Blue Pup V6 Released 11th Oct 2014 32-bit

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ETP
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TESTING V3

#91 Post by ETP »

@ All
General Comment.


I have already made the point in relation to 8GB sticks that all such sticks are not equal and many are not the full shilling. The same applies to 4GB sticks.

The whole point in V3 of reducing the image to 4GB but continuing to target 8GB sticks or greater was to surmount that issue and so achieve the desirable 99% deployment reliability.

Will V3 fit on a 4GB stick? – Yes, if the stick is the full shilling. If it is not, the build will fail.

Is it advisable to put it on 4GB stick? – No. Not if you want some certainty that it will work. It would also invalidate testing which is intended to take place on larger sticks.

Can I try it anyway? – Of course you can but at your own risk of failure and not as part of any testing. It would run the risk of re-introducing one of the problems that V3
is intended to solve.


@ 8-bit,

Your news of success is most welcome. Syslinux.cfg has changed in V3 and now reads as follows:

Code: Select all

# Boot Blue Pup ETP 25th March 2014
default /vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb2 rootwait rw
The assumption is that there is only one hard drive in the PC and at boot time only one USB stick (V3) plugged in and no SD cards. As you have a second hard disc you will, as you have realised, need to change the sdb2 reference to sdc2.

@ Volhout,

You are correct but for the purposes of testing lets keep it simple and just follow the instructions:


NOTES: (For testing V3 - The target is an 8GB or larger stick)
1. Unplug any other cards or sticks before attempting to boot V3.

2. Use a port rather than a USB hub if possible as there is an underlying problem with QT.

3. Linux install commands for V3:


Code:
# xz --decompress --stdout blue_pup_v3_4gb.img.xz > /dev/sdx
# sync
(replace the x at the end with your target device letter)
Last edited by ETP on Thu 03 Apr 2014, 06:39, edited 1 time in total.
Regards ETP
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8-bit
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#92 Post by 8-bit »

I need to ask what changes were made to Blue v3 for it to be recognized as a USB hard drive. I know the image size betwwen Blue v2 and Blue v3 are different. But with the success I had with trying Blue v3, I would like to change Blue v2 with that USB hard drive change and try it again with my 8GB PNY stick. If it is a matter of a few small changes, I am eager to try it!

Also, I know that Blue v3 was basically for boot testing on an 8MB USB stick.
But I have a muted sound icon show up on the task bar and cannot get the mixer to start and the sound card installation software reports my intel sound card as not supported.

Also, I want to compliment you on what I would consider a major upgrade of Puppy. It definitely get away from the Windows 95-98 menu style bringing Puppy into the present!

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Sound

#93 Post by ETP »

Hi 8-bit,

Changing V2 is not possible but before I suggest anything else I need to make certain that I fully understand your sound issue.

1. Are you saying that on the same PC sound worked with V2 but not with V3?

Alsa can be a pain but generally sorts itself out after a few re-boots. If you intervene in any way before allowing that to happen it can mean that you will never get it working and need to start again. Nothing sound related has changed across the three versions.
I am pleased to hear that you like the modern look. Some think that it is the invention of the devil! :lol:
Regards ETP
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gcmartin

#94 Post by gcmartin »

This may/may-not be a good request for understand, from anyone, but, GRUB4DOS is well known to me and syslinux is NOT. (I am hopeful that the community sometime in its future, can arrive at a single boot-manager which is used across the board and embraces removable media (USB/DVD/CD/Blu-ray) and HDD as well as pathways to booting ISOs without having to create removable media, first.

I think most know about GRUB4DOS, so using that as an "example", I can have it "tell" the bootmanager process which device to boot by something it looks for in bios or in symbolic (such as a filename on some attached device) to determine where the ROOT device is.

My Question to anyone
  • Does syslinux do such?
If there is a bootmanager that better meets requirements and provides guarantee in accurate boot device use, maybe a good view for this PUPs future to reduce the support concerns, already expressed.

For example, if each version delivered with a empty root file, say, BluePUP-V3.txt, a boot-manager like GRUB4DOS will "root" that device for booting teh device it find that it reside on, for the following boot statements in its menu.lst to use.

Code: Select all

# This is a sample idea of how GRUB4OS finds a root device for booting
timeout 10

title test-boot-Blue-V3 (Installed on USB stick)
find --set-root --ignore-floppies /boot/BluePUP-V3.txt
     o
     o
     o
Which tell the following statements where the root device is (assuming of course, the BluePUP-V3.txt file exists).

This is simply an idea.

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Re: Sound

#95 Post by 8-bit »

ETP wrote:Hi 8-bit,


1. Are you saying that on the same PC sound worked with V2 but not with V3?

Alsa can be a pain but generally sorts itself out after a few re-boots. If you intervene in any way before allowing that to happen it can mean that you will never get it working and need to start again. Nothing sound related has changed across the three versions.
I am pleased to hear that you like the modern look. Some think that it is the invention of the devil! :lol:
What I am saying is that On my desktop, the sound icon on the taskbar disappeared after showing for a very short time. When I ran the Alsa Wizard, it reported that my intel sound card was not suported even though it seems to work with all other versions of Puppy.
And on my laptop with a different sound card I had a muted speaker icon on the task bar. But I was unable to run the mixer to try to remedy the situation.
I am posting this from Blue ver 3 on my desktop by the way and it booted ok.
I suppose I should mention that the Computers boot menu showed the USB stick with name and a designation of FDD.
This is the first time I noticed that.

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RE: Sound or the lack of it!

#96 Post by ETP »

Hi 8-bit,

My best advice is as follows:

1. Do a fresh install to an 8GB USB stick and then boot from it.

2. Do not worry if there is no sound icon to start with.

3. Do not run alsamixer or any sound related wizard.

4. Reboot at least 3 or 4 times. The sound icon may then appear.

If it does, only adjust the volume, nothing else. Test using the music icon that I have placed on the Metro desktop.
Regards ETP
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Tickr – included RSS feed reader:

#97 Post by ETP »

Brief overview.

Looking back over this thread I realised that I had said nothing about Tickr the RSS feed reader that has been included in all versions of Blue Pup including this testing Version 3.
It is something I have used for years and quite frankly is a joy to use. I could not pre-configure it as it will adjust to your particular desktop resolution when first launched.

You will also need to change the preferences to suit. (Access by right clicking it on the taskbar)
The first thing to change is the browser which OOTB is set to Firefox. Change that to “defaultbrowser
Last edited by ETP on Sat 29 Mar 2014, 08:56, edited 1 time in total.
Regards ETP
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#98 Post by 8-bit »

I will try again to install Blue v3 to an 8gig flash drive and boot it a number of ties to see if somehow the sound recovers. On my Toshiba laptop, this is the first time that my rtl8192se wireless card has been supported out of the box.
I am assuming this means the kernel now has support for that card built in.
I also may go very retro and try it on the oldest Compaq laptop I have.
That laptop has 156megs of ram, intel processor, and a 4gig hard drive.
I really expect it not to work. But that does not stop me from trying.

Have you thought about cross-compiling it to be able to run on some of the late touch screen PCs with Atom processor and others.

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TESTING V3

#99 Post by ETP »

Hi 8-bit,
Go for it!
Have you thought about cross-compiling it to be able to run on some of the late touch screen PCs with Atom processor and others.
As it so happens I was testing it last night on a net-book with an Intel Atom N570 Dual Core (1.66 GHz, 1MB L2 cache). It worked fine. :)
EDIT 29th March - That had a touch pad rather than a touch screen.
Last edited by ETP on Sat 29 Mar 2014, 08:13, edited 1 time in total.
Regards ETP
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Blue Pup V1 & V2 (Released 13th March 2014)

#100 Post by Billtoo »

I moved my V2 sandisk cruzer install to my Acer Revo nettop pc.

video-info-glx 1.5.3 Fri 28 Mar 2014 on Quirky Tahr 6.0.5 Linux 3.12.6 i686
0.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation ION VGA (rev b1)
oem: NVIDIA
product: MCP79 Board - hornet-0 Chip Rev
X Server: Xorg Driver: nouveau
X.Org version: 1.15.0
dimensions: 1440x900 pixels (380x238 millimeters)
depth of root window: 24 planes
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.4
OpenGL vendor string: nouveau
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on NVAC
OpenGL core profile version string: 3.1 (Core Profile) Mesa 10.0.1
Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 330 @ 1.60GHz
Core 0: @1599 1: @1599 2: @1599 3: @1599 MHz

Network controller: Ralink corp. RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe

No problems.
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slavvo67
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#101 Post by slavvo67 »

Have you considered modifying Barry's Quirky installer for Bluepup?

gcmartin

Re: TESTING V3

#102 Post by gcmartin »

ETP wrote:... As it so happens I was testing it last night on a net-book with an Intel Atom N570 Dual Core (1.66 GHz, 1MB L2 cache). It worked fine. :)
To my knowledge, netbooks are NOT touch screen laptops or ultrabooks. The keyboard pad is NOT the same as having touching of the physical screen actions to occur. Just a note, in case, there is confusion. I have not had any touch-screen success with this/any 32bit PUP distro, thus far, even though there is a rise in availability of such in PCs over the past several years.

On another note, I was just at my computer store yesterday. Salesman informs me that touch screen PC are priced the same, recently on new models as not-touch screen. I think he means "within $20", as I saw yesterday, at Tiger Direct site.

Should anyone be considering a new PC, even if you think you will hate it, the resale demand would make $20 difference a worthwhile investment.

FYI

gcmartin

USB Camera use in Blue

#103 Post by gcmartin »

I have a USB camera with mic. Can anyone steer me to documentation on setup in Blue or equivalent distro?

Thanks in advance, if you can recommend directions, steps, or tests.

gcmartin

#104 Post by gcmartin »

Although I would NOT consider this a problem, but I can see how some members might get confused.

At initial start of Blue, I needed to do several things to arrive at what I consider a good functional Blue system to mimic what I'm accustomed to.
  1. Firstly, I had to run Menu>Setup>FirstRUN to get some of the initial system settings to be what is expected.
  2. Next, I noticed on the taskbar next to the clock, there were several subsystems which had "red Xs" on them which needed attention; namely sound and network icons.
For the network icon, I right-clicked to "Setup Networking" (I believe the FirstRUN utility will resolve this if run first). For sound I merely left-clicked the speaker icon and turned up the volume.

This would seem obvious to most common PUP users, but, sometimes it may not necessarily be so obvious to some. @ETP, if you think it beneficial, you may consider popping the Metro browser after allowing a user to run FirstRUN. And, you may want to set desktop sound volume at 50% or higher on the default sound card, as well.

Hope this helps as it may reduce any user confusion and reduce any number of questions for support on the thread.
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TESTING V3

#105 Post by ETP »

@ slavvo67,
Have you considered modifying Barry's Quirky installer for Bluepup?
Yes, I commented on producing a revised *usfs.xz file in a previous post so that Barry’s install scripts (Methods A & B) could be used. I preferred the image approach as this Pup is intended to be easy to install both for Linux and migrating Windows users who may have no knowledge of Linux.
For Linux users I do not regard the need to already be running an f2fs aware Pup before running those scripts to be particularly convenient. Barry obviously recognised that and so offered the 8GB USB stick image. (Method D).
Should Barry actually issue an ISO for QT a remaster of that may be possible.

@ gcmartin,
Just a note, in case, there is confusion
Thanks. I have edited that post to clarify that it was not a touch screen.
1. Firstly, I had to run Menu>Setup>FirstRUN to get some of the initial system settings to be what is expected.
2. Next, I noticed on the taskbar next to the clock, there were several subsystems which had "red Xs" on them which needed attention; namely sound and network icons.
Please see the setup procedure detailed in the original post which covers FirstRun.
I accept that these need expanding to cover:

a) Sound being muted by default. (I think Barry introduced that following complaints of possible cardiac arrest caused by a barking dog @ 100%.) :lol:

b) The possible need to right click the Network icon and specify connection type and details.
Regards ETP
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Blue Pup V1 & V2 (Released 13th March 2014)

#106 Post by Billtoo »

@ETP
Touch doesn't work very well in Blue Pup, tapping the puppylinux icon
worked.
I booted the Ubuntu 14.04 beta 2 DVD on the same touchscreen laptop and touch
works much better there (if you like a screen full of finger prints)

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Blue Pup

#107 Post by ETP »

Hi Billtoo,

I am amazed that it works at all!
Blue Pup was never intended for touch screens and has brought nothing new to the party in that respect.
Given its Metro interface option however, I can easily see why people might expect or desire it to have done so.

The fact that the Puppy Linux tile worked is interesting as its size is set to medium.
I do not possess a touch screen device of any kind but you may wish to experiment.
The quantity of tiles together with their placement and sizes are all adjustable.

As an aside, this is the best touch solution that I have seen – ignoring the cost of the projector! This pupil’s enthusiasm is great to see and inspirational.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDQInCxyTU
Regards ETP
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Re: RE: Sound or the lack of it!

#108 Post by 8-bit »

ETP wrote:Hi 8-bit,

My best advice is as follows:

1. Do a fresh install to an 8GB USB stick and then boot from it.

2. Do not worry if there is no sound icon to start with.

3. Do not run alsamixer or any sound related wizard.

4. Reboot at least 3 or 4 times. The sound icon may then appear.

If it does, only adjust the volume, nothing else. Test using the music icon that I have placed on the Metro desktop.
I booted Blue v3 installed on an 8gb flash stick a number of times without success as to the sound working.
I could not get any mixer to come up either.
So I bit the bullet and installed retrovol.pet.
With it, I got a usable mixer.
The main volume was shown as set to zero in the mixer and after increasing it with the slider, a task bar volume icon appeared and worked as well as having sound.
As to why the original mixer did not work is beyond me.
But now it works.
It was stated earlier that one could switch to the JWM desktop by exiting to prompt, and restarting x with "xwin jwm".
But it was not expained how to revert to the default desktop manager.

What applications were removed from version 2 in the process of cutting down the size of the xz image to under 4gb?
I just want to know what I would need to add back in.
Also, will increasing the f2fs partition size effect booting ability.

gcmartin

#109 Post by gcmartin »

USB boot is not a normal boot for this PC. On my HDD, I have this for bootmanager instructions:

Code: Select all

# menu.lst produced by grub4dosconfig-v1.8.0
color white/blue black/cyan white/black cyan/black
#splashimage=/splash.xpm
timeout 5
default 1

# Frugal installed Puppy

title Puppy squeeze 5.X.3.6.2.1 (sda4/LinuxBoots)
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /LinuxBoots/PlaceDirs_Here-2
  kernel /LinuxBoots/Squeeze/vmlinuz   psubdir=LinuxBoots/Squeeze 
  initrd /LinuxBoots/Squeeze/initrd.gz
What is recommended to be added to this boot manager to option USB boot? (Never installed a full-install of PUPPY before this USB approach.)

Thanks for any assistance or guidance to boot from both peripherals via the boot manager.

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#110 Post by 8-bit »

gmartin,
You did bring up a good point there.
I would also like to know if it is possible to boot from a USB drive by using an entry in the Grub menu.
I do not know just how one would even specify the line to boot the kernel, since the USB stick is not yet mounted.
One cannot use mnt/sdd2/vmlinux in that case and I tried to use /dev/sdd2/vmlinux with a fail both times.
I understand one could use Plop to boot from a USB stick on a PC that normally does not have BIOS options to boot from USB.
I also read that Plop can be run from a CD crated with an ISO file of Plop.
No mention was given though of being able to make a boot Plop floppy disk for an older PC that had a floppy drive that in turn would boot the USB stick.
There is also a floppy based boot loader called SuperGrub that supposed ly allows one to boot from installed linux OSes as well as Windows.
But I have not tried it to see if it would recognize that the USB stick even existed.
With the test version of Blue v3 set up as a fake hard drive, it shows in my PC's boot menu (not the grub menu.lst) under Hard Drive which expands when clicked on to show the USB stick as a bootable drive.
On both my PCs, pressing the F12 function key brings up that boot selection menu.

Also, I wondered how the /tmp directory is handled as far as emptying it on a full install. So I created a text file and saved it to /tmp to see if it survived a reboot.
It did not. So I do not have to worry about the /tmp directory size increasing on a reboot or startup with a full install.

Would I use Blue as a trusted OS for regular use?
Not as of yet since it is a work in progress.
I think the main thing I like is that it gets away from the windows style menu which has stayed pretty much the same over the life of Puppy linux and it's derivatives.

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