Muppy 008.2 (Feb 01, 2008) outdated

[PaulBx1]

Hey, if I remembered stuff like that, that would be wonderful!

BTW I just tried that youtube again. This time when it hangs, just that seamonkey window hangs. I can exit the window and everything is fine.

I also tried running the video just a bit and pausing it, seeing if I could load the whole thing and then run it. Turns out just the loading is what is hanging it.

That made me recall that Barry decided to put /tmp in memory rather than on the hard drive, for Puppy 3.0. That is one of the problems I had earlier; filling up a precious resource like memory rather than a cheap one like the hard drive. That's one of the main reasons I never went to 3.0!

Ideally, he should have made this a configurable option. Is that something that is possible for Muppy I wonder?

[MU]

no, Muppy uses the init-scripts from Puppy 301.
I had no look yet, where /tmp is set up.
But I think videos are usually cached in /root/.mozilla/firefox/.../cache/ I think.
Maybe you could move and symlink it to another drive?
Mark

[PaulBx1]

I noticed my cache in the Seamonkey preferences was set to only 4MB so I bumped it to 100MB and restarted the browser but it did not help. I also enlarged my pupsave but that didn't help.

I ran it and looked in /tmp. A file appeared there called "FlashoNtG6D" and that grew up to 40738968 bytes at which point the video crashed and the file disappeared. I'm guessing /tmp really is in ram, is set to 40MB (in my case), and when it runs out of room then Seamonkey chokes.

Again, I don't think Barry made a good decision to put /tmp in ram (I recall him mentioning this change, I think in one of the blog posts).

By the way I have 320MB of ram so it's not really a small-ram machine. However I use no swap due to running encrypted; maybe that has something to do with it.

(Edit) Maybe that's not it. I have the same problem in 2.16 and that has /tmp on the hard drive I think. Still, maybe it is limited to 40MB even there?

One other item. Just to verify, since I didn't read it in your earlier posts: Muppy is not intented to upgrade from Puppy? That is, a Puppy pupsave won't work with Muppy?

[PaulBx1]

I installed Seamonkey 1.1.8 and it had the same problem.

I ran it one time with an unrelated 15MB file already in /tmp; that time it crashed when the /tmp/Flashxxxxxx file there reached 25MB. That is definitely telling me I am hitting a 40MB limit for /tmp.

[PaulBx1]

Gnumeric has no functions. I know mini is supposed to be trimmed down but a spreadsheet without functions is pretty worthless.

[MU]

I made a quick test now, that seems to work.

First, I mounted /mnt/sda3

Then I exited X, and typed:
mkdir /mnt/sda3/tmp
mount /mnt/sda3/tmp /tmp

Now if I copy a very huge file to /tmp , it will be saved in /mnt/sda3/tmp

I verifiy that I now have enormous space free in /tmp:

Code: Select all

# df -m
Filesystem           1M-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
...
tmpfs                      150       149         1  99% /initrd/mnt/tmpfs
...
tmpfs                     9387      7840      1070  88% /tmp
...
/dev/sda3                 9387      7840      1070  88% /mnt/sda3
...
/dev/sda3                 9387      7840      1070  88% /tmp

With this method you loose all files that were previously in /tmp, like the bootlog.
So you might copy them first somewhere else.

Use at own risk, I did not check for sideeffects.

Gnumeric:
I made no changes, so is that an issue inherited from Puppy3?
I once compiled an own version, can try that out:
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Office/Gnumeric-1.6.3/
I do not remember, if it uses the same folders as Puppys version, so if you want to try it, better make a backup of msy_save.2fs first.

Mark

[MU]

gnumeric again:
the dotpup would install to /usr/local, so there is no sense in using it.
But no need to try it anyway.
I have all plugins in /usr/lib/gnumeric, and can see them in gnumeric, too.
In tools-plugins.
That lists many functions plugins, like for finance or mat functions.
Do you not have those?
Mark

[PaulBx1]

First, I mounted /mnt/sda3
Then I exited X, and typed:
mkdir /mnt/sda3/tmp
mount /mnt/sda3/tmp /tmp

See, I used to know that stuff back in my old unix days, but I have forgotten by now. (sigh)

I will see about tacking something on to /tmp to add to its size; however I prefer to use something inside my pupsave for security. If I can figure that out...

I assume in 2.16 all of /tmp is inside the pupsave.

df -m shows /tmp with 39MB in Muppy. It is possible some of the Puppy 3.01 complaints had to do with a too-small /tmp.

I will let you know if a larger /tmp does not clear up the youtube problem.

Sorry on that gnumeric stuff, it was an operator error. The function button is greyed out under certain circumstances. Been a while since I played with spreadsheets.

[MU]

I ran some hours with the /tmp mounted on the USB-harddisk, then rebooted.
I encountered no problem doing this.
Now I use the old mode again, as it is slightly faster.

To mount it inside msy_save.2fs, you could create /tmp2, and then mount /tmp on it.

Mark

[PaulBx1]

Yes, I tried it, and it worked great.

When I add (in my case /root/tmp) to /tmp this way, we still have the high performance of a ram-based /tmp don't we? Until that part gets filled? If so, we need to persuade Barry to tack this extra pup_save-based resource on to /tmp in the boot. This was one of the reasons I never upgraded beyond 2.16, because of the problems of a small /tmp. I'm assuming it can't be done in /etc/rc.d/rc.local, and it sure would be tedious to have to do it manually for each boot.

[PaulBx1]

Mark, I'm still trying to convince myself to move from Puppy to Muppy.

I am fairly confident Muppy will be around for a while since it has a good potential "market" in Germany and you are tied so closely into Puppy development. And I think the support will be there too. Is it a big effort to maintain the English version of Muppy, along with the German one?

I'm always interested in security. Do you have any plans to add gpg, enigmail, dmcrypt, things of that nature? It seems appropriate since so much encryption development comes out of Germany, if I'm not mistaken. Americans really need encryption these days since our government is (unconstitutionally) playing Stasi, snooping into our emails.

I suppose you are still busy Germanizing the scripts.

Gnumeric has a new stable version; I'd like to see that updated. Is it in your plans, or are you just going to follow what Barry does with 3.02 on gnumeric?

I think I read somewhere you are looking to make the boot speed faster for mini-muppy. That would be nice.

I like the idea of having full muppy available just by booting with one extra sfs, but running normally with the stripped down package. A great feature!

If Barry is not too interested in pushing the Puppy 3 tree any more, maybe he should dump it on you by just saying "the official upgrade path on the Puppy 3 tree is Muppy"! I wonder how hard it would be to make that work in actuality; I mean with the pup_save issue?

[MU]

Hi Paul,

The english and german versions have the same priority.
The german one just slows down the rest a bit, because of the additional translation. But at moment I do not translate, but develop own programs.

I currently concentrate on desktop related stuff.
The GtkBasic-Panel with the new Menu, because the Icewm-menu has a delay at first startup. I found external postings, where this was a reason not to use Muppy, and it disturbs me, too.

Then the MIME-system, my MIME-editor must be enhanced.

I currently do not plan to add cryptografic tools, but only because I don't understand enough of it.
If you would make a tar.gz containing all required files, I'd be glad to add them to the addon.sfs

We plan to release 008.3 in the end of march.
I will try to integrate the new gnumeric.
It also will contain the new GtkBasic Panel.
And Minisys Final, that then will include an application to set up Puppy easily as a Samba-server.
You then can choose in your browser from a tree-view, which folders shall be shared in a network.

That will be it for that update (beside some smaller tweaks like an updated pburn).

Concerning an upgrade of a pup_save.3fs from Puppy 30x I have no solution yet.
It would take some days of testing how to do that reliably, but my todo-list is very full atm, so I fear I cannot care about it for that release.

We also have first requests by german consultants, who plan to use Muppy for thin clients in a larger environment.
This will require some customized tweaks for those companies.

Mark

[PaulBx1]

If you would make a tar.gz containing all required files, I'd be glad to add them to the addon.sfs

I only wish I was among the group of people competent to do this. I have tried in the past with little luck. I am not a software engineer, just a hardware jockey (a retired one at that - lately I have been fixing fences and splitting wood! Soon I will be pounding sand. )

If you have actual paying customers, by all means take care of them first.

[MU]

If you have actual paying customers, by all means take care of them first.

Sure.
But we just had first contacts now, so lets see how things develop.
Until then I concentrate on enhancing Muppy

Encryption will play a role especially in germany, too, because of our government that currently seems to think that Stasi-methods are a fine thing.
Luckily our lawers now have stopped this approach, at least partially.

But these tendencies will come up again, I'm certain.
So it is good to be protected in case you want to send private data over the web.

I will keep it in mind, when I read about new dotpups offering such tools.

Mark

[PaulBx1]

I was going to try my hand at compiling gpg (which I managed once before) for Muppy. I guess I need the devx file. All I can find is the devx_080, and the sfs boot manager is not interested in that. Can I just rename it to devx_082? Or are there changes that would not allow that to work?

I needed to use sha1sum to check my gpg download and it did not exist in muppy or puppy. I found one that works in Windows but maybe it would be a good thing to have in Muppy.

Another item; I don't know how far you are getting into the boot script, but I think if encryption is used, particularly heavy encryption, the default for swap should be "off".

Luckily our lawers now have stopped this approach, at least partially.

If they're anything like our government, they are still doing it, but just keeping quiet about it.

[MU]

Can I just rename it to devx_082?

yes.
It is just a renamed devx_301.sfs.

Mark

[MU]

Luckily our lawers now have stopped this approach, at least partially.

If they're anything like our government, they are still doing it, but just keeping quiet about it.

Of course.
But there is one advantage:
as long as there are some laws restricting the operations of police and secret service, you are allowed to protect yourself.

For this reason, that was important that now there was a decision strengthening private interests.
Without such laws, it easily could become illegal to use encryption utilities and such.

We now can incorporate such tools in Muppy without conflicts with the law, what is important as we target the german market.
If it would be a pure english system hosted on some canadian servers, we would not have to be so concerned about this.
At moment it is already critical that I host Doom and Quake, it is forbidden to propagate them to the public here in germany because of the violent content.
Fortunatly I had no trouble yet concerning my decision, to disregard this law.
But I might be forced in future to remove them from dotpups.de.
This will depend on the public political hysteria when there is another case of amok in a school.
Mark

[MU]

Here is a small update for Muppy008.2 (all versions).

It is for people using a frugal installation.
Replace initrd.gz with this one.

GERMAN:
http://puppyfiles.ca/puppyisos/isos/Mup ... pdates/DE/

ENGLISH:
http://puppyfiles.ca/puppyisos/isos/Mup ... pdates/EN/


I removed the part, that mounts /tmp on tmpfs.

So temporary files will be stored in msy_save.2fs, and not in Ram.
This fixes some issues:

1.) Ram is limited, and so you easily ran out of temporary space.
2.) It seems, the tmpfs slowly was sucking up your free space.
I experienced sometimes, that in the beginning the freememapplet displayed 240 MB free space.
After some hours (2 days), this decreased to 0 MB, causing trouble.
I then checked with df -m, that /initrd/pup_rw was full.
I cross-checked with du -m /initrd/pup_rw , that the files in that folder did NOT increase.
In theory, this is impossible.
I think this was an issue caused by the tmpfs setup, and hope it is solved now.
At least at first impression, the free space seems to stay fixed, but this must be verified over a longer period.

Mark

[PaulBx1]

Mark, for your information I was able to compile the latest GPG (1.4. using the regular configure, make, make install commands. I didn't see any errors and I did use it to open an encrypted file and it worked fine with that. So it is no big deal for gpg...

For enigmail, someone informed me this is just a simple add-on for Seamonkey or Thunderbird. So with that and gpg you could get encrypted emails in muppy pretty easily. (I have not tried the enigmail addon yet).

Just thought you'd like to know...

[Diamond]

Thanx for a great distro... I had some problems with booting,actually one times was grub error,and a few times puppy couldn't find my .sfs file,and one time there was an error so I had to format whole partition.

is there a chance to save .sfs file,for some sort of backup,and to restore it succesfuly ?

once I have to re-install muppy becouse goggles did not working any more.

Hope final relase will be out soon!

Any chance of Audacious as default audio player in muppy ?