Precise-light - 17March2019 - for older hardware

[Moose On The Loose]

[.... snip ...]
Don't give up on that old machine, Cheers, J

I did give up on the old machine. It is now sitting on the garage floor waiting for me to think of what I will do with the parts if anything.

I bought one of those mini-PC things that are about 20cm X 20cm X 2cm.
It now sits switched off and has been that way for several weeks. It turns out that there really wasn't anything on Amazon Prime worth the bother of switching it on and waaaaaaiting while Win10 starts up.

This means that the idea of getting the silly fool thing to boot a good OS[1] has been set aside for a while now. If I can somehow get motivated, I think I will be going back and either working on DOSEMUish or my PuppyBasic3. I did notice that a few people seemed a little interested in each of those so they may be ways I can contribute.

[1] Not Windows but that can do Amazon Prime right out of the box.

[proebler]

@jrb
There is a bug in JWM Tray management.
Try: JWM Window Manager Settings > Tray management > Iconify or Verbose in Pager > choose to iconify.
You will find that it does not work.
The bug is in Line 17 of /root/.jwmrc-tray.
To fix it, change that line from

Code: Select all

<TaskList />

to

Code: Select all

<TaskList maxwidth="" />

cheers
proebler

edit: there is no space in

Code: Select all

<TaskList/>

!

[jrb]

@jrb
There is a bug in JWM Tray management.
Try: JWM Window Manager Settings > Tray management > Iconify or Verbose in Pager > choose to iconify.
You will find that it does not work.
The bug is in Line 17 of /root/.jwmrc-tray.
To fix it, change that line from

Code: Select all

<TaskList />

to

Code: Select all

<TaskList maxwidth="" />

cheers
proebler

Thanks proebler. I have to confess that I don't know what Pager is supposed to do. I tried JWM Window Manager Settings > Tray management > Iconify or Verbose and didn't notice any changes. When I made your code change it rearranged my tray icons. Is that it's purpose?

[proebler]

Out of the box, I get variable width as seen at the top of the attached picture.
When I then choose > Tray management > Iconify or Verbose in Pager > Iconify , the tray shrinks as seen at the bottom of the picture and it is then stuck in that view. It will not revert through choosing any of the three available options.

With the fixed /root/.jwmrc-tray, I can choose from the three top views shown in the picture, the tray no longer shrinks.

[jrb]

Out of the box, I get variable width as seen at the top of the attached picture.
When I then choose > Tray management > Iconify or Verbose in Pager > Iconify , the tray shrinks as seen at the bottom of the picture and it is then stuck in that view. It will not revert through choosing any of the three available options.

With the fixed /root/.jwmrc-tray, I can choose from the three top views shown in the picture, the tray no longer shrinks.

Thanks for the VERY clear explanation. I just had to try it with no save file. I'm now looking at your condition #4 and you're right, it refuses to change. If I decide to do another upgrade I'll change it. In the meantime I'll put a link to your post on page 1.

Thanks, J

[sindi]

I am very happy with Precise Light 5.7.1-3 except that when trying to boot my ASUS M5000 12" 2004 Pentium M laptop it tells me to
use a kernel appropriate for my CPU. Precise Light has a PAE kernel.

I researched online and added forcepae at the end of the kernel line in menu.lst, which did not help.

My newest laptop has 4GB RAM and most have 512MB-2GB.

I would appreciate a non-PAE precise 5.7.1 light.
Precise works on another Intel-graphics laptop,
where Tahr will not connect via wifi,
and Lupu won't run Palemoon 28,
and Racy won't print or display framebuffer graphics correctly.

Precise 5.4.0 and probably 5.4.1 have non-PAE kernels. Can I simply use vmlinuz from Precise 5.4 with 5.7.1
or must I also change the kernel modules (how) ? I can try a glibc 2.20 upgrade in 5.4.1.

Precise 5.5 did not come with a non-PAE version.

[sindi]

I was able to boot Precise 5.7.1 retro (with non-PAE kernel). It has no framebuffer console, glibc is 2.15 (not 2.20), there is a save file instead of a save directory, it does not shut itself off, and when I reboot having saved it, the icons have all turned into inverted red-framed triangles and other images are white rectangles with small red X'es.

Error loading background.

The settings were not saved (hostname, timezone, internet).
Frisbee works. network wizard did not.

Is there a non-PAE version of the Precise light kernel and modules?

[jrb]

I am very happy with Precise Light 5.7.1-3 except that when trying to boot my ASUS M5000 12" 2004 Pentium M laptop it tells me to
use a kernel appropriate for my CPU. Precise Light has a PAE kernel.

I researched online and added forcepae at the end of the kernel line in menu.lst, which did not help.

My newest laptop has 4GB RAM and most have 512MB-2GB.

I would appreciate a non-PAE precise 5.7.1 light.

Since you mention a menu.lst I assume you have a frugal install. With a frugal it is quite easy to change to a non-PAE kernel. Heres how:

1) Download a non-PAE huge-kernel from here. I just downloaded huge-3.14.56-tahr_noPae.tar.bz2 but you could try any of them.

2) UExtract the tar.bz2 file and you will get kernel-modules.sfs-3.14.56-tahr_noPae & vmlinuz-3.14.56-tahr_noPae or the appropriate name for the huge kernel you downloaded.

3) Rename kernel-modules.sfs-3.14.56-tahr_noPae to zdrv_precise_light-5.7.1.sfs and vmlinuz-3.14.56-tahr_noPae to vmlinuz

4) Replace the old PAE versions in your frugal directory with the new ones and you are ready to reboot with the non-PAE kernel

I hope the new kernel works well for you, if it doesn't keep trying different non-PAE kernels until you find one that works on your machine. Sometimes old hardware can be pretty fussy, like people eh?

Cheers, J

[sindi]

Thanks. Should I start with the oldest kernel for the 2004 laptop?
There are also non-PAE tahr kernels at ibiblio (not 'huge') 3.4, 3.14, 3.17.
When using deltas do I need to apply all of them in a row or just the most recent?

[jrb]

Thanks. Should I start with the oldest kernel for the 2004 laptop?
There are also non-PAE tahr kernels at ibiblio (not 'huge') 3.4, 3.14, 3.17.
When using deltas do I need to apply all of them in a row or just the most recent?

I've always had the best results with 3.14.56 on my old hardware but you never know until you try.

When you use deltas you only need the original file plus the latest delta. It won't work otherwise. The original file is specified in the first part of the delta's name.

[mikeslr]

Hi Sindi,

Suggest you start with rockedge's real-time, nopae kernel, 4.14.63-rt37_full-rt_nopae, which you'll find here, http://rockedge.org/kernels/: click kernel, then 32-bit, then 4.14.63-rt37_full-rt_nopae to reach its download link. My experience is that real-time kernels respond quicker &/or use less RAM.

Of course, it may not include all the drivers your computer needs. But, its worth the effort to find out.

[sindi]

First I tried Tahr noPAE kernel 3.4 and it would not boot. Could not find modules.dep. ls /lib/modules = empty.

The realtime noPAE kernel takes quite a while to boot, but so far is perfect.
The package (bz2) is 47MB (vs 29MB for 3.4 xz). I have a 40GB drive.
I can delete many of the 75MB of modules.
Should I delete the small 3.14.56 directory?.

The kernel is only 1MB larger. I may also try 3.14.56-noPAE.

Framebuffer console works (tiny print on 12" screen). Sound was muted but fixable.
SNS/wifi works. 227MB RAM used. glibc 2.20 lets me use Palemoon 28 (without updating glibc myself).

The laptop has a super keyboard, small clear bright non-wide non-shiny screen, 512MB RAM (proprietary,
expensive). Until now only Racy would display correctly (855GM intel integrated video) but fbcon would not work right,
and racy won't print to my Brother printers.

Perhaps Precise (light) will work with dv6500 nvidia video (so far only puppies 4, lupu, and racy work on it) with the
right kernel. (I tried for a week to compile my own but mine would not even boot).

Thanks for all the help. One more New Year's wish is to add or update

libgnutl-deb0.so.28
libgcrypt.so.20

so that lynx 2.8.9rel1 (from Debian Jessie) will work with the nice framebuffer console.

Wikipedia and Duckduckgo just informed me that they no longer support lynx 2.8.8.
links and elinks also need updating. google.com still works with old lynx.

[perdido]

Perhaps Precise (light) will work with dv6500 nvidia video (so far only puppies 4, lupu, and racy work on it) with the
right kernel. (I tried for a week to compile my own but mine would not even boot).
.

Post which kernel you end up using and we can figure out an nvidia driver.
The NVIDIA GeForce 7150M / nForce 630M 6̶5̶0̶0̶ is supported by the nvidia driver version 304.137
https://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/123708

As long as you choose a driver that has kernel headers and kernel sources available it should be buildable. Might already have a package built.

.

.

[jrb]

First I tried Tahr noPAE kernel 3.4 and it would not boot. Could not find modules.dep. ls /lib/modules = empty.

The realtime noPAE kernel takes quite a while to boot, but so far is perfect.
The package (bz2) is 47MB (vs 29MB for 3.4 xz). I have a 40GB drive.
I can delete many of the 75MB of modules.
Should I delete the small 3.14.56 directory?.

The kernel is only 1MB larger. I may also try 3.14.56-noPAE.

Framebuffer console works (tiny print on 12" screen). Sound was muted but fixable.
SNS/wifi works. 227MB RAM used. glibc 2.20 lets me use Palemoon 28 (without updating glibc myself).

The laptop has a super keyboard, small clear bright non-wide non-shiny screen, 512MB RAM (proprietary,
expensive). Until now only Racy would display correctly (855GM intel integrated video) but fbcon would not work right,
and racy won't print to my Brother printers.

Perhaps Precise (light) will work with dv6500 nvidia video (so far only puppies 4, lupu, and racy work on it) with the
right kernel. (I tried for a week to compile my own but mine would not even boot).

Thanks for all the help. One more New Year's wish is to add or update

libgnutl-deb0.so.28
libgcrypt.so.20

so that lynx 2.8.9rel1 (from Debian Jessie) will work with the nice framebuffer console.

Wikipedia and Duckduckgo just informed me that they no longer support lynx 2.8.8.
links and elinks also need updating. google.com still works with old lynx.

If you use k3.14.56_6.0.5_noPAE there is already http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/pe ... _noPAE.pet

I tried Oscartalks links-2.18-wheezy.pet in Precise-light MK2 and with his ca-certificates .pet it worked very well.

[sindi]

I downloaded the no-PAE kernel, modules, and nvidia-340 pet (for Tahr).
petget in Precise 5.7.1 light fortunately works without X and installed the 17MB pet (which expanded a lot).

no-PAE because my HP DV6500 recently stopped working with more than 2GB RAM (1x2 2x1 2x512 all work but 2x2 or 2+1 prevent boot).

I added precise to menu.lst and it booted to console. I ran xorgwizard and it chose 1024x768 (laptop can do 1280x800) and booted to X, but the touchpad does not respond and there is a message saying to disable nouveau.

Terminal mode worked so I mounted /sda1 and edited menu.lst
and rebooted.

nomodeset did not help
nouveau modeset=0 prevented it from fully booting, with skinny square font and something about no (module?).

The instructions online for disabling nouveau are for Ubuntu and require using apt-get to fetch some fancy automated tools.

Do I edit some file to blacklist nouveau?

Framebuffer console is NOT working ;=( Maybe it will eventually work.


I will try Wheezy links soon in Debiandog Wheezy.
Jessie lynx works in Jessie but not in Wheezy.

[sindi]

The suggested links 2.18 wheezy pet works in Precise 5.7.1 light. It needs a few more libraries to work in debiandog wheezy. View, html options, number links (space), OK, save html options. (Still need to add an editor).

The elinks that works in debiandog wheezy is missing two libraries in Precise - libgnutls (optional instead of openssl) and libgcrypt.

I will attempt to compile lynx (package is provided by LFS) without gpm (mouse support) or libgnutls and whatever else is missing in precise.

I added nouveau.modeset=0 in menu.lst after fsk, and blacklist nouveau line at end of /etc/modules.d/blacklist.conf and restarted PC with Enter key as instructed. The blacklist line was gone. Same 'kernel module not loaded ... Recomend [sic] you disable nouveaus.. reboot PC...run xorgwizard.

The blacklist changes (I also un blacklisted nvidiafb) are not being saved. I repeated a few times. On this HP DV5000 wary, jessie and wheezy debiandog also do not save changes.

[sindi]

I just compiled lynx 2.8.9rel1 from 2.5MB source code downloaded from Linux From Scratch (LFS).

I first downloaded the devx file for Precise 5.7.1 (full) about 148MB into the precise directory.
I loaded it on the fly from Setup (in X, on a computer where things work better).

I downloaded the lynx source code into directory lynx-compile and cd'ed to it.
I unpacked the files and cd'ed to the lower directory.
tar -jxvf lynx*bz2

./configure --with-ssl - ran for about 30 sec to check my setup
make - ran for about 2 min and produced lynx and associated files.

Without the --with-ssl you cannot access https sites such as duckduckgo.com/lite.

I did not do a make install or change any defaults, just the --with-ssl.

I replaced my old lynx 2.8.8 binary (2MB) with this 2.8.9-rel1 (1.5MB), leaving my related files along, and it worked.

http://keesan.freeshell.org/puppy/lynx2891-precise571

There is a lynxpkg.tgz there with the old lynx that I simply unpack on /
/usr/local/etc/lynx.cfg and lynx.lss
/usr/local/ssl/cert.pem (from about 2018)
/root/.lynxrc and lynx_bookmarks.html

These are the very old defaults.

If lynx complains about not finding lynx.cfg or lynx.lss move them to where it wants them.

Links 2.20 from the wheezy pet already works (at least in a vt nongraphically).
Elinks from wheezy has far more dependencies.

This is my first compiled browser in 20 years! It used to be a lot harder and I needed
help from Doug Kaufmann who compiled lynx for DOS. I will check it with lupu and racy
and maybe compile for older glibc.

I greatly appreciate all the help finding kernels, modules, browsers, etc.

[sindi]

ncurses split off tinfo and neither lupu2016 (based on 2010 lupu)
nor racy 5.5 (2013) have libtinfo.so.5. Symlinking tinfo to ncurses
did not fix the problem. The new lynx can access google.com but not
https sites such as wikipedia and duckduckgo.com/lite.

Someone else can try to compile newer ncurses for older linux.

[jrb]

The suggested links 2.18 wheezy pet works in Precise 5.7.1 light. It needs a few more libraries to work in debiandog wheezy. View, html options, number links (space), OK, save html options. (Still need to add an editor).

The elinks that works in debiandog wheezy is missing two libraries in Precise - libgnutls (optional instead of openssl) and libgcrypt.

I will attempt to compile lynx (package is provided by LFS) without gpm (mouse support) or libgnutls and whatever else is missing in precise.

I added nouveau.modeset=0 in menu.lst after fsk, and blacklist nouveau line at end of /etc/modules.d/blacklist.conf and restarted PC with Enter key as instructed. The blacklist line was gone. Same 'kernel module not loaded ... Recomend [sic] you disable nouveaus.. reboot PC...run xorgwizard.

The blacklist changes (I also un blacklisted nvidiafb) are not being saved. I repeated a few times. On this HP DV5000 wary, jessie and wheezy debiandog also do not save changes.

I believe you mentioned before that you are using a frugal install, if so try the following:
Open menu.lst and change pmedia=atafhd to pmedia=ataflash. This will put a Save icon on your desktop. Make your blacklist changes and then Click the Save icon. If you are using a save folder check in your frugal directory in the Precisesave folder and open /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf from that folder. See if your changes are there. If not you can actually copy your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf into that folder.

Also rather than typing in your blacklists, try going to Menu->System->Boot Manager->Modules->Blacklist Module and try blacklisting nouveau there. It may be more effective.

[sindi]

Thanks for suggestions. Nouveau X loads automatically with nonworking
mouse so I cannot click on Save. Alt-F1 menu works. Module blacklist
manager left panel shows NO currently loaded modules (including no
nouveau). Right pane shows all the modules in blacklist.conf and
yesterday I checked repeatedly that nouveau is not there.

Please explain how to use the manager without a mouse to blacklist and
unblacklist mmodules.

I can tab around and highlight cyblafb but not scroll down to nouveau. I
can arrow between arcfb and cyblafb.

Menu, utilities, urxvt, sns brings up a dialog box with 'No Profiles' and
no interfaces. The network cable is plugged in and works with other
puppy versions.

I connected with ethernet using peasywifi and static configuration (tab,
enter). 'click on info to confirm'. I click on info and the only
interface is lo local loopback. Ping 8.8.8.8 ' network is unreachable.

Changes also will not save in debiandog jessie and wheezy or wary puppy .
Tahr (and other puppies 6) with standard kernel display X scrambled.

Lupu 2016 and Racy 5.5 work (glibc 2.20 updated), but Lupu won't run
Palemoon 28 and Racy won't print so I need to switch between them

How can I try Precise with Racy 5.5 kernel and modules? No zdrv file.

Would a huge kernel/modules 4.14 rt work better? (Does huge mean it comes
with all possible modules?).