Experimental version 4.1alpha1

Due to my slow satellite upload speed at home, today I went to the Perenjori Telecentre to upload Puppy version 4.1alpha1.

Hardly fast though. A 80MB file took about 1.5 hours, and I had a few of them. But, I don't know if the bottleneck was the Telecentre's Internet connection or Ibiblio -- maybe the latter.

Part way through, I tried to run a second instance of gFTP, to upload the kernel source to puptrix.org. However gFTP revealed yet another bug, that a second instance does not work properly.

So, I resorted to logging into the online cpanel file manager at Hostgator (host for puppylinux.com) -- but not after considerable trouble as they had changed my password (they had changed everyones password that they considered to be too weak). Anyway, I used that to upload the kernel source to puppylinux.com, and while that was happening the ibiblio upload became even slower, which indicates the bandwidth limitation is at the Telecentre end.

I was there for 5 hours! And still had one file to go, which I decided to upload from home. Well, it's uploading right now, a 91MB file, estimated time about 5-6 hours total, and 3 to go -- as long as the satellite stays in-sync that long, which is doubtful.

4.1alpha iso builds
Enough whinging. I have uploaded 'puppy-4.1alpha1-seamonkey-cutdownmodules.iso' and 'devx_401.sfs', that you can find here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/test/puppy-4.1alpha1/

The file 'puppy-4.1alpha1-seamonkey.iso' is at the time of writing still uploading. Until you see it as 95,940,608 bytes (91.5MB), it isn't fully there yet.

Puppy is a "cutdown" distro, and I have always had reservations about including all the modules. The "cutdownmodules" build has a selection that is likely to satisfy the vast majority of users, though it may need a bit of tweaking to get right. I am interested in working on this to get it as the main official Puppy build.

I have compiled the 2.6.25.4 kernel with many more modules enabled, adding about 2MB compressed, compared with the 2.6.21.7 kernel. That is the main reason the full build is 91.5MB.

Kernel source
Regarding the kernel source, I've also got all the third-party modules, plus some extra doc files, and intend to upload all of that to puptrix.org. For now, the patched kernel source and the .config file can be found here:
http://puppylinux.com/source/puppy4-kernel-2.6.25.4/

Event management
Regarding the event management in Puppy, I have started to write a web page on that, will complete and upload that tomorrow probably. For now, you can examine what has been going on in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules, rc.modules2, and /sbin/pup_eventd.
There's a lot that is preliminary -- for example, some code in pup_eventd works with JWM but it should really be generalised to work with other trays like lxpanel. Ditto for Pmount.

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Comments

Zero length "md5sum" file.
Username: GratnessGuru
puppy-4.1alpha1-seamonkey-cutdownmodules.iso.md5.txt 26-May-2008 03:16 0 < Zarro bytes. Eddie Maddox

generlized pup_eventd
Username: nfisher
"Actually it would be nice for me if the pup_eventd didn't interact with X-windows at all, reason being that Grafpup is multi-user and anything it requests to be put into the tray, or programs it launches, will be run as root even if the user who is logged in is not root. But I have resigned myself to the fact that I may have to do a lot of re-writing to separate the code into two daemons, a backend which does things like load modules and add device nodes, possibly adding fstab entries, and a frontend which can be run with a user's session to add desktop icons when removable media is inserted, or other such functions. Anyway, my 2c. I've just been waiting to look at the code so I can get a more detailed idea of how it works now so I can possibly mimic it in my own implementation.

4.1alpha full size
Username: BarryK
"Ok, the full-size iso has uploaded. 91.5MB in 5 hours! nathan, i was tossing up whether pup_eventd should be started earlier, from rc.local0, so it doesn't have to be killed when X quits. Rob, My satellite connection [i]is[/i] broadband, ditto for the Perenjori Telecentre. There's broadband and there's broadband.... Next upload I do will be from a relative's place in Perth, lovely adsl2.

Bugs?
Username: Prit1
"Barry, Are we supposed to report bugs that we see or no? I understand that this is just a preview for developers. Anyway, just reporting what I did see. Bootup, saving session and all went smooth for me. Abiword, Gxine and all worked. Network didnt save for next session, Closing pidgin crashed X.

Problems starting
Username: veronicathecow
"Hi Barry, no joy with this version either. It sticks on booting the kernel in frugal on my intel D201GLY2 MB. Perhaps I've been stupid with my GRUB? default 0 title linux kernel (hd0,7)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=/dev/sda8 acpi=on resume=/dev/sda6 splash=silent vga=788 initrd (hd0,7)/boot/initrd.img title Puppy Linux 401 frugal rootnoverify (hd0,4) kernel /puppy401/vmlinuz pmedia=satahd psubdir=puppy401 acpi=off initrd /puppy401/initrd.gz Cheers Tony

"There's broadband and there's broadband...."
Username: GreatnessGuru
"Barry, My little farming town here has DSL-512, a vast improvement over the DSL-256 we had until three years ago! (Much higher speeds at extra cost.) I'm now downloading puppy-4.1alpha1-seamonkey.iso at ~60KB/sec, ~25 minutes total. Next year we get fiber-to-the-home. So how your Telecenters, Barry, can be so slow I can't imagine. If you wish, I think most of us would be happy if you wanted to take a couple of days to upload things sometimes. Spend your upload time working on your windpower project instead of wasting fuel and time driving and sitting around. Thank you, Eddie Maddox Inwood IA USA Pop: "875 with 365 housing units"

tftp
Username: drongo
"Barry, Busybox supports tftp. I don't know if you included it in Puppy as I'm currently on a Windows XP (work) machine and I don't know if you included everything in Busybox as you only need to include what you want. tftp uses udp NOT tcp, this means that you shouldn't get slow speeds over satellite as there is none of that ACK and window resizing nonsense. The downside is that if packets are corrupted/lost you get no indication. Your satellite link should have an FEC wrapper around the data. (Is it some form of DVB-S link?) This FEC wrapper should protect against a fair amount of corruption or loss. You can always verify the uploaded file by doing an md5 check on it I guess? Might be worth giving tftp a shot? No point in paying for bandwidth you can't use. If you are using Firefox as a browser you can use download acceleration by modifying the config file. Not sure if this works in Seamonkey. Basically, if you want decent bandwidth over a satellite link you either need multiple tcp sessions or one udp transfer. If the udp doesn't work reliably you could always consider wrapping it in your own FEC and stripping this off after reception. drongo

zd1211rw firmware won't load
Username: twointo1
"Dmesg shows an "error loading firmware zd1211rw - error -2 Usb wireless works in all Puppies since 2.17 including 4.0 beta 2.6.25. Tried unplugging and plugging back in but I get the same error.

ipw2200 firmware won't load
Username: kirk
"Dmesg shoes: ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection ipw2200: ipw2200-bss.fw request_firmware failed: Reason -2 ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: -2 ipw2200: failed to register network device During boot it takes about two minutes to get past trying to load this firmware.

firmware
Username: kirk
"Installed hotplug from 4.0, ipw2200 working again.

tftp
Username: wildpossum
"tftp is actually the wrong direction to take with a high latency link as it's a send-ack protocol. You don't get the streaming that you do with TCP's window. Perhaps something can be done to tweak TCP over satellite, or are there no knobs available, Barry?

Satellite upload speed
Username: BarryK
"My satellite upload speed is limited to 64K/sec, that's dialup speed, and there's nothing I can do about that. I am getting slower than that because of technical issus, but even if I tweaked it somehow it is still only going to be approaching 64K/sec. See this url: http://bbnet.com.au/pages/residential/regional/satellitebb.asp I'm only paying AU 39.95, I would have to go up to 79.95 to double the speed. Perenjori Telecentre is on a wireless connection: http://bbnet.com.au/pages/residential/regional/wirelessbb.asp ...I haven't asked them which plan, but I know they have serious financial problems so I doubt that it's one of those top plans.

2.6.25.4 unstable?
Username: Jesse
"Hi BarryK, I have been having a go with 4.01alpha1 and I run into a problem when I copy the contents of devx.sfs to the /. The computer hangs, no mouse movement. I have 2 Gig ram, and the devx files are about 352Mb, so plenty of space. I boot pfix=ram. I also notice that there is a .wh. file in the 401 devx.sfs file /usr/share/idl/seamonkey-1.1.8/.wh.* I've run the testmem program, and no issues. Is it a driver or the kernel? anyone else have this issue? Regards, Jesse

Re: 2.6.25.4 unstable?
Username: GreatnessGuru
"Jesse, Yes. I have. Puppy 4.00. I thought it might be the kernel, fresh 2.6.25.0 release, you know. Haven't tried it with Puppy 4.01. Thanks, Eddie Maddox

Re: Satellite upload speed
Username: GreatnessGuru
"BarryK: "My satellite upload speed is limited to 64K/sec, that's dialup speed, ..." "BBSatLite 512kb/64kb 500MB $39.95" "List of device bandwidths" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths "ISDN Basic Rate Interface & Primary Rate Interface data 64/128 kbit/s[5] 8/16 kB/s" With various overheads and whatnot that's ~6 kBytes/sec under "good" conditions. That's ~10% what I have with DSL-512 d/l. So, puppy-4.1alpha1-seamonkey.iso 26-May-2008 09:09 91M, that took me ~25 minutes to d/l, should take you, Barry, ~250 minutes, over 4 hours, to u/l. You said it took 5 hours. That may be about as good as can be expected. Again, Barry, I think most of us would be happy for you to take one-two days now and then to upload your stuff, just so you can stay put and not have to waste time and fuel on deprecated, wireless(!) "Telecenters", as that one insists on calling itself. It's no wonder they are going broke, and soon out of business, I bet. Thanks, Eddie Maddox

Telecentres
Username: BarryK
"Most small towns in Western Australia have a Telecentre. It's not privately owned, it's a community thing, reliant on some govt grants and community input. Ours also has the Post Office and Centrelink agencies. It has the equivalent of one full-time staff member, the rest are volunteers. Perenjori is very small, that's the main reason it is borderline viable. Note, "re", not "er" as we use British spelling. Not entirely, we are gradually getting corrupted, for example I usually type "color" rather than the correct "colour". It doesn't help that I leave the US spellchecker in SeaMonkey!

Re: Telecentres
Username: GreatnessGuru
""WA Telecentre Network Home" http://telecentres.wa.gov.au/home/ "Home > Telecentre Details Telecentres in the Mid West Region" http://telecentres.wa.gov.au/telecentres/telecentrelist.asp?region=Mid%20West&listtype=region "Perenjori Telecentre ..." "Development Informatics Working Paper Series ... Paper No. 10 Themes and Issues in Telecentre Sustainability RAUL ROMAN & ROYAL D. COLLE January 2002" http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/nispacee/unpan015544.pdf "Themes and Issues in Telecentre Sustainability Raul Roman & Royal D. Colle Cornell University, Ithaca, New York ... 2002 Abstract The initiation, diffusion and adoption of the telecentre idea has been an enormously eclectic process, largely devoid of systematic research and planning. The approach has generally been one of pilot projects — trying out models to see what works to achieve a diversity of objectives. In some cases the approach has been simply entrepreneurial, with enterprising business people exploring new opportunities for profit-making. ... Often mentioned but largely undeveloped is the training associated with telecentre management, an issue that relates to all of the issues mentioned. While each of the issues deserves systematic analysis, this chapter concentrates on sustainability and training. Based on data collected from Australia and South Africa to Hungary and Canada — and from various project documents — we describe some of the strategies being used to sustain telecentres. We put this discussion especially in the context of developing nations because of the intense interest in the early 21 st century in incubating telecentres in places where individual connectivity to information access is most problematic." Thanks, Eddie Maddox

Re: Jesse, "2.6.25.4 unstable?"
Username: GreatnessGuru
"Re: 27 May 2008, 21:54 by Jesse "2.6.25.4 unstable?" I have now tried with Puppy 4.01.Alpha.1. The problem I had with the mouse hanging in X in Puppy 4.00 right after booting with the /devx_400.sfs & the kernel .sfs files is gone. No more mouse hangs. I first booted Puppy 4.01 with the /devx_401.sfs file only. No mouse hang. Then I d/l /kernel-src_401.sfs and rebooted with both .sfs files as I had with Puppy 4.00. I'm now using that Puppy 4.01 with those two files as I type this, so no more mouse hangs for me in 4.01. Thank you, Eddie Maddox

Re: Jesse, "2.6.25.4 unstable?"
Username: GreatnessGuru
"Re: Jesse, "2.6.25.4 unstable?" Disregard previous! I was using the old Puppy 4.00 kernel! I had not updated the GRUB menu file from "/boot/vmlinuz" to "/vmlinuz". Now, with the correct Puppy 4.01 kernel, my mouse Does Hang after reboot with both of those .sfs files. Eddie Maddox

Re: Jesse, "2.6.25.4 unstable?"
Username: GreatnessGuru
"A possible clue... The previous trials, and tribulations, all happened with a Full Install Boot, Puppy 4.00, then upgraded to Puppy 4.01. Just now, I went back to my main Puppy 4.01 Frugal Install Boot, and, when X came up, BootMgr asked about those two .sfs files! What? Those two .sfs files, devx and kernel for 4.01, are at sda1:/...sfs, while this Frugal Install is at sda1:/puppy401 . So why would BootMgr be asking about files outside the /puppy401 directory it is booting from during this Frugal Session? Anyway, I Canceled BootMgr. But, here's the thought/clue: Could the Full Boots, with those .sfs files present, be Hanging the Mouse at the point where BootMgr is suppose to be launched upon discovering those .sfs files there? I am clueless about how this is all suppose to work with adding extra .sfs files. Hanging the Mouse in Full Boot mode must be a Bug, though, I reckon. Thank you, Eddie Maddox

Tags: puppy