Puppies 4.31.1 Puppy linux 4.30 Plus fixes and FireFox 3.5.3

[James C]

Bored again so I grabbed my old 501 mhz AMD K-6 off the shelf to try out Puppies 4.31.1 running live.I was surprised that such a new kernel even booted but no problem.

Firefox works pretty well, no crashes, but scrolling and flash performance are not the greatest.....not horrible but not great either.

Hard to find anything up-to-date that will work on this thing....presently running a severely nlited XP and Puppy 3.01.

Now, on to 214 X11.....

Oh, 501 mhz, 384 mb ram w/ 960 mb swap.......

[mikeb]

Hmm sludgy firefox 3.5 scrolling on 4 and random crashes with flashplayer varying from machine to machine. SInce other causes have been gradually eliminated I'm again looking at xorg...certainly if behaviour varies from graphics driver to graphics driver that may well explain the variety of instability....your gut feeling is that something has to be done with xorg but what??. The most stable boxes are using the generic vesa driver under xorg..hmm.
Indeed one box was crashing every 2 minutes on you tube so I went back to flashplayer 7.
Just my observations.

Well take it easy and hot lemon/ginger/honey is a good one

mike

ps...one setup never crashes....
puppy 2.02. regression, standard apart from updated glibc(was ok before) rage128 ati card, pentium 3 , firefox 1.5 , flash 9...a conundrum

[panzerpuppy]

Looks like PCs with ATI cards (Rage, Radeon, RadeonHD) have no problems with Firefox 3.x

[ttuuxxx]

I'm thinking that 4 series might need a new xorg compile with extra features/drivers include, something like 2.14X/R have plus a few more.
I won't be doing it, I would rather focus on 2.20 and wait for series 5 to come alive, Dpup was the closest for FF3.5 to run as smooth as 2.14X on my pc out of the box. So I bet that X-server has few more modules than 4.31.1 does.
ttuuxxx

[mikeb]

Looks like PCs with ATI cards (Rage, Radeon, RadeonHD) have no problems with Firefox 3.x

Having read about some of adobe's dubious approaches to handing graphic cards this selective performance comes as no surprise...not to mention other hidden antics in the flashplayer.
Indeed the changelogs mention various crash scenerios even on windows.

They should have stuck to printing

regards

mike

[davesurrey]

Just to further confirm what has been suggested above, I've experienced image rendering problems with FF3.5 on both Pup431.1 and ttuuxxx's 214X series on a few sites. This is on my test PC using nvidia graphics cards (tried 2 of them.) and xorg.

But when I tried using xvesa just now the problem disappears.

Also 431.1 works just fine on another PC using a Radeon ATI card under xorg.

FWIW, HTH
Dave

[ttuuxxx]

That means Dave probably for 2.20 I'll have to compile X-server with extra features, There's noway that I'm going to drop Firefox 2-3.5 since I finally figured out what makes it runs smoothly on my pc for the first time in 4 series. The only issue are which extras are needed, probably just a trial and error until I get it right on 2.20 and then I could drop the older X-server, I'll start on it probably during the end of the weekend, Still sick as a dog. What a nasty cold I have.
ttuuxxx

[dejan555]

Hey ttuuxxx finally downloaded your iso to try out, I got one with standard Xserver, I have ATI Radeon 9250, no firefox crashes here, flash sites work too but maybe not optimum overall like in your 2.x series, there's a bit of slowdown.

Now goes my usual whining about hiawatha, pplog says 403 forbiden when I try to start it, haven't tested yet if it works for others as webserver but I see it's bind to 127.0.0.1 interface in config

I really like how you configure firefox with puppy links on toolbar and simple mail and google homepage, that's so cool, since I start using dpup with your ff package I barely use seamonkey.

Hope you get better soon, beat that cold...

[davesurrey]

Yes ttuuxxx I agree and I definitely wouldn't want you to drop FF3.5. Just trying to give you guys some confirmation to help pin point what might need to be done.

Another bit of the jigsaw...I just downloaded dpup476j on the PC that gives some rendering trouble with 214X and 431.1 and all was well with FF. So whatever they use in dpup seems to work.
HTH

Get well
Dave

[scsijon]

Firstly, I must say, Great Version Ttuuxxx, by the look if things and it seems to be fairly stable at last (knock wood).

However a question

If I would like a xvesa only version, what is the loss, both in size and what apps will no longer work? And would you please consider building one.

I have boxes I look after that I doubt will ever want xorg due to their limitations and i'd like to update them from 2.16.1. plus a few patches and pet's.

thanks
scsijon
ps do you have a thread for your 2.20 posted somewhere?

[James C]

About Firefox:

In my 430 install I have Wolf Pup's FF 3.5.3 and it is solid, no problems at all.Scrolling, Flash and streaming video all work great.

I have ttuuxxx's FF 3.5.3 in Dpup, 2.14 X 2.20 and 4.31 and no real problems on any of those either. These results are with onboard Intel graphics and xorg.

There is some kind of variable, we just need to find it.

[Gedrean]

Hey ttuuxxx, love this version, grabbed it after about 10 minutes of playing around on 430 official, replaced my frugals with these, and loving it. So far only had to install 2 (!) PETs, one game and one Pidgin, and think this is so far the best puppy experience yet.

Only problem I had was, and not sure if this is with yours or with puppy 430 in general, that Aqualung would never actually open with a file I clicked on, I had to afterwards drag it in there.
Also the Aqualung script, when I read it, seemed horribly inefficient. Kill the other processes, then relaunch, with the argument? Not too elegant either.

So I had about 5 hours of editing, finding that behaviors would change from minute to minute (probably my corrupted computer somehow), and agonizing over the Aqualung command line options and their strange intricacies (sometimes they will behave as advertised, ONLY if other arguments exist) but here's what I've done:

I've managed to make the default behavior for Aqualung to Enqueue (add to playlist without clearing rest of it), caused it to only ever open ONE process and not need to kill others, and set it up so that there's a right-click for directories to enqueue the whole directory and contents in as well! (Great for my huge music directory!)

I've got three files I'll paste in code, they're very short, and I'll detail what I did (something I wish others would do, as bash scripts are incredibly hard to read!)

First, aqualung launcher script, located in /usr/bin :

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
exec aqualung2 --session=0 -E /dev/null "$@"

--session=0 tells it to do remote cue functions (according to the aqualung usage text) with session #0, which is either the first one already opened (and in this case the only) or the one which is opening now if no other session exists.
If you'll note, especially ingenious, it attempts to Enqueue /dev/null, which will fail out with an error that it is unable to open that file ... this is required so that the -session=0 will actually do anything other than opening a new session.
-E tells it to enqueue, and then it adds the remainder of any files. I spent a good amount of time making it add files with unicode/utf-8 chars, and spaces, and goofy characters, and it all works!

Next, defaultaudioplayer script, located /usr/local/bin, and as an added bonus this is the same code for the Add to Audiolung Queue script located in ~/.config/rox.sourceforge.net/OpenWith/.inode_directory :

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
exec aqualung "$@"

Of course, aqualung2 is the name of the aqualung app itself, sitting in /usr/bin.

Thought I might share these and see what people (you, others?) think, and maybe contribute a bit more than requests to the whole puppy thing.

[ttuuxxx]

Thought I might share these and see what people (you, others?) think, and maybe contribute a bit more than requests to the whole puppy thing.

One question with the way you described above what happens with streamtuner? when you select one station and then select another?
Does it work, does it open multiple windows, does it automatically start like it should?, BMP works the best with streamtuner to function as a united unit.
ttuuxxx

[timremy]

hello

real player 11 will not unload.

any help.

thank you

timremy

[T_Hobbit]

I feel network wizard very unprecise in Puppy430/Puppies43x. Sometimes it sees the my network, sometimes not. Never starts my lan after reboot.
And this topic is too long to look for a solution.
Help please!
And please start a new topic for next release!!!

[Gedrean]

Thought I might share these and see what people (you, others?) think, and maybe contribute a bit more than requests to the whole puppy thing.

One question with the way you described above what happens with streamtuner? when you select one station and then select another?
Does it work, does it open multiple windows, does it automatically start like it should?, BMP works the best with streamtuner to function as a united unit.
ttuuxxx

I honestly did not know that streamtuner called defaultaudioplayer - I thought it was its own audio player. One sec, I'll test...

It enqueues it to the playlist at the bottom. It does not automatically start playing, but this is because of the /dev/null there - if the --play tag is inserted it tries to play dev null, fails, and stops playing.

So, here's the solution, a tiny tiny rewrite to the aqualung script:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
exec aqualung2 --session=0 --enqueue "$@" /dev/null

This way, if --play is not tagged in, any files added through rox or sakura/rxvt are added in without disrupting current play, if any...
and if --play is tagged in, the stream or file is added in at the end of the queue but started automatically!
All behaves as desired I think.

So, use that script instead of my original, and in streamtuner make the commands for both:

Code: Select all

aqualung --play %q

And that'll cause it to work right!

EDIT: Crap no...
Turns out that Streamtuner creates a temp M3U file. Aqualung, when passed an M3U file, will make that its playlist or append it to its playlist - but since an M3U can have multiple entries and Aqualung doesn't assume if it only has one or not, --play makes no difference.

The code changes are still good to make sure other things play if triggered in other ways, so they should still be used, but Streamtuner does NOT force Aqualung to play on load. I can imagine if someone wrote a script to parse an M3U like streamtuner's and then passed aqualung the individual URL with --play it would work...
Most of the streamtuner m3u's only seem to have one URL - for those that have two they could both be parsed together, but the first would play.

To be honest that's a LITTLE beyond my scope of bash skillz, but it would require that the file be opened, parsed for the M3U syntax, then run through line by line to grab each URL, put them together in a string separated by spaces, pass to aqualung as:

Code: Select all

aqualung --play <url1> <url2> ... <urln>

For each of the URLs to N urls in the file. That will enqueue all the URLs and begin playing #1.

Good luck on that whoever takes it.

[DaveS]

Got this working wonderfully well now and its brilliant Ttuuxxx. Not one single Firefox problem, scrolls fast, plays video full screen. Open Office loads pretty quick and renders nicely. Ttcorefonts now working (had to do a new Pupsave). Remaster was very fast using dual-core abilities. This is one great Pup... thanks a million.
ps. ttcorefonts/Hpliplite/Java/Pwidgets/Main driver set, 157MB re-master, not too shabby

[T_Hobbit]

Network problem solved by running network wizard old version's.
Trying it right now.

[timremy]

hello

i got real player 11 to unload and play. i had to go to a

realplayer-11.pet i saved from puppylinux.ca.

no big deal, i guess. aqualung and streamtuner are very nice.

sorta preference i guess.

but puppy linux is still an outstanding operating system and

my salute goes to all those envolved. sometimes our tempers

flare up, but that's life.

timremy

[arslan]

Hi everybody,

thank you very much ttuuxxx for this great version, I am
really enjoying it! However, I have one problem:

Yesterday I put 4.31.1 (old X.org, if that is pertinent to this case)
instead of 4.1 Frugal Instal on a Dell Latitude D600;
when I try to use ndiswrapper to load the win driver for my
AirLive WiFi USB, everything goes well until I select the needed
driver. Then comes the message:

rt2870: driver installed

I hit OK, and then I get:

Loading ndiswrapper failed with the following message:
FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found.
Maybe try a different driver.

I tried both old and new verrsions of Network Setup Wizzard, no difference.

In the earlier version I had no such problem. Any ideas?

Cheers!