Fatdog64-611 Final (Updated 12-14-2012)

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dennis-slacko531
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yea

#91 Post by dennis-slacko531 »

:mrgreen: FatDog is noticeably faster than Saluki 23 . I just received my used PC this afternoon. Saluki was helpful for about an hour then I booted into FatDog. NICE :o

I honestly think people don't know how outdated & unnecessary old PC's are. I'm not selling anything... but maybe you know what I mean... Bottom line, for under $75 it's like a NEW WORLD getting away from my P4 (yikes why did I wait)...

My eBay ideas for those wishing to investigate the round world...
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=82280

UPDATE: I'll try to get some junkers off my site and concentrate more on puppy's. I guess the variety has become counter-productive, but I'm not fully agreeing w/your sage of wisdom, yet.
Last edited by dennis-slacko531 on Thu 13 Dec 2012, 11:03, edited 1 time in total.

Sage
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#92 Post by Sage »

Sending you a set of go-faster stripes in the post. You'll need to speak to your President or your shrink about your lemming-itis and your sense of public duty towards landfill, lack of spirit of ingenuity, &co. Hope you're not in need of a humour transplant, too!

Sage
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#93 Post by Sage »

not in need of a humour transplant
- a misapprehension, evidently. Should show more Ab Fab, Fawlty Towers and Office over there! Can't win 'em all.

Sage
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#94 Post by Sage »

Managed to free up an HD for an FD610 FULL. Went like clockwork yielding a very nice result, thanks, kirk & jb. Presently got it chained with a Nadia install so I could test the GRUB4DOS re-write for both - no problems there, either.
So far the only niggle is that too short time-out for searching wifi. On second thoughts, can't distinguish whether it's too short or just failing on first ask?
Not important, probably my misunderstanding, pfix=ram, nox prior to installing yields the prompt but xorgwizard not available (somebody say that already?) so only X option is xwin. Gives correct video detection on several machines so not an issue.
This control Panel is the best of the lot; should suit the 'doze refugees.

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prehistoric
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#95 Post by prehistoric »

Just ran a test of 610 again on another machine, while I was browsing this topic, to make sure I was right about something others were missing.

On a machine with an fd64save.ext4 file in the base directory of the file system "pfix=ram" does not prevent the save file from being loaded. Sage avoids this only by not having a save file, not because the pfix flag stops loading. "savefile=none" does prevent loading.
--

On the subject of video graphics, please, don't load the KMS module until it is clear that you need it. Leave a route people can use to install a proprietary nVidia driver if there are no acceptable open source drivers.

When I was working with Gentoo there were always open source wrappers for nVidia proprietary drivers we could compile even as kernels evolved. Has this changed?

I would prefer complete open source drivers, but I'm not going to pretend these are keeping pace with changes nVidia introduces. ATI provides enough information for developers. nVidia may not.

There may also be problems with Matrox drivers, though it has been a while since I've fooled with these.

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#96 Post by kirk »

On the subject of video graphics, please, don't load the KMS module until it is clear that you need it. Leave a route people can use to install a proprietary nVidia driver if there are no acceptable open source drivers.

When I was working with Gentoo there were always open source wrappers for nVidia proprietary drivers we could compile even as kernels evolved. Has this changed?
KMS is required for most Intel graphics. With Nvidia, Fatdog64's Xorg will use:

PCID 0x008-0x009 --- vesa (No acceleration)
PCID 0x0018-0x0019 --- nv (2d acceleration)
All other PCIDs --- nouveau (2d and 3d acceleration)

Unfortunately this isn't always the best choice. Sometime's nouveau may give you problems and you'll want to try the nv driver. James' new xorgwizard should make this easier. And to switch to the nv driver, if the nouveau kernel module claims your card's PCID, you should delete/blacklist the nouveau module.

For Matrox the vesa driver is the only option included.

kirk
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#97 Post by kirk »

Fatdog64-611 is uploaded. See the first post for details.

Sage
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#98 Post by Sage »

For Matrox the vesa driver is the only option included.
Many (most?) boards refuse to show the BIOS screen with my Matrox cards so booting into VESA would be an innovation!
Thanks for 611, kirk. Mirrors, including the Dutch, are not showing up yet. Could be a long haul.

Will you be offering deltas, please?

LateAdopter
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#99 Post by LateAdopter »

Hello Kirk

I have just done a new install of fd611.

There is this error on bootup, but it seems not fatal. I think it has been mentioned before, but fd610 does not have it.

Code: Select all

Booting the kernel.
cp: can't stat '/lib': No such file or directory
Apart from that everything seems normal.

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#100 Post by smokey01 »

I can confirm the same error on bootup.

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#101 Post by Sage »

611:
Now getting list of video cards after pfix=ram,nox but hitting 'SiS' yields 'cancelled' - but the default still works (mesa?).
Still need two hits on scan to get a positive detection on wireless.
Otherwise, OK.
Haven't attempted FULL, yet, was enquiring about deltas?

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smokey01
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#102 Post by smokey01 »

In /usr/sbin/net-setup.sh at line 299, change the word icon to stock

<input file stock=\"gtk-quit\"></input>

to fix the Exit icon problem.

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prehistoric
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#103 Post by prehistoric »

kirk wrote:...With Nvidia, Fatdog64's Xorg will use:

PCID 0x008-0x009 --- vesa (No acceleration)
PCID 0x0018-0x0019 --- nv (2d acceleration)
All other PCIDs --- nouveau (2d and 3d acceleration)

Unfortunately this isn't always the best choice. Sometime's nouveau may give you problems and you'll want to try the nv driver. James' new xorgwizard should make this easier. And to switch to the nv driver, if the nouveau kernel module claims your card's PCID, you should delete/blacklist the nouveau module.

For Matrox the vesa driver is the only option included.
The vesa, nv and nouveau drivers are all open-source. What I'm trying to ask is if this is a policy decision on your part, or a new fact of life. Has nVidia stopped supplying proprietary drivers which can be incorporated in Linux kernels through an open-source wrapper? Here's one that might be appropriate.

If this is a project which needs someone else to package it, I suspect there are people with more powerful nVidia cards than mine who would take it on to get the most out of their cards.

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#104 Post by kirk »

prehistoric,

James has made a couple Nvidia pet packages for 610/611 of the proprietary Nvidia driver, they're in the repo. That would be the recommend way to go. Check first that your card is supported by the versions that James has labeled the pet packages with.

Also Nvidia provides a installer in a .run package, though I haven't tried that for a while. If it still works with Fatdog64 you'll need the devx file attached so it can compile it's kernel module.

smokey01,

Thanks for the fix.

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prehistoric
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#105 Post by prehistoric »

Kirk,

Thanks for clarifying that. I was afraid there was some policy decision of avoiding them in the future. For myself, I have an adequate solution at present with an off-board card from ATI. I won't go back and fight battles with the embedded nVidia graphics unless you need this tested.

You might want to better document the availability of those pets for people who only get to a desktop by using VESA, to let them know this is not a dead end.

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#106 Post by smokey01 »

I had a bit of a play with the new xorgwizard in FD611 but I could only get nouveau to work.

The nouveau driver works very well so there is no real need for me to change it but I thought I would see what else worked.

My card is a nVidia GeForce GT 220.

When trying any other option, including vesa from xorgwizard, the system locks up and has to be rebooted. I'm sure this will cause some heartache for some. The only way I could recover was to delete the savefile.

All the networking tools, samba, mongoose etc seem to work well. The new unique server ID works well. I tried it with all three YASSM tools and they all worked. The share search in the share folder on the desktop worked particularly well.

These options below didn't work for me.
...With Nvidia, Fatdog64's Xorg will use:

PCID 0x008-0x009 --- vesa (No acceleration)
PCID 0x0018-0x0019 --- nv (2d acceleration)
All other PCIDs --- nouveau (2d and 3d acceleration)
Very well done guys.

kirk
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#107 Post by kirk »

smokey01,

To use one of the other Nvidia drivers you'll need to blacklist or delete the nouveau kernel module. Or you might get it to work by booting nomodeset.

jamesbond
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#108 Post by jamesbond »

When trying any other option, including vesa from xorgwizard, the system locks up and has to be rebooted. I'm sure this will cause some heartache for some. The only way I could recover was to delete the savefile.
If you want to play with vesa or "nv" (or other non-KMS drivers), make sure that you use turn off KMS first (pass "nomodeset" in the command line).
The new unique server ID works well.
Ah yes, this is a rather un-annonunced change. The default hostname on first boot is now computed off the system's DMI information. So it is still random and is different from machine to machine, but for the same machine it will always be the same. You can and should, of course, override this name when you create a savefile for the first time.
In /usr/sbin/net-setup.sh at line 299, change the word icon to stock

<input file stock=\"gtk-quit\"></input>

to fix the Exit icon problem.
Thanks, fixed for next release.
Booting the kernel.
cp: can't stat '/lib': No such file or directory
I confirm this error, and I confirm that it is harmless. This has been fixed for the next release.
Also Nvidia provides a installer in a .run package, though I haven't tried that for a while. If it still works with Fatdog64 you'll need the devx file attached so it can compile it's kernel module.
It still works but it requires special preparation.
a) boot with "nomodeset" and "pfix=nox"
b) run the installer from console, use the option --ui=none otherwise you get a garbled screen.
c) when offered to install 32-bit compatibility library, say NO! Otherwise you will be very very screwed.
You might want to better document the availability of those pets for people who only get to a desktop by using VESA, to let them know this is not a dead end.
This doesn't really address your concern but I did announce the availability of nvidia drivers on the second post (just below kirk's announcement). The package repository contains nvidia drivers - every release of Fatdog has always comes with the accompanying nvidia and ati drivers. The package repository also comes with "get-nvidia" script to install nvidia drivers directly from the installer.
Haven't attempted FULL, yet, was enquiring about deltas?
Probably no ...
On a machine with an fd64save.ext4 file in the base directory of the file system "pfix=ram" does not prevent the save file from being loaded. Sage avoids this only by not having a save file, not because the pfix flag stops loading. "savefile=none" does prevent loading.
pfix=ram is not implemented in Fatdog. It has no effect whatsoever. The only "pfix" stuff implemented in Fatdog 611 is pfix=nox and pfix=xorgwizard (or its combination). Please refer to http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/fa ... tions.html.
Unfortunately this isn't always the best choice. Sometime's nouveau may give you problems and you'll want to try the nv driver. James' new xorgwizard should make this easier. And to switch to the nv driver, if the nouveau kernel module claims your card's PCID, you should delete/blacklist the nouveau module.
You can blacklist a module by adding "blacklist=nouveau" on the boot command line, as mentioned in http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/fa ... tions.html

Btw, 611 comes with the bigfont installed too so you don't need to install it anymore. Just type "setfont big" or "setfont bbig". 611 also comes with a new blank screen FAQ http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/faqs/screen.html that hopefully address most of the common issues. This FAQ is also included in 611 iso.
I compiled mhwaveedit in fatdog 610 to make sure
that mhwaveedit opened up retrovol when I clicked
on the mixer button . It's stripped to reduce size.
611 now comes with mhwaveedit built-in. It will work with LADPSA plugins too. If you want them, get the from the repo, they are called "lib_swh", "lib_caps" or something like that, under Multimedia section.
I checked direct rendering enabled is both versions. The vendor name for driver in 600 is tungsten where as for 610 it's Intel Opensource . I am not sure if both are same company or different.
They are the same. 610 driver is newer, they have probably changed from code name (tungsten) to the official name.
Other difference I noticed was under about:plugins, firefox lists the plugins twice in 610. One refers to /usr/lib where as other to /usr/lib64. But it 600 it refers to only /usr/lib64.
Doesn't happen to me?

cheers!
Fatdog64 forum links: [url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117546]Latest version[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/ke8sn5H]Contributed packages[/url] | [url=https://cutt.ly/se8scrb]ISO builder[/url]

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smokey01
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#109 Post by smokey01 »

I have put together a simple 10 page user guide for Fatdog 611.

The purpose of the guide is for those new people trying Fatdog for the very first time.

It answers questions like:
Where can I get it,
What can it do, and
How to use it.

I know it needs a little bit more work but I'm open to some other ideas. One kirk has already identified is blacklisting graphics modules.
http://www.smokey01.com/software/Fatdog ... FatDog.pdf

Enjoy

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#110 Post by smokey01 »

kirk wrote:smokey01,

To use one of the other Nvidia drivers you'll need to blacklist or delete the nouveau kernel module. Or you might get it to work by booting nomodeset.
kirk, it's been a long time since I have burned either a CD or DVD and booted from it. I usually use VirtualBox or just copy the files accross to the hard drive and edit the menu.lst in grub.

A good way to distribute your distro might be via the multipup method. This way the user only has to select a couple of menu items without any typing.

I tried both nv and vesa using the following command booting from the DVD:

Code: Select all

fatdog nomodeset pfix=xorgwizard savefile=none
They both booted without problems.

The nouveau driver is far superior to the other two as they are produce jerky video when watching hires videos.

I do have a GeForce GT 220 nVidia graphics driver.

I might build the ISO with a graphical grub so you can see if you like it.

Cheers.

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