Newer JWM versions crash more often?

[amethyst]

I seem to have more crashes with the newer versions of JWM. It was quite stable (with older Puppys) in years gone by as far as I can remember. Anyone experiencing the same?

[Eastler_Dart]

it would be helpful, to know your system and your version of Jwm

I'm on Fossapup64 and had only troubles with jwm while
compiling / adding some things to it. Now It's ready, working, no crashes.

One tip 'in the blue sky' is, mostly the configfiles are the reason for troubles.

Jwm starts with reading /root/.jwmrc
Inside of that are some lines with something like:
<Include>/root/.jwm/jwmrc-theme</Include>
which means at that point /root/.jwm/jwmrc-theme gets read
and influence jwm.
Additional to that in the included files are also '<include>...' lines,
which also get readed.

Maybe you have got a new jwm but you have the old jwmrc files.

hope it helps, Eastler

[amethyst]

Maybe you have got a new jwm but you have the old jwmrc files
No. Since no one else seems to have a problem with JWM, it must be my hardware. I am going to slot in an old version of JWM though just to make sure...

[rockedge]

@amethyst I have been doing some testing with JWM in KLV-Boxer (experimental Kennel Linux builds) which features the JWM - ROX desktops found in most Puppy Linux systems, and have not experienced any crashes from JWM itself.

I am using quite a bit borrowed from Puppy Linux OS's for the JWM configuration, but not always used exactly as Puppy Linux does. No crashes from JWM but managed to find a way to crash Rox when opening certain directories in some specific circumstances.

[amethyst]

I think this may all be browser related. First of all, the new browsers just don't play nicely with this older laptop. Especially Firefox which just seems to drain the machine. I also think there is a problem how Firefox deals with its browser cache. I seem to encounter many of these problems when Firefox reaches the set cache limit...

[bigpup]

There is also several newest versions of Puppy Linux on this forum that are still getting bugs worked out.

They are not final release versions.

So anything can not be working correctly in them.

[dimkr]

They are not final release versions.

This distinction between "releases" and "final release versions" is misleading. "releases" may contain new features, which may introduce new bugs, but they can also include fixes for known bugs. A "final release version" that receive no updates is stuck with its known bugs forever, and newly discovered bugs don't get fixed. This skeptic view of the idea of software updates is based on the wrong assumption that any change can introduce a bug, and ignores the fact that "stable" distros (like Debian Stable or Ubuntu LTS releases) don't receive new package versions: the updates they receive usually consist of cherry-picked patches applied on top of the existing package versions, to fix bugs without introducing new features (and new bugs).

JWM 2.4.3 (currently, the latest) contains many bug fixes, at least two of them are critical if you use >= 2.4.0. They fix crashes and freezing. If you want a stable version of JWM, use a Puppy with 2.4.3: I still haven't found yet another bug of this sort in 2.4.3.

With that said, JWM development has slowed down and it has known issues, like https://github.com/joewing/jwm/issues/540. If JWM (together with X.Org and other X-only applications) is dying, maybe it's time to look for alternatives if you're unhappy.

[bigpup]

This distinction between "releases" and "final release versions" is misleading.

Yes it is, because this is not being used with a lot of Puppy versions being posted on the forum.

Released stages of Puppy Linux Distros
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=3683

[dimkr]

Released stages of Puppy Linux Distros
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=3683

This page is misleading too, because some developers publish "release candidates" without freezing package versions, "beta" releases that are not yet feature complete, or "stable" releases built from the ever-changing packages of a rolling distro (like Slackware Current or Void). In this forum, the terms "alpha", "beta" and "release candidate" are used to signify continued development (i.e. progression from stage x to stage x+1) and not the level of maturity or testing, because there's no formal and professional development process.

Examples:

New "releases" that contain more than bug fixes - https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=7656
"Release candidate" with new features - https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... 601#p91601
New "release" built from packages of a rolling release distro, without a changelog - https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=5270, https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=92773

(We have many more examples, and I think these are enough to demonstrate my point)

A new beta-grade Puppy can be much more stable than a so-called "final release" Puppy, especially if that "final release" was built long ago and has a long list of known issues. "Doesn't change at all" and "only receives bug fixes" are different things.