Puppy Remaster Program needs updated from 18th Century

What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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hamoudoudou

People waste more time in this forum to guess who is who

#106 Post by hamoudoudou »

People waste more time in this forum to guess who is who than to develop Puppy Linux.
Simply go and open Facebook profile to know who people are, no avatar there. And you will see Pelo beside me. and so on.. Programmers are people who are supposed to be clever, efficient pragmatic, not people smoking and dreaming utopic worlds..
RSH or Lazy Puppy or John, what importance ? RSH explained he had to change his name only for technical reason.. Don't invent yours.
About the topic remaster programs
Needs are known.. what is missing is people able to satisfy them..or people making the effort to search in this forum existing software for it.
When you are a programmer , the first thing to do is to search how not to program,
99,5 are solved this way.
SFS load on the fly and Pupsave will get your Puppy ready for everything

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fredx181
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#107 Post by fredx181 »

@hamoudoudou Tu n’a aucun sens de l’humour ?

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nic007
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#108 Post by nic007 »

Back to original topic. I can confirm that the builtin remasterpup2 script that comes with Xenial 7.5 works with all official releases of Wary, Racy, Precise, Tahr and Xenial (that's all the puppys I have).

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nosystemdthanks
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Re: People waste more time in this forum to guess who is who

#109 Post by nosystemdthanks »

hamoudoudou wrote:Programmers are people who are supposed to be clever, efficient pragmatic, not people smoking and dreaming utopic worlds..
a deeply ironic statement from someone using the gnu operating system.

"oh, its efficient, its not utopic"

oh yeah? what kernel was it supposed to use?

but yeah, practical aspects are important too. i know a guy that only cares about ideals-- so much that he absolutely refuses to explain why he wants people to adopt them.

"ok so after we all 'work together', then what?"

nope, thats as far as he ever explains it.
[color=green]The freedom to NOT run the software, to be free to avoid vendor lock-in through appropriate modularization/encapsulation and minimized dependencies; meaning any free software can be replaced with a user’s preferred alternatives.[/color]

hamoudoudou

He has no flour to grid, our miller.

#110 Post by hamoudoudou »

Burn_IT wrote:As I said to start with, it IS a community project so stop complaining and do something yourself, or with friends??!!!
Of course anything you do produce will need to be approved before being adopted officially.
What would be fine is that you deal with what we need.. Nobody asked Musher0 for remastering.. He has no flour to grid, our miller.
Of course, as people no longer post, youignore what are their problems. Remastering is not one.
Because the fun nowadays is to skip from Puppy to Puppy, or Slitaz, or corepup. To keep with a Puppy version because you like it and you want to include your personal flavors would be possible.. But in other world.
Why suddenly care of Public needs ? The gap is huge.
You mess with the OS. Why remaster a version getting absolete a month later ? Why change apps included as you don't use them.. Just load one SFS on the fly when needed. It's fast, and you can change it as you like. Typing letters with Libre Office is not or daily Challenge (see business section)
Mess with the OS is not our daily hobby.. as no return from civil world (passengers), you are unable to work usefully, excepted for tickling your navel.

Ether
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#111 Post by Ether »

musher0 wrote:no one in this thread has mentioned the third option, which is to transform your pupsave into an adrv_xxx.sfs -- instead of doing a remaster.
This sounds like exactly what I want to do. Can you please give a working example how to do that (for bionicpup64 8.0 CE), or provide a link to one?

Thank you.

.

Ether
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#112 Post by Ether »

nic007 wrote:...the use of an adrive to record your changes. I've even done a how to for that on this forum. Just needs a bit of searching..let your fingers do the walking through the yellow pages.
I realize you posted that a year ago, but I just now stumbled across it.

It looks like it's exactly what I want to do.

Were you able to find the "how to"? If so, would you please post a link here?

.

Ether
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Re: Manually made adrv remaster

#113 Post by Ether »

davids45 wrote:My steps, as I recall... :oops: ...:
in a safe place, expanded a backed-up tar file of a Save-file (most recent BionicPup update) which gave me the Puppy-iconed save-file
so at this point you have a folder containing the contents of the save file that you want to convert into an adrv sfs, correct?
opened a new directory in another safe place (a temp directory on my data partition) started a sub-directory there called 'adrv_ubbpup_18.03"
copied the files (retaining the path structure) of the expanded tar into this new 'adrv_ubbpup_18.03' directory
Apologies if this is a dumb question, but why did you have to copy the files into a new folder? Why not just use the expanded folder you created?


(This is not a criticism; I am just trying to understand)

.

Ether
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#114 Post by Ether »

nic007 wrote:If you keep your adrv very small (mine is about 2MB) and only use it to save configuration changes/settings (like me), you may just as well operate with a small savefile instead...
How do you keep Puppy from changing that savefile every time you boot??

.

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nic007
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#115 Post by nic007 »

Ether wrote:
nic007 wrote:If you keep your adrv very small (mine is about 2MB) and only use it to save configuration changes/settings (like me), you may just as well operate with a small savefile instead...
How do you keep Puppy from changing that savefile every time you boot??

.
Read here http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 261#944470 for the HOWTO on the adrv as replacement for a savefile.

You can apply the same principles by keeping a small savefile instead (say 32 MB). This way you will retain all the benefits of a savefile. If you go the small savefile route make sure you use the pmedia=ataflash or usbflash boot parameter. This way you can choose the automatic save interval in Puppy Event Manager (from the system menu). I normally set it to 0 for no automatic saves during a session. You can always save maually during a session by clicking the save icon on desktop. The newer puppys will give you a choice to save or not at reboot/shutdown.

Ether
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Re: Puppy Remaster Program needs updated from 18th Century

#116 Post by Ether »

greengeek wrote:Remastering correctly is about asking the user the following questions: ...
Your list of questions was extremely helpful to me, a Puppy beginner. It helped me understand I am not alone and why I am struggling so much with setting up Puppy the way I want it.
greengeek wrote:But what about save files? I have no idea how best to handle them during a remaster. Why would anybody use them? What is the purpose of having a "system critical" file space that can be permanently and instantaneously corrupted by loading a single bad pet or piece of malware ???$%#!????
This x 1000.

It's been the stumbling block for me for years standing in the way of transitioning from Windoze to Puppy linux.

Here is what I want to do:

1) boot bionicpup64 8.0 CE with pfix=ram

2) set the proper timezone, and run "puppy updates" from the setup menu

3) immediately (without shutting down) do a remaster or whatever method that captures those changes in such a way that I can boot to that setup without Puppy messing with it, yet retain the ability to make additional small changes in the future only when I explicitly want to, by booting and immediately making the small changes I want then doing "whatever" again to create a new Puppy configuration that does not get changed when I use it.

.

Ether
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#117 Post by Ether »

musher0 wrote:the user can make his/her pupsave into a regular sfs
How to do this with bionicpup64 8.0 CE distro ??

.

foxpup
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sfs

#118 Post by foxpup »

You make an sfs with mksquashfs command on a folder.
Something like this:

Code: Select all

mksquashfs pupsave save.sfs -comp xz
You could also consider to merge the pupsave with the main sfs.
Look at the code rufwoof provides here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 98#1021598

I'll quote myself here from a recent PM where I explain a bit more how to do that.
I've just tried rufwoof's approach again in dPup Stretch 7.5 and it seems to go well.
I first got an error for aufs, so I've installed aufs-dev and aufs-tools from the PPM. I also have the devx and the kernel sources loaded.
I don't know what is really needed. :wink:

I do use a savefolder, but that does not change much. Just mount your pupsavefile, something like that:

Code: Select all

mkdir  stretchsave 
mount -t ext3 ./stretchsave-RC4.3fs stretchsave

In fact you could mount everything that needs mounting by clicking it,
but the paths you would have to enter when doing the overlay would be to long!

You know how to make an sfs?

Code: Select all

mksquashfs top puppy-stretch-7.5.sfs -comp xz

If you have any problem, let me know.

BTW, I do not think using a pupsave is a good way to remaster because it contains personal and machine specific settings.
It will be no problem if you use the new main.sfs on the same machine.
(You do not need devx and the kernels sources ;-) )
.
Last edited by foxpup on Tue 23 Apr 2019, 15:37, edited 1 time in total.

Ether
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Re: sfs

#119 Post by Ether »

foxpup wrote:You make an sfs with mksquashfs command on a folder.
Something like this:

Code: Select all

mksquashfs pupsave save.sfs -comp xz
Am I correct to infer that what you've called pupsave above is a save folder and not a save file ?

... and once I've created "save.sfs" I can either load it automatically by putting it in the same folder as the main puppy sfs file, or load it manually when I am booted to Puppy?

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#120 Post by foxpup »

Yes, pupsave is a folder. If you have a pupsavefile, you have to mount it first.

save.sfs will not load automatically. But if you load it manually, on next startups it will be loaded automatically.
There is a gui sfs_load in the menu. You do not necessarily need it, but it is nice an clear.
There are some sfs that will be loaded automatically because the initrd takes care of it. They have fixed names:
adrv
zdrv
ydrv
...
The exact names and which do load automatically depends on the version of Puppy.

Please look at the code from rufwoof, excellent as always.
I think it is in fact what you want.

Ether
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#121 Post by Ether »

foxpup wrote:Yes, pupsave is a folder. If you have a pupsavefile, you have to mount it first.

save.sfs will not load automatically. But if you load it manually, on next startups it will be loaded automatically.
There is a gui sfs_load in the menu.
OK, here is what I did:

1) booted bionicpup64 8.0 CE with pfix=ram

2) set timezone

3) shutdown and created pupsave folder "bionicpup64save-test" on exit

4) rebooted bionicpup64 8.0 CE with pfix=ram

5) ran "mksquashfs bionicpup64save-test test.sfs -comp xz"

6) right-clicked test.sfs and used sfs_load in context menu to load it

7) expected to see timezone set correctly (see step2 above), but it was not set correctly

What did I do wrong?

.

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nic007
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#122 Post by nic007 »

Rename the sfs to that of an adrv, the sfs must load on top of your base sfs for configuration changes to take effect. You may have boot issues but try it anyway.

musher0
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#123 Post by musher0 »

Hi Ether.

You did not do anything wrong. Sfs_load will refuse to load any add'l sfs if
it does not detect an active pupsave file or folder for your Puppy.

What I'd suggest is make a backup of the small pupsave you just made.

Create a 2nd pupsave, where you will put lots of new apps that you like or
use often.

When you are satisfied with your choice of apps, squash that 2nd pupsave.

Re-boot with the < pfix=ram > parameter.

Now zip with move (e.g.: zip -9m ) or otherwise compress (tar.xz or
whatever) this 2nd pupsave folder to get it out of the way.

Reinstate your small 1st pupsave.

Re-boot, this time, normally. Do not use the < pfix=ram > parameter.
The Pup will pick up the small pupsave.

Now you can use sfs_load to load your 2nd, big, sfs file that you made
from your 2nd pupsave. This time, sfs_load will accept it.

IHTH.
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

Ether
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#124 Post by Ether »

musher0 wrote:Sfs_load will refuse to load any add'l sfs if
it does not detect an active pupsave file or folder for your Puppy.
That's just the thing: sfs_load did not refuse to load test.sfs. It said it had been loaded.
What I'd suggest is make a backup of the small pupsave you just made.
A backup of the savefolder, or the save.sfs ?
Create a 2nd pupsave, where you will put lots of new apps that you like or
use often

When you are satisfied with your choice of apps, squash that 2nd pupsave.

Now zip with move (e.g.: zip -9m ) or otherwise compress (tar.xz or
whatever) this 2nd pupsave folder to get it out of the way.
Get the folder out of the way, or get the squashfs out of the way?
Reinstate your small 1st pupsave.
Not sure what reinstate means, and whether it refers to the 1st savefolder or the sfs of the 1st savefolder.

I realize that what you wrote should be obvious once a person understands all this. But I don't. So I want to make sure what you're saying so I do it correctly.
Boot normally. Do not use the < pfix=ram > parameter. The Pup will pick up the small pupsave.
The small pupsavefolder, yes? But then if I don't use pfix=ram, when I exit it will automatically mess with (change) the small savefolder, won't it? That's what I am trying not to do.
Now you can use sfs_load to load your 2nd, big, sfs file that you made from your 2nd pupsave. This time, sfs_load will accept it.
What happens when I shutdown?

.

musher0
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#125 Post by musher0 »

Hi Ether.

I'll try to be as clear as possible.

-- I don't know why sfs_load did not warn you it could not load an sfs
with no pupsave or pupfolder active. It usually gives a warning.

-- Remove (erase, eliminate) the first save folder you made, but keep the
squashed sfs file of this 1st sfs.

-- "Reinstate" means restore, or bring back. If you zipped your little
pupsave folder, unzip it. Or if you stored it on another partition or on a
USB thumbdrive, bring it back (copy it back) in your main Puppy directory
(aka folder).

-- As for the 2nd, big, pupsave folder, if you zip it with move (e.g. zip -9m),
the folder will be removed automatically by the zip utility (but stored,
compressed, in the zip file) and you will be left with only your 2nd, big,
squashed sfs.

-- At shutdown: sfs_load adds the sfs's you ask it to load in a table when it
first loads them. After that, this table remains valid across reboots, so
the user does not have to reload every sfs at each boot.


To unload an sfs loaded by sfs_load, open sfs_load again and specify an
sfs to unload. (In sfs_load's right panel, you highlight the one sfs
you wish to remove with your mouse, and then you click the "unload"
button at the bottom of sfs_load's right panel.)

I hope things are clearer now. Other questions, please ask.

TWYL.

~~~~~~~~~~
PS.
Above, when I'm asking you to zip your pupsave folder, it's as a safety
measure until everything works fine. Once everything is working fine,
you do whatever you want with them, ditch them or keep them. It will
not matter then because a squashed sfs file is itself an archive. But for
now, please keep those zips.
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

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