(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

We are up and running again after some changes.

Woof has been twice updated to the 18 Dec 1600 version

Mageia2's packages have been updated to the 20 Dec 2012 set

Build codes have been reset. I restarted as mage2-0000 (raw build with the old beta 1995 package dataset) and have so far got up to mage2-0002 with problem fixes.

At this point we have the following problems:

1- the old thumbnails problem (desktop icon switcher nor displaying icons of sets), a few trials of changes has done nothing and i'm considering rebuilding rox-filer next on the alpha to see if that fixes it.

2- ppm problem 1 (puppy-2 is stuck on and can't be unmarked in the config screen

3- ppm problem 2 (it's only displaying the mail mageia 2 sets, ie core and not also core-updates, even when core-updates is ticked in the configure screen and we are restarted

4- ppm problem 3 (downloading a new set of databases sets the 7th field in a xxx-updates as updates/release instead of xxx/updates

ppm problems I suspect may need a barryk fix

5- xorg autostart is turned off as i'm getting unreliability in the monitor mode being picked as default, however at least it's picking vesa if it can't work out what driver to use. However I think I do prefer setting it up manually.

My local 'primary' testers are reporting that this one seems to be faster than the old mage2-1995 beta and is definately using less memory and maybe less cpu, although i'm not sure that it's not in the mind.

We shall 'play' with it for another week before releasing a first alpha (mage2-0010) for 'open testing'.

regards and a merry christmas to all

ps using a 0002 frugal for this post

here are a few backgrounds and a mobile.

Announcement and release notes for Mage2 0.0.10

Mage2 is built from a "Puppy builder" system named Woof (http://bkhome.org/woof), which can build a Puppy Linux distribution from the binary packages of any other distro. There are many other "puppies" built with Woof, including Lucid, Wary, Racy, FatDog, and Slacko.
Each "Puppy distro" built by Woof is a distinctive distribution in its own right, with unique features. You should choose a puppy based on your particular needs, be it specific hardware, software, or access to and compatibility with the package repositories of a particular major distro. Woof highlights can be found here.

BETA Mage2 Puppy 0.0.10
Mage2 Puppy is built from Mageia2's packages, hence has binary compatibility with Mageia2 and access to the vast Mageia package repository. It's also built with the Designer and Packager in mind with a number of basic builder components already installed which is why it's not the smallest of Puppies.

This is hopefully the last Beta for the first full release of Mage2 Puppy. It is assigned version 0.0.10 to indicate it's a bugfix prerelease version rather than either a minor step up (2nd digit 1.x), or bugfix (3rd digit set 1.0.xx).

A lot of work has happened at the "Woof-level" since the original alpha releases of Mage2, especially with Woof2's creation and upgrades starting back in April 2012.

The murga-linux Thread for Mage2 can be found here, with Download links in the top Section of the first page and Mage2-0.0.10 starting from page 10.

EDIT: For those with nvidea video, please use vesa to start with and download a nvidea driver from either the nonfree or tainted repositories, I didn't add one into the default set by mistake. It will be added into the next beta.

Release Notes

Mage004 and Mage008 - Pre-May 2012 - The first stable builds of Mage2 and were built on the origonal Woof. There were a few others in this stream but...

Mage2-1881 to Mage2-1996 - Various builds using an early Woof2, some were ok while others were disasters, but problems were slowly worked through.

Mage2-0.0.01 to Mage2-0.0.08 - Various internal alpha builds using a Woof2 of 16 December 2012. Most of the problems had already been fixed in the last series, this was basically bringing Woof2 up to date, to fix woof related issues, change the release coding into puppy standard and dealing with the few problems that were still residing.

Mage2-0.0.10 - This Beta. I have no problems left, knock wood, in my problem list that have not been either resolved or a 'work-around' is in operation, this is why it's being released into the community for a wider range of testing. If nothing major has been found by the end of January 2013, it is planned to be the Mage2-1.0.0 Release base. Meanwhile I shall just be 'cleaning up' and working on my qtpy CutePuppy.

Theme
Mage2 has been built with the 'gradient-brown' GTK theme, 'gradient-bluish' JWM theme, 'Smooth-colour' desk icons and an old puppy Blue Waterglass 'default42.jpg' wallpaper (?can anyone remember where this origonated) to show it's pre-release. Futwerk, one of our wallpaper experts and with my many thanks for working over the hollidays, is working on a few Release wallpapers for me.

If you are curious how themes are created for Puppy, read the Themes Intro. page, lots of themes are already available for installation in the 'noarch' repository in the PPM as well as in individual repositories.

The Mage2 3.3.8-mage2-p64gsw-i586 Kernel

The 3.3.8 kernel used in Mage2 Puppy has been specifically built and configured with quite a lot of extra components. This was done to allow users to both 'play' with devices not normally considered for a computer, and expand what Puppy can do. The following is a rough list of what has been allowed for.

p - The Kernel is a preemptive one. This means that it can pre-load data blocks that it thinks are going to be used next into it's caches before they are actually asked for by the program running.

64 - The Kernel has been set as PAE, which means that if the CPU is an i686+ it gains access to the PAE functions, although it still works quite happily without. Be aware that some CPUs in the early days of the i686 architecture are none-PAE enabled, a very small percentage of the overall number of i686+ computers currently in use. Note: "PAE" also enables the kernel to support a computer with more than 4GB of RAM and in this case I have set it to handle up to 64GB.

i586 - The Kernel has been built for a i586 or later CPU. I had considered i486 but decided against it as it would make most of the other settings I wanted unuseable.

The Kernel is configured for multiple cores, in fact it's set to deal with a total of 16 so a motherboard capable of handling multi-processors with multiple cores should be able to use the 'rest of them' without any problems if the software can.

The Kernel has been set to directly interface with the Andrew (NAS) Filesystem, the BTRFS Filesystem, and Raid4 to Raid6, as well as the usual 'lot'.

g - The kernel has been enabled for USB Gadgets to work, so almost anything with a usb connection could be tried. I have also turned on most of the sub-sets so just about anything should 'work' after a 'modprobe', but you may need some interface software. It can also handle 16 usb monitors for those 'screen walls' and Barcode Readers for a POS System.

For Laptops, it has both Backlight and LED Contrast Level control enabled.

s - The Kernel has also been enabled to interface directly with Onboard Speach Synthesis Chips or control Speach Synthesis processor Plug-in Boards when installed.

w - And finally the kernel has been configured to handle both input and output Braile Devices so that the blind or those teaching blind people should be able to connect their devices through any of the standard serial, parallel, usb, ethernet and mouse/keyboard interfaces found on a computer. After running 'modprobe' to create and add the drivers for the new devices, installing any extra software plugins necessary, they should be able to use any of the braile enabled linux or puppy packages available.

These last two settings were two of the main reasons why I built Mage2.


Have fun
scsijon

No go for me I'm afraid with nvidia hardware.

There is no nouveau xorg driver or nv xorg driver. Vesa fails for me with either "out of range" on monitor or a system crash.

same exact error for me. i got it booted up from another computer though with an onboard intel. nowadays seems like its a must to have nouveau driver present

Same results here too.

G'day,
I thought I'd try Mage-2.0.0.10, so did a manual frugal install (mounted the iso and copied the files to a fresh mage subdirectory).

Computer is a desktop (2-core) with a radeon HD5450 graphics card. It has an el-cheapo standard 1600x900 LED monitor.

I was unable to boot to X during video selection with the listed ati radeon driver when using "Choose" and selecting it.

Only working boot I managed was using vesa (of course, distorted to 1280x1050). Attempts to then use videowizard to upgrade failed, losing any X capability and no reboot to the original vesa display either. A 1600x900 option was not listed by the wizard.

Deleting the first, faulty video Save file and starting again with vesa at these wrong display dimensions, I re-booted to create a Save file, re-booted again and when the vesa display opened, I immediately installed a proprietary ATI-fglrx driver (using a Precise pet) which worked on restarting X - display now sharp and 1600x900 .
But on re-booting, no display, just the xorgwizard text and no success in getting any X display .

During the first vesa tests, I did get as far as loading Libre Office (sfs) but could not set the options for templates, temp and documents to my data partition (on sda5) - seemed stuck on /root despite apparently accepting /sda5/xxx as the location for the templates, temp and documents.
A freeze occurred which I put down to maybe an old jwm version in this Pup so on restarting, I installed the very latest jwm pet. Seemed to be OK.
Another minor issue was that I was also unable to get my seamonkey profile to load properly, which is also held on my sda5 data partition (mail wouldn't download). My Libre Office and Seamonkey set-ups work perfectly with almost all other Pups (Full and Frugal).

But the failure of any radeon graphics was the real problem in my frugal tests.

David S.

Ok, got nouveau driver downloaded beforehand, installed it and I got a nice desktop.

Couple of problems, no sound, but I have finicky sound anyway, if I had more time I could probably get it working.. no mplayer? Wasn't connected at boot, but easily connected.. ethernet.

One other thing, pfix=nox didn't work, must be a woof introduced bug.

I did a manual frugal install to my acer desktop.

Mage2, version 0.0.10 on Sun 6 Jan 2013
Chip description:
X Server: Xorg
Driver used: modesetting
X.Org version: 1.11.4
dimensions: 1440x900 pixels (380x238 millimeters)
depth of root window: 24 planes
Computer
Processor 4x Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
Memory 8233MB (118MB used)
Operating System Unknown distribution
User Name root (root)
Date/Time Sun 06 Jan 2013 01:56:09 AM EST
Version
Kernel Linux 3.3.8-mage2-p64gsw-i586 (i686)
Compiled #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Sep 1 16:47:42 GMT-8 2012
C Library GNU C Library version 2.14.1 (stable)
Default C Compiler Unknown
Distribution Unknown distribution
OpenGL
Vendor Unknown
Renderer Unknown
Version Unknown
Direct Rendering No

I did an install earlier and installed the proprietary nvidia driver
and made a bunch of pets, that went bad somehow with all the icons
turning to triangles with a ? in the center of them.
This install is just what I got when it went to the desktop and I
created a new save file and installed the pets that I had made earlier.
It seems to be working okay now after several reboots and increasing
the size of the save file etc.

I have two monitors attached to this computer but without the
proprietary nvidia driver monitor 2 is just a clone of monitor 1.

Monitors
Monitor 0 1440x900 pixels
Monitor 1 1440x900 pixels

My graphics card is an Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT

OK, so I need to have a nv driver of some sort in the makeup!

Wierd that the vesa didn't work as it does with the nv card I have on a testbox, maybe it's the age. I shall upload one or two in the morning for people to test (please) and include one in the next beta.

ATI should have been ok as the driver is a 6.14.4 and works on both another of my test boxes as well as 2 of my alpha testers boxes. What version was your proprietry driver please?

Can all with video problems check /tmp/xerrs.log and if anything is there attach a copy.

I admit I didn't expect any video problems as we tested it on quite a range, both locally as well as a mix the local school.

scsijon, since you have nouveau with drm compiled into the kernel, I reckon put the nouveau driver in, it works on 85-90% of nvidias out of the box, especially ones less than 5 yo. There are a couple of older cards that don't quite work right but vesa works for them. Vesa has never worked properly on my card in any distro, so don't worry about that too much.

School computers nearly always have intel graphics in my experience. (cheaper?)

James C wrote:Same results here too.

This post was after trying to test on newer Nvidia hardware.........never was able to start X..... Vesa was a total no go.
Just tried with the older card on my main Linux box.......still total failure ....no x..
Just boots to a black screen with a "monitor out of range message" whether a regular pfix=ram boot or pfix=nox.
Generally use "nouveau" even with the older cards....... works better than "nv".

While posting this, booted on an Intel box.........straight to a desktop.

Also, echoing Mick....... Vesa does not like any of my Nvidia chips either.

I did a manual frugal install to my acer laptop.

Sun 6 Jan 2013 Operating System: Mage2-0.0.10 Linux 3.3.8-mage2-p64gsw-i586
X Server: Xorg Driver: vesa
X.Org version: 1.11.4
dimensions: 1600x900 pixels (423x238 millimeters)
depth of root window: 24 planes
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU M 430
Core 0: 2267 1: 2267 2: 2267 3: 2267 MHz
Version
Kernel Linux 3.3.8-mage2-p64gsw-i586 (i686)
Compiled #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Sep 1 16:47:42 GMT-8 2012
C Library GNU C Library version 2.14.1 (stable)
Default C Compiler GNU C Compiler version 4.6.3 (GCC)
Distribution Unknown distribution
OpenGL
Vendor Unknown
Renderer Unknown
Version Unknown
Direct Rendering No

I installed the proprietary ati driver but it's not showing up in the
hardinfo report, it is working though.
I installed my pets and everything seems to be working okay so far
after a few reboots.

I had another go at installing the proprietary nvidia driver and it's
working okay so far but doesn't show up in the hardinfo report.

EDIT:I got mage2 running on another pc that couldn't get to the
desktop (Geforce 430 card) by copying my mage2 directory to a flash drive and
copying to the hard drive on pc2, then running grub4dos from slacko and
rebooting to mage2.
At the command line ran xorgwizard and chose the nvidia driver.
It's working well
EDIT:Adding glxinfo from puppy package manager fixed the hardinfo report:
OpenGL
Vendor NVIDIA Corporation
Renderer GeForce GT 430/PCIe/SSE2/3DNOW!
Version 4.3.0 NVIDIA 313.09
Direct Rendering Yes

ok folks,

Please give me till the weekend and i'll build a new mage2-0011 with some drivers and a couple of tweeks in.

Mick, some of the school computers were laptops of various ages and models including nvideo and they worked vesa ok, I just plain forgot to put the nouveau driver in the build list after initially testing.

David, I shall also add a radeonhd driver in, hopefully it will fix your problem.

thanks to all so far, that was why I said ' knock wood'

G'day scsijon,

The proprietary ATI driver that worked with my radeon HD5450 card in my Mage frugal test was a pet file: amd_fglrx-12.8-x86_precise_3.2.28.pet.
I did this install as an upgrade from a poor but working vesa display.

This ATI driver ran well, but when I rebooted after installing this pet, I got the videowizard text and no way to get to X. That was about my last test.

I had the feeling that the videowizard was part of the problem as it could not find my radeon card by default. All recent Pups have gone straight to their radeon drivers and given good X displays.

Good luck with sorting out the video issues...and with the hot weather down there.

David S.
(43C tomorrow in Sydney - yikes!)

I have built a small pet containing the nouveau, nv and radeonhd driver for those with mage2-0010 installed and needing them.

I think I have also sorted the monitor detection problem with the second (ddcprobe) pet and it should also work for other puppies with similar problems.

I'm trying to sort out a background problem (if it is actually a problem or just something we don't use in puppy reporting a error) so mage2-0011 may be a day or so into next week.

I've been using mage2 for a few days now and it's working well.
I found a couple of problems:
Adding applications from ppm sometimes adds csh files to the
/etc/profile.d which need to be deleted.
I couldn't get Broadcom wireless working on a couple of laptops (b43),
but I have a linksys usb wireless adaptor that does work (rt73 usb) so
I was able to use that.
I haven't done a lot of testing, having fun adding stuff though and
I've found that mage 2 is very stable, it's the pup that I use most
Thanks

BillToo, (and others) a couple of pets two messages above this one to install please, they should fix monitor selection and missing driver problems, Can someone try please and let me know results.

BillToo, ?what were the packages adding the csh files please, I need to see why that is happening.

I have yet to start with the broadcom issue but check earlier (~p9) as peebee has dealt with this problem for me, and will come in again after 0011 if needbe.

All, I'm still trying to sort a couple of background tasks out and why they are appearing/running. At present, I think it's part of the systemd stuff and that should not be active. 0011 will only come out when they have been dealt with it.

scsijon wrote:
BillToo, ?what were the packages adding the csh files please, I need to see why that is happening.

They showed up after I installed kshisen (I'm pretty sure), 01micko fixed this problem in slacko 5.4 so he knows the fix.