SliTaz Forum

fsw

Hi everybody, first I want to say that I'm new to the forum & to Slitaz, but that's a real great OS!

Slitaz is bringing back very efficiently to life an old IBM Aptiva with a K6-3@400 + 512 RAM (minus 64 MB for integrated graphic card) that I intend to offer to a Médiathèque here in France.
As I am really amazed by the quality, the lightness & speed of this release, I want to take the time to list (and perhaps get solved) the small glitches I've encountered after an HDD install, as main (and only) OS for that old box.

Just to say, most of the glitches are just cosmetic, but nevertheless, I want to put me (back) in the optic of a newbie to Linux, being afraid of seeing this errors. And I don't know if this a good idea as a list or if it would be better to make a single post for each case.

Anyway... So here it goes:

Boot Time (those errors aren't to find in dmesg or /varlog/message after login):

- Mounting filesystem on fstab
- Mount: Mounting /dev/hda1 as swap failed: no such file or directory

That seems just a somehow too early try, because after the login, I can see that everything is fine:
-fdisk-l (a 512 MB swap and the rest of a 5 GB HDD in a single partition for / & /home )

Disk /dev/hda: 5121 MB, 5121446400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 622 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 65 522081 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda2 66 622 4474102+ 83 Linux

-cat /etc/fstab (curious, /dev/hda2 as / is not listed here, looks like Slitaz specific?)

# /etc/fstab: Information about static filesystems.
#
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
#/dev/hda3 /home ext3 defaults 0 2
#/dev/hdb1 /mnt/data ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/cdrom /media/cdrom iso9660 user,ro,noauto 0 0
/dev/hda1 swap swap default 0 0

-dmesg |grep hda1 (everything's fine)

hda: hda1 hda2
Adding 522072k swap on /dev/hda1. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:522072k

-free (here too)

total used free shared buffers
Mem: 449308 135664 313644 0 4972
Swap: 522072 0 522072
Total: 971380 135664 835716

-Starting udev daemon... [ Failed ]
Looks like a known bug, but harmless:
http://listengine.tuxfamily.org/lists.tuxfamily.org/slitaz/2010/08/msg00014.html
http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/comment/6085/#Comment_6085
Seems true:

-ps aux |grep udev

604 root /sbin/udevd module
701 root /sbin/udevd module
771 root /sbin/udevd module
1227 user grep udev

-Restoring last alsa configuration...alsactl:parse1639: unable to open file '/usr/share/alsa/init/00main': no such file or directory
That is actually true, because the whole directory 'init' that is on my OpenSuse box, for exemple, is here missing...
But:
1- Sound is working with the SIS7018 card (even with a few errors messages from alsa concerning ac97 codec, that I will spare you)!
2- Whatever volume changes I've made in a session, the level is always correctly restored the next time!! And without an "alsactl store" and /etc/asound.state!!
3- It's even indicated when you reboot: 'Storing alsa sound settings'!!!
So, whatever "magic" uses Slitaz to deal with the volume, a patch on alsa to get rid of that message wouldn't be wrong, IMHO...

-Route: SIOCDELRT: no such process
It could be related to the fact I'm using DHCP, but here too, the network is working without any problems.
In "/etc/hosts", there is an entry for "127.0.0.1" as "localhost" and "slitaz", but changing it to the name of the box (same used in "/etc/hostname") didn't changes nothing...
Using "route" command, I can see "127.0.0.1" as a route to a host (flag UH) and the route to my ISP gateway, and that is made by the "network.sh" script, but in my OpenSuse or PuppyLinux boxes, this first route doesn't exist, just the second one (both with DHCP)...

X session:

-ivman doesn't seems to work! It is set to start in "autostart.sh", dbus & hald are in "RUN_DAEMONS in /etc/rcS.conf" and I can see a device added or removed with "hal-device" or "lshal -m". I've also installed pmount (even if it is not listed as a dependency by "tazpkg depends ivman"), which was not there, after I found this page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ivman.
But, I've seen talking about "sudo" (that I'm not using) in some of the "/etc/ivman/*.xml" files and also that ivman was broken with some Hal versions.
Do I still have to setup something (like sudo) or it's really broken? I want to say that I can mount & unmount everything with a click in PcManFM, but it would be nicer to have that automagically mounted...

-PolicyKit was added by Chrome (if I'm correct) that I've tested and didn't created a polkituser, bringing that exact error: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=382741.
The polkituser one can see here (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=381227) was not in "/etc/passwd", so as I uninstalled Chrome, I also got rid of PolicyKit (and Gconf by the way).

-Flash Player & Midori: even if I know, on a 400MHz CPU that you can forget YouTube, I just wanted it to display the content of (the lot of) websites using Flash animations (even veeeeerrrry slowly). But I've never achieved even to test it, as Midori always crashed with the single Flash animation crossing it way! So i've tried with Chrome.

-Flash Player & Chrome: I've also never achieved even to test it, as that !#@!!^^ Chrome always blocked me the plugins!!! It was the last Flash avalaible from Adobe and I tried with both plugins enabled, then only the internal, then only the external and when both were disabled, I've got "install Flash Player" instead!!! !#@!@#! So I got rid of it too (and Flash by the way).

-At last, I wanted to test Flash + Firefox (even if it's bigger than Midori I think) but is there any way to get something more new than 3.5.7 (not even the 3.6.x serie, but as today 3.5.15 is the last old that is secure)?

So I will now test all the other applications to see if everything is fine and, if not, keep you posted.

A last thing: the people of the Médiathèque I intend to give the box doesn't know (for now) nothing about Linux and I wanted to spare them the manual su / tazpkg recharge && tazpkg upgrade. Something like update-notifier with normal user user rights would have been perfect (like in Fedora), but I've found nothing near in Slitaz.
So I (perhaps very poorly) wrote an upgrade script that I put as "xterm -e /opt/upgrade.sh" in the autostarted command of "/etc/slim.conf", so that I don't have to use sudo and that they HAVE TO keep this box updated (it's perhaps rude but nevertheless).

-upgrade.sh

#!/bin/sh
# /opt/upgrade.sh - mise à jour du système
#

tazpkg recharge |tee recharge.log

if [ "$(grep ^0 recharge.log)" !='0' ]; then
tazpkg upgrade
else
exit

Basically, after the login tazpkg refresh itself, then if there is 0 new packages, it closes and you're on your Desktop, else it goes on with tazpkg upgrade (I think so, as I have to wait now some new packages on the mirrors). As I don't know how to grep the 0 from the xterm, I tee it on a file, where I grep what I need...

So, I would be glad to hear any idea to get that better or if there any risks or unseen problems with that method.

That's all folks (for now), greetings to all the Slitaz community.

Fred

ernia

i'm running a self compiled firefox 3.6.10 in slitaz 3.0, i've build it with tazwok
http://hg.slitaz.org/tazwok/raw-file/tip/doc/tazwok.en.html
http://www.slitaz.org/en/doc/cookbook/
using the receipt from cooking and editing the receipt to have italian language support instead of french. you will need to build sqlite too.

fsw

Thanks for the tip,
I will try that & see if I can get Flash working with it.

ernia

flash should work wth midori too, did you install flash using the get-flashplugin script? you should "tazpkg get-install get-flashplugin" and then run get-flashplugin as root. it should work out of the box.
you need libfirefox installed to have flash working in midori, if you did not install the slitaz way you probably don't have libfirefox installed

fsw

I did exactly that & I have libfirefox-3.5.7 installed, but it didn't worked (instant crash with any Flash web page)!
It's perhaps because of the poor old small K6-3@400MHz, because Adobe talks about a minimum of 800MHz for Linux (http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/).

Anyway, I will try to "cook in the wok" (I love that =;) a recent Firefox & see what happens...
By the way, do I have to "re-cook" the libfirefox too?

ernia

you must copy firefox folder and all packages that have firefox as "wanted" to your personal wok. if i remember well you need firefox, firefox-dev and libfirefox to build firefox, sqlite and sqlite-dev to build sqlite.
in this way doing "tazwok cook firefox" you will build firefox-dev and libfirefox too, "tazwok cook sqlite" will build sqlite and sqlite-dev

fsw

OK, thanks a lot for the "ingredients".
For today, I think I will read carefully the docs you pointed me to ("cookbook" & "receipts") and tomorrow morning, after cooking my coffee, I will try to cook Firefox...

fsw

So, that's a really a "no go" trying to get Firefox & Flash on this poor old box!!!
I've made my wok ready, as indicated in the Cookbook (installing Slitaz-toolchain / mercurial / local clone of the wok) and gave it a try.

The answer was quick and brutal: "missing toolkit/mozapps/installer/packager.mk".
I've search a bit about this error, and, as I found nothing, I gave up after noticing that Firefox 3.6.12 & Midori 0.2.8 are in Cooking.

So, I made a "tazpkg set-release cooking" and upgraded, just to see (first only Firefox, but with the lot of dependencies, I ended upgrading the whole system, just to be sure) and installed again Flash.

Firefox crashes with a segfault and Midori with an illegal instruction!

Not a problem after all, I will made a new fresh install from stable (+ my few own mods) and tell the people that it is not able to handle correctly Flash enabled web sites, but all others without trouble...

Thanks again @ernia for your help, it was worth trying it & the wok is a great tool (even if it didn't woked out in this case =;)

ernia

if you install the firefox from cooking it would require some libs from cooking and you are very likely to break your system, if you build it in your 3.0 box it will be built against your libs, and it will work.
did you copy firefox's stuff folder in your personal wok?
i did not notice the firefox upgrade, probably i will try to build it in 3.0, just to give it a try, but not in short terms, i'm a little busy in these days.
i could give you my packages but i think that your problem is very likely due to flasplugin's system reqs.

fsw

> if you install the firefox from cooking it would require some libs from cooking and you are very likely to break your system,

Man, I broke it very well =;) but I don't care, because that was my "test fly" with Slitaz and it is so easy to install & configure that I will install a fresh 3.0 "STABLE" again, with all the hints I've learned. Just sad for OpenOffice (that was looong with 400MHz), but anyway...

> if you build it in your 3.0 box it will be built against your libs, and it will work.
Sadly, I've tried when Slitaz was still Stable and, boom :"The answer was quick and brutal: "missing toolkit/mozapps/installer/packager.mk". End of the compilation, end of the game...

> did you copy firefox's stuff folder in your personal wok?

This"stuff" thing is one that I didn't get really right, even after reading carefully the Cookbook! Where do I get the firefox's stuff folder?

> i could give you my packages but i think that your problem is very likely due to flasplugin's system reqs.

I think too, that's why I'm giving up the idea, but thanks for the offer (and your help too).

Cheers.

ernia

in the wok dir you will find folders named as the program that is possible to build. these folders contain the receipt file and sometime a "stuff" folder where unusual things needed to build the package (patches, langpack files, desktop files and so on) are stored.
firefox has a stuff folder, and it will probably be different from stable to cooking, so you better copy the whole firefox dir from cooking wok to your personal wok.
your error in building firefox could be due to this problem.
did you try flash-plugin in another machine? if you have enough ram you can boot live and install flash-plugin to check it. you could build packages this way or doing an hd install in an external usb disk and boot from it when you want slitaz leaving your main o.s. untouched.

fsw

I just wanted to have a look at Firefox in the cooking wok, but it seems that some of Slitaz web sites are temporary down again (hg.slitaz.org, doc.slitaz.org & even www.slitaz.org) but, luckily not the forums =;)

Nevertheless, I did have a successful run of Flash Player with Midori on an another box (2x Intel Pentium III@500MHz) with the Live-CD, so Midori is really not the culprit here...

Because I've found these links:
http://www.netdip.com/ubuntu-10-04-amd64-flash-illegal-instruction-error-solved-1ir/
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=268336
http://www.debian-fr.org/crash-iceweasel-3-5-5-epiphany-a-l-ouverture-de-pages-web-t24881.html (last post)
I see than even on 64bits Beta Flash Player, some older 64bits CPU without a specific instructions sets get that "illegal instruction"!
So my theory is that Adobe dropped the support of i586 (like my K6-III) and compiled it with an instructions set that are only supported by i686 (like my (2x Intel Pentium III)...

Anyway I've already reinstalled a Stable Slitaz on the K6-III box and will wait that swfdec moves out from wok-undigest to give it a try...
I think Gnash isn't an option for now, as the support isn't still that good (and I didn't even see it in the wok):
"Gnash is based on GameSWF, and supports most SWF v7 features and some SWF v8 and v9. SWF v10 is not supported by GNU Gnash."

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