Puppy 4.3 Final -- bug reports and suggestions

[rerwin]

lwill,
Thanks for all of your log files. They confirm my suspicion. The simplest fix might be to tell puppy to always use the intel8x0m driver for that hardware. If it works, the HSF modems of the same ID would not be supported. For now, that is good enough. Please try inserting a line into /etc/rc.d/MODULESCONFIG, just before the line with only the single-quote ('), line 23, making a new line 23:

Code: Select all

snd_intel8x0m 0x00008086 0x000024c6

(and the single-quote line as 24). Do that in your full installation or a frugal that includes zp430305.sfs.

I need to see only the /tmp/udevtrace.log file, but would like you to also check "lsmod" to see whether module "slamr" actually gets loaded, too. If the sound is restored and slamr is not loaded, please try the modem if you can. If you don't have a dialup ISP, just call yourself or maybe a fax number. If the connection gets a "busy" signal or "no carrier", that's good enough.

EDIT: After editing MODULESCONFIG, be sure to also erase the HSF modem setup. Go into pupdial and probe > ERASE, click OK and "X" to return to pupdial, then exit it and reboot. /EDIT
Richard

[Jim1911]

Barry,

See this http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=46902 for the changes needed for 430 to boot with a frugal installation on an ext4 partition.

This should take care of the final ext4 problem. Please also consider adding the capability of saving the pupsave as ext2, ext3, and ext4 depending on what type of partition that is being used, to take full advantage of their capabilities.

Thanks,
Jim

[Michalis]

@ARAN
I'm happy that you managed to solve your problem, but in my installation git is working out of the box with puppy-430 small and devx. To tell you the truth I'm not familiar with git, I know just the very basic and only in order to download something. So because I needed to download from sf the latest ayttm I just typed the git clone blah blah and worked out of the box. I wasn't expecting it but it did. Latter because of your problems I used git pull to test and didn't had any error messages.

Anyway since it works for you now, that's what matters.

[Iguleder]

I got this:

daemon.notice modprobe: WARNING: Could not open '/lib/modules/2.6.30.5/kernel/drivers/parport/parport.ko': No such file or directory

And because of that, also this:

daemon.notice modprobe: FATAL: Error inserting lp (/lib/modules/2.6.30.5/kernel/drivers/char/lp.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

Fix:
ln -s /lib/modules/2.6.30.5/initrd/kernel/drivers/parport/parport.ko /lib/modules/2.6.30.5/kernel/drivers/parport

[lwill]

rerwin,
Did as you asked. No sound.
Tried modem, did not dial*, still shows ttySHSF0.

*EDIT: sorry my bad, modem does work, they changed to 10 digit dialing and I forgot to dial 1.Too use to using the cell.

Here is udevtrace and lsmod for you to see.
I will reboot into the version I have working and see if the modem works there and report back here. Edit: cannot find a modem.

Lyle

Update: I tried a bit more investigation on my own. I commented out the line that disables the snd_intel8x0m in modem_hsfmodem.conf Reboot. Sound worked and modem stopped. hsf modules got still loaded.
So while it may conflict with the hsf stuff, I seem to need snd_intel8x0m for sound to work, which is more important to me at the moment.
If there is anything else you would like me to try, let me know.

[wuwei]

First, of course, I'd like to acknowledge the hard and diligent work that goes into the development of Puppy. Barry and a few very creative developers deserve all the credit one can give them for it.

So, generally I do enjoy Puppy, more so than any other OS.

Yet, there is a but, a big BUT. And it is an ongoing issue, that I reported upon even two years back, without that an improvement has been implemented.

This is the issue of creating, saving and maintaining an internet connection THROUGH AN UPGRADE. Puppy is the only Linux Distro that seems to have chosen a complicated and - for the novice - cumbersome way of connecting to the internet. No other major distro dares to present it's "customers" such a bumpy road.
Standard for the big distros, the likes of Ubuntu, but also for tiny ones like Slitaz, is that a plain DSL/LAN/Router hook-up is detected AUTOMATICALLY; even the LiveCDs have that feature, not to speak of the HD installs. The LiveCD boots, the internet connection is established. No clicky clicky, no guessing, no nothing.

Not so with Puppy!

Why is that so? I am an experienced user, but no developer. So I don't have a clue. Please help me to understand.
I am convinced that this issue is a major stumbling block for many a beginner; these are users of which nobody here in the forum will ever know and that are lost for Puppy forever.

To explain my frustration at 2 examples:

Exactly 2 years ago I had a frugal install of 2.17.1 and upgraded to 3.00. In the process I lost the internet connectivity on a pppoe-connection setup with a DSL-modem.

This time I had a full HDD of 4.21 upgraded to 4.3 and lost the ability to save the Internet connection (DSL/LAN/Router) for the next boot. A continued upgrade to 4.31.1 didn't help either.

So maybe this time, someone will understand the severity of this problem and address it in an appropriate manner. A Linux distro without internet conncetion is useless. So a normal internet setup must be established automatically. And once established make it "upgradeproof"...
If even Slitaz can do it, come on guys....!

[rerwin]

lwill,
I have verified that the override process does work. I suspect that you did not erase the HSF settings in PupDial (probe > ERASE), which I should have mentioned and have now added to my posting above.

I am using the MODULESCONFIG override technique to override all of the conflicting modems, so others won't see the problem you have had. Thanks for helping me get there. I plan to add a new rules file to update MODULESCONFIG PCI_overrides entries whenever a known HSF modem requires it. But that will wait, because I need to be sure the updating does not interfere with BootManager's updating of that file -- not something to add at the last minute. For now, in 4.3.1, all ICH modems that also have HSF support will not be supported by the HSF drivers.
Richard

[rerwin]

lwill and others report issues with sound cards and the HSF modem drivers. At least part of their problems involve the loading of HSF modem drivers instead of the sound-card modem driver. This is due to particular modems being supported by two or more drivers (in modules.alias). To resolve this, I have added to the PCI_OVERRIDES definition in /etc/rc.d/MODULESCONFIG entries forcing use of the sound-card modem drivers instead of the HSF counterparts.

In researching this issue, I discovered similar conflicts between some HCF and HSF drivers, so I forced one of them, based on their descriptions in the PCI_IDs listing. This confusion may be due to original misidentification of the HCF/HSF modems.

While updating MODULESCONFIG, I discovered that the a-f characters in the "hso" entries were erroneously capitalized.

The updated file is attached as a dotpet for anyone to try, along with difference files for it.
Richard

UPDATE 10/2/09: After reading that the modems that belong to both an HSF and ALSA driver probably need both, I have removed the overrides for them. iwill reports that the override did not prevent the HSF driver from running and that the modem did not work, although the sound card did. But the other changes are valid, for now.

UPDATE 10/4/09: After a "reality check", I find that the hso entries in MODULESCONFIG are no longer necessary. And they wouldn't work anyway, because they are for USB devices; the overrides apply only to PCI devices. The "-3" version retains the HCF/HSF overrides, so downloaders need not do so again, except for Barry and his update for Puppy 4.3.1.
Richard

[fyujj]

I guess Puppy comes stripped off the manuals to save space and tries to forward users to the respective page at linux.die.net. But the site has 8 sections of command man pages: http://linux.die.net/man/

Like I was trying to find out about the usage of fsck and it sent me to http://linux.die.net/man/1/fsck when the correct page is at http://linux.die.net/man/8/fsck. It seems Puppy always sends to section 1 of the site which turns to be wrong in most cases. I don't know if it would be practical to find out the correct links (and then the man command would have to check a list to see which page to send to) since there may be to much of them, but it's an observation.

[Aitch]

fyujj, for man tips see also

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=33821

and

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=4285

and see SHS/Technosaurus/Gyro exchanges here, on bash/man

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=345816

and the original[?] http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/

Aitch

[fyujj]

Thanks for the info, Aitch.

[rerwin]

Barry,
In case you have already picked up my MODULESCONFIG changes, please note that I have replaced the dotpet, to remove some of the entries, explained above: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 722#346722
Richard

[hiveman]

I was running an older version of Puppy (4.1.2) and decided to upgrade to 4.3 on my Dell Inspiron 8200. Unfortunately the new version does strange things to the mouse. Generally, not immediately, but after a few minutes of use the mouse starts to drift. Most of the time it drifts to the top right corner, sometimes to the bottom left corner, sometimes it just disappears for awhile. Whether it drifts or just disappears it can't be recovered for several minutes. If I'm patient generally it comes back after awhile and I'm able to use it for a few minutes and then it goes away again. I've never seen this before. Very frustrating.

One other thing I've noticed is that if I check the setup for the mouse it's always set to USB mouse. If I change it to anything else it simply changes back to USB the next time I boot Puppy. I don't have a USB mouse. (Changing it doesn't do any good.)

Dell Inspiron 8200
P4 1.7MHz
256 Meg of RAM
Puppy installed on the HD

[aarf]

I was running an older version of Puppy (4.1.2) and decided to upgrade to 4.3 on my Dell Inspiron 8200. Unfortunately the new version does strange things to the mouse. Generally, not immediately, but after a few minutes of use the mouse starts to drift. Most of the time it drifts to the top right corner, sometimes to the bottom left corner, sometimes it just disappears for awhile. Whether it drifts or just disappears it can't be recovered for several minutes. If I'm patient generally it comes back after awhile and I'm able to use it for a few minutes and then it goes away again. I've never seen this before. Very frustrating.

One other thing I've noticed is that if I check the setup for the mouse it's always set to USB mouse. If I change it to anything else it simply changes back to USB the next time I boot Puppy. I don't have a USB mouse. (Changing it doesn't do any good.)

Dell Inspiron 8200
P4 1.7MHz
256 Meg of RAM
Puppy installed on the HD

get usb mouse or an adapter to convert to a usb mouse.
edit: what type of mouse have you got?

[Kenny-M]

hiveman,

If the mouse os the ball type turn the mouse upside down.

Twist off the ball retainer. Clean the ball.

Clean the inside removing any dust balls and/or stuff
around wheels inside. You can use you little finger to
scrape any stuff off the wheels inside the mouse.

Reassemble and try.


If the mouse is an Infared type make sure there isn't
anu "gunk" stuck the lense and make sure the desktop
surface if clean.


Last if you are using an adapter for your mouse so it's
really a P/S2 mouse plugged into a USB port make sure
the connections are tight.

[hiveman]

Thanks for the advice on how to clean my mouse. Unfortunately that doesn't apply to my situation. The Dell Inspiron 8200 is a laptop - one of the older laptops that offer both a touchpad and and eraser-style pointer. Just for grins I did pull out a ps/2 external mouse, but that doesn't make any difference. The pointer still disappears every few minutes.

To make sure that this was really a 4.3 issue I rebooted off a CD with 4.2.5 on it. I've been using it for 30 minutes or so with no problems. All three interfaces work - external ps/2 mouse, touchpad and eraser. The pointer has not drifted or disappeared. I guess I'll fall back to 4.2.5 and try to upgrade again with the next release, unless anyone has any suggestions to try.

[aarf]

ps2 connected mouse is no good, u need to try a mouse that is connected via a usb port even if it has a ps2 plug and usb adapter it is ok but it must be connected into the usb port.

[rerwin]

The kernel 2.6.25.16 version of Puppy 4.3 does not detect these modems, because the modem-rules file and firmware tarball are the incorrect versions. I obtained the appropriate versions from puppy 4.1.5. The attached dotpet applies ONLY to the k2.6.25.16 puppy installations. The two files should be added to the bugfix release 4.3.1-k2.6.25.16.
Richard

[Kenny-M]

Aarf,

Is that a problem particular to Dell? This is no BIOS setting?

hiveman,

Back when I used to do IT ending around 2005 I though Dell had a patch for the eraser mouse. Those things were always an issue. Well, If you could find the patch that would only help you using M$iscrosoft.

All I know is those touch pads and eraser mice used to be a big problem with Windows NT & 2000 Pro.

[aarf]

Aarf,

Is that a problem particular to Dell? This is no BIOS setting?

hiveman,

Back when I used to do IT ending around 2005 I though Dell had a patch for the eraser mouse. Those things were always an issue. Well, If you could find the patch that would only help you using M$iscrosoft.

All I know is those touch pads and eraser mice used to be a big problem with Windows NT & 2000 Pro.

ps2 mouse is a problem with linux and/or old hardware.
may have been another of those issues fixed in 421 but missed in 430 but i dont know about that.