Xenialpup64 CE 7.5 / 25 Nov 2017

[RetroTechGuy]

What is everyone's overall impression? I'm still running Lupu (which I like due to the compatibility with Debian code -- but it's starting to show its age -- and the "old" Debian code is often no longer "old enough" for compatibility).

And my question gets me a tracker, so I can find this thread again...

[Lassar]

Noted all your objections.

A person might have satellite internet, so I set up the script to only get the timezone on first boot.

How's this for getting your timezone & time automatically?

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

timezone="`readlink /etc/localtime | sed -e 's%/usr/share/zoneinfo/%%'`"

if [ ! -e /root/checkedtz ] ; then
	# Fetch timezone from Ubuntu's geoip server
	
	timezone=`wget -O - -q http://geoip.ubuntu.com/lookup | sed -n -e 's/.*<TimeZone>\(.*\)<\/TimeZone>.*/\1/p'`
	rm /etc/localtime
	ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/$timezone /etc/localtime
	touch /root/checkedtz
fi

TZ=$timezone
export TZ

rdate -s utcnist.colorado.edu

[mavrothal]

How's this for getting your timezone & time automatically

Improving

I would first check that there is a network connection before it runs and tuck away (var/local ?) the checkedtz flag.

One issue is when/from where to call it. Quicksetup that prompts for timezone is running too early for any startup script and does not need a connection.
Could be integrated in quicksetup and preset timezone when there is wired connection or prompt for autosetup when connection is set.

However, I'm afraid non of these will save you from those that freakout on any connection that was not explicitly authorised...

[gyro]

One issue is when/from where to call it. Quicksetup that prompts for timezone is running too early for any startup script and does not need a connection.
Could be integrated in quicksetup and preset timezone when there is wired connection or prompt for autosetup when connection is set.

This is the big implementation issue.
Run it before "quicksetup" and "quicksetup" now depends on a working network. (There have been Puppy releases that never reached a working network automatically on first boot.)
Run it after "quicksetup" and the user has most likely already set the timezone manually.

Brazen plug:
In my current "init" rewrite project I will use this methodology in a "mk-timezone-file" utility. The resultant "TIME_ZONE" file is pushed into the "initrd.gz" of the target puppy and used by the new "init" script to set the timezone for "init" processing and in the booted Puppy.

gyro

[mavrothal]

One issue is when/from where to call it. Quicksetup that prompts for timezone is running too early for any startup script and does not need a connection.
Could be integrated in quicksetup and preset timezone when there is wired connection or prompt for autosetup when connection is set.

This is the big implementation issue.
Run it before "quicksetup" and "quicksetup" now depends on a working network. (There have been Puppy releases that never reached a working network automatically on first boot.)
Run it after "quicksetup" and the user has most likely already set the timezone manually.

Not really. If there is network the timezone is set.
If not the user is presented with the option to be set automatically after a connection is established or do it manually from the drop-down menu as is done now. In the no-connection case the default quicksetup message could be "autodetect upon connection" or something like that.

Brazen plug:
In my current "init" rewrite project I will use this methodology in a "mk-timezone-file" utility. The resultant "TIME_ZONE" file is pushed into the "initrd.gz" of the target puppy and used by the new "init" script to set the timezone for "init" processing and in the booted Puppy.

gyro

I'm a bit unclear on this.
The mk-timezone-file of a running puppy will push TIME_ZONE into the initrd.gz (ie repackage it) so it can be used in the following boots to setup time zone in the running puppy?
Or everything is going to be within initrd.gz and run from there to setup timezone in the first boot?
Or something else altogether?

[escucha]

@riedzig

I become a master on Appimages now.
Really the clue has been the sentence in sed command, that I do not understand very much,

sed -i 's/geteuid/getppid/' /usr/bin/vlc

applied to modify the vlc aplication located at /usr/bin/
I can't read this 'vlc' x-executable... do you know how?

Thanks very much for the help, I will soon migrate to a full install of xenialpup64

[mikeslr]

Hi escucha,

Puppy Linux was initially created to run from a CD. Almost all its development since than has been to enable running it "as a Frugal" install from other storage media. The only thing that "Frugal" means is that it frugally uses your storage media, not requiring an entire partition of its own. The ability to run as "Full" install was developed as a 'fudge' so that people with less than 256 Mbs of RAM could boot into their systems slightly faster, and perhaps open applications slightly faster. There is nothing that you can do running a Full Install that you can't do running a Frugal Install. There are many things you can't do running a Full install that you can do running a Frugal Install.

Not the least of the reasons for NOT RUNNING A FULL INSTALL is that it is almost impossible to recover from any mistakes without having to start from scratch.

If you can run Xenialpup64 at all -- it requires more than 256 Mbs of RAM-- you have no reason to run it as a Full Install.

If you want the benefits of both, and have sufficient space on your hard-drive, run Xenialpup64 creating a SaveFolder. A SaveFolder will expand as and when you install applications into it to the full extent of the available space on its partition if necessary. You never have to resize it. But to use a SaveFolder, Xenialpup64 would have to be on a partition formatted as Linux -- my recommendation Linux Ext 3. But the following considerations would apply to either doing a Full Install and a Frugal Install with a SaveFolder.

I don't know how your hard-drive has been structured so will assume the worst case scenario: Windows 7 or above. These would be the steps to setup Xenialpup64:

Windows 7 or above comes with 3 partions: The first, a small (350 Mb +/-) boot partition; the 3rd about 10 Gb Recovery partition. YOU DON'T WANT TO MESS WITH EITHER OF THOSE. The Second partition holds the Windows operating system and all windows programs.

1. Boot into Windows and use its program to defrag it (that is the computer's second partition).
2. Boot into Puppy, start gparted and resize the second partition. gparted will tell you how large the 2nd partition is, and how much of it has been used by Windows and its programs. [Before selecting Apply, you can examine all the tools gparted offers. You'll find one of them will clear all pending operations. You can also close gparted having done nothing. So if you have any questions, you can simply exit gparted, research or ask].

You'll want to leave Windows at least 10 percent more space than it already uses; perhaps as much as 15 percent. Xenialpup64, even with the 'Out house sink installed' will probably need at most 4 Gb + (if you're going to run Wine) about 500 Mb + 3 times the 'download size" of all the programs you intend to run under Wine. Anything between the amount of space you'll need to leave for Windows and the amount of space you'll need for Xenialpup64 is entirely optional. Do remember SFSes and AppImages will take up space on that partition, but won't be within Xenialpup64's SaveFolder. The space these use will just not be available for Xenialpup64 or Windows. Estimated maximum needs, maybe 10 Gb.

3. After resizing the 2nd partition, gparted will notify you that there is unallocated space. Right-click the line identified as unallocated, select New, Select Linux Ext3*. Select Apply.

When you close gparted, Xenialpup64 will show four desktop drive icons. Your new partition will be labeled sda4 -- even though you 'cut it out of' your second partition.

mikesLr

Linux Ext2 is not journallzed, writes less, but is more prone to corruption. Linux Ext4 was created to handle drives up to 16 Terabytes while Ext3 can only manage drives up to 4 Terabytes. On my computers Ext4 would be 'overkill' and I've never read a post of anyone having a problem relating to Ext3. Some older Puppies can't read Ext4.

[s243a]

Hi escucha,

Puppy Linux was initially created to run from a CD. Almost all its development since than has been to enable running it "as a Frugal" install from other storage media. The only thing that "Frugal" means is that it frugally uses your storage media, not requiring an entire partition of its own. The ability to run as "Full" install was developed as a 'fudge' so that people with less than 256 Mbs of RAM could boot into their systems slightly faster, and perhaps open applications slightly faster.
...
If you can run Xenialpup64 at all -- it requires more than 256 Mbs of RAM-- you have no reason to run it as a Full Install.

Some comments:
1. The minimum specs from Xenialpup quoted on the puppylinux.org blog are

Minimum System Requirements: 1000MHz CPU 768MB RAM
Recommended: 1600MHz 1gb RAM

http://blog.puppylinux.com/?viewDetailed=00047

However, I think that these specs only apply if you either install puppy on a fast storage medium (Either USB 3.0 or SATA -- see thread) or alternatively aren't doing anything ram intensive (i.e. you are not running a modern browser with many tabs open on a script intensive site (e.g. facebook).

2. Applications will open faster in RAM mode if said applications are on the ramdisk (aka tmpfs). Usually this will apply to initial setup, or usbflash mode. Otherwise the top layer of puppy is typically mounted on the storage medium containing the save file (or folder). However, initially at startup, in frugal mode some things are started in ram (e.g. initrd, the kernal and the base sfs). So I presume that even when running off a hard drive, that when in frugal mode some programs are initially in ram but may get flushed from ram if space is required.

I don't know how your hard-drive has been structured so will assume the worst case scenario: Windows 7 or above. These would be the steps to setup Xenialpup64:

Windows 7 or above comes with 3 partions: The first, a small (350 Mb +/-) boot partition; the 3rd about 10 Gb Recovery partition. YOU DON'T WANT TO MESS WITH EITHER OF THOSE. The Second partition holds the Windows operating system and all windows programs.

1. Boot into Windows and use its program to defrag it (that is the computer's second partition).
2. Boot into Puppy, start gparted and resize the second partition. gparted will tell you how large the 2nd partition is, and how much of it has been used by Windows and its programs. [Before selecting Apply, you can examine all the tools gparted offers. You'll find one of them will clear all pending operations. You can also close gparted having done nothing. So if you have any questions, you can simply exit gparted, research or ask].

You'll want to leave Windows at least 10 percent more space than it already uses; perhaps as much as 15 percent. Xenialpup64, even with the 'Out house sink installed' will probably need at most 4 Gb + (if you're going to run Wine) about 500 Mb + 3 times the 'download size" of all the programs you intend to run under Wine. Anything between the amount of space you'll need to leave for Windows and the amount of space you'll need for Xenialpup64 is entirely optional. Do remember SFSes and AppImages will take up space on that partition, but won't be within Xenialpup64's SaveFolder. The space these use will just not be available for Xenialpup64 or Windows. Estimated maximum needs, maybe 10 Gb.

If you create a recovery USB stick then you can delete the recovery partition. Also look at the built in windows tools to create a so called "image" of your system.

One reason to delete the recovery partition may be that the partition table is the old msdos format and the underlying operating system is using the maximum allowed number of partitions for the msdos style partition table. Another may be that you can't resize the partiation suggested by mikeslr (maybe it's full and you haven't had time to back it up).

Also note that even with mikeslr suggestion gparted may have trouble resizing the parition that he mentioned. In which case you'll need a different tool. I think that this is the one that I tried before:
https://www.partitionwizard.com/partiti ... ation.html

On issue with an NTFS file system that may present trouble when trying to resize it with gparted is that the systm files (e.g. volume information) is located in the middle of the partition.

[Yoliano]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this thread. Downloaded ISO Image and burned it to a CD. Checked md5sum after download and after burn. Both OK. My purpose was to try xenial on my wife's HP 1000 Notebook, as an upgrade from tahrpup64-6.0.5, which she is currently running, (from a CD). But the new CD will not boot. It starts rotating briefly, for a few seconds, then stops. After that, nothing more happens. The Notebook is about 4 years old.and does not have UEFI boot. It's spec is middle of the road: Intel Celeron 64 bit processor, 1.8 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 500 GB HD, BIOS boot. Installation is with savefile only.

After that failure, I tried booting the new CD on my Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7215 laptop, which is about 2 years old, has UEFI boot, AMD A8 64 bit quad core 1.5 GHz processor, Radeon A5 Graphics, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HD. The CD booted all the way to launching the xorg desktop, but which immediately exited, without the desktop appearing on screen, (Observed from CLI). I launched the xorg wizard and went through the config process. But no change resulted. No desktop. Again, installation is with savefile only.

I am not a geek or techie, just a learner, aquiring skills as I go tackling new problems as they arise. But these problems are beyond my present ability to solve. So I appeal for some guidance from an expert willing to help. Thanks.

[s243a]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this thread. Downloaded ISO Image and burned it to a CD. Checked md5sum after download and after burn. Both OK. My purpose was to try xenial on my wife's HP 1000 Notebook, as an upgrade from tahrpup64-6.0.5, which she is currently running, (from a CD). But the new CD will not boot. It starts rotating briefly, for a few seconds, then stops. After that, nothing more happens. The Notebook is about 4 years old.and does not have UEFI boot. It's spec is middle of the road: Intel Celeron 64 bit processor, 1.8 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 500 GB HD, BIOS boot. Installation is with savefile only.

After that failure, I tried booting the new CD on my Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7215 laptop, which is about 2 years old, has UEFI boot, AMD A8 64 bit quad core 1.5 GHz processor, Radeon A5 Graphics, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HD. The CD booted all the way to launching the xorg desktop, but which immediately exited, without the desktop appearing on screen, (Observed from CLI). I launched the xorg wizard and went through the config process. But no change resulted. No desktop. Again, installation is with savefile only.

I am not a geek or techie, just a learner, aquiring skills as I go tackling new problems as they arise. But these problems are beyond my present ability to solve. So I appeal for some guidance from an expert willing to help. Thanks.

Are you able to boot into the desktop without a savefile. (It might say ram mode on the start-up menu)?

[mikeslr]

[quote="Yoliano" Downloaded ISO Image and burned it to a CD. .. But the new CD will not boot. .. Installation is with savefile only. [/quote]

Where is the savefile? Try s243a's instructions on the HP 1000 Notebook. And see, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 777#975777.

The problem with the Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7215, may be entirely different.

mikesLr

[s243a]

What is everyone's overall impression? I'm still running Lupu (which I like due to the compatibility with Debian code -- but it's starting to show its age -- and the "old" Debian code is often no longer "old enough" for compatibility).

And my question gets me a tracker, so I can find this thread again...

Is your computer newer then 2008. If not you might want to try the kernel tweak proposed by musher0 (see thread).

Will you be installing it a fast storage media (e.g. USB 3.0 or SATA). If not I would then say use something older like tahrpup (see thread)

[666philb]

I've tried several different Android devices and none of them seem to work in MTP mode making it impossible to gain access to the internal storage.

How are you trying to connect them? I have found that the "connect your android phone" thing under filesystem does nothing, but Pupcamera under graphic works well for me.

There should be a little pop up notification saying one needs to install go-mtpfs. This is the one I downloaded and added to XFCE Xenial with dependencies if you want to give it a go.

go-mtpfs.pet

I'm not sure what version it is, it's just the one available from the PPM. The only time it hasn't worked for me is when I was using a bad usb cable. Phil's made it quite a cool automatic system, once go-mtpfs is installed, XenialPup will sense when your phone is plugged in and automatically ask you if you want to mount it.

cheers battleshooter & brownmouse fixed in quickpet

[666philb]

Hi, try a question:

Is there any pet or package for VLC player suitable in Xenialpup64?
I miss this videoplayer who let record excerpts from a file because I used many many times in tahrpup.

Good work!

hi escucha,

vlc from the PPM is working for me

[Yoliano]

@ s243a & mikeslr

Thanks for your prompt replies. First I apologise for misleading you with my imprecise language. With: "Installation with savefile only", I meant to say that it was my intent to create only a savefile on the hard drive. In other words, to make what everyone calls a Frugal Installation. In both cases, my intention was not realised because:

In the case of the HP Notebook, the boot process aborted immediately after starting. (ie. No windows were displayed). So I could not proceed with anything.

In the case of the Toshiba Laptop, Xorg Desktop would not launch, so I was not able to configure anything, except Xorg itself, via the wizard. (Which did not stop Xorg from exiting).

I tried your suggestion to boot in Ram Mode, on the Toshiba Laptop, but nothing changed. Xorg exited, as before. Personally, I am baffled by this behaviour. The boot script command to launch the desktop is activated, but is instantly countermanded by "something". I can't begin to imagine what!

I could not apply your suggestion to to the HP Notebook because the boot process aborts and no window is presented to allow the selection of Ram Mode.

So there is no savefile created, in either case.

I agree that the two cases have completely different causes.

I hope you can find some inspiration with respect to these two cases. Over to you, as they say, but cordially!

[bigpup]

I tried booting the new CD on my Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7215 laptop, which is about 2 years old, has UEFI boot, AMD A8 64 bit quad core 1.5 GHz processor, Radeon A5 Graphics, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HD. The CD booted all the way to launching the xorg desktop, but which immediately exited,

Could be the graphics driver trying to be used.

Try this:
As soon as the CD boots to the Puppy boot screen Press F2 key and keep pressing it until the option screen pops up.
type:

Code: Select all

puppy radeon.modeset=0

press enter key to continue the boot up.

[escucha]

@ 666philb

Hi, thanks for the help, must say:

vlc from the PPM is NOT working for me.

No video, only black screen and when started from console get errors about apulse play.

Now I'm using VLC 2.2.8 in Appimage form (PPM offers only 2.2.2 version and It puts a lot of garbage not necessary, stepping on your original xenialpup64 files and drivers) I do'nt want this.

Greetings for your 7.5 version. Do you expect to launch any update soon?

Happy pup-year 2018 to all!

[Yoliano]

@bigpup

Hi, thanks for your response. Tried your suggestion, but with no success. The option parameters screen returned an error: "puppy - command not found". After that, it presented the message "Press any key to continue". So I did, but the process proceeded exactly as before, with Xorg exiting.

Can you modify your code?

[bigpup]

Try the command this way:

Code: Select all

puppy pfix=ram radeon.modeset=0

That =0 is the number 0

[foxpup]

@Yoliano

Since you have problems with 2 different machines to boot the CD, my first thought is: could your CD be burned badly?

I suppose you managed booting a Puppy on one or either machine before?