March 2017
It appears the newsletter is maintaining it's momentum. It was hard to tell after the January edition if it was well received or not. After the February edition was released many more subscriptions were noticed. I have no idea how many people use the RSS feed, read the newsletter online or download the notecase version but I do have a feeling in my water, that it's increasing.
Each month we have more contributors which is great and I hope this trend continues. Greengeek has returned with another crossword. 6502coder has submitted two very interesting articles, one on backing up a folder and the other about debiandog.
Peebee has provided an article about LxPupSc.
Rattlehead has provided articles about muting terminal beeps and automounting partitions at startup.
Bigpup has explained how to place an icon on the desktop to poweroff your computer.
I have provided three tutorials and a number of tips.
This month I have included a letter to the editor from an unknown author. I don't know who sent me the article. Maybe he or she wants to remain anonymous. Maybe he/she will come forward and I will be able to publish their name next month. It's an article that most of us can relate to.
Linux and in particular Puppy Linux is not known for it's games applications. This is not to say that you cannot play games in Linux. There are a few people that I'm aware of who play games and two of them have offered to provide some information in the next edition. The steam platform is something I know nothing about but if someone out there can provide some information about it, I'm happy to include it in the PLN.
Next month I hope to do a short bio on jamesbond. As many of you who read the Murga Puppy Linux Forums would know he has his paw prints all over the place.
The other day while I was sitting alone taking in the sea breeze, on a lovely sunny day, I was thinking of some of the many great developers we have seen work on Puppy Linux. This might be a good subject for an article later in the year. One outstanding contributor that popped into my head was jemimah. What a champion she was, very smart and helpful.
Enjoy...
smokey01
The Puppy Linux Forums is the main source for a lot of the information repeated here. Where appropriate, links will be provided so you can read first hand about the distro's development. This section will likely just provide highlights as a starting point.
- Lucid
-
Written by rerwin
Updated Lucid Puppy 5.2.8.7 for Older Computers
January 2, 2017 - The "Lucid Puppy Revitalized" project, headed by rerwin with feedback and recommendations from several dedicated supporters, released the 2016 update to playdayz's original Lucid Pup 5.2.8-005 (5.2.8.5), as version 5.2.8.7-20161228. (The previous release was 5.2.8.7-20150702.) Although not an official Puppy, maintained through remastering, it supports a wide range of older computers, those from 1999 until a few years ago.
The revitalized puppy contains many fixes and upgrades of pet packages. The new release's Lucid Lynx binary DEBs are at their final versions. Ubuntu support for Lucid Lynx ended in April, 2014, resulting in no further security or other updates since then.
New with this release are:
* PET packages with "xz" compression supported by dir2pet, petget and Extract-pet.
* Many up-to-date PETs, including pburn, pmusic, PupControl, PupSysInfo, PupMenu, frisbee, pgprs
* New additional PETS, including get_java (and its new Java interface), samba, YASSM
* The shutdown save function now offering ext4 partitions for pupsave files and folders.
* The upgrade package-conflict checker expanded to identify file duplicates and conflicts and to assist in resolving them.
The complete list of changes since 20150702 is here:
Changes since 20150702
The changes before that and since playdayz's 5.2.8-005 release are here:
Changes between 5.2.8-005 and 5.2.8.7-20150702
This 32-bit-only release consists of 12 ISO file variants, with six kernels (including 2.6.33.2, 3.2.48 & 3.9.9) and six also with LibreOffice and Java either built in or as SFS files. The download page and project discussion are at:
Lucid Revitalized download page and discussion
- A First Look at Debian Dog
-
Written by 6502coder
A First Look at Debian Dog
The Debian Dogs are not Puppies. They are Puppy-like in look and feel, sharing Puppy's anti-bloat philosophy, but structurally they are Debian systems. The Debian Dogs offer an option for someone who is looking for a distro that is outwardly similar to Puppy but with the support system of a major distro. This article is aimed primarily at the Puppy user who is curious about the Debian Dogs but hasn't tried one out.
I started looking into Debian Dog because I have a Precise Puppy system, and Ubuntu's Precise Pangolin is going off LTS in April. The recent Dirty COW bug and other serious bugs that required kernel updates to fix have made me skittish of running an OS that doesn't have a solid system for providing security updates. At the same time, I need a lightweight OS because my 2003 laptop is decidedly underpowered, with a 1.3 GHz, noPAE cpu and only 1 GB RAM. Debian Dog seemed to fit the bill.
There are currently two flavors of Debian Dog Jessie available ("Jessie" is the name of the parent Debian distro); one uses ROX and the other uses OpenBox. The OpenBox version is under active development by "fredx181," whereas the ROX version is no longer under development: the last release dates back to September 2015. Nonetheless, I chose the ROX version because it is available in a nonPAE version, whereas the OpenBox versions are PAE-only. (I haven't gotten around to testing to see if the PAE versions will run on my machine using the "forcepae" kernel option.) After burning a CD and doing a quick LiveCD test, I did an installation to a flash drive.
The Debian Dog Boot Options
Debian Dog can be installed in a bewildering variety of ways, due to the combination of 3 basic choices:
1. systemd or sysinit
2. Porteus, live-boot-2, or live-boot-3 for persistence (ie frugal install)
3. Encryption or no encryption
There are additional nuances analogous to the Puppy frugal variations of savefile vs savefolder, save-on-demand, save-on-exit, never-save, etc.
I chose to stick to basic "frugal-type" installations using the familiar sysinit instead of systemd. For persistence, I tried both Porteus and Live-boot3. I did not use encryption.
Installation
I used GParted to reformat a spare 8 GB flash drive. Initially I formatted it vfat, which worked fine, but later I switched to ext3, which also worked fine. Ext4 can also be used, although the installer will recommend turning journaling off for a flash drive installation.
Although Debian Dog can be installed from the LiveCD, the recommended method is to use a special install script found on the Debian Dog web site. I copied this script and the DD Jessie ISO file to scratch space on my Precise Puppy system, and ran the script from there.
The installation is straightforward, but when presented with a choice of bootloader -- Grub4dos or syslinux -- I found out the hard way that Grub4dos didn't work for me. Fortunately syslinux worked just fine.
Testing a "Porteus" install
This works much like a Puppy frugal install, with a "changes.dat" file in place of the Puppy personal savefile. Video display, sound, and wired Internet all worked OOTB. So far so good. But when I used Synaptic to do a full update, I discovered that a surprisingly large "changes.dat" file was needed (I ended up with 1.5GB). Quite possibly a full update was neither necessary nor wise. At any rate there's a tool in the menu system for resizing the "changes.dat" file, which I promptly used.
Once DD is up and running, many Puppy users will feel right at home, especially with the familiar combo of ROX and JWM (although Xfe is included and is actually the default filemanager). Many of the familiar apps are there: Mtpaint, MPlayer, Gpicview, Leafpad, and Geany to name a few. The only notable exception is that there's no Abiword or spreadsheet app. You can find more details at the Debian Dog website:
https://github.com/DebianDog/Jessie/releases/tag/v.1.0
The arrangement of the "dot" configuration files in the home directory is a bit different from Puppy's, but it didn't take me long to work out how to set up my usual bash and JWM preferences and install a custom wallpaper. I added SeaMonkey (Dillo is the bundled browser) and had a very usable system.
According to "free" my system uses about 376 MB of memory after booting up, and "htop" shows a CPU load averaging under 1% at idle. This is with the kernel line option for copying the read-only system files to RAM. Without this option, there is only 296 MB of memory in use after booting up.
Testing a Live-boot-3 install
Although the Porteus-boot system works and offers the most options with regard to when and how to save to the savefile, I also wanted to try the live-boot-3 configuration, which seems to have more official support from Debian than the Porteus setup.
The live-boot-3 method uses a file named "persistence" for which a script is conveniently available from the DD web site. The script sets up a 1 GB persistence file, which you can resize later.
After setting up a live-boot-3 system, I again used Synaptic to attempt a full update, and again got a warning message saying I was very low on space in the savefile. The same resizing tool I used to enlarge the Porteus changes.dat file also worked to resize the live-boot-3 persistence file to 2 GB.
I mentioned earlier that "fredx181" actively develops the OpenBox versions of Debian Dog. He created a DEB package for updating the kernel, and luckily this also worked on my ROX-flavored DD. I was able to update the kernel to 3.16.36-1+deb8u2, thereby taking care of the Dirty COW bug. Very nice.
To sum up, Debian Dog has the Puppy virtues of being clean and fast, and having full access to the Debian repos is a major bonus. If you like to load up your Puppies with a lot of Puppy-specific customizations, then DD probably isn't something you'd be interested in. But if you run your Puppies relatively "clean" like I do, it shouldn't take much work to get Debian Dog set up to where it closely resembles what you're used to. If you've also got one of the classic "pre-BK-retirement" Puppies that are getting increasingly outdated from a security point of view, Debian Dog may be worth checking out.
- LxPupSc
-
Written by PeeBee
LxPupSc is a somewhat different Pup.... "The Puppy equivalent to Lubuntu...."
As default, the desktop environment is LXDE (the "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment" with openbox, lxpanel & pcmanfm) rather than the more usual Puppy jwm and rox (although these are still part of the build and there is a desktop switcher to activate them if you prefer).
LxPupSc is a 100% woof-ce 32-bit-pae build but it does have a unique characteristic in that it is built from multiple sources as follows:
- Slackware base components come from Slackware-Current
- LXDE components come from other repositories: ponce.cc and Arch Linux
- Puppy pets are a mixture of Slacko-14.2 plus a small number of specific pet-builds when recompilation is needed for Slackware-Current library compatibility
Plus there are also a bunch of fix-pets, packages-templates, config files etc. to get it all to hang together.
The kernel is a 32-bit-pae woof-ce kernel-kit build.
The applications provided will be very familiar to Puppy Linux users in the main, although the web browser is slightly different as it is the Light version of Mozilla-Firefox. This is intended to be a "Starter-for-10" browser and a number of more heavyweight browsers are available to download and install from the cloud (Chromium, Firefox-ESR, Opera, Palemoon and Seamonkey are provided).
Another difference to more mainstream Pups is the greater number of *drv.sfs provided in the iso:
- adrv contains the web browser
- fdrv contains a selection of firmware
- ydrv contains an alternative xorg for older systems (optional install)
- zdrv contains the kernel
Thanks are due to very many people whose more original work has been plagiarised ruthlessly:
- Jejy69 for the original LxPup way back in 2013 and particularly the menu configuration
- 01Micko for the Slacko-6.3 configuration used as a starting point and for much advice along the way and the pet-build system
- jlst (wdlkmpx on github) for the huge improvements made to woof-ce
- Stemsee for the original kernel config
- Iguleder, 01Micko, and pemasu for the kernel-kit
- Mavrothal for testing and fixes (particularly the ppm/dependencies fix) and woof-ce advice and help
- Marv, Billtoo, ETP, radky, rcrsn51, gcmartin, belham2, Sage and many others for testing and helpful suggestions on the forum thread (apologies to anybody not mentioned)
- Smokey01 for the repository
The version of LxPupSc at the time of writing is LxPupSc-17.02.1T with kernel 4.9.6 (hosted on SourceForge)
For more information visit:
The forum thread
The LxPup Support pages
LxPup Youtube Reviews
Cheers
PeeBee
February 2017
This month I am going to showcase a few gems that are included in Fatdog64-710.
- Sven
-
Provided by smokey01
Sven is a program that can control the special buttons on your multimedia keyboard. Keys such as: "WWW", "E-mail", volume, CD-ROM control buttons, and others.
Moreover, if you have an ordinary keyboard, with Sven you can emulate media-keys using multi-keys combinations, for example: Ctrl+w - to start a browser and so on.
Sven is based on gtk+2, has been tested on Linux, and should work on *BSD systems. The program lets you adjust any model of keyboard, has a GUI front end and works with any WM.
Sven is licened under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2.0 or later, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
Unfortunately the Sven project was discontinued so forum member jamesbond provided some maintenance here.
I'm not aware of any similar applications to Sven. If they exist I would like to hear about them. - xscreencapture
-
Application written by jamesbond
There are many screen capture programs but this one stands out. It's simple to use, is not intrusive and it's very functional.
Invocation has been assigned to the PrtScr key. When you press this key your cursor will change to a cross which indicates you are in capture mode. It will stay in capture mode until you press the PrtScr key again. To capture a portion of your screen simply left-click mouse and drag a rectangle around the area you wish to capture. When you release the button a PNG image will be saved to /root. The image name will be xscreenshot-Date-Time.png. This makes every image name unique.
To capture a dialog or terminal, left-click on the dialog or terminal without moving the mouse.
Have you ever tried to capture your menu system? It's possible but tricky. To do this a delay is required so jamesbond has built in this function as well. To invoke the delay mode, press either the Ctrl or Shift key and PrtScr key at the same time. This will provide a 5 second delay to invoke your menu system. - xannotate
-
Application written by jamesbond
The old saying "a picture tells a thousand words" is so true. It's so much easier explaining something using pictures than words alone.
For example: let's assume you are having problems with an application. The application is quite complex and covers the entire screen. You are trying to explain your problem but it can be difficult. Now if you could draw on the screen and then capture the screen as an image then send it to someone for help, It would make life much easier. This is what xannotate does.
Have a look at xannotate here. - Simple Qemu VM Manager
-
Written by smokey01
One of the really nice things about Fatdog64-710 is it comes with many nice utilities. One of these utilities is qemu. To run Qemu you must have the fd64-devx_710.sfs loaded.
QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer. Rather than me explain qemu, Read about it on the Qemu website.
Qemu can be a little tricky to use so jamesbond has written a small script that provides a simple GUI.
Although it's simple to use, it's very configurable.
There is no menu entry so to run it you need to type qemu-vm-manager.sh in a terminal.
First thing to do is create a virtual machine. Click on create then give it a name.
Most of the default settings will work but I suggest changing the RAM from 512 to 1024 MB,
especially in larger distros like Fatdog64.
To boot from an ISO, change boot device to CDROM. Now select the image file and click on save.
Now you should be back at the main GUI with one virtual machine showing.
To run the virtual machine, click on Start. Clicking on Stop will stop and close the virtual machine.
This GUI can do much more that what I have described here but this is just to get you started.
- n2n-edge
-
Written by smokey01
N2n-Edge is Virtual Private Networking software.
n2n is pretty cool in it's operation and simplicity. I will provide a brief outline here but much better documentation can be found in the links below.
Lets assume we want to connect two computers together via n2n. We will call them computer A and computer B. We also need a method to connect them and this is done with a supernode. The supernode is a piece of software than is run on a computer that resides on the internet that is accessible. For computers A and B to connect to each other they both need to connect to the supernode. The supernode is activated with the following command:
supernode -l 7654 -v
This instructs the supernode to listen on port 7654 in verbose mode.
Next you need to load computer A.
n2n-edge -a 192.168.100.100 -c community-name -k password -l yourdomain.org:7654
Now load computer B.
n2n-edge -a 192.168.100.101 -c community-name -k password -l yourdomain.org:7654
Now computer A and B are connected via the VPN. In other words there is a tunnel between both computers.
Lets have a closer look at the command line parameters. The -a 192.168.100.100 and -a 192.168.100.101 defines the local IP addresses. These can be pretty much anything you like. The only stipulation is they must be different on the same network. Note computer A is 100 an computer B is 101.
The -c defines the community name. This can be anything you want. You might want to call it BobsNetwork.
The -k is the encrypted password. Once again this is your choice.
The -l yourdomain.org:7654 is the IP address and port number of the domain the supernode is running on. If the supernode had a static IP you could define it like: -l xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:7654
Each person that joins the Virtual Private Network must use the same credentials. The local address is the only thing that is different.
The tun command must be running. To run it, type:
modprobe tun in a terminal.
More information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N2n
A very good article on n2n by Luca Deri and Richard Andrews: http://luca.ntop.org/n2n.pdf
From time to time we will publish an article about one of our developers, contributors or maybe just an interesting person.
Not everyone one is happy to have their personal details made public so I will only publish details that are already public or with their approval.
Due to the lack of information, this month I will provide a bit of information about myself.
- smokey01
-
Written by smokey01
Why smokey01? I was a firefighter for about 25 years and the 01 was added because smokey was already taken.
I have been tinkering with software and computers since 1977 when I did a computing course at Footscray Technical College called computer studies. Programming was done with marked cards and it was a very time consuming activity. My interest grew from there and over the years I owned a Commodore Vic20, Amstrad 64/128 and Amstrad PC before owning many other brands of PC's and Laptops. Currently I have four desktops, only two work, four laptop/netbook/notebooks and a RasPi2.
I discovered Puppy Linux in 2005 and have been using it as my main OS since 2006. Prior to Puppy I had tried many different Linux distributions but never really liked any of them. All this su and sudo malarkey just got in my way.
In my earlier days of computing I ran a bulletin board, some of you old timers will know what this is. I used Opus and Maximus software. I was a mail hub in Fidonet and Intelnet. My node for fidonet was 3:640/712 (Seldom Inn).
I am a keen golfer although my handicap is slowly growing as I play less and grow older, currently I have a 13.9 handicap.
I love to travel, either on a cruise ship, or in the caravan. That would be travel trailer for some of my US friends.
I enjoy writing, helping people with computer needs and developing software. Although I have been retired now for about three years I remain quite busy. This newsletter has consumed the last few moments I had.
smokey01
This is a good section to discuss how to compile software. Compiling is not everyones cup of tea but the more people that can manage it, the longer life Puppy will have.
The hardest part of compiling is the build recipe as there are so many options. Let's include proven recipes here.
- ZoneMinder v1.30
-
Written by rockedge
To build ZoneMInder from source in Tahrpup 6.0.5.
1.First a fully running Apache MySQL and PHP5 server needs to be
installed configured and running. Also I install the latest phpmyadmin.
2.The Devx needs to be installed.
3. Download these (or similar) and install with PETGET by clicking on the .deb file.
libmysqlclient-dev_5.5.46-0ubuntu.12.04.2_i386.deb
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By2RUsFzFaMkVDJibU42LTNHelU/view?usp=sharing
libpolkit-gobject-1-dev_0.104-1ubuntu1.1_i386.deb
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By2RUsFzFaMkUkFkTGNCUkRTVDg/view?usp=sharing
4. assuming that user "www-data" and "mysql" are present from the web server installation.
create user "group".
#adduser group
open a terminal and type:
Code:
#cpan App::cpanminus
answer YES to both prompts and allow install.
now to add the needed PERL mods:
Code:
#cpanm DBD::mysql
Code:
#cpanm Date::Manip
Code:
#cpanm LWP::UserAgent
Code:
#cpanm Sys::Mmap
Code:
#cpanm Device::SerialPort
these are for the email functions:
Code:
#cpanm MIME::Entity
for the newer email function:
Code:
#cpanm MIME::Lite
Code:
#cpanm Net::SMTP
Now to prepare to compile ZoneMinder. I used the ftpd directory for this part.
Code:
#cd ~/ftpd
Code:
#git clone https://github.com/ZoneMinder/zoneminder
Code:
#cd zoneminder
Code:
#git submodule init
Code:
#git submodule update
I had to use this line while building ZoneMinder with tahr 6.0.5:
Code:
#git submodule update --init --recursive
Start the compile of ZM:
Code:
#cmake .
Code:
#make
Code:
#make install
IMPORTANT: I used phpmyadmin to add mysql user "zmuser" with "zmpass" as the password.
create a database called "zm",
import ~/ftpd/zoneminder/db/zm_create.sql,
close phpmyadmin.
download this service file to start / stop /restart zoneminder or select as a service to start at boot time.
Place it in /etc/init.d
zoneminder
http://owncloud.rockedge.org/public.php?service=files&t=32e9d7fe560d22ead718d50f128cb9fe
this should produce zoneminder 1.30 in /usr/local/share/zoneminder. The binaries are in /usr/local/bin.
Be sure to configure Apache for the /zm alias for /usr/local/share/zoneminder.
And an alias /cgi-bin for the cgi-bin binaries for streaming.
Here is the ZoneMinder docs for further information: https://zoneminder.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
- ncdu
-
Written by smokey01
Description: ncdu (NCurses Disk Usage) is a curses-based version of
the well-known 'du', and provides a fast way to see what
directories are using your disk space.
Source: https://github.com/rofl0r/ncdu
Dependencies:
- a POSIX-compliant operating system (Linux, BSD, etc)
- curses libraries and header files
INSTALL
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make install
There are some clever people that use Puppy Linux. This is a good place to share some of their useful scripts.
- Locate-GUI
-
Written by smokey01
In past years storage space was quite expensive, however today's prices have come down significantly. Just the other day I saw an external USB3 2Tb drive for $AUD99.00. It's similar with USB3 flash drives.
When storage space was expensive I found I was a lot more diligent in what files I kept. It's the same with photography. Remember when you had a 36 exposure 35mm film? You were very careful not to waste shots and it was expensive to have them developed.
Today with lots of storage space we tend to keep everything and only delete files when absolutely neccessary. Now it's nice being able to keep everthing but how do you find files when you need them? This is where a good search application is required.
There are some very good search applications available but they are sometimes not quite what you need. For example pfind is a great search tool that was written by zigbert and it's found in the majority of Puppy's. Because I have so much storage space, about 6Tb I think, and I save files all over the place, I have trouble finding them. I like to think I'm organised until I need to find that file which I haven't seen for some time.
When you have 6Tb to search, it can take some time, especially if it's a dynamic search. One solution is to create an indexed file list or a database of all your files. Puppy has quite a few nice utilities that never see the light of day simply because the majority of people don't know about them. I'm going to introduce you to locate. Locate is a stand alone binary that is run from a terminal window. For many this will make you shake in your boots, fear not, I have written a simple little Graphical User Interface (GUI) that makes it easy to drive.
What I really like about locate is, it will index all drives/partitions that are mounted and build a single database. Because the database is indexed, searching is very fast indeed. The drawback of course is, the database needs to be kept up to date. Indexing 15 partitions containing 6 Tb will take a bit of time. The time will depend on many factors of which hardware is a big one. If your computer is old and slow it will take longer than a fast computer with lots of RAM. Even on an old computer searching is very fast, especially if you compare it to a dynamic search.
Smart people usually keep all of their applications separate from their data. In this case you really only need to index the partitions with data on because the applications don't really change that often. It's a similar principal to backing up your computer. You usually have a copy of your applications which you can reinstall but it's that data that you can't really afford to lose.
You can find more information on the Puppy Linux Forums in locate-GUI-2.0. There are also download links in the thread.
The first time you run the locate GUI you will see the following:
It's quite easy to drive. In the top right corner you see "No current database exists". To create the database simply click on the floppy disk in the bottom right corner of the GUI. Depending on your computer and amount of partitions you have mounted, this could be quick or very slow. I encourage you to click on the help button to the right of the floppy disk.
When the indexing process is complete you will see a date and time stamp where previously it said "No current database exists".
Searching is easy. To find all of your .jpg files, just type .jpg in the search area and press the enter key. If you wanted to find .jpg and .JPG, upper and lower case, then enter -i .jpg in the search field. The -i means case insensitive. This is one of many Regular expressions (RegEx) than can be used to define your search. Do read the help, it will be worth it.
When you are presented with a list of files, right click on the one that interests you. You will be able to open the file, show it's location or cancel the operation.
Tip & Tricks are simple little actions you can take to make your life easier when using Puppy. You will probably know most of the tips but there are always news users that don't.
- Moving dialogs
-
Written by smokey01
There are occasions when you open an application or a script and it's far too big for your monitor. Your screen resolution may be 1024x768 and the dialog 1920x1080. Often when this happens the title bar is also off the screen and without the title bar it can be difficult to manage the dialog.
If you press down the Alt key and left click on the dialog with your mouse, you can move the dialog about.
If you just want to close the dialog, press Alt key + F4 key. Make sure you left click on the dialog first to get focus otherwise you might close the wrong dialog.
- Muting the terminal beep
-
Written by Rattlehead
Muting the terminal beep
I don't know if this is a universal thing, but in all the Puppy installations I've done up to date in my computer (with Puppy versions ranging from 2 to my current 6), in its initial state, the computer emits a loud beep whenever you reach the end of a field text in the Terminal, and in other programs like Nicoedit or Rox-Filer.
I don't know if this is a feature common to other Linux distributions, maybe some kind of Unix vestige, but in any case, after a couple of startling moments, muting that sound soon made it to the top of my to-do list of things to configure in any recently created Puppy.
The way to get rid of the annoying beep for good is placing a short script with one command in the /root/Startup folder (for those unfamiliar, the Startup folder contains stuff that gets executed when Puppy's graphic environment is initiated; in addition to the stuff Puppy ships with, you can place there any scripts you want, in order to customize the way your machine works.).
So in this case, you would create a script with a mnemotechnic name like mutebeep.sh or something of the sort, and put inside it the following commands.
For Puppy versions 2 to 4, the command needed is:
#!/bin/sh
rmmod pcspkr
This command also works in LazyPuppy, a derivative of Puppy 5 I think.
However, for Slacko (tested in 5.5.) and Tahr (tested in 6.0.5.), such command does not work; instead, you need to use:
#!/bin/sh
xset b off
The script's permits must be modified before the computer can execute it. You will find the options to change the permissions by right clicking the file in a Rox window. Also, as usual, after doing all of this, you'll have to restart X to make the changes effective.
I hope this little trick, simple to apply once you know it but that takes a bit of forum digging, spares some people a couple of awkward moments in front of the keyboard...
- Browser Zoom
-
Written by smokey01
Most modern browsers allow you to zoom. This makes the text and graphics larger for easier viewing.
One method is to press and hold the Ctrl key and press the plus key. The minus key zooms out again.
Another method is to press and hold the Ctrl key then move the scroll wheel on the mouse.
I'm sure many people know this but I bet there are a few that don't as well.
- Roller Blind Dialogs
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Written by smokey01
Did you know that you can roll up your dialogs?
Place the cursor on the dialog title bar.
Now move the scroll wheel forward.
You should only see the title bar.
To get it back, move the scroll wheel backwards.
- Fonts
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Written by smokey01
You are probably aware that most Puppy's don't come with many fonts. If you want a lot of free fonts they can be downloaded at the link below. I must warn you though, the archive file is about 79 Megabytes. Inside the archive are 769 individual zip files. Inside the zip files are the fonts. For an example I just opened _comic-fonts.zip and it contained 235 fonts. I have no idea how many fonts there are in total, but it's a lot.
To install the fonts just place them in /usr/share/fonts/default/ttf
I suggest you only install what you need as it will fill your save file quite quickly.
Download Font Mega Pack - Automounting partitions at startup
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Written by Rattlehead
Automounting partitions at startup
Important: all the explanations given here refer to a Puppy installed through the frugal system, and may not apply when you use the other Puppy installation option, full disk installation.
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In addition to muting the terminal beep, which I discussed in my previous article, another basic chore you usually have to execute in every new Puppy is making your partitions automount by themselves, so that you don't have to do it yourself manually every time.
By default, Puppy usually mounts only the partition where the operative system is installed, as /mnt/home.
The way to mount others differs from Puppy to Puppy. I've found 3 variations, that you can try in order of neatness.
1) The lucky one: a modern Pmount version
In the desktop, right click on the icon for the partition (sda1, sda2...etc) you want to have mounted at boot. Choose the option "Run Pmount Puppy Drive Mounter".
A screen will open showing all the partitions available in your machine. If you click the icon of the partition you want, and you are offered the option "Mount partition at boot", you're gold: congratulations, your journey is over.
2) The discrete one: Startmount
Some Puppies, however, use an older version of Pmount that does not include the mount at boot option, so another system is required. For Puppy 5, I've had success with an app called Startmount, created by the forum users 01micko and tasmod, that you can find here. Install the .pet file, execute Startmount, choose your preferred options, and reboot the computer to test if it works. Startmount can be executed opening a "splash screen", or running in the background.
3) The brute force method: mount command in Startup
Certain Puppies, however, completely ignore the existence of Startmount. For those cases, there is always the most basic approach, a bit inelegant but gets the job done.
Create a script called something like "mountpartition.sh", and put it in the /root/Startup folder. The contents of that folder get executed when the computer starts X, so we'll put there the Bash command mount, to mount the desired partition. Example:
#!/bin/bash
mount -t ext2 /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2
This would mount a partition called sda2 in the mount point /mnt/sda2. The parameter after -t indicates the kind of filesystem you're using in the partition (you can get that data easily by executing Gparted).
This method has certain limitations: 1) The script must be customized for every partition you use. 2) If you put icons from those partitions in the desktop, when X opens you'll be greeted by exclamation signs for those icons (they will transform into the correct icon and work fine, however, when you hover the mouse over them).
Another possible option could be upgrading Pmount, to make sure you run the latest version. But I've never tried it so I don't know if it's something easy or difficult to do. - Desktop Shutdown Icon
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Written by bigpup
Desktop icon for shutting down the computer.
In the Rox file manager.
Go to /usr/bin
Left click and drag the file wmpoweroff to the desktop.
Now you have a power off icon on the desktop.
Right click on the desktop icon for file.
To change the name -> edit item
To change the icon -> set icon
( normal icon set is located at /usr/local/lib/X11/pixmaps )
You can also do this:
Make a script file and place it on the desktop.
Put this code in a script file:
#!/bin/bash
# This powers off Linux Puppy !
#
wmpoweroff
- Backing Up a Folder
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Written by 6502coder
Backing Up a Folder
This is a quick tutorial on backing up a folder. I'll discuss three different kinds of backups and how they differ. I'll conclude by showing how easy it is to do a basic backup using the rsync command.
Three Kinds of Folder Backups
Backups can be very complicated. There may well be 50 shades of backup, but there are only three really common backup strategies, which for purposes of this tutorial, I'm going to call "cautious," "one-way sync," and 'two-way sync."
Cautious Backup
Let's suppose you are an artist working on a comic book about Thor. You have a folder S (the "source folder") with all your Thor-project files and you want to copy its contents into another folder B (the "backup folder"), which naturally has the same name.
Thus your source folder might be
~/my-documents/Thor
and your backup folder on a flash drive might be
/mnt/sdb1/backups/Thor
You might think that after immediately doing a backup, the contents of the backup folder should be exactly the same as the contents of the source folder. But actually, that's probably NOT what you want!
To keep things tidy your source folder should only contain the stuff you're actually working on and intend to include in the comic book. But there are likely to be other files that you create during the life of the project that you will want to preserve: alternative versions of images, test images exploring the effects of some paint tool, notes on alternative story lines you reluctantly discarded, etc. In short, any stuff that you're not using right now, but might someday regret deleting.
When you do a "cautious" backup, you copy the contents of your source folder into your backup folder, overwriting any existing files with the same names. But if the backup folder contains additional files that are not currently in the source folder, that's fine -- they are left alone. (How did those "additional files" get into the backup folder in the first place? From previous backups, of course.)
These days backup storage is cheap and plentiful. For most people most of the time, "cautious" backup is the strategy I recommend. If you start running short of space on the backup device, you can always go into the backup folder and start deleting stuff.
One-way Sync Backup
In the one-way sync strategy, you DO want the contents of the backup folder to look exactly like the contents of the source folder after you do a backup. So if the backup folder contains files that are not the source folder, these files will be deleted from the backup folder.
The main advantage of a one-way sync backup is that, if your source folder gets trashed, you can simply do a one-way sync in the reverse direction to restore it. To restore your source folder from a "cautious" backup, you'd have to know which files were currently in your source folder and only restore those.
Two-way Sync Backup
In this scenario, you actually have TWO source folders. For example you might have both a desktop computer and a laptop, and you use both to work on your comic book. A two-way sync backup merges the contents of the two source folders and updates both folders so that each has the latest copies of all files. After a two-way sync backup, the two source folders have the same contents. Note that unlike a one-way sync, nothing ever gets deleted by a two-way sync backup.
If you WANT to delete a file from your source folders, you'll have to delete it from BOTH source folders; if you delete it from only one of the source folders, the next two-way sync backup will cause it to be restored from the other source folder.
Cautious Backup Using Rsync
Once you've chosen a backup strategy that fits your needs, you can use the backup application of your choice. The "cautious" backup approach will serve most people just fine, and it is very easy to do using rsync, a command-line tool found in all Puppies.
The command
rsync -av ~/my-documents/Thor /mnt/sdb1/backups
will do a "cautious" backup of the contents of
~/my-documents/Thor (the source folder)
into
/mnt/sdb1/backups/Thor (the backup folder)
Note that the last argument to rsync does not specify the backup folder; instead, it specifies the PARENT folder of the backup folder. If the backup folder "Thor" does not already exist in the parent folder, rsync will create it. Note that neither the source_folder pathname nor the parent_of_backup_folder pathname should have a trailing "/".
Rsync only copies the files that are newer than what is already in the backup folder, so it can be much faster than copying the entire source folder.
The options "-av" enable features that most users will want:
* the source folder AND all its subfolders, recursively, will be backed up
* file ownerships, permissions, and modification times will be preserved
* symbolic links will be preserved
* you'll get a report on what was done
Rsync has many other options (for example, it can implement one-way and two-way sync, and it can maintain multiple versions of the same file) but unless you have very specialized requirements, the "-av" options will be all you need.
Give rsync a try. Pick a folder (preferably not too large), open a terminal session, and type
rsync -av your_folder /tmp
This will make a backup of your_folder in the /tmp directory. Now,
1. Add a file to your_folder and then repeat the rsync command. Notice that only the new file is copied into the backup folder in /tmp.
2. Delete the new file from your_folder, and run rsync again. Notice that the file still exists in the backup folder.
After a few such experiments, you'll quickly get comfortable with the way rsync works, and you can start doing those backups you know you should be doing!
Tutorials this month:
No-Ip.com - Turn your dynamic IP into a static one
Timezones - What do they really mean
Psip - A great VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) application
- No-Ip.com
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Written by smokey01
1. Have you ever wondered what's the difference between a static and dynamic IP?
2. Why are dynamic IP more common than static IP?
3. What does the abbreviation IP mean?
I will answer these three questions before I explain http://www.noip.com/ as it will make a lot more sense.
A static IP remains the same. So when you are connected to the internet you may have an IP that looks something like 118.210.216.3. If you shut your computer down overnight then start it again the next morning your IP will be the same.
In the case of a dynamic IP, your IP will change each time you connect to the net. As Julius Sumner Miller would say: "Why is this so". It makes better use of IP so it's cheaper for Internet Service Providers and reduces the amount of IP required.
A dynamic address can be a bit of a pain if you or someone is trying to connect to your site by the IP. It's perfectly fine for most people who are simply making outward connections. I'm not going to provide too much detail here but it will make a good topic for another day.
Finally, what does IP mean? The answer is Internet Protocol. Now you are probably thinking, how can this be. That name does actually explain what is really does. The IP is really an address. A protocol is the way data is transmitted and received. Again a great topic for another day.
For computers or devices to connect to each other, they need to have a unique address otherwise how would you differentiate one computer/device from the other?
Which is best? It depends on your requirements. If there is no need for you to connect inwards to your computer then dynamic IP are fine. If you want to run a local web site, remotely connect to your home security cameras or to Peer2Peer (P2P) communications then static is the way to go. Static IP probably incurs a higher inward hacking risk but this can be reduced with the correct setup.
I almost forgot, static IP are generally more expensive than dynamic.
Sorry about all that but now you will have a better understanding of what no-ip is all about and how to use it.
In a nut shell, no-ip turns your dynamic IP into a static IP.
To get an no-ip account go to the http://www.noip.com/ site and register. You can have a free or charged account. If you pay, you naturally get a lot more benefits. A free account means that you have to validate you account each month or it will be disabled. I don't find this too much of a problem.
How it works
There's a little piece of magic software called the DUC. No I didn't forget the "K" as in quack". It means Dynamic Update Client. You can download it here: http://www.noip.com/download?page=linux. Yes it's source code but it's really easy to compile. Load the devx for your distro. Extract the downloaded file. In the extracted directory press the ` key to open a terminal. In the terminal type make and press the Enter key. In that same directory a new binary called noip2 will appear. It should also be executable, green name instead of black. Now just move the noip2 file to your /root/startup directory. In your startup directory press the ` key to open a terminal.
Before you go any further check to see if you have this directory /usr/local/etc You probably don't. If not then create the directory. Now make sure you are back in your startup direcory and in the terminal. Type: ./noip2 -C You will be asked for the email adress you provided when you created the account and the password. Enter them and at the next two prompts press Enter.
That's it, the DUC has been installed.
When your computer is booted it runs scripts and applications that are in your startup directory.
When we ran noip2 with the -C switch it created an encrypted configuration file in /usr/local/etc. Now each time your computer is booted the DUC is run using info from the config file. From what I understand the DUC sends your external IP address to the no-ip DNS server where it associates your Hostname with your IP address. Remember you created a Hostname when you registered. So all you have to do now is access your computer via the Hostname you created.
Your Hostname works just like a static IP address via a Domain Named Server.
Now that was a fair bit to take in, hope I made it clear enough to understand.
More help on the web site here: http://www.noip.com/support/knowledgebase/getting-started-with-no-ip-com/
- Timezones
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Written by smokey01
The earth is a sphere and also a circle. A circle has 360 degrees. A day lasts for 24 hours which is also 1440 minutes. Now by dividing 360 into 1440 you get 4. So what does this all mean?
It means the earth rotates 1 degree every 4 minutes and this is how time zones are calculated. Having said that, timezones have a bit of tolerance. It would be rather confusing to have a time zone for each degree so they associate them within geographic locations. Let me explain, in Australia, let's not confuse the matter with daylight saving time, we have three time zones, Australian Western Standard Time (AWST), Australian Central Standard Time (ACST), and Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST). Between the west and east is a time difference of two hours.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the reference point. In other words all time zones are calculated as either +GMT, greater than GMT or -GMT, less than GMT. Where I live my time zone is +9.5 which means when the time at Greenwich is midnight, my time is 09:30 in the morning, therefore ahead of Greenwich. If you live in New York your time zone is -5.0 which is 5 hours before Greenwich. So a quick calculation tells me that my time is 14.5 hours in front of New York.
There are many web sites that will help you make the conversion such as https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
Here is a great little RoxApp developed by jamesbond that you can place on your desktop.
Why is this information important?
You need it to setup your time zones in your computer. Some software won't work if this infomation is incorrect. Try calling someone on the other side of the world. It might be a good time to call in your location but not so in theirs.
This is all fairly basic information and I would expect most people to already know it but this article is for the few that didn't.
Here is the big question: With reference to GMT, at what point does it stop being +GMT and start being -GMT?
- Psip
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Written by smokey01
This link will take you to a web page I previously provided for the configuration and use of Psip (PuppyPhone).
The March crossword by greengeek.
- Crossword
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Puppy Crossword
(Formatted by greengeek using the "Puzzlefast" website)
(See clues below image)
- Answers
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This section is where people may ask questions or tell a story about their positive Puppy experiences.
- A Slow but steady 'Puppy' journey...
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Written by Unknown
A Slow but steady 'Puppy' journey...
Episode 1
Well; where do I start?
I'd been an XP user for many years; almost since its birth, in fact. When it reached EOL, nearly 3 years ago, I ditched it virtually overnight, and dived head-first into the murky backwaters of the Linux world. None of this half-hearted 'dual-booting' for me; I wasn't so wedded to Windows that I couldn't imagine not having it there.....like an old, irritating pain that you've learnt to live with!
I started with Ubuntu (what else?) Every tech-site and blog insisted that was the one to go for, so.....I gave it a try. It installed very quickly (well, compared to XP, that is), and although it was 'different', not so much so that I couldn't find my way around. The continuous, never-ending updates were a bit of a shock, though; I thought at times that I'd re-installed Windoze...
Then, after a few months, I started experiencing constant graphical glitches, and eventually lock-solid freeze-ups. Canonical had only taken it into their heads that they were going to start dropping support for older AMD graphics chips, hadn't they? I started looking around for something less demanding. Ubuntu's Unity 3D acceleration requirements really hammered my system something rotten.
I quickly realised that many of the lightweight distros weren't being developed any more. I'd heard of Puppy....who hasn't? So I downloaded 01micko's Slacko 5.7.0 and gave it a go. It installed so quickly it was unreal.....but of course, it wouldn't boot from GRUB2, would it? I now know you can boot a frugal from GRUB2 by careful editing.....but at that time I didn't.
I half-heartedly tinkered around with Pup in live mode, and began lurking on the Forum, and asking the usual noob-type questions. We've all been there. I kept struggling along with Ubuntu, and tried a couple of the other flavours; Lubuntu (with LXDE), and Xubuntu (with XFCE.....which has since become my favourite DE.) The graphical glitches continued, and slowly got worse.
Eventually, it got to the point where I could boot into the 'buntus.....but that was it. As soon as I tried to open anything, CRASH. I'd discovered Tahrpup 6.0 a few weeks before, thanks to an acquaintance on the Ubuntu Forum, and had finally discovered how to use Grub4DOS. What a revelation after GRUB2; quick, easy, simple to use.....and as reliable as they come. Tahrpup would run with a proper display on my elderly Dell lappie, OOTB.....and it ran great on my big old Compaq desktop, too.
That was it. I junked Ubuntu & the 'flavours'.....and went all-Puppy instead. The graphical glitches ceased, just like a switch had been thrown. What a revelation..! Finally, a fast, responsive Linux distro that did what I wanted it to; not what some back-room team thought it should be doing. At long last, I was in control.....
Puppy Linux Forums USA
Ibiblio repository USA
nluug repository Netherlands
Internode repository Australia
University of Crete repository Greece
aarnet repository Australia
Internet archive repository USA
Puppy Linux Tips by smokey01
Puppy Linux wikka Puppy sites
Bookmarkos provided by kerl
smokey01
rerwin
rockedge
Rattlehead
6502coder
bigpup
greengeek
jamesbond
PeeBee
I didn't hear back from my proof reader this month so I hope their are not too many errors.
I've decided to move information out of the editorial section and place it here as it seems more appropriate.
Display tip:
To improve the Notecase display format please press F7 then:
- Tick the "Restore last position/size" checkbox.
- Select the "Display" tab and tick "Wrap text".
Contributions
If you have information you would like to see in the newsletter please email it to smokey01 at smokey01@internode.on.net. It must be created in notecase otherwise it makes my job far too difficult. I don't intend doing any significant editing but I will attempt to read all of the articles and ask a couple of others to do some proof reading. If you would like to assist in proof reading please let me know on the email address above.
Notecase is very easy to learn and use. Try and keep your articles to less than 1000 words. Photos and images should be no bigger than 1024 x 768. I can always make them smaller.
The deadline for articles is the 20th of each month. Let's not worry about time zones. I know it may be the 20th in Australia and only the 19th in the USA but I can live with this. If it's more than 24 hours late with respect to Australian CST then your article may be pushed right, into the next edition. I expect proof reading to take less than a week which will provide about four days to publish at the beginning of each month.
I will upload the Newsletter to my site at http://smokey01.com/newsletters. There will be two versions. One will be an xz compressed notecase file and the other will be a html file so it can be read in a browser.
I have changed the original naming convention to 0001-PuppyLinuxNewsletter-Jan2017.ncd.xz and 0001-PuppyLinuxNewsletter-Jan2017.html respectively. The formatting of the html is not brilliant but readable. The newsletter is intended to be downloaded and read in notecase.
Disclaimer
The editor has the right to veto any articles that he/she considers inappropriate. A reasonable effort will be made to avoid spelling and grammatical errors however, I'm sure some may slip through. This newsletter is published by volunteers, and is free, so please be kind. Constructive criticism is acceptable.
smokey01