Other Distros

[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?

[Lobster]

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... re-949029/

Good interview with Slacware creator

[Enrique Corbellini]

And don't worry, once the Chinese have saturated their own market (I was there last year, and was shocked to run into recent university graduates there who don't own a PC, have no access to one, and can't afford the cost of using an Internet cafe to keep in touch by e-mail) they'll be flooding the rest of the world with cheap PCs too.

Last month I visited an ecological community of my country (Uruguay, South America).
It’s in a beautiful small town called Aiguá. Much more beautiful than the capital city Montevideo. This community is one of the few ecological communities that exist in my country.
They don’t use PCs.... that simple. They practice other sort of communication. They use solar energy for everyday life, and motors to work, building ecological houses.
This way of living sounds like a paradise to me, but when trying to go living with them, a problem appears: they don’t have a project to work on, they are only optimist people who believe in future, but they don’t write what they are going to do the next 2 years from now on.
The rest of these ecological communities do more or less the same thing. You have to believe in ecology as if it was some sort of religion, instead of science.
So, as I’m not a religion practicer, I had to momentarily pospone my moving to that place, and look for a more scientific ecological practicing without leaving the city. Not so bad.... I found other interesting possibility. Global ecological promoters as a U.N. office and the New Zealand government (yes, that far from here country), offer us some money (little for them -1st world-, lots for us -3rd world-) to start ecological projects based on science. I found two places in the capital city to start projects like these, but none in Aigua or other inner land yet. I don’t get sad because of that, since I believe some time is needed to make things happen.
But we plenty use PCs inside these scientific projects. And even more than that... we wonder how a computer’s worker should live if becoming an ecological practicer. We know this hypothetical person must be eating healthy food and enjoying trees and nature, but we don’t know what else should be doing yet.
I’m starting to speak with organizations like ceuta.org.uy (technological appliers to ecology) about these things. We accepted the U.N. proposal of developing a project, and we are still studying the one proposed by New Zealand.
Whatever are the computers going to be finally accepted to work inside these projects, they are going to be ecological hardware and software, don’t you thing so?
Would you like to get involved inside this? don’t you think it’s nice?
I think we could even speak to chinese students about these things. We can speak to 2nd world's anywhere students about projects like these, offering everyone a way to participate inside them.
We are permanently learning examples of communities around all of the world, and want to give our part in this searching for a new life.
Thanks for answering.

[otropogo]

...
Last month I visited an ecological community of my country (Uruguay, South America).
...
Global ecological promoters as a U.N. office and the New Zealand government (yes, that far from here country), offer us some money (little for them -1st world-, lots for us -3rd world-) to start ecological projects based on science.

...
Oh, come on! When did Uruguay become a "3rd world" country? That's ridiculous. I can guarantee you that I would sooner eat in a restaurant in Uruguay than one in (mainland) China.

...

... we wonder how a computer’s worker should live if becoming an ecological practicer. We know this hypothetical person must be eating healthy food and enjoying trees and nature, but we don’t know what else should be doing yet.

Sounds more like religion than science to me. Surely you have to determine what foods ARE healthy and how to safely enjoy trees and nature before making it a moral imperative...

And you certainly can't do it by leafing through old hardcopy that happens to come into range.

I’m starting to speak with organizations like ceuta.org.uy (technological appliers to ecology) about these things. We accepted the U.N. proposal of developing a project, and we are still studying the one proposed by New Zealand.
Whatever are the computers going to be finally accepted to work inside these projects, they are going to be ecological hardware and software, don’t you thing so?

It sounds logical, until you consider what on earth "ecological hardware and software" could possibly mean. For hardware, it's not so hard - perhaps it should be biodegradable, or better yet, edible and good for your health? For software, it's much harder to imagine. First, how can software be unecological? I'm stumped.

Maybe one should start by putting the "eco" aside and concentrate on being "logical" first.

Would you like to get involved inside this? don’t you think it’s nice?
I think we could even speak to chinese students about these things. We can speak to 2nd world's anywhere students about projects like these, offering everyone a way to participate inside them.

Sure, but what is your organization's website? You mention receiving a UN grant, but not the name or nature of the project supported, ditto for the New Zealand proposal. So how can anyone reading this "participate"?

[Enrique Corbellini]

Oh, come on! When did Uruguay become a "3rd world" country? That's ridiculous. I can guarantee you that I would sooner eat in a restaurant in Uruguay than one in (mainland) China.

The words “1st, 2nd and 3rd world

[Aitch]

Enrique

Health

http://www.naturalhub.com/opinion_right ... animal.htm

http://www.natural-health-information-c ... arius.html

A few discussion videos for you....

http://www.bbc5.tv/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pin8fbdG ... laynext=21

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvp3RWc4 ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... aF2J6ZJsdw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whKrENfkMEM

http://www.cmn.tv/news/new-world-currency/

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/inlight_ra ... ght-agenda

enjoy!

Aitch

[Enrique Corbellini]

Enrique
Health
....
A few discussion videos for you....
-----
enjoy!
Aitch

I answered you at:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 324#634324

because of we are no longer speaking about "other distros"

[nooby]

Yes thanks for creating that other thread that you link to.
Back to other distros.

Someone asked about AVLinux and how to boot it in grub2.
If any of you have knowledge maybe you could help that person?

[nooby]

So this one is not GUI it is TTY
http://ttylinux.net/

ttylinux, a small GNU/Linux system available for several CPU architectures.
This smallest ttylinux system has an 8 MB file system and runs on i486
computers within 28 MB of RAM, but provides a complete command line
environment and is ready for Internet access.

The goal this project is to make one of the smallest up-to-date Linux
systems that is similar to a larger distribution. An insteresting result is
the ttylinux build system.

End users may want to use ttylinux on old computers for accessing
the Internet, or bootable on a USB disk for a portable system.
Developers may want to use ttylinux for their embedded systems,
or use the ttylinux build system to create their own variant.

so the 64.000USD Q is. How does one frugal boot that one on NTFS?

Okay maybe on USB using dd or some other geek trick.
Have any of you tested it?

Okay one more question. Does it allow one to be root?

[Aitch]

I answered you at:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 324#634324

because of we are no longer speaking about "other distros"

thanks

Aitch

[Colonel Panic]

Just installed Solus 1.0, and was pleased to find it upgraded itself, i.e. downloaded and installed all the necessary packages, without my having to indicate anything; it's automatic and you can set the notification interval from the system control panel.

It looks good with a Gnome 2 interface and a nice selection of wallpapers, and seems stable too. Almost ideal, except that it's the old story with Debian-based distros and Flash; Flash keeps crashing or not even starting.

I might start a thread about Flash here when I've got a bit more time as trying to get it to work properly is getting past a joke now. It goes and stays wrong pretty much right across the board in installed distros; Vector Light is the only distro which seems immune at the moment..

[greengeek]

Just installed Solus 1.0, Almost ideal, except that it's the old story with Debian-based distros and Flash; Flash keeps crashing or not even starting.

Given that Debian is so picky about security, it makes me wonder what exactly Flash is attempting to do that causes the system so many problems.

There must be a reason why Apple kicked Flash into the trashcan, and I suspect it is a very insecure product. I wish we could replace it with some secure opensource format and get it to receive widespread acceptance on the web.

If only we had an opensource Youtube things might change for the better.

[dagodemon42]

I recently encountered flash problems with Arch Linux. Flash either wouldn't load or would crash suddenly. Researching the problem, I found that the newest Flash Player(11.2)requires a processor that supports SSE2 instruction set. My Pentium III only supports SSE. The solution isn't perfect, but does work for me. Download an older version of Flash(10.3). Extract file libflashplayer.so, and place in folder /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins(you may have to create this folder). The problem now becomes that you are using an older and less secure version of Flash. Arch Linux offers a package called sandfox, that keeps Firefox(and other programs) in a "sandbox" or limited function. Flash now works. I don't know if sandfox could be adapted to Puppy, or if there are other programs with similar function. Hopefully the Puppy Gurus will be able to decipher this rambling post and apply a similar solution to the World Of Puppy.

[rokytnji]

Specs on my Laptop

Code: Select all

System:    Host: Biker Kernel: 3.4.2-antix.2-486-smp i686 (32 bit) 
           Desktop: IceWM 1.3.7 Distro: antiX-M11-686 Jayaben Desai 01 May 2011
Machine:   Mobo: IBM model: 2628TWU Bios: IBM version: KXET33WW (1.06 ) date: 09/05/2001
CPU:       Single core Pentium III (Coppermine) (-UP-) cache: 256 KB flags: (sse) clocked at 1000.00 MHz 
Graphics:  Card: ATI Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x 
           X.Org: 1.11.3.901 drivers: ati,mach64 (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1024x768@87.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: Rasterizer GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 7.11.2
Audio:     Card: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24/30 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] driver: snd_cs46xx
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: 1.0.25
Network:   Card-1: 3Com 3c556B CardBus [Tornado] driver: 3c59x 
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Ralink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI driver: rt61pci 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 20.0GB (26.8% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: IC25N020ATCS04 size: 20.0GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 6.4G used: 3.5G (57%) fs: ext4 ID: /home size: 12G used: 5.0G (46%) fs: ext4 
           ID: swap-1 size: 0.76GB used: 0.01GB (1%) fs: swap 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 70.0C mobo: 46.0C 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0 
Info:      Processes: 105 Uptime: 2:01 Memory: 259.6/501.5MB Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4 

Flash Version is

Shockwave Flash

File: libflashplayer.so
Version:
Shockwave Flash 11.0 r1

repos

Code: Select all

Repos:     Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list
           deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
           deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
           deb http://liquorix.net/debian/ sid main
           deb http://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/liquorix.net/debian sid main
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jitsi.list
           deb http://download.jitsi.org/deb unstable/

No flash crash or problems for me on this Pentium 3 IBMA22M on this Debain based distro. I usually though download the video via command line with youtube-dl or cclive instead of watching in my browser. I guess one could use a youtube download addon in your browser also or a online youtube site downloader. My screenshot is Iceape browser showing youtube playing in the browser. Hope that helps other Debian based users.

[Colonel Panic]

Rant alert.

Is Salix Ratpoison the unfriendliest distro ever? It certainly seems like it to me right now.

I've just installed Salix Ratpoison 13.37, and as usual had to give both a root password and a normal user name and password when the installation was in progress.

All went well until I actually tried to log in at the console (Salix seems to use init 4 by default). At first I got the message that no login manager like gdm or lxdm was installed and I had to use Ctrl-Alt-F6 to change console before I could do anything else (funny, I was never asked if I wanted to install one but still...).

Did that, and then I got the "System respawning - wait 5 minutes" message. After waiting perhaps 4 minutes, I logged again and typed in "startx" to start the window manager and load X11. I was met with a blank screen, apart from the blunt message: "Go away.", with a box to tick to show that I'd seen the message, but no mouse to actually access it (oh well, it is ratpoison I suppose).

I know enough about Linux to be able to edit an inittab file, and so I did this from Wary and changed to init 3 (my usual init setting).This time when I typed in startx I got the message, "Your TV is feeling lonely". That was enough frankly, I gave up.

I'm not without a sense of humour but sometimes I actually want to get stuff done. Apart from the other problems the distro had, messages like that give me the impression that I’m dealing with a bunch of frivolous devs (teenagers?) who don't care about the user experience of people using their distro and would rather have a laugh at their expense instead.

Rant over. It's sad this has happened as I have nothing but praise for the other version of Salix I've tried, Salix LXDE.

[Colonel Panic]

Just installed Solus 1.0, Almost ideal, except that it's the old story with Debian-based distros and Flash; Flash keeps crashing or not even starting.

Given that Debian is so picky about security, it makes me wonder what exactly Flash is attempting to do that causes the system so many problems.

There must be a reason why Apple kicked Flash into the trashcan, and I suspect it is a very insecure product. I wish we could replace it with some secure opensource format and get it to receive widespread acceptance on the web.

If only we had an opensource Youtube things might change for the better.

Maybe,l but I'd rather see a good opensource video player to replace Flash as an opensource video site would be unlikely to attract anything like the number of videos Youtube has. I don't know how good Gnash is these days.