Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[benny7440]

Some time ago I d/l Glade & gave it a try but after a certain point in the tutorial It wasn't responding as it should have, so it stayed there until now that I need the extra space. So, since I tried the Install icon on the desktop to try to uninstall it & it wasn't in the list, that option failed. I guess I d/l it not with the PPM.

I decided to use Seamonkey file finder with "glade" & it came up with 25 files containing 'glade' as a string. I decided to right-click on each one of them & selected delete. After I finished I re-searched with the same string & it appeared again 25 files found. I thought that Seamonkey wasn't able to delete them, so I clicked on the File icon on the desktop to delete them from Rox, but the application didn't load. I went to the Menu entry for it & it didn't do anything, either.

Then, I realized that maybe I deleted something other than what I expected. Other Menu entries, like pprocess manager, aren't working.

What can I do to fix this? How to uninstall properly Glade or any other package, pet or not, within PL528?

Thanks for any help on this!

[Sylvander]

1. I use a couple of methods to deal with this kind of situation, but they must be in place BEFORE the problem arises.
Here they are:

(a) My Puppy is set up so that I can choose to NOT save any of the changes made during a session.
Or else save them if I please.
Hence, if I try something, and it isn't working out, I can reboot without saving, and it will be gone once into the next session.

(b) I use a "live" Puppy.
i.e. Boot from a "live" CD-RW, with a pupsave on a partition on an internal HDD.
And backup the pupsave file at sensible points in time [using PupsaveHotBackup? And restore using Xfe]
I can then delete the pupsave in use, and restore a backup copy to go back to the way things were back when the backup was made.

2. Do you have anything like those in place?
Any backups?

[benny7440]

Thanks for responding, Sylvander!

I think you're referring to that screen that appears after you select Reboot or Shutdown from the Menu. If I'm right here I've a problem with it: my main screen (the notebook one isn't working, I just see many vertical lines of distinct colors there; my working screen is an Acer AL1706 connected to the notebook, so I can't see the first screens that appear as the BIOS, where you select, i.e., puppy pfix=ram or the grub splash screen, nor the goodbye screen where you decide if you want to make & save a pupsave file for the session. This Acer screen is controlled by the OS but not by the BIOS. It got like this in steps: first a right rectangular piece of about 1/3 of the screen got blank, later another 1/3 &, finally what I described you above. This's a 16x9 screen, but the Acer is a 4x3, so I've also losen an 'U' shape of the original screen.)

Another issue now is that most of the Menu entries don't work. One of the important ones is Rox Term. But, I do have access to the console. One problem with this's that I decided to delete some files (from the glade folder) but it doesn't find 'del' nor 'rem' commands..., so I suspect some other commands are missing/unreachable as well.

The other day I tried to boot from the cd with 528 but never got to the point where I could have the puppy screen. I've forgotten the screens that normally appear when booting up from a live cd. I beleive there might be a script to be included to pass info to puppy directly without the need to use the keyboard+screen pair for this stage; or, if the questions are known at the beginning I can answer them in succession to arrive at the main puppy screen. This issue has halted me trying to reinstall from the live cd.

Can you help me decide the best course of action? I can't find any backups for the pupsave file...

[Sylvander]

1. What's your Puppy installation type?
Pupsave in use?

2. Sounds like there is, and the changes made and saved to the pupsave are messing up the functionality of the Puppy.
[Does the "live" Puppy CD work OK on other hardware? Is the CD functional?]

3. i.e. When you boot the live Puppy CD...
Do you see ANY display of Puppy loading the 1st files from the CD, then seeking and using a pupsave held on the internal HDD, and then messing up?

4. If so...
You could...
(a) Boot the "live" Puppy CD on some other notebook.
(b) Make a pupsave on a Flash Drive.
(c) Set it up [on that pupsave] to use your external screen.
Then...

5.
(a) Connect the Flash Drive holding the new pupsave, to your original notebook.
(b) Boot the "live" Puppy Cd in that notebook.
(c) When it seeks suitable pupsave files, it should find BOTH the pupsave on the internal HDD, and the pupsave on the Flash Drive...
And display choice menu with both of those listed.
(d) Choose the pupsave on the Flash Drive, and if that gets you to the desktop, delete the other pupsave, and copy the new pupsave from the Flash Drive to the internal HDD.
(e) At next boot, have the Flash Drive disconnected, and the "live" Puppy should use the new/good pupsave copy on the internal HDD.
OR...

6. Can you temporarily remove the internal HDD? [So the pupsave on it is not found]
Or is that too difficult?

[benny7440]

Ok, lets start at the beginning. I've a 3 partition hdd. In the 1st part have only data; in the 3rd other type of data & in the 2nd have much more data of various sorts.

Is in the 2nd one that I have different folders for each puppy that I'm capable of running via grub: PL 511, 525, 528 & WARY. My cd drive is always empty. My SFS & pupsave files are handled automatically by the flavor of puppy I'm running at the moment. They're within each respective folder.

The above means that I'm able to reboot from 528 now & start 511, 525 or WARY in a matter of 2 mins.. BTW, I remember that you posted above that you bootup with the live cd &, manually, decide each session to save or not the pupsave file, but isn't that procedure rendering the cd drive unavailable?

AFAIK the cd is ok but have to use another computer to be sure of that (remember that I can't see whatever the BIOS or any other low level system renders for the screen with a peripheral screen).

My external screen is working after puppy loads, the problem is that before that moment I just see a 'no sygnal' message on that external screen.

I was thinking of preparing a desktop that was running Ubuntu 8.04 until about a year ago that it stopped accepting/recognizing my pwd. It has 2 internal hdd, I think one of them is holding a windows 98 installation (not updated or used in milenia). Both, the desktop as well as the notebook are wifi capable, so, can't I use this capabilty once the desktop is running one of my puppies or Ubuntu to pass to/from each one of them files of any sort?

Disconnecting the hdd isn't a problem here, in fact, I never put back the screws because this hdd is from another notebook & it won't fit in the space. So, even though this's supposed to be a portable machine I can't move it from the desk it stands now for fear of dropping the hdd to the floor...

[Sylvander]

1. "isn't that procedure rendering the cd drive unavailable?"
No...
During Startup, as soon as the Puppy has handed over to the SFS file on the internal HDD, which is pretty early in the sequence, the optical drive becomes available for other uses.
Mind you, there's no practical way I can do anything useful with the optical drive until the Puppy desktop has been reached.

2. "My SFS & pupsave files are handled automatically by the flavor of puppy I'm running at the moment. They're within each respective folder."
(a) So, normally the contents of the SFS+pupsave [plus others] are loaded by GRUB, right?
(b) But the SFS+pupsave filepair could instead be loaded by a Puppy run initially from a "live" CD, right?
And that is [methinks] what is happening when you boot the Lupu-528[004?] CD...
And the CD seeks and finds the 528 SFS+lupusave filepair...
And uses those...
With the unfortunate consequences you are seeing?
Possibly because there is some kind of mismatch between the version of Lupu on the "live" CD, and the version of Lupu held in the SFS file.
MAKE SURE THE LUPU VERSION ON THE CD MATCHES THE VERSION OF THE SFS.
I'm no Puppy expert, it's just my thoughts.

3. "My external screen is working after puppy loads"
(a) Because once the Puppy has loaded...
The necessary drivers have been loaded, and suitable configurations have taken effect.
(b) You need to somehow get your internal screen functioning. [See 4 below]

4. "the notebook one isn't working, I just see many vertical lines of distinct colors there"
(a) Do you think this is happening because the notebook screen [hardware] is broken?
(b) Or might it be a software problem.
To eliminate a software problem as a possibility, you need to boot a "live" Puppy CD, but make sure it doesn't use the SFS+pupsave filepair on the internal HDD.
(c) Is there no display whatever [at ANY time] on the internal screen?
i.e. No display on the internal screen for a short period of time, beginning near the end of the POST [when the onboard video (or card) is enabled]...
And ceasing to display when the Puppy begins to load?
Because something in the pupsave is causing this?

5. "My external screen is working after puppy loads, the problem is that before that moment I just see a 'no sygnal' message on that external screen."
(a) Only to be expected, eh?
(b) Perhaps if you remastered the Puppy CD...
To build into the SFS...
The ability to display on that external screen.
Then that screen would display as soon as the SFS was loaded.
(c) I'd be DISinclined to remaster using the present pupsave.
I'd do it using a new/good pupsave.

6. "Both, the desktop as well as the notebook are wifi capable, so, can't I use this capability once the desktop is running one of my puppies or Ubuntu to pass to/from each one of them files of any sort?"
(a) I would avoid that method, because...
Both the desktop, and the notebook, would need to be functioning.
i.e. Both running working OS's [Puppies would be ideal]...
(b) And then...
If it were me...
I'd connect both of them [BY WIRE = network cable] to a router...
And then share resources.
But I know little to nothing about how that is done.
(c) Seems simpler to me to do the necessary work with a "live" Puppy CD, and make a pupsave on a Flash Drive, on some other working PC...
Then use the Puppy CD plus Flash drive on the problem notebook.
(d) I know from experience, that it's possible to set up a Puppy on one set of hardware, and then use is on a totally different set of hardware.
All it did in my case was to ask/prompt for a few pertinent/suitable config changes to be made.

[benny7440]

An extract of my 2nd partition follows:

# ls /mnt
bookmarks dvd home ram1 sda3 sr0
cdrom flash +mnt+home+puppy528+lupu_devx_528-4.sfs sda1 sdb1 swap
data floppy msdos sda2 sdb2 zip
# ls /mnt/home
1-1-18_seamonkey boot fsckme.flg puppy511 seamonkey
ATAHD c01122313.pdf isolinux.cfg puppy525 temporero
bookmarks_17-9-11.html dsl java puppy528 wary-512
bookmarks.html fonts lost+found puppystudio
# ls /mnt/home/boot
grub
# ls -a
. e2fs_stage1_5 mbr.sda.24332 reiserfs_stage1_5 stage2_eltorito
.. fat_stage1_5 menu.lst stage1 usage.txt
device.map jfs_stage1_5 minix_stage1_5 stage2 xfs_stage1_5
#

My menu.lst file lokks like this:

# cat menu.lst
# GRUB configuration file '/boot/grub/menu.lst'.
# generated by 'grubconfig'. Sun Jul 3 04:15:57 2011
#
# Start GRUB global section
timeout 20
color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
# End GRUB global section
# Other bootable partition config begins
# title Windows (on /dev/sda1)
# rootnoverify (hd0,0)
# makeactive
# chainloader +1
# Other bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Linux 528 frugal in sda2 dir puppy528
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
kernel /puppy528/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy528
initrd /puppy528/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Linux 525 frugal in sda2 dir puppy525
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
kernel /puppy525/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy525
initrd /puppy525/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Linux 511 frugal in sda2 dir puppy511
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
kernel /puppy511/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy511
initrd /puppy511/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Wary 512 frugal in sda2 dir wary-512
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
kernel /wary-512/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=wary-512 acpi=off
initrd /wary-512/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Studio frugal in sda2 dir puppystudio
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
kernel /puppystudio/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppystudio
initrd /puppystudio/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
title DSL frugal in sda1 dir dsl
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 init=etc/init/ lang=us apm=power-off vga=773 initrd=/minirt24.gz nomce noapic quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
initrd /minirt24.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends
# title Install GRUB to floppy disk (on /dev/fd0)
# pause Insert a formatted floppy disk and press enter.
# root (hd0,1)
# setup (fd0)
# pause Press enter to continue.
title Install GRUB to Linux partition (on /dev/sda2)
root (hd0,1)
setup (hd0,1)
# pause Press enter to continue.
title - For help press 'c', then type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title - For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/usage.txt'
root (hd0)
#
The DSL entry never worked on this notebook but it did in another laptop with a different BIOS.

It's curious, I hoped to see a pupsave file somewhere in one of those folders. Now, I've concluded that each folder there (528, 525, etc,) has its own pupsave file within -- I have checked that out right now & found it to be true.

Someone told me that it happens sometimes that the spiraled belt connector of the screen needs to be resitted in its place, in other situations it turns out to be a faulty component. The only way of knowing for sure was to take the necessary hardware apart and ckeck it. My only problem with this is that I would do it if I have a backup computer, in case something goes wrong, I think I'll bring the other desktop back to life & then disassemble the notebook & clean it thouroughly & resit that belt.

If I delete the pupsave file I think that at shutting down puppy will ask me to save/make a pupsave file. The problem with this's that at that point I no longer have any visible/usable screen to write to, am I right? Can I do things in a predetermined series of steps (have done it previously with a partial screen). The point is that I need to know in advance the ?s puppy will ask awa the order in which they appear, otherwise I'm doomed.

At the moment I'm not too inclined to delete that pupsave file because I've forgotten the sequence of questions & alternatives that puppy presents at startup, less with the shutting down sequence of events.

I think using another computer to establish a pupsave file will, at the end, be my alternative. Thanks Sylvander!

PS. I was about to take some screen snapshots instead of using copy/paste but the menu entry for those utilities aren't working, either.

[Sylvander]

1. "If I delete the pupsave file I think that at shutting down puppy will ask me to save/make a pupsave file"
There are a number of solutions to the problem of the Puppy expecting to be able to save back to its pupsave, when the pupsave no longer exists...
I'll give just 2, as follows:
(a) By far the easiest is...you just POWER OFF the PC.
This would possibly corrupt the Linux filesystem inside the pupsave...
But since you have just deleted the pupsave, that's no problem.
If you are running from a "live" CD, the files/filesystem on that cannot be corrupted.
Would then be prudent to [use GParted within some Puppy that isn't using the host partition, to] "check" [scan&fix] the host_partition_file_system.

(b) You delete the pupsave using some Puppy that isn't using the problem pupsave.
Simple way to do this would be to use a different Puppy version that is looking for a pupsave with a totally different name.

2. "Can I do things in a predetermined series of steps"
This just doesn't apply when you use 1(a) & 1(b) above.

3. "I think using another computer to establish a pupsave file will, at the end, be my alternative"
Seems almost too easy to be true.
But I expect it will "just work".

[benny7440]

Yesterday I tried to boot each of the pups I've but neither PL511 nor Puppy Wary 512 booted up. This might have happened due to the resizing of the partitions...

In any case, today, when starting my usual pup (528) I saw the following message:
"Error Message
Openbox Syntax Error
One or more XML syntax errors were found while parsing the Openbox configuration files. See stdout for more information.
The last error seen was in file: /root/.config/openbox/menu.xml lilne 592, with message: "Premature end of data in tag openbox_menu line 2"."

As soon as I saw this tried right-clicking on the desktop & saw (didn't see, in fact) that there were some entries missing, particularly 'interesting' was the Shutdown menu entry'. At least the Network & Internet entries are still there. I guess there's an optional command from the cli to shutting down the system (which I don't know), but today I might need to do what you recommended previously although for a different reason.

Any clue as to what might be happening? A progressive corruption working within the system?

Thanks for any thoughts/tips/links you or someone else might provide to spread some light upon this!

[Sylvander]

1. "Any clue as to what might be happening?"
Not really.

2. "A progressive corruption working within the system?"
(a) Quite possibly, who knows; I don't.
My normal attitude is that I don't really care what the cause is of a problem, I just want to get my system back to full functionality.
I learned way back, when running Windows...
An OS is so HUGE...so many lines of code...
That finding the particular item of chaos/corruption that is causing a problem is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
So...
(b) I decided the best/easiest way to get back to a working system...
Is to make backups at various sensible points in time when the system is working well...
And if I so much as suspect that all is not well...
To restore my most recent backup.

(c) With Puppy Linux I have about 6 Puppies in use, and if one has problems, I can use a 2nd to fix the 1st.
Or even discard it altogether [never had to do this].
And [almost] all my Puppies in use are the very latest [Boxpup-431 is the exception].
I discard the old Puppies and move on.
Why are you still using old Puppies?

(d) This system has ALWAYS served me very well indeed.
I've never yet hit an OS or program or configuration [software] problem that wasn't easily fixed using this method.
Quite often I can fix it without needing to resort to this, but this is always sitting in reserve as the final fix = my fallback position.

[L18L]