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klaus2008
09-18-2011, 12:08 PM
Klaus Knopper has published a new Knoppix version: KNOPPIX 6.7.1 / ADRIANE 1.4 - Live CD / DVD (http://knopper.net/knoppix/knoppix671-en.html)

utu
09-19-2011, 11:03 PM
These comments are based on my brief recent acquaintance with the
Knoppix 6.7.1 LiveCD and LiveUSB built from the LiveCD.
I got my non-Adriane English iso at
ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/knoppix/

Klaus' 6.7.1 is certainly a very generous upgrade of Knoppix 6.7.
A major consideration, I think, may have been going back to IceWeasel
for reasons affecting the Adriane suite of programs. In so doing,
however, Klaus has somehow retained an avenue to obtain Chromium
if desired and upgraded many key elements of the distribution
at the same time.

The new distro has a 3.0.4 Linux kernel, a 6.0.2 IceWeasel browser,
LibreOffice 3.4.3 with all its bells & whistles and Adriane 1.4-4.
Mine boots to on-line in 59 seconds, same as Win7 start-up time
on this laptop.

In making my LiveUSB, I chose not to re-format my 6.7 LiveUSB. This
may be the reason that my 'Install Components' does not offer to d/l
additional fonts. I had these fonts on the 6.7, now I don't, and
I don't have the option to install them either. What I gained was a
small benefit of not having to re-install a few comfort-files I usually
keep on mnt-system side of the USB. My advice: do the re-formatting.

My Synaptic says Chromium is 'installed', but Chromium-Browser is not.
I suspect there's not room enough for both Chromium and IceWeasel
browsers on a normal CD which also has LibreOffice with all its extras.

Werner P. Schulz
09-20-2011, 09:55 PM
I like the panel at the top of the screen. But if I select 'Panel preferences => Position: top', I have no LXDE menu, only an empty frame at the left edge from bottom. This doesn't occur with 'Position: left, right or bottom'

There is no difference, when I upgrade the LXDE stuff from stable to testing.

Greetings Werner * http://www.wp-schulz.de/knoppix/summary.html
Own Rescue-CD with Knoppix (Knoppix V6.7.1 remaster)

Werner P. Schulz
09-28-2011, 09:14 AM
... nobody with this LXDE menu error (http://www.wp-schulz.de/.images/LXDE-Menu-Error.png)?

utu
09-28-2011, 03:51 PM
Hi, Werner

I confirmed your observation when first posted;
however, I like mine at the bottom, so I didn't comment then.
Sorry.

I'm sure KK would like to know.

Werner P. Schulz
09-28-2011, 09:26 PM
Thank you for your information.

I think it is an error caused by Knoppix; in the LXDE forums nobody described this behaviour. In the meantime I also asked at "debian-knoppix@lists.debian.org". Perhaps KK or anyone else has a tip for me.

utu
09-29-2011, 04:10 PM
.
There are some upgrades available to Knoppix 6.7.1 now in Synaptic.

Since I use a smallish LiveUSB, I don't do wholesale updates.
I only do selective updates that I expect may have some significance.

I would expect that
IceWeasel 6-something to 7.0-1 is probably is worth switching-to; but
LibreOffice update from 1.3.4.3-1 to 1.3.4.3-2 may not be worth the effort.
Just judging by the version syntax.

I note that
NetworkManager update from 0.8.4.0-2 to 0.9.0-2 is possible;
I hope someone will give us an informed opinion on this one.

Comments on other hidden gems, and other opinions are surely welcome here.

Werner P. Schulz
10-01-2011, 12:36 PM
I like the panel at the top of the screen. But if I select 'Panel preferences => Position: top', I have no LXDE menu, only an empty frame at the left edge from bottom.I've found the cause of this strange behaviour; it is the testing version of "lxpanel". After downgrade to stable version "0.5.6-1" I have the menu at my preferred position.

utu
10-01-2011, 03:30 PM
Hi, Werner.

This may be too late, but here goes:

Have you investigated the Desktop Preferences pop-up GUI to make your menu appear?
That is: Right-Click (on desktop)>Desktop Preferences>Advanced tab>Show Menus.

That might be worth a try.

Werner P. Schulz
10-01-2011, 04:23 PM
This doesn't show the menu at top and it is a well known bug (http://www.knoppix.net/forum/threads/29119-The-Stupidest-Thing-You-ll-Hear-Today?p=123237&viewfull=1#post123237).

ruymbeke
10-12-2011, 10:03 PM
Hello,
I have a problem with the bash recall line feature when used with Midnight commander in the background
and I was wondering if someone already found a solution or an explanation about what is going on:
The setup: start a teminal emulator shell, start Midnight Commander (mc), press ctrl-o to hide mc,
type a shell command like "ls", press ctrl-o again (to get the mc back), navigate into a folder and back
to exercise midnight commander (use arrows to go over a folder like ".adobe", press enter to go into it
and enter again to go back to the previous level), press ctrl-o to hide mc, use the up arrow to get
the previous command typed (should be "ls") but instead some garbage shows up like:
cd "`printf "%b" '\0057home\0057knoppix'`"
and if you keep pressing the "up" arrows key you will get some more garbage until you eventually
get the expected last command typed (ls). This problem already appeared in previous versions
of Knoppix and is very annoying (at least to me) as I use this feature a lot.
Please respond if you have a solution or can provide some clue about how to fix it.
Thanks,
Gilles

utu
10-12-2011, 11:47 PM
Hi, Gilles.

My guess is that mc has a small syntax error in the line you call garbage.

There are lots of possibilities, for one thing; and for another, the
syntax doesn't agree with what man printf would lead you to expect.

/usr/bin/mc is binary, so I guess you'd have to look at the source to see
if changing \0057 to \u0057 in two places there solves this problem.

If it does, there are probably more similar errors, maybe due to some
change in conventions.

Werner P. Schulz
10-13-2011, 12:27 AM
Debian uses the lines

# don't put duplicate lines in the history. See bash(1) for more options
# don't overwrite GNU Midnight Commander's setting of `ignorespace'.
export HISTCONTROL=$HISTCONTROL${HISTCONTROL+,}ignoredups
# ... or force ignoredups and ignorespace
export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth
I wrote this lines in '/etc/bash.bashrc' and deactivated the line

export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups
I will watch it for some days within Knoppix, but it seems, it solves the problem.

Greetings Werner * http://www.wp-schulz.de/knoppix/summary.html
Own Rescue-CD (Knoppix V6.7.1 remaster)

ruymbeke
10-13-2011, 06:35 AM
Hi Werner,
Replacing "export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups" by
"export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth" in the file "/etc/bash.bashrc" fixes it.
Thank you very much !

In a similar register, if you type "set" in a root shell you get some garbage at the end
(most likely some left over from a bogus script). Before I spend any more time to look for
that script to fix, do you or someone else already have a solution ?
Best Regards,
Gilles

Werner P. Schulz
10-13-2011, 05:46 PM
In a similar register, if you type "set" in a root shell you get some garbage at the end
(most likely some left over from a bogus script).It dependes on activating or not of the three lines in '/etc/bash.bashrc' after

# enable bash completion in interactive shellsWithin Debian this part is deactivated in '/etc/bash.bashrc' and therefore also for root. But each of the users have a file '/home/xyz/.bashrc' and this mentioned part within, but activated.

Greetings Werner * http://www.wp-schulz.de/knoppix/summary.html
Own Rescue-CD (Knoppix V6.7.1 remaster)

ruymbeke
10-14-2011, 06:51 AM
Hi Werner,
Again thank you very much !
Yes disabling or renaming the script "/etc/bash_completion"
to something else like "/etc/bash_completion.old" fixes it.

According to some mailing list it is a feature for the the script
"bash_completion" to add the bash functions to the shell variables.
It is kind of surprising to me but this is not considered as a bug...
Best Regards,
Gilles

ericguo
10-15-2011, 10:33 AM
Run in LXTerminal:

lxpanelctl config
click the appears to top, there is no bug.

utu
10-15-2011, 03:30 PM
Greetings, ericguo

If your comment is in regard to Werner's post #3,
the issue is whether or not the MENU is operative for
the lxpanel located at the top of the screen.

I have confirmed Werber's initial observation that
it is NOT operative.

Can you clarify whether or not you disagree on this?

ruymbeke
10-16-2011, 07:52 PM
Hello,
It looks like that Knoppix 6.7.1 is missing the header files in the /usr/include/[bits,gnu,sys] folders.
Copying these folders from Knoppix 6.7.0 fixes it. Gcc/ld may also be missing something in order to
compile 64 bits binaries (the pi benchmark as an example: http://h2np.net/pi/pi_record_e.html)
First the 64 bits libraries need to be installed: "sudo apt-get -y --reinstall install amd64-libs-dev"
and downgrade gcc from 4.6 to 4.4: "pushd /usr/bin; sudo mv gcc gcc.old; sudo ln -s gcc-4.4 gcc; popd".
FYI, trying to use gcc 4.6 (the default) instead of gcc 4.4 (downgrade) provides the following error:

gcc -O2 -pedantic -m64 conftest.c
/usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.6.1/libgcc.a when searching for -lgcc
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc
/usr/bin/ld: skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.6.1/libgcc_s.so when searching for -lgcc_s
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lgcc_s
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

What is the best way to fix gcc/ld 4.6 ?
Best Regards,
Gilles

klaus2008
10-17-2011, 01:34 AM
Hi Gilles,

I was able to compile and run the pi benchmark program on Knoppix 6.7.1 DVD after I had installed gcc-4.6-multilib and some other packages of the Debian unstable branch (sid).

Here is a short overview of my approach.

0. apt-get update

1. download new libc6, libc6-dev (unstable): apt-get -d -t sid install libc6 libc6-dev

2. switch to runlevel 2 to avoid complications with running applications: init 2

3. upgrade libc6:
chroot /UNIONFS/
apt-get -t sid install libc6 libc6-dev
exit

4. switch back to runlevel 5: init 5

5. apt-get -t sid --reinstall install libc6-dev-amd64 gcc-4.6-multilib lib64gcc1

6. download and extract pi_quick_start.tar.gz

7. change to the new directory pi_quick_start

8. edit the file start.sh: find the two lines beginning with "cc" and replace "cc" with "gcc -m64"

9. set environment variable CFLAGS: export CFLAGS=-m64

10. run the script: ./start.sh


Best Regards

ruymbeke
10-17-2011, 08:38 AM
Hi Klaus,
Your steps are working great, thank you very much !
(I should stop using synaptic and better start using apt-get...)
Best Regards,
Gilles

utu
10-22-2011, 10:43 PM
I've found the cause of this strange behaviour; it is the testing version of "lxpanel". After downgrade to stable version "0.5.6-1" I have the menu at my preferred position.

@ Werner

PCLinuxOS has another work-around at post #15 of this thread:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,95512.15.html

Cheers,

utu
10-23-2011, 04:02 AM
@ Werner

There is also an lxmenu (empty menu) work-around on the LXDE wiki that may interest you at:
http://wiki.lxde.org/en/LXPanel#gxine_menu_icon_fix

ruymbeke
10-29-2011, 02:33 AM
Hello,
Does anyone know why compiling a source tree as "root" is much slower than as the default "Knoppix" user ?
(by just using "su" before starting the make). Top indicates a much higher percentage of system call (%sy)
with root than Knoppix and as such there is not much time left for the user apps (%us). Any idea how to fix it ?
(I know it is usually a bad idea to compile as root anyway but in some cases root is required...)
Thanks,
Gilles

kl522
10-29-2011, 04:43 AM
Hello,
Does anyone know why compiling a source tree as "root" is much slower than as the default "Knoppix" user ?
(by just using "su" before starting the make). Top indicates a much higher percentage of system call (%sy)
with root than Knoppix and as such there is not much time left for the user apps (%us). Any idea how to fix it ?
(I know it is usually a bad idea to compile as root anyway but in some cases root is required...)
Thanks,
Gilles

Personally I am not so convinced that compiling things as root will be slower, unless the makefiles do additional things when detecting compiling as root verses normal users. In any case, if one compiles something repeatedly, the speed can be improved by installing/configuring 'ccache'. Therefore if compile as root is indeed slower, perhaps the cache has not been setup for 'root' ? It's easy to verify that, just check if there is a .ccache folder for /home/knoppix. If the folder exists, meaning likely you have been using ccache without realizing it.

ruymbeke
10-29-2011, 06:17 AM
Hi kl522,
I do clear ccache: "ccache -C; ccache -z" and do a "make distclean" before the "make"
to have a fair comparison between the root and knoppix user. It is actually a cross-compile
but I don't think that it makes any difference...
Best Regards,
Gilles

kl522
10-29-2011, 07:40 AM
Hi kl522,
It is actually a cross-compile
but I don't think that it makes any difference...


The ccache may not support your cross-compile, you have to check if the "non-ccache" compiler binary name is one of those having the same name as one of those in /usr/lib/ccache. If the binary you used for cross-compile is not any of those, then too bad, debian ccache package does not support your cross-compile.

ruymbeke
10-29-2011, 08:31 AM
Hi Kl522,
I do run my test both with and without ccache. As expected, running twice or more with ccache provides some speed improvement.
But at this point I do not care much about ccache. The problem that I try to understand is the time difference when compiling as root
or as the knoppix user. Or in other words, in both cases (with or without ccache) running as root is much slower than with the user Knoppix.
Thanks for your help. Best Regards,
Gilles

kl522
10-29-2011, 03:44 PM
The problem that I try to understand is the time difference when compiling as root
or as the knoppix user. Or in other words, in both cases (with or without ccache) running as root is much slower than with the user Knoppix.


Without disclosing any of your proprietary work/sources, are you able to provide with a test-case of compiling as root is slower than compiling as knoppix user ?

ruymbeke
11-02-2011, 09:06 AM
Hi Kl522,
After trying to reproduce the problem with some sample code and a toolchain publicly available
I found out that the problem is linked to the Code Sourcery ARM toolchain (full license).
Or in other words the problem disappear when the lite version is used. I did post a support
request with Code Sourcery as this problem is most likely not linked to Knoppix at all.
Thanks for your help, case closed.
Best Regards,
Gilles