DebianDog HowTo thread

[rufwoof]

In DD Jessie Openbox, right click the tray clock and select Properties and then you can choose from some preset formats, or use a custom format.

I personally like the %a %d %b %R custom format choice as that displays three character day of week, day of month, three character month and then the time

[rufwoof]

In DD jessie openbox/xfce the themes windows have a very narrow border of just 1 pixel width, which makes resizing a window using just the mouse a bit of a hit and miss affair (you can always use the alt-right mouse combination to resize a window, but that might mean having to pick up the keyboard if in laid-back mouse only mode ).

To widen the borders a little to make resizing that bit easier you need to change the theme. In the attached image I opted to change the Alpha theme for openbox, which is located in /usr/share/themes/Alpha/openbox-3/themerc. Changing the border width value from 1 to 4 is a reasonable choice IMO. After making and saving edits use the Menu, Applications, Settings, Customize look and feel (widget tab) to switch to the Alpha (or whatever) theme, Apply (to save) and I usually also restart X.

[rufwoof]

I've a nvidia card in my PC, but I'm using the inbuilt graphics acceleration rather than compiling and using the proprietary nvidia driver. With the nvidia choice when the PC boots the console fonts stay at a large/readable size. With the in-built nouveau however the console fonts reduce down to quite a small size and remain small i.e. if I exit X to the console (or use ctrl-alt-F1 or ctrl-alt-F2 (ctrl-alt-F3 on mine returns to the desktop)).

After a bit of hunting around I found these instructions to change the console font size :

in a terminal window run

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

and select the UTF-8, then select combined latin, slavic,cyrillic,greek, then Terminus, and then I selected the 16x32 font size choice. Exit X and at the console command prompt run 'setupcon' and the console font size will be larger than before (16x32).

With that done on my PC the first part of bootup (BIOS) has large text size, then switches to small for a bit, and then adjusts to the above setting level, which stays at that size thereafter i.e. if I exit X to the console.

[rufwoof]

When I first installed Libre from Synaptic the menu text and icons were horrible, too small and blocky.

Having since used the menubar's Tools, Options choice, selected the View choice from the available options in the left hand window, and modified both the Scaling (that adjusts the size of the menubar text - I set mine to 145%) and picking the Large Icons choice, Libre now looks so much better (the attached scaled down image doesn't do it any justice as in practice it looks really sharp and polished).

[rufwoof]

A problem with only including free firmware as per Debian is that your hardware support might not be included. There is however a CD image you can download

Debian Link to firmware CD (non-free) http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unoff ... ch/iso-cd/ for the 'current' version.

To note - it was slow to download for me.

[rufwoof]

Installed Skype in DD Jessie 32bit pae openbox by following the instructions in https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA1212 ... -for-linux. Installed to /root and just ran it directly. I have mine set to load on bootup i.e. in /root/Startup I created a script containing

#!/bin/bash
apulse skype &

set that as executable, and in /usr/bin I created a symlink called skype to /root/skype-4.3.0.37/skype where its installed.

Note that you also need to install apulse (apt-get install apulse).

Had some problems with sound levels - which were resolved by : http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 886#884886

[rufwoof]

In my installation of DD Jessie Openbox/XFCE the Thunar Permissions tab doesn't cater for setting a file as being executable (the option is greyed out) .... so :

In Thunar - EDIT, CONFIGURE CUSTOM ACTIONS select the + choice to add a new custom action and on the BASIC tab give it a name such as "Make Executable" (without the quotes), and in the COMMAND section enter

chmod a+x %f

then select the APPEARANCE CONDITIONS tab and check/tick all of the choices. Then click OK to save that.

Thereafter when you select a file in Thunar you can right mouse click and click the Make Executable choice to make the file executable.

[rufwoof]

The onscreen display of kernel, cpu, memory ...etc i.e. conky is activated by default in DebianDog Jessie Openbox/XFCE. That does however eat some CPU time to run/maintain.

In /root/.config/openbox/autostart.sh if just after

Code: Select all

if [ -f /mnt/live/tmp/modules ]; then
conky -c ~/.conkyrc-port &
else
conky -c ~/.conkyrc-live &
fi
wait $!

you add

/opt/bin/conkytoggle.sh &

then conky will be toggled off by default upon startup. But can be toggled back on again by clicking the desktop conky icon.

[rufwoof]

install numlockx (as its not in the default DebianDog Jessie Openbox/XFCE)

apt-get install numlockx

and add a script in /root/Startup, I called mine numlock

#!/bin/bash
numlockx &

not forgetting to make it executable.

[rufwoof]

I like to boot the exact same version (factory fresh, with updates) of DD Jessie (openbox) using Porteus boot - each and every time I boot. So I use grub4dos to boot and have a menu.lst that looks like

color white/blue black/cyan white/black cyan/black
timeout 1
default 0

title Debian-Jessie 32bitpae openbox (sda3) save on EXIT
root (hd0,2)
kernel (hd0,2)/live/vmlinuz1 noauto from=/ changes=EXIT:/live/ init=/bin/systemd
initrd (hd0,2)/live/initrd1.gz
boot

That way I can boot, make changes etc. and either run save2flash at any time or select the save option when I shut down in order to preserve changes, or not run save2flash and select the NO save option at shutdown to not save any changes (my more usual choice).

A recent glibc update however hit problems (see here) where after running

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get clean

the subsequent save resulted in lockup with no saves actually being made (written to disk). The solution was to boot without the changes=EXIT:/live/ boot setting i.e. change that to changes=/live/ so that the changes were instantly preserved to disk.

A 'best practice' user-guide choice when running a Optional Persistence type choice is to boot (with the usual changes=EXIT:/live/ boot parameter optional persistence type choice). Check for any updates (running apt-get upgrade as above), verify/test those changes and if OK then reboot without saving, with that next boot using the changes=/live/ boot parameter choice (i.e. persistence with changes being instantly preserved as and when the changes are made), then re-run the apt-get update/apt-get upgrade/apt-get clean sequence and then reboot again - with that next boot being reverted to using the changes=EXIT:/live/ boot parameter setting again (i.e back to using optional persistence again).

[saintless]

In case you need to use wvdial and it fails to connect uninstall frisbee:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get purge frisbee

And try to connect again with wvdial.

Thanks mpanek60:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 492#894492

Uninstalling Frisbee fixed usb modem communication with the browser, apt-get and so on.

Links to Debian howto wvdial instruction:
https://wiki.debian.org/Wvdial
https://wiki.debian.org/Modem/3G
https://wiki.debian.org/Huawei/E220

.

[backi]

Hi fred !

How i managed to use E17 Enlightenment Desktop on
Debian Dog Jessie .

1. To download and make a E17 squashfile by using Apt2Sfs is quite simple .
(start apt2Sfs choose the filesystem you want to download it to .....type in e17 ......then the process starts .

Put the downloaded e17.squashfs into /live/base folder .
Important !! to make e17 work ...edit /root/.xsession
instead of :

~/startup &
exec jwm

replace it with :
~/startup &
exec enlightenment_start
and save .
Reboot
After reboot rightclick Desktop maybe do startx once or twice .

2.
But you can also download e17 directly via Synaptic .

If everything went fine you will login to e17 setup screen.
Maybe you have to restart once or twice with startx .
In case you want to go back to jwm Desktop ....change /root/.xsession
back to
~/startup &
exec jwm

Wouldn ‚t it be easier i do a remaster with a simple basic setup on E17 Desktop and everybody can download and experiment further ?
Because there where some quirks which i encountered configuring E17 .
I could circumvent it .
So everybody could avoid some annoying frustration during setup of E17 when using a little preconfigured
Desktop setting .
.
Its less work for me to do this remaster than to explain the whole show .

If you are interested ....is there a possibility to upload this basic E17 remastered Debian-Dog ?
I will put this information on the " How To Thread "

Keep me informed .
Cheers !

[rufwoof]

I installed e17 via Synaptic. Changed .xsession and boots great.

One problem however is file associations. Any file seems to have blank open with choices (no programs listed) and nothing seems to have any file associations, all empty. I guess EFM needs to have its mime's populated, completely empty as-is. I've no idea where/how to do that however, and it would be laborious to go through such associations one by one.

[backi]

Hi rufwoof !

Not quite sure what you mean... but i think you want to apply
Application either to Shell on a Ibar or as Favorite Application .....you want to select them ..apply them .....but tey are not there...empty .

I think i encountered same problem ......not quite sure...but as far i can remember ,if my memory serves me well .......

Try this ...go to... >Settings panel >Menu> click -Menu settings>Applications -click Dog(applications).. (instead Of Enlightenment )
click apply .
Restart desktop ....or better do startx once or twice look if items appear .If yes ...O.K if not save your session and rebootand check again.
Give me feedback .
But in case you are interested ....i can upload a small Remastered Iso with basic working configuration ...... i will give the link for download later for public access on my Google Drive. I have to do some testing first .

Cheers!

[rufwoof]

Try this ...go to... >Settings panel >Menu> click -Menu settings>Applications -click Dog(applications).. (instead Of Enlightenment )

I've no Dog (applications) choice, try some of the other available choices instead of Enlightenment, but still no good.

If for instance I create a test.txt desktop file using leafpad, and then click on that to activate it, it just presents a empty choose from list

[rufwoof]

To make certain that its nothing I did, I reverted to OpenBox DebianDog, opened up Synaptic and searched for e17, Marked that for installation and let it determine all of the dependencies, Installed, edited .xsession to start e17 ... restarted and ... still the same, no Open With applications to choose from, no file associations apparent, even for a simple .txt file.

I've tried all of the Menu Settings/Applications choices you mentioned, but no difference no matter which I choose.

[backi]

Hi ruwoof .
I created the same text file as you put it to desktop and did left mouse-click on this Textfile----menu opened ----
clicked open
(instead of open with ) ......a list of Application in alphabethical order appeared .....I scrolled down to Leafpad ..choosed it .......now every time i click that desktop file it opens with Leafpad .

If i make a left_mouseclick on that Textfile Menu appears
and go to ---open with
--- Submenue appears>
XFilewriter Leafpad X fileViewer
Other Application

appears

But it is not quite clear what you want to accomplish:
I encountered in the beginning the same problem with
empty menu list for application also with missing entrys in the main menu . Some how this has gone now ..but i cannot replicate how this was solved .
Maybe it is an issue from Openbox Desktop .
I myself using a JWM-ICEWM DebDog Pae version for me this thing in Setting Panel >Menu>Applications>Dog is present.

Maybe do a reset of your Profile Setting here :
Setting Panel >Settings>Profiles

I did a remastered JWM-ICEWM DebDog Pae version .
I put it to Google Drive .
I will give you link later i am now uploading .
Put it to a stick with Debian Dog installer.

I boot with :
title Debian-PorteusDog - changes to /live/ sysvinit
uuid 0460ed9c-cc19-4a69-8159-66882c4865bd
kernel /live/vmlinuz1 from=/ noauto changes=EXIT:/live/
initrd /live/initrd1.xz

Here is the link to the Iso
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9Nazh ... sp=sharing

[rufwoof]

Ah-ha

Just did another install from openbox of e17 ...etc but this time instead of selecting system default during the first install setup/run, I selected the US default choice ... and its OK, applications list and are associated etc. The default UK keyboard (my locale) was also picked up OK.

[backi]

Glad you solved it.
E17 is quite complex but also fun and lots of discoveries. .... while looking for an answer to your Problem ...as a side-effect i discovered a new option for fine-tuning this fine desktop .
It is fun to do this kind of cyber-swarm intelligence increase and learning synergy .
Debian Dog is "The Killer" .The best of Puppy and Debian.
This dog " breed " ( and his sister Mintpup) are Champion Dogs .

Wish you a good night .

[rufwoof]

How do you change (or stop) the pulsating icon animation when you mouse hover over icons in the tray ibar?