(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Puppy should have the option at startup to choose the environment before they load.

When it comes to the Pup_save issue, wouldn't it be better to have say 3 scripts
1st small script detects your pupsave and sees if your using ext2,3 and if so it loads the updated script with the large file selections automatically.
And if it detects your not using ext2,3 it loads then it loads a reduced script say 16MB - 1GB for windows and other partitions?

breakdown
script #1 auto detects what type of partition and selects script 2 or 3 automatically.
script #2 Full 16mb - 15GB with large Pup_save Warnings
script #3 reduced 16MB - 1 GB

any one want to build a new script? really all we need is just one new one and about 2 mintues of reducing the updated one.
I'm going to work on a new cups interface for a bit, HTML I'm well rounded with unlike programming languages so I'll try to make it more user friendly.
ttuuxxx

Jim1911 wrote:A few problems, some of which others have experienced also:
1. There are icons showing for 6 non-existing partitions, one of which is shown mounted.

Same Problem here.

A script that looks at the size of the disk and free space on partitions and filesystem etc sounds great - with nice graphical windows etc. This is clearly an interesting project for someone with really detailed file system understanding. Probably only a few with the knowledge to have a crack with this one.

BUT... I think we are too far down the road with 4.2 to test and debug with the rigour needed for such a crucial element in our puppy.

We also need to consider where pup_save/frugal makes sense as opposed to a full install. I am a big fan of fast boot and whilst we have happily moved on the the fsck on the pup_save that made the boot up of a frugal install such a dog (just love the puns!!), IMHO a full install is still the way to go for fast booting and if the entire machine is dedicated to puppy (as it should be) why muck about with frugals. Perhaps we are too shy of recommending full-time puppy os as a real credible alternative.

Quick backup of 15 Gig is not really a great feature of a pup_save. But using puppy in a real world OS where most folks let email/attachments build up and up to several gig, plus a large selection of the family snaps with their 7 Mega pixel cameras on high res. means that a 512k pup_save isn't really goning to cut the mustard for many as their full time OS. The pup_save is an absolute winner to get the old 486 going with a 500 Meg hard drive - but out of place to enjoy the full noise of a really frisky puppy. Whilst frugal installations are recommended by the universal installer, perhaps it is time to revisit this?

As already pointed out the way around the pup_save is to save files outside it in /mnt/home/ - then the wonderful backup only backs up a portion of your stuff.

I think ecopup noted that he always installs as a full install as inevitably pup_save file size limits get reached at the most inconvenient times.

Nope frugals are for USB sticks and live CDs, and testing alphas in my view! Give me full noise puppy every time.

Hi growler

The way I've been using frugal install with a large pup_save file has been excellent, Installing puppy on my pc every couple of days is messy and time consuming, I needed a fast way to cleanup the system and install all my main usual programs, graphic, ftp, compiling, etc, due to the amount of software I compile having a system say with dbus which I compiled in the past week could lead to extra dependencies when I release a new package, like the gimp I compiled last week, When I was compilng gimp I had to disable dbus because I had that installed on my pc left over from another program and if I forgot to do that, anyone who would install the gimp I compiled would of needed dbus, same with other libs etc. So its usually best just to delete and start over with my main needed defaults.
Now what I do is
delete the current pup_save
copy and rename my clean backup pup_save with the added 'needed programs'
hard reset the pc and 1 minute late boom
15 gigs of freememory on the taskbar,
gimp, filezilla, devx, etc all installed, up and running, no fuss, It takes about 10 extra seconds to load up the 15 gig pup_save, compared with

Live cd, live compile
had to install all my 'needed software'
then I had to install the devx_401.pet <--- that alone takes around 20mins to check all the dependencies.
Then I only had 8 gigs of memory to play with

Full install
Install puppy, configure grub
had to install all my 'needed software'
setup the devx_401.sfs
only 4Gigs of memory because swap does work on my sata2 drives

by far frugal and large pupsave is the quickest, easiest to get up and running, and have the most memory resources, Its more than just for usb sticks and older computers, Newer Pc like the ones I have it just works wonders on,
ttuuxxx

ttuuxxx wrote:...Made it easier to understand with about 50% less words...

there's still one "you" too many in the dialog -- "You currently you have..."

dogone wrote:*However*, the integrity of Puppy's save file is paramount... ...we could find ourselves doing heavy duty damage control in Puppydom... ...Lots of permutations and no room for error.

I share Dogone's concerns... Better be very careful, Ttuuxxx; just think how you'd feel if ever something went wrong!

IMHO, when a 512 MB pup_save ain't enough, it's time to move one's old precious data to somewhere else, maybe churning out a new partition with GPartEd; it takes a minute, it's safe and, as a bonus, keeps the user aware of his own doings -- which is one strong reason for my Puppy addiction.

capoverde wrote:
IMHO, when a 512 MB pup_save ain't enough, it's time to move one's old precious data to somewhere else, maybe churning out a new partition with GPartEd; it takes a minute, it's safe and, as a bonus, keeps the user aware of his own doings -- which is one strong reason for my Puppy addiction.

Here's a regular example,
Seamonkey, Firefox sources when you uncompress them is over 500MB
The worst one yet was Qt4, when I compiled that the working directory was around 1.4 gigs alone.
When I compiled that last seamonkey package thats in 4.2 alpha 3, I had 3 Seamonkey compiled directories and one firefox and one IceCat, like 2.5gigs++ just in 5 applications. Thats why for me its great. Also its not to store its to use as compiling space, you just can't make a partition and compile in it without it being system linked somehow.

ttuuxxx

Jim1911 wrote: 2. P-widgets is a fine addition but the clock doesn't show until you click somewhere on the desktop. Also, how do you change the weather application so that it shows temps in F instead of C?

Jim

Hi Jim1911,

1. I made a fix for the clock to show up, just need final approval from Zigbert...please find in pwidgets thread......

2. Also you can find instructions on that thread about weather widget, you have to change the metric code to 1 or 2 for celcius or fahrenheit

cheers

Yeah I see the benefit for your situation in the development enviroment so you can start a clean sheet and check dependencies etc. but this is arguably not a typical scenario for the bog basic user.

Nonetheless, it would be a scary area to make a cock-up and I'd say this might be something to revisit for 4.3 after well considered implications are fully discussed - Will and dogone seem like clever blokes to me, I share their reservations.

changed

If we had the latest Gutenprint that I compiled on the main repo, I could have a direct link to it on the page also, would make it easier for new users to get it.
ttuuxxx

ok I updated where the links go, its fully functional other thank the Gutenprint link of course because I don't have one other than my puppylinux.ca account
ttuuxxx

Lobster

Hi could you upload/extract these cups help files to maybe where the wiki is, That would save 264kb on the next cups package, I can link them direct to the package and have online help, I just need a link to where they are being hosted.
thanks
ttuuxxx

I also found the documentation hosted on the cups site, I could route the links there, but I don't know how long the links would be good for?
http://www.cups.org/documentation.php

Ok guys I'll need some help with ideas with this cups front end, The thing we need to keep in mind is new users. Really the default Cups index page is one of the worst frightening things, a new user to Linux will ever come across, especially if they come from windows based printer installs.

The way I have it so far,is bypassing the default page and going straight into the main 'setup a new printer' routine.
below is the default index page.
Its not even clear about where to click to install a printer.
like the heading its under 'CUPS for Administrators'
if people want to install a print and never used linux probably they wouldn't want to click on something under CUPS for Administrators.
They just want to click on install printer.
And then we have the 'Overview of CUPS', which it takes them 537 words to go to a link called 'Administration' and basically thats where I have it starting by default.
No wonder our forum is full of 'how to install printers'
So anyways I'm willing to make it better for all users, I just need some ideas.
I've read that some users find it difficult to uninstall a printer in the newer cups, I'll also make a direct like for that on the main page.
ttuuxxx

HairyWill wrote:I wonder if it would be possible to extend the pet packaging specification to include lists of files that should not be overwitten on install or maybe upgrade. Seems quite an involved problem.

in my opinon, it is a problem to overwrite files in the home-folder of the user, in our case /root.

maybe a routine that looks, if the files/folder already exist in /root and if so backs up the old would be an idea. so the new package would get it's needed files and the user has it's configs to look at and maybe copy over.

if i remember right, the installation of pup-files looks if files already exist. but it looks for all folders and you only have the choice of aborting or overwriting. for "normal" folders (e.g. /usr/bin) this is not wanted, because a user wants to install the newer package over the older one, but for those in the home-folder it might be wrong.

Maybe also files/folder in

/etc
/usr/share/etc
/usr/local/share/etc

could be of interest as they also contain config-files.

is this idea correct do i miss something?

aragon

ttuuxxx wrote:ok I updated where the links go, its fully functional other thank the Gutenprint link of course because I don't have one other than my puppylinux.ca account
ttuuxxx

ttuuxxx,

looks realy simple to use. this will help all users not only novices.

aragon

I've been investigating the disappearance of the bottom jwm tray after using the jwm configurator. So far the only problem I can find happens when you use the button to apply the gtk theme to jwm. For some of the gtk themes this destroys the tray definition. In a recent puppy release I patched the gtk themes to avoid this but really the routine that extracts the colours from the gtk theme needs to be patched and made more robust.

I will do this I just wanted to ensure that this was the reported problem.

HairyWill wrote:I've been investigating the disappearance of the bottom jwm tray after using the jwm configurator. So far the only problem I can find happens when you use the button to apply the gtk theme to jwm. For some of the gtk themes this destroys the tray definition. In a recent puppy release I patched the gtk themes to avoid this but really the routine that extracts the colours from the gtk theme needs to be patched and made more robust.

I will do this I just wanted to ensure that this was the reported problem.

You also might want to try this gtk2 theme selector, I remembered about this one I seen before, So I found it and compiled it up. Its actually pretty good it might save you from patching everything.

Updated source by ubuntu, Same as above but not compiled yet. http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/u ... 0.5.tar.gz

Hey Hairy I just tried that GTK2 theme selector I posted above around 10 times each theme in JWM and it worked perfect each time, to a problem.
If you wanted the source code for it, I could upload it also.
ttuuxxx

HairyWill wrote:I've been investigating the disappearance of the bottom jwm tray after using the jwm configurator

line 184 in gkt2jwm (Puppy 4.12) is critical since it tries to detect xload. Since it's not there, sed will blank instead of changing text.


Sigmund