Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

2009-03-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone.

I am busy exploring Ubuntu Linux, especially the version that will run on a USB key.

You may still order a copy of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, but for the present time, further development has been ended. The main problem is the old Knoppix 3.4 that is used for a base, it does not use the xorg video setup, and has problems when used with one of the new widescreen monitors. If you have an older computer, and are still using a non-widescreen monitor, then Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux will work just fine.

Meanwhile, I am having a wonderful time using Ubuntu Linux, I have both 7.10 and 8.10 set up on my computers, and will of course go to any newer version that is made available.

For those of you concerned with security when doing online banking, and credit card purchases, then Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is still the best, with the Security and Control scripts that each web browser uses. Not even Ubuntu has that. Both linux systems are resistant to the various viruses, worms and trojans that infect Windows computers, so one is probably safe when using either Ubuntu when run from a USB key as a livecd, or Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux to handle your online money work.

I will get back in here once in a while, and let you know what I am doing in the linux world.

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.18

2008-11-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

Beta 142, Build 4 is out and Mozilla Firefox is upgraded to Version 2.0.0.18, which was released on November 14, 2008.

Opera 9.62

2008-11-18T16:26:00.000-08:00

The Opera web browser is upgraded to Version 9.62 in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, Beta 142, Build 2, as of November 16, 2008.

See the previous post concerning the Opera web browser as used in the Remaster, as well as other information about Mozilla Firefox.

You may obtain a CD of Beta 142 by sending $20.00 to me at the following address:

Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

Be sure and give me your correct shipping address.
A personal check or money order will be OK for your remittance.
This price includes shipping. USA orders only, please.

The online Getting Started Guide has full details on Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

Beta 140

2008-06-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

Beta 140 of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is now available.

The online version of the Getting Started Guide is here.

The Opera web browser is upgraded to version 9.50.
Opera 9.50 is really fast, compared to the older 9.27 version. Big change is also found in the way Opera handles RSS feeds. There are 12 RSS newsfeeds available for Opera in Beta 140, but they do not download when the browser starts. Instead, the user goes to "Feeds" -> "Manage Feeds" on the Opera toolbar, and enables the ones to be downloaded.

The RSS feeds chosen will immediately download as one group, ready for viewing.
When used with Opera 9.27, the RSS feeds took about 2 minutes to download and be ready for viewing. All that has changed with Opera 9.50.
Now, after only a few seconds, the RSS feed page will come to the forefront, and the user can review the downloaded news story list. Click on one of the stories in the list, and a summary appears in the lower panel. Usually, the summary is several lines long, more than enough to give the user plenty of information about that particular news story. A link is provided at the end of the summary, to go to the actual web page providing the story.

With the new changes in the RSS feed setup in the Remaster, combined with Opera's handling of RSS feeds, the browser is fully ready for use in about 15 seconds after the user clicks the Opera icon.
No more delay in the linux system while Opera downloads RSS feeds at startup, they are no longer enabled until the user wants to read the RSS feeds. This is a big speed improvement over the way Beta 139 handled Opera's startup.

Compared to Ubuntu Linux, for instance, Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux boots to the Desktop faster, allowing the user to start Opera and begin surfing the web long before Ubuntu is ready. The user is going to choose the Operating System that gets up and running the fastest.

One other problem that I find with Ubuntu is that since it is hard-drive based and installed, "things can go wrong".
Recently, when using Ubuntu 7.10, "updates" became available, but would not install, without using the Synaptic Package Manager. I got the updates installed, but the skill level required was somewhat above the Novice level, and I think I just got lucky when doing it that way. The Ubuntu updates are supposed to be automatic.

With Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, the system is hard-coded in the CD, and starts out "new" with each bootup. Any mistakes can be corrected by just rebooting to a new, fresh copy of Rapidweather Remaster.

Very nice and fast setup, especially when combined with Opera's new speed and overall responsiveness. Even on older computers, Opera has a nice quick and responsive feel to it, as you surf the web.

What about Firefox 3?
Unfortunately, Firefox 3 will not run on any version of Knoppix.
So, I am staying with Firefox 2.0.0.14, which works perfectly, and should be safe to use considering that it is being run in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
Viruses and Trojans do not seem to be a problem to a read-only linux livecd filesystem found in Rapidweather Remaster.
Additionally, Opera and Firefox are run within Security and Control applications, these protect the filesystem by deleting all traces of the browsers from the linux system when the browsers are closed. The Flock browser is also protected in this manner, so that makes three browsers the user can choose from in Rapidweather Remaster. They are all good. The Flock browser has a sidebar arrangement for the RSS feeds that is really worth the time to try out Flock. It's a deluxe RSS feed setup, arranged even better than the fast and complete Opera RSS feed system.

With three web browsers to choose from in Rapidweather Remaster, no news story is going to get past you. No need to visit all the web pages looking for interesting news stories, the RSS feed setups provide you with outstanding power and performance when it comes to checking the news.

A new feature in Opera 9.50 is the "thumbnail view" of each Tab, should you have more than one open. You get a really big and readable "thumbnail", so big you can read a lot of the text on the page, and see the pictures. Just hover your mouse cursor over the Tab, and it will appear. Just the thing to see what web page the Tab will go to, without actually clicking on it. (Some pages take too long to load, so clicking on the Tab could cause a delay) Really nice and fun new Opera feature.

Here is a screenshot showing Opera 9.50 running on Beta 140.
You can see the thumbnail preview of the Tab:

Click on the image to show it full view (1024x768)

So, in summary, Opera 9.50 takes top spot in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. It's speed and ease-of-use, and the fact that it is an up-to-date web browser make Opera number one here.

Stay Tuned!

Ubuntu Linux, Version 7.10

2008-06-06T18:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a screenshot of the Station Selector for XMMS (Version 2) running on Ubuntu Linux, Version 7.10. Click on the image to see it full size.

(All this is for advanced linux users)

To run this application on Ubuntu Linux, XMMS will need to be added, also Tcl/TK, to display the Station Selector interface.

To install XMMS, do this in a terminal (shell) when running Ubuntu 7.10:
sudo apt-get install xmms
To install tcl/TK, do this in a terminal (shell) when running Ubuntu 7.10:
sudo apt-get install tcl8.3 tcl8.3-dev

The reason I am not using Ubuntu 8.04 is that XMMS is not in the download repository for the latest Ubuntu release. They say XMMS is somewhat buggy, and that development on the application has ended some time ago. So, I am using Ubuntu 7.10 in these tests.

Since I have 20 presets, that are just URL's for the stations, I need to use Ubuntu to test them, to make sure they are current, still valid, and will work. I am not including the 20 station version of the Station Selector in Rapidweather Remaster, but I do test it there.

The interface file can be downloaded here.

This is open source,GPL, so you are free to modify the application using the SciTE code editor, for instance.
The two other files required, for the "reset" and "update" buttons, are mentioned in the previous post, but can be downloaded here also:

Reset Button's file

Update Button's file

As mentioned in the previous post, these files will have to be modified to work correctly on your system, depending on where you decide to place all three files in your /home directory.

Also, the Update button, if you get it to work on your system, will just download the web copy of the Station Selector, Version 2, and the Reset and Update button code area will have to be adjusted to your system.

For those reasons, it is simpler to just use the 20 preset internet radio buttons with your Ubuntu system, and ignore the Reset and Update buttons. XMMS has to be installed on Ubuntu 7.10 to play the stations.

So, this winds up being a "Do It Yourself" kit to get the Station Selector for XMMS working on Ubuntu Linux. Once set up, however, Ubuntu does a wonderful job of running the application, especially when it comes to changing stations. Ubuntu seems to handle that better than Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

The Guarddog firewall in Rapidweather Remaster can block some internet radio stations occasionally. I have to "disable" the firewall if I am going to test the Station Selector, Version 2.

I'm using the Firestarter Firewall with Ubuntu, and the default set of rules with Firestarter seems to allow these internet radio station streams to pass through. I haven't figured out how to set up Guarddog to handle them the same way.

Extra buttons had to be placed on the original version of Station Selector (see screenshot in previous post) to handle XMMS lockups on Rapidweather Remaster, when doing a lot of station changes. These "lockups" are a result of the Guarddog firewall getting in the way.

If you just want to download the latest version of the interface, with the 20 preset stations, you could use a shell and do:
wget http://www.angelfire.com/ms/telegram/station_selector-2.tcl

Blogger cuts that line into two lines, make it one line in your terminal (shell)

In all cases, be sure and make the downloaded files "executable" by doing this in a shell:
sudo chmod +x station_selector-2.tcl
(example for the interface file)

The screenshot above shows one of the available backgrounds downloadable by using the Wallpaper Control Center in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. There are nine wallpapers on the server, and these are changed once in a while, so the nine buttons on the Wallpaper Control Center downloads and installs the latest one for any particular button 1-9. It's kinda like a box of chocolates, you never know what you will get. (Forrest Gump).

Need Ubuntu Linux 7.10? Click here for the download mirror list. Here is one that has all the Ubuntu versions.

Stay Tuned!

Station Selector for XMMS - New Version.

2008-05-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a screenshot of the current Station Selector for XMMS (Version 0.4.9) and the new one being tested, Version 0.5.1. Click on the image for full size.

In the screenshot, XMMS is tuned to an internet radio station. The applications are running on Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, Beta 139, Build 8.

The new version has 20 presets for broadband only internet radio stations.
Other changes are in the control button area below the station buttons:
1. There is no Dial-Up control area.
2. The "Update" button functions the same as the "Update Station Selector" button on Version 0.4.9.
One click, and a new Station Selector is downloaded and installed from the web server.
XMMS is closed and reset.
3. There is no "Stop the Radio" button.
4. The "Reset" button does the same as the "Update" button, without downloading a new, updated Station Selector file. The "Reset" button is used if XMMS locks up, usually when it is asked to tune in an "off the air" internet radio station. Either button will close any running XMMS and Station Selector, and restart a new Station Selector.

Either version will run at the same time, with one XMMS instance. The control section buttons on each interface will download only the old or new versions of the Station Selector according to which update button is clicked. They do have different file names, as seen in the title area of the interfaces.

The new version, with 20 broadband presets, has some problems, as the stations use clusters of servers to provide the stream, and the URL's in Station Selector only reference one URL for each of the presets. If that server is off, then the corresponding button will not provide XMMS with a valid URL to use to tune in the station, and XMMS will most likely lock up.

Note that the older version shown in the screenshot is from 01/08, actually there is an "05/08" version discussed in the previous post that should have been downloaded prior to the screenshot.
I could have done that with the "Update Station Selector" button on the older version of Station Selector.

Should you want to obtain a copy of either of these versions, go here:
older version (0.4x)

new version (0.5x)

Concerning the new (0.5x) version:
Here is the link for the "Update" button's file:
Update
and here is a link for the "Reset" button's file:
Reset

Any of these files will have to be made executable by "chmod +x (filename)"

Adjust the paths in the interface .tcl file for the Update and Reset file's locations.
You may want to place them all in the same directory.

The source code for these files do refer to "Knoppix 5.1" which I tried using for this development, but that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.
Would have been easier to use Rapidweather Remaster.

I will amend the files if these are used in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux at a later date.

Right now, more changes to the newer version of Station Selector may be made, as well as keeping the URL's valid, before it can be placed in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

Currently, the older version, with the Dial Up buttons, is the one being used in the Remaster. All of the station presets are valid as of the date of this post.

Stay Tuned!

Station Selector for XMMS.

2008-05-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

The Station Selector for XMMS has been updated to version 0.4.12.
All that was needed was verification of the existing selection of internet radio stations.
This being done, all of them are still active, now the date can be changed to "05-08" on the interface.
Didn't want to have a Station Selector out there with an old date, with everyone wondering if I have checked the stations to see that they are still valid.
You may download your copy here, or use the Update Station Selector button on the interface if you are running Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

Beta 139, Build 8 is done, the main goal of Beta 139 was the update of Firefox and Opera.
Opera is now Version 9.27, and Firefox is Version 2.0.0.14.

When Beta 140 gets underway, the new Station Selector version will be included.

As always, you may order a copy* of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux from me by sending a check or money order to:

Michael L. Dawley
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS. 39208-4916.

*I'll send you two copies of the CD of the latest Beta Build, via USPS Priority Mail® Flat Rate Box. Currently, this costs $8.95, and that is included in the $20.00 you pay. That ought to get your CD's to you safely and fairly quickly. USA orders only, please.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 139

2008-04-30T18:24:00.000-07:00

I'm working on Beta 139 at this time, upgrading Mozilla Firefox to the latest version, 2.0.0.14.
Along with that, the Accuweather "forecastfox" extension for Firefox is being reconfigured. The two different profiles still exist, but only one will display. It is up to the user to change to the extended forecast one, and once selected, the profiles will not automatically rotate. This was done to reduce the bandwidth requirements of the extension. Often, when a web page was being downloaded, the Accuweather extension would also reload with the alternate profile, and cause a brief slowdown for the web page download.
Right now, Beta 139 is in build 3, and is stable enough to be shipped.

In other news, I downloaded Knoppix 5.5.1 and tested it. It does have the latest drivers in it for your hardware. Overall usefulness compared to Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, is lacking.
With Knoppix, I wind up having to use the command line in a shell to get some things done. Also, the selection of fonts included in Knoppix is limited, so the text in web pages does not look as good as in Rapidweather Remaster. Only one mouse cursor theme is available in Knoppix, and even that does not display correctly in all cases, the small "default" cursor will often appear instead. That problem has been fixed in Rapidweather Remaster, in addition to having 6 cursor themes to choose from, switching in seconds.

As always, the Getting Started Guide for Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is here.

Stay Tuned!

Opera web browser upgrade

2008-03-18T17:47:00.001-07:00

The Opera web browser is upgraded to Version 9.26 in
Beta 138, Build 1.

The Getting Started Guide is here.

The Station Selector for XMMS, mentioned in the last post, is still performing well.
Changing stations is very fast, and there have been no XMMS lockups or runaway processes in all of my recent uses of this application.
I am still considering using all-broadband internet radio stations for the Station Selector, and dropping the dial-up choices. Not yet, however.

Stay Tuned!

Station Selector = More Updates.

2008-02-01T16:12:00.000-08:00

Beta 135 is now up to Build 5, and has several improvements to the scripts behind the buttons on the Station Selector for XMMS.

First, go here, and open up the screenshot in another browser tab, showing the Station Selector interface, with XMMS running, so you can more easily follow this discussion.

The "Update Station Selector" button does all this:
Remove the existing Station Selector file, then download and install the latest available one. Close the current Station Selector. Close XMMS, if running, and remove all xmms processes. Restart Station Selector, using the newly downloaded file. It is now ready for use. Record simple log files showing the time and date the update was done, and a list of any xmms processes remaining in the system. An informational dialog box is presented to the user while the update is performed. No user interaction is required except to press the "Update Station Selector" button in the beginning, and to pick a radio station to play when the new, updated Station Selector is started.
The "Stop the Radio" button also has an updated script as of Beta 135, Build 5. Log files are saved in ~/.xmms showing the time and date the button was pressed, and a list of any remaining xmms process numbers is saved, also in ~/.xmms. There will be at least 1 or 2 xmms processes recorded, since the Station Selector is not closed, and will hold onto these xmms processes.
Normally, XMMS is started once again by the user, having clicked on one of the radio station buttons on the Station Selector interface. These prior xmms processes are not harmful in this case, but are logged by the new script for the "Stop the Radio" button anyway.
Yes, the XMMS interface has a "pause" button, and others, that does "Stop the Sound from the Radio". The download of the mp3 stream is stopped. Check the eth0 indicator on the Rapidweather Remaster IceWM toolbar, to the left of the pager, and you will see that the download is in fact, stopped. This is useful if you require the bandwidth for Firefox for a while and do not want to entirely close XMMS and lose XMMS window placement settings, station tuned in, etc. , as would be done if the "Stop the Radio" button is pressed. To resume the mp3 stream download, and playing, just press the "pause" button on the XMMS interface once again. The pause button has two vertical bars like so:
[II]

The purpose, however of the "Stop the Radio" button is to close the XMMS interface, and attempt to remove xmms processes from the running linux system. Again, one could just use the drop down box provided on the XMMS interface, by right-clicking almost anywhere on the XMMS interface, and clicking on "exit" (Ctrl-q). Pressing Control-Q will close XMMS, without having to click on the interface at all. You must be on the same desktop as XMMS for this to work.
Sometimes, if XMMS is "locked up", has an unresponsive interface, the drop down box will not appear, or Ctrl-q won't work, so the "Stop the Radio" button needs to be used to close XMMS, if possible. If that does not work, try the Reset button, next:

Before we go to the Reset section, there is one more note about the "Stop the Radio: button. I have found that XMMS "window placement" is not saved when pressing "Stop the Radio", and then restarting XMMS. Use the "pause" button on the XMMS interface, and your XMMS windows remain open, but without sound, etc. as mentioned above.
The Reset button discussed in the previous post has been once again polished, and improved in Beta 135, Build 5. The Reset button differs from the "Update Station Selector" button in that the current file for the Station Selector is used when Reset is pressed. Also, the local ~/.xmms directory is deleted, as it may have been corrupted, and causing problems for XMMS. The XMMS player will install a new ~/.xmms directory when it starts.

In comparison, the "Update Station Selector" button will download the latest version of the Station Selector and use that, rather than the current file.

As the file, station_selector.tcl, can be modified by the user, to include some favorite radio stations instead of the default stations, The "Update Station Selector" button can be used if the user cannot get the radio stations in the modified file to play, due to "coding errors".
station_selector.tcl is fully commented and laid out in a logical way, but some parts are difficult to work with, especially the placement of the buttons, so it's possible that the user may need to "start over" with a fresh copy, downloaded by using the "Update Station Selector" button. If that cannot be made to work, there are manual download instructions in the file itself.
Rapidweather Remaster has the SciTE editor, used for working on an application's code file such as the one for Station Selector: /home/knoppix/html/station_selector.tcl

If a persistent home directory is not used, then a new fresh copy can be obtained by just rebooting the system when running from the CD, Hard Drive, or USB Drive. If a persistent home directory is used, then any "modified" station_selector.tcl file will return on reboot of the linux system. A new file can always be downloaded from the internet here.
See the 01-25-08 previous post for more information on using the file on other linux systems.
Also, after download, be sure and do this in a root shell:
chmod +x station_selector.tcl
so the file will become "executable", and will run.
All of that is taken care of automatically, when using the "Update Station Selector" button.
Log files are saved, this time in ~/html, were the Station Selector file is kept.

I am trying to improve the effectiveness of these applications, and reduce the need for user interaction, other than to press the various buttons as needed.

In review, if the user finds that one of more of the internet radio stations are not "on the air", and wants to see if an updated Station Selector will have a more current selection of radio stations, then the "Update Station Selector" button is pressed, and the user waits for a few seconds for a new Station Selector to appear, ready for use.

If the user just wants to stop the xmms player for a while, but keep the Station Selector interface open for future use, then the "Stop the Radio" button is pressed.

If XMMS locks up, or has "runaway" processes that are using processor power, the "Reset" button can be pressed. Normally this is a rare occurrence, but the Reset button is there if needed.

I'll continue to test the entire set of scripts, and future change may be done, but as of now, Beta 135 looks very good, with the new Station Selector for XMMS.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 135, Station Selector for XMMS.

2008-01-27T16:48:00.000-08:00

New for Beta 135:

Station Selector for XMMS, Version 0.4.9:

I have added a "Reset" button to the Station Selector for XMMS interface.

The Reset button can be used if there is any kind of problem, such as a "locked up" xmms, not responding to the Station Selector, when a station's button is pressed.

The Reset button runs a script based on the "Stop the Radio" button's script, that identified the xmms processes and removed them, effectively closing XMMS. The new Reset button does that, and also removes the /ramdisk directory for XMMS, the ~/.xmms.
The Station Selector interface is closed, releasing any remaining xmms processes.

Then the process identifier and remover is run again to make certain all xmms processes are gone from the running linux system.

At that point, the Station Selector interface is restarted.

So, it is "reset", and with the new Station Selector up and running, the user may "tune in" one of the internet radio stations by clicking on the button for that station, and the XMMS player will start, download and play the mp3 stream.

Although tests have shown that problems with XMMS are rare, especially if the internet radio station URL's are good, this new Reset button on the Station Selector can be used if there is a problem.

I will put screenshots of the new Station Selector here within the hour, and as always, the Station Selector interface can be downloaded here.

On other linux systems, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Kanotix, the user needs to make sure XMMS is installed, and able to play MP3's, and that Tcl/TK is installed so the interface file, station_selector.tcl will run.

When the file is downloaded, be sure an do this in a root shell:
chmod +x station_selector.tcl
so the application will run. This makes it an "executable".

On other linux systems, none of the buttons on the interface will work, except for the radio station buttons.
The new Reset button, all of the Dial-up buttons, the "Stop the Radio" button, the "Update Station Selector" and the help buttons all access scripts that are only found in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, and not found in other linux systems.

However, I have found that in Kanotix Linux, some of the dial-up section buttons will work, as long as wvdial is used.

One note about the "Update Station Selector" button.
When clicked, a new copy is downloaded and run, so the user may then close the old one.
Internet radio stations that go "off the air" is always a problem, as each station is hard-coded in the Station Selector, and when the button is clicked, that URL's MP3 stream is to be played by XMMS.
So, I have to update the "station_selector.tcl" file with valid radio station URL's once in a while. I'll try to check them more often, and issue new downloadable updates as required.

One note here on the "Dial-up" section's stations:
There are fewer available now, and some of them that I have tried are unreliable as to the use of a fixed URL that can be used in the Station Selector. Eventually I may have to go with all "Broadband" stations. I have talked about this before in this blog, my reason for keeping the "Dial-up" section is that there are still a lot of internet users having to use dial-up.

If the user is running an older Beta version of Rapidweather Remaster, clicking on the "Update Station Selector" button will quickly install a new copy of the Station Selector interface.

Unfortunately, the new "Reset" script does not come along with the update to the interface, so the "Reset" button won't work.

It is necessary to use a "persistent home directory" partition with Rapidweather Remaster, in order to keep the new copy from one days bootup to the next. That way, you don't have to update Station Selector but once, rather than every day the linux system is booted up.

If you would like to obtain a copy of the CD for Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, go here to order.

Stay Tuned!

Station Selector

2008-01-25T16:15:00.000-08:00

One of the applications unique to Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is the "Station Selector for XMMS".

Go here for screenshots, look in "New Applications-2"

It has been updated, and you may obtain a copy here, and run it on Ubuntu 7.10 linux, as long as you install Tcl/Tk.
The Station Selector will also run on Fedora Core 6, as long as you install mp3 support for XMMS.

In all cases, when you download the file for the Station Selector, you will need to chmod +x the file in a root shell, to make it executable so it'll run.

I'm not going to go into the details on installing Tcl/Tk in Ubuntu, or mp3 support for XMMS in Fedora Core 6, you can look those up on Google and have a go at it.

I have run it on Kanotix Linux also.

Go here to see some screenshots of the Station Selector running on Ubuntu 7.10.
The one you want to view is snapshot1.jpg. It was taken before the update to Station Selector, and shows the "09/07" version, rather than the latest "01/08" that is provided in the above download link.

The other one, snapshot2.jpg shows the Ubuntu desktop without the Station Selector.

Update: The other three, snapshot3.jpg, snapshot4.jpg and snapshot5.jpg all show the Station Selector running on Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

The main thing about the Station Selector for XMMS is speed, how quickly you can change from one internet radio station to another. There is almost no delay, and XMMS gets the credit for that.

You are limited to the stations on the Station Selector interface, but you can dig around on Shoutcast.com and find others, and modify the code for the Station Selector yourself.
That way you can have internet radio stations of your own choosing.

The file, station_selector.tcl is fully commented to aid you in the modification.

On other operating systems, I usually make a desktop icon for the Station Selector, or a toolbar icon, these are set up to launch the Station Selector.

In Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, there is a menu item for the Station Selector when using the default IceWM window manager. Running KDE, there is a desktop icon.

As mentioned the the Getting Started Guide, the powerful Guarddog firewall might to be switched off when changing stations, or XMMS can lock up, especially if the radio station is "off the air".
The other operating systems mentioned above have no problem with their firewall setups. I don't think they are using Guarddog, either.

That's an incentive for me to keep the Station Selector's radio stations updated, and remove any that have "gone off the air".

Tests just today have shown that the Station Selector running on Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux performs very well in the "change station test", where the station buttons are clicked to change to another station very frequently, and repeatedly.

The Guarddog firewall is active during the test.

Since this is a potential trouble spot, the test is designed to see just how durable the Station Selector is, when running on Rapidweather Remaster.

The normal use of the Station Selector is to "change stations" when one wants to hear something different, and that may not occur too frequently.

Running the test, however, is designed to see if it will "break", with the repeated and frequent station changes. So, it seems to be doing quite well today, with no lockups reported.

Of course, we don't have any "bad" buttons, that try and access an internet radio station that is "off the air", as this version of the Station Selector has "recently verified" (01/08) radio stations.

Concerning the running of Station Selector on Ubuntu or Fedora, the "Stop the Radio" button won't work, as it accesses a script found only in Rapidweather Remaster.

Same goes for the Update and Help buttons.

The entire "dial up" section also only works in Rapidweather Remaster.
I've thought about doing away with that section, as so many users now have Broadband internet access, but not everyone, so I'll keep it.

Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux does dial up very well, go here to see how that's done.

I personally used dial up for many years, so I developed an advanced dial up system for Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
Probably the best that any livecd linux offers.
Some of that has spilled over into how the Remaster handles Broadband, also.
I use Comcast broadband now, very fast.
When I use other operating systems like Ubuntu or Fedora, I miss those handy features and touches that the Remaster has.

On a day to day basis, I run the Remaster from a Sandisk Cruzer USB drive, not from the hard drive. A few years ago I had a large hard drive go bad on me, and lost several operating systems that I multi-booted on that drive.
So, that's why I have been developing and using a livecd linux. Easy to burn to a CD, after some remastering work. Go here to see more on that subject, as it concerns Rapidweather Remaster.

Also, look in this rapidweather.com directory to see how the USB drive is set up to run Rapidweather Remaster.

Also, see this prior blog post on the subject.

What to do about the hard drives once the linux system is running from the USB drive?
Here is a post on that topic.
More on that:
The latest version of Rapidweather Remaster has a menu item to run the script that puts the hard drives in "sleep mode" once the system is running from the USB drive. Once done, it takes a little while to "wake them back up" if the user wants to get a file from one of the computer's hard drives. (I usually have two in every computer)

What do I think about Ubuntu and Fedora?

Well, both take too long to boot up, but once there, they are interesting to work with, to get everything working as I want, so these operating systems can do the same things I do when I run Rapidweather Remaster.

In most cases, however, Rapidweather Remaster gets me to the "finish line" much quicker, particularly when doing web page maintenance.

There are good points to Ubuntu and Fedora, however, they both have top-notch wi-fi drivers, sound card drivers. As a comparison, I have not found a wi-fi card that works with Rapidweather Remaster, so I have to use a wired broadband connection.
Difficult to go buy one from a vendor, then return it asking for a refund. Eventually, you wear your welcome out.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 134

2008-01-11T16:43:00.000-08:00

Beta 134 of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is ready for shipping at this time.

The use of symbolic links to reduce the amount of ramdisk that a file requires has been used in Rapidweather Remaster for some time now. Beta 134 was developed by using a "Special Edition" Rapidweather Remaster, where the concepts were actually put together in a working Remaster live CD.

As used in Beta 134, a symlink is a little file in ramdisk that links to a much bigger file in the filesystem, in the CD.
By using a symlink, the computers installed memory, or RAM, only has to have a small file of 32 bytes, for example, to "replace" and "link to" a much bigger file of 250 KB, for example, in the main filesystem.

Although the use of symlinks continues to maintain the low level of Rapidweather Remaster /ramdisk default use, as measured by the "df" command, to below 1%, the end result in Beta 134 is an increased number of available built-in Desktop Wallpaper images.

The new wallpaper images are editable by GIMP, as long as the work is saved as a new file name.
The symlinks have been placed by default, in the ~/.Wallpapers directory. There, the Wallpaper Control Center can apply any of them as Desktop Wallpaper.

The center section, the "Saved or Restored" section, "Apply Normal Size" button can start the wizard to select a particular file for use as Desktop Wallpaper.

Up to now, the ~/.Wallpapers directory has been empty by default, as it is the place where the user can store the wallpaper image files downloaded from the internet, using a web browser.

The idea is that when one of the files is to be applied to the desktop as wallpaper, the file is moved to the ~/.My_Wallpaper directory. The Wallpaper Control Center can be used to do that, by clicking on the "Manage Saved or Restored" button on the interface.

When the button is clicked, the file manager "emelFM" opens, and allows the user to move one file from the wallpaper collection directory ~/.Wallpapers to ~/.My Wallpaper, where it can be applied to the desktop, by clicking the "Apply Normal Size" button.

There are buttons for other size zooms, allowing accurate application to the desktop for almost any size image.

Due to the number of files, it would be difficult to provide an individual button for each one on the Wallpaper Control Center interface.
As it is, there are a number of buttons for some built-in Scenic wallpaper images, and 9 buttons for "download and apply to desktop" wallpaper images.

The downloadable image files can be changed on the rapidweather.com server, but all of the others are fixed in the CD, including the new collection of symlinked wallpaper image files provided in Beta 134.

These are sample wallpaper files, and the two topics are "lakeside villages" and "Steam-powered locomotives".

So, these sample image file's symlinks are placed in ~/.Wallpapers, and they are editable by GIMP, by saving as another file name when GIMP processing is completed. GIMP can process the downloadable image files also, and these do not have to be renamed, as they are not part of the CD filesystem, and are treated just like any wallpaper image that the user downloads, using a web browser.

As GIMP is a photoshop clone, you can try your hand at "photoshopping" any of the images, assuming that you find something that you want to change.

GIMP is provided in the Remaster, and you are able to access the new symlinked image files as follows:

The Wallpaper Control Center uses the file manager "emelFM" to display the contents of the wallpaper directories.

By right-clicking on a particular file, even if it is a symlink, emelFM will then allow you to open the image file in GIMP, for processing.

emelFM -> click on image file -> Choose Action -> GIMP

You may change the size of the image, select certain areas of the image for a new image, or add text to the image.
Also, you may remove certain parts of an image, or combine two or more images, to a certain extent.

If you use a "persistent home directory" partition, either on a hard drive, or on a USB pen drive, then your work can be saved from one bootup to the next.

On the topic of a "persistent home" partition, you may actually delete any or all of the files in ~/.Wallpapers, and the deleted file(s) will not appear on the next bootup of the system.

They are loaded into the system on bootup, that is the default, but then the "persistent home" setup immediately overwrites the contents of the ~/.Wallpaper directory, with what the user wants to have placed there.

Should you want to obtain a copy of the CD of Beta 134, go here, for ordering information.
The cost is $20.00, postage included, USA orders only, please.
I'll send two copies of the CD, an additional one for a backup.

Stay Tuned!

Opera 9.25

2007-12-31T18:03:00.000-08:00

I have updated the Opera web browser to Version 9.25 in the Remaster.

Check the Getting Started Guide for details.

As you will note, we are currently shipping Beta 133, Build 3.
For Mozilla Firefox, I have used the Accuweather.com extension, and configured it in a fairly useful way. The weather information appears in an unused area of the toolbar.

It's not the greatest thing in the world that I could add to Firefox, but it does provide some quick, if somewhat brief, and sometimes inaccurate weather information. I notice they sometimes have the current temperature wrong. You can right-click on the Accuweather toolbar and have it "reload" the data, but I have it set up to do that anyway every three minutes. Not as accurate as I would like, so I may leave it out next time Mozilla Firefox is updated to a new version.
One can click on any of the various elements of the Accuweather Toolbar, and get the appropriate Accuweather web page to open in a new browser tab. Accuweather seems to appreciate the fact that you have broadband internet access, then their web pages download and work ok.

After all, this is a linux distribution made by Rapidweather, and the built-in web browser start page does provide links to some of rapidweather's weather pages, on the fifth line of the main link area. There you can get weather maps and information that can outshine what you get with the Accuweather toolbar in Firefox.

You have to get used to the rapidweather weather pages to get the most out of them, so the Accuweather toolbar can provide really quick basic weather information for most users.

The downside is that you have to "set" it to your location, your zipcode, each time you boot up Firefox. There is no way you can save that Accuweather setting in the Remaster, as Firefox is "protected" by a rapidweather "Sccurity and Control Script" that completely deletes all traces of your Firefox web experience when you close the browser. Have to do this to protect those who depend on Firefox to do online bill paying, banking, online credit card purchases.

Same thing for Opera, it's protected also, but I have not placed an Accuweather toolbar in Opera. One can get an Opera "Widget" for Accuweather, I am testing it now in Opera, and it has a high quality interface, probably requiring more computer processing power to work quickly.
I am using an older Celeron processor, but the Opera Widget interface does work, although it is a bit slow. It's called touchtheSky, and like the Firefox extension for Accuweather, it needs to be adjusted for your zip code. The forecast data seems OK, but that's just a "forecast". The current temperature is off by 6 degrees (F) from what the National Weather Service is telling me about my location's current temp. Sure would like for these to match what the NWS has.

You may have noticed that I have not posted to this blog very often of late, this does not mean that I'm not doing anything with the Remaster, kindly check the Getting Started Guide to see current activity.

Stay Tuned!

Mozilla Firefox

2007-11-30T19:22:00.000-08:00

Mozilla Firefox is now up to version 2.0.0.11, released today.
I plan to have that version included in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux very soon.
Currently, Beta 130, Build 5 of the Remaster is using Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.9.
I can, however, test Firefox version 2.0.0.11 when using a "persistent home directory".
(Check the Getting Started Guide for details on that.)

Kindly refer to the method for testing a new version of Mozilla Firefox in this previous Blog post.

The only change is that you will need to get the latest version, 2.0.0.11, here.

Please note that you may navigate that site by going to the "parent directory", and obtain Firefox in other languages as well as older versions of Firefox.

For US-English, you want the firefox-2.0.0.11.tar.gz file, 9.2 MB, provided in the link just above..

So, using the above method, I am running Firefox 2.0.0.11 now, and have made a main menu item for it, under Menu -> Internet as follows in the ~/.icewm/menu file:


prog "Firefox 2.0.0.11" /usr/local/firefox/icons/mozicon16.xpm rxvt -iconic -rv -fb 10x20 -geometry 70x10+20+12 -cr yellow -T "Firefox 2.0.0.11" -e /home/knoppix/firefox/firefox

(Be advised that Blogger cuts the line up into several lines, please apply it to your menu file as one long line, so that it will match the others in the menu file.)

You can add that line in the ~/.icewm/menu file using emelFM (The file manager on the IceWM toolbar), and using the SciTE editor to open the file. If you use a "persistent home directory", your menu item will be retained from one bootup of the linux system to the next.

Don't use the built in Firefox 2.0.0.9 IceWM toolbar icon, or the Security and Control script for Firefox (built in to the CD, for 2.0.0.9) will remove your configuration you have made for the testing version of Firefox 2.0.0.11. That's the ~/.mozilla directory, and it needs to stay around for the next time you want to run Firefox 2.0.0.11 from the IceWM menu. (not the toolbar icon, for 2.0.0.9).
You are just testing your latest Firefox version, and not using anything additional with Firefox, such as the Security and Control Script.
To find out more about the Security and Control Scripts for the web browsers, review this section in the Getting Started Guide.
Returning the to subject of "adding on" additional web browsers when using a "persistent home directory", I also run Netscape Navigator, using the same method. I don't have Netscape in the Rapidweather Remaster CD, since it does not look as good as Firefox, and is based on Firefox itself. The fonts are too small, so I just use Netscape for testing only, using the add-on method. They upgrade it constantly, in step with Firefox.

There seems to be no end to the upgrade cycle with the web browsers, mainly for security reasons, but sometimes for stability, and other improvements to the browser(s).

The "add-on" method can come in handy to test new browser versions.

However, a conflict can arise if one tries to use both a new and an older version of the same web browser, for instance, when using Firefox, only one ~/.mozilla can be present in the home directory at a time.
So, you would have to stick to using the "latest" Firefox, and keep that "~/.mozilla directory and files in your home directory.
Same thing with Opera, where an ~/.opera directory and files are used for the users configuration of that browser.
You have two directories for Firefox "added on", they are ~/firefox, and ~/.mozilla.
The built-in Firefox has the "/usr/local/firefox" directory, and the ~/.mozilla directory.
The "/usr/local/firefox" directory is built-in to the CD, and is only changed when the remastering program is run, to make a new CD. The ~/.mozilla directory changes all the time, as you surf the web.
If, however, you are running the Built-In Firefox, and not an Add-on Firefox, then the Security and Control Script actually runs Firefox for you, and starts out with a new, default ~/.mozilla every time the linux system is booted, and you click on the "Mozilla Firefox Web Browser" toolbar icon in IceWM, Menu item in Fluxbox, or KDE desktop icon.

Just thought I would go into some background of how Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux handles the web browsers.
This is different from other operating systems, and is done for your privacy, and for security purposes, to protect your data. You should feel more secure doing online banking, or bill paying, for instance.
Be aware, however, that "add-on" web browsers are not protected to the same degree as the built-in web browsers are, that use the Security and Control Scripts.
The "add-on" setup I have described for Firefox 2.0.0.11, above, treats Firefox just like it were on a "hard drive" setup, such as found on other operating systems that are not livecd, and do not have the browsers running within a Security and Control Script.
Those of you with the Rapidweather Remaster CD can see the source of these scripts in the "/usr/local/keepers" directory. They are fully commented for your reading pleasure.

For a list of bugs that are fixed by the newer versions of Firefox, go here.

Orders received for CD's of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux will get the new version of Firefox, 2.0.0.11 included.
You may place your order here.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 130

2007-11-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

Beta 130 is now available, Here is the Getting Started Guide.

To get your copy of the CD, go here.

There is a new slideshow application, that will display all of the built-in desktop wallpaper images. They will be applied to the desktop as wallpaper, and changed periodically as in a slideshow. This is not a "screensaver", and the desktop is not locked.

There is another application called "Screen Lock" that does that. It requires a Ctrl-Alt-F1 keypress to unlock. This application runs only from a system that is booted using the Rapidweather CD, and not the "loadlin" method.

Currently, the Wallpaper Control Center is used to select an individual wallpaper, either downloaded by the user, or one of the built-in wallpapers, and apply that one as the "desktop wallpaper".
With the new "slideshow" application, we now have a way to cycle through the various built-in wallpaper images, having each one in turn applied as wallpaper for a timed interval, that being fixed by the application.

The "interval" varies, so each wallpaper does not remain in place for the same amount of time.
Downloaded wallpaper images are not included, the application works with the built-in images only.

You may switch to KDE, from the default IceWM desktop, and use KDE's application to create a slideshow of your downloaded wallpaper images. Just right-click on the KDE desktop to configure a KDE-only desktop slideshow. The Slideshow application described above will also have a KDE desktop icon to start it within KDE.

Right now, the Slideshow is accessed via the IceWM menu, later on I will also add a button for it on the Wallpaper Control Center interface.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 129

2007-10-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Beta 129, Build 6 is available.
Here is a link to the Getting Started Guide.

Stay Tuned!

Running from the USB drive

2007-10-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

I have an application that will put the hard drives in sleep mode while one is running the linux system from a USB drive, such as a 2 GB SanDisk drive.
It's useful as a power-saving feature, and will save wear and tear on the computer's hard drives.
Go here to look at the code for this application, you may download it and try it out, if you are running your system from a USB drive. Be sure and chmod +x the file so it will run.
The application turns all of the detected swap partitions off, then enables the /dev/sda7 swap partition on the USB drive.
See earlier posts on how to set up your USB drive.
The best place to put this file is in the /home/knoppix/download directory, when using a persistent home directory partition (/dev/sda5) on the USB drive. That way, it goes with you when you move the USB drive to another computer. Also, you may want to check the drive numbers on your computer, to see what you have, and modify the script accordingly. It's set up to put /dev/hda and /dev/hdb in Sleep Mode as it is.
Also, I modified the IceWM menu, located at /home/knoppix/.icewm/menu to include an entry to access the application and run it from the menu. I have placed it in the
Menu -> Admin-Tools section, and here is the entry:


separator
prog "HD Sleep Mode" /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/16x16/apps/terminal.png rxvt -iconic -rv -fb 10x20 -geometry 107x38+10+10 -cr yellow -T "HD Sleep Mode" -e sudo /home/knoppix/download/hard_drive_sleep.sh
separator

You should make it all one line in the ~/.icewm/menu file (except for the "separator" lines), Blogger always cuts these lines of code up into three or so lines, which is not correct for your file.
Rapidweather Remaster makes it easy to work with your menu file, just open emelFM from the toolbar icon, and navigate to the /home/knoppix/.icewm directory, click on menu, then press the "SciTE" button to open the menu in the editor.
Once you get the new line in there, be sure and click on the "X" on the IceWM toolbar to have the IceWM window manager "restart" and show your new menu entry. Just right-click on the desktop, and navigate to the "Admin-Tools" section to see your new entry. If you modify the application in any way, it will run as you have made it, without having to re-do the menu.
As you can see from the source code of the application, it will take all of the drives out of Sleep Mode first, just in case you have run this application earlier. Then it will put them back in Sleep Mode. Always run this application when you first start up the linux system from the USB drive, and arrive at the desktop. The application will cut off all swap partitions, then restart only the one on the USB drive.

I may place this application in the CD in the next Beta Build, but would not want to make a menu item for it, as that could be used, even though the system is not running from a USB drive.
Probably will provide the menu code in the Getting Started Guide, so advanced users, those most likely to be using a USB drive anyway, can set this up. The location for the file would not be in /ramdisk, but in /usr/local/keepers, in the CD. Then it would not depend on a persistent home directory setup, and the ~/download directory would not have to hold this file.

I put the source code up on the internet for you, you can run the file from a root shell in other livecd linux distributions that run from a USB drive, or from the CDROM drive, only.

Stay Tuned!

Netscape Navigator 9

2007-10-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

I'm testing Netscape Navigator 9, it's running at this time on Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
It seems to be based on Firefox 2.0.0.7, but has a Netscape toolbar, and has WeatherBug added to the toolbar at the lower right hand corner.
The main thing I don't like about Netscape 9 is the small size of the default text on the toolbar, and other places in the browser.
Also, you can't install Adobe Flash as easily as with Firefox.
Firefox will let you know when you are visiting a web site that requires Flash, and all you have to do to install it, is click on a button that appears, and accept a license agreement, and Flash is downloaded and the browser immediately reloads the web page to show the Flash content.

So, this is just a test of Netscape version 9.0rc1, and I have no plans to place Netscape 9 in the Remaster at this time. There are plenty of other graphical web browsers in the Remaster, Firefox, Flock, Opera, and Dillo.

Stay Tuned.

Beta 128

2007-10-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

Beta 128, Build 4 is available, and has the latest Opera web browser, version 9.23.
Here is the link to the Getting Started Guide.

Stay Tuned!

Opera 9.50 testing.

2007-09-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

I obtained a newer version of the Opera 9.50 web browser, still under development, and am testing it now.
Still not ready to go into Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. I did have one earlier version that would not run at all in the Remaster, but this one will.
This is the name of the tarball:

opera-9.50-20070920.1-static-qt.i386-1589.tar.gz

It is the "UNIX" build 1589, available here:

http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/snapshot-1589/intel-linux/

These change almost weekly, so go here to the main page and click on the "UNIX" build to navigate to the download directory.

See the earlier post on Opera 9.50 for some instructions on how to test this build.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 127

2007-09-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Beta 127, build 2 is now ready.

Take a look at the Getting Started Guide, What's New section for details.

Stay Tuned!

Opera 9.5 Alpha

2007-09-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

I'm running (in test mode) Opera 9.5 Alpha. There are a few problems that will prevent it from being placed in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux at this time.
One item is that I cannot get Opera 9.5 to accept "SciTE" as the viewer of web page HTML source. I use SciTE to edit web pages, and the current Opera in the Remaster, Version 9.10, uses it successfully. Otherwise Opera 9.5 does perform well, in what I would call "test mode".
That involves unpacking the Opera tar.gz file in /home/knoppix, which produces an Opera directory, containing the opera shell script that, when run, will start Opera. I do that in an RXVT, by first navigating to the Opera directory, then "./opera", to start the browser.
I have to comment out the IceWM toolbar Opera icon, so I will not use it to start Opera. That would run the Security and Control Script for Opera 9.10, and when that closes, the new Opera 9.5 directory would be completely deleted, then Opera 9.5 would have to be reinstalled from the downloaded tarball. I tested this, and the Security and Control Script for Opera 9.10 will indeed delete the entire Opera 9.5 temporary install directory, leaving no trace at all.
Current Alpha is:

opera-9.50-20070903.5-shared-qt.i386-1567.tar.gz

Go here to locate the file to download. Should the Opera development team release a newer version, you may need to edit the URL produced by that link. Perhaps it will be /9.50-Alpha-2/ or something. You'll need to know, or you will not be able to enter the correct download directory on the Opera server.

Go Here for the Opera Desktop Team blog.
At the top of that page, there will be a link to the latest "UNIX" build. That ought to do it.
Rapidweather Remaster users, make sure you use the "shared-qt" version, and that you use a Persistent Home Directory hard drive partition, or have over 256 MB of RAM to run Opera 9.5 in a temporary install, such as described above. It should persist from one bootup to the next, and save all of your Opera preferences, settings, etc.

I do copy the RSS feed files over from Opera 9.10, so I'll have them in Opera 9.5.
When a new RSS feed story arrives, after the initial download of stories, Opera 9.5 gives you a little pop-up notice, with the name of the feed, and the story title. The story title is new for Opera 9.5. It catches your attention when the notice pops up, and if the story is something you are interested in, then you can go the Opera's "Feeds" drop down box, and click on the new story.

I'll place Opera 9.5 in the Remaster as soon as it's ready.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 126

2007-09-03T15:53:00.000-07:00

The built-in internet start page for the web browsers has been upgraded to remove out-of-date links, and to replace some of the links with new ones. It is Version 4.80.
For the most part, web sites that are listed are winning sites on the Webby Awards.
Other useful sites are listed also.
There is a difference between the internet copy and the one in the CD of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
Here is the copy of "Your Home Page" on the internet. It's Version 4.81, and has been formatted to display correctly on the new "widescreen" monitors. This involves removing any width=xx percent HTML code for any TABLE, or TD, used to generate the page.
The HTML for that page in the CD continues to use the "liquid layout" setup, with the percents used in TABLE and TD's to establish width. This is done so the page will display correctly on older 800x600 or 1024x768 screens still in use, and most likely to be used with the Remaster.
The page can "adjust" to either screen width, when "liquid layout" is used.
Your Home Page (web.html) is the only local copy of a web page on the internet that is provided in the Remaster as a "start page" for the browsers, (Opera, Firefox, Flock, Dillo and others).
The problem of liquid layout not displaying as intended on widescreen monitors affects many other web pages on rapidweather.com, but that does not affect Rapidweather Remaster directly.
The page in the Remaster also has the "sliding menu bar" that allows the user to see the contents of the various home directories, in the web browser. Also, the page in the Remaster does not have a counter, used by web site developers to determine the number of page views.
If a counter were placed in the page used in the CD, then it would possibly upset a dial up connection being made, but not fully connected, at the time when the browser begins to display the built-in home page. Does not matter when broadband is used.

Other than layout changes, it is most important to update the links in "Your Home Page", which I have done. Future upgrades of web.html for that purpose can be used by those with Beta 126 or older, just view the new page in your browser, and set the page as your browser's home page. This works only for the current boot-up session, as Firefox, Opera and Flock are set up to "forget" all history, cache, cookies, and settings such as that, when the browser is closed.
One can use the alternate web browser menu, rather than the toolbar icons, to start the browser.

Menu -> Extras -> Web Browsers -> (choose one).

That menu will not run the browsers using a setup where everything is deleted, instead everything can be kept, if you are using a "persistent home directory" and do not run the browser from the toolbar icon, that will delete all settings if done. Stay with the "Extras" browser menu from one bootup to the next, and your choice of "home page" set in the Perferences for the browser, should stay with you.
Although these two web pages have the same name, one is on the internet and one is in the CD, so to the web browser, they are different.
Eventually, I may use the new "widescreen-compatible" internet copy for the local copy in the CD. Personally, I do not think it looks quite as good as the one now in the CD. (I'm not using a widescreen monitor)

Beta 126 is now available for shipment, go here to order a CD.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 125

2007-08-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is now up to Beta 125, Build 6.
What I have been doing with all these builds of Beta 125 is to code a new Security and Control Script for Mozilla Firefox, with the Java plugin. Compared to the regular Firefox setup, Firefox w/Java is a temporary installation, that is deleted when the user exits the browser.
Several things could happen when the user starts Firefox w/Java, and the new S & C script handles all of them:

Firefox could already be running when the user starts Firefox w/Java. The S & C then closes the currently running Firefox, and notifies the user. Next choice is to either cancel the new installation of Firefox w/Java, and restart the current Firefox with the ~/.mozilla intact, or to continue on with the installation of Firefox w/Java. If the user decides to continue, then the current Firefox is deleted from /ramdisk. Much more actually goes on, but that is end result.
Another instance of Firefox w/Java could already be running. The S & C handles that also, so there are not two Firefox's running at the same time.
There could be leftovers from a closed Firefox in the system, such as a ~/.mozilla, and the S & C detects that, and notifies the user, before going ahead and removing the "leftovers" and then installing Firefox w/Java. These leftovers can be there due to the user turning off the computer without closing Firefox, and the S & C did not get the chance to clean them up prior to the exit.

Mozilla Firefox either with or without Java runs in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux within a S & C script, (there are two versions) that protects against Firefox crashes, gives three restarts, before the S & C closes Firefox and deletes the entire installation.
It's possible to run Firefox without a S & C, there are menu items for that, and one gets the basic Mozilla configuration, rather than the customized Rapidweather Remaster one. With no S & C, the ~/.mozilla created when running the browser remains in the system, assuming that a Persistent Home Directory hard drive partition is being used.
Same thing when running the system from a USB drive, there's a partition on that just for a Persistent Home Directory.
So, one can configure Firefox to keep the History, Cache, Cookies, etc. from one bootup to the next.
To do that, the menu item for Firefox without Rapidweather Remaster configuration must always be used.
It's tucked away here:

Menu -> Extras -> Web Browsers
(Opera, Firefox, Flock)

I hide them there, as it's best nowadays to use a S & C setup for your web browsers, usually accessed via the toolbar icons for all three.
To use the IceWM menu to access the browsers, (all of them):

Menu -> Internet -> (Pick a browser, Firefox, Firefox w/Java, Opera, Flock, Konqueror, Dillo, Lynx, ELinks)

Only the "Big Three" run in a S & C script, the others don't, so be careful using something like Konqueror to do Online Banking, for instance.
Your web surfing privacy, and the security of your passwords, etc. is better when a S & C controls your web browser. Everything is deleted from the running linux system when you close the browser. No trace, it is as if the web browser was not used at all today.
If the IceWM toolbar icon for Firefox is used, then the S & C runs for Firefox, and that will certainly remove the entire ~/.mozilla and all of the History, Cache, Cookies are lost. The S & C cleans up prior to starting Firefox, and then cleans up when the user exits Firefox.
Only the S & C for Mozilla Firefox w/Java has the extra protective features in the list above.
It is an entirely temporary installation, and gets completely removed from the running linux system on Firefox's exit.
The main reason for having Java is so the weather maps for the hurricane areas can be viewed, these are available in my weather maps page, hurricane maps section. Here on the Gulf Coast, we are coming up on the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a terrible storm for those of us who lived through it.
The Opera web browser, also provided in Rapidweather Remaster, can view these Java maps, but, the version of Java they use is not nearly as good. The control buttons on the maps don't work, and the maps take too long to load.
So, Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6 with Java, as provided in Rapidweather Remaster, is much better, all of the buttons work, so you and quickly toggle things like latitude and longitude, sea surface temperatures.
These Java powered maps are available for all of the USA, not just for the hurricane areas, as provided by my weather maps page. Go here, to see all that the NOAA Satellite Services Division has to offer.
There have been powerful storms and record floods in the Midwest, a lot of which was caused by the remnants of a tropical storm. Texas has had record floods also.
Mozilla Firefox in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux gives you the ability to view the state of the art Java weather maps provided by NOAA.
Go here to order your copy of the CD of Rapidweather Remaster. While you are at that site, be sure and enjoy the Screenshots.
One more item:
The Dillo web browser is provided in Rapidweather Remaster. This is a real fast basic web browser, and has the ability to analyze the HTML code on any web page, and provide the web developer with a list of the HTML errors in the code. I just finished using Dillo on this page, and was able to fix the problem HTML quickly, so there are no errors remaining, according to Dillo. Most modern web browsers can make corrections, so one does not really know about any errors from the way the web page looks in Netscape, for instance. Now, it's Mozilla Firefox that handles small HTML errors and displays the page correctly. Not all modern web pages look good in Dillo, one example is USA Today. Not laid out correctly at all for use with Dillo.
One use for Dillo is when I have to copy a new Beta Build to a USB Drive, that operation takes a lot of CPU power and computer memory to do, and on some of the older computers that I use, not much is left to run one of the big web browsers like Firefox, so I use Dillo for a while, until the copy project is completed.

Stay Tuned!

Hurricanes

2007-08-18T15:36:00.002-07:00

I've been busy making sure that my weather web pages are maintained during this hurricane season.
We have Hurricane Dean, and my weather maps page is ready to provide you with a large selection of weather map links.
This page has been designed to load up fast in your web browser, no waiting.

Another useful page is the Severe Weather Information Page.

I have also been busy providing informative blog posts about the hurricane for a local TV station's website. Apparently I am the only one, besides the TV weathermen there, that is permitted to contribute.

Everyone needs to do something to help during hurricanes, depending on what one is able to do.
I did help run a Red Cross shelter during an earlier hurricane, and during Hurricane Camille, I helped load supplies on aircraft heading to the Coast. Seems like these jobs always wind up being in the middle of the night, but if that's when the airplane comes in, you have to be there to help the others with the task.
Now I make the weather pages, designed to provide maximum information in the shortest amount of time and bandwidth.

Here's one more weather page you might like to see, this one allows you to place a weather map in one frame, and a text report in another frame. Lots of combinations possible, so it's something to play with. Putting the text in one frame helps explain what is shown in the weather map in the other frame, you see them at the same time, so it's a little better than just using browser tabs. You can even put two different maps up for viewing, or two different text reports.

Go to the main page at rapidweather.com for more.

I am using Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux for all of this work, latest Version is Beta 125, Build 2.
As I use Rapidweather Remaster, I'll make some notes on what might be changed or added to the next Beta Build. So far, it is very useful, and everything works well.

Rapidweather

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6

2007-08-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

I've made Beta 125, Build 2 to provide the latest Mozilla Firefox upgrade, Version 2.0.0.6.
Here is the Getting Started Guide, with a link to the Firefox release notes. This is a security upgrade, required.

For most people using Linux, Mozilla Firefox is their main web browser. So, I wanted to keep up with the upgrades, especially if they are for security reasons. Apparently the security fixes addressed a vulnerability or two wherein an attacker could run some malicious code on some computers. Probably not successfully on a livecd linux like Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
But, went ahead and did the upgrade anyway, just to be on the safe side.

To get your copy of the CD of Beta 125, Build 2, visit the Screenshots page, where ordering information is provided.
I have updated some of the screenshots, namely the ones showing the Wallpaper Control Center, in the "New Applications - 3" section.

Also, in the top section of 12 screenshots, there is one in the second row, third one from the left that shows the Flock web browser. The RSS feed side panel provided by Flock is displayed in the Screenshot.
Flock does this better than anyone, and I have customized the list of RSS feed sites to maximize the available news content.
One is able to review a large group of news stories in a very efficient manner. Much faster than going to all of the web sites.
Flock is set up to quickly download about 350 stories with pictures from the RSS feed sites, available for review soon after the browser is started. This is a high-performance, state-of-the-art setup for news hounds.
Broadband internet access gives best results.

Stay Tuned!

Wallpaper Control Center

2007-07-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

The Wallpaper Control Center application in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux has been upgraded to Version 0.4.3. The addition of three more "Direct Download" buttons, for a total of nine, is the biggest change. Clicking any of the 9 buttons will quickly download and install a custom-made (Using GIMP) wallpaper image from the rapidweather.com web server.

These 9 downloadable wallpapers are in addition to the 12 that are provided in the CD, all are placed on your desktop in seconds with one touch of a button.

Also, an under-the-hood change to the script that runs when the "Save Downloaded" button on the Wallpaper Control Center is clicked.

That application is upgraded to Version 1.4.

The use of a "Persistent Home Directory" is quite common now, and downloaded wallpaper images really do not have to be saved in a KNOPPIX configuration archive to be restored and made available when the system is booted up again. So this script was rewritten to accommodate the users that have a PHD.
Using this application, one can still create a restoration archive for use by those users that do not have a PHD. The focus of the script now is to "organize" the downloaded wallpaper images into a collection of available image files, and to allow the user to manage them, selecting one to be used for the current desktop wallpaper.

From then on, the Wallpaper Control Center "Saved or Restored" button zone provides buttons to Manage, View, and Apply any of the images in the collection to the desktop.

The "Save Downloaded" button in the Downloaded Wallpaper button zone is designed to hand-off the management of the downloaded wallpapers to the next button zone, the "Saved or Restored" zone.

When new downloaded images are received by the system, as when the user surfs the web, and finds wallpaper images that need to be placed in the collection, the "Save Downloaded" button, with the new script discussed above, can be clicked, and those new images are added to the collection. With a Persistent Home Directory, the new collection is automatically saved, but in the ~/download directory, and restored there at future boot-ups of the linux system, with nothing required of the user to have that done.
Those users without a PHD, and just a restoration archive, will need to use that section of the "Save Downloaded" script to have the new images included in the restoration archive each time.
As you can see, there are advantages to using a PHD, but one still has to use the "Save Downloaded" button to have the images placed in the "collection".

The new changes and applications are in Beta 124, Build 2, available at this time.

Click here to go to the page where you may obtain your copy of the CD for this Beta build. That web page has screenshots, and I will be uploading new Wallpaper Control Center screenshots soon, for you to see. Look in "New Applications - 3".

Here is the link to the web edition of the Getting Started Guide for this build.

One interesting section there is the "What's New Archives", providing details on the changes over the past several Beta builds of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

I find it easier to maintain the archives section, rather than completely rewrite the Getting Started Guide when new applications are added, and changes are made.

Stay Tuned!

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.5

2007-07-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, July 17, 2007, the Mozilla Foundation upgraded Firefox to Version 2.0.0.5.

As a result, I have made Beta 123, Build 1 of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux with the new Firefox web browser included.

The previous Beta 122, Build 1 had Firefox 2.0.0.4.

Several security issues have been fixed, one of the main ones does not affect linux systems, only Windows systems where both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are used.

It has been nearly a month since I have issued a new Beta Build, so I used this chance to go ahead and make one. No other changes to the Remaster were made at this time, but I may use this opportunity to come up with something for Beta 123, and perhaps put it in Build 2.
I have some ideas of items that may be added, but I have not started on any of those possible projects at this time.
All in all, the Remaster is very useful as it is, and you may order a
copy of the CD by going to this page:

Rapidweather's Screenshots and CD Sales

For now, I am going to be testing Beta 123, Build 1, and getting it transferred to my Sandisk Cruzer USB drives (see earlier post about running the system from a USB drive).
On that subject, I have made several different selection menu's that are used on computers with a USB drive. Although I have not placed all of those menu's in the file download package, you may go here, and download the package to see what these MSDOS batch files and other items look like.
You will still need the Rapidweather Remaster CD to put it all together. There is a good "readme" in the package with all of the details.

Stay Tuned!

Posting to your Blog using Flock 0.7.14

2007-07-13T18:20:00.001-07:00

One of the web browsers included in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is Flock, version 0.7.14.
Rather than use a web browser, such as Opera, Firefox, or Flock, to go to the web address of your blog, and log in directly to the interface, Flock has a built-in setup to allow you to connect to your blog, and compose a new blog post, using the editor provided in Flock.

So, this post is being made using Flock, and the "blog this" feature.

"Blog This" is where one comes across an interesting link or story while surfing the web, and to place that link in your blog, all that is required is to right click the link, and click "blog this" in the drop-down box that appears.

Here is an example:

Photos: A plane that skims the sea

Although this may seem simple enough, there are some steps to go through to get this link in the proper place in this blog post, using Flock.

First, you set up your blog within Flock, by either pressing "Ctrl-B", or going to the Flock toolbar,

Tools -> Blog

Enter what you want to have for a Title, and what you want to say, prior to the "blog this" link.

Then, go to the web site where the link can be found that you want to put in the blog post, and as mentioned above, right click the link, and click "blog this" in the drop down box that appears.

Now for the fun part, Flock opens a new blog post editor, with just the link. You really did not want Flock to do that, would have been nice if your link were placed in the blog editor you are working on, rather than a new one. You will have to change that second blog post editor to "Source", (tab at the left-bottom), and highlight the "html" for the link, then do "Edit -> Copy" in the editor's toolbar.

Now you will want to paste that link in the Source of your blog post, the first one you are working on, not the second one that Flock opened, with just the link.

After you have pasted the html code for the link you want to add in your blog post, click on "Editor" in Flock's blog editor, and see how it looks.

More complications: Now, try and type more text in your blog editor. Does it try and appear as a "link" (wrong) or as just "text" (right).

If it appears as a "link", blue with underline, then click on the "Source" tab and examine the "html" that was "pasted" into the blog post editor. The above link that I placed in this post had a "second line" of seemingly duplicate html that should be removed. I had to highlight the extra html, and delete it.

That done, then subsequent text added into the blog editor will appear as normal text, and not as a "link".

One other thing while you are looking at the Source "html" in the Flock blog editor. If there are too many spaces between the sentences that you have entered, they will appear as "<p>" and "</p>", also "<br>" and "</br>" you can highlight and remove them by hitting the "Delete" key on your keyboard, then switch back to the "Editor" tab, and see how it will look. When viewing your post in the "Editor" tab, you can also remove the extra spaces by clicking at the end of a sentence, and pressing the "delete" key until the next line is directly below, with no space between the two lines. What you see is what you get, with the Flock blog editor.

Using Flock to prepare blog posts can have some advantages over using the normal web interface that Blogger, for instance, uses.
Blogger seems slow, the text you type lags behind as it appears on the Blogger interface. Using the Flock editor is much easier to work with.

In any event, once you have finished making your blog post using the Flock blog editor, to post, just click the "Publish" button in the lower right hand corner.

If the result as posted to your blog while using Flock is not to your liking, you can always use the normal web interface to fix the post. The Flock editor can replace a complete blog post, and Flock will save a copy for you locally prior to posting to your blog. That local copy can be edited and then posted as a "replacement" blog post.

When you click the "Publish" button, you are given a choice of "new" or "replacement". If "replacement" is chosen, the Flock blog editor then downloads a list of your blog posts, so you can choose which one to "replace".

The Flock blog editor can reopen the file for you for re-editing, on the toolbar, File -> Open Recent.

Or, In Rapidweather Remaster, use the file manager, emelFM to locate the local copy, it will be in /home/knoppix/Flock Blog Posts/
then use the SciTE editor to change the source html of the blog post, if you are confortable with that.

If you are running Rapidweather Remaster with a "persistent home directory", then the posts will be saved for you for use the next time you boot up the system.

In other news, I am still holding the development of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux at Beta 122, Build 1.
I am having a lot of fun using it, running from the USB drive as mentioned in previous posts. That's turning out to be a "long term" test, for lack of a better term.

Stay Tuned!

Blogged with Flock

Belkin USB 2.0 5-Port PCI Card.

2007-07-09T17:15:00.000-07:00

I am using one of the add on Belkin USB cards on a Gateway 2000 computer, the G6 266 m.
This computer has two USB ports on the motherboard, but they will not reliably run my SanDisk Cruzer USB drive, mentioned in previous posts. This computer is a Pentium II, and I have installed 192 MB of RAM, (simms). The processor has a 512 KB cache, and measures 530.84 bogomips, (overall speed), fairly good for a computer this old.
So, I installed the Belkin USB card, plugged in my optical mouse, and the 2 GB SanDisk drive, that has Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux installed on it. (See previous posts on this subject).
Runs just fine now, not running from the hard drive at all, except to boot up the SanDisk drive. Beside saving some power, assuming that the USB card and SanDisk drive do not require as many watts as the Hard Drive does. The hard drive is still connected to the motherboard, it is no longer running as it does when I boot Rapidweather Remaster from the hard drive. I can access any of the partitions on the hard drive, if I want to, usually easily done with the file manager, emelFM. So, if I wanted to move some files back and forth between the SanDisk drive, and the computer's hard drive, I can do that.
According to the KDE info center, the USB ports are able to transfer data at 12 Mbps, so that's what I get when the system runs from the SanDisk drive. It seems to be fast enough for me, but perhaps it is a little slower than when the Remaster runs from the computer's hard drive, an old 4.3 GB Quantum Fireball.
So we wind up with a balance between trying to get some speed out of an older computer like this Pentium II Gateway 2000, and having everything work, and having the security of running from a removable USB drive. It's pretty cool to be able to take all of your personal files with you, and leave nothing behind in the computer. I can run an ATI Radeon 32 MB graphics card on this computer, but decided instead to use an older S3 Virge card (uses less power), since I can't tell the difference with the Gateway EV900 monitor, running 1024x768 at 16 bpp. Both cards can do 24 bpp, but I have to manually edit the configuration file and restart the X server to do that, still cannot tell the difference on this monitor. So I leave it at 16 bpp, that's what the system will always use on both graphics cards.

In other news, I am testing the Flock 9.0 beta web browser, it is installed on this very same SanDisk USB drive. Flock 9.0 is OK, but I'll wait until they finish their testing phase, before I see if I need to replace Flock 7 now in the Remaster, with the new browser. Eventually, I'll have to, but for the time being, I find Flock 7 unbeatable, and I would hate to let it go.
The RSS feed setup that I have for Flock 7 looks and performs much better than what I am able to get Flock 9 beta to do, considering that the browser needs to run in a livecd setup.

Stay Tuned!

USB Drive Testing

2007-07-02T14:55:00.000-07:00

This is just an update to let you know what I am working on.
I'm still doing testing with the 2 and 4 GB Sandisk cruzer usb drives.

Update, July 4, 2007:
The following described bug does not affect all motherboards, most will not be affected at all.
I was able to get at least one machine to have this bug, so it appears this is a minor bug, not one that everyone, with all computers, motherboards, etc. will experience.
Did want to bring it up, rather than say nothing about it.

A minor bug:
So far, I have only found one bug to report. If you are running Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux from the usb drive, and open the file manager "emelFM", and select the bookmark "/mnt", then emelFM can be very slow to respond to your request. This may be due to the use of a swap partition on the usb drive. What I do is turn off that swap partition, and try again. Or you could wait until the instance of emelFM you have open, responds, which could be several minutes. This occurs when using an add-on PCI usb port card. Some of these ae using the older usb protocol, rather than the 2.0 protocol used by the Sandisk cruzer drives. That may contribute to the slowness.
In a root shell:

swapoff -a

Then, to turn the swap partition(s) back on:

swapon -a

Anticipating this problem with emelFM, I turn the swap off first, then open emelFM, and I have no problems accessing the /mnt directory, it opens quickly.
This bug can also come up if you try and save an image file viewed in Firefox, Opera, or Flock, to any partition in "/mnt". Best to run the usb drive from the computer's motherboard usb ports, rather than through an add on usb card, if either of these two items affect you.
That's about it for potential problems with the usb drive setup described in the previous post.

It's a lot of fun, really, to run Rapidweather Remaster from a usb drive, and the performance of the drive will be satisfactory if you are using a computer with it's own usb ports, rather than using an add-on PCI usb card. That can slow down the "emelFM - /mnt" and Firefox "save to some partition in /mnt" items. Everything else seems to be performing normally when using an add-on PCI usb port card. For instance, when using Firefox just to surf the web. When using the computer's motherboard usb ports to run the Remaster from the Sandisk usb drive the bug(s) don't show up. And, as reported in the July 4, 2007 update to this bug report, the bug will not show up on all computers. Most will be unaffected, no bug or problem at all.

In other news, the Remaster is still at Beta 122, Build 1.
Unless I can come up with something to put in the Remaster, such as another web browser upgrade, then I'll leave it there for now.

Stay Tuned!

SanDisk ReadyBoost USB Drive

2007-06-18T14:10:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting with these drives, I am using both the 2 GB and 4 GB ones.
Instead of using the hard drive or the CDROM drive, I'm running Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux from the USB Drive.

Don't try any of the following unless you are an experienced MSDOS, Linux user.

You will have to have a copy of the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD to be able to set up the main "CD" /KNOPPIX folder on the USB drive.
Go here to obtain one.

The main reason for using a USB drive is so you can move the drive to another computer that you have set up to run Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. You can take all of your financial and personal files with you when you leave the computer behind. When the computer is off, just unplug the USB drive and put it in your pocket.

I partition the drive as follows:

The USB drive comes with several partitions, all of which will need to be removed and replaced with linux ext2 partitions. Use QTParted that comes with the Remaster. You'll have to reboot the machine several times to get all of the old patitions removed and the new ones in place. You can use QTparted to format the partitions, but I also like to do "/sbin/mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1" when done. Also there is "/sbin/mkswap /dev/sda7"
that you can do. (You will need to be, as mentioned above, an experienced Linux user.)
First partition will be /dev/sda1, 700 MB for the /KNOPPIX folder, this is the "CD", and is copied from the running system. Also, one can boot directly from the CD, and use the knoppix cheatcode "tohd=/dev/sda1" and the CD will be copied to the 700 MB sda1 partition on the USB drive, and then will run the linux system from there. At that point, the CD can be removed from the CDROM drive, and put back in it's case. That'll free up the CDROM drive so you can play a music cd, or place a data cd there for some other purpose.
The next three partitions are going to be logical partitions on an extended partition, for the rest of the USB drive. First, make /dev/sda5, ext2, which will be for the "persistent home directory". On the 2GB USB drive, I made that 700 MB also. Once you have the system running using the /dev/sda1 partition with the /KNOPPIX (the cd) folder in it, you can use the menu to make the "persistent home directory" on /dev/sda5. If you have one of the 4 GB USB drives, you may make this partition much larger if you want. You'll have more than enough space with a 700 MB "persistent home directory". Right now, mine is using only 5% of the 700 MB partition.
Next, you may want to make another partition just for storage, on /dev/sda6. You could leave this out, since the storage on /dev/sda5 is the same, it is just set up as the "persistent home directory". Important uses for /dev/sda6 would be swap directories in sda6 for GIMP and for K3B.
The last partition will be the "swap" partition, and you can use 150 MB or so for that.
Generally, the system will not need that much unless you have only 128 MB of RAM installed on the computer, and the processor(CPU) is less than a 300 MHZ one.

Although you are running the Rapidweather Remaster linux system from a USB Drive, you cannot boot from this drive.

You will still need to boot from the CD, in the CDROM drive, and use "knoppix cheatcodes" such as these to get the system running from the USB drive:

boot: knoppix fromhd=/dev/sda1 home=/dev/sda5 xmodule=trident screen=1024x768 vsync=70
Please note that any knoppix cheatcode must be on one line, Google's Blogger cuts this line into two lines.

Booting from the Computer's Hard Drive

(Instead of from the CDROM drive)

The alternate way of using a small MSDOS hard drive and loadlin to run the Rapidweather Remaster system from the USB drive, can be done without using a CD as described in the previous step. You may have a Windows 98, 95 or just a MSDOS hard drive installed in the computer, and you will need these files set up and installed on that hard drive. This is a base set of menu and loadlin batch files, and will need to be modified for use with a USB drive.

Update 06-20-07:

A revised set of files for use with a USB drive can be downloaded here.

You are going to have a C:\menu directory and a C:\rapid directory on your computer's hard drive, and will place the files in the downloaded "tar.gz" in those directories. The easy way to do it is to placed the "tar.gz" file in /home/knoppix (top level of the "home" directory) and use "emelFM" the file manager, and have it unpack the tar.gz "in the other panel" which you have your /dev/hda1 partition on the computer's hard drive, where your MSDOS or Windows 98 is located. See below for the example of an "autoexec.bat" that you will need to use, or at least add the "menu" part to your "autoexec.bat" so the menu will appear when MSDOS or Windows boots up.
Nothing will happen if the autoexec.bat file does not have the menu lines shown right here as a sample:

REM Start the Main Menu:
cd c:\menu
menu.bat
REM That ought to do it.

On any Windows or MSDOS computer, the C:\autoexec.bat file should have those lines as the last lines for the menu to appear. You will also need the C:\rapid and C:\menu directories installed on your hard drive.

Please be advised that most of this is for advanced users. This includes partitioning the USB drive, and modifying the various batch files, and modifying the C:\autoexec.bat file.
Here is a sample "usb.bat" file that is similar to the one included in the menu_files_usb.tar.gz file you can download per the link above. It will go in the C:\rapid directory.
---------------------------------------------------------
@ECHO OFF
REM This is the C:\rapid\usb.bat file.
REM Sample DOS batch file to boot Linux.
REM modified by Rapidweather 06-11-07
REM Must be used with a small hard drive with MSDOS installed,
REM and the C:\rapid and C:\menu directories.
REM This file is designed to run the system from a usb memory module:
REM Using a 2 GB usb memory module.
REM The Knoppix CDROM is in /dev/sda1, 700 MB, required minimum.
REM The following areas may be increased on usb memory modules over 2 GB. (i.e. 4 GB)
REM The Persistent Home Directory is /dev/sda5, 700 MB
REM There is an Extra ext2 partition at /dev/sda6 for use by GIMP and K3B and others. 400 MB
REM There is a swap partition at /dev/sda7, 150 MB

REM First, ensure any unwritten disk buffers are flushed:
smartdrv /C

REM Start the LOADLIN process:

REM This is c:\rapid\usb.bat
REM adjust the following for your installation
REM your rapidweather remaster system boots from sda1
REM Lets see if the system "knows" where to find /knoppix.
REM you do have a /knoppix there, don't you?

cd c:\rapid
REM Installed card is the Trident 32 MB card:
loadlin vmlinuz initrd=miniroot.gz BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix xmodule=trident vsync=70 screen=1024x768 fromhd=/dev/sda1 home=/dev/sda5
REM the above loadlin line must be on one line, not two as shown!

REM that ought to do it.
REM only edit this file with msdos "edit", or notepad in Windows.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is a sample "menu.bat" file, similar to the one included
in the menu_files_usb.tar.gz file that you may download, link is above.
This is a basic "menu.bat" file, the one in the tar.gz has more features.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
@ECHO OFF
REM For use with the HP Pavilion 8250
REM This is the c:\menu\menu.bat file.
REM Date: 06-16-07
rem OK to add menu.bat to the autoexec.bat file.
rem Brings up this menu at startup.
REM Sometimes there is no color when using this file on this machine.
cls
REM must put the .com on setscrn.com to work.
setscrn.com
echo.
echo HP Pavilion 8250 Machine
echo.
echo Main Menu
echo.
echo Press a Key:
echo;
echo L = RR - IceWM - HD - PHD
echo.
echo U = RR - IceWM - USB - PHD
echo.
echo F = RR - Fluxbox - No PHD
echo.
echo K = RR - KDE - No PHD
echo.
echo T = RR - TWM - No PHD
echo.
echo E = MS-DOS Editor
echo.
echo S = Scandisk
echo.
echo P = MS-DOS Prompt
echo.
echo;
CHOICE /C:LUFKTESP /N /T:P,90 Your Choice?

IF ERRORLEVEL 8 GOTO PROMPT
IF ERRORLEVEL 7 GOTO SCAND
IF ERRORLEVEL 6 GOTO EDITOR
IF ERRORLEVEL 5 GOTO TWM
IF ERRORLEVEL 4 GOTO KDE
IF ERRORLEVEL 3 GOTO FLUX
IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO USB
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO LINUX

REM This choice is for IceWM-HD
:LINUX
C:
CD C:\rapid
linux.bat

REM This choice is for IceWM-USB
:USB
C:
CD C:\rapid
USB.bat

REM This choice is for Fluxbox
:FLUX
C:
CD C:\rapid
flux.bat

REM This choice is for KDE
:KDE
C:
CD C:\rapid
kde.bat

REM This choice is for TWM
:TWM
C:
CD C:\rapid
twm.bat

REM This choice is for the MSDOS Editor
:EDITOR
C:
CD C:\DOS
call edit
CD C:\
CD C:\menu
MENU

:SCAND
C:
CD C:\DOS
call scandisk
CD C:\
CD C:\menu
MENU

:PROMPT
C:
CD C:\MENU
cls
setscrn.com
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo HP Pavilion 8250 Machine
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo Press a Key:
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo Return to the Main Menu = M
echo.
echo Go to a MSDOS Prompt = P
echo.
echo.
echo;
CHOICE /C:PM /N /T:P,90 Enter your choice:
IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO NEWMENU
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO END

:NEWMENU
cls
c:
cd C:\menu
menu.bat

:END
cls
setscrn
C:
CD C:\
echo.
echo HP Pavilion 8250 Machine
echo.
echo Choices:
echo.
echo 1. This is the MS-DOS Prompt.
echo.
echo 2. You may safely turn the computer off.
echo.
echo 3. To return to the Main Menu, press "m" [ENTER]
echo.
echo.
echo.
REM That's All.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember, you may be replacing some of the files in the downloaded tar.gz group of files, and
you should be using a Windows 98, 95 or MSDOS computer, not a Windows XP or Vista computer.

The C:\autoexec.bat file is the one that will cause the linux selection menu to appear when the computer is turned on and MSDOS or Windows starts to boot.
Here is the autoexec.bat file that I use on this MSDOS computer to start the menu:
------------------------------------------------
@ECHO OFF
REM C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /X
REM @ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\DOS
SET TEMP=C:\DOS
REM Install the mouse driver for MSDOS:
cd c:\mouse
amouse.com
REM Start the Main Menu:
cd c:\menu
menu.bat
REM That ought to do it.
------------------------------------------------
Here is another consideration if you have a hard drive "loadlin" installation of Rapidweather Remaster: You may already have a "swap" partition on the hard drive. With the new USB drive, we are formatting /dev/sda7 as "linux swap", so to use only that swap partition, you can "turn off" the hard drive swap this way:

In in root shell (on the IceWM toolbar) do:

swapoff -a

swapon -v /dev/sda7

The shell will respond that sda7 is now your swap partition.

You can do that so you can say that your entire linux system is now running entirely from the USB drive.

In fact, if you used a MSDOS hard drive or a CD, in the CDROM drive to boot up the system, those drives only run for a very short while, and then are no longer used, since the system is running directly from the USB drive. You cannot unplug the USB drive while the linux system is up and running, you may, however use another USB drive to transfer files, just mount the drive using the file manager, emelFM, found on the IceWM toolbar.

From the "introduction" to this post:
The main reason for using a USB drive is so you can move the drive to another computer that you have set up to run Rapidweather Remaster ( as described above.) You can take all of your financial and personal files with you when you leave the computer behind. When the computer is off, just unplug the USB drive and put it in your pocket.
For this method of safeguarding your personal files to be useful, just remember to store your files either within the "persistent home directory" area of your USB drive, or in the extra partition you may have created at /dev/sda6. Don't store your personal files on the hard drive at /dev/hda1, or any of the other hard drives that you may have installed on the computer.
As you will notice from the "menu" example provided above, there are two basic ways to boot the computer, one from the hard drive, where you may have set up Rapidweather Remaster, or from the USB drive.
If you just boot the Rapidweather Remaster directly from the CD, you will get a running linux system, but none of your personal files will be available unless you either boot with the knoppix cheatcode

boot: knoppix home=/dev/sda5
which would include your personal files, but continue to run the linux system from the CD, or go ahead and run from the USB drive:

boot: knoppix from hd=/dev/sda1 home=/dev/sda5
(You may need other knoppix cheatcodes to get your X-Windows, graphical interface up and running , as in the earlier example, where a Trident graphics card is used.)

Stay Tuned!

Assisting Windows Vista

2007-06-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

Without going into a lot of details, I am going to post this item as a "Did you know?"

Did you know that Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD can be used to give a computer with Windows Vista installed a valuable helping hand?

There were 4 large iso files on the Vista computer that needed burning to a CD.
They were the installer CD's for a scientific program for Windows XP (and perhaps Vista)

For some strange reason, the CD burner application that the user had installed on his Vista machine failed to burn the first iso to CD, and turned the CD into a "drink coaster".

The user became concerned that this might repeat if tried again, especially since the cd burner program began acting up, only the outside of the application's window showed on the computer, and in the middle, where the buttons, etc. were supposed to be, one could see through to the Vista desktop, as though looking through an open window in a building.

At that point, I offered to boot up the computer using Rapidweather Remaster, which has the K3B cd burning program. After a while, I had all four iso's burned to CD, much to the delight of the Vista computer's owner, who did not know how the task would get done using Vista.

All that I required was some help in finding the iso's in the Vista filesystem, so I could get K3B to burn them for us. Also, to free up the DVD drive, I used the "toram" bootup option, so the CD would be copied to the computer's memory, and run from there. No problem, since the Vista computer came with 2 GB of memory!

In other news, Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux Beta 121 Build 2 is ready, all that I needed to do here over Build 1 was fix the Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4 installation so the annoying popup message would not appear. I set Firefox to block the popups in preferences, but do not like being reminded of that each time I visit a website that sends out a popup.

Those of you who have spent perhaps a couple of thousand dollars on a new Vista laptop computer need to have a CD of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux for those times when you need to give your computer some assistance, as in the story above. Files can be saved from a Vista computer to a USB memory drive using the Remaster, in addition to saving them to a CD.

To order a CD, send $20.00 in check or money order to:
Michael Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208
I send two CD's, one you can keep as a spare.
(USA orders only, please)

Stay Tuned!

Beta 121

2007-06-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

Beta 121 of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is being prepared at this time.
It will be ready for shipping on June 4, 2007.

Mozilla Firefox has been upgraded to the latest version, 2.0.0.4, which became available on May 30, 2007.
You may see the Mozilla Foundation's Release Notes for version 2.0.0.4 here.

Other changes in Beta 121 are:

The built-in internet start page used by Firefox, Flock and Opera has been upgraded to Version 4.79, which matches the online version here.
The only difference between the built-in and the web versions is the javascript to access local directories in /ramdisk, this handy item pops out from the left-hand side of the web page when the mouse cursor is moved there. The javascript is not provided in the web version, as the page will be viewed on other operating systems, and the application wouldn't work. Using the built-in web page allows the user to quickly see in a browser tab what is in the ~/download directory (for instance), without having to open up the file manager "emelFM". All of the various /ramdisk directories are provided in the pop-out menu. The javascript application works in Opera, Firefox and Flock and only if the built-in start page is being viewed.
The remaining upgrade for Beta 121 is the Station Selector for XMMS, updated to the latest version. Updates to this application usually involve verifying the internet radio stations to see that they will connect and play. The stations addresses are "hard coded" into the Station Selector, and are not generated automatically as they are on the ShoutCast web site.
The advantage provided by the Station Selector is extremely fast radio station change, from one to another, just like in a car radio, with push-buttons for the various radio stations.

The online Getting Started Guide is here.

- Stay Tuned!

Station Selector for XMMS

2007-05-30T14:26:00.000-07:00

I've updated the Station Selector for XMMS. All of the radio stations are active as of today.
So what we have is Version 0.4.5, valid 06-07.
You may get a copy here, it should run on Kanotix Linux, in addition to Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
Any version of the Station Selector of XMMS running in Rapidweather Remaster will have the "Update Station Selector" button, which when clicked, will download and install the latest version in your running linux filesystem. Takes only 20 seconds or less.

Fedora Core 6:

Recently, I tried the Station Selector for XMMS in Fedora Core 6, and got it to run flawlessly. Unfortunately, I have done several updates to Fedora Core 6, so lots of changes were made by the updates. Now, only some of the radio stations shown in the Station Selector will play. No idea why Fedora Core 6 has this problem, but station addresses like this are the ones that will not play:

http://64.236.34.97:80/stream/1071

One can enter that address directly into XMMS, and the station will play, but if it is accessed via the Station Selector, it will not play.

This address will play, however, using the Station Selector:

http://scfire-dll0l-1.stream.aol.com:80/stream/1065

You can see the difference in these two types of radio station addresses. One uses a domain name, the other just an IP address.

I can reboot the machine into Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, and everything plays OK, all of the radio station buttons in the Station Selector work, and when clicked, you get that station almost instantly, just like a car radio. That's the purpose of the Station Selector, quick station change, compared to doing that in a web browser viewing the Shoutcast website.
Lots of trouble trying to get all these stations playing one after another, car radio style, when using Shoutcast. The only problem with the Station Selector is that I have to manually place the radio station addresses in the application, and upload the file to the server, so the users can get the latest version with valid station addresses. Shoutcast has automatic equipment, that presents only valid radio stations on their website.
Anyway, the Station Selector was designed for Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, and a recent test showed that the application is working perfectly:

On May 29, 2007, using Comcast Broadband Internet Access, as a test the Station Selector successfully tuned in all of the radio stations, by using all of the selection buttons in order.
Then, as a last step, the "Stop the Radio" button was pressed, stopping XMMS, then the system monitor TOP was started, which showed no XMMS processes active in the system. This test showed that the Station Selector as used on Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux Beta 120 is in good working order.

This quotation comes directly from the comment code in the Station Selector, placed there after the test was run. If you download the file, you can see the code for yourself. You could modify the code, to place your favorite internet radio stations there, but be advised that some stations won't stay up and running forever, so it is best to pick high-capacity stations, they are most likely to stay around. I have seen some exceptions, however.
If you are running a "persistent home directory" with your Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, then the downloaded "newest version" of the Station Selector will stay in your filesystem from one bootup to the next. You won't have to download a new one each day.
That you would have to do if you do not use the "persistent home directory".
Check the Getting Started Guide for details on all of that. There are sections on the "persistent home directory" as well as on the Station Selector for XMMS.

Stay Tuned!

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4 RC3

2007-05-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

I'm testing Firefox 2.0.0.4 release candidate 3 right now.
The following testing procedure has been discussed in this Blog before, with earlier versions of Firefox, and other web browsers:
Download the tar.gz file from here.
For USA, English, the file is:
firefox-2.0.0.4.en-US.linux-i686.tar.gz
In Rapidweather Remaster, if the file is downloaded using Opera, it will be saved to the ~/download directory, then using emelFM, move the file to ~/ then run these commands in a root shell:
gunzip firefox*
tar xvf firefox*.tar
Once that is done, you may then open a user shell:
Menu -> Programs -> Xshells -> Rxvt.
Then, run this commands to navigate to the ~/firefox directory:
cd firefox
To start Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.4 RC3, run this command in the shell:
./firefox
Firefox will then start, and you may begin testing it.
If you are using a "persistent home directory", then your ~/.mozilla will be saved from one bootup of the system to the next. This works like a hard drive installation, where the ~/.mozilla directory remains when the browser is closed.

Current Firefox setup in Rapidweather Remaster:
In Rapidweather Remaster, the normal way of starting Firefox is to use the menu or IceWM toolbar icon for Firefox, which will run the "Security and Control" script for Firefox.
The ~/.mozilla directory is always installed new at each startup of Firefox, there is no provision for saving the users ~/.mozilla directory, as that is considered to be a security and privacy risk. Passwords, history, cache and cookies are completely removed by the "Security and Control" Script, when the browser is closed by the user. This is done at a level beyond what Firefox normally provides in the way of privacy and security. There is no trace left in the fileysystem after the "Security and Control" script runs, after the browser is closed. If any ~/.mozilla exists in the filesystem, as would be the case if a "testing" version of Firefox is run, the "Security and Control" script for Firefox would remove it prior to starting the browser.

In the "testing" setup described above, the "Security and Control" script is not used, so be advised if you do online banking, etc. using the test version of Firefox, your bank password could remain on the computer, possibly exposing your data.

When Firefox 2.0.0.4 is ready, I will provide it in the Remaster, but not at this time.
Currently, Firefox 2.0.0.3 is being used in the Remaster, now up to Beta 120.
Beta 120 of Rapidweather Remaster is available for purchase, the details are available at the online Getting Started Guide.
Beta 120 features some changes to the way the flash plugin is handled, which generally will allow Firefox and Flock to boot up faster, handle most web sites quicker, and be more stable. If the user requires the flash plugin to view a web site, flash may be easily installed at that time, the web site, as viewed through Firefox or Flock, will give the user an option to do that.

Should you want me to send you a copy of the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD, send $20.00 in check or money order to:

Michael Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

I send two copies of the CD, one for a backup.
USA orders only, please.

Stay Tuned!

Latest News...

2007-05-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

Beta 119, Build 5 is the current shipping version of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux,
take a look at the Getting Started Guide to see all the details.

The Station Selector for XMMS has been updated, so all of the Internet Radio Stations work.
Get your copy here, the application will work on Kanotix Linux, Fedora Core 6, and others, that have XMMS. See the previous post on fixing XMMS in Fedora Core 6 so it will play internet radio stations.
After you download the file, be sure and "chmod +x station_selector.tcl" so it will run.

Those using Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, just click on the "Update Station Selector" button on the Station Selector interface to automatically download and install the new version. If you are running a "persistent home directory", then the new copy will remain a part of your filesystem on subsequent bootups. Click here for information on that.
I may have been a little critical of XMMS in some of the previous posts, it does work OK in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. The problems come in if the internet radio station is not available at the URL that Station Selector is trying to use, then XMMS can lock up.
That's why I have to update it to make certain the radio station links provided by the various buttons on the interface are current, and will connect. Most of the time, if a lock up of XMMS occurs, just press the "Stop the Radio" button, and XMMS will close, and can be restarted when a new button on the interface is clicked. This only works when using Rapidweather Remaster, the little script that runs "Stop the Radio" is part of Rapidweather Remaster. Several other buttons on the interface fall in this category, also.

In the "Did you Know" department, Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux has the most complete remastering setup around. One script can "copy" the CD to a hard drive partition in such a way as to allow the filesystem to be worked on, modified, and changed, according to the users experience level. This script only asks one question, what hard drive partition do you want to place the "master copy".

The second part is the script that prepares the "iso" from the "master copy", so the user can burn a bootable CD of the new setup that has been made. Again, the same question is asked, and then the script runs to completion. 20 minutes on a Pentium 4, much longer, up to 2 hours on slower processors, such as AMD K-6 2, or Pentium Pro's. (I use dual PP's all the time for this work).
So, the long lists of tedious command lines to accomplish this is done for the user, I really doubt anybody has a setup like this. I have used it hundreds of times, it is flawless.
Changing a filesystem like Rapidweather Remaster can be done by those that are familiar with Knoppix filesystems, and all of my scripts and files are fully commented for this purpose.
The two "remastering scripts" do the hard work once the user has made any changes.
I can update Mozilla Firefox in the "master copy" filesystem and then turn over the creation of an "iso" to the "remaster_command" script. Normally I would make a mention in the Getting Started Guide, and perhaps update the Beta number, in that document, and in the IceWM and Fluxbox menus, and that would do it. I get to do the fun part, and the computer has to crank out my "iso" by itself. The computer will "beep" when the new "iso" is ready to burn to CD.

I can always start over and make a new "master copy" if the one I am working on gets out of control, and I decide to back up to a previous Beta Build. That used to happen all the time, it's rare now, as I am not making a lot of drastic or radical changes that I am not sure of the outcome. In a word, I am getting used to working with Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, and know what has to be done to make a change.

Another item that needs mentioning is the boot prompt when the CD first shows the boot screen (also known as the logo16 screen). I have bright yellow text on a black background, something that even Knoppix Linux does not have. So, entering those long "knoppix cheatcodes" is easy, you can see what you are doing. No "eye strain" here.

One more item that needs mentioning:

Rapidweather Remaster has the best selection of large mouse cursor themes around, almost all of the other livecd linux's use small, hard to see ones, or just offers one theme only.
The Mouse Cursor Theme Selector in Rapidweather Remaster can change the theme very quickly, and all applications will use the selected theme throughout. Really nice on laptop screens, where a small mouse cursor theme will "get lost" from time to time.

Before ending this post, I need to mention the "Wallpaper Control Center". This application is a lot of fun for those wanting to apply a new desktop wallpaper, using an image found on the internet. There are over two dozen scripts behind the Center's interface, and the application is designed to make everything easy and mistake-proof. Again, no one has anything like this. Besides the images the user would download from the internet from web sites of interest, there are built-in wallpaper images, and direct download wallpapers supplied from my web server. I do change those from time to time.
It's all about getting your wallpaper adjusted as you want it on your screen, and about having a collection of wallpapers that you want to be able to manage and quickly apply to your current desktop. You may have hundreds of desktop images, all easily handled by the Wallpaper Control Center. Applying one to the desktop is very fast, and you are able to adjust it to fit the way you want.

Stay Tuned!

Fedora Core 6

2007-04-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

(See the previous post, about the HP Pavilion 8250.)
I have used one of the 40 GB partitions on the HP Pavilion 8250 to install Fedora Core 6, Red Hat Linux.
I have completely updated the installation, using the "yum" update application.
One of the things I wanted to do was install the latest Mozilla Firefox, and Opera, which I did.
The Station Selector for XMMS from Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is also installed, and to get that to work, I had to install tcl and tk, so the interface would boot up.

You may download a copy of Station Selector here. Place the file in your /home directory, and be sure and "chmod +x station_selector.tcl" so it will run.

Additionally, I had to install support for mp3 for XMMS, so internet radio would work.
For FC 6, Google "fedora core 6 mp3" to locate web pages with information on how to do that.

All of that has been done, and I can dual boot the HP Pavilion 8250, choosing either Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux or Fedora Core 6 from the GRUB menu, that bootloader being installed in the MBR of the smaller 2 GB MS-DOS hard drive.
I can run the KDE window manager in Fedora Core 6 if desired. To get to that, I had to edit the /etc/inittab file to start in "run level 5".
Although Fedora Core 6 takes a lot longer to boot up than does Rapidweather Remaster, it is an interesting and powerful operating system. I'm going to be working with it a while, trying to get some of the features I like from Rapidweather Remaster working in FC 6. One item is the emelFM dual pane file manager. Rapidweather Remaster runs emelFM as root, so it's easy to get things done. FC 6 does not run emelFM as root, so the usefulness declines, as one can imagine.
So far, the Station Selector for XMMS works very well in FC 6, I am able to switch internet radio stations repeatedly, without any lock up problems with XMMS. That problem occurred when using Kanotix Linux, or Rapidweather Remaster.
Use this procedure only in Rapidweather Remaster:

If I plan on doing a lot of station switching from the "Dial-Up" Section to the "Broadband" Section, press the "Stop the Radio" button on the Station Selector interface when you want to change stations. That will kill XMMS, and the processes that XMMS requires. Then select another internet radio station on the Station Selector interface, XMMS will restart, and begin playing the station. The "Stop the Radio button accesses a small script found only in Rapidweather Remaster, to kill XMMS. If you are going to use only "Broadband" stations, on the right-hand side of the Station Selector interface, you don't have to use the "Stop the Radio" button before changing stations. Only if you move back and forth between the "Dial-Up", and "Broadband" sections.

This procedure does not appear to be necessary when running the Station Selector in Fedora Core 6, one can click on the various radio station buttons one after another, and XMMS handles the station changes without any problem.

I have said that the tendency of XMMS to lock up in Rapidweather Remaster may be related to the use of the Guarddog firewall, enabled by default.
Another cure is to disable the firewall through the Guarddog firewall interface. Apparently, the firewall being used in FC 6 is a little different, and does not seem to trigger the XMMS lockup bug present in Rapidweather Remaster when certain stations, mainly in the "dial-up" section, are accessed. The broadband stations do not seem to have any problem with XMMS in Rapidweather Remaster, so if one stays on those, no XMMS lockups occur. I could drop all of the "dial-up" stations, and fix it that way. I have changed these stations, that did not help as far as the XMMS lockup bug is concerned.
Using the Station Selector in FC 6 requires manually closing XMMS when done, the "Stop the Radio" button will not work, and the script for "Stop the Radio" is not present in FC 6.
That is no problem, really, FC 6 does a good job of running the Station Selector and XMMS.

It appears that every operating system has it's good/useful points, and it's shortcomings.
One has to see how the overall picture looks on a particular operating system, so that's why the dual-boot comes in handy sometimes. Fedora Core 6 can be hard to use to get some kinds of work done, that's where Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux shines. Additionally, this very web page looks better in Rapidweather Remaster than in FC 6 when using the Opera browser, for instance. It's probably the fonts I use in Rapidweather Remaster, they are the best quality that I could find on the Debian package servers.

Stay tuned!

HP Pavilion 8250

2007-04-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a HP Pavilion 8250, a computer with a Celeron (Covington) processor.
Here are some of the details on how I have set up this machine:

I have three 128 MB memory modules for a total of 384 MB, these are part number "HP/Compaq KTH-PVL/128 128MB Module" at Tiger Direct.
I'm not using the on-board 2 MB video, instead I'm using an S3 Virge/GX PCI video card, providing 4 MB of video RAM.

I have installed Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, Beta 119, by using two hard drives, one a 2 GB primary drive with MSDOS, and these menu and loadlin batch files, and a 160 GB slave drive.
On the 160 GB drive, I have two primary partitions, one with the /KNOPPIX folder from the CD, and the other with a "persistent home directory". Next, there is an extended partition with 4 logical partitions, 3 for storage of various kinds, and one for linux swap.
I use a Linksys ethernet card, for connection to my broadband router.
I replaced the original CDROM drive with a HP cd-writer 9100 series drive.
Some notes on how this computer runs and performs:
It does not require all of the RAM memory installed, would probably get along just fine with 256 MB of RAM. The Celeron processor performs about the same as a Pentium II processor, and runs at 267 MHZ. With 384 MB of RAM, the linux swap partition is rarely used.
The S3 Virge video card does improve the machine's ability to draw the screen, and uses the driver "xmodule=s3virge" provided in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
On that note, here is the loadlin command line used in my "linux.bat" file to start linux from MSDOS:
loadlin vmlinuz initrd=miniroot.gz BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix xmodule=s3virge fromhd=/dev/hdb1 home=/dev/hdb2
The small 2 GB MSDOS hard drive only works for a short while, perhaps 20 seconds, when the computer starts up, then when the user selects "linux" from the MSDOS menu presented, the main
160 GB hard drive is used exclusively.
These newer hard drives are quiet, compared to the older drives, so the computer is very quiet when running.
The "persistent home" partition, /dev/hdb2, is over 20 GB in size, even though only 1% of this is being used by the linux system. With a hard drive of this size, it could be bigger!
To create this setup, the partition is first formatted ext2. That can be done using QTParted, with a graphical interface, does not take long.
When done, the Rapidweather Remaster menu item below can be used to transfer the home directory to the partition:

Menu -> Admin-Tools ->Make persistent home directory

That process, if the entire partition is used, does not take long at all, even with a very large partition such as used here.
I'm using the sound card that came with the HP Pavilion 8250, and there are two applications in Rapidweather Remaster that I can use to play music from CD's, XMMS and AmaroK

I can also use the "Station Selector for XMMS" to tune in preset Internet Radio stations, and play them directly through the XMMS player.

Any of the web browsers, Firefox, Flock or Opera can also use XMMS to play Internet Radio stations such as provided on Shoutcast.
Shoutcast provides about 19,000 different internet radio stations for you to choose from.
All you have to do is click on the radio station you want to hear, and XMMS will automatically start downloading and playing the stream. Usually takes only a few seconds for the music to start playing.

In summary, the HP Pavilion computer is an old computer, originally designed for Windows 95, and with the setup described here, has been given a new life, using Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

Be sure and visit the above link to view the screenshots and get ordering information for your own copy of the CD. I always send two copies of the CD with each order, one for a backup.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 119

2007-04-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

The Flock web browser "security and control script", start_flock.sh has been upgraded to version 0.7.1.
I found that if a "persistent home directory" partition is used, and a test version of Flock is downloaded and set up in /ramdisk, a ~/flock directory will be created, and if left in /ramdisk, can prevent the running of Flock from it's normal location in /usr/local/flock. Flock won't start.
So, the start_flock.sh script was changed to delete any ~/flock in /ramdisk as part of the cleanup process. Even if the browser won't start, the script will go ahead and delete any ~/flock found before exiting.
Then, the user can start Flock normally, from the IceWM toolbar icon or menu item, or from the KDE desktop icon for Flock.
No one is really going to need this additional cleanup item, unless they download the Flock tar.gz file, and set it up in /ramdisk for testing purposes. And then forget to delete it, leaving it in /ramdisk, to be restored when the system boots up again next time, if a "persistent home" is used.
Just wanted to make sure that when the user wants to use Flock, it's ready to run.
I do use Flock at least twice a day, to check the news, Flock's "My News" section has a large number of built-in RSS feeds, as discussed in earlier posts.
To quote from Beta 119's Getting Started Guide:

What's New in Beta 119?

The "security and control script" for Mozilla Firefox has been upgraded to remove any ~/.fullcircle directory and files
in /ramdisk when the browser closes. This is done to reclaim /ramdisk space.
The "security and control script" for the Flock web browser has been upgraded to Version 0.7.1.

This is a maintenance upgrade, additional "cleanup" items have been added, to be done when Flock is closed by the user.
Additional RSS feeds have been added to the Entertainment and Financial sections of the "My News" area for the Flock web browser.

There are now a total of 19 feeds.

As you can see, I did not discuss the probable real reason for the offending ~/flock, and the need to have start_flock.sh go after it. This was a one-time bug, but could occur from other, yet undiscovered reasons. I doubt it, however, and the upgrade to start_flock.sh should insure that everything is OK in Flock-Land.
The /ramdisk normally contains a ~/.flock when the browser is running, this is not the same as a ~/flock, notice the "." after the "/". The ~/.flock gets deleted from the filesystem when the user closes the browser, this being handled by start_flock.sh, the "security and control script.
After Flock is closed, there is nothing left in the running linux filesystem to indicate that Flock was used to surf the web today. Rapidweather Remaster does not keep logs of system activity as some linux distributions do. The only exception is the XFree86.0.log, which is for the X window system, and does not provide any personal information, such as a time or date.

In any event, I find that Flock is entirely stable, and enjoyable to use. This is a high-quality web browser, and since it is being run on a livecd linux, with the additional security setup used, any so called "drive-by" virus attacks won't infect your system as can happen on Windows systems. What if one visits a web site (by mistake) that "won't let you close the browser", because of malicious javascript, or something like that. With Flock, you just kill the shell that is running the "start_flock.sh" security and control script, and Flock is gone, immediately, no questions asked. Without that shell, Flock does not run. Just click on the "X" in the upper right hand corner of the shell, and everything is gone. "start_flock.sh" is used once again when you restart the browser, and that script looks for any left over ~/.flock, and deletes it, installs a new default one, before Flock starts. So, any "infection" is gone. Flock starts up brand new.

Since you have three different web browsers you can use in the Remaster, you can do online banking with one, then close it, go on to another browser, or come back to the current one, restarting it. The "security and control scripts" clean out everything when the user closes the browser.

If you wish to view "start_flock.sh" online, it is here.

One more difference between the three browsers that needs mention:
Both Mozilla Firefox and Opera provide for multiple restarts with the current configuration as it exists in /ramdisk for these two browsers. Flock does not have the "multiple restart" feature, that got started primarily because of the potential for some web sites to "crash" Firefox or Opera, Flock does not seem to need that level of protection as yet. The "security and control script" for Flock is different from the other two in this regard.
Some say it is a bother to answer "Did you want to close Firefox", etc. when Firefox is closed, so I set up Flock not to do that, if you close Flock, that's it.

To order a copy of the CD of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux:
Send $20.00 check or money order to:
Michael Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

Be sure and provide the mailing address where you want the CD sent!
I will send two copies of the CD, one for a backup.

Visit this page for more information on how the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux will look and run on your PC. There are screenshots there.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 118

2007-04-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

Flock 0.7.12 has been placed in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, Beta 118.

Flock has 17 RSS feeds in the "My News" section, accessed via the toolbar icon. When Flock is started, about 330 news stories are ready for viewing, in a summary form, that will give the user a good idea of what the story is about.
The default set selected by Flock has been changed to the following:

News Sources:

USA Today, News, Top Stories.
Google News
Fox News
ABC News
MSNBC News
Yahoo News
CBS News
AP Top Headlines

Entertainment:

USA Today, Life
E! Online
Slate

Computers:

CNET News
ZDNet News
PC World
Slashdot

Financial:

Forbes
USA Today Money

This new default set of RSS feeds for Flock will download when Flock is started. If the user closes Flock, all of this is deleted from the filesystem, saving ramdisk space when Flock is not needed. It is suggested that Flock be used with a broadband connection, as the feeds will download about 300KB of data from the news sources to be able to display the news summaries.
Even though the "My News" toolbar icon is not pressed, the stories are ready for viewing should the user want to see them.

The other two web browsers in the Remaster also download RSS feeds, but not in the summary detail that Flock does. Opera comes close, however, followed by Firefox. Firefox only displays the title of the news stories for each RSS feed, providing no other details. Opera does that, and when any story is clicked on in Opera, a summary is displayed in a panel below.
Opera probably provides the user with the fastest system to review all of the news stories in the shortest amount of time, then providing the summary for any story that looks interesting to the user. One big difference I have noticed with the Opera RSS feed system is the ability to continuously download new feed stories and provide you with a notice when new stories arrive. Once Opera is open, you'll notice a few new stories coming in every so often. Sometimes more than one RSS feed is involved, you might get one CNET and two Google News stories at once, added to your growing list. Over several hours time, this could add up to a lot of available stories, as the oldest ones do not delete from your list, but are retained.

Flock does this also, the newer stories appear as "New Articles" and the stories downloaded when Flock is started appear as "Viewed Articles", assuming that you did look at the story summaries.
Flock does not "notify" you that new stories are being received like Opera does, but you will notice that the RSS feeds in the left hand pane will start to show the number of "New Articles" that have been received over time. If you leave Flock running for an hour or so, the stories will begin to collect, and you'll have a total of say "362" stories shown if you click on the "Front Page" of the "My News" section in Flock. Flock also displays the "New Articles" titles in bold type, and the "Viewed Articles" titles in normal type. If you look at all of the summaries (just look, not click to actually go to the web page for the story), then the story counts disappear, only to reappear as new stories are received by the various RSS feed accounts. You can check the left pane of the "My News" section for the appearance of new stories over time. If one appears, click on that RSS feed to see the story summary. You'll be right up to date with the latest news item.

The RSS feed collections for each browser are not all the same ones, a few are found in all browser collections. There are new ones for each browser, to provide some variety and a reason to try all of the web browsers.

Up to now, the Flock browser has taken a back seat in the Remaster since it did not ship with a custom set of RSS feeds like the other two browsers. With the new RSS feed setup providing 17 feeds, is now front and center in overall quality of RSS feed story presentation compared to Opera and Firefox. They are all good, and the news junkies out there will get plenty to work with here.

The trick with RSS feeds is to show all the stories in a summary form that has high content, without actually going to the web page to see the story. That's done when the story is the one the user wants to read in detail. Click on it in the RSS feed summary, and you go there.
Within Flock, when you view a feed's stories, you have a choice of "Full", "Excerpts", or "Headlines" for each story. The Remaster defaults to "Excerpts", which provides several lines of the story, in addition to the headline. You get a good idea of what the story is about.

You'll notice when you get your morning newspaper, a lot of the stories have already been on the internet, word for word, and you have already seen and read them, especially if you have Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, with the three web browsers with the RSS feeds.

The security and control scripts for each web browser clean out all of the RSS feed information when the browser is closed, leaving no trace behind, and returning the /ramdisk space used by the web browser when it was running.

For Advanced Users:

To add RSS feeds, or delete any that I have as default, use the alternate IceWM menu for the three web browsers, and use a persistent home directory partition.

Menu -> Extras -> Web Browsers.

Don't use the IceWM toolbar icons to start the web browsers, or the security and control scripts will be active, and delete your custom setup. You can modify the IceWM toolbar file if you wish, however, that is possible for advanced users. With a persistent home directory, your file will be saved from one bootup of the system to the next. Use emelFM, open ~/.icewm, and click on "toolbar", the use the "Edit" button in emelFM to open the SciTE editor, where you can make your changes, allowing the toolbar buttons to open the browser directly. To see how the Menu does it, just click on "Menu", and the "Edit", where you may then copy and paste from the menu file to the toolbar file. To have IceWM use your toolbar or menu changes, you must click on the "X" on the IceWM toolbar, to have IceWM apply the changed files to the system.

I do this all the time when I test a newly downloaded version of Mozilla Firefox, Flock, or Opera. I might run the new browser for a few days before putting it in the CD in it's regular place, accessed by the Toolbar icons, or Menu -> Internet. Once I change the files, I click on the "X", and IceWM is "restarted" with the new menu or toolbar items, and these are saved by the Persistent Home setup, usually a 1 to 3 GB hard drive partition on my computer.
So, we have a livecd linux that uses the hard drive to keep changes like this from one bootup to the next.

Stay Tuned!

Flock 0.7.12

2007-03-30T17:54:00.000-07:00

On March 20, 2007, Mozilla upgraded the 2.0 and the 1.5 branches of the Firefox browser.

Flock is based on the 1.5 branch, and Flock 0.7.12 was released to incorporate the Mozilla upgrades.

Beta 118, Build 2 of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is now being worked on, and will have Flock 0.7.12.

Firefox 2.0.0.3 is already in Beta 118, Build 1, which is the shipping version of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux through March 30, 2007.

Starting next week, Beta 118, Build 2 will be ready for shipping, and will have the latest versions of Flock ( Version 0.7.12) and Mozilla Firefox ( Version 2.0.0.3).

Stay Tuned!

Beta 118, Build 1

2007-03-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Notice:

The upgrade to the latest version of Mozilla Firefox, 2.0.0.3 has been done in Beta 118.

Beta 118 is now shipping.

Stay Tuned!

Firefox 2.0.0.3

2007-03-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

I'm working with the latest release of Firefox, Version 2.0.0.3.
Rather than say anything here about why this version is released, you may check the release notes from Mozilla to see the details..

Firefox 2.0.0.3 will be in Beta 118, of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, being worked on now.

As of today, Beta 117, Build 5 is the latest one that has been available for shipping, with Firefox 2.0.0.2.

Plans are to have Beta 118 ready for shipping on Monday 03-26-07, if not sooner.

To have a CD of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux sent to you, send a letter with $20.00 check or money order to:

Michael Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

Two copies of the CD will be sent, one for a spare. Please clearly indicate the shipping address.
USA orders only.

Stay Tuned!

More on Beta 117

2007-03-09T17:27:00.000-08:00

Beta 117 has gone to "build 4", and also has an upgrade to the Flock web browser, to Version 0.7.11.

One more interesting application has been created and added to Beta 117:

Menu -> Extras -> Slideshow.
Check out the Getting Started Guide online for Beta 117, Build 4, and go to the "What's New" section, to see the technical details on how Slideshow works.

Slideshow, when running, essentially locks the keyboard and mouse, and the linux desktop with the toolbar is not visible. The images appear in a framebuffer console, and are of high quality. I call it a "Slideshow", because the images change on a timed interval. When you first click on "Slideshow" in the menu, the screen turns black, "off", really, as though you had hit the monitor's power button. There is a short wait, about 15 seconds or so, before the first image appears.
I found that if a lot of images are built-in to Slideshow, and they are of a large size, say over 250 KB, then it takes too long for the Slideshow to begin. The screen stays black for a minute or more, and one wonders if "Slideshow" is indeed going to show anything. The images chosen for the Slideshow are the built in wallpapers, normally accessed via the Wallpaper Control Center. Those images, when installed on the desktop by the Wallpaper Control Center, are just that, wallpapers.
The linux desktop works, you have a mouse cursor, toolbar, and a menu. But, with Slideshow, everything is hidden behind the Slideshow current image being displayed.
How to stop Slideshow?

Just hit Ctrl-Alt-F1, and Slideshow stops, and your linux desktop returns, with all of your open applications still in place, where you left them.

Is Slideshow a "privacy" application?

It is, unless you tell everyone how to stop the Slideshow. On many other systems, this is similar to a "screensaver", that is password-protected.
There is no real password to Slideshow, however, and the images do not move, like a lot of screensavers do. No swimming fish, the Slideshow images are just wallpaper images, but displayed using a framebuffer console, that shows each image in very high quality, as long as you have a fairly nice graphics card in your computer.

Slideshow will work only if the system is booted directly from the CD, if you have a special setup where MSDOS/loadlin is used, then Slideshow may not work. This is rare, mostly advanced users will set up the Remaster to boot from MSDOS/loadlin. The package of files to do that, however, are downloadable here, for those of you wanting to set up your linux system with a boot menu, to choose between Windows (98) or MSDOS, and Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
I have a Toshiba 4015CDS laptop with this setup, and Slideshow works very well on that computer, even though loadlin is used. On another computer, using loadlin, Slideshow will not start. If you click on the menu item for Slideshow, the screen goes blank, then the linux desktop returns after a few seconds. Slideshow seems to always work if the linux system is booted directly from the CD, however, and loadlin is not involved.

Slideshow can be used with a "persistent home directory", and a "tohd, fromhd" partition, where the CD has been booted with the "knoppix cheatcode" tohd=/dev/hda1, (for example), to copy the CD to the Windows 98 hard drive partition, or another one, if set up and formatted as "ext2".
One just has to boot up from the CD, and enter all of the necessary knoppix cheatcodes to provide those options. Then Slideshow will work.
Here is what a typical "boot" knoppix cheatcode will look like when starting the system from the CD:

boot: knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda1 xmodule=radeon screen=1024x768 depth=24 home=/dev/hdb2

Some of those cheatcode entries are designed to keep the system from trying a higher screen resolution, more than 1024x768, that the monitor may not want to handle, resulting in a black screen. This happens to me, since I am using a Diamond Stealth S60 graphics card with Radeon 7000 ATI 32 MB on the card. My monitor is an ADI Microscan 4V, and it can't handle all that without some controls placed on it.
Running Slideshow is done very well on that card, however, the images display in the best color depth they possible can, and are impressive to see.
Slideshow should have a button on the Wallpaper Control Center to start it, have not done that as yet. Would take too long to get to it, if Wallpaper Control Center is not already running. Could make a toolbar icon for it, or perhaps a desktop icon for KDE. One click and Slideshow turns the screen off!
Right now, it's on the Menu, so as a "privacy" application, it takes a couple of seconds to get to the menu entry to start Slideshow, so it would work if one has to step away from the computer for a few minutes, and wants the desktop rendered "inaccessable". Once started, Slideshow turns the screen black within one second, stays black for 10 seconds before the first image appears, then shows the images one at at time for about 24 minutes before ending, and the system returns to the desktop.

Stay Tuned!

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.2

2007-03-01T15:06:00.000-08:00

Beta 117 has the latest upgrade of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, to version 2.0.0.2.

Details are in the online Getting Started Guide.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 116

2007-02-19T17:08:00.000-08:00

Beta 116, build 1 has been made, take a look at the Getting Started Guide here.

Mozilla Firefox gets the same sort of security control script as Opera 9.10 has, that allows two more restarts of Firefox with the same configuration (bookmarks, browser settings) should the user close Firefox this bootup session, or if the browser should crash when viewing some odd website, for instance. (That's not likely to happen, Firefox is very stable on this system.)
After the second restart, if the user closes Firefox, then the security script deletes the entire Firefox directory, removing all traces of the user's web surfing activity, this is done in addition to the normal Firefox privacy and security settings. So, the bookmarks go too.

The Flock web browser does not have this kind of security control script that allows two more restarts, if Flock is closed by the user, the control script deletes everything right then.

So, if Opera and Firefox don't crash, why do we have the extra restarts?
Perhaps the user just wants to close the browser for a while, and do something else with the running linux system. Maybe use another browser, or check e-mail. Then, later, Firefox (or Opera) can be restarted, with the bookmarks still in place.

What happens if the security control script for a browser runs it's course, and exits after the last closing of the browser? If the user wants to begin again, just click on the toolbar icon and the browser (Firefox or Opera) starts up again, this time with a new, default configuration, that does not reflect in any way, the user's past web-browser use or history. It's a new setup.

Enough on that topic for a while.

What else do we have in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux that is useful, and in some way unique.

The "Master Copy" program, allows the user to "place" a copy of the Rapidweather Remaster CD in a hard drive partition, so it can be worked on, changed, and "remastered" in some form or the other. Simple changes might be some text documents, that are accessable via the menu. Perhaps a fairly large selection of images to go with some html pages, that will display in one of the web browsers, accessed via an entry in the menu. What next? How do I then make a "CD" of my creation?
Rapidweather Remaster then has an "Automated Remaster" program, that will, after a computer-time run of up to an hour or so on older computers, create an "iso" file, that can then be burned to a CD, using the included "K3B" burner application.

The only question that the "Master Copy" or the "Automated Remaster" programs ask is "What partition to use for the master-copy". Perhaps you have a couple of them. If you want to work on two remasters, then you can.

So, all of the tools are included to make your own simple remaster of Rapidweather Remaster.
It's possible to change the default desktop image to one of your own, so when your CD boots up to a desktop, your image is displayed. The photoshop-clone "GIMP" is included in the Remaster, so you can create or modify an image to use for the desktop background image.

The wonderful file manager "emelFM" is included, so you can easily look all around in the "master copy", and insert your files in that master-copy filesystem, prior to running "Automated Remaster" to make the "iso" that you will burn to a CD.

The QTParted disk-partitioning program is included, so you can partition your hard drive to make a "master-copy" partition to use.

When I am working on Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, what happens when I make some mistakes, and get the filesystem in "bad shape", for instance?
If I have been making CD's all along, I just format the "master copy partition", and use the "Master Copy" application to make a new master-copy, from the last known good version of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. That happens from time to time, I know how easy it is to go back to a good starting point, so I sometimes take chances to see if something will work or not. Most of the time, I just undo whatever was done, other times I find it necessary to "start over" at the last known good Beta build.

How do I format a partition so it will take a new "master copy"?
In a root shell, do this:
mkfs.ext2 /dev/hdd5
Then the partition is ready. Whatever was there before is erased.

There will be some more small changes to Beta 116, right now it is at "Build 1".

Question: "Do you tell us everything that you do to a Beta build in the "What's New" section of the Getting Started Guide?"
Answer: "I present the main focus of the Beta build, what has been added or changed, but there may be some details that are not disclosed."

Stay Tuned!

Opera 9.10

2007-02-15T17:02:00.000-08:00

I am enjoying using Opera 9.10 in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

What's fun is to start the Opera browser, and leave it running a while. There are 12 RSS feeds that will download new news stories every once in a while, some are set to check for new stories every 15 minutes, others every 30 minutes.

I have had the system up for just over 3 hours, with Opera running, and there are 297 news stories available from the RSS feeds.

Here is a list of the sites:

BBC News
CBS News
CNET News
ESPN
FOXNews
Google News
Linux Today
MSNBC
PC World
Slashdot
USAToday
Yahoo News

Anyone can add RSS feeds like this to their browser, but in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, the security control script that Opera uses will automatically remove and delete any changes made to the configuration of the browser, when the user closes Opera. So, it was necessary to include these RSS feeds by default, to provide something more than the default Opera setup. Anytime the user starts Opera in the Remaster, these RSS feeds will begin downloading news stories, and continue until the browser is closed for the last time this session. In the Remaster, it is possible to close Opera a couple of times, and keep the RSS feed stories just downloaded, but on the third time, the security control script will remove them, and all traces of web-surfing done by the user this session. Then, if Opera is started once again, then it all starts over again.
That's the way it works when Opera is started by using the toolbar icon in IceWM, in that case, the security control script in the Remaster is used, starting the browser with a new default Rapidweather Remaster configuration, with the 12 RSS feeds. But when you are done using Opera, everything goes, the local ~/.opera directory is entirely deleted, leaving no trace on your computer.
The Monday, February 12, 2007 post (just prior) discussed the control script, and how to avoid having to use it, if you wanted to save your bookmarks, and web browsing history, etc. by using the Menu -> Extras -> Web Browsers in IceWM.
When using the control script for Opera, by starting the browser by using the toolbar icon, Opera has an added advantage over the other two browsers (Firefox and Flock), in that Opera can be closed, (or crash) twice before the security control script deletes everything for Opera.
Not to say that Opera crashes, it seems to be very stable indeed.
So, today I just wanted to talk about these features of Opera in the Remaster, since they are unusual, and not found in the Windows world. You can download and run Opera in Windows, but I do not know of any "security control script" in Windows for Opera, as found in the Remaster. Opera itself does have a way to provide security when the user exits Opera, and it may be enough to satisfy most users. The Remaster takes that extra step, however, of entirely deleting all traces of the use of Opera.
On an additional note, I have looked at computers running Vista, and found that visually, they are very impressive. I did find that the mouse cursor theme seemed small on the big widescreen monitors that the new Vista systems come with. I'm sure one could find larger themes, I have gotten used to big easy-to-see mouse cursor themes in the Remaster.
I note that too many users of Windows XP, and now Vista, are using screen resolutions that result in text that is too small to read easily, that being in the menu, toolbar, and in the web pages being viewed.
For instance, the ATI driver for Windows XP wants the user to set the screen resolution to the maximum permitted by the graphics card, explaining that anything less (read bigger text) is not as "clear".
So, they set it like ATI wants, and wind up with text that is very hard to read, it is so small.
(Monitor is a 17 inch widescreen)
The mouse cursor is also smaller at these higher screen resolutions, compounding the problem, causing a generally hard to see, hard on the eyes setup.
In contrast, I often run the Remaster at 800x600, when using an ADI Microscan CRT monitor, which only has a 13 inch diagonal screen. (It's slightly bigger than 13 inches, but not much).
I don't have any problem at all seeing the text.
The Vista and XP machines with 17 inch widescreen should be run at 1024x768, not greater, in my opinion, for extended duty use. But, the Windows driver from ATI is not as clear at that resolution.
These are all problems and concerns that have to be considered now that we have Vista, and an installed base of XP worldwide that is larger than any of the Linux operating systems by many many times over.
First, does the screen really look good, for a long day in front of the computer. Is the mouse cursor easy to find, or too small.
Second, are the web browsers in Windows as "secure" as Opera in the Remaster?

Stay Tuned!

Getting Started Guide for Beta 115

2007-02-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to the Getting Started Guide for Beta 115.
I'm a little late getting it uploaded, have been busy with a few projects.
One of them is the Apache web server, I have run some tests, and may put it in the Remaster later on.
I do have the new mouse cursor theme mentioned in the previous post in Beta 115, it is big and colorful, and does eliminate the need to hunt for your cursor, especially on smaller screens.

If one uses a "persistent home directory", the mouse cursor theme you select always returns to your desktop when you boot back up the next day.

Most users of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux just want to use one of the web browsers to do a little surfing, so the selection of mouse cursor themes in the Remaster make it a pleasant experience, easy on the eyes.

All three of the web browsers, Firefox, Flock and Opera are set up to completely delete any trace of the web surfing session, if one uses the toolbar icons, or the "Internet" menu entries for the browsers to start and run one of them. For the Fluxbox window manager, use the "Internet" menu entries, as there are no toolbar icons. For KDE, use the desktop icons.

High security, for online banking and purchases.

The entire local directory for the browser is deleted when the browser is closed. No other operating system does this, only Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. The main files for the browser are hard-coded into the CD, and cannot be altered, and do not in any way reflect your recent online web surfing experience.

However, should you want to save bookmarks, and just use the normal privacy settings for each of the browsers, as provided by the browser itself, you can use these IceWM menu items to start and run the browsers:

Menu -> Extras -> Web Browsers (Then choose Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Flock)

With a "persistent home directory", your bookmarks and other browser configuration is saved from bootup to bootup. All you have to do is remember to always use the "Extras -> Web Browsers" menu to start and run any of the three web browsers you want run in this manner.
This feature is available only in IceWM (the default window manager), not in KDE or Fluxbox.

If you forget, and run the browser using the IceWM toolbar icon, for instance, then the bookmarks, and other customization you may have made is replaced by the default "Rapidweather" configuration, and then deleted once again when the browser exits.

If you want ultra-high security for your browser, just use the default IceWM toolbar icons.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 115

2007-02-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

Beta 115's additions are in the planning stage.
A new button is being added to the center "button" area for the emelFM (file manager).
emelFM is a two-pane file manager, allowing two different directories to be viewed and worked with at the same time. Very handy when copying from one to the other. Nothing like it.

Often, a "readme" is to be added to a directory, to explain what is there. Currently, there is a button on the IceWM toolbar for the "SciTE" editor, where you can start the application and create a "readme". Problem has been that once the "readme" is created, you have to get it saved to the right directory, to be done with it.

So, in Beta 115, a new button, "SciTE" is added to the emelFM button area.
If you have clicked on the correct pane in emelFM, then on the "SciTE" button, SciTE will open, you can type what you want as your "readme", give it a name, save. Your document will be saved in the highlighted directory, no moving the file around to get it in the right place.
Great time-saver, making your record keeping a breeze. Every directory should have a readme, especially if you have done something non-standard there, that would need explaining later on.

For instance, the ~/.icons directory is where the mouse cursor theme files go, if you change the theme from the default one.
Using a persistent home directory, the contents of the ~/.icons directory are restored automatically the next time you boot up Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. Doing some tests for Beta 115, I manually placed a new mouse cursor theme in ~/.icons, to see what it looks like. So, I made a "readme" in ~/.icons to explain that the theme there is only a test, and is not one of the cursor themes currently provided in the Remaster. I have a lot of test computers, and any of them that has a non-standard setup of any kind needs a readme for later reference.

(There are 8 different themes in the Remaster)

In addition to the new "SciTE" button for emelFM, a new cursor theme may be added to Beta 115.
I may replace one of the built-in themes with the new one being tested, it is a larger version, that I think the users might like. All of these cursor themes are from the developers at kde-look.org, and are highly rated for their quality. I try and pick the ones most users would want.
It's difficult to install one of these themes, so I have a "mouse cursor theme selector" application in the Remaster, to make it "push-button easy".

Cursor themes are all very well and good, but they only add to the enjoyment of the Remaster, and are selected for ease of use, especially on smaller screens and laptops.
The new button for emelFM is going to be a productivity addition, allowing the user to quickly produce and maintain a complex filesystem, with lots of directories. One one test computer, I have 10 hard drive partitions spread over a couple of large hard drives. So much data, needing some record keeping, so I can quickly determine what is in a directory by looking at the readme there.

I'll get Beta 115 ready for production promptly as currently received orders for a Remaster CD will be shipped Beta 115.

I send two CD's now, so the user will have a spare. See the previous post for ordering details.

-- Stay Tuned!

Running from the Hard Drive.

2007-01-31T16:16:00.000-08:00

For those advanced users of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix linux, who want to partition the hard drive and install Rapidweather Remaster, here are the necessary menu files:

Click Here to Download

Instructions:
Download the file to ~/download, then "gunzip menu*"
Next, "tar -xvf menu*.tar"
You will now have two directories, "menu" and "rapid".
Copy both of them to your MSDOS or Windows C:\ (root directory).
Add these lines to your autoexec.bat file:
------------------------
REM start the menu
C:
CD C:\MENU
MENUWIN

REM that's all...
------------------------
These are the last lines in the autoexec.bat, Windows will now boot the menu file "menuwin".
You can then choose the linux configuation you want to use.
Be aware that the loadlin command lines in each batch file in the C:\rapid directory are designed to work with a particular graphics card.
You will want to change that, or remove the "knoppix cheatcode" that does not apply to your computer.
Before you try all this out, you must boot your computer from a Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD, and use this cheatcode on the boot: line:

boot: knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1

Note in this case, the main filesystem "knoppix" folder is placed in hda1, which on Windows 98 and MSDOS computers, is the Windows or MSDOS partition.
If you have partitioned your hard drive using the included QTParted, in the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD in "Admin-Tools", then you may have another partition that you will want to use.
For instance, /dev/hdb9.
This is the partition used in the loadlin command line in the batch file in the "rapid" directory, "big.bat".
You may now want to open that file, and take a look at the loadlin command line, given here for reference:

loadlin vmlinuz initrd=miniroot.gz BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix fromhd=/dev/hdb9 home=/dev/hdb8 screen=800x600 vsync=60 xmodule=trident

Please note that blogger shows this line on two lines, the actual batch file will have it all on one line.

Note that there is "home=/dev/hdb8"

This is a reference to a persistent home directory partition, created by using:

Menu -> Admin-Tools -> Make Persistent Home Directory

The Persistent Home Directory partition, hdb8 is 2000 MB in size on this computer, yours can be larger or smaller, depending on the size of the partition you choose to have for the Persistent Home Directory.
Formatting the entire partition for this purpose is quicker, the Menu item shown above will guide you through this.

Getting back to the loadlin command line, the important files vmlinuz and miniroot.gz are included in the download from rapidweather.com, so all you need is the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD to set all this up.

You may modify any of the batch files or the menu files, but be sure and keep a copy of the originals in case you need to return to them.

Order directly from me here:

Michael L. Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, Mississppi 39208-4916

Send $20.00 check or money order, and I will send your CD to the address you want.
(USA orders only, please).
I do now send two CD's, so you can have a spare.
Only one is needed to boot the system.

Stay Tuned!

Update

2007-01-29T14:03:00.000-08:00

Beta 114 build 5 is the current, shipping build at this time, with the latest web browsers, and the vnc addtions mentioned in previous posts.

Since Windows Vista will be available to the public tomorrow, I have been spending some time looking at CNET, and ZDNet, and others, to see what they have to say about the new Windows operating system.

I have received newspaper flyers from Office Depot, and one from Walmart, where they have the new computers with Vista preloaded (no upgrade necessary) for sale starting tomorrow.

The prices were not nearly as high as I imagined. With the requirements of Vista met, these new machines are indeed powerful. All come with at least 512 MB of RAM. Plenty to work with when running a livecd linux like Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

I did try Ubuntu linux, version 6.10, and could not get it to fully boot to a desktop on two computers. Ubuntu 6.10 has a start up screen similar to Windows XP, with a moving progress bar.
One machine froze after a while, and the other just went to a blank screen and stayed there.

Ubuntu is a free download, if you have broadband internet access. Could not get it to work, however, so I had to put the CD aside for now. Perhaps if it is run on a more powerful computer, one that would run Windows XP, for instance.

In other news, I have gone with the idea of using a large, say 1 GB or so, persistent home directory, just creating it as an image file in the Windows 98 or MSDOS partition for my livecd linux to use as a home directory.
I do run Rapidweather Remaster directly from the hard drive, using a MSDOS menu and some loadlin batch files. There are lots of older computers out there, that came with Windows 98 preinstalled, that will dual boot with Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
The smaller size persistent home directory of about 100 MB or so is not enough.
Lots of these older computers have at least 4 GB hard drives, and that can be partitioned with QTParted, found in Rapidweather Remaster, so there is a 1 GB partition for the main KNOPPIX filesystem, and perhaps 250 MB for a swap partition. That usually leaves plenty for the original Windows 98 filesystem. As said, I just put the 1 GB persistent home directory in the Windows 98 partition as an image.

To create a persistent home directory image:

Menu -> Admin Tools -> Make Persistent Home Directory

So, I have been spending a lot of time enjoying Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, I have it installed on several computers. Interesting to see what the experts say about Windows Vista, as far as the virus and trojan threats are concerned, and also about the drivers (or lack of) for things like cameras that the Vista owners may want to use with the new Vista operating system.

Otherwise, I am in the process of trying to think of something that needs doing, or added to, Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

I'll come up with something, eventually.

(This post was made using Opera 9.10, with 12 built-in RSS feeds, that update with new news stories every few minutes. While I work on this post, I can quickly check all of the latest news, without stopping what I am doing to go to the actual new websites. If I do go to a new website, Opera is configured to open a new, separate tab for that, so my work on this post is not disturbed.)

Stay Tuned!

Beta 114

2007-01-15T17:07:00.000-08:00

Beta 114 is still being worked on, the various vnc (Virtual Network Computing) debian packages have been upgraded and/or placed back in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. I say "placed back", as the vnc packages were removed from the Remaster some time ago, and I have decided to put them back in, and do some testing to see what Virtual Network Computing can do.

The vncserver and vncviewer packages, and others related to them, do allow one to "connect" to a remote desktop, and work as though you were using that computer. It's a little different than the Shared Desktop idea, where two computers are connected, and you move the cursor on one, and it moves on the other computer too. If you start up Firefox, and go to a web page, then the other computer shows the same thing on that desktop also. The two computers are "shared".

With vnc, you connect to the server computer, and get a desktop of your own, that allows you to use all of the applications and work with the files on the server computer.
If you start up Firefox, the server computer shows some activity (It's done all of the work), but Firefox does not appear on that desktop.
The server computer can set up several desktops that can be connected to, usually named "Knoppix:1", Knoppix:2, and so on. I haven't tested that yet, but it is supposed to work.

Here is a link to a good vnc how-to, that I need to read, and you may also. I have done some of what is shown there, so I know this how-to is a good one.

With a D-Link wireless router/firewall, I have had all kinds of problems connecting to a server computer, on the LAN. I have had to go outside of the LAN, and set up "vncserver", get that computer's IP address, and then connect to it with Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, on a computer in my LAN.
On top of that, I have had to add allowed protocols to Guarddog Firewall, to be able to connect. Right now, I find that the VNC and SSH protocols need to be enabled (maybe more) then I can connect the two computers over the internet.

Other big problem is the color depth, and slowness of the connection, if the server computer is using "Dial-Up" internet access. Really slow, but things do work.
For instance, Firefox and Konqueror work fine, one can surf the web (slowly) with Firefox, and do file manager work with Konqueror.
For some reason, emelFM will not work, all you get is "little squares" for the filenames in the two panes. Useless, to be sure. Good thing we have Konqueror. One other application that won't work remotely is Opera. Both Firefox and Flock will work very well, however.

Now, one other thing, the computer that connects to the server has total control, and can delete files, for instance, and even shut the machine down. That's possible, because I use "root" shells to do "vncserver" and "vncviewer", apparently.

All very interesting, I do see that vnc is used for students to connect to a server computer at many colleges, there are lots of tutorials and how-to's on the internet. Apparently everyone using vnc there needs lots of guidance from the IT person, not just to get vnc to work, but to keep all of the users in line so the host computers won't get slowed down by so many "vncserver's" being created and not stopped when no longer needed.
.
In any event, I will move along with Beta 114, and perhaps add some more vnc packages, so the user will have plenty to work with in this unusual aspect of working with computers.
I hesitate to change much in my D-Link router, to perhaps allow connections for the purpose of testing vnc, I have tried some of that, and did not get past the router/firewall to the degree that I needed, and so have backed off trying to get computers in my LAN to connect together with vnc. Going outside of my LAN does work, but for now, I have no other broadband LAN at my disposal, and have had to use Dial-Up, which gives me a very slow vnc connection, but does work.

A lot of this is true of the original Knoppix CD, there were a lot of packages there that required some knowledge and skill in a particular area to use some of them. Up to now,
Rapidweather Remaster has focused on the "more useful" additions to the CD, such as up-to-date web browsers, cursor theme selectors, wallpaper control center, and other more mainstream enhancements, designed to allow the Remaster to complete in the Desktop arena, and give users a choice when they find that Windows becomes a problem due to viruses, and other complications, leading to a no-boot situation. The Remaster always boots, it starts out new each time, unlike a normal hard drive Windows or Linux installation that can be tampered with, and made unbootable.

If you do have access to a couple of broadband LAN's, you might enjoy working with, and experimenting with, Virtual Network Computing, using Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

Who knows, you might be able to do things with the vnc software in Beta 114 that I have only dreamed of doing, up to now.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 113

2007-01-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

Beta 113 features an upgrade for Mozilla Firefox, and Flock, two of the three web browsers in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
Flock is now version 0.7.9.1, and Firefox is now version 2.0.0.1
The other browser, Opera, remains at version 9.10, that is the latest version.

No other livecd linux has these three web browsers. Usually, one gets Mozilla Firefox, and on a new download, an older version of Firefox is to be found.

In addition to the three web browsers, there is Konqueror, a file manager and a web browser too.
Konqueror is part of KDE, but is available in the default IceWM "Admin-tools" menu.

Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix linux is not available as a free download, it is for sale for $20.00. One of the reasons I am asking that amount is not only to cover the shipping, but so the user will have a livecd linux that has features not found in the others. You really do get what you pay for.

If you have the time, you'll want to review the Getting Started Guide, for all the details.
That is a long document, and goes into great detail on some subjects, so it is not a quick read.

Starting today, all purchasers will get two copies of the CD, not just one.
Not very many computers are equipped with two cdrom drives, so making copies of the CD, although permitted, is just not possible. So, you will receive two CD's, shipped to you quickly.
No longer will there be an extra charge for the second CD.

One can be kept in a safe place for a backup. Or, you can give it to a friend.

Order your CD(s) from:

Michael L. Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

A check or money order for $20.00 covers shipment of two CD's to your address.
(USA orders only, please)

Stay Tuned!

Beta 112

2007-01-03T18:35:00.000-08:00

What's New in Beta 112?

* A new script has been added to mount a CD in a Backpack CD rewriter CDROM drive connected to the parallel printer port. Check the "What's New" section of the online Getting Started Guide for details.

In other news, there are two new wallpaper images,
No. 5 and No. 6. added to the rapidweather.com server for use with the Wallpaper Control Center. (The image links only work with the Wallpaper Control Center)
All that is necessary to quickly install these wallpaper images to your Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux desktop is to start the Wallpaper Control Center, and click on either button 5 or 6 in the "Direct Download" section on the right hand side of the control panel. Both images have been sized to 1024x768, but may be enlarged if necessary by using the 110% through 140% buttons in the "Downloaded Wallpaper" section on the left hand side of the control panel.
If you are using a "persistent home directory" on a hard drive partition, then the downloaded wallpaper image will remain in the ~/download directory so it can be applied to the desktop the next time you boot up the linux system.
Rapidweather Remaster always starts with the default "Rapidweather Village" wallpaper, so you need to use the Wallpaper Control Center to manage your collection of wallpaper images. If you are using a large "persistent home directory", then the collection can be considerable. In the extreme, you might have over 100 MB of wallpaper images stored in the "persistent home directory" , and the Wallpaper Control Center gives you the tools to quickly pick one for the current wallpaper image. Use the "View Saved" button to see what all of the saved wallpaper images look like, and use the "View Downloaded" button to see the current wallpaper choice, before it is applied to the desktop.
With a "persistent home directory", your wallpaper collection only exists in the running linux system, if you have used the knoppix cheatcode "home=scan" at bootup, and you have a "knoppix.img" file available either on a spare hard drive partition, or on a USB memory stick that you can take with you.

More news:
I am testing the latest Mozilla Firefox, Version 2.0.0.1, using a "persistent home directory", to see if I need to go ahead and put it in the CD for Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
It seems just fine, so when I get that done, it will be Beta 113. I just finished upgrading Opera to Version 9.10, so the shipping version of Beta 112 has that now. There are some complaints in the Mozilla forums about memory leaks in Firefox, so I might wait a short while to see if the Mozilla team upgrades Firefox once again. Firefox is a big browser, and does use more memory than Opera, but it seems stable, and I do not find any real problem as yet in the testing phase of Firefox 2.0.0.1.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 111

2006-12-25T16:26:00.000-08:00

Opera 9.10 is being placed in Beta 111 at this time.
I have a few details to finish, all minor, and Beta 111 is ready to go.
The "control script" that I have to handle the security for Opera once the user decides to close the web browser has been rewritten to accommodate Opera 9.10.
As always, once the user decides to close the browser, all traces are deleted from the running linux filesystem, first for security purposes, and second to reclaim /ramdisk space used when the Opera browser was running.
An additional enhancement to Opera is the 12 RSS feeds, these have been re-done once again, and provide a nice selection of up-to-date news stories for the user to review while the current web page is displayed in the main browser window.

The RSS feeds constantly update, so new news stories are received as they are made available. If you keep Opera running for an hour or so, you'll have a big list of current news stories. With Opera, you get a summary of each story, often that alone is enough to tell you want the story is about. If you want to know more, just click on the link provided, and you'll go directly to the web page.

Here are the RSS feeds:

BBC News
CBS News
CNET News
ESPN
Fox News
Google News
Linux Today
MSNBC
PC World
Slashdot
USA Today
Yahoo News

I have been running Opera for about 20 minutes, and have 238 stories in the RSS feed list.

As always in Opera, you can use tabs, and new links clicked on from a web page open in a new tab, keeping the current page open, in case the user wants to return to it and click on another link. This is useful on weather information pages such as this one.

I will send you a CD of Beta 111 for $20.00 check or money order:

Order from:

Michael L. Dawley

Rapidweather

3222 Norma Drive

Pearl, MS 39208-4916

Stay Tuned!

Blogger and other news.

2006-12-22T13:57:00.000-08:00

Google blogger used to make this post has changed from Beta to "." according to Google.
As far as I am concerned, it is not without it's problems.
Main problem I have is signing in, I have to first sign in to "Google Accounts", no link on the blogger site to that, and then I am able to get here. Eventually, it dawned on me that they have changed everyones's username, that ought to be confusing!
Sure would be nice if they would check all these little details before changing anything.

In other news, I am still rebuilding some of my computers, some are without parts as I move the projects along. I did manage to get a new (used) hard drive for one, and much to my suprise it came with 1600 songs, so I had to do something with all that before shredding the drive.
Yes, there is a program in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux called "shred" that can overwrite a drive to totally remove all of the data on it, mainly for security purposes, and in my case to assure the seller of the hard drive that the information on it is no longer accessable.
Here is the command line I use to run "shred", this will take about 4 hours on some computers:
shred -n 2 -z -v /dev/hdd
That does the entire drive, even the Master Boot Record. This was a Windows XP hard drive, and I have heard of MBR viruses, so in this case, they are gone if any existed in the MBR.
So we have another use for the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD, setting up donated hard drives.
Windows XP on a drive such as this probably would not boot and be useful when the drive is suddenly changed to a new computer, the user expecting to get "Windows XP" to run on the new computer. Here is link to a site with information on what happens when that is done. Apparently, there is a lot of work involved, not as easy as just moving a livecd Linux CD to another computer.

-- Rapidweather

Latest News

2006-12-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

I have been spending some time rebuilding a couple of my computers.
Sometimes I find older hard drives, most of these are less than 4 GB or so, some much smaller, and use them.
As always, I like to set them up to multi-boot two, maybe three operating systems. Right now, I have Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux Beta 110 and Red Hat Linux 9, also MSDOS, multi-booting on this machine. The computer boots into MSDOS, with a menu to select the operating system. Using GRUB for DOS to start Redhat Linux 9, and loadlin to start Rapidweather Remaster.
Neither one of these loaders have to be installed to the Master Boot Record on any hard drive to work.

Next item up for Rapidweather Remaster is an upgrade to the Opera web browser to version 9.10. News is, they are putting anti-phishing protections in Opera, similar to what Firefox has, but perhaps even more effective.

Opera will probably require more /ramdisk space with the new security setup, I will explore that before going ahead and putting Opera 9.10 in the Remaster.

I am always concerned that the /ramdisk use be kept at a minimum, so the Remaster CD will run on a computer with only 128 MB of RAM.

There is a way around that, however:

Since Rapidweather Remaster includes QTParted, a disk partitioning application, it is fairly easy to partition a hard drive to include a partition for the knoppix folder, so the boot command "tohd=/dev/hda2" (for instance) can be used to "install" the CD on the hard drive. Also, with QTParted, a "linux swap" partition can also be made. One more partition, perhaps as much as 2GB, can be made for a "persistent home directory".
With a setup like that, Opera would have plenty of room to have an ~/.opera directory that would have the new Opera 9.10 security features.
I am currently using a 2GB "persistent home", and only a small fraction of that is actually being used by Rapidweather Remaster. Lots of room to store things there. When a "persistent home" hard drive partition is used, the "/ramdisk used" stays the same, for the most part. On this computer, only 548 out of 199112 MB is /ramdisk, used. That's what it started out with, the "persistent home" partition is being used instead.
Consult the online Getting Started Guide for details on the persistent home directory setup.

I do not use the CD at all to boot Rapidweather Remaster, it is one of the choices to boot on the MSDOS menu. This computer is not running Windows, just MSDOS 6.21 in a small 200 MB partition on the first hard drive.
There are two other hard drives in this computer, the second one has Redhat Linux 9, and the third is used for the persistent home for Rapidweather Remaster, and has the swap partition for both operating systems.

I realize that I have not gone into much detail on how the MSDOS menu works, or the loadlin/GRUB setup, it is still being tested, but does work very well at this point. I even made a background image for the GRUB menu, the technique is similar to what I do to make a "logo.16" boot image for Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. Almost everything is done using Rapidweather Remaster, the GIMP graphics application is included to make the images.

When a computer is being set up, with various partitions and operating systems, there is a chance it won't boot up, so using the Rapidweather Remaster CD to boot the computer up, and get into the filesystems and make adjustments or repairs is necessary.
I've had to resort to that a lot lately, getting both Redhat Linux 9 and Rapidweather Remaster to boot via a menu on this computer.

What about Redhat Linux 9?
I keep using it as a comparison OS to Rapidweather Remaster, it is more traditional as it is installed to the hard drive and can be upgraded with "rpm" packages. I have installed Opera 9.10 using a rpm package, very easy to do. Redhat is just not "portable", it's installed on this one computer.
Rapidweather Remaster travels via a CD to almost any computer.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 110

2006-12-10T07:33:00.000-08:00

Beta 110 features an upgrade to GIMP, and the addition of the AmaroK music player.

In other news, the Station Selector for XMMS has been updated, as of this date, all of the internet radio station links are valid. This application can be downloaded here, and will run in Kanotix Linux also.

The AmaroK music player can be used for internet radio station mp3 streams in Firefox, when surfing Shoutcast.com.

When changing internet radio stations, close the AmaroK player, a new copy will start when a new radio station is selected in Firefox/Shoutcast.com

Stay Tuned!

Beta 109

2006-11-27T15:06:00.000-08:00

Beta 109 is available, here is the Getting Started Guide, online.

The logo.16 image that appears when the CD boots, and shows the "boot prompt" has been remade, mostly to keep me in practice. I have retained the bright yellow text on a black background.
That makes Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux easy to use when one has to enter a long series of "knoppix cheatcodes" when booting the system.
Here is one that I use when I test a new Beta Build:

boot: knoppix bootfrom=/dev/hdd6/iso/RR_K34_Beta109_B4 tohd=/dev/hdd9
As you can see, having the text easy to read as you type it helps a lot.
There are only a few livecd linux out there that have decent color combinations for the boot prompt, and the Remaster is one of the best.
So far, all three of the web browsers are still up to date, so Beta 109 is ready to go.

Order yours:
$20.00 check or money order to:
Michael L. Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

I'll send your CD promptly, please give me the complete address to send it to.
(USA orders only, please.)

In other news, I have used the Remaster's partitioning program "QTParted" to format the Windows partition /dev/hda2 on a Dell Inspiron E1505, so Windows XP could be reinstalled with just what the owner wants in the way of programs, etc.
It seems that the factory install from Dell had too much running at once, and Windows was hard to use, to say the least. After I finished reinstalling Windows XP, the computer runs very well now.
Dell gives you a restoration CD, but most of the drivers needed are not included, they have to be downloaded on another machine from Dell Support, and other sources such as Intel, copied to a memory stick, and transferred to the Inspiron. As a learning experience, I did a few run-throughs on the procedures, adding more drivers and utilities with each go-around. I even "flashed" the BIOS with a Dell utility. They use two restoration partitions now, and using emelFM in the Remaster allowed me to see exactly what was going on in each partition.
Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux will run quite well on the Inspiron, but could not get the ethernet setup to work. On desktop computers, I just change the ethernet card to one that works with the Remaster, that can't be done on a laptop with integrated ethernet.
I did get Kanotix Linux to work on the Inspiron, that one uses a 2.6 kernel, and runs very well on a Dual Core Intel Processor with 2 GB of RAM.
By contrast, the Remaster is targeted to run on much older computers, with only 128 to 256 MB of RAM. I test on an AMD K6-2 (400 MHZ), and get excellent results.

Kanotix Linux will not boot on older computers such as described above.

Stay Tuned!

Flock 0.7.8

2006-11-16T14:33:00.000-08:00

Beta 108 now has Flock 0.7.8, upgraded as promised in the last post.

Now we have all three web browsers upgraded to the latest versions, so Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is up to date as far as the web browsers are concerned.

You may choose from Opera, Mozilla Firefox, or Flock. It's possible to run all three web browsers at once, placing them on separate desktops. All of the browsers can do tabbed browsing, so you can have lots of different web pages open at once.

If you have a broadband connection, then things move along nicely, the web pages load quickly.

Two of the browsers, Mozilla Firefox and Opera have RSS news feeds, allowing you to quickly scan the new stories, and in the case of Opera, get a short summary of each story. You may want to open a new tab if you decide to go to any of the RSS feed news stories, so it will load into it's own tab, and keep the web pages you have open as they are.

Elvis had three television sets going at the same time, all in a row in the TV room at Graceland. That way, he could see all three network news shows at once. He would have been impressed at the web browser setup we have here in the Remaster, I am sure.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 108

2006-11-15T17:38:00.000-08:00

Beta 108, build 1 has been made, with Firefox 2.0, final installed.
I had been waiting to upgrade Firefox 2.0 RC3 to the final build, other projects taking up my time.
I'll be using Beta 108 for a short while, to see that Firefox is set up correctly. I doubt there will be any problems, I've been doing these Mozilla Firefox upgrades a while now, so I have the procedure all worked out.
Next item for Beta 108 will be to upgrade the Flock web browser, currently I have Version 0.7.6 in the Remaster, the upgrade will be to Version 0.7.8.

Stay Tuned!

Ethernet Cards.

2006-11-13T17:18:00.000-08:00

I have been doing some networking, using a cable modem and a D-Link EBR-2310 Router.
Soon discovered that the ethernet card to use on older PC's that don't have one is a D-Link DFE-530TX+. That card will work in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, automatically connect to the router without any additional configuration on the users part. These cards are about $15.00, and can be purchased at Office Depot.
This is for a wired network, I use CAT6 cable.
Earlier posts have mentioned Red Hat Linux 9. The card will work fine in RHL9.
When RHL9 is booted, it will discover the card and connection, and ask it you want to configure it, and then select "DHCP". From then on, RHL9 will connect to your router without any problem.
The Firestarter Firewall that I use with RHL9 seems to work better than when I used dial-up. May have something to do with the fact that the router is also a "hardware firewall", I am not sure.
When I used dial-up, almost everything was blocked by Firestarter, and this made surfing the web with Red Hat Linux 9 somewhat of a chore, compared to using Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.
I did try a Gigabit ethernet card, a D-Link DGE-530T, but that one would not work in anything but Windows, not in RHL9, or Rapidweather Remaster.
D-Link did provide a driver for the card for Linux, and a nice program to recompile the Kernel to include the driver, but my installation of RHL9 came without the Kernel source, so I was out of luck. They did a wonderful job on that item, and I am sure it would have worked, and produced a new Kernel with the driver.
Assuming that had been successful, then getting the Gigabit card to work in Rapidweather Remaster would have been more than I wanted to try. One the test PC, I have Windows, RHL9, and Rapidweather Remaster, so I needed an ethernet card that would work with all operating systems.
In working with the Remaster, I have used the standard 2.4 Kernel that came with Knoppix 3.4, and have not recompiled it.

I'll be spending some more time with the network setup, so will have to hold off (again) on updating Rapidweather Remaster for a short while. Items that need updating are Flock and Firefox.

The broadband control panel that I have in Beta 107 works like a charm, to turn the connection on and off. If one has forgotten to turn the router on, or someone has unplugged it (that has happened), once the router is turned on, the broadband control panel can quickly connect the running Rapidweather Remaster linux system to the router, and on to the internet. Very nice indeed, and I see no further work required on this item. A lot of the focus in the remaster is on privacy, and being able to "turn off the broadband connection" using this control panel is part of that.

Stay Tuned!

More Recent Projects.

2006-11-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

Recent projects include using Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux to help set up a user account in Red Hat Linux 9. What is done here is to install RHL 9, then reboot into Rapidweather Remaster, and copy a saved RHL 9 user account, complete, into place in the RHL 9 filesystem. Change the ownership of the entire user directory to the name that will be used in RHL 9, reboot once again, into RHL 9 and see how things work or don't work.
The remaster is used to download rpm's for RHL 9, and other chores. The Remaster runs much faster, easier than RHL 9, so a lot can be done ahead of time, then once rebooted into RHL9, work can be done with the setups and files provided. The Remaster is a big help. I now have a stable and useful Red Hat Linux installation to use.

Firewall differences:

I have the Firestarter Firewall for RHL9, and it is somewhat hard to deal with when surfing the web, it wants to block Google, and a lot more. I have to turn the firewall off in RHL 9 to get this blog post done. Any web site that wants to look into your computer gets blocked by the Firestarter Firewall.
The Remaster uses the Guarddog Firewall, a KDE application, and it does it's work without much bother as I have set it up by default in the Remaster. One can have your computer tested for holes in the firewall by web sites set up for that purpose, and the Remaster gets a 100% score there. I could try and install Guarddog in Red Hat Linux 9 and see how that goes, but that would be a project for another day. When it comes right down to it, the firewall setup in the Remaster is more useable and just as good.

A project that relates to the Remaster involves trying to get some of the applications that were written for Rapidweather Remaster to run on RHL 9.
I find that some of the scripts have to be rewritten to some degree to allow them to work on RHL 9.
Over the years I have used the "dialer" (for dial-up internet access) interface described on this web page to avoid having to use KPPP, a KDE application requiring that KDE be installed on the computer. That was done in the days when a 500 MB hard drive was considered big.

As described in the web page, I was able to set up Red Hat Linux 6 on smaller hard drives, and use the dialer to connect to the dial-up ISP.

Rapidweather Remaster uses an updated version of the dialer, and it can be seen on the screenshots page.
While getting the dialer to work on RHL 9, I am trying to see if anything in the way of constructive changes come to mind for the one that comes standard in Beta 107, of Rapidweather Remaster. Currently I use WvDial for the base application controlled by the dialer interface.
What you get with a hard drive installation such as RHL 9 is a fixed /etc/wvdial.conf, that is made one time to set up RHL 9 for dial-up internet access using WvDial. In RHL9 all one does is:

(as root) wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf

to detect the modem and set up a basic /etc/wvdial.conf that then can be edited with Kate or Kwrite, or "vi", to include the ISP's phone number, your username and password. Compare that to the "setup" button on the dialer interface in the Remaster provides a "wizard" to allow the user to do that, necessary on a livecd linux that will be carried from computer to computer, and would have to deal with various ISP user accounts and installed modems.

I am still waiting to finally update Firefox 2.0 to the final version, Beta 107 that I offer at the present time carries RC 3, which to me is very satisfactory. Some of the news press releases on the release of Firefox 2.0 said the upgrade from 1.5 was not all that dramatic. I will get the final done soon, also I note that Flock has upgraded once again, so I'll do that one also.

Stay Tuned.

Recent Projects

2006-11-02T04:24:00.000-08:00

Recent Projects include a setup to dual boot Windows XP into two separate installations of XP on the same computer, and also taking a look at Fedora Core 6, just released.

In both cases, the use of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, a live cd linux, has proved valuable. Any time the user needs to look at the files on a Windows XP computer, if the computer will not boot up correctly, just pop the Rapidweather Remaster CD in the CDROM drive tray, boot up, and take a look around. While you are at it, any error messages noted when booting either Windows or Fedora Core, can be looked up on Google, using any of the three web browsers in the remaster.

In the case of Red Hat Linux Fedora Core 6, adjustments to the grub.conf file can be made, even though Fedora Core itself may not boot. That file controls what is done by the bootloader used by Fedora Core.

It is not possible to write to the root directory of a Windows XP directory using the remaster, but one can see what is actually there, and proceed to make repairs using the restoration CD that comes with most Windows XP computers. Again, error messages can be looked up on Google, using the remaster, on the same computer that may not be able to boot Windows.

I have had to hold off on placing the final release version of Firefox in the remaster because of the time constraints of the above projects, but will get to that very soon. There may be some small changes in Firefox, due to security issues, so I will get the file from them and use that once I am able to determine if any fixes have been made, and incorporated in the download that I will use.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 107

2006-10-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

Mozilla Firefox 2.0, Release Candidate 3 has been placed in Beta 107, shipping today.

The final Firefox 2.0 will be available for download tomorrow, and as soon as I can get it I will place it in later builds of Beta 107, due out later this week.

In review, we have Opera 9.02, with plenty of news RSS feeds, Flock 0.7.6, and Mozilla Firefox 2.0, RC3. Firefox also has a toolbar full of news RSS feeds, giving the user something to check out while a web page loads. This kind of setup is for the power user, wanting to make every second count while checking the internet for the latest news. No time is wasted, and this feature is available in Opera and Firefox, but not in Flock. For those not wanting to multi-task, Flock offers a simple approach to web browsing, as it has been set up in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. Flock is based on Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7, and is rock-solid stable, just the browser to use for online banking or making online web purchases.

So you have a choice, all three web browsers are good, and won't let you down.

If you want a copy of the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD, it is yours for $20.00, money order or check, sent to my address:

Michael L.Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

Be sure and tell me where you want the CD shipped to.
USA orders only, please.
I will send it out to you quickly, using USPS 2-3 day Priority Mail.

I guarantee that you will get your CD, if you don't, drop me a line, and I will send you another CD. Please recheck the address if you need me to send another CD.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 106, and Red Hat Linux.

2006-10-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

New for Beta 106:
The Flock web browser is upgraded to Version 0.7.6.
Flock is based on Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7, the latest stable 1.5 release of Firefox.

Update October 22, 2006:

Firefox 2.0 is nearing final release, due out this week, and when available, will be placed in the upcoming Beta 107 build. I have Firefox 2.0 RC3 running on a Red Hat Linux 9 computer, and the browser runs without problem there. The browser can easily be run in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux by unzipping the FF 2.0 tarball, and then tar -xvf firefox*.tar to create a /firefox directory in /ramdisk. This works well if used with a persistent home directory "knoppix.img" setup. Doing it this way, I can immediately run the browser from a root shell by navigating to /home/knoppix/firefox, and in the shell do:

./firefox

You can also run Firefox from a non-root shell the same way.

I usually use emelFM to set the owner/group for the entire ~/firefox directory to "knoppix/knoppix".

Since the "knoppix.img" being used for /ramdisk will keep the /firefox install, it will also keep any changes to the ~/.icewm/toolbar file, which can be changed using emelFM "edit" to open sciTE (code editor), and changing the Firefox line to add:

/home/knoppix/firefox/firefox

In the place of:

/usr/local/keepers/start_firefox.sh

That will be at the end of the line, when done, save the file, then click on the "X" on the IceWM toolbar to restart IceWM, so it will use the new ~/.icewm/toolbar file to make the IceWM toolbar. You may then start Firefox 2.0 using the firefox icon.
All of this is for test purposes only, Firefox 2.0 is "installed" only in the "knoppix.img" file, used by the system when the knoppix cheatcode "home=scan" is used at boot up, and you do have a "persistent home directory" in place.

Check the Getting Started Guide for details on the persistent home directory.

Rapidweather Remaster Mouse Cursor Themes in Red Hat Linux!

Here is a way to use one of the many mouse cursor themes available in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix linux on a Red Hat Linux installation:

1. First, in Rapidweather Remaster, choose the cursor theme you will use in Red Hat Linux. You may have a different one for each user account in RHL.
2. An ~/.icons directory will be created in ~/ (ramdisk) for the cursor theme. You do not have to apply the theme to Rapidweather Remaster, you just want to create the ~/.icons directory for use in Red Hat Linux.
3. Copy the ~/.icons directory to a USB memory stick for transfer to the RHL computer, or if the RHL installation is on the same computer, copy ~/.icons directly to the /home/myuser directory. "myuser" is an example of the user account. While in Rapidweather Remaster, I use the file manager, emelFM to do that. I have to know where the Red Hat Linux hard drive partition is, and navigate to the RHL /home/myuser directory in the right hand pane of emelFM.
Then I can easily copy the ~/.icons directory over to the RHL /home/myuser directory.
4. In RHL, log out, then log back in to the user account, and your new mouse cursor theme will appear.
5. You may use all of the themes, except the default one, from Rapidweather Remaster, by making a /home/myuser/cursors directory on the RHL computer, and then, one at a time, create an ~/.icons for each theme in Rapidweather Remaster, then rename each one in turn as you store it on the USB memory stick for placement in the /home/myuser/cursors directory on the RHL computer.
6. To use any theme once you are on the RHL computer, you will have to use Konqueror, as root, to copy the chosen theme's directory to the user account.
For instance, you may have chosen the Sceptre Theme from Rapidweather Remaster, and have named it's folder (directory) /home/myuser/cursors/.icons_sceptre
Use Konqueror to copy the directory to /home/myuser, then rename it .icons, log out, then log back in to have the new Sceptre Theme in that user account.
7. Each user account in RHL can have one of the themes. Go to the Rapidweather Remaster Screenshots page to see what each theme looks like.
8. The above procedure was tested in RHL 9. You will see the new cursor theme only when you have logged in to the user account. The main RHL login screen will still have the default RHL mouse cursor.

9. If you do a lot of work in the /root account, you may also have a Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux mouse cursor theme for the /root account also. Just place one in /root, and make sure the theme's folder is named .icons

Stay Tuned!

More on Beta 105

2006-10-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

Beta 105 has been built once again to include the "Dial-Up/Broadband Selector" interface to allow the user to select from a dial up control panel, or a broadband/network control panel.
Easy access to the "selector" is provided on the default IceWM toolbar. Previously, this icon was only used for the WvDial (dial up) interface. The "Broadband/Network Connection Control" panel has now been added to Beta 105, hense the need to provide a selector.
Now, when the toolbar icon "Dial-Up/Broadband Selector" is clicked, the user can then choose from dial up, broadband, help, or close.
It is up the user to determine if the system has either dial up or broadband, or perhaps both available on the computer. One can have a modem, and also a network card installed, so we need interfaces to control both ways to access the internet.
The broadband connection, if available, can now be temporarily disconnected by using the "Broadband/Network Connection Control" interface, and easily re-connected at the touch of a button.
There are IceWM menu items for both dial up and broadband control panels, along with the more-direct "dial - hangup" and "connect - disconnect".
Although these choices are provided in the menu, it is easier to just use the toolbar icon, and use the "Dial-Up/Broadband Selector" interface to start up either of the two control panels, one for dial up, the other for broadband.
Another change for Beta 105 is a re-arrangement of the Getting Started Guide, the "What's New" section will now only include the current changes, and all of the prior changes have been placed near the end of the document. The "table of contents" will refer to the prior changes as the "What's New Archives", and will serve as a "changelog" for the remaster.
It was necessary to move the changelog for the Getting Started Guide to the end, so the Quick Start and other top of the document sections remained near the beginning of the Guide for the benefit of new users.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 105

2006-10-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

Currently, Beta 105 is at "build 3", and has the following new additions to Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux:

Mozilla Firefox has been upgraded to Version 2.0, Release Candidate 2.

To preserve /ramdisk memory, I have chosen to leave out the downloaded list of known phishing sites that Firefox uses to determine if the user is looking at a fake website. Currently, the file with the list of known sites is over 4 MB in size, and would download every time Firefox is started up.
The user can enable this Firefox preference if desired, especially if there is enough RAM on the computer, or if a "persistent home directory" on a spare hard drive partition is being used for the home directory. The other choice Firefox provides is to have Google check each site the user visits. As the user might not want this information to be stored on Google servers, I have opted to leave this choice out by default also. The user can change the Firefox preference if desired, to allow Google to check visited web sites for forgeries.
Broadband users will appreciate the addition of new IceWM menu items that allow the connection to the internet to be turned off, and on again as desired. One might want to use this feature if the computer is left on for long periods of time, and a connection to the internet is not wanted. Normally, all knoppix livecd linux will automatically connect to your broadband service on startup. I use a Comcast cable modem, and that signal is picked up when Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux boots up, so I am connected to the internet when the desktop appears.

As always, check the details in the Getting Started Guide, online, for Beta 105.

You might be asking the question, what is this about "build 3" for Beta 105?

Well, Beta 105 is now ready for shipment at this level, and has the new features described above, all tested and ready to use. Firefox 2.0 is looking good here, and the neat broadband on/off works quickly, both menu choices use scripts to accompish the task, rather than just a simple command. Later on, I will design a nice interface, which can be kept up on the desktop for the broadband on/off, this will be similar to the dialup interface now in use. I could add this new interface in a later build of Beta 105, or I might make that change, and upgrade Flock (once again), and call it Beta 106!

Stay Tuned!

Google Earth

2006-10-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

Running the Google Earth (for linux) program on Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is easy, if you have a broadband connection and a powerful computer.

You need a "persistent home directory" knoppix.img on a hard drive partition to save the Google Earth directory and files.
To make one on your Rapidweather Remaster system:
(In IceWM, the default window manager)
Menu -> Admin-Tools -> Make persistent home directory.

First, download the GoogleEarthLinux.bin file, it is 18.87 MB, and can be downloaded here.

If you are using Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, the Google download site will automatically detect "linux", so you can proceed to download the file. You may download it to
/home/knoppix/download. Your "knoppix.img" needs to be 200 MB, although this will only fill about half full with the download, and the Google Earth directory that will be set up.

Next, "chmod +x Google*.bin" in a root shell, to make the /home/knoppix/download/GoogleEarthLinux.bin file an executable.

Then, in the root shell, you can run it to set up your Google Earth files and directories:
./Google*

The application will create a /home/knoppix/google-earth directory, full of the necessary files to run Google Earth.

Next, I set the owner/group of /home/knoppix/google-earth to "knoppix.knoppix" with:
(in a root shell) chown knoppix.knoppix -R /home/knoppix/google-earth

Alternatively, you can use emelFM to do that.
Highlight the /home/knoppix/google-earth directory in emelFM, then right click, and choose "properties -> User/Group"
Then select "knoppix" for both User and Group, and click the checkbox "Recurse Directories", then click the "Apply to All" button.

At this point, if you have a broadband connection, to connect to the Google Earth server, you may in an rxvt shell (not root shell) do:
./home/knoppix/google-earth/googleearth

Now Google Earth will start.
Give it some time to connect to the server, and set everything up.
To begin, enter a street address, and the map will zoom in to that location. You can zoom in further, to see the details.

Since you are running your linux system with a "persistent home directory", then everything is automatically saved, and you should use the knoppix cheatcode "home=scan" at the system boot prompt to activate the "persistent home directory" knoppix.img with your Google Earth directory and files.

To place Google Earth on your IceWM toolbar, use this code in the /home/knoppix/.icewm/toolbar file:

prog "Google Earth" /usr/share/icons/crystalsvg/16x16/apps/tux.png rxvt -iconic -rv -fb 10x20 -geometry 70x10+20+12 -cr yellow -T "Earth" -e /home/knoppix/google-earth/googleearth

Be sure and make that all in one line, Blogger cuts it into several lines.
I find that if I just highlight the above right out of this blog, and paste it as directed below, it will come out right, all in one line.
To add to "toolbar", use emelFM, and open the /home/knoppix/.icewm directory, then highlight "toolbar", and click the "edit" button in emelFM. The SciTE editor will open, and you can paste the code in the toolbar icon lineup, right where you want it to appear.
You can see the other toolbar programs, to see how the line should look.
Then save the file in SciTE, and close SciTE, also close emelFM. Then click on the "X" icon on the IceWM toolbar, to restart IceWM. Then you new toolbar icon for Google Earth will appear in the toolbar.
Your "persistent home directory" will automatically save your new toolbar, with Google Earth.

To test it, click on the Google Earth icon on the toolbar, and the application will start. If you have any addresses that you want to save in the map, be sure and click on file -> save in Google Earth. Next time you boot the application, the addresses should show up in the left handle panel. Double click on one to have the map go there.

You may delete the /home/knoppix/download/GoogleEarthLinux.bin file once you have successfully set up the /home/knoppix/google-earth directory, and have tested the application to see if it will run. Your "persistent home directory" knoppix.img will save the downloaded file for you, if you have enough space in that file. I do recommend 200 MB, but if you have a generous hard drive partition for such things, say several GB, then create a 500 MB knoppix.img.

This shows you what you can do with a "persistent home directory" to add to what is available just using the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD by itself.

The above setup was done using a Beta 104 CD. I did have one error message concerning the graphics driver, you can just check the box to hide the message in the future, and ignore it.

Tests were done on a Pentium 4 HT, with 1 GB of RAM, and a 128 MB ATI Graphics card.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 104

2006-10-01T06:23:00.000-07:00

Beta 104 is out, and features upgrades to the web browsers:

Mozilla Firefox 2.0 release candidate 1 is installed.
Flock 0.7.5.1 is installed.

Firefox comes with RSS newsfeeds and the NoScript Extension, for extra security.

Firefox 2.0 is the next generation of Mozilla Firefox browsers, and is due for final release later on this year. Soon after connecting to the internet, the RSS feeds in Firefox will fill with interesting news stories, the titles of each one can be easily reviewed by the user while a particular web page is loading, or during any other lull in web browsing activity. Gives one something to do, for those who like to multitask. In only a minute or two, one can review all of the current news story titles, to see if any are of particular interest at the moment. The RSS feeds can be seen by clicking on any one of them in the bookmarks toolbar. The NoScript extension is preconfigured for ease of use, if any web page has useful scripts that need to be allowed for the page to function correctly, the user can do that by clicking on the NoScript icon in the lower right hand corner of the browser window, and then clicking on the appropriate item for the page, blocking any others that are used for advertising targeting purposes.

Flock does not come with additional RSS newsfeeds, and does not use the NoScript extension.

Flock is based on Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7, the latest stable release of Firefox.

Flock is set up this way to give the user a choice of a less complicated and more straightforward web browser, that is easy to use for normal web surfing.

Opera 9.02 is installed, having been updated in an earlier Beta release of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. So, all of the web browsers are up-to-date, and ready for use.

Additionally, any of the web browsers can be accessed via the IceWM menu through the Menu -> Extras -> Web browsers menu, for those who are using a persistent home directory "knoppix.img" on a hard drive partition. That way, NoScript and any RSS feeds can be added to Flock, for instance.

You may order a CD of Beta 104 of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux by sending a check or money order for $20.00 (fast USPS shipping is included) to:

Michael L. Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916.
(USA only orders only, please)

As always, you may freely make copies of the CD for your use on other computers you may own, or as backups. For instance, if you require 50 copies for use in a school or library, you may make the required copies you need without any additional license fee or charge. There is no registration number, serial number, etc. required to run the CD on your computers. You'll be running a secure linux system, that does not require any additional firewall or virus scanner software, those often having an annual renewal fee to keep them up-to-date.

Stay Tuned!

Mozilla Firefox 2.0rc1

2006-09-27T15:24:00.001-07:00

I'm using Mozilla Firefox 2.0b2 right now, this version of the new Firefox browser is included in Beta 103, and comes equipped with the NoScript extension.

On Tuesday, Mozilla released version 2.0rc1, which is a milestone "testing-only" release, and I plan to place this newest version in the next Beta build of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, which will be Beta 104.

Beta 104 will also include an upgrade to the Flock browser, to Version 0.7.5.1.

I am already able to run the newest Flock browser, by using a persistent home directory "knoppix.img" and just installing it in /home/knoppix/flock.
One shortcoming for Flock is the limited amount of text space for RSS feed titles in the bookmarks toolbar.
Firefox has a generous limit of 15 spaces, so I can use the correct feed title, such as "Commodities" or "Google News", and do not have to be creative, or leave a lot to one's imagination.
Flock is a good browser, and is based on the latest stable Mozilla Firefox, and not the newest, testing-use-only Firefox 2.0.

The Mozilla people do say that Firefox 2.0rc1 is still a testing build, but I like it, and will want to go ahead and use it.

So, it's that time again when the browser manufacturers put out a lot of upgrades, and that keeps me busy trying to put them in the Remaster.
Beta 103 already has Opera 9.02, and it is very good, and hopefully they will keep that one for a couple of weeks, anyway, before the next upgrade.

I've given some thought to just using the Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7 build, which is the latest stable build, approved for general use.
I myself prefer using Firefox 2.0, so I may stay with it.

In any event, Beta 104 will have some new browser versions, and should be interesting to run on your computer. At least you will have bragging rights in that you have some new cutting-edge browsers to use, in a secure linux system.

Stay Tuned.

The Web Browsers.

2006-09-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

Beta 103 adds Opera 9.02, as mentioned in the previous post.

Mozilla Firefox, and Flock have new versions available, and these are being considered for the next Beta Build of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, due out this week.

These new versions have been tested, using a persistent home directory "knoppix.img" setup, wherein one can completely customize the preferences for the browsers, and add quick-launch toolbar icons to IceWM for them. Test versions are set up in the /home directory, with a /flock and a /firefox directory. With a "knoppix.img" setup, it is easy to give the browsers a test run.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 103

2006-09-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

Opera 9.02 (build 434) is out, and it has been placed in Beta 103, replacing Opera 9.01.

Here is a link to Opera's changelog for version 9.02.

Beta 103 provides support for those using a persistent home directory, (a knoppix.img) on a hard drive partition. Instead of using the normal icons and "internet" menu items for Opera, those users that have a running "knoppix.img" need to access Opera using the "Extras -> Web Browsers menu in IceWM. The advantage of using a "knoppix.img" is that cookies, cache, history and browser appearance preferences can be saved and restored. Otherwise, if the user opens Opera by using the IceWM toolbar icon for Opera, then only the default Rapidweather Remaster configuration for Opera will be used, with no way to save bookmarks, and other changes that the user may make to Opera when it is running. The browser control script for Opera, as accessed using the toolbar icon, will delete any of these changes when Opera is closed.
Probably only a small percentage of users will take the time to set up a "knoppix.img", so this is not a concern for most users. Almost everyone, using broadband, will just click on the Opera icon on the toolbar, and use Opera as it is set up in the Remaster.

Opera 9.02 retains the RSS feeds as provided before, and they quickly load up with news stories within minutes of starting up the browser.

Currently I have about 270 stories ready to look over, the preview Opera provides for any story gives one a good idea of what the story is about, before clicking on the link to go to the web site. A very fast way to review the current news, market information, computer and science stories provided by the 13 different RSS feeds. The feeds update the lists over time, as new stories are posted to the RSS feed servers.

Stay Tuned!

Ramdisk Space

2006-09-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

Currently working on Beta 102, the details are in the What's New section of the Getting Started Guide.

Essentially, I have come to the realization that a persistent home directory setup might be useful for some setups. One item is the NoScript "whitelist" that is not saved without using a "knoppix.img" setup. See below for discussion on this topic.

Beta 102's three web browsers, Firefox, Opera and Flock can now easily be run using a "knoppix.img" file, but the basic "control script" setup has been changed as follows:

The browser control scripts have been re-written in Beta 102, mostly for security purposes. Now, Mozilla Firefox's /home directory, ~/.mozilla is deleted entirely when Firefox is closed by the user. So, all three browsers, Opera, Flock and now Firefox handle their /home directory (ramdisk) the same way. Up to this point, only Opera and Flock's /home directories were deleted on browser exit.

The browser control scripts delete any existing ~/.flock, ~/.mozilla, or ~/.opera and then install new, default Rapidweather Remaster ones before the browser(s) start. As mentioned above, when the user closes the browser, these directories are deleted once again.

Beta 102 has an alternative set of menu items to access the three web browsers without using the control scripts, so a "persistent home directory" can be used to allow the browsers to run as if they were using a hard drive. All cookies, history, web cache, etc. are kept, and not deleted as these browsers exit. This is a complete opposite approach to the "high security" setup, used when the normal icons and menu items (Menu -> Internet) are used.

The menu to use the browsers without any control scripts is:
Menu -> Extras -> Web Browsers. (In IceWM only)
This menu location puts them away from the Internet menu section, as using one of the Internet menu section browser icons will now result in the browser control script deleting the ~/.opera, ~/.flock or ~/.mozilla. One would have to start all over again and configure the browser if a persistent home directory "knoppix.img" is being used in the running system.

I am currently running the Beta 102 linux system on a test computer with a 500 MB "knoppix.img", a persistent home directory on a hard drive partition, /dev/hdb7. All of the browser's work, cache, cookies, history, settings are stored in the "knoppix img", rather than in /ramdisk. So, /ramdisk use remains very low, even after a lot of web browsing time. Without a "knoppix.img" file, /ramdisk useage would be perhaps 6% rather then the 1% or less that it is now.
At one time I steered clear of using a "knoppix.img", I was using flash drives rather than hard drive partitions, and those could be unreliable in the constant read-write environment.

It takes a slow computer about 20 minutes to completely set up a 500 MB "knoppix.img", but once it is done, one can boot up the system with the knoppix cheatcode, "home=scan" and everything in your /home/knoppix directory is now running and constantly updated, in the 500 MB image file on the hard drive.

Personal settings outside of the /home directory, such as the /etc/wvdial.conf for dial up use, are still handled by the "Save your configuration" knoppix utility, that produces a "configs.tbz" file that can be restored into the system at bootup with the knoppix cheatcode "myconfig=scan".

So I do not have to enter these cheatcodes, I run the system using a set of MSDOS batch files, and loadlin.exe. Various loadlin command lines allow me to boot with "home=scan" together with "myconfig=scan". Some of the batch files are just to booting the system into KDE, Fluxbox, or TWM. One can just use the Rapidweather Remaster CD, and enter the knoppix cheatcodes at the boot prompt in the usual manner. By using Windows 98's DOS, and the menu and batch files, I am accessing a so called "poor man's install" of Rapidweather Remaster, where we initially use the knoppix cheatcode "tohd=/dev/hdd7" to copy the entire /knoppix folder over to the hard drive "hdd", partition number 7. Rapidweather Remaster runs from there, and can use the "knoppix.img" hard drive file as it's "ramdisk", or read and write memory area. One does not load "knoppix.img" into the running system unless the cheatcode "home=scan" is used at the boot prompt.

Normally, if a "knoppix.img" is used, and one switches to another window manager, and also saves the personal configuration in a "configs.tbz", then that window manager will be the one you get when booting up next time. Also, since we have a number of mouse cursor themes in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, the one last used will be the one you get.

So, in review, using a "persistent home directory" knoppix.img file is very much like a hard drive linux installation. One can the configure the web browsers to have a larger web cache, more "history" days, keep the cookies, don't clear these items when the browser closes, etc.

Otherwise, one could just use the default Rapidweather Remaster browser control scripts, used when clicking on the browser icons on the toolbar in IceWM, or in the Menu -> Internet section.
That would not require a "knoppix.img", and is a high-security setup. Booting the system would only require "myconfig=scan" at bootup, to get the dial-up settings, and choice of mouse cursor theme. Much more is restored by including the "knoppix.img" file at bootup, but does handle the system like it was a hard drive installed system, rather than a temporary livecd setup.

Other News:
Beta 101 installed the NoScript extension in Mozilla Firefox Version 2.0b2. That news item is mentioned in the "What's New" section of the Getting Started Guide, link at the top of this post.

Stay Tuned!

Mozilla Firefox version 2.0b2 now in Beta 100

2006-09-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm testing the beta version of Firefox 2.0, this one is "b2", and is "20060821".

I'm running it in /ramdisk, having downloaded the "firefox-2.0b2.tar.gz for linux, 686.

The main change I have noticed is that the "close" "X" for the tabs is now on the tab and no longer way over on the right hand side of the tabs bar. That's the way Opera does it, and closing tabs is now easier. That's important, since I have the tabs preferences set to open a new tab in the current window on links that are clicked on. That keeps the main web page open for additional use.

Here are some details on how I set it up on a temporary basis:

Place the firefox-2.0b2.tar.gz in /home/knoppix
gunzip firefox*
tar -xvf firefox*
Now we have a /home/knoppix/firefox directory.
In a root shell, "chown knoppix.knoppix -R /home/knoppix/firefox
In an rxvt (not a root shell), navigate to /home/knoppix/firefox
Run Mozilla Firefox: in the rxvt, ./firefox
Firefox starts, with the default settings.
change any of the preferences as required.
edit -> preferences
now we have a /home/knoppix/.mozilla
If the browser is closed, ~/.mozilla will remain in /ramdisk.
I copy my bookmarks file over to replace the default one in ~/.mozilla
with my RSS feeds for 9 news sites.
restart the browser in the rxvt shell with ./firefox
That's about it, now I am using Mozilla Firefox Beta 2 to make this post.
I will visit the shoutcast.com internet radio station site, and configure Firefox to use XMMS to play the stations.
When I "Clear Private Data", (Tools -> Clear Private Data), then my ./mozilla is ready for use in the master copy of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, should I want to make a new Beta built with Mozilla Firefox 2.0b2.
Should I want to restore the ~/firefox and the ~/.mozilla, I have copied these two directories over to another hard drive partition where I can use emelFM to copy them back to /ramdisk next time I boot up Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. There is not a ~/.mozilla for Firefox 1.5 already in /ramdisk, unless I start that browser. Then there will be one, and to use Firefox 2.0 correctly, I would have to delete it, and copy the 2.0 ~/.mozilla to /ramdisk.

The Mozilla developers say this is just a beta, and perhaps everyone should wait before replacing the Firefox 1.5 that they are now using.

I'll do that for the time being, but I do find Firefox 2.0b2 to be stable, and interesting, in that there are some new features added. I don't know about the security aspect of 2.0, as compared to 1.5, but I'm sure the Mozilla developers have made many changes to make the browser more secure than the one it will replace. Looks like I am going to upgrade to Firefox 2.0 when it is ready.

Update September 14, 2006:
I have built Beta 100 of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, and it has Mozilla Firefox 2.0b2 in the CD! It seems good enough to me, so I decided to put it in there. It's nice, and I am using it now.

If you want a CD, send me a letter telling where you want the CD sent, with $20.00 in a check or money order to:

Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

I will immediately send the CD to you (in a jewel case) via United States Postal Service Priority Mail

I use the Priority Mail Flat Rate Envelope, all shipping, etc. is included in the $20.00 price for your CD.

USA orders only, please.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 99 on a homebuilt computer.

2006-09-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

Here's the setup:

I have an FIC VA 503+ motherboard in an old PC case with 256 MB of RAM, and a couple of small hard drives. No CDROM drive. No USB ports. Using a 250 Watt AT power supply. Added another fan, with a blue led light.

The AMD K6-2 processor clocked to run at about 390 MHZ. These processors only have 64K of on-the-chip cache, so they are slow compared to one that has more. I have some Pentium II's that have 512 K of cache, so they seem to run much faster.
Have Windows 98 installed in /dev/hda1, with drivers, so I can plug in one of those Micro Solutions Backpack CD-rewriter portable CD drives in the parallel printer port.
That way, I was able to copy the /knoppix folder from a Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD, to /hda1, in the Windows 98 partition.

I am using loadlin and a MSDOS batch file setup to run linux
using the /knoppix folder.

Here is the loadlin command line in the batch file to do that:

loadlin vmlinuz initrd=miniroot.gz BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda1 myconfig=scan

(make that all one line in your batch file, blogger is putting it on two lines here)

The actual "vmlinuz" and "miniroot.gz" names in the CD have been renamed to match the above.

I use a MSDOS menu batch file similar to the one shown here, and also have Windows 98's autoexec.bat start that menu when Windows starts, before the Windows 98 desktop appears.

There is another hard drive, with older versions of Mandrake Linux and Debian Linux in partitions there. (hdb) Also, have a swap partition there for all to use.

So, I am running Beta 99 on this homebuilt computer. One thing I notice is how quiet the /hda hard drive is when running Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux this way, compared to when /hda runs Windows 98. I have posted on this topic before. I have spent years with hard drives that clank away, especially when running Windows 98 on something like 16 MB of RAM.

The main benefit is reduced wear and tear on the hard drive. These are older drives, and can be noisy when they run, compared to the newer ones that run quiet. I have a 160 GB drive on another machine that is very quiet, and fast, since it rotates at 7200 rpm.

A question:
What is in the /knoppix folder you have copied from the CD to the Windows 98 partition (hda1)?

a "knoppix" file, of 489.05 MB.

The other three files are:
LICENSE.TXT
background.jpg
md5sums

Those may not be necessary, I'll do a test to see what happens if I delete them using Windows 98, then reboot into linux. The "knoppix" file is required.

Another question:
What is in the C:\rapid directory (in Windows) that is used to boot the Rapidweather Remaster /knoppix folder?

Vmlinuz, 971.49 KB (from the CD)
linux.bat
1. create a desktop shortcut in Windows to this file
2. This batch file will have your loadlin command line, above.

loadlin.exe, 31.45 KB (google to find and download on the internet)
miniroot.gz, 782.77 KB (from the CD)

You may use the menu batch file like the one shown here to run the command line, without a separate "linux.bat" file.

I have not laid all this out completely step for step for you here, those familiar with MSDOS batch files and the use of loadlin.exe will be able to see how this is done, others may find this information lacking.

One point that needs to be made on the use of Windows 98 computers to run Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, without a CD:

You do not need to repartition the hard drive. When first booting the CD, no "swap" area will be detected, and you will be allowed to set one up as a folder in your Windows 98 hard drive.
To automatically place a "knoppix" folder on the hard drive, use this at the CD's boot prompt:

boot: knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1

That's all, the /knoppix folder will be created. Hopefully, your Windows 98 installation is located at /dev/hda1 on your computer. When you boot up the CD that way, first, the /knoppix folder is copied to the hard drive, may take a few minutes, then the linux system will boot from the just-copied /knoppix folder. You can just boot up next time using the CD, and do:

boot: knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda1

Then remove the CD once the system picks up and boots from the /knoppix folder on the hard drive.

But, you want to try and boot from a menu, or from a Windows 98 desktop icon, using no CD at all, once you are set up as described in this post.

A last couple of points that need to be made about this setup:

By running from the /knoppix folder on the hard drive you are:

l. Eliminating wear and tear on your CDROM drive which normally would run Rapidweather Remaster each time you boot up.

2. Eliminating wear and tear on your hard drive, compared to running an OS like Windows 98.
(plus, you will be running a secure linux system, instead of an unsupported Windows OS.)

I know there are plenty of fairly powerful Windows 98 computers out there, and that they cost big bucks when new. You need to give Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux a try, and see if you can get some more use out of your investment in your computer. Also runs on the newer Windows XP computers, too.

Stay Tuned!

More on Beta 99 refinements.

2006-09-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

The latest Getting Started Guide is available online here.

Beta 99 and the Tab Window Manager:

The Tab Window Manager is useful when running programs like the Automated Remaster on older computers with slower processors. Even the default IceWM is too "heavy" to run Automated Remaster on Intel 200 MMX machines. So, TWM becomes a necessity.

To make it easier to get to a root shell, and other useful applications, I have added a "Favorites" section to the top of the TWM menu. It is necessary, however, to use one of the Debian applications here, and not one of the applications such as emelFM, SciTE, or the Wallpaper Control Center, and others that I have added to Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

If I try to put an application such as SciTE in the TWM menu, it may not appear, and if it does, it will not run.
So, the Favorites menu section has a root shell at the very top, allowing any application to be run from within TWM. This is really just a re-organization of the TWM menu, the 12 applications in the Favorites section can be found way down in the TWM menu, in various places, where they are hard to locate, and time-consuming to hunt down and run.

The Favorites section is here:

Main Menu -> Debian -> Favorites

Running emelFM (the file manager) or SciTE (the code editor) is easier now, just quickly locate the root shell at the top of the TWM menu, and then run the application by using "./scite" in the shell on the command line.

Most of the applications in /usr/local/keepers, such as the Internet Dialer Interface for WvDial, "dialer.tcl" will require going to /usr/local/keepers in the root shell, and using "./dialer.tcl" in the shell to start the application. None of these could be put in the "Favorites" section of the new TWM menu.

I had hoped to be able to put many of the applications from the IceWM "Admin-Tools" menu subsection in TWM "Favorites", but could not get that to work.

I even went so far as to publish a Getting Started Guide with that being featured in the "What's New" section. Needless to say, the current Guide (link at top) replaces that one.

On the plus side, however, some of the applications I did get in TWM "Favorites" have slight modifications to their command lines, so the applications will work as expected. Did not have any problem doing that.

Here is a list of the TWM "Favorites":

root shell
Top (system information, updated frequently)
Choose/Restart Desktop (KDE, IceWM, Fluxbox, TWM)
Midnight Commander
Konqueror (run as root)
Buici Clock (a nice analog clock)
Kcalc (a KDE calculator)
Ksnapshot (make screenshots)
Kuickshow (slideshows of image files and more)
The GIMP (photoshop clone, more or less)
xkill (needed to close windows in TWM)

All in all, the TWM menu is much more useful (to me, anyway) than it was.

One easy way to get into the Tab Window Manager from the default IceWM:

Menu -> Programs -> Window Managers -> Twm

That way, any applications that you were running in IceWM, such as Mozilla Firefox, or the Internet Dialer Interface for WvDial will reappear in TWM, and you can continue using them.

If you restart the Desktop, using the little "C" on the IceWM toolbar, you will lose any applications started while in IceWM when you switch to TWM.

You can also directly boot the system into Tab Window Manager by using the knoppix cheatcode "desktop=twm". (The default is IceWM)

A sample boot line might be:

boot: knoppix fromhd=/dev/hdd7 desktop=twm

One advantage of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is the bright yellow boot: prompt on a black background when the CD starts, making long boot lines like the one above easy to see as you type them.

The original Knoppix 3.4 had pale grey on a black background, very hard to see.

Other related work involves desktop icons in Windows 98, I have several machines that have them to boot into Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux that is on the hard drive, having been put there by the knoppix cheatcode:

boot: knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1 (any hard drive partition will do)

When the system is booted directly from the CD. This only takes a few extra minutes (one time only), and if you have enough space (about 500 MB) on the hard drive for the /KNOPPIX folder, then you can do that.

I need to tell you exactly how to set the desktop icons up, and will do that at a later time. Our focus here is on a livecd linux, and not on an obsolete Windows system. It is useful, however, to boot up the linux system without using a cdrom drive or a cd at all (once it is set up).

Stay Tuned!

Beta 99

2006-08-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

Doing some last minute preparation before making Beta 99.

This one will have more enhancements to the "hangup" button in the Internet Dialer Interface for WvDial.
When one connects to the internet using dialup, and WvDial, the linux system creates three files:

/etc/ppp/pap-secrets (This one has your ISP's username and password for your account.)
/etc/ppp/chap-secrets (This one also has the username and password.)
/etc/ppp/resolv.conf (This one has your ISP's DNS server IP addresses)

In Beta 99, the "hangup" button will end the internet connection and delete these files.

Once you dial-up again, the files are re-created.

This is done for security reasons. Let's say you connected to the internet, and these files were created by the system. They could be looked at by anyone with access to your computer. Sure, the wvdial.conf file contains the username and password, and is necessary to dial-up again, but if you manually deleted it, then there is no trace of the username and password in the filesystem.

Of course this is just a small step in securing your linux system, but I did see a recommendation on a website concerning the use of WvDial, that the first two files be manually deleted from the system. While I was at it, I decided to add the third, just to go the extra step.

One other item that is being fixed in Beta 99 is one of the Opera 9.01 RSS feeds, that changed it's address, and no longer downloaded current stories.

Beta 99 will be shipping effective 08-31-06.

Stay Tuned!

Current News Update.

2006-08-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to post some news about what Rapidweather has been doing lately:

1. Hurricane season, doing some work on my weather maps page.

2. Trying out the latest DOS web client, Arachne 1.90 GPL.

Arachne 1.90 is much improved over Arachne 1.70, but compared to modern Windows or Linux web browsers, it is a little slow downloading web pages, but still is an interesting internet client to explore. It can use Windows 98 DOS to run, and will run on MS-DOS 6.22 and others.

3. Writing improved MS-DOS batch files to provide a menu for DOS/Windows 98 computers, so various linux installations on the computers can be booted up from the menu. There is nothing new here, all these use loadlin.exe. The details are in how the batch files are set up.

4. Setting up some computers to boot Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux directly from a Windows 98 desktop icon, or a toolbar icon. More on this later. No need to use a CD once the system is copied to a hard drive partition with the knoppix cheatcode "tohd=/dev/hdb3", for example. I am currently running Beta 98 from /dev/hdd7, having booted from a Windows 98 desktop icon. I am able to restore my configuration without having to use the knoppix cheatcode "myconfig=scan" at bootup. Everything is in the MS-DOS batch file.

Beta 98 is the current build of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

There are some small improvements that are in the process of being developed, but for now, nothing has been completed that needs to go into the Remaster.

Beta 98 is very good as it is. I notice that Opera 9.01 (in the Remaster) can run the Java-powered hurricane weather maps such as this one.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 98

2006-08-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

Here is the Getting Started Guide, online, for Beta 98.
(update 08-24-06, this link is now correct...)

There are two applications in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux that provide a way for dial-up users to connect (and disconnect) from the internet. They are:

Internet Dialer Interface for WvDial
Station Selector for XMMS

Both of these have "Dial" and "Hangup" buttons, and "Setup".

Beta 98 addresses the issue that the "Hangup" button sometimes did not disconnect the dial-up internet connection. This would occur apparently because there were too many "wvdial" processes for "killall wvdial" to work to terminate the connection.

A new, combined command line is used for the "Hangup" button, that does:

(In this order)

killall wvdial
killall pppd

I put the "killall wvdial" command first, as there may not be a pppd to kill if there is a problem connecting, and wvdial continues to try and connect. This way, the "Hangup" button will terminate wvdial, so one could try again, or not.
The "killall pppd" comes next, and "Hangup" will run that, to end the pppd process, if you are connected to the internet. There will only be one pppd process. I have just looked at "top" which examines the processes on the running linux system, and there is only one pppd, and one wvdial. So, the older "Hangup" button in these applications would work this time around.

I did have a couple of times where I could not end my dial-up connection, so I felt it was necessary to fix the "Hangup" button.

Seems like I did not have any problem with it before, and it was used a lot, since this machine uses dial-up internet access. I have several older computers that run the remaster, and have only dial-up access.

With Beta 98, however, there is no doubt that "Hangup" will do just that, so if anyone wants to use the phone, and asks that you end your internet connection for a while, you can do that in an instant. The other change to the "Hangup" button is to run the rxvt as "iconic" which means one cannot see what the rxvt shell is doing, unless the little desktop icon is clicked on.
This reduces screen clutter when hanging up, and allows the user to see the main wvdial rxvt shell, which will give total time connected, etc. when wvdial sees a disconnect command. Very nice, if you are watching, it is brief before the shell disappears.

These changes only affect the dial-up user, but were important enough to warrant a change in Beta number to '98.

Update, August 24, 2006:

The built-in web browser start page, "web.html" has been updated to version 4.74.
This is a local copy of the web.html page on the internet.
The Search Area in "web.html" has been rebuilt, with the addition of Ask.com search, and the deletion of out-of-date search engines.
(All Beta 98 CD's being shipped have this change.)

If you want to purchase a CD, send a check or money order for $20.00 to:

Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

I'll send you a CD of Beta 98, please provide your mailing address, USA only.

Here is the screenshots page, for those of you who are new here, and want to see what Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux looks like. There are some screenshots of both of the applications mentioned above.
All of the screenshots are 1024x768.

Stay Tuned!

Mozilla Firefox

2006-08-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

Mozilla Firefox version 1.5.0.6 is still up-to-date, and you may go to the release notes page to read all about it.
Recently, I have had to spend a lot of time keeping up with all of the updates to the web browsers.

Flock seems to be holding at version 0.7.4.1, and Opera at 9.01, build 400.

So for now, there does not seem to be a new release/update that I have to put in the remaster.

Firefox 1.5.0.6 is a "stability update", and I find that's true, and Firefox is a really good browser. I have it configured with a number of RSS feeds in the bookmarks toolbar. These news feeds load very quickly with a large number of story titles. All that is necessary to go to the web page for a story is to click on it.

On another topic, I have conducted tests on boot-up time for my remaster vs. Windows XP.
Even on an old 200 MMX computer, my remaster boots up to a useable desktop faster than Windows XP on a Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM.

Part of he Windows problem seems to be other users adding programs that appear on my user account's desktop, slowing it down with all of the toolbar items appearing on the right hand side of the toolbar, near the clock. I even have one for Winzip, and they all take time starting up. Eventually, the desktop will be ready, and a web browser can be started. That is not all there is to the reason XP takes longer to start up, and the rest I cannot do anything about, it is just that Windows is a big program, and requires a lot of computer power to start it up.
It is still slower than the remaster, even on the same Pentium 4 machine.

The latest build of Internet Explorer 7 requires an uninstall of the older one first, and when the installation is done, does not render the built-in web page as good as any of the browsers in the remaster.
For some reason unknown to me, the fonts XP and IE 7 use to display the web pages do not produce as attractive a result. It's noticeable.
You are stuck with it on any web page you visit.
Then you have the security problem(s) when using Windows, detracting from your experience.
You wonder what can happen to your Windows installation if somehow, a virus, trojan, or worm attacks your computer.
There are always a lot of security alerts in the news about Windows.

I wish I could report something better for IE 7 and Windows, but that is just my take on the situation.

Stay Tuned!

Heat Wave and other news...

2006-08-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

The temperature in Pearl, MS reached 101 degrees F today (outside).

Here is a rapidweather web page where you can check on the temperature and other weather conditions for any State in the USA. Just click on the State you are interested in. They provide you with a map of the State, so you can check on the weather conditions in other cities in that State.

This is an old page, that I have had around for years. One of my favorities, however.

In other news, I have been testing the Flock web browser, in Beta 97, and find that once it boots up, it is fine. Does take longer to start up, however, especially on older computers, running something like a 200 MHZ processor. On faster machines, it is not a problem, takes only a few seconds.

Flock 0.7.4.1 is based on Mozilla Firefox, but has additional features.
Check their website here, for the details.

For some reason, Mozilla Firefox does not take as long to start up, and neither of these can compare to Opera 9.01 when it comes to boot-up speed.

Part of the reason why some of these browsers seems to take a little longer to start up than others may be in the scripts I use to handle them. None of these browsers have /home directory files until the user decides to start one of them up. Nothing in /ramdisk at all until the browser is started up, then a basic, default configuration is copied into /ramdisk, and the browser starts. All of this is done for security reasons, and to save memory.

There is no use in preloading a home directory for a browser if it is not going to be used.

That's not all of the reasons why Flock takes longer to start up, however, it is just a big browser, and does a little better with a faster computer. I use it all the time on a 200 MHZ machine, however, and there is really nothing to complain about.

Opera 9.01 seems to stall when it first starts, it is downloading all of the 200+ RSS feed stories (on dial-up internet access). After a minute or so, Opera is ready to go. On a faster computer, there is no problem, especially if broadband internet access is used.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 97

2006-08-08T18:05:00.000-07:00

Beta 97 has Flock 0.7.4.1, the latest version of that web browser.

So, Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is fairly up-to-date on the three web browsers available.

The developers for Opera, Mozilla Firefox, and Flock update these browsers often, mostly for security reasons, and for the Windows platform. The linux versions get updated also, they can always find something to do to improve these browsers.

If you order a CD from me at this time, I will send Beta 97 out to you promptly.

As always, send a check or money order for twenty dollars ($20.00) to:

Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

I will quickly send your CD to the mailing address you want.
(USA orders only, please)

Please note: You may copy the CD so you will have one for each computer and some to give to your friends.

Even though I call these builds "beta", that does not mean that the software in the CD is going to have bugs, and is not useful.
I test everything myself, and generally use a variety of computers, also laptops.

This is an excellent operating system, and if you have a cable modem broadband, then you should be up and running in minutes, able to use any of the three web browsers to surf the web in a high-security environment.

Flock, for instance, will completely delete any trace at all of your online web surfing activities from the computer, when you close Flock.
Very handy when you have just looked at your online stocks, or checked your bank balance. If you computer is stolen, or "borrowed" by someone, there will not be a single trace of online activity in the machine, for them to find.

Just placing the Rapidweather Remaster CD in the CDROM drive, booting up the system, and looking at your bank balances, then shutting the system down (The CD will eject) will totally safeguard your passwords from being "stored" on your computer, for others to discover.

That's about all you can expect from your own computer, any other breach of security would have to occur elsewhere. There have been reports of credit card data being stolen from banks, and they have to scramble to reissue all the cards, and stand ready to protect the card holders.

That is not your problem, but your own computer, and the data stored on it is your concern.

I cannot imagine why anyone would want to use any other operating system to conduct sensitive online transactions.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 96.

2006-08-06T14:06:00.000-07:00

The Getting Started Guide is online for Beta 96 of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

Right on the heels of Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.5, they updated Firefox to Version 1.5.0.6.

So, I have put it in the CD, now available for purchase.

Here is the Mozilla Foundation's new website, as you can see, Thunderbird Mail is still at version 1.5.0.5, which I have also.

What about Opera?
The Opera web browser is still at version 9.01, but they have now issued Build 400, it will be available in Beta 97, now being prepared.
Most likely, if you order a CD today, Beta 97 will be sent out to you.

On another topic, all of the six "direct download" wallpaper images are in place now, for use with the Wallpaper Control Center in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

Here is one of the new wallpapers, this one features the performer Mana, with Malice Mizer.

Get this one while you can, you know the purpose of these online wallpapers is that they will be changed from time to time.

Here is a screenshot from my Screenshots Page, showing some Mana images in GIMP and KuickShow, and applied as wallpaper.

Stay Tuned!

MALICE MIZER on YouTube

2006-08-04T18:36:00.000-07:00

Interesting things to do with the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux operating system:

You can use Flock, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera to view this
Malice Mizer music video on YouTube.

Google Video has this one also.

This one is from June 18, 2005.

Here's another one.

You'll want to brush up on your Japanese to catch the lyrics, however.

You have to start somewhere, so...

Here's a page to get you started learning to read and write Hiragana, also you'll want to study Katakana.
These are two of the Japanese alphabets, and include pronunciation help for the characters.

You'll probably want to print out the charts, and they recommend that you learn just a few characters a day.

If you want to see a gallery of photos of the girl in the videos, she is Mana, go here.

Stay Tuned!

Station Selector for XMMS

2006-08-02T18:22:00.000-07:00

I have verified the internet radio stations in the Station Selector for XMMS.
So, the new version of Station Selector will show "08-06", for "August, 2006".

You may download a copy here.

Those using Kanotix Linux, be sure and chmod +x the file before trying to boot it up. There are 7 dialup presets, and 7 for broadband. Just click on one of the buttons, and XMMS will tune the station in, and play it for you!

You can change stations very quickly, just like a car radio station presets.
Try that on Shoutcast!

Using Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux? The "Update Station Selector" button on the interface will download and start the application for you, ready for use.

The file is only 13.57 KB, so it will download quickly, even on dial-up.

I have tried to pick out reliable internet radio stations that play all the best music, hope you are pleased with the results.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 96 - Mozilla Upgrades.

2006-07-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

I have built Beta 96, needed to upgrade Mozilla Firefox to version 1.5.0.5. This is mainly a security update.

Using it now, and everything works just fine.

Also, Thunderbird Mail has been upgraded to version 1.5.0.5. This one is also a security update.

Unlike the web browsers, Thunderbird Mail does not have a custom configuration that is loaded into /ramdisk when the browser(s) are started.

The user has to set up an e-mail account, and then do:

Menu -> Admin-Tools -> Save your configuration

to save the settings. Then, the next time the linux system is booted up, the user needs to do:

boot: knoppix myconfig=scan

to load the Thunderbird Mail settings into /ramdisk.
Then, to get your mail, just click on the Thunderbird Mail icon on the IceWM toolbar, and when the application starts, click on "get mail".

Here is a link to the latest Getting Started Guide.

As always, if you want a CD of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux sent to you, it is $20.00, payable by check or money order. Send a letter with the exact address where you want the CD sent. USA shipments only, please.

Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

Stay Tuned!

Opera RSS feeds.

2006-07-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

In the last post I noted that in Opera 9.01, the RSS feed for usatoday.com only downloaded one story. It has been that way for a while, that feed used to provide 15 stories for usatoday.com.

Strangely, the count is now back up to 15. For the same RSS feed address, the Mozilla Firefox RSS feed for usatoday.com provided that number of stories, so I added the RSS feed for usatoday.com to Firefox, to compensate for the shortcoming in Opera. Now, that too seems to be fixed, apparently on the other end, not in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

Both browsers have lots of RSS feeds, Opera has 13, Firefox has 9.

These feeds are all "news" in nature, going along with the theme of rapidweather.com, "weather and news". I have a lot of weather pages, one that is popular is the weather maps page.

For "news" there is this start page, with over 80 links to top sites.

That page is "built-in" to Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, all of the web browsers start with that page as their "home page". On the built in version of the page, there is a javascript pop-out /home/knoppix directory browser, allowing the contents of the /home/knoppix directory to be displayed in the browser. All three browsers, Opera, Firefox and Flock are tabbed browsers, so another tab can be opened to use for looking at the /home/knoppix directory. There is a built-in "help" file in the "pop-out", so one can get an overview of what the pop-out directory browser is all about.
The web copy does not have that, other operating systems probably cannot use it.

On the subject of Opera, I have considered trying out another "weekly build", a testing build of Opera, to see if some of the problems with some web sites have been fixed.

I can easily download the .tar.gz file, and set it up in /ramdisk, and start up the browser.
The built-in Opera will not load it's ~/.opera directory to interfere, unless I clicked on the Opera icon and started it up. I can run the "weekly build" as a test all by itself, and create a new ~/.opera as I change the "preferences". Here is the blog post on the procedure, with a link to the Opera download site.

If the newest "weekly build" is no better, I'll let it go for now, and not put it in the Remaster.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 95 additional builds...

2006-07-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

Beta 95 has been "added to" in an additional build.

There are now 6 "direct download" wallpaper images in the Wallpaper Control Center, up from three. These are carefully chosen, and are often modified in some way using GIMP, to provide outstanding and impressive wallpapers (hopefully) for download to the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux desktop. Just click on one of the 6 buttons, and the wallpaper is downloaded from the rapidweather.com server and installed for you. The Wallpaper Control Center has the ability to save the downloaded wallpaper for use the next time the system is booted up.

If you would like to try one of them, here is a direct link to
one of the wallpapers.
All of them will be 1024x768. From time to time, these images will be changed on the server, so you can get something new once in a while.
(There are several other wallpapers built into the CD, and these can't be changed.)

Mozilla Firefox now has an RSS feed for usatoday.com.
It seems that the Opera RSS feed for that site only provides one news story, when the Firefox feed provides the complete list of USA Today stories. Have not fixed that yet, both browsers are using the same RSS feed address.

The various RSS feeds provide something to review and look at while a web page is loading. Even on broadband, some web sites take their time loading, so those extra seconds can be spent scanning the news stories for something interesting. Both Opera and Mozilla Firefox come preconfigured with plenty of current news RSS feeds.

These additional builds have an up-to-date online Getting Started Guide that shows the current information on the applications involved.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 95

2006-07-19T17:54:00.000-07:00

Beta 95 is out.
Here is the Getting Started Guide, the "What's New" section gives the details of the changes.

The control scripts for some of the KDE applications have been updated, and Kmix has been added to the list. Since Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux uses IceWM as the default window manager, instead of KDE, these scripts do some things to allow the applications to run. One of the problems was that if the applications were started one after the other, then sometimes the second KDE application would not start. The control scripts take care of that.

Currently, at this moment, I am testing Beta 95 on an older computer with 128 MB of ram. I wanted to see how Opera 9.01 would perform, and use the Station Selector for XMMS to play some music. Everything seems OK. I have started Kmix, and started the Guarddog Firewall control center.
All of those applications have now been closed, and currently, I have 16452 K free, and the swap useage is 2920K.
Starting the Flock web browser (Version 0.7.1) changes the figures to:
2880 K free, and swap useage is 6104 K.
The system has been up over 2 hours.
"df" shows /ramdisk at 8%, up from 1% at system startup. Running Flock takes that much /ramdisk on a machine with 128 MB of RAM.
Good thing I have reduced the default /ramdisk useage so the system will have room for applications on an older computer. Once I close Flock, the control script that I use to run Flock will completely recover all of the /ramdisk memory that Flock used, and return the system to a "before Flock" state. On other livecd linux systems, Flock would create a ~/.flock directory that would not be deleted when the browser is closed. In the Remaster, the ~/.flock directory is deleted when Flock is closed.
I am not running from the CDROM drive, I have used
"knoppix tohd=/dev/hda2" to boot up the system, and copy the filesystem to the hard drive.
The next time I boot up the linux system, I only have to:
"knoppix fromhd=/dev/hda2" since the filesystem has already been copied to the hard drive this time around.
Quite often, when the system is run "from the hard drive" like this, the disk drive will only become active when another application is started, right now, all is quiet, and the disk drive light only occasionally will light up.
Sure, it would be nice to have 256 MB of RAM here, but I want to do testing on a machine with 128 MB of RAM. I don't want to leave all the older computers behind, a lot of them cost big bucks when they were new, and the owners still want to get some use out of them.

Windows 98 is no longer supported by Microsoft as of June 11, 2006, so this remaster is a good replacement for Windows on these older computers.

Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux is very responsive on this computer, there is no disappointment here on how well the various applications run.
I'm using dial-up internet access, with an external modem, running at 52,000 bps according to WvDial.
Opera 9.01 has passed the tests as far as speed is concerned. That version of Opera is still under development by Opera Software, and I have found some websites that did not render correctly, and I reported that to them, using
"Help -> Report a site problem"
on the Opera main toolbar.

As far as Beta 95 is concerned, I will do some additional builds of it, to make some small changes here and there. You may get the latest one sent to you on CD by sending me a letter with $20.00, check or money order (Includes shipping) to:

Michael L.Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

Be sure and tell me exactly where you want the CD sent.
I will only ship to addresses in the USA.

Stay Tuned!

Beta 94 Build 13

2006-07-13T15:11:00.000-07:00

In addition to the installation of Opera 9.01, Beta 94 has modifications and enhancements to reduce the /ramdisk used by the system.
A number of files in /home/knoppix have been replaced by symbolic links. For instance, an image file of 100K can be replaced by a "symlink", or a connector file, to the real file in the main filesystem. Instead of two 100K files, one in the filesystem, and another in /ramdisk, the one in ramdisk is only 39 bytes, a very tiny file indeed. This saves a lot of /ramdisk memory, that can be used for something else.

The downside of using a "symlink" is that the file is "read-only".
Mainly, that affects the built-in "web.html" file, it cannot be changed. If the user wants to download the latest copy of the file, it should be named something else, such as "web_new.html" to as not to conflict with the built-in file, that now cannot be overwritten.
Also affected is the "Firefox_wallpaper.png" file in /home/knoppix, it is now read-only. To use Mozilla Firefox to set a wallpaper requires that this file be overwritten. The only solution is to delete the file, then allow Firefox to make a new one.
The Getting Started Guide mentions this in several places, and suggests using the file manager, "emelFM" to delete the file. Then, one can use Mozilla Firefox to locate a wallpaper image on the internet, and set it as "desktop wallpaper". (With the introduction of the Wallpaper Control Center, that method of setting a desktop wallpaper is almost obsolete.)
These are small problems that won't get in anyone's way, unless they want to work with those two files.
The benefits of saving /ramdisk space affect everyone using the system, there is now a lot more /ramdisk space available for use. This becomes important for those using older computers, with only 128 MB of RAM.

In the very latest effort to accomplish this goal of "saving ramdisk memory", some of the mouse cursor theme scripts have been changed to recover /ramdisk memory if the user decides to switch back to the "default mouse cursor theme", that is now built-in. Up to now, the installation of any of the mouse cursor themes, including the default theme, required the theme be set up in an ~/.icons directory, in /ramdisk. Now, no ~/.icons directory exists until the user switches to one of the 6 mouse cursor themes, from the default theme.
Going back to the default theme is easily accomplished by the new scripts by deleting any ~/.icons directory in /ramdisk. Now, the memory used by one of the themes is made available again.

Beta 94 installed Opera 9.01, and as a precaution against the browser and RSS feeds using more /ramdisk, the work began on conserving and saving /ramdisk memory.

Any additional builds of Beta 94 should just center around error corrections, then we will move on to Beta 95. There are no ideas yet on what needs to be the focus of Beta 95, so Beta 94 will be tested for a while to see what may come to mind.

Beta 94.

2006-07-10T17:57:00.000-07:00

Beta 94 has gone through eleven builds to get all the Opera 9 problems sorted out, and also to make use of symlinks to increase the available /ramdisk space.

The earlier post on Beta 94, dated Saturday, July 8, 2006 had this to say about the mouse cursor problem with Opera 9:

"Tests are being conducted on this problem, and a simple solution has been found. The menus for IceWM, Fluxbox, and the Opera Icon in KDE will no longer run the control script as "root".
That change allows any of the seven mouse cursor themes to be used, and appear normally in Opera 9. Beta 94 is being rebuilt to include this change for the better."

The menus have been changed, and Opera's control script no longer runs as "root".

So, the seven "kde-look.org" mouse cursor themes in Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, Beta 94, appear normally in the Opera browser.

The use of symlinks has reduced the "used ramdisk" to 648 KB, which is an all-time low for the Remaster, only 1% of the shared memory on a computer with 256 MB of RAM.

The other major reduction came when the current default mouse cursor theme was "built-in", no longer requiring an ~/.icons directory, which ran in /ramdisk. In Beta 94, there is no ~/.icons directory unless the user switches to one of the other six mouse cursor themes.

With the upgrade of Opera to version 9.01, more /ramdisk is required for the RSS feeds (13 of them), since they now have small pictures in the story summaries. Making the extra room in /ramdisk for Opera 9 assures that the Remaster will continue to run on older computers with 128 MB of RAM.

The version of Opera 9 used in the Remaster is a "weekly" build, and is a testing version, some web sites may not be rendered correctly, or have everything work in them. All in all, however, Opera 9.01 is a good web browser, just not as polished as Mozilla Firefox in some areas.

Stay Tuned!

New Station Selector for XMMS uploaded.

2006-07-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

Version 0.3.02 of the Station Selector for XMMS has been uploaded.

Get yours here.

Be sure and chmod +x the file when running Station Selector in Kanotix Linux.
In Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux, all you have to do is click on the "Update Station Selector" button on the interface, and your new copy will automatically be downloaded and started up for you.

As usual, one of the stations "went bad", so I replaced it with an active internet radio station. Hopefully, this one will stay up for a while. It's button number 3, in the dial-up section, now it's Sky.FM Top Hits. I'm listening to it now, it's dial-up, 24kps. This one will give the dial-up people something decent to listen to, very nice station.

Question. How long does it take to download and start up a new copy of Station Selector? Just a few seconds on broadband, a little longer on dialup on a slower computer.
The file is only 13.43 K.

Stay tuned!

Beta 94 - Opera 9

2006-07-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

Beta 94 is out.
Opera 8.54 has been replaced by Opera 9.01.

I'm using the "shared-qt" linux version, and it is working very well.
Two small problems remain:

1. Flash games run too slowly in Opera 9.01, use Mozilla Firefox to run them.

2. Because of the RSS feeds, there is a short wait when the browser boots before it becomes responsive. If one is going to want to click on a link and get a web page, do so immediately after the browser boots up. You'll still have to wait a bit for the RSS feeds to load up, anyway. This isn't too much of a problem once you get used to it. Just give the browser a minute or so to get the RSS feed stories downloaded, then you can surf the web normally, and Opera 9.01 will respond as you expect it to. This mostly applies to dial-up access, with broadband, especially on a faster computer, you don't have a problem.

The build that is being used is not the final shipping build of Opera 9, it is the "weekly" build, No. 383 of Opera 9.01.
Just wanted to provide the cutting-edge version of Opera 9 in the Remaster.

The mouse cursor theme problem present in the "static-qt" version of Opera 9 no longer is a major problem with the "shared-qt" version. There is one remaining mouse cursor theme problem, however,
only the default cursor will appear within the Opera browser, none of the other kde-look.org cursor themes included in the Remaster can be made to appear in the browser. At least, the very small, hard to see cursor that appeared in the browser while it loads a web page is gone, This was present in the "static-qt" version, the currently-used "shared-qt" version does not show that small cursor.
This theme problem is due to the "control script" that the Remaster uses to run Opera, it runs as "root".
If the browser is run without that control script, any of the mouse cursor themes can be selected, and will appear in Opera.
Tests are being conducted on this problem, and a simple solution has been found. The menus for IceWM, Fluxbox, and the Opera Icon in KDE will no longer run the control script as "root".
That change allows any of the seven mouse cursor themes to be used, and appear normally in Opera 9. Beta 94 is being rebuilt to include this change for the better.

The web-site "imagemap" problem is gone, also.

So it does seem that Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux will stay with Opera 9, and Beta 94's Getting Started Guide is online for you to review.

Just a reminder, Beta 94 has the new Flock 0.7.1 web browser, just added in Beta 93, and the new kde-look.org mouse cursor theme, Comix Blue Large Bold, which is a nice transparent theme that you will enjoy. You can try out each of the seven mouse cursor themes to see how they look, each one only takes 15-20 seconds to "install", less once you get the hang of it.

Stay Tuned!

Testing Opera 9

2006-07-07T19:44:00.000-07:00

Special Section on Opera 9!

"static-qt" vs. "shared-qt" linux versions of Opera 9.

Please note that there is a section in the "What's New" area of the Getting Started Guide for Beta 93, that tells why Opera 9 is not being used in the remaster at this time.
(Early tests indicate that Beta 94 will need to provide Opera 9)

For those wanting to try it, it is possible to download and run Opera 9 within Beta 93's linux /ramdisk filesystem, so that tests can be conducted. You can see for yourself how Opera 9 performs. It is not "installed", but is just being run in temporary /ramdisk. This works best on a machine with 256 MB of ram, or better.

Here is how that is done:

1.
Download the Opera 9 "shared-qt" tar.gz file to /home/knoppix.
(not to ~/download, but to /home/knoppix)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Important Update:

The "static-qt" build of Opera 9 is no longer included in the above Opera download link as of the date of this post! The Opera developers may have realized that problems were occuring with the "static-qt" build, and have removed it, leaving only the "shared" versions for all Linux operating systems.

I have instead used these instructions to download the "shared" version, and have installed it in /ramdisk, and am using Opera 9.01 now to edit this post! The "mouse cursor theme problem" detailed in the Getting Started Guide and the following discussion is no longer apparent when using the "shared" version with Beta 93 of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

The various mouse cursor themes work just fine, and Opera 9 no longer displays a different cursor theme while a web page downloads.

Prior to this development I had thought the "shared" version would not run in the Remaster, but I am running it at this time, and should be used for this test, running within the Remaster's /ramdisk.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That link will give you the latest weekly build of Opera, for you to test.
As of the date of this post, they have "9.01-20060706.5" available.

In the Remaster, don't use a "static-qt" version, use the "shared-qt" version.

2.
In a root shell: (On the IceWM toolbar in the Remaster)
gunzip opera*

3.
In the same root shell:
tar -xvf opera*

4.
You will now have a directory in /home/knoppix:
/opera-9.01-20060706.5-shared-qt-i386-en-383

5.
Your owner/group should be knoppix/users. Use emelFM to see or set that.

6.
In an rxvt (not root), navigate to that directory.
In the Remaster, Menu -> Programs -> XShells -> Rxvt.

7.
To show the contents, do "ls".

8.
Use a root shell and make an empty ~/.opera directory.
Or, you can use emelFM to do that. It's command line runs as "root" in the Remaster.

9.
in the rxvt shell:
./opera -personaldir /home/knoppix/.opera
(Do not use the Opera icon on the IceWM toolbar in the Remaster, it starts Opera 8.54.

10.
Opera 9.01 will start with the Opera default configuration.

11.
You may now set the browser up the way you want it in the preferences. Here is a nice home page you might want, it is the same one provided by default in the Remaster.
These preference changes will become a part of your ~/.opera directory.

You can verify what version of Opera you are running:
Opera toolbar, Help, About Opera.

12.
If you are connected to the internet, you may surf the web with Opera 9.01.
Note that the "shared" version will not reflect more than one mouse cursor theme as the "static-qt" version did.

13.
If you have a spare hard drive partition for storing things, you may use emelFM to copy the main opera directory there for use next time, and also the ~/.opera directory.
Be sure and click on Tools -> Delete Private Data on the Opera toolbar before you copy (and store) your ~/.opera directory. Otherwise, your ~/.opera directory may contain information from your current web-surfing session, and bring it back next time. (Maybe you want to do that).
Also, as far as any RSS feeds are concerned, be sure and click on Feeds -> Manage Feeds and uncheck all of them to clear them out of downloaded stories before you copy the ~/.opera directory to the spare hard drive partition.

14.
When you copy these directories back into /ramdisk next time you boot up the system, be sure and set the owner/group of ~/.opera to "knoppix/knoppix" and of the main Opera directory to
"knoppix/users"

I set up Opera 9.01 to use the RSS feeds from my Opera 8.54 setup (13 of them!).
You may add feeds as you surf the web, and click on the feed icon in the address bar for the sites you want. That information will be contained in your ~/.opera directory.

* "static-qt" tests:
As far as dial up access with Opera is concerned, my tests find that Opera 9.01 takes too long, and too much bandwidth, to download the RSS feeds in the first few minutes that the browser is running on the internet. These tests were done with the "static-qt" version, no longer available"
During this time, the browser is "unresponsive" on older computers, and the user may object to that. It does "catch up" and get over the RSS feed download period (two minutes), and then everything works fine.

* Tests have not yet been performed using dial-up on an older computer with the "shared-qt" version of Opera 9.

* Tests using a broadband-connected computer are being conducted at this time.

--------------------------------------------------------------
* The following sub-section is based on the "static-qt" version,
now no longer provided in Opera weekly build download.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Just wanted to let everyone know that I am testing Opera 9, and would have already used it if it had no problems. Main problem was the mouse cursor theme. I do not see very much in the Opera forums about that, one poster suggested using KDE only with Opera 9. I tried that, and that's true, it does seem to work differently as far as the mouse cursor theme is concerned.
I just did not like having Opera display/use more than one cursor theme. It does that when run in IceWM, the default window manager for Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux. There is Fluxbox, and KDE available also in the Remaster.
When using blogger.com, the "Edit posts" tab and the "Moderate comments" tab do not work. There are some bugs in Opera 9, so I have to use Opera 8.54 to work with the blog you are now viewing.
I found some imagemaps on web pages do not work, also.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Current tests on Opera 9.01, "shared-qt" version are going nicely, and do not reflect any of the mouse cursor theme problems detailed just prior, or any blogger.com tab problems.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Web browsers in Beta 93:
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4 (RSS feeds added)
Flock 1.0.7 (No RSS feeds added)
Opera 8.54 (RSS feeds added)

Stay Tuned!

Ordering the CD:

2006-07-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

To order your copy of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux
(On Memorex CD-R):

Letter with check or money order for Twenty Dollars, ($20.00)
to:

Michael L. Dawley
Rapidweather
3222 Norma Drive
Pearl, MS 39208-4916

Includes shipping.

The latest Beta Build CD will be sent immediately to the name/address you want. You'll have it as quickly as possible.

Once you get your CD, you may make all the copies you want, and
run them on all of your computers!
This is not like Windows, there is no registration number. If you have the CD, you can run it anytime, anywhere you have a PC with a CDROM drive.

Take a look at the Getting Started Guide for details.

Here is a Screenshots page.
These screenshots are 1024x768, and in Opera, press "F11" to see the screenshot on your monitor exactly like it would appear if you were running this livecd linux!

Stay Tuned!

Beta 93

2006-07-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

Beta 93 has been through 6 builds, and is ready for immediate shipment.

The Flock web browser has been upgraded to version 0.7.1.

The "About Flock" shows:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11;U;Linux i686;en-US;rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060620
Firefox/1.5.0.4 Flock/0.7.1

The Remaster provides a control script for Flock, that will load
the ~/.flock directory only when the browser is started, and deletes it when Flock is closed. This is done to save /ramdisk space, and for security reasons.
That is not all that the control script does for Flock.
In the Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux CD, look for
/usr/local/keepers/start_flock.sh to see all the details on the control script. The script makes sure that any Mozilla Firefox ~/.mozilla restored at bootup is protected, and that there is no empty ~/.mozilla remaining when Flock closes, to interfere with a subsequent startup of Mozilla Firefox.
All of the web browsers in the Remaster use a common "start page", and Flock is preconfigured to use that page as it's home page.
All Flock preferences are preset also, to work with a livecd linux, and to provide maximum security while the Flock web browser is open.

The Getting Started Guide is online, for all of the details.

Stay Tuned!

128 MB of RAM

2006-06-30T17:49:00.000-07:00

That's what I have on this computer.

I'm running the Station Selector for XMMS, and it's tuned to Sky-FM, Best of the 80's, dial up gives me 24 kb/s. Also running Opera 8.54 to make this post. I've used the Guarddog Firewall interface to cut the firewall off temporarily so I could switch through all the stations till I found one I wanted to stay with, then switched the firewall back on.
That's one of the little quirks, the firewall can block some dial-up internet radio stations, so if one clicks all around on the choices on the Station Selector, XMMS can lock up. Switch off the 'wall, make your choice, then switch it back on.
Don't worry about that, the control script that Opera runs in (boot_opera.sh) will completely delete the entire ~/.opera directory when you exit Opera, and you tell it to do just that. You have a choice. If by chance, you have been looking at your online stocks, or online banking site, then you are advised to exit Opera when done, and let the control script wipe all traces of your online activity from the running linux system. You had your firewall up when doing online banking, didn't you? Should be safe on a livecd linux!
You can use the Flock web browser to do the same thing, it's protected, all your ~/.flock goes away when Flock is closed.

Now you want to drop the firewall to tune in to a radio station with XMMS using the Station Selector, just put it back up when you settle on a station to listen to.
Could keep Opera closed while you do that, or just wait to check those stocks, and do that after you put your 'wall back up. That's what I do. Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux does not run Opera without the script, so when you do close Opera, everything goes with it, no trace left.

Also had to use the file manager "emelFM" to copy my wvdial.conf file I had stored in /dev/hda1 to /etc so I could dial up without having to set the modem up with the WvDial Setup application that comes with all Beta builds of Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux.

Opera 8.54 has been busy downloading the RSS feeds (13 of them), and keeping them up to date while I work. There's a ton of news stories I can check out by clicking on the "Feeds" drop-down box in Opera. I often do that while waiting for a web page to completely download. XMMS is using some of the dial-up bandwidth playing the Sky-FM station, so there's a little wait on some pages, nice to have something to do while that's happening.

Also, I verified all of the stations in the Station Selector, and uploaded a new copy to the server for everyone to enjoy.
It's here.
Be sure and chmod +x the file when you download it. It'll run in
Kanotix Linux. Those using Rapidweather Remaster of Knoppix Linux can just click the "Update Station Selector" button on the Station Selector interface, to automatically download and start up the latest copy.
So, what memory do we have left after all that?
(We have only 128 MB total)
"Top" shows only 3012K free, and swap used of 15988K.
I have 309952K of swap, so I'll be here a while trying to use all that up. Actually, sometimes those figures improve, so I guess I could keep this thing running a good while.
The cpu is running at 93.2% idle if I let things sit a spell, it's a 400 MHZ AMD K6-2.
Uptime is 2 hours and 3 minutes. XMMS playing all the time, no stop.
Using the optional mouse cursor theme from kde-look.org, Comix "blue large bold", it's built in to Beta 92, and can be applied in seconds using the Mouse Cursor Theme Selector. One does that when the system is first booted up, before any applications are started, such as Opera, or emelFM. If you save your configuration, you get the theme back automatically next time you start up the system when you boot with "myconfig=scan". Check the Getting Started Guide on that.
Just wanted to show a typical session, running on an older computer with RAM of 128 MB, obsolete nowadays.
Nothing wrong with this setup, however. All the applications seem quick, except for the dial up part. Very enjoyable, really.

Stay Tuned!