'Puppy' Linux Corner.....

Hi BlueGalaxy

 

 

The current time is 05/14/2015 08:38 AM.

 

That part has me curious, is your system clock running accurately?

 

If not, you could post a separate Topic to have someone help get it fixed.

 

Happy New Year all,

 

Wizard

Yes, I also just found that time is strange now that you've pointed it out. I'll make a new topic soon.

Can you set/check your system time?

Edited by NickAu, 31 December 2016 - 10:44 PM.

...& then reboot and see if it "sticks", and monitor it over a period of time.

If it is of any help, there is discussion going on elsewhere, beginning with Nick's Post https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/629150/i-am-interested-in-upgrading-my-sons-vista-laptop-to-an-appropriate-linux-os/?p=4149223

... and going through to #87, but we are waiting there to see if the OP does indeed have the correct time.

Wizard

I cant see how its relevant Wizard the post you link to is a Windows related problem while this is Puppy Linux.

As recently as 20 December, BlueGalaxy was also running Windows 8.1.

As I said, a (new) Topic for elsewhere, perhaps, but if the issue is CMOS-related as is being explored elsewhere, then BlueGalaxy may or may not choose to address the problem through Windows?

Cheers

Wizard

Morning, morning. And a Happy New Year to y'all!

@BlueGalaxy:-

Re: Insecure connection to Google.com. That's an interesting point you've raised. I get this with Chrome on my 32-bit Pups when I start 'er up (Google is my home page). The 'https' at the beginning of the address is red, with a line through it, indicating an insecure connection. I believe this is because the version of Chrome I'm using is the very last 32-bit release; 48.0.2564.116 (which is several releases out of date). 

However, I also run SlimJet & Iron. These are both based on the current release of Chromium, still being developed for 32-bit (which is where Chrome comes from, anyway; it was Google's decision to drop 32-bit development!) Curiously, SlimJet shows as insecure for Google, too.....yet Iron doesn't. It shows as secure.

SlimJet and Iron both focus strongly on privacy and security......although SRWare's Iron browser is rather more fanatical about it than SlimJet, despite FlashPeak's claims to the contrary!

Have you run the PaleMoon updater, to get the newest version?(Menu->Internet->PaleMoon Updater)

It may help to resolve the issue.....although I won't guarantee that it will. Not being a fan of the Mozilla-based browsers, I don't take that much interest in them.

Let us know if that makes any difference. If, however, your system time settings are out, that will cause all sorts of problems with modern browsers.....and will need sorting out.

--------------------------------------------------

@Wiz:- Don't forget, Chris, that there's also the peculiarity with the way that Windows addresses the time issue, as distinct from the way that Linux does. Summat to do with Windows using 'local time', and Linux, generally, using UTC by default. And that means making sure that your hardware clock is set correctly, as distinct to your system time settings.....before you begin to reset system time.

Mike. 

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 01 January 2017 - 07:54 AM.

 

@Wiz:- Don't forget, Chris, that there's also the peculiarity with the way that Windows addresses the time issue, as distinct from the way that Linux does. Summat to dowith Windows using 'local time, and Linux, generally, using UTC by default. And that means making sure that your hardware clock is set correctly, as distinct to your system time settings.....before you begin to reset system time.

Thanks for the friendly reminder, Mike

As I said here: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/629150/i-am-interested-in-upgrading-my-sons-vista-laptop-to-an-appropriate-linux-os/?p=4150593

 

We could be getting ahead of ourselves, though, until we hear back from the OP as to whether his date and time is indeed accurate or in error.

 

... albeit in this case, not the OP but friend BlueGalaxy?

2017 is upon us now, and I have a PC in the garage with 2 TiB on it, unused (except for Windows 7 Pro which my wife threatens must be left on there), and I plan to fill it with a litter of Puppies (need more USB sticks), fully installed, whatever, so I will be frequenting your Topic a lot this year, I expect?

Cheers all

Wizard

Morning, Chris.....and a Happy 2017 to ya!

Well, I'm pleased to hear about the plans for Puppy, at any rate. Always happy to get visitors! I won't guarantee that I can help with all problems (though using one 'genre' of distro exclusively does tend to concentrate the expertise, as it were..!)

That is, of course, the idea of this thread, as I said. Like 'Cheesemaker's Corner', it's a 'contribute-as-you-can' style of thread. We have a few Puppy users here, apart from me.....and you don't need to be an expert to be able to come up with advice.

How on earth do you keep track of the differences between all your distros..?   

Mike. 

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 01 January 2017 - 10:04 AM.

Quick keyboard layout changer

Morning, all.

This is something I've been using for quite a while, and it occurred to me that other Puppy users might like the benefit of it. It was developed by Argolance, one of the 'French Sub-forum' members on the Puppy Forum, a few years ago, and allows you to change from one keyboard layout to another in mid-stride as you type.

It's called the XKB Configuration Manager, and is based on the fbxkb utility. The GUI was built using yad.

http://www.huge-man-linux.net/man1/fbxkb.html

It's similar in concept to the 'tray-based' keyboard layout changer in Debian & the 'buntus, yet has a multitude of options.....allowing you to set-up just about every aspect of your keyboard & keep track of what you've done.

It's readily available from here:-

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=67796

It doesn't come as standard with Pup (like many more mainstream distros), but is easy to install & set-up, and is way more useful than you realise once you start to use it regularly!

Mike. 

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 10 January 2017 - 06:51 AM.

Building on the last post, there's another keyboard-based trick Puppians may be interested in.

Last week, I was using the old Dell lappie in the front room. I always have a mug of coffee on the go (I'm like a lot of geeks in that respect!), and was daft enough to spill some of it all over the right-hand side of the keyboard...

I had it all apart, and cleaned up all the spillage, including disassembling the keyboard as far as was possible. Touch wood, everything still worked.....with the exception of two keys. 'Backspace'.....and the 'Enter' key..!

I can get hold of another keyboard (they're still easy to find on eBay & Amazon), but having had an expensive Xmas, I'm a wee bit strapped for cash for the next few weeks. So; there's a trick Puppians can use to re-map unused keys to an alternate function.....and it's easily reversible, too.

This workaround uses the xmodmap utilty; a list of functions for which can be found here:-

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/List_of_Keysyms_Recognised_by_Xmodmap

...and you implement it as follows.

In my case, I've remapped both of these keys; 'Return' to Right-Shift, and 'Backspace' to Insert (neither of which I tend to use). Thus:-

xmodmap -e "keysym Shift_R = Return"

and

xmodmap -e "keysym Insert = BackSpace"

The '-e' modifier merely tells xmodmap to execute the string. Please note, this is not permanent; a re-boot, or even merely re-starting 'X' will clear it. So, to make this temporarily permanent, I've written 2 little scripts with Geany which I've placed in /root/Startup, ensuring that it automatically starts every time at boot, thus:-

ReturnKey:-

#!/bin/sh
xmodmap -e "keysym Shift_R = Return"

...and for BackSpace:-

#!/bin/sh
xmodmap -e "keysym Insert = BackSpace"

This works nicely, and when I get hold of the new keyboard, all I'll need to do is to delete the scripts from /root/Startup. Spot on! 

Do make sure that you spell 'BackSpace' with that capital 'S' in the middle.....otherwise xmodmap won't recognise it. This goes for all of the xmodmap functions.....but as fellow Linux users, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that..!

Thanks are due to MochiMoppel of the Japanese Puppy Forum, who specialises in all the minutiae of what makes the JWM/ROX-Filer combo tick.

Hope that's of some use to some of you.

Mike. 

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 10 January 2017 - 06:58 AM.

Following on from the previous post, I keep on discovering more and more keys that aren't behaving themselves. This being the case, I decided what I needed was a 'virtual' keyboard.....just to tide me over until I get the replacement sorted out.

I'm now using xvkbd:-

http://t-sato.in.coocan.jp/xvkbd/

...which has been floating around the Puppy Forums since, oh....like, forever, really. Its implementation has always been a bit scattershot, though, with the binary being compiled separately, and then various libs'n'stuff being tracked down afterwards. In order to make things simpler, I've assembled everything into a .pet package, which includes a .desktop entry. With this being in place, you can add the launcher to the tray 'launcher' area, so it's always handy when you want to use it. Amongst other included tweaks, there's a whole bunch of alternate keyboards layouts available. Just click (and hold) on the xvkbd 'logo', bottom-left corner.....and move the cursor to the entry you want.

If anybody's interested in using this with their Pups, you can find it at my MediaFire a/c, here:-

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nfa4evditxi2l50/xvkbd-3.1.pet

Guaranteed free from any nasties.....as usual.

Hope y'all find it useful..!

Mike. 

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 19 January 2017 - 11:27 AM.

Running Windows 'Portable' Apps under WINE with Puppy

Morning, everybody.

Now, I know WINE isn't everybody's cup of tea. Many on here are of the opinion that it opens your Linux install to all sorts of Windows malware.....and one of the main attractions of Linux is that it lets you get away from all that crap.

However, I've been using M$ stuff under WINE for a couple of years now.....and never had the slightest hint of anything trying to sneak in 'under the radar', as it were. Horses for courses, as the saying goes; it's all down to personal preference. I don't think there's any shame in admitting that some Windows stuff just does the job better than equivalent Linux apps. It's all about getting things done at the end of the day; there is no point in being so dogmatic that you shoot yourself in the foot in the process!

The 'normal' WINE installation creates a virtual 'C' drive in the hidden .wine folder in your home directory; /home for most of us, /root of course for Puppy. Applications then get installed to the 'Program Files' folder within that virtual drive.

------------------------------------------------------------

I've started experimenting with some of the 'portable' Windows apps from PortableApps.com. These don't install to the normal 'Program Files' folder; instead, you need to run them from their own self-contained folder in your home directory.

I've currently got half-a-dozen or more of these installed.....and they work really well. They include portable versions of:-

The Jarte word processor

IrfanView image editor

LaZPaint image editor, &

The SmartDeblur app for correcting out-of-focus images.

Since these don't generate Menu entries (or desktop/tray launchers), I've created my own for them, along with similar entries for many of my 'normally-installed' WINE Windows apps. The basic structure for these is as follows:-

1) A /bin entry in /root/my-applications, pointing to the .exe itself

2) Two entries in /usr; 

a ) One in /usr/share/applications (for the desktop entry), and

b ) One in /usr/share/pixmaps, for the associated MenuEntry icon.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I'll give some examples here, for the IrfanViewPortable app.

The /root/my-applications/bin entry:-

#!/bin/sh
wine /root/PortableApps/IrfanviewPortable/IrfanViewPortable.exe

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=IrfanView
Exec=/root/my-applications/bin/IrfanView
Categories=X-Graphic
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Path=/root/PortableApps/IrfanViewPortable/IrfanViewPortable.exe
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/irfanview.png

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 28 January 2017 - 10:43 AM.

Running Windows 'Portable' Apps from a USB drive

Right. Now, then.

This business of running 'portable apps' from a USB drive (which is what these things were intended for, of course) works very well indeed.

I've copied over my 'PortableApps' directory to a freshly-formatted ext3 flash drive. For launching, instead of digging through each app's folder to find the .exe file, I've simply created a 'LAUNCH' directory on the same drive, containing simple launch scripts for each app. These are just a modification of the /root/my-applications/bin entries from the previous post.

For example, IrfanView's entry changes from:-

#!/bin/sh
wine /root/PortableApps/IrfanviewPortable/IrfanViewPortable.exe

.....to:-

#!/bin/sh
wine /mnt/sdh1/PortableApps/IrfanviewPortable/IrfanViewPortable.exe

.....reflecting that it now points to the new location on the USB drive mounted at /mnt/sdh1, instead of being in /root. Very simple.....and it just works. Switching between Pups, it works flawlessly each time.

The only thing that needs to be changed is the location, in the launcher script, for the 'PortableApps' folder. Depending on what peripherals you regularly have attached to different machines, the mount point for the USB drive is going to be different. Therefore, it might be just as easy to have more than one launcher script in the 'LAUNCH' directory, labelled appropriately so that you know which script is for which machine.

Or you could, of course, just click directly on the .exe files, if you find that easier!

Hope that's of some use to somebody out there..!

Mike. 

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 28 January 2017 - 10:46 AM.

'FULL' or 'FRUGAL'..? PET.....or SFS?

Evening, all.

I want to try and clarify a few 'misconceptions' that exist around some of Pup's basic operating parameters. Specifically; 'Which type of install do I need?', and 'What software formats should I use?'

Well, let's try to clear these points up in that order.

Installation Type:-

The 'Full' install

Most people come to Puppy as one of two types. Either as a Windows user, looking for an alternative; they've heard that Puppy is small, easy to use, and fun. Or, as an existing Linux user, often during a 'distro-hopping' phase.

The 'full' install is totally conventional, and is what most people will be used to. Their OS occupies the whole of their partition, and that's accepted practice. So, naturally, folks opt for the 'full' install, thinking that's what they want. The term 'frugal' is in itself confusing. A lot of people take it to mean it's a 'basic', 'frills-free', 'poor man's' version of the OS, lacking in features.....so they go for the 'full', thinking that's the better choice.

Only with Puppy, it's anything but.....!!

The 'Frugal' install

The term 'frugal' merely refers to the fact that Pup is frugal with drive space, With a frugal install, your Puppy OS consists of three main items; yes, that's right. Just 3 items. The Puppy 'xxxxxxx'.sfs file, which contains everything the system needs to function, The initrd; the initial 'ram-disk'. And 'vmlinuz'; the kernel itself.

You may have a 'z_drv', or an 'a_drv' SFS file. These usually contain additional system drivers, utilities, etc.....whatever extras the developer may think will be needed.

The SFS files are 'read-only'. This means that every time Puppy boots, it's using a brand-new, squeaky-clean version of the file-system. This is a good thing. No corruption, you see.

We always like to ascertain RAM amount, when newcomers ask how to use Puppy, because this determines the type of install that's best suited for the hardware. Assuming the machine has at least 512 MB or more of RAM, Puppy will decompress the contents of the read-only system files fully into RAM, and will run from there.....because RAM is by far & away the fastest component of any computer. 

This is normally envisaged practice for Pup. This is how Barry K. designed her to run, right from the very beginning.

The 'full' install functions in the normal way, pulling data from the drive as & when it's required, working with it, then writing the changed data back to the drive. This is how 99% of OSs work, and have done so for many years.

This is what we usually recommend for hardware that is 'RAM-challenged'; which doesn't have a lot to play with. For these machines, the 'full' install actually works better than the 'frugal' will. Under these circumstances, the frugally-installed Pup will make substantial use of the swap-space. It won't have any choice. There are documented cases of individuals successfully running Pup on only 64 MB of RAM.....

So; to 'sum-up':-

Plenty of RAM; use a 'frugal' install.

RAM-challenged; go for the 'full' install.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Software:-

This is where it gets even more confusing for newcomers. Existing Linux users are used to a Package Manager; well, Pup has one of those, too. The repositories, however, are not staffed, full-time, by people whose job it is to do nothing but check and maintain the lists of packages. Most Pups are one-man affairs, so once the initial repo is set-up, it tends to be a 'fixed' snapshot in time ever afterward.

This is where the vast amounts of user-compiled .pet and SFS packages come into the equation.

There are two types of 'standard' Puppy package:-

The .pet package, and the SFS package.

PET stands for 'Puppy Enhanced Tarball'. You may have heard that it stands for 'Puppy's Extra Treats'; this was whimsically coined by a blogger some years ago.....but the name has stuck, and has passed into Linux folk-lore.

An SFS is a Squash File System; Linux users will know that this is an entire file-system, or set of file-system entries compiled together, compressed into a single package. Most people running one of the Ubuntu-based distros will have used one of these at some stage, as the 'Casper' file in the ISO image is no more nor less than the same thing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The .pet package installs into the system in much the same way as a PPM entry; dependencies are checked, and an entry is made in the .packages directory in/root, so that Pup can keep track of what's installed. These will uninstall in the normal way, via the Package Manager.

The SFS packages are a rather different concept. I'm not going into the details of how Puppy sees, and works with, the file-system. For those of you possessed of enquiring minds, you'll probably find this to be of interest. Be warned; it gets rather technical, the further you read into it:-

http://barryk.org/puppylinux/development/howpuppyworks.html

Essentially, these are designed to 'load' and 'unload', on-the-fly, as and when you wish to use them. This way, they don't occupy permanent space in your Puppy 'save-file' or 'save-folder'. There's been reams written on the Forum, often passionately so, about keeping your save-file/folder as lean as possible. This, a description of the differences betwixt the two, and the methods for backing-up Puppy, can be found here:-

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/633850/puppy-linux-corner/?p=4133099

SFS packages work best with a 'frugal' install, as they insert themselves into the 'layering' of the unionfs filesystem in such a way that you, the user, sees them as an integral part of the whole thing.....only Puppy knows that they are not intended to be permanent. They're normally used for large packages, that would otherwise occupy a substantial portion of the 'save'-file/folder.

You can install an SFS package to a 'full' install of Pup, but once there, it's permanent. There is no easy way to remove it, since SFS packages don't supply an entry for /root/.packages.....so the PPM can't track down the components, and remove them for you, automagically. It's strictly a manual job.....all the way.

So; to sum up:-

'Frugal' installs can make use of either .pet or SFS packages.....or install from the PPM.

'Full' installs are recommended to only use .pet packages, or install from the PPM.

Hope that clears up a wee bit of the 'fog'!

Mike. 

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 02 February 2017 - 11:37 AM.