Fossapup Problems on New Gift Laptop

[vtpup]

Hello all, my nephew and niece very kindly and unexpectedly gave me a new laptop for my birthday. The laptop is a Asus Zenbook 14X OLED. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to run Puppy on it because it's such a recent computer, and have definitely run into problems so far.

Ideally I'd like to run Fossapup on it. I've also tried F96, and Bookworm. Each has its own idiosyncrasies:
I have made up installs on a usb thumbdrive via stickpup and using fresh ISOs downloaded from Ibiblio.

Native resolution for this laptop is 2880x1800

Hardinfo (Bookworm) reports:
Mesa Intel Graphics (RPL-P),
ASUE140D:00 04F3:31B9 Touchpad
ELAN9008:00 04F3:40C3 UNKNOWN

Fossapup: Starts up in 800x600 resolution (okay I can deal with that later) but touchpad is non functional. Will work with a USB mouse. When I go to Keyboard/Touchpad Wizard and click on Touchpad, I get error message "No Synaptics Touchpad Found"

F96: Final stage of Xwindows startup displays black screen, I do hear the dog bark, but see nothing. If I hit CTL ALT BKSP it drops to the normal terminal messages about restarting with xwin, or using the video setup wizard. The wizard does not seem to have a choice for 2880x1880, and other resolutions I've tried like 1440x900 still yield the black screen). Typing XWIN just repeats the above.

Bookworm: Displays full resolution on startup. Touchpad works for scrolling the cursor, but the tap function does not work to select anything. Tried adjusting through the touchpad/mouse wizard but it does not seem to be an adjustment issue. It's just non-responsive to tapping altogether.

I'd REALLY prefer to get this working with Fossapup, if possible, and don't mean to confuse anyone by listing three different pups above. I was just curious to see if any modern pup would work on it out of the box. But Fossapup is the one I'd like as a working pup. if possible.

Help greatly appreciated!

[houndstooth]

Commiseration might be helpful, but you might also need a more technical response:

I think the trick is honing in on the required driver. I recently did it for a SD reader, & the solution was a kernel swap, ironically only needed for one computer.

So I have a distro called FossaXenial64 just for one machine.

This one has a touchpad I can't turn off, because both the JWM & XFCE utilities do not recognize it, despite it working. My cursor is jumping all over the place, but I do have the option of an external keyboard.

It reads like your Puppy solution requires hackery & that you're capable of it.

normal idiosyncrasies

[bigpup]

You definitely need to be using a Puppy version with a series 6 Linux kernel and latest firmware.

BookwormPup64, as you have seen, has this.

The newest versions of Puppy, are mainly providing the support needed, to run the newest hardware.

This computer needs this and time to use a newer version of Puppy to run it.

The touchpad issue in BookwormPup64, will need a little figuring out to fix, but should be possible with a little troubleshooting.

There has been so many improvements to how Puppy works and Fossipup64 is never going to have them.

You could try to use the kernel and firmware from BookwormPup64 and swap it with the kernel and firmware in Fossapup64 or better F96-CE.
But you will still have outdated other software, like graphics hardware support to deal with.
That is the cause of not supporting the default resolution you want to use.

The actual operation of BookwormPup64 is not that different to Fossapup64.
Has many of the same programs.
Plus ability to use apt to get added software.
Network connection setup is about as simple as can be.
I have found, that a lot of the program pets, made for Fossapup64, also will install and run on it.

[williwaw]

bookworm is in active development,
maybe mention your issue in the bookworm dev thread?

[rockedge]

I would try to swap in a 6+ series kernel into F96-CE_4 with a 6+ series fdrv SFS along with it.

It sounds like firmware isn't seeing the correct possible screen resolutions during system boot or for xorgwizard

[vtpup]

Thanks Bob, have opened a thread on Bookworm forum. Also have just found that the pad is a clickpad, not just a touchpad, so I am able now to select items without using an external mouse.

Continuing queries re. Bookworm on this laptop here:

viewtopic.php?p=109462#p109462

[vtpup]

I would try to swap in a 6+ series kernel into F96-CE_4 with a 6+ series fdrv SFS along with it.

It sounds like firmware isn't seeing the correct possible screen resolutions during system boot or for xorgwizard

I will try that Rockedge.

[vtpup]

I would try to swap in a 6+ series kernel into F96-CE_4 with a 6+ series fdrv SFS along with it.

It sounds like firmware isn't seeing the correct possible screen resolutions during system boot or for xorgwizard

Rockedge, I tried Radky's 6xkernel version and had the same problem. The computer appears to boot normally all the way to completion, however the final screen is blank (black) except for a little white dash in the upper left corner.

This appears to be a console screen, not Xwindow.

If I then hit Ctl Alt Bksp, I get the usual console notice about using xwin to restart windows or xorgwizard to adjust. I can make the resolution adjustments to xorg which should work, then close and enter xwin, but the black screen with dash returns.

I've noticed that if I'm running in BookwormPup64, xorg resolution adjustments don't work also, I have to use xrandr -- and that DOES work.

Not sure what the difference between xorg and xrandr are, but the latter is what is needed apparently.

[vtpup]

Finally gave up. I asked my nephew if computer could be returned, and he said yes, and it was okay to do, so it was packed up and shipped back.

Now I'm looking for a laptop that will work well with standard Fossapup.

[bigpup]

Get one that is at least 3 years old or older.

Why are you not wanting to move on from using Fossapup64 9.5?

It is starting to show it's age, lack of needed updates, and improvements to Puppy Linux.

[BologneChe]

Finally gave up. I asked my nephew if computer could be returned, and he said yes, and it was okay to do, so it was packed up and shipped back.

Now I'm looking for a laptop that will work well with standard Fossapup.

They will lose the taste for giving you gifts. Amazing!

[vtpup]

@Bigpup because an absolute must for me is running Google's old Sketchup 7.1 and 8 in Wine. They work well on my present laptop in Fossapup, and Bonicpup. They might run in F96, but F96 wouldn't open without nomodeset=0 @ 800x600, and other problems on that computer so I don't know yet.

re Sketchup old versions: I know Trimble has taken over SketchUp since Google came out with it, but they charged big bucks (google's was free) and now they've changed to a subscription only model. Besides the old SketchUp's do everything I need or will need.

Presently in my old acer in sig, I'm running fine with old dual core Intel I5-2450M 2.5 gHz 8gb RAM, and 1 Tb HD. The only reason for a new computer is because at 12 years old this computer may wear out physically (proc, HDs, keyboards, batts, net card, RAM have all been periodically replaced)

My nephew bought the new computer as a total surprise for me -- I was awestruck -- but he is a gamer, and didn't realize that super resolution at a high frame rate and a twelve core I7 proc isn't needed for my old CAD! Screen physical size and a big HD are actually more important to me.

Other OSs I tried on the new overpowered gift computer: the problem I ran into with Bookworm64pup was that the present official synaptic Wine version is 8, and latest OpenGL together wouldn't play wit my SketchUps. I tried some earlier Wine versions and they wouldn't run at all with that computer on Bookworm.

F96 with a 6.x kernel wouldn't open X properly on that new laptop.

So, I'm going to have to try to find a sweet spot for what I want to do.

Shopping list:

I think what I want will mean looking for
an I5 proc,
Intel graphics,
ideally a 15" or bigger screen
that will run possibly Fossa, if not F96
can run wine in a version 5 or less,
8 minimum Gb RAM
2TB drive
two 3.x UDSB A ports
a thunderbolt port USBC
hopefully will have access doors under for changing RAM, HD, and possibly network cards.
Ideally it will have separate physical mouse buttons, not buttons under the touchpad surface.

I don't care about how thin and styish or lightweight a new laptop is -- I want something solid and well built that will last I won't be probably taking out of the house very much. I'll take my converted puppy-chromebook for traveling.

[rockedge]

F96 with a 6.x kernel wouldn't open X properly on that new laptop.

which fdrv SFS are you using when booting F96-CE_4?

[vtpup]

Rockedge it was from 6.0.12-FP (x86_64) F96-CE_4 Radky latest version.

Sorry, I no longer have the laptop -- shipped out today.

I just ran that same version on my old Acer (in sig below) and it runs perfectly and I just also installed Wine appimage 5.x and that runs Sketchup 8.

So Basically I need a just new computer that runs F-96-CE to satisfy my needs. Any suggestions out there?

[vtpup]

Finally gave up. I asked my nephew if computer could be returned, and he said yes, and it was okay to do, so it was packed up and shipped back.

Now I'm looking for a laptop that will work well with standard Fossapup.

They will lose the taste for giving you gifts. Amazing!

I was amazed by that gift, too. But they actually suggested returning it and getting something more suitable after I'd tried so hard to get it going w/puppies.

[wizard]

@vtpup

Take a look on Ebay at Dell e5570 with i7-6820HQ quad core cpu. They have a Passmark score of 6800, which is about 3 times your i5-2540M. May not be pretty, but might fit your needs at a bargain price. I've also had good luck with Lenovo.

wizard

[mikewalsh]

Other OSs I tried on the new overpowered gift computer: the problem I ran into with Bookworm64pup was that the present official synaptic Wine version is 8, and latest OpenGL together wouldn't play wit my SketchUps. I tried some earlier Wine versions and they wouldn't run at all with that computer on Bookworm.

I doubt you'll get much joy out of it at all, Steve. Puppy is moving away from Ubuntu compatibility, and the development model is moving towards an all-Debian Pup.....along with a more or less fixed requirement to HAVE to do everything the "Debian way". And Debian have a decidedly odd approach to running WINE. If what you want to run won't play nice with the official Debian method, basically you're SOL, mate.

I understand bigpup's position, although I don't necessarily agree with it. He's like many geeks, who cannot understand why anyone would voluntarily want to run an older, out-of-date OS when a brand, spanking-new bang-up-to-date one is available. Newer MUST always be better, right?

You're like me to a certain extent. Your software requirements sometimes dictate that bang-up-to-date won't always "cut the mustard". Am I right, or am I right?

Sometimes, older software demands older versions of everything to run it properly......and some of us simply don't want to try and find workarounds, and have to learn to use new software because "progress" assumes we're all happy to do so. So, I'm happy to stick with Xenialpup64, Bionicpup64 and PhilB's original Fossapup64 - and even Tahrpup64 on occasion. Because they're happy running the software I WANT to use.

My own primary reasons for running older versions of WINE mainly revolve around the ability to run a copy of Photoshop CS2, for which I dubbed-up an arm & a leg, back in the day. Newer versions of WINE just turn their noses up at it.....and you will NOT catch me "buying-into" Adobe's monthly subscription model. I'm not that daft!

If it weren't for the impossibility of getting an up-to-date browser to run with it, I'd have been content to stick with Racy 5.5. It's k3.0.66 kernel STILL supports all my hardware. Even the SSDs and my Logitech c920 HD 'Pro' webcam.

Horses for courses, mate. Some folks will never understand.....

Mike.

(EDIT:- I DO like your foam boat! I only watched the vid tonight, 'cos I was convinced you were on about a model of one. I'd no idea it was full-sized! Sticky tape, glue and a broken hacksaw blade.....heh. Just goes to show what's achievable when you put your mind to it...)

[vtpup]

Mike, Yes you're absolutely right about my software needs -- they are fully satisfied in a very stable way with what I already have.

SketchUp is unique among 3D CADs in how things are done. Very intuitive and physical gesture oriented, and I've used it for ten years. I have lots of add-ons for that, and it integrates into CAM and CNC for the machines I've built. (btw the plans for that foam boat were drawn in my old Google SketchUp). There is just no reason for me to try to learn a new CAD. The money and learning time to do that are huge, particularly if I have to re-integrate everything I already have, with other new software, and it for sure wouldn't actually be easier to use.

The boat video was shot on a little ten year old pocket camera, and edited on Tahrpup with Openshot. It has over half a million views on YT. I've since found Kdenlive 17.12.3 is also a perfect bit of video editingsoftware for me, and has replaced Openshot. I don't need a higher version, and when I've tried them generally I get slowdowns in the monitor or jitter. Again it's a sweet spot for me, why do I need later? I do use Avidemux occasionally for a specific purpose -- cutting up a video, and then reassembling without having to render it, as long as you just specify Copy. Very fast! And preserves the detail. I'm not sure if that can be done on KdenLive -- I think it wants to render everything, and whenever you do you also necessarily lose a little in the process. But Kdenlive is much more suitable for complex videos.

Gimp is another that I prefer in an earlier version, like 2.8. Actually I liked it even earlier, when a "save" didn't necessarily save the project, but could save as .jpg, png, etc. Now those have to be "exported" instead of saved.

Add Seamonkey (w/Noscript), LibreOffice, MTPaint, Calibre, VLC, Geany, Cura, Galculator, Josh Madison's Convert (in Wine), Gparted, Zoom, and there you have 99% of my day to day software usage in any Puppy.

As you say the browser and Zoom are the only ones that need continual upgrades. Or if you change to a very new computer. And like you Mike, I used 432, Racy, Tahr, Bionic, long after newer puppy versions were available because I stuck with the same hardware for over a decade. Funny thing is, the same computer will now run F96-CE fine. To me this is one of the strongest points for puppy. Very long term stability and usefulness at very low cost.

Like you I still revert to Tahr, too occasionally if there is something it runs, I didn't bring over to newer OS's. I also have a number of Asian CNC machine control apps that need Win7 or XP and won't run on Wine (because of I/O needs) and I simply dual boot this old machine over to Win7. (My Win7 side normally has no Internet connection. I only use it for those apps.)

Mike thanks for the kind words re. the boat. I'll be out in it this summer for my 5th season fishing in it, and row-exploring. I was awarded three annual Master Angler pin awards from my state using that boat for fishing. Proud that Puppy was used in the design, documentation, filming and film editing of that boat project from start to finish.

[vtpup]

@vtpup

Take a look on Ebay at Dell e5570 with i7-6820HQ quad core cpu. They have a Passmark score of 6800, which is about 3 times your i5-2540M. May not be pretty, but might fit your needs at a bargain price. I've also had good luck with Lenovo.

wizard

Thanks @wizard! I'll look into that one. Not at all worried about looks -- nothing could be uglier than the tank of a laptop I'm typing on now! All I care about is if it will run my programs, and has a big screen, big drive (replaceable for future maintenance), USB3.x or better ports.

Three times faster than now is plenty, since now is adequate as-is.

[wizard]

@vtpup

The Dell e5570 is a "business class" machine, so it is well made. I have one its predecessors, a e6430 with a i7 3740qm and it runs very well.

wizard

[vtpup]

Out of curiosity about whether the problem in running Wine 8 with old Sketchups on BookwormPup was due to hardware vs. software on that gift computer, I decided to do a test on this old laptop in Bookworm and Wine. If I could duplicate the same issues here, it was probably the software's fault, not necessarily the hardware.

So I made up a new Bookwormpup install on stick using Stickpup, created a savefile there , did a:

Code: Select all

dpkg --add-architecture i386 

and then first tried your (Mike's) version of the appimage framework and the 5,11 appimage. The framework with appimage was located in /mnt/home. I knew this combo worked perfectly before on an F-96 stick on this old laptop running Sketchup.

Problems arose -- .wine directories were created properly and so were menu links. But actually the wine command wasn't found by Bash, and neither was winecfg, when run from menu or in terminal. The framework with appimage was located in /mnt/home. This was the same problem I had with this software on the new computer.

So I unlinked and removed that, and went to Synaptic to install wine and wine32 and dependencies. This all installed wine 8. Wine worked properly with a simple 32 bit Windows program (Josh Madison's Convert. But It did not work with SketchUp and it failed in exactly the same way it had before on the new computer: Sketchup threw up specific errors about OpenGL.

Now this OpenGL error is actually normally expected on Sketchup in Wine, and the normal workaround is to edit one small entry in the registry with Wine Regedit. It's a known fix ever since Sketchup was used in Wine a decade ago. HOWEVER, this does not fix the problem in Bookworm/Wine8 for some reason, and the same error message repeats, despite the registry fix. I checked the registry afterwards and the fix was still there -- it hadn't reverted.

And this is the exact same problem I saw when testing this combo the new computer. SO.... my conclusion is...... the problem doesn't necessarily lie with the new hardware I received. It seems likely it is Wine 8, as installed by Synaptic in BookwormPup.

Unfortunately, the new hardware didn't allow booting F96-CE. Where I could have tested Mike's AppimageFramework/wine-5.11, which I know runs SketchUp normally on this old laptop.

So the big question is will F96-CE run on a different contemporary computer, and if so, will the AppimageFramework-5.11 run on it properly?

Finally a word about why I really don't like BookwormPup's Synaptic package manager. Removing installed software is a mess. You can only remove a specific package, and not its installed dependencies. If something like Wine installs a hundred dependencies and you uninstall wine, the rest of the dependencies stay, and some will interfere with any subsequent attempt to install a different wine version, as well as take up space.

So for testing, you basically have to start all over again with a new savefile.

You can approximate what PPM easily does, in a more tedious fashion in Bookworm by going to console typing in dpkg and using the purge function, but Synaptic can't deal with dependency removal.

This and the difficulty running appimages, portables and sfs for wine in it so far make BookwormPup unattractive to me as a future replacement for Puppy.

[ozsouth]

@vtpup - if you want to stick to Fossapup64, this one mainly has updated kernel & security files:

viewtopic.php?p=103298#p103298

[mikeslr]

vtpup, "...So I made up a new Bookwormpup install on stick using Stickpup, created a savefile there , did a:

Code: Select all

dpkg --add-architecture i386 "

The i386 architecture with necessary libraries are builtin to the 5.11 Wine AppImage that Mikewalsh's portable employs. Executing its WINE-Link script creates necessary links between the AppImage and the operating system so that both 32-bit, 64-bit programs and Wine-Server can be run. IIRC, however, under Bookworm associations with exe files was not automatic and I had to configure 'Open-With'.

By manually adding the i386 architecture to the Operating System, itself, you may have provided that system with instructions incompatible with using both the Wine 5.11 AppImage and Mike's portable.

[vtpup]

Okay, I see Mike, so if I try it again with a new savefile, and don't do the add 32 bit architecture thing, maybe that will work. Will try it.....

[vtpup]

vtpup, "...So I made up a new Bookwormpup install on stick using Stickpup, created a savefile there , did a:

Code: Select all

dpkg --add-architecture i386 "

The i386 architecture with necessary libraries are builtin to the 5.11 Wine AppImage that Mikewalsh's portable employs. Executing its WINE-Link script creates necessary links between the AppImage and the operating system so that both 32-bit, 64-bit programs and Wine-Server can be run. IIRC, however, under Bookworm associations with exe files was not automatic and I had to configure 'Open-With'.

By manually adding the i386 architecture to the Operating System, itself, you may have provided that system with instructions incompatible with using both the Wine 5.11 AppImage and Mike's portable.

Okay Mike, so tests with a clean savefile in Bookwormpup64 using AppimageFramework and Wine 5.11 Appimage using computer in sig below:

Test 1: Failed. Steps: clicked on WINE-Link in Appimage Framework. Waited for message completions. Tested by typing "wine" in console. Just threw error messages:

FrameworkError.jpg (184.46 KiB) Viewed 394 times

Clean up: Clicked on WINE-Remove in Appimage Framework. Waited for message completions. Checked to see if .wine folders were removed from /root and. also menu entries were gone

Test 2: Failed. This time I decided to just run the original 5.11 appimage itself, without the framework. To do this I clicked on /mnt/home/Wine_portable/WINE/WINE64. Then I tested by typing "wine" in console. Bash couldn't find the command:

AppimageError.jpg (9.32 KiB) Viewed 394 times

Test 3: Success. Without unloading the above appimage, I simply ran the Appimage Framework again. Wine installed and acted normally and I was able to install Google Sketchup 8, and that ran properly.

Something isn't working right (for Bookworm) in the initial Appimage Framework install.

However, after the above final steps Wine 5.11 was successfully installed, and SketchUp was installed after and ran properly. This says to me that the culprit in attempting to get Sketchup8 on the brand new high-powered laptop was likely NOT to have been the hardware, or Bookworm itself, but to have been Wine 8 as installed by Synaptic.

[mikewalsh]

@vtpup :-

These 'staging' AppImages can confuse folks. As built, they're designed for use in 64-bit systems.......but, just as with 'standard' WINE that most of us have used for years, the internal WINE itself is in fact a 32-bit build (and, as t'other Mike has pointed out, also contains all the required 32-bit stuff you would normally need to install.......either via the 'multiarch' stuff in a mainstream distro, or via the 32-bit_compat_libs SFS here in Puppy. None of this is needed here; not for these WINE builds).

Once you've got your head round this bit, you're laughing!

Mike.

[vtpup]

Yup, Mike I understand that.

However the test in my last post was in a new clean savefile and only the staging and appimage were run, exactly according to instructions. It failed OOTB.

Please Mike, just re-read the 3 different tests.

To get the appimage framework to work I first had to install the wine 5.11 appimage, then run the framework afterwards.

This is not how it is supposed to work, I believe.