LxPup-by-SFS (LXDE)

Window managers, icon programs, widgets, etc.
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01micko
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#16 Post by 01micko »

peebee, firstly, your sfs works. Thanks for that, tested with PHATSlacko.

Now, for a bit of constructive criticism and a suggested remedy.

I think you know my feelings toward NTFS and mixing it with Linux in general.

Having the 777 permissions could be bad for a number of reasons I won't go into. You are absolutely right pointing the finger at NTFS. It should be called "OTFS". :wink: . It has never respected Linux permissions.

You'll be happy to know there is a simple work around. It's like creating a "dummy" save file except any install of Linux can access it.

Here is a rough "howto" to create one.

1. Mount your NTFS partition (defragged already of course) and change directory into it. I wouldn't use a windows system partition but you can if you want, at own risk.

2. Now you can make a file to house our Linux filesystem.

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero of=linux.ext4 bs=1024 count=524288
This produces a file of 512M named linux.ext4 on your NTFS partition. Multiples of 131072
(128M) are probably good, seeing as though we are building largish sfs files and you do need a bit of clearance.

3. Make the filesystem.

Code: Select all

mkfs.ext4 -q -m 0 -F linux.ext4
That makes an ext4 filesystem but you could make ext2, 3, whatever you want.

4. Mount it.

Code: Select all

 mkdir -p /mnt/linuxfs
mount linux.ext4 /mnt/linuxfs -o loop
.. or just click it in rox. (Correction: You would need the name to end in "4fs" to click in rox, you can do that if you wish)

You can do whatever you like in there.. compile, package, you name it. As a warning, don't be tempted to resize it, bad idea when the NTFS filesystem becomes fragmented. No guarantee that a defrag would help either.
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simes
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LxPup SFS

#17 Post by simes »

Just wanted to add my thanks to Peter. I have loaded the SFS in Slacko 5.5. This was an existing system which already had a few packages installed, so a save file existed to begin with. No matter, everything installed without problems and so far has been rock solid. I am familiar with Puppy and like the way the existing Puppy menu structure and icons have been integrated into LXDE. There's nothing wrong with ROX/JWM and they have a reassuring feel which comes from years of familiarity, but I have become aware when using Puppy alongside other people who have (e.g) Windows 7/Vista or for that matter Ubuntu/Mint, that the look of the desktop is dated and for this reason LXDE is a real 'nice to have'. I am very confident defending my use of Puppy on a production machine, even in an office environment (and my machine is modern enough to run Windows 7 when I want to) but I prefer not to have to defend an old-fashioned desktop appearance when the real reasons to use Puppy are nothing to do with that!

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peebee
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#18 Post by peebee »

01micko wrote:peebee, firstly, your sfs works. Thanks for that, tested with PHATSlacko.

Now, for a bit of constructive criticism and a suggested remedy.
Hi Mick

Many thanks for both the feedback and advice.

I have bitten the bullet and reformatted my hard disk to ext4 and deleted all traces of Windows at the same time.

What should I do now to reset the file permissions changed by NTFS? Is there even any simple way to do such a thing??

Cheers
peebee
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`f00
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#19 Post by `f00 »

Works decently in slacko 5.5-4g (at least with openbox to sit on). The lovely lxpanel menu plugin (with comments as popups for dotdesktop items!) may need a bit of tweaking for my needs (specifically to have my 'usual' top-tier category icons in other wms besides openbox). Also modify a few subcats although the shell, texteditor and multimedia(2) work nicely for me. Nothing "missing" from the lxpanel menu, as far as mine goes - it's very good about updating itself ;)

A few things reverted from my non-pristine (maybe 1/2 dozen dotdesktops and my modified .xinitrc that makes rox pinboard on-demand only). Likely openbox tweaks as well to get back a functional r-click openbox rootmenu and etc. Gonna have to fix the font size in pcmanfm (using 'new standard' 96dpi rather than the old standard 78 ), but otherwise that fm seems a bit quicker and more stable than previous incarnation.

Good Work, peebee (and Jejy69 for the initial base) :)
"simple way to do such a thing??" - dunno, my simple is to simply drudge through stuff :oops:

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#20 Post by starhawk »

Installed on Upup Precise (IIRC it's 3831 -- the iso claims to be 382 tho). Very nice... but with one small issue.

I gotta have the drive icons, and I don't see a way to enable them (or any other icons, for that matter...). Going through Pmount every time I plug in a flash drive is going to get very old very quickly ;)

Also: I assume I can load the lxpup SFS at bootup through BootManager with no ill effects?

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#21 Post by peebee »

starhawk wrote:Installed on Upup Precise (IIRC it's 3831 -- the iso claims to be 382 tho). Very nice... but with one small issue.

I gotta have the drive icons, and I don't see a way to enable them (or any other icons, for that matter...). Going through Pmount every time I plug in a flash drive is going to get very old very quickly ;)

Also: I assume I can load the lxpup SFS at bootup through BootManager with no ill effects?
Hi Starhawk

Drive icons appear in the left hand pane of the pcmanfm file manager so pmount is not needed....it is a slightly different way of working to jwm/rox but one that you get used to pretty quickly.

You could try adding desktop-drive-icons-0.0.5 if you really want them.

Loading the sfs with bootmanager works the same as sfs-on-the-fly - I'm not clear whether you mean loading the sfs but not the pet so that you can stay with jwm/rox with no ill-effects or something else? I don't think loading just the sfs should cause any problems - but I've not tested it exhaustively as I can't see why you would want to do it.

Rox is still available through the menu if you feel the need to use it - for instance to create links which pcmanfm can't do for some reason.

Cheers
peebee
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starhawk
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#22 Post by starhawk »

The dotPET is installed (and therefore isn't going anywhere).

I meant BootMgr vs SFS-Load-On-The-Fly. I didn't know how similar they were, and the instructions explicitly state to use SFS-Load-On-The-Fly so I wasn't sure if BootMgr would muck things up or not.

Thanks for the dotPET for the drive icons, I'll report back here shortly to say whether or not it works.

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#23 Post by starhawk »

It works! I kinda wish it were dynamic (i.e. refreshes automatically, removing icons when a drive is removed) but it'll do the way it is.

Thanks!

...now I just need a nice icon theme...

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#24 Post by starhawk »

Got the icons set up.

One minor annoyance (which is genuinely nothing more than a minor annoyance!) -- how do I change the color of a window's title bar? It wants to be a light blue (like powder blue color) and I want it to be orange or black... the icons in the systray have the same problem.

Also -- PCManFM looks to use Windblows terminology -- so your symlink would be called a "shortcut" there ;)

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peebee
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#25 Post by peebee »

starhawk wrote:Got the icons set up.

One minor annoyance (which is genuinely nothing more than a minor annoyance!) -- how do I change the color of a window's title bar? It wants to be a light blue (like powder blue color) and I want it to be orange or black... the icons in the systray have the same problem.

Also -- PCManFM looks to use Windblows terminology -- so your symlink would be called a "shortcut" there ;)
Desktop settings - Customize Look & Feel - Window Borders - Onyx citrus or Orang......
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#26 Post by starhawk »

Don't see it. Here are the tabs I do see in the Customize Look & Feel window --

Widget
Color
Icon Theme
Mouse Cursor
Font
Other

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peebee
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#27 Post by peebee »

starhawk wrote:Don't see it.
Hmmmmm - it's there in the Slacko based version - must be a difference somehow between Slacko and Upup Precise - afraid I can't explain why - I will try to boot up a Upup Precise version and have a look.

Cheers
peebee
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#28 Post by starhawk »

Thanks! I appreciate all you're doing to help.

simargl

#29 Post by simargl »

.
Last edited by simargl on Sun 01 Sep 2013, 15:05, edited 1 time in total.

starhawk
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#30 Post by starhawk »

That's helpful! Where do I find that package?

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peebee
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#31 Post by peebee »

starhawk wrote:That's helpful! Where do I find that package?
The .deb can be downloaded from here - the package was in the sfs but needed to be updated - I have rebuilt and tested the sfs's with the updated obconf.so and will upload them shortly.
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starhawk
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#32 Post by starhawk »

Installed. Works now.

Also the drives thing *is* dynamic now all of a sudden.

Thanks!

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peebee
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Updated versions

#33 Post by peebee »

Updated versions of the A B & R sfs's with the updated obconf.so have been uploaded.

Cheers
peebee
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lvds
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#34 Post by lvds »

Hi Peebee,

Many thanks for your great work ! I have been using lxpup SFS upon upup precise 3.8.3 and all went fine. All my hardware was detected out of the box. I have immediately started to play with settings :D

The only very minor weird thing I found is a firefox desktop entry have appeared in menus but firefox was not installed yet. Anyway I installed it because I have hard time living without firefox :-)

I think your work could benefit a lot of Jejy69 work too, I noticed many desktop entries are not really in the right place, and finally results in overcrowded menus. Jejy69 approach is minimalist but I think the menus deserves some re-design :-)

Also I noticed many icons looking ugly. Maybe it would be worth to set a good nice looking theme instead of a weird mix we carry from a long time... Whatever the theme, oxygen or faenza, we need also good looking icons for the devices and monitors in system tray.

Another idea is we need to adjust color schemes. For instance blue is good, but when there is too much blue you can get sick of it... Just little changes here and there are welcome, like say, the folders icon in file manager are brown, not blue. Little changes makes wonders.

Anyway, none of this is your fault, I'm just giving ideas for future plans :-)
Thanks again, you're doing great and I love the LXDE desktop in puppy.

Best regards

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peebee
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#35 Post by peebee »

lvds wrote:Hi Peebee
Hi lvds

Many thanks for your feedback - its much appreciated.

I agree with all of your points and they are all things that would need to be worked on if lxde were to be chosen as the default for a major Puppy distribution - however they are also work items that will need a lot of painstaking work to get right (I think).

As it is, Lxpup by SFS seems to work "well enough" for me on top of Slacko to give me certain features that I like with not too many frustrations - so I'm unlikely to be the one who will iron out the wrinkles you have mentioned. However if somebody else wants to for instance tidy up the menus or the icons then I'd be very happy indeed to incorporate their work into my sfs - much as I originally did with Jejy's pioneering work on LxPup 13.01. I offer versions for other mainstream pups as well as Slacko to give people choice but I have noticed that the menu items do differ between the versions to a degree.

Jejy has obviously released other LxPup's since then but is gradually moving further away from "pure" Puppy with his different package management and menu structures.....which you either like or not.

The great thing about Puppy is - choice! :-)

I always add Chromium to my Puppies as that is my favourite browser - but as can be seen from the browser wars that occasionally break out - everybody has their own favourite.

Cheers
peebee
ImageLxPup = Puppy + LXDE
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