4.1 alpha 5 continued shutdown failures, burner disabled

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otropogo

4.1 alpha 5 continued shutdown failures, burner disabled

#1 Post by otropogo »

Have now tested and retested Puppy 4.1 alpha 5's shutdown/reboot operation on two systems, and it fails to perform properly on both, in a way that makes burning DVDs/CDs impossible without a second burner.

On the Dell Dimension 4300, instead of powering off or rebooting, it gives a system halt, with power to the PC and the CD/DVD drive locked.

On the AMD K6-II/500 system, it powers the PC down on shutdown, but the DVD/CD drive remains locked whether shutting down or rebooting.

Have tried to unmount and remove the LiveCD before initiating reboot, but the system refuses to unmount the CD on both machines, and the eject button doesn't work. So I can't burn anything on either system.

The AMD has 768MB of RAM, and the Dell has 512MB, so Puppy should have no problem fitting into memory.

In both cases, the 2sf file is on a separate device (ie. NOT the LiveCD).

In case it's relevant, the LiveCd was written in multisession mode, but no second session has been recorded.

On both machines, I have to either disable booting from CD in Bios, or power down the machine, in order to regain ability to boot another OS.

I assume this is not an intended design feature....

pigshed
Posts: 158
Joined: Fri 23 May 2008, 14:28
Location: France

#2 Post by pigshed »

Hi otropogo,

I've also been having shutdown issues in the alphas - with my system stopping at "system halted" on a "shutdown" - though re-boot works fine.

It was suggested to try ACPI=FORCE in the boot.

For me this enables shutdown to work correctly. However with ACPI running in the alphas - my system fan on laptop never kicks in - so eventually it will meltdown.

I've been experimenting with ACPI=force on puppy 4.0.

Originally I thought it seemed to work ok - ie the fan ran. This isn't exacly the case though. If the machine is "cold" - literally (ie, not been run for a few hours) - when I boot - then the fan doesn't start - and subsequently doesn't start ever.

If the machine is already warm when I boot with ACPI=FORCE - the BIOS starts the FAN - Puppy stops it at first boot (immediately after grub) - then re-starts the fan when loading the keyboard maps.

The strange bit for me is that APM works fine in PUPPY 4.0 with correct fan control and shutdown... but not in the alphas - Fan works, but shutdown doesn't.

So you could try ACPI=Force .. but keep an eye on your system temperature in Menu,system,hardinfo - sensors.

Cheers, Adam.

otropogo

#3 Post by otropogo »

pigshed wrote:Hi otropogo,

I've also been having shutdown issues in the alphas - with my system stopping at "system halted" on a "shutdown" - though re-boot works fine.

It was suggested to try ACPI=FORCE in the boot....


Cheers, Adam.
Hi Adam,

Thanks for the suggestion. Will try it next time I boot alpha 5. I've been trying for many months to load a current version of Puppy onto my CD-ROM-less, USB-less laptop, but no success, as neither, LS-120, PP ZIP, nor PP Backpack options actually work. My fond hope for Wakepup support for a boot from pcmcia_flash or pcmcia_scsi is withering on the vine as well....

Of more immediate concern to me is the fact that on both very different desktop systems where I've run Puppy 4 alpha 5, Puppy refuses to unmount and free the dvd/cd burner, making it impossible to write anything to DVD or CD.

Are you experiencing that problem too? And if so, does acpi=force solve it as well?

pigshed
Posts: 158
Joined: Fri 23 May 2008, 14:28
Location: France

#4 Post by pigshed »

Hi Ortopogo,

Unfortunately no idea about the CD/DVD writing issue - I have an Internal writer hooked upto a IDE/USB2 adapter, plugged into a USB2 cardbus/pcmcia adapter - but I'm yet to try it (for burning)..

Another idea you might try if it's appropriate, I did a frugal install of puppy 4 onto a 16gb compact flash card plugged into a USB compact flash adapter. I then plugged this into an internal laptop IDE/compact flash adapter bought on e-bay from hong kong for about 3 euro's. This method has worked faultlessly for me so far.

There is an option in puppy 4 to do the install straight to a Flash card mounted on an IDE converter - this hangs everytime though so I'd try it though the external flash adapter if this is an option.. (though with no cd or usb the initial internal install probably isn't an option anyway - unless your puling the files over a network). For a frugal install it's pretty straight forward to just manually drag the files onto the card from the iso - assuming your cards already configured.

Cheers, Adam.

otropogo

#5 Post by otropogo »

pigshed wrote:...
Unfortunately no idea about the CD/DVD writing issue - I have an Internal writer hooked upto a IDE/USB2 adapter, plugged into a USB2 cardbus/pcmcia adapter - but I'm yet to try it (for burning)..
Have you tried booting Puppy from LiveCD on that drive? I'd be interested to read the results. If it works, then you can try unmounting the drive...
pigshed wrote:Another idea you might try if it's appropriate, I did a frugal install of puppy 4 onto a 16gb compact flash card plugged into a USB compact flash adapter. I then plugged this into an internal laptop IDE/compact flash adapter bought on e-bay from hong kong for about 3 euro's. This method has worked faultlessly for me so far.
I've tried that myself, but couldn't boot it. What did you use to boot the system? Playing around with my laptop's hard drive connector (a fragile ribbon thingie) is not something I care to do casually.
pigshed wrote:There is an option in puppy 4 to do the install straight to a Flash card mounted on an IDE converter - this hangs everytime though
Ah yes! So many Puppy install options, and so few work (and so few care...)
pigshed wrote:so I'd try it though the external flash adapter if this is an option.. (though with no cd or usb the initial internal install probably isn't an option anyway- unless your puling the files over a network).
No, it's not. I've tried to load Puppy into memory every which way, parallel port Zip, LS-120, parallel port CD-ROM, pcmcia_scsi, pcmcia_flash. Network is the only one I haven't tried, but I'm not ready to install another Puppy to my laptop's hard drive unless and until I've seen its performance on the hardware first.


For example, thanks to Tempestuous, I've now got the aha152x_cs module for kernel 2.6.18, which enables Puppy 3.01 Retro to mount my pcmcia_scsi chain (alas, there's no equivalent functionality in Wakepup, or my laptop testing difficulties would be resolved).

I've been looking for ages for a later kernel version of this module , but no luck.

The current install (3.01 Retro), cost me my Win98 installation), and I still have to boot from a floppy to run it, because I can't get Grub to do it.

If there were a way to load a LiveCD into my laptop's RAM from a CD-drive on a desktop, connected via router, or via straight cable, I'd be happy to try it. But I'm afraid the hand-holdingI'd need isn't reliably available, and I don't want to jeopardize my main system.

pigshed
Posts: 158
Joined: Fri 23 May 2008, 14:28
Location: France

#6 Post by pigshed »

Hi Otropogo,

Just spent 45 minutes writing you a nice long detailed reply and then like a complete twit - closed the wrong tab ! Merd..

So here's a very short one instead..

I wouldn't worry too much about the problems in the Alphas, they are after all alphas and very much experimental and not for mainstream release, only for Barry to try a few ideas.

V4 isn't necessarily better than V3 - they're just different derivatives which have gone in different directions - so V3 may suffice ??

Not sure how you lost your win98, is it still on the HD and just won't boot or have you formatted the HD as a linux drive ?

I'd say your best bet is to just get grub working - if you can't get it working on the HD, then just make a grub boot disk.

Then - assuming 3.01 works on your system and you have network access. You can download the ISO you want and copy the relevant files into a new directory - say /puppy400 for example - a manual "frugal" install - and nothing like a traditional install - so this won't affect your existing 3.01 install or anything else on the laptop. Then you can at least try other derivatives at leisure.

Grub boot floppy :

http://linux-sxs.org/administration/grubflop.html

Grub boot floppy article from the dark ages :

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4622

Grub or LILO boot disk

http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxT ... tDisk.html

Supergrub boot disk with links and other info:

http://supergrub.forjamari.linex.org/

Irrelevant, but info on a boot disk with PCMCIA support from someone trying to dual boot 98 and DSL - though there maybe some relevant information or ideas :

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/inde ... s_Install)

Good luck, sorry it's short and blunt, things to do and don't have another 45 minutes .. Adam.

otropogo

#7 Post by otropogo »

pigshed wrote:Hi Otropogo,

Just spent 45 minutes writing you a nice long detailed reply and then like a complete twit - closed the wrong tab ! Merd..
I hear you! I've been thinking about ways to physically prevent touching my <insert> key...

pigshed wrote: wouldn't worry too much about the problems in the Alphas, they are after all alphas and very much experimental and not for mainstream release, only for Barry to try a few ideas.
The reason I've tried and reported on this alpha are that:

a) people have suggested some of the problems I've encountered in 4.0 and 3.01 were fixed here (not that I can see)

b) there are some features, like xfprot, that I need right now, and

c) most importantly, in my perception, the closer things get to the final release, the less chance that any problems are going to be corrected.
pigshed wrote:V4 isn't necessarily better than V3 - they're just different derivatives which have gone in different directions - so V3 may suffice ??
That would mean pets would have to be created to make new features I need, such as the PBdict editor MU is working on, xfprot, "Sit...'"s partially revealed method of displaying Chinese text in Puppy, etc., work in the older version, complicating installation and support considerably.

Then there's the matter of hardware support. I'm still waiting to be able to use any of my three multifunction machines (now three to five years old) with any Linux (let alone Puppy). I can't even print a page of text with Puppy!
pigshed wrote:Not sure how you lost your win98, is it still on the HD and just won't boot or have you formatted the HD as a linux drive ?
It happened a long, long time ago, and is totally unrecoverable. As best I can tell, Gparted did the deed when I let it resize one of my partitions under 3.01 Retro. My understanding is that I've got a frugal install of 3.01 Retro on my fat32 partition.

I've tried to reinstall Windows, especially Win2K, but without an IDE CDROM, it's a daunting task, and I'm afraid of now losing my 301R install and making the laptop completely useless.

I got the laptop used with Win95 installed IIRC, and then upgraded that to Win98SE. If I hadn't lost the latter, I would have been able to upgrade further to Win2K. Unfortunately, like Linux (except for Suse 9.2), Win2K doesn't have floppy boot support for my pcmcia_scsi host adapter, which would allow me to install from a SCSI CD-ROM.
pigshed wrote:I'd say your best bet is to just get grub working - if you can't get it working on the HD, then just make a grub boot disk.
No if's, I've never been able to make Grub work from the hard drive. I did get a grub boot floppy working once, but somehow it stopped working, and I wasn't able to repeat the feat. I now have to boot my Puppy latpop with Wakepup2.
pigshed wrote:Then - assuming 3.01 works on your system and you have network access. You can download the ISO you want and copy the relevant files into a new directory - say /puppy400 for example - a manual "frugal" install - and nothing like a traditional install - so this won't affect your existing 3.01 install or anything else on the laptop. Then you can at least try other derivatives at leisure.
Thanks for the suggestion and the links. Am familiar with some of them, but will try to review them all in the next while. As for frugal install - I don't need to do it via network, as I can access PCMCIA flash readers under 3.01 retro. The problem is that I'm nowhere near as sanguine as you about the safety of a second install and booting with GRUB or Wakepup.

I was only able to do the frugal install of 3.01R because of an internal LS-120 drive. on which I managed to install 3.01R. That hardware has since become unreliable, so that option is out. On top of that, since Pmount won't run at all with an LS-120 on the system, the removal of MUT in Puppy 4.0 means the death of LS-120 in Puppy.

I've looked at DSL's advertised PCMCIA boot support more than once, and had some correspondence with one of the developers. I note that where they've "had" a boot image for quite some time, a recent review of the DSL news indicated that were still only hoping to make it work in a future release.

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