GKRELLM ? or such – 463 days old

[Tuffies Son]

I once had pclos on a cruncher and it had a program that had world times, some other info, and a world clock that showed the moving terminator line. It was a cool little program that was fairly small, vertical side bar at top left, and it always ran and was always available to see the progress of the rising sun, among other things. I can't remember what it was called, but I'd love to find a version of that or something like it that would run in xp. Does anyone remember what the Linux app is/was called?

[Bad Haircut]

GKrellM certainly looked like that and has a clock / calender and a shed load of other plugins and stuff to make it into how you want it.

[Tuffies Son]

I thought I'd found a version for doze xp, but once unzipped, I get "can't run" errors

It was here www.srcbox.net/projects/gkrellm
Oh, I'm 32 bit xp home sp3

[Bad Haircut]

Have look at something like that for XP, TS: http://rainmeter.net/cms/

I've never used it but it's open sauce, works wth XP, claims low footprint and is actively developed, whether it's got exactly what you want is anther thing.

[Bad Haircut]

Years ago Samurize used to be the dogs bollocks, I used to us that, see if that's got what you want too: http://www.samurize.com/modules/news/

[Tuffies Son]

Thanks BH but that's not exactly what I'm going for. I think I need GKrellM for my version of doze with the correct plugins in it. Nothing I'm trying so far wants to let me make it run.

[Tuffies Son]

OK, I found a good dl for the proggy and it looks like I remember it, but I can't figure out what happened to the world clock. All I'm getting now is a constant read on my system specs. Do I still have more to dl, or do I just need to set up what I've got the right way to get that world clock feature?

[Bad Haircut]

http://gkrellsun.sourceforge.net/

http://gkrellmoon.sourceforge.net/

try those.

[Tuffies Son]

Thanks BH...I'll try those right out...think I'm getting closer, just don't know whether I need a plug-in, an extension, or an add-on...I hope that sun one is it...looks good

[Tuffies Son]

I DLed the "sun" one to the directory of GKrellM, but I do believe I've intercoursed something up as I can't seem to make it launch. I bet that proggy is exactly the one I want.

[Bad Haircut]

In the zip you downloaded there should be install instructions, no?

[Tuffies Son]

In the zip you downloaded there should be install instructions, no?

When I try to install from the "install" in the extracted files, it asks me which program I want to use to open it, and defaults to adobe reader. I also DLed the proggy to the directory for GKrellm too, but that made no diff, as it's still not wanting to install. ???

[Bad Haircut]

Actually I'm not even sure those plugins have been ported for Windows use. So you might be out of luck unless you run gkrellm in linux.

[SCSport]

COOL!!! but...with 8 CPU's being monitored there isn't much room for more plugins, I actually disabled several

[Grogan]

Yeah, something like a theme or a skin would work across platforms, but a plugin to display a sensor or clock or something will be a library and the code would need to be ported and compiled for your platform.

[Tuffies Son]

They do offer themes in the options section. If I did it right would the world clock run in xp too? The proggy itself runs great in xp, but some add on stuff might not be doable.

[Grogan]

No, that is the point I was making (agreeing with BadHaircut). The plugins will not work in Windows because they would have to be probably rewritten, and at least compiled for Windows. In fact what you downloaded from those links is source code.

Themes are different, they are just graphics files.

[Tuffies Son]

Thanks G, I often miss my old pclos...was pretty cool

[Bad Haircut]

I don't recall seeing anything in Windows offering anything as neat and concise or even similar to that plugin now I think about it.

[Grogan]

Thanks G, I often miss my old pclos...was pretty cool

Well, any Linux distribution you install is going to have Gkrellm packages available. The one to get nowadays is Linux Mint.

[Tuffies Son]

Well, any Linux distribution you install is going to have Gkrellm packages available. The one to get nowadays is Linux Mint.

I've got to get the gumption to get mint, but it would have to be a dual boot, or I could put it on an old laptop by itself. I prefer the dual boot options all around, but I'm not sure what all that entails these days. If I'm not over my head (packaged distributions always suit me well), I'd love to (read that as much prefer the product and source) boot into mint for 90%+ of my computing...the world clock is just an example of one thing I miss. Has it gotten any easier to dual boot and go to doze when you have to? I'd be way open for tips to dual boot mint with my xp as the other option...especially if it has gotten any easier to set up. ???

[Grogan]

Nothing has changed with respect to dual booting.

Have your Windows installation in place, with all Windows partitions already defined on the drive.

Have the rest of the drive unpartitioned space (you can resize the existing partition to make unpartitioned space), or use a second hard disk for the Linux install. (In that case the boot loader would be installed to the first hard disk, and it will load Linux from the second)

You partition up the space you are going to use for Linux during the install, or some installers may have an option to "use free space" in which case it can automatically partition.

Don't make any mistakes

[Tuffies Son]

Nothing has changed with respect to dual booting.

Have your Windows installation in place, with all Windows partitions already defined on the drive.

Have the rest of the drive unpartitioned space (you can resize the existing partition to make unpartitioned space), or use a second hard disk for the Linux install. (In that case the boot loader would be installed to the first hard disk, and it will load Linux from the second)

You partition up the space you are going to use for Linux during the install, or some installers may have an option to "use free space" in which case it can automatically partition.

Don't make any mistakes

I LOVE the "don't make any mistakes" part. Q: I have hard drive space problems, but have an empty 16g flash drive. Can I let the boot segments load into the C: drive, but install the boot media/linux mint into the 16g flash drive? A flash drive install (even if I have to change the boot sequence in bios) would be preferable to re-sizing my small hd to open up maybe 10g of free space.

[Grogan]

Yes, it is possible to install Linux to a flash drive. It will of course be slower than a hard disk but it's still going to be better than using a Live CD.

(Ignore irrelevant crap, like broadcom wireless driver steps in this one)

http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/389

This is the business end of the above tutorial here:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/univers...easy-as-1-2-3/

That way you can leave your hard drive alone.

[Tuffies Son]

Thanks a lot G...that is definitely my next Sunday project. I think I might really like that flash drive install, and that will get my teeth back into some linux. That looks very cool and I can mess with it with much less concern about botching my current xp install. I'm psyched...looks like it will be fun...especially if I don't make any mistakes.

[Grogan]

If you do make mistakes, they shouldn't be costly this way (i.e. just start over). Unlike screwing up hard disk partitioning. I think a 16 Gb thumb drive should be good for this.

[Tuffies Son]

I got all antsy and DLed Mint to my flashdrive, but now I'm at the "note" section, just before step number 19 on the install instructions and don't quite know what they meant by;
NOTE: In the new booted up linuxmint, Copy the downloaded files to your home folder (the folder next to your menu icon),lower left portion of the screen.

19. Click on the menu icon and select the Terminal Konsole (dos prompt).

20. Execute the following commands consecutively in the terminal to extract and install the firmware:

Note: You can copy and paste these commands into the Konsole. After each paste press Enter.

21. tar xfvj broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2

22. sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o

NOTE: This next command must be in one line with only a single space between (firmware and broadcom).

23. sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/wl_apsta_mimo.o

24. sudo modprobe -r b43 ssb

25. sudo modprobe b43
I'm ready to finish installing this puppy, but I don't know what to do with the directories in my flash, nor do I immediately see how this is supposed to boot. I have these directories and such....disk, casper, preseed, boot, install, syslinux, casper rw doc., 2 installer texts, and one md5sum

Does it look like I'm still doing it right, or have I gone off track?

[Grogan]

I did tell you to forget about those broadcom wireless steps (moreover, even if you have broadcom wireless those steps should not be necessary anymore, there are better drivers included with distros now)

Now that you have your USB stick made, your computer needs to be bootable from USB. Check the BIOS to make sure it's in the boot sequence or check USB settings to see if there is anything that enables booting from USB.

If by chance the computer is too old, there's a boot manager you can burn to a CD that will enable booting from a USB stick. In other words you boot from the CD, the boot manager has USB support and it displays a boot menu with USB as a choice.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16822...-wont-let-you/

[Michael_Horatio]

If by chance the computer is too old, there's a boot manager you can burn to a CD that will enable booting from a USB stick. In other words you boot from the CD, the boot manager has USB support and it displays a boot menu with USB as a choice.

That's a handy little piece that I didn't know about..thanks G....

[Tuffies Son]

I did tell you to forget about those broadcom wireless steps (moreover, even if you have broadcom wireless those steps should not be necessary anymore, there are better drivers included with distros now)

Now that you have your USB stick made, your computer needs to be bootable from USB. Check the BIOS to make sure it's in the boot sequence or check USB settings to see if there is anything that enables booting from USB.

If by chance the computer is too old, there's a boot manager you can burn to a CD that will enable booting from a USB stick. In other words you boot from the CD, the boot manager has USB support and it displays a boot menu with USB as a choice.

I went into bios and set-up my boot sequence as 1-usb, 2-hd, 3-cdrom, but I still don't get any boot offerings for mint. I did forget about the wireless stuff, but there are two important files he has you save to put into the home folder apparently after it boots. I'm not sure about those, but something is preventing me from booting. Could there be something in either the "boot" or "install" directories that I need to do to make the install bootable?

Also, might I need to "share" the root to make it recognizable?

[Dark Angel]

You do need to set the "boot" flag on the partition when you create it, in this case that would be the USB drive.

[Grogan]

Well no, Linux boot loaders don't use the "boot" flag (that's the "active partition" in Windows terminology). They have an MBR component for their first stage, and they use other methods to find the OS kernel in subsequent stages. LILO uses direct mapping (based on your configuration file at install time) and grub uses a more complex system of filesystem drivers so it can read the configuration file and stuff each run time. Silly Windows still relies on MBR code locating the first sector on the partition with the active bit set (the "boot" flag). It won't look anywhere else.

The Universal Installer from pendrivelinux.com makes the USB drive bootable using the distribution ISO. You are actually booting it like a LiveCD, with a persistent area for saving changes. (using file system in user space technology and unionfs or similar that merges parts of the filesystem)

The "downloaded files to your home folder" you are thinking of from the tutorial are just the files for the broadcom wireless firmware cutter bullshit that you can ignore.

I'm sorry, I don't know why it's not booting for you. Maybe try making it again? Have the drive plugged in when you go to the bios to change the boot sequence, it may show as something specific.

[Michael_Horatio]

Have the drive plugged in when you go to the bios to change the boot sequence, it may show as something specific.

good point Grogan, In my experience they will almost never show up on boot if the USB drive was not plugged in when you changed the boot order and it usually shows up as you said with a specific description of the drive....then all goes well provided the drive is bootable.

[Tuffies Son]

I followed all instructions carefully and re-DLed the mint selection from a different mirror, and in the end, it said I had successfully installed the os and the only prompt on the page was a congrats thing with a "close" box. I immediately re-booted with no signs of mint coming up, though the boot order is right and I made a point to re-do bios and f-10 it with the flashdrive installed the whole time, etc. I can't imagine what I'm doing wrong. How about that allow sharing "root" biz...any chance there's anything to that?

[Grogan]

What are you talking about "sharing the root"? Windows filesharing for the directory on the stick? That would not have anything to do with this.

It is most likely your computer's bios that won't boot from the USB stick. Try the other method I told you about.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16822...-wont-let-you/

Just download the ISO and use it to create a CD. Boot with the CD, which should enable booting from the USB. You should be able to remove the CD from the drive after booting Linux, since it's only the boot loader.

[Tuffies Son]

The sharing the root biz, I got from my former E: drive, which is now renamed PENDRIVE (E: ){mint}, properties, sharing tab, where I read this;
To protect your computer from unauthorized access, sharing the root of a drive is not recommended.

If you understand the riskbut still want to share the root of the drive, click here.

I was just grasping at straws there of course. I will make a bootable cd to get the bootloader, as you mentioned, but believe it or not, I have no recordable media here at all...not a single rewriteable or anything. I'll get a small pack and burn a cd as soon as I can get over there to do it. Thanks G

[Grogan]

I just looked at it, and it's a zip file with a bunch of stuff in it. The iso is in it though... plpbt.iso in the root of the zip file, you don't have to go in the directories to find it (though there are other copies in there for installer purposes)

http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html

So you'll have to download the zip (plpbt-5.0.14.zip), extract it and then find and use that iso file to create a bootable CD. It's very small, about 500K because it's only boot loader code

[Tuffies Son]

I just looked at it, and it's a zip file with a bunch of stuff in it. The iso is in it though... plpbt.iso in the root of the zip file, you don't have to go in the directories to find it (though there are other copies in there for installer purposes)

http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html

So you'll have to download the zip (plpbt-5.0.14.zip), extract it and then find and use that iso file to create a bootable CD. It's very small, about 500K because it's only boot loader code

I finally got a cd-r I can burn. Now I just have to make sure I make the right bootable cd in one try. Are there any common pitfalls that folks do when trying what I'm doing? I don't burn a lot of CD's.

[Grogan]

A common pitfall is to burn the .iso file to the CD as a file. Don't do that

(You want to create a CD from the image file. It may say "burn image" or "create cd from image" or something like that in your burning program.

[Tuffies Son]

I just realized that I don't have a burning program installed. I thought I had Nero, but I don't. Are there any good, small, free (even trial) burning programs that I could use just to burn this one iso?