YaPI (yet another Puppy Installer) install any Puppy iso

[musher0]

Hi bigpup.

I thought I was helping the development of your YAPI by providing a different take on it.

For me personally, I see no point in pushing this further as a separate thread. As I said,
-- and sorry for ruffling feathers --, I believe in the manual installation method more than
any automatic one.

As a script to search iso files, my slocate wrapper, once installed, and once its DB's are
populated, is more efficient and faster, IMO. I don't need the script I submitted to you
here.

Use my script or not, use it or lose it, I don't really care. All I ask is that nobody steals it.
For me, it was good exercise, that's all.

I sincerely thought that I was helping the development of your YAPI. If I was not, please
accept my apologies, and I'll just take my leave.

Best regards to you and L18L.

[bigpup]

I sincerely thought that I was helping the development of your YAPI.

You are helping.

This code looked like a way to make YaPI work faster.
I did not know you had already made a program to do something similar.

Sorry for any misunderstanding by my last post.

[bigpup]

yapi_2016-03-12

iso list I have no refresh button.

I am dreadful sorry about that.

Refresh button seen in slacko-6.3.0.1 and in Fatdog64.

Maybe time will help to solve this mystery.

No mystery

--extra-button has been added to Xdialog by amigo.
--extra button is used for Refresh of list and for selection of SUPERFLOPPY

Versions of Xdialog without this patch simply ignore --extra-button.
As these are extras nothing weird happens if the extra is omitted.

With this post being that old. 5 years.
added to Xdialog
You would think these changes would now be in all Puppies?

Could the location of the extra button be the problem
Everything I am reading says it goes between OK and Cancel buttons.

[L18L]

With this post being that old. 5 years.
added to Xdialog
You would think these changes would now be in all Puppies?

Could the location of the extra button be the problem
Everything I am reading says it goes between OK and Cancel buttons.

Never cared about all Puppies.
Here is a one-liner to test on existance of extra button:

Code: Select all

Xdialog --extra-button --menu \
"This is $(cat /etc/issue)\n\nDo you see an Extra button?" \
0 0 4 1 one 2 two 3 three

(Copy code to console and press ENTER.)

EDIT
Or replace Xdialog by dialog to see Extra button between OK and Cancel buttons

[bigpup]

Never cared about all Puppies.

I know YaPI is not going to work in all Puppies, but I was hoping it could have all options when run in the latest Puppies.
Slacko 6.3.0 -works OK.
Tahrpup6.0.5 -works OK, but no SuperFloppy option or refresh.
Slacko64 6.3.0 -works OK.
Tahrpup64 6.0.5 -works OK.
Fatdog64 -Works OK

Tahrpup 6.0.5 seems to be the one with problems being able to offer the SuperFloppy or refresh button.

Your code run in Tahrpup 6.0.5
Using xdialog you get no extra button.
Using dialog it shows the extra button.

Is this a bug in Tahrpup 6.0.5 that needs reported?
xdialog not up to date?

Update:
I reported this extra button issue in the bug topic for Tahrpup 6.0.5

[bigpup]

An idea

On this window could you use the help button for SUPERFLOPPY button and not need to use the extra button?

Just do a relabel of the help button.

As you can tell I know little about this coding.

[bigpup]

yapi_2016-03-12
Running in Slacko 6.3.0

Found one minor bug.

You select the SUPERFLOPPY option.
At 1st window you select no button.
At 2nd window you select OK button.
At 3rd window you are back at window to select what device to install on.
You select a device.
All windows disappear and YaPI does nothing. YaPI appears to close.

[bigpup]

Do you think there should be information in YaPI, about how to return a USB flash drive to normal, after doing a SuperFloppy install?
Or
Should I just put some info in the first post in this topic?

[bigpup]

L18L,

I added some information to the first post, in this topic, to hopefully make it clear that all the credit goes to you for development of YaPI

Well, I was that nagging bug in your ear that would not let it die

[musher0]

Hi guys.

FWIW, here's a relatively fast < find > alternative:

Code: Select all

tree -if | grep -E "\.iso$"

BFN.

[gcmartin]

Like the locate/slocate commands, the tree command is not in every PUP. Not available on @BarryK's distros, @TaZoC's LightHouse or on @PeeBee's distros.

FYI

[musher0]

Like the locate/slocate commands, the tree command is not in every PUP. Not available on @BarryK's distros, @TaZoC's LightHouse or on @PeeBee's distros.

FYI

What kind of a distro is this? No < tree > command. Humpf.

[musher0]

The situation has been taken care of.

[gcmartin]

Adding the TREE command PET to the PUPPY's system commands allows instant retrieval of my ISO list.

Code: Select all

bash-4.1# cd /mnt/MyNAS4/ISOs
<root> /mnt/MyNAS4/ISOs
bash-4.1# tree -if | grep -E "\.iso$"
./Downloads/LInux/Puppy/Musher0/dpw-3.14.56.1.iso
./   o
./   o
./   o

Very helpful command, indeed.

Thanks

[bigpup]

musher0,

Good to see you back!!!!

Hi guys.

FWIW, here's a relatively fast < find > alternative:

Code: Select all

tree -if | grep -E "\.iso$"

BFN.

In Slacko 6.3.0 I tried this code.
Tree command is supported in Slacko 6.3.0

My output.

Code: Select all

root# tree -if | grep -E "\.iso$"
./download/librepup-6.0.2.0.iso
./download/lupu3hd-5.2.8.6-20131124.iso
./download/pmagic-5.8.iso
./download/slacko-6.3.0.iso

Yes, it was very, very fast at giving a list of iso's I have in my Slacko 6.3.0 install.
I guess it only searched the partition Slacko 6.3.0 is on.

For YaPI, I think the search bottleneck is always going to be mounting and UN-mounting partitions. Not sure if anything is going to help, that, to make YaPI search faster.

YaPI is turning into a good test of what is and is not in Puppy versions.

YaPI needs xdialog to support use of the extra button in xdialog windows. Not all Puppies have this support.

You trying to give us a better iso search code is also showing command support deficiencies in Puppy versions.

For YaPI to fully work, we are trying to make sure it will fully work in the latest newest versions of Puppy.
Tahrpup 6.0.5
Tahrpup64 6.0.5
Slacko 6.3.0
Slacko64 6.3.0
Fatdog64
And maybe, at best, be able to do a normal frugal and full install in some of the other Puppies.

[bigpup]

L18L,

Tahrpup 6.0.5 will not offer the refresh or SUPERFLOPPY buttons. Xdialog does not provide support for these extra buttons.

So, I reported the problem in the Tahrpup 6.0.5 bug topic.

Problem now partly fixed. Now get the Refresh button.

Need to install the latest Tahrpup 6.0.5 update, by using Quickpet->Info->Tahrpup updates.

SuperFloppy button, I think, is still about lack of SuperFloppy needed files missing from Tahrpup 6.0.5.
Strange that all needed support is in Tahrpup64 6.0.5

Still trying to troubleshoot this SuperFloppy issue.

[bigpup]

With 17,000 + views of this topic, 35 downloads of the Yapi.pet, and about 7 people making comments.

Not really sure what all this indicates.
Some interest.
Some willingness to try it.
Some willingness to help.
Good idea
Not a good idea

Any feedback good or bad out there.

[bigpup]

In the first post of this topic is information on how to return a USB flash drive to a normal partition/format setup, after you have used it for a SuperFloppy install.

SuperFloppy install is a good way of making a Puppy live USB flash drive. However, it is a different way of setting up a USB flash drive.
One very good benefit is, all the main Puppy files are in a read only section of the drive. Nothing else can be written to this section of the drive. The Puppy save is the only Puppy file/folder that can be written too or changed.
Also, 95% of the USB drive is still a readable and writable normal partition. This is where the Puppy save is placed.

[musher0]

Hi bigpup. Thanks for the kind words.

I've been thinking about this a little. Perhaps we can have our cake and eat it too...
I mean benefit of the speed of < tree > and have speedy mounts as well.

As before, we mount the unmounted drives, scan for isos and build our list.

But instead of un-mounting immediately the partitions that need to be un-mounted,
we make a note in a string or in a temp file that partition such-and-such needs to
be unmounted later.

This way, we don't tax the patience of our user too much. Because we know it's
the "lazy" un-mounting < umount -l > that takes the most time. And at this time,
I would say it's safe to leave the partitions mounted for the duration because the
user is not doing anything else, (s)he's busy installing a Puppy!

Also, (s)he can choose a Puppy iso on any partition, they're all availalble at this
time, we don't have to re-mount any partition. Here again some time would be
saved/gained.

Once we have finished our process of installing the Pup, we do whatever un-
mounting needs to be done. We write a little < umount -l > loop that feeds on the
previously created temp file and voilà.

We could even have a fork at this point: if the user wishes to reboot immediately
with the newly installed Pup, the script wouldn't have to un-mount the remaining
partitions, Puppy's shutdown process would do it for us. We'd have our un-
mounting loop kick in only if the user wishes to continue his/her session.

Since the main job is finished, we can officially close the app, do the un-mounting
in the background with perhaps a < nice > command prefix, so the user will barely
notice it.

This way, we could probably shave a minute or two off the process. What do you
think? Is it worth a try?

BFN.

[bigpup]

musher0,

Your mount UN-mount ideas are probably a good way to make the iso search faster. As the search code was being written, similar ideas were suggested and discussed.
Even searching UN-mounted drives was discussed as something YaPI should not do.
It was soon understood that the search should leave the computer in the condition it found it. That is why it only leaves drives mounted that were mounted to begin with.
The general discussion was, drives were UN-mounted, by the user, for a reason, and YaPI should not change that.

This is also kind of a Puppy standard. Drives are mounted and UN-mounted when you want them to be.

I feel you telling YaPI to search for iso's is you deciding to mount drives.
However, it was decided that did not say you decided to keep them mounted. so, YaPI UN-mounts the ones you had UN-mounted.

I could see the search start with mounting all drives.
Do the search.
Make the list of iso's.
UN-mount drives that were not mounted before the search.

Now the question is: does that really make the search faster or better than it is now?

Also, just how deep in the filesytem does the search go?
1, 2,3,4,5,6, etc......directories deep in a partition?

I have noticed the search of a partition, does take longer, if it has a lot of directories with sub, and sub sub, etc... directories in it. But, that could be caused by the code commands doing the search.
musher0, your number of partitions and number of iso files, is probably a little above the normal Puppy users but, YaPI needs to work good for you too

Any idea is worth checking out!!