Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[pemasu]

Ahh. I have been so accustomed to .xz compression support...long time now...that I had forgot that not all Puppies have it. Good to know. Thanks 01micko.

[nooby]

[8-bit]

[MinHundHettePerro]

Hiya !

Trying to build a slacko-5.3.1 (yes, 32-bit - haven't got a 64-machine, so there wouldn't be any use in going 64-bit here) clone to evaluate this builder.

Basically, I'm (re-)using a modified DISTRO_PKGS_SPECS-slackware-13.37 from slacko-5.3.1, which seem to have a few legacy "exe>dev"s, resulting in 1download not downloading these packages.

Are these (legacy of woof) redirects like "exe>dev" to be avoided in roar-ng - and, perhaps, replaced by "exe,dev".

Sorry, if this was mentioned somewhere and I missed it .......

Cheers / MHHP

EDIT:
2createpackages still hangs at python, whether first or second entry of

[MinHundHettePerro]

Rats, it booted, but couldn't log in!!!!!

[Iguleder]

The main reason why it fails hard is the fact it wasn't designed to build Puppy, you're doing something slightly wrong here

I'm currently working on new splitting and stripping scripts, with emphasis on better performance and the ability to work with files that contain spaces in their paths, which is something that shouldn't appear on a good UNIX-like system.

The overhead of strippkg is very minimal, since it's the optimization itself that takes ages. However, I still want to see where I can improve it.

[gcmartin]

[dmabar]

Greetings everyone.

I am a casual Puppy Linux user who has never built a puplet or distro from scratch using any tools whatsoever apart from some basic remasters for my personal needs, so it is with great delight that I was able to do so without any great hassles on first attempt, as I had been intrigued by the process and this particular tool (funny I chose this over Woof). It was quite easy honestly.

That said, I am posting this from the default distro the builder made, the Subito GNU/Linux 0.0.6, from about a few hours ago and so far everything is breezing along just well... although this 'cwm' window manager is quite confusing for a newbie like me. Nevertheless, I got it working (thanks to 01micko for the 'pns-tool' utility).

Although I am fully aware that this is only a concept distro, like pemasu said, the browser is quite a letdown. So, I downloaded Firefox 10.0 and Adobe Flash Player (don't really use it but since I never tried anything on 64-bit before, I figure I would just try it), resolved some dependencies errors, and -- ta-da! -- got a very nice browsing experience.

All in all, I wish to congratulate Iguleder for this amazing work (as always) and say that this is a very easy tool to use and newbies out there like me should not feel "scared" or anything. I will be using this distro as much as time allows to see its stability and get the feel of it. Liking this minimalistic approach very much.

Sorry for this long post; just registered on the forum.

Oh ya, I uploaded my Firefox and Flash PET package for the Subito just in case anyone needs it. Just install using 'hpm-install', run '/opt/firefox/firefox' and you're set to go! (Do remove the Flash Player if you don't use it, thanks. )

firefox-10.0-flash-11.1.102.55-x86_64-subito.pet
(26MB; MD5SUM: 5e4c20ddd41eaea8080d211035f77d6e)

[nooby]

dmabar , Jay that is cool!

So now you and MinHundHettePerro can cooperate to make a
32-bit version so us who have such computers also can test it

[Iguleder]

I'm currently working on several bug fixes and improvements:
- The kernel isn't silent as we like in Puppy - it's a bug in the build script I guess; I'm currently trying to locate the problem.
- There's an error when modprobe is called without any kernel modules present, early in the boot sequence
- Updates of Linux, libvorbis and shared-mime-info
- KMS still makes my screen black

I'll do my best to solve these bugs and upload new packages.

[01micko]

[Iguleder]

Nope - the problem is the kernel, framebuffer console support is a module. "reset" needs to run to make it work.

The problem should be gone now.

[MinHundHettePerro]

Subito 32-bit

Slowly getting there ...

Cheers / MHHP

[Iguleder]

Just to let you know, guys - I made some very big changes to roar-ng:
- All configuration is now located in a new directory, "conf".
- DISTRO_SPECS is deprecated and replaced with "distrorc", a simpler configuration file.
- The repositories support has changed; now each distro (under the "distro" directory) has a file called "repositories" which lists its repositories.
- The boot sequence is more configurable now, thanks to "bootrc", a new configuration file which allows choice of the file system used with save files and the save file name.
- I rewrote the "buildpkg", "splitpkg" and "strippkg" scripts, which form the automated package building framework. Now they're simpler, shorter, faster and better.
- I merged the "buildpkg" tool with roar-ng, which means any roar-ng distro is now "self-contained" and can be used to produce binary packages automatically and easily.
- hpm (the roar-ng package manager) is now integrated with buildpkg; both work with a new package format called "rxz" (combination of "roar-ng" and "xz"). They are similar to PET packages, but do not contain an annoying directory and pet.specs. Also, pinstall is named post_install.sh instead and puninstall.sh is now post_uninstall.sh. This package format is much smaller than PET and designed to be more simple: packages are not split as in Puppy, since this splitting is handled automatically by roar-ng; if there's any bug in the splitting script, package quality is reduced - no more!
- The package list format is changed; now, entries begin with the distribution name instead of "yes" or "no", which means packages from any distro can be used in one distro. Also, it is no longer a script.
- "subito" is added as a supported distro; its package handling code handles the new "rxz" format.
- Puppy (and PET) support is removed completely.
- From now and on, the devx has a skeleton, which contains package creation tools.
- The skeleton is now more modular and split to three sections: the main file system (e.g the main SFS), the initramfs and the devx.
- I rewrote the functions file, which provides a better, more efficient API for the scripts. It's much simpler to use and faster now.
- Save file creation is handled on the first boot, instead of being handled "interactively"; /opt/sbin/create_save_file is now moved to the initramfs. Once the system is booted and the "home=partition" boot code is specified, the init script attempts to create a save file on the specified partition and continues to boot into a persistent session (unlike Puppy, which has to run "live" at least once for persistency). This makes things easier.

These changes cut the last ties between roar-ng, Woof and Puppy. It's a big step for roar-ng towards a stable, usable version; it simplifies it a lot. Also, they make roar-ng and the distros it builds more modern and simpler (KISS, anyone?).

From now and on, everything related new to Puppy is considered deprecated and unsupported; time to move on, to better package management, modern package formats and cleaner code.

The main reason Puppy support is dropped is its non-standard nature. For example, PET packages already ship in a split form, while roar-ng performs automatic splitting. All the Puppy-specific code is now removed, which means roar-ng lost many LOC.

Regarding Subito (which is the flagship distro built using roar-ng) - I added support for Nouveau (thank you, 01micko!) and fixed some bugs, most notably the kernel (verbosity level and KMS) issues. I'm currently rebuilding it to test the new platform (the new automated package building framework and the package format); so far it seems good.

Viva la revolución!

[Q5sys]