Puppy2 problem detecting pup_save.3fs (etc.)

[danf]

I'm pretty impressed with what Puppy can do for such a small installation, and with its installation flexibility. I did encounter a few problem when trying it for the first time, however.

On one machine, I stored the save file on shut down to a FAT partition, but the presence of an unrelated file named "2004something" on the same partition caused Puppy to fail to find the save file during the next boot. I traced the problem to a naive search for files beginning 200* on the partition during the mode detection logic. Apparently, CD-R save files are stored in directories named that way, and even though my 2004something file was not a directory, detection failed anyway.

On another machine I also had some trouble getting Puppy to detect my save file, on a 64 MB flash drive this time. On reboot (from CD-ROM) it again couldn't find the save file, but I couldn't trace why. Oddly, when I manually ran the boot script again after booting (edited to perform detection only), it detected the save file just fine (making it hard to trace the failure).

A boot option to increase the verbosity of the detection logic would be a welcome addition to future versions.

I found a number of other problems with 2.00, but they're minor compared to these. Here they are:

In potentially serious bug in the Puppy universal installer: choose IDE hard drive install, then choose a hard drive, then when it asks if you want superfloppy mode, close the window by clicking on the "X". That chooses superfloppy mode instead of exiting which means you're a single click away from destroying your entire hard drive!

/etc/passwd should list /bin/bash as root's shell instead of /bin/sh so .bashrc gets read by Bash at login time

Many help files are missing, e.g. freememapplet's help option, and from the dillo home page, e.g. Figurine, fig2dev links

"vi" really messes up its display while editing a file in a text terminal

If you give a vga= command on the kernel boot command-line to give more lines of text (e.g. vga=1 for 80x50 mode) all is well until you choose Shutdown when the screen reverts not to 80x50 but 80x25 mode, but the prompts are set up for 80x50 so bottom half of the screen isn't visible.

/etc/fstab has several entries with "user" options (e.g. /dev/fd0) but BusyBox's mount doesn't support "user" and therefore refuses to mount those entries.

Many sound cards don't support 8kHz mu-law encoding so .au files aren't played. Should instead choose an encoding and data rate that's compatible with more cards (probably 16 bits raw @ 44.1 kHz) for the sound file played at boot time, or use a player that converts from mu-law at run-time.

A suggestion: in addition to the hard-coded list of detected swap files, it should also look for the swap file knoppix.swp as used by Knoppix.

Another suggestion: it would be nice to have an install option that puts pup_200.sfs, pup_save.3fs and the GRUB files into a FAT partition to create a dual-boot machine without repartitioning. That' s how I set up my machine manually and it works great.

[BarryK]

On one machine, I stored the save file on shut down to a FAT partition, but the presence of an unrelated file named "2004something" on the same partition caused Puppy to fail to find the save file during the next boot. I traced the problem to a naive search for files beginning 200* on the partition during the mode detection logic. Apparently, CD-R save files are stored in directories named that way, and even though my 2004something file was not a directory, detection failed anyway.

Yes, that definitely needs attention!

In potentially serious bug in the Puppy universal installer: choose IDE hard drive install, then choose a hard drive, then when it asks if you want superfloppy mode, close the window by clicking on the "X". That chooses superfloppy mode instead of exiting which means you're a single click away from destroying your entire hard drive!

Yes, that also.

/etc/passwd should list /bin/bash as root's shell instead of /bin/sh so .bashrc gets read by Bash at login time

That's how it has always been and is deliberate.

Many help files are missing, e.g. freememapplet's help option, and from the dillo home page, e.g. Figurine, fig2dev links

Figurine, fig2dev, links are not in 2.01. if they are still in the help page they
shouldn't be.
freememapplet's help is there, right-click on the applet.

/etc/fstab has several entries with "user" options (e.g. /dev/fd0) but BusyBox's mount doesn't support "user" and therefore refuses to mount those entries.

There are two entries with 'user'.
You are right, interesting 'user' has been there for ages, like maybe the very
first puppy, nobody ever pointed it out.

Many sound cards don't support 8kHz mu-law encoding so .au files aren't played. Should instead choose an encoding and data rate that's compatible with more cards (probably 16 bits raw @ 44.1 kHz) for the sound file played at boot time, or use a player that converts from mu-law at run-time.

very interesting, didn't know that.

[r__hughes]

Just jumping in here to say that I too have an issue with the passwd link to the root's shell -

Quote:
/etc/passwd should list /bin/bash as root's shell instead of /bin/sh so .bashrc gets read by Bash at login time

That's how it has always been and is deliberate.

I have detailed this in the user section
http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=8735

--- excerpt ----
On a hunch I modified the first line of /etc/passwd from-
root0:0:root:/root:/bin/sh to-
root0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
and rebooted I got the bash prompt I wanted

This is strange because sh is supposed to be a direct symlink to bash.

I found this interesting note that suggests the prompt PS1 definition in /etc/profile gets nuked in some systems by startx (symlink to /usr/X11R6/bin/xwin) leaving a system prompt instead.

This doesn't happen in pups 108/109 but does in 200.

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Bas ... setps.html