Slacko RC

[bigpup]

I am still having the problem stated here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 631#569631

On first boot, at xorgwizard, I select resolution of 1366X768.
When Personalized Settings window comes up it is set to 1368X768.
Changing to 1366X768 seems to change in xorg. conf ,but resolution acts like it is still at 1368X768.

My xrandr output:

# xrandr
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 240, current 1366 x 768, maximum 1368 x 768
default connected 1366x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1366x768 60.0*
1280x720 60.0
1024x768 70.0 60.0
896x672 60.0
800x600 72.0 60.0 56.0 65.0
700x525 60.0
640x512 60.0
640x480 67.0 60.0
720x400 70.0
512x384 70.0 60.0
400x300 72.0 60.0 56.0
320x240 60.0
1368x768 60.0

[bigpup]

On first shutdown, when save file options windows comes up.
The countdown to shutdown ticker at top of screen is very distracting.
In fact, the shutdown should not be timed at all.
Making a save selection should be what determines progress.
A newbie may need a lot of time to understand what is being asked.

[8-bit]

bigpup,
I agree with you on both counts/posts.
As to the resolution, and I do not remember where you find it, but I seem to remember a way to show the supported screen resolutions for the video card being used.
Is it possible that the resolution you chose is not in that list but a close one is and that is being used?

Also, as to an earlier question and another misleading thing in Puppy
is that first, I personally have only did one full install and that was on another PC back in Puppy 3.01 days.
The misleading one that could be misunderstood by a user doing a full install is that on shutdown or reboot the first time, they are asked if they want to save their settings to a pupsave file.
That message should not appear if a user has just done a full install.

[Sage]

bigpup : sorry cannot agree with all you say, above, at least not in detail.
It is a very, very bad idea to mix Windows with anything else. Folks come here to get away from it. Every 'expert' I ever spoke to considered Windows utter cr*p. All that was decades ago and it's just got worse. There are two kinds of defragging practiced in Windows - contiguous and full. The former takes from ~10mins - several hours; full takes all night. Contiguous doesn't guarantee that Linux files will not become cross-linked quite soon. The latter doesn't either, but it might take a little longer! Windows, and I agree with bp here, sprays files all over your disc. Mixing them with Linux is plain stupid. On the one hand, some folks recommend separating Windows from Linux by using separate partitions. That means that when your disc fails, and they all do, you lose both OSes - this is also dumb. HD, USB, CF and multi-read CD/DVD have never been cheaper. If you're just fiddling for fun none of the forgoing matters, but if you've got priceless pics of your kids or granny and no backups, you deserve to be beaten up by your wife when they're lost forever.
As for FRUGAL installations, these impose extra and in my opinion unnecessary constraints. Files always remain compressed. The CVF size, location and handling needs to be pre-determined. Corruption of this file or its indexation and access code can destroy the entire caboodle. If files are decompressed as in a FULL installation, there is a better chance that only a few will be lost due to corruption, and their fragments might even be recoverable. There are counter arguments in respect of convenience, reduced size for eg transmission and bulk handling, and portability, inter alia. Each user needs to carry out their own risk assessment and priority - but, media is cheap, so in that sense the rational approach is already made.
As for upgrading, this has never been an issue amongst the major distros. Why? I've never had spurious code left behind after an upgrade from the behemoths. Unfortunately I know nothing about coding, especially compact distros, so would need BK to spell out why these are problematic as far as upgrades are concerned.

Experimenters like YT are well advised to keep a bare board on the bench (and a dozen or so underneath), a boxload of old HDs (for compact distros, that is) and plug-unplug whatever is the flavour of the day. Folks whose wives insist everything has to be in a box can use old HDs in caddies, hot-pluggable USB HD discs (if the BIOS will boot them!) or other portable media. Trying to fit everything on one disc is definitely not good.

[8-bit]

I just found another bug.
Slacko RC has a file called net-setup.sh
But a file required for it called scanpci and called by the script, does not exist in Slacko in the SFS file.
So does net-setup.sh need that file to be able to identify network hardware if done manually?

[otropogo]

...
I am hoping your video card shows a linux driver as it might be a step toward getting things to work....

That may be, but I don't think I'll find it at the Intel site for the Motherboard, as I have an ATI X1550 video card installed and am running off it, not the on-board video chip. And after I installed it, I found I couldn't boot Knoppix anymore, an experience shared with other Radeon display adapter owners.

Thanks for the url, though.

[grump]

As a for instance, you state creating a 32meg slacksave file.
32megs is not even an option for size of it.

I'm looking at it (all 32MB of it) sitting right beside the original 512MB 3fs file on my hard drive.....

On a little reflection my guess is that the 32MB save file is corrupt - probably the 'save' did not complete.

This Puppy noob is thinking that the file is created first, then populated with whatever gets saved inside. Delete the save file and try again. Don't bother with fprot until the rest of it works. I don't bother with fprot at all.

Slacko 5.29.5 is working fine for me on this old Toshiba laptop.

[otropogo]

As a for instance, you state creating a 32meg slacksave file.
32megs is not even an option for size of it.

I'm looking at it (all 32MB of it) sitting right beside the original 512MB 3fs file on my hard drive.....

On a little reflection my guess is that the 32MB save file is corrupt - probably the 'save' did not complete.

Less reflection and more reading might help. Is the 512MB save file corrupt too? You did read what you quoted above didn't you?

This Puppy noob is thinking that the file is created first, then populated with whatever gets saved inside.

This "Puppy noob" has run just about every revision from Puppy V.1.xx on.

Delete the save file and try again.

See my suggestion above. Slacko doesn't boot any more with or without the save file, as I mentioned in the previous post that you clearly couldn't be bothered reading.

And in case you've forgotten (since you've evidently been using Puppy sooooooo long), you can't create a Puppy save file without first booting puppy successfully.

....

[otropogo]

IMPORTANT!
I need information on anyone booting Slacko SCSI from CD with a save file on another medium, not the CD.
....
So until this gets corrected, I would suggest bypassing the "Boot from CD with save file on another medium."
...

And after having this corruption of the file system, I can see how otropogo was having problems as this was his method of running Slacko.

I am relatively sure others can duplicate this over a period of time.
So, until this is figured out, I would suggest that you run with a multisession CD/DVD with saves going to it, ....

Also, comments welcome here. As I am just the second as far as I know to try the CD boot with pupsave on another medium.

And to otropogo,
If you are reading this, I would strongly suggest you either do a frugal install to your hard drive, or to a USB flash drive.
It is a wonder that you did not go insane with all the problems.

I'm sorry, but your problems didn't arise on my second machine (Toshiba laptop), where I successfully saved to the hard drive after booting from the Slacko 5.29.6 CD, with several repeats and no boot problems.

I have noticed some weirdness with pmount and the desktop drive icons. These disappear from the desktop when I right click on them, which is annoying, especially since there's no desktop pmount icon by default, you have to hunt through the start/filesystem menu to open it. I like to be able to see at a glance which drives are mounted.

I've used the multisession option in burning puppy liveCDs and find it has a fatal flaw - once you save to the CD, you lose the option to save anywhere else. In fact IIRC, the system will not look beyond the CD once there's a save file on it (if for instance, you were to copy the CD's 2fs/3fs file to the hard drive or a usb drive) .

I'd like to be certain on this point, so if you have a minute to copy a save file from your CD to USB, please report whether both files are presented at bootup. It may be a practical workaround.

Unless there's a way to make Puppy look beyond the Multisession CD for save files, I strongly recommend the usb alternative.

[otropogo]

Also try booting a puppy that works with your hardware, use the sysinfo pet and post it to give some more precise info on your hardware.
...

[jim3630]

I'm looking at it (all 32MB of it) sitting right beside the original 512MB 3fs file on my hard drive.....

On a little reflection my guess is that the 32MB save file is corrupt - probably the 'save' did not complete.

Less reflection and more reading might help. Is the 512MB save file corrupt too? You did read what you quoted above didn't you?

This Puppy noob is thinking that the file is created first, then populated with whatever gets saved inside.

This "Puppy noob" has run just about every revision from Puppy V.1.xx on.

Delete the save file and try again.

See my suggestion above. Slacko doesn't boot any more with or without the save file, as I mentioned in the previous post that you clearly couldn't be bothered reading.

And in case you've forgotten (since you've evidently been using Puppy sooooooo long), you can't create a Puppy save file without first booting puppy successfully.

....

otropogo,

sarcasm and ridicule is getting to be your style or are you just drunk or stoned? do you think grump is going to try to help you again?

frustrating when you don't know enough about how puppy and slacko work and lack the people skills to get help.

[otropogo]

do you think grump is going to try to help you again?

Well, I can't seem to dissuade you from "helping", but who knows, maybe grump will have more sense...

[grump]

... maybe grump will have more sense...

Nah - grump has no sense ...

I've just had Slacko spit the dummy - X would not run - but fixed it with a pfix=purge amongst other things. While doing so, I noticed that 32MB is a choice for the save file, so my earlier comment was probably rwong.

[bigpup]

I have noticed some weirdness with pmount and the desktop drive icons. These disappear from the desktop when I right click on them,

This is a problem with the right click menu, for the drive icons, that has been with us for ever. The menu pops up and most of the time the mouse pointer is over the option to remove item(s). If you are not very careful how you did the right mouse click, it gets selected, and you remove the drive icon from the desktop.

[otropogo]

... I noticed that 32MB is a choice for the save file, so my earlier comment was probably rwong.

It probably was, but you'd be equally mistaken to think that because a Puppy menu offers an option, it will actually work. I have considerable hands on experience in that department, especially with the installation wizard.

[otropogo]

I have noticed some weirdness with pmount and the desktop drive icons. These disappear from the desktop when I right click on them,

This is a problem with the right click menu, for the drive icons, that has been with us for ever. The menu pops up and most of the time the mouse pointer is over the option to remove item(s). If you are not very careful how you did the right mouse click, it gets selected, and you remove the drive icon from the desktop.

Maybe in Slacko, but I've never experienced it in Puppy 4.xxx or lupu, and I've been using puppy almost every day for several years now.

[otropogo]

...
Try this boot option

Code: Select all

puppy loglevel=7

This will tell you exactly what the kernel is doing and hopefully where it freezes.
...

Have booted my Intel D865GLC with its ATI X1550 256MB AGP video adapter three times with the Slacko 5.29.6 LiveCD. Once without a save file, once with the 512MB 3fs save file, and once with the 32MB 2fs save file.

The system locked up on every one of these trials, the first two times with a blinking cursor a the left edge of the screen under the last displayed line of text, the last time with the cursor after the last item of text on the last display line.

The system didn’t respond to keyboard entry, including CTL_ALT_DEL, and had to be restarted with the PC’s reset button.

Each time several screens of text scrolled by too fast to read, so I was only able to study the last screen where the system locked up.

1. (pfix=ram)

The only remarkable line on the last screen was the following:

[88.360006] note: udevd [6865] exited with preempt_count 1

The last line displayed was:

[90.6970907] input PC speaker as /devices/platform/pcspkr/input/input3

2. (512MB 3fs file)

Nothing remarkable about any line in the last screen displayed except for a “?

[bigpup]

I have noticed some weirdness with pmount and the desktop drive icons. These disappear from the desktop when I right click on them,

This is a problem with the right click menu, for the drive icons, that has been with us for ever. The menu pops up and most of the time the mouse pointer is over the option to remove item(s). If you are not very careful how you did the right mouse click, it gets selected, and you remove the drive icon from the desktop.

Maybe in Slacko, but I've never experienced it in Puppy 4.xxx or lupu, and I've been using puppy almost every day for several years now.

This has been in every Puppy that has the desktop drive icons. As stated, how you do the right mouse click is the factor that determines what happens. (sometimes you do two clicks instead of one) I got to where I click on the top edge of the drive icon so the mouse pointer would not be over remove items.

[otropogo]

...As stated, how you do the right mouse click is the factor that determines what happens. I got to where I click on the top edge of the drive icon so the mouse pointer would not be over remove items.

I'm in lupu 5.2.8 right now, and have just right clicked four times in different positions (EXCEPT for the top edge you recommend) on each of the four drive icons on my desktop. None of them disappeared, instead the drop down menu opened. I then saw that I had neglected the CDROM on, and when I right clicked on that, I managed to make it disappear. I suspect I double clicked that time.

So my experience tells me that there's some significant difference in the sensitivity of the Slacko desktop. Because on it the icon disappears every time I right click on it, and without double clicking. If that happened in Puppy 4.xx or lupu, I would certainly have noticed it.

[bigpup]

So my experience tells me that there's some significant difference in the sensitivity of the Slacko desktop. Because on it the icon disappears every time I right click on it, and without double clicking.

Well, I do not see the problem when I right click a desktop drive icon as long as I am careful to only click one time.
Now you will be thinking, how did I click, each time you try it.
Twitchy finger!