Carolina - 1.3

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elroy

#196 Post by elroy »

Sage wrote:
non-PAE ISO
Great news, el ! Whilst we were waiting, I successfully ran PAE002 on a 3.4G mono-core box with amazing results (001 didn't really work on anything in my stable and I don't do multiple core machines). Have just been reporting over on Slacko that the ever-problematic Netgear (prism054g) dongle actually works on C.002 using BK's SNS. This will please a whole bunch of guys who struggle with this Intelsil/Cohiba/Wistron/Prism/Netgear and other aka s. Might I suggest you strike up a contact with 01micko and possibly other developers, including BK, to explain how you achieve this feat that has defied many other distro gurus? Judging by several Fora, there's a lot of folks in possession of this unit.
Hello Sage,

I think the difference between Saluki and Carolina, as far as the dongle is concerned (and I cannot speak to other Puppy's) is the construction of the zdrive module. The Carolina zdrive is hand-created; it is based on Saluki's zdrive, but with modifications.

The main reason carolina-001 was buggy is due to the fact that we hadn't provided the necessary firmware upon the initial release. A terrible oversight on our part. 002 has the firmware on the zdrive. Also, pemasu provided a key file pertaining to the 3.2.13 kernel that was missing at the release of 001. Fortunately, carolina-002 is proving to be much more stable all-around. There were many small fires with 001, but we managed to knock a lot of them down in short order.

I can only take partial credit for the dongle success, as I only acted on Geoffrey's suggestions on the placement of the firmware in order to get it working. Of the two of us, Geoffrey was the only that had access to a dongle for testing purposes.

If you compare the saluki-023 zdrive to the carolina-002-non-pae-light zdrive (apple to apple comparison due to the same kernel being used), you'll see the differences between the two zdrives, particularly concerning the rt2870sta.

As a side note, I did a fix and re-upload of the carolina-002-non-pae-light ISO after I read your post. I built it using the custom-builder, and only later noticed that it had reverted to the stock Saluki style zdrive minus our modifications. If you do choose to compare it with Saluki, you would need to re-download the carolina-002-non-pae-light ISO. A comparison would be easier for you to see what we did differently, as explaining it would be a rather lengthy and dry read.

linux
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Joined: Tue 09 Oct 2012, 12:59

#197 Post by linux »

Beta version 0.0.2 is working well. I will hopefully give it a try on a old Macbook Pro dual core tomorrow.

Is it possible to add Firewall Status to your next build as it is quite handy for a new puppy user to quickly see if the firewall is enabled. It seems to work fine with Carolina.

Thanks again for all your hard work

elroy

#198 Post by elroy »

linux wrote:Beta version 0.0.2 is working well. I will hopefully give it a try on a old Macbook Pro dual core tomorrow.

Is it possible to add Firewall Status to your next build as it is quite handy for a new puppy user to quickly see if the firewall is enabled. It seems to work fine with Carolina.

Thanks again for all your hard work
I'm quite curious to hear of your progress concerning the Macbook Pro install. Please keep us updated on this front.

As far as the firewall is concerned, I'm currently playing with ideas for 003 of having the default firewall enabled upon initial boot-up. Hopefully I'll have some success with that. Thank you for your input, it's much appreciated.

yerc1
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#199 Post by yerc1 »

Upgraded my 001 usb intall to 002.
Upgrade process was easy.
My method:
  • -downloaded the delta file
    -created 002 iso from 001 iso + delta, after checking delta md5sum is ok
    -extracted contents of 002 iso to carolina002 folder in the usb
    -updated grub menu entries to point to new carolina folder
    -backed up 001 savefile
    -restarted and chose to run carolina with savefile (that of 001)
    -accepted prompt to upgrade from 001 to 002.
    -system went straight to desktop (as expected) and with my few customisations still in place. done
Question1 - What would I miss out with this method compared with starting over from scratch?

AFAIK the only thing that doesn't work is the ENE sdcard reader.
Carolina detects when I insert an sdcard but doesn't mount the sdcard.
I think the kernel uses keucr module which appears to have been superceded by ums_eneub6250 (?).

Question2 - Is there a chance to have Carolina support for the ENE sdcard reader?

When that support is available, Carolina will be the perfect OS for my netbook.

Thanks for Carolina :D

gcmartin

#200 Post by gcmartin »

PAE on 8 PCs circa 2001 to 2009....All work without issue!

Here to help

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Marv
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Re: non-PAE carolina light 002

#201 Post by Marv »

elroy wrote:Well, time allowed. Here is the non-PAE carolina-002 light version. See the post above for details on what these light versions are.
Grub4dos based Frugal install on IDE CF Card in Fujitsu lifebook S6210. This is a 1.6 GHz Pentium M laptop (no PAE support) with 1Gb RAM, Intel 2200pro wireless, Intel I915 graphics, std 1024x768 LCD. It's roughly 7 years old. Just enough git for Xfce.

Absolutely flawless install. Wireless, sound, display, touchpad, ACPI, CPU throttling, all OOTB. I wasn't surprised after Saluki, but this is even more refined.

The 'light" makes an absolutely marvelous core. It has just enough to build on and no more. Congratulations on the choices. 7 pets later, 4 from the excellent repository and 3 from my antiques box, and it is ready for the road.

Thanks for great work.
Pups currently in kennel :D Older LxPupSc and X-slacko-4.4 for my users; LxPupSc, LxPupSc64 and upupEF for me. All good pups indeed, and all running savefiles for look'n'feel only. Browsers, etc. solely from SFS.

Sage
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#202 Post by Sage »

Many thanks for your extensive explanations, el - most helpful. And, sorry not to include G for his immense contributions.
There is good news and bad news - isn't it always so.
I am getting C002-regular running on some older kit, albeit a bit slower as expected. The bad news is that the dongle isn't working on these slower machines (mostly AMD, as I only accept limited Intel gear as gifts not to offend dear well-meaning friends!). This whole fiasco with the Prism-chipped devices needs a lot, lot more testing and I'm not sure I can devote so much effort as I am in the process of winding up an RPi. The latter is devouring vast amounts of my attention on HW, never mind my total inability in the SW area.

As for your valued efforts to turn out a 'lite' (light?!) non-PAE, afraid I jumped the gun and d/l as soon as you u/l, will need to re-burn your latest version. It is my opinion, not widely shared, of course, that the Puppy-Xfce project needs to severely limit itself to as small an .iso as possible. The new Mint 64bit Xfce is utterly brilliant, so I don't believe it's a good idea to develop what started out as a compact distro to compete with that sort of project, having, as it does a vast retinue of developers. Terryphi expressed similar ideas in BK's blog in respect of Precise, but I don't want to speak on his behalf, necessarily. Nor do I want to denigrate your fantastic efforts - just some notions to bear in mind. Is size important? Yes, small is beautiful! One of the notables, I forget, was it Heisenberg, suggested that elegance of theory can be expressed by a paucity of variables on a single line. Or words to that effect, possibly in German?

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peebee
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Broadcom wl support in Carolina 002

#203 Post by peebee »

The rerwin_woof_fixes-delta-3f.pet hasn't made it into the 002 build - it needs to be loaded before Broadcom wl wifi support works:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 95&start=8

Other requirements (xdelta and the wl delta file are present).

Cheers
peebee
ImageLxPup = Puppy + LXDE
Main version used daily: LxPupSc; Assembler of UPups, ScPup & ScPup64, LxPup, LxPupSc & LxPupSc64

Sage
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Location: GB

#204 Post by Sage »

The orange text on the boot screen is very soothing after a few jars, but if I want to add any boot-codes, esp. Pfix=ram this is scarcely visible in daylight. Worse, if my auto screen-dim kicks in, all text disappears. At present, I'm using the F2 option but I don't see any reference to this anywhere?
Nice wallpaper. Wasn't this the one used by the late, lamented Wolvix?
If you're doing a reduced-size .iso and you decide to change a lot of options to accommodate it, particularly for use on older kit, why not brand it 'berem' ? [Google]

linux
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#205 Post by linux »

0.0.2 is working great on an Inspiron 6000 laptop, wireless networking enabled without any problems. The sound was not working then I saw a post about turning off the slmodem in BootManager, the Sigmatel on-board sound was then detected and is working nicely.

I will try and give it a go on the MacBookPro when I can get hold of it.

One thing I did note is as standard the bottom panel is very small on all my computers I changed the size the 35 in the panel prefs, and it looks about right. I have attached a screenshot to show how the panel looks now.

Keep up the great work
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Pete22
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Frisbee in beta 2

#206 Post by Pete22 »

I downloaded and used beta 2 with no problems for 2 days. The 3rd day, frisbee
suddenly died while I was working. It would not restart no matter what I did.
Maybe not important but just thought I would mention it. Network wizard
started up just fine.

elroy

#207 Post by elroy »

yerc1 wrote:What would I miss out with this method compared with starting over from scratch?
Not necessarily. If there was a serious flaw or a major change between versions, then some of the contents of your savefile could cause unintended consequences. But if it seems to be running stable, then it should be good. Yes, the delta is nice. You have peebee to than for that.
yerc1 wrote:Is there a chance to have Carolina support for the ENE sdcard reader?
I'm looking into this. However, I've been busy with dental issues, so I may not be able to devote my full attention to it for a couple days.

elroy

Re: non-PAE carolina light 002

#208 Post by elroy »

Marv wrote:Grub4dos based Frugal install on IDE CF Card in Fujitsu lifebook S6210. This is a 1.6 GHz Pentium M laptop (no PAE support) with 1Gb RAM, Intel 2200pro wireless, Intel I915 graphics, std 1024x768 LCD. It's roughly 7 years old. Just enough git for Xfce.

Absolutely flawless install. Wireless, sound, display, touchpad, ACPI, CPU throttling, all OOTB. I wasn't surprised after Saluki, but this is even more refined.

The 'light" makes an absolutely marvelous core. It has just enough to build on and no more. Congratulations on the choices. 7 pets later, 4 from the excellent repository and 3 from my antiques box, and it is ready for the road.
Hi Marv, very nice to hear from you again.

Glad you're enjoying Carolina, and the "light" version. I was wondering if someone would understand what I was trying to accomplish with making a "light(s)" version available; I'm very happy that you find it useful.

elroy

#209 Post by elroy »

Sage wrote:'lite' (light?!)?
A play on words. It's obviously 'lite' as in little, but I named it 'light' because it was a very much "light-bulb coming on moment" when I decided to make them.

As far as Carolina's overall size, we feel that we're not competing, just offering users another choice. Because of the frugal install capability, and because of the custom builder, we feel we have a niche regardless of size. Because we're a branch of Puppy, if Carolina doesn't fit the bill, we wholeheartedly support someone using a Puppy distro that does. Besides, a much smaller Carolina can be created by a savy user using the "light" version, even a non-PAE version.

elroy

#210 Post by elroy »

linux wrote:One thing I did note is as standard the bottom panel is very small on all my computers I changed the size the 35 in the panel prefs, and it looks about right.
The beauty of xfce is the ability to easily change the appearance of your Carolina installation. If you were to create a custom-build, you could create an adrive or ISO that has your customizations in place for future installs.

elroy

Re: Frisbee in beta 2

#211 Post by elroy »

Pete22 wrote:...frisbee suddenly died while I was working. It would not restart no matter what I did. Maybe not important but just thought I would mention it. Network wizard
started up just fine.
Thankfully you found an alternative means of getting a connection.

When Frisbee disconects on me, I right click on the icon in the task bar notification area and choose 'Setup networking'. Then when the Frisbee dialog opens I choose 'Wireless Network Reset'. Sometimes it takes a good 40 seconds for the available networks to become visible and populate the listbox. When it finally redraws, I click on my network to select it, and then choose "Connect to Selected Network".

elroy

Re: Broadcom wl support in Carolina 002

#212 Post by elroy »

peebee wrote:The rerwin_woof_fixes-delta-3f.pet hasn't made it into the 002 build - it needs to be loaded before Broadcom wl wifi support works.
I'm so sorry, peebee. It's on my todo list for 003. That was my fault entirely.

Sage
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#213 Post by Sage »

a savy user
- that's where I get caught everytime!
Otherwise, yes - and maybe, no. But I am an Xfce fan.

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Billtoo
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Carolina

#214 Post by Billtoo »

Running from live dvd on intel imac with savefile.

Carolina, version 002 on Thu 18 Oct 2012

Chip description:
0.0 VGA compatible controller
ATI Technologies Inc Radeon HD 2400 XT
oem: ATI ATOMBIOS
product: M74 01.00

X Server: Xorg
Driver used: # vesa

X.Org version: 1.11.0
dimensions: 1680x1050 pixels (444x277 millimeters)
depth of root window: 24 planes

OpenGL
Vendor Mesa Project
Renderer Software Rasterizer
Version 2.1 Mesa 7.10.3
Direct Rendering Yes

Computer
Processor 2x Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8135 @ 2.40GHz
Memory 4127MB (248MB used)

BRCM2046 Hub
Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Sound Blaster X-Fi Go! Pro
EHCI Host Controller
USB2.0 Hub
Keyboard Hub
USB Receiver
Apple Keyboard
DRX-820U
Built-in iSight

Looks nice, will test more.

elroy

#215 Post by elroy »

Awesome report, Billtoo. Much appreciated.

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