Ignoring previously saved sessions

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Scoticus
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Ignoring previously saved sessions

#1 Post by Scoticus »

I am seeking your assistance as I am struggling with things.

When I look at my saved sessions when rebooting a disk they are displayed by date and time and the earliest save is the last on the list. This is fine but when I want to ignore saved sessions it is the oldest items which are displayed.

On this current disk I have saved items timed at :

11;29, 10;43; 10:01, 08;25 and 08:08 and if I select pfix=4
then the 08:08 item is the working file. I really only want to work with the 11:29 item being the last save with the most current information.

From what I see it looks like if the save list was reversed then by ignoring 4 sessions I would get things the way I want. Is this possible to achieve?

My reasoning behind this is that I have two specific instances where it would be beneficial that I have one disk allocated to a different item. I wish to go to one meeting with one disk fully loaded up for the day and be able to interchange disks dependant of where I am at the time.

If I could access the last saved item only it would free up available RAM and make matters easier all round. If I keep both work in hand folders on the one disk and am not able to free up ram then things get a bit messy.

One final thing I have noted when booting a DVD that there is a remard "Cannot load zdrv.sfs as no swap" what effect does this have on a multisession. Do I need a swap and if so how do I achieve this?

Thanking you in anticipation

Ian
[b]Puppy 4.0[/b]; AMD Athlon X2 4400 Processor; 2048MB DDR2 Memory; 320GB HD; nVidia 6100 Graphics; 16x Dual Layer DVD burner; Philips 190X5 monitor,Epson Stylus Photo R265 printer. Logitech LX 710 cordless keyb & mouse

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Flash
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#2 Post by Flash »

Scoticus,
As far as I know, you can't pick and choose which sessions to ignore. You can only ignore x number of saved sessions, going back from the last session saved. If you boot ignoring some session(s), then save that session, it will permanently ignore those session(s) at boot. You can ignore sessions once-only by simply shutting down without saving the session. I'm sure that's as clear as mud but I can't think how to explain it better. :(

If you have an extra DVD+RW, try this: After you've booted the DVD with all the saved sessions and got it configured the way you want, swap the DVD+RW with the the DVD you booted from (presumably this was in a DVD burner) then click the "save" icon on the desktop. That should make a new multisession Puppy of the DVD+RW, already configured the way you had it when you hit the "save" icon, but without all the saved sessions of the original. This worked for me, but I only tried it once, a long time ago.

If it works, or if you don't have an extra DVD+RW, then you can use any kind of DVD. :)
[url=http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69321][color=blue]Puppy Help 101 - an interactive tutorial for Lupu 5.25[/color][/url]

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Scoticus
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Ignoring previously saved sessions

#3 Post by Scoticus »

Flash

I follow what you say and will give that a try. What still puzzles me is that asking the system to ignore say four sessions that those four are the latest saved and not the oldest.

What I am looking for is to be able to work with a disk and save the current minutes of the meeting and the next time I go back to the file that is the point that I take up the work from. If I attempt that at the moment, I have to keep all the earlier saved sessions which puts more info on to the ram and consequentally limits the amount of ram in use.

Should the save not be listed in the order in which the sessions were saved and consequently when we instruct the system to ignore the required number of sessions that the oldest are ignored and the last session is offered up as the one currently in use. If this approach was taken then it would be the equivalent of the pup_save file but would be on disk for immediate use.

When earlier messing about with multisession disks I got caught when an initial download updated what was on the pup_save file. I ended up with a 2.14 disk data being overwritten which was not exactly what I wanted. I share my system with another and what I am trying to avoid is having pup_save mix up different settings that I want to have for different activities.

Is there a way where the saving of sessions can be reversed ? If you do not know if this is possible can you direct me to whoever might be in a position to assist.

Thanks for your assistance

Ian
[b]Puppy 4.0[/b]; AMD Athlon X2 4400 Processor; 2048MB DDR2 Memory; 320GB HD; nVidia 6100 Graphics; 16x Dual Layer DVD burner; Philips 190X5 monitor,Epson Stylus Photo R265 printer. Logitech LX 710 cordless keyb & mouse

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Flash
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#4 Post by Flash »

I've given some thought to the question of why multisession Puppy loads the saved sessions starting with the last and working back to the first, but couldn't see the reason. It seems exactly backward. Perhaps it is related to why pfix=<n> ignores starting with the last session instead of the first.

I'm not sure that booting, adding a little bit to a file, then saving it in a session, uses up any more RAM than the file would anyway, even over a lot of saved sessions. Have you simulated saving minutes in a number of sessions, to see if the minutes use more RAM than they should? I think all that happens is the DVD fills up faster, but it should still last for a long time.

Using the command line, you can save sessions outside the sessions Puppy saves when it shuts down. Puppy will ignore these extra sessions when it boots. You can only access them by mounting the DVD. If you always give the session the same name when you save it, all the separate sessions you saved will show up as a single folder when you mount the DVD, with all their files as though they were in a single folder. Yeah, that's probably what you want. I described how I did it in detail in several posts. It's close to bedtime. I'll try to find those posts tomorrow or Wednesday. If you want to look for them yourself, I made them probably a year or more ago, not long after Ted Dog first got multisession Puppy to work on DVD. Try using the forum search with Flash in the Author box and multisession in the subject box.

I don't know who to suggest. Surely Barry, maybe MU or someone else, could answer your question.

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Scoticus
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Ignoring previously saved sessions

#5 Post by Scoticus »

Many thanks Flash.

I will have a look back and see what you posted. What I found messing about was that when I discarded sessions the amount of free ram increased. It was with this in mind that I was looking for a solution as it appeared to me that just adding session upon session decreased the available ram and increased the boot time.

Like you I am under pressure at the moment and so far it looks like I will have to devote some time to this at the weekend.

I think that I will look at the post options and seek a response hopefully from Barry or MU.

Ian

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Flash
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#6 Post by Flash »

Scoticus,

I searched the forum for posts made by me that have the word "session" in them, then found the ones I meant. are the best ones. Start with the first one. I'll be happy to help you try to use the idea, but surely my description is so clear that you won't need any help. :lol:

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Ignoring previously saved sessions

#7 Post by Scoticus »

Many thanks Flash.

I have now had the time to look into your links.

Let me see if I have got things right.

I use my 2.15 multisession disk as usual and add an additional file to be used as a save file then I should be able to keep a sequence of minutes in proper running order.

I set up a folder in ~/my-documents called minutes and save the results in that. Also if I use minutes as my starting point and sub-divide that folder then which ever sub-divided item is saved it will automatically be saved to the correct section when saved to the DVD.

Having established where I save the information, I should then use grafburn or TkDVD to burn a multisession disk and copy the save file over to it.

Could you confirm that I have read the code right and that I have followed things correctly.

growisofs -M /dev/dvd -D -R -l -new-dir-mode 0755 -graft-points minutes/JandD=/my-documents/minutes/JandD (The JandD being a sub folder)

In the sequence "M /dev/dvd -D -R -l" is the last letter a lowercase L or an I? I have been caught before with this problem as some fonts look very much alike.

If I have read things right I would not need to keep each set of minutes apart and would only need to have my boot disk and a save disk. Would I be right in thinking that this would be just like a backup copy and should I require to return to earlier items for reference or quotation purposes that I would be able to work with the items.

This looks if it will suit my needs even better that setting up individual Puppy files for each activity and my own personal needs.

Once again thanks

Ian

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#8 Post by HairyWill »

I don't think anyone has mentioned the /archive directory.

From memory, this is written onto the cd in each multisession save directory BUT IS NOT RELOADED. If you save you minutes into /archive they will never be loaded again but you can go to the relevant dated folder on the CD/DVD and read or copy them if you wish.
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Re: Ignoring previously saved sessions

#9 Post by Flash »

Scoticus wrote:...I use my 2.15 multisession disk as usual and add an additional file to be used as a save file then I should be able to keep a sequence of minutes in proper running order.

I set up a folder in ~/my-documents called minutes and save the results in that. Also if I use minutes as my starting point and sub-divide that folder then which ever sub-divided item is saved it will automatically be saved to the correct section when saved to the DVD.
I think you could do it simpler. Read on for details. The main thing right now is to grab a DVD+RW and start experimenting
Having established where I save the information, I should then use grafburn or TkDVD to burn a multisession disk and copy the save file over to it.
The first session on the DVD has to be burned by a program that can start a multisession disk. I couldn't see how to do that with growisofs. The simplest way I found to do it is to make a Puppy live DVD with burniso2cd. Then boot that and use growisofs from the command line to burn extra sessions to the same DVD. These extra sessions will not interfere with the dated sessions Puppy saves when it shuts down, if you save any of those.
Could you confirm that I have read the code right and that I have followed things correctly.

growisofs -M /dev/dvd -D -R -l -new-dir-mode 0755 -graft-points minutes/JandD=/my-documents/minutes/JandD (The JandD being a sub folder)
You don't need to specify subfolders. If you give growisofs the address of the "minutes" folder, it automatically includes everything in that folder, including subfolders. Always use the same name, "minutes", and everything you save in that folder will be in the "minutes" folder you will find when you mount the disk.
In the sequence "M /dev/dvd -D -R -l" is the last letter a lowercase L or an I? I have been caught before with this problem as some fonts look very much alike.
I don't remember, but you should be able to get around this by copying the text and pasting it into the rxvt window. (Highlighting the text will put it in the scratchpad, but I'm not sure what buttons to click on your mouse to paste it into an rxvt window. ctrl-v might paste if mouse buttons don't.)
If I have read things right I would not need to keep each set of minutes apart and would only need to have my boot disk and a save disk.
I think it will be simpler to do it with one multisession Puppy disk. Boot it, do your typing to whatever file, then use growisofs from rxvt to burn an extra session with that file in a folder that is always the same name.
Would I be right in thinking that this would be just like a backup copy and should I require to return to earlier items for reference or quotation purposes that I would be able to work with the items.
Yes, everything you saved in all the sessions will be visible when you mount the disk and look in the folder. (Assuming you always use the same name for the folder.) Try it. Save different files in this folder, let's call it the "minutes" folder, in several sessions with the growisofs command, and then mount the disk and click on the only "minutes" folder you will find. Inside it, you will find all the files you saved, even though they were saved in separate sessions. It's eerie. :lol:

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