Quirky Xerus 8.6 (Aug. 16), Beaver 8.7.1 (Sept. 21), 2018

[belham2]

Glad to see BK's reasonable response to jcoles.
All very well for the world's rich kids to rave about their multicore, USB uefi-booting over-subscribed grossly-mem'ed shiny kit...

LOL, Sage. My question is, does any one of us here have the new mutli-core, usb-uefi-booting over-subscribed grossly-mem'ed shiny kit----sage is rolling his tongue back in his cheek still after writing that

I'm unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) still stuck on AMD2+ Athlon/Sempron chips from circa 2005-2007, on motherboards from the same time span, with DDR2 (which I've tried to make sure to have 8GB of to help matters) and motherboard video drivers 6 or7 iterations removed from current versions, with usb 2.0 and perfectly good non-sata drives still rocking things. Boot times are yet still 30-40sec max, and actual OS use is still pretty coyote-like zippy.

So, yes, I am wondering, what is difference going to be made if I were to get me one of those "multicore, USB uefi-booting over-subscribed grossly-mem'ed shiny" kits Sage speaks of when it comes to booting a Quirky (or any pup and/or Ddog) along with actually running/using it?

Will it make everything easier?

Will things be faster?? Will Coyote be replaced by quantum-like speed?

Will the over-subscription variable Sage speaks of answer questions, like an A.I. entity, while it boots?

Will the whole thing make my coffee?

Will it make Quirky or any OS razzle-dazzle even more in one's eyes??

Will it...(fill in as needed)


Any feedback from those of you out there with kits described ala'-Sage would be welcomed. Possibly memes aren't over-rated after all.

[BarryK]

I tried to boot the DVD from an external Toshiba DVD reader/burner.
Will retry from the internal CD/DVD reader.

Ah, I know what the problem is. External optical drives may need several seconds before can be used. I need to examine the 'init' script in initrd.q to wait a bit longer for the dvd to become available.

Have added that to the to-do list.

[BarryK]

Thanks dom570 that worked OK.
If anyone else has a problem with the Realtek rtl8723be wifi module here is a solution.

Do you know if this problem always occurs, or only on certain laptops?

If the answer is always, then I should apply that code next time I compile the kernel.

[tronkel]

As far as I know, this only occurs on certain laptops that have a dual-purpose Realtek bluetooth/wifi card. Mine is a newish but basic model HP laptop an HP 15-ba519ng with an AMD motherboard. On searching round the internet there seems to be a lot of users that are affected by this. The problem is that the module provided by the Linux kernel cannot recognise the ant_sel=2 argument. The suggested link in my previous post provides a patch for this. See:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... &start=525

It might therefore be a good idea to compile the kernel with these modules built-in. Not sure if there are any disadvantages in doing this, but at least it would give the user the option of swapping out the antenna no., if necessary.

It appears that not all of the versions of this hardware have 2 real antennae. In some cases one of them is only a dummy but seems to fool the standard Linux module. This fix worked great for me in Quirky - compiles without issue. I didn't need the 4.11.11 headers, only the kernel source. There is no initrd.gz to update either. Great job on the Quirky architecture Barry.

[jcoles]

Hi Jocoles,

It has to be asked: did you take 5-10 mins and read this (the below link) first, which are instructions (since the beginning of Quirky a few years ago) on what to exactly do if you are installing Quirky to an internal hard drive?

RTFM is always the snarky developer answer. As a matter of fact, I followed the instructions here: http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky ... nstall.htm
They say, under Live-CD ISO file,

"After bootup, you will see two icons on the desktop, "install" and "save". The "install" icon enables you to install Quirky any way you want, to a partition on the hard drive, or an external drive.

If the CD only supports Live-CD or frugal install, the instructions should make that clear and the Install program should not offer Full Installation as an option in that case.

You can't blame users for being confused by bizarre behaviour. An installation CD asking for the ISO file of itself cannot ever make any sense.
It's funny. Software developers interact with computers using code which is very specific and precise. But when they have to interact with people, developers are often ambiguous and confusing.

I agree that frugal install may well be adequate and that the USB Flash option might perform better.

[Billtoo]

Booted the live DVD and installed to a 32gb usb-3.0 flash drive.

# inxi -b
System: Host: puppypc20304 Kernel: 4.11.11 x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: JWM git-976 Distro: Quirky 8.2 xerus64
Machine: System: Hewlett-Packard product: p7-1246s serial: MXX232077R
Mobo: Foxconn model: 2ADA v: 1.00 Bios: AMI v: 7.12 date: 06/07/2012
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i5-3550 (-MCP-) speed/max: 1600/3301 MHz
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GF108 [GeForce GT 430]
Display Server: X.org 1.18.4 driver: nvidia tty size: 128x28 Advanced Data: N/A for root
Network: Card-1: Ralink RT5390 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe driver: rt2800pci
Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: r8169
Drives: HDD Total Size: 2031.9GB (0.3% used)
Info: Processes: 149 Uptime: 13 min Memory: 191.0/12040.8MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.2.35
#

Installed all must haves with QPM + installed proprietary Nvidia driver.
Monitor is a 32" TV.
Works well,
Thanks.

[Rodney Byne]

Hi to Barry and all.

Using Easy as sdb host, a very nice 8.2 resulted Barry.
Did a copy/paste to dd from your cheat-sheet
to an 8Gig stick sdc, no errors.

However, a buglet noted.
In Multimedia: pequalizer doesn't launch.
PPM says dependency caps_eq is missing.

Best regards.

[Lobster]

Many thanks for making an ISO version

Booted up ISO OK. Seemed fine from quick check. Decided to save a remastered boot DVD. (that is the boot straight into the file settings saved on my Hard Disk)
I don't think it burnt but it may have put a grub file on one of my HD.

... when I booted up the message in the enclosed image came up and I was stuck ...

[FeodorF]

Blinky doesn't work in frugal mode.

Add up:
Blinky works!
I missed to disable my eth0 in the bios setup while using wlan0!

[Rodney Byne]

Hello Scottman,

Ref your 2013 post after doing some digging,

as "fixed: pEqualizer (added caps_eq-0.4.8 and alsaequal-0.6)"
could you elaborate on this in full please to resolve my post
query above, on missing dependency in pEqualizer.

Thanks in advance.

[BarryK]

You can't blame users for being confused by bizarre behaviour. An installation CD asking for the ISO file of itself cannot ever make any sense.

I don't know about bizarre, but I do agree it is an annoyance, so have fixed it. The frugal install already allows a choice of ISO, CD or folder, and I have enhanced install to partition or drive to have the same choice.

This is reported on my blog:
http://barryk.org/news/?viewDetailed=00614

I also made the installer a bit faster.

[BarryK]

Many thanks for making an ISO version

Booted up ISO OK. Seemed fine from quick check. Decided to save a remastered boot DVD. (that is the boot straight into the file settings saved on my Hard Disk)
I don't think it burnt but it may have put a grub file on one of my HD.

... when I booted up the message in the enclosed image came up and I was stuck ...

Hi lobster, good that you still come to the Puppy Forum sometimes!

I don't know what that image means. Does the PC still bootup with the original CD, and find the saved session?

[quirkian2new]

When playing mp3 files, pMusic suddenly mutes for about 10~20 seconds and then resume. Don't know why. Anyone have same experience ? Seems also in previous Quirky.

[BarryK]

Hello Scottman,

Ref your 2013 post after doing some digging,

as "fixed: pEqualizer (added caps_eq-0.4.8 and alsaequal-0.6)"
could you elaborate on this in full please to resolve my post
query above, on missing dependency in pEqualizer.

Thanks in advance.

There is a bug in pequalizer.
/usr/local/pequalizer/pequalizer has this:

#depends on alsaequal
if [ ! -f /usr/lib/alsa-lib/libasound_module_ctl_equal.so ]; then
echo "Missing dependencies"
exit
fi

However, that shared lib is at:
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/alsa-lib/libasound_module_ctl_equal.so

I fixed that, then run /usr/local/pequalizer/pequalizer in a terminal:

Code: Select all

Failed to load plugin "/usr/lib/ladspa/caps.so": /usr/lib/ladspa/caps.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

That caps.so is in this deb:
https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/caps

which I installed, but then got another error:

Code: Select all

# /usr/local/pequalizer/pequalizer
Unable to find label "Eq" in plugin library file "/usr/lib/ladspa/caps.so".

[Philh]

On the first boot up its a bit confusing having the please wait processing message over the xkb configuration manager as it doesnt continue until youve gone through the configure.
The help icon and exit icon are both missing on xkb configuration manager

I run the Multiple sound card wizard, select hw:1 but it doesnt write it to retrovolrc. I have to edit it manually.
Geoffreys version does seem to write it correctly.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 357#853357

The volume control in xine gui doesnt adjust the volume. Ah it does on another laptop.

The retrovol volume setting doesnt get remembered when rebooting a usb frugal install but does with usb full.
I dont think it gets written to /etc/asound.state or that doesnt get saved.

[Philh]

usb full installs on my laptop
They work for 3 or 4 reboots then I get lots of messages on booting.
I guess once they start displaying messages, the error has already occured so they probably dont mean much.
Then it just stops and hangs.
https://ibb.co/izdLUk
https://ibb.co/e7PG25
https://ibb.co/iqZc9k

On rebooting I get the ramdisk message.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 019#961019

Ive tried fsck and restoring a snapshot but on reboot still the ramdisk screen.

With a usb frugal install after the messages and hang, on rebooting the install is still ok and working

Ive still got easy 0.2 on a flash drive and that always boots up ok.

Ive just tried Xerus on another laptop and it boots reliably.

[linuxcbon]

Out of topic : about motherboards, I found a good one with :
- DDR3
- max ram capacity 32 Gb
- max speed 2400 MHz (can have Dual channel)
- PCI express 3.0
- SATA 3
- USB 3.0
----> ASRock FM2A68M-DG3+ (50 US dollars)
(receives processors AMD FM2 and FM2+)
NOTE : it has no HDMI, only DVI !
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product. ... 6813157578
NOTE : it has no HDMI, only DVI !

[BarryK]

On rebooting I get the ramdisk message.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 019#961019

Ive tried fsck and restoring a snapshot but on reboot still the ramdisk screen.

With a usb frugal install after the messages and hang, on rebooting the install is still ok and working

Ive still got easy 0.2 on a flash drive and that always boots up ok.

Ive just tried Xerus on another laptop and it boots reliably.

Quirky does a filesystem check, from ramdisk, if this file exists:
/.fsckme.flg

When the check takes place, that file gets deleted, so it shouldn't happen at next bootup, unless you hard coded "qfix=fsck" into syslinux.cfg, then it would be stuck doing a fsck at every bootup.

Normally, that /.fsckme.flg would only exist if there is an abnormal shutdown, as a normal shutdown, it gets deleted in /etc/rc.d/rc.shutdown

[BarryK]

I run the Multiple sound card wizard, select hw:1 but it doesnt write it to retrovolrc. I have to edit it manually.
Geoffreys version does seem to write it correctly.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 357#853357

OK, I have upgraded the MSCW PET with Geoffrey's script, see blog post:

http://barryk.org/news/?viewDetailed=00615

[BarryK]

On the first boot up its a bit confusing having the please wait processing message over the xkb configuration manager as it doesnt continue until youve gone through the configure.
The help icon and exit icon are both missing on xkb configuration manager

Thanks for the feedback. I have fixed both of those.