EasyOS version 2.3.2, June 22, 2020

[Cu Chulinux]

I left Quirky Pyro running on laptop with lid closed. After getting back and opening lid it started up no problem. Seems quite stable, comparable to Fatdog or Xenialpup. I even ran a couple AppImage files - AZPainter, FreeCAD, Qupzilla wouldn't run, probably a QT5 issue.

I have Quirky Xenial 8.5 installed to HD so I booted that to test again. First boot I right-clicked on desktop when it appeared and it froze. Second boot (after fix and reboot) I let it sit doing nothing for a while and now it iseems to be running ok. I am typing this running Quirky 8.5. Subjectively it does not feel as stable. I'll try using it for a while and see how it goes. I'm getting the occasional GPU hangs and resets in dmesg.

Edit: yeah Quirky Xenial 8.5 still locks up on me just like Easy. Can't reliably use it on laptop. I think it's Intel i915 graphics related as often preceded by blank squares on screen where menu or new/moved window should be.

Will sometime this week (time permitting) try on my desktop computer (home-built AMD with nvidia card, about six years old now).

[foxpup]

Barry

My machine is Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5200 @ 2.50GHz, 2G RAM and nVidia Corporation GeForce 7050/nForce 610i gc. This kind of machines are good candidates to run Puppy/Quirky/Easy/fatdog/Dog because they have XP or Vista who are considered EOL and Puppy and his kennel is faster and friendlier. This computers are still fairly powerful and there are a lot of them around.

I have never managed to run any easy on it without issues (tearing and hanging).

I install everything frugally on HDD by copying init, kernel and main sfs to a map on a ext3 "Puppy" partition. For easy and quirky I add a BOOT_SPECS or INSTALL_SPECS to the initrd.q

Here are some details when trying to boot Easy 0.8 Pyro.
1st start: goes to X, but the left third of the desktop is on the right. Continues to blackscreen within a second and freezes.
2nd start: fsck after improper shutdown. Starts xorg video wizard with no text, only buttons. I choose Fallback and the xorg.conf.NVIDIA. It goes to X. Connection to the internet with eth0 is automatic. Both q_sfs and q.sfs are in /mnt/q_ro/ . Normal shutdown.
3rd start: no X, blackscreen, hangs
4th start: fsck... blackscreen with 2 thick dark brown vertical stripes in the middle of the screen, hangs
On the 5th and next startups I did it like I always succeed with easy on this machine: I use qfix=nox and do "xwin" on the prompt. So it needs a stop at the prompt before going to X.

I then tried Quirky 0.8 Pyro. It starts up fine and seems stable. The same with Quirky Xerus 8.5.
I was a bit surprised because I thaught I had the same problems with quirky as with easy. But I did not find any trace of a previous installation of any quirky. I only found previous installs of easy. So I decided to try April. It is fine also. I am posting from it now.

[foxpup]

I 've installed both Easy 0.8 and Quirky Xerus 8.5 on a new laptop.

I 've reported failure on reconnecting to wifi on startup on both easy and quirky before. This was a "show stopper".
I now can report back that on the latest easy and quirky everything works very well now with both SNS and frisbee: Connection on startup is fast and automatic.
Thanks to rerwin who provided fixes.

[lp-dolittle]

Hi Barry,

in view of the current blog posts, I ran a quirky-pyro64-08 live-CD on the Dell Latitude E6500 Laptop on which Quirky Xerus64 8.3final keyboard-settings were reset after each restart of X, and I just faced exactly the same problems with both quirkies. Now, while I'm writing this post, the screen is flickering permanently.
As it seems, the (intel) graphics controller might cause the problem. See the hardware-specs in the attachment.

hope this feedback may be of some help

kind regards

[Cu Chulinux]

Well, I tested Quirky 8.5 running from USB. I have discovered I seem to have no issues as long as I don't change the DMI setting. I usually set that higher (yeah my eyesight ain't so good now). As soon as I changed it in Quirky it froze on restarting X. I rebooted to console and removed the DMI set line from .Xresources and now it is running ok so far. Again this points to graphics driver issues, although with Xenialpup I have DMI set at 132. I have come across some i915 kernel settings related to the GPU reset issues, more research is indicated.

I will have to test this in the HD install as well, and try it in Easy once I reinstall that. I managed to munge my Easy HD install AND my Easy USB. I think I somehow mixed up 0.8 and 0.6.8 files. I imagine they don't work well together.

[BarryK]

Thanks for the test guys. There was a little delay before I have got back to this, as I was playing with Aboriginal Linux:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=112885

Looking for common factors in your feedback, there seem to be two issues.

1. Intel graphics driver

Running one of the Pyro64 builds, there is "EasyOS Pyro64 0.8" and "Quirky Pyro64 0.8" (latter provided as an iso file, above), look at this file:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel-uxa.confDISABLED

...rename it without that "DISABLED" and restart X.

2. EasyOS layered filesystem

The way in which the aufs layered filesystem is setup seems to be a factor.

Anyway, would you mind trying the first fix?
Of course, on whichever Pyro is the one hanging or causing screen flickering/weirdness.

EDIT:
Might be best to take off that "DISABLE" before booting the usb-stick, or if rename it when running, do a complete reboot.

A bit of explanation. The Intel Xorg driver now defaults to 'sna' acceleration, however, it is still not perfect. The older method is 'uxa' and is still supported by the driver.
Unfortunately, the Intel driver has to be explicitly told to use whichever accel method is not set as it's default.

For 'sna', if it works (no hanging), but just get tearing, there is, supposedly, a fix, see this reference:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/intel_graphics

[lp-dolittle]

Hi Barry,

thank you very much, your advice proved to be helpful, at least, as for my Dell Latitude E6500 laptop.

Renaming 20-intel-uxa.confDISABLED to 20-intel-uxa.conf made the keyboard-layout settings survive 'restart of X' as well as 'reboot'. However, a minor issue remains: During each restart of X or reboot, the Xorg-wizard spontaneously appears, yet choosing the 'cancel'-option results in correct desktop settings.
The screen no longer flickers

kind regards

[BarryK]

Hi Barry,

thank you very much, your advice proved to be helpful, at least, as for my Dell Latitude E6500 laptop.

Renaming 20-intel-uxa.confDISABLED to 20-intel-uxa.conf made the keyboard-layout settings survive 'restart of X' as well as 'reboot'. However, a minor issue remains: During each restart of X or reboot, the Xorg-wizard spontaneously appears, yet choosing the 'cancel'-option results in correct desktop settings.
The screen no longer flickers

kind regards

That's good news. Now, if the other guys who get tearing/flickering/hanging can confirm this fixes it (or one of the other fixes mentioned in that arch linux web page), then things will be looking good.

I will see if I can put in some code to enable easy choice of these fixes.

Re xorgwizard running at every bootup, that is odd. I cannot see anywhere in the scripts that would allow that to occur.

At bootup, the sequence of execution of scripts is:

/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
/etc/profile
/root/.profile
/usr/bin/xwin

'xwin' will normally start X, and, for the record, the next script that executes will be /root/.xinitrc

However, 'xwin' checks for existence of /root/.XLOADED, if it contains "true" that means that X did not shut down properly, and then there is a dropout to the commandline, with a message that can type "xorgwizard" if you want to.

Further down 'xwin', you will see code that writes "false" to /root/.XLOADED, signalling successfull/normal exit from X.

I X did not exit normally, such as you held down the power-button, then /root/.XLOADED would still have "true" in it, so 'xwin' will drop out to the commandline.

Nowhere does the xorgwizard get launched automatically at bootup.

Ah, but if you did previously run xorgwizard, in /usr/sbin/xorgwizard-cli, there is one situation that does cause xorgwizard to automatically run at a reboot...

...ok, got it. If xorgwizard-cli requires a reboot to complete it's operation, it creates /var/local/quicksetup-test-success.

At the next bootup, /root/.profile sees this file, and runs xorgwizard-cli.

So, what is going wrong, is that file is not getting removed after xorgwizard-cli has run for the second time.

OK, have made some changes in xorgwizard-cli, might have fixed it.

[BarryK]

The last official release of xf86-video-intel was in 2014.

Linux From Scratch has got it out of git repo, dated 20180223:

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/vi ... tel-driver

They say this driver is needed for recent hardware.

It is older hardware that has been our problem, for which the 'sna' video acceleration hasn't worked properly. But maybe this new driver has improved that situation also. Fingers crossed.

I have compiled this driver, it will be in the next release.

[BarryK]

I have enhanced the Xorg Video Wizard, so it now offers a choice between 'sna' and 'uxa' acceleration for the intel xorg driver.

This is looking good. If a person experiences issues with the video, tearing/articacts/hanging, they can drop out to the commandline and run 'xorgwizard', or do a reboot 'Shutdown -> Reboot to commandline' and run 'xorgwizard'.

Or, at bootup, hit the F2 key for submenu and select to bootup to commandline only.

Whatever, many ways to get to the commandline.

Then run 'xorgwizard' and there will be an offer to switch between 'sna' and 'uxa', with explanation why.

Incidentally, I think the reason that you guys have no problems with other pups is because they, most likely, are defaulting to 'uxa'.
In fact, older pups wouldn't even have the 'sna' option.

[Cu Chulinux]

Hi Barry,

Good news is I am writing this now from Easy 0.8 on my laptop. I renamed the 20-intel-uxa.confDISABLED and rebooted.

Bad news is I have blank lines in my menu now. As you can see in attached image the menu only shows the icons, no text. The text shows up if I highlight the line but then disappears again if I move cursor off the line. This happens both by right-clickling desktop and clicking menu button. I will try the fixes from ArchLinux later to see what happens.

I never had issues with the Quirky Pyro version.

I will wait until next version is released and test with the latest Intel driver. The laptop is fairly new, post-2014.

[Cu Chulinux]

Just had a thought, the menu issue could be a theming issue. I remember coming across a theme that rendered differently in Quirky and Xenialpup. One had dark window borders and one had light. Maybe the switch to uxa is causing this theme to render light text on light background for menu. I'll tray a different theme and see what happens. At work now so that will be in about 8-10 hours.

[BarryK]

Cu Chulinux,
Yeah, 2014 is very recent. So maybe the upgraded xf86-video-intel driver will fix it.

Though, there is still the perplexing situation that you are ok running Quirky Pyro64.

Anyway, here is the latest, EasyOS Pyro64 0.8.1:

http://bkhome.org/news/201803/easyos-py ... eased.html

Let me know how that goes!

Thanks for taking the time to test.

[Cu Chulinux]

I tried a few themes and no change. Still no text in menu (or menu text set to same colour as background).

I decided to try going back to sna accelleration and try some of the fixes from ArchLinux (which was my distro of choice until systemd). I used

Option "TearFree" "True"

restarted X and everything seems fine. I have text in the menu and I haven't experienced any freezes/lockups yet.

[Billtoo]

I installed to a 32gb usb-3.0 flash drive with easydd:

System: Host: EASYPC14557 Kernel: 4.14.23 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: JWM 2.4.0 Distro: Quirky 0.8.1 pyro64
Machine: Device: desktop System: Hewlett-Packard product: 200-009 serial: 3CR51504YY
Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 2B38 v: 1.02 serial: 138922010004188
UEFI [Legacy]: AMI v: 80.03 date: 12/15/2014
CPU: Dual core Intel Celeron 2957U (-MCP-) speed/max: 909/1400 MHz
Graphics: Card: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller
Display Server: X.Org 1.19.1 driver: intel Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Haswell Mobile version: 4.5 Mesa 17.0.2
Network: Card-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: r8169
Card-2: Broadcom Limited BCM43142 802.11b/g/n
Drives: HDD Total Size: 64.0GB (1.6% used)
Weather: Conditions: 28 F (-2 C) - light snow Time: March 14, 12:29 AM EDT
Info: Processes: 104 Uptime: 12 min Memory: 155.4/1854.6MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.56

This hp mini had problems with 0.8.0 but haven't had anything strange
yet with 0.8.1 after installing the devx and kernel source sfs files
and doing several reboots.
I changed the color under the icons to white because I find it easier to see.

Will test some more and report if any problems show up.

Thanks.

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

EDIT: I've had one lockup but it was caused by having 2 xine sessions
on the go at the same time (I think) .
I compiled lxterminal-0.3.1.tar.xz and vte-0.28.2.tar.xz from blfs,
also slang-2.3.2.tar.bz2 and mc-4.8.20.tar.bz2.
Added Palemoon web browser.

Been running for with:

So, if you want to try dri3, insert this in the 20-intel-sna.conf file:

Code:
Option "DRI" "3"

Plays mp4 files full screen well.

Thanks

[BarryK]

Cu Chulinux, Billtoo,
That's good news.

Another parameter to play with is 'dri'.

That Arch page:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/in ... RI3_issues

states that dri3 is the default. Not so in Pyro64, dri2 is the default.

So, if you want to try dri3, insert this in the 20-intel-sna.conf file:

Code: Select all

Option "DRI" "3"

[Billtoo]

I like the hp mini install of 0.8.1 so did a new install to a 32gb
usb-3.0 flash drive with easydd:

System: Host: EASYPC22879 Kernel: 4.14.23 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: JWM 2.4.0 Distro: Quirky 0.8.1 pyro64
Machine: Device: desktop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HPE-410f serial: MXX0370KF3
Mobo: FOXCONN model: 2AB1 v: 1.00 serial: N/A BIOS: American Megatrends v: 6.02 date: 07/21/2010
CPU: 6 core AMD Phenom II X6 1045T (-MCP-) speed/max: 799/2700 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Redwood PRO [Radeon HD 5550/5570/5630/6510/6610/7570]
Display Server: X.Org 1.19.1 driver: radeon Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz, 1920x1080@60.00hz
OpenGL: renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD REDWOOD (DRM 2.50.0 / 4.14.23, LLVM 3.9.1)
version: 2.1 Mesa 17.0.2
Network: Card-1: Ralink RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe driver: rt2800pci
Card-2: Realtek RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller driver: r8169
Drives: HDD Total Size: 1063.2GB (0.2% used)
Weather: Conditions: 34 F (1 C) - Overcast Time: March 14, 7:30 PM EDT
Info: Processes: 138 Uptime: 1:22 Memory: 232.9/7986.8MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.56

Added the devx and kernel source sfs files and compiled
gkrellm-2.3.10.tar.bz2,vte-0.28.2.tar.xz,lxterminal-0.3.1.tar.xz,slang-2.3.2.tar.bz2,mc-4.8.20.tar.xz.

Downloaded pminstaller-0.2.4.tar.bz2 and installed Pale Moon 27.8.1
(64-bit) web browser. ( runs as user spot )

No problems so far,
Thanks.

[BarryK]

I fixed a bug with changing video resolution in QuickSetup.

Xorg automatically chooses 1280x1024 for my TV (that I use as the monitor for my midi-tower PC). It isn't quite right, a bit stretched horizontally.

So, QuickSetup there is a drop-down list of alternative resolutions, and I choose the right one for my TV, 1920x1080.

Fine, but later on it goes back to 1280x1024. Even though I had selected "Permanent" (button to keep that new setting).

What happens when "Permanent" is chosen, is that the new resolution gets written to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

What is wrong with that is that the new resolution should also be written to the backup file xorg.conf.<hardware profile>

If the usb drive is booted on a different computer, a different xorg.conf is used. If the usb drive is later booted on the original computer, xorg.conf is restored from xorg.conf.<hardware profile>

You can see the code that does this in /usr/bin/xwin

Edited /usr/sbin/quicksetup, fixed it, so the resolution you choose on a particular pc will stick.

[BarryK]

Downloaded pminstaller-0.2.4.tar.bz2 and installed Pale Moon 27.8.1
(64-bit) web browser. ( runs as user spot )

I am probably going to phase-out 'spot', as there are now containers.

Well, containers do need some more work, that I intend to get onto soon.

There have been some improvements, unannounced. It was musher0 I think, who reported some instability with seamonkey, after stopping then restarting SM -- or something, don't recall.

I am using the container-SM right now, it is running well. If I wanted to, I could change the run-action in the desktop "www" icon to run the container-SM, by prepending "ec-chroot", like this:

ec-chroot seamonkey

If you go to the menu:

Filesystem --> Easy Container Management

you should be able to create a container for pale-moon

Leave the "security settings" as-is for now. That is an area that needs more work.

[scsijon]

Hi, downloading 0.8.1 and it's devx now as been a little busy, will load and test this weekend.


OT (and the real reason for the post) your caravan is similar to one made in Vic. The main differance is the top half folds down in two giving a slightly humped top when down, and the middle bit of the roof-top is an inbuilt solar panel as it's basically for off-grid travel (12v everywhere). Not a pop-top either, everything's solid when up or down. I'll ask them when they get back from Darwin (after ANZAC day) for a report and details and put it up somewhere.

OT2 I'm doing some hardware/screen/stylus tests for a graphic storyboard design course in the 2nd semester. Two 2-in-1's returned to makers this week due to level of fails, one in hand to test, one to pickup next week. Only one has passed all tests so far, but being a wacom I expected it to pass. Two others are provisionally passed but..... None are cheap (so far). Sorry, don't ask for results, confidentiality agreements to get them for testing, even they are only getting their individual results. However, a good way of also trying out new (to aus at least) stuff with puppy as they know they will be wiped clean before returning.