Blue Pup V6 Released 11th Oct 2014 32-bit

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Billtoo
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Blue Pup V1 & V2 (Released 13th March 2014)

#46 Post by Billtoo »

I installed icewm + icewm themes from PPM, exited to the prompt and
did xwin icewm, then rebooted after making a couple of changes to icewm preferences.
Some key assignments have changed but it's working pretty well I think.

Exiting to the prompt and doing xwin jwm puts it back the way it was.
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ETP
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Blue Pup (V2 Released 13th March 2014)

#47 Post by ETP »

@ Tony,
Hi ETP,

i've finally got a bootable system on a usb stick after a few more failures.

I used a 16 Gb stick and after a failure with it, I looked at the formatting in detail with gparted. I found it had a few K bits unformated at the front and use gparted to move the formated section to fill the space on the stick.

After this it worked. I use a netbook and the windows are too big for it, but had no trouble getting on to the internet. Found the metro screen a bit strange especially as it was too big for the computer but at least it's a start.

thanks a lot. Tony
Thanks for filling in another piece of the puzzle. With a netbook you may need to reduce the global font size to 78. Restart X then in the browser, use ctrl in combination with the plus and minus keys to adjust to taste. Further options include slightly reducing the JWM & GTK themes font point sizes but adjusting the global font size will probably suffice.

The Metro interface is best run at 3 or 4 rows as in Billtoo’s last shot. The intention is that you pan left and right by moving your mouse scroll wheel back and forth or use two fingered swipes on the touch pad.

@ rufwoof,
Whilst BluePup looks really impressive, does it actually improve efficiency and interaction (typing a document, sending a email etc.).
Not surprisingly, I believe that it does given the combination of panel and global key combinations. ALT+E to launch email is a good example but I find launching the panel followed by the down arrow key then enter even more convenient. I must say I enjoyed your video and admire what you have done with Slacko

@ gcmartin,
let just tell users that they need a 16GB or larger USB drive and that the process will destroy all existing information that exist on the USB in producing a BLUE/Quirky6+ system.
My current thinking is to add a “known problem
Regards ETP
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rufwoof
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#48 Post by rufwoof »

I've attached a couple of images of vnc running on both a phone and a tablet (both are running Windows).

Its amusing how some who are concerned about security and the potential for the likes of the NSA to have a backdoor entry via the Windows operating system - often fail to appreciate that there are potential backdoors inbuilt into the CPU http://www.realvnc.com/products/viewerplus/#outofband


Out-of-band KVM

Technicians no longer need rely on a functioning operating system and network drivers to take control of a computer. VNC Viewer Plus can connect to a supported computer with Intel® Core™ vPro™ technology out-of-band, so that more complex issues, such as OS failures and boot problems, can be diagnosed remotely.
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8-bit
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#49 Post by 8-bit »

I just tried using the linux method to install BluePup v2 on an 8gig PNY flash drive with 7.6gigs shown as free on the fat32 partition.
There were no unallocated space at the beginning of the partition either.
The install failed to boot.
But I did the install using Slacko 5.5 frugal install with a 1.2gig slackosave file that had a fair amount of space left on it.
After doing the xz --decompress.......
with sync, which I made into a script so I was sure to get it right before taking the plunge, I noticed that the free space in my slacko save file had all but disappeared as well as the processor usage had maxed out according to the taskbar icon.
Being a glutton for punishment, I am going to repartition the flaswh drive and try it again.
I have a backup of my pupsave file, so I can fall back on it if I for some reason need to.
I do not know what tricks the xz command does in that it creates a f2fs partition along with the fat 32 partition.
I do not have the means of checking the contents of the f2fs partition as I do not have the tools installed to do so.
Anyway, I will check back when I get it working.

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#50 Post by jeff-nelson »

I wouldn't install Adobe Flash or Thunderbird. Chrome comes with its own Pepper Flash distribution which is far, far more secure than any Adobe build. Thunderbird/Seamonkey/Firefox are just not at all secure according to a few dozen security studies in the last 5 years.

If you want to make a Chromebook-like build, you should just go full Google.
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ETP
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Blue Pup (V2 Released 13th March 2014)

#51 Post by ETP »

Hi jeff-nelson,

This Pup only attempts to emulate a Chromebook in terms of speed.

With regard to security, I work on the basis that there is no such thing as a secure O/S, keeping nothing on my PC that I would not mind being in the public domain. There is utterly no reason to blindly believe that the systems behind the internet sites of banks, shops or any financial institutions are anything but wide open and as such are susceptible to both internal fraud and external attack. IMHO telephone banking is preferable to on-line banking as if something goes wrong the bank cannot blame your lack of security or make out that your PC must have been breached. If shopping on line the best that can be hoped for is to limit the risk by using a dedicated prepayment card with a limited amount on it rather than a credit or debit card.

Interesting quote from a discussion on actual stick capacity versus advertised capacity.

Memory sticks and hard drives for that matter are sold like broadband. We give you up to 20MB bandwidth actually means that 99.9% of customers are lucky to get close to 8MB. The only people that get the full bandwidth are those that live in a tent no more than 4 inches from the exchange and are fed by a platinum cable immersed in a bath of liquid nitrogen that’s wrapped in the finest yak wool hand stitch by Tibetan monks. Never met one myself but they must exist.
Regards ETP
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8-bit
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#52 Post by 8-bit »

What do I need to install in Slacko 5.5 to be able to view the contents of the f2fs partition? When I try to mount it, I get a message of the file system type as being unsupported as to a needed add-on.

Also, it just does not seem right that one would have to use Windows to install a linux OS.

And why was the jump made to using f2fs? Why not use e3fs or e4fs as most Puppy OSes already have the means to read and check those types of file systems?

Back when I installed Quirky, I did a work around in that I redid the f2fs partition to an ext4 partition and then uncompressed the image file to that partition. And that worked for me at the time.

I mean is an f2fs partition required? Or is it just jumping on a new type of file system? It is also my understanding that the f2fs file system is still in the alpha stage of development.
Last edited by 8-bit on Sat 22 Mar 2014, 23:01, edited 1 time in total.

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8-bit
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#53 Post by 8-bit »

After a second attempt at creating a bootable USB stick with blue, and seeing the drive icons change from sdd1 to sdd1 and sdd2 with the popup info window on sdd2 show it as an f2fs file system, I installed f2fs-tools and did a check of that partition.
The report ended up with a fail and I am attaching it as a text file.

Also, even though the boot flag was set for sdd1, it never showed up in my computers boot selection menu.
I could get that usb stick to show be instead, setting the boot flag to sdd2.
But naturally, without the kernel being loaded, the boot failed.

The report is for your consideration.
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f2fs_report.zip
The zip extension is fake! Read the file as a text file.
Done with fsck.f2fs /dev/sdd2
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slavvo67
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#54 Post by slavvo67 »

Hi 8-Bit:

Unfortunately, I'm certainly not the one who can answer your questions. However, the f2fs file system was initiated by BarryK as he advised this file system is less abrasive to USB drives. You may wish to check out Barry's blog on the matter. I tried to search it but I couldn't locate it again.

Best,

Slavvo67

tony
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#55 Post by tony »

Hi,

I've been using upup3.9.9,2 for my f2fs formating, you need a late kernel to see it.

Blue Pup has a tiny fat 16 partition up front for booting.

When I succeeded getting Blue Pup onto a 16Gb stick I had 8Gb unused at the back.

My solution was to move everything out of the second partition to backup. Delete second partition using Gparted, then putting in a new f2fs partition to fill stick, Then moving the backed up folders and symlinks back in.

Seems to work but couldn't download Firefox. I need "Nosquint" and it doesn't work in Seamonkey.

Regards Tony.

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ETP
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Blue Pup (V2 Released 13th March 2014)

#56 Post by ETP »

@ 8-bit

BarryK was the first to see the potential of f2fs which is designed specifically for solid state memory and quicker than ext3 or ext4. Please see the thread I started back in February 2013:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=687182
01Micko went on to script some of my early efforts then in July 2013 took it even further. (Well worth studying)
http://01micko.com/blog/blog/2013/07/12 ... ash-drive/

At this point in time f2fs is quite mature although some of the tools lag behind. The report you posted is an example, as the error is spurious. In QT Barry used f2fs developing upon the work by 01Micko & JAMESBOND.
I am convinced that f2fs is not to blame here. If it were there would have been no bootable sticks produced with the 8GB image.
One of the reasons for using the 8GB image approach and Windows rather than a revised *usfs.xz file was so that Blue Pup “might
Regards ETP
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#57 Post by 8-bit »

As I earlier stated, when I start my computer and am given the option to press function key 12 for a boot menu, The flash drive/stick does not show up at all in the selection under the drives option. If I fool with the f2fs partition as to setting the boot flag on it, I them get it listed in the boot menu.
But I know that will not work to boot it. So with the fat32 partition boot flag set, (I checked), I get no listing for it in the boot menu.
And this PC will boot from a flash drive as I have did it before.
So at this point, I am assuming that one has to use windows to install linux to the flash drive and to me, this just does not seem right.
It is like saying "Windows is needed for an install of this linux derivative."
And that sucks as some of us do not even have windows on our PCs and have went to a linux only system.

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ETP
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Blue Pup (V2 Released 13th March 2014)

#58 Post by ETP »

@ 8-bit,

Please see this post which explains why I offered both Windows & Linux methods but prefer the Windows method.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 457#765457

If there is an issue with an 8GB or larger target stick it will fail to boot regardless of the method used.

In the face of a failure it is best to attempt to return the target stick to its virgin state and then try your preferred method again.

In Linux use Gparted to do that: (Use a 16GB stick if available)

1. Start by clicking on “device
Regards ETP
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Volhout
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F2FS

#59 Post by Volhout »

Smart guys, Samsung....

There used to be a time where flash memory was reliable (NOR flash).
To achieve a lower cost (less silicon area) NAND flash was used for the larger flash devices.
But NAND was less reliable. Therefore special controllers where developped that could manage the unreliable NAND flash, and make it more reliable.
These controllers are inside the USB stick, so from the outside the USB stick appears to be reliable...until the moment that the controller can't repair the NAND memory anymore.

But NAND keeps getting less and less reliable with the shrinking geometry. So the simple controllers inside the USB stick can't keep up.....

Let's call the OS to the rescue....

Now we have F2FS, so we can have totally unreliable flash memory behave like it is reliable. Layer upon layer of error correction....

That brings me back to my original question:
Why can't we make a 7 Gbyte image ? Just "throw away" one Gbyte, at the benefit of 99% succesfull installs ? Or does the tooling for creating this image only work in multiples of 4 Gbyte ?

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Blue Pup (V2 Released 13th March 2014)

#60 Post by ETP »

Hi Volhout,
That brings me back to my original question:
Why can't we make a 7 Gbyte image ? Just "throw away" one Gbyte, at the benefit of 99% succesfull installs ? Or does the tooling for creating this image only work in multiples of 4 Gbyte ?
The amount of data inside the image is only about 1.6 GB but a practical minimum partition size would be about 6GB the closest thing being an 8GB stick. If you image an 8GB stick the image returns to its original size regardless of the quantity of data within it. Just putting the image on a 16GB stick has worked for some but not all people. That is the equivalent of your 7GB suggestion. The excess 8GB can later be formatted and utilised.
There are other methods of install but none as user friendly as flashing an image onto a stick provided it works. The stick size dictates the image size.
Regards ETP
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gcmartin

#61 Post by gcmartin »

Dont know if this will help any:

When I did use the Windows utility, I got a error message that accessed that the image could not fit on the stick. This also occurred on the 2nd stick. It was because of that message that I switched to the 16GB stick for Blue.

Further, the "dd" approach should be as reliable as it tries to emulate a sector coverage onto the stick versus anything that GParted would do in stick preparation. The stick only needs a partition table of any kind for "dd "to do it make. And as long as there is space (16GB/large sticks in my case), dd will yield an acceptable stick for booting Blue.

Again, this has an external appearance of size and geometry that occurs in your packaging of the compress image followed by the unpackaging process we do when running the xz command or by using the Windows tools. I used a current 7-zip in my failed Windows attempt to put Blue on 8GB sticks.

I view the "safe" short-term circumvention to be to use a 16GB stick. You may want to strongly suggest that in your opening post or remove the 8GB reference, temporarily. until a better approach to creation is determined.

My 2 sticks from different manufacturers, both, reach the same conclusion; namely, failure to boot. While 16GB and larger are not hitting the space issue that the unpackaging tools are exhibiting.

Again, this does not root out the problem, but, may be useful somehow.

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8-bit
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#62 Post by 8-bit »

ETP,
After using the linux method of trying to create Blue on the flash drive, I used Gparted to check the partitions while running from Precise 5.7.1.
It showed around 400 megs of unpartitioned space following the f2fs partition and a short amount of unpartitioned space between the fat partition and the f2fs partition.
When trying to boot from it, no error messages or any messages were seen and the PC then went to boot from the next available device which in my case is a hard drive with Puppy versions and Grub for DOS.
Since there was a fair amount of unpartitioned space on the flash drive after the install, I am assuming it had enough free space for the install. Also, on the fat partition after the install, I saw a syslinux.cfg file and one called ldinlunux. But there was no sign of a syslinux executable.

It sounds to me like we need a fool-proof install method that just works irregardless of if the install is done from windows or linux!

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Blue Pup V1 & V2 (Released 13th March 2014)

#63 Post by ETP »

@ 8-bit ,
It sounds to me like we need a fool-proof install method that just works irregardless of if the install is done from windows or linux!
It sounds to me like we need a fool-proof install method that just works irregardless of if the install is done from windows or linux!
You can say that again! Ahhh…you did. :lol:
I see that this thread has had quite a few views. People must enjoy seeing us suffer!

What you describe means that your BIOS never even sees the stick as bootable and makes no attempt to boot from it.

The file that you observed on the 16 Meg fat partition (ldlinux.sys) is the syslinux boot loader. You can regard that as the syslinux executable. When one takes an image of a stick, it is by definition the complete thing and includes both allocated and unallocated space. There is no option to take anything less so the free space at the end is all part of the image.

May I ask that you try what I described in my previous post, first returning the target stick to its virgin state and then monitoring the creation process in HTOP?
Thanks for sticking with it! :)

@ gcmartin
I view the "safe" short-term circumvention to be to use a 16GB stick. You may want to strongly suggest that in your opening post or remove the 8GB reference, temporarily. until a better approach to creation is determined.


I would do so but for one user reporting failure with two 16GB sticks. Further enquiry revealed that the sticks had seen heavy use and had a history of being formatted with different file systems on multiple partitions. Whilst you may stand a better chance with a 16GB stick, I think that returning a target stick of any size to its virgin state may be more important.
Regards ETP
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8-bit
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#64 Post by 8-bit »

I have already tried having HTop open when I ran the install script I made and I ran it from a terminal opened in the directory containing the Blue image file.
At no time did I see anything strange reported in HTop or the terminal.
The check I did though, if you examine it, kept coming up with a fault in block/area 509. That makes me wonder if that area on the flash drive is messing up the continuity of the install by data being put in an alternative area.
It is just a thought though.
Also, I may try to make an sfs file that only contains the contents of the f2fs partition and see if I can treat it like a Puppy full install that one does using Puppy's install menu. I think someone else is trying it as they had a post asking if they could create an sfs file using xz compression.

gcmartin

#65 Post by gcmartin »

Can someone create this?And can this be a good implementation for messages that would surface during a dd operations where is aborts and can be seen?

If found to be helpful, this would be a good tools for the Puppy utilities menu (Menu>Utilities>"dd copy to partition/disk")

I will test it on my 8GB sticks, if someone produces it to see if its helpful.

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