Gcompris not in app browser

[ChipJP]

Hi,

I've just started playing with Tiny Core today to get some life out of old computers at our school.

I'd really like to install the Gcompris education suite but I cant find it with any of the mirrors.

Does anyone know a way to get it? It seems it used to be there because I found an old post where someone installed it using the browser but I cant find it now.

[coreplayer2]

Hi ChipJP

You will find Gcompris in the TC-4.x repo  here http://packages.tinycorelinux.net/ from the Online browser which can also be found here http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,18294.0.html

given the size of the dep list you might find some deps have been updated since Gcompris was introduced, anyhow try the tc-7.x repo first for required deps

Worse case, gcompris may also need updating..

[ChipJP]

Thanks very much.

I found it but I cant see how to download it. Am I missing something?

[ChipJP]

Can I add the 4.x repo to the app browser?

[Rich]

Hi ChipJP
My recommendation is you install TC4.

Can I add the 4.x repo to the app browser?

No. Extensions can not be freely mixed between versions.

[ChipJP]

Ah I see,

is there much of a difference between the versions for performance? It's able to run flash games well enough through Firefox at the moment and I'd hate to lose that functionality.

Thank you very much for your help. I'll give it a go anyway. I'll install it later today.

[Rich]

Hi ChipJP
I've run TC3 and TC4 and never noticed a difference in performance. No idea about TC5 through TC7 though I doubt
there's any big difference.

[ChipJP]

Thank you very much for your prompt help!

I'll install it now.

One last thing. Is there anyway to update Gcompris for TC7? Is it something an inexperienced person can do? I had a look at the sections on converting .debs to PCEs and it seemed quite involved. Would updating be the same process?

Gcompris hasn't seemed to change in a long time so I wonder what would need updating.

[Juanito]

gcompris would need to be re-compiled for tc-7.x as the libraries it depends on have changed (libpng for example).

The gcompris extension maintainer is no longer active in the forums, so you may need to do it yourself (which would be a learning experience) 

[Rich]

Hi ChipJP

Gcompris hasn't seemed to change in a long time so I wonder what would need updating.

Different people have different views on updating software. Some people see a shiny new version number and take
the view that it's better and should be installed. Personally I feel that's naive. Updates can be a double edged sword.
They can fix bugs, add useful features, and give performance improvements. They can also introduce new bugs, add
useless features (feature creep), and give performance reductions. My personal view is if a package does everything
I want it to do, I leave it as is.

gcompris would need to be re-compiled for tc-7.x as the libraries it depends on have changed (libpng for example).

I didn't see libpng listed but libffi is in there which I think has changed.

[ChipJP]

Thanks for the response!

I've gone on a bit of a tangent and now I've been at Puppy Linux and other distros that can boot to RAM as all of our machines have at least 1 gigabyte of RAM each. Then I found that none of them do exactly what I want out of the box and I've come full circle and I think I am going to customise a TC iso and load it on all of them. I only really need to be able to play flash games, Gcompris and some other educational programs. The other options seem full of things I'd never need.

I have them on an LTSP server running Edubuntu at the moment as thin clients but its kind of choppy for flash and I want to use the server for something else.

Not sure I want to take on updating it though. I love flashing, tinkering and basically doing things I can follow a HOW TO online for but I've never done anything myself. Could you point me in the direction I can find out where to start?

Thanks a lot for getting back to me.

[curaga]

The Core book (download from the main site) has a good chapter on what packaging entails. The rest is specific to gcompris.

[Rich]

Hi ChipJP

I've been at Puppy Linux and other distros that can boot to RAM as all of our machines have at least 1 gigabyte of RAM each.

Tinycore can also load everything to RAM if  you wish. Download the book from here:
http://tinycorelinux.net/book.html
It's very well written and an easy read. The hour it takes to read will provide insight and is well worth your time.

[Juanito]

The problem with recompiling gcompris is going to be that even recent versions depend on depreciated software like gstreamer-0.10.

Apparently they are working on a qt-5.x update, but that seems to depend on things like qml-box2d, not included in the qt-5.x source(?).

[nitram]

Hi ChipJP.

Gcompris is a beast with a mile long list of dependencies. As Rich indicated best to install TC 4, as it has the software you want and will run a bit leaner on old hardware. Many users still use v4 as the repository is large. Otherwise you could search for an alternative to Gcompris or try dCore, which has direct access to Debian and Ubuntu repositories. I tried test installing for you and was hoping to report if it worked out-of-the-box but my dCore paritition is too small.