BookwormPup32 feedback

[peebee]

BookwormPup32 is a 32-bit Puppy Linux build using Debian Bookworm components.

It is closely aligned to BookwormPup64 (BW64) and uses the configs of BW64 as developed by @radky from the original work by @dimkr (many thanks to both). It is a full Woof-CE Github Actions build.

@radky has also been a great help in refining the configs and builds - more thanks.

Kernel is Debian config 6.1.x
OverlayFS provides the layered filesystem
GTK+3 apps are provided wherever possible
apt / synaptic deb package management & PPM for other package types
Sound control is by pipewire
Connman provides connection management - with a switcher to NetWizard if needed
Comprehensive firmware in the fdrv is provided. (large)

Some differences with BW64:

• built-in browser (in an adrv) is Light rather than Firefox (Chromium, Firefox, Palemoon and SeaMonkey are available for download)
• xz sfs compression is used instead of zst
• celluloid is not included (gobject segfault issues)
• samba is provided in a separate sfs

An LXDE ydrv is also available.

Screenshot.png (195.82 KiB) Viewed 4152 times

[peebee]

Screenshot-lx.png (233.96 KiB) Viewed 4073 times

[peebee]

reserved

[wizard]

Hi peebee,
testing: BookwormPup32-23.10-A1.sfs

Doing well, here's some issues found to date.

Thanks
wizard

[forthuser]

Hi,
Google translate message from russian Puppy forum

I met an interesting "moment" experimenting with Xenialpup.
At the main forum of discussions Puppylinux.com, dpup32 assemblies (from Bookworm Debian) are presented
and vanillapup32. So, in both cases, they do not show the "desktop" after loading (the beech screen is turned off after the start of starting Xorg)

But throwing the file from Xenialpup_7.5.sfs (renaming first) the one that has undergone some changes (described in the topic) I get the working shell LXDE (for DPUP32) with the possibility of switching to JWM in this file.
True, most likely, it is logical that I get the absent sound in the system and the network.
The mouse cursor from the touchpad is also not controlled, but only with the external USB mouse (did not find Sinoptic)

P.S. Hardware Notebook Dell 3537: cpu i5 Mem 8G Video (i915 + AMD_GPU), use Grub4Dos (Legacy or Uefi)

[dimkr]

- xz sfs compression is used instead of zst

Interesting decision. Ancient computers that can't run a 64 bit Puppy are supposed to be much slower, and xz is much slower and more CPU-intensive to decompress.

[stevie pup]

I'm probably not the best person to test Bookworm32, as I don't have any 32 bit hardware to test it on. Also, as my computing needs these days are fairly simplistic I'm not going to be getting into anything over complicated. Still, I gave it a spin and these were the results.

Booted up without issue, made the initial settings (language, keyboard and wireless connection) then shut it down and created save file.

Rebooted, downloaded the sfs for Firefox and set that up, also installed couple of bits of additional software from Synaptic. All ok, everything worked and everything had appeared in the menu. Went to shut down again, clicked on "yes" for save session, and waited. And waited. After 20 minutes it still had "saving session" displayed at top of screen. So I pressed the power button to kill it.

Came back a little later and rebooted. It had saved the additional stuff I had installed, and everything still worked, although Firefox had disappeared from the menu so had to reset that.

Only other observation I've made so far is that each time I reboot I find it has disabled my wifi, so have to enable it. It does save my password though for router, so don't have to input that again.

[peebee]

@wizard @dimkr

/opt is being "deleted" after an extra sfs load - WoofCE Github Issue raised:
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... ssues/4169

[dimkr]

It's a whiteout, that's what happens when something deletes /opt. Same thing (but with .wh) would happen against aufs.

What did you do to load the SFS? Did you unload it?

[forthuser]

True, most likely, it is logical that I get the absent sound in the system and the network.

I moved the directory of kernel modules in the file zdrv_dpup32_23.10.sfs from ./usr/lib to /lib and they were found when loading XenialPup (touchpad, network, sound) and added to the system, but sound did not appear in XenialPup (/var/log/ Xorg.0.log shows no audio subsystems found in ao/alsa or ao/oss or ao/sndio)

P,S, I tried launching the original puppy_dpup32_23.10.sfs with the modified zdrv and saw the LXDE desktop displayed, but at the same time,
Neither mouse nor keyboard responds.
I also tried to upload files from stretch, buster (DebianPup 9, 10) in this configuration, but they did not start completely Xorg and “broke” somewhere - perhaps on Synaptic), although with Puppy based on Ubuntu everything is worked out by loading from this option.

[peebee]

@forthuser be very careful mixing items from different builds - new builds like BW32 & BW64 are "usrmerge" and have everything under /usr.....

[peebee]

BookwormPup32-23.10-A2.sfs - 08dbe3096a511041cd4a81c0efc4af0d is available - link above

[wizard]

@peebee

Testing: BookwormPup32-23.10-A2.sfs

Making progress, here's an updated issues sheet .

Thanks
wizard

[OscarTalks]

Testing early alpha 1 and 2 on a Dell Vostro desktop which boots lots of Pups without problems, but this machine has nvidia graphics card GeForce 620 and with this Pup (so far) it boots to blackscreen with cursor which responds to mouse movement but nothing else. Ctrl+Alt+Backspace does something but screen remains black, no prompt text visible.

I can get a normal full resolution desktop by booting with pfix=nox and then use xorgwizard in prompt to "Specify" nouveau driver (you have to type "nouveau") and then start X server. Alternatively I can boot with nouveau.modeset=0 parameter and this gives a desktop using the vesa driver but at lower resolution. Since the nouveau driver works when loaded via xorgwizard I would hope it would all boot up automatically as it does in all other cases including Bookworm64. Anyway, just wanted to document that for now in case anyone has any thoughts or is experiencing anything similar. Perhaps the automatic boot sequence is attempting to load the modesetting driver and the problem here is connected to that?

Regarding celluloid, I don't think it is needed at all if you have SMPlayer built-in
I did compile celluloid-0.21 just to test, but found it to be unstable. It worked if you open it and then load a file into it, but it crashed if you tried to "OpenWith" by right-click or even from terminal, so I would suggest setting that aside for now at least.

[Rantanplan]

Hi @peebee

thanks for this new distribution.

I tested with an old and slow laptop (packard-bell easynote MZ35 / ram 1 go / cpu frequency 410 @ 1,46 Ghz).

BookwormPup32 boots well.
I seen a fail message (pidof [a number]/stat). Probably because it is an old machine .

Audio works fine (reading ok with .flac, .mp3, .mp4, .opus, .ogg and .wav files format) and video too.
mpv replace celluloid without inconvenient.
No problem with pipewire.

I met a little "problem" with Document Scanner.
When I click on Preferences, there are no buttons to close or minimize or maximize window.

I didn't test printing.

In conclusion, even with the poor performance of my machine and its slowness, it is a good distribution.

Good job dear peebee.

Respect sir

[peebee]

BookwormPup32-23.10-A3 b61de94973842a998acfe5a1be2df587 - link above

[Rantanplan]

Hi @peebee ,

Thank for the last version ...A3.sfs

I saw in the .sfs 2 subdirectories : dpup32save-1 and ...-2.
This last is populated with a wmlinuz and a zdrv..sfs files.

At boot, the pidof alert has disappeared : good.

This version seems to me quicker than ...A2.sfs : good too

I tested printing with a brother laser monochrome.

Results here :

• abiword = ok

• gnumeric = ok

• mtpaint = ok

• light = ok

• peasyprint = no ok

The parameter button at right bottom screen is a good idea and the Display control runs well.

I mounted libreoffice-7.3.0.3_i386.sfs from a directory on my laptop and launched it perfectly (it's slow because my laptop is old ).
To unmount it, i clicked on contextual menu option "sfs_unmount" and a popup tells me "NO MOUNTED IMAGE".

Thanks peebee and have a good day.

Friendly.

[wizard]

@peebee
Hi peebee,
testing: BookwormPup32-23.10-A3.sfs

Issues found to date are attached.

Also, this is a partial list of apps (pets) that have been configured and/or tested to work on bw32.

anydesk_6.0.1-1_i386.pet
doubleclick-speed.pet
peasypdf_4.7_all_BW64.pet
poorercputemp32-0.1d.pet
qdirstat_1.8.1-3.pet
smartchk_1.0.pet
tigervnc-viewer_1.12.0+dfsg-8_i386.pet
vlc_3.0.18-2_i386.pet
x11vnc_0.9.16-9_i386.pet (server)
xournal_0.4.8-1+b1_i386.pet

Thanks
wizard

[peebee]

• peasyprint = no ok

The peasyprint .pdf contained a 64-bit binary - should be fixed in A4

[peebee]

BookwormPup32-23.10-A4.sfs c7360d44780f91957433ff17d273ad42
link above in post #1

[wizard]

@peebee

testing BookwormPup32-23.10-A4.sfs
-clean boot

Menu>Setup, Internet Connection entries are missing.

Thanks
wizard

[peebee]

@peebee

testing BookwormPup32-23.10-A4.sfs
-clean boot

Menu>Setup, Internet Connection entries are missing.

Thanks
wizard

I moved them to Network as they seemed better there.....

[wizard]

@peebee

I moved them to Network as they seemed better there.....

I checked the .desktop files and found them, just a break from previous convention.

Thanks
wizard

[Rantanplan]

Hi @peebee,

Thank you for this new version.

For me, docuprint works well : fantastic, thank you.

No tested the Internet connection switcher, but it seems that @wizard has controlled it.

I saw a minor correction, and no important, to be made.
The tooltip in System/Event Manager provides
"...sevices..."
instead of
"...services..."

No tested samba.

What does Touchpad manager ? Does it work with any touchpad ?

Very good job again.

Best to you and the team.

[wizard]

@peebee

testing: BookwormPup32-23.10-A3.sfs

Updated issues list is attached. All current issues have been fixed and no new issues to report.

Thanks
wizard

[gyrog]

Unfortunately, I can't test.
Even with version "A4" I get a blank screen instead of a desktop.
It boots fine with "pfix=nox", and everything looks reasonable, but desktop is a no show.

The computer is an Intel i3 that uses the i915 kernel module.

If anybody has any suggestions, they would be very welcome.

[peebee]

Unfortunately, I can't test.
Even with version "A4" I get a blank screen instead of a desktop.
It boots fine with "pfix=nox", and everything looks reasonable, but desktop is a no show.

The computer is an Intel i3 that uses the i915 kernel module.

If anybody has any suggestions, they would be very welcome.

Have you tried running xorgwizard after boot with nox - maybe choosing modesetting driver?

[OscarTalks]

The desktop computer I was using to test stopped working. Took me a couple of days to get round to investigating, but turned out it was just the CMOS battery that needed replacing.

Anyway, I finally got round to testing a kernel swap. Figured out how to grab the 6.1.60 kernel kit build from github. Extracted the vmlinuz, zdrv and firmware fdrv from the "huge" archive. Manually renamed and substituted those 3 files in my frugal directory. Added punionfs=overlay to boot stanza. I think I have done everything right. Unfortunately the result is the same as with the included 6.1.55 kernel. Still boots to blackscreen with cursor, but can be worked around with pfix=nox and selecting nouveau in xorgwizard. The issue does seem to relate to the modesetting driver because if I attempt to select this manually in xorgwizard the result is the same as what happens with automatic boot. With Bookworm64 on this machine I get modesetting via auto boot but that works. I can stick with that or switch to nouveau and either is satisfactory.

A LITTLE LATER:- Also tried booting into aufs with this kernel and it seemed to work the same, not sure if there are any incompatibilities in this Pup if doing that. Blackscreen issue is the same anyway, but just thought it was worth experimenting.

[traderx247215]

Unfortunately, I can't test.
Even with version "A4" I get a blank screen instead of a desktop.
It boots fine with "pfix=nox", and everything looks reasonable, but desktop is a no show.

The computer is an Intel i3 that uses the i915 kernel module.

If anybody has any suggestions, they would be very welcome.

you can use command nomodeset to get it to boot up to desktop.

[gyrog]

Choosing "modesetting" in xorgwizard results in blank screen.
Choosing "fbdev" in xorgwizard results in a GUI desktop, but the 2nd monitor is just a clone, and there is no visible multiple monitor setup utility.

I haven't tried "nouveau" yet.
And not sure where to "use command nomodeset".

I think I'll just wait for the next release.

I can't remember ever having a Puppy booting to a blank screen before on this hardware.