Other Distros

[dennis-slacko531]

As most may know, you're suppose to be able to download chunks of Debian. Well, I choose the 191MB size. Things went pretty well until the final option to add a few more niceties (like a GUI and pkg mgr). Well, no luck after several tries... So then I use Pburn & a CD for the 191MB base system.

I didn't let their "installer" use GRUB or LILO but quickly booted into a puppy and ran Grub4dos... In a couple minutes, I'm in char-mode Debian. I got what I ordered, except as I said, the GUI download failed badly (madness!). Final thought, I decided not to supply a root password when ask, because I thought I could easily use SUDO later with my standard user acct/pswd. Well, I tried 10 times to crack that bastard. I guess I just don't understand Super User Do very well.

It was going well and I looked forward to dnld'g the various "parts". No problems, carry on mates.
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UPDATE - -> 2 Days Later
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SUDO "Shock" is too much for me. This morning I did my first torrent dnld (thanks to Exprimo 5.X.14). The 1.09GB linuxmint-201204-xfce-dvd-32bit.iso installed fairly well, but no sound. The funny thing is, it's just NOT worth the bother. I decided awhile ago to stick with grub4dos, well this Deb/Xfce/Mint wants GRUB or nothing. So, okay I give Grub to the "pig" and it finally boots correctly, but I loose all my various puppies for the sake of a stinking grub stake?

I'm waiting on Jemimah's next Saluki to get the 4.10 Xfce, and I've learned my lesson -- sure it had the coolest screensaver I've ever woken-up to (fell asleep during install). It's just a good thing I had lots of installs on USB sticks because that's about all I could bootup to after getting whacked with several grub then grub4dos go-arounds. One more thing, their Firefox only went up to 11 whereas dpup's Exprimo jumped right on the 13 update -- so my little 4GB USB has all I need -- I don't know who's reading this because I'm editing it (do they call this necro-posting, weird, whatever).
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- - BIG UPDATE !!! - - - -> 2 1/2 Days Later (Thanks to shinobar's new grub4dos 1.7.9) and my trying a little harder, I just have to pop into grub2 (easy as pie, wow thanks Shinobar). Update (next day) Geez, the sound was simple. I also updated the kernel to dual. Just now burnt a CD with Brasero. You know, I've said it jokingly before, but Puppy made me the man I am today...Hey, this Mint train is pretty comfy, but I'll be getting off at the next Puppy Station soon for my real nourishment.
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[amj]

This week I've finally gotten round to making a Debian 6 installation. One of the first new issues you stumble across is that root login is now disabled. Fortunately it's pretty easy to reverse that. Some kind person has posted the details of what to do.

The security concept built into Debian seems to date from the 1980's. In those days a computer user was someone sitting behind a terminal which in turn was connected to a mainframe. Debian security is perfect for office environments where 'root' and 'user' are different people sitting in different offices. But how often is Debian actually used in office environments?

When you run Debian on home a PC, the idea that 'root' and 'user' are living on different planets and need to be protected from one another really isn't helpful. I foolishly tried to use my Debian 6 system to do something practical. I needed to copy a file from one memory stick to another. Permission denied. 'user' tried to copy a file from a FAT16 formatted memory stick to a ext2 formatted memory stick and of course as we all realise, that's a fundamental breach of Debian security.

The fact that Debian (and many other distros) insist on imposing a totally inappropriate security regime on single user home PC environments is the reason why I have become a Puppy fan. I don't use Puppy because it's small, or because it runs in RAM, nor for the splendidly amateurish desktop. I use it because finally we have a distro that recoginses the simple truth that in a home PC environment, 'root' and 'user' is the same person sitting behind the same screen and that it is actually OK for the left hand to know what the right hand is doing.

[Ray MK]

Hi amj

Brilliantly said - words of wisdom - from a user.

Glad you like Puppy - best regards - Ray

[kooliepup]

Bravo!

You are a more discreet person than me.
I couldn't have said it so politely.

Post more often.

[starhawk]

amj, that was brilliantly worded. Well done!

...now somebody needs to plaster that statement all over DistroWatch so that everybody can hear the wisdom

[nooby]

... One of the first new issues you stumble across is that root login is now disabled.
Fortunately it's pretty easy to reverse that. Some kind person has posted the details of what to do.

ami I agree with all the praise here. Maybe eternal noobs like me
need some protection but most people active here in the forum does not!
I love what you wrote there. So true!

What I wonder is this. And remember I am a eternal total noob

What is described in the url works if you already have installed Debian.
Done a full install. If you only boot as "Live Session User"
then it is impossible to circumvent or find any way to to be root
or if you actually get access as root then you have to install
all the programs anew those that create the Gnome or LXDE or xfce
Desktop and root only allow you CLI access.


Sure I can be wrong but as far as I know they have gone to utter measure
to ensure that a Live session user has no way to have a nornal root desktop?

If I am wrong then I do apology and would appreciate some suggestion
how to get a normal desktop as a live session booted as root.

Ooops I mean frugal install. Sorry for any confusion

edit after Flash told me that he can see the signature here. So I write something and look if it repair itself after that action
Nope no signature is seen here using Puppy Lupu 528 and
FF 13 with NoScipt so something is different in this thread.

[Enrique Corbellini]

I applied the grub-repair-CD as rokytnj suggested. It's the best help I received, thanks.
I also tried writing those $sudo lines, which sounds like chinese to me, but it worked and was interesting.
But I know people won't ever accept me giving them a system in which they have to do this things by themselves. So first, I'll continue installing puppy, and only installing ubuntu too when they understand linux is something believable.
In the meantime, I'll continue waiting for the day in which our ecological communities not only use solar and wind energy but also eco hardware with no needing of unnecesary complexity. I appreciated all your comments.

[rokytnji]

thanks, I followed your suggestion and tried antix
looks like a complete system, but it doesn't start xorg o vesa automatically. Is there a way to have a graphical interface?

If no slim login screen. Just type in at the prompt "$"

Code: Select all

startx

[Pierre16]

Colonel Panic,

I run Quelitu 12.04, which you downloaded a few days ago. It has an HUD, some ultralight utilities, 3 centers, and loads of installation options, among them an Enlightenment desktop (Quelitu Jazz).

The combination of HUD and Enlightenment desktop is great. The RAM usage is also good. See the speed comparison page at:
http://wavesofthefuture.net/computers/s ... s-os.shtml

There is a lot more... I assume you have already seen the Release Notes/Download page...

[rokytnji]

Being a team member for AntiX developer Anti. This is a old AntiX 8.5 core install I did in 2010 , but updated as a roling release. With my new kernel install. LXDE cold boot with nothing running takes up about 61MB of ram.

Below ram report at botom of readout is with LXDE, conky, LXterminal and inxi report running.

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$ inxi -z -F
System:    Host: Biker Kernel: 3.4.1-antix.1-486-smp i686 (32 bit) 
           Desktop: LXDE (Openbox 3.5.0) Distro: antiX-core-686-a1 20 June 2010
Machine:   System: Intel product: Montara Family of Chipsets
           Mobo: Phoenix model: RT786EX version: 41118 Bios: Phoenix version: MGM-ALL1.86C.1009.D.0604271130 date: 04/27/06
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium M (-UP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (sse sse2) clocked at 600.00 MHz 
Graphics:  Card: Intel 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device X.Org: 1.12.1 driver: intel Resolution: 1024x768@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 852GM/855GM x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version: 1.3 Mesa 7.11.2
Audio:     Card: Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller driver: snd_intel8x0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: 1.0.25
Network:   Card-1: Atheros AR5212/AR5213 Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath5k 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ driver: 8139too 
           IF: eth1 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 30.0GB (19.6% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: IC25N030ATCS04 size: 30.0GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 17G used: 6.3G (39%) fs: ext3 ID: swap-1 size: 0.58GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 42.0C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A 
Info:      Processes: 94 Uptime: 2:03 Memory: 72.0/492.5MB Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.5 

This laptop has 1 512 MB stick of ram in it. I run Lighthouse Puppy also on another hardrive on this laptop. It has the capability of quick change hard drive caddies being a toughbook type of laptop. I can't speak on HUD since I am more of a command line type of biker.

As far as mounting goes in Debian. I don't have those problems. But I had to take the time to learn new things. Like learning spanish when your mother tongue is English I guess.

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# cat /etc/fstab
UUID=8bdcb4fd-4a43-45e9-be6b-dd455f91e802 / ext3 defaults,noatime 1 1
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 0
/dev/sda2 swap swap sw,pri=1 0 0
/dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 ext3 auto,defaults,auto 0 0
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# Dynamic entries below
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,users,exec,ro 0 0
# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3648 cylinders, total 58605120 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x723de8aa

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048    21334015    10665984   83  Linux
/dev/sda2        21334320    22458869      562275   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3   *    22458870    58603519    18072325   83  Linux

[rjbrewer]

Being a team member for AntiX developer Anti. This is a old AntiX 8.5 core install I did in 2010 , but updated as a roling release. With my new kernel install. LXDE cold boot with nothing running takes up about 61MB of ram.

CPU: Single core Intel Pentium M (-UP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (sse sse2) clocked at 600.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: Intel 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics

Interesting:

My Dell 700m seems to have similar specs; 1.6Ghz cpu
and 82852/855GM graphics.
The only graphics driver which worked really well with 855GM
the last few years has been "i810"
It's not included in most of these newest Puppy versions.

Will Anti-x run full install from external usb hdd?

[rokytnji]

Will Anti-x run full install from external usb hdd?

Yes it will. I have a full iso install on a class 4 sd flash card that I run on a M&A Companion Netbook. You can also set up the external drive install as a frugal install with persistence.

http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Frugal_install

My full install how to I made years ago for external drive.

http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2009/07/ins ... e-900.html

So yeah, it is possible.

[James C]

Porteus 1.2 XFCE rc2

[RetroTechGuy]

thanks, I followed your suggestion and tried antix
looks like a complete system, but it doesn't start xorg o vesa automatically. Is there a way to have a graphical interface?

If no slim login screen. Just type in at the prompt "$"

Code: Select all

startx

I think that I still use (I think that was standard under Debian 1.3, which I used for a very long time)

Code: Select all

xinit

which still works

[nooby]

Latest DistroWatch saw they had a Chinese version of Ubuntu
that had many codex and a different movie program?

Thought I could do a frugal install of the "Live Session User"
and it worked okay like this.

title deepin frugal iso boot noeject noprompt quiet splash --
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /deepin.iso
kernel /deepin/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/deepin.seed boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/deepin.iso splash --
initrd /deepin/casper/initrd.lz

The name of the OS is Deepin and it has mostly English only a few Mandarin icons. All the rest in English. To get your keyboard do this in terminal.

setxkbmap se
or the combination for your country. France fr, Germany de, I don't know you know such things

[otropogo]

I've often criticized Knoppix lately for it's annoying flaws, slowness to fix them, and interminable delays between the annual CEbit disk release in German and the final download. But this year it's time for kudos to Klaus Knopper.

Admittedly, the release of the downloadable English version was delayed by many weeks. But it was worth the wait. Not only that, but there followed very quickly a minor revision from v.7.0.1 to 7.0.2. Both booted for me, but I quickly switched to the latest, and haven't had any cause to go back.

This is without a doubt the smoothest, fastest, most impressive LiveDVD ever!

Following my long-held rule of booting only from removable media, after burning and booting the DVD, I immediately installed it to an 8GB USB thumb drive using the installation module in the 'Knoppix' directory.

The DVD boots not too shabbily on my two faster systems, about 4 minutes to the LXDE desktop, IIRC. But the USB installation is a speed demon, booting to the desktop in under 40 seconds on my two fastest PCs (three and seven years old, respectively).

You need a minimum of 8GB of flash because the files included take up 3.9GB, and you'll need some extra GBs for installing further apps to the persistent image file. I LiveCD version wasn't yet available when I did this a week or so ago, but it's planned.

Knoppix 7 LiveDVD is reported to contain 9GB of apps in compressed form. However, my limited experimentation suggests that many of these, especially the more complicated database programs (such as Grass GIS) are there in barebones structure only, and require significant downloads and assignment of storage space before they'll actually run. This may severly limit users of an 8GB thumbdrive. But hopefully, prices of the slower no-class no speed shown flash media will continue to plummet, so we can all get a pocketful of 32GB drives.


The most astonishingly pleasant surprise was finding that I could use the thumbdrive installation created on my Toshiba laptop to boot three! different desktop machines, using different monitors interchangeably.

Only one of the three PCs requires some tweaking of the display resolution, which comes up spread over two monitors.This is a problem encountered with previous Knoppix version, and may be caused by the DualHead2Go dual monitor adapter and/or the Radeon X1550 display adapter.

But a complete desktop image can be assured at boot up by entering a known working resolution (eg. knoppix screen=1600x1200x24), or experimenting. Once the toolbar and start menu are on screen, adjusting the display resolution requires only opening the preferences/monitor settings window in LXDE and reconfiguring.

The utility doesn't seem to have a test mode, so you may end up with a black screen, if a wrong choice is made. But with a one minute reset-reboot time, this isn't a big issue for the two or three failed attempts you might have before finding the right setting.

Adding new apps was easiest for me with the Software Centre. In it I easily searched for, found, and installed UFRaw, Rawstudio, and KlamAV (I miss Fprot though, finding KlamAV a bit complicated to use). Rawstudio and UFRaw work great.


NB: the firewall isn't active by default, so it's probably a good idea to set it up and save it after the persistent image file is created.

Oh, and if you have a 64-bit PC and more than 3GB of RAM, you can access all of that RAM by booting Knoppix 7 with the argument 'knoppix64', which loads the 64 bit Linux 3.3.7(?) kernel.

But because of size considerations (ie. the limits of a DVD disk) K7 doesn't include support for 64-bit applications, for that capability you'd have to install the necessary libraries, etc., and possibly get a bigger thumbdrive.

BTW if you find the choice of wallpapers (called 'background' in Knoppix7) unappetizing, I suggest you bring your own. I've got the Puppy 4.0 wallpaper installed. The screensaver selection, OTOH, is quite stunning, and you can leave it at the default 'random' setting and enjoy the changes.

[nooby]

I'm waiting for the Knoppix 7.0.2 CD version.
DVD is too big for me

I wonder about Phyton 2.6 One 3D CGI program I tried on Ubuntu
need Phyton 2.6 but maybe Knoppix need to download such too
and don't have it on default?

Can Puppy use Phyton 2.6 ? Maybe one need a Dev version?

[otropogo]

I'm waiting for the Knoppix 7.0.2 CD version.
DVD is too big for me

I wonder about Phyton 2.6 One 3D CGI program I tried on Ubuntu
need Phyton 2.6 but maybe Knoppix need to download such too
and don't have it on default?


Can Puppy use Phyton 2.6 ? Maybe one need a Dev version?

The 7.0.2 DVD packages list shows the DVD containing both Python 2.6 and 2.7., and since the 6.7 LiveCD packages list shows Python 2.6, I imagine the CD version of 7.0.2 will have either 2.7 or 2.6, or both.

[Enrique Corbellini]

is it we are assuming strong PCs and big programs were really needed? does this mean that Puppy was certainly only for old PCs?
IBM and other industries can always make big computers for big companies, without having to involve the single user who only wants to surf the web and a few more little things, I believe.
Where I live, if a person wants to have a new computer to surf the web and save personal storage, can’t buy a PC with less than 2 Gb of RAM and 100 Gb’s hard disc. Does this make sense?
I sincerely admire your dedication to develop and test new software for big machines, but I wouldn’t like to find you 2 years after wondering “why did I leave part of my life in running a competition in which I have no part?

[otropogo]

[quote="Enrique Corbellini"]is it we are assuming strong PCs and big programs were really needed? does this mean that Puppy was certainly only for old PCs?
IBM and other industries can always make big computers for big companies, without having to involve the single user who only wants to surf the web and a few more little things, I believe.
Where I live, if a person wants to have a new computer to surf the web and save personal storage, can’t buy a PC with less than 2 Gb of RAM and 100 Gb’s hard disc. Does this make sense?
I sincerely admire your dedication to develop and test new software for big machines, but I wouldn’t like to find you 2 years after wondering “why did I leave part of my life in running a competition in which I have no part?