(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Posted: **Tue 05 Feb 2013, 04:03**

Here's something I've been wanting to do since Puppy 2.14 but just now figured out how to do it.

While working on wary-5.3-barebones I decided to have another go at bypassing all the boot steps in the older xorg 7.3 package. Here's what I did.

1.) I booted wary-5.3 in the normal way, choosing country (locale), keyboard, timezone, and Xvesa 640x480x16 (I figured this was as close to a universally acceptable resolution as I was going to get.

2.) Then I used edit-sfs to open up puppy_wary_5.3.sfs and copied in the following files from my running system:

/usr/bin/
X (symlink to Xvesa)
/etc/
keymap
mousebuttons
mousedevice
videomode
/etc/X11/
xorg.conf
xorg.conf.
/usr/lib/locale/en_US
LC_ADDRESS
LC_COLLATE
LC_CTYPE
LC_IDENTIFICATION
LC_MEASUREMENT
LC_MESSAGES
LC_MONETARY
LC_NAME
LC_NUMERIC
LC_PAPER
LC_TELEPHONE
LC_TIME

3.)Then I built a script in /root/Starup called Xvesa-wiz:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

if [ ! -f /etc/Xvesa_done ]
  then
     exec video-wizard &
     touch /etc/Xvesa_done
fi

This script starts up the Xvesa-wizard after the system has booted into 640x480 and gives the user a choice of possible screen resolutions to change to. (interestingly there have been resolutions on some of the machines I've tried that I've never seen before, like 1024x576)

It also creates a file in /etc called Xvesa_done which keeps the script from being repeated when X is restarted or when the machine is rebooted with a warysave file.

The user can also change to Xorg by going to the Setup menu and choosing Xorgwizard. Likewise they can change locale by going to the Desktop menu and choosing Chooselocale. I'm sure a Quickstart screen could be built as in the more modern Puppies.

I'll be glad to upload an ISO if anyone is interested, either barebones or full Wary. I also built one with all the possible xorg modules stripped out, it worked but only saved 4MB so didn't really seem worthwhile.

Anyway I had fun doing this and am using it as a print server. It does a complete boot headless, that is without monitor, so I don't have to have a monitor setup all the time on my print server.

Cheers, J

Posted: **Tue 05 Feb 2013, 06:19**

I don't have it handy, but I know I posted it in the pupngo thread. You can use Xvesa -listmodes to get all supported resolutions and then automatically grok the highest one.

Posted: **Tue 05 Feb 2013, 13:56**

technosaurus wrote:I don't have it handy, but I know I posted it in the pupngo thread. You can use Xvesa -listmodes to get all supported resolutions and then automatically grok the highest one.

I didn't get it to "grok" but Xvesa -listmodes and the Xvesa wizard give "false positives" on at least two of my setups. That is they list resolutions that don't work. One in particular is using an old 40" TV which shows nothing until X starts, the boot setup has to be right because you can't see to change anything! False positives are OK if you're already in X (and read the Xvesa wizard instructions

). I also don't want any newbies to get stuck having to type in "xorgwizard".

Posted: **Tue 05 Feb 2013, 20:32**

false positives are a bug, please let someone know if you find one (best place would be the pupngo thread as we are probably the only people with fingers still in the xvesa code)
here is the snippet

Code: Select all

Xvesa -br -screen `Xvesa -listmodes 2>&1 |grep 0x[123][246] |sort -r |cut -d " " -f 2|tr "\n" " "|cut -d " " -f 1` -shadow -mouse /dev/mouse -nolisten tcp -tst -I & jwm -display :0 && killall Xvesa

however it may be better to try xorg 1st, which I haven't tried, but it would be something like:

Code: Select all

Xorg -configure && Xorg & jwm -display :0 || ...xvesa code here

(note that some xorg configurations take too long and jwm fails to start, you can use a long sleep value or tinycore's waitforx or my waitfordisplay)

Posted: **Wed 06 Feb 2013, 08:12**

This script starts up the Xvesa-wizard after the system has booted into 640x480 and gives the user a choice of possible screen resolutions to change to. (interestingly there have been resolutions on some of the machines I've tried that I've never seen before, like 1024x576)

The 1024 X 576 is the actual resolution of my Wife's first generation netbook... even though it is usually referred to as 1024 X 600 --which is what I use to search for new wallpaper to put on the screen... a marketing ploy?

Monsie

Posted: **Wed 06 Feb 2013, 14:48**

jrb wrote:I decided to have another go at bypassing all the boot steps in the older xorg 7.3 package. Here's what I did.

Hi jrb,

There's one more boot step, that I'm very curious to know how to bypass. Setting up the firewall. How do I make it run on the first boot in my remastered puppy? And if it's not too much to ask, how do I 'copy in' following your pattern, Rox/Geany/or any other essential settings, such as installed programs? And ultimately, how to get rid of that first-run applet, once everything is in place?

Thank you in advance.

Posted: **Thu 07 Feb 2013, 00:58**

technosaurus wrote:false positives are a bug, please let someone know if you find one (best place would be the pupngo thread as we are probably the only people with fingers still in the xvesa code)
here is the snippet
Code: Select all
Xvesa -br -screen `Xvesa -listmodes 2>&1 |grep 0x[123][246] |sort -r |cut -d " " -f 2|tr "\n" " "|cut -d " " -f 1` -shadow -mouse /dev/mouse -nolisten tcp -tst -I & jwm -display :0 && killall Xvesa
however it may be better to try xorg 1st, which I haven't tried, but it would be something like:
Code: Select all
Xorg -configure && Xorg & jwm -display :0 || ...xvesa code here
(note that some xorg configurations take too long and jwm fails to start, you can use a long sleep value or tinycore's waitforx or my waitfordisplay)

False positives may be a bug but I currently have one machine, my main one, that has always refused to use Xvesa giving an "Out of Range" error message. Booting to 640x480 and then choosing a higher value allows me to use Xvesa on it. I now realize it was defaulting to one of the "False Postive" values before.

Nice code but with my experiences I'd be more likely to default to the lowest value. Also, I'm a keep it simple kind of guy.

Posted: **Thu 07 Feb 2013, 01:00**

Monsie wrote:
This script starts up the Xvesa-wizard after the system has booted into 640x480 and gives the user a choice of possible screen resolutions to change to. (interestingly there have been resolutions on some of the machines I've tried that I've never seen before, like 1024x576)
The 1024 X 576 is the actual resolution of my Wife's first generation netbook... even though it is usually referred to as 1024 X 600 --which is what I use to search for new wallpaper to put on the screen... a marketing ploy?

Monsie

Have you tried it with Xvesa?

Posted: **Thu 07 Feb 2013, 02:16**

anikin wrote:
jrb wrote:I decided to have another go at bypassing all the boot steps in the older xorg 7.3 package. Here's what I did.
Hi jrb,

There's one more boot step, that I'm very curious to know how to bypass. Setting up the firewall. How do I make it run on the first boot in my remastered puppy? And if it's not too much to ask, how do I 'copy in' following your pattern, Rox/Geany/or any other essential settings, such as installed programs? And ultimately, how to get rid of that first-run applet, once everything is in place?

Thank you in advance.

As I remember, haven't done it in a while, you can set up the firewall permanently by setting it up once and then copying /etc/rc.d/rc.local into your remaster.

The config files for different programs are in lots of different places. Most of them are somewhere in /root. If you open /root in ROX and set it to show hidden files and List view you can click on "Last Modified" twice. This will bring newest files to the top, also folders with new files if they're not too deep. Make your changes and see which files have been rewritten. Then copy them into your remaster. For example I always change ROX display to "show hidden files, small icons, order small icons vertically". This is saved in /root/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/ROX-Filer/Options. When I replace the original in my Puppy.sfs it becomes permanent.

For the first-run stuff, You could track down where /usr/sbin/quicksetup and /usr/sbin/welcome1stboot.sh are called from in the startup scripts and change the code. Or you could just delete them from your remaster. (KISS)

Posted: **Fri 08 Feb 2013, 08:29**

jrb wrote:
Monsie wrote:
This script starts up the Xvesa-wizard after the system has booted into 640x480 and gives the user a choice of possible screen resolutions to change to. (interestingly there have been resolutions on some of the machines I've tried that I've never seen before, like 1024x576)
The 1024 X 576 is the actual resolution of my Wife's first generation netbook... even though it is usually referred to as 1024 X 600 --which is what I use to search for new wallpaper to put on the screen... a marketing ploy?

Monsie
Have you tried it with Xvesa?

No, not yet... At some point in the next year, I plan on replacing Windows XP on my Wife's laptop with a Linux based distro (likely Puppy) since official support for XP will expire in April, 2014. So I am interested in how well Puppy can fit and work on the small screen, and there are some other interesting projects such as this one here that I want to test eventually. With regard to Xvesa, my understanding is that it is better suited to systems with older graphics cards... so I was surprised that you came across the 1024 X 576 resolution --but I may be wrong here. My thoughts are that I would likely use Xorg to set a ModeLine so as to give me a custom resolution for the netbook --I will have to research this further.

Monsie

Posted: **Tue 12 Feb 2013, 21:49**

Just getting this on my watchlist so I can read and re-read it a few times to improve my understanding of such things...

Posted: **Fri 10 May 2013, 09:48**

how can i switch to xvesa with a command line?

greeting

Wolfgang

Posted: **Fri 10 May 2013, 11:47**

der-schutzhund wrote:how can i switch to xvesa with a command line?

from Xorg or the console?

Posted: **Fri 10 May 2013, 14:50**

from Xorg or the console?

i am not in console! I want make it with a script!
for example: xvesa 1024 x 768 24bit 60Hz etc.

Posted: **Fri 10 May 2013, 23:15**

do you want to run the script from X or from the console?

Posted: **Sat 11 May 2013, 07:59**

do you want to run the script from X or from the console?

From X

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