Puppy & Gentoo

[paulh177]

@Leachim
I'm really looking forward to being able to burn an Alpha to play with. Thanks for all your hard work.

1.2 GB .... sounds big for a Puppy but I think it's really small for a Gentoo containing all major browsers, Open Office, etc.

This may be a bit premature, given the development stage, but I'd love to see a stripped-out "server version" of the Gentoo Puppy.

paul

[Leachim]

@Sit Heel Speek:

I had libfreetype installed before, but it seems to work much better now! I also had applied the patch that uses hinting (Gentoo also uses this patch), nevertheless it now looks great!

@paulh177:

Simplux (that's the name of my distribution) is meant for USB-(flash)-drives. For use with a harddisk install just use plain Gentoo and for a live-cd the Gentoo package-management wouldn't be a big advantage.

Simplux also uses my new save-script that empties the ramdisk on each save. Junjiro Okajima promised to add a new switch to aufs (another union file system) to enhance multi-user support.

Today I emerged some additional packages - it's great to have most popular Linux packages "at your fingertips"! Until now only GoogleEarth rejected to work. (That's a bit strange, because I used it with Puppy Linux before.)

I will spend the next week with fine-tuning and testing, testing, testing ... I will unmerge a lot of packages (but not X, graphics drivers, Firefox and Thunderbird) before building the alpha-version to get it as small as possible (maybe below 1 GB?). It can't be very much smaller - it contains the whole portage tree!

[ecomoney]

I havnt a clue what any of this is about, except

Due to the upgrade to glibc 2.6.1 the Flash 9 Plugin runs without crashes for the first time ever!

Sounds marvellous!!!

[Leachim]

I found the hint about flash in some Linux forum. Flash 9 needs at least glibc 2.4.x - Puppy 2.14/15 uses 2.3.5.

There are also other programs that reject to run with glibc versions prior to 2.4 - but at least they check the glibc-version and don't crash ...

[prehistoric]

This is a real accompliishment, and should open up all kinds of things for Puppy. I can't believe how quickly you succeeded.

Congratulations!

prehistoric

[Leachim]

Release date of Simplux Alpha is coming nearer ...

I worked hard all week long (holidays). Best news at the start - it will fit on a CD!!!

So you can test it from a CD without the need to install it on an USB-pen-drive. There is no CD-multisession support or anything like that - just a ramdisk-overlay. It will also be possible to extract the files from the iso-image directly to install directly to an USB-pen-drive.

I added one new wizard - a wrapper to emerge. It adds or removes icewm menu entries automatically when you install or deinstall packages.

In this first version only very few Puppy scripts survived (mainly parts of the hardware initialization) - I might add some of them again in a later version. The look is nearly exactly that of Puppy 2.15CE - but under the hood more than 99% of the system has been replaced.

I cannot guarantee it for the first version, but for future versions there will be no need to ever download a complete new version of Simplux again. It will always be able to update itself. For this to work a friend of mine will convert the base of Simplux into one or more ebuilds (= Gentoo packages).

What is contained in Alpha 1?

* kernel 2.6.24

* aufs - allows for moving files from ramdisk to save-file (instead of copying)

* xorg 7.3 (stepped dowm from 7.4 due to Gentoo)

* 3D hardware acceleration for ATI and nVidia chipsets

* Extreme Tux Racer - allows testing of 3D graphics and sound

* Firefox 2.0.0.11 - with Flash 9.115 and mplayer 3.45 plugin

* Thunderbird 2.0.0.9

* Porthole - a gui for the portage package manager

But the most important thing about Simplux: You can easily install any of more than 12.000 packages of the Gentoo package pool!

Until now I encountered problems with about one package out of a hundred - so nearly all packages should work right out of the box!

[Lobster]

it will fit on a CD!!!

What you are doing sounds extraordinary . . .


The advantages (if I am right) is a series of programs optimised for
specific hardware (our own)

Exciting stuff.

[mac84]

my pendrive keeps asking when it will get it's new mutt!

keep the good stuff rolling! we <3 you for it... in a platonic sorta way!

[Leachim]

My students and me are currently in the "heavy testing" phase. Upload of alpha wil be delayed by some days (maybe Saturday). My radical diet for Simplux - I reduced the unpacked size from about 5.5 to about 2.2 GB - removed a few files too much. I repaired most packages by now but not all.

One can surely use Simplux on a 512MB machine, but to be able to install large packages or update the entire system at least 1 GB RAM will be needed.

[ttuuxxx]

well I have 2 gigs iof ram in my test-bed machine, already warmed up and waiting for your inital release, Sounds very, very intersting:) I must say its excellent work and looking forward to your release.
ttuuxxx

[Leachim]

We made big advantages in the afternoon session, repairing a lot of packages I damaged in my size-reduction-session on Saturday.

My students tested a lot of games, personal messengers and desktop tweaks - they were allowed to install and configure whatever they liked!

I synced the portage tree. It now contains an up-to-date package list. I also installed and tested the 3D-accelerated nVidia graphics drivers - I can test them at school only.

Things to be done (for the first public alpha):

* ensure stability

* ensure CD-size - currently there are some MB "overweight" ...

* ensure that package installations and updates work well on PCs with "only" 1 GB RAM ... (you can work well and install small to medium size packages on 512 MB machines, too)

* improve xzwizard to replace OpenGL-drivers automatically if hardware has changed (nicely, most of this job can be done by a Gentoo script)

* write an installation script

I hope to get most of the above points settled tomorrow. Then on Wednesday another group of students will continue testing. If all works fine I might upload a first version on Wednesday evening - let's see!

[Leachim]

I upgraded, rebuild and checked the whole system. Everything looks absolutely stable again!

If nothing unforeseen happens, I will offer the download tomorrow evening.

And then I need a few days rest ... ^^

[Leachim]

Finally done!

While I am writing these lines Simplux Alpha 1 is uploaded onto my web-server.

I had a two days struggle with cd-rom-drives. First I found out, that I unintentionally removed IDE-drivers when I upgraded to kernel 2.6.24 some weeks ago. Then the kernel contained the wrong cd-rom-driver. The init-script attempted to mount the cd with write-access and a lot other strange things happened ... - I burned the poor CD at least for twenty times until I had a fully working version!

The CD has two purposes

* beeing an installation platform for Simplux

* boot Simplux on PCs that cannot boot from USB-devices (in this case insert CD and pen-drive, the boot will start from the CD and then continue booting from the pen-drive)

It is not meant to be used directly. It is ultimately slow compared to versions running from an USB-pen-drive.

To install Simplux onto a FAT32-formatted device enter

Code: Select all

install_simplux <device>

on a shell prompt. The device should not be mounted! The installer installs the SIBLO-bootloader and copies all necessary files to the destination-device. There are no files removed - except there would be a name clash, which is very unlikely because all files are stored in the subdirectory simplux or contain the string "simplux" or "siblo" somewhere in the filename.

To detect onto which device to install use MUT (the icon in the upper left corner). In case your pen-drive is shown as /dev/sdc, just enter the follwing command:

Code: Select all

install_simplux --verbose /dev/sdc1

Please ensure that at least 1GB of free space is available on the target-device! The more the better! 4GB will allow a rich environment of installed packages.

I will add more detailed instructions on the simplux-homepage within the next few days. I also want to setup a Simplux-forum.

For short:

To install addtional packages use the Gentoo commands

eix - for gathering information about packages
emerge - to install or deinstall packages

The system menu also contains porthole - a graphical frontend to the package-manager.

For all commands are man- and info-pages available.

The download site is

http://simplux.org

I will add the download link, when the upload has been completed.

I will need some rest this weekend - the last few weeks were rather stressful!

I hope you enjoy Simplicity as much as I do!

But don't forget: It's an alpha version! This doesn't mean that it is unstable (I use it for my everyday work) but it might not work at all on some hardware. My students reported problems with USB-devices (mice and keyboards).

Edit:

I forgot to mention some essential commands:

Use reboot and shutdown to ensure correct shutdown of Simplux including copying all data back to the pen-drive.

There is no automatic save (every half an hour) as in Puppy. Use merge_ramdisk whenever you want to copy files from the ramdisk-layer to the save-file. Files are moved if possible, so after calling merge_ramdisk, the ramdisk should be (nearly) empty again!

Edit 2:

Upload finished!

http://simplux.org/downloads/simplux.iso

Please use wget for downloading to prevent useless retransmissions in case the connection breaks!

[Lobster]

at least 1GB of free space

My present HD is only 1 GB
Will get new one soon . . .
. . . meanwhile congratulations
Looking very much forward to feedback and screenshots
will put a link on our wiki news
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LatestNews

sounds amazing

[klu9]

Hi and congrats!

For some tips on distributing your ISO (inc. MD5), see here:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/DistributingYourPuplet

To begin, here's a CoBlitzed download link:
http://coblitz.codeen.org/simplux.org/d ... implux.iso

[raffy]

Amazing development - thanks for working hard on this project.

[elraven]

just got done looking it over and its great ! I think i can give you a leg up on the keyboard problem . With me its loading de.gz for the keyboard map an not en.gz . don't know the command in terminal to change things around though . But hey its a super great system !
Elraven

[Leachim]

Sorry, about the keyboard. It should habe been autodetected, but maybe something went wrong! And I of course use a german keyboard ... ^^

There will be no need to ever download the whole iso-image again. I will supply updates instead. As soon as possible these updates will be available as regular packages.

I will supply the md5sum of the iso-image in the download-section!

Edit:

The X11-keyboard is autodetected from the console keyboard and that is set to "de" - not very clever indeed! ^^

I will try to fix this soon.

[Leachim]

I added the md5-file to the download section.

To change the keyboard settings, please edit "/etc/keymap". You must also delete "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" and "/etc/X11/db/*" to remove all wrongly stored keyboard-settings. As an alternative you can edit "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" directly.

The current xwizard doesn't work with intel-graphics-chips. The first update (available Sunday or Tuesday) will fix this.

[mac84]

ok so this is my experience so far:

burned to cd with UltraISO, ISOrecorder, and Magic ISO maker
all three report:

Code: Select all

 
check "/dev/sdc0" for boot-signature
PANIC: timeout exceeded - no boot device found

I used winrar to extract the iso to a pendrive. booted from the CD, it found the CD boot signature on the usb though???

well anywho for now...It runs as a "cd" off the usb and I can't install it like that. Good news is that I have my Xpress 200 5955 running with 3d accel!!!

yay

I then copied the files to another pendrive and boot the same as prev. Now I get this error:

I tried to install simplux and this is the error report I get

Code: Select all

/sbin/simple:
file ''/lib/simple/misc/standard'', line 88:
extern command install_siblo failed with error code 1
detailed error information:


#

and unfortunately, I can make out what is sorta going on in there but I'm still new to linux.

anyhelp? need any other info or logs? should I post /lib/simple/misc/standard? I already googled

thanks alot!