Wary Puppy 5.1.2

I was thinking of this release as a bugfix release of 5.1.1, but when I started to tally the changes, I realised that there are a lot and probably I should have bumped the version to 5.2!

Very briefly, a statement about this release:

Wary 5.1.2 is the latest of the Wary-series of Puppy Linux that focuses on supporting older hardware. The emphasis is on incremental improvements and bug fixes rather than quantum changes, and 5.1.2 has many bugfixes, improvements and upgrades relative to 5.1.1, many more than you might expect from a sub-minor version increment. Built from the latest Woof, there are major improvements with hardware detection, some new helpful system-level GUIs, and 'fido' non-root user account is introduced (for experimenters only at this stage).

Full release announcement and release notes:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/wary-5.1.2/release-Wary-5.1.2.htm

Download from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/wary-5.1.2/

Note, Wary 5.1.2 has an old SeaMonkey 1.1.18, with an excellent collection of addons especially selected for those with slow and/or limited Internet connection (http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201104/sm-1118-plus-addons.html). However, Firefox 4.0.1 is available as a PET package, and SeaMonkey 2.1 will be made available as a PET as soon as 2.1 is officially released. However, these latest browsers are resource hogs, maybe not the best choice for slow and RAM-limited systems.

Due to time constraint, I have not come up with a brilliant new theme -- it looks much the same as the theme in earlier releases of Wary.

Feedback on the Puppy Forum can be posted here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=526968#526968

Read about the concept of Wary here:
http://bkhome.org/wary/

If you want to read about earlier releases of Wary:
5.1.1: http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201102/wary-puppy-511-released.html
5.1: http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201102/wary-puppy-51-final.html
5.0 (the first Wary): http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201012/wary-puppy-50-released.html

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Comments

JWM bug
Username: DaveS
Barry, I have not tested this with Wary, but there is a fearsome bug in JWM when using the latest Mozilla browsers, Firefox 4.*/5.* and Seamonkey 2.1*. Use the F11 toggle to enter full screen mode with one of these browsers in JWM, and there is no way back... stuck in full screen forever, even after re-boot :( I wonder if Wary is the same. Using other window managers seems ok.

Wary
Username: Mark.S
"Thanks for your continued support of Wary. Not everyone can or wants to run the latest hardware, and its nice to know there is still a linux distribution that can bring older hardware back to life. Also a big thumbs up for you rent dpup build, which i recently downloaded. As a longtime debian user this is a nice mix

Xvesa disable trackpad tapping
Username: broomdodger
"Is there a way to disable trackpad tapping without using the Xorg drivers? I can disable trackpad tapping if I use Xorg but... This old laptop works better with Xvesa, trying to disable trackpad tapping returns this message: "Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?" -Bill

separate synaptics from xorg
Username: broomdodger
"This trackpad is driving me nuts. It seems the synaptics driver is some how connected to xorg. /usr/X11R7/lib/xorg/modules/input/synaptics_drv.so /usr/X11R7/lib/xorg/modules/input/synaptics_drv.la Can it be separated? Can disable trackpad tapping be added to: Menu > Desktop > pupX set properties of X

Mr
Username: corianspirit
"Barry, I am using Puppy 5.25. The no HD problem is still there. I tried instant update 001 but it does not solve the problem. Please help.

Re no HD problem
Username: BarryK
"Lucid Puppy 5.2.5 is not built from latest Woof, it does not have the "no HD problem" fix. You need to post to the Lucid 5.2.5 feedback thread on the Puppy Forum.

Easy wifi connection
Username: cthisbear
" BK...you have excelled yourself. WPA2-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 with Pre-Shared Key) working on my daughter's Acer Aspire 3620 with XP and also on an Acer Aspire 4710Z with the dreaded Vista. I really wasn't expecting such an easy connection. Fantastic...Funtastic. //// Next to test is >> Acer Netbook >> eMachines eM350-21G16i ...with XP. ///// And I like this Seamonkey..older version. Regards....Chris.

Acer Netbook works
Username: cthisbear
" Acer Netbook >> eMachines eM350-21G16i ... Working like a champ. ////// And this Wary has the best sound of any Puppy ever...especially noticeable on this Netbook. I adjusted the sound in PMusic under >> File>>> Retrovol and also the Mixer was there. Must try this on a mates EeePc Netbook. Really great work Barry.. Thanks ...Chris.

Boot from USB optical drive
Username: BarryK
"technoSLB, I have tested booting from an external USB optical drive plenty of times, on 4-5 different computers, no problem. So, I don't know why you are having a problem. Note, can't test now though, as my USB optical drive was one of the items taken when my house was burgled recently.

Booting from USB CD
Username: Donnie S.
"I am having trouble with USB CD booting as well. Typically I enter this string at the boot prompt, but it isn't working: puppy PMEDIA=usbcd

Re CD
Username: BarryK
"Donnie S., You shouldn't have to enter anything at the boot prompt. Yes, the filenames are truncated in Windows, a file on the CD, README.HTM, explains that.

no HD problem etc
Username: corianspirit
"Barry, I have switched from Lupu 5.2.5 to Wary 5.1.2 to avoid "no HD" problem. Now, I can boot without HD. However, if later on I install a HD, Wary won't boot, complaining cannot find puppy_wary_5.1.2.sfs. But, after rebooting a few times, Wary is able to figure out where the file is and able to boot normally. But, if I take out the hd again, Wary cannot find the file again and need to reboot a few times again. I believe that Wary follow the fsckme.flg and if the file is not found according to fsckme.flg, Wary will look somewhere else only after a few reboot. Also, FYI, Wary is not as resilient as Puppy 5.2.5. I tried Wary on different computers with different video system. In some computers, Xorg will kick in. In others, Xorg will not kick in and the computer hangs. I hope this info is useful. GBU

Optical drive
Username: TenochSLB.
"I checked the file names on my live cd and the they are correct. I do not think is the windows problem stated on the previous posts.

Thank you for a great OS
Username: Vanquishedangel
"I just wanted to say thank you for a great distro and your time in it. I am using this on a compaq armada m300, 600mhz pIII processor, 320 mg's ram and a 4 gig hd. This is the only still active distro that worked on this computer with its low specs and I still have room on my hd to boot. It also has 256mb of swap and 2.7gigs free space. I have an ati rage pro LT in it that has 4mb vram. that may be pertinent to the fact that the desktop wall paper crashes and it shows icons on a white screen. no biggy just letting people know. Also it can't run xorg either, it runs xvesa but that may be expected. Other than a few issues (I am used to Ubuntu) on my part I love this version, and thank you for having it. It has saved a very poor person from having to buy andother laptop to to their college work in.

Tags: wary