Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I'm probably asking the wrong question, or about a more complicated solution than it needs to be but here goes.

1.) I love my decade old Puppy laptop running bionic64 now, and possibly fossa64 in near future, and don't want to be tied to a desktop again -- or even have the desk space for monitor and keyboard.

2.) I currently do occasional video editing with this laptop (as mentioned in other threads here) using Kdenlive 17.x on Bionic64.

3.) That is the ONLY combo of editor, editor version, and Puppy OS that works well enough with my older laptop to render multiple tracks real time in the monitor without stuttering or jumping ahead. (I've tried MANY combinations over the past 3 years).

It works well enough for now, up to 1080p and 50+ scenes with lots of dissolves. But it JUST manages, and the writing is on the wall. Plus I'd like to have more flexibility in which video editors and versions I can use.

4.) I can't afford a new laptop with high level graphics capabilities.

5.) I have an old ATX desktop tower Pent 4 era.

Question: Is it possible to re-motherboard the tower and run it headless as a server, doing the video editing there, but using the laptop as a client terminal for it via wifi?

Would that provide the rendering speed in the video editor monitor that I need? This is the crucial question, really. In a video editing program is the bulk of the work for presenting a real time visual monitor of the project done by the CPU, or by the graphics card. I'm guessing the main CPU.

If that is do-able, my thought is that I wouldn't run the tower server frequently, just when I need to do a video. Otherwise my puppy laptop does everything else I need.

Actually, I think the CPU vs GPU question is irrelevant. The tower would need both, and would simply be using the laptop as a terminal via wifi. The laptop would only need to run a terminal client program.

Question: Is it possible to re-motherboard the tower and run it headless as a server, doing the video editing there, but using the laptop as a client terminal for it?

Yes, but it would be more economical to buy a used system on ebay. I do a lot with old hardware and two systems I have experience with are:

HP Elite 6200/8200 sff
Dell 7010 sff

Look for models that have the Intel I5 quad core cpu and at least 8gb ram. The Dell would be my 1st choice but either has plenty of power. Lots of these are school/corporate surplus here in the US. The last two I bought were complete including ram and HD. The 7010 was $70 and the 6200 was $50ea, (bought 2), delivered.

Regarding headless, the biggest issue I can see would be frame rate and lag on the client.

wizard

hELLO @vtpup

vtpup wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 8:42 pm

... If that is do-able, my thought is that I wouldn't run the tower server frequently, just when I need to do a video. Otherwise my puppy laptop does everything else I need.

Doable, YES! BUT
You are venturing into a area that has been discussed many times in the forum and also recently.

What you are requesting is a "Terminal Server" environment.

This technology has been around and in use for 35 years but in PUppyland no one, to my knowledge, has ever implemented...even though it has many developer advantages. In this case, You, the developer, get a host PC to do all the work that you manipulate from a remote console. Great!

But, this PUP community is still stuck in trying to understanding the difference between a video connection versus a multimedia connection and as such little help will come...maybe.

I will do what I can to help you identify the issues you'll face.

• For starters, there is your network; The faster your home network, the better

• Next there is the protocol over the LAN between your PC and laptop terminal: X11 is capable, but HORRIBLE!!! RDP is the best as it both compresses and encrypts.

• The PC needs

  • fast LAN adapter/motherboard to match/exceed LAN's speeds

  • processor-ram to provide good video production and LAN streaming

  • A distro/OS that add packages for your video AND for your multimedia streaming services to your Client PC. XRDP uses RDP natively

• Laptop needs: a multimedia terminal-server client (with RDP protocol if the server allows such.) PUPs do have such.

Should you undertake, it would be nice if you would make a video outlining your work and share so that others in this community would benefit. I believe many would like a multimedia terminal server solution in a PUPPY context.

So far, though, I am afraid this has NOT been done by anyone in this forum, to date.

And, to note: The benefit of the terminal-server also means it can support multiple user sessions simultaneously if you have other family who would also use the processing power of your new PC. In fact, your new PC could be far-more current todo things that your limited laptop cannot.

This allows laptop connection to your home PC as if you were actually sitting at that PC's console using its multimedia desktop.

Thoughts?

P.S. I've only mentioned XRDP because Ubuntu has had this working for quite a few years and will help users interested via the Ubuntu forum.

Thanks Wizard and Clarity.

Wizard I'll keep those two possibilities in mind. A quick search of ebay had prices more like $128.

As a more expensive alternative, but 10 years newer tech, and recycling what I have already, I had been looking at something like this for a motherboard:
https://www.amazon.com/MSI-Crossfire-Mo ... B07WF6ZQST
that plus AMD 6 core proc and 16gb ram would bring that up to about $300. I have a good graphics card, tower, PS, drives etc already.

I guess the big question is what clarity is saying about server-client frame rates.

Clarity, I'm not totally new to what you're talking about, but way behind the times! Last time I used X11vnc was 2008 -- turned a IBM thinkpad 600e with a smashed screen into a sometime Puppy file server -- 4.11 days. And more recently tried aFreeRDP in Android on a tablet to run Debian locally, and also connected to a raspberry pi and puppy laptop. But that understanding is all fuzzy again by now, so I'll have to reboot, personally.

I guess before plunking down the cash I'd really need to find answers for each of the points you bring up.

I'm trying to get a handle on just what the "frame rate" would mean.

My laptop screen data rate is 1366x768@59 24 bit depth.

Edit I make that out to be a straight data rate of 1.5 Gbps .... is that right?

But I guess with compression.......?

Just thinking out loud here, thus multiple posts before replies.....

Because it's really only going to be single user, and occasional use, I could connect them ad-hoc wifi and bypass the network. The speed would be limited by the laptop's internal wifi card in any case, but I wouldn't need a new router even if I could find an upgraded card for the lappy.....

I'll definitely need compression, but not encryption -- we're in the woods far from neighbors. and the data isn't sensitive anyway.

Here's a couple of ebay examples for a budget system

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334528132948?h ... Sw~35i3rTe

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155110660133?h ... SwNQti8T-2

wizard

Thanks Wizard. The second one has $32.46 shipping, though, so closer to $65 -- still very reasonable.

But I'm thinking there's going to be a world of difference using the new motherboard I was thinking with 6 core 12 thread 3rd gen Ryzen proc. Also other things like USB 3 ports -- since I have to get data into the box from video cams, and other sources, also external drives at times, etc.

I've started thinking about the need for fast networking cards -- and specifically for this old laptop. I think the following 802.11ax card will work if I'm running a linux kernal 5.1 or greater:
https://www.amazon.com/NETELY-WiFi-AX20 ... ref=sr_1_4

Keep us updated on your progress and how it goes.

Thanks
wizard

@vtpup :-

Yup, I'll second Wiz. Do please keep us informed.

A thought has occurred to me. If, as & when you get this project up-and-running, there IS another video-editor you might like to try. You would need to run Fossapup64 on the tower - I think I'd recommend an up-to-date Pup for that end of things anyway - and the video-editor I'd recommend is the Lightworks video-editor.

https://lwks.com

(Fossapup64 is the only one it really runs properly in, but I did finally manage to turn this one into a 'portable' application.....which I was quite chuffed about! I've barely looked at it since getting it running, so I've no idea how effective it is.....but I know quite a few folks on other fora who swear by it. Up to you, of course.)

I'll let ya have a link for it soon, since it's just occurred to me that it probably needs updating by now! )

EDIT:- Here you go:-

viewtopic.php?t=5442

This is now the 'current' build.....released on June 7th. Worth a try at least, I should think.....

Mike.

I'll definitely need compression, but not encryption -- we're in the woods far from neighbors. and the data isn't sensitive anyway

That's fine, but you don't get to choose with RDP protocol; it just does this as a course of action. It has been fast and secure since 1995 to keep it so.

Its design was for secure operations no matter if connecting on a local LAN in the home or via Internet.

Thus its merely a protocol for end-end terminal-server to RDP-client(s) communications success. AND, Windows/MACs/Unix/Linux distros have RDP clients built-in so they need nothing installed to connect to an RDP server for a multimedia connection and use as if sitting locally to it on its console.

Just info that might be helpful understanding.

Thanks Wizard, Mike, clarity. Will keep you all posted as far as I go with it.

I think the first step for me will be to just try firing up the old tower as-is and try running a remote server application and connecting with the laptop. Basically just to see what is involved, and just how bad the lag is, etc.

Not even sure what version of Puppy is on it.... might be Racy.

Nope. 4.32 v3

Now if I can just find a PS/2 mouse.....

Got a mouse for it. Upgraded from Puppy 4.32 v3 to Bionic32. Quite a jump.

Performance is surprisingly fast -- I forgot this is 3+mhz Pent 4, on an ASUS P4P800 motherboard and running a fast (for the period) Nvidia card.

Updated the app install databases. Looked for Avidemux to give remote desktop experiments something to look at, but it wasn't in the Bionicpup32 repository.

I did see Flowblade, Kdenlive, and Openshot there. All biggies.

Tried installing Flowblade and Openshot, but both complained about deps.

Also tried installing the official Seamonkey sfs for Bionic32, but that also wouldn't open.

So, some good news (computer runs, and runs fast for period, and will run recent Puppies (32 bit) but bad news is Bionic32 isn't installing apps tried easily.

Hi @vtpup

Following your progress, couple of info that may be helpful:

• Your couple of sessions, using NON-RDP multimedia servers to single terminal client, should not be of much concern on your home Gigabit LAN.

• For a low cost test, you should be able to source a pre-owned running 2010+ PC box with 4GB RAM from a local PC repair store for $15-$20 (us); thus low-cost for your plans. These are usually thrown out by them to the dumpsters. 64bit processing will allow you to run all of the PUPs/DOGs in the kennel.

This should more than satisfy all of your test plans and concerns at a low entry point.

Just an idea to share.

@vtpup :-

Do you happen to know exactly what model/socket/clock speed of Pentium 4 you've got there? I ask, because Intel produced so many variations of these (well over 150 variations of the same processor, minimum), spread across so many different socket configs/FSB speeds, that unless you know exactly which model you have it's almost impossible to know just what you're dealing with.

My guess is that although you have one of the faster ones, you could still be running on the older Socket 478 and slower bus speeds (with a higher 'multiplier').....and if so, you won't have the necessary instruction sets to run modern browsers. Min requirement for most browsers used to be SSE2s, but recently many have upped their game to require at least SSE3s.

And that could be why even SeaMonkey isn't working now.....

Mike.

No computer repair shops here, plus if I drag another old desktop into the house, my spouse will kill me. I'm crawling over storage boxes and under a piled up table now to run this desktop -- no room in this very small house. I could re-motherboard without too much fuss, however. But right now I just want to see a remote desktop running between what I've got already.

Mike, yup socket 478 proc, as I remember it, but Bionic32s onboard stripped Firefox is running fine. I don't actually care what browser, since this present hardware may get replaced, and frankly I don't actually also have to run a video editor either for a test of RDP. It would just have been nice. I don't expect miracles from something this old, so I'm sure the remote desktop will be slow -- just want the encouragement of seeing it run at all. I also would like to test whether the laptop can keep up -- if it can't, then this is impractical. I could also see whether upgrading the lappy's mini PCI wifi card would make a difference -- for a relatively small outlay.

So -- any suggestions for RDP server for the Bionic32 desktop, and client for the Bionic64 laptop, and some kind of video editor for the Bionic32?

@vtpup :-

Can't help with the RDP stuff, but I think I can help with a video-editor.

I've got an elderly (v2.5.2) "all-in-one" of Avidemux, built several years ago by patriot. I turned it into an AppImage with Fred's build-scripts, and, to date, I've never known it fail to run in any Pup I've thrown it at.

You're welcome to try it. If interested, you can find it here:-

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14pHMsu ... sp=sharing

Or - and I'm not sure about this one; I have to run it in a Xenialpup chroot for Tahrpup, but you're on Bionicpup, so.....there's a 32-bit 'portable' version of Cinelerra-GG I put together, based around another AppImage from the official site:-

https://mega.nz/folder/DKww2RbQ#RqjQFKmlnbhONySF62bGxQ

There may be a couple of dependencies missing; I know it wanted one or two items that weren't 'standard' ones, but I honestly don't remember quite what I did now!

Entirely up to you, of course.

Mike.

Thanks Mike I'll try those..

Meanwhile I've installed XRDP on the Bionic32 box and it seems to be running.
And Remmima on the laptop Bionic64 which also opens up.

Now the hard part is getting them to connect.

I've opened up port 3389 on the lappy, and Desktop box firewalls for the LAN for appropriate addresses but haven't been able to connect yet. Or more properly, connection refused. So it looks like they are trying.

Remmima looks like below. There are various instructions on the Net of how to set it up, all seem to say to set the protocol to RDP. However it is not a choice in the dropdown section of the window -- only SSH is there. On one website, it said to use the address rdp://(IP) which I did, in this case 192.168.1.13 the LAN address of the Desktop box.

Still getting the "connection refused" message.

I'm guessing that I also have to be running an SSH server on the Bionic32 desktop box. Trying to do that with open-ssh from the PPI.

So far the SSH connection is also "refused" from the laptop, even with firewalls down.

@vtpup Have you tried Dropbear for the SSH server? Very easy to get going. I made some PET files to install it. Basic operation is install dropbear then generate the keys for it which is pretty easy and start it up. Also fairly easy to compile it yourself!

dropbear-2019.78-i686.pet 32 bit

dropbear-2019.78-x86_64.pet

https://github.com/mkj/dropbear

This is Dropbear, a smallish SSH server and client.
https://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/dropbear.html

INSTALL has compilation instructions.

MULTI has instructions on making a multi-purpose binary (ie a single binary
which performs multiple tasks, to save disk space)

SMALL has some tips on creating small binaries.

A mirror of the Dropbear website and tarballs is available at https://dropbear.nl/mirror/

Please contact me if you have any questions/bugs found/features/ideas/comments etc
There is also a mailing list http://lists.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au/mailman/ ... o/dropbear

Matt Johnston
matt@ucc.asn.au

In the absence of detailed documentation, some notes follow:
============================================================================

Server public key auth:

You can use ~/.ssh/authorized_keys in the same way as with OpenSSH, just put
the key entries in that file. They should be of the form:

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAIEAwVa6M6cGVmUcLl2cFzkxEoJd06Ub4bVDsYrWvXhvUV+ZAM9uGuewZBDoAqNKJxoIn0Hyd0Nk/yU99UVv6NWV/5YSHtnf35LKds56j7cuzoQpFIdjNwdxAN0PCET/MG8qyskG/2IE2DPNIaJ3Wy+Ws4IZEgdJgPlTYUBWWtCWOGc= someone@hostname

You must make sure that ~/.ssh, and the key file, are only writable by the
user. Beware of editors that split the key into multiple lines.

Dropbear supports some options for authorized_keys entries, see the manpage.

============================================================================

Client public key auth:

Dropbear can do public key auth as a client, but you will have to convert
OpenSSH style keys to Dropbear format, or use dropbearkey to create them.

If you have an OpenSSH-style private key ~/.ssh/id_rsa, you need to do:

dropbearconvert openssh dropbear ~/.ssh/id_rsa ~/.ssh/id_rsa.db
dbclient -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.db <hostname>

Dropbear does not support encrypted hostkeys though can connect to ssh-agent.

============================================================================

If you want to get the public-key portion of a Dropbear private key, look at
dropbearkey's '-y' option.

============================================================================

To run the server, you need to generate server keys, this is one-off:
./dropbearkey -t rsa -f dropbear_rsa_host_key
./dropbearkey -t dss -f dropbear_dss_host_key
./dropbearkey -t ecdsa -f dropbear_ecdsa_host_key
./dropbearkey -t ed25519 -f dropbear_ed25519_host_key

or alternatively convert OpenSSH keys to Dropbear:
./dropbearconvert openssh dropbear /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key dropbear_dss_host_key

You can also get Dropbear to create keys when the first connection is made -
this is preferable to generating keys when the system boots. Make sure
/etc/dropbear/ exists and then pass '-R' to the dropbear server.

============================================================================

If the server is run as non-root, you most likely won't be able to allocate a
pty, and you cannot login as any user other than that running the daemon
(obviously). Shadow passwords will also be unusable as non-root.

============================================================================

The Dropbear distribution includes a standalone version of OpenSSH's scp
program. You can compile it with "make scp", you may want to change the path
of the ssh binary, specified by _PATH_SSH_PROGRAM in options.h . By default
the progress meter isn't compiled in to save space, you can enable it by
adding 'SCPPROGRESS=1' to the make commandline.

@vtpup

Many of the late Intel P4 3ghz+ cpu's were in fact 64bit and hyperthreading. You can use Bionic32 Pup-Sysinfo to check yours.

wizard

Rockedge found it, installed, moved openssh"s ssh out of init.d (to /home temporarily) and created and ran your script, rebooted, it all worked! Woohoo!

Oh one thing, dropbear command wasn't in the path on Bionic32, but I found it in /usr/local/sbin/ , I opened a terminal there and ran it..

MUCH simpler than openssh via the PPI, phew!

Bigpup (few posts back) I think that's all client info, not server. But thanks.

wizard, I think the 64 bit P4's had an F designation.

Okay, back on track.

Or out of the rabbit hole of ssh -- that solved, Remmina still didn't give the option of RDP protocol, only SSH. I thought maybe SSH was required for RDP by Remmina, but I'm beginning to wonder.

I found another website that said the problem actually was due to missing Remmina modules. So, sure enough, there were remmima modules available for RDP and VNC. So I installed both of those.

Hopeful that Remmina now worked I first tried out an SSH connection, and it worked fine.

Next I switched to RDP protocol, and........ didn't work.

So my guess is that there's a problem with XRDP's own config file now.

wizard wrote: Thu Aug 11, 2022 6:44 pm

@vtpup

Many of the late Intel P4 3ghz+ cpu's were in fact 64bit and hyperthreading. You can use Bionic32 Pup-Sysinfo to check yours.

wizard

@wizard :-

I hear what you're saying, buddy, but the reason I'm thinking it's an older- but faster one, with a higher 'multiplier' on the FSB speeds - is because Firefox-light runs, but not SeaMonkey. And vtpup's confirmed it's a Socket 478 type already.

Firefox-light is several years old now, and was definitely built before the SSE3 requirement. Seamonkey, I'm not sure whether they've followed Mozilla down the rabbit-hole of higher requirements (certainly it needs GTK-3 now)....or not.

Later, 64-bit variants were all Socket 775, with an 800MHz FSB. Intel did produce HTs on Socket 478, but instruction sets were limited to SSE2s.....it was a characteristic of the "Netburst:©" "Northwood" core. When they shifted to "Prescott", it was a major sea-change; Socket 775, yet another revamp of NetBurst with a FAR deeper 'pipeline' (now 31 stages!), 64-bit abilities, SSE3s, along with even higher clock speeds, ferocious heat output AND eventually parasitic electron creep through the silicon itself.

Overclockers went nutty with these things (some achieving 8 GHz+; P4s were extremely tolerant of high temps, but not so happy with "silly" voltages) , and very soon reports of what became known as "Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome" began circulating on the web:-

From Wikipedia's 'Pentium 4' article:-

"Overclocking early stepping Northwood cores yielded a startling phenomenon. While core voltage approaching 1.7 V and above would often allow substantial additional gains in overclocking headroom, the processor would slowly (over several months or even weeks) become more unstable over time with a degradation in maximum stable clock speed before dying and becoming totally unusable. This became known as Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome (SNDS), which was caused by electromigration."

Remember, at the time, Pentium 4s were selling for anywhere between $150 and over $800, depending on the type, architecture, abilities, etc. And this was a single-core chip.....

Not applicable here, I know, but I'm a mine of useless information on the P4s!

Mike.

Well doesn't matter about the proc, since this is just a test before jumping to another MB or desktop. IF I can get this working to some degree....

Back to the matter here, I've got Remmima and XRDP communicating/connecting now, (screenshot below) but I'm not sure how to set the options in XRDP's config file. Especially the lower "sessions" section of the config file. What kind of session am I trying to start on the BionicPup32 server?

Suggestions? File attached, at top above.

That login screen is about as far as I get.

Found this:

The usual instructions to connect from Windows via RDP to Ubuntu failed on18.0.4. (ie. Bionic) The problem is a dependency in a needed package has been broken in the installation of XRDP on Ubuntu. The fix is to install xorgxrdp manually but it is missing dependencies so you have to install xserver-xorg-core first. However, that also uninstalls some packages needed for mouse and cursor control in an RDP session so you add them back with xserver-xorg-input-all. After that, you can install xorgxrdp manually and the connection works.
The web page with write up on details is: https://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=13390
The broken dependencies in XRDP seem to have been corrected in the 20.04 install.

Man, this is like pulling teeth!

Also, if in the process you lose mouse and keyboard control, how are you supposed to issue the command to correct that?

Also, if in the process you lose mouse and keyboard control, how are you supposed to issue the command to correct that?

perhaps making all or some of the steps in a script to add that fix to get make the mouse and keyboard work again?