New welcome window

With Quirky, at first bootup, QuickSetup displays, followed by 'welcome1stboot'. The latter is a window with some introductory information, such as about the desktop icons and tray applets, and links to further help.

In woof-CE, that welcome1stboot is a web page, in Quirky it is a binary executable (written in BaCon).

For Easy, I have created /usr/share/doc/easy/welcome.htm, and this now replaces welcome1stboot.
As easy has the lovely new HelpSurfer html viewer enhanced by SFR, this is used to view welcome.htm

Technical note: welcome.htm is launched from /usr/sbin/delayedrun, which in turn is launched from /root/.xinitrc when X starts up.

I used Google Translate to create welcome_de.htm, etc.. After the user has chosen a language in QuickSetup, delayedrun will look for a matching welcome_*.htm and if exists will launch it.

Tags: linux

SeaMonkey heavy writes to drive

Forum member tallboy posted about this, for Firefox:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=111233

SeaMonkey does the same thing, updates the session information every 15 seconds. This is only useful in case of a crash. Setting it to 15 seconds causes Flash memory to be pounded.

tallboy posted a link, with a fix. It can also be done by editing /root/.mozilla/*/seamonkey/prefs.js, this line will set it to 30 minutes update:

user_pref("browser.sessionstore.interval", 1800000);

I reckon that I will modify my SM PET with this.

Tags: linux

ROX-Filer Home icon

The icon bar along the top of ROX-Filer file manager has a "Home" icon. Click that, and it takes you to /root.

In Quirky and Easy, I want to differentiate between the /root and the user's preferred working home. When I click the "Home" icon, I want to go to that alternative path.

This question has been asked a few times on the Puppy Forum, for example here:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=24348

I have created a patch for the source code, 09-rox-filer-easy-home.patch. hard-coded for the home path in Easy Linux.

The source that I am using for Quirky and Easy is:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/sources/alphabetical/r/rox-filer-2011-10-22-has_configure.tar.gz

And these patches have to be applied:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/sources/alphabetical/r/rox-filer-patches/

09-rox-filer-easy-home.patch really should be generalized to suit any desired home, so it will work in any pup, as my todo note here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/sources/alphabetical/r/rox-filer-patches/bk-notes

...if anyone wants to do that, go for it!

After patching, compile:
# ./ROX-Filer/AppRun --compile

Which will create 'ROX-Filer' executable, copy that to /usr/local/apps/ROX-Filer/, or where ever ROX is in your pup, then restart X.

Read more...

How to compile SeaMonkey 2.48

I have received a request, how to compile SeaMonkey 2.48.

This is a useful read:
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/cvs/xsoft/seamonkey.html

Get the 'hotfix.patch' from here:
http://svn.exactcode.de/t2/trunk/package/www/seamonkey/hotfix.patch

This is what I did:

# patch -p1 < ../hotfix.patch

# CFLAGS_HOLD=$CFLAGS

# CXXFLAGS_HOLD=$CXXFLAGS

# EXTRA_FLAGS=" -fno-delete-null-pointer-checks -fno-lifetime-dse -fno-schedule-insns2"

# export CFLAGS+=$EXTRA_FLAGS

# export CXXFLAGS+=$EXTRA_FLAGS

# unset EXTRA_FLAGS

<

This is my mozconfig file. Note that I used system pixman, however pixman spits out error messages, non-fatal, but you might want to consider using SM's internal pixman library: "--disable-system-pixman"

I did not use system nspr and nss, as in Quirky 8.3 (based on Ububtu 16.04.2 DEBs) they are too old.

Here is 'mozconfig':

mk_add_options MOZ_MAKE_FLAGS='-j1'

mk_add_options MOZ_CO_PROJECT=suite

ac_add_options --enable-application=suite

ac_add_options --enable-system-hunspell

ac_add_options --prefix=/usr

ac_add_options --host=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

ac_add_options --disable-dbus

ac_add_options --disable-accessibility

ac_add_options --with-system-bz2

ac_add_options --disable-updater

ac_add_options --disable-parental-controls

ac_add_options --disable-system-sqlite

ac_add_options --disable-system-cairo

ac_add_options --enable-strip

ac_add_options --without-system-jpeg

ac_add_options --with-system-zlib

ac_add_options --disable-tests

ac_add_options --with-default-mozilla-five-home=/usr/lib/seamonkey

ac_add_options --enable-default-toolkit=cairo-gtk2

ac_add_options --disable-crashreporter

ac_add_options --with-system-libvpx

ac_add_options --enable-gio

ac_add_options --disable-necko-wifi

ac_add_options --disable-gconf

#ac_add_options --with-system-nspr

#ac_add_options --with-system-nss

ac_add_options --enable-ldap

ac_add_options --with-system-icu

ac_add_options --disable-pulseaudio

ac_add_options --enable-alsa

ac_add_options --enable-system-ffi

ac_add_options --disable-gnomeui

ac_add_options --with-pthreads

ac_add_options --enable-system-pixman

ac_add_options --disable-debug

ac_add_options --with-system-libevent

#ac_add_options --disable-libjpeg-turbo

<

Just put 'mozconfig' into top-level of source code, then off you go:

# make -f client.mk

Before installing, if you already have /usr/lib/seamonkey-2.48 and seamonkey-devel-2.48, /usr/share/idl/seamonkey-2.48, and /usr/include/seamonkey-2.48, rename them to something else. then:

# make -f client.mk install

Make sure that /usr/lib/seamonkey is a symlink to seamonkey-2.48, and check that /usr/bin/seamonkey is a symlink to /usr/lib/seamonkey/seamonkey or /usr/lib/seamonkey-2.48/seamonkey

Then run "seamonkey".

Or, if you want to make a pet, use 'cp -a' to copy out all of those target directories, before running seamonkey (when seamonkey runs, it actually writes into /usr/lib/seamonkey-2.48, or at least it used to, so grab the pristine files before first run of seamonkey).

Tidy up: if creating a PET, good to use an existing PET, such as mine, as a template. Note, delete the dictionary files, as all pups have hunspell, and delete the 'modern' theme -- again, look in my PETs.

Get my PET from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/packages/pet_packages-xerus/seamonkey-2.48-xerus64.pet

If you have Quirky and maybe a very recent pup, it will have 'pet2dir' utility, so just do this to expand the PET to a folder:

# pet2dir seamonkey-2.48-xerus64.pet

If your pup does not have this utility, then do it this way, which will give an error message, but works:

# tar -xf seamonkey-2.48-xerus64.pet

Read more...

SeaMonkey 2.48 final

Quirky 8.3 has SeaMonkey 2.48-beta1.

Now, the final has been released. I have compiled it in Easy (Ubuntu 16.04.2 Xenial Xerus compatible).

PET (45.9M):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/packages/pet_packages-xerus/seamonkey-2.48-xerus64.pet

I was astounded how fast SM compiled. I am running Easy on the "innostor" 16GB USB3 Flash drive that I bought recently for AU$7. It is plugged into a USB2 socket, but that doesn't slow it down. Plus, 'q.sfs' is in RAM. 'devx' sfs is mounted in the aufs layer and that is mounted from the flash stick. In all, very fast.

Tags: linux

HelpSurfer 0.2

HelpSurfer is at version 0.2.

Forum member SFR posted a patch for Surfer, see my blog post yesterday:
http://bkhome.org/news/201708/improving-surfer-tiny-web-browser.html

Hey, it is like I am a little kid again, on Christmas morning!
I put in another request, for a "Quit" icon in Surfer, and SFR posted another patch:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=962839#962839

Here is the latest source, with both patches applied:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/sources/alphabetical/h/helpsurfer-0.2.tar.gz

And a 64-bit PET, compiled in Easy (built with Ubuntu 16.04.2 Xenial Xerus DEBs):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/packages/pet_packages-xerus/helpsurfer-0.2-xerus64.pet

Yes, Easy, I am excited like a little kid about that too, 'coz it is coming along very well. For those who don't know, Easy is the "next generation" after Quirky Linux.

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Mele PCG35 Apo mini-PC

If I was on the lookout to buy a mini-PC right now, this one would rate near the top of the list:
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Fanless-Windows-10-Mini-PC-Desktop-MeLE-PCG35-Apo-4GB-32GB-Intel-Apollo-Lake-Celeron-J3455/715968_32822268228.html



The Aussie Dollar is riding high right now, one Dollar buys 80 US cents. Let's see, US$179 is AU$225.

The chap at cnx-software has looked at it:
http://www.cnx-software.com/2017/07/18/mele-pcg35-apo-mini-pc-is-powered-by-intel-celeron-j3455-desktop-processor-supports-2-5-sata-drives/

Apparently there is an "Ubuntu edition" in the works.

Read more...

Puppy Linux Newsletter August 2017

The August edition of the Puppy Linux Newsletter is now out. Read online or download:
http://smokey01.com/newsletters/

If you would like to participate, this is the forum thread:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=109754

Tags: linux