Carolina - 1.3

For talk and support relating specifically to Puppy derivatives
Message
Author
starhawk
Posts: 4906
Joined: Mon 22 Nov 2010, 06:04
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...

#31 Post by starhawk »

@elroy:

DLing now.

Never heard of the Carolina dog -- skimmed the Wiki article you linked, rather educational indeed!

I'll keep you posted on how it works out.

elroy

#32 Post by elroy »

starhawk wrote:Never heard of the Carolina dog.
Nor had I. Hence when Geoffrey suggested it as a name, and I read up on it, it was more than obvious that Carolina would be a great name. Plus the fact that "Carolina Linux" rolls off of the tongue quite easily...

User avatar
puppyluvr
Posts: 3470
Joined: Sun 06 Jan 2008, 23:14
Location: Chickasha Oklahoma
Contact:

#33 Post by puppyluvr »

:D Hello,
An adrive and a zdrive.. Interesting..

First impression is good. Booted up fairly quickly, correctly configured my vid card (gma45), my sound card, and barked.. Nailed the 1366x768 (instead of 1360 which some get wrong), and GL worked OOTB..

As with most 3 series kernels, I had wireless problems..
This is not a Carolina issue, but a kernel issue..
If my wireless card (RT5390) isnt physically turned on during boot, before the kernel is loaded, it WILL NOT turn on.
So, I rebooted accordingly, and it remained on..
It was seen as wlan0 under the pci2800 driver, as with Precise and Lupu Pups.
However, it failed as such:
Image
Strangely, every post concerning this error and my card, pertain to Gentoo!
It is a firmware issue, and could be easily corrected I believe, I`ll get back on that..
Forgot to try ndiswrapper :oops: which works well for this card.
When I shut down, and attempted to make a savefile, I got:
"dev/ not found"
Could be a fluke, I`ll retry that again as well and get back, hopefully from Carolina itself....
Close the Windows, and open your eyes, to a whole new world
I am Lead Dog of the
Puppy Linux Users Group on Facebook
Join us!

Puppy since 2.15CE...

yr1945
Posts: 212
Joined: Sat 17 Apr 2010, 18:38

#34 Post by yr1945 »

cannot use "Carolina Custom Builder" because many required files are not in Carolina repository...

i might use Carolina without Adrive and just add a few required apps via .pets and/or Puppy Package Manager"...

also... might keep the Adrive if i could delete certain apps with "Remove Builtin Packages",.. eg, LibreOffice and Thunderbird

anyway... excellent os... hope you will continue to maintain it...

ps: currently using Saluki-023 with "custom" Adrive...
Last edited by yr1945 on Sat 06 Oct 2012, 01:19, edited 2 times in total.

Roger Hunter
Posts: 218
Joined: Sat 05 Jan 2008, 17:41

Carolina puppy

#35 Post by Roger Hunter »

Beautiful puppy, best I've seen lately.

I particularly like the single click option.

Problems so far, no floppy and grub4dos only.

I have several puppies installed on my P4 but Win XP as my main OS. I want it to boot to XP without menu so puppies are booted by floppy.

I tried adding Caroline to the grub menu but it won't work.

Roger

starhawk
Posts: 4906
Joined: Mon 22 Nov 2010, 06:04
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...

#36 Post by starhawk »

Very nice splash screen! Kinda retro with the monochrome amber sorta look there. I have to say I like it :D

Alas, this Thinkpad is a very nice Pentium M system and PAE doesn't like Pentium M CPUs. So I will try it (later) on another box -- the very nice Compaq (now there's two words that don't really go together!) desktop I have with 2gb RAM and an AM2 Athlon64 CPU.

...in the meantime, you get a vote from me for a non-PAE version to be made available. I don't need PAE anyways, there's exactly one system in my entire house with more than 3gb RAM and it's not likely to run Puppy any time soon as it's my mother's.

starhawk
Posts: 4906
Joined: Mon 22 Nov 2010, 06:04
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...

#37 Post by starhawk »

Posting from within Carolina.

Not bad. A couple points...

(1) I suspect your compilation of the ath5k driver is a little bit funky. I haven't had connectivity this bad in quite some time ;) either that, or it goes to sleep almost instantly. At least it keeps trying to reconnect! (Persistence is a virtue here.) FWIW, it might be a failing card. I pulled this one from spares.

(2) my volume is turned up all the way and it's barely audible. Could be the cheap dang eMachines speakers I have plugged in, which are not really amplified -- or at least do not require a separate power lead -- but I'm not sure. FATSlacko has the same problem.

(3) pmount takes an awful long time to pull up and does not recognize the media card reader (FATSlacko is much better here -- it is quite snappy and does recognize the reader).

(4) the menu is completely different from nearly every other Puppy I've used. Menu changes = much user frustration.

That said, other than those four things, and the ginormous size, it's pretty good stuff. I like it! On the graphics end of things, I love the wallpaper selection. It's not extensive, but it's pretty good for Puppy. The transparent tray is a cool thing as well. That's a new one for me :)

Overall: 8.5/10 for reasons above. -2 points for the four issues, -0.5 point for the size, +1 point for the wallpaper and the cool transparent tray.

EDIT: one other thing... a choice of browsers would have been nice. Perhaps the ever-present Browser-Installer? Firefox is really slow compared to Chrome (my current favorite).
Last edited by starhawk on Sat 06 Oct 2012, 03:29, edited 1 time in total.

tlchost
Posts: 2057
Joined: Sun 05 Aug 2007, 23:26
Location: Baltimore, Maryland USA
Contact:

#38 Post by tlchost »

elroy wrote:
tlchost wrote:No sound using either the multiple card wizard or alsa
Did you run the alsa mixer from the terminal to ensure that none of the devices were muted? That's the only thing I can think of, outside of maybe needing to load a driver.
When I type alsamixer from the terminal, it tells me I need some kind of directive.

Driver? Where to find it?

elroy

custom-builder patch

#39 Post by elroy »

Here's a patch for the custom-builder - patch-001.tar.gz
There's a README.txt file inside that explains what to do.
Afterwards, you'll need to open the package manager and refresh the repo lists.

elroy

#40 Post by elroy »

tlchost wrote:
elroy wrote:
tlchost wrote:Driver? Where to find it?
You may need to do some research and find out which kernel module is needed for that particular intel device, and load it using Control Panel-->System-->Configure Kernel Modules. I believe it's i915, but you may want to research that further to be sure.

elroy

#41 Post by elroy »

starhawk wrote:my volume is turned up all the way and it's barely audible
Open the alsamixer and ensure that speaker and pcm are maxed out.

User avatar
8-bit
Posts: 3406
Joined: Wed 04 Apr 2007, 03:37
Location: Oregon

#42 Post by 8-bit »

Where do I find the correct kernel source SFS file for use with the devx sfs file for compiling drivers etc?
I am currently downloading the ISO and the devx SFS file and want to make sure I have everything.
That reminds me that I still have to download the patches file also.

Never mind. :oops: :oops: I found it under the SFS directory on the site.

User avatar
Geoffrey
Posts: 2355
Joined: Sun 30 May 2010, 08:42
Location: Queensland

#43 Post by Geoffrey »

8-bit wrote:Where do I find the correct kernel source SFS file for use with the devx sfs file for compiling drivers etc?
I am currently downloading the ISO and the devx SFS file and want to make sure I have everything.
That reminds me that I still have to download the patches file also.
http://www.smokey01.com/carolina/sfs/ke ... 13-ski.sfs

missed by that much :roll:
[b]Carolina:[/b] [url=http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/recent-repo.html]Recent Repository Additions[/url]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ahfade8q4def1lq/signbot.gif[/img]

User avatar
Geoffrey
Posts: 2355
Joined: Sun 30 May 2010, 08:42
Location: Queensland

#44 Post by Geoffrey »

I noticed that the on screen volume notification was missing, download volume-notification.tar.gz extract and copy xfce4-volumed to /root/Startup,
then either right-click Execute or restartx to activate it, then it shows while adjusting the volume level, there is a xfce4-volumed.txt explaining what to do included.
Attachments
xfce4-volumed.jpg
(4.89 KiB) Downloaded 2333 times
[b]Carolina:[/b] [url=http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/recent-repo.html]Recent Repository Additions[/url]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ahfade8q4def1lq/signbot.gif[/img]

User avatar
smokey01
Posts: 2813
Joined: Sat 30 Dec 2006, 23:15
Location: South Australia :-(
Contact:

#45 Post by smokey01 »

Is there a default PDF reader?

User avatar
Geoffrey
Posts: 2355
Joined: Sun 30 May 2010, 08:42
Location: Queensland

#46 Post by Geoffrey »

smokey01 wrote:Is there a default PDF reader?
Evince, but it appears defaultpdf is missing from /usr/local/bin
Extract and copy defaultpdf to /usr/local/bin, there is a how to default_pdf.txt included.
[b]Carolina:[/b] [url=http://smokey01.com/carolina/pages/recent-repo.html]Recent Repository Additions[/url]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ahfade8q4def1lq/signbot.gif[/img]

User avatar
mikeslr
Posts: 3890
Joined: Mon 16 Jun 2008, 21:20
Location: 500 seconds from Sol

Frisbee does not see RaLink RT2561/RT61 wireless

#47 Post by mikeslr »

Hi Carolina & All;

My system:
Processor: 4x AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 945 Processor
Memory: 3375MB
ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics supporting 1600x900 pixels
RaLink RT2561/RT61 802.11g PCI

Manual frugal install of Carolina 1. Booted to desktop at correct resolution, although I don't know if the Radeon driver is being used. Seemed a little slow, but that may be the result of all that's included in adrive. Did not explore much such as testing sound as the first thing I do is attempt to establish wireless connection. Unfortunately, Frisbee does not see my wireless adapter, RaLink RT2561/RT61. So I created a small SaveFile and rebooted into Precise to report that. Without a wireless connection, carolina will not be of any use to me, nor I to its development. If I remember correctly, wireless drivers are kernel dependent.
Saluki thru 23, all versions of Precise, Slacko & Exprimo recognized the driver.
I also would appreciate a non-PAE version. My second most often used computer is a Thinkpad T42 that will not boot PAE enabled kernels. I generally don't even test PAE Puplets, but as Carolina is a fork of Saluki and Saluki runs well on about 5 other computers I've somehow accumulated I figured I'd start exploring/customizing at Carolina's beginning on my Quad-Core and port to the other computers when a non-pae version became available.

mikesLr

yr1945
Posts: 212
Joined: Sat 17 Apr 2010, 18:38

#48 Post by yr1945 »

@Geoffrey and All Others Testing Carolina...

thanks for your response on "Carolina Custom Builder"... i added the patch... the builder went through all the required steps and seemed to work quite well... i replaced the your Adrive with my customized one and rebooted my pc... the menu listed just the apps that i wanted... however, when i clicked on them they did not start... nothing happened...

what do i need to do differently? i'm pretty sure it may be something that i did wrong... please advise...???

perhaps, someone else can try "Carolina Custom Builder" and see what results they get... if anyone does... please let me know...??? Thanks!!!

ps: i just went back to saluki023 and used it's Custom Builder... basically, it went through the same process and worked quite well... all apps started up when i clicked on them

starhawk
Posts: 4906
Joined: Mon 22 Nov 2010, 06:04
Location: Everybody knows this is nowhere...

#49 Post by starhawk »

@elroy: opened alsamixer in a terminal and set everything with a volume indicator to 100%. It's a little louder now... but only a little. Guess I need good speakers to use Carolina :lol: actually, I'm about to install that volume-button tarball in a minute or two.

Two more points...

(1) Using frisbee is really unintuitive in Carolina -- there's no button to launch it, you have to right click on the tray icon. Having a "Launch Frisbee" entry in the control panel would be a good start here.

(2) Unlike literally every other Puppy/Puplet I've used, there is no mechanism for automatically running the firewall wizard upon first run of the network wizards. Users are expected --apparently-- to know that it's needed and where to find it. This is definitely not a good idea!

Lastly, there were a few points I made in my last post, and I'd be quite interested to your response to all IIRC five points I've made so far that don't have to do with the sound issue. That's three of the four points in the last post, and the two in this post.

EDIT: the volume icon tarball does not work for me. A pity it's not a shell script, so I can't tweak it. Also: kudos for making the DEL key work (instead of CTRL+X) but the pcbeep coming out of my speakers when I use it is not appreciated nearly as much ;)

elroy

#50 Post by elroy »

starhawk wrote:I suspect your compilation of the ath5k driver is a little bit funky. I haven't had connectivity this bad in quite some time either that, or it goes to sleep almost instantly. At least it keeps trying to reconnect! (Persistence is a virtue here.) FWIW, it might be a failing card. I pulled this one from spares.
Thanks for the heads up; we'll have to keep an eye on that going forward.
starhawk wrote:pmount takes an awful long time to pull up and does not recognize the media card reader (FATSlacko is much better here -- it is quite snappy and does recognize the reader).
Yes, pmount is a bit slow. It's much faster to open the file manager and mount/unmount drives from within Thunar, or with the drive icons located on the desktop. If pmount becomes an issue because it isn't recognizing drives, or it's performance is lacking, we may just have to remove it.
starhawk wrote:the menu is completely different from nearly every other Puppy I've used. Menu changes = much user frustration.
Actually, the menus are quite similar to what Saluki's were, which is what this project is a fork of. We're not trying to be an “official
Last edited by elroy on Sat 06 Oct 2012, 19:46, edited 1 time in total.

Post Reply