Fatdog64-630 & 631 Final (May 12 2014)

[Wilbert]

Wilbert wrote:

So does your TV but you don't expect to have to walk across the room to change it.

You want to get one of those new fangled remote controls. They are the next big thing apparently.

Don't you think that was exactly the point i was making.

You have a remote for the TV so you should be able to remotely change the brightness of you computer monitor from the desktop , IE: from the driver.

[Keef]

Oh all right then. I'll give you that one.

[Wilbert]

[WillM]

Hi neerajkolte,

Here is a pet for vnstat. After installing, run this command to see what interfaces are available.

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vnstat --iflist

on my computer it returns this;
Available interfaces: eth0 eth1 lo

Since I use eth0; in order to setup the database, I used this command:

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 vnstat -u -i eth0

After vnstat has been running for awhile just type vnstat in the terminal, and it will show your usage. There are some html manpages in /usr/share/doc/manpages/man1.

vnstat will start as a daemon when the computer boots up. To start vnstat without rebooting, run this command:

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/etc/init.d/88-vnstat start

[gcmartin]

Hello @Neerajkolte and @WillM

Thanks for that explanation. Your problem is not unique. It shares a problem that many already face with desktop computers as the more and more of us with smart Phones or Tablets bring to our home needs.

This dialogue brings to light the integration issues that many in Puppyland can benefit from. Further, it is showing us a setup to use systems via this kind of integration. And, using the PC, there may be a way to capture logs for month to month analysis of data use, to validate what Telco are charging us.

One additional benefit is that a cable connection also means a charging station for the smartDevice. Thus we have one system which relies on another which relies on the one. That's integrtion.

Thanks for this posting by you and for the effort that @WillM has given all of us.

[neerajkolte]

Thanks @gcmartin for understanding the problem.

Thanks @WillM for the pet, it has all three commands vnstat vnstatd and vnstati. First two works except vnstati command which needs libgd.so.3,

I have downloaded libgd-2.1.0.tar.gz, extracted it, then opened terminal in extracted directory and ran

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# configure
# make
# make install

It gave me result that the lib is installed in /usr/local/lib. That folder contains following new files

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libgd.a
libgd.so.3
libgd.la
libgd.so
libgd.so.3.0.0

Of which libgd.so.3 and libgd.so are symlinks pointing to libgd.so.3.0.0 in the same directory.

But when I ran vnstati it told me

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vnstati: error while loading shared libraries: libgd.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Do the files need to be placed in another directory or may be symlinked?



Oh and I also tried installing ntm-1.3.1, it's GUI screenshots looked really good.
But it told me to get lsb_release and dbus.

I downloaded dbus-1.8.6.tar.gz and lsb-release-1.4.tar.gz.
Tried compiling and installing them.
Now I don't get error for lsb_release but i am still getting

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# ntm
 

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "ntm.py", line 25, in <module>
    import ntmtools
  File "/usr/share/ntm/ntmtools.py", line 28, in <module>
    import dbus
ImportError: No module named dbus

The directory /usr/local/lib contains

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dbus-1.0
libdbus-1.la
libdbus-1.so
libdbus-1.so.3
libdbus-1.a
libdbus-1.so.3.8.6

Of which dbus-1.0 is a directory, and libdbus-1.so libdbus-1.so.3 are symlinks pointing to libdbus-1.so.3.8.6 in the same directory.

Looks like same problem. Any suggestions?
May be I should try again starting with a clean install.....

Thanks again.

- Neeraj.

[WillM]

Hi neerajkolte,

Besides libgd, vnstati also requires LAMP, which is way to much overhead just to show bandwidth usage. I should not have even included vnstati in that pet.

/usr/local is not the right place to install libraries. When running configure it is necessary to tell it where to install stuff. Read the files named INSTALL and README, also run ./configure --help, before trying to build a program. So at the very least, configure should look something like this:

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./configure --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64

There are other flags that can be used as well, depending on the program.
If you want to learn about compiling programs, and if you don't mind, I would like to suggest reading BLFS.
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/vi ... index.html

[neerajkolte]

Thanks WillM for reply and the link,

I am a noob so my knowledge of working of linux is minimum.
I had seen the options "configure --help" offers.
But didn't know what to use.
While searching for dbus I briefly came across linuxfromscratch.org.
I will now give it a look.

Thanks again.

- Neeraj.

[pcpunk]

Hello @PCpunk

If you have booted from a DVD, simply allow Fatdog to save back to the DVD. On reboot, Fatdog will take care of EVERYTHING for you without your need to do anything placing you in desktop as if you never left. Everything that FATDOG would ever need, resides on that DVD. It will not change any other peripherals your PC might have. Safe and stable!

If you attempt to change to other media from DVD, then some user planning is involved.

Hope this helps

I should have mentioned I am on a LIveUSB (I believe that is the right term) and when trying to shut down it wanted me to choose where my Save Files should be put to. I would revisit and take some screen shots but it won't let me save them lol. omg.
I can't even remember how I installed it, via UNetbooting? is that how it's usually done? I did this from the Fatdog site so what ever it says there is what I did. Thanks guys I will be here more often in the future! Someone must know what I am talking about as there are quite a few choices to where to put the files. I guess I will have to go and copy all that info manually arghhh!

[LateAdopter]

Hello jamesbond

I was considering the idea of "linux as a bootloader" to workaround the limitations of booting Fatdog64 from an SD Card via a USB cardreader, when I came across your piece about your Kexec bootloader for FatdogARM.

I have now tested Kexec-Loader (KXL) booting Fatdog64 630 from my SD Card, and here are my results, in case you are interested.

The "limitations" of bootloaders:
1) A PC BIOS only provides USB1 support, so we need a bootloader with USB2/3 support built-in.
2) Linux bootloaders do not yet support booting from F2FS.

My system has Grub4DOS in its own FAT12 partition in the spare space in the first cylinder, the way IBM OS/2 did its bootmanager. KXL is only about 800kB so it will fit in there too. I also tested with the KXL files on the SD Card. The SD Card has its original FAT32 format.

The times are from the G4D menu 'til the Fatdog desktop appears:

14 seconds, booted from the hard disk.
50 seconds, booted directly by G4D from the SD Card
35 seconds, booted via KXL from the SD Card

When booting via KXL there is no noticeable difference whether the KXL files are on the HD or on the SD Card. But, with the KXL files on the HD, I can reduce the BIOS load time by 3 seconds by disabling "legacy USD device support".

I assume that something like Kexec-Loader with an up-to-date kernel would also be able to boot from F2FS.

[Bindee]

Kirk , James

Have you modified or customised VLC and Firefox in any way that users should avoid updating them to the latest version ?

I vaguely seem to remember James saying Firefox has been modified and thats why it says nightly build.

Just wanted to check if it will break anything.

Thanks

[Pavan]

Anyone used or using a steelseries kana v2 mouse with fatdog ?

I wondered if all the buttons and wheel work ok.

[jamesbond]

@LateAdopter - that's an interesting experiments, yes. Never cross my mind to use kexec on x86_64 because the bootloaders are capable ones. But yes, I'm glad that it works; I assume you compile your own minimal kernel since Fatdog's one isn't compiled with kexec.

@Bindee, both VLC and Firefox are self-compiled and not the official binaries from the website. For example firefox is "nightly" (because we aren't allowed to use firefox brand). Thus both will not auto-update.

If you need an updated firefox, you can always delete the built-in one and download and install firefox from official binaries, it should work. VLC - I haven't tested, as VLC has a lot more dependencies.

@Pavan - not me. I use Logitech standard wheel mouse.

[LateAdopter]

Hello jamesbond

@LateAdopter - I assume you compile your own minimal kernel since Fatdog's one isn't compiled with kexec.

That's what Kexec-Loader provides. It's a kernel: 740kB and an initrd: 128kB, plus a collection of optional filesystem drivers and device drivers.

It only has FAT and Joliet filesystems built-in but you can add any of the others needed.

It means that you can boot from any device and filesystem supported by linux. You are not limited to what the BIOS and bootloader support.

[gcmartin]

Hello @LateAdopter. What you share is of great interest. And Thanks to both you and @JamesBond.

You share a bootloader approach which has cross-platform ability and cross-peripherals for boot identification and selection. This brings Linux universality to the bootmanager/bootloader arena.

[Bindee]

@Bindee, both VLC and Firefox are self-compiled and not the official binaries from the website. For example firefox is "nightly" (because we aren't allowed to use firefox brand). Thus both will not auto-update.

If you need an updated firefox, you can always delete the built-in one and download and install firefox from official binaries, it should work. VLC - I haven't tested, as VLC has a lot more dependencies.

I think it might be best if i just left them alone then.

Seeing as FireFox has regular security fixes and VLC has codec bug fixes couldn't you assign someone with good Linux knowledge to the fatdog team to keep these packages updated while still keeping it self-compiled how you want them?

[jamesbond]

I think it might be best if i just left them alone then.

Firefox isn't too difficult to update. Just delete /usr/lib64/firefox and /usr/lib64/firefox-27, get the tarball for 64-bit Linux from firefox website, expand it, and copy the resulting "firefox" directory to /usr/lib64.

Seeing as FireFox has regular security fixes and VLC has codec bug fixes couldn't you assign someone with good Linux knowledge to the fatdog team to keep these packages updated while still keeping it self-compiled how you want them?

I wish I could *assign* someone

But you do have a point. I'm sure some of Fatdog users will continue to stay with the 600 series (I've seen some sticking to 500 series) so it would be good if the community can form a support group around these older series, and I would encourage anyone with interest to do so.

In addition, Fatdog64 600 series has a public repository, accessible using Fossil SCM, here: http://www.ibiblio.org/fatdogscm/cgi-bi ... .cgi/index With this, you can rebuild Fatdog64, identical with the released versions. Anybody who is interested to maintain the 600 series can use that as the base and continue to release "unofficial" updates to Fatdog64 631 (it's "unofficial" because as far as the officer is concerned, the 600 series ends with 631).

Fatdog users tend to be the quiet types, though, so I don't really know how many of you are out there.

Now the most exciting news of all: Fatdog64 700 alpha1 is released today. Announcement here.

[Ted Dog]

I wouldn't mind helping keep 600 series alive. But I will see what happens with the new direction taken by 700. COMING SOON...

[Bindee]

Thanks James , I'll checkout 700

[JustGreg]

First, this not a bug. I need some help creating a pet for Fatdog 64

My employer has started using a new web page/java script for time keeping. I noticed that the page was not rendering correctly with Firefox Nightly 29.0 version of Fatdog64. However, on my work Computer with Firefox 31.0, the page renders correctly. I decide to try to make a pet of the official Mozilla Firefox 31.0 package.

I downloaded the 64 bit package for other Linux, Firefox-31.0.tar.bz2 file. The bz2 fiel was copied to a working test diectory. I used pupzip to expand the archive to the directory Firefox-31.0 under the test directory. Using the dir2tgz command, Firefox-31.0.tgz archive was created. I created a pet file using tgz2pet command.

Using the pet installer, the pet was installed. Here is where I found I missed a step or two. After the pet installer successfully finished, first I noticed it reported no menu entry for applications menu. What do I need to add to create a menu entry? Secondly, the installer placed the needed files back in the original test directory and not in the system files. How do I correct this?

The good news is the official Mozzila package worked correctly when I started it. However, the time sheet web page still did not render correctly. I do want to use the official released version and create a proper pet. Thank you in advance for any help.