Rapid Pup V2 Released 1st May 2015 64-bit

[ETP]

Rapid Pup V2 Released 1st May 2015
(Please read the first two posts in this thread for background information)

Revised Slideshow:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... slide=id.p

Main Changes since V1:

• JWM & radky’s FbBox-2.0 (Switch between them)
• Custom GTK & JWM themes
• google-chrome-stable_current_amd64|Access the Internet - version: 42.0.2311.135 (Issued 28th April)
• Thunderbird 31.6.0 (Release channel)
• Revised utility & custom pets

Where to obtain the files, installation and setup procedures:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... sp=sharing

Final Thoughts & FAQ:

1. What is a hybrid ISO?
A small modification to a normal ISO that allows it to be written to optical media, SD cards or USB sticks.
Many modern laptops/netbooks are not fitted with optical drives but ISOs can still be used in this manner.

2. Why install to a HD/SSD partition but boot from a small hybrid ISO on a card or stick?
Best speed is obtained when an OS is installed to a partition on a HD or SSD.
Many people do not wish to change their NT (Windows) or existing Linux boot loaders in any way and this method avoids having to do so.
Lots of existing hardware can be problematic when it comes to booting from cards or sticks which contain other types of boot images but 99%
are happy to boot from a hybrid ISO when placed on a card or stick.
Placing the hybrid boot ISO on optical media or a stick is simple & takes less than 10 seconds.
Shrinking an existing Windows data partition in order to create a suitable 10 GB Linux partition requires care and is covered in the install notes.
If you are not confident with doing that do not try this Pup.

Rather than an xz compressed .img file V2 is provided as a larger 543MB tar.gz file. This is a trade off to enable a simple install.
It is not too bad considering the extras that it now includes.
In addition to that file (rapidpupv2.tar.gz) the appropriate 4MB hybrid boot ISO for the target partition must be downloaded and installed to a card, stick or optical media.

Rapid Alert has been turned on & will remain so for 72 hours.

[johnywhy]

Best speed is obtained when an OS is installed to a partition on a HD or SSD.
Many people do not wish to change their NT (Windows) or existing Linux boot loaders in any way and this method avoids having to do so.
Lots of existing hardware can be problematic when it comes to booting from cards or sticks which contain other types of boot images but 99%
are happy to boot from a hybrid ISO when placed on a card or stick.

those all sound like excellent reasons. Thx for experimenting with new approaches, that's what keeps puppy progressing. Maybe ALL puppies should support hybrid install (as an option

question, is it possible to install Rapid with any of these non-hybrid ways I install puppy?

- run completely from the flash drive. (can i install iso to flash drive with isobooter?)

- burn iso to CD/DVD (using standard dvd burner tool?)

- frugal hard-disk install (by manually copying files to hard disk and run grub4dos?) Wouldn't this provide your same speed benefit?

thx!

[ETP]

Hi johnwhy,

- run completely from the flash drive. (can i install iso to flash drive with isobooter?)

Yes if I were to create a suitable img file that could be written to a flash drive.
That would however defeat the Pup’s primary purpose i.e. speed both in booting &
live running.

- burn iso to CD/DVD (using standard dvd burner tool?)

No, there is no intent to produce a normal ISO. The 4MB hybrid boot ISO can be burnt to a CDR or DVD.

- frugal hard-disk install (by manually copying files to hard disk and run grub4dos?) Wouldn't this provide your same speed benefit?

Possibly, if a copy of the kernel was placed on a partition type recognised by grub4dos.
It is the kernel that is able to read an f2fs partition. Perhaps a grub4dos expert could jump in here?
A syslinux boot from the 16MB boot utility image when placed on a stick or card is possible.
Once again we come back to boot speed as isolinux (as used in the hybrid boot ISOs) provides the fastest boot.

[johnywhy]

- run completely from the flash drive. (can i install iso to flash drive with isobooter?)

Yes if I were to create a suitable img file that could be written to a flash drive.

prolly my ignorance here, but isobooter does not require an img file (that i know of), you just put the .iso file on the flash drive.
http://www.bit.ly/puppy-isobooter

- frugal hard-disk install (by manually copying files to hard disk and run grub4dos?) Wouldn't this provide your same speed benefit?

It is the kernel that is able to read an f2fs partition. ...
A syslinux boot from the 16MB boot utility image when placed on a stick or card is possible.
Once again we come back to boot speed as isolinux (as used in the hybrid boot ISOs) provides the fastest boot.

ok then, a non-grub4dos hard disk install?
you're saying a flash drive boot for rapidpup will be faster than any kind of hard disk boot?

i am also thinking about the convenience of booting off hard disk, without worrying about losing/misplacing a flash drive.

thx!

[ETP]

Hi johnywhy,

If you have a hard disk as opposed to an SSD, Isolinux is so lightweight that a USB2 flash drive would IMHO be quicker to boot.

If you are familiar with grub4dos syntax you could try both methods.

I would suggest however trying the recommended hybrid boot ISO first though as you have yet to even try this Pup and it may not be to your liking.

[ETP]

Google Chrome:

Version 43.0.2357.65 (64-bit) was released today.
Please use PPM to uninstall the existing version then run
"Get Latest Chrome Version" from the Internet sub-menu.
Follow the prompts and await a final invitation (White text on a blue background) to launch the above version.

Thunderbird:

Thunderbird 31.7.0 was released today.
To update Thunderbird – in T’bird click on help/about/update.

Meownplanet.net

That site which is used for "Rapid Alert" is currently out of action
and thanks to Google's spiders/bots false alerts are being generated.
If this persists I will consider switching the mechanism to mydrive.ch

You Tube:

Rapid Pup 1080p video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6w6UpRiukk

EOF

[gcmartin]

Question
Is RapidAlert-V1.pet built into the latest RapidPUP? I am not hearing anything. Should I?

[ETP]

Query re RapidAlert

Good morning gc.

A good question. In Rapid Pup V1 the alert was only an optional but recommended pet.
A service pack was issued on 16th March for anyone who had installed it. That pack
moved the trigger from Google Drive to meownplanet.net

In Rapid Pup V2 a newer version is included OOTB

Code: Select all

RapidAlert-V3|provides audible & visual alert at boot time of new pets or service packs

The change was purely cosmetic and appears in both the revised slideshow and You Tube video.

Sound:

It seems likely that you have no sound from any source and that you need to adjust the levels
of both PCM & Master in the Retrovol window. The You Tube video includes audio so you can make
the adjustments whilst playing that.

As of this morning there is still a problem with meownplanet.net which means that RapidAlert is
still falsely appearing at boot time or upon restarting X.

EDIT 22nd May 2015
Meownplanet.net is now back to normal and the false alerts have ceased.

EDIT 09th June 2015
Google Chrome:
Version 43.0.2357.124 (64-bit) was released today.
Please use PPM to uninstall the existing version then run
"Get Latest Chrome Version" from the Internet sub-menu.
Follow the prompts and await a final invitation (White text on a blue background) to launch the above version.
Rapid Alert has been turned on & will remain so for 72 hours.

EDIT 11th June 2015
Google Chrome:
Version 43.0.2357.125 (64-bit) was released today.
Rapid Alert will remain on for a further 24 hours.

[Barburo]

Thanks for this Distro! I am testing it out. Very swift and it comes well-equipped.

No problem getting it to boot using USB stick.

Thought I would try using Grub as I boot everything on this laptop through legacy Grub menu.lst file.

I copied vmlinuz from the USB to the partition (sda7 in my case) and used this entry (no initrd specified):

title Rapid Pup V2 (on /dev/sda7)
rootnoverify (hd0,6)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda7

It booted OK but I got the message:
"unable to save pinboard" to /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
Something about a read-only file system. Chrome wouldn't start either.

Any suggestions why this Grub boot method has this error?
How to fix?

B.

[ETP]

Hi Barburo,

Thanks for testing.Try the following:

Example menu entry when grub4dos is already installed in the first partition (sda1) of the hard drive.
In this example the files held in rapidpupv2.tar.gz have been extracted to partition sda7 which is formatted as f2fs.
A copy of the kernel (vmlinuz) has been placed on sda1 in /boot/rapidv2/vmlinuz

title Rapid Pup V2
root(hd0,6)
kernel (hd0,0) /boot/rapidv2/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda7 rw

[Barburo]

Thanks for the tip! Actually I simply added RW to my existing grub stastatement (its difficult to find the Grub syntax described anywhere) and that seems to fix the read/write problem.
... continuing to test it out.

[ETP]

Google Chrome:

Version 43.0.2357.130 (64-bit stable) was released yesterday.
Please use PPM to uninstall the existing version then run
"Get Latest Chrome Version" from the Internet sub-menu.
Follow the prompts and await a final invitation (White text on a blue background) to launch the above version.

Thunderbird:

Thunderbird 38.0.1 is now available.
To update Thunderbird – in T’bird click on help/about/update.

Popcorn Time:

PT is included OOTB in Rapid Pup. The movie aspect of it has recently been blocked by SPs in the UK in compliance
with a court order. Please check the legal position in your location. If you are not comfortable with its inclusion
simply use PPM to uninstall the pet.

Optional Pets:

Until recently there has been a shortage of pets for 64bit Quirky April.
Forum members xanad & don570 are however now busy creating this "Quirky/April 64bit Contributed Packages" thread.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=99789
The pets need testing but should also all work in Rapid Pup V2 which is based on BarryK’s Experimental Quirky April 7.0.4.1 x86_64 k 3.19.2

In view of the availability of these new pets Rapid Alert has been turned on & will remain so for 72 hours.

[Barburo]

I managed to find a pup that installed gkrellm no problem and it works just fine on querky / rapid pup V2. I prefer its simplicity over Conky.

I am looking for some way to add the gkrellkam camera option via a pet but cant find it anywhere on the forum.

[ETP]

Hi Barburo,

I am not familiar with Gkrellm but the attached may work.

If not, it would be best to contact the author of the pet that you found for Gkrellm.

[Barburo]

Perfect - grellkam working now.

I have been using "Desktop Appearance" to customise and when using the window widget button to choose different GTK themes for FbBox it frequently quits on me. I am not sure if it is the app, quirky, or the window manager. ctl alt backspace lets me restart xwin so just a little glitch.

Otherwise liking it alot now that I have it looking and behaving the way I like.

B

[Barburo]

... the way I like it

[ETP]

Hi Barburo,

Nice wallpaper. Your setup looks particularly suitable for laptops.
I can confirm the FbBox GTK widget button issue that you reported in your previous post and am in contact with radky.
Currently it would appear that the behaviour is provoked by any change of font away from the
original Sans/Regular/10 in the Murrine themes. Such a change causes gtk-chtheme to segfault.
Reverting back to the original font before pre-viewing/selecting another theme avoids the problem.

[ETP]

.
Chrome & Firefox:

In the following post I commented about the current issues with Google Chrome:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 259#851259
It would be nice to be able to report that the latest stable version (Version 43.0.2357.130 64-bit) has improved but sadly it has if anything got worse.

If anyone else is frustrated by these issues I recommend also installing Firefox ESR 38.01 from xanad's thread & setting it as the default browser.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=99789

The SS below shows both Chrome & Firefox icons on the Rapid Pup V2 desktop with JWM.
A full size SS can be seen here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_iVV ... G5rWDg3eE0
(Firefox theme is "Dark Fox" which suits the default JWM theme)

[Barburo]

Installed Firefox from 64 bit .pet no problems.

I have already switched to Firefox on other older puppies because of the difficulties of keeping Chrome current because there is no automatic updating.

I agree about the Chrome memory leaks etc. I have 4gig memory on this laptop and still get the occasional dramatic slowdown/freeze before it clears itself.

I like Chrome better (much easier sync) but it is much harder to keep up to date on Puppy Linux than Firefox. I guess it's just personal preference - there's not much to choose between them.

I will continue testing with both.

B

[Barburo]

After installing firefox I have begun to get this sort of thing when I restart X. I am not sure if they are related. The pattern of white-out is not always the same.
I read somewhere that Barry has had difficulties with Intel graphics and Quirky-April
Here are the details of my Setup for graphics: (it's Intel!)

Display Specifications:
• Monitor VertRefresh: 60.01 times/s
• Screen Dimensions: 1366x768 pixels (361x203 millimeters)
• Screen Depth: 24 bits (planes)

Xorg Startup Log (/var/log/Xorg.0.log):
• Xorg Driver in use: intel
• Loaded Modules: dbe dri2 extmod glx kbd mouse present synaptics
• X.Org version: 1.16.2

VGA controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a42] (rev 07)
• Kernel Driver: i915
• Memory Used: 754.42 KB
• Path: /lib/modules/3.19.2/kernel/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915.ko
• Description: Intel Graphics