Fluff 0.9.5+ bugs and issues

[Guy]

Mike

I don't want to be discouraging, but

Do you use fluff yourself?

I have found 3 bugs in 3 minutes.

If you use it yourself, these should be obvious to you.

[MikeLockmoore]

@ Guy:  No need for snark.  Of course I use Fluff, and for more than 3 minutes.  Maybe your usage pattern differs enough from mine that you hit more issues/bugs than I do.  I try to have updates happen during TC release candidate periods so others will test it in ways that I don't.  Maybe the last few changes in Fluff happended too quickly so we did not catch new issues in time for the full release of TC 3.6. 

One recent change came with the caveat that certain file updates may not get displayed without forcing a refresh with the F5 key or going away and coming back.  I understand this could be annoying, but it was documented.  This change was the result of attempting to fix another very annoying issue.  A better fix that avoids both annoying behaviors is possible, but I have not had personal time to implement it yet.  Ths will be fixed when I have time.

I will try to recreate the other issues you posted and try to address them.

@everybody: If you have seen the same issues and can add detail, please post here so I can more completely understand the issues and more completely fix them. 

Thank you.

[OldAdamUser2]

I'm not sure I understand why Guy sees characteristics of the program to be problems. Yes, when you paste a file, you have to refresh the screen manually to see the change. It takes two seconds to learn this and less time than that to do it. Yes, ticking the sudo box does not allow complete superuser privileges. To get full privileges, you do what you must do in all other file managers--start the program with "sudo Fluff." I find the little box handy at times. Not a flaw, but a plus.

[Guy]

This topic was started to get feedback from people.

The more honest feedback that people give, the better.

I am contributing, and giving my opinion from what I have experienced.

I am not suggesting that my opinion is the only opinion.

An ideal situation would be where many more people gave honest feedback.

There are genuine bugs in fluff.

For Tiny Core to be a professional operating system, they need to be addressed.

I appreciate the contribution that Mike and others are making.

[MikeLockmoore]

There are genuine bugs in fluff.

For Tiny Core to be a professional operating system, they need to be addressed.

Agreed and agreed.  You posted some things I will investigate and hopefully be able to fix.  But if you are just "contributing, and giving my opinion from what I have experienced" you could focus on the facts of those experiences.  Is posting "Do you use fluff yourself?" professional?

If the underlying message is to be more conservative with releases (holding onto updates longer to better validate them), the point is noted.

[aus9]

Mike

thanks for the heads up on closing fluff before looking for my conf

regards

[Guy]

Mike

The majority of people do not report bugs. If more people contributed, they would be picked up earlier.

As I have mentioned before, I gave up using fluff, as a result of experiencing a number of things which did not work properly.

I asked: Do you use fluff yourself? as a result of finding 3 bugs in 3 minutes. I would have thought at least some of these would have been picked up already.

We are all on the same team, and want the best for Tiny Core. I appreciate what you are doing.

[MikeLockmoore]

Try renaming a directory and see what happens.

Just tried with the current version.  I could rename directories from both the left-side directory tree and the right-side details list, using both the F2 key and the right-click menu to invoke the name-editing mode.  At least in my mostly-default color scheme, the background behind the name being edited turns yellow.  The name changed when I pressed enter, just as I programmed.  What did not work for you?  Anything special about the directories you tried to rename?  

Permissions?  OK, let's see... I used the terminal to change the ownership of a directory to root.  Back in Fluff, my first try to rename the directory owned by root failed, but Flew presented the failure in a message box.  After I checked "use sudo" I tried to rename it again and it worked.  

I don't see a problem yet for this one. Can anyone provide a more specific situation where renaming a directory fails?

When you paste something, it does not show up.

I just tried again.  If you select a file or directory in one location, activate copy (menu, toolbar, or Ctrl+C), click on the destination directory in the left-side tree, then activate paste (right-click menu, toolbar, or Ctrl+V) in the destination, the new item(s) appear just fine.  The item(s) will not automatically appear after paste *IF* you have first selected something else in the current directory.  This is the caveat I mentioned earlier that I hope to remove with a better implementation in the next  release.  But I want to be clear... the normal Copy in one place - Switch to another place - Paste there... works just fine for me.  The pasted items appear automatically with no manual intervention.

Again, I don't see a problem here as long as nothing is already selected in the destination directory.  Can anyone describe other conditions where the pasted items don't appear?

I tried to create a directory on a usb drive (using sudo). Got the message:

Cannot create directory. System returned (13): Permission denied.

Just tried with my "vfat" format USB stick.  I selected /mnt/sda1 in the left-side directory tree (the USB stick was already mounted using the TC Mount Tool).  I right-clicked to pop up the menu and selected "Create directory".  I entered a name.  It was created successfully.  I could create a file there too.  Is there anything special about your USB stick?  Ext3 format?  Anything else?

I just spent several minutes trying to replicate the posted issues, but have only found normal, expected behavior.  Guy, if you found the time to reply here multiple times, please take a few more minutes to better document the conditions and steps you used when you encountered the problems.  And if anyone else has seen the problems Guy has posted, please post your relevant information here.  I won't be about to troubleshoot the problems if I can't reliably reproduce them.  I don't think I'm doing anything special to avoid these problems, so if there is something different about the environment or the specific sequence of steps that exposes problems, I need to know what they are.  Thanks.

[Guy]

Try renaming a directory and see what happens.

Try renaming something in the left column. Don't add letters on to the end, use the left arrow to move left in the name, and change something.

Does that work for you?

[Guy]

I tried to create a directory on a usb drive (using sudo). Got the message:

Cannot create directory. System returned (13): Permission denied.

I get this with Ext2.

Try this:

Insert the usb drive.

Use the mount tool to mount it.

Tick "use sudo" in fluff

Go to /mnt/partition in the left side of fluff

Click on the partition or a directory with the right mouse button

Click "Create directory"

Type in a name for the directory

Click "OK"

Do you get "Permission denied?"


I have noticed, it works if I start fluff using "sudo fluff"

This indicates a difference between using sudo fluff and ticking use sudo.

Another good reason to not have use sudo by default.

[Guy]

Doing this I noticed another bug.

After trying to create a directory, as discussed above. I can't unmount the usb drive using the mount tool, until after I close fluff.

If I do the same thing with sudo xfe, it successfully creates the directory, and I can unmount the drive while xfe is still open.


With a bit more experimenting, I have noticed, I can't unmount the partition if I have clicked on something in the partition.

If I click on something in another partition, I can unmount the drive.

[Rich]

Hi Guy
You can't unmount something while it's in use.
Open a terminal and mount something, now cd into the mount point. Try unmounting it and see what
happens. Open another terminal and try unmounting it from there, that will fail too.

[Guy]

It is not in use.

It is just while seeing what files and directories are there.


If the same thing is done with xfe or other file managers, it can be unmounted.

[Rich]

Hi Guy
When a file manager is displaying the contents of a directory I would expect it to cd into it first, and
that means it is in use. It's possible those other file managers are listing the contents without cd'ing
into the directory but that sounds like an odd and awkward way of doing it. I used midnight commander
to list the contents of a mounted directory, I could not unmount it until I told it to list a directory outside
of the mount point. That sounds like normal behavior to me and what I would expect.
Did you try what I suggested in post #26?

[MikeLockmoore]

When a file manager is displaying the contents of a directory I would expect it to cd into it first, and
that means it is in use.

Yes, this is how Fluff works.  It is a design decision with the side-effect that you cannot unmount without closing the app or navigating to another storage volume.  I can understand that it could be annoying.  Let me investigate how difficult it would be to not use chdir (change directory) in Fluff.