Damn Small Linux (DSL) Forums

Issue:
When starting DSL - any version - the first thing that happens once the desktop finishes loading is you get a web-page titled "Getting Started", and (AFAIK), there is no way to say "Alright already!" and ask it not to appear.

Granted, it's a useful and potentially important page, but I'd really like to be able to disable it from appearing every time I boot the "damn" system!  ;D

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Jim (JR)

Edit the file "/home/dsl/.xinitrc" to put a hash (#) at the start of the line:
dillo /usr/share/doc/dsl/getting_started.html &>/dev/null &

That will disable the help message. This file is also where you can put commands to load other programs after the desktop loads.

Thanks (and a Happy New Year!

Once I get a bit more familiar with DSL, (and if I can find a good spot on the Control Panel for this kind of tweak), I might take a shot at a "preference" to enable/disable this.  Though DSL is an excellent learning environment, I am sure that there are many users who blanch at the thought of editing their xinitrc!

One thought that might really work (at the functionality level - how to implement it in the control panel is another story!), is to add a call to another script in xinitrc.  The new script would work something like this

1.  Call the "getting_started" html page
2.  If it returns "not executable", just bail.  i.e. redirect stderr to /dev/null?

The preference toggle could work like this:

1.  Create two buttons - or a "flippy" button like the mounter has - and give it two states:
  (a)  Enabled
  (b)  Disabled

2.  Create a script that would do something like this:  (pardon the Windows coding style)


Any thoughts on:
1.  How to implement this?
2.  (assuming I get it working) How to submit "upstream" (to you?) for inclusion in the next release?

You're right about one thing - Ubuntu/Mint/Fedora/Slackware/et.al. are two "damn" ;D complicated to try this kind of nonsense on without a whole lot more coding/scripting experience than I have.  (there's less to fight with, and less to "break")  There is (also) likely to be a less obnoxious "submit" method for patches/updates.

Any other development efforts going on now that DSL has risen like the Phoenix that it is?  I'd love to just hang out and soak up the skills.

Thanks again for your advice and encouragement!

Jim (JR)

p.s.  The "Preview" functionality on the board is broken - at least in Firefox.  Is there a place where I can submit bug reports against the forum site itself?

Just thought of something. . . . .

I don't think setting +/- x will prevent a local html file from being displayed in the browser.  Assuming that this is true, the fix would be to rename the file to have a leading dot.  Then the script will barf with a "file not found" type error.

Either way. . . .  It will be interesting to play with.

Jim (JR)

The problem with your suggestion is that even when the file specified to Dillo on the command line isn't found, it still loads a blank window.

I think a better way to implement this feature would be to set an environment variable (something like $HELP) during the startup process which is checked using an "if" command in the .xinitrc script, in a similar manner to other parts of the script like selection of the desktop icons manager with $ICONS. SImilarly, I think that a boot line command to set $HELP on or off would be a good way to make the selection.

I'm afraid though that I am not a (the) DSL developer. The developer is registered on this forum as "John" (John Andrews), but has been inactive for the last few years since releasing the release candidates for V. 4.11 in 2012. There are some things I'd like to do myself, mainly compiling newer software releases as extensions for DSL, but I'm not willing to devote the time to it at the moment.

Submitting things would be a case of contacting John Andrews directly, but as I say, his inactivity indicates that it may be a long time before anything is done with your contribution. Another option is to package the changes as a MyDSL extension (see the Wiki for details), then submit it to the respository, or post here as an attachment if John isn't maintaining the MyDSL respositry either.

CNK,

Excellent point.  And in retrospect, you are exactly right.  Unfortunately I was both hypothesizing, and not very lucid - it being WAY past bedtime when I wrote that.

In any event, I haven't had a chance to fuss with this yet.  However, hope springs eternal!

Re:  John not maintaining this-or-that:

First of all, I totally understand - I have a list of "I wanna do's" as long as my arm.  (Actually, both arms and both legs!  :D )

Getting to things that you "want" to do often has to take a back seat to things that you "have" to do.  (Example:  John could have been a bachelor when this started, then got married, and THEN had a couple of kids to keep an eye on.)  Something like that - though enjoyable at times - really puts a crimp on the time you have to maintain a distribution.  Maybe he got a job that forces him to commute out-of-town for weeks on end?  Who knows?  He sure isn't telling.

One thing that could happen is for him to delegate maintenance responsibility to others who have both the experience AND the time to do the job.  Another option would be to share maintenance responsibilities with others.  There would have to be a way to coordinate activities so the maintainers aren't stepping all over each others shoes.  But if this is done it would serve to keep the DSL torch lit, and would provide an incentive to make things even better.

This is a big problem with any project that is a "one man band".  If that "one man" gets overwhelmed - or just develops a bad case of the fuckits, (which is absolutely undertstandable), things rapidly spiral out of control.

Just rambling. . . . .

What say ye?

Jim (JR)

I get the impression that John isn't too warm on opening up the DSL project to a wider development team, but in any case there's nothing to stop a fork being created by another team or individual.

One other tip:

After you've edited .xinitrc to remove dillo from there, (as noted above), you may want to edit the Dillo launcher by right-clicking on the Dillo icon and selecting "properties".

Once there, you will notice that Dillo is set to auto-launch the getting started page from there too.  If you substitute a favorite home page for the reference to the getting started page, (like http://www.dogpile.com - my favorite search engine!), it will automatically launch that page every time you start Dillo.

What say ye?

Jim (JR)