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newsPlanning for Quirky Xerus 8.2.1
July 26, 2017 —
BarryK
Feedback for 8.2 is continuing to pour in:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=106460
I am getting so much help, bug reports, fixes, improvements, it is looking like 8.2.1 is going to be much more than just a "bug fix" release.
I will have to draw the line, probably whatever appears in the forum thread tonight. Then tomorrow will implement some of the latest fixes and enhancements.
Then maybe, 8.2.1 in a couple of days.
Easy
The thing is though, I also want to work on Easy Linux, my radical fork of Quirky. The previous release of Easy was built with packages compiled in OpenEmbedded, which has the great advantage of less bloat.
However, this time I am thinking will build Easy from the same Ubuntu Xerus 16.04.2 DEBs as used in Quirky 8.2.
This is the easiest approach, as all the work done on 8.2 will carry into Easy. Just have to live with a much bigger 'q.sfs' file.
Roughly, you have to multiply the size of 'q.sfs' by 1.5, going from OE 'Pyro' to Ubuntu Xerus packages.
So, for example, 300MB would become 450MB.
SQLite Manager addon for SeaMonkey
July 26, 2017 —
BarryK
And Firefox!
Forum member musher0 posted about SQLite-Manager, and mime-handling for sqlite3 files:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=111134
I hunted around, found that the developer of SQLite-Manager is now on github:
https://github.com/lazierthanthou/sqlite-manager
And frontpage:
http://lazierthanthou.github.io/sqlite-manager/
It has commits only 25 days ago.
I'm thinking of making it into a pet, for inclusion in next Quirky.
Fontwizard improved
July 25, 2017 —
BarryK
Fontwizard version 0.0.1 was released by 01micko in January 2013. This is a GUI app for enhancing fonts for LCD screens.
It has languished since then. I can't find where 01micko originally announced it, and there don't seem to have been any later versions.
There are some issues with fonts in Quirky Xerus 8.2, that we are discussing in the forum.
Forum member radky is the creator of some great apps that are in Quirky. The latest addition is JWMDesk, and using it has lead to the fonts discussion.
Here is a post by radky:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=961712#961712
This is excellent. I have put this new script, 'fontwizard' into the PET, and updated the version from 0.0.1-1 to 0.0.2 (2KB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/noarch/packages/pet_packages-noarch/fontwizard-0.0.2.pet
pEqualizer fixed, maybe
July 24, 2017 —
BarryK
pEqualizer is a GUI equalizer created by 01micko and zigbert, that can run standalone and is also used by Pmusic.
Forum thread:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=81889
Quirky 8.2 has version 0.9.0, which we have found to be broken:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=961642#961642
I searched online and found pequalizer-1.0.0.pet, which has a bugfix so it will work in Slacko. However, still broken for Debian/Ubuntu.
I have fixed pEqualizer and bumped the version to 1.0.1 (5KB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/noarch/packages/pet_packages-noarch/pequalizer-1.0.1.pet
Note to users of Quirky 8.2, you will need to install 'caps' and 'libasound2-plugin-equal' DEBs from the Package Manager.
I am still not sure if it is working, there may be a problem with using the utility 'amixer', that pEqualizer calls.
Sound and keyboard buglets
July 24, 2017 —
BarryK
Forum member Philb has been testing Quirky 8.2 and reported some little bugs.
For a frugal installation, audio level settings were not being preserved over a reboot. Fixed.
At first bootup, if a non-US keyboard is chosen in the main window of QuickSetup, it is followed by XkdConfigManager, which is to fine-tune keyboard layout localization.
There was a "Please wait" popup on top of the latter window. Fixed.
There were also a couple of missing icons on buttons in XkbConfigManager, also fixed.
Quirky Installer improved
July 23, 2017 —
BarryK
The Quirky Installer, which is launched via the "install" icon on the desktop, or in the menu Setup --> Quirky Universal Installer, has a couple of limitations in Quirky 8.2.
One of the Quirky testers complained that he had to download the ISO file a second time, to do an installation to a partition.
I don't know why, as he would have downloaded it to burn the live-CD -- presume he must have deleted it after that.
Anyway, I have taken it onboard to fix...
Installing to a drive or partition, it requires the downloaded ISO, from which to extract the files. The frugal install, on the otherhand, allows a choice of ISO, CD, or a folder (with vmlinuz, q.sfs and initrd.q).
I have enhanced install to drive or partition to also have this flexibility.
Another tester complained that installation is very slow. Yeah, even with my i5 CPU, a frugal install is painfully slow. A "Please wait..." message displays, and you have to wait, and wait.
The install script opens up q.sfs, using 'unsquashfs', modifies it, then creates a new q.sfs in the target location. The script has a 'sync' operation after running 'unsquashfs' and this is the holdup. q.sfs is about 400MB, xz compressed, and expands to about 3 times that, which the 'sync' flushes to the drive. I am surprised how slow that is. Um, but I am doing the work on an external USB drive.
Anyway, I have greatly speeded up the script by not having 'sync', instead just a 'fsync' on the target q.sfs. But then, my PC has 16GB of RAM, so a big advantage not syncing.
All of this work is happening in /usr/local/install_quirky
pmcputemp CPU temperature monitor
July 21, 2017 —
BarryK
There hasn't been a temperature monitor in the tray in Quirky for a long time, however, I notice that a couple of testers of 8.2 have installed pmcputemp.
pmcputemp is created by 01micko (Michael), who is also the guy behind the Slacko Puppy Linux releases. 01micko is also one of the main guys who setup, and continues to maintain, woof-CE, the community-based build system for Puppy Linux.
Here is forum discussion of pmcputemp:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=98299
The latest source is here:
https://github.com/01micko/pmcputemp
I have compiled it in Quirky Xerus 8.2 and created a PET. This will be in the next release of Quirky.
My desktop midi-tower runs so cool. The thing has fans all over it. It is a PC that I bought secondhand earlier this year, and it continues to run well.
pmcputemp was reading around 22 degrees C, so I watched NASA live-feed from space, at 720p -- very nice -- and the temperature crept up a bit, peaked at 35 degrees.
The NASA feed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtU_mdL2vBM
woofQ tarball uploaded
July 20, 2017 —
BarryK
For anyone who wants it, this is a tarball of woofQ, as used to
build Quirky Xerus x86_64 version 8.2 final.
Download (47M):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/project/woof-project-20170719.tar.gz
md5sum:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/project/woof-project-20170719.tar.gz.md5.txt
It will expand to folder 'woof-project' and at woof-project/quirky/ there is a README file, also another useful README inside woof-project/quirky/woof-code.
Note, I maintain woofQ online as a "bones" minimalistic VCS, see explanation here:
http://bkhome.org/news/201604/woofq-uploaded-for-quirky-80.html