How to save only on command?

What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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wornout62
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Joined: Thu 06 Jun 2013, 01:45

How to save only on command?

#1 Post by wornout62 »

I have found the auto save to be a pain, always at the wrong time and puppy
slows to a halt.Can it be change to a warning, that you need to save ?
I am using slacko 5.3. will be trying latest slacko in days..It may be fixed ?
Also I do have a 2gig save file and the shut down can be up to 7 minutes.
This is a pain..Has any one thoughts on the subject..I have also found
that if you go off the edge on the browser, it hides. Can this be stopped ?
SEEYA LATER...worn out but still trying.

Sylvander
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Location: West Lothian, Scotland, UK

#2 Post by Sylvander »

With a couple of Puppies...
Slacko is one of them...
I have them set up so they NEVER save...
Neither during the session...
Nor at shutdown/reboot...
Unless I manually click the "Save..." icon on the desktop, during the session...
Or CHOOSE to save when offered the option "to save or not to save" during shutdown/reboot.

Hence, I get to choose whether to save, and when to save, therefore WHAT to save.

My shutdown takes 10 seconds.
Complete reboot back into the desktop [shutdown + reboot] takes 50 seconds.
Last edited by Sylvander on Sun 14 Jul 2013, 08:52, edited 1 time in total.

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Makoto
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Location: Out wandering... maybe.

Re: suggestions

#3 Post by Makoto »

wornout62 wrote:I have also found
that if you go off the edge on the browser, it hides. Can this be stopped ?
You mean the behavior where when you position the mouse on a window's titlebar or borders, then scroll the mousewheel up, that window retracts into its titlebar? That's a feature of the window manager, and I don't think it can be changed or disabled. (At least, that I've seen.)
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ally
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#4 Post by ally »

hey wornout

no help with the savefile options but can I ask why you need a 2gig save file?

obviously a smaller savefile would solve at least some of the issues

2gigs is a lot of apps!

:)

dancytron
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#5 Post by dancytron »

Install a program called pupsaveconfig. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60678

There will be a place in it where you can set the save interval to 0.

You may also need to modify the boot parameters to get it into pupmode=13 by adding pfix=ataflash (double check if that it right) if you are on a hard drive.

I know this works in Lupu 5.28 and Precise.

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sunburnt
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#6 Post by sunburnt »

Guys; I`ve said this many times.

Pet packages fill up the Save file. Don`t use them.!

SFS and RoxApp packages are no-install apps, so they don`t bloat the Save.

So then the Save file can be very small, say 64 MB.
Then when USB Puppy is shut down it doesn`t take 10 minutes to back it up.

But for this to work, stuff in /root needs to be controlled better than it is now.
.

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mikeb
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#7 Post by mikeb »

Comme ci?
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dult
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#8 Post by dult »

sunburnt wrote:Guys; I`ve said this many times.

Pet packages fill up the Save file. Don`t use them.!

SFS and RoxApp packages are no-install apps, so they don`t bloat the Save.

So then the Save file can be very small, say 64 MB.
Then when USB Puppy is shut down it doesn`t take 10 minutes to back it up.

But for this to work, stuff in /root needs to be controlled better than it is now.
.
Hey, sorry for the bump,

This also applies to .deb or external repo packages?

Thanks.

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sunburnt
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#9 Post by sunburnt »

Hi dult; Yes, any legacy packages that do a standard install which scatters the files through out the file system.
But some packages it`s not bad to put them in the Save file, system stuff and small stuff.
It`s a balance between filling up the Save file and having lots of union layers. Understand?

Also make /app, /doc, and /download ( or /dnld ) dirs. on a Linux partition ( maybe Firefox cache too ).
This way when the Save file gets corrupted and you have to delete it, you don`t loose all of that stuff.
A plus is that all of your bootable Puppies and other Linux distros. now can all get at all of these dirs.

dult
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#10 Post by dult »

You are saying installing the apps in a separate dir in root (/) right?

Thanks.

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sunburnt
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#11 Post by sunburnt »

No, install of legacy type packages is normal as always.
/root doesn`t contain app. packages, just parts of the apps. like config. files, etc.
Most app. packages go in: /usr and in Puppy also in: /usr/local

I`m saying, use SFS file apps., and also RoxApp style apps. ( there`s several kinds ).
SFS files are unique to Puppy, though some other Linux distros. have similar type files.

Legacy type app. packages decompress and scatter their files all over the file system.
SFS and RoxApp type packages stay in the original package ( unless installed ).
SFS files use Puppy`s union file system ( aufs ) to merge the different file systems together.
RoxStyle apps. don`t normally use a union file system at all ( but they can be made that way ).

# The second suggestion doesn`t have anything to do with app. packages.
It just suggests a better way to setup my-applications, my-documents, and downloads.
( Why not my-downloads? Don`t you just hate that M$ idiom? "My" this, "My" that? )

dult
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#12 Post by dult »

Now I understood.

Personally in windows, I much prefer using portable apps, though they are a bit buggy.

One thing that always moved me against windows folder management was:

C:/User/Documents/users/userBlah/files/documents

(not exactly but you get the point)

I need to study some more to reorganize the document setting in system like:
/home/apps
/home/files/
/home/files/tmp
/home/spot/downloads

Btw, sorry to any moderator if I'm going off-topic.

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mikeb
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#13 Post by mikeb »

Offtopic is our speciality :D .

Diversity is the name of the game here ... no one listens anyway lol....

Just to add to the discussion......

I have storage devices as my erm storage devices... eg on here hda2 (sda2 for the rest of you) is were I put stuff..... windows resides on hda1 and linux on hda3.... in other words things I want to keep...documents, music, sandwiches get there own partition or device. It reduces fragmentation (yes is happens on linux too) since system files get rewritten all the time and as mentioned its out of harms way...you could be on a separate drive or external one. Its simple .../mnt/hda2 is where my stuff is.... easy..or that icon on the desktop. g:\ on windows as it happens, easy to back up both files and systems..... I hate virtual folders..even /mnt/home to me is silly :D . Finding a partition or drive on ANY system is easy.

To me a profile is just for application settings ie its part of the system. On windows I move it to c:\windows\profiles like it used to be so the system is altogether. On puppy its /root...again for settings not data. I have save in ram so wasting that space is not a good idea...my saves are usually 30-60MB(mainly thumbnails actually) . This stuffs related to the topic ;)

Yes get to love sfs... (by the way sunburnt I believe aufs does not suffer from the limitations unionfs had... I normally run with 20-30 sfs loaded and never noticed any significant slowdown.) My smallest is about 167kb.... its tidy, needs no save room and oh so easy to change/update/remove. It can be done live...so pop in a video editor...do the job...remove it again if you want to. Test a new program...hate it...ditch it no harm done. No point in having a layered filesystem if you don't take full advantage of it.

As mentioned... saves as settings only mean if anything should happen losses are minimal. If you are on usb a large save can be a pain in the neck and its never big enough it seems....

erm ok rambled enough

mike

dult
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#14 Post by dult »

mikeb wrote:Offtopic is our speciality :D .

Diversity is the name of the game here ... no one listens anyway lol....

Just to add to the discussion......

I have storage devices as my erm storage devices... eg on here hda2 (sda2 for the rest of you) is were I put stuff..... windows resides on hda1 and linux on hda3.... in other words things I want to keep...documents, music, sandwiches get there own partition or device. It reduces fragmentation (yes is happens on linux too) since system files get rewritten all the time and as mentioned its out of harms way...you could be on a separate drive or external one. Its simple .../mnt/hda2 is where my stuff is.... easy..or that icon on the desktop. g:\ on windows as it happens, easy to back up both files and systems..... I hate virtual folders..even /mnt/home to me is silly :D . Finding a partition or drive on ANY system is easy.

To me a profile is just for application settings ie its part of the system. On windows I move it to c:\windows\profiles like it used to be so the system is altogether. On puppy its /root...again for settings not data. I have save in ram so wasting that space is not a good idea...my saves are usually 30-60MB(mainly thumbnails actually) . This stuffs related to the topic ;)

Yes get to love sfs... (by the way sunburnt I believe aufs does not suffer from the limitations unionfs had... I normally run with 20-30 sfs loaded and never noticed any significant slowdown.) My smallest is about 167kb.... its tidy, needs no save room and oh so easy to change/update/remove. It can be done live...so pop in a video editor...do the job...remove it again if you want to. Test a new program...hate it...ditch it no harm done. No point in having a layered filesystem if you don't take full advantage of it.

As mentioned... saves as settings only mean if anything should happen losses are minimal. If you are on usb a large save can be a pain in the neck and its never big enough it seems....

erm ok rambled enough

mike
I've been studying a bit, and I plan to unistall all non essencial apps from an install (essencial is apps to view images, pdf, printers and brower). Then put work apps on an read-only folder inside the pen drive. the only thing in the 2fs file would be working files (encrypted for safety).

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mikeb
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#15 Post by mikeb »

Ok... yes my core system has the basics that you mentioned...everything else is an add on... I like keeping things under 100MB so running in ram even on an older machine is feasible.

3fs is a lot more robust than 2fs for save files......but you want encryption..... I have seen that approach fail miserably on this forum too many times. perhaps look at other ways to keep sensitive data..eg encrypting just the files in question etc. Just wanted to pop in a note of caution there.

mike

dult
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#16 Post by dult »

It's just a first line of defense. If someone wants to crack something, they will. Though for the most casual user, if he can't access in a jiffy it's not worth the trouble. He will just format the USB.

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mikeb
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#17 Post by mikeb »

Ah ok... well as a first line of defense the odds are well in your favour that someone who finds your missing stick would not have a clue what to do with a save file or a bootable usb (the default on most machines is to boot the hard drive/floppy/cd)... ..indeed if the stick itself was formatted ext2 that would be another level of bafflement...windows would just give you the 'format now' dialog.... Oh and iirc windows will only see the first partition so a save on the second would not be seen either.
Now if some techie geek is after your millions then you are doomed......

A case of security by obscurity in this case

regards

mike

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sunburnt
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#18 Post by sunburnt »

What Mike said...

Karl; Yes, unionfs was a mess, aufs is much better but horribly bloated.
I had a link to a great page about union file system problems that I can`t find.

The real focus is: If a union mount isn`t needed, then why have one at all.?

The developers are working on transparent mounts to replace union type.
I`ve said a number of times:
The mount command could do the job if it didn`t "opaquely" overlay it`s mounts.
Having the mounts be opaque so they cover up the lower ones isn`t very useful.
Better would be to have it behave either way, Opaque or Transparent stacking.

Now you still need copy on write and white out files... What a messy business.
.

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mikeb
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#19 Post by mikeb »

.....mike looks around the thread for karl.......

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sunburnt
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#20 Post by sunburnt »

The forum did it again, posted at the wrong thread..!

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