EasyOS version 2.3.2, June 22, 2020

[frenchiveruti]

Hello Barry.
One thing I've noticed is that you've uploaded the SFS files for EasyOS on the oe/pyro repo directory, instead of the EasyOS one.
Is that intentional?

My question comes as I'm running EasyOS 2.1.3, and I would like to upgrade the system to EasyOS 2.1.8, how would I do that?
Do you have any blog entry that covers this approach of "upgrading" the base SFS, instead of a RollBack?
Thanks!

On a second topic, I would like to see a change into the yellow ugly download window, it actually sits ON TOP of EVERYTHING, and it also covers ANY virtual desktop you may have, and there's no obvious way to closing them.
This is specially annoying on big downloads that take like 30 minutes, that means 30 minutes with the screen half taken.
I guess it's not that big of a priority but still.

[frenchiveruti]

Also wanted to note (while I'm fooling around with getting this bluetooth dongle-headset combo to work), for anyone interested Firefox 68.2.0esr is running well in Easy-2.1.7 after downloading and installing it in /opt. Debian is still stuck on Firefox 60.9.0, and probably will be for a little while.

Firefox 68.2.0 is a big jump from 60.9.0, bringing both functional improvement and especially security improvements.

How do you upgrade from FF60 to FF68?
I downloaded the 60 from the PetGet PPM.
Do I do that again? Can't find it there.
Thanks.

[tom22251]

Hi SAGE,

Put this little script in your Startup folder, and
name it "au.sh" (or any other name) :

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
aumix -v 90
aplay /usr/share/audio/2barks.au &
exit

You'll never will have sound problems. Values
are from zero to 100. Ilike'it around 77-80 which
is little bit higher than the middle.
I came upwith this when month ago one of the
Pyro issues had the sound at zero.
Anyway this way it will always start at your
favorit loudness.

Take care,
Tom

[Sage]

Muchas garcias, Tom.

[BarryK]

My question comes as I'm running EasyOS 2.1.3, and I would like to upgrade the system to EasyOS 2.1.8, how would I do that?
Do you have any blog entry that covers this approach of "upgrading" the base SFS, instead of a RollBack?
Thanks!

https://easyos.org/user/easy-version-up ... grade.html

[belham2]

Also wanted to note (while I'm fooling around with getting this bluetooth dongle-headset combo to work), for anyone interested Firefox 68.2.0esr is running well in Easy-2.1.7 after downloading and installing it in /opt. Debian is still stuck on Firefox 60.9.0, and probably will be for a little while.

Firefox 68.2.0 is a big jump from 60.9.0, bringing both functional improvement and especially security improvements.

How do you upgrade from FF60 to FF68?
I downloaded the 60 from the PetGet PPM.
Do I do that again? Can't find it there.
Thanks.

Hi frenchiveruti,

Just download 68.2.0 64-bit yourself, Go to Mozilla's downloads for the public:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/

Go down to the 68.2.0esr folder, go down through the directories of this folder until you come to this:

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/rel ... ux-x86_64/


Choose whatever language you want, and you will open to two files. One is the ".....bz2" file (that you will download and then use xarchive Or SFR's Uextract) to unarchive it. the other file is an "....bz2.asc", which I highly recommend you download too. Use a terminal, type in "gpg --verify .........bz2.asc ..............bz2". This is to verify if the file actually was downloaded from Mozilla.

I also wholeheartedly recommend you download (go back a few directories) the sha256 or sha512 files and check the shasum of the bz2 downloaded. This will let you know the integrity of the downloaded bz2 file.

You do these two things BEFORE you un-archive the downloaded bz2 file.


After you get the bz2 unarchived, go find the firefox folder in Easy (can remember offhand, it's either in /opt or in /usr/lib64 (or lib), open it, delete everything in it (or move it somewhere for backup purposes), and place everything from the unarchived bz2 firefox folder into Easy's firefox folder.

And voila', you will be running the latest 68.2.0esr Firefox browser when you click on firefox in Easy's Menu.

Easy as cupcakes

Good luck!

[scsijon]

Do you have any idea on how to add a second full install in it's own partition into the menu system on an EasyOS stick?

I've installed it ok, I just can't seem to be able to get it to boot into when I've added it into the EasyOS Menu and I can't find usefull examples for the config files to follow. Both the refind and syslinux sites seem to be a little lite-on when dealing with this matter.

thanks

[BarryK]

Do you have any idea on how to add a second full install in it's own partition into the menu system on an EasyOS stick?

I've installed it ok, I just can't seem to be able to get it to boot into when I've added it into the EasyOS Menu and I can't find usefull examples for the config files to follow. Both the refind and syslinux sites seem to be a little lite-on when dealing with this matter.

thanks

One thing that you have to know about refind is that it has a flaw with ext4. If you read the refind docs, it will explain how you can specify a particular partition by its label, and can boot it. Refind also has an automatic discovery mode in the config file.

So you can have another ext4 partition with vmlinuz, initrd and easy.sfs in it, and refind can boot it.

Refind has a ext4 driver, and there are drivers available for other filesystems. However, there is a problem with the ext4 driver -- if encryption is enabled in the ext4 filesystem, the refind ext4 driver does not work, it does not recognise the partition.

What this means, you can use a ext4 partition, but do not turn on encryption, and you cannot have a password at bootup.

Rodney, the author of refind, is aware of this problem. He referred me to the guy who contributed the ext4 driver, who I contacted, but he wasn't interested in fixing it. So, a project for someone...

[scsijon]

Do you have any idea on how to add a second full install in it's own partition into the menu system on an EasyOS stick?

I've installed it ok, I just can't seem to be able to get it to boot into when I've added it into the EasyOS Menu and I can't find usefull examples for the config files to follow. Both the refind and syslinux sites seem to be a little lite-on when dealing with this matter.

thanks

One thing that you have to know about refind is that it has a flaw with ext4. If you read the refind docs, it will explain how you can specify a particular partition by its label, and can boot it. Refind also has an automatic discovery mode in the config file.

So you can have another ext4 partition with vmlinuz, initrd and easy.sfs in it, and refind can boot it.

Refind has a ext4 driver, and there are drivers available for other filesystems. However, there is a problem with the ext4 driver -- if encryption is enabled in the ext4 filesystem, the refind ext4 driver does not work, it does not recognise the partition.

What this means, you can use a ext4 partition, but do not turn on encryption, and you cannot have a password at bootup.

Rodney, the author of refind, is aware of this problem. He referred me to the guy who contributed the ext4 driver, who I contacted, but he wasn't interested in fixing it. So, a project for someone...

Sorry, I'd read about that problem so the extra partition is ext2 and it isn't EasyOS. It's actually a T2 musl/clang build that uses grub2 as I want to be able to swap back and forth between the two. The problem seems to be with it working with the full install on that other parition. I can't work out how to make refind/syslinux choose to work with that partition and not the existing partition. I've followed the standards in the webpages, but I think i'm just missing something somewhere to tell refind/syslinux to work with the other partition and not the EasyOS ones. I've got to a frustrated point which is why i've asked for help, I need an example to follow and work with.

thanks

[lp-dolittle]

@ scsijon

Hi scsijon,

reading, your recent post, I remembered a previous contribution of
forum member wdt.

Look at the attachment

Maybe, wdt could provide you with additional information.

kind regards

[Wac]

Hi to every one in this conversation:

Had anyone developed a sfs file for Skype yet, that will work in Easy OS Buster?

[Rodney Byne]

To all,

Here's a handy tip to quickly set up and launch the
SFS downloaded Chromium already in incognito mode
(the equivalent to private browsing mode in Firefox)

Sync bookmarks, settings and data to the google cloud
from your Chromebook if you have one.
Obvious to any expert here.

Then just left-drag the containered Chromium icon to the Edit
icon on the desktop. Release & see this;

#!/bin/sh
empty -f ec-chroot chromium

edit the line to add this;

#!/bin/sh
empty -f ec-chroot chromium --incognito

and save.
Job done, regards.

[lp-dolittle]

@ Alfons

Hi Alfons,

just a late reaction to your recent report on successfully running EasyOS 2.1.8 and Pyro 1.2.8 on an old Mac and on old harddisks.

Firstly, a question:
Did you also try to run EasyOS on the Mac according to the 'tom22251-method' (possibly refined by your own modifications)?

Secondly, a remark on a somewhat confusing experience:
I also tried to run several Puppies, EasyOS-variants, FatDog and a 'raspian for desktops'-iso on an old MacBook whose hardware specs are shown in the attachment.

The raspian-iso is available here:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/r ... i-desktop/

Remarkably, none of the so far tested EasyOS or Puppy variants successfully coped with the old Mac Book's EFI configuration, except Bionicpup64-8.0. Futhermore, the raspian-iso also works fine.

I meanwhile installed raspian on the MacBook, but I'm unable to access the Mac's BIOS-alternative, in order to check the EFI-settings and possibly modify them.

How to explain the differences in the UEFI-awareness of the tested OS', and how to circumvent these limitations?

kind regards

[wdt]

@ scsijon
Refind is quite a good and useful program, if you are MOSTLY booting in uefi mode
It can boot in bios mode, it's not really its forte (this is a switch, efi -> bios),,
firmware must be set to "both"
A boot manager and a boot loader are kind of different things,
a boot manager does not need to know any of the "details" just the boot loader to pass control to
A boot loader, at a minimum has to tell where root fs is and kernel/initrd name
Refind has a config file, as a manager usually the default is OK
As a loader, I think it is mandatory to make an appropriate stanza
rodsbooks.com for details
For booting isos (most work) I haven't had to do anything
However, there is a gotcha (with easy), sdd does not go past 8 (in the initrd) that is /dev/sdd9 will not be found
Once booted, no problem, this caused me no end of confusion
Maybe I should have less drives?

[ras]

Freecad, Qcad and Solvespace ..cool. No problems loading after reading your posts on the news.
Its nice to see a cad additions to the easy repos. I noticed a while back that appimages work with easy also, but freecad at 521 MB !! not puppycentric at all.
Thanks also for your extra work with easy documentation, an important part of any good distro.

[BarryK]

I am not responsive to feedback on EasyOS for awhile. Apologies for that, but having a bit of a rest from EasyOS development, instead working on my solar water still, currently a basin-type, prototype #3.

[BarryK]

I am starting to fix bluetooth. Only looked at Easy Pyro so far.

Pyro has BluePup to make the connection, which I did successfully with my bluetooth mouse. However, it did not work after a reboot.

I found that this fixes it, file /etc/bluetooth/main.conf:

Code: Select all

[Policy]
AutoEnable=true

[General]
DiscoverableTimeout=0
Discoverable=true

However, the mouse only works if I turn its power on after Easy has booted up. If the mouse is turned on beforehand, it is not detected.

Does anyone know if this is normal behaviour? On other distros, does the mouse work at bootup, without having to toggle the power button off-on?

[Sage]

Does anyone know if this is normal behaviour? On other distros...

Some printers sometimes behave like this in some distros, both USB connected and wifi. However, I have not been able to discover any reproducibility nor rationality. As a non-coder, I've found that unplugging & re-plugging, switching off then on again (printer that is), logging in and back, usually brings up desired result - the sort of idiot approach like kicking it,I suppose! Only started happening within last ~5yrs. Sorry this may not help. Only major disruptions on this timescale have been kernel changes and systemd (which Puppy doesn't have, but device embedded code may have/be influenced by?)

[BarryK]

I am starting to fix bluetooth. Only looked at Easy Pyro so far.

Pyro has BluePup to make the connection, which I did successfully with my bluetooth mouse. However, it did not work after a reboot.

I found that this fixes it, file /etc/bluetooth/main.conf:

Code: Select all

[Policy]
AutoEnable=true

[General]
DiscoverableTimeout=0
Discoverable=true

However, the mouse only works if I turn its power on after Easy has booted up. If the mouse is turned on beforehand, it is not detected.

Does anyone know if this is normal behaviour? On other distros, does the mouse work at bootup, without having to toggle the power button off-on?

Bluetooth mouse now working OK:

https://bkhome.org/news/201911/bluetoot ... -easy.html

If mouse turned on at bootup, need to click a mouse button for it to be recognised.

[BarryK]

I am not responsive to feedback on EasyOS for awhile. Apologies for that, but having a bit of a rest from EasyOS development, instead working on my solar water still, currently a basin-type, prototype #3.

Full steam ahead on EasyOS development, for now anyway. Planning to head off for a camping trip to the South coast soon, but intend to get out the next version of Easy before that.

5.4.1 kernel with "lockdown" is looking good:

https://bkhome.org/news/201912/kernel-5 ... -aufs.html

There was a request to free-up how a container is created. It used to be only in-built apps could be converted to a container, now user-installed apps can be converted:

https://bkhome.org/news/201912/convert- ... iners.html