evaluating Slitaz 5 weekly

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evaluating Slitaz 5 weekly

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Started 9 years ago by escaper
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escaper

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Good Day Slitaz Community.
I registered to ask only a few questions about the new version 5.
I was looking for a small Linux distro on Distrowatch, and it came out also Slitaz.
I evaluated also Tinycore, but I really hated that flwm desktop and its related effects.
Instead I really love the Openbox desktop approach you have in Slitaz, so I hope I can settle here.

First of all, is that disappearing mouse some kind of feature we can disable for good?
My mouse disappears _EVERY_ time I click 1 time (one left click) with the mouse, always and everywhere on the desktop, and when hoovering on icons and the tooltip appears, mouse disappears.
That effect is really very annoying and confusing, so for curiosity I tried your old version 4, and there the mouse does not disappear, so it is not an issue of my video, how can we fix that?

Second, sometimes I need to dump frames from the usb ports, so I need usbmon. I noticed you have usbmon as module, but you don't have debugfs enabled in kernel. Module usbmon requires debugfs, so what's the point in shipping usbmon as module without debugfs? How can I enable debugfs (without recompiling the kernel)?

Third, as before, I need to dump frames from usb ports, and I use Wireshark for that. But I noticed the package of Wireshark in your version 4 is very outdated. Do you have a newer Wireshark compiled for version 5?

Forth, wireless modules, this is probably also because of my ignorance (?), sometimes I use different wifi cards, one excluding each other, blacklisting is not doable for me. So, how can we disable completely the feature of automatic wifi module probe at boot?

Well, I have more questions, but lets start with those more important first.
Many thanks for your answers.

Posted 9 years ago #
mojo

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Your mouse cursor disappearing sounds similar to a bug in xorg-video-fbdev described
here : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-fbdev/+bug/1034470
Slitaz 5.0 live cd has xorg-xf86-video-fbdev and xorg-xf86-video-vesa video drivers.

Force Slitaz 5 to boot with vesa by highlighting Slitar core Live hitting the tab key at the boot menu, add nomodeset after autologin. Hit Enter to boot.
Check /var/log/Xorg.0.log to to verify vesa driver is in use.
Does mouse cursor disappear with vesa driver?
Boot into slitaz-4.0 with same hardware, check Xorg.0.log to identify video driver.
Install same driver while booted into slitaz-5.0 log out/in X-session to load new driver.
Post the output from lspci -nn in a reply so we can identify your hardware.

Use same method as adding nomodeset to prevent kernel modules from loading:
modprobe.blacklist=modname1,modname2,modname3

I don't have an answer for your other questions.

Posted 9 years ago #
escaper

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Ok - lets do it.
my mouse is only the default pad in the laptop, so for your convenience, I made few tests more, but it was really annoying, because I always had to remember where the mouse pointer was before disappear!

FIRST) I tried version 5 with and without "nomodeset", and to be sure, I setup a USB key formatted FAT+syslinux, and set the parameter directly inside syslinux.cfg.
Nothing changed, in both cases Xorg.0.log shows:
VESA(0): VESA VBE Version 3.0
and at the end configures a PS/2 Logitech mouse to /dev/input/mouse0
About lspci says:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Atom Processor D2xxx/N2xxx Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0be1] (rev 0b)

Then I tried version 4, there I see more different files about, which are not in version 5:
Xorg.0.log, Xorg.1.log , Xorg.2.log, xorg.configure.log
For example, Xorg.2.log says:
VESA(0): VESA VBE Version 3.0
and at the end: "Xorg detected your mouse at device /dev/input/mice"
About lspci says:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Cedarview Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0be1] (rev 0b)

As I see, in both versions 4 and 5 always VESA is detected, but the log files are different, also mouse is detected in different dev, and also the VGA name is detected different in both versions.

Some more interesting to notice was that:
just after boot, the mouse is stable, doesn't disappear, I could open many apps, still the mouse kept stable.
But as soon as I clicked on Trash or Documentation on the Desktop, or run PCManFM, or open any file using File>Open in Leafpad, the mouse goes nuts, and everywhere disappears, no matter on what windows/program is focused.
Even tried to change some Preferences, Openbox, Monitor Settings, Appearences, so to try triggering some kind of graphics reconf, but nothing worked - only reboot.

SECOND) As for modprobe.blacklist option, as I said blacklist doesn't do for me, because after boot when I disconnect one wifi and want to connect another present in the blacklist, operation not permitted error.
I'm very open to modify any boot script or whatever is needed to disable auto wifi probe at boot, just that, is it possible?

THIRD) A new issue I noticed this time was, PCManFM on version 5 did not detect the USB pendrive from which it booted.
While version 4 detected it all right, and I could mount&unmount it no problems.
Is there any way to sync PCManFM behaviors of version 5, with the good ones of version 4?

Posted 9 years ago #
llev

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1st) Maybe try to install xorg-xf86-video-intel and add this to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
```
Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Intel"
        Driver      "intel"
EndSection
```
then log out and log in back (this restarts X)

2nd) If you disable wifi probing altogether, you will have to manually load modules. So why not simply unload the boot-loaded one before loading the other?

3rd) Does the device still exist after boot? Do: ls /dev/disk/by-id and check if you see your pendrive. If not, try unplugging and plugging it back to wake up the kernel ;-)
If you do, try the same to wake up PCmanFM!
Posted 9 years ago #
escaper

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Thanks for the answer:
1) I found xorg-xf86-video-intel-2.15.0.tazpkg , but it is in the repo for version 4.
Will it work in version 5?
Also, the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf does not exist in version 5.
But it exists a directory called /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
Should I create a new file? /etc/X11/xorg.conf? or /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/xorg.conf ?

2) sometimes it works as you say, but most of the times I get errors and system crashes, I guess it is due to bad quality drivers.
Can you please tell us how to disable wifi probing altogether?

3) Yes, I tried, if I unplug and plug in again, the USB gets visible, then I mount, but when I unmount it, it simply disappears again from the list.
Mouse disappears, drive disappears, your version 5 is all about something disappears - just kidding! ;-)

Posted 9 years ago #
escaper

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UPDATE: I started checking out another recent linux distro with lxde+openbox, there Xorg.0.log and lspci output are practically the same, same mouse dev, same video name, same vesa, but mouse is very stable and also PCManFM works great.
Unfortunately that distro is too big for my needs, so I still hope Slitaz will be able to fix those issues.
I don't know, maybe could be some microscopic detail you missed/cut-out optimizing openbox+PCManFM in this version 5, which instead you set correctly in version 4?

Posted 9 years ago #
llev

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Hi,

First, note that I'm no dev, I'm "Member", not "Key Master" ;-)

1) I have xorg-xf86-video-intel-2.21.9 from ST5 repo. Did you do "tazpkg recharge"?
http://pkgs.slitaz.org/search.sh?package=xorg-xf86-video-intel

2) I don't know.

3) I get the same behaviour as you with PCmanFM. Maybe you could try SpaceFM?

Posted 9 years ago #
Trixar_za

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Key Master

No, it's a bug that's in Openbox and PCManFM and has been fixed for nearly 2 years now. The reason it's still present in SliTaz is because the packages are out of date. Installing the xorg driver doesn't do anything to correct it.

Posted 9 years ago #
escaper

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Thanks for the honest answers ;-)

I installed xorg-xf86-video-intel, created new file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and reboot.
"modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'i915': No such device".
In Xorg.0.log it says the driver is loaded correctly (somehow), gives a long list of intel cards supported.
But even manual modprobe i915 returns error.
I googled around, it seems a notorious bug with intel drivers in kernel 3.2, solved after kernel 3.8.

Also I don't think that is the cause of the disappearing mouse, because in the version 4, it uses the default VESA driver and all is right.

But still, that bug could rise a question to the "Key Master": why base new version 5 on such old (and bugged) kernel 3.2 , while the latest stable is already 3.19whatever?

When those outdated packages will be updated in version 5?
Thanks

Posted 9 years ago #
llev

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I don't have a disappearing mouse pointer, and I'm using the default lxsession+openbox "system".
Also the intel driver is loaded flawlessly (but maybe it's not compatible to your card).

Posted 9 years ago #
sixofeight

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@ escaper
I just want to say that you're not alone.I have the same mouse pointer
problems with a nvidia card / nouveau driver.

Posted 9 years ago #
escaper

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Member

@sixofeight thanks for your solidarity ;-)

Anyway, the words of a "Key Master" are enough clear I guess, the bugs are real, and the fixes are ready from 2 years, but were not applied.
There is no point to test a distro which is already known to have bugs.
As for me, I'm done testing Slitaz version 5, eventually Slitaz programmers will have time to update the packages.

Posted 9 years ago #

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