EasyOS version 2.3.2, June 22, 2020

[scsijon]

Thought things were going too well!

Had a go at starting it up on my Wacom Tablet. (I fixed the boot process some time ago so I could start it from a portable cdrom so I know that bit works.)

- gunzipped it onto a memory stick (your instruction set 2 partitions as I did with 0.4)
- plugged it into the tablets only usb port and started it up
- Menu showed up but no controls as touchscreen wasn't working, but it went on from there ok..
- and now it's sitting (and has been for a couple of hours now) at "performing a switch_root onto the layered filesystem "(purple writing), with the last line as "making the filesystem useable...." (white writing).

Any sugestions, i've got to go out for a while and i'll leave it on, but suspect it will still be there when I return.

regards

ps 0.4 worked and xerus 8.2.iso also.

pps, if your somewhere near an officeworks, go in and have a look at their latest screen projector, it's the size of 2 cigarette boxes side-by-side, runs on a usb voltage powerpack and will happily project a 24" 16/9 screen, now that's portable! Maybe lcd/led screens will disappear next.

[BarryK]

I was a busy beaver last night and today, have written EasyDD.

EasyDD is a GUI frontend to the 'dd' uility. It also works from the commandline.

Over the last few months, I have observed on this forum, some people making mistakes with 'dd'.

Also, I am wanting to simplify the instructions for writing of the downloaded EasyOS image file to a USB-stick. With EasyDD, this can now be done in a terminal, for example:

Code: Select all

# easydd easy-0.5-amd64.img.gz sdb

To see cli instructons:

Code: Select all

# easydd --help

Or, to get the full GUI, which will ask for source and destination:

Code: Select all

# easydd

The good thing is, it does a lot of sanity checking, making it much harder to go wrong.

EasyDD will be in the next release of EasyOS, with a menu entry, in "Setup" category.

However, you can play with it now. Download, gunzip, make executable, place in /usr/sbin

Note, this first version only does one thing, write an image file to a drive. The image file can be compressed or not.

Of course, considering the power off 'dd', use it at your own risk. I have been using it, and it seems OK, but I still need to put in this disclaimer.

[dangerfirebob]

Just downloaded easydd.gz using the default browser with my new installation of Easy. I lost the download for a while there untill I found it in the directory /file/downloads (all) instead of the normal directory on the desktop /mnt/sda2/home/downloads.

Works fine for me now I know where to look but could cause confusion.

The youtubedl gui doesn't seem to like it much after downloading it gave out error messages even though it works fine. It just got a little confused

[belham2]

Hi Barry,

Just wanted to let you know the 'EasyDD' script works well. Tried it earlier, and all went ok. I'm going to try a remaster with Easy 0.5 on its full-install USB stick (gave up on the "frugals" for Easy, haha) and see how it goes. Will report back if anything strange happens.

[BarryK]

Just downloaded easydd.gz using the default browser with my new installation of Easy. I lost the download for a while there untill I found it in the directory /file/downloads (all) instead of the normal directory on the desktop /mnt/sda2/home/downloads.

Works fine for me now I know where to look but could cause confusion.

The youtubedl gui doesn't seem to like it much after downloading it gave out error messages even though it works fine. It just got a little confused

I will look at youtubedl and fix that d/l path.

Note that /mnt/sda2/home could change, if you are booting from a usb drive.

/etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE has variable PUP_HOME, which has "/mnt/sda2/home", and gets set correctly at every bootup.

Or, if you need a fixed path: /mnt/wkg/home

[BarryK]

version 0.4

When I booted up from my USB flash drive
I noticed spelling error on screen while booting.

I see an option to check files ---> filsystem check

should be 'filesystem check'

______________________________________________

Also , when I went to your site http://barryk.org/news/
and clicked for Easy linux news

http://easyos.info/news/ --> I got a 'Not found' error

However the following does work -->http://bkhome.org/news/all_posts.html

I am using windows 7 - firefox browser.
__________________________________________

I can't find "filsystem" at bootup in 0.5, I must have fixed it.

Thanks for the report about the old blog, I have fixed that link.

[BarryK]

Easy-0.5 on my desktop with nvidia graphics boots and the desktop appears for a short time but then the signal to the monitor is cut and the monitor goes completely dead!

A message about no text version of xorgwizard being available flashes up briefly during the boot sequence....I think....

I also notice that the Easy folder is not being distributed from ibiblio to the mirror sites - e,g, its not on nluug.

It is difficult for me, as I only have computers with Intel graphics to test on.

About 4 - 7 years ago, I had about a dozen computers, of varying vintage, but gave them all away to the Lions Club. They will now be in third-world countries.

I was moving between houses at the time, a couple of moves, so really couldn't keep them.

Well, I might watch out, at garage sales here in Perth, if one or two come along real cheap, and if have non-Intel video, then might buy them.

Regarding mirrors for Easy OS, there are none. The various sites that might mirror ibiblio, "easyos", have to be asked.

I only approached one, and they ignored my request. Forget which one, they asked if I was a client of there's, which I am not, so it went no further. EDIT: I think it was "Internode"

EDIT
The thought has just occurred, I acquired a middy-tower PC a couple of months ago, secondhand. It has pci-e slots, so I could probably look around for old pci-e video card.
Just looked inside, it also has one full-size slot, presume that is pci.

Actually, this middy-tower did come with a Radeon HD 6870 video card, which I removed and just used the on-board Intel video.
I suppose that I could plug that back in, see what happens.

[Billtoo]

I installed to a 16gb flash drive with easydd, it's running on my
Acer laptop.
I've installed applications with the package manager and they work
well.
Easy seems to be working fine but I'm a long way from understanding
it
The flash drive is new kingston DT50 which is quite small,little more than
1" and it gets pretty hot but is working okay so far.
Thanks.
ps the touchscreen works.
********************************************************
EDIT: I made a few changes, it's working well so far.

[BarryK]

Version 0.5, still pre-alpha, is out, for anyone who is interested:

.....
Some little outstanding issues:
....
3.
Text editor geany starts with the sidebar showing. This is not really an issue, except my preference is for it not to show.

If your using geany built from the latest geany source (1.31), I (and others) found that the sidebar is set on inside the source package itself so it builds that way, but i'm yet to find a 'switch' to turn it off that works permanently when building. There's also the problem of not having line wrapping on, and one or two other little config problems since version 1.24.1 they are dealing with.
You might also consider adding the geany-plugins package https://github.com/geany/geany-plugins/releases, not big and well worth the addition for the extra functions. (For others, make sure you match your geany version else strange things may happen).
Other plugins are listed at http://plugins.geany.org/ for anyone wanting a specific function, there's a lot of them available.

regards to all
scsijon

I didn't compile geany, just using the Ubuntu DEB.

It does come with some plugins:

Class Builder, Export, File Browser, HTML Characters, Save Actions, Split Window

There is another DEB with more plugins, just run PKGget to find it.

Note, the Export plugin is great, can export syntax-highlighted code as html markup, for putting into web pages.

[smokey01]

I only approached one, and they ignored my request. Forget which one, they asked if I was a client of there's, which I am not, so it went no further.I think it was "Internode"

Don't feel too bad as I've been with Internode for over 10 years and they ignored my request too. Internode used to be a great ISP until they were bought out by iinet. I could notice changes almost immediately. Now iinet is owned by TPG it's even worse. Some days I have problems streaming a SD video. This never happened when Internode was Internode.
If Quirky was a sub directory of puppylinux then it would likely be picked up by Internode, same with fatdog. Internode is still the fastest for me especially during the day when people are at work and kids are at school

[Billtoo]

I did a new install using easydd to a 32gb flash drive that is running
on my lenovo thinkcentre desktop:

video-info-glx 1.5.3 Wed 4 Oct 2017 on Easy OS 0.5 Linux 4.13.2 x86_64
0.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [GeForce GT 430] (rev a1)
oem: NVIDIA
product: GF108 Board - 1071v0p1 Chip Rev

X Server: Xorg Driver: nouveau
X.Org version: 1.18.4
dimensions: 3840x1080 pixels (1013x285 millimeters)
depth of root window: 24 planes


Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
Core 0: @2992 1: @2992 MHz

On first boot I got a dead mouse and keyboard, held the power button
until the computer shut down.
On second boot chose to start without x, it did some repairs and gave a
message about no text xorgwizard on this puppy,entered startx and got
to the desktop.
Updated the package manager and installed arandr,ran arandr and setup
for 2 monitors, put the monitors.sh in root startup.
That's it so far, will look around for a devx and kernel sources pet
and see if I can install the proprietary nvidia driver.

Thanks.
*********************************************************
EDIT: So that's what sfsget is for!
video-info-glx 1.5.3 Thu 5 Oct 2017 on Easy OS 0.5 Linux 4.13.2 x86_64
0.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [GeForce GT 430] (rev a1)
oem: NVIDIA
product: GF108 Board - 1071v0p1 Chip Rev

X Server: Xorg Driver: nvidia
X.Org version: 1.18.4
dimensions: 3840x1080 pixels (1038x292 millimeters)
depth of root window: 24 planes

direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
server glx version string: 1.4
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce GT 430/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 384.90

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
Core 0: @2992 1: @2992 MHz

[scsijon]

I didn't compile geany, just using the Ubuntu DEB.

It does come with some plugins:

Class Builder, Export, File Browser, HTML Characters, Save Actions, Split Window

There is another DEB with more plugins, just run PKGget to find it.

Note, the Export plugin is great, can export syntax-highlighted code as html markup, for putting into web pages.

Yep, those are the basic set of packaged-in ones. Goto Help>about, it will tell you the version you are working with. The extra plugin-set contains some 45+ extra plugins for a gain of about 2.9meg but only the ones actually selected to run are added in your loaded geany, not all of them.

List of current ones are:

addons -- the Addons plugin
autoclose -- the Autoclose plugin
automark -- the Automark plugin
codenav -- the CodeNav plugin
commander -- the Commander plugin
debugger -- the Debugger plugin
defineformat -- the Defineformat plugin
devhelp -- the devhelp plugin
geanyctags -- the GeanyCtags plugin
geanydoc -- the GeanyDoc plugin
geanyextrasel -- the GeanyExtraSel plugin
geanygendoc -- the GeanyGenDoc plugin
geanyinsertnum -- the GeanyInsertNum plugin
geanylatex -- the GeanyLaTeX plugin
geanylua -- the GeanyLua plugin
geanymacro -- the GeanyMacro plugin
geanyminiscript -- the GeanyMiniScript plugin
geanynumberedbookmarks -- the GeanyNumberedBookmarks plugin
geanypg -- the geanypg plugin
geanyprj -- the GeanyPrj plugin
geanypy -- the Geanypy plugin
geanyvc -- the GeanyVC plugin
geniuspaste -- the paste to a pastebin plugin
gitchangebar -- the GitChangeBar plugin
gtkspell -- GeanyVC's spell-check support
lineoperations -- simple line functions that can be applied to an open file
lipsum -- the Lipsum plugin
markdown -- the Markdown plugin
multiterm -- the multiterm plugin
overview-- the overview plugin
pairtaghighlighter -- the PairTagHighlighter plugin
peg-markdown -- use the Peg-Markdown library in the Markdown plugin
pohelper -- the PoHelper plugin
pretty_printer -- the pretty-printer plugin
projectorganizer -- the ProjectOrganizer plugin
scope -- the Scope plugin
sendmail -- the GeanySendmail plugin
shiftcolumn -- the ShiftColumn plugin
spellcheck -- the spellcheck plugin
treebrowser -- the Treebrowser plugin
tableconvert -- the Tableconvert plugin
updatechecker -- the Updatechecker plugin
webhelper -- the WebHelper plugin
xmlsnippets -- the XMLSnippets plugin
extra-c-warnings -- extra C Compiler warnings (see also HACKING)
cppcheck -- static code analysis using cppcheck (see also HACKING)

I suspect that extra deb may just be this set.

And new ones are being added all the time to the "set".

I love the treebrowser one, (from the plugins package,) it fits in the side pannel and can be 'rooted' so you don't go out of a pre-determined part of the tree and stuff up your working system!

Split-window is not bad, but it can only work once and had a couple of qoirks, like changing the content of the window you have highlighted if you accidentally 'tag' the wrong file on the top file ID line. You can go into it's preferances when you tick it to be available and set it to autosave at times after opening or if you lose focus of the window ( a must for me), as well as auto-backups and the like.

And the Markdown (from the plugins package) is good at cleaning up when you've changed your website around or been forced to do a crash rebuild. Run Markdown, fix things and run export (to html) and it's (hopefully) ready to go again without hours of un-necessary work.

And there are quite a few others being built and maintained individually, check the pages I referanced.. They have build cleanly in puppy (so far) with src2pkg.

And of course they are always looking for new ideas and help to add more.

I have still not sorted out the Tablet problem, but i've been a 'little busy'. Decided to start with a clean stick and have a go again this weekend when I'm !suppose to be free.

regards to all
scsijon

[belham2]

Hi all,

Last night I ddeasy-ed full-installed Easy 0.5 to a 16GB mirco SDcard, went great and runs well, and today I got it all set up the way I like. Now I want to try Easy's re-master and see how everything goes.

Question: will I break anything if I completely remove xrvt/urxvt before re-mastering? I hate rxvt/urxvt with a passion. I have Roxterm set up as my default terminal, and LxTerminal as 2nd terminal....both of these terminals are worlds better. in my experience, than rxvt/urxvt (like highlighting, copying and pasting and such, among other things).

Thus, the question: do other things in Puppy/Quirky/Easy use xrvt/urxvt that will break them if xrvt/urxvt is gone? I've already accounted for HTOP (LxTerminal has it now), but what else am I not considering? Or is there nothing to worry about?

Thanks for any replies.

[Rodney Byne]

Hi all,

Please help as totally baffled by all I have read online.

I downloaded the two salient files and now have an unzipped
easy-0.5-amd64.img and easydd script stored side by side on an
otherwise empty formatted flashdrive which I shall call sdc.

Step by step please for the uninitiated elderly me,
what do I do next to install easy on to the stick?

Thanks in advance.

[belham2]

Hi all,

Please help as totally baffled by all I have read online.

I downloaded the two salient files and now have an unzipped
easy-0.5-amd64.img and easydd script stored side by side on an
otherwise empty formatted flashdrive which I shall call sdc.

Step by step please for the uninitiated elderly me,
what do I do next to install easy on to the stick?

Thanks in advance.

Hi Rodney,

Do these seven things for me, then u should be good to go:

1) boot into another pup, frugal and/or otherwise, doesn't matter. Any pup will do

2) re-download the Easy.05.img file you said you unzipped, or, re-zip it back to .gz if you know how to do that. You should have never touched it

3) take the EasyDD script you download, gunzip?extract it, and open a terminal (right-click) where it is sitting, and enter "chmod +x easydd....(whatever the name of the file easydd file is). Then move it over to /usr/sbin/

4) once you have the easy-05 img in its .gz form, open a terminal where it is residing

5) plug in your usb---it will probably be sdb, but make darn sure

6) at the terminal staring you in the face, enter the simple command Barry wrote on the previous page, which is something like this:

Code: Select all

easydd easy.05.img.gz sdb

(just get the name of the file right, and easydd comes before it, and your usb (sdb hopefully) comes after it

7) answer the scripts question box that pops up, saying all is ok but before you do, I am assuming you are using the whole usb drive, if not, then stop and don't do anything

that's it...let the script do its thing...it will unfurl the img.gz onto your USB, and it will be ready to boot when its done.

[Rodney Byne]

Hi to belham2,

I am very appreciative of your hard work to create
those 7 steps to install Easy.

Reading them time and again made me realise
they are too much for me to take in and put into
practice, so I will "pull the plug" if you don't mind.

It also made me think that if Easy is ever to curry
favour with the general public, then Barry will have
to radically simplify the whole install process.

I recall a blog line in which he commented that people
had made mistakes with their attempts at dd install
script lines.
So it's not an easily understood process, except for
compilers who thoroughly understand code.

Over-ambitious designs like this would make me welcome a
return to simple modernised stable pups with a self-updating browser.
Having very much less than ridiculous half-a-gig isos.

They're very slow to download on an ADSL phone line miles from the exchange.
Easy is a killer in that regard!

But thanks again for your efforts.

[don570]

I can't find "filsystem" at bootup in 0.5, I must have fixed it.

I have checked Easy linux version 0.5 and it's still there during bootup.

I use a usb thumb drive and when booting up there is a message with a blue background --->

The message says I can have a normal bootup or I can have a 'Filsystem check'

When I select 'Filsystem check' It does a quick check and reports back
that it has changed the dates of a lot of files.
___________________________________________________________

[smokey01]

@Barry the psip (puppyphone) binary from fatdog64-710 works in EasyOS.

[scsijon]

Easydd seems to be reading from my hard drive by the repeated drive noise it's making, any chance of it loading the file being written out in ram first?

other than that it seems to be working ok.

EDIT: started it up on the Wacom Tablet with the new download, but it got stuck at the same place as last time.
Shut it down and found an old usb hub so the usb memory stick and a keyboard could be both plugged in, then realized there was a second usb port (thought it was a full sized hdmi) so used that instead.
Told it on it's startup menu to do a test instead (2nd menu item) it displayed:-
(colour is white unless marked at start of line otherwise)

(in Purple) Finding Drives:
sda sda sdb
Boot partition: sdb1 Working-partition: sdb2
[ 4.238219] EXT4-fs error(device sdb2): ext4_mb_generate_buddy:756: group 172, block bitmap and bg descriptor inconsistant:32768 vs 32767 free clusters
(in purple) Filesystem operations are to be performed on the working partition: sdb2
(in purple) Performing filesystem check on request...
easy2: 57/1855952 files (1.8% non-contiguous), 232148/7412864 blocks
filesystem check completed!
(in purple) Mounting read-only layer of layered filesystem
copying q.sfs to RAM, then mounting
mount: mounting /dev/loop0 on /q_ro/q.sfs failed Invalid argument
(IN RED) ERROR: failed to mount q.sfs
Have now dropped into a shell in initramfs
Note1: Type "exit", the init script will attempt to continue, however,
only an expert who is debugging the bootup should do this.
Note2: On some PC's the keyboard does not work at this stage of bootup.
PLEASE HOLD DOWN THE POWER BUTTON TO SHUTDOWN
/bin/sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
/#

----
same thing happened trying it in another machine so i'll take it it's a crook usb stick for now and i'll dd another when I have time.

although the error message also said /init: line 110: can't create /mnt/sdb2/.session/.fsckme.flag: Structure needs cleaning before the first EXT4-fs error

EDIT2:

Yep, the "old" memory stick apparently had an attach of the memory fails, more showed up each time the test was run!. My only spare 32gig one too!

Upon starting again, it has unfortunately only got me back to my previous failing point on the previous page though!
I wonder if it's that .sfs problem we use to have, but I don't remember the workaround other than a full install and I haven't looked at easy in that manner..

However, having learn't about configuring with this, I may just try something left-field and see what happens.

[L18L]

easy-0.5 dd' on 4 GB usb pendrive (sdc).

Booted OK after my usual addition of

Code: Select all

drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1920x1080.bin

to all kernel lines in syslinux.cfg.
Very convenient that it is directly writable.

Used gparted to make new ext4 partition on my external gpt usb disk (sdb10).

copied content of sdc1 to a new directoty EASY under existing EFI partition (boot,esp).

After adjusting BOOT_DISKID in file BOOT_SPECS
reboot to EASY on hard disk worked.
Boot EFI\EASY\BOOTX64.EFI from EFI1

Triggered by:
https://medium.com/@manujarvinen/settin ... a1fcf8d502
Helpful: http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/

-------
EDIT Oct 8
glad that easyos-now-using-refind-boot-manager