RC7 (STABLE) WeeDogLinux Arch 64 now released

[wiak]

Seems to be due to the changes=ram boot parameter, without that it boots OK. Suspecting its the mount -o mode=1777,nosuid,nodev,size=xxx tweak combined with a borderline size of my build (chromium, libreoffice etc.). Currently I've cpio extracted and changed init to exclude the size=xxx and I'm reforming the sfs using xz compression to see if that squeezes in. Suspecting some form of boundary/buffer overrun that is avoided when hdd frugal booted but that gets hit when booted via usb3. But that's just a guess. If so, perhaps using zram and suchlike could be inclined to potentially introduce difficult to identify/resolve issues (something to be wary of).

Yes, could be. There are so many things that can have unexpected effects. There are certainly limiting factors with the likes of copy2ram, and for simplicity the (default) scripts purposively include no complex logic bound checkings of any sort (though users are encouraged to tweak these accordingly). The zram additions will increase the possibilities of such issues for sure, but, then again, these additions will all be no more than optional (and sometimes such additions may actually help with issues). We make what we can of it.

On the otherhand, sometimes the reason for a bug is straighforward and staring us in the face but takes us a while to see and understand it.

wiak

[wiak]

You can surely imagine, that I've had many a kernel panic or failing to boot generally situation whilst working on the initram script. And not easy to debug when things simply crashing out as they do... However, thus far, I've always found fix or workaround (and often it was simpler than I imagined - something simple I just overlooked). It is not easy always, but certainly not rocket-science - all pretty simply stuff really, once I get over the pain of kernel crashes and the frustrations of trying to get things to boot as I hoped (in theory) they should! Buffer/cache/fs-size issues - minor matters to fix really - the difficulty being pinning down what is really causing the problem in the first case. Admittedly, all going well on my machine so hard to fix anything not yet needing fixed. But once I experiment more and build bigger systems on it no doubt I will find some issues that need resolved - but I have the attitude taught to me in my younger days when I was an electronics development engineer - my boss said to me "of course you can fix it, you are an engineer" and I agree with that mantra.

wiak

[wiak]

Seems to be due to the changes=ram boot parameter, without that it boots OK. Suspecting its the mount -o mode=1777,nosuid,nodev,size=xxx tweak combined with a borderline size of my build (chromium, libreoffice etc.)

But I still wonder if the issue could be to do with usb3, were it not for your comment here. The list of modules I included in the initramfs was taken from my old XenialDog set, and that's pretty old so some relevant device modules may well be missing for newer hardware (no problem for me with my old junk!). That would be a trivial issue to address really (I don't mean send me new junk... well come to think of it...). Will sort it out eventually. I'll see what latest official Porteus itself is using, or if they are using mainly builtin drivers for booting, I'll check Debian/live/Linux_live_kit (never looked at that project as yet - didn't want my own creative attempts influenced...!) initrd as a starter.

Come to think of it, checking out official Void initramfs would be even better, but I have a feeling they may do it in more sophisticated way; simple loading a whole pile of possible modules in a big loop is pretty crude way of doing it I'd say so maybe aim to change that later (but how - I don't want early udev but maybe for the best...).

Okay, looking at Linux Live Kit. Wish I hadn't bothered... hurting my brain. I'm too lazy to read other peoples complex code and can't see where modules get loaded. Maybe later or somewhere else that just has a simple loop list. List in BionicDog should be newer than XenialDog - I'll see if anything likely missing to cos issue in its initrd if I official Void/Porteus/DebianLive/Kit is too tiring for my brain (which is very tired just now anyway.

By the way, I never remember the cpio commands so use firstrib's modify_initramfs_XXX.sh scripts to unpack/repack/convert_gz2xz etc... initramfs utilities as I when I need to (or sometimes steal the cpio commands out of them...). Quick and easy. Void Linux own initramfs on its live cd uses different method - I worked it out and recorded method somewhere in my disorganised cherrytree notes...

wiak

[wiak]

Ah, I see Fred has had module load problems with usb3 too and seems to have found extended modules to load list from Live Kit?

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 189#998189

Will save me time to just use the latest from DebianDogs then (though I'd still find it useful/informative to know where the list came from but had issues/arguments on a DD thread recently so prefer my peace and quiet - except about Puppy and woof-CE which I'm happy to argue about) - size of list doesn't matter really since can always remove unneeded at switch_root time.

I should probably download some latest live install images from Debian (debian live 10.0.0?) [or use a less brute-force method of loading initial modules].

I'll come back to this later after checking up more generally about modules usb3 likely to need (thought it was xhci though). Busy working on new build rootfs script.

wiak

[rufwoof]

By the way, I never remember the cpio commands

I mentally associate to remember it as I need to "id" to view it, and semi loudly exclaim "oh new cpio" to close it. With that create a folder beneath where the initrd cpio is ...etc.

mkdir i
cd i
cat ../initrd | cpio -id

and to create a new cpio (from within the i folder)
find . | cpio -o -H newc >../initrd.new

However many/most of the later pups tend to take care of all of that with a single click nowadays.

[wiak]

By the way, I never remember the cpio commands

I mentally associate to remember it as I need to "id" to view it, and semi loudly exclaim "oh new cpio" to close it. With that create a folder beneath where the initrd cpio is ...etc.

mkdir i
cd i
cat ../initrd | cpio -id

and to create a new cpio (from within the i folder)
find . | cpio -o -H newc >../initrd.new

However many/most of the later pups tend to take care of all of that with a single click nowadays.

Hmmm... you do realise don't you, rufwoof, that I created utility scripts (the modify_xxx ones I referred to) that automate all of that stuff at commandline whilst I'm doing dev work?. The scripts are all attached to second post of this thread at following link. I use them all the time during development of build initramfs:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 57#1028957

e.g. modify_initramfs_gz.sh or modifiy_initramfs_xz.sh or modify_initramfs_gz2xz.sh and so on.

You do occasionally come across an initrd initramfs that is packed by a different method though.

[wiak]

Regarding modules that I may have missed out from modprobe loop in initramfs/init, most of the ones I see in the extended list I see Fred tried don't seem relevant. The only one that looks possible, that I should maybe include is module uas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Attached_SCSI

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USB Attached SCSI (UAS) or USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) is a computer protocol used to move data to and from USB storage devices such as hard drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), and thumb drives. UAS depends on the USB protocol, and uses the standard SCSI command set. Use of UAS generally provides faster transfers compared to the older USB Mass Storage Bulk-Only Transport (BOT) drivers.

UAS was introduced as part of the USB 3.0 standard

Hopefully adding that one to init (in build_firstrib_initramfs04_s102.sh would fix your boot problem if actually usb3 related.

i.e. on line 108 at the end, change:

xhci-hcd usb-storage xts;

to

xhci-hcd usb-storage xts uas;

I don't know - haven't tested. But looking up modules.dep list, yes, I think that module may be necessary in which case I also need to change the line 251 in build initramfs script:

from:

modprobe -r \`lsmod | cut -d' ' -f1 | grep -Ev 'ehci|xhci|sdhci'\` 2>/dev/null # keep ehci,xhci,sdhci

to

modprobe -r \`lsmod | cut -d' ' -f1 | grep -Ev 'ehci|xhci|sdhci|uas'\` 2>/dev/null # keep ehci,xhci,sdhci,uas

No harm in that change anyway, so I'll do that for next release.

EDIT: maybe...: https://github.com/gnubee-git/GnuBee_Docs/issues/98

wiak

[rufwoof]

Mac OS X Exposé/Compiz Scale style X Desktop Environment with ncurses TUI (text user interface) menu system/Midnight Commander file manager.

Installation

firstrib00.plug.tar.gz

Download the above firstrib00.plug.tar.gz into the same folder as wiaks scripts

Once dowloaded, extract it using

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tar xvf firstrib00.plug.tar.gz

and edit the first few lines of firstrib00.plug to specify the root and user passwords you prefer, and edit it to specify your wireless ssid and password.

Rebuild the tar using

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rm firstrib00.plug.tar.gz
tar czvf firstrib00.plug.tar.gz firstrib00.plug plugins/

and then run wiak's scripts

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./build_firstrib_rootfs_102.sh void current amd64 firstrib00.plug.tar.gz
./build_weedog_initramfs05_s201.sh void "-comp lz4 -Xhc"

When finished you'll have a vmlinuz, initramfs and 01firstrib_rootfs.sfs (main sfs) ready to add to your bootloader.

My menu.lst entry looks like ...

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title FirstRib (Void Linux Flavour)
   root (hd0,0)
   kernel /VOID/vmlinuz-4.19.68_1 bootfrom=/mnt/sda1/VOID usbwait=8 changes=RAM

Boot that and login as root using password 'root' (unless you changed it (as above)). Then run 'startx' to start the graphical desktop.

Recommended boot method, usb used to boot (MBR, bootloader such as grub4dos, vmlinuz stored on USB), main sfs stored on HDD. That way the usb can be unplugged after booting to physically isolate the MBR/bootloader/kernel.


Desktop Environment

Window Selection

Hot corners style desktop (bottom left for skippy-xd to select open windows, top left for xlunch - program launcher), and with tilda terminal F1 show/hide toggle (I like to mouse over the terminal window and press F11 on first bootup to set it to full screen).


Program Launcher

To view current open programs mouse into the bottom left corner or use the win + spacebar key combination. Mouse into top left corner (or alt + spacebar) shows available programs. For both skippy and xlunch windows clicking on the background closes the window without further action, or use the arrow keys (or click) to launch a specific window/program. mc does involve a learning curve, but well worth it as its common and works great for the likes of when you're remotely logged into other boxes/servers.


Browser

Even though logged in as root, starting chromium will run that under userid user, so you get the full sandbox protections.

If you must run chromium as root then do so from the command line using chromium --no-sandbox ... but as that indicates that runs without any of the chromium sandbox protections.

As tilda terminal supports clickable url links I keep all my bookmarks in a text file so its easily edited and pressing F1 to show tilda, and then selecting my url tab reveals all of my bookmarks ready to click. Tilda also supports the common cut/paste keys (right click in a tilda window to see all of its options).


Text User Interface (TUI)

Tilda terminal (F1 toggles show/hide) supports multiple tabs (ctrl shift t ... to add a tab). There is however a ncurses (text user interface (tui)) menu to further help simplify using terminal/cli. Running the command tt (for tab title) and a label/name i.e. tt hello - sets the tab title to hello (or whatever you prefer). Run the command 'tui' inside tilda to launch the ncurses menu.


(clickable thumbnail of tilda
terminal screenshot)

Starting mc within a tilda window (ctrl-shift t to add another tab, or right mouse click context (that also shows other commands such as cut/paste etc.)) and the right pane (that you can 'tab' to) shows a range of scripts, such as for shutdown, reboot, setting up and using encrypted folders ...etc.). You can use the mouse in mc when its running under X. Most common file extensions are already set, for instance .txt files will open the file in geany, .html files will open Chrome, mp4 will launch vlc ...etc.


Suspend

I don't like my laptop automatically suspending when the lid is closed so none of that is activated. Sometimes I carry the laptop around with the lid closed whilst its still working, other times I might want to suspend it whilst the lid is open to save the battery. So I just use the zzz command as/when I want to suspend the session. For instance alt space and typing zzz and then pressing enter will suspend the laptop. Press Enter to resume/restore from suspension.


Volume

For volume up/down the keys are ctrl up-arrow/control down-arrow. Or leave alsamixer open in a tilda window and F1 (to show tilda) and select/use that to adjust sound levels (or use the programs own volume control(s)). Personally I just tend to use the ctrl-arrows choice.


Persistence

Run the command save.sh to save changes. Each save creates a additional sfs file that is loaded at boot layered on top of the main sfs. When the number of save sfs files reaches 5 however you should run the merge-changes.sh script (open mc and tab to the right pane, and then scroll down to the merge-changes.sh file and press Enter, or just run merge-changes.sh from a command line). That combines all of the multiple save sfs files into a single save sfs file and avoids exceeding the number of permitted/available loop devices.


Development/Admin

Wireless ssid details are stored in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, edit that file as desired. Haven't tried it, but I believe that when multiple entries are included then it automatically activates the one with the strongest signal strength.

[wiak]

The attached firstrib00.plug builds a pretty comprehensive voidlinux setup.

Excellent. Thankyou rufwoof.

I'll be collecting submitter's firstrib00.plug creations as a library of available builds once I have time to organise that.

I'll also endeavour to make sure that the new version of build_firstrib_rootfs I'm working on will be compatible (should be), and if not, I'll inform you and any other firstrib00.plug submitters of any difference that may result in an issue.

wiak

[westwest]

Well, this is not quite a desktop, but a simple experiment, modifying rufwoof's script for firstrib00.plug
to build a firstrib without X11 (for simplicity's sake?), using tmux as a window manager.

I've easily found CLI and TUI packages to perform most daily OS functions, except of course playing video files.
Therefore, running the optional script "installX" will then enable vlc to be run "on the fly" in its own tty
with command "xinit vlc $* -- :2".

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xbps-install -y linux4.19 ncurses-base base-system linux-firmware-network shadow mc htop terminus-font tmux udevil tlp htop cmus bashmount gptfdisk squashfs-tools w3m rtorrent alsa-utils gptfdisk

# Root password
pwconv
grpconv
echo -e "root\nroot" | passwd >/dev/null 2>&1

# Network
echo "network={" >>/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
echo "ssid=\"SOMEAVAILABLE_SSID\"" >>/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
echo "key_mgmt=NONE" >>/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf	# for connecting to open wifi network  
echo "}" >>/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

# Prepare a /root/connect script we can run to network connect
echo "wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf -B" >>/root/connect
echo "dhcpcd" >>/root/connect
chmod +x /root/connect

# Basic tmux config file
echo "unbind C-b" >>/root/.tmux.conf
echo "set -g prefix C-a" >>/root/.tmux.conf	# changes prefix keybinding to Ctrl-a
echo "set -g base-index 1" >>/root/.tmux.conf
echo "set -g pane-base-index 1" >>/root/.tmux.conf     # starts windows from 1 instead of 0
echo "bind-key r source-file ~/.tmux.conf \; display-message \"Config Reloaded!\"" >>/root/.tmux.conf	# sets prefix-r to load config file in-session

# Prepare a /installX script to enable running VLC in X with command "xinit vlc $* -- :2"
echo "xbps-install -y xorg vlc xterm" >>/root/installX
sed -i 's/geteuid/getppid/' /usr/bin/vlc
#echo "echo \"tilda &\" >>/root/.xinitrc" >>/root/installX
#echo "echo \"compton &\" >>/root/.xinitrc" >>/root/installX
#echo "echo \"exec openbox\" >>/root/.xinitrc" >>/root/installX
chmod +x /root/installX

# Some console variables loaded on boot
echo "FONT=ter-118n" >>/etc/rc.conf
echo "HARDWARECLOCK=\"UTC\"" >>/etc/rc.conf
echo "TIMEZONE=\"America/Montreal\"" >>/etc/rc.conf
echo "KEYMAP=\"us\"" >>/etc/rc.conf
echo "exec echo 0 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness" >>/etc/rc.local
sed -i 's/#en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8/' /etc/default/libc-locales
xbps-reconfigure -f glibc-locales
usermod --shell /bin/bash root 

[code]
[/color]

Without deleting any files in /var/cache/xbps, it creates a 01firstrib_rootfs.sfs of ~500mb,
which loads up at boot in literally no time at all on my 10-years-ago laptop. Memory usage on prompt is about 44mb, and
the system is very stable (no loss of keyboard settings after "sleep" for example).

As a side note, i've noticed that on the first boot after renaming the "upper_changes" directory to "50upper_changes"
(from puppy, not from inside firstrib), directory "50upper_changes" was completely ignored.
Subsequent boots loaded both directories just fine. Perhaps a fluke?

Thanks!

[wiak]

Well, this is not quite a desktop, but a simple experiment
...
Without deleting any files in /var/cache/xbps, it creates a 01firstrib_rootfs.sfs of ~500mb,
which loads up at boot in literally no time at all on my 10-years-ago laptop. Memory usage on prompt is about 44mb, and
the system is very stable (no loss of keyboard settings after "sleep" for example).

As a side note, i've noticed that on the first boot after renaming the "upper_changes" directory to "50upper_changes"
(from puppy, not from inside firstrib), directory "50upper_changes" was completely ignored.
Subsequent boots loaded both directories just fine. Perhaps a fluke?

Well, westwest, simple experiments can lead to great things, and I'm glad you have made this. Not sure what could have happened to 50upper_changes the way you described it but keep me posted if anything odd happens in future and I'll try and duplicate.

wiak

[rufwoof]

Well, this is not quite a desktop, but a simple experiment, modifying rufwoof's script for firstrib00.plug to build a firstrib without X11 (for simplicity's sake?), using tmux as a window manager.

I've easily found CLI and TUI packages to perform most daily OS functions, except of course playing video files.

Haven't tried it under Voidlinux, but usually you can play videos and even run a browser without X. mpv and vlc for instance both have framebuffer options and Netsurf whilst still in its infancy also runs in the framebuffer.

https://www.netsurf-browser.org/about/

NetSurf's framebuffer front end has no particular operating system or GUI toolkit requirements. Its mouse pointer, all its widgets etc, are drawn though NetSurf's internal plotters, the same rendering interface used to draw web pages. This makes the framebuffer front end highly portable.

With video playing in the likes of mpv running in the framebuffer you of course have to use keys to control it. There are others also for the likes of viewing PDF's and images ..etc.

Looks like netsurf (X version) is in the voidlinux repo, but not netsurf-fb (framebuffer version), so I guess you'd have to compile the netsurf-fb version for yourself.

I did build a very lightweight voidlinux, compiled the kernel to have all used firmware built into the kernel and pretty much just busybox along with ssh. Weighed in at around 15MB but was enough to wireless (wifi) net connect and ssh into hashbang (the ssh server provider I use) from where I run tmux with irc, bbs, email, maillists, redditbox.us, (text) browser ...etc. Which is nice in the sense that all your activities are routed via a ssh tunnel so your ISP (State) can't spy on you and web sites don't see your IP, only the ssh servers IP. There are even tui choices for the likes of twitter etc.

Edit: Yep, just tried rebooting into void, logged in as user and (without starting X) ran vlc -I ncurses /mnt/sda1 (that's a capital i as in interface) and up popped the ncurses (textual) dialog. Used the down arrow key to navigate to a .mp4 file I have stored there and selecting it and the video displayed OK and with sound also. Note that vlc doesn't like being run as root so you either have to run it as user or apply a tweak to make it run under root.

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sed -i 's/geteuid/getppid/' /usr/bin/vlc

Quick get you started keys for using vlc in the terminal (framebuffer) are space to pause the video, arrow keys to move back/forward, s to stop the video and return to the ncurses menu, q to quit. s is the most useful initially as at the ncurses menu pressing h shows the help (such as all of the key actions).

On my Void setup, it doesn't like it if you ctrl-alt-Fn to another terminal session whilst a video is playing, the video crashes. Stopping it first (pressing s, so its at the ncurses menu) and then switching to another terminal (ctrl-alt-F3 for example) is fine. With mp3's however switching terminals whilst playing is OK and for my setup the music continues to be heard/play ok. Logged in as user with vlc -I ncurses running on ctrl-alt-F2 and playing a mp3, switching to ctrl-alt-F1 I can log in and startx and the music on ctrl-alt-F2 isn't interrupted. Exit X and log back in again and again the music continues. ctrl-alt-F2 back to the vlc ncures and I can pause, stop and select another mp3 ..etc.

[rufwoof]

the system is very stable (no loss of keyboard settings after "sleep" for example).

zzz command puts the system into suspend mode. I prefer that over having it auto suspend when the laptop lid is closed as sometimes I like to be able to carr the laptop around with the laptop lid closed whilst its still doing things. Similarly sometimes I like to be able to suspend the system to save power/battery without having to close the lid.

[rufwoof]

https://wkhtmltopdf.org/

wkhtmltopdf and wkhtmltoimage are open source (LGPLv3) command line tools to render HTML into PDF and various image formats using the Qt WebKit rendering engine. These run entirely "headless" and do not require a display or display service.

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xbps-install wkhtmltopdf

and now you can get/save html pages to pdf format, where subject to your pdf viewer links may be clickable

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wkhtmltopdf murga-linux.com/puppy puppy.pdf

Or for a image

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wkhtmltoimage murga-linux.com/puppy puppy.png

and if you can display pdf's/images in a framebuffer !!!

Running that image capture command from a terminal/framebuffer and then running vlc -I ncurses puppy.png ... and the image is squashed up into a single visible page view, so some tweaking of settings/commands is obviously needed i.e this is a very casual introduction into possibilities.

As vlc works well within a framebuffer it would be nice if that could also serve as a web browser. The potential future for browsing perhaps (where web content is primarily multimedia (video) with embedded static content rather than the current arrangement of primarily static with embedded multi-media content).

[rufwoof]

Dropping pulseaudio (and pavucontrol) resolves the issue with audacity sound.

From https://wiki.voidlinux.org/Install_Void ... _USB_Stick I've added a few more to the set.

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xbps-install -y linux4.19 base-system shadow xorg xinit xbitmaps \
                terminus-font squashfs-tools alsa-utils jwm chromium tilda \
                mtpaint mc galculator adwaita-icon-theme ccrypt xdotool \
                skippy-xd xlunch bmon calcurse htop ncdu curl \
                geany gparted libreoffice qt5ct guvcview audacity \
                kdenlive android-file-transfer-linux dbus alsa-plugins \
                inetutils dhclient alsa-tools gvfs polkit usbutils \
                usbmuxd wireless_tools

alsa-tools looks interesting as that contains the likes of hwmixvolume

as10k1

is an assembler for the emu10k1 DSP chip present in the Creative SB Live, PCI 512, and emu APS sound cards. It is used to make audio effects such as a flanger, chorus or reverb.

cspctl

is an SB16/AWE32 Creative Signal Processor (ASP/CSP) control program.

echomixer

is the Linux equivalent of the Echoaudio console application from Echoaudio. It is a tool to control all the features of any Echoaudio soundcard. This includes clock sources, input and output gains, mixers, etc.

envy24control

is a control tool for Envy24 (ice1712) based sound cards.

hdajackretask

is a GUI to make it easy to retask your jacks - e g, turn your Mic jack into an extra Headphone, or why not make them both line outs and connect them to your surround receiver.

hda-verb

is a small program to send HD-audio commands to the given ALSA hwdep device on the hd-audio interface.

hdspconf

is a GUI to control the Hammerfall HDSP Alsa Settings. Up to four hdsp cards are supported.

hdsploader

is used to load the firmware required by the Hammerfall HDSP sound cards.

hdspmixer

is the Linux equivalent of the Totalmix application from RME. It is a tool to control the advanced routing features of the RME Hammerfall DSP soundcard series.

hwmixvolume

allows you to control the volume of individual streams on sound cards that use hardware mixing

init_audigy*

are tools used to initialize Creative Sound Blaster Audigy-series cards.

init_live

is a tool used to initialize Creative Sound Blaster Live cards.

ld10k1

is the server of a EMU10K{1,2} patch loader for ALSA.

lo10k1

is the client of a EMU10K{1,2} patch loader for ALSA.

dl10k1

loads config dumps generated by lo10k1 and ld10k1.

ld10k1d

is an init script for the ld10k1 patch loader.

mixartloader

is a helper program to load the firmware binaries onto the Digigram's miXart board sound drivers. The following modules require this program: snd-mixart. These drivers don't work properly at all until the certain firmwares are loaded, i.e. no PCM nor mixer devices will appear.

pcxhrloader

is a helper program to load the firmware binaries onto Digigram's pcxhr compatible board sound drivers. The following modules require this program: snd-pcxhr. These drivers don't work properly at all until the certain firmwares are loaded, i.e. no PCM nor mixer devices will appear.

rmedigicontrol

is a control tool for RME Digi32 and RME Digi96 sound cards. It provides a graphical frontend for all the sound card controls and switches.

sbiload

is an OPL2/3 FM instrument loader for the ALSA sequencer.

sscape_ctl

is an ALSA SoundScape control utility.

us428control

is a Tascam US-428 control program.

usx2yloader

is a helper program to load the 2nd Phase firmware binaries onto the Tascam USX2Y USB sound cards. It has proven to work so far for the US122, US224 and US428. The snd-usb-usx2y module requires this program.

vxloader

is a helper program to load the firmware binaries onto the Digigram's VX-board sound drivers. The following modules require this program: snd-vx222, snd-vxpocket, snd-vxp440. These drivers don't work properly at all until the certain firmwares are loaded, i.e. no PCM nor mixer devices will appear.

I've also added in a few additional key bindings into /etc/system.jwmrc

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   <Key mask="C" key="Down">>exec:amixer set Master 6%- </Key>
   <Key mask="C" key="Up">exec:amixer set Master 6%+ </Key>
   <Key mask="C" key="0">exec:amixer sset Master,0 toggle </Key>

So ctrl up and down arrows increase/lower the volume (and ctrl 0 (zero) mutes the volume).

[rockedge]

I never went with pulseaudio...stuck with alsa and also use alsa-tools.

soon as firefox made sound and audacity worked on my systems I did not pursue more in audio.....yet

I am testing out xlunch, xlunch log-out and a jwm tray similar to the top hybrid tray in Puppy's Bionic32. this disappearing tray is top left and as the buttons for xlunch and xlunch-logout.
rox and mc share file manager duties.

I think I'll go ahead and do the many many steps to have a successful running ZoneMinder system using rufwoof's desktop with some modification

mostly that I am across the pond from the UK sitting here in Connecticut USA, so keyboard and timezone.And of course the components needed to get this web server going

[westwest]

Thanks for the tips about VLC in ncurses, rufwoof. However, on my setup video playback is problematic. The interface pops up, i can search and load files, sound is fine, but no display.

Errors about dbus show up when starting VLC in ncurses:
"Failed to connect to the D-Bus session daemon"
"Unable to autolaunch a dbus daemon without $display for x11..."
"Interface "dbus,none" initialization failed"
"No suitable interface module"

I've tried running it in and out of tmux, with or without dbus, with or without x11 installed, in root or with user, running dbus-launch, etc. Same result accross the board. Could not find any relevant solution on other forums either.

Any help appreciated.

[Smithy]

Hi Wiak,

1. Do you have an ISO available with basic hardware, sound and video card recognition?

2. What range of computers is it suitable for: Pentium 1 mmx, Pentium 2, Pentium 3,
Core2Duo, DualCore, Xeon, AMD, i3/i5/i7.

You know where you are with an ISO.
Can burn to disc, or open it up and transfer the files to a USB and boot with a bootloader,
Idlinux, syslinux, maggotty grub.

Wanderer’s Tiny Core was interesting because it booted up (even though it paused at a menu and should have just gone straight to the desktop imo).
But it could have done with having audio and video ready and hardware recognised.
Still it is a tiny miracle.

[wiak]

Hi Wiak,

1. Do you have an ISO available with basic hardware, sound and video card recognition?

2. What range of computers is it suitable for: Pentium 1 mmx, Pentium 2, Pentium 3,
Core2Duo, DualCore, Xeon, AMD, i3/i5/i7.

You know where you are with an ISO.
Can burn to disc, or open it up and transfer the files to a USB and boot with a bootloader,
Idlinux, syslinux, maggotty grub.

Well, the vmlinuz, initramfs.gz and main rootfilesystem (sfs file) are automatically already produced by the simple/fast two-script build system, so don't need to open up an iso to get them. You simply boot these via, as you say, grub, or could use syslinux etc (booting from harddrive or usb etc). Instructions are provided in the readme file.

Having said that, someone could easily enough make a CD bootable iso using some make iso utility or xorriso app via make-iso script (and ally might upload such an WeeDog iso to that archive he contributes to). I may make such a utility later - too busy on developing the core system build scripts at the moment though. Frankly though, it is really easy as it is without bothering with iso though - my own ten or eleven years old development laptop does have a DVD drive though (becoming rare in more modern machines).

My machine is Core2Duo - I doubt it would work on Pentium 3 or less, but the others you mention possibly okay.

Thanks to upstream Void Linux extensive firmware/module support, it supports lots of audio/video/wifi etc etc hardware I would imagine; only lots of testing could confirm that though, which is not something I can do on the little hardware I have.

You should be aware, that this is a build system - it is up to the user to build the system up to the exact form they wish (a plugin can be created so users can build any power of X desktop, for example, they wish - rufwoof provided one such firstrib00.plug for that purpose). Maybe he could produce an iso of that - but the iso would be huge because none of us has concentrated on slimming the system down (not necessary when you build it yourself really, most have plenty hard disk space or usb stick, even on old machines - it is however, very fast and efficient RAM memory-wise).

wiak

[rufwoof]

Thanks for the tips about VLC in ncurses, rufwoof. However, on my setup video playback is problematic. The interface pops up, i can search and load files, sound is fine, but no display.

Errors about dbus show up when starting VLC in ncurses:
"Failed to connect to the D-Bus session daemon"
"Unable to autolaunch a dbus daemon without $display for x11..."
"Interface "dbus,none" initialization failed"
"No suitable interface module"

I've tried running it in and out of tmux, with or without dbus, with or without x11 installed, in root or with user, running dbus-launch, etc. Same result accross the board. Could not find any relevant solution on other forums either.

If I open a tilda terminal and run vlc -I ncurses ... I get similar reports ...

Code: Select all

[user@void-live ~]$ vlc -I ncurses
VLC media player 3.0.8 Vetinari (revision 3.0.8-0-gf350b6b5a7)
[000055b2578c2890] vlcpulse audio output error: PulseAudio server connection failure: Connection refused
[000055b257964eb0] dbus interface error: Failed to connect to the D-Bus session daemon: D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up: see the manual page for dbus-uuidgen to correct this issue. (Failed to open "/var/lib/dbus/machine-id": No such file or directory; Failed to open "/etc/machine-id": No such file or directory)
[000055b257964eb0] main interface error: no suitable interface module
[000055b25782fd60] main libvlc error: interface "dbus,none" initialization failed
[user@void-live ~]$ 

But the sound and video are fine. Does running vlc within X play videos OK?

Try running with cvlc instead of just vlc and without the interface

cvlc /mnt/sda1/my.mp4

and ctrl-C break out of that to see what messages were shown.

Unlike X that optimises graphics, running on the framebuffer doesn't, so I guess in some cases it might not work well on some hardware/setups. However I don't know how to make tweaks in that respect. Perhaps try running cvlc --help and some of the parameters indicated there might be of use ?? (such as --fullscreen --crop maybe (wild guess)).