ArchPup 12.12.2

For talk and support relating specifically to Puppy derivatives
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stifiling
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 30 Dec 2007, 03:56

#256 Post by stifiling »

Scooby, i understand that. I already know this thing is going to have forks and remasters all over the place. Which is why we should do the 'Ubuntu to this Debian', before someone else does.

the idea is to have two sfs files on the iso. so it will boot to a gui Desktop.

But there are users who like to switch a lot, so if one decides they want a different Desktop Environment, they can delete 'one' of the sfs files, the gui one, and load a different one.

There are also users who don't want a desktop environment at all, and only want to use ncurses. For those users they could delete the one gui sfs file, and only use the main sfs which loads to a tty prompt.

For users who don't like something specific in the default desktop environment (maybe they like xfce, but don't like xfce-terminal) they could make their own, mix and matched desktop environment sfs, and load it to the main.sfs.

This gives the user full control, regardless of what type of user it is.

my advice is not to have the iso, boot to a tty prompt. only the Bare one. not the main Signature one.

and ideas come from somewhere, they're either accepted or rejected. and i'm hoping this one is accepted by simargl. files cannot be deleted out of an sfs, and this is a layout that would solve that.

you're a user who doesn't mind having apps in your linux that you may never use. if it comes with mplayer, and you prefer vlc, you'll hide or ignore the mplayer. A lot of ppl want a way to totally remove the mplayer.

Scooby
Posts: 599
Joined: Sat 03 Mar 2012, 09:04

#257 Post by Scooby »

stifiling wrote: you're a user who doesn't mind having apps in your linux that you may never use. if it comes with mplayer, and you prefer vlc, you'll hide or ignore the mplayer. A lot of ppl want a way to totally remove the mplayer.
nah I would mind if ISO was growing to 400-500mb.

But for 50mb when you got 6 gig ram and 500 gig hdd,
nah to much effort, to little gain to worry about it.

Do you intend this xfce sfs to be loaded easily from tty or
do you have to start hacking in system files to get it started?
stifiling wrote: you're a user who doesn't mind having apps in your linux that you may never use. if it comes with mplayer, and you prefer vlc, you'll hide or ignore the mplayer. A lot of ppl want a way to totally remove the mplayer.
I must confess,I don't get this at all. If I want to play video and
mplayer is installed and does the job. Then why bother?

One filemanager over another. Their 90 % the same anyway

Others are like this but it just shoots past me.

Yeah, takes a little time to find your way in new menus but so does reinstall.

stifiling
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 30 Dec 2007, 03:56

#258 Post by stifiling »

the XFCE.iso WILL boot to the XFCE Desktop Environment.

the XFCE.iso WILL NOT boot to a tty prompt.

you seem like you're trying to be a lil argumentative and the argument is weak.

Some users don't mind:
"Ahh, who cares, i have a nice computer. This distro came with Boxee but i use XBMC, i'll just keep them both."

Some users do mind:
"Hey?? I have a nice computer too. This distro came with Boxee but i use XBMC, how do I get this Boxee the hell off of here?"

ciento
Posts: 181
Joined: Sat 18 Sep 2010, 02:53

#259 Post by ciento »

This is the output when booting from cd or usb:

"Loading drivers needed to access disk drives
searching for archpup files
(white dots appear, then red dots)
archpup-12.12.sfs not found
Dropping out to initial-ramdisk console"
--------------------------------------------------------
archpup-12.12.sfs is in
/
/home/
/media/xp
on the cd
on the usbstick.
:?
Is there a command to use at that point?

User avatar
mavrothal
Posts: 3096
Joined: Mon 24 Aug 2009, 18:23

#260 Post by mavrothal »

wrong post
Last edited by mavrothal on Wed 13 Feb 2013, 20:16, edited 1 time in total.
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simargl

#261 Post by simargl »

For new release sakura terminal will replace rxvt-unicode, that saves 100KB and adds right click option for copy/paste. Also I patched sakura to disable close dialog question "Are you sure you want to quit?" - yes I am sure.

ciento: Yesterday I made frugal installation on usb to test patch from mavrothal, it worked without problems. So, my assumption is that in bootloader's menu.lst, you have psubdir which excludes all other folders from search.

stifiling: You don't have to, but I would suggest you to build version with xfce using my package manager, to be consistent with everything else. If you want to make yourself familiar with this tool download two repositories:

Code: Select all

hg clone https://bitbucket.org/simargl/spkg
hg clone https://bitbucket.org/simargl/def-scripts
install with sh install. Some interesting commands:

Code: Select all

spkg report
spkg info glib2
spkg repack gtk2
It has a lot of options, see list of them with spkg -h, recently I added function for converting to pet package. Archapps and archdev are built with simple spkg makesfsx (x adds xz compression), in folder with compiled and converted spkg packages.

mavrothal: Applied. Thanks again :P

stifiling
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 30 Dec 2007, 03:56

#262 Post by stifiling »

ok i'll learn the tool. but as far as using a secondary adrv.sfs...i'm not able to make it load correctly. i can get it to mount in pup_a, but that's all it is is mounted at that location. it's not usable in the system.

so i can work on the xfce.iso, all inside of the main.sfs. putting it in a separate adrv.sfs though, i'm at a stand still from that angle.

User avatar
mavrothal
Posts: 3096
Joined: Mon 24 Aug 2009, 18:23

#263 Post by mavrothal »

stifiling wrote:ok i'll learn the tool. but as far as using a secondary adrv.sfs...i'm not able to make it load correctly. i can get it to mount in pup_a, but that's all it is is mounted at that location. it's not usable in the system.

so i can work on the xfce.iso, all inside of the main.sfs. putting it in a separate adrv.sfs though, i'm at a stand still from that angle.
For this you'll need to modify the initrd/init (and maybe rc.sysinit).
I could take a shut at it (if elroy does not do it first :wink: ) assuming that simargl is willing to go that way. ie autoload archapps.sfs if present in the directory where initrd.gz/vnlinuz/archpup-XYZ.sfs reside.
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stifiling
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 30 Dec 2007, 03:56

#264 Post by stifiling »

yea u guys mighta went in a notch too deep for me. i think mavrothal is better suited for the assignment. imma kick back and watch for a while and await other areas i could probably contribute.

i still think main.sfs to tty and adrv.sfs to gui is the best way. just had to throw that in there one more time really quick.

simargl

#265 Post by simargl »

Here's one interesting addition to archdev sfs caled musl http://www.musl-libc.org/, I compiled latest version from git, as test compiled static zlib with musl-gcc and it is 30 kb smaller than default from Arch. This seems very interesting for static compiling.

stifiling I thought you will make additional sfs that contains xfce and other programs, and after combine that sfs with archpup-12.12.sfs. But, if you want separate file and automatic sfs load (adrv.sfs), it is also good idea.

mavrothal will it work if we add adrv.sfs, to EXTRASFSLIST in /etc/rc.d/BOOTCONFIG, looks like sfs_load writes sfs list there.

EDIT: @stifiling: mavrothal understand how Puppy linux works better than me, and he helps in more important areas. I still think you would be the best for adding xfce+apps sfs, and making newbie friendly iso image. I remember your screenshots from different desktops :wink:, so you like to experiment, off course choice is yours.
Last edited by simargl on Wed 09 Jan 2013, 10:28, edited 1 time in total.

stifiling
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 30 Dec 2007, 03:56

#266 Post by stifiling »

simargl wrote:stifiling I thought you will make additional sfs that contains xfce and other programs, and after combine that sfs with archpup-12.12.sfs. But, if you want separate file and automatic sfs load (adrv.sfs), it is also good idea.
i could have done it that way, but i think the adrv is more elegant. and yes, to get that adrv to load, the init script in initrd.gz has to be edited. i was unsuccessful at making it work.

i think the adrv is more elegant because you could easily switch off from the adrv with xfce, to the adrv with kde.

no huss no fuss, easily switch desktop environments. so easy a kindergartner with crayons and pictures could do it.

stifiling
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 30 Dec 2007, 03:56

#267 Post by stifiling »

ok i'll do one now and submit you the link. but the adrv is, 'What's happening!!'

simargl

#268 Post by simargl »

What's important with adrv or better call it apdrive, is if that sfs module will be able to overwrite files in archpup-12.12.sfs.
If you add xfce desktop then /etc/profile needs to be overwritten in order to replace
export WINDOW_MANAGER="openbox"
with:
export WINDOW_MANAGER="xfce4-session"
EDIT: To continue using archapps-12.12.sfs, it's best to automatically load additional file
that contains archapps-*.sfs, so it will support newer version and also different names like archapps-xfce.sfs

stifiling
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 30 Dec 2007, 03:56

#269 Post by stifiling »

so u're saying i should leave the archapps.sfs separate or should i continue with having them squashed into the main.sfs?

i'm thinking u're saying to leave it separate which sound idea to me as well, for the exact same reason, updated apps. the smplayer that's included is out of date....youtube doesn't work with it.

simargl

#270 Post by simargl »

stifiling wrote:so u're saying i should leave the archapps.sfs separate or should i continue with having them squashed into the main.sfs?

i'm thinking u're saying to leave it separate which sound idea to me as well, for the exact same reason, updated apps. the smplayer that's included is out of date....youtube doesn't work with it.
Yes it will be separate, but only if it's possible to overwrite files from main sfs, with those from archapps.sfs

stifiling
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 30 Dec 2007, 03:56

#271 Post by stifiling »

simargl wrote:Yes it will be separate, but only if it's possible to overwrite files from main sfs, with those from archapps.sfs
the way that i would accomplish that is by using the archpupx script and a tmp file stored on the archapps.sfs, so if it gets auto loaded archpupx could have an if command scripted at the beginning of it like:

Code: Select all

if /etc/tmpprofile; then
     rm /etc/profile
     mv /etc/tmpprofile /etc/profile
fi
i know that if command isn't right, but i know u get the point.

so if it's done like this, tmpprofile would be visible and not overlayed because it would have that odd name, and it would be moved to the top layer before X starts.

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mavrothal
Posts: 3096
Joined: Mon 24 Aug 2009, 18:23

#272 Post by mavrothal »

simargl wrote:What's important with adrv or better call it apdrive, is if that sfs module will be able to overwrite files in archpup-12.12.sfs.
If you add xfce desktop then /etc/profile needs to be overwritten in order to replace
export WINDOW_MANAGER="openbox"
with:
export WINDOW_MANAGER="xfce4-session"
EDIT: To continue using archapps-12.12.sfs, it's best to automatically load additional file
that contains archapps-*.sfs, so it will support newer version and also different names like archapps-xfce.sfs
Lets not get carried away.
The {a,apps,archapps}drv.sfs that auto-loads on boot should be only one (imagine someone trying to load and run 2 different desktops). For user facilitation a gtldialog/yad script could be included in the base as a GUI to choose which of the available SFSs will renamed to adrv.sfs for next boot, but even this might be an exaggeration. You do not even need terminal to rename a file and everyone know how to do it from the file manager.

Regarding over-writing, all the SFSs except the savefile and pup_rw are below the main sfs in the layered filesystem. So any overwriting must be done by an install script in the said SFS.
I believe SFS_load supports running install scripts (didn't check the archpup version) and something similar should be added in the rc.sysinit if adrv.sfs needs this.
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stifiling
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 30 Dec 2007, 03:56

#273 Post by stifiling »

/etc/profile wouldn't need to be overwritten anyhow if it only existed in the adrv, right?

adrv.sfs = window manager, editor, filemanager, alsa, etc.

main.sfs = cups, firmware, modules, pacman

why is this view being so ignored? Somebody please tell me so i can let it go.

simargl

#274 Post by simargl »

stifiling wrote:/etc/profile wouldn't need to be overwritten anyhow if it only existed in the adrv, right?
It wouldn't need to be overwritten if I remove /etc/profile from main sfs, but I can't remove it, because it specifies needed environment variables. Anyway, for me it seems easier to just inside sfs file (xfce.sfs ?), make pinstall.sh script that will replace window manager in /etc/profile. This adrv thing looks like too complicated.

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mavrothal
Posts: 3096
Joined: Mon 24 Aug 2009, 18:23

#275 Post by mavrothal »

simargl wrote:
stifiling wrote:/etc/profile wouldn't need to be overwritten anyhow if it only existed in the adrv, right?
It wouldn't need to be overwritten if I remove /etc/profile from main sfs, but I can't remove it, because it specifies needed environment variables. Anyway, for me it seems easier to just inside sfs file (xfce.sfs ?), make pinstall.sh script that will replace window manager in /etc/profile. This adrv thing looks like too complicated.
:twisted:

Not really.
To "satisfy" stifiling all you need is to remove /usr/bin/archpupx. Then X will not start. And there are other ways too.

I had some progress on the adrv :D. The attached initrd patch will mount archapps sfs (renamed adrv_arch_1212.sfs) fine on /initrd/pup_a.
Pls remind me the script that you modify the puppy initrd.gz with so I can make a proper patch (including the mode'ing commands) for your repo (but please feel free to do it yourself :P )

Although not mandatory, I also included DISTRO_IDSTRING. Makes file detection more efficient. You just need to add it in the SFSs and the kernel with

Code: Select all

echo -n "$DISTRO_IDSTRING" >> target_file
Are we ready then? No.
The union is not formed properly. The sfs in mounted in /initrd/pup_a and files there open ok (tried firefox) but /initrd/pup_a is not part of the union.
So I have to look in the main sfs :( .
Is Archpup using anything unique (comparing to traditional puppies) to set up the layered FS (besides missing aufs-utils)?

Latter. The 7 people that downloaded this patch please disregard it and download the new one that works OK!
Last edited by mavrothal on Thu 10 Jan 2013, 18:31, edited 4 times in total.
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