T2 and Racy6

It is looking good. So far I have only tested on two of my laptops, and I installed Racy6 on my "second" laptop, full HD installation, and right now the 3.2.48 kernel is compiling.

This kernel is configured for i486, non-PAE (4G RAM limit), SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessor), f2fs (builtin), ISA-bus support.
Configured as much as I could to run on old PCs.

When I used the Universal Installer, I discovered that Xdialog segfaults. I guessed that this is due to the version of GTK+ ...and yes, I guessed right. Racy6 had GTK 2.24.19, and when I grabbed libgtk-x11* version 2.24.17 from Raring pup and put it into Racy6, Xdialog worked.

Note: the GTK developers are not just bug-fixing the 2.24.x series, they are also back-porting some stuff from GTK+3. I wish they would leave well-enough alone.

I am going to do "build #4" in T2, and will roll back GTK, plus apply any patches from Ubuntu.

I'll start that running tonight. It takes about 1.5 days to run right through.

While T2 is doing it's thing, I'll work on my ideas for the PPM.

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Comments

T2 build#4
Username: BarryK
OK, have just started build#4 on my laptop. Time is 1.20am.

gFTP segfaults
Username: BarryK
"Hmm, running Racy6, tried gftp, it segfaults. This does not bode well. I am going to rethink what I'm doing. There is another way that I can approach building a smaller distro... The Debian and Ubuntu packages are so good because there are a huge number of developers, and packages are often heavily patched to fix problems. Precise and Raring pups are good examples. All the old GTK PETs work. I haven't had anything segfault. So, instead of "flogging a dead horse" (T2), another approach is to use Precise pup as the starting point, and recompile packages that have huge dependencies. That way, I can build a smaller pup. It would be a challenge though. My Racy6 .iso is only 131MB with the .sfs file gzipped -- if it had been xz'ed then it would be closer to 100MB. Whereas Raring pup is 177MB xz'ed -- and I shudder to think what that would be if it had been built with gzip'ed .sfs.

what Terryphi said
Username: 01micko
"+1 Purists will have fun with it. Won't be a waste of solid work on your part either.

Re T2 Racy6
Username: BarryK
"I have got a kind of skeleton directory, with some scripts in it. After checking out T2 from svn, copy my skeleton directory into the download directory, then run my scripts -- they merge my adaptations. There is also a README file that explains what to do next, and I have documented the places where compiling stops and requires manual intervention. I was rigorously preparing things, as I was thinking that I had got over the most serious hurdles and it was a goer. So, yes, I can provide my skeleton directory as a tarball. Will consider that soon.

Tags: puppy