CUPS 1.4.8

I have compiled CUPS 1.4.8 in Wary, for use in Wary and Racy. This is to fix a problem with landscape printing, mentioned here:
http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201208/waryracy-plans.html

The PETs (2.2MB, 35KB, 603KB, 589KB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-wary5/cups-1.4.8-w5c.pet
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-wary5/cups_DEV-1.4.8-w5c.pet
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-wary5/cups_DOC-1.4.8-w5c.pet
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-wary5/cups_NLS-1.4.8-w5c.pet

Note that the PET package for 1.3.11, as used in Wary/Racy up until now, is 1.3MB, this new PET is 2.2MB.

Here is how I configured it:


...this took me awhile to get right. The '--disable-libusb' is required so that CUPS will use the old "usblp kernel module" method -- otherwise, the 'usblp' module has to be blacklisted. Besides, I'm not sure if the CUPS developers have got the new "libusb" method fully sorted out.

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Wary: ffmpeg improved

K Godt, npierce and shinobar have been investigating improvements to ffmpeg in Wary and Racy:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76182&start=270

I have uploaded the ffmpeg PETs compiled by shinobar, with x11grab and network support (2.3MB, 2.8MB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-wary5/ffmpeg-0.8.12-1-w5c.pet
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-wary5/ffmpeg_DEV-0.8.12-1-w5c.pet

This works with shinobar's latest ffconvert 1.3 (61KB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-noarch/ffconvert-1.3.pet

This improvement will of course be in the next release of Wary/Racy.

Tags: wary

nVidia SFS files

Shinobar has been supporting nVidia video hardware with SFS files. This is for many versions of Puppy, back to 4.3.1, also including the latest Wary and Racy 5.3 and Slacko 5.3.3.

Forum thread:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=72405

Shinobar's package hosting site:
http://182.164.210.61/puppy/opt/

For the convenience of Wary/Racy users, I have uploaded the 'nvidia-glx-sdl-295.49.sfs' to the SFS repo (downloadable via the 'install' icon on the desktop):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/sfs/

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Booting from mmc (SD) card

There is some discussion about this on the Forum. I posted recently about recognising an mmc card at bootup:
http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201203/mmc-drive-available-at-bootup.html

...Wary and Racy 5.3 have that fix.

There is something important that testers must understand here. My latest laptop has an SD card slot, but internally it is recognised as a USB device. Similarly, many people plug an SD card into an external USB card-reader adapter. These are no problem in Puppy, as the SD card behaves just like any other USB Flash drive.

However, many laptops (including my own older Acer laptop) have internal card readers that have their own special interface hardware. The most common type are what we call the "mmc" card readers. The kernel loads special device drivers for this. These are the type that we are having issues with at bootup.

Forum member riccardo started a Forum thread about the problem of booting from an SD card, using Wary 5.3:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=77417

...I have posted some tests to that thread. If anyone else has the same problem, you are welcome to try these tests.

Tags: wary

Wary (and Racy) 5.3

Wary Puppy 5.2.2 was released on 18 November 2011 (also Racy Puppy made his debut), see my blog announcement:
http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201111/wary-puppy-522.html

Since then, there has been the usual feverish pace of development. We now have a significant upgrade, hence the version jump from 5.2.x to 5.3. A brief announcement:

Wary Puppy is our build of Puppy Linux targeting older hardware. Racy Puppy debuted at the previous release (5.2.2) and is "Wary on steroids" -- identical except with later X.org and kernel, to suit more recent hardware. Version 5.3 has a fairly small number of application upgrades, however there are fundamental changes at the infrastructure level, that is, the "Woof" level -- in particular, pervasive support for internationalization, plus a "multitude" of bugfixes. There are now "langpacks" available for many languages, and these have translations for the system-level and most of the applications used in Wary and Racy.

For this release, I would like to send a special thank you to the faithful testers, and in particular the guys who volunteered to create the langpacks. The latter are (Format is language : Forum-name : real name):

French (fr): esmourguit : JJ Moulinier
German (de): L18L : Lutz-Ulrich
Polish (pl): robwoj44 : Robert Wojewódzki
Russian (ru): rodin.s : Sergey Rodin
Spanish (es): vicmz : Víctor Martínez

...bug reports or improvements for these translations should be directed to these guys on the Puppy Forum http://murga-linux.com/puppy

Here is the detailed announcement and release notes:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/wary-5.3/release-Wary-5.3.htm

Download Wary from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/wary-5.3/

Download Racy from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/racy-5.3/

Other faster download links can be found on the main download page:
http://puppylinux.com/download/

I have started a Forum thread for bug reports and any other feedback:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=77303

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Wary and Racy 5.3RC3

If anyone wants to give this a spin, you are welcome. If there are no disastrous bugs, this will become 5.3-final.

Download:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/wary-5.3/
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/racy-5.3/

Regarding recent discussion about which Adobe Flash Player to use, I chose 10.3.183.18. However, I added a warning window that alternative versions may work better, depending on hardware and website.

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Kernels with Aufs

I have compiled 2.6.32.59 for Wary and 3.0.25 for Racy, with Aufs. Both of these were compiled in a full hd installation of Wary 5.1.2.

For Woof builders, here are the PETs (28.8MB, 23.5MB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-wary5/linux_kernel-2.6.32.59-uni-i486-aufs-w5.pet
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-wary5/linux_kernel-3.0.25-pae-i686-aufs-w5.pet

I have uploaded the kernel source SFS files to the Wary/Racy SFS repo (81MB, 95.4MB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/sfs/kernel_src-2.6.32.59-patched.sfs
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/sfs/kernel_src-3.0.25-patched.sfs

Tags: wary

Schedule for Wary/Racy 5.3

I was planning to release Wary/Racy 5.3 toward the end of this week. Then a serious bug in Unionfs emerged, see post yesterday:
http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201204/unionfs-letting-us-down.html

Aufs
So, I am going to change the kernels over to using Aufs. This means that there will have to be an RC3, but I am still going to target near-end-of-week to release 5.3-final.

There is going to be tester burnout if I drag this on much longer. So, 5.3 is coming very soon! I am even toying with the idea of taking a bigger risk and not releasing RC3, just test it myself, and go straight for the final.

After all, we have plenty puppies that use Aufs without much trouble. Wary, with 2.6.32.x kernel, will have to use an older version of Aufs, as the developers stopped supporting that kernel 8 months ago. However Racy will have the latest Aufs3, which does introduce the possibility of some new bug.

Note, I have already compiled these kernels and will upload the PETs and sources soon. Wary will have 2.6.32.59 and Racy will have 3.0.25.

Adobe Flash
A note about the Adobe Flash Player, Woof has code (in /usr/sbin/delayedrun) that offers to download the Flash Player after an Internet connection is detected.
Unfortunately, there are many reports of the latest Flash Player not working on older CPUs, even not-so-old CPUs.

So, I plan to create a PET package and that will be installed. I have feedback that 11.1.102.63 works ok -- is there already a PET of this version? -- does anyone know what URL to download this version from? I even wonder, there are some 10.x versions PETs in the repos, is 10.x too old?

Langpacks
If any of the translators would like to provide an updated langpack, today is the deadline, as I intend to build RC3 (which could become 5.3-final) several hours from now.
These are the ones I currently have:

langpack_de-20120325
langpack_es-20120328
langpack_fr-20120330
langpack_pl-20120327
langpack_ru-20120318

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