The Debian-Stretch-Live Starter Kit

[rcrsn51]

How to make a squashfs module of the Calibre ebook manager

1. Go to the Calibre website and download a .txz package. Look under "Manual binary install". These packages appear to be complete, with all the required dependencies.
2. Extract the package into a temporary folder named "Calibre".
3. Download and rename the attached deb package. It contains a .desktop file for Calibre.
4. Do a repo2sfs third-party build: repo2sfs calibre-desktop_1.0_all.deb
5. At Pause B, go to /tmp/repo2sfs/opt. Drop in the Calibre folder from Step 2.
6. Finish the build. Look for Calibre in the Accessories menu.

[rcrsn51]

This is the Lenovo single-core netbook from page 8, now with a GPT-formatted hard drive booted through Legacy GRUB. The browser is Palemoon-28 with the 20-intel.conf patch for old video.

[rcrsn51]

BT4Stretch updated here.

[backi]

Hi Everybody !
Bought me a new Machine .
A refurbished one ,second Hand from well reputed Shop here in Germany .
https://www.greenpanda.de/refurbished/d ... ok/?page=1

A Dell Prceision M6600 for 300 Bucks (Euro) ......dont know if this is a good Deal...but i am quite happy with it .......this Devil really rocks compared to my old Clunker a Toshiba L40 (....something).

So what`s up?
Can not startx .......somehow Desktop wont boot....
Message .....something like
-----discover..... bla...bla ...bla .....

and never stops

Can anybody help ?

Thanks in Advance !

[rcrsn51]

Can not startx .......somehow Desktop wont boot....Message .....something like
-----discover..... bla...bla ...bla .....and never stops

It is trying to make an automatic network connection over Ethernet. Assuming that you are NOT connected by Ethernet, it will eventually stop.

It appears that this laptop has built-in nVidia graphics. The Starter Kit should load the nouveau modesetting driver, which usually works well.

But in your case, it does not. With version -71 of the Starter Kit, it should automatically fall back to vesa mode and boot to a desktop.

For older versions, read here.

I notice in your post about XenialDog that it successfully loaded the nouveau driver. [Edit] But it may also have automatically fallen back to VESA.

[backi]

Hi ....me again !

Inserting xserver-xorg-video-vesa_1%3a2.3.4-1+b2_i386.squashfs into live Folder did help .
No need for adding nouveau.modeset=0. to the Kernel Line in menu.lst .

Adding firmware.squashfs Module also did help getting wireless Connection which could not be established before without .......
Success

Thanks a lot !

[rcrsn51]

Excellent. But because you are using VESA, you won't get the maximum video performance.

Read here for how to install the "genuine" nvidia driver.

[rcrsn51]

PeasyScale updated here.

[fredx181]

PeasyScale updated here.

Thanks, added to custom Stretch repo (and also your updated bt4stretch packages)

Fred

[rcrsn51]

In the latest -71 version of the Starter Kit, there were updates to libcrypto and libssl that affect certain locally built packages. These include the SANE scanner driver in hplip-print-scan and the 64bit version of Evince PDF viewer. Here are some patches.

1. Download the required attachment and remove the fake .gz extension.
2. Open a terminal and run: sh libcrypto-71-xxbit-patch.sh

Important: The Buster Starter Kit uses a different version of these patches.

[rcrsn51]

This is an Acer Aspire E15 Win10 laptop with 4GB RAM and a puny Celeron N2830 CPU. The Windows was pretty slow, but I wanted to save it and dual boot with the Starter Kit. This meant keeping the UEFI/GPT configuration. The primary boot would be from a Linux EFI which could optionally chainload the Windows EFI.

1. The crucial first step in Windows is to disable hibernation. This ensures that the machine completely shuts down at the end of a session and there are no side-effects with Linux. Read here.

2. From Windows, back-door into the UEFI setup and disable Secure Boot. This machine has a quirk - you need to set a supervisor password before you can modify Secure Boot. Then you can set the boot device order and boot off a UEFI flash drive.

3. Run Gparted and shrink the main Windows partition by 10-20GB. Make a Linux partition in the new space.

4. Run the Stretch-Live-Frugal-Installer and install the Starter Kit into the new partition. Translate its GRUB menu entry into GRUB2 syntax.

5. Now for the UEFI bootloader. Identify the FAT32 EFI System Partition (ESP) used by Windows. Rename its EFI folder as WIN-EFI. Copy the Linux EFI folder off the flash drive.

6. Build a grub.cfg file using the code from Step 4. For Windows, add an entry like:

Code: Select all

menuentry "Windows 10" {
 set root=(hd0,gpt1)
 chainloader /WIN-EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

[rcrsn51]

How to make a squashfs module for Youtube-DLG

Note: These instructions are for the 64bit Buster Starter Kit ONLY.

1. Read here for details.

2. Download the Ubuntu .deb package from here.

3. Set up a CleanMode environment.

4a. Start a third-party build: repo2sfs youtube-dlg_0.4-1~webupd8~bionic9_all.deb
4b. Include the Extra package: python-twodict
4c. At Pause B, go to /tmp/repo2sfs. Drill down to usr/lib/wx/python.
4d. Open a terminal and type: ln -sf wx3.0.pth wx.pth

5. Finish the build. Look for Youtube-DLG in the Internet menu.

Hint: Download files using a generic format like mp4[360p]. These will play nicely in PeasyMP3.

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[rcrsn51]

CPUtemp updated here.

[rcrsn51]

How to make a squashfs module for FocusWriter

FocusWriter is a Qt app. Start in a CleanMode setup so you get all the dependencies.

This is a regular repo2sfs build. Use Package name: focuswriter.

For spellchecking, include a dictionary package on the Extras line, like: hunspell-en-ca.

To change some default properties like the font, look under Settings > Themes.

[rcrsn51]

How to make a squashfs module for SMPlayer

The Debian repos have SMPlayer, so you can do a regular repo2sfs build. But if you want the latest version, go to the SMPlayer website, get a .deb package and do a third-party build instead.

Code: Select all

repo2sfs smplayer_19.1.0+2.2_amd64.deb

If you also want some optional packages like smplayer-themes or smplayer-skins, you need a work-around:
1. Go to the Debian repos and download the packages. Do NOT install them!
2. Start the build. At Pause A, drop the files into /var/cache/apt/archives.
3. Finish the build.

[rcrsn51]

How to make a squashfs module for wxMaxima

wxMaxima is a GUI front-end for the open-source Maxima symbolic math system. It is in the Debian repos, so you can do a standard repo2sfs build.

Use the Package name: wxmaxima
And the Extra package: gnuplot-x11

At Pause B, go to /tmp/repo2sfs and make two changes:

1. Go into usr/share and delete the mime folder.
2. Go into usr/bin, open a terminal and type: ln -sf gnuplot-x11 gnuplot

Finish the build. Look for wxMaxima in the Education menu.

When the program starts, it pops-up a Hints window that may be hiding behind the main screen. You must close it first.

[rcrsn51]

See below.

[Moat]

Here is a little stand-alone app that converts MP3 files to WAV format (or vice versa).

Works a treat in my DebDog mklive spin (just a quick test); converted an 8.3 Mb/192 kbps mp3 into ---> a 61 Mb wav file incredibly fast (3 seconds or less!). Didn't even have time to catch/read/follow any of the terminal info... Of course, converting the other direction (wav ---> 128 kbps mp3) took longer, but not much (about 6-7 seconds).

I see one can change the default destination directory @ line 46, and choose the mp3 bitrate using the -b flag (replacing -h) @ line 14 (those changes worked for me, anyway...).

Neat little tool - thanks, rcrsn51!

Bob

[rcrsn51]

Thanks for testing. Regarding the defaults: I considered handling them with a config file, but it didn't feel like it was worth the trouble.

[rcrsn51]

Audio Converter

This little app converts audio files between MP3, OGG, FLAC and WAV formats. The dependencies are lame, vorbis-tools and flac.

It primarily works with single files. But if you paste in the path of a folder, it will batch-process all the audio files inside.

Update: V1.3 has several new features.

1. A Config button that uses the file ~/.audio-converter. For example, use it to change the quality of MP3 encoding. Set:

Code: Select all

export MP3OPTS="-b 64"

2. Convert MP3-MP3. This lets you recode an existing MP3 at lower quality and smaller filesize.

3. Extract the audio track from an MP4 video file and save as an MP3. This uses ffmpeg, which you MUST provide separately.
Hint: Make a squashfs module of ffmpeg that you can load on-demand.

4. Convert WebM audio files to MP3, using ffmpeg.

5. Support for the FLAC codec. You can do FLAC-WAV, WAV-FLAC or FLAC-MP3.

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