Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 - Updated ISO Version 005 - APR 05 2012

[rerwin]

1. Oh dear! The problem has returned.

2. What to do now?

From your comments and diag file I conclude that you have installed many packages and then upgraded from 526. Did you upgrade to get to 526? This presents a confounding situation, in that much can have happened that will not be revealed by the usual diags. I think we need to try to start fresh to determine whether your particular sound driver is a factor.

Please create a clean puppy and try that for a while, to see if you can break it:
- Boot from CD or a frugal installation of the original lupu 528 iso, with pfix=ram (or pupsave 0, if that is an option).
- Immediately reboot and create a pupsave file (so that any IU2 file removals will stay removed).
- Then install Instant Update 002 and rerwin_patch-1
- Immediately reboot.
- After waiting 5 minutes without doing anything else, run pmodemdiag and rename its tar.gz file slightly, to make it unique.
- Assuming the speaker icon is still there, do some reboots and try alsawizard (always running it to completion - woof-woof) to see if the icon will disappear.
- Whenever the speaker disappears -- other than during running of alsawizard -- immediately get another pmodemdiag file.
- If the speaker icon behaves as you expect, try doing more of your usual activities that lead up to its disappearance. That could include installing some of the packages you need, but try only a few at a time, interleaved with reboots and alsawizard.

And then there is a desperation measure: list the names of all files in the pupsave file. The command to do this might be:
ls -AR /initrd/pup_rw > /tmp/ls_pup_rw.txt
Then gzip the txt file for attachment. That will entail looking for "a needle in a haystack", but it might show some left-over files from the upgrade process(es) that could confuse puppy.

I think our best course is to methodically (tediously) add to your pupsave until we find what breaks retrovol. BTW, do you ever cancel/bail out of alsawizard? That could be important.
Richard

[Sylvander]

1. "Did you upgrade to get to 526?"
Yes.
526 behaved pretty well.
When I upgraded to the 1st 528 version is when the problems began.
Also having problems when I upgraded from 526 to 528.002

2. "do you ever cancel/bail out of alsawizard?"
No, I always complete the procedure.

3. ASAP I'll follow your instructions as closely as I can, and report back.

[elcurita]

I applied the multimedia upgrade and the problems with sound and icon missing are gone.I have booted 12 times and all is fine.This is the way I installed Puppy: Lupu 528-002 iso, reboot to create save file,install rerwin pacht IU002.pet, reboot, install Multimedia_Upgrade-Lucid528-002.pet . Reboots later I still have sound and icons and Pmusic working.Thank you!!!!
By the way working in frugal hard-disk install and USB install.Thank you again.

EDIT=One by one the USB sticks are loosing sound and pmusic and gnome player started failing, the hard disk frugal install still woks. It must be a USB thing.

[playdayz]

I applied the multimedia upgrade and the problems with sound and icon missing are gone.I have booted 12 times and all is fine.This is the way I installed Puppy: Lupu 528-002 iso, reboot to create save file,install rerwin pacht IU002.pet, reboot, install Multimedia_Upgrade-Lucid528-002.pet .14 Reboots later I still have sound and icons and Pmusic working.

That is great news. Thanks.

One by one the USB sticks are loosing sound and pmusic and gnome player started failing, the hard disk frugal install still woks. It must be a USB thing.

And that could be a clue.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Google Chrome 15

ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pet ... -Lucid.pet

And that could be a clue.

[bigpup]

One by one the USB sticks are loosing sound and pmusic and gnome player started failing, the hard disk frugal install still woks. It must be a USB thing.

What format are USB sticks?
How is save setup on USB sticks?
Save file?
Use entire USB drive?
How much free space?
Anything you were doing just before you lost sound?

[elcurita]

@bigpup
My setup consists of 3 Dell Optiplex gx270 and 7 pqi Pen-Drives of 4 Gigs each.-fat32 this time.The Dell’s have 2 gigs of memory each .The Pen-Drives are totally dedicated to Puppy and the installation of puppy on the Pen-drives as this moment is on a fat 32 file system
In 3 sticks we install puppy using Pen-Drive Universal Installer 1.8.6.8 and creating a 512 megs save file .In others we use the puppy installer.
I have used all forms of installs in the last week and all have the same results loosing sound and other functionalities after some boot-ups. We boot from the machines using the f12 key and choosing USB drive.Only download is chrome browser .But hapens with Opera or Firefox.
Some explanation is in order: These 3 computers are the network of a church and the USB sticks are used by 7 kids from the Junior High School .Since we are not allowed to access the hard drives of the computers this was the best solution since each student will have a USB stick of their own.Everything works fine Write, Calc, Chrome....everything but sound and Pmusic and thats is the only complain from these boys and girls. On the computer that Puppy was installed as “frugal

[nooby]

Sylvander, I fail to find the proper English tone for to make
the following text come through as it should be taken with a smile.
You have to see my friendly smiling face so You don't get me wrong.
I comment on this text of yours.

1. "Did you upgrade to get to 526?"
Yes.
526 behaved pretty well.
When I upgraded to the 1st 528 version is when the problems began.
Also having problems when I upgraded from 526 to 528.002

Nooby's friendly comment.

When will they ever learn. Never ever under no cicumstance upgrade.
Always always start afresh and make everythings fresh install

That is the Puppy rule man! Yes I am a sinner too. When the old
works so well it is a core to install everythign again but the rule is
there for a reason. Do a new install and not an upgrade!

[Sylvander]

Never ever under no cicumstance upgrade

For me...
Successful upgrades are the rule, not the exception.

I only begin afresh if I'm forced.

I've had someone tell me to scrap a HDD, that is still working just fine years later [in an external enclosure].

I hear what you say and will bear [carry] it in mind.

[nooby]

The recommended procedure then is

1. Install lupu-528.iso
2. Install the Instant Update 002 for Lucid 5.2.8
3. Install this Multimedia Upgrade.

But what does it mean?

Install lupu-528 and
then make a save file and
then reboot and
then do the Instant Upgrade?
and then reboot and
then install the MultiMedia Upgrade?

or does it mean as Nooby's poor grasp of English gets it?

1. Install the iso and then boot into it and while booted
2. do the Instant Update and
3. then the Multimedia Upgrade and
4. then make a save file for the first time by rebooting?

Edit I am in lupu-528 now and did my interpretation above.
Seems to work not sure how to test if it does work?

[Sage]

nooby is correct. We have been warned many times by all the main Puppy developers NOT to rely on upgrades; sometimes the advice is explicitly to NOT upgrade. Even the major distro developers recommend back-ups as they don't always guarantee upgrades (but a few do - sometimes).
My experiences with upgrading FULL installs of most Puppy flavours is that the process appears to proceed smoothly, but a few days down the road and pears are back in season.

[Sylvander]

I think we need to try to start fresh to determine whether your particular sound driver is a factor.

Please create a clean puppy and try that for a while, to see if you can break it:
- Boot from CD or a frugal installation of the original lupu 528 iso, with pfix=ram (or pupsave 0, if that is an option).
- Immediately reboot and create a pupsave file (so that any IU2 file removals will stay removed).
- Then install Instant Update 002 and rerwin_patch-1
- Immediately reboot.

I got this far, and the speaker icon had disappeared at reboot.
It had been present all of the time prior to that.

What now?

I'll assume I aught to run pmodemdiag and post the .tar.gz file here.
Back in a minute.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Code: Select all

sh-4.1# pmodemdiag
 Running PupScan silently to get hardware IDs and drivers.
 Collecting various modem-related files into an archive tarball:
  pmodemdiag-20111116.tar.gz.
 Diagnostic file collection complete.
 Tarball /root/pmodemdiag-20111116.tar.gz can be attached to a posting or
  personal message (PM) in the Puppy forum, for analysis of dialup-modem
  or other issues.
 The content can be viewed in /tmp/pmodemdiag-20111116/.
sh-4.1# 

[Sylvander]

By-the-way...

1. When I tried to create a lupusave file at 1st shut-down, that attempt FAILED!

2. So I booted back in [again] using puppy pfix=ram [again], and installed Pupsaveconfig, and used that to make a lupusave file.

3. That made the lupusave in, and copied the SFS file to...
A folder named Puppy, in the root of the chosen partition on my chosen internal HDD.
--------------
Which partition, by-the-way, is being treated as if on an ataflash drive...
Because I'm using a version of the ISO file that has had the isolinux.cfg file edited.
That has never previously caused any problem.
--------------
So I used Wary to move those files to...
/mnt/home/04-Lupu
I don't expect the move would cause any problems.

[Volhout]

Running 528 + update 002.

Install Libreoffice from menu (menu->documents->install Libreoffice).

After succesful installation (automatic download tar file and convert to SFS), Libreoffice shows up in the menu's.

But if I want to make Libreoffice Writer my default wordprocessor, I can only choose between Abiword, and some other (not Writer).

I am in no rush to get this fixed since I can choose it from the menu, but you may find it usefull fixing since Libreoffice supports more document formats, (and interprets them more accurate) then Abiword. Not sure if the list of mime types is adapted when Libreoffice is installed, depending whether it is defaulted or not.

Volhout

P.S. Playdayz: I am very glad that you keep supporting the 5.2 series with updates.

[Jasper]

Hi Volhout,

It may not be much help, and you may already know, that from the main LibreOffice screen (see picture) using "Tools>Options>Memory>Enable systray Quickstart" will give a tray icon.

My regards

[playdayz]

Never ever under no cicumstance upgrade

For me...
Successful upgrades are the rule, not the exception.

IMHO, in Puppy the upgrade between versions, say from Lucid 5.2.5 to 5.2.8 is more problematic than simply starting fresh with 5.2.8. I mean, it should work, but there are a lot of complex things that need to be done--I would say that it does work most of the time and developers certainly test for that. I recommend backing up any important data before an update, but that holds true for any operating system.

The Instant Updates for Lucid and the Super Multimedia Upgrade are designed of course to be installed in working systems.

The recommended procedure then is

1. Install lupu-528.iso
2. Install the Instant Update 002 for Lucid 5.2.8
3. Install this Multimedia Upgrade.

But what does it mean?

Install lupu-528 and
then make a save file and
then reboot and
then do the Instant Upgrade?
and then reboot and
then install the MultiMedia Upgrade?

or does it mean as Nooby's poor grasp of English gets it?

1. Install the iso and then boot into it and while booted
2. do the Instant Update and
3. then the Multimedia Upgrade and
4. then make a save file for the first time by rebooting?

Edit I am in lupu-528 now and did my interpretation above.
Seems to work not sure how to test if it does work?

Actually I test it both ways nooby. The long way, saving between steps, is probably safer, but to be honest I usually do it the short way, that is, all at once.

If you are testing the Multimedia Upgrade, just make sure that gnome-mplayer plays videos and Pmusic plays audio tracks. You might ask yourself if the video quality seems any better with Multimedia upgrade installed.

[playdayz]

But if I want to make Libreoffice Writer my default wordprocessor, I can only choose between Abiword, and some other

Volhout, To set LibreOffice Writer as the default word processor that opens by clicking the write icon on the desktop, you can right-click /usr/local/bin/defaltwordprocessor and choose Open as text. Then change abiword to swriter and Save. (I don't have Libre installed so I can't check, but I am almost certain swriter is the name/command for the Libre writer. I believe it is called swriter because Libre Office is ultimately descended from Star Office, which was part of the gui developed by Xerox PARC that was later adapted to form the Macintosh.)

[bigpup]

Here is a command line tool that can change default apps.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=54587

Here is a GUI program for selecting default apps. Not clear if it is finished product.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 145#426145

Default Chooser
This is probably the best one
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=56282
Edit:
The default chooser seems to work OK in Puppy 5.2.8. Only problem is some programs do not show in drop-down menus, but you can manually input program name into item entry slot and it works to change default to that program.
Have to select update button for changes to take affect.

[roadkill13]

Upgrade works perfectly on my Acer Aspire One D255.

[Volhout]

@BigPup: the last one you showed is the one that is implemented in puppeee. Great tool. I am not sure what Jemimah did, but when you install a browser or any other program she had in her repository, it automatically was selectable in the default program chooser. I did not know you could manually enter text in the fields, I allways used the pull-down selection. And that was what I expected in 528 also. Especially if you install from the main menu (not from an UBUNTU repository or so) in 528.

@PlayDayz: thank you for showing the work around. I already used this method before in 525 (for OpenOffice at that time). But I was wondering if it would be possible to improve the libreoffice upgrade in 528 by making it more user friendly. And I am still puzzled if the file associations for the file types handled by libreoffice are adapted if libreoffice would be the default wordprocessor/spreadsheet/presentation manager. Where would that be uopdated ? Is that XDGopen ? It would be nice if I open a mail with powerpoint attached, and it would automatically open in Libreoffice.

If I sound confused, I appologize. I don't know how this works "under the hood", but would like (no offense..!) to open files with the best software package to handle them. And Openoffice supports more file formats then Abiword, and displays less garbage when I throw microsoft documents at it. I understand Abiword is in puppy for very good reasons (size) but inadequate for my work and my wifes work. And it would be great if Libreoffice could be installed as seemless as Abiword was implemented.

Regards,

Volhout

[rerwin]

I have added snapmergepuppy to patch-1 to make "-2". It is the version in wary 5.2, last changed in May. It now omits the /dev/snd directory from its operation. Maybe that will improve sound reliability with USB flash drives.

Install "-2" with or without patch-1, since it replaces "-1", but can go "on top of it". For the change to be effective, the /dev/snd directory should probably be deleted manually and "snapped", before installing "-2", since that directory is probably already on the drive. Not a problem if you are starting afresh.

Regarding

Install lupu-528 and
then make a save file and
then reboot and
then do the Instant Upgrade?
and then reboot and
then install the MultiMedia Upgrade?

The reason I advise making a pupsave file before installing some packages is that if they contain a pinstall script that removes files or directories, the removals are ignored during creation of the pupsave file.

I sometimes include such removals as a precaution to ensure obsolete files are eliminated. But most dotpet packages do not remove files/directories, so can be installed either way.

The exception to the rule is the case where you only want to install packages, immediately make a remaster and then shut down without making a pupsave file.
Richard