new extensions in 0.7
Forum: User Feedback
Topic: new extensions in 0.7
started by: remo
Posted by remo on May 13 2004,16:27
I am new to dsl, and I have done a hd-install on my compac presario laptop. Have previously tried suse, rh, mandrake and debian (hd-installed knoppix really) and they have worked fine too, only a bit slow. DSL was therefore a brilliant choice for me as I have only 56MB of RAM. I am really happy with it, and I have spent the day playing around with it. But I have one question:at the webpage (damnsmalllinux.org) it is written in the release notes that extensions for abiword, openoffice, etc. has been included in 0.7. I cannot find any, or figure out how this works. I have managed to install firefox, but I would also like to install abiword. I have read lots of posts in the forum about apt-get, but I haven't managed to install abiword this way. Anyone knows about the abiword extension and how it works?
remo
Posted by PhrozenFear on May 13 2004,23:43
I would like to learn how these extension things work - I downloaded a few of them, but they're in a format that I don't know how to use / install. Anyone wanna explain to the dumb one (me) ?/>>PhrozenFear
Posted by roberts on May 14 2004,00:05
Download DSL v0.7 and in the "Getting Started" section you can read about myDSL. Using the extensions is quite simple. They are made for use with v0.7The whole concept is to download extenstions only once. Store them on a hard drive, pen drive, or on the root of the cdrom. They are automatically incorporated into DSL including icons and dynamic fluxbox menus. When new version of DSL comes out. No problem. Your favorite apps don't need to be downloaded again.
This provides so much flexibilty.
Posted by PhrozenFear on May 14 2004,00:29
So I gotta burn DSL, read the getting started within that, then re-burn it with the new extensions ? Sounds kinda evil to me... Or is there a "Getting Started" somewhere on the website I could read ?
Posted by roberts on May 14 2004,00:50
Not really! I use frugal and install iso from the web to a hard drive partition! I can test and try out anything with frugal with the web option! You don't need to burn a CD to get a new version of DSL. But then again you will want too.
Posted by PhrozenFear on May 14 2004,01:02
I just wanna know how to use those extensions, so whether or not I should just burn straight DSL 0.7 or run this mydsl thing and and make it's own thing, and go from there. I want to know how it works, and since I haven't found that Getting Started you were talkin' about, I'm lost.
Posted by woverin on May 14 2004,01:37
Basically, *.dsl is the rename of *.tar.gzyou can download and rename them.
put them in the root dir and tar -zxvf *.tar.gz
or use the myDSL script to burn the additional .dsl to the iso
Posted by roberts on May 14 2004,01:39
I would recommend that you "walk" before you "run". Download DSL v.07. It runs just like usual.Then "try out" a simple extension, say "ace-of-penguins". Download that and store it on hard drive or pen drive. Then with v0.7 boot with new added option:
boot: dsl mydsl=hda2 for a hard drive partition 2 or for pen drive
boot: dsl mydsl=sda1
Then move on to try other extensions. Try them out first on hard drive. When you are happy with "your" DSL then you may choose to make a custom myDSL cdrom. Note you don't even "have to" burn a myDSL cdrom. You may choose to keep your favorite extenstions on the external media of hard drive or pen drive.
It is up to you. That is why it is called myDSL. Your choice of apps, your way!
Posted by John on May 14 2004,02:11
Just for you PhrozenFear:< http://damnsmalllinux.org/getting_started.html >
Posted by cpr on May 14 2004,02:17
John,This is an outstanding version. Love it. The only problem I have notice so far is the fact that it loads by default the 3 buttons mouse. Therefore the wheel on my usb optical mouse does not work compare to other version.
This seems to be a consequence of the dsl and firefox on the cdrom. ie i burn a copy without any add dsl and it worked as usual fine. I burn a copy with firefox and ace..everything worked but the wheel mouse.
It looks like a scripting issue.
Posted by John on May 14 2004,02:37
Hmm, I am going to have to try that combo and see if I can duplicate the results. You all should expect a couple of bugs as there usually are when we take big steps.For the record, all the improvements in this release are the result of Robert's hard work. I would like to take credit, but I didn't do a thing for this release except hunt down a couple of icons
.
Posted by clivesay on May 14 2004,03:21
Any idea why I can't copy extension to hd? I save the file in the damnsmall directory. I mount /dev/hda8 successfully. I try to copy the extension to /dev/hda8 in EmelFM but it won't allow me to do it. Any ideas? Thanks
Posted by clivesay on May 14 2004,03:23
Sorry about that.sudo emelfm did the trick! I just needed to be root.
Thanks
Chris
Posted by PhrozenFear on May 14 2004,05:16
Thank you for pointing out my blatant stupidity, John.Another question - if they're in the new ISO on the root of the CD, does it autodetect or do you gottta mydsl=/dev/(cdrom drive).
Posted by PhrozenFear on May 14 2004,05:23
Well, let's just test this out..........
Posted by roberts on May 14 2004,05:29
If the extensions are on the cd you don't need to do anything! No boot time option needed. This means you can build a completely self booting system targeted for a particular hardware configuration with absoutely no user interaction!For example, by separating out your .xserverrc and .xinitrc and calling in myXsetup.tar.gz then the system will self boot up into your X environment. Also, it is cool to separate out your printer setup and call it myPrinter.tar.gz, keep factoring out the stuff that does not change much. Then your myDSL cdrom boots up with everything working. Now after this factoring, your backup truly becomes just a backup for your files that change often.
Also, you can have both. That is you can have some files on the cdrom and still enjoy adding and trying more on the hard drive. It is only a requirement to use the boot time option of mydsl when you are having the system look for additional files store on external media, i.e., hard drive or pen drive.
Posted by tbeu on May 14 2004,06:24
I put all the *.dsl on my hda5 partition and during boot of DSL when it comes to the check for myDSL extensions I aways get the erroropenoffice tar: not enough space on device
Which device is meant? My RAM is limited to 256MB and hda5 has free space of at least 1024MB. What can I do to avoid this error?
I was not able to find the other extensions (like firefox) at the DSL fluxbox menu even thouh there was no error during DSL boot.
Has anyone experienced the same probs?
Thanks from
tbeu
Posted by remo on May 14 2004,06:26
ok, I realise that I'm a complete newb, and I feel quite dumb now. But I'll give it a go anyway... What I did, was to download the iso of 0.7, burn the image to a cd, boot dsl, then chose apps-tools-install to hard drive, chose the extended install I think, and then I got dsl 0.7 as a hd-installed distro on my laptop. Then I chose apps-net-got the bandwith?-firefox, and mozilla firefox installed beautifully. Now, I am used to distros with all these graphical frontends and stuff, so I kinda looked for a similar way of installing abiword and the others mentioned. I have read the getting started file, and all your replies, and I realise that I simply have to download the .dsl files and install them (right?). But my stupid question is really: where/how do I download them (from)?Please walk me through this, cause I really want to learn this, and I really believe that dsl is going to be my new favourite distro for my desktop!
-r
Posted by remo on May 14 2004,06:34
aaaaaaaaaah, I'm so stupid! I'm really sorry for bothering you and not thinking myself for a while! Just found out that the reasonable place to download them from would be the download mirrors... Sorry folks! But now I am really eager to find out how this works, so please don't be angry if I come up with more stupid questions later ...
-r
Posted by roberts on May 14 2004,06:35
I knew someone would try this. You obviously don't have enough memory to run all of them. The current OpenOffice states on the download page that it requires 384MB! So pick only what you need. And try first via the hard drive option. Remember these are new options for liveCD users. You will be limited by the amount of ram that you have.
Posted by remo on May 14 2004,06:53
I downloaded abiword.dsl, copied it to /root, renamed it *.tar.gz, ran tar -zxvf abiword.tar.gz and it seemed to install fine, but it will not launch, and I couldn't find any abiword-files in the usual directories. Couldn't even track the directories it seemed to create when I ran tar. Have I done something wrong? Is it perhaps not possible to do this when I have a hd-install?-r
Posted by roberts on May 14 2004,07:10
myDSL as posted is really for liveCD users. But I supposed there will always be those who will hack away. Why would you suppose that it should be installed under /root ? Therein lies your problem. Try / and then look in /opt directory. Should work. You will not benefit from the easy upgade nor the dynamic menu options by hacking .dsl. to install on hard drive installed systems You may want to try the liveCD method and take advantage of these new capabilities. I know it is typical to install to hard drive. But now you may opt to keep it a liveCD or frugally installed. Then you have an easy upgrade path.
Posted by remo on May 14 2004,11:19
Thanks a lot! That did the trick. I have now managed to install both abiword and openoffice on my hd-install, although I understand that the idea of course was to use this with the live-CD option. For me it was important to have a fast and reliable system on my laptop, and dsl is brilliant so far! So, although I have gone somewhat beyond your intentions with the distro (I understand), I must congratulate you with a brilliant distro! Really great! (And I mean the live-version also, of course, but it works great as a hd-install also!) Greetings from Norway.
-r
Posted by nucpc on May 14 2004,15:19
So hopefully I've got this out correctly; .dsl are just .tar.gz but when the extension is seen thefilesystem is made writable (well my homemade xmgr.dsl seems to work and xmgr.tar.gz will go if
I take in any other .dsl package at the same time). Anything else I should be worrying about??
One minor thing; my laptop fails to shutdown/reboot after the system is made writable. It gets almost
all of the way but just as it should turn off, complains;
INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel
(not a big problem, the big 'off' button still works fine......)
Posted by Teobromina on May 14 2004,16:06
The 0.7 is a real masterpiece.I do not need to do anything to improve it by means to add more stuff tothe CD as before with the former ones.
Congratulations and thanks for the better CD burner.
*/Teobromina/*
Posted by saffo on May 14 2004,16:39
Is there a way to make my own DSL extensions (packages)?
Posted by nucpc on May 14 2004,18:42
Saffo, the way I'm making mine is rather clumsy, it goes like this;(This won't be too helpful if you haven't done too much with linux before)
basically you go to the Debian site and get the file list of your desired package. Then I'm either opening
a .deb in a temporary directory or manually copying the files (with full directory path names) in following
a `synaptic grab' of them. Then the tricky bit is trying to find out what libraries it needs. If you've got
synaptic working it's easy to grab things and then check everything that's new in /usr/lib (i.e. everything
that's not a symbolic link). Then if you think you've got everything go to the top of your temporary
directory and
tar cvf file.tar usr etc home
where the last three things are just examples of the directories you will have created.
Then gzip and rename as file.dsl.
So perhaps not too helpful a reply but I can't think of a quicker way.......
Posted by roberts on May 14 2004,19:04
Sure. I am hoping that people will. The whole point is to be able to make these and share with others. Note: there is no code in them!The whole idea is based on the orginal filetool.lst. I was seeing what people were doing with it. Also, when I implemented cbagger's Synaptic script, the rest came to me.
Some had suggested to use the debian pkgs. The problem with that approach is:
1. No icons
2. No fluxbox menus
3. Difficult to share with others because of 1 & 2
4. Wastes memory for docs, man pages, menus and other files nor really needed.
5. Dependencies requiring other pkgs not needed or wanted
6. Possibly breaking exisiting programs or infastructure
So, to finally answer your question. I usually test load a desired applicaton to a hard drive installed system. If it came from a tar.gz then no problem as I can see the files that it loaded by using the tar -t command. If I load from a deb file. I can use the dpkg -L to see the files. Actually, I redirect to a file. Then I edit the file, removing the docs, man pages, menus, and other such stuff. Then I repackage it. If you look at the filetool.sh program it created it tar file from a list, the filetool.lst. So I just use a variation of this to create the tar and then gzip it. If it requires a writeable structure on the liveCD it is renamed with a dsl extenstion.
There is actually several variations to this. If you are more advanced and feel that the source of this application may break current libraries then we have a procedure to separate out the applicatons unique libraries and make a small shell script wrapper for the particular application and its unique libaries.
If the application does not need a writable structure then please do not make it a dsl. Leave it as a tar.gz. Some people with low memory can still use some tar.gz and may not be able to "afford" the i-node hit from having to have a writeable structure when not needed.
Now, lets see: We need an Mplayer.dsl and a ....
Posted by RoGuE_StreaK on May 15 2004,15:06
OK, any ideas on how to have the live-cd NOT automatically load certain .dsl or .tar.gz files? For example, if you have open office on the CD, but the machine you want to use doesn't have 384MB of RAM?Maybe have these files in a sub-dir and have scripts to install them when wanted? I'd like to make a mini-CD with a whole host of packages for certain situations, but not have every one of them load each time you boot?
One minor suggestion for the next release, in the mkmyDSL script, how about an option to only create the iso, not go ahead and burn it? I'm fairly sure I understand what the script's doing and how to edit it for myself, but might be an idea for the general distro?
Posted by roberts on May 15 2004,16:47
Rogue_Streak, those are some good suggestions. I personally do not like to have to have alot of user intervention. I like to make a system that boots up without answering alot of questions. MyDSL concept was to create a system targeted for a particular hardware without any user intervention. Also I didn't want to promote downloading extensions everytime one boots a liveCD. That is a bandwidth killer. However, your suggestion has already been discussed on how to best implement. There are already more options developed and working for 7.1
Posted by roberts on May 15 2004,23:10
Rouge_Streak, You got it. Your idea is implemeneted.
Posted by charpie on May 16 2004,03:58
more testingNow using my laptop and a ps2 mouse, I copy firefox and ace on the cdrom and everything works great.
No problemo, the only problem I have is when I use a computer with a usb mouse, the boot up does not give me the choice and therefore my mouse does not work completely ie no wheel.
So I suggest that you leave as a minimum the choice for the mouse type.
I would like to know more about how the mydsl works ie: what is the process, can we make dsl file easily?
ciao
Posted by l0st on May 16 2004,06:22
Woah- This is totally amazing!Abiword and Firefox loaded from hard disk, this is sooo wicked
One question though:
Can I add in my customisations into the firefox.dsl file without breaking anything?
It'll be wicked cool if I could stick my bookmarks in there.
PS: Might be asking too much, but can Firefox extensions be manually added too? Or do i have to download them everytime
Posted by roberts on May 16 2004,13:35
10st, The bookmarks are in the .phoenix directory. Since the bookmarks change, you probably should leave them in your regular backup, i.e. filetool.lst. One of the points in creating this system was to separate out those parts that do not change and be able to add them to the cdrom. Of course you don't have to use the cdrom. But please don't download eveytime you boot the liveCD. Download these and save them on hard drive, or pen drive, or optionally make your myDSL cd.Since firefox.tar.gz is just a group of files, you could add the /home/damnsmall/.phoenix to it. But then you would have to be re-creating the whole firefox.tar.gz eveytime you added a bookmark.
All of the tar.gz and .dsl have no code in them. They are just a grouping of files and directories tar'ed and gzip'ed. The only way to break things is if the file permissions are wrong.
The choice is yours.
Posted by Teobromina on May 16 2004,19:36
I was very happy two days ago with the new extensions: Iso image and all the extensions .dsl on its root directory of the cdrom were running well in a modern computer. Then I decided to produce a smaller disk with only the ISO image of the 0.7 and the Firefox tar.gz in its root directory, avoiding heavy apps. like OOo (because the full implemented option stopped my old p166 with 64 Mb ram and I wanted to have in the memory just the only necessary programs for downloading files from internet).
Since then i have not been able to produce a CD that works, because at boot allways says something like that does not have permisions on a file related to the xsetup, and does not launch the X.
I have come back to the poor simple 0.7 without extensions.
Now I have readen about to put the extensions in the hd. i am goin to try it. But perhaps there is a solution (that works) to carry on in the CDrom just the extensions you need.
*/Teobromina/*
Posted by Teobromina on May 16 2004,20:00
I do not know what I am doing wrong, but I have tried to put the extension for firefox in the hda1 root, booting with a 'clean' DSL 0.7; it recognizes the presence of the file, it loads it and when it is setting the screen I get the same message as before with the extension in the CDRom. Now i reproduce the message: "/chmode: home/damnsmall/-xserverrc: no such file or directory", and then other messages, "xauth timeout...", other related to the type of server...
but the X do not work...
*/Teobromina/*
Posted by roberts on May 16 2004,20:15
Teobrmina, The only thing that will cause your problem is a permission error. You must have opened up the tar.gz to add/change/delete something. When repackaged the permissions got changed. I know I have done this too.Make a work directory, and then unpack the .tar.gz into that work directory. Doing an ls -la should show home and opt directories. Next cd into home inside this directory structure. Do an ls -la You probably have damnsmall directory with owner and group root root. To fix this do a chown -R damnsmall.staff damnsmall then cd .. to get back to the work dir. Then repack
tar -cvf firefox.tar home/ opt/
then remove the orginal firefox.tar.gz
rm firefox.tar.gz
then
gzip firefox.tar
That will fix your problem!
Posted by roberts on May 16 2004,20:20
Charpie, The xsetup usb mouse option is still in there. Are you having the problem with your custom made cd? You are experiencing no xsetup questions? If so, then you must have your .xserverrc inside one of your extensions.
Posted by charpie on May 17 2004,01:20
RobertsNo I just did a cd burn of dsl 7 and put firefox and ace on the roots. I also did one without any extension. The one with the extension bypass the setup menu and does not allow me to choose for a usb mouse. the one without any extension ie dsl 7 only still works like the previous and does allow me to pick usb.
so i guess that the boot up routine when it detect other extension software boot up in the default mode for some reasons
This works great on my laptop since it uses a ps2 mouse, however my main sytem is on a usb optical mouse.
ciao!
Posted by roberts on May 17 2004,02:20
Thanks Charpie,I got it! There is a problem with, guess what, permissions in the tmp directory inside the ace.dsl
To fix it...
copy ace.dsl to a work directory
then use tar -zxvf ace.dsl
then chmod 777 tmp/
then tar -cvf ace.tar tmp/ usr/
then gzip ace.tar
finally mv ace.tar.gz ace.dsl
Posted by charpie on May 17 2004,03:14
thanks, i will try that and give you some feedback next week. I am gone all week.cheers
Posted by charpie on May 17 2004,16:19
just did it this morning. all is wellthks
Posted by Delboy on May 21 2004,09:45
Please help. I HD installed V0.7 as usual using boot.img and DSL folder&files copied to C:\ hda1 root. I put the extensions here too. I got a message saying 'not enough storage on the device' - lack of memory probably - I've only got 40megs. So I moved the extensions into a temp folder where they were not invoked by the boot. When HD istalled, I mounted hda1 partition and copied extensions across to top of hda2 DSL installed root partition. Using tar -zxvf etc. I managed to install Abiword sucessfully and, by the sounds of it, Gnu-utils.Question: This is great but to start Abiword I need to double-click 'abiword' file within the /opt directory where it ended up.
How do I make a desktop icon form here? Should I place the extension somewhere else first to get an icon automatically?
The gnu-utils extension installed without error messages but I cannot find them - where might they be? what should I look for? I've read the previous posts but they seem to be mostly 'live' relevant.
Posted by dallas7 on May 23 2004,03:01
| Quote (roberts @ May 13 2004,20:10) |
| myDSL as posted is really for liveCD users. But I supposed there will always be those who will hack away. |
Granted. But in the case of my Thinkpad, the CD-ROM drive is part of the base which also houses the floppy and an extra battery as well as some port pass-thrus/replication and "better" speakers - a heavy, klunky affair. If I want my laptop light and thin, it's hard drive only.
As such, I did an HD install of .7 and added Abiword and Sun Office via your way-cool .dsl file thing. Works great.
Keep up the good work and have mercy on us DSL fans with the itsy-bitsy hard-drive-only laptops. Oh, how we suffer.
Posted by dallas7 on May 23 2004,03:15
| Quote (Delboy @ May 20 2004,22:45) |
| to start Abiword I need to double-click 'abiword' file within the /opt directory where it ended up. How do I make a desktop icon form here? |
I had to copy abi-ant.png and abiword.lnk from
/home/damnsmall/.xdesktop
(which had those two files) to
/root/.xdesktop
(which didn't have them) and reboot in order to get it to show up in my HD install.
I had to do the same thing when I installed Sun Office.
Note those two .xdesktop directories are different and you might have to copy others over as you install new .dsl stuff.
Enjoy.
Posted by roberts on May 23 2004,06:27
| Quote |
| have mercy on us DSL fans with the itsy-bitsy hard-drive-only laptops. Oh, how we suffer. |
It has always been the liveCD guys who suffer. We could never add more apps without that awful and hard on your hardware remastering. Even with small hard drives you guys can add some apps.
Really, I think it is great to see how everyone is creative in using the system. It is from the creativity of these fourms that gives me ideas to improve the system.
Posted by gjhicks on May 23 2004,09:06
Hi,Like many others, I am really pleased at the opportunity to make DSL extendable via the my-dsl idea.
Others have pointed out that it allows applications to be 'kept' when a new version of DSL is available. True, but it also allows applications to be 'updated' without mucking about with DSL, which is just about as useful as the other advantage.
But, I have a problem. It is likely that I have taken my 'thicko' pills but, even after reading this post, I am not sure how to actually use the new extension method.
I have a HD install, to the /dev/hda6 partition. I boot into DSL using 'loadlin' as follows:
loadlin vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 ro
The 'vmlinuz' is copied (and renamed coz I hate typing) from the /boot folder of the HD install.
This method works fine to boot DSL but I can not figure out how to get it to 'include' the '.dsl' files.
For example, if I have 'gnu-utils.dsl', should it be in the root of /dev/hda6 or can it be somewhere else?
If it is allowed to be (for example) in the root of /dev/hda2, how do I get DSL to use it?
One (of the many!) reasons I ask is that when booting the HD install, I don't get the 'boot:' prompt, at which an entry like 'dsl mydsl=hda2' could be made.
Sorry of these questions seem silly.
Regards,
Geoff.
Posted by PhrozenFear on May 25 2004,03:10
If you did an HD-install, then all you gotta do is go to the / directory and tar -zxf the *.dsl extensions. They'll be installed for you. Then you can just make the shortcuts in the /home/damnsmall/.xtdesktop directory. It's actually pretty easy.And making your own is fun and easy. I've got the Java plugin for Firefox extension made, and I'm workin' on the MPlayer one.
Posted by ke4nt1 on May 25 2004,19:02
I've enjoyed building several .dsl's in the last week or so, but the mplayer isproving tough... I've actually got a nice mplayer.dsl working, but the
gmplayer - another story.. mplayer.dsl runs fine from command line.
I'd like to have the icon and .lnk bring up gmplayer, if I could get
gmplayer to run... any ideas...
I hope to post up several ham radio apps later this week...
I would like to have the java plugin... Have you sent it to Robert or John?
73
ke4nt
Posted by libretto on May 26 2004,23:10
Not sure if I'm doing osmething wrong here, but the .dsl extensions seem to muck up the running of the DSL live CD. Bascially made CD-RW into DSL v0.7, with some extensions installed on my USB stick. Got to boot propmt and entered 'dsl mydsl=sda2 enhance'This loaded the enhanced desktop with the new icons. But the fluxbox menu was reduced to three items, none of th new icons worked and the mounting app had gone from the slit. Also, the netcardconfig app wouldn't work.
Rebooted with just the CD and everything was as it shoudl be.
Any suggestions?
Posted by Rapidweather on May 27 2004,00:38
When the fluxbox menu does not continue past a certain point, there is an errorin the /home/damnsmall/.fluxbox/menu file at the point where the menu quits.
Once you are booted up with the incorrect menu, see if you can get an rxvt open, and then look at the menu file, with scite, comparing it to a good one, and look at the area where the menu quits. That will have the error that prevents your menu from going all the way to the end.
---
I work on a remaster, currently of 0.6.2, and the fluxbox menu has to be in another location in the file system to be loaded into the damnsmall linux you get.
On a filetool.lst restore, it is specified there, so one can get a custom made menu
upon restoration.
---
Not sure how the extensions in 0.7 will affect the menu, but that may need to be looked into on a damnsmall that has a cut-off menu.
---
Posted by roberts on May 27 2004,01:25
libretto, It sounds like you are loading a bad extension. You didn't say if you are making one, or the source of those which you have choosen. But, one of them has a bad menu entry. Probably just needs a CR at the end of the menu line. It is a common mistake when one is first trying to make their own extension. Just unpack it with tar -zxvf name_of_dsl.dsl then go in and fix the bad menu item, then repack. You will be fine. This is a new concept so these things will happen until the concept becomes more familiar. Hopefully we will soon have a place to share extensions that have at least been somewhat tested. Until then, as users past around their creations be aware of the common mistakes.
Posted by ke4nt1 on May 27 2004,04:53
libretto,I had the same problem you did many times...Extension runs fine (maybe!
...Then you bring up the menu from the desktop, and all you see is the mydsl menu, and extensions, right??
This is what I did to fix the extension and menu.
Make sure your tmp directory is writable,readable,executable with this command...
as root, type chmod 777 tmp
73
ke4nt
Posted by libretto on May 27 2004,07:17
Roberts, the extensions I tried were off one of the mirrors (alien2k). Maybe I'll download the extensions from another server.[EDIT]Right, downloaded some extensions off the 'repository' and managed to install SAMBA.
Got a few problems with the apt and mplayer extensions, but i think a HDinstall would cure that.[/EDIT]ke4nt1, crikey i'll have to read that tonight over a nice cuppa tea! Thanks for the help, I'll try it later ;)
73 2E1LOK (QRP)
Posted by PhrozenFear on May 27 2004,16:25
Well, I haven't had it sent in yet, ke4nt1, but I'm just perfecting the extension, then I'll have it sent in.I had a post up sayin' I was hosting it on Tripod, but that was a HUGE mistake. Tripod corrupts the file before it's even 5k uploaded. Oh well. Once I've got it fully tested (should be about 15 mins) I'll make a post in the extensions board for it. Especially since it's Firefox + Java plugin + Real plugin (I think... Gotta check again).
Back soon, 73
Posted by adraker on May 29 2004,11:14
ke4nt1,Thanks very much for your post-very educational!!
I'm having trouble with mplayer.deb and mydsl saying (at boot time)
that /etc/skell can't be written to.Other stuff - abiword.dsl and firefox.tar.gz
come up o.k.
That aside,I read your post and thought I'd try to look at mplayer.deb and
repack it,but could you clarify something for me please?
If these xxx.debs are really xxx.tar.gz files,then your example appears
initially to "untar" the xxx.deb (but not "ungzip" it) ,make changes,
then tar the directories,and gzip the resultant xxx.tar.
When I do this on mplayer.deb, I end up with a mplayer.tar that is a little
bit larger than the original mplayer.deb, then after gzipping, something
very very much smaller.
About now I get the feeling I'm missing something very obvious to all
but myself,but would appreciate your advice.
Thanks,
Adraker
Posted by ke4nt1 on May 29 2004,14:54
adrakerThe line in the above post....
tar xzvf xgammon.dsl
Both ungzips and untars the .dsl file...
This post only refers to .dsl files... not .deb files..
".dsl" files ARE ".tar.gz" files , simply renamed.
When installing a .deb , perhaps thru apt-get.
You can "dpkg -L whatever.deb"
to get a list of files the .deb installed on your system.
A step further ,"dpkg -L whatever.deb > whatever.txt"
will make a text file for you to adjust and edit to build your .dsl
Edit out all of the doc, man, lines in the file, along with their
paths... for example
/usr
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/anty.exe
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/anty.doc
the only line you would leave in this example is.
"/usr/bin/anty.exe"
Edit this file, only leaving in the necessary items.
Then, add these 3 lines to your txt file..
Of course, you have to had already made them earlier!...
Add your /home/damnsmall/.xtdesktop/whatever.lnk
Add your /home/damnsmall/.xtdesktop/whatever.png
Add your /tmp/mydsl.menu/whatever ( remember to
closely follow the earlier post on this item )
Before building, I will check to see if there is any other
items to add , like other skins, for programs, or other
backgrounds, for themes, and so on...
Double-check that your tmp file is rwxrwxrwx !
run "chmod 777 tmp" from the directory your tmp is in.
Once you have the "whatever.txt" edited to your liking, then
"cat whatever.txt | xargs tar -cvf - | gzip > whatever.dsl"
Then you' ll have a .dsl file to test... you can actually end the
"cat" line in whatever.dsl, but for this example it demonstrates.
For the mplayer, the /etc/skel did the same to me, I simply
copied those files in it over to the .mplayer directory, and
deleted the /etc/skel and files in it. Still works, no problem.
The /etc/skel is usually a template for creating new users...
And you seeing the resulting .dsl file much smaller than
the .deb file is correct!
That's the idea, to get it as small as possible..
Thanks to all who have helped make these posts possible..
and Thanks for the many replies, either posted or mailed...
73
ke4nt
Posted by adraker on May 29 2004,21:02
ke4nt1,Why on earth did I type "mplayer.deb" when I meant "mplayer.dsl"?
It was late, I was a goose, and didn't notice.No offence to any actual
geese reading this post.
I'll try the last part of your post after the live cd runs up.
Thanks for your reply!
Adraker
Posted by adraker on May 30 2004,07:30
mplayer musings....Couldn't get anywhere with mplayer.dsl from repository.Removed handfulls
of hair.After looking around forums,I started up a standard dsl-0.7 cd,
and ran this "mkwriteable" script in /etc/init.d .Made a directory in home,
copied in the 2 .tar.gz files pertaining to mplayer from another distro starting with "L" and untarred them.This gave an etc and usr folder, but with much
more content than the MP.dsl from the repository.
I copied every file from these folders to their counterpart directories in
ramdisk,with the exception of /etc/skel which was still not entertaining the
idea of being written to.
Mplayer worked and gmplayer more or less worked.I'll make another cd
with these tar.gz in a special folder....to have a dsl with mplayer,abiword,
and firefox is my holy grail!!
Posted by roberts on May 30 2004,12:49
I am not seeing any issue with mplayer. Works fine here. The instructions ke4nt1 posted are for those interested in making their own dsl extensions. If you just want to use extensions, you don't have to burn cds. Read "Getting Started" section on myDSL. Place the download extension in a hard drive partition and boot regular dsl0.7 cd with boot option of mydsl=hdxx. Where xx is approriate for your system. I am using mplayer, abiword, and firefox. When you are happy with your choices, then you can burn a myDSL self booting, self configuing cd.
Posted by adraker on May 30 2004,19:51
Thanks Roberts,I put the mplayer.dsl in root directory of the CD,booted dsl mydsl=cdrom,but the message about not being able to write
/etc/skel would come up and not even the binary was there after booting finished.
Have to say that in my haste I didn't md5sum the downloaded mplayer.dsl
and I'll try this again,unless you see a flaw in the first paragraph.
When I untarred that mplayer.dsl,(under redhat}, there was an etc and usr
directory.The user directory only had a bin directory, there were no libs
or share items.
That may be an issue also,the fact that I've been downloading things
on another system and drive (in another world?), but firefox and abiword
on the CD come up O.K.
Like I say, I'll try this again,and thanks for your help!
adraker
Posted by ke4nt1 on May 30 2004,20:00
adrakerI had some real issues downloading .dsl files
in XP , using Mozilla Firefox... Seemingly, it
would d/l way larger files than intended, by either
clicking on the link, or using rt click/save as.
I did side-by-side comparisons of d/l's with
both Firefox in Linux/ Firefox in XP, and
Internet Explorer. Only "rt click/save as" in
IE was successful every time..
I believe Firefox has some issues downloading
from SOME sites, not every site...
That goes for XP Firefox and Linux Firefox...
I use Firefox in Linux frequently, and most times
it works just fine...Same in XP...Same in FC1.
You just never know....
Try using another d/l program, or pick another
site, and MD5SUM those d/l's !
73
ke4nt
Posted by adraker on June 02 2004,23:22
Aaah-ha!Repository file size has increased.Mplayer package now functions.
Have to throw away shell script for live install
of Luit Mplayer.
You even chose I-tunes skin like I did.
Well done!!!
Happy adraker
Tail-wagging emoticon would go here.
Posted by ke4nt1 on June 03 2004,01:51
You probably had a copy of my first version. sri...All the .dsl's from ke4nt1 have been revised recently,
and should be well behaved. They have been tested
on several systems and with other dsl users.
They perform well here in any type of install..
( I'm learning this stuff as I go....;-)
If you notice otherwise please send info via ke4nt1
73
ke4nt
Posted by ke4nt1 on June 05 2004,02:57
As of 5/30/2004....Make sure you redownload the latest mplayer, if you
first tried it out before the above date....
The /etc problems are resolved..
73
ke4nt