alphaOS [closed]

A home for all kinds of Puppy related projects
Post Reply
Message
Author
simargl

alphaOS [closed]

#1 Post by simargl »

alphaOS is simple and minimalistic Linux distribution based on Puppy Linux, built from
Arch Linux packages and uses pacman as the default package manager. Unlike official
Puppy systems, it has openbox window manager combined with dynamic menu update
and support for loading up to 20 additional sfs modules.

Homepage:
http://alphaos.tuxfamily.org/

Downloads:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/alphaos/files
Last edited by simargl on Wed 04 Sep 2013, 08:30, edited 76 times in total.

User avatar
Iguleder
Posts: 2026
Joined: Tue 11 Aug 2009, 09:36
Location: Israel, somewhere in the beautiful desert
Contact:

#2 Post by Iguleder »

How can you call that "from scratch" when you use ages-old code from Puppy? :?
[url=http://dimakrasner.com/]My homepage[/url]
[url=https://github.com/dimkr]My GitHub profile[/url]

simargl

#3 Post by simargl »

... compiled from scratch. If you don't know what that means please visit link bellow.
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#4 Post by nooby »

I get curious on if it make you automatically booted as root
what password does root have?
Can you place the files on NTFS and then boot without
needing any linux partition made like ext3 or ext4

what is the menu.lst for grub4dos used for your Lightnix 001

title Lightnix 001 Linux
kernel (hd0,0)/Lightnix001/vmlinuz PMEDIA=atahd PDEV1=sda1 psubdir=Lightnix001 pfix=fsck
initrd (hd0,0)/Lightnix001/initrd.gz

or what do you use?
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

simargl

#5 Post by simargl »

Currently it looks like this:
title lightnix RAM mode (sda6/lightnix)
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /lightnix/initrd.gz
kernel /lightnix/vmlinuz psubdir=lightnix pmedia=atahd pfix=ram,fsck
initrd /lightnix/initrd.gz

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#6 Post by nooby »

pfix=ram,fsck

would that mean you have a lightnix save file
and that you don't load it but still check the integrity of it?

Regardless I will test the OS when you have xorg and firefox or chrome going.

You did not answer if it boots with root=root password=lightnix
automatically or if it boot into user=user password=user
or user=live password=live
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

simargl

#7 Post by simargl »

nooby wrote:You did not answer if it boots with root=root password=lightnix
automatically or if it boot into user=user password=user
or user=live password=live
It boots without any password to tty1 as user root. But if change to tty2 you need to type
password, which by default is toor, just like in archpup because they are built with same rootfs.

And, thanks for your interest :P

simargl

#8 Post by simargl »

Name is changed to Lightning OS, needs more work but currently system is functioning OK,
meaning that xorg with 3D support (tested with game assault cub), sound and internet all work.

Here is DISTRO_SPECS:
DISTRO_NAME='Lightning OS'
DISTRO_VERSION='001'
DISTRO_BINARY_COMPAT='none'
DISTRO_FILE_PREFIX='ltn'
DISTRO_COMPAT_VERSION='none'
DISTRO_KERNEL_PET='3.8.2'
DISTRO_XORG_AUTO='yes'
DISTRO_TARGETARCH='i686'
DISTRO_IDSTRING='0001LGTN10032013XXXXXXXXXXXX1234'
DISTRO_PUPPYSFS='ltn_001.sfs'
DISTRO_ADRVSFS='adrv-*_001.sfs'
DISTRO_YDRVSFS='extra_001.sfs'
DISTRO_ZDRVSFS='zdrv_001.sfs'
DISTRO_PUPPYDATE='Mar 2013'

kurtdriver
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat 17 Jan 2009, 00:15

#9 Post by kurtdriver »

Do you have a download link? So we can have a look.

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#10 Post by nooby »

seems somebody else?
also thought of that name?

Lightning OS
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lightning ... 6869818705
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

simargl

#11 Post by simargl »

nooby wrote:seems somebody else?
also thought of that name?

Lightning OS
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lightning ... 6869818705
Yes, you are right it is opensuse based distro with gnome 3.
So name is changed to .. .. Alpha OS! What do you think?

First post updated with more detailed explanations.

simargl

#12 Post by simargl »

I have one problem with mount command and different behavior in AlphaOS compared to Archpup.

Problem is with partition /dev/sda5, formatted as NTFS. With command:

Code: Select all

mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/sda5
it is mounted read-write in Archpup but read-only in AlphaOS.

mount command is provided by package util-linux plus ntfs-3g and fuse are installed for supporting ntfs filesystem in both OS'.

Only way to get write access to ntfs partition in AlphaOS is mounting with command ntfs-3g.
... and I don't want that because it breaks earlier scripts that use just mount command for everything.

Edit: Never mind, I've adjusted scripts to check fstype before mounting...

simargl

#13 Post by simargl »

makepfile.sh, save file creator script from Archpup, made by me and much improved by mavrothal
(in his pre theoretical phase) is improved so it will read variables from /etc/distro_specs.
It's now usable in any Puppy linux, on the other hand does anyone really care...

Beta version of alphaOS :lol: will be available today!
Warning: It's not for the beginners!

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#14 Post by nooby »

I hope it will boot up frugally on NTFS
unless it is impossible or very difficult
to provide that feature. Archpup does
so would it be possible to borrow how
they do it?
Just a friendly suggestion.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

simargl

#15 Post by simargl »

Iso is uploaded, check first post for the link.
nooby wrote:I hope it will boot up frugally on NTFS
unless it is impossible or very difficult
to provide that feature. Archpup does
so would it be possible to borrow how
they do it?
Just a friendly suggestion.
Thanks for your suggestion.
I didn't test it but frugal installation on NTFS should work.

nooby
Posts: 10369
Joined: Sun 29 Jun 2008, 19:05
Location: SwedenEurope

#16 Post by nooby »

Thanks I downloaded the iso and made a dir alpha
and then clicked on the iso and placed the files in the dir
and then wrote a typical puppy boot and rebooted and it worked
but it did not sense my screen and defaulted to 640x480 something
don't remember and I failed to know how to tell it to go to 1366x786
or whatever I have.

Apart from that it seems to work.

Don't get me wrong now. I can see the fun in having one's own distro
but how is it better or different from all the others. I mean why or what
is it that makes it better or more convenient or more practical or ...

I can feel the fun of having accomplish it. I would want to do it too
but in what way is it useful so I would abandon slacko and go over ?
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

raffy
Posts: 4798
Joined: Wed 25 May 2005, 12:20
Location: Manila

asus x101ch and AMD E350

#17 Post by raffy »

Am interested to boot asus x101ch (Intel N2600 with NM10 chipset) with this, and it booted and had drivers for eth0 and wlan0. However, the display is too dim and I can't use the function keys to adjust the brightness. Display must be only 640x480. Am used to trying xorgwizard, but it does not respond to CTRL-ALT-BKSPC.

In the AMD E350 laptop, there is no wlan0 driver (for Broadcom) and the display is only 1024x768 (that is fine with me).

Am glad the sfs loader is there so that I can use small freeoffice sfs.

Missing some features of Puppy, like the GUI hardinfo, but hey, if this little build can handle my little X101CH, including hibernation, then it's heaven. :)
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

simargl

#18 Post by simargl »

With this example I will try to explain how to compile program from source code, install it, remove, get information about
installed package, convert it to sfs module with help of spkg package manager.

I'm using program called Uget (http://uget.visuex.com/) as example, so you will not only learn to use this package manager but
will also have nice download manager afterwards.

First you need to make def script - a file that is needed for building any package. You can write that file yourself, or much easier
automatically convert PKGBUILD script from Arch. I will leave this 2nd option for some later time, now you can just use bellow code, select all text save it as file named def and put that file in folder /mnt/home/data/spkg/def-scripts/uget

Code: Select all

name="uget"
version="1.10.3"
revision="1"
category="network"
description="GTK+ download manager featuring download classification and HTML import"
source="http://downloads.sourceforge.net/urlget/$name-$version.tar.gz"
homepage="http://urlget.sourceforge.net/"
maintainer="simargl <archpup@gmail.com>"
depends="gtk3 curl hicolor-icon-theme xdg-utils"
makedepends="intltool"

compile() {
  cd $name-$version
  ./configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --sysconfdir=/etc \
    --localstatedir=/var \
    --disable-appindicator \
    --disable-notify \
    --disable-gstreamer
  make
}

package() {
  make DESTDIR=$destdir install
}

pinstall() {
  gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/hicolor
}

premove() {
  gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/hicolor
}


Load devel sfs module and after that type:
spkg -ci uget (for compile and install)

To get information about installed package, or search for file named uget:
spkg info uget
spkg file uget

To remove installed package type:
spkg -r uget

To make sfs module that will contain this package, change to directory /mnt/home/data/spkg/packages, and type:
spkg makesfs or
spkg makesfsx (for using xz compression)

Note: icon cache needs to be updated after installing/removing, that is the reason for pinstall/premove functions...

simargl

#19 Post by simargl »

nooby & raffy: What are yours graphic cards, with that small resolution it's probably using just that basic vesa driver. Installing xorg graphic driver is one of the simplest things, you only need to know card's name (use lspci) and I will help.
nooby wrote:I can feel the fun of having accomplish it. I would want to do it too
but in what way is it useful so I would abandon slacko and go over ?
I never used slacko, only lucid once for a short time so can't tell. It's more fun definitely! :wink:

simargl

#20 Post by simargl »

New functions were added to spkg package manager... (click to enlarge)
Image

Packages mirror is here http://code.google.com/p/alphaos/downloads/list
spkg -di is function for download and install package (it must be full package name and it doesn't handle dependencies :roll: )

Post Reply