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

[Sage]

Difficult to express sufficient appreciation for anything-demux & anything-streaming!
Public spirited citizen of the world, you deserve a gong for kicking the idiot US politicians and greedy Hollyweirdos! How about a universal *ss-kicking flash-player, next?


Just one teeny-weeny comment. 'calc' opens a spreadsheet. This is a very elaborate way for adding two and two! Perhaps the label could be changed to 'spread', hopefully not causing offence amongst double-entendre aficionados. Something simpler for tax calculations might be appropriate, with a .pet for those working in the imaginary quadrant? Maybe I am missing something? People often say I am...

[Aitch]

Playdayz
I have to admit Lupu 5.25 fast became my favourite from 214X, one I started using it...then the mobo decided to burn out its USB power, and, try as I might, I couldn't fix it...so, my replacement is a Supermicro server...with SCSI hdd, 5gb ram and 2 xeons...and that's where Slacko 5.3 got me puppified again, as it has both SCSI and PAE support...but if I get another P4 PC, or you add SCSI/PAE to the kernel....I'll be back LUPUing - great job, indeed

Aitch

[Jasper]

Sage,

Why don't you merely right click and edit your desktop icon label by deleting "calc" and typing "gnumeric" or "s'sheet" or ..... ? Then you can relax and have "A Happy Christmas".

My regards

[Sage]

Why don't you...

Yes, of course. that would solve the matter for me. However, I am more concerned with the general improvement of the breed for the benefit of other users, notably incomers. Polish and polishing some more is the only way Puppy will be able to snap at the heels of Mint.

[l2ulinux]

First 528 worked good, 002M when I did a save to CD are made a savefile I lost the use of the keyboard and with 003 it turns my ethernet off and it will not work again with any Puppy are windows till I shutdown the system. Then I have to unplug the ethernet csble and put it back in.

[playdayz]

First 528 worked good, 002M when I did a save to CD are made a savefile I lost the use of the keyboard and with 003 it turns my ethernet off and it will not work again with any Puppy are windows till I shutdown the system. Then I have to unplug the ethernet csble and put it back in.

l2ulinux, First, please try 004 in the first message of this thread. If the problem persists then try Menu -. Internet -> Frisbee Network Manager Install.

[majorfoo]

Playdayz

new versions of abiword and gnumeric are out. Would it be possible to get pets for lucid 528 and luci 001

thanks

majorfoo

[cowboy]

Torrents might be good during these new releases. Ibiblio is downloading this evening at about 34, even diddywah is around 40, tried aaarnet (the repository for Pirates, matey), even worse. The iso would take over an hour to pull down. (which really, when you think about speeds ten years back, ain't that bad). But I want to whine, and I'm gonna. It appears the original torrent creator must be hooked to internet 24/7? Is that right? Might be something we could put on forum somewhere? Especially with the ever increasing popularity of the Pup.

EDIT: bit here on torrents for Puppy

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=72863

Back to the holiday cheer....

[rerwin]

Playdayz & others interested,
Here is the long-promised patch with my best shot at solving the sound issue without changing the original design. It is intended for Instant Update 002 through Lucid 5.2.8-004 (so far). The primary changes for the flash-drive save layer:

• - Removes /dev/snd, /dev/mixer & /dev/ttyUSB* files during initialization, as in wary.
  - Disables automatic saving by setting the save interval to zero in /etc/eventmanager file; user can change that file to activate (possibly risky) automatic saving.
  - Prevents conflict among installer, uninstaller and save snapper that could corrupt an installation.
  - Allows user to choose to be asked whether to save during shutdown, by setting "ask" in the /etc/shutdown_save_mode file.
  - Corrects/activates jemimah's removal of the actual file represented by a whiteout.
  - Creates parent directories for whiteouts if needed for storing them.
  - Cleans files out of the save layer for /dev/snd only, leaving only the whiteouts.
  - Processes whiteouts for /pinstall.sh, /puninstall.sh & /pet.specs (from package installations); whiteouts for other top (/) level files are not retained, per design.

The installer additions address situations that can damage puppy on a flash drive. Package installations are prevented if an uninstallation has taken place in the same session before a save has been done, because the uninstallation may override the installation. Uninstallations are prevented if a "save" or installation have been done, because the uninstall might corrupt an installation or fail to survive a reboot.

The conflicting situations will require a reboot to trigger saving to flash drive between installations and uninstallations. Ideally, you should be able to uninstall, then save, then install, all in the same session. But this is not possible due to a problem with the package installer. It must be completely terminated in order for a "save" to be performed. But the installer/uninstaller does not terminate completely, leaving its main process executing, even though its dialog window is closed by the "Exit package manager" button. I need a gtkdialog expert to resolve that before we can implement the all-in-one-session mode of operating.

EDIT: To clarify how the conflict prevention works, it merely instructs the user to reboot if a conflict among packages is possible. Having disabled automatic saving, I do not want to save as an invisible part of the package manager/petget. In general, it is safest to change packages as the only activity in a session, to avoid the possibility of accidentally modifying package components.

The installation of this package is a little unusual. Normally in the flash-drive environment, if a file has been uninstalled, the older version will remain functional until a reboot. In the patch package, the package manager and snapmerge components are copied to the top layer, to make them functional immediately. In case the package is uninstalled then reinstalled, the uninstallation script restores those components, to retain the new control of uninstall-save-install sequences. Therefore, use an expendable setup for early testing.

This package is consistent with the woof/wary design, by working only with /dev/snd for the sound issue. If that is still insufficient, it may support arguments for expanding special treatment in the /dev directory.

[James C]

Torrents might be good during these new releases. Ibiblio is downloading this evening at about 34, even diddywah is around 40, tried aaarnet (the repository for Pirates, matey), even worse. The iso would take over an hour to pull down. (which really, when you think about speeds ten years back, ain't that bad). But I want to whine, and I'm gonna. It appears the original torrent creator must be hooked to internet 24/7? Is that right? Might be something we could put on forum somewhere? Especially with the ever increasing popularity of the Pup.

EDIT: bit here on torrents for Puppy

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=72863

Back to the holiday cheer....

Since I hadn't downloaded 004 yet......I checked Ibiblio and was downloading at about 75 kB/s and I'm downloading now from diddywahdiddy at 130-140 kB/s ... both a bit slower than normal but not too bad. FWIW.

[bigpup]

rerwin,

I am glad you understand all of that.
A few minutes to sink in.

Thank you very much for the fine tuning and your continued support.
We are in AWE.

[shinobar]

- Allows user to choose to be asked whether to save during shutdown, by setting "ask" in the /etc/shutdown_save_mode file.

Tnx rerwin, excellent work.
Sorry i haven't read through your codes but have one question regarding ask saving at shutdown.
How the user set the ask flag, /etc/shutdown_save_mode?
Isn't it easer to see the value of RAMSAVEINTERVAL set by the eventmanager?

My code in the pupsaveconfig(corresponding your update_save_layer_func):
It only ask when RAMSAVEINTERVAL=0, and no save without asking when RAMSAVEINTERVAL="-0".

Code: Select all

save_flash() {
  [ -s /etc/eventmanager ] && source /etc/eventmanager
  RAMSAVEINTERVAL=$(echo $RAMSAVEINTERVAL| tr -dc '0-9-')
  [ "$RAMSAVEINTERVAL" != "" ] || RAMSAVEINTERVAL=30
  NOSAVE=""
  if [ $RAMSAVEINTERVAL -le 0 ]; then
    if echo "$RAMSAVEINTERVAL" | grep -q '\-'; then
      NOSAVE="yes"
    else
      dialog --timeout 60 --yes-label "SAVE" --no-label "NO SAVE" --yesno "Press ENTER key to save session...
Or, press TAB then ENTER to not save session...
Or, wait 60 seconds to shutdown without saving session..." 0 0 >/dev/console
      [ $? -eq 0 ] || NOSAVE="yes"
    fi
    if [ "$NOSAVE" != "" ];then
      rm -f /initrd${SAVE_LAYER}/etc/.XLOADED
      echo -e "Session not saved." > /dev/console
      return 1
    fi
  fi
  echo -n "Saving session to $@... " >/dev/console
  /usr/sbin/snapmergepuppy /initrd/pup_ro1 /initrd/pup_rw && echo "done." >/dev/console && return 0
  echo -e "\\033[1;31mfailed.\\033[0;39m" > /dev/console
  sleep 8
  return 1
}

Note that we need to delete the file /etc/.XLOADED (exists if the user made manual save by the 'save' button).

[shinobar]

- Prevents conflict among installer, uninstaller and save snapper that could corrupt an installation.

Regarding the petget, i may be misunderstanding what you are going to, but i do not think your way is not a good solution.
My approach too does not solve the general issue on the install/uninstall pets but can be some help:
#Avoid was messing uo with save interval=0 under PUPMODE=13
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=73829

I think we need more investigation on this issue. One thought is to force running the snapmergepuppy after removing packages.

[p310don]

Torrent file for Lupu 5.25-4

Unzip and open with Transmission or other torrent handler, and, please seed.

[rerwin]

shinobar,
Thanks for your feedback on patch-6.

How the user set the ask flag, /etc/shutdown_save_mode?
Isn't it easer to see the value of RAMSAVEINTERVAL set by the eventmanager?

RAMSAVEINTERVAL is intended to control only the automatic saving to flash drive. The prompting at shutdown is a separate issue. In response to playdayz desire for a "user-proof" puppy, but to avoid requiring user modification of a puppy script, I do not want to disrupt shutdown with a question that most users could not answer knowledgeably. A user comfortable with changing /etc/eventmanager for the automatic interval is also capable of editing /etc/shutdown_save_mode.

I am open to implementing another way of specifying the choice for shutdown, but that is what I settled on for now, to get on with the rest of the fix. Maybe the option should be associated with snapmergepuppy, and a file, /etc/snapmergepuppy.conf.

Note that we need to delete the file /etc/.XLOADED (exists if the user made manual save by the 'save' button).

Good point! I think it can/should be done in snapmergepuppy, in the "find" command for files, to exclude that file. It would also need a cleanup removal for existing pupsave files.

#Avoid was messing uo with save interval=0 under PUPMODE=13

I am unfamiliar with that issue, but will examine your petget package to see if something should be ported to the patches.
EDIT: I found the code in script install.sh. I prefer to wait until Barry accepts that new code, before adding it to lupu, which is playdayz's call, anyway. But if there is a test case available that reveals a bug in lupu that would be fixed by it, we might consider adding it in the interest of "user-proofing."
Richard

[nooby]

shinobar wrote:
#Avoid was messing uo with save interval=0 under PUPMODE=13

oh I want to learn more about that one.
I trust that I use it somewhere and do have set it to 0.
Too bad. I did not know it was problematic.

Shinobar if you have time or when you do feel for it.
I would not mind reading more about that problem.
Maybe it need it's own thread though.

[ETP]

rerwin

Firstly thanks for your enormous efforts & patches. Your research will no doubt be of benefit to all puppies not just 528.

With regard to your changes to rc.sysinit:

Code: Select all

rm -f /dev/ttyUSB* 2>/dev/null #101210 may have been left there if modem plugged in at shutdown.
rm -f /dev/mixer 2>/dev/null #110113 make sure removed, see test in /etc/init.d/10alsa.
rm -f /dev/snd/* #110304 after a reboot, some of these may be wrong.

You may wish to consider expanding it as follows:

Code: Select all

rm -f /dev/ttyUSB* 2>/dev/null #101210 may have been left there if modem plugged in at shutdown.
rm -f /dev/*mixer* 2>/dev/null #110113 make sure removed, see test in /etc/init.d/10alsa.
rm -f /dev/snd/* #110304 after a reboot, some of these may be wrong.
rm -f /dev/*adsp* 2>/dev/null
rm -f /dev/*audio* 2>/dev/null
rm -f /dev/*dsp* 2>/dev/null
rm -f /dev/*sequencer* 2>/dev/null
rm -f /dev/snd/*
rm -f /dev/snd/by-path/* #added for alsa v1.0.24

This has the benefit of also covering /dev/snd/by-path and also takes out all instances of mixer and sequencer eg mixer, mixer01 etc. Multiple instances of both sequencer and mixer will correctly exist where there are multiple devices.

Attached as image-1 below is a screenshot of a patched up fresh install of 004.
What concerns me, since I first saw the behaviour in my post about 003 on 17/12/11, is the time stamps. (Which I believe have nothing to do with your patches)

These nodes were all in fact created over 5 second period at 9:52 today – 21 Dec.
The bottom 7 however, which were created at the beginning of this period show a stamp 23 hrs earlier. The only explanation for this is that the HWCLOCK command (plus switches) was issued during this 5 second period.
Given that Alsa is a means of playing audio it has to keep accurate time and may be uniquely sensitive to these incorrect time stamps. Things could well go awry when DST turns on or off which could result in times of + 1 hour or + 25 hrs. Alsa could well disregard future times/dates and sound would then be lost.
Depending on the time-zone DST can cut in between MARCH to MAY inclusive and out between SEP to NOV inclusive.
In the attached file is a shot of wuxiandianzi’s 528 k3.1.0 which was based on the original 528 and it simply does not exhibit this behaviour. All of the date and time stamps over a 6 second period are correct.
In conclusion there has been some change to time stamping behaviour since the original 528. As it stands now it is definitely wrong and if what I suspect is correct a possible cause of sudden sound loss in Alsa. Perhaps a puppy time expert could investigate?

[nooby]

others do have a better memory than I have
but have we not got recommendation to use
RTC and not local time due to this problem with
files suddenly getting wrong time stamp?

Sadly I don't remember who gave the advice and where
but I hope somebody else remember the details.

[shinobar]

#Avoid was messing up with save interval=0 under PUPMODE=13

See the report at last posts on the pupsaveconfig and no save:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... &start=106
The problem occurs because the PPM saves the files not to the RAM but directly to the save layer for the flash install.

[Sylvander]

@rerwin

1. I've applied/installed your patch-6, and all seems well.
But...

2. I'm no longer offered the option at shut-down = "Save the session? Yes/No".
So...

3. I'm about to change some code within file /etc/rc.d/rc.shutdown...
As per the instructions given in this post....
But I think You've probably included new code, and it may no longer be OK to make this change, so I thought I'd check back with you.

4. If I did proceed, I'd be changing this:

Code: Select all

  #the above are in unionfs at /.
  update_save_layer_func $SAVEFILE \(${SAVEPART}\) #111208
  ;;

To this:

Code: Select all

#the above are in unionfs at /.
dialog --yesno "Save this session?" 0 0 >/dev/console
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "Saving session to $SAVEFILE (${SAVEPART})..." >/dev/console
/usr/sbin/snapmergepuppy /initrd/pup_ro1 /initrd/pup_rw
fi
;;