(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

playdayz wrote:Updating in general Just a thought

In my experience updating *any* Linux distro is a mess, no matter Ubuntu, Mandake, even Arch. I avoid updating whenever possible, but when I do it, I am happy if the result works at all and is not totally broken. Of course, we are going to try to do better than that when we have a Lucid 5.2 to update Lucid 5.1.1.

It's my experience that when updating a distro, you get the good and bad every time, When I first updated 2.14R, let me tell you, It wasn't easy.
No other window manager would work because they changed the xdg layout and puppy scripts, man I really had to think about that one. Then updating GlibC was a first for just about any distro, Then to update the gtk backend so that newer browser would work was a very large effort since doing this all was in a directory structure and not by packages, you basically had to visualize it before doing it and crossing your fingers.
I look at it this way, Linux is fun, The more you get involved with it, The more you learn about it.
ttuuxxx

I won't do Updates any more -- my experience has been 100% bad.

The only things that I usually need to transfer are Address Book and Bookmarks.

Sure wish someone would come up with an app that searches the HDD for address books and bookmarks and offers to automatically add them to the browser and E-mail app -- that would seem to be a very valuable time-saving app.

I try to keep everything else out of the Save File.

239 fresh frugal

libmpcdec3_1.2.2-2.1ubuntu1_i386.deb needed for Aqualung

Shinobar's fix needed to run flsynclient
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 087#468087

That's about it, no other issues for me, sticking with 239 for now!

playdayz wrote:

Suddenly while browsing or something, it drops to commandline (xorg apparently dies).

Gabe, What window manager were you using? What browser? Any other details? Thanks.

JWM, Firefox 3.6.6. If this is the same kernel as lucid, that might explain the issues with the intel i8xx chipset -- I'll try booting with xforcevesa to see if that solves the problem.

@all who play files with mplayer: I truly believe you're just not seeing the jaggies, and the videos you're running through the player aren't demanding enough. Once you run a 3mbps HD video through on an atom chipset, you'll see instantly that mplayer can't do it while vlc can -- until you disable the options that were erroneously enabled by default in gnome-mplayer.

Again, the options in question are postprocessing set to maximum and de-interlace video. I'll give an explanation of what each of these mean and why they should be disabled.
- Postprocessing (PP) is applying CPU-intensive smoothening, deblocking, deringing, and other techniques to video to reduce the appearance of blocks and other encoding artifacts from old encoders at lower bitrates. Modern encoders (vp8, H.264) have built-in post-processing and do not need this; in fact, it is destructive. Also, it should be left up to the user, because postprocessing can destroy a lot of fine detail in videos in addition to making the video decode somewhat slower. That said, it's best to leave it off for the sake of speed. Users who prefer it (and aren't turned off by the "jello soup" effect of high post-processing) can turn it on themselves in the options.
- De-interlacing: when a video is split into fields for broadcast, one field (representing half the vertical frame width) is woven every-other-line with the other, which analog (CRT) TVs filter naturally, and this results in smoother motion. Some DVDs are interlaced. On a PC monitor, this can result in a less-than-desirable visual effect, because when panning or high horizontal motion occurs, "jaggies" (comb artifacts) are seen as a result of the interlace. The "de-interlace" option attempts to reverse this by blending fields together to reduce the appearance of these combs. However, the detection of what video is interlaced is broken in gnome-mplayer, and it applies this to all videos, the vast majority of which (whether downloaded, ripped, etc) are NOT interlaced. This leads to a reverse effect and can make subtle combing artifacts appear in NON-interlaced video. Some people can't notice them (I can), but one thing is for sure: the video playback speed is cut dramatically because each frame and its neighbor are processed intensively, blended, and then rendered again.

All clear now?

maxpro4u wrote:When I booted for the first time with a frugal install, it is totally in ram, right? My C drive is not mounted. Can I format the C drive and do a full install if I have the iso on a USB drive? I do not have a burner nor will the pc boot with a USB. There is no floppy drive either.

This is what I did-
boot with windows disk/create a couple of partitions/format/then install windows and use the lin'n'win method of dual boot and put puppy on a separate partition. Then boot into puppy and format the windows partition to ext3 and then do a full install.

Luci-239 got further on the z500 laptop here than on my CF-29 but still troubles.

It would only recognize the maximum and native 1400x1150 (I think that was it) got confused when I try to change it.

Also, would not recognize the wireless nic BCM5705.

dpup009 works fine.

Insidious works fine.

Notes: I was able to load the Seamonkey 2.0.10 SFS on all of them. I added the WINE 1.3.7 SFS but haven't tested it yet.

gabe I fully support your comments.

The first thing I do with each new distribution is install VLC and make it the default. gnome-player is slow and jerky and yes I have turned of deinterlacing and preprocessing.

I have been saying this for ages but obviously many are not having the same problem.

I have a video camera that takes HD videos and these are the ones that play back jerky and sometimes stop. Quite often they get out of sync as well or the video stops and the sound keeps playing.

Anyway as long as VLC works it's no biggie. It just makes the savefile a little bigger. VLC also works well with DVD.

Some time ago there was talk, I think by Barry, that it was going to be possible to uninstall default programs.

Did this ever happen?

playdayz wrote:Here are some notes of mine about issues with jwm

openoffice Present
gnome-mplayer full screen
stellarium full screen
doesn’t resize screen properly when resolution is changed

Are Joe aware of these?

playdayz wrote:

I think it might be a good idea if 'turn on thumbnails' was made default setting.

Over the months it has been about 50-50 for and against thumbnails on by default. This is a slightly interesting theoretical point maybe. The question is, should we always set default as the "lowest common denominator"? That would be thumbnails off.

Whether thumbnails default to on or off is really a machine-specific issue. On a fast machine with stacks of RAM and storage space, having them on isn't a problem. On slower machines there can be quite a slow down while they're generated and of course there's the issue of how much space the cache takes up.

Might a workable compromise be to default them to on, but have an option to turn them off appear in the Personalise Settings window with a brief mention of why users of older machines may prefer to turn them off? I know there's a risk of over-complicating that window but not everyone would think of looking in the ROX options straight away.

playdayz wrote:A similar issue is with setting mplayer to use X11 or xv video by default. xv is best for everyone who can use it, but the nv video driver seems unable to use it. so X11 is the lowest common denominator. BUT, are people now going to use X11 because they do not know to make the change in Preferences? In that case, the large majority of Lucid users would *not* be getting the best video.

As for the mplayer video output default, we have another option:
If we set it blank, means auto, we may get warning in some hardware, but works.
See my previous report:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... &start=567

First I want to say I'm happy.

With Luci-239

"""""

Because I had the horrors with the Universal Installer on >> 238
on 2 flash drives >> 235?? was the last one I used and it had problems.

In fact I thought I had scrambled one of those USBs completely.
First time in fact that it formatted the bloody thing.
And I have heaps of USBs and watch what I type.

Also can someone remind me of the 3 files that i need to upgrade
on a USB...please.

""""""""""

Now this is working...all but the Lan...on a Toshiba laptop.
Perfect boot and screeen >> 1366 x 768 ??
All good. Sound worked.

All settings as below worked on reboot after tweaking.

Series SATELLITE PRO C650

Operating System MS Windows 7 Home Premium >> Crapfesta

CPU Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T6570
(2.1GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB)
Chipset Mobile Intel GM45 Express Chipset
Memory 4096 MB (2 x 2048 MB) DDR3 SDRAM (1066 MHz)
Hard Drive 320GB 5400RPM
Display 15.6" W (1366x768 Resolution)
Display Type High-Definition
TFT Active Matrix
Optical Drive Fixed DVD+/-RW SuperMulti with Double Layer
Graphics Intel Graphics Media Accelerator GM45
Wireless Atheros 802.11 b/g/n
Network Interface Integrated Intel (10/100) TX Ethernet Controller
Webcam Yes

"""""""""

There is an Atheros wireless lan >> AR9285

that shows up...but no Lan.

In Windows 7 >>> Windows reports the same wireless.
As for the lan it shows as >> Atheros AR8152 >> ( NDIS 6.20 )

This is a friends brand new laptop that I cleaned out and fixed
before Microsoft manages to screw it up with updates and their
other cancerous sludge.

So I want to get the Lan going.
And I believe that I have to reboot >> 4 successful installation.

I know that Sir Tempe has been beavering away at this...
again thanks mate

""""

But this still needs Pwireless 2 in Luci for encryption.
I don't see it in Quickpets.
Really it should be in the release as an additional help.

I had to run the Network wizards a few times and while it was running
I opened Pwireless2...which I installed earlier..and hit Connect.

If I didn't do it this way..nothing shows up.
I had to run them all a few times together...because Pwireless 2
would give me the wrong password message...
which was not correct..as I unhid the typing whilst running it.

And isn't it remarkable...when I booted the first time
just using >> Simple Network Scan and Pwireless2
I had it up and running quite quickly.

So I didn't do a save and rebooted...
just to check before posting for the sake of consistency .....

and it took me 3 times as long,
But with a little help from Billy Connolly I got going again.
Don't you love computers.

""""""""""""""

I like the desktop default....great.
I still like the Wary one as well.
A pity someone doesn't modify it with no lettering...
and also one with Puppy 5 ..using the same fonts.

"""""""""

And I'm really pleased that ttuuxxx has come onboard.
Despite his initial reluctance.
I thought that it might be the Battle of the Titans and a
here we go again moment...but everyone has delivered.
And it shows.

This is getting really really good.
You all deserve a Canadian beer.

Droopy...I'm happy.

[url]http://www.google.com.au/search?aq=f&so ... +I'm+happy[/url]

This post a no show...have to tick >> Disable BBCode in this post
Aghhhh!

Thanks all.....Chris.

Finally success.

eMachines eM350-21G16i >> now working.
I had to fiddle as above on the Toshiba.

Install Pwireless2 .
Let the network scanner run.
Launch Pwireless 2 whilst that is also running.,
And so on as above.
I had to run it a few times but it now works.

One little Asus 900 EeePc to try now.

///////////////

" Netgear router uses a hidden wireless network.

The name is split............. and I have 15 keys

and >> WPA2-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 with Pre-Shared Key)

Acer Netbook >> eMachines eM350-21G16i "

[url]http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... &start=700[/url

This post a no show...have to tick >> Disable BBCode in this post
Again...pissing me off.
Chris.]

here the latest lxtask task manager and system monitor.
should be a default app, due to the small size and how user friendly it is:)
ttuuxxx

First I want to say I'm happy.

Good news. Keep up the good work.

Tuuxxx is that one or two programs?
I ran lxtask from the command line and it works OK and maybe could be linked with a right click from the storage or CPU icons bottom right?

Puppy Linux
Makes you Happy

ANNOUNCE:
New version Grub4DosConfig v1.6.3 is available.
As you know the boot loader is expected to be safe.
I eagerly hope you all the readers to test the new version and feed back any problem.
Please note that your feed back makes it firm and safe.
For the first time, try the floppy if your PC can use it. Or the USB flash drives.

Be caution, the BootFlash and the Grub4Dosconfig v1.6.x has an issue.
The Grub4DosConfig v1.6.3 can manage it, but anyway recommended to clean up the USB flash drive using Gparted:
1. Delete all the partition
2. Rewrite the partition table (Device >> Create Partition Table)
3. Create partitions and format.
Then apply the Grub4Dosconfig.

Visit the Grub4DosConfig topic:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=51697
Try the Grub4Dos and make a rescue:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=61348

Lobster wrote:

First I want to say I'm happy.

Good news. Keep up the good work.

Tuuxxx is that one or two programs?
I ran lxtask from the command line and it works OK and maybe could be linked with a right click from the storage or CPU icons bottom right?

Puppy Linux
Makes you Happy

yes it can, that'sthe way I have it in 2.14X:) also Its just one program, the first pet is the application and the second pet is the extra locales
ttuuxxx

1. Started afresh with Luci-239-SCSI.
(a) Using an empty 1GB Flash Drive, made a partition and formatted it ext3.

(b) Copied the Luci_239.sfs from the CD to the partition.

(c) Booted the CD. It got to the desktop OK. Re-adjusted the config settings to suit. That worked fine.
SFS file on Flash Drive not detected or used methinks.

(d) Firewallstate icon in tray showed the firewall not connected, and no connection to the internet.

(e) Ran firewall wizard. That worked OK, but firewallstate icon still showing firewall OFF, and program couldn't make it display as ON.

(f) Ran Network Wizard, but it saw NO NETWORK INTERFACE.
Tried to load a module, but NO MODULES LISTED.

(g) Rebooted, and at shut-down made a lupusave.3fs file, but once back into Luci-239, there was NO CHANGE/IMROVEMENT.

(h) What to do?

2. With regard to the Luci_239.sfs:
(a) I notice Luci doesn't detect the presence of an SFS file additional to the copy on the CD.

(b) It doesn't offer the opportunity to use the copy on the Flash Drive.

(c) Doesn't [but should] offer the opportunity to overwrite an already existing older version if updating.

(d) If you choose to copy it to the same location as the [old or new?] lupusave file, it would [but shouldn't] attempt to use the inadequate space on the partition beside the already existing Luci_239.sfs and lupusave filepair.

(e) What it aught to do is:
Detect [beside the lupusave?] and offer to overwrite, any older version SFS, or...
Detect the latest/matching version to the SFS on the CD, and inform the user this has been found and will be used.

Great stuff this 239.

I just spent 15 minutes setting it up the way I like it. Just took my time, not trying to rush anything. Yesterday I spent 4 hours setting up a WinXP box for work, still not done.

I frickin love Puppy.

gabe,
Yes, I plan to use your settings on deinterlace and postprocessing. I should have been more specific. Thank you very much, especially for the good explanations.

Now, What do you know about setting the default video? If I set xv, then some cards using the nv driver don't work. If I set X11 then many people are not getting the best video. If I leave it blank I think I get an error (I need to recheck that). I am glad you are helping us and we definitely appreciate it Thanks again, Larry

JWM, Firefox 3.6.6.

Concerning crashes. could you use a different browser and see if that helps. Firefox 4 beta 7 is in LupuNews and Quickpet..
------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for the mplayer video output default, we have another option:
If we set it blank, means auto, we may get warning in some hardware, but works.

Good point shinobar, but I just really hate for users to see error messages. I see it also if I don't set the video, plus we have gotten at least one report, which I am thinking means many people would see it.
.