(OLD) (ARCHIVED) Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[hiveman]

Thanks for the advice on how to clean my mouse. Unfortunately that doesn't apply to my situation. The Dell Inspiron 8200 is a laptop - one of the older laptops that offer both a touchpad and and eraser-style pointer. Just for grins I did pull out a ps/2 external mouse, but that doesn't make any difference. The pointer still disappears every few minutes.

To make sure that this was really a 4.3 issue I rebooted off a CD with 4.2.5 on it. I've been using it for 30 minutes or so with no problems. All three interfaces work - external ps/2 mouse, touchpad and eraser. The pointer has not drifted or disappeared. I guess I'll fall back to 4.2.5 and try to upgrade again with the next release, unless anyone has any suggestions to try.

[aarf]

ps2 connected mouse is no good, u need to try a mouse that is connected via a usb port even if it has a ps2 plug and usb adapter it is ok but it must be connected into the usb port.

[rerwin]

The kernel 2.6.25.16 version of Puppy 4.3 does not detect these modems, because the modem-rules file and firmware tarball are the incorrect versions. I obtained the appropriate versions from puppy 4.1.5. The attached dotpet applies ONLY to the k2.6.25.16 puppy installations. The two files should be added to the bugfix release 4.3.1-k2.6.25.16.
Richard

[Kenny-M]

Aarf,

Is that a problem particular to Dell? This is no BIOS setting?

hiveman,

Back when I used to do IT ending around 2005 I though Dell had a patch for the eraser mouse. Those things were always an issue. Well, If you could find the patch that would only help you using M$iscrosoft.

All I know is those touch pads and eraser mice used to be a big problem with Windows NT & 2000 Pro.

[aarf]

[rjbrewer]

I'm using 430 small, new kernel.

My old Inspiron 4000 has bios options for ps2+mouse pad,
ps2, or serial.

With ps2+mouse pad both the pad and eraserhead pointer
work using a ps2 or usb mouse.

The left click has been messed up since I got it, so I just use
a usb mouse with the bios set to serial.

Apart from the left clicker, it will work with touchpad, pointer,
ps2 mouse and multiple usb mice, at the same time.

[dogone]

Hiveman, perhaps it will reassure you to hear that the touch pad and external USB mouse on my Dell 8200 laptop work perfectly well under 4.3 "small". No disappearing pointer or intermittent behavior.

You might check to determine if your 8200 has the last BIOS release. Mine does. A BIOS reset would be the my next step.

The good news is that everything can work. The 8200 is actually my most Puppy friendly computer!

[Kenny-M]

I must say I have never had a problem with a desktop system using standard P/S-2 Mice and Keyboards.

When using USB Mice and Keyboards for example on my Dell 745 Optiplex Desktop when Puppies first prompt comes up to press F2 nothing happens. The devices don't wakeup until the GUI comes up. That's a problem.

One thing that impressed my about this budget system:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119012&cm_re=foxconn_barebone-_-56-119-012-_-Product

was it had standard P/S-2 connectors and 15 pin VGA port. Looks like a nice experimental machine. No floppy drive. No floppy connector on the Motherboard.

[charlie6]

Hi,
on 4.3 k2.6.30.5 frugal install
with xorg_xorg_full_dri-7.3.1.pet installed
I get the message:
EDITED: extract of comment code repaced by full comments code

[gray]

The new puppy package manager has an anoying problem when installing .pet packages with menu entries. It changes the category to BUILDINGBLOCK for any .desktop category that it does not recognise (like any of the Xfce specific ones such as X-Xfce-Toplevel).

[magerlab]

still have strange svg files behavior
some of them are seen in rox and fbpanel
but some do not display
i want to use svg mime icons and icons in fbpanel

is it a gtk bug?

[FrankA]

4.3 is cool.

conexant hsfi pci modem & wvdial work out of the box. excellent.

[jrb]

Pardon if this has been mentioned before.

The thesaurus (aiksaurus) in Abiword did not show up anywhere I could find.

I took libAbiAikSaurus.so from abiword-plugins-2.6.3.pet and placed it in /usr/lib/abiword-2.6/plugins/. Now the thesaurus is available on the tools menu and when you right click on a word.

[yorkiesnorkie]

Issues:

Full Install of Puppy 4.3 with kernel ".30" does not poweroff computer
Next boot of the computer X does not start and Puppy drops out to the command line you have to type xwin or xorgwizard and then xwin to get X to start.
Attempting to boot the computer from the live cd then results in either a drop out to a flashing prompt ISO Linux..., or the pup sfs file is not found. The live cd will not boot, tried kernels ".30" and ".25"

Quote from another of my posts

[yorkiesnorkie]

Notes

I tried the live CDs with the later kernels but they woudn't boot the computer.
4.1.2s live cd wouldn't boot.
Puppy 3's live cd will boot, no issues.
I confirmed the burns of the CD as good.
All CDs were burned within Puppy 4 Dingo, using Pburn, on our Compaq Presario Desktop.

Deleting the contents of EXT2:

While 3's live CD was running I deleted the contents of ext2 (in order to test whether something in the full install was affecting the live CD) then tried a reboot using several of the 4.3 cds with various alternative kernels. However, it still wouldn't boot. I got stuck at vmlinuz each time.

The version of 4.3 I didn't try was the "small" version. I did download it though for a later try. This ol' geezer needed some shut-eye. My spouse is starting to look at me funny too.

Since the ".30" kernel worked before but I had problems with shutting down and starting I decided to give 4.1.2 another try since I know that one did work a while back. True to form I tried 4.1.2 and bingo, it booted the live cd.

Intermediate Conclusion:

Basically on this particular PC the live CDs after 4.1.2 won't boot the PC. I'm not exactly sure what the conditions that contribute to that are. Could there be something in Linux Swap? I deleted what was in EXT2 but this may or may not have contributed to 4.1.2 booting. Clearly whatever the issue is it doesn't affect Puppy 3 at all. Maybe 96 mb of ram is not enough even with the swap to successfully run 4.3

What has worked on this PC, Proper shut downs and startups:

Puppy 2.15 CE
Puppy 3
Puppy 4 Dingo
Puppy 4.1.2 Retro
Puppy 4.2.1 Retro (slow)

For the time being I'll be using 4.1.2 since its clearly the most stable version of Puppy on this particular PC. I'll probably create a separate partition for 4.3, if i can get one of the live cds to boot so I can test it further. I'm going to try the various live CDs I've made on our ol' Compaq Presario desktop to confirm they work/don't work.

Yorkiesnorkie