen "Getting Started" user guide: format and location

#104 Post by cj.veniot »

Hello,

I had thought of putting a guide together in PDF format, but I thought it good to ask what format you would prefer.

I'm thinking that users could pop the HanSamBen CD into any computer to view the guide (or print it, or parts of it) before trying the CD, in case their having problems of just want to get oriented first. Just about anybody on any machine with any O/S can open that.

Problem is, I don't think HanSamBen has a PDF viewer, to view documentation while running this distro.

Suggestions?

Much appreciated. Best regards.

sidders
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#105 Post by sidders »

HsbLite has been twiddled with, along the lines of the Full fat.

Gcompris- Gnucap and hearing games fixed.
Dos games have icons and 2 that required Ctrl+Q etc, now run in a window and can be closed clicking on the X in the RH corner.
A couple of other minor things, but i havnt put the install scripts in.

Its here and still 174mb
http://www.ecomoney.eu/hsb/

C.j

The only editor is Abi-word, on the Lite version Netsurf have been taken out as well. i'll look at epdf veiwer.

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#106 Post by technosaurus »

MU's vala picture viewer is smaller than epdfview and will view pdfs

if you want to use html dillo2 can view html & I have cut it down to a 360kb pet (only 364kb installed)...
I removed the desktop file so that it won't show up in the menu and deleted all of the plugins (let me know if this works for CUPS too - it may need just one or 2 plugins - the biggest of which is download, which if removed makes it only about 420Kb)

I will attach both

to make it easy you could even put the dillo binary in the same location as the html file and run it with a script

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
exec ./dillo gcompris.html
and because this dillo is statically compiled it should work on any version of linux

I also wanted to test out starting directly into gcompris - need to look up the command line argument to tell it to start full screen then try "startx gcompris -<whatever it is to start full screen>"

I would like to get it set up to boot directly to gcompris... maybe by changing the contents of /etc/windowmanager from "jwm" to gcompris -<whatever it is>
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

sidders
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#107 Post by sidders »

for full screen

[/code]gcompris -f
Last edited by sidders on Wed 10 Jun 2009, 13:28, edited 1 time in total.

ljfr
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thanks, a really great release...

#108 Post by ljfr »

hi sidders,

I downloaded the full version (including firepup),
It's working great, and the desktop is even nicer this way.
2 minor feedbacks:

- The initial "Welcome! Click here for getting-started information" banner is not working, since the /usr/local/bin/defaulthtlmviewer is not well defined. If you want to skip this message, you could modify the script /usr/sbin/delayedrun.

- for HHH, you can launch it full screen if you want,
but the game is too fast/difficult for me :oops: , then I made some changes (see HHH post).

NB: Following your guidelines, I have childsplay working (see childsplay post).

sidders
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#109 Post by sidders »

Thanks ljfr, i noticed the Childsplay post, i was stuck and had run out of ideas. Will work on the "getting started", but first i will have a look at it to see if its relevant (i've never looked before :roll: ) and i will look at the Dillo and cups.

Just burning Quimo http://www.qimo4kids.com/ to see whats going on there.

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#110 Post by ecomoney »

Hi All! Ive been testing the new HSB release...very impressive! Ive installed it now on both of the computers at the pre-school (replacing the previous Ecopup one), and Ive also demonstrated it to teaching staff at a new school in my area who were also very impressed with both the technology and its aims.

The primary school in question (with its own nursery so they teach children aged 3-12) originally contacted me to dispose of a "waste problem" of a suite of windows 98 era computers (approx P500/64mb from my brief inspection). I pick up a batch of computers about four/five times a year (for free) and recycle them on to people in the area or charities/community groups.

We dont actually have enough storage for them at the moment (theres a glut of very high spec computers since Vista came out), so I suggested that I demonstrate HSB to them as a means of keeping the computers useful to them rather than pay twice to have them disposed of and again to have them replaced. First I demonstrated HSB on the deputy heads own computer which was still running Win2k. She was asking about the office suites and luckily HSB still has Abiword included...which she was very impressed with the speed of on her ancient computer. She obviously thought it to be a solution for their older children but I explained that it was primarily aimed at the 2-6 year old age groups, although there were other linux's that may suit her older childrens needs. I was then introduced to her Nursery teacher, who I demo'ed HSB to as well, and she said she would love to have a couple of the old computers available for the nursery section of the school.

She was particularly interested in the "free" aspect of the software and was curious how it managed to fund itself. I explained open source was the largest voluntary project on the planet, and that although some (lucky) developers are paid, most do it either for a hobby, for ideological reasons, or to serve their own or the company they work for's needs. She said they were so used to paying through the nose for all things Information Technology. I explained Ecomoney Systems was a non-profit social enterprise and our primary role was research into how to make Open Source more usable/desirable, and that any knowledge/experience they could give us was worth far more than a bunch of waste computers.

The computer suite she showed me was obviously state of the art and would have cost a LOT of money when new. It was well equipped with networked printers, desks, Ethernet wiring, a Windows NT fileserver etc. It also had a SmartBoard interactive whiteboard. This is basically an overhead projector hooked into a touch sensitive whiteboard, allowing the teachers to project an image from the teaching computer and highlight buttons and ways of doing things so the whole class can see. I believe a linux driver exists.

After a bit of discussion, we found there was a second smaller IT suite at the school. The plan she will be running past the other teachers is to move the new computers out of there into the teaching suite, give some of the win98 computers there to the preschool department for HSB, and the win98 computers moved to the smaller room and loaded with Linux to extend their lives. Apparently this is currently some sort of open access teaching room, where children and teachers can go and do their research...so it is ideal for linux. Unfortunetely a lot of the curriculum is based around using software that is only available for Windoze (damned UK government!). I also heard about their IT tech, who works one morning a week on "hire" from another local school. Apparently he has mentioned open source before and is a big fan...although he hadnt quite put it in the ways I did. This is going to be a big bonus should they choose to migrate some of their systems to Linux. They will be bringing the subject up at the staff meeting next week and Im expecting a call! :D

I also today installed HSB at the preschool, this time on both computers. It was the first chance I have had to test the [ctrl]+[alt]+ installer in earnest..and Im afraid I must report a failure. The machines are 256/192mb of ram respectively...so the installer automatically chose to do a frugal install. I didnt test the full installer.

The installer formatted the drive and installed GRUB fine, but failed with a "file not found" error when copying the "pup_412Edu.sfs" from the cdrom to the newly formatted hard disk. The culprit is on line 63 of the "/usr/bin/frugal-install" script included in this version. The last line in this section of code.

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#Install Puppy
echo
echo Copying Puppy files ... Please wait ...
echo
cp -v /mnt/cdrom/vmlinuz /mnt/sda1
cp -v /mnt/cdrom/initrd.gz /mnt/sda1
cp -v /mnt/cdrom/pup_???.sfs /mnt/sda1
The actual filename that must be copied in this case is "pup_412Edu.sfs", but the wildcard "pup_???.sfs" means "copy any file with three letters/numbers between the pup_ and the .sfs .". The HSB file has six ("412Edu"), so

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cp -v /mnt/cdrom/pup_??????.sfs /mnt/sda1
would be needed...however...

If the line were to read

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cp -v /mnt/cdrom/*.sfs /mnt/sda1


this would mean that *any*/*all* file(s) with the .sfs extention would be copied onto the hard disk. This would mean that addational addon packs could be included on the CD, that while to big to be included in liveboot, would become available in the Hard Disk installed HSB. This may be a good way to include the KDE educational applications (such as ChildsPlay), which although very good require massive libraries to run. There is still a fair amount (about 380mb) of spare space on the CD which would be enough to hold a massive amount of extra games and more specialist software for dedicated HSB computers. As .sfs addons are not loaded into RAM until required, this would not increase the memory requirements by much.

The two teachers that tested it (Sandra and Vicky) at the Priory Lane preschool were delighted by the extra software, and were particularly impressed by the interactive storybooks, and the additional drag and drop shape programs they had requested (as well as the colourful new wallpaper). They didint have the time (class was on) to look through everything although they did say they will be preparing a full report when they had the time. Another of the teaching assistants (and by request two of the parents running WinXP) took CD's to test. Unfortunately Sandra and Vicky both run standard puppy/ecopup at home and the pup_save.2fs files would conflict with their systems.

They did manage to find a few things in the short time they had on them however...

-Double click desktop icons are too difficult for the little ones to master on their own, it really needs to be single click to start.

-The game that creates puzzles from pictures (including the puppy 1.08ce wallpaper!) is a little too difficult for the age group

-It would be nice for the icons to be spaced out evenly around the screen

The Windowed DOS games worked well and the teachers had no problems exiting from them.

Sidders, if you think it would be a good idea too, I would be happy to prepare some of the double/single click icons from Ecopup to use in HSB. These allow programs to be launched from desktop icons with *either* a single or a double click, and put up a simple splash screen to give the little ones feedback while the program is loading...else they tend to just click and click until the program (or several instances of them) appear. This would be useful on slower computers where some of the heavier games may take a couple of seconds to load. They also prevent several instances of the program running if an icon is clicked several times....patience is something that is learned later in life :)

You can download them from here if you want to check them out. Ive tested them on HSB and they do work.

http://ecomoney.eu/hsb/code/ecopup-icons.zip

Although you may have to get a tiny updated xmessage (called gxmessage I think ) for them to display the splash properly. It would just be a (time consuming) process of changing one of the icons to have the correct message/bitmap, and to call the correct program. You can get "inside" them to see how they work by right clicking them in Rox and selecting "look inside".

I took a quick look at Qimo too. It is based around Xubuntu, who's hardware requirements are much higher than Puppies. From its FAQ
qimo wrote:Q: What are the hardware requirements for Qimo?
A: Qimo needs a minimum of 256MB of memory to run from the CD, or 192MB to install. At least 6 GB of hard drive space is recommended, and a 400MHz or faster CPU.
I actually had HSB running manageably on a pentium 1 150mhz with 128mb of ram the other day, using about 500mb of space. It also includes a lot less games than HSB (only gcompris/ tuxtype /tuxpaint/ Childsplay and etoys). My experience with ubuntu/xubuntu is that its considerably slower than Puppy, with less hardware support out of the box.

They do however have a really nice logo and website...perhaps something to start giving some thought to.

Anyway Sidders/everyone, thank you all for your work, its amazing how quickly this has taken shape. Its going to be an extremely useful piece of technology to a great many people when it is finished...which I can see is getting nearer by the day. Thank you particularly Sidders for including my suggestions and reacting/responding to the feedback from the preschool. Ive got the "mums testing team" to contact now on facebook, as well as the Lincolnshire Life magazine. Keep up the good work!
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