The LAN Adapter(s) icon on Puppy Taskbar - Needs our help

A home for all kinds of Puppy related projects
Post Reply
Message
Author
gcmartin

The LAN Adapter(s) icon on Puppy Taskbar - Needs our help

#1 Post by gcmartin »

The LAN Adapter icon on the taskbar in Puppy Linux could provide better visibility. universally, to all types of Puppy users.

I am one who spends much of my time trying to understand how to manage my home devices into an orchestra. For the technicals among us, this means introducing PC(s) to inter-operate on the LAN with all the other home LAN units.

The LAN taskbar icon in Puppy has the ability to invoke a LAN adapter connection subsystem (Frisbee, for example). This is one of the many important desktop services on the taskbar via the LAN icon(s),

This is so very important to users. Most of us understand how to issue a command or how to right-click the icon to an determine IP address. The mouse-over could/should deliver the IP address and is of extreme help when trying to quickly determine LAN location. This is one of those items which adds to the maturity we continue to see in PUPPY. And, this LAN information would have almost universal appeal for those of us who need LAN visibility...quickly.

Our past
Mouse-over the LAN icon shows a line detailing how much data has been transferred over the adapter it represents. Now, this was/is important for those users who ONLY have a single PC with a connection to an Internet provider (ISP) where one needs to monitor data transfers with the ISP has an impact on your cost.

Over the years, many-many households are now using routers, instead, to get to ISP for Internet service. And the need to monitor LAN data usage is of much lesser importance because that service of data transfer has moved from the PC to your router(s).

Today's need
What is so very important now is the PC's LAN IP address and whether it can see the public IP address from the ISP.

Questions on mouse-over addressing this maturity need?
  • One question is: "How is the "mouse-over popup" controlled?" Related:, Can the mouse-over show the IP address of the adapter it represents?
  • Can anyone explain its behavior and can someone help in having mouse-over show the IP address?
  • Can the mouse-over be adjusted to accommodate this important information without a need to right-click and wait for a screen to see this 1-2 important items?
And, lastly, this is NOT a request which has anything to do with any other distro from any manufacturer. This is a request of Puppy Linux.

Thanks in advance

User avatar
ETP
Posts: 1193
Joined: Tue 19 Oct 2010, 19:55
Location: UK

The LAN Adapter(s) icon on Puppy Taskbar - Needs our help

#2 Post by ETP »

gcmartin

I beleive that you are correct to question the current relevance of the mouse-over display but bear in mind all the Puppy users in countries with only dial-up access & strict download limits. IMHO a right click to access VOVCHIK's excellent IP Info is not too tedious a task or price to pay for their sake.
Today's need
What is so very important now is the PC's LAN IP address and whether it can see the public IP address from the ISP.


I will warrant that most users are content to let DHCP do its job and don't give a thought to their LAN IP address.
Having said that my own preference (on grounds of speed) is for a static IP even when my LAN consists of only one device. :)
You also get to specify your preferred (ie faster DNS servers)

Have you considered setting aside a block of say 10 addresses as static ones on your router? You do not have to disable DHCP which could still be used by any transient guest laptops. You could then simply label your devices.

With regard to the public IP address from the ISP I do not understand your concern unless you have paid good money for a static one.
If the router's request for an I/P is not satisfied you will soon know about it as you will not have any internet access.
If you are prepared to leave your router powered on 24/7 (with the associated fire risk - they run damn hot) you could lock it up so that there is no timeout and constantly retain the same public address. That does however increase the security risk. :shock:
Last edited by ETP on Thu 20 Sep 2012, 04:16, edited 1 time in total.
Regards ETP
[url=http://tinyurl.com/pxzq8o9][img]https://s17.postimg.cc/tl19y14y7/You_Tube_signature80px.png[/img][/url]
[url=http://tinyurl.com/kennels2/]Kennels[/url]

User avatar
smokey01
Posts: 2813
Joined: Sat 30 Dec 2006, 23:15
Location: South Australia :-(
Contact:

#3 Post by smokey01 »

Here is a simple little script that will show your External IP address.

#!/bin/sh
ip=`curl icanhazip.com`
Xdialog --title "Ext IP" --msgbox $ip 5 25

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#4 Post by rcrsn51 »

@gcmartin: Can we reduce this issue to its essentials?

1. You want the IP address to appear in the tool tip. This is to save you one mouse click and one second of your time. Correct?

2. You want the IP address to appear INSTEAD of the usage data and NOT in addition to the data. Correct?
And, lastly, this is NOT a request which has anything to do with any other distro from any manufacturer. This is a request of Puppy Linux.
Please clarify.

gcmartin

LAN adapter IP information

#5 Post by gcmartin »

Thanks Smokey01 and ETP.

@ETP
Its not that I don't understand how to find this information (having built and instituted communications/LANs/WANs for the past 40 years, I do. further, I understand your implementation all too well.

But, Puppy Linux provides some very skilled tools which supports the current communications subsystems very well. And, Puppy developers have made this so very easy for persons of lesser networking skills to get their PCs on the local network. I applause the tools that they have developed.

This request (and thread) is merely for clarity in a mouse-over of its LAN connection and the PC's WAN connection, should they exist. (and most importantly seen in a simple mouse over). If I need to see more information, we click for one of the tools which can go more in-depth in useful services.

Smokey01
Thanks for the bash script. it works. I used to use the terminal "ip addr" command, for this information. Lately, I have tested and used a tool designed by DPUP5520 which puts a JAVA tool on the taskbar for announcing and tracking WAN and LAN IP addresses.

But, this tools requires an additional installation in Puppy or requires that I get a user on the phone to correctly type the terminal command. If they mouse-over, you would immediately see which LAN/WAN problem needs addressing.

What I hope comes out of this is a mouse-over. This would have much wide-spread use and would not require user knowledge. In fact, it would/could make it easy when we assist users when problems erupt as they sometimes do ... without the need to pay a visit or have the user type something.

Thus, the thread intend to identify how this would benefit the community.

Hope this adds some clarity.
Last edited by gcmartin on Wed 19 Sep 2012, 23:57, edited 1 time in total.

gcmartin

#6 Post by gcmartin »

rcrsn51 wrote:@gcmartin: Can we reduce this issue to its essentials? ...
And, lastly, this is NOT a request which has anything to do with any other distro from any manufacturer. This is a request of Puppy Linux.
Please clarify.
Thanks @Rcrsn51. Yes, I am thinking of a mouse over. And, this is NOT in comparison of any other distro. This is to use Puppy's taskbar icon to show useful IP designation(s) currently in use via a mere mouse-over.

You are very familiar with the value of something like this for unfamiliar and familiar users.

Lastly, the only reason I ask, is that I don't think there is sizable effort to do this. This information is readily available (although not visible) already in the system. Thus, its a request for visibility is a tool that most, if not all, of us use .... that taskbar icon.

Thanks for asking for clarification.

User avatar
rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#7 Post by rcrsn51 »

gcmartin wrote:Lastly, the only reason I ask, is that I don't think there is sizable effort to do this. This information is readily available (although not visible) already in the system. Thus, its a request for visibility is a tool that most, if not all, of us use .... that taskbar icon.
It's possible, but not trivially easy. I have a test version that shows the IP address with a mouse-over. But I can't see any way that this is better for the novice user than simply clicking on the icon.

gcmartin

A test version of mouse-over

#8 Post by gcmartin »

rcrsn51 wrote:It's possible, but not trivially easy. I have a test version that shows the IP address with a mouse-over. ... .
I thought that was probably the case why it wasn't there in the beginning.

I would be willing to test your version should you make it available. This is one of those little updates whose value won't be clear until it goes missing (should your update becomes wide-spread).

Even if it only shows LAN IP, this is still a value item addition to the mouse-over's usefulness.

Thanks for this (and all the other contributions you have made in the community.)

Looking forward.

User avatar
rek769
Posts: 84
Joined: Thu 15 Jul 2010, 04:55

LAN adapter icon on Puppy Taskbar

#9 Post by rek769 »

Have you looked into the wireless widget available in Pwidgets?

I have two routers setup and need to know at a glance to which one I am connected.

I use the wireless widget with a tweak to the config file located here: (/usr/local/pwidgets/widgets/configs/Wireless)

Under the TEXT heading at the bottom of the file make this change:

TEXT
${color A2914E}${wireless_essid wlan0}
${addr wlan0}
${color1}${wireless_link_bar 8,110 wlan0}$alignr${color3}${wireless_link_qual wlan0}


This will show the essid, internal IP address, link bar, and link quality directly on your desktop. I realize that this does not give you IP info on a mouse-over but perhaps it could be useful to you.

Post Reply