Fossapup64: Puppy Package Manager (and network issues)

[ozboomer]

'lo all...

I'm trying to get Puppy to work on a new PC... and I'm getting some very strange problems.

Firstly, I'm trying to boot from a USB flash drive that just has the fossapup64_9.5.iso 'unpacked' onto it, as well as a couple of .sfs files.

The PC has an ASUS PRIME Z790-P D4 motherboard with an Intel i5 12th gen CPU installed and a TPM installed... and has Windows 11 Home 64-bit installed. The UEFI has been set-up to use 'Other OS' rather than Windows, so I guess that means 'Secure Boot' is disabled. ASUS provides NO linux drivers for this motherboard.

I've tried most of the 'official' Puppy 64-bit variants over the last few days and none of them recognize the on-board network adapter. Note that I had the same problem with Puppy not recognizing the on-board video adapter and so had to organize a separate video card to be installed.

The motherboard manual describes the adapter as a 'Realtek 2.5Gb Ethernet port' and Puppy 'Sys-Info' reports the same.

Checking the Realtek web site, I find they have a linux driver (sources as a .bz2 file) for this adapter 'family':

Realtek PCIe FE / GbE / 2.5GbE / Gaming Family Controller Software Quick Download Link

Now, I've never built anything that relies on the kernel sources... but after some explorations in these forums, I found that we have an sfs file available: kernel_sources-5.4.53-fossapup64.sfs.

So, as I'm doing my 'primary' explorations with Fossapup64 9.5, I'm guessing (hoping) using this this file will help me get things sorted.

So, I have a 'vanilla' .4fs savefile created (just the 'Quicksetup' options)... and I use the 'Boot Manager' (in the Puppy menus) to load the devx_fossapup64_9.5.sfs and the kernel_sources-5.4.53-fossapup64.sfs files. After extracting the files from the driver .bz2 file, I run the 'autorun.sh' file and it all works Ok, building the driver (somewhere), removing the only loaded network driver (r8169) and it does something with 'devmod' to load the newly created r8125 driver.

After this, I run the 'Network Wizard' and I can connect quite happily to my local network, the local IP address is allocated and I can browse web sites and connect to SAMBA shares and all the rest of it.

However, when I try to run the 'Puppy Package Manager' - PPM (/usr/local/petget/pkg_chooser.sh) either by itself OR via the 'Install' (/usr/sbin/dotpup) script, the message "Loading Puppy Package Manager..." stays on the screen and nothing else visibly happens.

I've gone through looking at the processes and so on... and neither of the scripts are still running... but the message is still there. I then find that the message is created by gtkdialog... so killing that process gets rid of the message.

If I run the pkg_chooser.sh script in a terminal window to see what's going on, the following is displayed:

Code: Select all

root# /usr/local/petget/pkg_chooser.sh
[xcb] Unknown sequence number while processing reply
[xcb] Most likely this is a multi-threaded client and XInitThreads has not been called
[xcb] Aborting, sorry about that.
gtkdialog: ../../src/xcb_io.c:641: _XReply: Assertion `!xcb_xlib_threads_sequence_lost' failed.
/usr/local/petget/pkg_chooser.sh: line 743:  4385 Aborted                 gtkdialog -p PPM_GUI
root# 

...which I don't understand at all.

Thinking the problem was something to do with the network adapter driver I built from scratch, I went back to booting without any savefile (and obviously, no available network) and the same problem with PPM occurred.

Going around in circles again, I tried inserting a USB 'flash drive' -like wireless adapter and can configure it and all the networking works... BUT! the problem with PPM not running persists.

So, it seems like there's something awry with Puppy and this hardware. I tried the same USB flash drive I was booting from on other PCs and they work Ok, in terms of PPM and the network connections (wireless USB and the on-board ethernet).

After ~20 years of using Puppy, it'd be pretty disappointing to have to stop using it because I can't install any software on this PC using any of the 'production' variants... so maybe someone has some clues on what is going silly here... or maybe it's as simple as it's the wrong motherboard... and maybe there's something better to use? The Windows side of things is all working Ok.. so far - I'm only a few days into probably a month of setting it all up if I have to get a new motherboard (Ugh!)

Thanks for any thoughts...

[bigpup]

PPM should just work.

This is classic issue you get when the Puppy ISO download was not completely 100% good or the install of it, on whatever, did not go 100% good.

I would first try a fresh new download of the Fossapup64 9.5 ISO

Completely delete everything on the USB drive.
Better yet, make a new partition table, partition, and format it.

Do a clean new install of Fossapup64.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are newer versions of Puppy that have much improvements from Fossapup64 9.5

F96-CE_4 which is an update of Fossapup64.

Bookworm Pup64
Which is very up to date, with latest changes to Puppy, and has added the ability to use apt for getting software.
Using apt is not 100% perfect at all times, but it does give you more option for getting software than just PPM.
Good for places you find software and they only provide getting it by using apt commands.

So I suggest trying them.

Much of the software for Fossapup64, listed in this forums Additional Software section, will work in these Puppy versions too.

These two Puppy versions are also using much newer Linux kernel than Fossapup64 9.5
Good chance the newer hardware you have is already supported by them.

Strongly suggest you use a Puppy version that is using a 6 series Linux kernel.

There are several others, you can find in the Mainline Puppy Linux Distros section of this forum.

[mikeslr]

Ditto what bigpup wrote: But did you notice what it said on the Asus website your post linked to:

"
Wireless & Bluetooth
Vertical M.2 slot only (Key E, CNVi & PCIe)*
*Wi-Fi module is sold separately."

Asus Wifi.png (80.41 KiB) Viewed 843 times

$309.99 Emphasis supplied.

Annoying, but you might be better off acquiring a Wifi dongle or card that will work with whatever Linux Kernel is serviceable with this computer.

[ozboomer]

Many discoveries made... and other issues unearthed today...

• The 'current' USB flash drive (that holds Fossapup64 9.5) boots Ok but has issues with PPM and no 'native' support for the r8125 on-board network adapter on the 'new PC'. This USB flash drive boots Ok and has NO issues with PPM on a couple of 'alternate PCs'.

• I downloaded the 'suite' of .iso and .sfs files for Fossapup64 9.5 again, confirming the MD5 checksums were correct. I used 'rufus' under Windows to create another bootable USB flash drive from the Fossapup64 9.5 .iso... and tried booting the PCs with it again... and had the exact same behaviour - problems with PPM on the 'new PC', PPM is Ok on the 'alternate PC'.

• Interestingly, I found out about how the 'on-disk' structure (on the USB flash drive) is used by the various versions of grub depending on BIOS and UEFI booting.. and how the 'distros' can sometimes behave differently depending on how the system is booted; how GPT and MBR partitions require different specifications in grub.cfg.. and a few other things about the boot process.

• I went through similar processes using F96-CE (as a 'modern' Puppy distro)... writing the distro to totally new USB flash drives... and things have mostly been working Ok... although, at times, PulseAudio seems to be flakey/sensitive on some PCs (a heavy bass note will upset the sound or the output device, I don't know what it is yet)... like most distros, F96-CE has a few idiosyncracies in how things work that you have to adapt to...(!)

• Fosspup64 9.5 and F96-CE both have video troubles with a certain PC (with an older NVIDIA video card).. and this is something I remember others having as an issue...

  I boot either distro on a certain PC without running 'X'. At the shell prompt, no matter what's done with xorgwizard.. or installing drivers.. when I try 'xwin', the system hangs and there's no 'X' display. If I try 'startx', everything goes thorugh Ok and the 'X' display is active, multi-monitor, etc. It's beyond the scope of the current issues to work all THAT out...

• The list of distros on puppylinux.com is more for folks unfamiliar with Puppy Linux... and the 'real' list of 'active and supported distros' is in the 'Mainline Puppy Linux Distros' forum. So, that expands the options to be tried...(!)

• I've had no troubles (except for the 'unexplained craziness' described elsewhere) with using a USB-connected WiFi adapter... but it was one of the changes I'd made that I thought might be upsetting PPM... but for now, it remains that PPM under Fossapup64 9.5 always has troubles on the 'new PC', preventing me from using it there...

• The concept I used to have of having 'one' Puppy distro that I need to maintain and can be used on any PC, is not really feasible anymore, as the disparity of hardware I have requires different Puppy variants for most all of them. So, there goes an aspect of the versatility of Puppy.

• It also means I need to NOT customize the distros very much, as again, the maintenance of the different distro installations is going to be too time consuming, given I really don't live'n'breathe Puppy as I did at an 'earlier time'...(!)

Thanks a lot for helping me work out a lot of things...

[bigpup]

Did you ever try Bookworm Pup64?

[ozboomer]

Did you ever try Bookworm Pup64?

Sorry.. not yet.. but will get onto it as well... Fanx!

[mikeslr]

Ditto what bigpup wrote about trying bookworm on your newest computer. Other Puppys which may be of interest for newer computers are VanillaDpup and S15pup in the Mainline Section; and Quickpup in the Derivative Section, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 469#p27469

To quote or paraphrase bigpup, "New Puppies for new PCs; old Puppies for old PCs". To be taken with a 'grain of salt'.

The ISO published by a Dev is a 'snapshot' of some of the binaries and libraries of a 'major distro' at the time the Puppy is woofed together with unique-to-Puppies infrastructure that will link those binaries & their libraries to applications. Absent from older Puppies will be libraries that didn't exist or were not needed for basic applications at the time of the 'snapshot'. Sometimes those libraries can be added; sometimes not. Sometimes libraries necessary for 'old applications' will not have been included in new Puppies employing newer base applications. Again, sometimes those libraries can be added; sometimes not.

Major distros retire older versions. Puppy tries to keep all 6,000+ versions usable so that even for the oldest computer having the least resources (RAM and CPU) some Puppy will provide as much service as is possible.

ozboomer 'real' list of 'active and supported distros' is in the 'Mainline Puppy Linux Distros' forum. So, that expands the options to be tried...(!)' Yes, but with a caution.

The Mainline Section was established at the same time as the Forum, itself. New 'Mainline' Puppies have since been added. But no once-current Puppy has been removed. Always check the first post of a Puppys thread to see when it was first published and for references to later revisions.

[ozboomer]

Thanks for the suggestions and info about the 'new'er and 'old'er Puppies... and I've worked out long ago about the linux 'maybe yes, maybe no' concept.. and how it applies to applications/libraries being included or not... libraries being included or not... and so on.. but that's why we have all the distros, Puppies and Puplets and how they're maintained, developed, etc (or not ).

Surely, Bookworm works pretty well on both the 'new' and 'alternate' PCs... and the network & sound adpaters all work Ok... However, the collection of applications is good but not what I really want (by default)... and having been spoilt(!) by PPM, Synaptic is doing my head in (after a few hours of fiddling about with the distro and its applications & tools). It seems to identify dependencies.. but doesn't seem to manage them, as near as I've been able to work out. At least, it won't automatically download and install them... and some applications I want to use aren't available through Synaptic nor PPM... and they might 'need'(?) to be available through other package managers... 'It's all rather confusing, really' (thank you, Spike)

...but the thing is that this Puppy doesn't do some of the things I want it to 'out of the box'.. and is fiddly to get it 'basically' set-up how I want compared to some of the other Puppies I've used... as always, YMMV...

Anyway, I still have other Puppies to try out... but I have a couple that I know (mostly) work with the 'new' PC... and, as I said before, I just have to get my head around having to do different things for different Puppies instead of just having a more-or-less constant list of things I need to do on each Puppy variant... meh.

As some may remember, one of the confusing things that I'd like to try and sort out is that for a given Puppy, why can't I set-up all the Perl modules I want once and have them all go into an .sfs file that can 'follow' the Puppy around, like the 'devx' files do; there'd have ot be a way that I switch-in and switch out the .sfs file... remaster the specific Puppy... add new modules.. and then rebuild the .sfs - obviously, I have no idea what I'm talking about ... but there might be a way to do it. I tried hitting this once before... but I didn't get very far with it. Maybe there's now some more docs somewhere about how to do such a thing?

Again, thanks a lot for all the help.

[Clarity]

Hi @ozboomer I, admittedly, am the last one on this forum who should be commenting of your frustrations. But, here's a view from a dummy (ME).

Yes, the package management is a traditional problem in ALL of the Linux/Unix world. It will continue, AFAICSee.

In recent years there are about 9 different technologies which are in play today that approach this concern in varied ways: I wont go into them all: BUT within the OSes, themselves, these are the 4 that come to mind that make a stab at easing user pains:

• Portables

• SNAPs

• FlatPAKs

• AppImage

NONE of these are intended to participate in proper kernels of the distro, or its package manager(s) options. Instead their focus is insuring a runable application experience outside of the realm of package management and distro layouts.

I am NOT encouraging use of any, but, realistically all are gaining favor at one point or another.

So, if you dont have a concern that nails you to a particular package manager, one of these deliverables "may' be useful/necessary.

Just a comment of which you are probably already aware.

[bigpup]

Welcome to Linux software!

It can be a mess to get programs installed and working.

If you have specific programs you want to use.

What are they?

We can probably point you in the right direction to get them working in a specific Puppy version.

You need to read this if you have not already seen it:
viewtopic.php?t=1819

If you think Puppy is an issue with having programs you want.

Go install a version of Windows on a new computer that never had it.
You need to install about every program you really need to have.
It comes with very little program software.

[mikeslr]

Ditto what clarity wrote. My first choice of an 'alternate' packaging format is portables. Mikewalsh with the help of fredx181 and others has done a marvelous job of providing many applications in portable format. See https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 734#p48734 for the current Complete list with links. The advantages of these portables is most are neither limited to a particular Puppy or Kernel and many can be updated as newer versions of applications become available. As they are 'external' to whatever Puppy they run under, even when a newer version can't be used under an older Puppy --for example because of glibc requirements-- more than one version can be maintained. The name of a portable's folder is your choice: so it's easy to identify which version works with which Puppy.
Mike builds them primarily for Ubuntu/debian based Puppys: sometimes its necessary to hunt down and install missing libs for Slackware based Puppies. And sometimes you can't.

My second choice is AppImages. Designed to be 'self-contained', like portables they will often run OOTB under Ubuntu and debian based Puppies. Creators don't test them under Slackware. I've discovered that recent ones often work OOTB under the latest Slacko Puppies/Quickpup. But, again, sometimes a library hunt is required. And sometimes acceptable libraries can't be obtained.

pkgs.org is the first place I look for libraries. And also the first place I look for applications if neither a portable or AppImage is available. Caution: the further removed from the Major distro whose binaries are the basis for your Puppy, the less likely libraries will be suitable.

Creators of applications don't ask for my opinion. There are some I like. But I'm not wedded to any. When searching for an application --if there are neither suitable portables nor AppImages-- the first question I ask is what do I want it to do. The second is whether there's a Ubuntu or debian version. The third and fourth questions are whether there alternatives and what advantages/disadvantages those alternatives may have.

We all have our favorite Puppies and Applications. But in the end these are tools to accomplish 'real world' objectives. What's the best tool I can use for the job I hope to accomplish?

[ozboomer]

Welcome to Linux software!

Heh... Ohhhhh ya... well understood

To some of the program details, I'll explain via an example..

Over the decades(!) of playing about with Puppy, I've developed some favourite applications, like most of us... So, gnome-mplayer was always THE standard thing I'd use for playing music (files). With the changes through Slacko, Lucid and other versions, I started mucking about with Audacious, Amorok and others.. some of which weren't available via PPM. So, I'd grab binaries in a .deb file or .tar.gz or however it was available... unpack it and work out the files, where they belong.. all of that.

I'd put all the files in the places I thought they should go.. try running the program.. and it'd fall over not knowing about some file or other.. generally a .so or .lib or some other thing (not unlike not loading a shareable image in VMS )... I'd then go and search for .rpms of the missing libraries and/or post a note in our forums.. find out about creating a symlink to an old version or something.. and get things working. Whee.

I was always an advocate for the peculiarities of Puppy - with being small.. easy to configure and set-up... having all the customizations in a single file... So, although DeadBeef was a good application that I used for a while, it started to get away from the 'sleek and light' approach I'd come to appreciate (mainly 'coz I'm always running Puppy on OLD gear)... seeing I used it because it was able to handle lists of internet radio stations.

...but with all the recent machinations, I've come to appreciate 'GogglesMM' and 'Simple GTK Radio' (even though they're not perfect either)... but they've been in Fossa-derivatives.. as well as these Puppies being usable on most all of the PCs I use.

So, trying to 'isolate' the customizations (or at least have a 'process' for bringing each 'incarnation' of a variant up to something 'almost standard') is what I'm trying to achieve.. but as time goes on, that's becoming more difficult.. when it used to be a simple thing - I could build a save file and it would be useable with the given variant on any of the PCs... but not anymore, I'm finding..

Anyway, it's all useful to learn...

If you think Puppy is an issue with having programs you want.

Go install a version of Windows on a new computer that never had it.
You need to install about every program you really need to have.
It comes with very little program software.

LOL... I've had waaay too many Windows installations to do in my time... although, I only change over PCs every 8-10 years... So, I'm in the middle of commissioning this 'new' PC... and I haven't really even started yet.. as I wanted to get Puppy working with it first... 'coz that would normally take a day or so... but now, after a few weeks.....(!) Silly ol' Windows normally takes me a good month or more to set-up with all the software.. licensing.. etc... and Puppy is done in a day (prior to this), thanks to all the already installed applications... and I like to have Puppy as my 'rescue' and 'traceless' OS anyway.

Anyway, I'm getting there.. and again, I appreciate the friendly Puppy folks' help, as always