Precise Puppy 5.2.69 (beta3)

Precise Puppy beta2 was released on June 6, 2012, see blog announcement:
http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201206/precise-puppy-5260-beta2.html

I was involved in various other things for awhile, now back on developing the x86 Precise Puppy. Version 5.2.69 (beta3) is now available.

Download from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/test/precise-5.2.69/

Beta3 has the 3.2.28 kernel, PAE-enabled. See blog post:
http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201208/linux-kernel-3228.html

Note, I am thinking of releasing Precise Puppy final with this kernel, plus another build with a non-PAE kernel. The latter will suit some older CPUs, and I will also set the default for Radeon video to non-KMS, and build the SFS with gzip compression (rather than xz), again to suit older hardware.

Beta3 has been built from Ubuntu Precise Pangolin 12.04.1 DEBs, plus many PETs that we have compiled ourselves. That is, I have used the latest DEBs from the recently-released Ubuntu Precise Pangolin upgrade (or Service Pack 1 if you want to call it that).

I am using beta3 right now, it looks good. We need a desktop background and a new theme for the RC...

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Comments

5.2.69 Forum feedback
Username: BarryK
Feedback for beta3 starts on page 21 of this Forum thread: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=648697#648697

5.2.69 to-do #1
Username: BarryK
"Here is #1 for the TODO list: [b]1. Menu hierarchy[/b] You will notice that there are sub-sub-menus. I had intended those to be in-lined in the sub-menu, which does work in Wary/Racy. The later XDG in Precise works differently. Anyone know how to fix it? Reference: /etc/xdg

Re #1
Username: BarryK
"This problem has been with us for a long time. It is discussed for Lupu: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=66569 The desktop menu specification is described here: http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/menu-spec-latest.html The culprit is libgnome-menu.so.*, in package 'gnome-menus'. Wary and Racy use the same package as used in Puppy 4.x, version 2.14.3. If we build Puppy with gnome-menus from another distro, it will be a later version. Unfortunately, later versions seem to ignore some tags in the standard. I have searched with Google, found others reporting the problem, but no solution. Well, there is a solution, roll back to gnome-menu 2.14.3. I have compiled this in Precise Puppy, and now the menus look as intended.

gnome-menus
Username: BarryK
"The PET is here (48KB): http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-precise/gnome-menus-2.14.3-up.pet Install it, then in a terminal run these: [i]# fixmenus # jwm -reload[/i]

Wallpapers
Username: swiatmar
"Hello Barry!!! If you need a wallpaper for new puppy- maybe you can use one of mine: http://www.mediafire.com/view/?d1jbcc56cke0b67# http://www.mediafire.com/view/?ye2dabw8ycf5qd6# http://www.mediafire.com/view/?zr3ub2j492sw1zx# I could also prepare something special for the release :)

Re delta files
Username: BarryK
"Ok, I have uploaded them, beta2 to beta3. Some notes about ATI and Radeon video: 01micko, beta3 already has that xserver-xorg-video-radeon DEB installed -- see /root/.packages/woof-installed-packages. Your experience has exposed a bug with PPM, when try examine deps of an already-installed pkg. I will get onto that. There is also 'z_xf86-video-ati' PET package, configured without KMS support, included in beta3. That was done awhile back due to problems with the Ubuntu pkg. Hmmm, as usual, Radeon video is being difficult. I might have to go back to KMS off.

ATI video
Username: BarryK
"Testers with ATI video hardware can install the Ubuntu DEB 'xserver-xorg-video-ati', to override the PET built-in to beta3. -- do not examine dependencies, just search for it and install it.

radeon take 2
Username: 01micko
"Ah, the z_ati package would have overwritten the radeon_drv.so file from the git package so it must have made a difference too. Below is the file list of z_xf86-video-ati (from ~/.packages/builtin_files/) /usr /usr/lib /usr/lib/xorg /usr/lib/xorg/modules /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers ati_drv.so [b]radeon_drv.so[/b] /usr/lib/xorg/modules/multimedia theatre200_drv.so theatre_detect_drv.so theatre_drv.so

ATI/Radeon no KMS
Username: BarryK
"I have just remembered why I created the 'z_xf86-video-ati' PET package, with KMS disabled. Most unfortunately, KMS requires the LLVM runtime library, which is enormous. This requirement has been added to recent versions of the ATI/Radeon source. I am extremely reluctant to include the LLVM runtime. It is about 7MB compressed, so it would bump the ISO size by that much. I guess that I can do it, if that's what user's really want.

Video issues vs 7MB
Username: GCMartin
"I dont think there are that many of us who would care about 7MB as the system performance will be improved [u][b]and[/b][/u] issues for support would be dramatically reduced. Probably a good consideration. Here to help

More on ATI/Radeon
Username: mories
"To avoid the LLVM library, you have the package z_mesa. Ie removing x_xf86-video-ati and leaving z_mesa, you can get KMS and no need LLVM.

@mories
Username: 01micko
"I agree with you mories. As I explained, glxgears didn't work right for me but the real world performance was very good, with the firmware and correct driver. I think we are just waiting on the report of LateAdopter on the forum. I think playdayz has recent radeon kit too. I'm sure he'll be along to test at some point. I do have a couple of other older radeon cards I can dig out and test. Unfortunately, the laptop I referred to in my earlier post doesn't boot with PAE so I'll wait until the non-PAE version is released before testing that.

precise fails desktop on reboot
Username: broomdodger
"Precise 5269 frugal IBM ThinkPad x30 Wary5300 and Racy5300 both work fine. Precise boots first time to desktop, video Intel driver. Reboot, make savefile Precise will not go to the desktop, black screen. Tried to blindly reboot, nothing. Power down, restart to Wary5300, delete save file, reboot to desktop. Exit to prompt, change to xorg vesa driver. Reboot, make new savefile, still only black desktop. Can not blindly reboot using: F12, uparrow, rightarrow, downarrow, enter. Both the Intel and Xorg vesa drivers seem to work fine on first boot before using a savefile. Bill

xf86-video-ati and llvm
Username: BarryK
"Hmmm, I cannot guarantee my memory 100%, but I seem to recall the configure in the source pkg of xf86-video-ati failing if kms enabled and llvm not installed.

Tags: puppy