BIT METER OS 0.7.6 (stable) & 0.8.0 (experimental)

[OscarTalks]

I have uploaded a .pet of version 0.8.0
http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks
For experimental purposes only, always take the usual precautions.
The pinstall script creates the missing libpcap symlink if it does not exist (as in Slacko 5.7) and also starts the 2 daemons so you don't need to reboot after installation. This means you can do a pfix=ram boot and test it like that at first if you want. The menu entry and desktop icon (if dragged out from /usr/share applications) launch defaultbrowser and point to the localhost URL.

[Mike Walsh]

@OscarTalks:-

Thanks for taking an interest, & helping out with this 'project'. As I said, I only found it....I didn't write it; but it occurred to me what an extraordinarily useful app it is. I know not all Puppy's can use the .deb files as they are; it needs somebody with a wee bit more expertise than I yet possess to turn them into .pets and .sfs's.

I'm from the 'modern' breed of Linux users; only swapped about a year ago, when XP passed its sell-by-date.....so I'm more used to working with GUIs than the terminal. However, I know there's a lot of 'Puppy' users out there, who are working with older hardware than mine, and who are used to doing things in a more time-honoured fashion.

I have NO idea what the state of the phone industry is in the States, nor what their contracts, pricing plans, etc. are like over there. I do know that despite the way that smartphones have taken off here in the UK, there's still steady sales of broadband 'dongles', and many folk still use them with their laptops. These are the people for whom I thought this might be useful; like I said in my original post, the way our ISPs charge for dongle usage is scandalous.

So the more Puppy users we can make this available to, the better. Rob Dawson deserves a lot of credit for this. And in my book, so do you.

Thanks; it's appreciated. And so is your version of Chromium 34. I tried to get peebee's version to run on Precise 5.7.1 late last year, and failed miserably. Found the link to your post, with your version of 34.....and it just simply 'worked'!

Cheers.


Regards,

Mike.

[Geoffrey]

I believe that's the same edit bigpup had to employ

That would be right, I'm always reinventing the wheel

I'm currently using 0.8.0 which needs /etc/init.d/bitmeter restarting after a reboot and a network connection as been established to function.
I've used mavrothal's work around as used here http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 404#675404
placing the script in /root/Startup

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

IFCONFIG="`ifconfig | grep '^[pwe]' | grep -v 'wmaster'`"
while [ "$IFCONFIG" != "" ]; do
   sleep 1
    ping -c 1 8.8.8.8
    if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
      break
   else
      ping -c 1 www.google.com
      if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
         break
      fi
   fi
done

/etc/init.d/bitmeter restart

[mikeb]

Puppy age not a problem...it would probably work on 2. I have simply messed up chown somewhere thats all as I wanted to make a generic package...oh well best laid plans..on lucid by the way...its fine on 4.12.
I don't like us older machines and system users to be left out in the cold...plus i like fast boots

Actually I am floating on the blackwater off osea...just fired up a new sim card for which this monitor would be handy for.
Now if I had remembered to pack the memory stick with all the software on it ann some films to watch would be wonderful

The water is like glass this morning...

As mentioned the older version does separate the info it seems in the edatabase just the web inteface does not.

Well its nice to disconnect from the land now and then... good for the soul.

mike to mike

[Mike Walsh]

Sounds like you're enjoying the pretty Essex coastal views! I haven't been down round Osea Island for years...

I'm being a glutton for punishment today. This is coming from Midori, running in SliTaz 4.0 on a Live USB...*Sheeesh* You'd like this, Mike; it reminds me of extremely early IE (actually, it's more like the original Netscape...)

You think Puppy takes some getting used to? THIS thing is a nightmare to boot; even the guys on the SliTaz forums can't agree on the right way to set it up. What hope have the rest of us got?

It's easy to see why this thing stayed very firmly in the 'niche' category, even among micro-distros...

I wouldn't even attempt to set up BitMeter on here. SliTaz uses its own peculiar package manager, which is incompatible with everything else on the market.....

I think a 'toy' is the best description for it! At least Puppy, once you've got used to its ways, is very usable as a day to day system (that's why I dumped the 'buntus...too 'high maintenance' for my liking)....

I keep trying to get DSL up & running, but I must be doing something wrong; it just doesn't want to know...

Regards,

Mike.

[mikeb]

Those 'light' browsers are not so light anyway if you look at what they use..they just lack functions thats all.

Aww DSL....it was cute and looked nice...puppy was such an ugly biatch by comparison. The pup winning bonus was a working save system so was the first to get long term use. Anything else did not get on with the tiny amount of ram I had.

Yes usable distros are rare things...Nimblex hit my spot... used it ever since but gave it that puppy touch and used Xfce4 too...
Puppy is handy for testing ideas and giving things that trim approach...or at least it does for me...not so keen on its mini ubuntu likeness nowadays... thats big boy bloat that to me does not fit...but i am digressing which is apparently my trademark according to one thread

Ok back to the mooring and the weather went crap so its hot cuppas and indoor activities for us.

mike

[Mike Walsh]

Well, now; that's not so bad.....

Not too keen on Midori. They've got summat on here you WOULD go for, Mike...FF 10. That's the newest version they've got!

I've improved matters somewhat, though. I now have Iron 17.0 installed; no flash player (no RADIO; arrgh!), but since it's based on Chrome/Chromium, at LEAST I've got access to my bookmarks (which is something..!)

I tried importing bookmarks into Midori, but the 'Importing Bookmarks' window just keeps freezing up...

Yes, the weather HAS gone all 'soggy' again...

Happy days!


Mike to Mike.

[bigpup]

Mike Walsh,

Thanks for the topic on this program .

One thing that will help.
As people offer fixes for problems and pets and sfs of the program. You need to update the first post to give info about it.

If there is now a pet or SFS, put a link to them in the first post.

Only you can edit that first post.

Thanks!!

[Mike Walsh]

Hey, Mike.

Been doing a bit of back & forth on the SliTaz forums, and I'm pleased to be able to report that I now finally have SliTaz installed to HDD...yay!

I've been trying to get this sorted out since before Xmas. Oh, it would always install.....but I could never get it to boot. Grub4DOS is quite happy to boot it.....as long as you remember to use the older terminology for this particular kernel (the 2.6.37 kernel). Must use 'Hda', instead of 'Sda' (!) Not something I'd come across before. That, and the fact that I'd missed out a space on the second line of the Grub entry; I'd put 'root(hd0,0)', instead of 'root (hd0,0)'...

I'm beginning to realise just how fussy Linux is, with everything being script-based. Must brush up on my proof reading skills.....

BTW, Iron's a pain in the a***; can't get my extensions up & running at all! I've switched to FF10; everything works there...


Mike 2 Mike.

[mikeb]

Ah Slitaz... i did wrap in the puppy wrappers just for a try out...did work ok...had it running in an image file...ie like a full install so no layering. Worked ok but was a beastie to get network working at the time.

Hda hard drive..yes slax stuck with that...I prefer it... gets confusing when EVERYTHING is sd......

Ok its you that goes offtopic...I am being led astray

mike

[Mike Walsh]

Ok its you that goes offtopic...I am being led astray

mike

Sorry 'bout that, Michael. I'm rather good at going off-topic, aren't I?

Back to the subject. You know a wee bit more about this kind of thing than I do.....and if you don't ask questions, you don't get answers, and you never find anything out!

This 'workaround' of mavrothal's that Geoffrey's using; how do you actually get it into /root/Startup? I've temporarily 'given up' on 0.8.0; it starts up OK, and runs fine the first time round.....but upon restart, it's not clocking up the data usage. I believe you mentioned summat about the logs not being written to? Anyroad, for now I've gone back to 0.7.6; THAT'S never given me a moment's trouble. Always starts up good as gold.

I LIKE 0.8.0.....but it's no good if it doesn't start up and run each time.


Regards,

Mike.

[Geoffrey]

This 'workaround' of mavrothal's that Geoffrey's using; how do you actually get it into /root/Startup?

I found that it needs a established network connection before /etc/init.d/bitmeter is run, that's why the script in /root/Startup

See if this sorts it out for you.

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

IFCONFIG="`ifconfig | grep '^[pwe]' | grep -v 'wmaster'`"
while [ "$IFCONFIG" != "" ]; do
   sleep 1
    ping -c 1 8.8.8.8
    if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
      break
   else
      ping -c 1 www.google.com
      if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
         break
      fi
   fi
done

/etc/init.d/bitmeter restart

[Geoffrey]

I'm having more problems now, I tried in Vanguard and 0.8.0 shows nothing, even with the restart script, yet it worked in Carolina

[Mike Walsh]

Thanks for that, Geoffrey! I'll give it a try as soon as I get a chance.

Re; working in Carolina, but not Vanguard... Like I've said, I'm pretty new to Puppy, and Linux in general, so I can't offer much in the way of insight into this...but I'm guessing that with the huge number of Pups and 'puplets' out there, it would be a small miracle if BitMeter DID work on all of them, especially given the variety of kernels that are in use. You're probably more aware than I am that, unlike some of the major distros (Ubuntu, Debian itself, Fedora, OpenSuse, etc...and indeed any that are based on these), the Puppy kernels don't get automatically updated, unless we make the effort to upgrade them manually.

I've already stated that as far as I'm aware, not all Pups will work with .debs. As I understand it, Slacko is supposed to be based on Slackware (.rpm files?)...yet I've installed .deb files without a murmur in 570; which has surprised me somewhat..!

I suspect this is going to be one of those 'trial & error' things, with (hopefully) different members of the community chipping in with ideas, suggestions, 'workarounds', etc. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, anyway. I enjoy using Puppy so much, that I want to try and make at least some contribution to the community, no matter how small it may be...

BTW: This 'established' network connection that you mentioned. I don't have that particular problem on the 'big' Compaq, as that's permanently on Ethernet. I do, however, have this problem with 'Tahrpup' on the old Dell laptop (I use a USB TP-Link wireless adapter, as the Inspiron 1100 never came with an internal wifi card.....unlike the 5100, which was identical, yet which did). The wireless connection won't auto-connect, and I have to manually start it each time I boot. Using Samba-TNG as I do, this of course means that I have to remember to manually start that as well...

This is why I have these two icons on the Dell's desktop, which I made up myself (see attachment). The 'SMB-A/S' one runs rcrsn51's 'samba-autostart' script, which I dragged from /root/Startup onto the desktop and just added an icon. The second one merely runs YASSM's 'Share Search' (I can't be a***d to keep going into the menu for everything..!)


Regards,

Mike.

[mikeb]

I am not a child of confusion

Well I put it on the shelf fo a little while...but sounds like we are all getting some slightly erratic behaviour...I want to get to the bottom of the cause which may take a little time and head scratching.

Otherwise there should be no reason why this wont work on ANY pup...that is the beauty of it.

Mike

[Mike Walsh]

@Geoffrey:-

Thanks for your xbitmeter tar.gz.

I found that it needs an established network connection before /etc/init.d/bitmeter is run, that's why the script is in /root/Startup

See if this sorts it out for you.
Code:
#!/bin/sh

IFCONFIG="`ifconfig | grep '^[pwe]' | grep -v 'wmaster'`"
while [ "$IFCONFIG" != "" ]; do
sleep 1
ping -c 1 8.8.8.8
if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
break
else
ping -c 1 www.google.com
if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
break
fi
fi
done

/etc/init.d/bitmeter restart

Works a treat. What I did was un-install 0.7.6, delete the bitmeter directory in /root/.config, and re-booted. I then installed OscarTalks' .pet of the 0.8.0 version, as his starts the daemons, obviating a re-start. Started Chromium, and 'tabbed up' BitMeter; all working nicely.

Quit Chromium, and re-started it. As expected, the logs weren't updating... again. So; quit Chromium. Extracted your xbitmeter.tar.gz to /root/Startup. Checked with Geany...all present & correct.

Shut down, and re-booted. Back into Chromium, and re-started BitMeter; all behaving itself; logs now updating. Did a second shut-down, and re-boot (not strictly necessary, but I like to double-check things). Back into Chromium, and.....BitMeter 0.8.0 still working nicely! Excellent.

So; thanks for that. A nice, simple little 'workaround'; the best things usually are. Cheers, Geoffrey!

Appreciated.


Regards,

Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

I am not a child of confusion

Well I put it on the shelf fo a little while...but sounds like we are all getting some slightly erratic behaviour...I want to get to the bottom of the cause which may take a little time and head scratching.

Otherwise there should be no reason why this wont work on ANY pup...that is the beauty of it.

Mike

That's rather what I'm hoping, Michael. The basic concept is pretty simple.....and, as you say, there's no real reason why it shouldn't be able to work on all Pups, given a bit of thought.

It's not a particularly complex app, when all's said and done. A fair bit of 'window dressing', obviously; Rob's done a lovely job on it. But it's a very useful one.

[mikeb]

What I use to detect a live network...

Code: Select all

while [ "$SUBNET" = "" ]; do
	SUBNET=$(ifconfig | grep inet | grep -v 127.0.0.1 | awk '{print $2}' | cut -d ':' -f 2)
	sleep 20
done

could probably be simplified as thats looking for the subnet to check for live NFS shares.... but similar idea.

The non creation of the log was not caused by a lack of network though.

Back on dry land so will have another play unless we have a reproducible package now.
As mentioned its probably just messed up permissions during my tests.

Mike

[Mike Walsh]

Now installed, and working nicely, in Slacko 5.7.0.....using OscarTalks' experimental 0.8.0 .pet, and employing Geoffrey's 'xbitmeter' start-up workaround (modified from mavrothal's original...thanks, mavrothal!)

And thanks to Geoffrey, too, for sharing.

Next up; to see if I can get it to work in ETP's OBPrecise 14.07.26 'ChromeBook' Pup. Precise is known for being a wee bit 'awkward'; watch this space.


Regards,

Mike.

[Geoffrey]

Mike,
I got it working in Vanguard, I stuffed up the libpcap link, here's a command that finds libpcap.so.x.x.x excluding symbolic links to create the libpcap.so.0.8 link for version 0.8.0

Code: Select all

LIBPCAP=`find /usr/lib -type f -name 'libpcap.so.*'`
ln -s "$LIBPCAP" /usr/lib/libpcap.so.0.8

I don't know how to run this if the package is a sfs, a pet is easy enough using a pinstall.sh script.