Wary and Racy 5.5, released March 3, 2013

[Ray MK]

Interesting - yet to try - however, opinion from user “Croc Ddee

[ETP]

Also yet to try, but I agree it is less than professional. The following might suffice.
http://www.soundsnap.com/tags/dustbin_lid

[starhawk]

Downloading Racy 55 now. This should be interesting -- I've got this one system that won't play nice with any puppy that has a 2.6.x.x kernel. I've yet to try a 3.x.x.x kernel on it because it's a Celeron M board (processor soldered down, it's a very strange board indeed!) and I can't find anything that's both 3.x.x.x and non-PAE.

Does anyone know whether Racy 55 uses aufs or UnionFS? I know Racy 53 uses UnionFS --it's in the release notes-- but I'm not sure about Racy 55. This *might* be good to know, for my board.

Just in brief: what happens is, right after "recognizing media devices" and right before xorgwizard kicks in, something goes horribly wrong and I get this massive wall of text that I really don't understand. It's a little different each time, too. I've a thread on the subject here --> http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=84108

[Karl Godt]

I know Racy 53 uses UnionFS

Racy-5.2.2 uses unionfs, racy-5.3 aufs.

[starhawk]

Whoops

OK then, anyone know of a non-PAE variant of Racy 522?

[01micko]

Hi all,

I was somewhat surprised and somewhat taken aback when I discovered the sound byte associated with using the trash: namely a loud belching or burping noise. I'm hoping this is a mistake of some sort and not an attempt at humor... I am only one voice, so I would ask the Community to consider if this is how we want to present Puppy Linux to the rest of the world...

Respectfully,
Monsie

It also affects Slacko and is incredibly stupid, annoying, and
disgusting.

Agreed. Sorry about that. I'm not taking responsibility for the noise but I do for not finding it before release.

Trash fix available.

[starhawk]

Racy 55 boots on my board!! I am quite happy!

Now, an actual bug to report...

Text mode does not work after entering graphics mode. If I CTRL+ALT+BKSP out of graphical mode, I get a blinking cursor that does absolutely nothing and is hard to see anyways. If I tell the firstrun wizard that I want to reconfigure Xorg (76Hz refresh is out of range on my LCD, had to plug it into a circa-'06 CRT to make it work) it dumps me to a black screen with absolutely nothing on it.

...er, remind me the keyboard shortcuts for different TTYs? Maybe that would help.

Worth noting, the motherboard I'm using has such a weird VGA output that I'm forced to use a graphics card. Of course it's nVIDIA, and it's my only PCI graphics card... I'll ask a friend of mine with a tech shop if he's got a spare PCI ATi/AMD card...

[Sage]

it's a Celeron M board

'mobiles' have always been a problem
'Celeries ' have always...ditto
'on-board' graphics - you already identified as cr*p.
Perhaps you didn't see my own solution? I have completely stopped testing anything from the Wintel cartel; even gifts of these I now refuse. Life has been so much better.
Why waste time trying to fix the unfixable?! Leave it to the masochists and pass that hardware down the line.

Otherwise, on AMD kit the latest Wary, Racy, Slacko and Precise are working spectacularly, yes, even with nV cards, even on old bangers, and with Opera!

[starhawk]

Sage, I do not have the option of switching processor brands, or even processors, on this board. (IIRC the last time one could choose Intel or AMD for a given motherboard was the Super Socket 7! Of course there was also Cyrix back then as well...) Nor do I have even the $10-15 to acquire an ATi/AMD PCI graphics card from eBay.

Also I've had quite a different experience from you, it seems, when it comes to hardware-software interactions.

I have several functioning computers in my house right now --
A 386 box for nostalgia purposes
The Infernal Dell, laptop, P2 300MHz
HP Compaq tc4200 'convertible' laptop/tablet, Pentium M 1.73GHz
IBM ThinkPad T42 with T41 screen, Pentium M 1.6?GHz
ASUS EeePC 1000HEB netbook, Atom N270 1.6GHz
Commell LE-370Z system, Celeron M ULV 600MHz
"Hoover" (loud fans), my mother's desktop, Atom D510
Compaq Presario SR2173WM desktop, AM2 Athlon64 3500+
No-name spare box (custom build by me), skt754 Sempron somethingorother

The ONLY Linux-able systems (this excludes the 386, which has no math coproc), of the above list, which have given me problems, are...
The Infernal Dell, very low horsepower
Commell LE-370Z, very strange hardware
Compaq Presario, had issues with an ATi graphics card that thought it had HDMI when it didn't, which (oddly enough) mucked up the sound rather than the graphics!

I have had exactly ONE problem EVER with running Puppy on a Pentium M system of ANY kind. You see, some Puppies come with PAE, which I find more a misfeature (purposefully placed with good intentions) than anything else. I don't place blame on anyone for that, it's a good idea -- just that it doesn't work everywhere, particularly on Pentium M setups. My solution is, when I know I'm going to need to run Puppy on eg the Thinkpad, I steer clear of any Puppy that mentions PAE. That's all. I certainly don't go to the Puppian who made it and say "SEE, WHY'D YOU HAVE TO PUT THAT JUNK IN THERE?!" I daresay that would be a little much.

Further, I even MADE several Puplets on a system I no longer own (sold it because I needed money) -- an HP Pavilion s7220n with a Celeron M CPU and Intel integrated graphics. These Puplets were, to put it bluntly, rather poorly constructed -- I'm not very good with software -- so they are (at this time) no longer in circulation.

My point here being -- it's not really a "mobiles" or "integrated graphics" or even "Wintel" issue at all. Different computers have different problems. To blame it all on one manufacturer -- or even a few manufacturers -- only complicates things. They are still making hardware. People will still use that hardware -- and if they want Puppy, they will be running Puppy on that hardware. You can flame the companies, but that's essentially biting the hand that feeds you -- you still need to be able to support and use their stuff!

*ahem*

Returning to the subject of the Commell board that's giving me all this grief, it's worth noting that I gave up on integrated graphics long ago -- in my experience, these are usually quite reliable (even the "Wintel" ones!), BUT this board has something very strange where none of my monitors work properly with it, and only one will even recognize that there is a signal emanating from the board. Hence the graphics card, which I got off another forum for shipping when I had the $6 or so required (I don't even have that right now!) -- I accepted an nVIDIA card because I did not know there would be problems with it later.

Having said all of that, I would be far more interested in seeing some software-based solutions to the problems caused by using nVIDIA cards with this version of Racy, or a version of Racy that has neither PAE nor nVIDIA driver issues, rather than continuing to (rather unproductively) flame companies that don't do what you'd like them to do.

Keep in mind that those companies you rail against almost certainly have no direct involvement in (or even a strong effect on) Puppy and therefore can't really be blamed anyways. What the Puppy Devs do matters. What some company somewhere does, that may or may not be incorporated into Puppy, is far, far less significant indeed.

[Billtoo]

Racy 55 boots on my board!! I am quite happy!
Worth noting, the motherboard I'm using has such a weird VGA output that I'm forced to use a graphics card. Of course it's nVIDIA, and it's my only PCI graphics card... I'll ask a friend of mine with a tech shop if he's got a spare PCI ATi/AMD card...

This worked for me with a newer Nvidia card in Racy 5.5:

I booted with puppy pfix=nox,ram and ran xorgwizard,chose nouveau, and
xwin to the desktop.

[starhawk]

I'll try it, and edit this post with the results.

Thank you, Billtoo!

EDIT: my copy of Racy 55 absolutely insists on ignoring pfix=nox -- and Xorg tells me that the driver for my card MUST be the Xorg 'vesa' driver.

Of course, popping out to text mode still doesn't work.

I'm going to call that non-success.

[Sage]

starhawk

Lucky you, seem to have had better 'luck' than many with your kit. I draw my comments from many different Fora, not just Puppy. As for flaming, flame where flame is due and the WIntel cartel richly deserves it - another £484,000 from M$ just this week for their duplicity; could've been the statutory $7.4bn according to the rules. Have you forgotten how the US Dept of Justice took them apart? The company with the BIG reputation for destroying all opposition - yes, even in the USofA. As for Intel, rubbish company - take a look at any System Info utility and see the long list of microcode bugs attributed to them back as far as 8088. And they have always had thermal issues due to bad design. Most recently they've had to license microcode from little ol' AMD because they couldn't get their 64bit designs to run 32bit apps. It defies belief that folks still buy their stuff, even in the USA where they have decent Sunnyvale alternatives.
Ever heard of leverage?!

Now let's get down to business. Where are you? What freebies can I send you? Bear in mind that I don't do laptops. I can probably accommodate many of your other modest requests. Let me know.

[starhawk]

The only system I've ever used with severe thermal issues was the system that taught me something about AMDvsIntel -- namely that AMD chips really do tend to run hotter than Intel chips. It was an Acer Aspire budget laptop, with a Turion64 x2 in it. I sold it for us$80 after I got my paws on something even slightly better (the ASUS netbook IIRC) and I still feel like the buyer wound up with the short end of the deal. There are no polite words for just how bad that thing was.

I'm in NC, US -- ZIP code 27344.

If you have an ATi/AMD (one and the same now) PCI graphics card, that would be great -- old 32bit PCI, not PCI-Express! I cannot use 3.3v-only cards (look up "pci voltage keying" on Google if you're not sure what I mean) -- but 5v and universal PCI cards will work fine for me.

I'm also looking for a Mini-ITX form factor board, but I'm looking for an Intel one! It needs to be a Pentium M board with a 400/533 MHz front side bus (FSB) -- I want to put a really fast Pentium M in it, and those are all either 533 MHz FSB chips, or insanely expensive, or both -- right now I have a 400MHz-only board, and the best and second-best chips for it are $60 and $30 on eBay right now! Needless to say, ain't got that kinda money.

I will also note that, at least at this time, I can afford neither to pay your shipping costs, nor ship something to you as compensation -- USPS raised their prices on overseas shipping dramatically on Jan 27, and I don't have any money right now anyways wish I did, I really do!

[BarryK]

There is a Service Pack for Wary and Racy 5.5, bumps to version 5.5.1:

http://bkhome.org/blog2/?viewDetailed=00176

[Sage]

starhawk: PM your address and I will send you a PCI card, gratis. PCI card are not voltage discriminated, only AGP. I know all about the notches and dual purpose cards, make sure you really mean PCI.
It's not the perceived heat generated that's important, it's the design technology to dissipate same. AMD processors are more long lasting and reliable, they mastered the design and fab processes early on. Criticism of their performance index is also without merit - they generally outperform that rated index by a good margin. Furthermore, their late single core devices from the Applebred and Thoroughbred-B range run much cooler, clock much faster than anything I've ever seen from Intel.
True ITX boards were originally proprietary with all smc and excessively priced. Late comers had interchangeable cpu but were also overpriced, unreliable and I've never seen or heard of an Intel one, so, perhaps, they weren't issued widely?
I'm guessing you're less than half my age so missed the x86 vs. TI fiasco, perhaps haven't yet read about the terrible impatience of the man from Big Blue when hunting an OS in the Sunshine State that landed the world with half-a-century of disasters and continuing criminal behaviour of M$?!

[starhawk]

This is what I'm talking about re: voltage keying --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCI_Keying.png

Make sure it's got the 5v notch (the one that's far from the backplate) or both notches. If it's only got the 3.3v notch (the one that's close to the backplate) then it won't fit and we'll both be upset.

I'll PM you my address shortly.

Mini-ITX was created by a Taiwanese company named VIA, which rose to prominence from the ashes of Cyrix. The original design for Cyrix's Centaur processor (which was to be their next thing after the 5x86) wound up as the VIA C3. I have a Mini-ITX board made by VIA with the C3 processor on it. It's a VIA EPIA MII-1000 -- meaning it's got a 1GHz CPU. Wow, that thing is pathetic!

The board I have with the Pentium M on it is an Axiomtech SBC86807 v2.0. It *is* an industrial/embedded board -- but that's more exception than rule. Look up a site called MiniITX[dot]Com -- they're in the UK. They have all sorts of nifty stuff, and half of it one can't get in the States! (I shop at a US-based outfit called Logic Supply, when I'm feeling rich enough to avoid eBay.) My mother has an Intel (gasp) D510MW board in her desktop. It's Mini-ITX, and it is most certainly NOT an industrial/embedded board!

Hadn't heard about the impatience factor for M$/IBM. Might've heard about the Intel/TI thing -- not sure. I do know that, up until recently, a 486 BabyAT board I had proudly sported a TI TX486SLC -- so what you're talking about must've gone on later.

I was born in 1986, I'm 26 years old (27 in late June), and my first computer was a 386SX/SXL with an AMD 25MHz proc, no coproc, 4mb RAM, and an 85MB hard drive. It was my mother's 40th birthday present (that was '92) and it was mine in '97 or so, when she upgraded to a Packard Bell with a Pentium 75MHz in it, the whole thing built more for making trouble than anything else -- that thing was so bad, it was MADE not to work!

I still have my 386, and I recently restored it to (mostly) stock, with the exception of part of the case (the cover is long gone), added CD-ROM drive (the original was floppy-only!), and hard drive (85MB is a little too cramped!) It runs Windows 3.11 (a slight upgrade from Win 3.1), and now has a WD Caviar 2550 instead of the original Quantum ProDrive ELS -- which, except for one bad sector, still works quite fine. I've got three ISA cards in there -- HDD+I/O, video, and sound/CD-ROM. It's got a serial mouse, of course. Original was an Artec (IIRC) 3-button mouse with a fourth button on the side. Current one (the Artec is deceased) is an M$ Serial Mouse 2.0... might be a 3.0, gotta check.

If you want pictures of the 386, I'll be glad to send you some! I'm afraid it's not likely to run Linux without a math coproc though... which it still doesn't have. 387s are rare as hen's teeth

[Sage]

re: voltage keying --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PCI_Keying.png

Never seen anything but "5V" in the field. The (5V) PCI cards superseded IBM's abortive EISA, after ISA and VLB (I had one of those). Maybe Apple used some of those funny designs like PCI-X, but I recall they were expensive; nobody I know was buying boards that accommodated them. Never touch Apple stuff - turn it away when offered. The 5, 3.3, dual and now 1.5V cards exist in AGP format; there might be an 0.8V now? Then we have PCI-|Express. I suppose AGP is a special kind of "PCI" bus just like PS/2 is the precursor, special type of USB bus, too.
I abandoned my collection of 8088/8286/8386/8486 and Cyrix stuff a long time ago, although I retain some 8bit Amstrads (you know - UK company that was deliberately leveraged and destroyed by, inter alia, bad products from the likes of WD, Seagate, etc., - I got small recompense on my shares when the Court battles ended successfully ten years later - too late!) an Evergreen MxPro and one K6-II for my personal museum. I gave all my other 8bit HW and documentation to a local computer museum. I had the Firmware manuals so that I could teach my children machine language, but that was 30yrs ago. Prior to that we worked with punched tape terminals on a Pegasus running Autocode. The Brits were running computers at Bletchley before the rest in '43-'44 - Churchill gave away the IPR in exchange for food. We had major IT industries such as ICL, Plessey, Elliott (f.1804), etc up and running in the 50's but they went bust because of lack of support infra-structure, political interference, foreign subterfuge and lack of markets - same old story.
Most of the hardware was invented, designed and fabricated by the Brits in the late 40s, early 50s including integrated circuits, but the facts got obscured due to our arcane Official Secrets Act, the Cold War & Arms Race, H-bomb, & co. - some of the wartime stuff is still on the secret list! Much of the published info is downright wrong. Some Americans even believe they invented this gear!!! We only came 2nd with our H-bomb - it was just a regular old fusion device, but we were first into space from the Woomera range in Oz; the (cancelled) Blue Streak rocket is still the basis of the remarkably successful second stage Ariane rocket assembly.
So, the moral of the foregoing is don't believe what you read in books. I was there! If you've been keeping up, nearly three times as old...
Otherwise, - on its way.

[artsown]

I was surprised at the speed of Wary 5.5. It "feels" to be the
fastest of many pups I've tried. I did compare startup times
of the frugal installs of several pups, and Wary leaves the others
in the dust at 25 seconds while the others all check about 35 sec.
Seamonkey seems faster than on Precise 5.5.

Since Wary works well for me, I installed my usual apps and will
be testing Wary 5.5.1 by using it daily for some time. Since it's on
a older kernel, it does not require my usual wireless "fix".

Unfortunately, Racy 5.5 doesn't start up on my main test PC.

Art

[Terryphi]

A number of posts in the forum show users of Racy or Wary disappointed because they cannot run the latest versions of Chromium.

Code: Select all

/opt/chromium/chrome: /lib/libc.so.6 version 'GLIBC_2.11' not found (required by /opt/chromium/chrome) 
 /opt/chromium/chrome: /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6: version 'GLIBCXX_3.4.11' Not found (required by /opt/chromium/chrome)

Is there any chance that Barry can be persuaded to upgrade the libraries?

[redandwhitestripes]

Hi guys,
I came on here ready to install Wary on my Presario 2500 (P4, 256mb RAM) but after reading the threads, it seems as if Racy might be a better choice.

Any suggestions? I can trial both but as this old thing doesn't support USB installs, it's a chore to burn the cds and persuade it to boot them.