Light-Debian-Core-Live-CD-Wheezy + Porteus-Wheezy

[Queen Mamba]

@saintless:

"I find the 2012 version of Softmaker Office (now called Freeoffice) excellent. It can read docx, although it does not allow you to SAVE docx - you have to save in doc format. Still very useful though - I particularly love the pdf export function"


I just want to let you know, that SoftMaker Office 2012 is a different office suite than SoftMaker FreeOffice. FreeOffice is kind of a lite version, and it's free of charge. It can only read doc, xls, ppt, that's right.

SoftMaker Office 2012 lets you also save in Microsofts XML formats, it brings much more templattes and functionalities, includes BasicMaker, thesaurus, a better spell checker, a better ui including tabs and a navigation bar, free technical support etc. It's not free in contrast to FreeOffice, but available for a fair price.

Tip: if you use FreeOffice already, you are entitled to buy SoftMaker Office as an upgrade version even cheaper (only $/€ 29,95 for three licenses).

[sunburnt]

Some help with a few problems...

1) I think I need to black list my current video driver module to get resolution of 1280x1024, etc.?
Or maybe set the driver, Puppy uses this: VIA Unichrome.Pro ( via.ko ).
I`m not sure what DebianDog is currently using.

2) Can`t get Firefox to recieve the [Ctrl]+[LeftArrow] & [RightArrow] keys, JWM gets them.
.

[saintless]

Hi, Terry.

1) I think I need to black list my current video driver module to get resolution of 1280x1024, etc.?
Or maybe set the driver, Puppy uses this: VIA Unichrome.Pro ( via.ko ).
I`m not sure what DebianDog is currently using.

You are the only one for now with such problem, Look here for solution if you have DVI connector in use:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... page2.html

Type this to see what video drivers are included in DebianDog:

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dpkg --list | grep xserver-xorg

Queen Mamba, thank you for the information about SMO and FreeOfficce light version. I will keep it in mind.

Toni

[saintless]

Hi, all.

01-v7.squashfs uploaded for testing (use save-link-as to download). The next one will be DebianDog-Beta1.iso I think.
http://www.smokey01.com/saintless/Light ... 7.squashfs

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md5sum 08d944eb1a3eb32d03b6cec9bb8cd95c  01-v7.squashfs

Boot to XDM login prompt:
Login as root and password marina or puppy with password puppy
To switch off XDM login and return autologin as root (and make the Welcome message from Fred visible again) type in terminal xdm-stop (or xdm-start to return the login prompt).

Two methods of generating start menu. Both have only one root category (no submenus):
1. Default for now Debian menu - it reads menu /usr/share/menu files
2. Mk-jwm.menu from Terry - it reads /usr/share/applications/*.desktop files

Switching the menu method from terminal:

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menu-puppy

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menu-debian

Removed: only H3V (Netsurf crashes often so it is not added).
Added: Dillo 3.03, Transmission 2.31, FtpMount (CurlFtpFs), Gftp, PureFtpd, Firehol (firewall - disabled by default). NTP.
JWM updated to the latest v.2.2.2.
redeb script from Fred included as right click option to extract and repack deb packages in Rox (In xfe works only extract deb package with single click).
Console-tools replaced with Kbd.
Many small configuration changes.

We need to structure better mk-jwm.menu method and to add some more GUI applications to configure the system better for the beta iso.

Terry, use showmounts in kernel boot line to have /live-rw mounted on /live-rw-backing

Toni

[greengeek]

I just want to let you know, that SoftMaker Office 2012 is a different office suite than SoftMaker FreeOffice. FreeOffice is kind of a lite version, and it's free of charge. It can only read doc, xls, ppt, that's right.

Freeoffice feature list is available here

Reading docx is definitely one of the Freeoffice features. Very handy!

[saintless]

2) Can`t get Firefox to recieve the [Ctrl]+[LeftArrow] & [RightArrow] keys, JWM gets them.
.

Terry, I read here some add-ons can prevent this working in Firefox:
http://superuser.com/questions/222170/c ... on-firefox
There is also information the combination might be:
Ctrl+Shift+L/R and Shift+L/R if you need it for selecting text.

Toni

[sunburnt]

Toni; My mistake, I ment [Alt]+[L.Arrow / R.Arrow].
The problem is the Hot Keys for Firefox`s Forward and Backward navigation buttons.
Instead of Firefox getting them, JWM moves the desktop view one desktop to the left or right.
If Firefox didn`t have the focus I could understand this behavior. I`ll test some more...
I saw the same web pages, that one is for Weeners of course. I have no add-ons at all.

I got the new Squash file, I noticed the Debian menu is really sad, icon problems, etc.
And of course there`s no real way to control what the menu looks like and what`s on it.

# I need to setup menu-root.lst file, I think uncomment the Desktop category.

### Can you think of any more categories to add to it Toni, or Fred, or William, or...?

### Now Toni needs to tell me what to change about the menu that mk-jwm.menu makes.

I thought of a way to order sub menu items, but don`t see it as important, alphabetic is good.


# Toni; Are the Puppy default links in /usr/local/bin needed for the Puppy menu.?


# Here`s some links for Rox`s OpenWith ( What other apps need to be added.? ).

# Add these new default links to /usr/local/bin that are in Zip file below.
# And then delete these old short named links.
default_archiver
default_editor
default_screen-cap

[sunburnt]

Toni; I think I`ll have to change the way mk-jwm.menu parses Categories.
I see what a mess desktop files really are, I think I know what I have to do.

# If there`s a Debian menu with other apps that need desktop files, post it.

Looking at the desktop files... Did you make the jwm and icewm files.?
They and other files are wrong, Terminal= should be boolean ( true / false ) .
This line tells the system to run the exec. in a VT.
I don`t think that you want the WM`s to be run in Xterm, right.?
I`ve seen other odd desktop files also, so I fixed and posted them below.
I also made ram-high.desktop & ram-low.desktop files for mk-jwm.menu
# You should click each desktop file to make sure the app runs properly.

[sunburnt]

# More fixed desktop files...

# Do we want Lock, Restart, Exit, Reboot, Shutdown in a sub menu.?

# How about a menu item for a Screen Shot in 10 seconds with a popup timer.?
This would allow shots of menus and other gui popups too.
Could add a few menu items to do "window" and "boxed" screen shots also.

Toni; Do we want apps to show in more than 1 sub menu.?
It could make items in all the Categories that it finds a match for.
This is fairly common I think, but I had not considered it.

Also, I`m thinking menu items should show both Name & GenericName.
But you were renaming "Name" to get shorter names. So maybe an option.?
#1 Option like this: Xfe
#2 Option like this: Xfe File Manager
This is how I setup another menu builder that I made.
It would only effect the width of the sub menus of course.

[saintless]

Hi, Terry.
I will answer proper to your questions later. Going out for few hours.

Quick answer: Yes I suspect some desktop files have to be changed. I will add your edited files. I had to make much of them manual because they did not exist in /usr/share/menu also.

Only one menu (no submenus) is my opinion. This was the main reason to start changing the menu before we had JWM installed.

Maybe only shutdown, restart, etc should look better in submenu.

10 seconds snapshot is good to have.

The big problem I see is not how to deal with the existing menu items, but how new installed programs will appear in the menu. Needs much testing installing new apps to see.

Longer names or shorter names - no problem to add longer names, but Synaptic Package Manager seems too long for menu entry in my opinion. I know manual edit of the existing .desktop files will not fix long names for new installed programs. Debian menu has option to not show long titles and cut them down in the menu. I will check out what file does that later.

Toni

[mcewanw]

01-v7.squashfs uploaded for testing (use save-link-as to download).

Thanks Toni. I've finished the other thing I was working on, so first time I've had time to check xdm and so on. Downloaded and checking this now.

First impressions:

Boots by default in JWM, which is good I feel.

xdm working nicely! I like it. EDIT: A small 'but' is that I think a default root password of 'root' is more likely to be tried by most users. I know you give 'marina' in boot messages, but most won't notice that I think

The wallpaper changes on pressing the pager buttons once I have activated that in wallpapers gui. However, the background image is still set to 'Scale'. I believe it should be Stretch by default. In any case, I tried selecting Stretch in Wallpapers gui and pressed Apply button, but it remained at Scale.

I observe that the default menu is presumably using Terry's routine and Debian menu itself is empty.

I like the menu being sorted alphabetically!

I presume the categories come from the relevant priority provided by the categories list in each desktop file. Or are these categories being pre-decided from the lists given by freedesktop organisation? If so, there would need to at least be an 'Other' category to catch any whose desktop file category entries that don't fit the pre-decided category list.

If menu categories are being hand-crafted, it becomes a matter of opinion how many first level categories are acceptable before it all becomes too long/bloated looking. Once the menu program is all working as designed, we need to think about the overall look in case we want to fine tune it somehow.

EDIT: Xhippo not starting up from JWM menu.

EDIT: I'm actually not convinced that the chosen category names in the menu are the best. As much as possible I would think it is better to use those suggested in freedesktop standards main categories list. I certainly think we need the following, and with these freedesktop names:

Graphics
Network
Office
Settings
System
Utility

We have Graphics, but no Network, or Office. And instead of Settings or System, we have Administration and Monitoring. Settings and System are better and more familiar IMO. Since Graphics means "Graphics Packages" and System means "System Packages" we should use Utility, meaning Utility Packages (not Utilities). "Monitor" is suggested only as a possible subcategory of 'System' or 'Network' in freedesktop standards.

I also agree with freedesktop suggestion of using Network to mean "Network application such as a browser". We don't then need the category "Web Browsing" especially since the default web browser is also being given a separate entry of its own at the top along with xterm (certainly, freedesktop org suggests possible sub-category "WebBrowser" but I don't see that is needed.

More specifically, I feel that category names should stick to freedesktop specified ones since people will become accustomed to these surely.

In general, my own feeling is, why re-invent a different category hierarchy to that suggested by freedesktop standards. They suggest the likes of System with subcategory FileManager or alternatively, FileTools with subcategory FileManager. If we are making our own tool to create a menu, why deviate from these standards? At the least, simply use File Tools instead of File Management. "Audio" is far more sensible than "Sound" especially when one of the other categories is "Video". Better, as freedesktop suggests, to have AudioVideo, Audio, and Video, since some apps will fit one or the other of these. Best, I feel, to use freedesktop category names exactly, because at least they form a standard - no-one is likely to agree on best category names otherwise and not compatible with other distributions who follow freedesktop standards.

The problem with Debian menu system is that it is auto-generated, but we don't have the problems associated with that if creating a menu from desktop files surely? So my major criticism would have to still be the menu which is non-standard, and why?

As for the number of levels in the menu hierarchy, I agree that one submenu is generally sufficient, but there may be a few occasions when one extra subsubmenu would be appropriate if the submenu itself is likely to be too long.

My comments re: menu arise from my reading:

http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-s ... t/apa.html

which I hope is the appropriate link...

The list of Main Categories consist of those categories that every conforming desktop environment MUST support

If desktop files are being constructed with non-standard category names, that is a problem of course, but we shouldn't, I feel, compound that issue by also using non-standard names or non-standard menu hierarchy constructions.

I don't know how Terry's menu generator program is structured, but I imagine he would have no problem changing the category names to the standard ones and hopefully be able to adjust the hierarchy to accommodate an extra subcategory should that prove appropriate sometimes.

[mcewanw]

Toni, I'd like to try the Porteus-wheezy method of persistence using a changes directory rather than live-rw. I know you reminded me how to do that recently, but unfortunately I didn't store the information away anyway and I haven't managed to find the post after searching - the thread is too long to search manually. Could you kindly point me to the post which explains it again and I'll give that a spin?

[joewing]

sunburnt:

JWM grabs the keys that are bound to switching the desktop, so I assume you have something like this in the JWM configuration:

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<Key mask="C" key="Left">ldesktop</Key>
<Key mask="C" key="Right">rdesktop</Key>

Unfortunately, JWM doesn't know what keys an application cares about, so it doesn't know to pass them on to Firefox rather than changing the desktop. Either changing the key binding or removing it should fix things.

- Joe

[saintless]

Hi, William.
You are not testing Terry's menu method. See the attached picture. From your comments I understand you are using the default Debian menu.

Two methods of generating start menu. Both have only one root category (no submenus):
1. Default for now Debian menu - it reads menu /usr/share/menu files
2. Mk-jwm.menu from Terry - it reads /usr/share/applications/*.desktop files

Switching the menu method from terminal:

Code: Select all

menu-puppy

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menu-debian

Type in terminal menu-puppy to test the Terry's menu.
This is the menu we like to use as default and this is what we need to fix.

What you see and comment as menu on boot is standard debian menu generated from update-menus command and from /usr/share/menu files. It does not use .desktop files.
You were the one asking for only one root menu category and now you have it for Debian standard menu method. You can not make the category to have different names there. They are auto-generated from update-menus command.
The empty Debian category is the top category. I can't find a way to remove it but it is needed and it is the same as Others category. All programs without proper chosen section will go in Debian category.

Toni

[saintless]

Toni, I'd like to try the Porteus-wheezy method of persistence using a changes directory rather than live-rw.

Download DebianDog-PorteusDog-test.iso and choose porteus boot if you boot from CD. For frugal install copy /live folder on top of a partition:
http://www.smokey01.com/saintless/Light ... g-test.iso
Code example to save changes in folder:

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title DebianDog-Porteus
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/live/vmlinuz1 noauto from=/live/ changes=/debian/
initrd (hd0,0)/live/initrd1.xz

If you like to use it with the latest 01-v7.squashfs place it in /live, delete the two symlinks from /live/debian/base and create symlink /live/debian/base/01-v7.xzm pointing to /live/01-v7.squashfs

Edit: Boot code edited after Fred's fix.
Toni

[anikin]

Hi saintless and everyone,

Testing the latest build, looks good. Very good.
IMHO, it will look even better if JWM is compiled without icons.
No clutter - pure, natural beauty of text, that makes a crisp clean menu.
Did a quick compile of the latest JWM snapshot to accentuate the idea.

edit
Forgot to ask, why is JWM placed in two directories - usr/bin and usr/local/bin?

[saintless]

Forgot to ask, why is JWM placed in two directories - usr/bin and usr/local/bin?

Thanks, /usr/bin/jwm left from installing compiled newer version on top of debian apt-get installed jwm older version. I will remove it and check for other duplicate jwm files.

You can remove the menu icons without compiling JWM. Just move # in few lines in /etc/menu-methods/jwm from this:

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function jwm_icon_attr()=ifnempty(icon(), " icon="" xml_escape(icon()) """)

supported
#    x11=     nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Program label="" xml_escape(title()) "" confirm="false">" xml_escape($command) "</Program>\n"
#    text=    nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Program label="" xml_escape(title()) "" confirm="false">" xml_escape(term()) "</Program>\n"
    x11=     nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Program label="" xml_escape(title()) """ jwm_icon_attr() " confirm="false">" xml_escape($command) "</Program>\n"
    text=    nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Program label="" xml_escape(title()) """ jwm_icon_attr() " confirm="false">" xml_escape(term()) "</Program>\n"
endsupported

#startmenu=nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Menu label="" q(title()) "">\n"
startmenu=nstring(level(), "  ") "  <Menu label="" q(title()) "" icon="dirs.png" "">\n"

To this:

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#function jwm_icon_attr()=ifnempty(icon(), " icon="" xml_escape(icon()) """)

supported
    x11=     nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Program label="" xml_escape(title()) "" confirm="false">" xml_escape($command) "</Program>\n"
    text=    nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Program label="" xml_escape(title()) "" confirm="false">" xml_escape(term()) "</Program>\n"
#    x11=     nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Program label="" xml_escape(title()) """ jwm_icon_attr() " confirm="false">" xml_escape($command) "</Program>\n"
#    text=    nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Program label="" xml_escape(title()) """ jwm_icon_attr() " confirm="false">" xml_escape(term()) "</Program>\n"
endsupported

startmenu=nstring(level(), "  ") "    <Menu label="" q(title()) "">\n"
#startmenu=nstring(level(), "  ") "  <Menu label="" q(title()) "" icon="dirs.png" "">\n"

And remove the icons line for www-browser, terminal and shutdown buttons in /root/.jwm/jwm.head and jwm.tail
Run update-menus and you will not get icons anymore in the menu.

Toni

[saintless]

Hi, Terry.

# Add these new default links to /usr/local/bin that are in Zip file below.
# And then delete these old short named links.
default_archiver
default_editor
default_screen-cap

Deleting default_archiver, default_editor, default_screen-cap breaks all connected file assiciations that we have now. What is the reason to change the names? It will bring more troubles to find all related files and do the associations again for Rox and XFE. It can become real mess fixing all again. Why we don't use simlinks for your new items pointing to the existing default_archiver, default_editor, default_screen-cap ? BTW H3V is out. Web-browser will point to Dillo.

I will change the default web-browser and terminal icons in jwm-head to point the links in /usr/local/bin I guess this is the way to use icons default links?

### Can you think of any more categories to add to it Toni, or Fred, or William, or...? ### Now Toni needs to tell me what to change about the menu that mk-jwm.menu makes.

I will test installing different applications to see how it goes in the next days.

# Do we want Lock, Restart, Exit, Reboot, Shutdown in a sub menu.?

Yes, I think submenu for these will be good. It will be separate category with 5 items for reboot and logout just like in IceWM menu.

How about a menu item for a Screen Shot in 10 seconds with a popup timer.? This would allow shots of menus and other gui popups too. Could add a few menu items to do "window" and "boxed" screen shots also.

Thinking more about this the existing Screenshot from Sergey does all you suggest. It can select area, window or all desktop + timer screen shot.

Also, I`m thinking menu items should show both Name & GenericName. But you were renaming "Name" to get shorter names. So maybe an option.? #1 Option like this: Xfe #2 Option like this: Xfe File Manager This is how I setup another menu builder that I made. It would only effect the width of the sub menus of course.

I hope William, Fred and others will say something about this. I agree to have longer names since they do not take half of the screen.

The default apps in /usr/local/bin are needed only for www-browser and now for the terminal and web-browser icon. Do you have suggestion to use them in jwm-head, main, tail files, Terry?

William, I will fix debian menu entry for Xhippo and the password for root will be root instead marina in the next version.

Toni

[fredx181]

Hi Toni

01-v7.squashfs uploaded for testing (use save-link-as to download). The next one will be DebianDog-Beta1.iso I think.
http://www.smokey01.com/saintless/Light ... 7.squashfs

I like JWM as default and the background for desktop_drive_icons is ok, transparant now.

Of course it's a matter of personal taste but two things I would like different:
- As default autologin -- choice to use xdm.
- As default Terry's menu -- choice to use debian-menu.
btw, Terry's menu has a lot missing (what was in your "custom top" categories) like low-ram-settings, remasterdog and many more.
I like Terry's menu much more because of the category icons and more simplicity for the categories.

About long names: I don't see anything wrong with names like "Synaptic package manager" or "xfe file manager", it just makes more clear what sort of app it is.

One real minor point (for me at least):
The time is not right in JWM tray, also the 'date' command shows wrong time (1 hour earlier)
My system clock (looking in bios settings) shows the right time.
Did you change something?
This is the first time I'm having this problem on debian.

Thanks for all your work.
DebianDog beta probably coming soon!

EDIT:
When installing iceweasel I expected it to run when clicking WWW Browser, is this is on purpose?

Fred

[saintless]

Hi, Fred.

I have to make more desktop files for Terry's menu. It is added for testing and fixing the category list.

One real minor point (for me at least):
The time is not right in JWM tray, also the 'date' command shows wrong time (1 hour earlier)
My system clock (looking in bios settings) shows the right time.
Did you change something?
This is the first time I'm having this problem on debian.

Yes, now we have NTP installed to synchronize date and time. Use Administartion -> TimeZone to setup your time zone and it will correct the time.

When installing iceweasel I expected it to run when clicking WWW Browser, is this is on purpose?

We use in jwm.head default_web-browser from /usr/local/bin to point the default browser. We change the default browser from Utilities -> Set Default Apps.
How should default browser work? Installing new one auto-makes it default browser? I'm not sure how we should handle this so any suggestions are welcome.

Toni