Slacko 5.7 - March 2014

[killapup]

Thanks again bigpup, for your suggestions and help,

I tried reformatting the partition, three times just to be sure, but still no result. I tried pasting the suggested menu entry into my menu.lst, I tried running grub4dos and running the entry generated from there, and I still get the same end results, it either won't start at all or it gets to the 'can't find slacko_5.7.0frugal' error

Oh well, I will probably give up on it and wait for 5.8 and see what it is like although, I may keep trying different things, but I've got plenty of other puppies to keep me going for now, plus a few other distros that I like as well

Cheers for now and thanks again for all your help,
Ray

[bigpup]

killapup,

Wonder if Slacko 5.7 being installed on partition sda16 could be the problem. The startup process, still does some searching for files, and looking at 15 partitions, before getting to 16, could be too many.

You could try a frugal install on say sda1, 2, or 3 just to test and see if that solves anything.

[davids45]

G'day killapup,
I cannot divide my hard-drives into more than 15 partitions using Puppies (i.e. GParted), although it can be done according to some experts. For me, that's four primary, with one primary becoming an extended partition dividable as logical partitions until there are 14 numbered partitions in all - the sd number of the extendable primary sort-of gets lost once the logicals are made. So I "lose" sda4 as my extended primary but its logicals run from sda5 to sda15. Lots of drive icons across the bottom of my desktop as I have two fully Linux-partitioned hard drives.

So I'd agree with bigpup that it's your sda16 (hd0,15) that is likely to be 'abnormal'. I've had no problems installing Slacko-5.7 Full or Frugal in the normal partition range.

Perhaps Puppy or the Linux kernel is 'internally hard-wired' to work in the range hd0 to hd14, but not higher, even if such partitions are there? Windows partitioning seems to be limited in its logicals by the alphabet - z is the last logical under that scheme?

I concur that you should try a different, lower numbered partition with 5.7 and see what happens.

Good luck.

David S.

[killapup]

Thanks bigpup and David,

I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years, I will try it and see what happens. I might leave it till I rearrange my partitions, though, I've been thinking about getting my partitions in some sort of proper order, I think most of you would be horrified if you saw the way my hd is set up.

It is very much ad hoc, but I am currently backing up the partitions I want to keep so I can just copy them back to a partition on a more logically ordered set up.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, it probably makes sense, cheers,
Ray

[jafadmin]

I'm going to add this here so as to make it an official bug report.

PPTP VPN

The /dev/pppX (i.e.: ppp0) created by pppd breaks when you set the default route to it while doing pptp vpn.

This behavior occurs in Slacko and Wary. All versions going back to at least 2009. This bug DOES NOT occur in Lucid/Precise. They are all using the same version of pppd (2.4.5)

I am wondering if maybe the "route" function in BusyBox is the culprit?

The net result is that Slacko/Wary are not able to do PIA type anonymous browsing because you need to set the "default" route to the VPN connection.

Slacko/Wary work fine setting "static" routes to the VPN, just not the Default Route. This means it will work just fine for connecting to your workplace VPN, but will not anonymize your web browsing on the Starbucks wifi.

[killapup]

For those who are following my saga, try this for size

I thought the last issue was a tricky one, well, have a look at the attached file and see what I got this time.

I've managed to repartition my drive into something more logical and have a few of my installs on the new setup, a couple of problems along the way but I've managed to sort them. I tried installing Slacko 5.7 to one of the new partitions, sda9 this time, and voila... or more precisely, whatthe...??

Can anyone explain this one?? It was a normal puppy install, the same as I have installed all my puppies in the past This is after restarting and saving to a save file??

Why is it not working? Has anyone seen this screen before on a puppy install and more specifically, on a Slacko 5.7 install?

Thanks for any suggestions,
Ray

For me, this Slacko is really broken

[rcrsn51]

From a terminal, run

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gdk-pixbuf-query-loaders --update-cache

and restart the X server

[bigpup]

killapup,

You have some strange problems.
Slacko 5.7 just will not be nice to you

So, using a lower number partition, did work, for getting Slacko to boot?

Wondering how you now are partitioned and with what formats?

This is after restarting and saving to a save file??

A bad save file could cause this.
Delete it and try to make a new one.
I assume everything seems to be OK, before making the save file.
Some info on name, size, and type would help.
What changes are you making before doing a save?

[bigpup]

Icewm you can install from the PPM puppy-slacko14 repository.

no system tray icons, fixmenus doesn't work, ...
menu-> programs
nothing listed for programs.

Tried a pet that was compiled for Slacko 5.3.
Same issues.

The install process says nothing is missing.

Anyone got it working for them?

[SFR]

Hey Bigpup, some time ago I put IceWM.pet together using packages from PPM and tuned it to work with new Slacko.
Contains number of themes, so can't attach it here (~1.5 M).
The pet is xz compressed, so will install only on Slacko >= 5.7.

http://www.datafilehost.com/d/2fdc7b5e
MD5: 0bc40bb8731eb9a3d9c0649790faed47 icewm-1.3.7-i686-s57.pet

Activation - exit to prompt and type:

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xwin icewm-session

Greetings!

[bigpup]

Thanks SFR!

Your pet of Icewm does work better.

Seems to fix all the problems I was having.

Are you sure there are enough themes in it (44)?

I am starting to wonder if I was just not starting it the right way.

I was just using:

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xwin icewm

[SFR]

I am starting to wonder if I was just not starting it the right way.

I was just using:

Code: Select all

xwin icewm

Not really. The PPM version won't work properly in new Slacko, due to changes at Woof-CE level.
The key adjustments I made were:
- all 'icon_name24' changed to 'icon_name48' in /etc/xdg/templates/_root_.icewm_menu
- created /root/.icewm/startup script in order to launch all startup apps with X (systray stuff)
- added /usr/bin/icewm-xdgmenu binary, taken from Slacko-5.6

As for themes - there was two times more of them, but recently I removed the most ugly ones.

Greetings!

[mavrothal]

Updates manager does not appear to have code to ckeck for available space before the download/installation process begins.
Reported by B.K. Johnson in another thread

Latter: The attached pet should check for free space before download.
Please test.

Here is what is changed

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--- a/usr/bin/updates_mgr	2013-12-30 01:16:40.000000000 +0200
+++ b/usr/bin/updates_mgr	2014-05-27 22:54:08.000000000 +0300
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
 
 . /etc/DISTRO_SPECS
 . /usr/bin/gettext.sh
+. /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE
 
 # blacklisted packages #thanks to npierce
 BLACKLIST=" sudo glib dbus"
@@ -63,7 +64,22 @@
 	  exit
 	fi
 	
-	PKGINST=$(grep "$1" /tmp/updates_slack2.lst|cut -d '|' -f4)
+	PKGINST=$(grep "$1" /tmp/updates_slack2.lst|cut -d '|' -f5)
+	#Check if we have the space
+	PKGSIZE=$(grep "$1" /tmp/updates_slack2.lst|cut -d '|' -f4)
+	if [ "$(echo $PKGSIZE | grep K)" != "" ]; then
+	 xPKGSIZE=$(echo $PKGSIZE | tr -d K)
+	 inPKGSIZE=$(expr $xPKGSIZE \* 2)
+	else
+	 inPKGSIZE=$(expr $xPKGSIZE \/ 512)
+	fi
+	case $PUPMODE in
+	 2) FREESPACE=$(df -k | grep pup_rw | awk '{print $4}') ;;
+	 *) FREESPACE=$(df -k | grep '/$' | awk '{print $4}') ;;
+	esac
+	[ "$inPKGSIZE" -gt "$FREESPACE" ] && gtkdialog-splash -close box -bg red -timeout 10 -text\
+	"$(gettext "There is not enough space to install $1. Exiting")" && exit 1
+	
 	[ "$(echo $1|grep firefox)" != "" ] && MOZ=mozilla-firefox
 	[ "$(echo $1|grep seamonkey)" != "" ] && MOZ=seamonkey 
 	
@@ -196,7 +212,7 @@
 #get rid of dep info, can bork
 [ -f /tmp/update_slack_database ] && rm /tmp/update_slack_database
 while read PLINE
-  do XLINE=$(echo $PLINE|cut -d '|' -f1,2,3,8,10)
+  do XLINE=$(echo $PLINE|cut -d '|' -f1,2,3,6,8,10)
   echo "$XLINE" >> /tmp/update_slack_database
   done <$PKGINFODIR/Packages-slackware-$DISTRO_COMPAT_VERSION-patches
 while read line

Latter-Latter Please consider v2 of this update

[SFR]

"Something's wrong with CURL" final (hopefully) update:

I just compiled the newly released cURL-7.37.0 and all still is fine, but under the condition that we won't use --enable-threaded-resolver switch during compilation.
I did use it at first, following LFS guidance, but this ain't good...

Greetings!

[Karl Godt]

+ [ "$inPKGSIZE" -gt "$FREESPACE" ] && gtkdialog-splash -close box -bg red -timeout 10 -text\
+ "$(gettext "There is not enough space to install $1. Exiting")" && exit 1

What when inPKGSIZE OR FREESPACE are not :digit: only ?

I think logical OR

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[ "$inPKGSIZE" -lt "$FREESPACE" ] || { # code here

would be a better idea so would run on ERROR or -ge .

Also $((FREESPACE-SLACK)) ..

[mavrothal]

What when inPKGSIZE OR FREESPACE are not :digit: only ?

They should be because

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if [ "$(echo $PKGSIZE | grep K)" != "" ]; then

and

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FREESPACE=$(df -k ...

But I'm sure it can be improved
Actually the FREESPACE calculation can be problematic in puppmode 5, 7,13,77 when pupp_rw is in tmpsf because you may have enough RAM for the file but a small savefile and get into trouble when you merge.
So the "case $PUPMODE in" part should also have

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13) FREESPACE=$(df -k | grep pup_ro1 | awk '{print $4}') ;; 

and probably something different for pupmode 7 and 77.
Never run these modes. Any idea where the save partition in 7 is mounted or if there is anyway to see the available space in a writable CD?
Come to think of it pupmode 5 could also be problematic if the user chooses smaller savefile and should be excluded but then you stop live users from having and updated system...

[killapup]

killapup,

A bad save file could cause this.
Delete it and try to make a new one.
I assume everything seems to be OK, before making the save file.
Some info on name, size, and type would help.
What changes are you making before doing a save?

bigpup, I tried your suggestion, I reinstalled and got the same result. Yes, everything is fine before making the save file. So I deleted the save file, both of them (see at end of post), rebooted and made another save file, same result.

Despite what the screen looks like, I can access the folders and some files, not that I tried to open any of them. Actually, I did try to open the background images and they were empty??

It is interesting, though, that the first dialogue that comes up when the save file is in place is a notice to say that the backdrop couldn't be found and was removed. The next thing was the dialogue to start the setup process again. When I restart without the save file, all is good again.

Could it be something to do with the rc.shutdown issue?? Maybe it doesn't complete something vital before I have to do a hard shutdown???

When I install, I set the language and time zone, then connect the internet, that's it, I've done that for all my puppy installs. Then I usually run through the shutdown process and make the save file, for which I normally use ext2, but I did try ext3 this time, no difference to the end result. I usually use 512Mb or 1G for file size, I tried both. As for the name, I just put 'ray' in the save file name.

I said at the beginning that I deleted both save files, When I first install, I save a save file which is saved to the top level but when I reboot, I have to go through the setup again which puts the save file in the slacko5.7.0frugal directory, is that normal??

I think one thing can be confirmed and that is that sda14 is the highest partition number allowable on these systems.

I hope someone can make sense of this because I'm about to give up,
Ray

[mavrothal]

Actually the FREESPACE calculation can be problematic in puppmode 5, 7,13,77 when pupp_rw is in tmpsf because you may have enough RAM for the file but a small savefile and get into trouble when you merge.
So the "case $PUPMODE in" part should also have

Code: Select all

13) FREESPACE=$(df -k | grep pup_ro1 | awk '{print $4}') ;; 

and probably something different for pupmode 7 and 77

Quoting myself here is new pet of update manager than calculates free space on the savefile/partition before download pased on pupmode, a bit better.

Code: Select all

--- a/usr/bin/updates_mgr	2013-12-30 01:16:40.000000000 +0200
+++ b/usr/bin/updates_mgr	2014-05-28 19:54:56.000000000 +0300
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
 
 . /etc/DISTRO_SPECS
 . /usr/bin/gettext.sh
+. /etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE
 
 # blacklisted packages #thanks to npierce
 BLACKLIST=" sudo glib dbus"
@@ -63,7 +64,23 @@
 	  exit
 	fi
 	
-	PKGINST=$(grep "$1" /tmp/updates_slack2.lst|cut -d '|' -f4)
+	PKGINST=$(grep "$1" /tmp/updates_slack2.lst|cut -d '|' -f5)
+	#Check if we have the space
+	PKGSIZE=$(grep "$1" /tmp/updates_slack2.lst|cut -d '|' -f4)
+	if [ "$(echo $PKGSIZE | grep K)" != "" ]; then
+	 xPKGSIZE=$(echo $PKGSIZE | tr -d K)
+	 inPKGSIZE=$(expr $xPKGSIZE \* 2)
+	else
+	 inPKGSIZE=$(expr $xPKGSIZE \/ 512)
+	fi
+	case $PUPMODE in
+	 2) FREESPACE=$(df -k | grep '/$' | awk '{print $4}') ;;
+	 7|13|77) FREESPACE=$(df -k | grep pup_ro1 | awk '{print $4}') ;;
+	 *) FREESPACE=$(df -k | grep pup_rw | awk '{print $4}') ;;
+	esac
+	[ "$inPKGSIZE" -gt "$FREESPACE" ] && gtkdialog-splash -close box -bg red -timeout 10 -text\
+	"$(gettext "There is not enough space to install $1. Exiting")" && exit 1
+	
 	[ "$(echo $1|grep firefox)" != "" ] && MOZ=mozilla-firefox
 	[ "$(echo $1|grep seamonkey)" != "" ] && MOZ=seamonkey 
 	
@@ -196,7 +213,7 @@
 #get rid of dep info, can bork
 [ -f /tmp/update_slack_database ] && rm /tmp/update_slack_database
 while read PLINE
-  do XLINE=$(echo $PLINE|cut -d '|' -f1,2,3,8,10)
+  do XLINE=$(echo $PLINE|cut -d '|' -f1,2,3,6,8,10)
   echo "$XLINE" >> /tmp/update_slack_database
   done <$PKGINFODIR/Packages-slackware-$DISTRO_COMPAT_VERSION-patches
 while read line

[mavrothal]

[bigpup]

I said at the beginning that I deleted both save files, When I first install, I save a save file which is saved to the top level but when I reboot, I have to go through the setup again which puts the save file in the slacko5.7.0frugal directory, is that normal??

In a way yes.
The idea is that if you have a frugal install to a directory. All the files, including the save file, should be in that directory.
Save files outside of that directory are probably for other uses. A live CD, etc...

What format is the partition the frugal install is on?

Try only having the save file in the directory the frugal install is in.
Make sure no other Slacko 5.7 save file is on that partition.

From Slacko 5.7 release notes:

If your system fails to create a pupsave, an alternative save program is located in PPM, called pupsaveconfig. Try that.

Just an idea based on a recent post I read:

Make the save file bigger than 512MB.

If this was your first post about this. (which it is not) I would think you got a bad download of the Slacko 5.7 iso or bad install.

I assume you have no problems with:
Memory on this computer.
To check memory download and burn a bootable CD of Memtest86.
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

Maybe bad section of the hard drive. Just happens to be where you are trying to do all of this.
Manufacturers web sites have test programs you could use to check.