shutdownconfig: windows improved
At the first shutdown, when creating a save-file, I already removed the 'OK' button from the "please wait" window, I think I announced that yesterday.However, that "please wait" window goes away too soon, leaving nothing on the desktop and the user wondering what is going to happen next, if anything. I have extended the duration of that window.
There is another "please wait" window when copying .sfs files from CD to HD, which also had a OK button. Now removed.
Woof commit:
http://bkhome.org/fossil/woof2.cgi/info/da24b32f4e
Posted on 25 May 2013, 20:43 - Category: Woof - No comments
Precise: the new Wary?
I am seriously thinking of retiring both Wary and Racy.The reason is, Precise Puppy actually works as-well, even better, than Wary or Racy on old hardware. My rationale...
When I sold my house at Perenjori, well over a year ago, I was forced to be ruthless, and threw out a lot of "stuff", including some old PCs and various parts. The desktop PCs that I kept went into storage in a relative's garage and I have only recently been getting them out and setting them up.
I now have seven desktop PCs and three laptops. The oldest PC has a Cyrix 6x86 CPU, and unfortunately I am unable to set it up as I no longer have one of those old keyboards with the large round plug -- I will keep a watch out for one at markets, etc.
I have tested Precise 5.6 on two laptops and six desktop PCs, and in every case the automatic startup to desktop worked correctly, with the correct Xorg driver. This is excellent.
In every case, the PCs powers down, again excellent.
The only downside is SeaMonkey. The oldest PC I tested is a Compaq Presario, with Intel Celeron Coppermine 565MHz CPU, 128MB RAM, and Intel 82810E DC-133 video.
After having created a save-file, and note the hard drive has a 500MB swap partition, I started SeaMonkey ...and waited... it took 3 minutes to startup.
Other apps startup in a reasonable time, slow, but this is only a 565MHz CPU. But, SM is a resource hog and just doesn't want to work in only 128MB of RAM. Yes, it does use the swap partition, and the hard drive is very busy.
So, the minimum specification for Precise Puppy 5.6, as is, with SeaMonkey:
i586 CPU
256MB RAM
pre-PCI (isa/eisa) expansion bus not supported
pre-USB PCs not supported
On that basis, is Precise a "Wary replacement"? Are there many PCs still in use out there, below those specs?
If we build a Precise with some other web browser, say Opera or a much older version of SeaMonkey, with say Sylpheed for mail & news, then the above spec could be reduced to 128MB RAM.
But then, are there many PCs out there that are PCI (which replaced the ISA expansion bus) and have less than 128MB?
I know there are some transition motherboards with both ISA and PCI slots, which are not supported by Precise.
The thing is, time is marching on, and those old pre-PCI and pre-USB PCs are disappearing. Maybe we have reached the point where we can relegate them to history?
If so, then Wary can be retired. Rerwin has done a good job with compiling analog (dialup) modem drivers for the 3.2.44 kernel in Precise, covering almost as many modems as does Wary.
Then the great advantage of automatic startup to desktop makes Precise very attractive.
Any thoughts on this are welcome!
Posted on 25 May 2013, 18:04 - Category: Puppy - 13 Comments
Fix for "partial black screen"?
This is a problem that we have had for a very long time. At very first bootup, the tray is there, and applications can be launched, but the desktop icons and wallpaper are missing -- only a black screen.The cause of this is ROX-Filer failing to start. ROX-Filer is not just a file manager, it also handles the desktop icons, including the drive icons, and the background wallpaper. So, ROX is almost a complete desktop environment on it's own, but we use JWM window manager to handle the tray-bar.
I have many times tried to understand why ROX fails to startup, and have implemented various attempts to fix it.
This morning I was getting some PCs out of the garage and setting them up. One of them gave this "partial black screen" problem, booting Precise 5.6.
So, this was an opportunity to rethink the problem.
I think that the cause of the crash is /sbin/pup_event_frontend_d attempting to "talk" to ROX before it is fully running. I have reasoned about this before, and put in a delay before pup_event_frontend_d "talks" to ROX -- which did work with some PCs.
Still, however, the problem sometimes does occur, as in my case today.
I have experimented with another fix, launching pup_event_frontend_d later from the /root/.xinitrd script.
I built a CD, booted up the PC that had exhibited the problem, got a normal desktop. Booted four more times (twice a warm reboot, twice a cold start), all pristine first-boots, consistently got the full desktop.
I am not saying that this is finally, definitely, fixed, but it is looking good.
Woof commit:
http://bkhome.org/fossil/woof2.cgi/info/cb90a2adde
Posted on 25 May 2013, 17:32 - Category: Woof - 4 Comments
"Error" in language packs
I was looking in robwoj44's Polish language pack, and noticed an "error". Some other language packs may also have this.L18L provided a patch to MoManager on May 05, 2013, that handles the XML files /usr/local/apps/*/AppInfo.xml.
The modification is in /usr/sbin/momanager and /usr/share/doc/langpack-template/pinstall.sh.
When a PET is created in MoManager, all of those AppInfo.xml files get renamed to AppInfo.xml.in.
When the PET is installed by a user, the pinstall.sh post-install script extracts the language information (only) from the AppInfo.xml.in files and inserts it into the AppInfo.xml files.
Thus the latest AppInfo.xml files are not overwritten by those in the PET.
This is a very important improvement. Language maintainers, please ensure that all the AppInfo.xml files are renamed to AppInfo.xml.in.
Posted on 25 May 2013, 7:11 - Category: Puppy - 3 Comments
Polish langpack updated
robwoj44 (Robert), the maintainer of the Polish language pack, has advised me of a new release.Uploaded (5.3M):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-noarch/langpack_pl-20130524.pet
Posted on 25 May 2013, 6:47 - Category: Puppy - No comments
xorgwizard: view xorg.conf files
This is a useful tweak for the new Xorg Wizard...You can bring up a window to choose an earlier, working, xorg.conf file, which is a feature that has been requested many times. This feature already exists in Precise 5.6.
However, there was no way to see the content of those files, so you would have to remember the name of a backed-up xorg.conf that you might have created earlier. If you have created a few of them (and also the Wizard creates a backup everytime you run it), then it is confusing which one to choose.
In the window that lists the backup files and asks you to choose one, I have now added a <View> button, so any of the files can be viewed in a text editor (mp), prior to selecting one for use.
Woof commit:
http://bkhome.org/fossil/woof2.cgi/info/acfd630477
Posted on 24 May 2013, 22:07 - Category: Woof - No comments
Russian langpack updated
rodin.s is the maintainer of the Russian (ru) language pack for Puppy.I have uploaded the latest PET package (2.3M):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-noarch/langpack_ru-20130524.pet
Posted on 24 May 2013, 19:31 - Category: Puppy - No comments
nouveau and nvidia
Users of Precise 5.6 have been reporting a bit of an issue after installing the proprietary NVIDIA Xorg driver.It works ok, but the Xorg Wizard doesn't handle it very gracefully. There are a couple of problems:
1.
The Wizard only offered nouveau, vesa and modesetting after the proprietary NVIDIA driver had been installed (under certain circumstances).
2.
The proprietary installer offers to create /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-installer-disable-nouveau.conf, but this can conflict with the pre-existing /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau.conf.
Number 1 is fixed, Woof commit:
http://bkhome.org/fossil/woof2.cgi/info/a0bd2bce27
Number 2 is fixed, Woof commit:
http://bkhome.org/fossil/woof2.cgi/info/5b350906e7
The second commit actually deletes /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-installer-disable-nouveau.conf.
If anyone wantS to test the latest /usr/sbin/xorgwizard-cli, grab it from here (there is a download button after anonymous login):
http://bkhome.org/fossil/woof2.cgi/artifact/ebc28c25ebeab738a9b600a296b7ff6c46dc06a0
Posted on 23 May 2013, 22:13 - Category: Woof - 3 Comments
Full-HD install: devx bug
Forum member eps reported missing desktop drive icons for a Precise 5.6 full hard drive installation.So, I did a test install, but my drive icons are OK.
However, I discovered something else. When I installed the 'devx' SFS file, by opening it then copying it's contents to '/', I found some scripts became broken, 'quicksetup' for example.
This is because the Precise devx has the 'dash' package, with /bin/sh a symlink to /bin/dash.
For a frugal installation, this is no problem, as the devx SFS is underneath the main Puppy SFS.
However, in a full installation there are no SFS layers, and /bin/sh is a symlink to dash, whereas it should be a symlink to bash.
dash breaks some of our scripts!
I have put a fix into Woof for this, however for anyone with the current, and earlier versions, of Precise, maybe Raring also, if you have a full-HD installation, after installing the devx SFS, do this:
# ln -snf bash /bin/sh
Woof commit:
http://bkhome.org/fossil/woof2.cgi/info/7b1b274bfc
Posted on 23 May 2013, 7:32 - Category: Woof - No comments
First shutdown, final dlg, OK removed
At first shutdown, when creating a save-file, the final dialog window has text something like:...please wait (no need to click the OK button)...
Both the OK button and the message in brackets are not needed.
I didn't remove the OK button before, because the script works in both text-mode (using 'dialog') and when X running (using 'pupdialog'), and 'dialog' does not have an option of a message-box window without an OK button. 'pupdialog' is a script I wrote that behaves like 'dialog'.
I have edited /usr/sbin/shutdownconfig to display a final window without an OK button, and without that extra text in brackets. For the case of X running.
Woof commit:
http://bkhome.org/fossil/woof2.cgi/info/6b681af9f1
Posted on 22 May 2013, 5:18 - Category: Woof - 1 Comment