Puppy 4..2alpha "Deepthought" Bug Reports and Fixes

[ttuuxxx]

When it comes to puppy's games, we need to keep Xsoldier, It gives you something to do when the forum or net is running slow:)Also there used to be a yahtzee game I think it was tcl that alo would be a good one, and maybe a regular solitaire game.
ttuuxxx

[WhoDo]

YES! Great decision! It would be possible to reduce the size of the Tcl and Tk PETs (which already add up to slightly less than 4 MB) to some extent by leaving out demos and man pages; let me know if you want "runtime" versions (and tell me exactly how they should be named, e.g., tcl-8.5.5runtime.pet, or what).

Yes, runtime versions would be good. We have some 8.5 alphas that are around 850kb instead of the nearly 4Mb of the later versions, but later is always better.

Do Puppy users really need to have samba, pnethood, chmlib, chmsee, rsync, and gadmin-rsync built in? Aren't these packages of pretty specialized interest to "cognoscenti," such that anyone who needs the packages will have no problem finding them and installing them with PETget?

Ah, the perennial dilemma with Puppy ... what to leave out to meet the self-imposed size restriction. It could be worse ... we could be trying to build a version of DSL!

Windows network connectivity is a "must have" for refugees. The samba client and pnethood are indispensible IMHO.

Likewise--this may be a bit more controversial, but--isn't the same true of glade3_DEV and glade2bas_DEV, which (I'm told) are needed only for the select few who write GTK2 programs, not for the many who run them?

As previously advised elsewhere, these are NOT in Puppy 4.2 .. not even the alpha!

And is the Puppy BASIC interpreter actually used any more?

Yes. There are a number of applications from MU in particular that use that interpreter.

Are PicPuz and Xsoldier (over 1 MB together) such great games that everyone must have them?

PicPuz is already removed from Puppy 4.2alpha. It's not going back.

Is CD ripping such a valuable activity that everyone must have cdparanoia and/or ripoff?

Rationalisation is possible, but at least one CD ripper is a functionality boost IMHO.

More generally, I would hope the self-imposed 100-MB limit would not be applied in a Procrustean manner to cut out things of considerable value to many present and future Puppy users.

The limit is our niche for the Standard version. Other "things of considerable value" will find their way into the PETget download list. I can envisage a day when there is so much of value that we reach or breach our limit, but I hope that doesn't come soon. At the moment we have no serious competition in our 50Mb - 150Mb window of opportunity. The closer we get to either boundary, the more competitive other distros become - DSL at the bottom end and TinyMe et al at the top. Vive la difference!

Cheers

[aragon]

@WhoDo

Are you sure we even have "man-pages" in Puppy? Try this...

I'm sure we don't have, but manpages are the bestknown and simplest help -files for linux (correct me if i'm wrong).

I thought our only other help pages were already in html format under /usr/share/doc? To quote an infamous Australian, red-headed, female politician ... "Please explain?"

yes, for some build in apps this is true but i think not for all.

in general, i think that every linux-distro should be able to handle manpages. puppy has /usr/bin/man but that does not work with local manpages.

cheers
aragon

[veronicathecow]

Hi ecomoney , I had the same problem and popped the solution onto this topic earlier. I just renamed the files to the lower case!
I know, like me you are probably hitting your head with your hand going "d'oh!"
Have fun
Tony

[pa_mcclamrock]

Are PicPuz and Xsoldier (over 1 MB together) such great games that everyone must have them?

Where are you getting these sizes from?

From /root/.packages/packages.txt in Puppy 4.1.1:

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"picpuz-12" "picpuz 12: jigsaw puzzle" on "Fun +gtk+ 268K" \

"xsoldier-1.4" "xsoldier 1.4: space war arcade game" on "Fun 792K" \

As to the argument about samba/pnethood I think you have it slightly twisted especially when compared to games. I think that most people understand that they usually need to install a game to play it.

Like PicPuz and Xsoldier, right?

Many windows users utilise file and print sharing in some form. If you ask a linux newbie how to access their windows shares or printer they may well have difficulty and not know where to start. Windows has had the notion of workgroups and network sharing since 3.1 in 1992. People have had 16 years of expecting to be able to share things easily(ish) on their networks.

Where I work, people would not be allowed to use Puppy on the job. If there are many people who are allowed to use it on the job elsewhere, and if they need samba to communicate with Windows systems, then maybe samba should still be in. I'd like to know some facts about this, though. Who here actually uses samba, and for what exactly?

I would be surprised to hear someone saying
"I don't like puppy linux, it doesn't have a decent version of minesweeper"

Or PicPuz, or Xsoldier--right?

I would not be surprised to hear
"I don't like puppy linux, I cannot access my windows shares, my printer doesn't work and I can't use that weird web browser on my favourite bank website.

"Printer doesn't work" was what kept me from switching to Puppy for everyday use until 2008, when I got Puppy 4.1 and the printer worked. This was just a simple parallel-port hookup to my home computer, though, not a network printer. "Windows shares"--see above. As for "favourite bank website"--favourite bank should be willing to listen to complaints that its website doesn't work with enough browsers. This happened at the credit union I belong to; now they have a simple Web interface that I've had no problem accessing with Opera, SeaMonkey, and (on Mandriva) Konqueror, to list just the browsers I remember offhand.

David McClamrock

[pa_mcclamrock]

Do Puppy users really need to have samba, pnethood, chmlib, chmsee, rsync, and gadmin-rsync built in? Aren't these packages of pretty specialized interest to "cognoscenti," such that anyone who needs the packages will have no problem finding them and installing them with PETget?

I suppose that you could argue that about rsync (which is a standard *nix command for making incremental copies/backups) and the chm viewer, but how can you possibly argue that about Samba and Pnethood? When a new user comes to Puppy he or she is going to expect to be able to see his/her shares on the other PCs.

If you say so. I didn't even know I had any shares to see on any other PCs! What network do you use to see these shares, and what do they look like?

Are PicPuz and Xsoldier (over 1 MB together) such great games that everyone must have them?

My opinion is that we can toss all the games, but that might make new users upset.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the "Help" documentation needs to be revised and reorganized so that one of the first things new users see is something like "Things Puppy doesn't come with, and how to add them." Then there should be categorized listings of packages that can be obtained from PETget and elsewhere--like games, and more than just the paltry few that Puppy has had so far. (Am I volunteering to do this job? Um, well, maybe. There don't seem to be a lot of other people on this forum who are very interested in documentation--unless I failed to notice them).

David McClamrock

[pa_mcclamrock]

Yes, runtime versions [of Tcl and Tk] would be good.

Hardly any sooner said than done:

http://puppylinux.asia/members/pa_mccla ... untime.pet

http://puppylinux.asia/members/pa_mccla ... untime.pet

I'm astounded at how much these were reduced in size merely by leaving out demos and man pages--they now add up to less than 2 MB together!

We have some 8.5 alphas that are around 850kb instead of the nearly 4Mb of the later versions, but later is always better.

Well, almost always. In this case, some important changes were made after the 8.5 alphas came out; not everything that will now work with Tcl/Tk 8.5 would work with the alphas (as I found out a while ago).

Windows network connectivity is a "must have" for refugees. The samba client and pnethood are indispensible IMHO.

Maybe so--and maybe someday I'll find out specifically what people (not including me) use them for on Puppy.

[ . . . ] At the moment we have no serious competition in our 50Mb - 150Mb window of opportunity. The closer we get to either boundary, the more competitive other distros become - DSL at the bottom end and TinyMe et al at the top. Vive la difference!

OK, but a size of, say, 102 MB isn't very close to either boundary.

David McClamrock

[pa_mcclamrock]

In general, i think that every linux-distro should be able to handle manpages. puppy has /usr/bin/man but that does not work with local manpages.

Hear, hear! How come you can't just enter, say, "man whatzit" in rxvt on Puppy and see the "whatzit" local man page (supposing it to exist) right in the rxvt window, as you can with other distros?

[technosaurus]

@pa_mcclamrock

"Help" documentation needs to be revised and reorganized so that one of the first things new users see is something like "Things Puppy doesn't come with, and how to add them."

I have already started a categorized install menu on the web desktop that I update at random when I find working pet packages that will install without needing any extra dependencies ("out of the box" packages), but if you (or anyone else who can QC the packages) happened to PM me a list of links and descriptions of these kinds of packages, I'd be happy to include them in appropriate categories and it would speed up the process.

[trapster]

pa_mcclamrock wrote:

Hear, hear! How come you can't just enter, say, "man whatzit" in rxvt on Puppy and see the "whatzit" local man page (supposing it to exist) right in the rxvt window, as you can with other distros?

I get 3rd part man pages in /usr/man, /usr/local/man and /usr/local/share/man. They are usually in the form of file.1
I usually consolidate them all to 1 directory and then when I need the "man" info of a program, I'll change to that directory and do:

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nroff -man file

.

I actually hacked Barry's man script to only use on the 3rd party pages. So now I can do man file. It works fairly decent.

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11:25 PM ~ # man gnump3d
GNUMP3d(1)                                                          GNUMP3d(1)



NAME
       GNUMP3d - GNU MP3 / OGG Vorbis Streaming Server

SYNOPSIS
       gnump3d  [options]  gnump3d  is  a  simple  server allows you to stream
       MP3/OGG/Movie files across a network.

       It is designed to be simple, reliable, and extensible - with the  addi-
       tion of plugins.

       It's user interface may also be changed with the addition of themes.


OPTIONS
       The following options are supported:

       --background Run in the background after starting the server.

       --debug  Run  in the foreground, outputting any diagnostics to the con-
       sole.

       --fast Fast startup, don't index the music archive to build a song  tag
       database.

       --quiet Don't display the startup banner when the program starts.

       --version Show the version number of the gnump3d software, then exit.

       --help Display brief usage instructions, then exit.

       --lang  xx  Set  the  language  the  server should show it's output in.
       ("en" by default).

       --plugin-dir directory Specify which directory the  plugins  should  be
       read from.

       --theme-dir directory Specify which directory the theme files should be
       read from.

       --dump-plugins Display all the plugins that the server has found, their
       versions authors, and descriptions.

       --port port Set which port the program should listen upon.

       --root  directory Specify the root of your music archive, which is pre-
       sented to clients.




AUTHOR Steve Kemp <steve@steve.org.uk>
SEE ALSO
       gnump3d.conf(1), gnump3d-top(1)



GNU                                                                 GNUMP3d(1)
11:39 PM ~ #

[WhoDo]

I'm astounded at how much these were reduced in size merely by leaving out demos and man pages--they now add up to less than 2 MB together!

Thanks, David. Did you strip the binaries too? That can have a marked effect on size as well. Here is what MU told me ages ago about how to do this with a program I compiled for Puppy

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4.) striped all binaries.
strip /usr/local/bin/planner
strip /usr/local/lib/libplanner-1.so.0.0.0
same with the files in /usr/local/lib/planner
Stripping removes debug-informations, that are required only by the developer.

Windows network connectivity is a "must have" for refugees. The samba client and pnethood are indispensible IMHO.

Maybe so--and maybe someday I'll find out specifically what people (not including me) use them for on Puppy.

I'm one of those people. I connect to the Internet through an ancient PIII 850MHz boat anchor that has the now very old Telstra Bigpond ADSL software installed. The connection is shared by XP for all my other Laptops on the network (3), especially my Puppy mainliner. I need that XP server to use Telstra's very old ADSL modem and they don't support Linux (or anything else much either).

Requests to supply a newer ADSL router/modem, with the software in firmware, have fallen on deaf ears. If I wasn't so entrenched in what I'm doing I'd switch providers and get a free router/modem into the bargain. For this non-service from Telstra I pay around $AUD70.00 per month, too!

Why do I persist? Well I have two hard disks on the old beast, and they are full of family photos, music files, training resources, etc, etc. As long as I have samba/pnethood I can connect and grab those without ever having to switch on the XP server's monitor.

[ . . . ] At the moment we have no serious competition in our 50Mb - 150Mb window of opportunity. The closer we get to either boundary, the more competitive other distros become - DSL at the bottom end and TinyMe et al at the top. Vive la difference!

OK, but a size of, say, 102 MB isn't very close to either boundary.

But it is perhaps closer than you think. The last iteration of TinyMe came in at 135Mb. That was the size of Puppy 2.15CE too! Sure we offer more stuff, and save 35Mb+, but they offer the APTget repos from Mandriva!

[WhoDo]

First, I would like to suggest bringing back the grid for the icons on the desktop. I find it very difficult to line things up the way I want them without it, and in the past I noticed a few people in other threads request the same thing. It just makes for a much more user friendly environment.

The grid never left, tom. Right click in any ROX window and choose Options>Pinboard and set Icon Grid Step to Course. That should help.

My suggestion is that somehow a list of the applications included in Puppy be put in the start up welcome screen with a brief explanation of what each one is. I do know that in the "help" button on the start menu there is such a list in the form of a drop down that links to Wikipedia articles about the applications, but in my two examples there is no Wikipedia entry for "GWhere" and "xconsole" is not listed. Although I was able to find them with the search option.

Under consideration. The startup page for Puppy used to have a copy of the web site wiki main page which listed all the applications with links to their pages on the wiki. We are looking at replacing that with a web desktop with links to installable applications BUT that doesn't solve your problem. Maybe the web desktop could also have a list of included applications with links to their respective wiki page or /usr/share/doc file.

P.S. I could do without the games too. I would rather pick the ones I want from the repository and download them myself. Which brings up another point if something comes "preinstalled" I have yet to figure out how to uninstall it, unless I installed something from the repository then it gives me an option to uninstall it.

Applications installed using PETget can be removed by clicking on them in PETget. Applications installed from random dotpets may or may not register with PETget - that's up to the developer. Personally I always register a dotpet that contains an application. Libraries are a lot harder for the system to deal with cleanly.

There are only about 3 or 4 standard games in Puppy, and which ones tend to vary from release to release. They are usually so small that removing them makes little difference to the room available for other things. There are exceptions, of course. I think I put Supertux in Puppy 2.15CE and that really blew the budget!

[DaveS]

Speaking of games, it would be nice to include Sudoku. Some of us old guys need 'thinking' games, where reaction time is irrelevant

[Pizzasgood]

P.S. I could do without the games too. I would rather pick the ones I want from the repository and download them myself. Which brings up another point if something comes "preinstalled" I have yet to figure out how to uninstall it, unless I installed something from the repository then it gives me an option to uninstall it.

Applications installed using PETget can be removed by clicking on them in PETget. Applications installed from random dotpets may or may not register with PETget - that's up to the developer. Personally I always register a dotpet that contains an application. Libraries are a lot harder for the system to deal with cleanly.

Key word: "preinstalled" - sounds like he wants PET-Be-Gone functionality built-in.


@trapster: Hey, thanks for that command. Some slight tweaking gives me these:

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nroff -mandoc timidity.1 | less -FRis
zcat wine.1.gz | nroff -mandoc | less -FRis

The second one is for gzipped manpages. Using '-mandoc' is supposed to automatically handle BSD-style manpages in addition to normal ones. Then I pipe it through less to make it scrollable.

So then I went into Puppys "man" script, realized that with a little tweaking (mainly using the '-L' option in find) I could strip out most of the extra stuff Barry had in there, and then added another couple checks to look for local manpages.

The nroff program isn't included in Puppy, but it's in the devx file. So if you already have devx installed, you can use the attached man script. Actually, I set it up to auto-detect whether nroff is installed, so it can be used in normal Puppies too. It just doesn't give them local-manpage-reading.


EDIT: Attachment removed. Better version posted two posts below.

[Pizzasgood]

And here's a package that should get nroff working on Puppy 4.1.2.

It's almost a megabyte, so I don't know if it's worth being put into the main Puppy.

[Pizzasgood]

I modified the man script again so that if it doesn't detect nroff but does detect man2html, it will use that instead (if it detects neither it will resort to the online pages).

man2html is also in the devx_xxx.sfs file rather than the main file, but it's much smaller than nroff. Only 20k gzipped. So I think it would be more than worth it to include these.

I'm too lazy to make .pets of these at 4:08 in the morning. They're each just one file, so I gzipped them. They go in /usr/bin.


EDIT: In fact, the average Puppy user would probably prefer the man2html version, because it comes up in a browser window rather than in the terminal like with nroff.

[pa_mcclamrock]

Thanks, David. Did you strip the binaries too?

Nope, and here's what I got from a literal application of the very concise "HOWTO" you provided (running a test on a copy of tclsh8.5 moved to another directory):

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# strip /initrd/mnt/dev_save/david/tempdrop/tclsh8.5
bash: strip: command not found

But it appears to have been done already, according to this output from the "file" command:

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/initrd/mnt/dev_save/david/tempdrop/tclsh8.5: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.6.18, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped

Note: the installation may not automatically create the s-links "tclsh" and "wish" for the existing tclsh8.5 and wish8.5 binaries; if not, these links will need to be added manually.

David McClamrock

[HairyWill]

Way to go PG the man system has needed overhauling for a long time.
Now I can view manpages without X as long as I have devx loaded.

[pa_mcclamrock]

Speaking of games, it would be nice to include Sudoku. Some of us old guys need 'thinking' games, where reaction time is irrelevant

It would be nice to include a fairly long list of games, none of which would come with the default Puppy, but any or all of which could be readily installed by those who want them.

Also speaking of games: now that there's a prospect of Tcl/Tk being readmitted to Puppy in 4.2, game programmers may be interested (for all I know--I'm not one myself) in something like "the brick engine": http://wiki.tcl.tk/19800. I just saw this described on the Tcl'ers Wiki; it's said to be a cross-platform game-creation system, using Tcl for all game logic, that "should make visually dazzling and richly interactive video games possible to the tcl programmer, including a variety of sprite-rendering modes (such as a brightness/contrast adjustment frame, a convolution kernel, saturation/desaturation, etc), a simple motion-control system to give sprites a degree of autonomy and to create simple particle systems, and more."

David McClamrock

[pa_mcclamrock]

I modified the man script again so that if it doesn't detect nroff but does detect man2html, it will use that instead (if it detects neither it will resort to the online pages).

man2html is also in the devx_xxx.sfs file rather than the main file, but it's much smaller than nroff. Only 20k gzipped. So I think it would be more than worth it to include these.

I'm too lazy to make .pets of these at 4:08 in the morning. They're each just one file, so I gzipped them. They go in /usr/bin.

EDIT: In fact, the average Puppy user would probably prefer the man2html version, because it comes up in a browser window rather than in the terminal like with nroff.

Yes! It works!

Fortunately, being a morning person, I'm not too lazy to make a .PET at 5:00 or so in the morning (and to change the permissions to make man and man2html executable, which they weren't in your .gz files). I called it "newman-1.0.pet" to distinguish it from any other conceivable "man" packages and to hint that it doesn't only contain man, but also man2html.

When you use the menu entry (under Utility) or simply enter "man" in rxvt, it displays the same old online Linux man pages: http://linux.die.net/man/. When you add an argument in rxvt, e.g., "man timidity" (if you have TiMidity++ installed), sure enough, it displays the local man page in HTML in the default browser. I could do the equivalent with Konqueror in Mandriva, and I missed being able to do it in Puppy--but no longer! Thanks!

David McClamrock