Lxpup 14 final 7-20-2012

[aragon]

hi Jejy69,

just tested this pup in virtualbox ... very nice!!!

aragon

[swiftlinuxcreator]

Jejy69:

How much heavier is LXDE than the JWM + ROX combo of the parent distro? I see that your LXDE derivative has an ISO size of just 137 MB, which is nearly the same as that of Wary Puppy. I was under the impression that LXDE is substantially heavier than JWM + ROX, just as Xfce is substantially heavier than LXDE, and GNOME/KDE is substantially heavier than Xfce.

I am the founder and lead developer of a Linux distro called Swift Linux. It was originally based on antiX Linux, but I have switched it to a Linux Mint Debian Edition base.

Although I haven't tried Lxpup yet (which I will do soon), you have made me consider changing the desktop of Swift Linux from IceWM + ROX pinboard to LXDE. You said that you chose LXDE because it's more user-friendly and more complete out-of-the-box than JWM is. I've been sticking to IceWM + ROX pinboard for Swift Linux simply because it's what antiX Linux uses.

The reason I never considered using LXDE until now is that I perceived it as being substantially heavier than IceWM + ROX pinboard. The biggest challenge for developing Swift Linux isn't RAM but the size of the ISO. One of the main selling points of Swift Linux is that it fits onto a CD. (LMDE is sized around 1.2 GB, so I have a LOT of chopping to do.) If switching to LXDE saves me much of the effort needed to polish IceWM + ROX pinboard while only adding a few MB to the size of the ISO file, the change would be well worth it. (I'm sure I can use the time I save to figure out what other packages I can safely cut.)

[Tman]

Hi Swiftlinuxcreator,

I did try out one of your versions before, when I was distro-hopping .. it was nice, but I prefer good-old puppy

From my experience, you would only notice the difference in performance between LXDE and icewm in really old machines or modern-under-powered ones. When I say, really old, I mean low-end Pentium 3's or under.

If you're talking about "heavy" size-wise, Icewm starts off pretty light, but can get pretty big once you start adding on themes. Openbox themes, in contrast are usually smaller.

[Jejy69]

Hello !

Nooby,

I am also sorry for my behavior, which is not good either ... I would cut short this mishap, and I hope to resume with a friendly understanding. Surely I had a bad week, and I would not stay on this problem ...
Thanks you.

[Jejy69]

Aragon, thanks to try it, but above all thank 01Micko for the excellent Slacko base.

swiftlinuxcreator, ISO base (Slacko by 01Micko) is about 115mo. The desktop environment LXDE themes, including libs therefore add about 50MB in ram, either 22mo in compressed ISO. LXDE is obviously heavier than JWM. This is incontestable.

You said that you chose LXDE because it's more user-friendly and more complete out-of-the-box than JWM is.

I do not carry the word of the gospel, LXDE meets my expectations, I find it aesthetically pleasing, openbox themes are many, the bar is easily customizable, several plugins available.
At first, I was under windows, Ubuntu and then Antix Mepis , so I kept habits like right click on the desktop to change the wallpaper, copy and paste inter-windows, avoiding going through a lot of third party software to change the appearance.
The question really keeping with this kind of topic is: "What habits do I have?"
Many people like to have the menu by right-clicking on the desktop, so I can not really tell you what is best. I put only highlight its specificities. In fact, none is better than the other. They do what they must do to each of us according to our tastes, which is the strength of linux and uniqueness of the human race, all different, and it's great.
Well after I go into a frenzy philosophical ....
There is also a notion of update, Icewm for example is not developed to this day it seems.

I wish you good luck, may the force be with you.

Habits, choice, freedom...

[swiftlinuxcreator]

swiftlinuxcreator, ISO base (Slacko by 01Micko) is about 115mo. The desktop environment LXDE themes, including libs therefore add about 50MB in ram, either 22mo in compressed ISO. LXDE is obviously heavier than JWM. This is incontestable.

I do not carry the word of the gospel, LXDE meets my expectations, I find it aesthetically pleasing, openbox themes are many, the bar is easily customizable, several plugins available.

Jejy69, thanks for the information. Exactly what do you add to Puppy Linux in order to create your Lxpup derivative? I understand that LXDE offers a number of different packages but doesn't actually require all of them and has fewer dependencies than Xfce, GNOME, and KDE. I'm suspecting that I can make LXDE more lightweight than most distros' implementations by skimping on the themes and backgrounds. (I've been doing this all along in Swift Linux. I just offer a few of the most basic backgrounds with small file sizes. I also cut out fancy themes that are less readable or take up excessive disk space.)

[starhawk]

It runs well even on older computers produced in 1999, and it does not require 3D acceleration.

Well done! I'm staring at LXPup on my Dell Latitude CPi. 300MHz Pentium II CPU, 128mb RAM.

The sfs itself loads almost instantly on bootup, and it slows down a little after, but at desktop it tries to display 800x600 resolution (1024x768 screen -- large pixels are not pretty). xorgwizard fixed that.

Pmount (to apply the patch via USB) takes a very long time (1 minute or more) to load and mount/unmount devices. Pulling up the Puppy shutdown menu (restart x) takes at least 30 second to do its thing.

I'm impressed by the fact that it loads fast, but I am sad that it does not run fast. Still, to boot on this hardware is amazing.

[nooby]

Thanks Jejy69 I am so clumsy when I try to be funny.
I understand that my attempt misfired and I apology too.

I wish you all the best. As you see people like you here
so follow your inner drive and share your visions and
what your up to and hopefully the others share their takes too.

Computing should be fun and forget old grumpy men like Nooby
Nooby is a spoiled child kind of sort so I'm hopeless to satisfy.

[Eyes-Only]

Hi Starhawk,

How interesting... you've described exactly how my computer responds using Slacko - regardless of the desktop/window manager environment - and it is a Dell with a 2.4gig Celeron processor, 512megs of onboard RAM with 1.6gigs of swap! Starts up in a few seconds to the desktop but is excruciatingly slow to get anything else running afterwards to the point where after an hour or so of use ( if I can endure it that is! ) the entire system will freeze up and crash.

It makes no difference whether it's a hard drive or frugal install, nor the kernel version Micko has used. And this has persisted with every version of Slacko for me, plus anything based off from it.

This is why I had asked Jejy if he could port his amazing LXDE desktop system over to Precise-Pup as for some odd reason this machine has never had a problem running anything Debian/Ubuntu-based. Imagine my delight when he returned from his vacation and ported nearly every single one! Ever since it's been like Christmas for this ol' boy!

So Starhawk, whilst you've had problems being unable to run Jejy's LXpup on that machine I'd be very curious to know your results from trying to run his version of "CheckMate Precise" also offered elsewhere in this section ( I believe? ). Between that and his "Mate Precise" desktop - from which I'm making this post now - they are both my "default Puppy desktops" as I switch back and forth between the two quite often throughout my computing session.

Good luck Starhawk!

Cheers/Amicalement,

Eyes-Only
"L'Peau-Rouge"

[starhawk]

I'll try it. IIRC the thing that threw me with his GNOME-Precise was that somewhere between Slacko and Precise the timezone stuff changed and I couldn't find US-Eastern in the list. Amazing how frustrating little stuff like that can be!

...but I WILL try it.

BTW, the Dell CPi I have is from 1999 -- I'm 99% sure. It has a "Y2K compliant" sticker on the bottom!

[Jejy69]

Hello !

@ swiftlinuxcreator : Yes, you're right, Lxde requires relatively fewer libs, compared to heavyweights like gnome or KDE.
I installed all Lx applications, libfm, libpng, gvfs, gtk 2.24.10, libimlib, but I don't remember all libraries sorry... :/
After dependencies are different depending on the Puppy, because of his age, and what is already installed.

@ starhawk : follow the advice of Eyes-Only. He gives always judicious councils.

Hello Eyes-Only, how do you do my friend ?
Thank you for advice Starhawk Those concerns are similar to Starhawk, it's really weird. So, I will continue to update the version based on Precise.
Precise link is in the first page I believe.
Thanks you Eyes Only

[starhawk]

I tried the Precise-puppy version, as posted in thread. I will (shortly) try the newer version from the website.

As before, boot was very fast, desktop very slow. As before, appeared at 800x600 resolution (yuk!) and would not launch xorg with correct (1024x768) resolution.

The adventure ended there.

EDIT:

Thank you for advice Starhawk Those concerns are similar to Starhawk, it's really weird. So, I will continue to update the version based on Precise.

Should I not sound like myself?

[starhawk]

Checkmate Puppy, latest version off website...

Text portion of booting very fast. Once it tries to pull up a desktop it makes me wait a while.

Still insists that my monitor is 800x600. I think that is an issue with the neomagic graphics driver; going through xorgwizard works on this version, though, so I was able to fix it.

A note about color. This laptop is OLD. There are places where the image is, well, "dithered" is the term -- lighter pixels alternate with darker pixels to show a color that the screen otherwise could not. This is the laptop at work, not your Puplet, jejy69! ...nevertheless it is mildly annoying and I've not seen it before. Perhaps it is a function of LXDE? I don't know.

LXDE seems to detect the Dell's touchpad as a very slow model, which is the opposite of other Puppies -- usually a swipe across the pad makes the cursor practically leap off the screen with enthusiasm. Here it barely crawls. Again, I do not think that was intentional. It is easily fixed, anyways.

One thing I do not like about these LXDE Puppies is that they seem to reorganize the Puppy Menu a bit. The wizards are thrown in with other setup items, and it does not make sense to me.

While things do load slightly faster on this version of Checkmate, I think my little Dell has more than made its match. Checkmate is not for this system.

One thing that Puppy has taught me well: hardware is only half of the complete picture. The other half is what you do with that hardware -- if you run Puppy, your hardware is suddenly much more capable than it would be with Windows. However, this Dell teaches that even hardware has its limits.

Jejy69, your triumph is that it boots on this system, in an extraordinarily reasonable timeframe. The limitations of the system prevent it from being useful, not anything you have done.

[songzi]

Hi Jejy69,

I have installed LXPup on one of my desktop PCs. It works great. Thanks.

I also tried to use it on my Eeepc 900 today (running from a 8GB SD card). The only problem that I have so far is the wireless connection does not work. In Internet Connection Wizard, it says 'No network interface detected'.

Any advice? TIA.

[Volhout]

Hi Jejy69,

I have installed LXPup on one of my desktop PCs. It works great. Thanks.

I also tried to use it on my Eeepc 900 today (running from a 8GB SD card). The only problem that I have so far is the wireless connection does not work. In Internet Connection Wizard, it says 'No network interface detected'.

Any advice? TIA.

songzi,

Lxdepup is based on Slacko 5.3. I think it is the best place to your question. Most likely it is a driver issue. If you have a software version (any) that runs well on the eeePC900, try to find out what WIFI hardware is inside the 900. Atheros ? Ralink ? Broadcom ? Realtek ? In recent puppy linux versions you find this under the "connect" icon on the desktop, where it lists "eht0" for wired ethernet, and "wlan0" for wireless.

Volhout

[starhawk]

songzi, you need the ath5k driver to make your wireless work. This module is included in jejy69's Slacko LXDE puplet.

Here's how to make it work for you...

From the applications Menu, select Setup --> Internet Connection Wizard. Under the "Connect to Internet by" section (lower left portion), click the icon next to "Wired or wireless LAN". Select the bottom most icon for the Network Wizard.

Towards the bottom of the resulting box you should see a button, "Load module". Click it. Then scroll through the long, long list and click once on the "ath5k" driver entry to highlight it. Click the "Load" button at the top right. It should pop up a couple of click-through boxes and eventually --having clicked OK on both-- you SHOULD get back to the main network wizard screen and see both wired and wireless interfaces. If you want to continue with the Network Wizard, then select the button below the list corresponding to your new wireless connection (it could be eth1 or wlan0 or a couple other names) and the rest is pretty simple.

Or you could use Simple Network Setup, which is exactly that. To get there, click "Exit" and "try a different tool", and then the "wired or wireless LAN" button again. The topmost option, "Simple Network Setup (SNS)" is what you want there.

You could also use Frisbee, but it has a bad habit of not removing itself cleanly, so think twice about this -- if you run it, you won't be able to run anything else without booting pfix=ram and starting over (or reboot w/o save if you're running from CD).

Good luck!

...and let us know whether or not this works for you. IIRC there's a variant of the ath5k that may or may not be needed here. You'd have to PM tempestuous for help if that's the case; he's our resident driver guru and he is awesome with that stuff.

[songzi]

Many thanks, Volhout and starhawk.

I followed starhawk's advice trying to load module, but the module list was blank. I guessed my problem was due to corruption of system files on the SD card. I therefore downloaded the ISO again and did a re-installation. This has resolved the no interface issue.

However, SNS failed in setting up the wifi connection. It reported some DCHP errors. I turned to Frisbee and it worked well for me this time.

Thanks again and have a nice weekend.

[mikeslr]

Hi Jejy69,

I read your someone cryptic post, http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 778#656778 and, wondering if it had anything to do with Lxpup, decided to explore that puppy.

My specs:
Processor: 4x AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 945 Processor
Memory: 3375MB
ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics supporting 1600x900 pixels
RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI
SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: VT1708B Analog
SB {HDA ATI SB], device 1: VT1708B Digital

I downloaded and frugally installed the Precise version. Booted fine to supported video resolution using Ati Radeon driver. Ran into a problem similar to songzi: SNS reported connection, but didn't. Network wizard would not connect at all. Installed Frisbee and that worked. For those interested both opera and firefox could be run from folders on mnt/home. Sound also worked OOTB.

I'll test some more tomorrow. Particularly interested in trying out alternate desktops. Like what I've seen so far and really appreciate a dev with new voice and different vision on the forum. Keep up the good work.

But if it's not to much trouble, I'd recommend that you set up a separate thread for Lxpup Precise. I think problems, if any, one version has may not show up in the other, and vice-versa. Having only one thread for two operating systems (versions) is likely to generate confusion and delay solutions. If you do setup another thread, this one could continue just for Lxpup slackware as most of its posts seem to have regarded that version.

mikesLr

[Volhout]

Jejy69,

I have not been able to find out what your goal is.
At first I was looking at Lxpup as a LXDE shell onto Slacko. And that was more or less usable. Actually it looked promising enough to drop Lubuntu. My impression was that you would "perfect" this build.

Then "Precise" was added, a build that is not even into "release" state.

And now I am looking at LXDE, XFCE, MATE on both Precise and Slacko.

You are loosing me now...... What is the final goal ?

I am beginning to fear that you are creating yourself a lot of work for a single developper by the diversity ... or ... you will disappoint everybody testing Lxpup by being unable to fix all the problems they report. It is a huge task, even for a single (LXDE) desktop on a single (Slacko) OS.

I would say "focus dude" (From the movie "Nemo").

Volhout

[Jejy69]

Hello,

mikeslr,

I first answer about the cryptic message. I try to run Cinnamon under Slacko 5.3.6, but for the moment a package is impossible, there are many sensitive libs. Thanks you to try lxpup. The Precise version is not great since it is based on beta 3 ( or 4, I don't remember ).
Actually, I haven't create desktop alternative for the Precise version, because I prefer to wait the definitive version, to start a credible work. I made this version meanwhile since some people like Eyes-Only could not run Slacko. I will do as you have advised me, I'll make a separate topic when the next version comes out.
For SNS, I need more information about this concern, typing SNS in the console.

I'll test some more tomorrow. Particularly interested in trying out alternate desktops. Like what I've seen so far and really appreciate a dev with new voice and different vision on the forum. Keep up the good work.

Thanks you !!
Although many do not like, do not hesitate to give ideas.

Volhout,

I have not been able to find out what your goal is.

I want to give a distribution with Lxde desktop.
Lxde was always my first goal. For WM, I assume you speak about "Valient ship", "GeNOME". These ISO, these are experiences, as you can see, I focused only on Lxpup now, and I offer some WM as bonus. Precise is for users who can't use Slacko that's all. Do not blame me for wanting to satisfy everyone. Personally, I prefer Slacko.

Actually it looked promising enough to drop Lubuntu. My impression was that you would "perfect" this build.

I try, that's why I accept ideas.

you will disappoint everybody testing Lxpup by being unable to fix all the problems they report.

In my defense, 90% of the problems that have been posted have been corrected. For SNS, the problem is that I have no problem with it ... Yet I tried 7 different pc. How do I set a non-existent concerns? Give me infos.

I would say "focus dude" (From the movie "Nemo").

Thanks, for Pixar anecdote ! Honnestly, You're right, I do too much, and I disperse.

I try to improve...

Cheers,