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Topic: Bugs in current version of DSL

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Jonah Thomas Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 12
Joined: Mar. 2006

Posted: May 02 2006,18:15

Well, that didn't work. I backed up everything onto another disk. Then I reformatted every partition on hda and disconnected hdb.

I started DSL2.3 from the LiveCD. I confirmed that the hard disk was empty except for the swap partition.

I did the frugal install starting from the DSL/apps/tools menu.

I had started the LiveCD with the options "dma norestore nopcmcia" and I did the frugal install with "dma norestore nopcmcia" and chose no restore partition and no separate MyDSL partition.

It installed on hda1and ended normally, it rebooted.

But now I get a "no system disk" error. My computer doesn't recognise the frugal install at all. before it would start and get halfway through the boot before it quit, but now it quits at the very beginning.

I repeated it twice looking for problems, and got the same result each time.

hda1 is bootable. After the install it has a /KNOPPIX folder with a KNOPPIX that's the right size, and it has a /boot folder with half a dozen files in it, and an empty /lost+found folder. Some of the files that are in the boot folder were out in /mnt/hda1/ in earlier versions.

Has anyone else had trouble with this?

doobit

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Posts: 912
Joined: July 2005

Posted: May 02 2006,18:47

How much memory do you have? Also, did you format the swap as a swap (mkswap), and did you activate it with swapon? Low memory, or an inactive swap will cause icons to disappear. Also, when you set partitions, make sure you make the first one bootable, and format as ext2 because, as far as I know DSL still needs ext2 for KNOPPIX to reside on.

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whiteweasel Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 14
Joined: May 2006

Posted: May 02 2006,20:10

I've installed DSL 2.3 (frugal install) to an old Mitsubishi Amity CN subnotebook system: 133MHz Pentium, 48MB RAM, 1.2GB HDD. It has 1MB of video ram and can only display 640x480. 800x600x16bpp is possible with a virtual screen larger than the physican screen, which I detest. I got it to work with vga=786 using xfbdev. On to the bugs:

1. When fluxbox comes up dillo is opened with a window much bigger than the display. The window edges are not visible. I tried to resize the Dillo window with the fluxbox CTRL+mouse shortcut and had no luck at all. This problem does not exist in jwm so I am mainly using that. Once I have Dillo (or any app) at the proper size I can switch back to fluxbox without that problem.

2. In jwm sometimes the icons display properly and sometimes not. Turning off icons and turning them back on always corrects this problem. This is unique to jwm. Icons in fluxbox are fine. This isn't a memory issue as it happens when memory usage is low and when I am not hitting swap at all.

Basically I just use jwm with no icons and everything is fine. A lot of old laptops with small screens are limited to 640x480. I could see this becoming very frustrating to a newbie which is why I'm bothering to report it.

BTW, I am very pleased with the performance of the frugal install on such a limited machine. It works well and is surprisingly fast. I've added some dsl extensions (madwifi, xchat, bluefish) and everything works as it should except for the little niggles in the window managers.

doobit

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Posts: 912
Joined: July 2005

Posted: May 02 2006,20:32

I have had a couple of different computers with 640x480 screens and 2MB video RAM. I typically start it with vga=785. Using that setting I have had no problems with the icons in JWM or Fluxbox. Any window can be moved around in Fluxbox with alt+left mouse button. After you read the Dillo getting started page you can deactivate it by commenting out the dillo line in .xinitrc. (put a # before the line beginning with dillo in the invisible .xinitrc script that you can see by clicking the H in the upper corner of EmelFM)

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whiteweasel Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 14
Joined: May 2006

Posted: May 02 2006,20:42

Quote (doobit @ May 02 2006,16:32)

I guess I should have made clear that I am a very experienced Linux user. I know I can edit .xinitrc and, indeed, already had before posting. I have my system the way I want it. I was suggesting that this is a problem for newbies and that changing the default window size in the next release might be a good idea.

Thank for the note on vga=785. I guess it's good to know that it works at a reduced color depth. However, it would be nice if it worked at 24bpp as well. IMHO you've provided a good workaround but it's still a bug that should be fixed. I'd rather have the higher color depth than icons, personally. It would be nice if I could have both, especially considering it works just fine in fluxbox.

20 replies since April 25 2006,16:39

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