PCLinuxOS Openbox Bonsai 2011 for test

[jlf001]

Hi All,

I can confirm the LiveCD shutdown/reboot problem with the current full OpenBox Test LiveCD, however, I've yet to burn a current OpenBox Bonsai Test LiveCD.  Note that I don't have this problem with a full OpenBox Test hard drive install using the current bfs kernel.  All works as expected.

Jeff

Edit: No problems with my VirtualBox installs either.

[MrBill]

I already had the openbox full 2011.6.19 test version installed to the hard drive of the PIII-1000/512mb cumputer, and it did have the shutdown problem--same as when run from the livecd.

I installed the kernel "2.6.38.8.pclos1" (not the one "2.6.38.8.pclos-bfs").  There were others listed in synaptic, is this the one I should try?  Please be patient with me because I have little experience with linux.

I rebooted and now my grub menu had another entry "2.6.38.8-pclos1".  But apparently, when you install a new kernel from synaptic it replaces the old initrd.img in the boot directory with a new one, and even the original grub menu entry now points to the last kernel that I installed.  Can someone tell me if this is correct?  (using "uname -a" from terminal now shows "2.6.38.8-pclos" after I boot either grub entry.)

Anyway about the shutdown/reboot behavior. . . .The first time I rebooted to new grub entry, the problem was still there.  The second time,  no problem -- the machine shutdown completely.  The third time, problem is there again.  Now after many reboots using both grub menu entries I got one successful shutdown but mostly still have reboot problem.  Sorry, cannot recall which grub entry I booted on the second successful shutdown, but I am confident both entries are booting the same non-bfs kernel.

Comments anyone?

[gseaman]

You are correct that the generic PCLinuxOS line in grub, boots the newest kernel. Successful booting only once means to me that this is not related to the bfs kernel, but is the 2.6.38 kernel, with or without bfs. Thanks for testing!

Galen

[MrBill]

Galen,

I think so too but maybe someone else should try before we say for sure.

Just for another point of information, I am having the reboot problem also with a test version of E17 done by smurfslover and running from livecd.  The kernel in that one is 2.6.38.4-pclos1.bfs.

--Bill

[Taco.22]

Well now I'm getting confused.   Without my asking Synaptic uninstalled the 2.6.38-BFS version when I installed the 2.6.37 version.  I didn't think it was supposed to do that   I have now installed 2.6.38.8-pclos1 to see if it duplicates the reboot issue, but it refuses to write to menu.lst.  I have rebooted a number of times but it won't show up in the boot menu.  I don't know - I knew there was a reason why I have been sticking with the earlier kernel.

EDIT - just as an aside, there seems to a similar issue at http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,93138.0.html regarding installation issues.

[Yankee]

Hello,

Trying out the Bonsai test version tonight.   Have it fully installed on a flash drive.
Doesn't stall on reboot or shutdown with light usage.   Nice design, layout, etc..

Only thing that scares me is the desktop preferences for the right-click.   If I check
that off by accident the machine would be without controls.   Otherwise it looks
ready to load up some programs and further test things.

Have a good one and thanks for the new iso.

[MrBill]

Taco, maybe someone with more knowledge than I can hep.  Maybe you accidentally told synaptic to remove the other kernel?  Or, maybe it worked and if you boot your original grub entry it will boot the new kernel.

After I installed the 2.6.38.8-pclos1 kernal and rebooted, I had a new grub entry, but even the old grub entry booted to the last installed kernal.  And if I look in /boot directory, now I have config-, initrd-, kernel.h-, System.map-, and vmlinuz- files for each kernal.

Since I learned how to change the kernal, I went ahead and installed 2.6.37.4-pclos1.bfs and it works as it should with no shutdown problem.  The 2.6.38.8 (non-bfs) still had the problem on my machine.

[MrBill]

Ferdes, Can you confirm that you can shutdown, leave the machine alone for 20 seconds, and it does not reboot with your flash drive install?  What are your machine's specs?  Did you try a livecd? Thanks.

Jeff,  Yours is interesting--different behavior with the livecd and the hard drive install.  It would be interesting to see if you get the same results with the Bonsai test version.
--Bill

[Taco.22]

Only thing that scares me is the desktop preferences for the right-click.   If I check
that off by accident the machine would be without controls.   Otherwise it looks
ready to load up some programs and further test things.

The pref. file is /home/your_name/.config/pcmanfm/default/pcmanfm.conf.  If you managed to do the above drop to a console (Ctrl-Alt-F1) and cd to that file and edit it with something like nano.  The line should read "show_wm=1" to display menu.  Ctrl-Alt-F8 gets you back to GUI.

MrBill - I didn't uninstall the kernel.  I'm a bit wary of that sort of thing since I borked my Blackcat remaster by doing that inappropriately  

[Yankee]

Ferdes, Can you confirm that you can shutdown, leave the machine alone for 20 seconds, and it does not reboot with your flash drive install?  What are your machine's specs?  Did you try a livecd? Thanks.

Haven't put the LiveCD in but the installed Bonsai shuts off OK, black screen, power off, and
stays off then.  This is an ASUS netbook with a 900mhz Celeron processor.   You might try
to reinstall it once if all else fails.   Without a completely clean partition sometimes an install
will act erratically.

Have a good one.

[Yankee]

The pref. file is /home/your_name/.config/pcmanfm/default/pcmanfm.conf.  If you managed to do the above drop to a console (Ctrl-Alt-F1) and cd to that file and edit it with something like nano.  The line should read "show_wm=1" to display menu.  Ctrl-Alt-F8 gets you back to GUI.

Was able to get in there with Midnight Commander's internal editor.  Works in the console OK.
Have to post this to memory somehow.   Still seems a more permanent setting might be better.

Thanks for the response.

[djohnston]

Melodie, thank you for your work on the Openbox distro.

When I go to PCC to set up the firewall, the script tells me that I must download the package mandi-ifw and the package shorewall.  This is no problem of course, but would it be better if these packages were already in the iso?  (I think this is the same also in your full version RC.)

Of course those are very minor things, ...

Sorry for dwelling on the minor things, rather than the shutdown issue. I'd like to add to the mandi-ifw and shorewall packages.

glib-networking  --  for web pages using SSL (for example, https://ssl.scroogle.org)
flash-player-plugin  -- for web browser support (which you may not want for Jumanji, I don't know)
mirage  --  for photo viewing (or something other than flphoto)

I had a problem with viewing a jpg with flphoto. The program viewed the graphics just fine. But, when trying to close flphoto, it gave me an album dialog box. I chose the "Don't save" (I don't remember the exact name of the button) option. The program then showed me a "save album" dialog. Cancelled out of that. Used the "Save" button, and nothing happened. Trying to close the window continually brought up the album dialog window. I finally chose "Don't save" again. Once again, it brought up the "save album" dialog. I made something up and saved it to the ~/tmp directory.

[melodie]

Sorry for dwelling on the minor things, rather than the shutdown issue. I'd like to add to the mandi-ifw and shorewall packages.

glib-networking  --  for web pages using SSL (for example, https://ssl.scroogle.org)
flash-player-plugin  -- for web browser support (which you may not want for Jumanji, I don't know)
mirage  --  for photo viewing (or something other than flphoto)

I had a problem with viewing a jpg with flphoto. The program viewed the graphics just fine. But, when trying to close flphoto, it gave me an album dialog box. I chose the "Don't save" (I don't remember the exact name of the button) option. The program then showed me a "save album" dialog. Cancelled out of that. Used the "Save" button, and nothing happened. Trying to close the window continually brought up the album dialog window. I finally chose "Don't save" again. Once again, it brought up the "save album" dialog. I made something up and saved it to the ~/tmp directory.

Hi, flphoto is a program meant to be able to access to the pictures, and save them to disk when you have some of the cameras type pict-something. It's not an image viewer. I suggest you use Viewnior, or another gqview, geequie...

You can add as many programs as you want for your own use. You can make a spinoff with what you need and keep it for all your installs. Bonsai is not a mini, it's a version meant to build (as easily as possible) your own on top of it.
If I could I would even make it smaller.

MrBill: Smurflover's E17 was build on top of last Bonsai, so I'm not yet sure there is not something missing in Bonsai. I'll download the last test kde and try it on the P4. But if you can try the former version, the 2.6.37.xx, on the latests test Bonsai and full that would be nice too.

Thanks to all,
Mélodie

[melodie]

Forgot : to all who test the shutdown issue, could you take note of the shutdown time, and once rebooted look at the logs, from the time you did the shutdown ?

logs are : /var/log/dmesg, /var/log/kernel/*, /var/log/messages

you can paste them to pastebin.com, and bring the links here.

Thanks.

[MrBill]

Melodie you are correct -- I forgot that the e17 test version used Bonsai as a base. . . .Just tried a different e17 livecd from user Linuxera with kernel 2.6.38.2-pclos1 and it does not have the shutdown problem. . . .

Yes I tried the 2.6.37.4-pclos1.bfs on the latest Openbox full (2011.6.13) and it works fine on my PIII.  I will be happy to try the old kernel in the Bonsai (2011.6.19).  Which should I use,  bfs or non-bfs?  And what the heck is "bfs" anyway?!