Puppeee 4.3X

[aarf]

flwm: cosmetic not big issue.
at beginning no problem. now after a few improper shutdowns. nearly every restart will have desktop irregularities. black boxes around pwidgets Only one task bar showing either the top bar or the bottom bar very rarely both bars.

clicking /root/Startup/0wigets will remove the black boxes from pwidgets. (now desktop linked.)

/root/my-panel-applets/ROX-Menu is also now desktop linked for when the bottom bar doesn't make its appearance.

is there something i can click that will start the bottom or top task bars or can these irregularities be fixed simply by code manipulation?

I think this might be the result of filesystem corruption. Have you run an fsck on your save file?

yes did pfix=ram and fsck on the pupsave and it was clean. also have pfix=fsck in menu.lst . what is puzzling is it is random what will actually be on the desktop. no discernible pattern. for one boot when using an external sd card reader had the pwidgets backgrounds come in as murky light blue instead of the black. it isn't much effort to create a new pupsave but not sure if it will fix for long.

re black boxes around widgets: i think that if 0widgets could run as the last thing in bootup, all coloured background issues would be solved, as noted earlier clicking 0widgets solves the issue.

[aarf]

I been tweaking a few pwidgets trying to adapt them for netbooks, if somebody is interested, the files are attached in this message with a short explain of how to install them -----> http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 863#441863

*The battery one is fixed, because the original one shows duplicated info in puppeee

have installed the mini widgets. they are doing fine. need mini-calendar to match now

[sandungas]

re black boxes around widgets: i think that if 0widgets could run as the last thing in bootup, all coloured background issues would be solved, as noted earlier clicking 0widgets solves the issue.

The files in this folder are loaded alphabetically when booting, you can rename it to Zwidgets to load it as the last one

have installed the mini widgets. they are doing fine. need mini-calendar to match now Wink

This one is easy, make a copy of the originall config file, rename it to XXXXX_mini and change this values:

-----related to width--------
OFFSET_X_LEFT=10
OFFSET_X_RIGHT=10
minimum_size 140 5

-----related with fonts----------
use_xft yes
xftfont DejaVu :style=bold:size=11
*reduce font size if neccesary to 10... (less than 9 is not visible)... you can remove :style=bold if neccesary

This is the default font for all the widget, but probaly there are more lines specifying other fonts... you can remove the other fonts and all the widget will use the default one

-----height---------------
You can active the frame (temporally)
draw_borders yes
This way you can adjust the height visually
HEIGHT=???
When done.. deactive the frame
draw_borders no

*Place the widget you are editing (with the frame active) between other 2 widgets, then "refresh" all widgets, and look if the frame is overlaying the near widgets

[aarf]

re black boxes around widgets: i think that if 0widgets could run as the last thing in bootup, all coloured background issues would be solved, as noted earlier clicking 0widgets solves the issue.

The files in this folder are loaded alphabetically when booting, you can rename it to Zwidgets to load it as the last one

two out of two restarts had no black or discoloured backgrounds and both top and bottom task bars were present. looks solved. thanks sandungas.
will do the calendar thing later.

[rerwin]

jemimah,
The modem stuff will not work in puppeee 1.0 for two reasons, which I have now fixed. They are in the package posted here and can be installed onto 1.0: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 072#442072

1. the firmware.dep file does not have the kernel-specific part of its name, so cannot be used to initialize firmware for modems or anything else. I have added logic to rc.sysinit to rename the file with the appropriate kernel part appended to the basic name. You should not have to be concerned about that/those file(s) in the future, if you provide only a file named /etc/modules/firmware.dep.

2. There is a coding error in the handling of many wireless modems, preventing them from being detected.

Both should now be fixed by that package. I can provide updated rc.sysinit an MODULESCONFIG files if you need them for the next version of puppeee.

Richard

[jemimah]

jemimah,
The modem stuff will not work in puppeee 1.0 for two reasons, which I have now fixed. They are in the package posted here and can be installed onto 1.0: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 072#442072

I've added this to the Puppeee blog so people can find it. Thanks!

[aarf]

calendar mini
height at 120
font size 11
but still needs more work

[aarf]

jemimah please take a look at this http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=57450 and decide if you would like to update puppeee's ffmpeg with battleshooters ffmpeg pet there.

[jemimah]

I was planning on updating to shinobar's ffmpeg build - it'll need testing. Anybody tried it - can you let me know if it's a problem free upgrade - or does anything break?

[aarf]

I was planning on updating to shinobar's ffmpeg build - it'll need testing. Anybody tried it - can you let me know if it's a problem free upgrade - or does anything break?

i have been using puppeee with battleshooters ffmpeg installed for a couple of hours and havent noticed any problems. if you have any places where you think breakage may occur i will test here if you list them.
battleshooters ffmpeg is

FFmpeg version SVN-r23652-snapshot, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on Jun 20 2010 19:12:42 with gcc 4.3.4

dont know what shinobars version is

[sandungas]

I was testing some hdparm commands in my 900HA (with a internall seagate 250GB SATA mechanicall drive... dont try this with SSD drives)
Edit:
This is usefull when booting puppeee in ramboot mode, and without swap (no hdd access)
http://linux.die.net/man/8/hdparm

-S
Set the standby (spindown) timeout for the drive
This value is used by the drive to determine how long to wait (with no disk activity) before turning off the spindle motor to save power
... 1 to 240 specify multiples of 5 seconds

I think this -S standby mode is the most convenient for a normal user (and me) to avoid problems (because -Y forces the drive to shutdown completly, but can be more problematic)
Standby saves battery life (i can hear the internall motors of the hdd plate & hdd arms to stop) it generates less heat (heat from this motors)... and is more silent (again... because this motors)
Additionally... the fan is slower, because there is less heat... and this means that the fan is draining less power (all theorically)

I tryed to meassure the difference in power drain between: active/idle (normal operation), & standby (low power mode, drive has spin down) with powertop, and is around 0,5 watts
This meassure seems correct ?

hdparm -S 2 /dev/sda

This command seems to work perfect for me (this 2 means 10 seconds of inactivity), but i have some doubts

What happen if a hdd enters in standby with a mounted partition ? this can result in some kind of filesystem corruption ?
I suppose that that there is no problem, but i prefer to be sure

How can i add this command to one of the init scripts ?
I know that i can make an executable file in /root/startup/with this command in it, but im pretty sure that this is not the best option

There is some call to hdparm in the puppee boot process?
I dont want to create conficts between 2 calls to hdparm

All suggestions are wellcome

[jemimah]

Half a watt is similar to my measurements. It may be more than that because presumably the drive uses more if it's under load.

It works fine to set a mounted drive on standby. It just comes back on when you read from or write to the drive. Unfortunately, Linux in general (Puppeee included), pretty much wants to access the system drive at least once every 30 seconds to a minute. It is possible to tweak a bunch of settings to improve the situation - but I decided Ramboot was the easiest solution.

What you want to avoid is the situation where the drives goes into standby, and gets woken up, over and over, since the motor wears out from a lot of stop and start.

There is no hdparming during boot.

The easiest way to make it automatic is to put a script in /root/Startup.

[sandungas]

After a few more test im using this script: root/startup/9hddstandby

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
hdparm -S 12 /dev/sda
hdparm -y /dev/sda

-S 12 sets the standby to 1 minute... i think 1 minute is enought, i prefer to be carefull and not to abuse of the hardware
-y makes the hdd to enter in standby inmediatly (usefull in the first boot of the system)

The problem now is when i close the lid (and the full machine enters in standby) this hdd settings get lost
Wich script is used when returning from standby ? it depends of the power adapter (/etc/acpi/superperformance.sh & /etc/acpi/powersave.sh) ?
Suggestions ?

--------------------------------

@ aarf
I was taking another look to pwidgets, and i think i can reduce them another 10 pixels in width (reducing border offsets from 10... to 5), and i can remove the SWAP detection command in space_drives widget, i got them working (calendar included), but i need to repack them and take a final look at all

*Calendar pwidget needs a "fixed width" font to correclty order the days in columns & rows. Try with "monofont"

[aarf]

@sandungas
had another play with pwidgets but haven't cracked it. will wait for your calendar final.
still getting occasional background color and missing task bar problems but not as consistently as before. am sure that it is something in pwidgets that is causing this desktop display problem for the task bars as well..

[playdayz]

Today is the 5th day for Puppy at #2 on the Distrowatch 7 day ranking. This is also due to Puppeee which was released a couple of days before Lucid Puppy 5.1. The Puppy total has increased from about 1250 to the current 1571 over the 5 days and should increase for at least 2 more days. (And I need to make a cool announcement page like you have.)

[jemimah]

The problem now is when i close the lid (and the full machine enters in standby) this hdd settings get lost
Wich script is used when returning from standby ? it depends of the power adapter (/etc/acpi/superperformance.sh & /etc/acpi/powersave.sh) ?
Suggestions ?

You can add commands to the end of /etc/acpi/suspend.sh and they will run after it wakes up. Although, perhaps if you wait 1 minute the drive will shutdown again. You can check with 'hdparm -C /dev/sda'.

[sandungas]

It seems that the full standby resets all settings, probably because is a standby managed by the bios ?
But is fixed by adding the hdparm command at the end of sleep.sh

Previously i was using 2 hdparm commands (-S to set the standby time... & -y to inmediatly standby)... because my first thought was to set standby to 5 minutes (or even more)
But as im using 1 minute countdown.. then i dont need the second one, i prefer not to send 2 consecutive hdparm commands


Can be good if this is included in puppeee, but only if there is a realiable way to identify mechanicall hdds to use something like this:

Code: Select all

if $sdX$ = $hdd_mechanicall$ then hdparm -S 12 /dev/$sdX$

Im not a coder, is just a crappy way to explain the idea i thought to implement this


---------------
Edit:
I saw in another forum that the hdd is able to store standby settings... by writing this settings in the hdd firmware (something that i prefer not to test)
I dont know if my hdd has no stored settings for standby (is not the originall 160gb hdd, i upgraded it to a 250gb one) i have windows xp & debian lenny installed and none of them uses standby in the hdd
I suspect about the eeepc bios, maybe this is the reason why the settings are lost when returning from standby

[aarf]

I was planning on updating to shinobar's ffmpeg build - it'll need testing. Anybody tried it - can you let me know if it's a problem free upgrade - or does anything break?

i have been using puppeee with battleshooters ffmpeg installed for a couple of hours and havent noticed any problems. if you have any places where you think breakage may occur i will test here if you list them.
battleshooters ffmpeg is

FFmpeg version SVN-r23652-snapshot, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers
built on Jun 20 2010 19:12:42 with gcc 4.3.4

dont know what shinobars version is

just something else i have been able to do with battleshooters ffmpeg:
solve the playability of flash /tmp files very easily with
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 843#443843
maybe it doesn't need an upgrade to do this. i haven't tested the original ffmpeg

[jemimah]

It seems that the full standby resets all settings, probably because is a standby managed by the bios ?
But is fixed by adding the hdparm command at the end of sleep.sh

Previously i was using 2 hdparm commands (-S to set the standby time... & -y to inmediatly standby)... because my first thought was to set standby to 5 minutes (or even more)
But as im using 1 minute countdown.. then i dont need the second one, i prefer not to send 2 consecutive hdparm commands


Can be good if this is included in puppeee, but only if there is a realiable way to identify mechanicall hdds to use something like this:

Code: Select all

if $sdX$ = $hdd_mechanicall$ then hdparm -S 12 /dev/$sdX$

Im not a coder, is just a crappy way to explain the idea i thought to implement this


---------------
Edit:
I saw in another forum that the hdd is able to store standby settings... by writing this settings in the hdd firmware (something that i prefer not to test)
I dont know if my hdd has no stored settings for standby (is not the originall 160gb hdd, i upgraded it to a 250gb one) i have windows xp & debian lenny installed and none of them uses standby in the hdd
I suspect about the eeepc bios, maybe this is the reason why the settings are lost when returning from standby

There is no way (yet) to tell the difference between SSDs and HDDs from the OS. Anyway, if you set the time out to longer than about 30 seconds a mounted drive will not shutdown since the kernel accesses the disk frequently. There is a kernel the feature called 'laptop mode' that is supposed to help with this. I may experiment with it in the future.

[jemimah]

just something else i have been able to do with battleshooters ffmpeg:
solve the playability of flash /tmp files very easily with
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 843#443843
maybe it doesn't need an upgrade to do this. i haven't tested the original ffmpeg

Puppeee 4.4X Beta 1 is coming soon. I've updated ffmpeg, xine, CUPS, GTK, glib, geany, and bluetooth-applet so far.