Quick questions: Xvesa vs Xorg, fluff, touchpad, etc.

[nitram]

Just a few quick questions, only simple answers required, which i suspect will be no, no and no

Screen resolution query: I have an old ~2000 era motherboard with onboard intel graphics. Maximum workable resolution achieved with Xvesa and Xorg is only 800x600. 915resolution didn't help (output indicates hardware not supported). IIRC Xfbdev gave black screen. Xorg on 800x600 is choppy using vesa driver and the TC-6 xf86-video-intel driver fails startx. Here's the hardware [edit]:  VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82810 DC-100 (CGC) Chipset Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]).

I would really like to get better resolution on this system, which has always been problematic with *nix, although Puppy Precise and Ubuntu 10.04 intel drivers provide resolution >1152x768 with enough xorg tweaking. Already spent a lot of time on various xorg.conf configurations. Don't want to add a PCI graphic card as the system multiboots with numerous other OSs that work perfectly. Noteworthy to mention that when running Xvesa, manually changing .xsession resolution to something like 1152x768x16 provided awesome resolution (would be thrilled), but the screen became so dark it was almost non-functional. Any other ideas?

Fluff file manager: Small install which is great but comes with limitations and bugs. Any hints would be great, otherwise might just use Rox. When browsing folders, Fluff often opens new folders at the bottom with files out of view, having to rescroll to the top - any fix? It does not appear Fluff is still being developed? I don't see any simple way to create new file, so i right-click to open terminal, touch newfile, close terminal and then can use editor - cumbersome?

Netbook touchpad scrolling: TC-6 with Xvesa on my HP-mini is awesome, except no right edge vertical touchpad scroll. Don't want Xorg bloat although i do miss my custom synaptics touchpad config. Any way to get this feature with Xvesa. Already tried the psmouse boot command without success. The touchpad is also a tad sensitive.

[curaga]

- the darkness is usually too little VRAM allocated by the BIOS. Check if there's an option to give it more memory. Xorg can allocate more than what the BIOS gave, which is why it's not affected.
- i810 is no longer supported by Intel itself, and the official driver no longer even tries any acceleration on it.
- Xvesa does not support special synaptics features.

Fluff's author hasn't been active in a while (MikeLockmoore), but you could PM him and ask. I know you said you don't want to add a PCI gpu, but given the state of the i810 on all OSes, a Matrox or Ati card would give a better user experience everywhere. They're likely available for a dollar or two.

[core-user]

@nitram
mc might suit you better as a file manager, built in editor, or your choice, & it has lots of configurables, just no drag & drop, but has easy copy or move functionality.

[nitram]

Thanks for responses.

@curaga: Unfortunately no BIOS options regarding VRAM/graphics...very old/cheap motherboard. I will probably install a pci card this spring/summer after my Ubuntu 10.04 install is EOL. For now just using Xvesa on a 19" CRT @ 800x600. Very old school, kinda grows on you actually. Good enough for TC learning, forums and browsing. That was my impression regarding Xvesa and the touchpad, thanks for clarifying. Already getting used to work-arounds and keyboard shortcuts for efficiency. PM sent to Mike regarding Fluff, but i am doubtful as he has not been active on the forum since spring 2014. Too bad, with just a few tweaks and bug fixes it could be a great default file manager.

@core-user: Thanks for the mc recommendation but i previously trialed gnome commander and found it too complicated. Presently trialing xfe but always go back to simple Fluff. Got used to Rox when using Puppy and may download that today. TC really makes me realize how quickly software choices can bloat a system.

[coreplayer2]

Fluff file manager: Small install which is great but comes with limitations and bugs. Any hints would be great, otherwise might just use Rox. When browsing folders, Fluff often opens new folders at the bottom with files out of view, having to rescroll to the top - any fix? It does not appear Fluff is still being developed? I don't see any simple way to create new file, so i right-click to open terminal, touch newfile, close terminal and then can use editor - cumbersome?

First, Fluff is awesome
Second, Fluff is awesome :p

Fluff often opens new folders at the bottom with files out of view

A resolution issue..?  I think you'll find that trying a higher resolution will resolve your issue as it did for me.

I don't see any simple way to create new file

Off the top of my head there are at least four methods to create new files
1. " Alt + T " will bring up a terminal in the current directory, then as you said earlier "touch newfile.txt" will create a new file

2.  select a previously created default newfile in the right window pane and select copy and paste buttons to create a newfile.txt(copy) in the current directory

3. open your editor of choice and select "New File" or " Ctrl + N " for example in l3afpad

4. Easiest method; open your editor of choice and select "Save As" to save the current newfile in the selected directory

I'm sure i could think of more ways to create a newfile, simply need to look a little harder..

[nitram]

Agreed, it is Fluffilistic.

Amazing what can be accomplished with such a small footprint.

Thanks for the tips. Alt-T shortcut, didn't know that. I've already been using the quick copy/paste cheat - pretty slick just need to rename the file afterward (F2).

My netbook has good resolution (1024x576) vs the 800x600 desktop mentioned above, but Fluff still occasionally opens up folders at the bottom of the list view - are you using Xvesa?

Would be nice if Fluff had a compact or icon view, as i rarely need all the extra info (permissions, size, date) and it requires long directory lists and the output of often unnecessary data.

Just discovered Mike's Fluff page:
https://sites.google.com/site/lockmoorecoding/downloads/fluff

For newcomers like me who are slow at discovery, the Help button along the top of Fluff has lots of useful information, including keyboard shortcuts.

[coreplayer2]

I boot multiple tc variations/architectures on each of my PC's.   I use Xorg @ 1920x1080 & 1920x1200 mostly, but some installs use Xvesa @ 1600x1200x16 resolution, as used in my current tc6-x86 desktop install

[coreplayer2]

I suspect this

resolution (1024x576) vs the 800x600

is the issue

[nitram]

Morning coreplayer2.

I agree it's a resolution issue, as a higher resolution would not likely require the vertical scroll bar to be drawn in for longer lists. Having said that, i never experienced this in the older low resolution computing days (win95, ubuntu) in any file manager before. So to me it's a bug 

Also notice that Fluff will lock up, requiring xkill, and even lock the entire computer when the /proc (not /mnt/proc) folder is selected from the file tree. In case it's reproducible on your system, don't try this until you've saved and are ready to shut down. Sometimes everything locks, can't ctrl-alt-del or alt-tab to another application...so it actually makes TC-6 unstable. Aterm browses the folder no problem. If this is reproducible it needs to be addressed.

Would be nice if the file tree autoclosed opened folders when selecting another to keep the tree compact.

The new file creation methods you outlined all work but require multiple steps or opening additional software simply to create a new file when an incorporated keyboard shortcut like alt-n would suffice.

Don't want to come across as being disagreeable, just providing user feedback. I really appreciate the efforts of the TC team. Modern software users can be finicky and sometimes a few little issues are enough for a new user to drop a distribution. Fluff is, after all, TC-6s default file manager so it reflects on the whole distribution. Wish i was a developer or programmer, but am not so i will just try to give feedback where applicable and do my part to better the distribution. If i come across a work around for some of these issues i will re-post to help others.

Take care - marty

[Misalf]

In some cases of bad hangups I find REISU(B) very helpful:

Code: [Select]

#### Kernel SysRq
## un-raw kybd:   ALT+SysRq + R
## sigterm all:   ALT+SysRq + E
## sigkill all:   ALT+SysRq + I
## sync all fs:   ALT+SysRq + S
## re-mount ro:   ALT+SysRq + U
## reboot hard:   ALT+SysRq + B

If it's not totally frozen, there should be no need for  ALT+SysRq + U/B . Just  startx  again.

[nitram]

Thanks for the response but the REISUB method did not work either. System totally frozen. No mouse control, no alt-tab, no ctrl-alt-del, nothing. Had to do a hard/power button shutdown

[curaga]

Fluff is, after all, TC-6s default file manager so it reflects on the whole distribution.

We don't really have default $PROGRAMs like file managers, one of the promises of TC is that you can choose which you like. Fluff is not installed by default, nor included in any ISO.

[Rich]

We don't really have default $PROGRAMs like file managers, ...

Well, there is  editor, unless it's been removed since TC4.

[nitram]

@curaga: Sorry about that, you are correct. Just installed Fluff immediately after setup and forgot it wasn't included.

@Rich: I believe editor is part of default TC-6...and aterm.

[curaga]

Yeah, they're both in the ISOs. Aterm was made removable in tc 5 IIRC, and while the editor cannot be removed easily, its icon can be, and it only takes a few kb.