Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[DaveWBX]

HELP!

I'm trying to set up an older laptop (Compaq Presario 1277, 188Meg Ram, 4G H'disk) for use with jPSKmail and fldigi. (Yes I have a ham licence...)

http://pskmail.wikispaces.com/ (jPSKmail site)

http://www.w1hkj.com/ (fldigi site)

I started with the fldigi live CD, that uses Pup' 4.1.2. That all booted and worked OK, so I knew the hardware was good.

I then installed (full install, NOT frugal) it to the local hard drive, that has a 3.8G main partition, and two roughly 512M part's, one as the swap.

All of Pup' deposited itself into the main part' sda1, the "spare" 512meg partition shows up as sda6 and is usable as a storage volume if nothing else.

There is (as yet) no networking (it seems not to like WPA/PSK with one of Mr Gibson's long keys, but that's an issue that can wait) so all extra stuff goes in via a USB stick at the moment.

I'm trying at the moment to get jPSKmail to run. This is a Java app, so needs a JRE. (fldigi has been successfully updated and runs just fine)

I pulled down the jre-1.6.0.20.pet file from following links from a puppy wiki somewhere, and it "Says" it's installed, also the "check dependancies installed pkg" menu item reports all OK (Green) But trying to launch jPSKmail, just brings up "Failed to execute child process "java" (No such file or directory)! !

Now, this is where I get lost. I can "find / -name *java*"

That (among other things) throws up /usr/bin/java (that sort of agrees with my flakey memory of when I installed Java on an old Mandrake 9 system long time back)

But, the icon is a ! in a triangle (yellow background) and is a link to...
../../mnt/home/java/bin/java That for the life of me I can't locate, and I guess the system can't either, as the icon title is shown in red under the link icon.

So, what went wrong?

Yes I did a full reboot after the initial install (this does not have a menu entry, if it's installed lib's etc, reboot, so I did, and have done several times since.)

Just how the (expletive deleted!) do you get out of this mess? There is no uninstall I can find, and if I try a re-install, it say's it's already installed, and completes again without error, but no .jar file runs.

For now I'm going up the pub, will check back here later (or tomorrow when the vapors have disipated!)

Regards.

Dave (G0WBX)

[rokytnji]

[DaveWBX]

Ah yes.. But I'm not running a browser with a Java plugin.

I'm trying to run an applicaion "jpskmail" that needs the JRE (Java Runtime Engine) to run. It's written in Java (not JavaScript) as it's intended as a cross platform appliction.

Two totally different things, only related byt the word "Java".


I can find lots of conflicing information and advice on t'web, about installing the JRE in Puppy, but suprisingly little on this forum! Mind you, like all PhpBB fora, the search systems are less than helpful as usual.

Dave.

[rokytnji]

Sorry then bro. I don't know if this bug report will help but I will throw it out any hows.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=560044

[DaveWBX]

Hi again.

Nah, that's sadly not relevant (AFICT). That's to do with it breaking access to the networking (Sockets) layer in the system.

The JRE is a virtualisation layer, there are versions for each operating system, (Windows / Linux / BSD etc) that then let you run a common (same in each case) app "on top" of it.

It's another layer of complexity, but it generaly works well, when the JRE is installed OK.

Cheers.

Dave.

[aarf]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&q=install+java+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.murga-linux.com%2Fpuppy%2F&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

[CatDude]

Hi

@ DaveWBX
From what i can tell, it looks like the java .pet you used (if it was the one here: http://puppylinux.org/wikka/JavaRuntimeEnvironment)
,was intended for Frugal installs.

Full installs do not have a /mnt/home directory.

CatDude
.

[DaveWBX]

aarf:
So just which of those relate to the "Correct" way to install it?

A page of links is not helpful. You'll have also noticed, that mention of QuickPet. That is not in this version of Puppy, I did qote the version number (4.1.2) AFIK, that's in Pup 5.x or something.

You'll also notice in the original post, that I say the machine in quesiton is not networked, so automated .pet fetchers are going to fail anyway.

The vast majority of the links I've looked at, relate to a JavaScript plugin for various browsers anyway, *NOT* the JRE needed for some applications.

I also note you used Google to search, not the forum search. Nuff said about php forum search tools then.


CatDude:
Yes, that is the one. But unless my eyes are painted on (it happens) there is no mention of any limitations (Frugal/Full) version compatability issues on that page.

In any case, doesnt the package manager or the install routine itself check such things? If not, why not? (Windows program auto installers check for such things, they have to!)

Also, it does say it's doing a dependancy check, and that passes, so what chance does the luckless user (me) have after that?

Oh yes, this "Full" install, *HAS* a /mnt/home directory. Mind you, maybe the .pet installer created it in error. If so, why?


Thanks for the replies anyway, but still nowhere near solving the problem.


Dave
G0WBX(G8KBV)

[CatDude]

Hello Dave

[Béèm]

Use of java with other programs

to set it up so you can run programs like Azureus
you have to add the path to the java binary in /etc/profile, and also add the java home variable, something like:
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/bin/jre1.6.0_02
PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
in /etc/profile.local

fill in the correct version you have. (jre..........)

[DaveWBX]

Hi..

CatDude:
Thanks for doing all that, I'll try the other package next time I have, err, time! Thanks again.


Beem:
You can also check the existance of a JRE from a command line (terminal) with 'java -version'

Cheers.

Dave B Battery on laptop going!

[Béèm]

[DaveWBX]

I'm back... (Amazingly...)

I reconfigured another laptop (removed the hard drive with XP on, and installed a "blank" 20G drive). The machine is a Pentium 1.5G with 500Meg of ram, an Acer Aspire 3610 to be precise.

Installed Puppy from the EMCPup disk (based on Pup 4.1.2) the same as before, again, had to do a "Full" install to hard disk, as the "Frugal" would not boot (Grub would not install, or if it did, could not find the OS)
http://www.w1hkj.com/emcpup.html is where that came from.

Anyway, got fldigi updated and working, even got Pup' to waggle something in the system hardware so the ACPI stuff doesnt power down the laptop unexpectedly. More importantly, this machine works on my WiFi LAN just fine, with puppy.

Explored the Puppy Package Manager, and found a JRE (seems to be an old version of java, but, it installed, and I can now enter "java" in a terminal screen, and see the JRE respond. Magic.
What I found and installed, is 'java_jamjikescairo-1' from the "Official Puppy 2" repository (no other info presented)

I could only find one such package, amazing, as a working JRE is needed for so much these dayse.

OK... Then went and found the Linux X86 install of jpskmail from:-
http://pskmail.wikispaces.com/Download The link "Java Client: 0.5.2" that points at:-
http://hermes.esrac.ele.tue.nl/pskmail/
Then the jPSKmail-0.5.2-Linux-x86-Install file.

I manage to find that after the download, get it to be executable, and even (after and hour of frustration, forever loosing my way in the smoke and mirrors filesystem) find where the JRE was, as jpskmail's installer needs to know (why it cant figure it out for itself, I don't know, but...) and all seems to have installed OK. Except for, the missing desktop shortcut, that was said to be created. I've rebooted etc, still no show.

OK, I'll go find the .jar file, and make a new shortcut to launch it with the JRE. I thinks... Can I find out how to do that? Like heck...

So, some hand holding please.

How the (*Bleeeeep*) do you create a shortcut to an app' and do what's needed to mak it "just work". In this case, I guess the shortcut will be to the JRE, and pass the .jar file's info to it. I can not find out how to make the .jar file executable by itself, that option is missing when you right click on it.

There is noting as conveniant as right click the desktop, and select New, then Shortcut, etc....

I still fail to understand why this is so mind numbingly dificult to do! All I want to do, is use an app, not fight the system. (That can come later!)

Brikbats etc welcome.

Dave.

[aarf]

drag and drop to the desktop makes a shortcut most times. not always though. then you configure it with an icon if necessary

[DaveWBX]

aarf:

Thanks for the reply, yes, dragging and dropping on the desktop makes a copy of the file there, or link I can't tell.

But, that's only a minor part of the problem.

I found (eventualy) a dialog to fill in, where you can change the screen name, and pass arguments to the target, but not change the icon (not at the moment I have an icon to use)

However, passing the full path and name of the .jar file to the "shortcut"/"Link" or whatever, results in nothing. Click on it, and a border appears round it, then vanishes, and that's all. No application, error messages, or anything else.

Dave.