DSL-2.1 RC2

Forum: Release Candidates
Topic: DSL-2.1 RC2
started by: roberts

Posted by roberts on Dec. 13 2005,14:24

DSL 2.1 Release Candidate 2 is now available in the download area < here >
Change log for RC2
1. Updated Calendar - supports year and full page printing Calendar
2. Improved Torsmo display
3. Torsmo now displays IP
4. Fixed boot error when trying to boot dsl embedded via cdrom
5. Fixed Mountpoint function to correctly handle multiple mounts of the same device
6. Fixed umounting UCI type extensions while running Fluxbox.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 13 2005,14:31

Notes for 2.1 RC2:

Thank you's to the following:
Monkymind for the Torsmo enhancements
Meo for reporting the embedded cdrom boot problem
WDef for reporting the mountpoint bug
Mikshaw for reporting the UCI umount fluxbox bug

Thanks to all for testing and posting results with the release candidates.

Robert

Posted by skaos on Dec. 13 2005,16:01

It would be very nice if the menus in fluxbox and jwm are similar/identical. Is it possible to have that nice desktop background in jwm as well?

Posted by roberts on Dec. 13 2005,16:14

I didn't change the menu in flux because it has a long history.
I did try to simplify the menus in jwm. jwm being a more familiar looking wm than flux.

Yes, you can choose the wallpaper in flux for jwm, just use the wallpaper tool. DSL->Setup->Desktop->Wallpaper. I didn't make it the default as I wanted the jwm choice to be an excellent choice for very low ram machines.

Posted by gunnix on Dec. 13 2005,18:03

Just to mention conky. Conky is a fork of torsmo which should work even better from what I've heard. Did you try it?

EDIT: I download the rc2, burned it but it doesn't boot.

Posted by andrewb on Dec. 13 2005,23:32

The problem with loading UCI's if they are on CDROM2 still exists in RC2 - see my post on this for RC1 at:

< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....2;st=20 >

Posted by roberts on Dec. 13 2005,23:52

andrewb, If your issue can be described and reproduced without a virtual machine then I will take a look. It is not the goal for DSL to interface seamlessly with virtual machines. I think that we state in the readme that this DSL + virtual machine is experimental. There are too many virtual machines to support. I see there is even another now, Parallels? Also I do not have access to Windows machines powerful or capable enought to achieve such environment. as you describe.

Given that, I would think that you should setup your environment to have another virtual hard drive and not an additional virtual cdrom.
Would not that be easier? Then use mydsl=hdX something?

Posted by monkymind on Dec. 14 2005,01:16

I'm also using DSL 2.1RC2 with the the final release of VMplayer.
This may or may not help ... but the way I run it is:
* get the player to boot the DSL iso image
* download my fav UCI & mydsl packages (from the DSL running in the vmplayer)
* select supend in the VMplayer preference panel

Using this method I restore (& suspend) the DSL Vm and continue working exactly where I left off. There's no moving downloads from /tmp or boot parameters etc. Once everthing is exactly as I like it - I can duplicate my tweaks by ssh(ing) all the settings etc. to my laptop. :cool:

Cheers
rob
PS With the above VM config I also have a 500mg virtual partition with a 128 meg swap drive. I could install DSL to this VM partition but don't need to when using the suspend method.

Since VMplayer and Imageshack makes taking and hosting screenshots painless (painless for me anyway :;):

) ......
here's one of DSL2.1RC2 with Gqview (UCI)

Full size image here:
< http://img460.imageshack.us/img460/2857/dslvmplayer64pb.gif >

Posted by crusadingknight on Dec. 14 2005,02:08

Quote (gunnix @ Dec. 13 2005,13:03)

Just to mention conky. Conky is a fork of torsmo which should work even better from what I've heard. Did you try it?

< Conky FAQ >
Looks nice, though technically 2.x isn't really based on Torsmo anymore.

Posted by andrewb on Dec. 14 2005,02:49

As I said in my previous posting I can't decipher what the script in etc/init.d/mountci is doing entirely, but it looks as though in line 11 of the script that if the pathname contains cdrom2 then the SOURCE pathname is changed to point to mnt/auto/cdrom/optional rather than using the pathname passed to the script?

You can test this by placing a uci file in a directory which has the text 'cdrom2' somewhere in the path (can be on it's own, or as part of a longer directory name, e.g. /home/dsl/cdrom/openoffice.uci or /whydoesntcdrom2work/openoffice.uci, or even part of the uci filename - e.g. opencdrom2office.uci). then try to load the uci file.

What is so special about having 'cdrom2' in the path or was it a left-over from some testing?

edit:

This 'bug' was introduced with V2.0. V1.5 loads UCI's OK under the above conditions.

Posted by joekabal on Dec. 14 2005,03:40

Quote (skaos @ Dec. 13 2005,11:01)

It would be very nice if the menus in fluxbox and jwm are similar/identical. Is it possible to have that nice desktop background in jwm as well?

switch to jwm then click dsl on the taskbar, then setup, then desktop, then wallpaper

you can also right on the desktop for the menu.

happy holidays!

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 14 2005,06:06

I think the cdrom2 code was added to enable uci for people running a "toram" configuration. The toram setup has a second virtual compressed ISO image loaded into a ramdisk with mountpoint cdrom2.

Since there are very few people running dsl with 2 physical cdrom drives and their UCI stuff located on a disk in the second drive, this situation hasn't been encountered yet.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 14 2005,06:17

Cbagger is right, the change from 1.5 to 2.0 was when I added the ability to run toram and if the cdrom has been removed then prompt for it. I am not planning on supporting 2 physical or virtual cdrom drives.

And as I previousily stated in a VM environment I would think it would just as easy to add an additional virtual hard drive as it would be a second virtual cdrom. The second virtual or physcial hard drive would not present a problem.

Posted by monkymind on Dec. 14 2005,06:24

Quote (gunnix @ Dec. 14 2005,03:03)

Just to mention conky. Conky is a fork of torsmo which should work even better from what I've heard. Did you try it?

If you want to try it out Mikshaw has a conky UCI in the myDSL tesing area.
< http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub....testing >

IMHO it looks promising but is a little more resource intensive than torsmo. Also torsmo is one binary (95k) whereas corky (96k) needs some support libs (90k+). So for the simple monitoring needs on my old laptop - DSL2.1 with torsmo is perfect (I don't need conky's graphs and seti, mldonkey support etc.).

The next version of conky 2.0 will be a complete rewrite and won't contain any torsmo code. I'll definitely have another look at it then.

If you decide to run conky under 2.1RC2 ... please post some screenshots or config files on how you've tweaked it to suit your setup.

Cheers
rob

This is as far as I got with conky
<

>
Full size image here:
< http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/2069/dslconky4vi.gif >

Posted by Sharkscott on Dec. 14 2005,08:21

I just wanted to say for the record that 2.0 was awesome and 2.1rc1 was even more awesome.

How do you work the number system? is it going to go to 2.1rc3 then 2.1, or will it be 3.0?

If I am asking a question that has already been answered, I am sorry. Please direct me to the info if so.

Posted by Delboy on Dec. 14 2005,13:19

RC2 hard disk installed to old notebook:
Torsmo doesn't work for the IP traffic display at the top - no figures at all for my working dial-up connection. Other Torsmo parts lower down work OK. (Much preferred the old dockapps system display though)
Hard disk install seems faster than ever.

Posted by gunnix on Dec. 14 2005,15:42

Quote (monkymind @ Dec. 14 2005,01:24)

Yes I tried out conky before in arch linux (which I use on my main computer). It seemed to use a bit less resources on my computer but I can't really tell the difference. Just wanted to know if conky had been considered for dsl instead of torsmo, and if so why torsmo was chosen . And you gave me that answer, thank you

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 14 2005,16:38

The conky uci has the extra lib included because the conky configure script is faulty. Although it states that you can disable the support of xft (which i generally do for most mydsl packages), it still compiles with that dependency. Automake configure scripts are ridiculously huge and complicated, and i'm not about to try editing one.

Other than that I haven't really seen much difference in the two apps yet.

Posted by ruserious on Dec. 16 2005,00:33

On a frugal install (according to pdf, with opt and home =hda3) the Ted.lnk does not survive a reboot. I am assuming (only assuming, I am not quite sure how to debug), that this is due to the orphancheck() in /etc/init.d/dsl-functions.

I changed /opt/powerdown.sh to

Code Sample

cleanMyDSL.sh
if [ -s /opt/.backup_device ]; then
ls -al /home/dsl/.xtdesktop/
mount
read abctest
filetool.sh backup noprompt;
fi

and in the list the Ted.* files are already missing. (btw: I have the same problem with some of my own added icons which execute commands /opt/programname/bin/programm ).
/hda3 and /opt still appear to be mounted at that point, so there must definitely be something going in and deleting it. However calling
/etc/init.d/dsl-config directly doesn't delete anything (set-vx shows that Ted.lnk and myprog.lnk both pass the tests).

If I call the filetool.sh script directly, the backup has the mysterious *.lnk (and image) files. And if hard-reset the machine at that point, they do get restored during the next boot - but only once (i.e. they disappear when auto-backup kicks in on the next proper shutdown/reboot).

(and I've had the same problems on RC1 and even on 2.0, but at that point I though I was screwing something up. But now that Ted seems disappear as well, it might not be me after all...)

Posted by roberts on Dec. 16 2005,01:15

Usually when it is one pesky icon, it points to the icon.
And yes, Ted.lnk is missing the Status: anchor.
This option will keep your icons from being cleaned up.
For now simply right click and edit its properties. I will fix in next cut.

Thanks for reporting.

Posted by ruserious on Dec. 16 2005,01:38

Aaah! Great, thank you!

Posted by logicmaster2003 on Dec. 16 2005,03:42

hi I just want to report the following findings:

* version 2.1RC1 => can't connect to internet ( tested on 4 machines)
* version 2.0RC2 => instantly connected to internet ( tested on 4 machines)

is there anything that we have to do manually to enable internet connection ?
Thanks and we're all (at work) loving your DSL !

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 16 2005,03:52

depends on how you connect, i suppose. For dialup I copied my /opt/ppp directory over from 2.0 to 2.1 and it works perfectly.

Posted by logicmaster2003 on Dec. 16 2005,03:54

oh oh im on cable modem router. For some reason.. on the earlier version that i indicated above... all 4 machines connects to the internet right away upon boot up !

on the newer version.. none of the 4 machines connects

Posted by Allen on Dec. 16 2005,04:10

Are you connected to the cable modem through USB or ethernet?I have ADSL connected with ethernet.No problems with the live CD but I think I had to configure dhcp on the hard drive install.

Funny thing on DSL 2.0 my Lucent modem is only detected with a frugal toram hard drive install.Normal hard drive install and live CD do not.With DSL 2.1 RC1 and RC2 my Lucent modem is always detected.

Posted by logicmaster2003 on Dec. 16 2005,06:25

hi Allen,

I'm connected to cable modem thru ethernet (all my 4 machines are regular pc with built-in ethernet card). And im not planning on HD-install.. im purely a remaster-live-cd person

hmm any other suggestion ? what is the major changes on internet connectivity between the new version versus the older version ?

Posted by ruserious on Dec. 16 2005,08:59

Is it possible that "links" was dropped between 2.0 and 2.1RCx? I can't find the binaries anywhere, also the "man" replacement which used links does not seem to work currently.

On purpose or by accident?

Posted by roberts on Dec. 16 2005,16:10

Yes it is true. Afterall, we are at 49.9MB. Ted is much larger than Flwriter. It came down to what we felt most users would benefit from.
Links should be an easy to make extension. Net man has been updated and will be in the next or final cut of 2.1. Also tcc was cut to be able to offer up this current collection of apps. We are trying hard to offer up the most useful apps to the widest posssible users.
Usually when an inline app has been cut, some member of the community quickly makes an extension, like nedit and others in the past.

Posted by struppi on Dec. 16 2005,18:02

isn't it possible to create a small script, that brings the net man - functions back, with dillo instead of links?

Posted by roberts on Dec. 16 2005,18:58

As I already stated the net man issue has already been corrected and will be in the next cut (RC or final) not sure yet..

Posted by logicmaster2003 on Dec. 16 2005,19:04

hi roberts.. YEY 49.9MB

so in the mean time, is there any manual commands or keypresses that we can do to connect to the internet ?

Thanks again

Posted by roberts on Dec. 16 2005,19:40

By definition release candidates are for the purpose of public testing and not daily use. So, use a stable released version of DSL, or possibly use a browser and google searches for man yyyy. We are pretty quick to turnaround cuts. And since I only have made an isolinux version it would be even quicker to post. I would like to wait to get more feedback. So far there have been a minor few changes for me to make. I would like to see more discussion on friedgold's hack, default or not to default. I have been watching that discussion. Be assured that net man functionality will return in the released version of 2.1

Posted by Allen on Dec. 16 2005,20:56

Quote (logicmaster2003 @ Dec. 16 2005,01:25)

hi Allen,

I'm connected to cable modem thru ethernet (all my 4 machines are regular pc with built-in ethernet card). And im not planning on HD-install.. im purely a remaster-live-cd person

hmm any other suggestion ? what is the major changes on internet connectivity between the new version versus the older version ?

You sshould be able to try the netword card confuration utility.The other ptroblemI've had a few times is getting the router to roconize the new OS.Sometime switching off or unplugging the router for a minte or so after booting the CD helps.Then try netcardconfig again.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 16 2005,21:28

logicmaster2003, Are those 4 newer newer machines, possibly using acpi? There have been no changes in net connectivity but possibly acpi and conflict of irq's maybe the cause. John and I are investigating this area.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 16 2005,22:31

Quote

logicmaster2003 wrote:
* version 2.1RC1 => can't connect to internet ( tested on 4 machines)
* version 2.0RC2 => instantly connected to internet ( tested on 4 machines)

A difference that I can see between these two versions is indeed with acpi.
Please try booting with acpi=off as a boot option and let me know.

Posted by os111 on Dec. 17 2005,05:27

Laptop/Notebook Fan problem
not sure if someone has already stated this issue but this new RC2 seemed like it disabled the fan to my laptop. this was one of the things i REALLY wished for since RC1 i believe, but now as i was ecstatic after booting up to the quietness of my laptop using this very nice DSL RC2 release, my laptop shuts down. i felt the laptop where the harddrive was and it was cool (obviously because it wasnt mounted yet) but when i flipped the laptop over to feel where the memory and CPU was.. it was EXTREMELY HOT. so i'm asuming the fan was disabled. this seems to me like its a work in progress and i can't wait till someone fixes this and puts out a new release :-) just pointing it out, but i am pretty sure they know this issue already :-P Hope you guys can fix it! lookin forward to switching over to linux :-)

Posted by logicmaster2003 on Dec. 17 2005,05:53

Quote (roberts @ Dec. 16 2005,17:31)

Quote

logicmaster2003 wrote:
* version 2.1RC1 => can't connect to internet ( tested on 4 machines)
* version 2.0RC2 => instantly connected to internet ( tested on 4 machines)

A difference that I can see between these two versions is indeed with acpi.
Please try booting with acpi=off as a boot option and let me know.

Hi Mister Roberts..

yes... booting up to "DSL NO ACPI" works !!! All four machine connects to the internet

if you need any testing.. don't hesitate to ask

Posted by logicmaster2003 on Dec. 17 2005,05:59

Quote (os111 @ Dec. 17 2005,00:27)

actually for this new version running on the laptop..

fan = 100% upon booting up
fan = 0% as soon as desktop appears
fan = about 50% after about 4 minutes
fan = back to 0% after 8 minutes and stayed 0%

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 17 2005,06:06

While playing around in console mode with some alternative framebuffer stuff, I also noticed that links was missing.

In my opinion, links is essential for the textmode/console user crowd out there with the old hardware or the nonVesa video cards.

It is more difficult for these people to download an extension and install it (hopefully UCI because of limited RAM in the machines) from the command line.

Basically, the way to do it is to read up on the commandline extension installation process using a web browser (like say "links" for example

)
Then you visit the myDSL download page using a web browser (like links) and manually download the links.uci extension.
You then exit back to the command line and
mydsl-load links.uci

and you are now in business, except for that catch-22 thingie

In comparison, it is relatively easy for a GUI user to download an (admittedly better) word processor by using the mydsl gui.

Maybe there is a "third way" that enables BOTH links and TED to be on the base ISO?

Posted by roberts on Dec. 17 2005,06:26

I am sorry but not following the catch-22 thing.

First of all DSL is not meant to be a CLI distro.
However, not to exclude console mode apps or extensions, the mydsl functions work fine from the CLI or console only mode. So any console mode extensions can be fetched via the mydsl repositories and checksumed using standard means.

using your example, if such a links.uci was made then simply

$ mydsl-load links.uci uci

works without X and is one step with checksum verified.
The third paramter for mydsl is the extension library from which to download from. It users the defined mirror in .dslrc. No X needed.

I guess one must weigh what is most useful to the most users given the parameters on which have been adopted.. Having three browser is one such example.

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 17 2005,07:23

I never realized that

mydsl-load

actually went out to the Internet and grabbed the file. I always assumed that the file needed to be already present on the hard drive for it to load and the whole mirror thing was just for the GUI tool.

I Learn somethin' new everyday

But of course he still needs to go on the web to find the name of the file.

As for the whole CLI thing,

AFAIK, while DSL was never specifically meant to be a CLI distro, it also was never specifically meant to be a "GUI only" distro, either.

Regardless of the original intent, those CLI guys are still out there using it. Not having links there will complicate things for them.

I understand the balancing act that must be performed, so I know that there will always be some winners and some losers.

I just like to give my opinons on the subject from time to time. No offense is being directed at the process or the people who are doing the work.

Posted by George on Dec. 17 2005,07:48

Why not eliminate dillo instead of links?
Links works both as a small weight browser and a console browser, while Dillo works only as light weight browser...and I assume that it takes more space than links.

PS: Any news about the slow mouse problem?

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 17 2005,07:49

I'm neither a cli guy nor a gui guy...i use what is most comfortable.
I was playing with lynx just now, and i have to say...wow, it's annoying for the forums. However, it does work for text-based html documents just like links does, and has additional support for frames. So my question here is would you prefer a lynx mydsl that supports frames, or would you prefer a links mydsl that is more like the text browser that dsl had before?

Posted by ruserious on Dec. 17 2005,09:43

Actually dillo is very small, I can't remember which version of links was in DSL, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was larger than dillo.

Plus, for me at least (and I assume some other people on old hardware), dillo was one of the main attractions coming to dsl. Just the startup time alone was amazing. dillo is a maybe 3 seconds, whereas firefox takes 2-3 minutes.

AFAIK know, links also has support for frames (at least more recent versions). And there is also a links version which supports graphics.

Being able to install links via mydsl is fine for me.

Posted by John on Dec. 17 2005,19:00

The Links that was first in DSL was Links-Hacked, it is a very capable browser for its size and did (still does) do a better job of rendering than Dillo. However, it sits at about 3MB and we dropped it when we adopted Firefox. The Links which is in every version of DSL from the time we adopted Firefox to 2.0 has been a text only version of Links -- it is about 400k, maybe 500k with required libs.

We are really pushing the limit of features and compatibility at 50MBs and everything from here on out will be a compromise.

We could have dumped MC in place of Links, I guess that makes more sense on some level, but Robert and I know that MC will be missed a lot more than Links. Yet with MC you have CTL as a replacement for the command-line hard core and emeLFM as a replacement for the GUI guys.

Posted by John on Dec. 17 2005,19:03

Also, anybody who couldn't get their USB2.0 hardware to boot via USB with DSL 2.0 which now can with with DSL-2.1RCx?

Posted by roberts on Dec. 17 2005,22:52

Quote

PS: Any news about the slow mouse problem?

Mouse speed is covered < here >

Posted by Delboy on Dec. 18 2005,09:41

.Dsl theme install bug in RC2? Went through the usual routine of problem-free HD install and initial .DSL extension installs of gnuutils and dpkg using the Emelfm 'Mydsl' button . Subsequent installs of theme .dsls put names in the Fluxbox desktop/styles menu and colours & fonts change OK. when clicked, but background wallpapers do not load.
(RC2 hard disk installed onto old notebook, fb800x600 & framebuffer video settings)

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 18 2005,17:55

Delboy: that's probably very simple to fix on your end. In the theme file (~/.fluxbox/styles/themename) you'll have the line "rootcommand: something". Try running the "something" part of that line from a terminal...it will probably give an error message. Get that error fixed (probably a path or permissions issue) and you can insert the proper command into the original style file.

Posted by logicmaster2003 on Dec. 19 2005,05:55

Good evening guys,

I just want to re-comment about the FAN intermittent activation/de-activation.

For some reason there was no FAN de-activation problem anymore ! Maybe the fan activation is handled by the motherboard and has nothing to do with DSL

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 19 2005,06:49

IMHO,

Forced to choose, I'd rather have links over mc

When running in text mode, I can slug through file operations with command line "cp" "mv" "cd" "ls" etc instead of mc

However, I can't browse the web or html files from text mode without links.

Yeah, this sounds silly to come from one of the people who originally advocated for the inclusion of mc into DSL, but if forced to have only one tool I'd rather have links or lynx (if it is smaller than links).

Posted by ruserious on Dec. 19 2005,10:20

> However, I can't browse the web or html files from text mode without links.

In a way yes, on the other hand, most people will use links when they are connected to the net, and in that case it could be installed via mydsl. - Of course only someone who knew this could do it.
I don't know if it would be feasible to symlink "links" to a little shell-script that does just that: Offer a little explanation and then asks to get and mount a (links|lynx).uci and change the symlink accordingly.

It's a tough call, and I can understand both sides. I can also deal with both decisions, so I'll shut up about it now. ;)

Posted by clivesay on Dec. 19 2005,12:33

Quote (cbagger01 @ Dec. 19 2005,00:49)

Forced to choose, I'd rather have links over mc

I would agree with CB. I personally have never used MC. I've become a full emelfm junkie with all the configuring you can do. I have buttons and user menu entries for creating, unpacking, and editing mydsl files, burning an ISO, mounting an ISO and blanking CDRW's. It's a swiss army knife FM

Maybe this is something for a community poll? We all know at some point the 50mb limit will cause hard decisions. I would suggest DSL concentrate on the real day to day apps being included with others removed that just 'cover the bases' and are not day to day tools? Mydsl could be used for those apps.

I'm for anything that creates room for Robert's Lua GUI's!

Chris

Posted by doobit on Dec. 19 2005,14:33

I'd go along with keep EmelFM, and lose MC. I'd rather see more hardware support already compiled in the kernel, and let us install the apps we need to make the system more personal.

Posted by frankseu on Dec. 19 2005,15:39

Hmmm.....
Personaly i use mc because it's handy, fast, cross plattform available and i can use it via ssh/xterm. I install it on every system i have contact with ;-)
For the normal users EmelFM is a great stuff.

To be honest :
For more hardware support i would pass on it,
but not for application xyz.

Perhaps a poll is realy a nice idea.

Frank

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 19 2005,17:18

FYI, the discussion was

mc or links

not

emelfm or mc

Anyways,

I like the idea of a CLI download script for the loser.

In other words, you type:

links

or

mc

and it checks for existance of the binary file and launches it with all the arguments passed on, aka:

/opt/links/links "$*"

or

/opt/mc/mc "$*"

otherwide, it does a

mydsl-load links.uci

or

mydsl-load mc.uci

This makes it friendly for the user who is stuck in CLI mode.

Posted by clivesay on Dec. 19 2005,17:35

No comparison between the two, I know. Just pointing out a current flexible fm but understand the need for a cli one in some situations. I don't know the exact command but if you have net access you can install a mydsl app from the repository at the command line with something like 'mydsl-load system mc.uci' or something like that. I know RS has posted that somewhere in the forum before.

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 19 2005,17:46

Heck, I use *only* mc, not because i need to but because i like it. But i wouldn't care if it were removed. That's why we have mydsl. I don't use nirc but have a uci for irssi....I don't use flux stable but have a flux devel package....i don't use xzgv but have a gqview package...etc...
If Midnight Commander were removed from DSL, my first priority would be mc.uci and I'd continue being happy with DSL

Posted by monkymind on Dec. 19 2005,22:12

The great thing about mc is it's not very big and comes in handy over ssh or when running DSL without X. There might be a quicker way to browse the file system or move/copy/delete/chmod multiple selected files but doubt I it.

As a text based browser elinks-lite is also small at 628k and would be nice to have. Perhaps as a dsl package if space can't be found on the CD??

BTW If there is any ex (or current) dos users ...... here's a couple of Linux ports (or distractions) :;):

Necromancer's Dos Navigator Linux beta
< http://freshmeat.net/projects/ndn/ >
and UnixTree (XTree gold clone)
< http://freshmeat.net/projects/unixtree/ >

They're over 2-3x the size of the DSL's midnight commander binary but run on DSL2.1RC2 without problems (simply unpack and run). I was never a fan of Xtree but it did have a strong following and there's even an X binary included in the package (see screenshot)

Full size here
< http://img290.imageshack.us/img290/57/dsl21rc2elinks5oy.gif >

Posted by RandyB on Dec. 20 2005,05:18

Would prefer links to MC, Dillo, or Firefox. Mostly use it for browsing on my other system with ImageMagic opening the pics when wanted. For anyone who is adverse to seeing advertising 24/7 links is a godsend for browsing and fast.
In my opinion it would be better to put Firefox back on the myDSL and have links, mc, and Links hacked on DSL. For fast browsing without popups I have not seen anything better than Links hacked. Another reason to prefer links for browsing is that is rodent free. Unless I missed something Dillo is unuseable without a mouse. If Firefox were on myDSL I would carry it on a usb stick for when I needed it. And it would be interesting to see what could be added in its place

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 21 2005,03:39

I hear ya, but a full-featured web browser is a "must" these days for visiting web pages that use SSL,Javascript, etc so I would guess that Firefox is here to stay.

FYI roberts has created an extension for links-hacked called "glinks.uci" in the UCI section of the MyDSL repository.

Posted by ripcrd6 on Dec. 21 2005,17:45

Can someone update the link to this RC2 topic on the DSL webpage? It is still pointing to RC1.

Just a thought.

Thanks.

Posted by Chuck Allison on Dec. 21 2005,21:33

I have used the heck out of DSL and told all my friends about it.. but USB support is now broken on my old inspiron 3000 p233.. under RC2 don't know what to say except thanks for the ride while it lasted . will check to see if I can figure out why it did that but not sure if it is a kernel problem or not... thanks and hoping for help on this one..

Posted by roberts on Dec. 21 2005,23:19

It would be nice if their would be a little more info posted than just thanks for the ride. This is a release candidate where we are looking for specific errors/messages to make DSL better. I hope you will consider trying to provide such.

Posted by Chuck allison on Dec. 22 2005,01:44

I wish there were more to put.. it stopped at the checking for usb prompt.. if I start the machine with nousb as a kernel command it will boot and run fine.. usb works when manually modprobed.. I am sorry I was not more informative with my information earlier. the information and posting I did earlier was while I was at work.. thanks for keeping me honest.. I am working to keep using this and support the great effort.. because I love having an operating system that is fast and usable on older systems.. will join the forum as soon as I get my machine stable.

Thanks for the support and I hope I can help fix the problem to an already super system..

Posted by roberts on Dec. 22 2005,02:00

DId this start with v2.1RCx? Did it work with v2.0?
A difference that I can see between these two versions is indeed with acpi.
Please try booting with acpi=off as a boot option and let us know.
I am aware of some USB issues concerning this parameter.
I also became aware of some networking issue with this parameter.

Posted by dancrew32 on Dec. 22 2005,09:47

hey there. in 2.0 my sata drive wasn't supported... do i have a better chance with this candidate?

Posted by Chuck Allison on Dec. 22 2005,12:05

I am booting with the following.

noacpi noapm nousb nodma noscsi frugal also I am using FB1024x768

the system seems to work well as long as I have the usb option off in the kernel command line. DSL 2.0 final worked well DSL 2.1 RC1 usb support in kernel still worked only when shifting to DSL 2.1 RC2 that usb fail in kernel.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 22 2005,14:36

dancrew32, sata support needs boot option sata

Posted by roberts on Dec. 22 2005,14:40

Chuck Allison, nothing from 2.1RC1 to 2.1RC2 that would effect USB booting. Also, have not head other reports of USB issues of this kind. Kernel and modules have not changed either. I am assuming that you have a good download and a good burn to cdrom.

Posted by chuck allison on Dec. 22 2005,15:26

rodger that thanks for the support on here.. I will try to get the rc from a different mirror and make sure... have downloaded all of them from the forum and burned them the same.. so it could be on my end... will see what happens.. thanks for the dialog will be back when I figure out what I did wrong..

thanks again.. chuck

Posted by dancrew32 on Dec. 22 2005,21:30

I tried typing : "DSL sata" in the F3 boot menu, and 3 partitions of the sata drive did show up in the slit for 2.1RC2, but the contents of the Boot cd are all that show for each, and nothing related to the drive. got any ideas on whats wrong?

Posted by dancrew32 on Dec. 22 2005,22:04

hey well nevermind i got into the drives... thanks for all the help guys. YESSS!!! a functional linux machine!

Posted by sarah on Dec. 23 2005,00:17

Hi all,
Just weighing into the debate on links/lynx versus MC
I haven't used MC and although I'm sure it's an awesome tool, as cbagger01 said, there's a lot of people who use DSL on atticware and/or as their first linux experience. I fall into both categories for the most part (newbie and atticware user). If they (Linux newbies) get stuck in text mode, at least they have some chance of being able to get here (even if it's not so pretty) to get help if their netcard has been detected. Links has helped me find answers more times than I can count.
If a person knows how to use a tool like MC, there's a pretty good chance that they're savvy enough to be able to find their way to the mydsl repository to get it.
I appreciate that you can't cater for everyone, but one of the things about DSL that draws many users is that it can be run on old hardware, and has way more features than many systems that will do that.
I vote links/lynx.

Thank you for an awesome OS!
Cheers and beers!
Sarah (who is genuinely astonished at how fast toram is now that she finally has a machine capable of running toram!)

Posted by stand on Dec. 23 2005,09:32

Posted by monkymind on Dec. 23 2005,13:09

If you have a spare 190kb ?? ... and want to include a text mode browser, then try the retawq browser. It's a very small and up to date textmode browser with virtual windows etc .
< http://retawq.sourceforge.net/ >

Update: I found a version compiled for SuSE 93 which runs with the native DSL libs and doesn't require the previous symlinks and start up script to load.
Just unpack anywhere and run

< http://h1.ripway.com/monkymind/dslart/retawq.tar.gz > (96kb)

It has a lot of keyboard options :cool:

- and there is even a small popup menu available. Press "m" to activate.

If you're interested in seeing what it looks like, below is a screenshot displaying two sites in split screen mode and a popup (top left) showing the existing windows.
<

>
Full size image here:
< http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/8379/retawqdsl4zo.gif >

Cheers
rob
PS here's the list of keyboard commands ..
< http://retawq.sourceforge.net/docu/key.html >[QUOTE]

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 23 2005,14:43

Quote (stand @ Dec. 23 2005,04:32)

That's not a bug. It's basic Linux behavior. Everything in Linux is case-sensitive, which means that "root", "ROOT", "Root", and "rOOt" are all different strings, and will not be interpreted as the same user.

monkymind: That looks good...i'm downloading, thanks =o)

Posted by monkymind on Dec. 23 2005,15:16

Quote (mikshaw @ Dec. 23 2005,23:43)

monkymind: That looks good...i'm downloading, thanks =o)

Hi mikshaw
you may want to download the newer version. It's about 10kb smaller and doesn't need any of the previous support files.

IMHO - lots of nice features but may have to be recompiled to suit DSL.

Posted by stand on Dec. 23 2005,17:33

mikshaw: I'm sure that's the BUG!!
Just try to login with switched on CAPS LOCK as ROOT.

Posted by chuck allison on Dec. 23 2005,17:50

found the usb bug on my dell thought I would liet you know... had to have plug and play os enabled.

thanks alot.. chuck

Posted by doobit on Dec. 23 2005,20:58

try logging on in almost any version of Linux as root with caps lock on. All Linux installs that I've used prior to DSL, have instructed me to make my root user names as all lower case. Others can use upper case. My understanding is that the root is lower case because it becomes the name of the root file and filenames are always lower case.

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 23 2005,22:47

Quote (stand @ Dec. 23 2005,12:33)

mikshaw: I'm sure that's the BUG!!
Just try to login with switched on CAPS LOCK as ROOT.

So what you're saying is you have capslock on, hold the Shift key and type in "root"? If this is the case, i can see how it might be a bug, but...why the heck would you bother to do that in the first place?!?

If you're doing what I originally suspected, which is to have capslock on and type "root" without holding Shift, then it is *not* a bug. It is the way Linux is intended to be.

--
One of the best things i ever did on a computer was breaking the capslock key.

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 24 2005,19:18

noticing a couple of odd things concerning icons. I seldom use them unless testing mydsl packages, so i don't know if this was apparent in earlier versions of DSL....

First, if you do not use "noicons", it seems that a permanent xtdesk pid is being created...at least that's what appears to be happening. If you decide to turn off icons, they will return after running emelfm.

On what i think is a related note, the icon tool does not take effect until manually restarting xtdesk because xtdeskRestart.sh seems to be broken. The error comes from the `pidof xtdesk` test....seems like multiple xtdesk pids are breaking the test. I put it in double quotes and it seems to be working properly now, though there might be a more appropriate fix:

Code Sample

if [ "`pidof xtdesk`" ]; then

Posted by roberts on Dec. 24 2005,20:25

I have not been able to reproduce having multiple xtdesk running.
Should not happen. Would like to determine why you are experiencing it. I guess I can use pkill but would like it better if I could reproduce it.

The emelfm thing, yep, I keep forgetting about that. Sometimes, I think a little too much integration with a particular fm, but oh well. That's what RC and public beta testing is for. Looks like xtdeskRestart.sh needs to be aware of new .desktop option of noicons.

As usual a good report. Thanks mikshaw.

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 24 2005,21:56

This is the setup in which the trouble appeared:

frugal install on hda4, ext2fs
grub options: dsl frugal norestore base vga=791 dma nofirewire nopcmcia

I had mounted and umounted 2 uci extensions prior to noticing the strangeness (python and blender).

Playing around with icontool.lua, and found that i was receiving errors from xtdeskRestart.sh....first an error saying it expected a unary operator, second time saying it expected binary (that was odd enough)...after that i received only messages saying that there were too many arguments. Each time this last error occured was a result of simply opening the tool and pressing "ok", but I had played with various settings several times before finally starting the script from a terminal to see the first 2 errors. So my guess is something happened while i was running icontool which changed the data xtdeskRestart was expecting...perhaps one of the previous tests started a second instance of xtdesk. In any case, the double quotes apparently allowed the multiple PIDs to be read as a single argument? I'm guessing that there should be only one PID for xtdesk at any given time, though....thought it was weird that "killall -9 xtdesk" would not remove all xtdesk PIDs.

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 24 2005,22:19

Ok, here's what I did to reproduce the errors in a plain vanilla frugal DSL2.1RC2...

Opened a terminal, and alternately ran the commands "pidof xtdesk" and "icontool.lua". The first time i ran icontool, xtdesk restarted as expected, but each time afterward i received an error from xtdeskRestart.sh. Also, each time there was an additional xtdesk PID. With icontool, I just started the script and then pressed "OK".

Code Sample

dsl@box:~$ pidof xtdesk
868
dsl@box:~$ icontool.lua
dsl@box:~$ pidof xtdesk
868 911
dsl@box:~$ icontool.lua
/usr/bin/xtdeskRestart.sh: line 2: [: 868: unary operator expected
dsl@box:~$ pidof xtdesk
868 911 922
dsl@box:~$ icontool.lua
/usr/bin/xtdeskRestart.sh: line 2: [: 911: binary operator expected
dsl@box:~$ pidof xtdesk
868 911 922 933
dsl@box:~$ icontool.lua
/usr/bin/xtdeskRestart.sh: line 2: [: too many arguments
dsl@box:~$ pidof xtdesk
868 911 922 933 944
dsl@box:~$ icontool.lua
/usr/bin/xtdeskRestart.sh: line 2: [: too many arguments
dsl@box:~$ pidof xtdesk
868 911 922 933 944 955
dsl@box:~$

Posted by roberts on Dec. 24 2005,23:57

Thanks mikshaw, I will get this squared away for RC3.

Posted by humpty on Dec. 26 2005,17:07

* bg color gets stuck after playing around with the different styles.
(keep having to use xsri to change back)

* startup still has an empty right-click menu appearing by itself.

* about the links/mc debate, whatever is decided i think the 'man'
cmd should be repaired to whatever is to render the page or else
just say not-available. A lot of newbies (and me) like using man
pages in times of 'urgency', and it's a bit frustrating to see
"sh: line 1: links: command not found." each time.

Posted by killerdotjohn on Dec. 26 2005,23:42

Humpty, I've noticed the menu comeing on when you startup. Not really a problem :-p . As for the blank menu, did you do a HD install?

Posted by humpty on Dec. 28 2005,00:57

Quote (Guest @ Dec. 26 2005,18:42)

Humpty, I've noticed the menu comeing on when you startup. Not really a problem :-p . As for the blank menu, did you do a HD install?

No, it's boot from loadlin and regular restore off the usb pendrive.
It's not really a problem, just bit odd. It's fine afterwards.

Posted by hs7sv on Dec. 30 2005,06:17

Could you please add 2 types of < Thai keymap > into RC3? These keymaps can switch US-Thai by pressing Alt-Shift keys.

Posted by struppi on Dec. 30 2005,20:43

don't forget to add the missing spaces in the .jwmrc file.

the following entries are unuseable:
* DOS swapfile
* Keyboard
* PPPoEconf
* wlanconfig
* X Setup

Posted by roberts on Dec. 30 2005,22:04

Spaces. Got it. Thanks for the bug report.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 30 2005,22:15

hs7sv, Are you currently using the Thai keymap?
If so which one? Also how would you classify it?

azerty
dvorak
fgGIod
qwerty
qwertz

Robert

Posted by desnotes on Dec. 30 2005,22:28

This is more of a question than a bug or anything but will Torsmo be able to monitor dual CPUs? I put DSL 2.1rc2 in one of my older dual CPU servers and only one CPU displayed. I also noticed that when I went into a shell and called 'top' only one CPU displayed.

Is this working as intended?

Thanks,

desNotes

Posted by klingon on Dec. 31 2005,02:04

Human, I can't accomplish Ur presentation , more consequences are much appreciated ... ;-)

Posted by 300c_pilot on Dec. 31 2005,09:20

Here is what I have found to have issues:
1. Forgetting I booted to Ram and I wiped out my changes when I rebooted.
2. Booting to a western digital 80 gig. usb2 external drive. Even after using a redhat install disk to create a partition it fails to boot, even if it is not located in the begining sectors of the drive.
3. Had to create an ext2 partition with redhat & then format it later in DSL, DSL would not partition a HD, when booted toram,on the laptop or a test machine. For the hard drive install.
4. Will not default to the fb800x600, ps2 mouse on a Compaq 1275 laptopHD install. It asks each time it is booted.
5. Extremely slow on AMD 64/3500 with 512 megs memory. I am sure this is something I am no putting in at boot time. AMD 350 P1 w/256 megs was faster, not much though.
6. Netgear Wireless gw511v2 from china refuses to work, in laptop. Only wireless card I have.

What has worked extremely well:
1. Booting P1-P4 cpus, extremely fast compared to windows.
2. Works under VMware's Workstation, GSX Server, ESX Server. Virtual SMP freezes. Got a VMTM subscription from VmWare.
3.Once I read the "Stable" part in the directions Wine installed & even worked when I finished it.
4. The cd has booted in every machine I have put it in "toram". Xeon, Intel p1-4 & cel, AMD 32/64, so far 8 different machines. No HT or dual cores yet.
5. Aditional Package installation is less steps the RedHat Network that is automatic... and costs 360.00 a year.

I will post anything new as it comes up.
Following tests are for bootp server boot, flashdisk, ide to compac flash adapters, thumb drives, and last but now least I-Ram drive by gigabyte>Way cool SSDD, this guy makes an AMD 64 with 1 gig mem, 4 gig SSDD, WinXP64 simply screem.

Smooth flights...Computers during the night & Helicopters during the day...
300c

Posted by hs7sv on Dec. 31 2005,15:29

Robert

Last time, I used it when I installed DSL to HDD. I used command: loadkeys th-win-latin1. Nowadays, I'm using GRUB Frugal HDD install.
These keymaps use ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) Charset Keysym for Thai characters. It is based on US qwerty keymap. th-win-latin1.kmap is for keyboard with Windows key. Thanks

Posted by MethodOne on Dec. 31 2005,16:15

Here's my extension for the missing Links:
< http://www.filefactory.com/get/f.php?f=f83063998e281c5683be6cb7 >

It came from Debian woody.

Posted by edard on Dec. 31 2005,21:10

Module pcnet_cs is being loaded for my Linksys Fast Ethernet 10/100 NP100 card which needs axnet_cs.
Dmesg reports:
" pcnet_cs: this is an AX88190 card
pcnet_cs: use axnet_cs instead....."

An older DSL loaded axnet_cs and worked fine.
Thanks,
Ed

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 31 2005,21:17

Can you manually load it by open a terminal window and type:

sudo su
modprobe axnet_cs
netcardconfig

Posted by edard on Dec. 31 2005,21:42

cbagger01
I can manually load it but have not been able to ifconfig eth0 yet.

Posted by edard on Dec. 31 2005,22:02

cbagger01
More specifically...I load axnet_cs without complaint. Netcardconfig shows "No supported network cards found". If I do ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.9 then I see "SIOCSIFADDR: No such device".

Posted by doobit on Jan. 01 2006,00:53

Thanks To Robert my Atheros based wifi card is working great each time I boot up. I'm getting used to jwm and torsmo looks great on that desktop. The icons still are erratic in jwm. Sometimes they only appear as bits of color instead of the full icon. Ted doesn't ever appear in jwm, but does in Fluxbox.

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 01 2006,06:56

How about:

ifconfig -a

Posted by edard on Jan. 01 2006,14:47

cbagger01
ifconfig -a shows only local loopback.
The 'Link' and the '10/100' lights on the card dongle are on.

This is an older laptop that runs DSL 0.82 fine. axnet_cs is loaded by 0.82 and the card is properly configured. Something has happened between 0.82 and 2.1 RC2.

Posted by doobit on Jan. 01 2006,17:28

Is your driver possibly in the additional modules package that's in the current directory of the downloads?

Posted by gorth on Jan. 01 2006,18:14

Hello

Are there any VMWare images of RC3 available?

Posted by roberts on Jan. 02 2006,21:08

RC3 is not out yet. RSN.
I will post all the images when its ready:
isolinux, syslinux, embedded (Qemu), vmx (VMWare ready).

Posted by gorth on Jan. 03 2006,07:41

[quote=roberts,Jan. 02 2006,16:08][/quote]
Hi, sorry I meant RC2. Since I couldn't find any VMWare image for RC2, I created one myself located here:

< VMWare image >

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 03 2006,12:38

Hmm...

The driver is there, but it won't load.

There are no other devices, so there are no other drivers already loaded for this card.

I am assuming that your pcmcia services are working because the other driver message tells you to use a different driver.

When you use DSL 0.82, does the device appear as eth0?

Posted by edard on Jan. 03 2006,14:37

cbagger01
Yes, in 0.82 it does show up as eth0 and it works.
Thanks,

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 03 2006,17:58

Looks like you aren't the only one with this problem...

One post suggests removing the pcnet_cs module (modprobe -r modulename) before loading the new module. Also, something about modconf

< http://hardware.mcse.ms/archive42-2004-7-31470.html >

< http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2001-Dec/3026.html >

Posted by edard on Jan. 03 2006,23:28

cbagger01
That got me headed in the right direction. I did a hdinstall and replaced the /etc/pcmcia/config file with the one from 0.8.2 and it works.
Thanks,
Ed

Posted by roberts on Jan. 04 2006,05:24

Moving on to RC3.
Thanks to the many who have posted bugs, suggestions, and code examples.