Just tried Puppy! Have some questions.

[PlancksCnst]

Tried this puppy out for the first time.

[nonsense - skip if you are in a hurry]
WOW! What a breath of fresh air. It's like ice cream on a hot summer day. It's like going to work in your pajamas. It's like a refreshing breeze when the air is still. It's like going for a skinny dip in the creek.
[/nonsense]

I love it.

Now a have several questions; the first one is what I'm really interested in, the others, just answer if they're quick (or if you've got time and are bored).

Puppy doesn't see my flash drive; what would be the first step in rectifying this (I would love to make a bootable flash thingy)? As you can imagine, a search for puppy and flash drive turns up all sorts of stuff about how puppy can boot from a flash drive! Wonderful! How do I fix it?


Now for the rest:

• *Is there some setting in JWM which will let me resize from the top border and corners?
  *It seems that the default window size for newly-opened applications is fullscreen-but-not-maximized, which is quite annoying. Can I change that? I'd be fine with either maximized or not full screen.
  *Can I install apps which do not get loaded into ram at startup? This would be useful for infrequently-used apps (such as The Gimp for me).
  *gXine sometimes gets dirty when playing a wmv file; any way to fix that?
  *I have changed my defaultbrowser link to point to Firefox instead of Seamonkey, but I noticed that if I start the finance app (homebank or something?), it launched Seamonkey. Is there another link somewhere to change? Is that hard-coded into the app?

[jonyo]

[nonsense - skip if you are in a hurry]
WOW! What a breath of fresh air. It's like ice cream on a hot summer day. It's like going to work in your pajamas. It's like a refreshing breeze when the air is still. It's like going for a skinny dip in the creek.
[/nonsense]

Welcome! I'm assuming pup v3 & how about some 'pute info?

[Bruce B]

*Is there some setting in JWM which will let me resize from the top border and corners?

Yes, Puppy changed window manager versions, but with my version I change the width tag.

I think I misunderstood your question. For resizing unmaximize and use left mouse button depressed, grab an edge or corner and go to work. Let up on mouse button when satisfied with the resize.

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<!-- Visual Styles -->

<BorderStyle>
<Font>DejaVu Sans 12</Font>
<Width>4</Width>
<Height>19</Height>
<Foreground>black</Foreground>
<Background>gray90</Background>
<ActiveForeground>white</ActiveForeground>
<ActiveBackground>#4A5966</ActiveBackground>
</BorderStyle>

*It seems that the default window size for newly-opened applications is fullscreen-but-not-maximized, which is quite annoying. Can I change that? I'd be fine with either maximized or not full screen.

Unmaximize it, resize it and maybe next time it's run it will start in the same size and position it was closed it. Mileage may vary according to the application.

*Can I install apps which do not get loaded into ram at startup? This would be useful for infrequently-used apps (such as The Gimp for me).

I think it would be harder to install apps which do get loaded into ram at startup. Most apps get installed in the pup_save file with Frugal installs or the directory structure with Full installs.

*gXine sometimes gets dirty when playing a wmv file; any way to fix that?

I think for serious moving watching Xvesa works best, also I remember reading with the newer Puppys that in order to overcome a bug for watching full-screen you must maximize the window before changing to full-screen.

And, install more codecs!

*I have changed my defaultbrowser link to point to Firefox instead of Seamonkey, but I noticed that if I start the finance app (homebank or something?), it launched Seamonkey. Is there another link somewhere to change? Is that hard-coded into the app?

I dunno, I just wing it with personal finances, you can inspect the following files for many default application behavior. Change to suit preferences. Change back if it messed things up. Use # to save the changed (original) line, rather than yank the line.

/usr/local/bin/defaultbrowser
/usr/local/bin/defaultcalendar
/usr/local/bin/defaultchat
/usr/local/bin/defaultconnect
/usr/local/bin/defaultcontact
/usr/local/bin/defaultdraw
/usr/local/bin/defaultemail
/usr/local/bin/defaulthandler
/usr/local/bin/defaulthtmleditor
/usr/local/bin/defaulthtmlviewer
/usr/local/bin/defaultmediaplayer
/usr/local/bin/defaultpaint
/usr/local/bin/defaultspreadsheet
/usr/local/bin/defaulttexteditor
/usr/local/bin/defaultwordprocessor

[jonyo]

And what type install?

[WhoDo]

Tried this puppy out for the first time.

[nonsense - skip if you are in a hurry]
WOW! What a breath of fresh air. It's like ice cream on a hot summer day. It's like going to work in your pajamas. It's like a refreshing breeze when the air is still. It's like going for a skinny dip in the creek.
[/nonsense]

I love it.

Ah, Puppytude! The wonderful feeling we all get when we are freed from the shackles and take our Puppy for a run! Welcome to the kennels!

Puppy doesn't see my flash drive; what would be the first step in rectifying this (I would love to make a bootable flash thingy)? As you can imagine, a search for puppy and flash drive turns up all sorts of stuff about how puppy can boot from a flash drive! Wonderful! How do I fix it?

Try looking under Filesystem>MUT on the menu. That will rescan your devices with a different algorithm, and may turn up your USB. Alternatively, look under modprobe for the modules to be loaded.

*Is there some setting in JWM which will let me resize from the top border and corners?
*It seems that the default window size for newly-opened applications is fullscreen-but-not-maximized, which is quite annoying. Can I change that? I'd be fine with either maximized or not full screen.

I don't know much about JWM. Try EZpup and I can tell you all about settings like that.

*Can I install apps which do not get loaded into ram at startup? This would be useful for infrequently-used apps (such as The Gimp for me).

Nothing you install as an application gets loaded into RAM at startup. It only loads when you access it. Only the programs that are part of Puppy are loaded, if you have enough RAM.

*gXine sometimes gets dirty when playing a wmv file; any way to fix that?

Mine, too. I'd be interested in a fix as well. I've tried messing with frame rates, etc., but to no avail.

*I have changed my defaultbrowser link to point to Firefox instead of Seamonkey, but I noticed that if I start the finance app (homebank or something?), it launched Seamonkey. Is there another link somewhere to change? Is that hard-coded into the app?

Blind Bambi (no eye deer). Sorry. Most applications should call the default browser. Maybe Homebank is some sort of Seamonkey plugin?

Hope (some of) that helps.

Cheers

[mcewanw]

*Can I install apps which do not get loaded into ram at startup? This would be useful for infrequently-used apps (such as The Gimp for me).

I tend to use a "frugal" Puppy install. As far as I know, you are correct in thinking that the whole pup_save file will be loaded into RAM if there is sufficient space at boot time. One way of only loading infrequently used big apps is via "squashed file systems" (sfs), which you can load in or not load in as required. Open Office is often used in this way. You could therefore create your own sfs containing one or more infrequently used apps and just load it up when you need it. You'll need to search the forum for instructions on making an sfs, or check the Wiki maybe. Puppy user John Doe summarises many commandline tricks at http://puppylinux.org/wikka/ShellScript ... comments=1
One of these is a oneliner for making squashed file systems.

*gXine sometimes gets dirty when playing a wmv file; any way to fix that?

I have had more success with mplayer than the pre-installed gxine. The best version I've come across was compiled by tempestuos; has many codecs pre-installed. You can download the pet install file from: http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Multimedia/Mplayer-1.0rc1/
Tempestuous explains more about it at forum thread: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13216
Note that it gives faster graphics under Xorg than Xvesa with this, because Xorg provides accelerated graphics. Makes a big difference when playing DVD's for me. Tempestuous explains all that somewhere in the given link.

Puppy doesn't see my flash drive

I don't really know. I checked the online user manual at http://www.puppy-linux.info/en/manual/p ... /main.html and it had this to say:

"6.3 USB sticks / external harddrive

USB sticks and external harddrives are very simple to use. Start the program "Menu | File managers | Pmount mount/unmount drives" and click on the button "Refresh". Then you click on the USB stick symbol and the file manager ROX will automatically open and show you the files on the USB stick. External harddrives with FAT32-filesystem can be used too. If you changed the file system of the external harddrive e.g. to an ext3-filesystem the program Pmount can not mount the external harddrive. In this case you open a shell and enter:

* mount /dev/sdax /mnt/sdax (e.g. for the first partition: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1)"

I can't myself help further on that one, sorry.

[raffy]

This is a good starting point for building your personalized Puppy:
http://minipc.org/safepup/index.php?fil ... 0Build.htm

Safepup has Mplayer and Firefox, which you can update (especially Firefox) before remastering.

Also, add and test applications, then before remastering, move them out to another (Linux filesystem) location (say, to /mnt/hdaX) so that they won't get into the new ISO. Afterwards, when using the new ISO, you can launch the applications from their own folders.

To change the defaultbrowser, edit defaultbrowser in /usr/local/bin.

[jonyo]

Another vers pup might solve the usb stick prob & easy to try out.

[HairyWill]

Puppy doesn't see my flash drive

what do you get if you plug in the drive and then open a console and type
probepart
if it is usb1 then the specification allows something like 40 seconds for the connection to get made, so keep trying at least this long

Is there some setting in JWM which will let me resize from the top border and corners?

NO, puppy 3.00 upgraded the version of jwm installed to 2.01. It is not possible to resize a window by gripping the top corners. The best you can do is right-click on the window head and select resize, though you are still dragging up from the bottom and then have to move the window down. This has caused some consternation and I believe Joe Wingbermuehle is considering re-adding this function. If it is a dealbreaker for you now then I suggest either using an old version of jwm or as WhoDo says install EZpup to get the icewm windowmanager that has lots of other shiny features.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=22327

*gXine sometimes gets dirty when playing a wmv file; any way to fix that?

stop playing dirty videos
That might be a codec problem. I think that the Puppy Package Manager on the setup menu allows you to download more.

[PlancksCnst]

Wow, so many responses!

I didn't realize Puppy had such an active community.

jonyo - yes, it's puppy 3.01. I don't remember specific stats on my system, but I built it two years ago out of current hardware. The processor is an AMD 64. It has 2gb of ram. Asus NForce mboard. I'm not sure what type of install; I booted from the CD, and when I shut down, it asked if it could write some files to the hard drive, and I allowed it. I don't know if that is "installed" (maybe the "frugal install" I've heard about?).


Bruce B - XVesa for movie watching? I thought the vesa drivers were a baseline driver that should work with everything (and hence, doesn't get the best performance possible). I do resize the window, and sometimes it does come back with the size it was, but sometimes it doesn't - it seems completely random, I haven't been able to track down a specific behavior. It would be really nice to just change the default size so that when it doesn't remember, it won't be the worst size possible.


WhoDo - Are you the whodo of the themes that I've heard about?
I'll try MUT when I get back to that computer; thanks. I see it has a newer version of ROX. Do you know if this version resizes the window every time you open a different directory the way that the one in vanilla Puppy does? That really drives me crazy and I can't find any settings for it.

mcewanw - Thanks for that sfs tip! That should hopefully do the trick. About the media player - yeah, I've thought about switching to something else: mplayer or VLC maybe. I'll have to find out which is smallest.

raffy - Perfect; that's exactly what I'm going to do eventually. I need to get this thing lean(er) and mean(er) for my POS laptop.

HairyWill - I'll try probepart as soon as I get back to my Puppy computer. I did try the USB app that is somewhere in the menu; and all it showed were EHCI and OHCI controllers. Thanks for the info on resizing - you knew exactly what I was talking about. I probably will try IceWM at some point. I'm also thinking about trying out WMII.

[WhoDo]

WhoDo - Are you the whodo of the themes that I've heard about?

The one and only (I hope - multiple personality disorders notwithstanding).

I see it has a newer version of ROX. Do you know if this version resizes the window every time you open a different directory the way that the one in vanilla Puppy does? That really drives me crazy and I can't find any settings for it.

Right click on any desktop icon and choose Rox-filer>Options>Filer windows - there you will find the automatic sizing options.

Hope that helps

[PlancksCnst]

Output of probepart:

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/dev/sda1|ext3|69240086
/dev/sda2|none|2
/dev/sda5|swap|3052286
/dev/sdb1|ntfs|78140096
/dev/sdb2|ext2|80324
/dev/sdb3|swap|1012094
/dev/sdb4|ext3|77015610
/dev/hdb|iso9660|0
/dev/hdd|iso9660|0

Output of modprobe -l | grep usb

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/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/initrd/kernel/drivers/usb/input/usbhid.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/initrd/kernel/drivers/usb/core/usbcore.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/initrd/kernel/drivers/usb/storage/usb-storage.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/initrd/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ehci-hcd.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/initrd/kernel/drivers/usb/host/ohci-hcd.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/initrd/kernel/drivers/usb/host/uhci-hcd.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/usb/class/usblp.ko

[HairyWill]

I presume that both sda and sdb are sata hard drives.
Try running parted at the prompt and then doing
print all
to see if parted can find the stick

[Bruce B]

Bruce B - XVesa for movie watching? I thought the vesa drivers were a baseline driver that should work with everything (and hence, doesn't get the best performance possible). I do resize the window, and sometimes it does come back with the size it was, but sometimes it doesn't - it seems completely random, I haven't been able to track down a specific behavior. It would be really nice to just change the default size so that when it doesn't remember, it won't be the worst size possible.

The resizing was only a bug workaround that I guess started with 3.00 - idea is to go full size in windows mode before switching to true full-screen. I'm at 2.17 so I just go full screen when I want.

Performance wise, your theory seems fine. On the other hand I have enough computing power, it wouldn't matter for me.

My specific complaint with Xorg was the screen would flicker black from time to time. This same behavior didn't happen with Xvesa.

[disciple]

Is there some setting in JWM which will let me resize from the top border and corners?

Unfortunately no. This is a new feature with JWM 2. Until JWM 1.8 the border went right around the top as well, so you could resize at the top. Because of this, JWM 1.8 is the greatest WM on earth The only major disadvantage of it is that it doesn't necessarily handle new windows well, as you've noticed.
JWM 2 is prettier, but 1.8 is also completely stable, so if you wanted you could install it. Joe says he's thinking of coming up with a new way to resize at the top of the window while keeping the current look.

Xorg definitely gives best performance playing videos, AS LONG AS it is using xv hardware acceleration. e.g. my graphics card can do xv playback at 800x600 16bit or 1024x768 16bit, but I normally run at 1280x1024 (the native resolution of my LCD monitor), 16 bit.
Because of this, I've written a roxapp that I will post to the forum soon, to switch modes so I can watch videos in decent quality. If you want to play videos with a screen resolution at which your graphics card has no hardware acceleration, then XVESA would be better.
I don't think you should need to install any extra codecs anymore, and I don't think Mplayer should be better than Gxine - but it might be.

Also, if you have a flash graphics card, there is a package to install proper drivers for it.

I have changed my defaultbrowser link to point to Firefox instead of Seamonkey, but I noticed that if I start the finance app (homebank or something?), it launched Seamonkey. Is there another link somewhere to change? Is that hard-coded into the app?

If you need to fix it, and there is no setting in homebank, try renaming or deleting the Seamonkey executable (in /usr/local/bin I think), and replacing it with a link to Firefox.

[PlancksCnst]

It doesn't show up in parted:

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Model: ATA WDC WD800JD-75MS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      32.3kB  40.0GB  40.0GB  primary  ntfs              
 2      40.0GB  40.0GB  41.1MB  primary  ext2         boot 
 3      40.0GB  40.6GB  518MB   primary  linux-swap        
 4      40.6GB  80.0GB  39.4GB  primary  ext3              


Warning: Unable to open /dev/fd0 read-write (Read-only file system).  /dev/fd0
has been opened read-only.