Fatdog64-620beta3

[pemasu]

Here is the edited source of ppower.

[LateAdopter]

Hello jamesbond & Billtoo

I get the same problem with some MPEG2 files that are on UDF 1.5 formatted DVD+RW disks that were written 4 to 9 years ago.

I think the drive attempts to read them at 12x but, from time to time, it hits a rough spot and has to slow down to 4x a re-read a sector. This takes some time and flashing of the green LED to do. My Lite-on drive carries on at low speed for a while and then gets over confident and speeds up again, until the same thing happens again.

I think most media players buffer large amounts of data, which helps with seeking too, so they don't have a problem. VLC doesn't seem to do that. The preferences have "file cache" and "disk cache" both set to 300ms. I tried increasing them, but it didn't seem to make any difference.

If I have a problem, I just copy the MPEG file to the hard disk, which works much better. My recent recordings are all on an external hard disk.

I expect configuring the the driver to limit the read speed to 4x would also work, but that would interfere with normal file operations.

[LateAdopter]

Hello jamesbond

I have an AMD laptop and in my case setting it to performance all the time makes the laptop running hotter.

I have just tried uncommenting the performance section in rc.local but it looks as though that configuration is incorrect because the idle power consumption increases too much.

Here are the figures:

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Default UT 95 SDF 1 Idle 41.5 Watts Max Video 57.2 Watts
Mine   UT 80 SDF 10 Idle 41.0 Watts Max Video 56.7 Watts
performance         Idle 52.3 Watts Max Video 75.2 Watts.

That's not right. It indicates that power management is not working at all with the performance governor.

On Pemasu's Upup Precise 3.7.2

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performance         Idle 42 Watts.

That has a fixed frequency of 2800MHz but still can idle. Which is what the performance governor should do.

I have a desktop PC connected to an energy meter, so I can see what is happening. Those figures are wallplug power for the box.

EDIT:

I have just tried the taskbar tool that Pemasu posted and that behaves correctly in performance mode.

Code: Select all

performance         Idle 43.5 Watts Max Video 57.4 Watts.

That's more like it should be.

[mini-jaguar]

Seems o.k. so far. Haven't noticed the filesave getting smaller when copying files to drives, which I was having a problem with in beta2. Also the package manager doesn't go crazy when not connected to the internet, like it did in beta2.

The Inkscape .pet doesn't seem to work, which doesn't make much of a difference to me since I never use Inkscape and prefer Gimp. But I noticed it has a 2.6 version of Gimp, I wish it had a newer version (yes, I know someone already did make a package which I can install). I really don't like 2.6, it won't even resize the windows properly.

[jamesbond]

LateAdopter,

Thanks for the info. I'm dumbfounded by the difference of power consumption between the script in rc.local and the tray applet because they (eventually) boils down to the same thing. Anyway, I'm glad that the applet works.

mini-jaguar,
Glad to see that the usb flash drive works so far. Inkscape requires libgsl, which should be pulled automatically if you use the package manager. Once libgsl is installed, inkscape then works. As for gimp, it will probably stay as is for now, not going through major package update just before final.

cheers!

[LateAdopter]

Hello jamesbond

There is one thing with the applet that needs fixing:

It does not run the performance script at startup. So you end up back with ondemand even though the icon says you are in performance.

When you change governor via the icon the script runs normally.

[smokey01]

A couple of games for Fatdog64.
http://www.smokey01.com/software/Fatdog ... ns-1.4.pet (Compiled by me)
http://www.smokey01.com/software/Fatdog ... 7-fd64.pet (Compiled by CatDude)

Cheers

[gcmartin]

Thanks for the video boot-time parm. Seems to have stopped the lost of video upon return to an idle system. System has been responsive without video lost/lockup for several days. Can access all Ctrl-Alt sessions continuous.

One of the products that was presented by you was a "Netboot Server". This is a script which allows FATDOG to "serve" a boot image to another PC on the LAN who wished to boot.

In that implementation, the server ran, and a script provided by you will setup a PUP ISO for any LAN PC to boot via the server.

Is there a chance that the "server" could be added to the Control Panel's "Manager Servers and Services".

It would be utilized in many various real and virtual uses for PC system tests/operations.

Here to help

[jamesbond]

smokey01,

Welcome back

pemasu,
Forgot to say thanks for your source files. I look at it, it looks simple enough, perhaps it can be replaced with technosaurus' "sit" (simple icon tray") - which is included in Fatdog?

gcmartin,
Glad that the video issues are resolved.

Thanks for raising the issue on netboot server.

"Netboot Server" as known in Fatdog's previous life will not make a comeback, nor will the pet. However, its functionality is now included in Fatdog out of the box, although it *does* need some configuration work.

So what's available? For a start, Fatdog comes with a pre-configured dnsmasq configuration file, for net-booting, called "dnsmasq.conf.netboot". This file contains the gist of the configuration used by the previous "Netboot Server" - dnsmasq run with this configuration file will behave identically with the original "Netboot Server". By default, this file is configured to serve netboot files to VirtualBox guests using "Host-only" network interface.

All that one needs to do is two easy steps:
a) copy all the usual netboot files to /var/lib/tftp.
This includes:
- copying "pxelinux.0" (available from /usr/share/syslinux), and
- creating "pxelinux.cfg" directory underneath it, and
- creating "default" configuration file inside this pxelinux.cfg directory, and
- copying the actual ISO / kernel / initrd / other files you want to boot, as needed, inside the pxelinux.cfg directory too.

b) start the dnsmasq by typing this "dnsmasq -k -C /etc/dnsmasq.conf.netboot" on terminal. Once you're done with dnsmasq you can kill it with Ctrl-C. If you want to automatically start this at boot, add that line to /etc/rc.d/rc.local (without the -k option).

/etc/dnsmasq.conf.netboot is heavily commented and should be easy to modify for use to boot real systems on real network interfaces (instead of VirtualBox guests) --- the file contains markers of where things should be changed if you want to boot real systems.

The reason why /var/lib/tftp and its subdirectories are not included by default in Fatdog is because it is *not* the correct place to put netboot files. It is there as an *example* only. One should specify a location *outside* savefile (e.g. /mnt/home/tftp or something) for the actual storage of netboot files, as they can be very large.

The old "Netboot Server" pet also contains a tool called "mknetboot.sh". The purpose of this quick-and-dirty script was just to embed puppy's base SFS to initrd (making a humongous initrd). This tool is not supported anymore (and thus not included in Fatdog) for the following reasons:
a) Proliferation of SFS files needed to boot puppy (not only pup.sfs, now we have zdrive.sfs, adrive.sfs, etc etc), and different puppies have different configuration of SFSes.
b) Some puppies will not netboot even if you put all those SFS inside the initrd, because --- well they simply don't support netboot, even if you make a humongous initrd out of them.

Time has changed. When I first released mknetboot.sh, most puppies only have one SFS and most of them supports netbooting via humongous inird, so such tool (though very limited) was useful. Today, not so. As such, I consider that providing such tool is not a help, it is in fact a source of unnecessary confusion and disappointment.
My take is this: if one wants to do netboot, make sure to get a netboot capable OS, and then learn how to setup the system properly.

Oh and dnsmasq will not be featured in the control panel as a service too, for the simple reason that it *requires* configuration before it can work - there is no sane default which can be used. (One can't just click "start service" and expect the netboot to work. It won't). In addition, dnsmasq is a very versatile daemon and can be used for many purposes (not only for netboot); in fact, one can run multiple instances of dnsmasq serving different purposes (by having each of them points to a different dnsmasq.conf file). A complete, fully-commented /etc/dnsmasq.conf.example is provided for those who want / need to use dnsmasq's other features. Anyone who needs to use dnsmasq regularly as a service should be able to write a simple service files in /etc/init.d themselves, perhaps by making a copy of existing service files and then modify it to start dnsmasq instead.

cheers!

[Ray MK]

JFYI - FD64-b3 - installed to SDcard (ext2) and running like a champion for 3 days with no obvious issues. Fantastic.

[jamesbond]

Thank you everyone.

Beta period is officially over. We have released 620 final.

Fatdog64-620 Final announcement