Fatdog64-720 and 721 Final [11 Jan 2018]

[dcung]

Hi all,

Looking to install PIA vpn.
I don't think this is Fatdog64 specific issue, but I'm installing it on Fatdog64.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=1001913

[jake29]

anybody got a blue light filter working for fatdog?

I use Redshift (available via Gslapt) (Automatic Startup tutorial) without issue in Fatdog64-721.

[Anniekin]

Thanks, I didn't think there would be one in gslapt already, nice!

[rufwoof]

Burned FD 721 to a DVD-R and using that to save changes (multi-session LiveCD). Working well on my Acer Aspire Phenom X4 2GB with onboard Radeon ATI. Event Manager RAM save interval was set to 0 so to only save when the desktop Save icon is clicked and after several saves and reboots everything I've used so far has all worked well. Only thing I've added is xterm (native, as I prefer that over urxvt).

The boot message does say that it should be a +RW DVD, as I understand it +RW would enable the same DVD to be reused i.e. once its filled up, use pburn or whatever to clear the DVD and then re-write the FD 720 ISO image to that, and then click the desktop Save icon to save the latest snapshot/changes to that, but I'm happy to reuse another -R (in having a bundle of them laying around) that are write once only, but was wondering whether I shouldn't be using a DVD-R at all given the boot message? EDIT: I was confusing drive and disc here. RW drive is needed (in order to burn etc.), a DVD-R disc however works for saving multi-sessions (a rewriteable disc can be re-burnt freshly, DVD-R is write once only, cannot be erased).

Also, in Puppy multisession you can use something like pfix=1 to ignore the last saved session (or pfix=2 to ignore the last 2 sessions ...etc), but having looked through the FD documentation for boot parameters I see no such equivalent for FD?

Another question/observation - as multisession LiveCD is the least easily edited for boot parameters, would it not make more sense to have that as the default boot case. All other boot choices can more easily change that default choice (by editing grub.cfg or isolinux.cfg ??) being on rw media? As-is I have set BIOS to boot CD as the first choice, but then have to wait for BIOS mem checks ..etc. (a while) before the FD boot menu pops up and then arrow down to the multisession boot choice, otherwise it defaults to standard boot default choice ... and then wait for all the rows of dots as ram is loaded. If multisession was the default choice then I could do my more usual action of just pressing the power-on button and going off to make a brew and return with the desktop ready to go. I appreciate that multi-session is a less used choice, however its relatively trivial for the other boot choices to change that whereas that's not the case for multisession LiveCD.

EDIT: The way I addressed it was to update gslapt and install isomaster (surprised that isn't in the base FD system as its pretty small/light - but very useful), using isomaster open the FD iso and edit the isolinux.cfg/grub.cfg to set fatdog-multi as the default boot choice. Save that edited version and burn it to DVD, and then click the desktop 'save session' icon to save all changes to that newly burnt DVD. Now, in having CD/DVD set as my first boot choice in BIOS, pressing the power-on with the FD DVD inserted has it boot straight to desktop (multi-session LiveCD boot) without any other intervention being required (and presumably the same if there's a power-cut/restore).

[rufwoof]

Pup ad blocker is a nice touch IMO. Couldn't find one in FD so I appended https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts to my /etc/hosts .. pretty much as good as ad-block.

Also added a xrdb -merge $HOME/.Xdefaults ... command to .xinitrc if a users home folder contains .Xdefaults (I like to use xterm (native) and have a .Xdefaults file content that makes that look/work nicely).

Changed the default # prompt in /etc/shinit to something nicer

I've backed up a copy of the fatdog iso to DVD, and with quite a few saves already having been made, up to around 873MB of the 4.7GB of DVD disk space having been used.

[rufwoof]

Nice to see sshfs-fuse installed by default . Connecting to my local file server (OpenBSD based running on a old single core Celeron PC) and opening a rox window in FD etc. and all looks good/works well.

[rufwoof]

tmux from 700 (here http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/contrib/packages/700/) seems to work OK in 721 - best as I can tell (multiple windows, multiple panes, switching between them ...etc.).

Personally I like a ~/.tmux.conf of ...

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bind-key -n F12 next-window
bind-key -n F11 new-window
set-window-option -g window-status-current-bg red
set-window-option -g window-status-current-fg yellow

unbind C-b
set -g prefix `
bind-key ` send-prefix

That sets a nicer colour for the current window (tab), has F11 add a new window, F12 step between windows, and resets the ctrl-b command key to instead be the backtick (execute) key. You can still type a execute/backtick in say a script, but you just have to press the key twice.

I normally create a launch script something like

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#!/bin/sh
#
# My tmux initialisation script to initialise tmux windows
# 

# start a tmux session, detach
# then send commands to that before reattaching to it
# Note that C-m is carriage return (enter)

# create a tmux session called work, and deattach so we can send keys to it
# Create the first window and load htop into that ...
tmux new -s work -d
tmux rename-window -t work htop
tmux send-keys -t work 'htop' C-m

# Add another tmux window
tmux new-window -t work

# and finally select which window to show first and attach to the tmux work session
tmux select-window -t work:0
tmux attach -t work

Personally I prefer one window per program (and step between them using F12). Others like to have multiple panes in a single window and zoom/unzoom toggle those panes to maximised/restore.

A great thing about tmux is you can start a session - such as a long compile, detatch and then later reattach again - even from another device (anything that can ssh into the server/box). Two or more of you can also ssh into the same box using the same userid and attach to the same tmux session ... so for instance as a form of collaboration setup (all see the same screens and can type into the windows etc.). Yeah I know you can do the same using nohup, &, jobs. fg ... etc. but tmux is lightweight, quick and looks nice.

I like xterm for its ctrl left/middle/right mouse button options, you can for instance full screen the xterm using one of the ctrl-left mouse press actions. mc with the left pane set to tree, right pane set to lynx style (so left/right arrows takes you up/down directories, up/down arrow steps through a directories entries) works well IMO. I like the gotar theme personally.

[rufwoof]

First link on file:///usr/share/doc/faqs/huge-initrd.html points to http://barryk.org/puppylinux/download/release-2.16.htm - but that's a dead link.

I've split out fd64.sfs from initrd and my BIOS based multi-session LiveCD boot time has halved - down from around 5 minutes (power-on to gui desktop), down to around 150 seconds (which includes loading the basesfs into ram)

isolinux.cfg modified to include the basesfs parameter

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label fatdog-multi
linux vmlinuz
initrd initrd
append rootfstype=ramfs basesfs=ram:local savefile=direct:multi:sr0 

[step]

@rufwoof, thanks for sharing your tmux experience. I can't begin to count the times I've started to teach my fingers tmux, and then given up. My main motivation would be to use vim and shells all together in the same terminal window, something tmux is very good at. But I'm so well adjusted to using gvim and tabbed urxvt instead, that my motivation for tmux falters. Eventually, I'll get there.

I built a recent tmux git commit. Attached. I think it's quite different from the 1.9 version that was built for Fatdog 700.

[rufwoof]

Thanks Step. Seems to work great.

Another nice change in .tmux.conf is to remap the pane keys to | for a vertical split and - for a horizontal split. Far better than the " and % defaults IMO.

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# split panes using | and -
bind | split-window -h
bind - split-window -v
unbind '"'
unbind %

Along with the control key mapped to the backtick/execute key its a relatively easy to remember set of backtick - to split horizontally, backtick arrow keys to switch between them, backtick z to zoom/unzoom a pane. At least that comes a lot easier to me to remember/use than the standard default set. A little awkward having to hit backtick twice when you want to add a execute quote in a script, but that soon becomes 'natural'. If you instead map the | to \ then that saves having to hit shift also. Or - and = is also nice for being close to each other (left pinky hitting backtick, right hand used for - = vertical/horizontal splits and arrow keys to flip between panes).

I quite like mc and its internal text editor, easier for editing IMO and works well over ssh links IME. But as ever whatever you're most familiar with is the easier choice.

The PS1 prompt I use is to edit /etc/shinit as per the following snippet

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case $- in                                                                                                    
        *i*)                                                                                                  
                # interactive configurations - prompt, history, etc                                           
                # TERM, USER and LOGNAME is already set by login/su                                           
                PS1="$USER$ "; [ $USER = root ] && PS1="\[\e[34;1m\]Pwd: \[\e[36m\]\w\n\[\e[31;1m\]\u@\h> \[\e
                HISTFILE="$HOME/.history"       # ensure all shells use the same history  

That shows pwd and the current folder (in blue), with the userid and machine as the main prompt below that (red).

Thanks again.

[rufwoof]

The FatDog help for file sharing file:///usr/share/doc/faqs/sharing.html outlines FTP, HTTP and Samba methods. Personally I use yet another alternative i.e. sshfs (or just straight ssh/scp ...etc., which includes the ssh -X ability to run X gui programs/windows (i.e. run a program such as galculator on the remote, see the galculator window on your local desktop)).

For that I have a OpenBSD base system only box, running on a old single core Celeron box, that I can sshfs mount as a local folder (so files can be viewed using rox or whatever). OpenBSD takes just minutes to install (cli based installation process) and its base system is very secure - and also includes X, http, mailserver ....etc. as part of the base system).

In effect I'm (trial) running fatdog (linux) and openbsd as a combined 'system' where fd is the desktop and openbsd stores my most invaluable stuff (data/docs etc.) and where that data is only accessible if you know both the userid and password (making brute force attacks that more difficult). Not even root on the desktop system can access/mount that data without knowing both the appropriate userid and password, and it can be mounted/unmounted on a as needed basis (such as not being mounted whilst also browsing the internet).

I know little about Samba but believe that is better if you desire to share with Windows based systems. FD seems to have Samba shares all ready to go out of the box so conceptually other Window PC's on our local LAN could be linked in (FatDog be used as a form of bridge - have both Samba and sshfs running).

Note how in the following image the desktop system is just a DVD only (FatDog 721 Liveboot multisession DVD). via sshfs however and used disk space on the OpenBSD box shows around 33GB of disk used, leaving around 300GB remaining on that particular OpenBSD box. When not mounted that data can't be seen via port scans, and not even FatDog root can mount it without also knowing the particular link (IP), userid and password, so even if the browser running as spot was hacked ... and the hacker managed to elevate to root via a bug in one of the programs/services being run as root, then if the data wasn't mounted that remains pretty safe from such a compromised session. Running from a read only (write once) LiveCD (DVD) and mostly just shutting down without saving further inhibits a hacker achieving persistence of their breach across reboots. Yet there's considerable flexibility, for instance open up (port forward) the ssh port on the OpenBSD box and it can be accessed from anywhere in the world from most devices (small ssh client programs for smartphones ...etc.). I use a (free) dynamic domain name for that purpose (associates a fixed domain name to a variable IP address).

[rufwoof]

Not being familiar with FD I struggled some to figure out how to change the panel theme. The first was figuring out that the panel is a lxqt panel - which led to the discovery that under /usr/share/lxqt/themes there are two choices. Modifying /root/.config/lxqt/lxqt.conf theme entry to

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theme=23Smokey

from the default ambiance theme did the trick.

To better align the openbox menu theme right click the desktop to show the openbox menu and select the OPENBOX, OPENBOX CONFIGURATION MANAGER choice and on the THEME tag selecting the Onyx-Blue theme is a close match.

[step]

if you're happy with modifying the lxqt theme system-wide, that's the way. Fatdog64 being a multi-user system also let's a single user change his/her theme. This is what I have in my (root's) ~/.config/lxqt/lxqt.conf

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[General]
__userfile__=true
theme=light
icon_theme=Clarity

which shows how to change the theme icons as well.
light is a folder under /usr/share/lxqt/themes
Clarity is a folder under /usr/share/icons, structured similarly to hicolor

[step]

Opera-developer is one of the browsers I use. Occasionally I run into pages that just don't render. I have finally found a work-around. Possibly it could apply to other chromium-based browsers. Simply start opera or chromium from the shell prompt with the prefix TZ=Europe/London. Replace Europe/London with the IANA abbreviation for your timezone. Example:

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# TZ=Europe/London opera-developer

Explanation

By default Fatdog64 sets the system TZ=:/etc/localtime, which works just fine for glibc, but isn't supported by the javascript Intl API TimeZone spec, which wants explicit IANA codes.

A small launcher script that automates the process for Fatdog could be

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#!/bin/dash
tz=`readlink /etc/localtime`
tz=${tz#/usr/share/zoneinfo/}
TZ=$tz exec defaultterm  "$@"

Of course, this work-around applies just to the pages that don't render due to timezone issues. You can check if that's your case by opening the javascript developer console in your browser, reloading the page and checking for javascript error messages about undefined timezone objects.

[rufwoof]

Switched over from using a DVD-R disc to a DVD-RW disc and burnt using pburn. Afterwards it was showing as being a DVD-R and pburn accordingly refused to over-write it. Using PeasyDisc I was able to blank/format the DVD and running pburn to burn the iso again had it showing correctly as a DVD-RW thereafter.

pburn in FatDog 721 is 4.3.6 whereas the latest version of pburn looks to be 4.3.17. There's a whole lot of interrelationships involved with pburn however so given that Fatdog and pburn works well as-is (excepting the above niggle), perhaps best to leave things as they are and just make a mental note of that single issue/workaround.

[rufwoof]

Found the equivalent of Puppy pfix=n ... to skip the last n sessions of liveDVD multisession booting.

Had a problem however. Two prior saves and attempting to ignore the last (setting n to 1) with boot parameters ...

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append rootfstype=ramfs basesfs=ram:device:sr0:/fd64.sfs savefile=direct:multi:sr0:1

i.e. savefile=direct:multi:sr0:1 <<< where that last "1" should indicate the number of prior saves to ignore ... resulted in no save sessions being loaded (screwed up my DVD disc when I rebooted as being a 'new install' it ended up saving that session, fortunately I had a second backup DVD to fall back upon).

[rufwoof]

Edited previous post in a manner that invalidated the former content of this post.

[rufwoof]

Doh! Figured it. I was misinterpreting the parameters. Needs to be

savefile=direct:multi:sr0::1

in order to skip the last save.



I used isomaster (after installing it from gslapt) to edit the isolinux.cfg (open the iso using isomaster and in the bottom panel right mouse click that isolinux.cfg file and select edit), make the edits then File, Save As ... to save to a new iso image file) so that the multisession choice now looks like ...

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label fatdog-multi
linux vmlinuz
initrd initrd
append rootfstype=ramfs basesfs=ram:device:sr0:/fd64.sfs savefile=direct:multi:sr0::0
menu label Fatdog64 with multisession support
text help
Start Fatdog with multisession support for the first optical disc drive.
Upon startup, previous sessions (if any) will be loaded from the disc.
After shutdown, changes will be saved as a new session to the disc.
You need to use DVD+RW drive as the disc media 
(you can use DVD-R or DVD-RW disc's).
Change the zero at the end of savefile=direct:multi:sr0::0 to another
number in order to skip loading that many last saves from being loaded
endtext

The version of PBurn in FD721 does seem to have issues with burning DVD-RW disc's instead burning them as DVD-R. PeasyDisc by comparison seems to work fine (I run fast blank DVD and then DVD format, before burning the iso to the DVD-RW disc setting multi-session DVD options). Good practice IMO to also copy the iso file as a file to the DVD after having burnt the iso image, along with the devX sfs (so you can open the dvd drive in rox and right click, load sfs the devX if/when needed). Finally, tidy your system up and click the desktop save-session icon so all your configuration etc. changes are stored (in event manager I have set the save session interval to 0 (zero), so that it only ever saves whenever the desktop save session icon is clicked).

Also good practice to keep two copies of DVD+RW (repeat of the above) - as a backup.

So far, my trial of running FD on no HDD desktop (DVD only, running FD multisession) is going great. Once booted I sshfs (or ssh/scp ..etc.) a local file server as and when needed (mine's running OpenBSD) to/from which personal data/docs can be stored. That sshfs mount point can be unmounted whenever browsing or doing other internet things so data is isolated, and even if the DVD system is hacked/breached to root level, with the data drive disconnected your data remains safe.

[rufwoof]

video kernel boot parameter ... the faq indicates using video=VGA:800x600 ... format however that doesn't work for me. However using just video=800x600 does. i.e. isolinux.cfg value of

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append video=800x600 rootfstype=ramfs basesfs=ram:device:sr0:/fd64.sfs savefile=direct:multi:sr0::0 

So when I Ctrl-Alt-F3 to a login prompt, login as root (I've previously changed the default woofwoof passwd to something else) ... then the console is much more readable (larger size characters) than the default (small characters).

With control panel, System, Manage Services and gpm enabled/started, then the mouse also works on the console, so you can run mc and use the mouse to navigate around. I also like to run tmux in the console, so as to have multiple windows/tabs and panes (split a screen into separate terminals), and is more colourful than the standard console (I personally prefer the gotar mc theme).

[rufwoof]

Added a user userid using the control panel, set it to autologin, saved session (multisession livecd) and the dvd was no longer bootable (only the last save was on the DVD, everything else was wiped).

Multi-user is 'experimental' in this case the experiment failed. I guess because the new user has limited groups/permissions, missing specific permissions with regard to multisession livecd saving.