Puppeee 4.3X

[kazzamozz]

Kazzamozz, it's pretty cool that puppeee works on the eeebox at all. I haven't specifically attempted to support it, so it's just luck. The "box" in boxpuppeee stands for the OpenBox window manager, not for the EeeBox. Is it nice to use on the Eeebox compared to other options? Is it worth the effort to try to support it?

Hi Jemimah
OMG I feel like such a twit, I just assumed boxpuppeee was for the EEEbox. Yes it is worth the effort, if you have the time as the standard works amazingly well. I'm interstate at present and won't be back to do anymore testing on the eeebox for around 3 weeks.

FYI the following hardware works very well with both EEEbox & 701SD
Can boot with the following usb dvd writer in both.

External Samsung DVD writer SE-S084 USB only no power required.
(apple mini can't see it)
Wireless keyboard with built in touchpad mouse (model number when I get back home) i'ts a cheapie.
Vodafone K3715 USB stick GPRS connect.

Can also boot Dell D420 Latitude and Inspiron 6000 use your puppeee instead of standard 431 as it is superfast.
Only glitch is yours does not see the Huawei e620 which is a slide in data card (431 can see it)
I understand this is for netbooks, but it works so well on the dells is it possible to include some drivers for it or direct me to a pet so it can see the datacard.

Will download beta 4.2 today
This is really an amazing distro, and I hope it does become part of the official series.
Cheers
Kazzamozz

[kazzamozz]

Is your save file big enough? If stuff doesn't fit during shutdown, the copy down will just terminate without telling you there's a problem.

Hi Jemimah
Yes you are right it seems to be related to the size of the save file.
I was having the same problem with the improper shutdown as well, since increasing it up to 1.2GB the problem has gone!!
cheers
Kazzamozz

[dougeeebear]

I finally have the elantech touchpad working just right for me using the standard atom kernel on both my 900 and 1000H (beta 4.2).

Here is how I have it set up in case anyone wants to check it out.

pupX set properties of x
Acceleration 0
Threshold 0

Flsynclient Configure your Touchpad
Min Speed .60
Max Speed .60
Acceleration .0001

Now I no longer need the no-elantech kernel.

[BJF]

Kazzamozz: I think we're heading in the right direction. My 701 has a skin-full of "useful things" like Google Earth, Frostwire and Gramps, and was hugely unhappy with the default 512Mb choice of save file size. I had a couple of melt-downs with 1Gb saves too, generally after adding data to Gramps (genealogy manager) and then/or heavy-duty browsing like YouTube. Going to the maximum default 1.2Gb has almost fixed it for me with the High-drain app's but see below. What if anything do you have added to your install, and do you go surfing in the Big Stuff?

Jemimah: b4.2 revived after my last whoops (qv) by wiping the save file. Chose 1.2Gb as a save size and grilled it with shut downs and suspends for some time. Faultless. Then I added back Gramps and its dependence, rebooted, added Frostwire and its dependence, rebooted, then Google Earth. No problems. Initially. Fired up Chrome and reset its defaults with homepage and bookmarks added, and passwords saved. Browsed the Forum, and shut down. On the way out the dreaded screen of death flashed up and was there at reboot for two instances. No misbehavior occurred except that Chrome did not and will not retain any changes, history, bookmarks or passwords. Nothing survives a shut-down. The rest of the install is without remark and is behaving well. I am re-using a "value" SD that hasn't been a problem and hasn't had huge use, but I would welcome advice. Should I try out a full install and report?

Cheers.

(Edit) BTW, I have reduced my Autosave interval to 15 min.

[jamesbond]

Going to dive to 4.2.

Just a curiosity - I happened to download and use the atom kernel (before realising that it was the atom kernel) ... and it seems to work fine on my 701SD (celeron-based). What is the diff between the atom and celeron kernels, actually?

EDIT: cheers and Happy Easter everyone.

[zicozico]

Hi Jemimah,

Running Beta 4.2 for a while now. Great piece of work!
Super stable and reliable. No issues so far except:

- You2pup not working anymore.
Probably cannot locate youtube file.
- Chrome settings page is messed up on my 701.
I'd like to set the download directory, cannot see where to do that anymore (maybe due to the fact that the settings screen is messed up). Can I do this with a command line option maybe?


Regards,
Zicozico

[jemimah]

The No-Elantech Atom kernel has been posted.

kazzamozz, do if you know if there are a lot of models of Eeebox? Apparently, if you count every minor variation there are more than 50 different EeePcs... so I'm trying to figure out how much effort eeebox support would involve.

dougeeebear, I will test that and see if it can be the default for elantech or not.

BJF, you can increase your save file to an even larger size by going to the Filesystem menu and picking "Resize personal storage file"

Jamesbond, the Celeron kernel is compiled with Pentium3-M optimizations, whereas the Atom kernel is compiled with Atom optimizations. Also I removed hyper-threading, and frequency scaling support from the Celeron kernel as Celerons don't support those. Also there's a few drivers that I didn't compile for the Celeron kernel because that hardware is only available on Atom-based Eees. The Atom kernel should probably work fine on Celerons, but not vice versa.

ZicoZico, thanks for letting me know about you2pup. I'll check it out.

The problem you're having with Chrome is a JWM bug. JWM is not good for small screens! Switch to FLWM by going to the Desktop menu and picking Change Window Manger. Under FLWM Chrome opens in Full Screen mode initially for some reason - hit F11 and grab one of the borders on the edge so you can move it and maximize it.

I'm thinking of making FLWM the defaut, so everybody please try it and let me know what you think.

[jakfish]

Hi, jemimah,

Excellent release--much works out of the box on an eee 900/no-elantech kernel/frugal install/USB stick boot.

One thing: lid suspend feature appears disabled (it worked in previous puppeee releases). Any workaround?

Thanks for such fine work,
Jake

[jemimah]

I am having problems with that on this kernel. Open a terminal and type 'killall acpid', then type 'acpid' to start it again and see if the problem goes away.

I haven't figured out the cause yet.

[dougeeebear]

I'm thinking of making FLWM the defaut, so everybody please try it and let me know what you think.

I don't care for FLWM, so please don't remove JWM.

[jemimah]

I won't remove it, you would just have to switch it - it's like two clicks to change it.

[jakfish]

Re: lack of lid suspend. I tried the killall acpid and acpid: no go. I'm still getting the message that it's connected to a phantom external monitor.

eee 900/non-elantech kernel/frugal/usb stick boot

Jake

[dougeeebear]

Switching between window managers then restarting X as instructed by the dialog box kills wifi.
A reboot is needed to restart wifi on both 900 and 1000H.
I'm using the atom kernel on both machines.

EDIT:
I just tested, and restarting X is what kills wifi.

[Nevermore]

Nevermore, both Beep and Aqualung are gone in the latest version. The new version has Xfmedia and Goggles which are both Xine based.

Also, try switching the window manager to Flwm for better behavior on big screens and in general.

Where can I download a pls file from? Should be easy to fix the mime types hopefully.

hello
you can download a pls from shoutbox or any other radio browser...
btw, do u know any way to easily install thunderbird 2?
i tried to download the binaries and execute it but nothing happens, same with the pet files...nothing starts and there are no error messages...

[BJF]

Jemimah:

BJF, you can increase your save file to an even larger size by going to the Filesystem menu and picking "Resize personal storage file"

Er, no. I have tried this twice now and it results in kernel panic and a toasty save file. I will, however, start afresh with a new Panasonic SD and no added applications and see if it is at all possible. So far I have only done it to an "experienced" install on that "value" SD and with Frostwire, GE, and Gramps added. I'm hoping to get a Chrome without amnesia too. Watch this space.

John

(Edit) OK, New install on new SD, save file 14Mb short of the total available spare room on the card with no modification to the install apart from that. And I have a Chrome with a memory for homepages at least. I will now proceed with making it my own b4.2 and report any misbehaviour. Puppeee rocks again! Still!

[kazzamozz]

Kazzamozz: I think we're heading in the right direction. My 701 has a skin-full of "useful things" like Google Earth, Frostwire and Gramps, and was hugely unhappy with the default 512Mb choice of save file size. I had a couple of melt-downs with 1Gb saves too, generally after adding data to Gramps (genealogy manager) and then/or heavy-duty browsing like YouTube. Going to the maximum default 1.2Gb has almost fixed it for me with the High-drain app's but see below. What if anything do you have added to your install, and do you go surfing in the Big Stuff?

BJF
just updated to latest beta. I have increased my save to 1.4 and it seems happier. Yep do movie streaming watching youtube 3-5 windows going at a time seems to cope, so far.
But have not got any other application installed as yet. Using 16GB card and about to install Openoffice and fiddle a bit with some very large raw photo files so will let you know what happens.

Jemimah
Re how many models of EEEbox will look into that for you. I know already there have been a lot of updates since mine.
Cheers
Kazzamozz

[BJF]

Ha! Adding my favourite fruit one by one and rebooting, it is Google Earth that causes the improper shut down screen! By rebooting repeatedly, the third up loses the screen and it settles down to normality. Chrome still works. At least now my bete noir has a name.

Jemimah: is there likely to be an identifiable characteristic of GE that people could be warned about or might disappear in future incarnations of Puppeee? Might a 2Gb SD be too small?

Thanks to all.

[zicozico]

Hi Jemimah,

I switched to FLWM and can now indeed edit the Chrome settings page again. Great!

But FLWM seems to have a problem in full screen mode (DOSBOX VGA and maybe even QVGA resolutions)

One other question I have is, how can I use a bigger resolution to my external screen.

So far Puppee wants to mirror the desktop and thus this gives me 800x480, but I'd rather use 1280x1024 for the external screen (with the internal LCD off) any ideas how to do this? Any xorg.conf available somewhere?

Regards,
Zicozico

[darvidc]

davidc, Welcome!

You're my first tester with a 1005p. I need your help to get the drivers added.

There a are 2 issues, first is that 1005p is relatively new. There is a kernel patch that will probably fix support for your wireless card. I was uncertain if the patch was needed for 2.6.33 but apparently the answer is yes.

The second issue is more complicated. I think I need to update the Xorg driver, but there's a limit to how high I can go with Xorg 7.3. Xorg 7.5 has issues on Puppy on old hardware, so no one is in a really hurry to upgrade, which of course makes it hard for us with bleeding edge new hardware. Barry is working on this issue currently, so his new packages for Quirky may be of help.

Would you be able to download a copy of regular 4.3.1 and see if the video works correctly? This is just a basic sanity check for me to see if I didn't remove something that broke it. Also, please send me the dmesg output from 4.3.1 which has a full kernel, so I will know if you need any drivers that I don't have in my cut down kernel.

Also, if you're really motivated, you could download a copy of Quirky with Xorg 7.5 and see if you video works there. The latest one is Barry's attempt to roll back to xorg 7.3 so you'll want to download an older version of Quirky.

Let me know if you have any questions about any of this. I'm very motivated to make this work if possible.

Thanks Jemimah for your reply, sorry I havn't replied sooner but after a attempted install of another disto to a usb I mucked up my MBR being now not even able to get into windows, so this reply is being written on a borrowed machine just now, until i'm up and running again on my 1005p.

Ok, one point at a time:

I've tried the regular 4.3.1 and the video didn't work then either (I'll try and get it in again and send you the dmesg output).

I've no knowledge of Quirky but i'll look into it straight away and give it a go.

Finaly I loaded in the latest live CD of Ubunta Remixed on the 1005p and the video did work correctly there? Maybe that might give you a clue or two.

[hokal]

system 901 (atom): sdc1 4GB (boot) + 32GB sda1 + 16GB (sdb1) sd-card

@jemimah,

I have installed beta42 frugal on my 901 from scratch. Unfortunately the system is quite slow. Pupsave (512MB) in performance mode takes almost 90 seconds, in superperformance 65 sec.,in powersave mode 3minutes!) same is when I shut down. Calling a program to the desktop takes also longer than version beta36, which was for me the best system so far.

It looks like beta4x is no good for sd cards (strange sequence and slow) In my case sdb1 sd card is not always recognized with booting. But always okay if I take it out and in again.
Have I made a mistake with my installation, or is beta 4 just not good for my 901 ?