Bugs in current version of DSLForum: User Feedback Topic: Bugs in current version of DSL started by: Aussiejoe Posted by Aussiejoe on April 25 2006,16:39
I have found sometimes when I close applications they continue to run.I have downloaded a few things with the "wget" command in bash and then closed the xterm window and the file has continued to download. I also found after being in a Yahoo chatroom using Gaim that I was still getting IMs after leaving the chatroom. I have also noticed that once I activated the backup command that I lost all my icons off my desktop and the only way I can get them back again is to install another DSL program that places an icon on the desktop. Has anyone else experienced these problems?
Posted by mikshaw on April 25 2006,16:57
I don't know anything about Gaim, but I'm guessing the thing with wget is that the command is probably being backgrounded. Like i said, it's a guess.The icons do not remain for mydsl packages because it's unnecessary. If you backup your icons without reinstalling the packages, the icons will point to nonexistent programs. If you set up the packages to auto-install, the appropriate icons will also be reinstalled with the package, so there is no need to back them up. If you have customized icons, you will need to add them to /home/dsl/.filetool.lst Posted by Aussiejoe on April 26 2006,17:07
I am actually losing all my icons, firefox, xterm, beaver, ted, the whole lot including the mydsl applications that are burned onto my CD and automatically loaded at startup. It appears Gaim and wget are doing the same thing, any way to check and/or prevent them from backgrounding?
Posted by mikshaw on April 26 2006,18:49
I couldn't really say....i was guessing about the backgrounding, and it doesn't look like wget is beig backgrounded while it grabs mydsl extensions. It could be built into the Busybox version of wget, though...i have no idea.If you lose ALL of your icons, the problem is often the result of one bad *.lnk or image file in /home/dsl/.xtdesktop which causes xtdesk to halt. When you start X, do the icons flash for an instant and disappear? Do you get any errors when you run the xtdesk command from a terminal? What myDSL extensions are being automatically loaded? Posted by doobit on April 26 2006,18:54
FYI, I had that happen once. My fix was to select the full enhanced desktop menu link to restore my icons and then do a backup to my pen drive with the backup/restore button in the DSL panel. I don't know if that would fix your case, but it might be worth a try.
Posted by Aussiejoe on April 27 2006,14:58
I think I have found the problem with the icons.It is caused by the testing version of Skype, and I think the problem with the backgrounding of wget and Gaim is caused by "gnu-utils.dsl" . I can't be certain on that until I do some testing, but hopefully I will know tomorrow after I have a bit of a play around. I did try the enhanced desktop and playing around with icon tools, I did get them back once but can't get it to do it again. I'm not that concerned about this stuff, just thought it might be a bug in this version of DSL, and if it helps someone else out, then all the better.
Posted by underdog5004 on May 01 2006,21:54
I had the same problem...I thought that perhaps I didn't have enough RAM space for the icons, so I booted "dsl minimal"...and it restored the icons...
Posted by Jonah Thomas on May 02 2006,03:24
I have had no problems with DSL 2.1. It complains about a few things when it boots, but everything works.I have the following problem with DSL 2.3 frugal install with Lilo: When the frugal installed DSL boots, midway through the search for USB devices it complains that the following file is missing: /lib/modules/2.4.31/modules.dep I get a cascade of errors that seem to come from this file being missing, and finally it freezes with the CLI cursor looking like it's ready for input but I can't type anything. I have to reboot. It works fine when I run from CD, it's only the frugal install that fails. When Ilook at the /KNOPPIX directory I find /lib/modules/2.4.26/modules.dep but there is no 2.4.31 directory. It only looks forthat directory with the frugal install, not installing from liveCD. I haven't taken it any farther than that yet. Posted by roberts on May 02 2006,03:53
You have a mix of two versions probably from an incorrect update of your frugal install.
Posted by Jonah Thomas on May 02 2006,16:40
Yes, clearly I have a mix of versions. But I started from a DSL2.3.iso CD, I booted it norestore, I did a full frugal install and not an update. Does this happen to anybody else or is it just me?What would I do to keep it from happening? Ah! I know. I'll back up everything on the hard disk, then reformat every partition on the disk. Then install from the LiveCD onto a completely clean system. It's got to work. Posted by Jonah Thomas on May 02 2006,18:15
Well, that didn't work. I backed up everything onto another disk. Then I reformatted every partition on hda and disconnected hdb.I started DSL2.3 from the LiveCD. I confirmed that the hard disk was empty except for the swap partition. I did the frugal install starting from the DSL/apps/tools menu. I had started the LiveCD with the options "dma norestore nopcmcia" and I did the frugal install with "dma norestore nopcmcia" and chose no restore partition and no separate MyDSL partition. It installed on hda1and ended normally, it rebooted. But now I get a "no system disk" error. My computer doesn't recognise the frugal install at all. before it would start and get halfway through the boot before it quit, but now it quits at the very beginning. I repeated it twice looking for problems, and got the same result each time. hda1 is bootable. After the install it has a /KNOPPIX folder with a KNOPPIX that's the right size, and it has a /boot folder with half a dozen files in it, and an empty /lost+found folder. Some of the files that are in the boot folder were out in /mnt/hda1/ in earlier versions. Has anyone else had trouble with this? Posted by doobit on May 02 2006,18:47
How much memory do you have? Also, did you format the swap as a swap (mkswap), and did you activate it with swapon? Low memory, or an inactive swap will cause icons to disappear. Also, when you set partitions, make sure you make the first one bootable, and format as ext2 because, as far as I know DSL still needs ext2 for KNOPPIX to reside on.
Posted by whiteweasel on May 02 2006,20:10
I've installed DSL 2.3 (frugal install) to an old Mitsubishi Amity CN subnotebook system: 133MHz Pentium, 48MB RAM, 1.2GB HDD. It has 1MB of video ram and can only display 640x480. 800x600x16bpp is possible with a virtual screen larger than the physican screen, which I detest. I got it to work with vga=786 using xfbdev. On to the bugs:1. When fluxbox comes up dillo is opened with a window much bigger than the display. The window edges are not visible. I tried to resize the Dillo window with the fluxbox CTRL+mouse shortcut and had no luck at all. This problem does not exist in jwm so I am mainly using that. Once I have Dillo (or any app) at the proper size I can switch back to fluxbox without that problem. 2. In jwm sometimes the icons display properly and sometimes not. Turning off icons and turning them back on always corrects this problem. This is unique to jwm. Icons in fluxbox are fine. This isn't a memory issue as it happens when memory usage is low and when I am not hitting swap at all. Basically I just use jwm with no icons and everything is fine. A lot of old laptops with small screens are limited to 640x480. I could see this becoming very frustrating to a newbie which is why I'm bothering to report it. BTW, I am very pleased with the performance of the frugal install on such a limited machine. It works well and is surprisingly fast. I've added some dsl extensions (madwifi, xchat, bluefish) and everything works as it should except for the little niggles in the window managers. Posted by doobit on May 02 2006,20:32
I have had a couple of different computers with 640x480 screens and 2MB video RAM. I typically start it with vga=785. Using that setting I have had no problems with the icons in JWM or Fluxbox. Any window can be moved around in Fluxbox with alt+left mouse button. After you read the Dillo getting started page you can deactivate it by commenting out the dillo line in .xinitrc. (put a # before the line beginning with dillo in the invisible .xinitrc script that you can see by clicking the H in the upper corner of EmelFM)
Posted by whiteweasel on May 02 2006,20:42
I guess I should have made clear that I am a very experienced Linux user. I know I can edit .xinitrc and, indeed, already had before posting. I have my system the way I want it. I was suggesting that this is a problem for newbies and that changing the default window size in the next release might be a good idea. Thank for the note on vga=785. I guess it's good to know that it works at a reduced color depth. However, it would be nice if it worked at 24bpp as well. IMHO you've provided a good workaround but it's still a bug that should be fixed. I'd rather have the higher color depth than icons, personally. It would be nice if I could have both, especially considering it works just fine in fluxbox. Posted by doobit on May 02 2006,20:56
I've seen partial icons at times in JWM as well. I don't know if this is a bug that the DSL team would deal with however. It seems more like a problem for JWM development. Reduced color depth requires less video RAM, which I assumed was why it works better. I may be wrong and it could be a code matter, since, as you say, Fluxbox is OK. JWM seems to work faster and use less RAM and fewer processes overall on my machines than Fluxbox. I like having the choice though. Posted by mikshaw on May 03 2006,01:38
Icon problems are not limited to jwm. I've seen them display partially, or display only text labels, with other window managers as well. I haven't got a clue why this happens, though.
Posted by Jonah Thomas on May 03 2006,01:45
<i>How much memory do you have?</i>If you're responding to me, 512M. <i>Also, did you format the swap as a swap (mkswap), and did you activate it with swapon?</i> Yes. <i>Also, when you set partitions, make sure you make the first one bootable, and format as ext2 because, as far as I know DSL still needs ext2 for KNOPPIX to reside on.</i> Yes. DSL 2.1 worked fine. DSL 2.3 had that problem about requiring the wrong directory, the wrong version. Presumably somehow it was picking up something from another version even though I told it norestore. And when I set it up so there was no possible way to get the stuff about the old version while loading, it didn't load at all. But Whiteweasel gets a frugal install to work. I'll sleep on it. I guess I'll try leaving out the dma and nopcmcia since they might have some effect. Posted by whiteweasel on May 03 2006,04:54
That would seem to rule out referring this to upstream JWM developers. What app generates the icons? They seem constant across the two wms I have installed except for the dispay issue. Perhaps the issue is with that code. Posted by underdog5004 on May 03 2006,15:26
The following has happened a few times with me. I'm using a way old machine as my media box, with 12 speakers through an amp. Anyways, I would minimize xmms, (or sometimes shade it), and then when I tried to get it back, everything would slow way down, my cpu usage was between 95 and 115%, and then something would eat all my ram, leaving me with a massive rebootable brick. Of course, once I rebooted, I was fine. I've accidentally minimized the window, then pulled it back, with no glitches...hmm. So now, I try not to minimize or shade xmms. Posted by Jonah Thomas on May 09 2006,07:05
I found my problem. DSL2.3 wouldn't do a frugal install. Somehow I'd set the order that the BIOS looked for installers to first USB, second CDROM, third HD1 and fourth OTHER. I didn't realise that HD1 was hdb. Presumably it was trying to load from hdb (where I'd installed an old version of DSL) and it was getting part of the install from hdb and part from hda. When I removed hdb completely for troubleshooting I removed OTHER from the bios setting just in case, and then no frugal install worked at all. When I changed HD1 to HD0 then it worked fine.I tried installing from DSL2.1 and DSL 2.2b and DSL 2.3 at least twice each looking for clues before I found that. Sorry to waste your time. Now it works perfectly! (At least as far as I've tested.) |