What? how? are myDsl extensions
Forum: myDSL Extensions (deprecated)
Topic: What? how? are myDsl extensions
started by: duch
Posted by duch on Oct. 05 2004,19:47
Hi all,i've been looking for some info about the myDsl extensions and i'm afraid to say, the dsl home lacks the basic stuff.
there's nothing about myDsl on the home page and almost nothing on the repository home.
To be honest if you are a noob and get to the repository page, you can barely guess what it is about
I thought i might have more luck with the forum...
And no.
The only way to get info is to read the hundreds of messages. Not really convenient.
Please don't take this as an attack, all the developpers do a great job. I'm just trying to give my opinion on how to make this baby more accessible to anyone.
a sticky post would be a good start.
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Oct. 05 2004,21:17
been workin on a FAQ for a while, but i really haven't had time lately to work on it.16 hours of college at a time kinda does that.
but when i do get it done, hopefully, it will get stickied.
on topic though, to install an extension, you can either use the MyDSL click-and-load system (the "MyDSL" icon oin the desktop) or you can download the extension you want to try out manually, open emelfm, highlight it, and click the MyDSL button in emelfm.
also,
is your friend. Just enter what you want to search for, select "All Forums" and then select Search from the Beginning. Works like a charm. this question has been answered many, MANY times.Motto for the day: SEARCH BEFORE YOU ASK
oh, and *ahem*
Welcome to the Revolution!
-J.P.
SaidinUnleashed
Posted by ke4nt1 on Oct. 05 2004,21:21
Actually, when you first bootup a DSL cd, the "dillo" window that pops up has a good deal of
information about myDSL usage and instruction ..
The "howto" - "faq" - "docs" are already built-into DSL
It's best for folks that can't get online immediately ..
73
ke4nt
Posted by duch on Oct. 06 2004,11:54
it's true that some info is available on the CD itself. And in fact it's great for people who are not connected to the internet (if you don't take into account the fact that without a connection, you can't download DSL 
)But, wouldn't it be great to find all those stuff on the website as well?
I mean, someone who arrives on dsl website and doesn't have the possibility to understand what's all about and how it works might not even try it.
For me it's a pain to have to download and burn a CD to get some info on something which might not suit your needs.
Posted by somerville32@hotmail.com on Oct. 12 2004,19:29
...And if you click on the name of the MyDSL extension (in MyDSL Gui, if you are viewing it on the website, click info.) you want to download, it will give you a brief description. The MyDSL page does need to be redone though, maybe have it divide it into categories, if you already have the extension downloaded; replace the get button with a remove button (to remove the extension from your computer and to prevent multiple downloads of the same extension), and there is alot of outdated programs in there(ie. attym, firefox, ect.). Maybe we could start a project up to get those programs updated? I really enjoy this distro (first distro I could to actually get to work 
) and would love to help out ~ Me
Posted by ke4nt1 on Oct. 12 2004,22:20
The "outdated" apps are there for less "equipped" users, which have less hardware, little or no dialup/internet connectivity,
and require less "resource hungry" apps for their boxes..
For example, the firefox.uci/firefox.tar.gz extensions, while only
at 0.8 , are the ONLY versions of firefox which will run on 586's .
The firefox 0.9.3/1.0PR, etc.. require 686 or better processors .
and the newest "gaim" extension weighs in at a mere 20MB..
Far from the 3.4MB of the ayttm2.dsl ..
Gaim requires GTK2, ayttm and others are
happy and FAST with the older GTK1.2 standard..
DSL appeals to many users with 486/P5/P1 computers..
73
ke4nt
Posted by Rapidweather on Oct. 13 2004,22:03
I notice some of the mydsl extensions are .dsl, and others are .tar.gz---
Opera 6.12, which runs on both 586 and 686 machines, is given as
a .tar.gz file. Will the mydsl system use it like the .dsl extensions, or do
I, after download, place the file in say /opt, and gunzip it, and then tar -xvf it like I might do with a normal Opera .tar.gz of 6.03 or 6.12 from the Opera archives download site?
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Although I have remastered 0.8.2 to include Opera 6.03, (and a large number of Redhat 9 fonts to try and make it's fonts look better) I would
like to try this extension, and see what happens. I have a couple of other extensions, and I have them saved on my pen drive in /optional, (as done by the dsl system) and can easily load them into my running
dsl/remaster linux system.
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Posted by ke4nt1 on Oct. 13 2004,22:34
ALL of the extensions in the DSL repository work the same,regardless of the .dsl or .tar.gz in the filename..
The .tar.gz files install to already writable areas of the filesystem.
The .dsl files create MORE writable space, by installing in areas
normally left non-writable..
Look in the /ramdisk directory after a fresh pristine boot.
You'll see only 3 or so directories..
After you install a .dsl file which writes to /usr /lib /etc and so on.
look again in the ramdisk.. you'll see many more directories in there.
This "expansion" of the ramdisk uses up more RAM , even if only
writing a few small files, because the 'housekeeping' of the larger
ramspace decreases your available ram by a much larger amount..
( even making the areas writable WITHOUT copying files into them eats ram.. )
So, whenever possible, .tar.gz's are more RAM friendly.
It really makes a difference on systems running w/32MB ram ..
So, the myDSL system uses the .tar.gz's just like .dsl's ..
One click install, and one click run..
They are NOT tarballs, like you'll get at other repositories..
There is no reason to manipulate them manually...
With opera 6.12 , simply download into your /home/dsl directory
( the default ) , then open emelfm , highlight the file, and click
the myDSL button.. Icons and menus appear in your desktop..
Click & Run !
The Opera 6.12 runs well , even on my ram challenged systems..
I'd like to hear more about your "fonts'" addition..
Are you using the xft or pango/defoma to manage the fonts ?
73
ke4nt
Posted by Rapidweather on Oct. 14 2004,01:59
Well, I have wound up with a 80 MB + remaster, based on my additions of all ofthe Redhat 9 fonts I could locate into my filesystem.
---
I'm using 100 dpi fonts, and that has some difficulties, but overall, it is what I am
going with.
---
I get fairly nice results in Gimp, but not good enough when I design web graphics
such as found at the top of my page here, done using Gimp on Mandrake 8:
< http://www.geocities.com/rapidweather/web.html >
---
The same graphics done using my remaster still have some ragged edges, so,
"close, but no cigar."
---
Here are the font directories from Redhat 9 that I used in my master copy:
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts
/etc/fonts
/usr/share/fonts
That is a lot of fonts, and I edited my /etc/X11/XF86Config to show the
paths to them. I also fixed the catalog line in /etc/X11/fs/config to show
them. I am up to "Beta 9" on my remaster of DSL 0.8.2, and I need to
go ahead and make the next Beta to show these two files as matching
perfectly, I have not yet done that, although the "master" has the changes
done. It's a long shot, but maybe that will do the trick as far as Gimp is
concerned, but I doubt it. There is always more to it than that. I looked at
< http://keithp.com/~keithp/talks/xtc2001/paper/ >
when I saw your post, and I'm not up to designing my own setup, other than
the apparently "quick and dirty" method I am trying out.
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The results for Opera 6.03 have been very satisfactory, over when I got when
I added Opera and got it working normally, with only the stock DSL 0.8.2 fonts in place. Penalty, however, is the size of the remaster, over 80 MB.
---
One little problem I had with /etc/X11/fs/config is the "default-point-size" line.
It's set at 120. I tried to change it to 100, remastered again, and didn't see any changes anywhere.
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Since I do have remasters that have no additional fonts other than the stock DSL 0.8.2 fonts, I thought I could download the Opera extension, save it on my pen drive, or HDD partition, and try it out. I believe that I saw some reference to fonts in the "info" on the mydsl repository for Opera:
Change-log: 08/13/2004 - First version
08/20/2004 - Bsetroot needs libXft.so.1
08/21/2004 - substituted libXft.so.1.1 - still bad fonts
08/24/2004 - Added libXft.so.2.1.1 -
08/25/2004 - Made into .tar.gz
Maybe that is all I really need, rather than a massive dump of fonts
copied from my Redhat 9 partition, which is essentially what I have done.
When the Opera extension is up and running, I'll also try out Gimp again, and
see if the addition of libXft.so.2.2.1 helps. It just might, and I may dig that up
out of Redhat and drop it into my remaster. Can't hurt, and since I already have
a big size to it, one more won't matter. I can drop back to stock DSL fonts also, and make a remaster of that with libXft.so.2.2.1, and see what happens.
Apparently, that is what cbagger01 did when he made the Opera extension, so
it's worth trying. I use several partitions for remastering, so I can do that.
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