Carolina - 1.3

For talk and support relating specifically to Puppy derivatives
Message
Author
can8v
Posts: 586
Joined: Sat 15 Jul 2006, 08:20
Location: Yuba City, CA
Contact:

#1186 Post by can8v »

Ok I couldn't put this MTP issue to bed just yet. I am determined to make this work. Anyway I Installed the gnomad2.pet packaged which includes the libmtp and support for data transfer to mtp devices, however; it did not work in Carolina. I plugged in the Nexus 7 and gnomad2 said that it was scanning /root for quite some time then displayed relevant content from /root and said it was scanning the media library for over 30 minutes during which time my Nexus 7 said that MTP had stopped unexpectedly. After 30 minutes or so I killed the gnomad2 process as the app was locked up and wouldn't close. Then I installed the entire gvfs-backend deb package hoping it would work with the libmtp ver. 1.6.1 that was included with the gnomad2.pet pa ckage. It did not work because, it was compiled with support for gphoto2 and something else (which I already forgot). At any rate Thunar took almost 15 seconds to load after that, so I decided to see what was going on by launching it from the terminal you can see the result in the attached screenshot. Can somebody either tell me how to compile gvfs backend without support for these items or point me in the direction of a tutorial for such.
Attachments
ThunarScreenshot.png
(66.44 KiB) Downloaded 327 times

ac2011
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed 09 Feb 2011, 08:22

Re: Grey/empty desktop with external monitor

#1187 Post by ac2011 »

Geoffrey wrote:
ac2011 wrote: When connecting an external monitor via D-sub VGA cable, the desktop is wiped, no background shows and it's not possible to right-click on it.
I tried this connecting to my TV via D-sub VGA, yes I get this also, I did try connecting the cable after the laptop had loaded Carolina and I had a desktop, I then used xrandr to select the TV, this gave me a screen but as you have described it then maxed out the CPU activity, this as me baffled, I wouldn't even know where to start.
A little more information now. The problem with the external monitor seems to be with xfdesktop: its CPU utilisation goes nuts. Installing the full Xorg PET doesn't help (in fact it stops Xorg working). I can use Xvesa and get two displays, but only at 1024x768.

I tried to killall xfdesktop but it restarts itself. After a bit of searching I found this, which might be related. It has a link to a patch.

https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=8119

Does that shed any light? I'd love to get Carolina running on this machine.

can8v
Posts: 586
Joined: Sat 15 Jul 2006, 08:20
Location: Yuba City, CA
Contact:

Re: Grey/empty desktop with external monitor

#1188 Post by can8v »

ac2011 wrote:
Geoffrey wrote:
ac2011 wrote: When connecting an external monitor via D-sub VGA cable, the desktop is wiped, no background shows and it's not possible to right-click on it.
I tried this connecting to my TV via D-sub VGA, yes I get this also, I did try connecting the cable after the laptop had loaded Carolina and I had a desktop, I then used xrandr to select the TV, this gave me a screen but as you have described it then maxed out the CPU activity, this as me baffled, I wouldn't even know where to start.
A little more information now. The problem with the external monitor seems to be with xfdesktop: its CPU utilisation goes nuts. Installing the full Xorg PET doesn't help (in fact it stops Xorg working). I can use Xvesa and get two displays, but only at 1024x768.

I tried to killall xfdesktop but it restarts itself. After a bit of searching I found this, which might be related. It has a link to a patch.

https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=8119

Does that shed any light? I'd love to get Carolina running on this machine.
I will be looking into this soon, as I also have an interest in getting this fixed. No guarantees, as I am not sure where to start with this either.

ac2011
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed 09 Feb 2011, 08:22

Re: Grey/empty desktop with external monitor

#1189 Post by ac2011 »

can8v wrote:
ac2011 wrote:
Geoffrey wrote: I tried this connecting to my TV via D-sub VGA, yes I get this also, I did try connecting the cable after the laptop had loaded Carolina and I had a desktop, I then used xrandr to select the TV, this gave me a screen but as you have described it then maxed out the CPU activity, this as me baffled, I wouldn't even know where to start.
A little more information now. The problem with the external monitor seems to be with xfdesktop: its CPU utilisation goes nuts. Installing the full Xorg PET doesn't help (in fact it stops Xorg working). I can use Xvesa and get two displays, but only at 1024x768.

I tried to killall xfdesktop but it restarts itself. After a bit of searching I found this, which might be related. It has a link to a patch.

https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=8119

Does that shed any light? I'd love to get Carolina running on this machine.
I will be looking into this soon, as I also have an interest in getting this fixed. No guarantees, as I am not sure where to start with this either.
Getting somewhere:

install rox from repository
mv /usr/bin/xfdesktop /usr/bin/xfdesktop_old
killall xfdesktop
rox -p default

I now have a basic desktop (rox) and can run on an external monitor without mad CPU usage. It's ugly, though, because I'm sure xfce4-session (or something) is trying like mad to re-start xfdesktop. Trouble is I can't work out where to tell it to stop trying.

xfdesktop is version 4.10.0. I think an upgrade would fix this.

Edit: some more thoughts. Doing the above but also creating a small shell script at /usr/bin/xfdesktop containing:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
while [ 1==1 ]
   do
   sleep 99999
done
allows xfce4-session to satisfy its desire to reload xfdesktop if it's not in memory.

Rox pinboard is fine for me, though there are no drive icons. Thunar can handle volume mounting, or I seem to remember there's a PET somewhere on the forum for doing so.

This is all just a workaround, but it means I can actually use Carolina with an external display from my laptop now.

Edit again: this works even better as the contents for /usr/bin/xfdesktop

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
while [ 1==1 ]
   do
   rox -p /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
   sleep 999999
done
Image attached, with the desktop_drive_icons package from elsewhere on this forum. This works fine for me.
Attachments
rox_desktop_in_carolina.jpg
(108.1 KiB) Downloaded 300 times

User avatar
Geoffrey
Posts: 2355
Joined: Sun 30 May 2010, 08:42
Location: Queensland

Re: Grey/empty desktop with external monitor

#1190 Post by Geoffrey »

@ac2011,

I'm still trying to find the problem, but it's a ever so slow task, I did recompile xfdesktop but it has a bug that I can't find a fix for, jemimah did fix this but left no clue as to what she did, the problem is that dragging menu entries to the desktop removes them from the menu where it needs to just copy them to the desktop, the current version of xfdesktop in /usr/bin is from saluki which worked fine until you found it's downfall.

Did Saluki have the monitor problem? if not then may need to look elsewhere.

I'm calling on anyone that may have a lead to what the problem may be, rg66 and myself have very limited capabilities, as we are constantly learning as we go.

I compiled the desktop drives icons you mention in Carolina.
Attachments
desktop_drive_icons-0.0.6-i486.pet
(39.52 KiB) Downloaded 208 times
[b]Carolina:[/b] [url=http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/recent-repo.html]Recent Repository Additions[/url]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ahfade8q4def1lq/signbot.gif[/img]

ac2011
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed 09 Feb 2011, 08:22

Re: Grey/empty desktop with external monitor

#1191 Post by ac2011 »

Thanks Geoffrey. I compiled 0.0.5 - must have missed 0.0.6.

I'm actually quite happy with the Rox desktop, as it's what I use in Fluppy anyway. Everything else seems to work (tray, Thunar, etc.).

I always had the impression Xfce was slow (I mentioned it earlier in this thread, turned out to be related to a theme problem) and I think much of that was due to xfdesktop. It seems snappier now, though that's subjective.
Geoffrey wrote:@ac2011,
Did Saluki have the monitor problem? if not then may need to look elsewhere.
I'll see if I can dig out my copy and try it.

User avatar
greengeek
Posts: 5789
Joined: Tue 20 Jul 2010, 09:34
Location: Republic of Novo Zelande

Re: Grey/empty desktop with external monitor

#1192 Post by greengeek »

Geoffrey wrote:I'm calling on anyone that may have a lead to what the problem may be, rg66 and myself have very limited capabilities, as we are constantly learning as we go.
Was it akash rawal that was working with jemimah on drive icons? I wonder if he is still active on the forum. Could he be helpful here?

ac2011
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed 09 Feb 2011, 08:22

Remaster PET doesn't work for me

#1193 Post by ac2011 »

The Remaster PET in the PPM for Carolina doesn't work for me. It creates an SFS file that seems far too small, and always on reboot results in a "kernel panic, trying to kill init" type error.

This is the same whether using smart or simple, xz or gzip compression, etc. This problem doesn't seem to be limited to Carolina: I've seen users of other recent Puppies reporting it.

So I tried the Fluppy version of the remaster script and it works fine in Carolina 1.1. Only downside is the file it creates is called 'lina-1.1.sfs' so you have to rename that to puppy_lina_1.1.sfs once it's finished.

I've attached the script here in case it's of use.

One issue with this script and with the Carolina one: you *must* make sure the device you're planning to write to is mounted *before* starting the remaster script. Otherwise the script might let you choose the device but not then mount it, resulting in a huge file being written in /mnt/whatever/ (i.e. within your save file). This can be very bad... I speak from experience.
Attachments
pupremaster_fluppy.zip
(10.17 KiB) Downloaded 192 times

User avatar
Geoffrey
Posts: 2355
Joined: Sun 30 May 2010, 08:42
Location: Queensland

#1194 Post by Geoffrey »

I tried the latest xfdesktop that I compiled even thought the menu is faulty, still don't work with two monitors, the search continues.
[b]Carolina:[/b] [url=http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/recent-repo.html]Recent Repository Additions[/url]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ahfade8q4def1lq/signbot.gif[/img]

ac2011
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed 09 Feb 2011, 08:22

#1195 Post by ac2011 »

Geoffrey wrote:I tried the latest xfdesktop that I compiled even thought the menu is faulty, still don't work with two monitors, the search continues.
I just booted into Saluki 023, then connected an external monitor. It worked fine, no problems. xfdesktop rarely went above 6% CPU and was mostly 1-2%.

Same version number of xfdesktop as in Carolina. Perhaps Jemimah did some clever patching, or perhaps the problem is elsewhere but causing xfdesktop to display this behaviour.

Edit: I meant Saluki 023, not 013. Had Fluppy on my mind.

User avatar
rg66
Posts: 1158
Joined: Mon 23 Jul 2012, 05:53
Location: Vancouver, BC Canada / Entebbe, Uganda Africa!?!

#1196 Post by rg66 »

ac2011 wrote:
Geoffrey wrote:I tried the latest xfdesktop that I compiled even thought the menu is faulty, still don't work with two monitors, the search continues.
I just booted into Saluki 023, then connected an external monitor. It worked fine, no problems. xfdesktop rarely went above 6% CPU and was mostly 1-2%.

Same version number of xfdesktop as in Carolina. Perhaps Jemimah did some clever patching, or perhaps the problem is elsewhere but causing xfdesktop to display this behaviour.

Edit: I meant Saluki 023, not 013. Had Fluppy on my mind.
As Geoffrey stated earlier, Carolina uses Saluki's xfdesktop binary (from xfce-4.10-i486.pet). We are thinking of trying the complete xfdesktop package from Saluki to see if it works.

I've used the remaster pet to build a custom Carolina for my kids and it worked. The only issue I can remember was it needed to be built on an ntfs partition.
X-slacko-5b1 - X-tahr-2.0 - X-precise-2.4
[url=http://smokey01.com/rg66/]X-series repo[/url]

can8v
Posts: 586
Joined: Sat 15 Jul 2006, 08:20
Location: Yuba City, CA
Contact:

#1197 Post by can8v »

ac2011 wrote:
Geoffrey wrote:I tried the latest xfdesktop that I compiled even thought the menu is faulty, still don't work with two monitors, the search continues.
I just booted into Saluki 023, then connected an external monitor. It worked fine, no problems. xfdesktop rarely went above 6% CPU and was mostly 1-2%.

Same version number of xfdesktop as in Carolina. Perhaps Jemimah did some clever patching, or perhaps the problem is elsewhere but causing xfdesktop to display this behaviour.

Edit: I meant Saluki 023, not 013. Had Fluppy on my mind.
I had the same experience in Saluki 023 last night.

ac2011
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed 09 Feb 2011, 08:22

#1198 Post by ac2011 »

rg66 wrote:I've used the remaster pet to build a custom Carolina for my kids and it worked. The only issue I can remember was it needed to be built on an ntfs partition.
Interesting constraint!

I have an odd setup: five or six SFS files loaded via sfs_load and not always from the home partition. The Fluppy remaster script handles this (writing the remaster to an Ext3 partition) but the Carolina one doesn't. I've read elsewhere on here of people reverting to remaster scripts from older Puppies for similar reasons.

can8v
Posts: 586
Joined: Sat 15 Jul 2006, 08:20
Location: Yuba City, CA
Contact:

#1199 Post by can8v »

can8v wrote:
ac2011 wrote:
Geoffrey wrote:I tried the latest xfdesktop that I compiled even thought the menu is faulty, still don't work with two monitors, the search continues.
I just booted into Saluki 023, then connected an external monitor. It worked fine, no problems. xfdesktop rarely went above 6% CPU and was mostly 1-2%.

Same version number of xfdesktop as in Carolina. Perhaps Jemimah did some clever patching, or perhaps the problem is elsewhere but causing xfdesktop to display this behaviour.

Edit: I meant Saluki 023, not 013. Had Fluppy on my mind.
I had the same experience in Saluki 023 last night.
I had a little more time to tinker with this and I have come to the conclusion that this may have something to do with bios or hardware, because I tested an external monitor on three of the four laptops in my house all all three worked with Carolina1.1 booting off the cd in pfix=ram and I also tested one of them with my save file. One of the machines refused to display wallpaper on the external monitor, but in no case did any of them exceed 6%CPU usage and they were all quite zippy. In fact the laptop I turned into my Carolina media server has broken hinges and the lcd got so dim this morning I just removed it altogether and left an external monitor connected. I was concerned that it would not reboot into the external monitor mode, but those fears prooved to be unfounded. Grub doesn't come up on the extenal monitor, but once the time delay is over and Carolina begins booting as default, I soon have the remainder of the boot sequence on screen and the external monitor is simply remembered from session to session. Further more, on all the laptops the function keys worked for toggling my monitor selection. All of this was out of the box. No other distro has worked so well with my hardware.
Last edited by can8v on Fri 17 Jan 2014, 16:36, edited 2 times in total.

ac2011
Posts: 134
Joined: Wed 09 Feb 2011, 08:22

#1200 Post by ac2011 »

can8v wrote:I tested an external monitor on three of the four laptops in my house all all three worked with Carolina1.1 booting off the cd in pfix-ram and I also tested one of them with my save file.
Curiouser and curiouser...

Doesn't work here with an Asus Eee PC 900, a Fujitsu clone (possibly Uniwill L51 underneath) or a Twinhead H12Y.

All old-ish machines, all running Intel integrated graphics. I wonder if that's a factor. What graphics chips do yours use?

But Saluki does work here, at least on the Twinhead, so there is a software difference somewhere (Intel driver?).

Another step in the right direction.

can8v
Posts: 586
Joined: Sat 15 Jul 2006, 08:20
Location: Yuba City, CA
Contact:

#1201 Post by can8v »

@ ac2011
I am not at home right now and don't recall the graphics processors one is a Dell Inspiron 1545 there were several variations of that model over a 2-3 year proud, mine is the one that has the Celeron 900 and 3GB RAM. Second laptop I'd a Dell Inspiron 1318 (if my memory serves me well) That one I am almost certainly has Intel graphics. The last one is a 2 year old low power AMD C-50 wrapped in a Compaq shell. Puppy has been so cooperative with my hardware the past four years or so that I haven't had to pay much attention to what hardware I had. This issue with MTP protocol preventing Android 4.0 and up from connecting over USB has been the only hardware related issues I have had in for years. I only recently had to discover what WiFi cops I had when I wanted to try out Lubuntu and nothing seemed to work out of the box. Hope this info gets you all closer to a fix.
Can8v

User avatar
Geoffrey
Posts: 2355
Joined: Sun 30 May 2010, 08:42
Location: Queensland

#1202 Post by Geoffrey »

can8v wrote:
can8v wrote:
ac2011 wrote: I just booted into Saluki 023, then connected an external monitor. It worked fine, no problems. xfdesktop rarely went above 6% CPU and was mostly 1-2%.

Same version number of xfdesktop as in Carolina. Perhaps Jemimah did some clever patching, or perhaps the problem is elsewhere but causing xfdesktop to display this behaviour.

Edit: I meant Saluki 023, not 013. Had Fluppy on my mind.
I had the same experience in Saluki 023 last night.
I had a little more time to tinker with this and I have come to the conclusion that this may have something to do with bios or hardware, because I tested an external monitor on three of the four laptops in my house all all three worked with Carolina1.1 booting off the cd in pfix=ram and I also tested one of them with my save file. One of the machines refused to display wallpaper on the external monitor, but in no case did any of them exceed 6%CPU usage and they were all quite zippy. In fact the laptop I turned into my Carolina media server has broken hinges and the lcd got so dim this morning I just removed it altogether and left an external monitor connected. I was concerned that it would not reboot into the external monitor mode, but those fears prooved to be unfounded. Grub doesn't come up on the extenal monitor, but once the time delay is over and Carolina begins booting as default, I soon have the remainder of the boot sequence on screen and the external monitor is simply remembered from session to session. Further more, on all the laptops the function keys worked for toggling my monitor selection. All of this was out of the box. No other distro has worked so well with my hardware.
I tried the xfce-4.10-i486.pet from the repo, this gets two monitors working, but it also replaces the menu, panel settings and icons are missing from panel plugin's list, the existing plugins need to be retained so it's not a fix, though I've tried numerous times to find the files required to get the two monitors working, but still retain the menu and panel as is, but no luck so far, no matter what I do to fix it, changing the panel and menu back to how it should be, it then reverts to CPU going berserk, it is time consuming as it needs a reboot and then try something else each time it fails.

I need help with this as I have only the one laptop to test with and it is my wife's, need I say more :wink:

Updated repo with crosti-1.10.0 and QuiteRSS-0.14.3
[b]Carolina:[/b] [url=http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/recent-repo.html]Recent Repository Additions[/url]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ahfade8q4def1lq/signbot.gif[/img]

can8v
Posts: 586
Joined: Sat 15 Jul 2006, 08:20
Location: Yuba City, CA
Contact:

#1203 Post by can8v »

@Geoffrey,
Wish I could help you with testing this, but just before I left I tested this on my son's computer (the fourth and last laptop in my home) and this laptop also worked flawlessly in all external monitor modes with Carolina booting off the cd in ram mode. If I could replicate the problem I would certainly test any proposed solutions.

User avatar
Geoffrey
Posts: 2355
Joined: Sun 30 May 2010, 08:42
Location: Queensland

#1204 Post by Geoffrey »

@can8v,

I have Carolina 1.1 as a frugal install on HDD which just won't run an external monitor, this is on a acer aspire 5310, I also have Saluki 0.23 as a frugal but it works fine with a monitor, though the monitor becomes the main viewer at boot until I get to a desktop, then the laptop screen is active.

Not to worry, I will sort it out eventually, it's just slow going.
[b]Carolina:[/b] [url=http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/recent-repo.html]Recent Repository Additions[/url]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ahfade8q4def1lq/signbot.gif[/img]

can8v
Posts: 586
Joined: Sat 15 Jul 2006, 08:20
Location: Yuba City, CA
Contact:

#1205 Post by can8v »

Geoffrey wrote:@can8v,

I have Carolina 1.1 as a frugal install on HDD which just won't run an external monitor, this is on a acer aspire 5310, I also have Saluki 0.23 as a frugal but it works fine with a monitor, though the monitor becomes the main viewer at boot until I get to a desktop, then the laptop screen is active.

Not to worry, I will sort it out eventually, it's just slow going.
Since it works in Saluki and not in Carolina, there is obviously some difference between the two, but since it works fine in Carolina on my laptops, but not on yours, I keep thinking it must have something to do with the bios settings. Perhaps something to do with the way it is setup in Saluki is more universally compatible than the way it is setup in Carolina. I have now tested Saluki and Carolina on all four laptops and both work fine. One of the laptops refuses to display any wallpaper on the external monitor when running Carolina and on that same machine the desktop icons will only display on the laptop's LCD screen, not on the external monitor. But if I shutdown the LCD screen and use only the external monitor I can still access all the drives from within Thunar. using the external monitor. None of the four laptops using the external monitor have anything resembling the CPU issues that you and others have described. Despite the lack of wallpaper and some icons on the external monitor for one out of four of the laptops I have tested I would count all four as very usable configurations and three out of four work perfectly. The only suggestion I can think of is to go through you bios settings and check to see if there is anything relating to the monitor that might require a change to make it work. Most probably the issue would be something that could also be changed in xfdesktop to make it compatible with your current setup, otherwise it wouldn't work in Saluki either.

Post Reply