Understanding mounts/memory/RAM & filesystems/_save file

Booting, installing, newbie
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Bruce B

Re: pupsave files

#31 Post by Bruce B »

RetroTechGuy wrote:
I'm hoping that Barry will make this the default, in the next official release (I don't want newbies to need to learn too much, too fast -- make it easy for them to "join the club" ;) )
Yes, there are good reasons a person would not want to run the operating system on a filesystem in need of repairs. Good reasons.

Nevertheless, I highly doubt what you are 'hoping' for will happen at the developer level (i.e. Barry) The reason why is he already did it and guess what? Lots of complaints because users were having to wait for the e2fsck to complete. (I think it was version 3.1)

However, if you can, it's easy to modify initrd.gz to have this option and other options as you please.

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RetroTechGuy
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Re: pupsave files

#32 Post by RetroTechGuy »

Bruce B wrote:
RetroTechGuy wrote:
I'm hoping that Barry will make this the default, in the next official release (I don't want newbies to need to learn too much, too fast -- make it easy for them to "join the club" ;) )
Yes, there are good reasons a person would not want to run the operating system on a filesystem in need of repairs. Good reasons.
Indeed. Critical reasons! It's particularly bad practice to mount a damaged FS in read-write mode.

I personally had several pupsaves become corrupted to the point of being unusable. A colleague of mine has a similar problem, and he was rather disappointed in Puppy at that point (he also tinkers on a good deal of old equipment -- he's not a "newbie" when it comes to this).

Puppy looks really good, and works really well...and then it commits suicide, after a couple dozen reboots.

At least the M$ Windows OS's take several months, to several years, before committing suicide.

Let me say again, that I am a big fan of what Barry and others have done here! We just need a couple tweaks to make Puppy "ready for prime time".

On my frugal install, I patched the menu.lst to "pfix=fsck". On the live boot CD, it is more difficult (I did this also, but this may be beyond what a newbie could do). Prior to this CD patch, I had been typing "puppy pfix=fsck" on every single CD boot...very tedious.

If the point of Puppy is to make things hard for newbies, and discourage them from using Linux (after they lose all their data in their pupsave, which they yet haven't learned to back-up), then the status quo is the right method. Otherwise, a simple patch will help keep them out of trouble. (if I sound a little grumpy about it, I am... I like systems that "just work")
Nevertheless, I highly doubt what you are 'hoping' for will happen at the developer level (i.e. Barry) The reason why is he already did it and guess what? Lots of complaints because users were having to wait for the e2fsck to complete. (I think it was version 3.1)
OK, so we add it as a query, whose default answer is "yes", with a timeout (if you're not sitting there waiting, and only have 1 pupsave to load, it continues booting without waiting for your answer... fscking the pupsave in the process).

Let's be realistic here. Most pupsaves are small. In fact, I read somewhere that it wasn't recommended that you exceed 2GB for the OS (i.e. pupsave). Even a 2GB partition doesn't take very long to scan. And given the data integrity issue, it's worth the wait. Even with the fsck on my pupsave, the boot time is shorter than loading Windows 98 on my machines (I currently have 3 machines which regularly run in Puppy, and it's true on all 3).

Part of the problem here is that Puppy does not cleanly umount the pupsave (I found this in in several 4.x versions). This seems to be more common for pupsaves stored on the HDD, than on a USB flash (my HDD shutdown is very quick, and ALWAYS corrupted. My USB shutdown takes MUCH longer, and only occasionally shows corruption).

So the fsck is simply a bandaid for this larger issue (I might agree that fsck is somewhat unnecessary on every boot, if the partition is cleanly umounted).

The "speed" complaint reminds me of a copy issue I had in an early version of Linux. The "cp" command was really fast. Unfortunately, it didn't copy correctly a substantial fraction of the time, so it was often faster to reboot into Windows98 and perform the copy, then reboot back to Linux (as I often stored files on a Fat32, so they were accessible to both OS). Otherwise, you had to copy the files, then perform a CRC on them, to make sure that they had copied uncorrupted...then recopy the corrupted files. Bad...bad...bad...
However, if you can, it's easy to modify initrd.gz to have this option and other options as you please.
Actually, you remaster the CD and follow Pizza's instructions:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 7&start=60

placing pfix=fsck on the isolinux.cfg append line.

In a frugal install, you can add it on the kernel line, in menu.lst

BTW, I am now distributing my "fsck" modded CD to the folks that I give it to (i.e. the same as the original, with only this change).

Bruce B

Re: pupsave files

#33 Post by Bruce B »

RetroTechGuy wrote: To do this, I created a fresh, new pupsave (or pfix=ram), so you don't add any of your personalized, goofy crap into the CD. Then use the remaster command (under Menu, Setup, Remaster). Select all defaults, and edit the isolinux.cfg, and follow Pizza's answer:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 7&start=60

adding pfix=fsck on the "append" line, save it as an ISO and/or burn it off.

This is now the version that I'm giving to people (I want it to check their pupsave on every boot, so they don't have issues).

I'm hoping that Barry will make this the default, in the next official release (I don't want newbies to need to learn too much, too fast -- make it easy for them to "join the club" ;) )
If you work careful and want to save time, you can use a hexeditor to make some modifications to the boot args. The reason this is possible is because it is in plain text.

Use overwrite and not insert mode, which is default with most hexeditors. We don't want to add any bytes.

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Béèm
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#34 Post by Béèm »

I just started to use .3fs save files, as it seems they are more stable.
Not long enough to give valuable feedback yet.

I used information from two posts to do this
  1. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=51410
  2. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 296#293296
Time savers:
Find packages in a snap and install using Puppy Package Manager (Menu).
[url=http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage]Consult Wikka[/url]
Use peppyy's [url=http://wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html]puppysearch[/url]

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Béèm
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Saving to ext2, ext3, ext4, etc..

#35 Post by Béèm »

Saving to ext2, ext3, ext4, etc..

Good news from Barry.
Time savers:
Find packages in a snap and install using Puppy Package Manager (Menu).
[url=http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage]Consult Wikka[/url]
Use peppyy's [url=http://wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html]puppysearch[/url]

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RetroTechGuy
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Re: pupsave files

#36 Post by RetroTechGuy »

Bruce B wrote:
RetroTechGuy wrote: To do this, I created a fresh, new pupsave (or pfix=ram), so you don't add any of your personalized, goofy crap into the CD. Then use the remaster command (under Menu, Setup, Remaster). Select all defaults, and edit the isolinux.cfg, and follow Pizza's answer:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 7&start=60

adding pfix=fsck on the "append" line, save it as an ISO and/or burn it off.

This is now the version that I'm giving to people (I want it to check their pupsave on every boot, so they don't have issues).

I'm hoping that Barry will make this the default, in the next official release (I don't want newbies to need to learn too much, too fast -- make it easy for them to "join the club" ;) )
If you work careful and want to save time, you can use a hexeditor to make some modifications to the boot args. The reason this is possible is because it is in plain text.

Use overwrite and not insert mode, which is default with most hexeditors. We don't want to add any bytes.
I don't tinker much with debuggers and hex editors any more.

But it was relatively painless to re-master the CD. (and fixing the frugal install was simply a case of editing menu.lst).

I have started handing out copies of the automatic fsck CD (I want my victims...errr..."converts" to find it easy to use the system... ;) ).

Zpup
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#37 Post by Zpup »

I have been running Live CD's and a frugal USB installation. If I understand it there is no way to "flush" re-initialize the cache. This reminds me of "memory"lock" / leak, zombies-hidden ?

An analogy may be, droppings and artifacts left over.

So, I have to re-boot...

Can't complain though, I am getting mileage from my Dell D610, when the XP SP3 annoys me,and I take Puppy for a walk...

Bruce B

#38 Post by Bruce B »

Zpup wrote:I have been running Live CD's and a frugal USB installation. If I understand it there is no way to "flush" re-initialize the cache. This reminds me of "memory"lock" / leak, zombies-hidden ?

An analogy may be, droppings and artifacts left over.

So, I have to re-boot...

Can't complain though, I am getting mileage from my Dell D610, when the XP SP3 annoys me,and I take Puppy for a walk...
There is a way to "flush" re-initialize the cache, although there isn't
much reason to do it because Linux manages the cache and buffers well.

You do it with a command, better placed in script or alias if you do it
regularly.

sync && echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches


As far as rebooting, this is likely because you used Windows too much. After
I started using Linux, it took me a long time to teach myself to stop
rebooting several times a day.

But eventually I learned.

~

gcmartin

Mount CD to drag and drop files to it

#39 Post by gcmartin »

Done it lots of times on MS, but never on Linux.
  • How do you setup a CD on Linux so that I can drag and drop files to it?
  • Can it be done as easily as I do it on MS?
Thanks in advance

noryb009
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#40 Post by noryb009 »

gcmartin: You can try pBurn, and write a MULTISESSION CD/DVD. You will need to do a little extra (menu > multimedia > pburn, select file, burn), but it's pretty good.

gcmartin

Drag and Drop files to a CD

#41 Post by gcmartin »

@noryb009 Thanks for your reply.

I was aware of that approach. But, I was hoping that there is a method I could tell the user "to drag and drop via a Filemanager" that I may have overlooked.
If I understand correctly by your response, there is no way to do this in Linux via a filemanager (like is done in Microsoft).

Thanks

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Skipping the Save file for one session

#42 Post by Johnny Pest »

Hi,

I have been running Puppy for a while now, and I set it up the way i want to.

I was wondering if it is possible to startup with the save file loaded, but when i want to shutdown, i skip saving to the save file.

Thank you,

John

Bruce B

Re: Skipping the Save file for one session

#43 Post by Bruce B »

Johnny Pest wrote:Hi,

I have been running Puppy for a while now, and I set it up the way i want to.

I was wondering if it is possible to startup with the save file loaded, but when i want to shutdown, i skip saving to the save file.

Thank you,

John
If it is on a USB stick this should be very easy.

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Re: Skipping the Save file for one session

#44 Post by Johnny Pest »

Bruce B wrote:
If it is on a USB stick this should be very easy.
Hi Bruce,

I'm running live from a usb and the save file is in the same drive. Is there a command to do that?

Do you think remastering would a good idea?

Thanks,

johnny pest

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#45 Post by rjbrewer »

Before shutting down, go to /etc/rcd/pupstate.
Change Pupmode to 5.
That will stop the save just for that session.
Also go to puppy event manager and set save session to 0
so it doesn't save at 30 minute mark of the session.

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#46 Post by Sylvander »

1. See this post of mine on the topic of choosing when/if/not to save during the session and at shut-down.

2. In particular:
To be given the choice at shutdown "to save or not to save".
File to be edited is: /etc/rc.d/rc.shutdown
OR...

3. Lupu-528.004 has had natively included within it, a simple method that when switched on gives the user a choice "to save or not to save" at shut-down.
It's explained by rerwin in a post in the Lupu thread.
i.e. See this post...
Where he says:
"Allows user to choose to be asked whether to save during shutdown, by setting "ask" in the /etc/shutdown_save_mode file."

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#47 Post by Johnny Pest »

Thank you!

That helped a lot

bakekoq
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ASK

#48 Post by bakekoq »

Hello, I'm a newbie here.
I lookup with my mouse to one icon on the bottom right (it's green multi bar horizontal). I look the message is:
"504M personal storage, free space = 408M. Click for Partview and Version info"

Can U help me for explaining about this? My Ram is 2GB and it's detected in bios. so, why does this free space + personal storage only cover 1 GB? do I miss something here?

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Re: ASK

#49 Post by RetroTechGuy »

bakekoq wrote:Hello, I'm a newbie here.
I lookup with my mouse to one icon on the bottom right (it's green multi bar horizontal). I look the message is:
"504M personal storage, free space = 408M. Click for Partview and Version info"

Can U help me for explaining about this? My Ram is 2GB and it's detected in bios. so, why does this free space + personal storage only cover 1 GB? do I miss something here?
When you created a frugal install, you saved a workspace file (in your case, it appears 512MB) which sits on your hard disk.

That report is the size of the save file, and available space for saved files.

Of course, Puppy can also access all of the disk space, and files saved there are available to any other OS you may have.
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=58615]Add swapfile[/url]
[url=http://wellminded.net63.net/]WellMinded Search[/url]
[url=http://puppylinux.us/psearch.html]PuppyLinux.US Search[/url]

bakekoq
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#50 Post by bakekoq »

owh I see..
btw, is it really safe for me if my free space becoming 39M? I think I really used up the space of saved files. hmm.. btw, is it really giving any effect for my puppy?

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