[SOLVED]Thinkpad x40 Lucid puppy5.2.8 with libre office

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g2k
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[SOLVED]Thinkpad x40 Lucid puppy5.2.8 with libre office

#1 Post by g2k »

My thinkpad x40 has puppy on it. I tried to open a folder with 1500 .png icons in it with ROX set to show icons.

When I do this I often notice that my ram usage is about 220mb, but my processor is always around 100%.

Trying to open that file and look for the seamonkey icon caused the xserver to not be able to render AT ALL.

I guess my question is: why doesn't puppy utilize the available ram?

I have 1.5GB ram installed, Intel Celeron M processor @ 1.2Ghz. I wouldn't think that would cause puppy to stumble that bad ( I can watch youtube and hulu just fine).

The reason I believe something is amuck is that the kernel is about 2mb in size, initrd is about 2mb, and puppy.sfs is 353mb.

If puppy copies the .sfs into RAM and copies initrd, and kernel with pfix=copy in boot parms., then I should be using a minimum of 357mb ram.

I'm new to puppy so maybe I'm not understanding the mechanics of it all.

I would surely appreciate and thank you guys for any help you can give to help me figure all this out.
Last edited by g2k on Sat 09 Nov 2013, 08:29, edited 1 time in total.

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ally
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#2 Post by ally »

hey g

what puppy are you running?

can you see which modules are grabbing the cpu?

:)

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mikeb
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#3 Post by mikeb »

generating 1500 thumbnails takes cpu and they will use / write to your save space so perhaps the loading is not what you think it is. Don't think thumbnailing is a ram heavy process anyway.

Note on standard puppies thumbnails are deleted every shutdown so have to be recreated..I set mine to last a month before removing.

353MB sounds more like a fat hound :D

mike

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g2k
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#4 Post by g2k »

Hi, mikeb. I'm using lucid puppy 5.2.8-005 with libre ofiice out of the box.

I kinda figured it would eat cpu a bit, but it seems that this puppy never hits 300mb ram in use.

I would have thought that, if you load everything into ram, then ram usage would equal the size of the puppy components?

Puppy 5.2.8 "seems" to be pretty stable on this machine. So I am more wondering than anything.

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g2k
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#5 Post by g2k »

mikeb wrote:.I set mine to last a month before removing.
How do you set that up? I'm running an ssd and would like to save the write cycles?

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mikeb
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#6 Post by mikeb »

I would have thought that, if you load everything into ram, then ram usage would equal the size of the puppy components?
one aspect of the tmpfs (ramdisk) used for loaded sfs files is it does not show up on ram usage .... perhaps its the nature of tmpfs in that it expands on demand up to the maximum size originally specified....but in this case it may be because its created in the initrd...not 100% on why I just know it does.

So say 300MB free is shown and there is a 150MB puppy sfs loaded then you only really have 150MB as an example.
You also, depending on mode, have a tmpfs for changes which flexibly uses free ram too.

try df -h in a terminal and see what you make of the results.


Ok thumbnails...if you look near the bottom of /etc/rc.d/rc.shutdown you should see where thumbnails are deleted....a pile of

Code: Select all

	rm -f /var/log/X*
	rm -rf /tmp/*
	rm -rf /tmp/.*
	rm -f /var/lock/LCK*
	rm -f /var/run/*.pid
comment out the one that does the thumbnails folder...

I now have

Code: Select all

find /root/.thumbnails -mtime +20 -exec rm {} \;
but just after the echo "Killing X and all X apps..."
section so it applies in any pup mode.
Its set to 20 days but you can use whatever period you like.

It looks of an odd command but it does the job... you can test it in a terminal if you like but you would need some images with old time stamps on them.. Yes some space is use to strore thumbs but you get no delays opening commonly used folders with images in them.

mike

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g2k
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#7 Post by g2k »

Suh WEET. Thanks I bet that will work like a charm.

So while we have this dialog going, let me ask you this: Do you know how to make my SD Card icon stay in place on the desktop?

I have sda1 and sda2 in location and they stay on location even after reboot, but the SD Card icon does not.

I looked at one of the config files in ROX, but the position it reported for that icon was the position of the icon. None of the surrounding code for it or sda1/2 looked different.

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mikeb
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#8 Post by mikeb »

Hmm those icons get removed and added when the device is present or not.
You mean you have an SD card permanently in the slot and its not showing up?

mike

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bigpup
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#9 Post by bigpup »

Do you know how to make my SD Card icon stay in place on the desktop?
This is one way that may work.
menu->Desktop->Desktop settings->Desksetup Templates for desk icons
Before using this program, arrange the icons on the desktop the way you want them.
Start the program.
Click this button to save your custom arrangement.
(this makes a custom template, of the desktop, as you now have it)
Under choose a desktop layout
Select custom.
Select apply.

This should now be the desktop that gets used at boot.
Attachments
Desktop setup.jpg
(38.14 KiB) Downloaded 250 times
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
YaPI(any iso installer)

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g2k
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#10 Post by g2k »

No, bigpup, unfortunately the desktop templates app doesn't include drive icons (boo,hoo,hoo).

There must be a way to "stick" an icon to a given location, no?

Any other ideas?

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g2k
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#11 Post by g2k »

mikeb wrote:Hmm those icons get removed and added when the device is present or not.
You mean you have an SD card permanently in the slot and its not showing up?

mike
No no no, my SD Card shows up just fine at EVERY boot.

I even have startmount set up to auto mount sda2(HDD storage) and mmcblkop1(my sd card) so that I can fire right up>launch audacious> and it won't fault because it can't find the music files.

Works like a charm all day every day.

The system lets me put my drive icons wherever I want them, but they won't hold location on reboot, so I have to move them back to where I want them.

If I place them (sda1, sda2, mmcblk0p1) high enough vertically then on reboot sda1 and sda2 will be where I left them but mmcblk0p1 is ALWAYS in the lower left corner of screen.

I tried to change ROX to align icons horizontally instead of vertically but it don't matter mmcblk0p1 is VERY rebellious...lol

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g2k
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#12 Post by g2k »

mikeb wrote:try df -h in a terminal and see what you make of the results.
I tried that in console but couldn't make heads or tails out of what it was telling me.

I am fairly new to running puppy in a full blown capacity but I've been running it for 4 years as tool to boot/rescue info/ type disk.

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mikeb
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#13 Post by mikeb »

Ok well those delightful icons normally get rewritten every boot... there is a sense in that.

Ok well if its permanent drag and drop the folder the current icon points to in /root/.pup_event to the desktop where you want it.
The drive will have 2 icons , one of which is under your control.

Beyond that I guess its script hacking time

Mike

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bigpup
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#14 Post by bigpup »

Try this:

Left click and hold on icon.
Move the drive icon to the place you want it on the desktop.
Right click on icon.
Select edit item.
Select locked.
Hit OK.

That should lock the drive icon to that position on desktop.
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
YaPI(any iso installer)

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mikeb
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#15 Post by mikeb »

Ah ha big pup.... a devious ploy ... never knew that one.

nice one

Mike

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g2k
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#16 Post by g2k »

bigpup wrote:Try this:

Left click and hold on icon.
Move the drive icon to the place you want it on the desktop.
Right click on icon.
Select edit item.
Select locked.
Hit OK.

That should lock the drive icon to that position on desktop.
Well, unfortunately that didn't work. I have noticed that the icon shows up in the same spot on reboot. I wonder if this is a problem with pinboard? Currently I'm running jwm if that matters?

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g2k
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#17 Post by g2k »

OK, in one of mikebs' posts he suggests it might be script hacking time.

So, I started doing some research, to possibly see if there was a script already in place that I could just "hack".

Turns out there was: the script is: /etc/eventmanager

I'm going to copy paste my eventmanager file here for future reference, and will probably make a new post on the main thread as I couldn't find much info on how to fix it.
********************************************************************************
#configuration file for 'events' in Puppy.
#this file is read/written by /usr/sbin/eventmanager.

#this parameter is read by /sbin/pup_event_frontend_d...
#For odd-numbered PUPMODE, periodic save in minutes. 0=no periodic save...
#RAMSAVEINTERVAL=30
RAMSAVEINTERVAL=0

#read by pup_event_frontend_d. major switch to kill pup_event_backend_d...
BACKENDON=true

#read by pup_event_frontend_d. major switch to turn off all hotplug desktop icon support...
HOTPLUGON=true

#read by pup_event_frontend_d. whether hotplug drive icons on desktop or a single 'drives' icon...
ICONDESK=true

#read by pup_event_frontend_d. only effecive if ICONDESK=true. show individual partitions as icons...
ICONPARTITIONS=true

#read by pup_event_frontend_d and /root/.pup_event/drive_*
#true if want an automatic 'handler' to run if a drive plugged in...
HOTPLUGNOISY=false

#read by /root/.pup_event/drive_*
#true if want 'handler' to auto-run appropriate target application...
AUTOTARGET=true

#if /sys/block/fd0 exists, show 'fd0' icon on desktop. Puppy does not detect insert/remove
#of diskettes, so this icon will just remain on desktop. Read by pup_event_frontend_d.
FD0ICON=true

#this parameter is read by /sbin/pup_event_frontend_d...
#power-off PC if mouse inactive for this many minutes (0 means never)...
POWERTIMEOUT=0

#this parameter is read by /sbin/pup_event_frontend_d...
#it activates automatic unmounting of partitions if no longer in use...
AUTOUNMOUNT=false

#091208 adjust drive icons placement, read by /sbin/pup_event_frontend_d
#TODO: GUI in /usr/sbin/eventmanager
#gap between icons and edge of screen (>0 if need to leave space for a tray)...
ICON_PLACE_EDGE_GAP=128 #orig was 64 this controls spacefrombottom
#indent from edge before icons start...
ICON_PLACE_START_GAP=256 #orig was 64 this controls spacefromleft
#spacing between successive icons (64 matches other icons on desktop)...
ICON_PLACE_SPACING=64 #56
#left, right, bottom, or top of screen...
ICON_PLACE_ORIENTATION='bottom'
************************************************************************************

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g2k
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#18 Post by g2k »

Thank you guys for the suggestions and help. This is working beautifully and is persistent even after reboot.

amigo
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#19 Post by amigo »

Why not just turn off thumbnail creation/display in rox filer options? For any system, that would seem to comply with the concept of 'least surprise' as a default option, and for a system that purports to be light-weight and responsive it should definitely be off by default.

I do like the size of the rox-generated thumbnails, but as noted, just opening a large folder can generate lots of files and take a long time to display. A file manager should manage files, right? When I want to work with graphics files then I use something more appropriate for that task than a file manager. I'm not against file managers which can show thumbnails, but it should be an optional behavior -on an opt-in basis, not opt-out.

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mikeb
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#20 Post by mikeb »

I altered the cleanup of thumbnails to delete after 20 days... helps to avoid the slowdown with commonly used folders without piling up obsolete images such as from a camera SD card...one of those compromises.

Code: Select all

find ~/.thumbnails -mtime +20 -exec rm {} \;
.not sure if this is on this topic but hey...

g2k....Glad you hacked and achieved your aim... its an approach to persue generally

mike

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