slacko-6.0 beta 2

[nubc]

For some reason, all the browser icons are now calling FF 39.0, so I had better not upgrade default FF ESR 24.6.0. No problema.

When remastering the live CD, how long does it take to copy files from CD to temporary work space? I waited 15 minutes and gave up. But when I tried to close out, the remaster program wanted to proceed as if the file copying was complete.

[Semme]

You set the icon from where?

[mikeslr]

Hi nubc,

It's been over a year, maybe two, since I used Remaster. And I'm at that stage of life where events of my childhood are clear, the details concerning the problems I'm working on at the moment are clear, but things between the two are "somewhere in that ball park" requiring me to refresh my recollection and concentrate.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons I frequently mention the shinobar (PupSessionConfig pet) and Jpeps (Remove Automatic Save Instructions) combination. Sitting behind two firewalls (my Router's and Puppy's) and controlling what gets into the only Read-Write SFS which is read into RAM on bootup, I'm reasonably comfortable that at least on bootup there's nothing then on my system which will result in sensitive data being obtained by hackers.

Exploring new Pups as they are published, they and their SaveFiles, tend to get supplanted by new Pups and their SaveFiles. And with reasonable confidence in the integrity of my SaveFiles, copying Pups and SaveFiles from one computer to another is just easier than remastering. So it's been a while.

This is the "ballpark" I remember or at least think I do.

The time remastering takes is at least in part dependent on how fast your CPU operates. Another factor is how much RAM your computer has, as every change must first take place in RAM before it can be written to "Storage".

If I recall correctly, Remastering is one of those procedures which must be performed in a Linux Formatted environment. [Not sure; all my computers have at least one Linux formatted partition where I do actual work]. In your case, that means within your SaveFile.

The Slacko 6 ISO was 168 Mb, but you're installing a firefox which is larger than the original. So let's figure your custom.ISO will be about 200 Mb; maybe slightly smaller but its safer to have more space than less space needed.

And, again if I recall correctly, the "work-space" has to be 3 times the size of the target ISO. So you'll need a SaveFile of at least 600 mb.

I could be wrong. But maybe your remaster didn't finish because you didn't provide sufficient work-space.

Considering both the SaveFile/Work-space and the resulting "200 Mb" ISO are only going to be on the computer temporarily --until you've burned the CD/DVD and perhaps tested it*-- if your computer has the space for a 750 Mb SaveFile (plus the resulting 200 mb ISO), I'd use one that size.

*When Remastering finishes, it doesn't delete the Build Files. Theoretically, after testing your custom ISO you can modify those files and create a different ISO. But I've always deleted the Build Files and started "from scratch".

One other thing about remastering, and the reason I've tended to avoid doing it: Read the instructions carefully as they are displayed. This short thread may help, especially gehlm's second post. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... ce8c8a4c2e

Since your custom ISO will include everything on your system at the time of remastering, you'll probably want to delete browser-caches, temporary files, and especially sensitive data before starting Remaster.

That's my ball-park recollection. So read the instructions carefully. I certainly would.

Hope this helps,

mikesLr

[nubc]

location of browser icons:
/opt/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default

drag and drop 'default48.png' in 'Set icon' dialog

Firefox is persistently warning me to update Adobe Flash plug-in, directing me to
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/pluginche ... eck-update
The above link downloads a tarball from Adobe website. Should I extract this software? Or wait for a .pet?

EDIT: I extracted the software, obtained a newer libflashplayer.so which I substituted for same in usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. Seems to have stopped the warnings about an old flash player plugin.

[mikeslr]

Hi nubc,

Right. I should have thought of that. Beats having to wait for someone to publish a pet.

For future reference though: Rename the old libflashplayer.so to something like "oldlibflashplayer.so" rather than deleting. Just in case: It's a "the Devil you know" kind of thing.

mikesLr

[Billtoo]

New install to a 32gb SDHC card, pc is an hp desktop.

video-info-glx 1.5.1 Fri 24 Jul 2015 on Slacko Puppy 5.9.3 Linux 3.4.94 i686
0.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Redwood PRO [Radeon HD 5500 Series]
oem: ATI ATOMBIOS
product: REDWOOD 01.00

X Server: Xorg Driver: fglrx
X.Org version: 1.14.3
dimensions: 3840x1080 pixels (1015x285 millimeters)
depth of root window: 24 planes

direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: ATI
server glx version string: 1.4
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 5570
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.3.13397 Core Profile Context 15.20.1046

AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1045T Processor
Core 0: @2699 1: @2699 2: @2699 3: @2699 4: @2699 5: @2699 MHz

No problems so far.

Using FbBox-2.0

[8Geee]

Firefox is persistently warning me to update Adobe Flash plug-in, directing me to
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/pluginche ... eck-update
The above link downloads a tarball from Adobe website. Should I extract this software? Or wait for a .pet?

EDIT: I extracted the software, obtained a newer libflashplayer.so which I substituted for same in usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. Seems to have stopped the warnings about an old flash player plugin.

If you really need Flash, I suppose thats it. HTML5 is making inroads to many things. Personally, I tossed it, Java, and the shares, because browsing and paying an occasional bill do not need them. And I find these tossed items riddled with security flaws with an incessant need for repair. /MHO

[01micko]

Get Palemoon browser for slacko-593

It runs as 'New Moon' as it is customised so it is a licence requirement to disable official branding.

[watchdog]

I'm testing slacko 5.9.3. I have a problem with setting the clock and localtime. I found that set_hwclock_type is missing in the menu. I set it to localtime and hardware to match software. When I launch Psync it always set the clock to UTC so I have to remove autostart. I managed to set the clock to localtime by:

Code: Select all

zic -l localtime

and running quicksetup again choosing the right time zone. I find psync and clock set buggish in comparison to the other puppies. I don't know if this problem depends on the glibc updates I applied from slackware patches.

[Pelo]

Voice recording is not active however alsamixer capture bar activated. What's about ?
To run SSR in Slacko ..look at the topic here.

[8Geee]

Well, at least theres YouTube HTML5 apps for FireFox. And FF really should be at least FF27 due to https schemes being TLS, not SSL3. FWIW mplayer default isn't good, but its not poor.

***EDIT*** I see 6.0.2-beta came with FF24-ESR... too old.

A while back I made a patched FF27. The posting is here. There is another fix needed, linked in the 2nd post. This FF27 is 'modular', intending to be extracted in root, and remaining there. MHO is to find ~/.mozilla, and usr/firefox as already installed and move them to a backup location, then install FF27, and drag ~/.mozilla/firefox to literal desktop. Iconify as desired.

[Billtoo]

Manual frugal installation to a 16gb usb-3.0 flash drive, pc is an
Acer Laptop.

Computer
Processor 4x Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU M 430 @ 2.27GHz
Memory 3100MB (276MB used)
Machine Type Physical machine
Operating System Slacko Puppy - 5.9.3
User Name root (root)
Date/Time Wed 09 Sep 2015 11:08:37 AM EDT
Display
Resolution 1600x900 pixels
OpenGL Renderer AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series
X11 Vendor The X.Org Foundation

OpenGL
Vendor Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Renderer AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series
Version 4.5.13397 Compatibility Profile Context 15.20.1046
Direct Rendering Yes

It's working well so far.

[wdt]

Yesterday downloaded beta2, 5.9.3
Tried it on my wife's laptop, MSI x370
This has 4? different wifi cards, this is a rtl8188ce,, not N
All the wifi setup wizards resulted in a crash, kernel panic
Manually doing modprobe insertion of 3 modules
(rlt8192c_common, rtlwifi, rtl8192ce,)
and a lsmod |grep rtl
showed all 3 and mac80211 and cfg 80211
Perhaps there should have also loaded rtl_pci???
but it did not show up in the lsmod
There was no crash until ifconfig wlan0 up
Required a power button press of 4+ seconds
dave

[Billtoo]

Testing Slacko-6.0.5.0 manual frugal install on a 32gb flash drive,
computer is an 11 year old Compac Presario Desktop.
Graphics card is upgraded to an ATI 1600 agp.

video-info-glx 1.5.3 Tue 13 Oct 2015 on Slacko Puppy 6.0.5.0 Linux 3.12.21 i686
oem: ATI ATOMBIOS
vendor: (C) 1988-2005, ATI Technologies Inc.
product: RV530 01.00

X Server: Xorg Driver: radeon
X.Org version: 1.14.3
dimensions: 1920x1080 pixels (507x285 millimeters)
depth of root window: 24 planes

direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.4
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org R300 Project
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on ATI RV530
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 9.1.7

Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
Core 0: @2800 1: @2800 MHz

It's working great!

[unicorn316386]

Slacko Puppy 6.0.5.0 Linux 3.12.21 i686

Would it be possible to upload an iso of your 32-bit version files (initrd.gz, puppy_slacko_6.0.5.0.sfs, vmlinuz) for others to test? Not sure if I am brave enough to figure out how to make my own Woof-CE build but would enjoy a new 32-bit beta to play with.

A newer ThinSlacko might be neat as well. The last one I think was ThinSlacko 5.5? Maybe I'll read how hard this is to build later.

[Billtoo]

Slacko Puppy 6.0.5.0 Linux 3.12.21 i686

Would it be possible to upload an iso of your 32-bit version files (initrd.gz, puppy_slacko_6.0.5.0.sfs, vmlinuz) for others to test? Not sure if I am brave enough to figure out how to make my own Woof-CE build but would enjoy a new 32-bit beta to play with.

A newer ThinSlacko might be neat as well. The last one I think was ThinSlacko 5.5? Maybe I'll read how hard this is to build later.

No, but there is a newer version now, I don't know if 01micko plans to post that for testing but he's the man to ask.

HTH

[Rodney Byne]

My screenshot attached.

[mikeslr]

Would it be possible to upload an iso of your 32-bit version files (initrd.gz, puppy_slacko_6.0.5.0.sfs, vmlinuz) for others to test? Not sure if I am brave enough to figure out how to make my own Woof-CE build but would enjoy a new 32-bit beta to play with.

Regarding your Slacko-6.0 beta2, you might try this method for upgrading its kernel, http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 713#865791, using one of 01micko's "Hugh" kernels from here: http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/huge_kernels/.

Assuming a frugal install. I'd explore such possibility by booting out of 6.0, or booting pfix=ram, duplicating its entire folder but under a different name and adding a listing of the Pup in the new folder to Grub4dos or Grub. Then you can explore upgrading your that Pup. And if everything else gets screwed up, you'll still have the functional version of Slacko you started with.

I don't think that Thinkslacko is recent enough to be upgraded in that fashion. However, once you've upgraded 6.0 using that method, you'll have both a initrd and a vmlinuz you can use to explore the possibility of upgrading the kernel in Thinslacko using the method described here: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 037#453164 Hint, start at the end of the thread and read posts backwards. IMHO, the practice of separating the "core" from "applications", not prevalent when jrb started the thread, makes it much easier to switch kernels.

mikesLr

[rufwoof]

Hi Unicorn. I'd suggest waiting for a kernel 3.19. I compiled a LZ4 compression for ThinSlacko however Linux squashfs doesn't support decompression of that until k 3.19.

LZ4 decompresses very quickly so puppy sfs's compressed using LZ4 will benefit from that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ4_%28co ... gorithm%29

[Rodney Byne]

Hi to all.

A cautionary tale.

It has become evident over time that any Linux distro using
persistence or a save file, is probably prone to flashdrive failure by
frequent writes concentrated to the same segment of drive space.

Serious OS corruptions were first noticed on an "Integral"
8Gb stick having Linux Puppy Slacko 5.9.3 installed.

The stick seemed the most likely culprit over the OS performance,
as random failed opening of any apps was worryingly erratic.

It was suspected that the stick sector blocks suffered from
writes fatigue, when normal frequent saves to RAM occurred.

Fortunately in kernel toolkits, there is a test write & read facility
called badblocks which stress tests all blocks on the stick.

To use this, first format the stick then insert into USB as dev/sdc.
(in my case)
It is important to unmount the stick prior to tests.

Open a Terminal, copy & paste this command line:
sudo badblocks -w -s -o usbstick.log /dev/sdc
and enter.

Automatic tests commence by slowly writing certain hex characters
until 100% stick space is reached.
Then reading and comparing those up to 100% will reveal any errors.

The first sweep revealed 152 errors, aggregating upwards at each following sweep.
So initial suspicions were vindicated and the faulty stick was binned as unusable.

Be alert to all this.

Regards.