Carolina - 1.3

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Marv · #1051 Post by **Marv** » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 13:46

rg66 wrote:Geoffrey and I have released Carolite-1.1, a lite version of Carolina based on non-pae. It weighs in at just under 150mb with a basic set of apps.

http://smokey01.com/carolina/isos/non-p ... te-1.1.iso
md5 a2d93ca60c1acda710e04ec0d39fd9c7

Hi rg66,
Just for reference, is the main sfs file (puppy_lina_1.1.sfs) the same for Carolite and Carolina (both non-PAE of course)?
Thanks,

rg66 · #1052 Post by **rg66** » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 13:52

Marv wrote:Just for reference, is the main sfs file (puppy_lina_1.1.sfs) the same for Carolite and Carolina (both non-PAE of course)?
Thanks,

Hey Marv,

The main was modified a bit. I removed some wallpapers and a few apps but the main difference is that gconf and gnutls were moved to main so gvfs-smb works without the adrive. This will also happen to Carolina in v1.2

Marv · #1053 Post by **Marv** » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 14:07

Thanks,
I'll swap the Carolite sfs in as my core for now for testing.

Marv · #1054 Post by **Marv** » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 15:29

Geoffrey wrote:I thought I'd try slimboat, I found it to be slow and on a google image search didn't load correctly, see image, that made me feel a little like the two cats on the far right

Guess I'm slow enough so it doesn't seem slow to me

My catz are all there

Sage · #1055 Post by **Sage** » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 16:12

Carolite-1.1, a lite

Whoopie! Very much in tune with BK's new blog sentiments.
Excellent work chaps.

starhawk · #1056 Post by **starhawk** » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 17:35

Small bug -- the boot splash for Carolite 1.1 advertises "Carolina 1.0 non pae" -- yet the SFS is "puppy_lina_1.1.sfs" -- might want to fix that.

Booting on the creaky old VAIO as I type this, tho

starhawk · #1057 Post by **starhawk** » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 18:16

I'm gonna rate this as an 8/10 on this old VAIO. Detailed (ish) review thingy...

I found more bugs --

Icon-setter doesn't seem to work, the bottom tray blinks and that's all that happens. (Not that it matters with the icon-setter nonfunctional, but I hope somewhere I can get more icon themes...

)

The harp sound gets old fast. (Easily changed tho!) Perhaps 2barks.au would've been more... traditional?

Speaking of sound, this thing is LOUD! (but that might be the VAIO) Also an easy fix to that issue

I've never had much luck with Frisbee as my network manager (I tend to go with SNS) -- perhaps it would be good to put the old Connect Wizard back in? Also, since I'm *used to* looking for the Connect Wizard, it was really unintuitive no to have Frisbee at least in the Menu. Doubly so because the idea of clicking the icon to set up networking will be foreign to Windblows users as well...

HardInfo isn't here, so I can't report detailed info on the hardware on this old heap...

Some good things --

My cardbus four-port USB2 hub works

this is very good since the VAIO's original two ports are long since shot. (They were used to death!)

Performance is pretty decent overall. The system is remarkably responsive, although Firefox does seem to tax it, and Flash has a problem -- Firefox asks to install it, and YouTube wants to upgrade it. But it works anyways... confusing.

Overall... not bad at all for a 2006ish "ultraportable" laptop!

Specs of the test system --

Sony VAIO VGN-S360
1.7GHz Pentium M CPU
1gb RAM (2x512 "MicroDIMMs")
120gb almost-dead HDD
CD-R/RW - DVD-ROM "Combo" Drive
ATI Mobility RADEON 9700 graphics chip ('radeon' driver)
13.3" 1280x800 screen
WiFi b/g Card (don't remember what kind, Frisbee autodetected it and won't tell me the driver)
4-port Cardbus USB2 Hub
~65w AC Adapter (16v 4a)

starhawk · #1058 Post by **starhawk** » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 18:20

To avoid confusion, putting this in another post --

I have a system with the following specs; about how well could I expect it to run CaroLite 1.1?

VIA Eden 400MHz CPU
Integrated VIA Video (uses the openchrome driver IIRC)
1gb RAM
4gb CompactFlash card (in adapter) as hard drive
External CD drive when needed

rg66 · #1059 Post by **rg66** » Sun 24 Nov 2013, 07:07

@ starhawk

You're right, one of the splash screens is lina-1.0. Not sure how that got in there, I don't see it with frugal install so completely missed it.

There are two icon switchers, Control Panel > Desktop > Appearance > Icons tab is system icons, Control Panel > Desktop Icon Switcher is menu icons.

Hardinfo and flashplayer are not there, they can be dl'ed from the repo. It's not easy to get lina under 150mb and have everything everybody wants, it is a lite version after all.

1 GB RAM sounds ok but a 400Mhz CPU might be a bit weak, there's only one way to find out how well lite will run. I can't see it using much less resources than the full lina. LxTask: CPU-3% RAM-85mb at idle, with firefox running: CPU-10% RAM-160mb.

Thanks for the feedback.

Geoffrey · #1060 Post by **Geoffrey** » Sun 24 Nov 2013, 09:42

Added a few Qt apps to the repo, there is a nice radio player greatlittleradioplayer-1.4.5-2.i386.pet with lots of stations to choose from and the look can be changed by changing coats.

starhawk · #1061 Post by **starhawk** » Sun 24 Nov 2013, 14:45

rg66 wrote:There are two icon switchers, Control Panel > Desktop > Appearance > Icons tab is system icons, Control Panel > Desktop Icon Switcher is menu icons.

I didn't see a way to switch icons with Appearance->Icons Tab. I was using the Desktop Icon Switcher. At any rate, the Desktop Icon Switcher didn't appear to even affect the menu IIRC.

rg66 wrote:Hardinfo and flashplayer are not there, they can be dl'ed from the repo.

...if flashplayer's not there, then what's playing YouTube vids...? They *did* play!

rg66 wrote:1 GB RAM sounds ok but a 400Mhz CPU might be a bit weak, there's only one way to find out how well lite will run.

Was thinking that myself -- particularly since VIA CPUs seem to be a bit weak to begin with, and the Eden line is their extra-low-power line for fanless computing. It's a bit like hitching a small dog to an oxcart, if you know what I mean

but heck, I'll try it, you never know...

rg66 wrote:Thanks for the feedback.

Absolutely! I like to help

Sage · #1062 Post by **Sage** » Sun 24 Nov 2013, 16:43

Just had an opportunity to run Carolite. Impressively fast and lightweight in all respects. BK was correct right from the start. There really isn't any point in burdening your masterpiece with loadsa bloatware when you've already done the hard work to provide an excellent PPM. Don't let this distro get confused with the wannabees we shall doubtless see again tomorrow on DWW with their Gb s of someone else's selections! In one of my applications I can confirm I was able to install your v10 FlashPlayer and watch BBC/iPlayer almost instantly. Well done, chaps.

greengeek · #1063 Post by **greengeek** » Sun 24 Nov 2013, 17:37

I'm a little confused about the difference between Carolina and LinaLite - are they two separate versions? I just looked on page one and only see links for Carolina.

By the way - the Carolina homepage link at the very bottom of the first post is easily missed but the website it links to is delightful! Love the way the webpage links animate when you mouse over them. Very clever!
http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/lina-index.html
.

Geoffrey · #1064 Post by **Geoffrey** » Sun 24 Nov 2013, 22:00

starhawk wrote:
rg66 wrote:There are two icon switchers, Control Panel > Desktop > Appearance > Icons tab is system icons, Control Panel > Desktop Icon Switcher is menu icons.
I didn't see a way to switch icons with Appearance->Icons Tab. I was using the Desktop Icon Switcher. At any rate, the Desktop Icon Switcher didn't appear to even affect the menu IIRC.

It does work, the Desktop Icon Switcher changes the desktop icons and menu icons, but you may need to move the mouse over the drive icons on the desktop to get them to change.

Appearance->Icons Tab changes the system icon themes.

starhawk wrote:
rg66 wrote:Hardinfo and flashplayer are not there, they can be dl'ed from the repo.
...if flashplayer's not there, then what's playing YouTube vids...? They *did* play!

Youtube also plays html5 videos, that's why some play and some don't, check your browser here http://www.youtube.com/html5

starhawk wrote:
rg66 wrote:Thanks for the feedback.
Absolutely! I like to help

Thanks

Marv · #1065 Post by **Marv** » Sun 24 Nov 2013, 23:45

rg66 wrote: Hardinfo and flashplayer are not there, they can be dl'ed from the repo. It's not easy to get lina under 150mb and have everything everybody wants, it is a lite version after all.

lite is great for playing

and setting up as you like it. Abiword, evince, gPicView added to main SFS. Fonts, themes, locales pruned and customized a bit. Changed the compression in line 32 in dir2sfs to

Code: Select all

[ $? = 0 ] && COMP="-comp xz -b 524288 -Xbcj x86"

and presto... main sfs at 68Mb. That's my minimal core for now, all else is shared in the boot directory or in SFS for loading as needed. GREAT set of rightclick tools for doing all that by the way

I don't have anything slower than my Pentium Ms to throw it at but It certainly is totally usable on them. It's subjective, but I don't feel any additional load due to xfce4.10 vs openbox/lxpanelx or openbox/tint2 on that class of machine or up. The only glitches I've encountered so far are mine.. where my older save file masked changes made in Thunar rightclicks etc. Pretty simple to iron out. This is a good one indeed.

Geoffrey · #1066 Post by **Geoffrey** » Sun 24 Nov 2013, 23:51

greengeek wrote:I'm a little confused about the difference between Carolina and LinaLite - are they two separate versions? I just looked on page one and only see links for Carolina.

By the way - the Carolina homepage link at the very bottom of the first post is easily missed but the website it links to is delightful! Love the way the webpage links animate when you mouse over them. Very clever!
http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/lina-index.html
.

Changed the first post, the Carolina Linux is now a link.

LinaLite is Elroy's, it is a stripped down version of Carolina 005, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... =771933685

starhawk · #1067 Post by **starhawk** » Tue 26 Nov 2013, 16:42

re: Eden 400MHz system -- it freezes partway through bootup -- at this line:

Code: Select all

Recognizing media devices: optical input_

Let it sit for a while, just to be sure it was hung, no change so it hung

Oh well.

einar · #1068 Post by **einar** » Tue 26 Nov 2013, 20:30

starhawk wrote:re: Eden 400MHz system -- it freezes partway through bootup -- at this line:
Code: Select all
Recognizing media devices: optical input_
Let it sit for a while, just to be sure it was hung, no change so it hung

Oh well.

no expert here but here but, are you booting form a usb flash stick ?
if so try the boot parameter : pmedia=usbflash

se url under for refrence :

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/BootParameters

Einar

starhawk · #1069 Post by **starhawk** » Wed 27 Nov 2013, 03:19

No... booting from kinda a weird optical drive setup, actually.

I have an internal optical drive set up as an external by plugging it into a USB drive "tester" -- like this one -- and I've got that plugged into the system.

It's a little cranky but once you know how to make it dance, it dances

BTW I don't have an actual external CD drive nor the funds for one. I've got one in parts waiting for a housing... maybe someday I'll get off my duff and get the dang thing put together... maybe...

Besides -- if it were what you're suggesting, I'd get an "I can't find the main SFS so screw it I'm gonna just sit here and die for a while" sort of error

More likely it's the wierd **** hardware of the system I'm working with. System is a Neoware CA19 thin client with some interesting mods... 1gig RAM (maybe someday I'll try a 2gig stick in there, it might take it!), original dinky-capacity Disk On Module (DOM) replaced with a CompactFlash card (in 44pin adapter), two added USB ports (which replace the old and IMO *mostly* useless parallel port dongle), and... well, the board had a place for a 3pin fan header (standard PC fan connector) so I got the local tech shop to stick a socket there and now it's got a heatsink AND fan on the graphics chip. I also replaced the thermal gunk (long since baked into total uselessness) with proper goop. Well... it's copper based rather than fancy silver based (Arctic Silver anything) or Shin Etsu (even better!) stuff, but it works.

More info than you ever wanted on the CA19 here --> http://parkytowers.me.uk/thin/neoware/CA19/
That site is a real resource if you're trying to find info on a thin client or planning to desktop-ify one

oh, and the bloke who runs it (a fine British chap) is quite nice as well -- I've emailed him a little, and he's been remarkably kind and helpful every time.

linux · #1070 Post by **linux** » Thu 28 Nov 2013, 22:44

Geoffrey wrote:Carolina 1.1 is released, for details see the first post.

This release is around 40mb larger due to software updates and added features.

Thanks to all involved for the great work in this project

Have not tried it yet but I am sure it will be as good as your previous releases

Just typing this on an overclocked raspberry pi.....

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Carolina - 1.3