Akita Linux, Beta 16 ISO

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sc0ttman
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akita linux beta6

#481 Post by sc0ttman »

Akita Linux Beta 6

Download URL: akita-linux-beta6.iso

md5: 5f92836e3e5c69fe2bc8086bce22dbb6, 89.75 MB

Devx, for compiling: akita_devx.sfs (sfs3, 90MB)

(Remember, Akita linux is, for now, still using sfs3, k2.6.25.16, just like puppy 4.1, 4.2 and 4.2.1)

Here are all the changes I have not previously posted about:

Code: Select all

	x fix toggle rox desktop; returns 0 if on; 1 if off; 255 if error; required by desksetup.sh and akita_setup
	x update SNS to latest, as it now has profile support :)
	x update to ffconvert 1.2, can now rip DVDs :)
	x fix pmount prefs not working
	x fix pupzip; open archives without problems, make xarchiver default
	x fix akita customised startup setup:
			- move all akita startup to separate script (akita_setup, ran from firstrun)
			- add akita_setup menu entry in Setup
			- now a single GUI, with extra options and tools available
	x fix pupcamera, add /usr/bin/gphotofs, update pupcamera to latest from woof
	x fix universal installer when reading DISTRO_SPECS
	x fix for i18n of /usr/bin/zdrvcutr_gui
	x fix for browser installer when installing and running firefox-7.0.1-akita
	x update browser installer, now installs dillo3
	x fix Frisbee: update to latest
	x fix desksetup; run toggle rox desktop if rox not running, rather than the error mesg
	x fix /usr/sbin/blkid-name-generator: add / to acceptable chars if device doesnt exist (at end of script)
	x fix htop; rollback to 0.9, cos htop-1.0 keeps crashing
	x fixed the main JWM menu - now up to date at 1st boot
	x update '~/Startup/joystick-daemon' startup script:
	 		- now supports many more gameports and joypads, webcams, v4l, dvb
	 		- most modprobe cmds can be removed/commented out as needed
	x ROX-Apps and right click options:
			- fix phash; add to /usr/bin; create ROX App/add to right click menus (hijack gtkhash rox app)
			- fix "add to archive" right click option; only supports tar.gz now though :(
			- fix run actions/right click options of tar.gz, rpm, deb, other archives
			- fix pfind right click options for mount points: OpenWith/.inode_mount-point
			- fix mhwaveedit right click options; remove .flac... Add .ogg and .aif
			- add pemasus unrar right click option thing
	x updated to mtpaint 3.34.74, no jasper
	x added to Akita repo, not yet in PPM:
			4pane-0.8.0-i386.pet, file manager
			gsudoku-akita.pet, game
			MediaInfo_GUI_0.7.52-i386.pet, media file util
			mp3splt-gtk-0.5.7a-i386.pet, mp3 splitter
			multivnc-0.5.1-i386.pet, VNC client
			pidgin-2.7.5-i386.pet, chat client
			sylpheed-3.1.2-p4.pet, email client
			sylpheed_NLS-3.1.2-p4.pet, email client locales
			xawtv-20081014.pet, cam, tv thing
			xawtv-DVB-20081014.pet, cam, tv, DVB, thing
Last edited by sc0ttman on Sat 25 Feb 2012, 16:47, edited 1 time in total.
[b][url=https://bit.ly/2KjtxoD]Pkg[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2U6dzxV]mdsh[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2G49OE8]Woofy[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/bzBU1]Akita[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/SO5ug]VLC-GTK[/url], [url=https://tiny.cc/c2hnfz]Search[/url][/b]

Puppyt
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#482 Post by Puppyt »

Cheers sc0ttman!
I downloaded and burned a copy of Beta6 this afternoon. This time around, I've used a 4GB CF card with an ide adapter and loaded Akita onto it via my main work machine (wifi internet) so that once I have all the particular packages and dependencies resolved I can move the card to the kids (non-internet) machine.
I guess I've been blindsighted by something obvious, but can anyone shed some light on my problem please: I want to do a single FULL install on the CF card. Now in Puppies past, I understand that GRUB wasn't required for a FULL install and would boot the (only) Puplet on board the drive. I've already mentioned that I've never had luck in using the Puppy universal installs' option "Internal IDE/SATA Flash Drive (exs: CF card, SD media)" but I thought I'd try it here after sc0ttman's note above about a fix for DISTRO SPECS (?).
Oh yeah - wiped the drive with gparted first, ext3 format for 2.5GB, linux swap 512MB. I guess MBR was wiped too (?)
Anyway, after installing my software+dependencies, rebooted with a standard safe file of 512MB - and some sort of 'gldr not found' error halts all. So I guess that GRUB4DOS is a necessity for this, however -
GRUB4DOS insists on including the parameter "pmedia=usbflash" which isn't healthy for my intended setup. Is that an known error? I also note that several times (e.g., pmount) AKITA insists on calling the ATA SanDisk SDCFB-40 a "floppy". The incorrect icon problem I had before is resolved however, thank you sc0ttman.
So given I want as little/none of the standard GRUB4DOS options showing for the kids as possible (meddling fingers etc) I imagine changing "time" in menu.lst might be the best option. Alternatively, I was thinking of wiping again and doing a full install with an earlier Pupplet where no form of GRUB is required, and just over-write with the equivalent AKITA files (initrd, vmlinuz etc).
I wouldn't normally carp on about such matters, but I note that starhawk is engaged in a very similar project (CF-adapter) and if I can flag any problems he might be having (or solved!) that would be a bonus,
Cheers.
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sc0ttman
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#483 Post by sc0ttman »

My guess is that a CF card is treated like a USB device in all Puppies...

While Akita does indeed use Grub4Dos as its default boot loader, just like shinobars Quicket Puppies, Akita does still allow users to install Akita without using GRUB - using isolinux, or extlinux, etc...

I have installed this way, frugally, to my USB.. No grub in sight..
I do NOT have any experience creating a full install however!

To skip the GRUB screen completely, you edit menu.lst and change the time bit to zero, as you know...
That will skip the boot screen entirely..

Also, menu.lst can be edited to remove the pmedia=usbflash bit, it can be replaced with pmedia=atahd for a normal hard drive... Also, you can click 'e' on the GRUB boot menu to edit a boot entry on a per-boot basis...

And yeah, wiping the drive, as opposed to a particular partition, would also wipe the MBR..

Again, I can't say about the floppy icon issue, but try uncommenting the lines 162-169 (around there anyway...) .. Or you could disable the floppy drives in your BIOS, if you don't use them...

Hope that helps, without more experience with full installs, I can't say - I always use frugal installs, as I tinker a lot and very often don't save my changes.
[b][url=https://bit.ly/2KjtxoD]Pkg[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2U6dzxV]mdsh[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2G49OE8]Woofy[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/bzBU1]Akita[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/SO5ug]VLC-GTK[/url], [url=https://tiny.cc/c2hnfz]Search[/url][/b]

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greengeek
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#484 Post by greengeek »

Hey puppyt, I couldn't get the "internal cf" installer to run as I expected either. (hope this isn't going too off-topic...).
If you have a spare mo' could you check my post at
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=71879
I think I ended up with something like a full cf install similar to what you were wanting. Just don't quite know how I got there, but you may be able to interpret my post and pick out some speck of useful info. (I had been wanting multiple frugals on the cf, not a single full install).

Also had the same issues about the cf being seen as a usb device.

I love Akita. (I'm still trying to find a way to permanently modify the live cd so it loads as pfix=ram only. I've achieved it with a different distro, but when I try the same trick on Akita I get grub error 15. I will get there in the end tho')
Last edited by greengeek on Mon 16 Jan 2012, 19:04, edited 1 time in total.

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sc0ttman
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#485 Post by sc0ttman »

Hi greengeek,

The Universal Installer does not yet support GRUB, it will always install extlinux or isolinux (depending on where you install to) as the boot loader.. This is fine, because you can then run GRUB installer or Grub4Dos to install grub and replace the MBR with one that uses grub in one fell swoop...

The frugal installer will automatically create a frugal install which uses grub4dos..

And to remaster the ISO with pfix=ram inside menu.lst should be really easy with Woofy... It will tell you before it builds the ISO, and where the contents are the ISO are to be found, so they can be edited before the ISO is actually created..

Or ISO Master (Menu>Multimedia>Burn) could do it as well..

Here is the 2nd boot choice on the Akita Live CDs:

Code: Select all

title Akita Linux in RAM only\nRun totally in RAM, ignore saved sessions (don't load save file)
kernel /vmlinuz pmedia=cd pfix=ram vga=0x315
initrd /initrd.gz
This should work fine.. To make this the default, you can change the top of menu.lst from this:

Code: Select all

#color black/cyan black/yelow white/black yellow/black
splashimage=/splash.xpm
#forground=FFFF00
#background=000088
default 0
timeout 20
to this (notice 'default' boot entry has changed):

Code: Select all

#color black/cyan black/yelow white/black yellow/black
splashimage=/splash.xpm
#forground=FFFF00
#background=000088
default 1
timeout 20
If that doesn't work, you can change the 1st boot entry.. Just add 'pfix=ram' after 'pmedia=cd', leaving the default as 0...

Also, you can change "timeout 20" to "timeout 0" to hide the boot menu completely.


BTW, in case it helps anyone, here is my menu.lst,
a frugal install on an internal ATA hard drive:

Code: Select all

title Akita Linux in RAM
  find --set-root --ignore-floppies /akita/initrd.gz
  kernel /akita/vmlinuz pdev=sda1 pmedia=atahd psubdir=akita pfix=usbsave,ram nousbwait=1 vga=0x315
  initrd /akita/initrd.gz
The key line is:

Code: Select all

  kernel /akita/vmlinuz pdev=sda1 pmedia=atahd psubdir=akita pfix=usbsave,ram nousbwait=1 vga=0x315
But this is what works, in its simplest form:

Code: Select all

  kernel /akita/vmlinuz
BTW, irrelevant, but the vga=0x315 is the resolution for the framebuffer (set to 800x600 by default)

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greengeek
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#486 Post by greengeek »

Thanks! Changing the default line is something I didn't try. I was moving the second option further up the list instead. I will give it a go.

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sc0ttman
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dir2pet, better for Right Click menu

#487 Post by sc0ttman »

On another note...

The problem with dir2pet is that you must always pre-append `rxvt -e` to run it in the console, because the user must answer questions in the console to make a pet file successfully... I have never seen any 'dir2pet' which does not need ask questions, as Don alluded to...

So, here is a dir2pet I hacked up, with a --silent option, which must be given AFTER the pet file...
The script will not ask you anything if you supply the --silent option, example:

Code: Select all

dir2pet "mypet-0.1" --silent
This is good, because people can now use `dir2pet ./mypetstuff --silent` inside other scripts, such as Package Creator, easypackage, etc.. Here's the list of scripts which use dir2pet, I will make the updates as needed for the next beta:

/usr/bin/dir2pet
/usr/bin/dir2pkg
/usr/bin/dirs2pets
/usr/bin/easypackage
/usr/bin/makepet
/usr/bin/new2dir
/usr/bin/txz2pet
/usr/local/bin/createpet
/usr/local/package_creator_fs/pc_menu

(I built that above list with /usr/sbin/script_grepper, in akita, a nice but dangerous script)

Anyway, "Makepet" will give you a right click option to create .pet files.

I attached the new 'makepet' package, with my new dir2pet..
Also attached is the new dir2pet on its own, with the --silent option..
(dir2pet.gz not a real .gz, just rename and remove .gz)

NOTE: This dir2pet still uses the pup4 petspecs format,
and should not be used on a woof built puppy (431 and later).
Attachments
makepet-0.0.2-akita.pet
now works nice... includes dir2pet
(6.58 KiB) Downloaded 490 times
dir2pet.gz
with new --silent option
(10.83 KiB) Downloaded 789 times
[b][url=https://bit.ly/2KjtxoD]Pkg[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2U6dzxV]mdsh[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2G49OE8]Woofy[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/bzBU1]Akita[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/SO5ug]VLC-GTK[/url], [url=https://tiny.cc/c2hnfz]Search[/url][/b]

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technosaurus
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#488 Post by technosaurus »

Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

Puppyt
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#489 Post by Puppyt »

@greengeek
thanks very much for the heads-up on your original post - I've just made a comment there, but for the record I usually use only frugal installs myself and manually edit menu.lst. In this case, I thought that I would try for a Full install as I only have 256MB RAM + 64MB RAM on the Winforce GE2 videocard. Then I thought I'd load up wine and dosbox to provide games the kids are familiar with, but it seems my pup_save has come unstuck between machines (described in earlier post) and "no SDL/OpenGL shall pass". Oh well, looks like I might have to frugal a mini-Akita +FreeDos multiboot...

@sc0ttman
I did manage to do what I thought was a full install + Grub4Dos, but in the menu.lst I had to comment out a strange "UUIDE=...." code as well as a default "dpupish" subdirectory. There was a "ro" code that was added automatically to the kernel line (? from memory), but I couldn't see any syslinux file (reminded to me in greengeek's thread) although extlinux is certainly there.
Alas I couldn't test out your latest joystick-daemon, but I really appreciate your looking into that matter.
There was still a bit of a "ghosting" issue - I had had 3 USB drives connected with my main computer (to install variously-collected puppy files from) and after rebooting in the older machine those drives were still presented (with the default 'cog' image) even though no USB drives were present.
Strangely, in my bigger machine I wasn't able to get the ntfs usb-caddy drive recognised, after installing both (or 3) of the ntfs pets in your repository. Nada on the older machine too...
I'll give more feedback later tonight when I have another chance at that project,
Cheers :)
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sc0ttman
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#490 Post by sc0ttman »

Puppyt, maybe try this, it's a slight remix of the puppy universal installer, with simpler GUI options, and, as far as I can tell, a slightly different method of installing drives...

I have added the fixes that I can remember is essential for Akita, and it definitely identified all my drives fine, yet to test much more than that, though.. And it still won't solve any boot-loader troubles, as far as I know...
Attachments
PUI-2-akita.pet
puppy universal installer 2, beta for akita
(19.37 KiB) Downloaded 487 times
[b][url=https://bit.ly/2KjtxoD]Pkg[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2U6dzxV]mdsh[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2G49OE8]Woofy[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/bzBU1]Akita[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/SO5ug]VLC-GTK[/url], [url=https://tiny.cc/c2hnfz]Search[/url][/b]

Puppyt
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#491 Post by Puppyt »

Cheers sc0ttman!
*egads* re-reading your original post I realise that my test system(s) are probably off the scale of your intended niche, so I thank you very much indeed for all your consideration to my posts. Especially when things have been tight for you.
I couldn't re-test last night as hoped, but I think I will have some energy spare to have another tilt this evening, with your new PUI2. THANKS!
I've been collecting various screenies and log files etc of my explorations with Akita but it's been a bit piecemeal. Didn't want to clutter your thread here but if you're interested, perhaps I could post them on the site I had set up for hondasid's 501 barebones.
Love the "Akita setup" dialogues in your v6 menu structure, by the way! I still can't seem to find a way to review/revise your initial setup dialogues (4-steps) that you have for a system running with pfix=ram. Is it available in the menu?
Cheers!

P.S. For your (and indeed any) Puppy Shutdown menu, would it be feasible [WAAAAY down the track!] to include an "e2fsck on reboot" option? It would save us eternal noobs who can't seem to get the commands working properly from the prompt, when outside of X. Or, is there already such an option (or similar) for automatic recoveries? I remember I think that the grub4dos install wanted to include a "pmedia=usbflash, pfix=fsck" option in menu.lst but it seemed to slow down normal bootups.
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technosaurus
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#492 Post by technosaurus »

any interest in a dropbox uploader? I also have a shell function to add a gui progress meter to wget downloads (could be useful for petget etc... instead of opening a terminal)

Code: Select all

download_progress(){ #pass a file as $1 to download with a GUI progress bar
while ([ $# -gt 0 ]) do
	busybox wget $1 2>&1 | while read LINE; do
		case $LINE in
			*%*)LINE=${LINE##*..};echo ${LINE%%%*};;
		esac
	done |Xdialog --gauge "Download progress ($# files remaining.)
Current file is:
$1" 0 0
	shift
done
}
Note: to get nice icons with Xdialog instead of the X in the titlebar, you can use --wmclass <icon_name-no-suffix>
the icon can be any in jwm's icon path such as /usr/share/{mini-icons,pixmaps}
ex: --wmclass mini-raise
... not to be confused with the --icon parameter which requires a full path and places the icon inside the window with the message text
Attachments
drop.tar.gz
(1.03 KiB) Downloaded 458 times
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

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sc0ttman
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#493 Post by sc0ttman »

Hi techno,

I have just tried out your download progress bar, but unfortunately, it does not work for me - it stays at 0% until the download is finished, then exits... I am gonna have a look, see if I can learn a bit more about what's going on...

EDIT: scrap that, I got it working! The busybox wget does not work, but it works fine with normal wget and busybox ash...
Awesome, I am gonna try adding this to the PPM, Browser-Installer, Advert-Blocker, and anything I can think of!! :)

A dropbox thing that could be integrated into a ROX App would be great..
I've read quite a few requests for an easy dropbox upload right click option..

EDIT2: I really like it.. Just i18n'd it as well, French German Spanish Russian Dutch...
using your method from jwm_menu_create...
Attachments
download_progress.png
(16.91 KiB) Downloaded 1442 times
Last edited by sc0ttman on Wed 18 Jan 2012, 23:24, edited 1 time in total.
[b][url=https://bit.ly/2KjtxoD]Pkg[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2U6dzxV]mdsh[/url], [url=https://bit.ly/2G49OE8]Woofy[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/bzBU1]Akita[/url], [url=http://goo.gl/SO5ug]VLC-GTK[/url], [url=https://tiny.cc/c2hnfz]Search[/url][/b]

starhawk
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#494 Post by starhawk »

Downloading the beta6 ISO so that I can futz around on the thin client, see how well it works...

Two things concern me right off the bat:
(1) planning on a full install... is that likely to cause any problems?
(2) hope there's a WPA-compatible driver in there for my RTL-8188 based wifi card... if not, I won't be able to test the internet-based portions of things.

Also... would the "frugal install with save on root of drive (not a file)" thingy work on Akita, or bomb completely like every other version of Puppy I've seen with that option...?

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technosaurus
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#495 Post by technosaurus »

sc0ttman wrote:EDIT2: I really like it.. Just i18n'd it as well, French German Spanish Russian Dutch...
using your method from jwm_menu_create...
Thanks, I often forget about internationalization while trying to get it to "just work" (I guess that is why the localization teams exist in various projects - apparently I am not the only one)
... the wget and curl progress bars are quite annoying to work with... I may have anoter look at the busybox wget to make it compatible, but wget and curl are a PITA to grok into a gui - the busybox wget was particularly stubborn, so it may be easier to patch the source to check progress every 1 second, and if progress increased, then printf("%s\n",progress);

I haven't gotten to test akita in a while, ( still working on my ultra-minimalist stuff with goingnuts, - yes we are zealots ) but just looking at the changelog, it seems that you are making a lot of excellent progress (some of which I may eventually borrow)
Check out my [url=https://github.com/technosaurus]github repositories[/url]. I may eventually get around to updating my [url=http://bashismal.blogspot.com]blogspot[/url].

Puppyt
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#496 Post by Puppyt »

Quick update:
on the machine with the specs outlined in previous posts (CF-card on ide adapter) I've added "pmedia=ataflash pupmode=13" to the kernel line in menu.lst as well. Dunno if I can fake a full install on this machine given although I used PUI-1 to do a "full", it kinda looks like a frugal to me as it wouldn't boot without grldr present (Grub4dos?).
Was getting some strange errors during shutdown pup_save updates-"[+1] stopped (SIGSTOPPED)" before and after the additional parameters above. Rebooting with immediate shutdown and reboot with the automatic fsck seemed to resolve this problem, though I note I always had loads of room in my pup_save (1GB, never >75% full with addition of multiple pets). Might be just the way I was holding my face during shutdowns...
(RAMtest checks out OK - I've noted that perhaps it is more likely to occur on this machine after installing something like JRE. Still digging...)
Because I have a WinFast GEForce2 MX/PCI/3DNOW videocard with 64mb RAM, I installed your NVIDIA-96.43.07-k2.6.25.16.pet (assuming it was related to gray's pet for cards including GEForce2) and the kids are rapt/rapped/wrapped with your StandaloneFlash11+browserlibs with loads of SWF games bookmarked to their file locations (pre-downloaded: no network for this machine), and are working their way through all the games I could find on your repository (Biniax doesn't have a menu entry, by the way. I link it and tk/tcl games through the menu system in radky's "My Applications" dialogue). For this 256MB RAM system, Beret (not in your repository) and OpenSonic are a bit of a struggle to run, naturally, and JNKPlat, King Arthur's Gold not at all. I do have DOSbox + GUI installed, so will be having fun with that in due course...
Strangely, it won't permit me to do anything other than 16bpp even though I've tried to get it manually and via the driver to use 24bpp. It's an LGTV working happily at 1024x768. I need to do more research there...
GOT THE JOYSTICK WORKING :P Thanks very much for your help in that regard, wound up using tempestuous' suggestion in this thread http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 338#310338 and your calibration pet works like a dream! Now to get some flight simulators in...
I still have a 'ghosting' issue with USB drives removed after shutdown, showing up on the ROX desktop. Just the cog with the drive's label displayed.
Don't know the first thing about dropbox, technosaurus - but I see that your pet could be a real game-changer, thanks!
Cheers :)
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starhawk
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#497 Post by starhawk »

I'm posting this from within Akita, and I must say, there are some things here which impress me greatly. (There are also a few bummers.) I'll try to be real thorough, in the interests of providing as much useful info as possible.

My testing system is a NeoWare CA19 thin client, modified by the addition of extra RAM (512mb instead of 256) and a small hard drive (4gb microdrive in CF->44pinIDE adapter). I also put in an extra pair of USB ports, replacing a parallel port (DB25F for you techies, or LPT1 if you're old fashioned), the sort that time has long since rendered largely unnecessary. According to HardInfo, the system temperature is 38deg Celsius (~100deg F). I believe that this is the CPU temperature, but I'm honestly not sure. It's probably worth noting that the system is operating caseless right now, sitting horizontally on my computer desk.

The system is fanless, and right now, noiseless. It has a 400MHz VIA Eden CPU ("Esther" core) in addition to the specs listed above. The power supply is rather unusual for a standard PC, but I've seen this done on other thin clients as well -- it's actually a 12V output industrial "open frame" (meaning "not inside a metal box") power supply, as opposed to the more common styles of computer power supplies. It does not have a power saving mode, or even an off mode -- the supply is always on, and the system simply decides how much power it is going to pull. I'm told that the average consumption when the system is "off" is about 7W, and the supply maxes out at around 25W.

Note that I'm using a fullsize keyboard for once... I'm far more used to the smaller keyboard of my netbook, so if ya'll see a typo that I missed, that's where it came from :lol:

For now, I'm running Akita from a closed-session CD-R; it's in an "eBay special" slimline/laptop style external CD drive -- got the drive from a friend, and the kit to make it external from eBay. Good stuff since it's been working for a couple months now.

I had previously tried sc0ttman's last endeavor, Puplite 5, on this system. (I recall two versions being released, and offhand I do not recall which version I downloaded and eventually used here -- I have a rather special habit of downloading a Puplet once and then months later burning it to a CD.) Puplite 5 was very fast and responsive, about like my netbook (ASUS 1000HAB, completely stock) running *gaspcoughsputter* WinXP. I was quite impressed at the time with that Puplet. The only two things I didn't like were that it insisted on successfully booting only in "safe mode" (I suspect that there was an issue with ACPI, but I can't prove it)_and that I could not edit the boot string on the CD's menu (I have since been told how to do this).

Akita booted from the "...in RAM only" mode just fine (very nice!) but the boot seemed to be slower, which concerns me (I timed Puplite 5's boot at 4min 9sec, but I did not time Akita's boot yet). This is not a major issue, by any means (I don't care much about boot times) but it does tell an important story -- the longer an OS takes to boot, probably the more patient the user will have to be when using it.

Sadly, this rule was not violated. Akita is indeed slower than Puplite 5 on this system. Right as I type this, I get the following output from "free":

Code: Select all

     total  used    free   shared  buffers
mem  449460 336424  113036    0    41964
-/+ buffers 294460  155000
swap   0       0      0
It's worth noting that swap shows up as zero in all cases because I'm not using any (nor do I have any to use). Puplite 5 was significantly more responsive, in general, than Akita is, even though both loaded entirely into RAM on boot.

I did not test Internet connectivity on Puplite 5, so I'm not sure if I would have had more trouble or less trouble in trying to connect. It seems that my preferred wireless card (a Rosewill brand RNX-150UBE with Realtek 8188/8192 chipset) takes a driver that does not exist for Puppy 4. I really didn't feel like finding out if ndiswrapper works, so I switched to a previously-used-under-Puppy-without-trouble Rosewill RNX-EasyN1, which has a Ralink 3070 chipset (supposed to work with the rt2870 driver). I had to use my netbook to find a working driver (made by a fellow on the forum named "Patriot"); I'm using it now. I would have tried one of my two Netgear WG111v3 adapters, but I've never had either of those work without some serious issue or another cropping up -- usually they are too slow with the builtin Puppy driver to even connect to a network successfully! (When they work, they overheat, so you can't win.)

Another minus. This one is really a matter of personal preference -- I am one of those seemingly few folks that actually believes in "too much variety". I don't need six terminals, I only need one that works. I don't need Geany AND Bluefish -- pick one, please, since they both do basically the same thing. But I *really* don't like having to wade through an extra layer of menus to find what I want. That, for me, is a big misfeature: if you have to have a menu of menus, you've stuffed too much in there by far! The lesson in this case is: you can't please everybody. Please yourself first, and whoever tags along liking that counts as a nice bonus. I can, however, safely say that I like the various control and setup panels; they are useful, since they are designed to organize a lot of things into one place, in an orderly fashion to boot. Lots of menus are a pain in the patoot, but it's easier to click on lots of buttons in lots of panels for some reason. (I don't get that either.)

As an artist (I'm a part time nerd and a part time artist), I will say that I don't like how few wallpapers are included. That said, I can't really hold that against anyone because (a) the stock Puppy wallpapers in most Puplets are boring to me to begin with and (b) I'm probably the only one on the entire forum who thinks that, because I rarely see more than an extra one or two in there. Here, there are three custom wallpapers (and the stock ones have been removed) but none of them really appeal to me. Again, a personal issue.

One other thing that I did not test in Puplite was the sound configuration. I do seem to recall that it asked me about which device to use (unless I'm getting confused) but I didn't have it connected to anything, so Puplite was mute. However, Akita did recognize and find a driver for my sound hardware automatically: I was treated to the customary double bark upon reaching the desktop.

My only other gripe (read: nitpick) so far is the lack of good alternative browsers in the browser-installer. I like QtWeb, Arora, and other lightweight browsers over Firefox and Opera and such. I *really* don't like SeaMonkey, mostly because it looks a lot like my mother's favorite (and rather antedeluvian) email client, Netscape 4.07 (copyright 1999)! I refuse to use Dillo until Flash support finds its way in... if I can't browse YouTube with it, it's not good enough for me. Honestly? I'm not sure if it's fair to dock sc0ttman for that, because I don't know if he made it or how easy it would be to improve/change/whatever. That said, I would have preferred a simple "pick one: dillo, firefox, seamonkey, qtweb" script that had a built-in *.pet fetcher.

Overall: I really like Akita, I seem to be able to use it well; what I don't like is outlined above. My biggest "like" is that it boots normally (for a Puplet) and in a reasonable length of time. My biggest gripe is still the double-layer main menu.

This concludes my review for now. As an aside: sc0ttman, have you looked at / tried Oroborus? There's a *.pet of it on this forum by musher0 that looks like it works quite well (it's not the one on the first page). He (musher0) tells me that it's the least RAM-hogging WM he's used (better than WMX and Fluxbox)... or at least, that's what I understood from what he told me (misunderstandings have been known to happen with me).

If I can be of further help, testing things out and all that good stuff, let me know.

starhawk
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#498 Post by starhawk »

Small update: flash does NOT work on my system. Tried to install a couple different versions, and none of them work. Tried in Firefox... didn't work (crashed instantly). Looks like QtWeb may not be in the mood to load plugins for some reason, so will post about that in the relevant thread elsewhere.

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sc0ttman
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#499 Post by sc0ttman »

Thanks for testing and feedback guys..

Thanks techno, most of the good stuff was done by others on this forum! I'll post the i18n'd download_progress script soon... I made a few changes, so that it could be integrated successfully into browser-installer and petget/pkg_chooser.. It's all working nicely, but no doubt my code additions in download_progess are a bit of a mess!
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Puppyt,

Glad your Flash working... Miniclip.com has a load more Flash games, and it amuses most of the kids where I work... Also shockwave and unity player games, which won't work at all on Linux :( That is VERY sad to me, some great shockwave games out there!!

No idea how PUI2-akita performs, you're the 1st to use it, ever.. Jemimah made it, I just added a few akita patches, probably missed more though! Also about grub vs extlinux etc - I would love to be of help but followed shinobars work in that area like a sheep ;)

Am I right in thinking you got OpenGL working OK? I love nvidia cards on Linux :)

You might also be interested in running some emulated games for your kids - using Snes9x-gtk or ZSNES, to play classic SNES games (Donkey Kong Country, Mario World, F-Zero, etc).. Most of the packages are at http://ppm.scottjarvis.com, in the emulation section...

You can get roms from "romworld" (google it...)...

Glad you got the joystick working... So in short, what do I have to do?? As far as I understand it, there is no simple solution - the hardware driver must load first, only then you know what to add next... Following the info here (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 338#310338) ... could I use joystick-daemon try to detect (grep /etc/modprobe.conf) "alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371" and if present then add "options snd-ens1371 joystick_port=1".. And likewise for the other driver listed...

so, somewhere in /root/Startup or init.d:

Code: Select all

VAR=`cat /etc/modprobe.conf | grep alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371`
[ "$VAR" != "" ] && echo "options snd-ens1371 joystick_port=1" >> /etc/modprobe.conf
...
Or is that dumb?? anyone know?
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starhawk,

Boot times *should* be very similar, but Akita's even quicker to boot than Puplite on my PC.. Not sure why yours would boot slower.. Maybe it does for others, too, not sure... Akita does have more stuff enabled by default than Puplite did - I suggest using the 'Startups' tool to disable hotplugging (pup_event_frontend_d and udev, specifically).. And disable anything else you don't want.. You could try openbox from the PPM as well - some feel it is 'snappier' than JWM...
I had to use my netbook to find a working driver (made by a fellow on the forum named "Patriot"); I'm using it now.
Where is that driver? Can you link to it or uplaod it somewhere, if need be?? I can add it to the zdrv by default - I already tied to add as many as possible - mostly from Patriots "Extra Drivers" thread...

About excessive menu items and subdirs... that's really easy to 'fix', without affecting the system too much.. Simply move all the .desktop files that you DO NOT want listed on your menu to ~/my-applications or anywhere else convenient.. Also edit /usr/sbin/fixmenus - change line 15 to read "SUBMENU=1".. Then when you next refresh your menu, the apps you moved will be gone, and so will submenus... :) Easy!

And don't forget, the JWM setup of Akita includes a 2nd, minimal 'Apps' menu - which by default contains only the essentials, but favourite programs can be added very easily.. Kind of doing it the other way around to above, but using in-built methods ...

About the 'lack' of browsers - I think Akita has more choice, easier to choose than any other Pup... Netsurf and QtWeb are also in PPM, not yet in browser-installer... No other puppy offers Firepup or Firedog, etc, alongside FF, opera, elinks, lynx, midori, etc... Admittedly they are not all the latest - and given that the framebuffer is enabled by default, I should definitely have links-g listed as well - so CLI/terminal users have an image enabled browser....

About Flash not working in QTweb.. Not tried it yet, but be a QtWeb issue, though... Midori is the smallest/lightest available that supports Flash (that I tested and definitely worked OK)... Firedog and Firefox-7.0.1-akita include the best YouTube video downloader available, as standard. Both are in the Browser Installer.

Wallpapers are not my concern at the moment.. I'm using whatever..

And no, never seen Oberus... I will add it to PPM, if I get it working... And I will do the same foe e16 or e17 or elightenment or whatever it is - but I can't find a working one for pup4... Anyone know of one??
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don570
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mtpaint 3.40

#500 Post by don570 »

Did you miss my previous post about mtpaint 3.40?

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 807#593807

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