EasyOS version 2.3.2, June 22, 2020

[BarryK]

EasyOS 2.2.14 is not working for me! I am not long into Linux so I do not know what this is about. I keep getting the error message "No puppy frugal installs found in /mnt/sdb1/easypup". I downloaded the ISO from the link provided on this forum. I had BionicPup64 8.0 loaded but had no sound and couldn't get bluetooth to work on my Dell E6430 with 4GB Ram, 1TB HD. What is going on here? Why is the USB installer not working/not finding these files? I made a sub-directory next to the /boot directory in case it was a path problem. I still get the error.

I am loading to the same USB that I installed BionicPup64 8.0 with.

I did not want to get so involved in this. Any comments are appreciated.

Charlane

There is no iso for EasyOS, only a .img.gz file. Available here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/ ... er/2.2.16/

Install instructions:

https://easyos.org/install/how-to-write ... drive.html

[BarryK]

Hi Barry

What is the advantage to use a new compiled Seamonkey instead to unpack those offered ready to use by Seamonkey itself?

Compiling it myself, can tweak the configure options to suit myself.

Linking against the system libraries improves compatibility.

Linking against the system libraries reduces the size.

The official build has the same problem that I encountered. You have to start with a new profile.

I have fixed that problem, see blog post:

https://bkhome.org/news/202005/workarou ... -2532.html

[BarryK]

This machine I am testing on has 3 sound cards,
1 integrated
1 pci
1 usb
Not sure if that is a factor, but I find that Menu>Multimedia>Alsa Mixer just flashes and aborts.
Same happens in EasyPup.
If I edit the alsamixer.desktop file from urxvt to sakura then alsamixer looks OK.
Running urxvt on its own looks OK, but not if I am trying to run alsamixer within it.

EDIT:- Tried booting the EasyOS flash drive on a different machine with just one sound card and alsamixer looks OK in urxvt so I guess it is specific to my hardware and not a universal issue.

urxvt works fine for me. sakura has a problem with rendering the border line characters, so is esthetically not so pleasing.

For the hardware in which you get that problem, would you kindly also test replacing "urxvt" with "rxvt"?

Also, try running this in a terminal window:

Code: Select all

# urxvt -e alsamixer

...if it aborts, there might be a helpful error message.

[BarryK]

Hi Everyone,

To Barry and TiredPup:

I had the Kernel Panic by installig manually
in one folder named "q881"
the 3 files: vmlinuz, initrd.q and q.sfs.

By examening the older Quirky, April-7 realised
it had only 2 files: vmlinuz & initrd.q, the latter
being quite large (180MB). Of course it contains
the base sfs: q.sfs.
So I did the same with Buster64 8.8.1, put q.sfs
inside initrd.q, and it booted up nicely, no Panic.
And it works as a live installation.

Bootloader is extlinux(4.07) and extlinux.conf:

Code: Select all

default q8
display boot.msg
prompt 1
timeout 111

label q8
kernel /q881/vmlinuz
initrd /q881/initrd.q
append rootwait rw

Thanks Barry,
one small thing: MtPaint doesn't recognise
jpg files, so I used one from EasyOs-211,
works well.

Tom

I can't remember, with earlier releases of Quirky, 8.7.1 and before, did I build it with q.sfs inside initrd.q?

[TiredPup]

tom22251 wrote:

To Barry and TiredPup:

I had the Kernel Panic by installig manually
in one folder named "q881"
the 3 files: vmlinuz, initrd.q and q.sfs.

By examening the older Quirky, April-7 realised
it had only 2 files: vmlinuz & initrd.q, the latter
being quite large (180MB). Of course it contains
the base sfs: q.sfs.
So I did the same with Buster64 8.8.1, put q.sfs
inside initrd.q, and it booted up nicely, no Panic.
And it works as a live installation.

I downloaded the buster64-8.8.1.usfs.xz file and installed it to partition with Barry's 4install-quirky-to-partition script which results in a full install. For a while Quirky was released as a quirky*.img.gz file and was installed using a similar script. With the 8.7.1 release the kernel panic issue cropped up for the first time.

The following is BarryK's response to roadkill13 who reported the same issue in quirkybeaver8.7 and 8.7.1.

roadkill13 wrote:
I noted the same anomaly with the system not being able to boot with menu.lst entry generated by the grub configuration utility. I used the same work around as before.

Quote:
title Quirky Beaver64 8.7.1 (sda1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda1 ro


Ah, found the cause. Quirky Beaver 8.7.1 has the Busybox 'fdisk' applet, not the full one from 'util-linux'. The busybox one is less functional, stuffs things up.

And I know why it is missing. It is the old story of the Debian developers playing musical chairs with packages. They love to split a package up into lots of smaller ones. Worse, they keep changing the split-up.

In Xenial Xerus, 'fdisk' is in the 'util-linux' DEB, however, in Bionic Beaver they have taken it out into its own package, a DEB named 'fdisk'.

I am on the lookout for this, but missed this one.

Solution, click "petget" at top of screen to run the Package Manager, search for "fdisk" and you will find it in the "ubuntu-bionic-main" repo. No missing deps, so just install it. I am doing this as I type this report....

Yep, ran "fdisk --help" in a terminal, now it is the full version. You should be good to go for using the Quirky Installer.

Buster64 has the version of Fdisk from 'util-linux' 2.33.1.


@BarryK

Quirky 8.7.1 has 3 separate files in the iso (q.sfs, initrd.q and vmlinuz).

[BarryK]

Here is 2.3RC:

https://bkhome.org/news/202005/easyos-2 ... sters.html

If anyone wants to give this a spin, please do. If it is sane, will bump it to 2.3-final and upload the non-English builds, and also release EasyPup 2.3.

rerwin,
Let me know if this fixes your ethernet non-detection-at-first-bootup problem.

[Sage]

RC seems to work OK. Default SM doesn't open up full page.
When operating with wi-fi would be advantageous to invite connection before completion of start-up options so that time-sync can be completed ahead of X-restart. But, starting with wired connection, vide supra, - no issues.
[It would be interesting to know if folk can connect wi-fi using an ISL3887 device in Easy and other Puppies? Bit long-in-the-tooth now but units like the Wistron NeWeb UR054g 802.11g were popular some time ago and I still find them around. Major distros can often detect them but not necessarily drive them without some CLI additions.]

[OscarTalks]

Also, try running this in a terminal window:

Code: Select all

# urxvt -e alsamixer

...if it aborts, there might be a helpful error message.

Thanks for taking a look at the alsamixer in urxvt issue.
Unfortunately, rxvt gives the same results as urxvt
Terminal output (in sakura or urxvt) just gives "Aborted"

Code: Select all

# urxvt -e alsamixer
Aborted
# rxvt -e alsamixer
Aborted
#

I wondered if changing it to sakura might have been a good idea, but you have explained why not.
It seems likely that this is specific to my rather unusual hardware setup and the vast majority of users will not be affected, so maybe it is something just to bear in mind and keep an eye on for now? The workaround of using sakura does still allow access to the alsamixer settings, so no major harm done.

[Rodney Byne]

Barry,

per my previous post and your reply about multicoloured
keyboard selector No. 5 on default bootup causing kernel panic
where you couldn't find anything wrong, I pressing the second
option file analyser initially again and read from the screen
during bootup to a successful desktop;
"one or more block group descriptor checksums are invalid"
quickly fixed by the analyser.
Is this worthy of another look?

SM 2.53.2 in the container is playing up.
After launch at every attempt,
"The browser could not find the host server for the provided address"
Deja vu?

Menu>Internet>newly installed Chromium Web Browser from PPM,
doesn't have a proper blue rosette launch icon.
In usr/share/applications for Chromium, again no proper icon, just that
silly little grey box with zeros and ones in it.

Has pMusic radio stations been dropped/discontinued from Multimedia?

I picked up on someone recently querying why there is no tray icon
for Firewall Setup. I posted him simple instructions from JWMDesk Manager
to position one to the right of Virtual Keyboard.
Which I've added to all my Puppy usb's.

From your blog,
though I don't use it, I notice Chatzilla is listed in SM Preferences
if that's helpful.

Regards.

[tom22251]

Hi Barry,
and thank you for your reply.

BarryK wrote:

I can't remember, with earlier releases of Quirky, 8.7.1 and before, did I build it with q.sfs inside initrd.q?

Well, don't know about 8.7.1 but I have
both April-7.0 and April-7.2.

Here is the April-7.2 iso and what is inside,
just initrd.q and vmlinuz.

By the way just out of curiosity, what makes Q-8.8.1
not booting properly if q.sfs is not inside initrd.q ?

Thank you again,

Tom

[Leon]

By the way just out of curiosity, what makes Q-8.8.1
not booting properly if q.sfs is not inside initrd.q ?

It works properly with initrd.q, vmlinuz and q.sfs.
Install type: manual frugal install
Boot loader: grub4dos
####-####: Quirky UUID install partition identifier copied from terminal after 'blkid' command execution

Code: Select all

title Quirky Buster64 8.8.1, sda5, q881
find --set-root --ignore-floppies /q881/initrd.q
kernel /q881/vmlinuz install_specs=UUID=####-####:vfat:q881
initrd /q881/initrd.q

[zygo]

OscarTalks,

In EasyOS 218 urxvt would randomly abort on my PC. Instantly or after minutes. While resizing or in the background. While hosting alsamixer or htop or nothing. I haven't tried it on another PC.

I installed rxvt-unicode_9.22-6_amd64.deb from https://packages.debian.org/buster/rxvt-unicode (just the one download no depends). This fixed the problem for my PC.

[lp-dolittle]

@ Barry

Hi Barry,

after installation of EasyOS 2.3RC onto an external IDE-HD, booting works as expected and ethernet is setup spontaneously despite the fact that the internet-connection icon is crossed in the applet tray. EasyOS 2.3RC seems to share this issue with previous releases. The problem appears to affect only the icon in the applet tray (see attachment).

kind regards

edit:

after some additional testing, I re-realised that the above mentioned behaviour of the icon in the applet tray depends on whether the ethernet connection is ramified via a netgear switch or not (if switched, the icon is crossed; if not switched, no cross). Ethernet connection is established in both situations spontaneously, at first boot-up.
So, the icon in the applet tray of EasyOS 2.3RC behaves like in previous releases. The 'issue' is also present in Quirky 8.8.1, yet obviously of (little)/no relevance.

[rerwin]

With 2.3RC on the initial boot-up, the ethernet connection is successful and the icon shows it so. On a reboot the connection was also successful.

Thank you, Barry, for fixing the problem of the initial connection not succeeding.
Richard

[comet]

Everything seems to be working well.

[OscarTalks]

OscarTalks,

In EasyOS 218 urxvt would randomly abort on my PC. Instantly or after minutes. While resizing or in the background. While hosting alsamixer or htop or nothing. I haven't tried it on another PC.

I installed rxvt-unicode_9.22-6_amd64.deb from https://packages.debian.org/buster/rxvt-unicode (just the one download no depends). This fixed the problem for my PC.

Hello zygo,
Thanks for the response and good idea.
The urxvt appears to be a pyro .pet so maybe there are some incompatibilities?

Rather than using the .deb which shows missing deps I decided to load devx and try compiling from source.
Using ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-everything --disable-perl
It compiled and works fine with no aborting.

Not sure what is happening with libperl5.28 (runtime) it might be missing?
The libperl-dev package may be included, but not enough on its own.
I made sure both were installed (this was in EasyPup in fact)
Then ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-everything
It builds with everything including perl support which I think is needed if you want tabs. There may be other options which you might want to disable if you don't need them.

[rerwin]

I have 2 64-bit PCs both of which are about 15 years old. One has a built-in Broadcom BCM4306 wifi device requiring the b43 driver.

EasyOS 2.3RC shows the following messages about firmware files the device needs:

• b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43/pcm5.fw failed with error -2
  b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43/b0g0initvals5.fw failed with error -2
  b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43-open/ucode5.fw failed with error -2
  b43 ssb0:0: Direct firmware load for b43-open/ucode5.fw failed with error -2
  b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/b0g0initvals5.fw" not found
  b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode5.fw" not found

Maybe that PC is too old to support. The message about its processor is:
powernow_k8: Found 1 AMD Athlon(tm) Processor LE-1640 (1 cpu cores) (version 2.20.00)

I post this because Barry mentioned my b43 situation in his blog.

The other PC uses the ath9k driver which seems to connect as expected. However, if I do not disconnect the ethernet cable, Network Manager switches back the the wired connection after a few seconds. Maybe that is intentional, but is unexpected.
Richard

EDIT (3 hours later):
I am able to get the b43 wifi working! From the tarball, b43-fw12-4.150.10.5.tar.gz, I copied these files to /lib/firmware/b43:

• b0g0bsinitvals5.fw
  b0g0initvals5.fw
  pcm5.fw

I then created the b43-open as a symlink to b43, in /lib/firmware.

I am using it now, but see a flood of warning messages, many per second:

• EASYPC24607 kern.warn kernel: [ 3328.704147] b43-pci-bridge 0000:01:09.0: swiotlb buffer is full (sz: 2382 bytes), total 0 (slots), used 0 (slots)

I also have an old USB wifi device (Accton SMCWUSB-G, driver zd1211rw) which works OOTB but causes a different repetitive message:

• EASYPC24607 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[3503]: wlan1: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-9999 noise=9999 txrate=0
  EASYPC24607 daemon.notice wpa_supplicant[3503]: wlan1: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=0 signal=-9999 noise=9999 txrate=0

Can those be suppressed, or are they only for debugging?

That's what I am seeing and reporting in case it helps.

[doggone]

I use Google Hangouts for video chat. There is not a plugin/app available for Seamonkey so I have been using Chrome. There is also a Google app available for Opera and Firefox and they perform in a similar way and they work. Hangouts has worked fine for me using Quirky 8.7.1 and EasyOS 0.9.4 the last of the Beaver Ubuntu packages. Since EasyOS has started using Buster packages from Debian and newer audio mixers, I have not been able to use Hangouts. This is also true with the EasyPup and the new Quirky 8.8.1. When starting the video call, Hangouts flashes "Oops! Something went wrong. No camera or microphone". No microphone is the problem. When looking at the drop down in the app settings, no sound cards are present as there should be to make a microphone selection. I am using a Logitech C270 HD USB Web Cam. When I plug it in, 9 additional Kernel Modules get loaded, 2 for sound and 7 for video and I believe this to be correct as compared to Quirky experience. Also, in Chrome settings, Privacy and security, Site Settings, Microphone, no sound cards are present to make a microphone selection from, not even the native motherboard sound cards. At wits end.

Using Multiple Sound Card Wizard. It only displays 2 lines or the scroll does not allow you to roll down another line. The 3rd line should be my USB Sound card which can not be seen. I know it is present because selecting the Report button show it is present as the 3rd device but I can not select it because of the display issue.

Using Pavrecord and Precord. When recording video from USB Web Cam, the USB sound card can be selected in the alsamixer and the result is that video is captured but no audio. This has worked for me in Quirky and EasyOS Beaver. Also I am have trouble selecting the alsamixer. Click on it and it gives a quick flash. Have to click on it several time to have it stay visible.

I think these 3 USB sound card issues have a common problem and solution. They are duplicable on multiple boxes/motherboards. Maybe others have had experienced similar issues.

Another problem for me is the missing command genisoimage which is needed for PeasyDisk to write files to disk.

No other problems for me with EasyOS 2.3, EasyPup 2.2.16 or Quirky 8.8.1 Work Great.

Thanks for a great trio.

[OscarTalks]

Hello doggone,

Regarding unstable alsamixer
I received another PM about this as well so the issue appears to be more common than I first thought. I suspect BarryK will want to provide his own solution in the next release, but in the meantime as a temporary experiment I have uploaded the one I compiled. It contains only the urxvt executable with no perl support. You are welcome to give it a try and see if it is more stable on your system.
http://smokey01.com/OscarTalks/rxvt-uni ... 4-easy.pet

Regarding multiple soundcards
I like to have various separate audio feeds including telephony. These are routed through a hardware mixer in a small "studio" setup which allows me to control all sorts of mixes including a mix-minus clean feed return on telephony. This completely eliminates any echo or feedback (using headphones of course).
Multiple soundcard handling, especially at first boot, has always been a bit of a challenge with Puppy and the same is true with EasyOS, but what I normally do, once I know the kernel modules for the soundcards on any given set of hardware, is that I set these as options corresponding to index numbers in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
For example:-

Code: Select all

options snd-hda-intel index=0
options snd-cmipci index=1
options snd-usb-audio index=2

This ensures that the cards are always loaded with the same number in the same order, although it sounds like in your case you may have an additional problem of soundcard modules not being loaded at boot at all. Not sure why that might be.

[doggone]

Hi OscarTalks

Tried your pet. Works great. Pops up everytime I push the button. Sliders are smooth also. But still no sound from the USB camera/mic. Played around with the alsa-base.conf file. Could make any change happen. All the options entry's are set to minus 2. I think Barry want them that way so something else is selected first. There was a note about that.

Thanks