FossaPup64 9.5 X-Org failure

[Wilhelm]

Hello

I use FossaPup64 9.5 from a recent download on an old Intel Sempron based machine w/ 1 GB RAM.

On a fresh start from USB stick it runs fine but after the first saving of the private storage folder (i.e. from second start) the X-system fails to operate correctly. It has false dimensions and looping display flickering. The CPU slows down (i.e. is occupied). The system is rendered unusable. All I set up was a German keyboard.
Is this a known bug and is there a work-around? My impression is that some setup values are missing after activation of the storage.

Regards

[bigpup]

This is not normal.
Should not be having this problem.

I assume the save is being placed on the USB stick.

what format is the location the save is placed?

Just to make sure, you are using a save folder or save file?

How exactly you did the install to USB stick could be a clue to solving this.

[rockedge]

I have not seen any other reports of problems with German keyboards. I will agree something is not correct with the save file/folder loading. Is the fresh Fossapup64 operating correctly?

[Clarity]

I have never stepped forward on what I am about to share, here, and I should not post this here as it is NOT intended to be a solution.

I recommend that no user place a save-session on a USB/SDcard for several good reasons. The behavior of most USBs, albeit many of us have very cheap USBs, is one of its performance in a high demand system. A system running its OS in ram is 'high demand' as the CPU expects command and responses as quickly as can be fed to it.

A much better option is to place your session-saves to your PC's permanent drive whenever possible. If you do have placed a session on a removable USB/SDcard, it can be moved from that unit to your PC's permanent drive for better performance. To do so, reboot the system to RAM via your PUP's menu. Move the session to your PC's permanent drive in a folder of the exact name: namely if it on "/" on the USB, place in on the permanent drive at "/"; if it is in a folder, say "Sessions" on the USB, then move the whole Sessions folder to the permanent drive.

I think this will eliminate the performance problem you are seeing.

Please understand, that I am only offering an idea for choice of placement which I think will yield consistent system performance.

USBs should NEVER be thought of as a replacement for permanent storage. PCs and OSes are designed around the fact of permanent storage...NOT removable USBs. USBs are not the same Hot-SWAP drives that the manufacturer make and sell. PC systems that support hot-swap have a complete different hardware design than the controllers for USBs/SDcards. I know of at least one developer on this forum who will disagree, but, most will stand up and share the design difference.

USB are great for 2 proven things:

1. mere storage which is removable

2. as a boot unit

Sustained I/O transfer use, and behavior similar to permanent storage was not a primary design criterion for the USB/SDcard family.

Hope this info is helpful.

[Wiz57]

I have never stepped forward on what I am about to share, here, and I should not post this here as it is NOT intended to be a solution.

I recommend that no user place a save-session on a USB/SDcard for several good reasons. The behavior of most USBs, albeit many of us have very cheap USBs, is one of its performance in a high demand system. A system running its OS in ram is 'high demand' as the CPU expects command and responses as quickly as can be fed to it.

A much better option is to place your session-saves to your PC's permanent drive whenever possible. If you do have placed a session on a removable USB/SDcard, it can be moved from that unit to your PC's permanent drive for better performance. To do so, reboot the system to RAM via your PUP's menu. Move the session to your PC's permanent drive in a folder of the exact name: namely if it on "/" on the USB, place in on the permanent drive at "/"; if it is in a folder, say "Sessions" on the USB, then move the whole Sessions folder to the permanent drive.

I think this will eliminate the performance problem you are seeing.

Please understand, that I am only offering an idea for choice of placement which I think will yield consistent system performance.

USBs should NEVER be thought of as a replacement for permanent storage. PCs and OSes are designed around the fact of permanent storage...NOT removable USBs. USBs are not the same Hot-SWAP drives that the manufacturer make and sell. PC systems that support hot-swap have a complete different hardware design than the controllers for USBs/SDcards. I know of at least one developer on this forum who will disagree, but, most will stand up and share the design difference.

USB are great for 2 proven things:

1. mere storage which is removable

2. as a boot unit

Sustained I/O transfer use, and behavior similar to permanent storage was not a primary design criterion for the USB/SDcard family.

Hope this info is helpful.

Should have remained in the background in regards to this Clarity, because it is total hogwash. For at least 10 years now I've used USB thumbdrives
with some sort of persistence...from earlier Slacko Puppy, Slax 5.6, Slax 6.1.2, Slax 7.5, Salix, etc., all changes written to a file on the USB drive.
The drives I use are not the most expensive, PNY for the most part, 4 gig, but not a single one of the 4 I've used in this matter has failed.
Also, in times past, I used a 4 gig PNY USB thumbdrive to backup my workstation rather than use a CD-RW or DVD...it was faster and easier to
store...that was indeed intended for permanent storage.
Wiz

ps. Your assertion above kind shoots holes in your SG2D/Ventoy spam posts! Perhaps you should rethink your continuous promotion of SG2D/Ventoy?

[Clarity]

@Wiz57 there are 2 problems with your post:

1. I am not sure that your experience is similar for others of us with USB sticks and drives. My experiences is based upon performance measurements on USB sticks I have and I have 2 dozen of them as well as those of SAMSUNG where the manufacturer's stated performance does NOT match their claims...except for SAMSUNGs and 3 newer sticks.

2. Further, in the post you reference, I don't see ANY reference to SG2D/Ventoy, so if your issue is USB stay "on-point" of either that post or this thread. SG2D/Ventoy are ISO boots...not sustained use as running systems present for saves-sessions or other daily PC use.

If you don't LIKE ISO booting technologies, then post on those threads, not here your displeasure and maybe share some valid reasons why you hate them too.

No offence, but hope the points I make are understood as I can produce performance numbers to back up what I share.

If you have other problems with me, they are outside of this thread, dont you agree?

[wizard]

@Wilhelm

Here's some suggestions for troubleshooting:

1. Delete the bad save file and reboot.
-make no changes
-reboot and create a save file.

If this works, then try making your changes and rebooting.

2. If there are still problems, try remaking your USB as described in this link: viewtopic.php?t=5192

3. Try a different USB flash drive

4. Try installing to an internal drive

If all of these fail, I would suspect the ISO you downloaded is corrupt, re-download and try the above again.

wizard

[mikewalsh]

@Wilhelm :- to the 'kennels'.

Um; right. Can we have a bit more clarification with regard to the CPU here? You say it's an Intel.....but 'Sempron' is an AMD model.

Why is everybody concentrating on the save-file/folder..? I could be wrong, but from what the OP says, it sounds more like a display issue. If this IS an Intel-based system there may be a simple workaround for this, but we need to know for definite.

Unfortunately, with computers, "ifs", "buts", "maybes", "approx", etc, don't really cut the mustard. With Puppy, in particular, we can't help properly unless we have correct info to work with. Things can vary from one Pup to another, from one CPU manufacturer to another, even from one architecture to another.

Ya gotta remember, we're NOT there with you, looking over your shoulder.....and to the best of my knowledge, nobody here's a 'mind-reader', either. We can only work with what you tell us, which is why it's important to get those details right at the start of a thread.....you have to help US to help you, y'know?

We'll try and get ya sorted, anyway.

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

@Wiz57 there are 2 problems with your post:

1. I am not sure that your experience is similar for others of us with USB sticks and drives. My experiences is based upon performance measurements on USB sticks I have and I have 2 dozen of them as well as those of SAMSUNG where the manufacturer's stated performance does NOT match their claims...except for SAMSUNGs and 3 newer sticks.

2. Further, in the post you reference, I don't see ANY reference to SG2D/Ventoy, so if your issue is USB stay "on-point" of either that post or this thread. SG2D/Ventoy are ISO boots...not sustained use as running systems present for saves-sessions or other daily PC use.

If you don't LIKE ISO booting technologies, then post on those threads, not here your displeasure and maybe share some valid reasons why you hate them too.

No offence, but hope the points I make are understood as I can produce performance numbers to back up what I share.

If you have other problems with me, they are outside of this thread, dont you agree?

@Clarity :-

Don't take this out of context; I am NOT 'having a go at you'. Can we keep the "snottiness" level dialed down a few notches, please? Thanks.

If anyone should have any issues with you outside of the thread, then you, too, should make no mention of such here. That can be discussed between you and the individual concerned via PM.

It would be appreciated if you didn't drag such stuff into "open forum". This isn't the place to resolve disputes. Keep it "external", okay? It sends the wrong signal to Joe Public.

We don't "wash our dirty laundry in public", mate.

Mike.

[Clarity]

Gee @mikewalsh I am not sure what you are saying: I am NOT at war with Wiz57; NOR do I think he is at war with me; thus there is no war. Neither of us are harassing each other here or otherwise from my current point of view. Maybe you know something; I am not sure what it is you know.

But, now, you are drawing more attention to something I thought was past each of us.

Anyway as I share, in this thread, I have not found good experiences with USB over the last 2 decades in the performance they provide ESPECIALLY with data writes in situations like that, with session data that is kept current or any files where there is multiple read-write I/O cycles. Further, excepting for SAMSUNGs and 2 of the 3 Chinese USB 128GB purchases at the end of last year, the performance did NOT match their claims; in many cases around 5MB/sec with measurements in both Linux and MS PCs. And, I have had more corruption on USB than all of my HDDs over the past decade requiring 'e2fsck' to resolve...too many times.

So my recommendation is that for something as important as one's session files/folders, a safer bet with good performance is to use one's system-drive for your PUP's sessions. Performance would be good and corruption percentage would favor the user.

On the OP's problem, I think @wizard suggestion of an download corruption "could" be the OP's problem: It brings back a memory from last year that I had using SLCPUP64 (I think) where I could boot to desktop and some things worked...but it ultimately turned out to be a bad download. I had not had one of those for years, but, it can occur and as I am an example, it does occur.

I merely posted the recommendation for user consideration for active files that are used by the system like session file-folders.

No offense to anyone and I am NOT having a go at you. And I do KNOW that many 'love' USB for its convenience. I, too, use them for convenience mainly in a write-once, read-many uses: as I have learned that is safest and best use to avoid problems. And, except, as I have said, only 2 of them give what I consider 'good' performance.

BTW: I just took a tally, I have 38 USB sticks in a collection over the decades...from 2GB to recent 128GB (3).

[bigpup]

On a fresh start from USB stick it runs fine but after the first saving of the private storage folder (i.e. from second start) the X-system fails to operate correctly.
It has false dimensions and looping display flickering.
The CPU slows down (i.e. is occupied). The system is rendered unusable. All I set up was a German keyboard.

This is why we are concentrating on the save being the problem.
Did not happen until booted using the save.

But does not matter.

We are talking to each other.

The original person that started this topic, has not posted anything in response!

[mikewalsh]

@Clarity :-

<snip>...but, now, you are drawing more attention to something I thought was past each of us....</snip>

Forgotten already.

I agree about USBs to some extent. I usually run all my Pups from the primary SSD anyway....saves too.

Bad downloads are something of a rarity for me as well. It can happen, but it doesn't happen often.

I'm probably like most; got USB sticks all over the place. I don't tend so much to impulse-buy and go for "cheapies" because they're a good price; from experience, I know which brands & models have proven to be reliable in the past, and I tend to stick with those. However, with this new HP rig having USB 3.0 as standard, I now have a new range of sticks to try out; the built-in USB 3.0 hub & firmware allows this box to boot from these. Despite having a USB 3.0 adapter card in the old rig, that card didn't allow booting.....and you couldn't flash the firmware ROM either, because it didn't have a re-writable type.

But, like m'colleague says, I, too, have never had issues with saving back to a USB stick. I'm still trying to figure out quite why you seem to have problems with that...

(*shrug*)

Mike.

[Grey]

I have 38 USB sticks in a collection over the decades...from 2GB to recent 128GB (3).

Oh, my Buddha! First they started hanging CDs in cars. Now someone has already started collecting flash drives. I feel so old

[wizard]

I hesitate to post this here because it violates what is being said. This is however a good example of a new user who joined the forum on March 12, 2022 and ask for help with a problem, then found himself witness to a squabble between two forum members. No wonder @bigpup can comment

We are talking to each other. The original person that started this topic, has not posted anything in response!

Good natured banter and joking aside, all of us would do well to ask ourselves some questions before we post:
1. Does it answer the OP's question or help solve the problem?
2. Does it offer an easier alternate solution to a problem?
3. Is it on topic?
4. Does it add to the OP's positive experience on the forum?

Just my opinion on how we can do better at helping our members.
wizard

[mikewalsh]

@wizard :-

Yes, I have to agree, wiz. It doesn't help.....you're quite right.

I, too, should know better by now. Apologies all round, I think!

Mike.

[Clarity]

But, like m'colleague says, I, too, have never had issues with saving back to a USB stick. I'm still trying to figure out quite why you seem to have problems with that...

My personal experiences has brought me to a point in time: Reason is to avoid the problems that I have run into with past USBs: Perfomance (many/most of my in the 5-10MB/sec) and the reliability (corruption where much more often needing fsck than system's drive)..

That is the primary "take-away" in my recommendation to help.

I never indicated that use of USB would not work. Somehow, I am getting the feeling that couple of us are misunderstanding the intent

[wiak]

BTW: I just took a tally, I have 38 USB sticks in a collection over the decades...from 2GB to recent 128GB (3).

Off-topic, I know, but I still have a couple of 512MB usb sticks. I used one of them for something recently - boot experiment of some sort or another. Big enough for a slim variant anyway. Used to think 512MB was a huge amount of storage... I think I still have a 128MB and a 256MB in a box somewhere, but I am not very organised when it comes to looking after usb sticks. I rarely ever use any - preferring always to frugal install to my 'faster' hard drive.

[bigpup]

If Wilhelm continues to not provide us any feedback about the issue he posted.
No indication of trying any suggestions.

I am going to delete this topic.

The issue is not anything that is normally seen, by anyone, if the Puppy install is correctly done.

[Wilhelm]

Sorry for the delay, I had to focus on other stuff.

Indeed my experience stems from an installation USB I created w/ own cookery.
What is the recommended procedure to create a USB-stick from the puppy-ISO?

First I made an attempt with 'dd' copy. The results were good but all I received from the startup was a GRUB4DOS message and a boot prompt. Couldn't handle that. I thought this is not supposed to be, so I created my own install-USB. I fetched and compiled the latest edition of Grub2 and installed it on a FAT32 formatted stick, option was i386-pc. Then I copied the ISO to stick and placed grub.cfg (from the ISO) to the right folder on the stick. I edited away most of the 'insmod' commands in grub.cfg because something produced only nonsense on the screen and adjusted some paths. ISOLINUX and anything 'EFI', as is on the ISO, is not present on the install-stick.

As I mentioned the first run of puppy was good; only thing to mention was that the system screen dimensions were larger than the screen device, but there was no problem associated, just the outmost right side of the display cut away. From the second run I got the problem. Alltogether I made two attempts with storing the user folder, one on the stick, the other on an internal system drive. The results were the same.

[Wilhelm]

On a second point, I would recommend to offer SHA256 hash-values for the downloads or still better GPG signatures and a public key. It's good to have some data security for operating systems.

[mikewalsh]

On a second point, I would recommend to offer SHA256 hash-values for the downloads or still better GPG signatures and a public key. It's good to have some data security for operating systems.

@Wilhelm :-

As far as I'm aware, checksums are offered on the download page at puppylinux.com. Probably not SHA256, however; more likely MD5 by the looks of things.

As for GPG5 signatures & public keys, that's probably a bit overboard for a small, 'niche' distro like Puppy. We don't get anything like the number of downloads that the mainstream distros do, and we certainly don't have 'teams' of people who do nothing but work on the OS all day long. Most Puppies are built by individuals - not teams - though some of us quite often co-operate with each other on various projects.

Puppy is very much a 'hobbyist' distro; as one member described it the other day, a "tinkerer's paradise". It tends to appeal to a specific mind-set; I know a lot of people download it, expecting to find a miniature version of a mainstream distro, complete with all that distro's normal built-in utilities. Many are disappointed, & decide against using Puppy; because it doesn't work like they expect it to, they're already turned off by it.

Those who remain, & persevere, are usually already of that specific mind-set.....even if they don't know it..!

Puppy makes use of the binaries & components of mainstream, "parent" distros, but the whole thing runs in a very Puppy-specific way.....she's capable of several tricks that would destroy a 'normal' distro install.

Mike.

[bigpup]

Getting back to the problem in the first post.

Try doing the install using the Unetbootin installer.
http://unetbootin.github.io/

To be able to have a working save the USB format needs to be a writable format.
Unetbootin should use fat32.

When you get Fossapup64 booting and running OK.
It has installer programs that are specifically coded for Puppy Linux and how it operates.

Note:
Fossapup64 9.5 has a bug about not booting from USB if another USB is also plugged in.
So only have the Fossapup64 USB plugged in when booting it.

[bigpup]

with the age and amount of RAM of your computer.
Bionicpup32 or 64
Xenialpup or Xenialpup64
May be a better Puppy versions to use.

[wizard]

@Wilhelm

Go here for how to make a Puppy bootable USB viewtopic.php?t=5192, these are all tested methods. Also take a look at the 7th post in this topic for some troubleshooting tips.

wizard