Welcome to the SCORM Player release of Puppy Linux 1.08r1 by Raffy Mananghaya, education.puppylinux.net, April 15, 2006 Puppy Linux main release is by Barry Kauler, www.puppyOS.com (Without Barry, there is no Puppy GNU/Linux.) This file ReadMe.txt is on the LodPup CD and is viewed by browsing the CD. It is also inside your home directory (also known as "root") within the running Puppy. It is accompanied by an image file, mut.jpg. HOW TO USE THIS SCORM PLAYER (LodPup ISO burned to CD or DVD) Burn the ISO to CD. Set your BIOS to boot from CD. Insert the LodPup CD to the CD drive and restart your PC. 1. To start normally Normal start means that you do not choose anything at boot time (this is the default, similar to choosing option 1). - If your hard disk has VFAT (Windows) or Ext2 (Linux) partition, a file "pup001" will exist in one of these partitions, and that partition will have the name "/mnt/home". - If your hard disk has only one partition devoted to NTFS (Windows XP), you will have seen a boot-time error telling you to first unzip "pup001.zip" to your drive C. So reboot your PC now into Windows XP and unzip the "pup001.zip" from this CD to your drive C (drive C is "local disk" inside your "My Computer" icon). "pup001" is a 256 MB "container" file that stores your personal configuration and data. As you work, your home folder will be inside "root", the admin folder, and anything you store there will be saved at shutdown-power-off. So remember to shut down your PC normally. VFAT and Ext2 users can save outside "root" and into their partitions (which are found inside "mnt", such as "/mnt/home" or "/mnt/hdaX" - X can be any number). NTFS users can't save into NTFS (as of now), but are free to fill the 256-MB "root" home folder whose contents are saved into "pup001" at shutdown. "mnt" is a system folder that coexists with "root". Clicking on "home" in the desktop will bring you inside "root" (with the identifier ~). Click on the "up-arrow" while you are inside "~" (i.e., inside "root") and you will see "mnt". Click once on it to get inside it (yes, only one click is needed to open folders in Puppy Linux). "mnt" contains mounted devices (hence the name "mnt"), such as "hdaX" (partition X in the first hard disk), or "sdaX" (partition X in the first USB device). Your CD drive is usually mounted as "cdrom". Look at the example devices mountable into "mnt" as shown in the mut.jpg picture accompanying this ReadMe.txt. "Rox" is actually the File Manager opening and closing your "home" and "mnt" folders, while the USB icon is MUT (media utility tool) used to mount and unmount devices. Click on the USB icon now and mount or unmount devices as you wish. "Rox" will open for your exploring any device that is already mounted. Note: When you start SCORM Player and wanted to open a SCORM (zip) package, the first location presented to you is inside "root" (your own folder). Go up one level (via the folder icon with up-arrow) to see "mnt". 2. Mounting Storage Devices Can your CD or DVD drive be reused? Yes, if the whole Puppy suite in "usr_cram.fs" has been copied to your PC's memory. Try to eject the CD or DVD after the desktop has been displayed - if it ejects, you can load another CD or DVD into it then open MUT (via the USB icon) and mount the CD/DVD drive again. When using USB flash drive, plug in your device then start MUT. If MUT is already running, it will refresh automatically and show you the USB name "sdaX", which you will then mount (X is any number). Sometimes the name will be shown as "sdbX". 3. To start with other options (2 to 4) Sometimes it is wise to choose option 2 when using a PC that is not your own, to avoid saving anything to the hard disk. When you do, you will have to mount devices that contain your SCORM files. Note about "ACPI=OFF": This option is the way out if hardware detection hangs the boot process (assuming that your burned CD has no defect). Be warned also that some CD drives can not read from mini-CDs! (In this case try to use a big CD.) 4. Playing SCORM file (package with ZIP extension) Mount your storage device that contains SCORM content - you can use the same CD/DVD drive from which you started this CD, just single-click on the Drive (USB drive) shortcut on the desktop then eject, unmount or mount the CD/DVD as needed. (Details are the same as item 2 above.) If you want to use SCORM packages in your hard disk partition, just mount the partition visible to you (inside MUT). Start SCORM Player then open a SCORM file. The folder that you will first see is "root" which contains "my-documents" and other folders. Go one level up by clicking on the folder icon that has up-arrow in it. Then select the "mnt" folder. You will see the different devices, as already illustrated with the picture mut.jpg under item 1 above. After loading (and naming) the SCORM package, play it by clicking on the red play button. This action will open a browser window. It sometimes say "Refresh your browser", but you can ignore this, close that prompt and just keep clicking on the "next" button to go through the package. In the "my-documents" folder (inside "root"), you will find a package, "SCORM_test_the_UN.zip" which has been pre-loaded in the SCORM Player. 5. Adding files to LodPup ISO and the issue of available memory Note that you can remaster this LodPup ISO to add a folder-full of SCORM files. There are utilities for adding files to an existing ISO, such as Magic ISO for Windows. Just remember to always use SAVE and not SAVE AS (this last option is known to render the CD un-bootable). Ergo, you can use this LodPup ISO to also carry SCORM files. The beauty of this is, if the whole "usr_cram.fs" is unsuccessfully loaded (as when PC memory is limited), your CD or DVD will remain in the drive and ready to be accessed. The issue of total available memory for Puppy is a tricky one that may require the creation of swap partition and/or addition of memory modules. Swap is additional memory created as a new partition in your hard disk - some programs for Windows like Partition Magic can do this without harming your existing data. However, the easiest way is just make sure that you have 128 MB or more of true memory (RAM) in your PC. THIS LODPUP CD MAY NOT ACTUALLY LOAD EVEN IF YOU HAVE 128 MB RAM AND NO SWAP - this is a known problem of remastered Puppy ISOs, and ADDING SWAP (OR RAM) IS THE ONLY SOLUTION to bring total available memory to at least 256 MB. Note that the use of memory is the trick that makes Puppy Linux fast! 6. Tracking SCORM usage (options 1 and 5) If you are using "pup001" (i.e., saving files to hard disk as in item 1 above), your SCORM usage is theoretically logged, with files added to the "reload" directory inside "root". If you have a CD or DVD writer, you can try option 5 at boot time (save data to multisession CD or DVD). However, this requires burning LodPup in a "not finalized" way. This is good for keeping kids' portfolios, and will be developed more in Puppy Linux. For updates about LodPup, please visit http://education.puppylinux.net. This is where you should address your questions as well as volunteer yourself or anything that can help Puppy (and LodPup) help others. LICENSE: GPL (See gnu.org); NO WARRANTY - USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Notes: Windows(r) is trademark of Microsoft Corporation SCORM = Sharable Content Object Reference Model, see www.adlnet.org RELOAD at www.reload.ac.uk is home of tools for SCORM.