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Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 22 Jan 2013, 04:43
by bdheeman
Don't you think, we also need a GTK+ based decent PDF file viewer and Print_to_PDF driver (PPD) for CUPS as well for XFCE release?

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 22 Jan 2013, 04:56
by bdheeman
brokenman wrote:EDIT: Comment retracted

PS: @bdheeman, next version has a GUI for changing timezone settings.
That 'Edit' was just to correct typos ;)

I think, you missed my point; I was/am talking about net/remote booting Linux/Porteus on 10s of 100s or even ~400-500 machines via PXE as I/we do it for Debian, GRML, LinuxMint and, or Ubuntu. I hope you understand manually setting up timezone on these many machine on/after every (re)boot is not feasible.

See also: http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php? ... 535#p12535

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 22 Jan 2013, 12:00
by wread
Do you mean every (Porteus) machine should adopt -synchronize- time and zone of the PXE server automatically?

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 22 Jan 2013, 14:39
by fanthom
@Johannes
multi-media stream content (except Flash) does not play out of the box (also the case with 2.0 RC1), which I think is a real shame.
i hope you are not talking about Silverlight?
please post sample URL.
The only problem I have with 1.2 is when I boot from SD-Card with an additional USB-Stick or external HDD plugged in. This hinders Porteus 1.2 from starting properly (it either does not boot at all, freezes or crashes). I can only plug in a USB-Stick or HDD without crashing the whole system after booting Porteus 1.2. first. I also make it a habit to safely remove all connected USB-Sticks or HDD before shutting down the system out of fear that it may also freeze or crash.
please update to 3.7.4 kernel posted below as i'm hoping it will resolve this issue.
please report back as we are getting close to rc2 and final release and i want to have all issues resolved by then.

@wread
I leave the machine unattended for half an hour or so and when I come back the screen is black and the machine is total frozen;
are you sure your PC did not get hibernated?
do you have powerdevil installed in your 32bit KDE4? if yes then please check it's settings as it may be set to hibernate system after 30mins of inactivity.

@gnomic
I put Tosh Satellite Pro s300 to sleep with USB mouse attached. When the machine resumed the mouse was not working. Tried dmesg in a terminal and saw some more about error -110. Switched the mouse to another port and it lit up and worked briefly, then failed again. Repeated same with last of the 3 ports, same behaviour. Thereafter, the mouse didn't work again on any port
please try 3.7.4 kernel posted below. i have disabled 'asynchronous scanning' for SCSI devices which hopefully resolve this issue.

@bdheeman
I was/am talking about net/remote booting Linux/Porteus on 10s of 100s or even ~400-500 machines via PXE as I/we do it for Debian, GRML, LinuxMint and, or Ubuntu. I hope you understand manually setting up timezone on these many machine on/after every (re)boot is not feasible.
i doubt there will be many users of 'utc' and 'tz=' cheatcodes but your argumentation convinced me that in some cases they may be useful.
probably too late for rc2 but will try to implement them for 2.0 final.

@all
here is 32bit 3.7.4 kernel update for rc1:
link
please try it and report back if suspend/hibernation and usb enumeration issues are resolved.
if yes then i'll use this config for 2.0 final.

Thanks

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 22 Jan 2013, 16:27
by wread
Powerdevil is not in my kde4-32-bit Stack. I installed 3.7.4 already and will leave the machine unattended to pick up the Junior from school. I will report back in an hour or so!

Cheers!

EDIT: After one and a half hour nothing happened. Seems to be ok, Thanks Tom! :)

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 22 Jan 2013, 18:06
by wread
This one is for Jay: I downloaded, using torrents -with Transmission- two videos: One is in mp4 format, English spoken ("Suits"); the other one is an avi file ("Girlfriend experience") spoken in Spanish. FB the downloads :Yahoo!:

Now the problem: using Gnome-player, the mp4 plays ok, but in the avi the sound is limited to the soft background music, where it is included. I first thought it was a corrupted download; then I played it with VLAN: perfect sound!!! Somehow it has to do with the synchronizing to Spanish, I guess. Seems they (the sound technicians) didn't do a fine job.....

Maybe somebody has experienced the same effect :shock:

There must be an explanation for that.

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 26 Jan 2013, 01:52
by bdheeman
wread wrote:Do you mean every (Porteus) machine should adopt -synchronize- time and zone of the PXE server automatically?
Yes.

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 27 Jan 2013, 19:04
by claude
Here's some issues I've encountered. First of all, I have to say that I am very pleased overall with both 2.0-rc1 versions (standard and XFCE), very very pleased indeed.. :Bravo:

1) This morning I've experienced, for the first time, what I had read others had experienced: after leaving XFCE on unattended all night, it had hybernated and upon awaking it by clicking on the keyboard the screen was filled with multicolored vertical lines and the computer froze.....I had to shut it off and restart it because there was no response whatsoever. As it was said earlier in this thread, it is probably just a matter of updating to the new kernel.

2) I noticed that in both standard and XFCE versions CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE does not kill xwindows....I think it is an important feature that needs to be included for those instances where we want to force xwindows to shut down and revert to console mode.

3) There is no "Run Program" button in menu of standard Porteus, which was included in XFCE version. It needs to be added to standard Porteus as well.

4) Problems with MPLAYER (which I have experienced in standard Porteus) when playing movie DVDs: it is lacking synchronization between video, voice and subtitles (voice comes some time after video and subtitles come some time after voice). Also, voice after a few minutes slows down and eventually dies. It has happened with a few DVDs which play normally otherwise.

5) XFCE needs a PDF viewer.

This is all I can think of so far........ Thanks to you all for this wonderful distribution!! :D

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 27 Jan 2013, 21:34
by fanthom
@bdheeman
rc2 will have 'timezone=' cheatcode which let you set time through that cheat.
example: "timezone=Europe/Warsaw"

@claude
This morning I've experienced, for the first time, what I had read others had experienced: after leaving XFCE on unattended all night, it had hybernated and upon awaking it by clicking on the keyboard the screen was filled with multicolored vertical lines and the computer froze.....I had to shut it off and restart it because there was no response whatsoever. As it was said earlier in this thread, it is probably just a matter of updating to the new kernel.
it would be really appreciated if you could test 3.7.4 kernel and report back if this issue is resolved. if yes then i would use new kernel config in rc2 which supposed to be released tomorrow/Tuesday.
I noticed that in both standard and XFCE versions CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE does not kill xwindows
must be a GDM protection as this shortcut works just fine in 64bit edition.
Problems with MPLAYER (which I have experienced in standard Porteus) when playing movie DVDs: it is lacking synchronization between video, voice and subtitles (voice comes some time after video and subtitles come some time after voice). Also, voice after a few minutes slows down and eventually dies.
is your CPU strong enough to play that movie?

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 28 Jan 2013, 04:06
by claude
@fanthom
it would be really appreciated if you could test 3.7.4 kernel and report back if this issue is resolved. if yes then i would use new kernel config in rc2 which supposed to be released tomorrow/Tuesday.
I've downloaded the new kernel and tested suspend/hybernation mode for about half an hour....the system has resumed without a glitch with the new kernel. But to reproduce the setting that caused the system to freeze, I'll leave it unattended the whole night and then report here first thing tomorrow morning (which is probably Monday evening in your time zone). Please note that it is with my shrinked 91 MB XFCE filesystem that this issue took place (I only use two porteuses: full standard Porteus 2.0-rc1 and my modified XFCE)....this issue never happened in standard Porteus 2.0-rc1.... Also please note that I only use the 32bit arch..... But it seems that the new kernel has taken care of the freeze issue, and I'll confirm this here in about 12 hours.
must be a GDM protection as this shortcut works just fine in 64bit edition.
I have no idea what it is, but this shortcut does not work in either versions (standard and modified XFCE) and yes this is 32bit arch.
is your CPU strong enough to play that movie?
The system in question is a laptop with P4 processor @ 1.3 GHz and 768 MB RAM. On this system I use WinDVD in WinXP and MPlayer from Slax-6.1.2, and both play those same DVDs perfectly. The problem mentioned happens only in Mplayer from standard Porteus 2.0-rc1 (I haven't tried playing them in XFCE).

Oh another thing: in neither standard Porteus 2.0-rc1 nor XFCE 2.0-rc1 is it possible to adjust the system's time - and I'm not talking about the timezone which was mentioned earlier in this thread.....I'm talking about adjusting the actual time of the machine..... I think this is a needed feature in any distribution.

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 28 Jan 2013, 15:33
by claude
@fanthom
Just concluded test with new kernel. The computer booting XCFE 2.0-rc1 modified (plus new kernel) was left on all night for about 11 hours. This is the same computer used in the previous instance. When I clicked on the space key a few minutes ago, the system seemed to be in the process of waking from hibernation, but then froze just as it did previously, with a screen filled with multicolored vertical lines. Sorry. It might just be my system. It's a Dell Dimension desktop, 1.8 GHz with 1 GB RAM. Video driver is R128 (ati rage 128 video card).

Once you come up with a kernel configuration for Porteus 2.0 stable, it would be nice if you posted the config file and also guidelines on the requirements for compiling a kernel for Porteus....I would like to make a slim, custom one tailored to my older hardware that has limited resources. Thanks.

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 28 Jan 2013, 21:18
by fanthom
@claude
this issue never happened in standard Porteus 2.0-rc1
so it must be something with XFCE...

@Ahau - is there any setting in XFCE which would lead to sleep/hibernation after some time of inactivity?

i think the crashes are caused by kernel itself (sleep/hibernation was never perfect in linux) but must be a signal from userland to go into power save mode and it could be disabled by default.
On this system I use WinDVD in WinXP and MPlayer from Slax-6.1.2, and both play those same DVDs perfectly.
please have a look here:
link
if that wont help then please try slax-7.x which has similar parameters as Porteus-2.0.
let me know if DVD plays ok in slax-7 and i'll try to find what's causing this.
it would be nice if you posted the config file and also guidelines on the requirements for compiling a kernel for Porteus
detailed HOWTO is posted under DOCS section of our website.

btw: i have pushed new kernel config to rc2 and i hope that all affected users will give it a shot and report back if issue is resolved.
btw2: leaving other reported issues to 32bit maintainers.

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 29 Jan 2013, 16:18
by claude
@fanthom
so it must be something with XFCE...
To be double sure, I left standard Porteus 2.0-rc1 booted on same machine all night (11 hours).
Checked this morning and it had NOT gone into hibernation. Nice everchanging screen saver (I just saw the beautiful cow... :) ). Everything works perfectly for me in standard Porteus 2.0-rc1 except the small glitches reported earlier.....good enough for everyday use as is.... :)
please have a look here:
link
if that wont help then please try slax-7.x which has similar parameters as Porteus-2.0.
let me know if DVD plays ok in slax-7 and i'll try to find what's causing this.
I will and let you know.

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 29 Jan 2013, 19:05
by Ahau
Yes, part of Xfce is the xfce4-power-manager, which is available through the applications menu (settings-> power management or something similar -- I am stuck in windows at the moment!). I believe it does have a hibernation setting, and you could turn it off for any systems that experience a hang on resume. I've put my system to sleep lots of times without issue on waking up; if others are experiencing this, please let me know and I can disable any hibernation in the default ISO.

Re: Feedback for Porteus version 2.0 RC1

Posted: 30 Jan 2013, 00:25
by claude
@fanthom

I tested with Slax-7.0.5 and several DVDs..... smplayer in slax worked fine with each out of the box (if I tried starting mplayer directly, I got error message: 'skin "default" not found' - I take it that smplayer is a skin for mplayer or something like that).

Very strange behavior with mplayer in Porteus 2.0-rc1. Two instances I've just experienced:

1) First of all, booting porteus with an usb device inserted (in my case it is a sandisk cruzer), it assigns symlink /etc/cdrom to /dev/sr1 which is the hidden sector of the sandisk cruzer and there is no /dev/dvd symlink available. Mplayer complains that there is no /dev/dvd. Making /dev/dvd symlink manually, pointing to /dev/sr0 (which is where the dvd is at), allows Mplayer to play dvd. However, sound is only present for the starting track (before playing actual movie). Once actual movie starts, there is no sound, but movie's video plays out fine and so do subtitles. I've tried several dvd movies that have played just fine in both WinXP, slax 6.1.2 and slax 7.0.5.....but I get this same faulty behavior with the same movies from mplayer in Porteus 2.0-rc1.

2) When booting Porteus 2.0-rc1 without cuizer (usb device), symlink /dev/cdrom points correctly to /dev/sr0, but just like before there is no symlink /dev/dvd. You need to look into this, to make sure there is a symlink /dev/dvd otherwise mplayer will give error message "Couldn't open dvd device: /dev/dvd (No such file or directory)"
After manually making symlink /dev/dvd pointing to /dev/sr0, mplayer starts fine, but with some movies there is sound and with others there is not (all of these movies had just played fine in WinXP, slax 6.1.2 and slax 7.0.5). Also there is something wrong with the initial rendering of images.....it doesn't feel stable at all. This is a behavior different from what I got last time, though, when sound was fine at the beginning of the movie for a few minutes and then getting out of synch and dying out after a while. Hope it helps.

I'm getting very busy with work and will take a short break from the forum.