EasyOS version 2.3.2, June 22, 2020

[foxpup]

Since I often had issues with getting to X with Easy on this older dual core machine with nvidia gc, I have not tried Easy on this PC for some time.
Barry, I read that you brushed up a dual core with intel gc, so I decided to give Easy another try.
I did an easy frugal install on my ext3 'puppy partition'.

I got some messages about no ext4, no encryption and no password. I can live with that.
It continued right to X with nouveau as a driver. I can live with that also I fact, this is great!

It looks as if Easy is better for older PC's now.
Now I still have to find out what these containers are all about.

[rufwoof]

I still have to find out what these containers are all about.

Take the easy container as a example. When you run that it "unshares" things, so the userid its running under (root) becomes more restricted. The Easy container also runs Xephyr ... which is a form of another instance of X that along with also running that in a chroot and with capsh's in effect isolates/restricts what's running even more, so although running as "root", that process set (child processes inherit their parent process capabilities/limits) is as good as running as a restricted userid.

More usually a chroot needs its own OS, so more usually you'd create a folder that you'll set as the new 'root' folder and pre load that with a OS or whatever and then chroot (set it as the root/topmost) folder. With Easy however the pre-loading is the same sfs that the main system was booted, so there's no copying/adding of files, just mounting a sfs. Once chrooted that creates/uses its own save area, separate from the main systems save area.

Picture it as multiple instances with each sharing the same main sfs, but each with its own separate save area.

Typically with a pup you'll boot it and set it up etc then create a save. With Easy however the top/main level is more a container manager level that's gui rather than cli. Fire up Easy container and configure and then save/use that and that container is restricted. Or you might install/use a Racy sfs as the container you use; Or Xenial ...etc.

In the main system Menu, Filesystem there's the Version Control option that you can use to take snapshots of the main session or container(s); Or roll back to prior snapshots. Taking a snapshot is a bit like creating a remastered version, but with the added benefit you can switch/flip between those remastered version. Creating a snapshot in effect takes the containers save folder content and turns it into a sfs; Or where the containers save folder can be emptied and repopulated by unsquashing any of those save sfs's.

[rufwoof]

Usually your X will be running on :0 (first graphical display). With Xephyr you can create a window using Xephyr :1 ... for instance and then load that with something by running something like DISPLAY=:1 jwm So for instance you could have jwm running in your main :0 display and another window manager running in the Xephyr window (DISPLAY=:1 gnome ... for instance - assuming gnome was installed, or something small such as DISPLAY=:1 galculator). Barry sets the Xephyr window to run 'fullscreen' to better separate the two, but it could just as equally be a smaller window region (launched using Xephyr -screen 1280x1024 for instance).

With Easy, the way the Xephyr is set up is to separate it from the main X, otherwise there's no security/separation http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/ ... ation.html. Which is achieved by using a combination of unshare, chroot and capsh. So the Xephyr X cannot for instance access the main systems HDD, or stuff other windows with commands etc. It's "contained" by a combination of unshare, capsh and root such that even though its running as 'root' that root process is heavily restricted to the level where its like a restricted userid.

[algol68]

Bug - Icons overlapping on 800 x 600 pixel screen.
Please see the screen shot

[don570]

I tested mypaint appimage for Easy pyro 0.9.10 with my Wacom tablet
It worked well. I could open GIMP as external app.

Available:
MyPaint-1.3.0-git.050d44f.glibc2.15-x86_64.AppImage
Size:54 mb

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Zxc_M ... gCu48lsWip
_________________________________________

[don570]

Suggestions to BarryK:

Your frugal install instructions assume that grub4dos is used to create menu.lst.

You should point out that the uuid can be obtained without grub4dos
i.e. with the blkid command

File 'menu.lst' can be opened in a text editor. It has this in it...
title EasyOS-0.9.10 (sda1/easy/0.9.10)
find --set-root uuid () 3f8f077d-7a7d-4e7a-9cb5-a8b94e1f1c87
kernel /easy/0.9.10/vmlinuz rw
initrd /easy/0.9.10/initrd

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[don570]

First boot --> audio was muted and volume zero
Unusual for puppy linux.

_________________________________________

Chip description:
VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
Display controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

I tried to run blender 2.79
however I got error ---> OpenGl 2.1 not running

This isn't unusual with my graphics chip however with fatdog64
I follow the instructions of James Bond and solve the problem.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/fa ... pengl.html

Edit /etc/drirc and adding the following snippets:

<driconf>
...
<device driver="i915">
<application name="Default">
<option name="stub_occlusion_query" value="true" />
<option name="fragment_shader" value="true" />
</application>
</device>
...
</driconf>

However I couldn't find the file /etc/drirc in pyro distro???
Is it possible that this file be installed.
_____________________________________________

[don570]

I modified the BOOT_SPECS file myself and avoided burning a CD.
I was using fatdog64. I used the repack init script to repack.
Fortunately I saw it when I opened the initrd file.

I have a suggestion ----> BOOT_SPECS file should have #comment lines to explain how to modify

or a web site reference to explain like Samba configuration file has.
___________________________________

[davids45]

G'day,

Thanks don570 for your earlier posts's link to a how-to-install Easy that I could follow .

Your frugal install instructions assume that grub4dos is used to create menu.lst.

I could not locate this on my Live-DVD, only a guide (I think) for quirky which looks now out-of-date?

So I manually copied the three needed files (copied from the mounted iso) to my sdb6 subfolder for Easy and then booted the Live-DVD and did the click on the now-revealed-to-me initrd trick to achieve a booting Easy Frugal (I edited my 64-bit partition menu.lst with elsewhere indicated text).

'Personalising' Easy
With lots of sfs apps already on this computer for my many other 64-bit Pups, I wanted to link to Easy, the various app profiles and configs that are shared to all my Pups from a directory on my data partition.
I also needed to mount-at-boot my data partitions via a script I put in Startup in every Pup.
Finding /root was tricky , so when I got lucky , I dragged the /root icon to the desktop.
Then I added my start-up script and my profile for Seamonkey (a link of my .mozilla directory from my data partition, deleting the default seamonkey profile in Easy that has no history nor personal details I want to have available).

Posting from my sdb6 Easy now, using its Seamonkey with my all-Pups .mozilla profile, so that's looking good.

I've copied a couple of existing app sfs to where I hope they'll boot-load when I restart. Does SFS-Load-on-the-Fly work in Easy??

But I have not yet tried a re-boot to see if my above 'personalisations' will persist.

Fingers crossed.

Thanks to Barry K, and to don570,

David S.

[BarryK]

G'day,

Is Easy suited to installing to a 64-bit frugals-dedicated partition on a hard-drive? The attached screenshot may help show my present set-up?

I have about 30 64-bit Pups already on this partition (sdb6) with a range of sfs files to provide the 64-bit apps I want for the various Pups. These sfs files include LibreOffice, Seamonkey and Gimp which are already in Easy so they won't be needed if I can install Easy . Are existing application sfs OK in Easy?

All these frugals were manually installed by me from their mounted iso and then editing the relevant menu.lst. What would an Easy menu.lst entry look like? I have made a new folder for Easy on sdb6 - in optimistic expectation .

My computer is a 'teenager' so the old style installation should be OK (no uefi)? The Live-Easy on a DVD boots and runs so my computer is not too old (yet).

Booting is via Grub with several sub-menus for the various Pups (some fulls, plus 32-bit & 64-bit groups of frugals on their own partitions).

I read the Easy Help links about editing initrd.q to enable a manual Easy frugal to boot but, without trying such a edit, did not understand what to do.
But is Easy the sort of Pup that can live on my frugals-partition anyway?

I don't want to boot with a usb-drive.
And don't understand what benefit 'containers' may be for me.

Thanks for any advice or help.

David S.

This should have all the info you need, it was only written a few days ago:

https://easyos.org/install/easy-frugal- ... ation.html

[BarryK]

Bug - Icons overlapping on 800 x 600 pixel screen.
Please see the screen shot

Well, a bug yes, but I didn't think that anyone would be running a 800x600 screen anymore.

[BarryK]

Suggestions to BarryK:

Your frugal install instructions assume that grub4dos is used to create menu.lst.

You should point out that the uuid can be obtained without grub4dos
i.e. with the blkid command

File 'menu.lst' can be opened in a text editor. It has this in it...
title EasyOS-0.9.10 (sda1/easy/0.9.10)
find --set-root uuid () 3f8f077d-7a7d-4e7a-9cb5-a8b94e1f1c87
kernel /easy/0.9.10/vmlinuz rw
initrd /easy/0.9.10/initrd

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, I should put in a bit of extra explanation there, about how to manually create a new entry for menu.lst.

[BarryK]

First boot --> audio was muted and volume zero
Unusual for puppy linux.

_________________________________________

Chip description:
VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
Display controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

I tried to run blender 2.79
however I got error ---> OpenGl 2.1 not running

This isn't unusual with my graphics chip however with fatdog64
I follow the instructions of James Bond and solve the problem.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/fa ... pengl.html

Edit /etc/drirc and adding the following snippets:

<driconf>
...
<device driver="i915">
<application name="Default">
<option name="stub_occlusion_query" value="true" />
<option name="fragment_shader" value="true" />
</application>
</device>
...
</driconf>

However I couldn't find the file /etc/drirc in pyro distro???
Is it possible that this file be installed.
_____________________________________________

Would you mind conducting an experiment? -- copy the drirc from Fatdog, see if that works.

[davids45]

G'day Barry,

Thanks for replying to my last post - your link was to the same information that don570 had pointed me to, so it worked for me.
Maybe the iso I'd downloaded was a bit old and had missed this?

Boot Manager problem
I'm trying to load some sfs of various things (games, pwidgets, printer driver) I've copied to the indicated directory but nothing seems to be loading on re-booting (screenshot). Is there a new type of sfs required?

Drive Icons Placement
The JWMDesk Manager doesn't seem to include the means to re-space the drive icons. Quite a few recent Pups have a different JWMDesk Manager where the drive icons can re-positioned and re-spaced.

Your Easy-included applications are all working when run here.

David S.

[radky]

Drive Icons Placement:
The JWMDesk Manager doesn't seem to include the means to re-space the drive icons. Quite a few recent Pups have a different JWMDesk Manager where the drive icons can re-positioned and re-spaced.

@davids45,

Adjustable spacing of tray notification icons in JWM requires the following:

1 - JWM vgit >= 1578 or standard release >= 2.3.7
2 - JWMDesk >= 2.4 (current release is 2.4.3)

[foxpup]

@rufwoof

Thanks for taking the time to explain containers.
I will have to read it a few times over to get it though
I will print it and hang it up.
I will try it and see what happens.
I am not so interested in the security thing, since I haven't had any issue since I'm using Puppy.
But it seems to be much more than that.
I would love to see good old Wary running on my new i5 machine.

[BarryK]

Boot Manager problem
I'm trying to load some sfs of various things (games, pwidgets, printer driver) I've copied to the indicated directory but nothing seems to be loading on re-booting (screenshot). Is there a new type of sfs required?

sfs files placed under the 'sfs' folder are supposed to be created with special meta-data inside them. The way to re-make an existing sfs is to open it up and use 'dir2sfs' -- there is a blog post on that.

However, traditional sfs files can be loaded, place them in /mnt/wkg/releases/easy-0.9.10, then run the menu Filesystem --> Easy BootManager and you can select them.

It requires a reboot. Not supporting load-on-the-fly, as when a change in sfs layers, there is special checking done in 'initrd' before the layers get loaded.

[davids45]

G'day Barry,

Thanks for the reply about using apps in existing sfs files. I'll try the dir2sfs in my archive of sfs directories and see how I go.

In traditional Pups, before trying most things I make frequent use of savefile backups ('hot-backup' is a particularly helpful app), and to have also a means of quickly recovering in the case of any hardware problem.

But in looking through the various Easy directories of my Easy frugal, I couldn't find a savefile equivalent. Is there one, or a easy way to recover from a 'misadventure'?

David S.

[rufwoof]

A container set to use Xephyr works fine (secure). Container set to use xorg isn't. Pre-prepared sfs for Chrome install for instances defaults to using xorg, and a browser flaw that enabled remote cli can 'control' main system windows.

The lower sakura window in the attached was a main session terminal window (running as main session root). The sakura window at the top was a containered (with xorg) window and I used that to send a command to the main sessions (real/full root) from that. Do the same with Xephyr and its blocked (secure).

Simply ... running the current Chromium sfsget, setting that to run in its own container ... isn't secure (as it is set to use xorg, not xephyr).

(Note that a container can search for available targets (windowid's) using something like

DISPLAY=:=0 xdotool search --name 'sakura'

or other targets such as rox and then send a 'open terminal here' type command sequence).

[rufwoof]

Restore the main session (to the automated save that is created when first booted) ... and initrd BOOTSPEC settings are also restored, so likely it wont reboot until you again make the required edits. Would be better if initrd content was left as-is.