Quirky Pyro64 version 0.6 (alpha) -- and Pyro32 0.5

[don570]

The "Show location" option when right clicking an item in the pFind search results does not function

The 'defaultfilemanager' file is needed as well.

_____________________________________________


Gimp should be upgraded to version gimp-2.8.22

_______________________________________

[BarryK]

A 32-build of Quirky Pyro!

It is version 0.5, and has the same bugs as the Pyro64 0.5.

Announcement, release notes, download:

http://bkhome.org/news/201711/quirky-py ... eased.html

[Sage]

QP32 - 0.5. Perfect, thanks. Everything I need working after settings completed at first asking. Was getting very tedious trying to run incomplete projects that only work if you possess the same HW as the developer! The vast silent majority will be a lot happier tonight.

[Rodney Byne]

C'mon Barry, QP32 is 459Mb, that's an hour and a quarter for
me to download on adsl copper line from my local exchange.
Can't you go back to the days when you strived to
get under 100Mb, as in lean'n mean.
Please strip out all the unnecessary bloat and give us minnows
a well-earned break.
Thanks, regards.

[BarryK]

C'mon Barry, QP32 is 459Mb, that's an hour and a quarter for
me to download on adsl copper line from my local exchange.
Can't you go back to the days when you strived to
get under 100Mb, as in lean'n mean.
Please strip out all the unnecessary bloat and give us minnows
a well-earned break.
Thanks, regards.

These days, almost half of that 459MB is drivers and firmware. A lot of the drivers would be for newer hardware.

Yes, libreoffice could be replaced by abiword and gnumeric.

Could cut down the drivers and use lighter apps, remove some extra apps, but I doubt whether I could get it under 200MB though.

EDIT
Hey, hold on, where does that 459MB come from? The QP32 iso is 362MB, the .xz file is 293MB.

[BarryK]

running xcalc causes a drop out of x to a console window.

managed to get this when using a startup option in terminal:
Warning: Cannot convert string "calculator" to type Pixmap

Yes, I was able to confirm this bug! Fixed, see my blog post:

http://bkhome.org/news/201711/xcalc-crash-fixed.html

[musher0]

Hi Barry.

A word of thanks for the Pyro 32-bit version from us simple villains!
Downloading iso & devx now.

TWYL.

[Sage]

almost half of that 459MB is drivers and firmware. A lot of the drivers would be for newer hardware.

Indeed. Rodney makes an important point. For all the old fully working 32bit 'junk' that the majority of W+D prefers/forced to use, all that stuff for 'newer hardware' plastic tat, go-faster stripes & co. is unnecessary. The rich spoilt brats will bleat , of course, but the less well-endowed might well wish to advise them where to stick their flashing lights. 200Mb might well be acceptable?
There really isn't any market for those nasty revenue-generating flimsy laptops, with their limited ports & other HW shortcomings. Clued-up folks, notably the younger set, use their Android (hopefully not the posers favourite!) smart mobiles, knowing that they can wi-fi it to a static TV, an hi-fi sound system, w.h.y. when the occasion demands. For retirees, cash-strappped and other less mobile operators, there's nothing to beat the tin box under the desk, wired NIC, running in 32bit...

But thanks a bunch anyway for Pyro32 and for humouring the rest of us.
May we all remember the good engineer's mantra: K.I.S.S.

[BarryK]

The "Show location" option when right clicking an item in the pFind search results does not function

The 'defaultfilemanager' file is needed as well.

Ah, yes, woof-CE has added more of those default* thingies:

https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/w ... /local/bin

Well, I haven't added all of those, just added defaultfilemanager to those in woofQ.

With that file in /usr/local/bin, "Show Location" works. You have to highlight a file first, by clicking on it, then do a right-click.

[gcav]

Hi @Barry,

fsck was not working for f2fs on reboot or demand so..

fsck.f2fs was missing from Easy's /bin. and
modified sbin/fscheck as:

#GC f2fs
if [ "${DEV1FS}" == "f2fs" ]; then
echo "hey..a f2fs.. cool cleaning.."
fsck.f2fs -a -f /dev/${PDEV1}
else
e2fsck -p -f /dev/${PDEV1}
fi
#GC f2fs

gcav

[BarryK]

scsijon,
I think you mentioned that you have a PC with 32-bit UEFI, and 64-bit CPU.

The Pyro64 0.5 8GB image file has rEFInd, with both 32-bit and 64-bit bootloaders in it.

Would you mind writing that image to a 8GB stick and test if it boots on a 32-bit UEFI -- proper UEFI boot, not legacy-mode.

Sorry,

Tried, but it failed after the menu autostarted with:-

Quirky Linux - Booting OS

Starting vmlinuz
Using load options 'root-PARTUUID=fc67e7dd-02 rootwait rw'
Invalid loader file!
Error: Not Found while loading vmlinuz

"hit any key to continue"

and that was all it said,

And with a check the partuuid is correct so that is not the problem.
Tried adding qfix=nox etc and a few of your other tricks from the past, but of course as it can't find a usefull loader it just bombs.

Let me know if you have any ideas to try, i'll monitor this thread.

EDIT1: woke up with a thought to try, so tried copying the 32bit BOOTIA eufi file from sdb1 to sdb2/boot but no change, it's definately going to sdb2/boot though as it's picking that menu and not sdb1's. Also tried putting the partuuid in the sdb2/boot/ config file but that also did nothing. back to bed, mowing tomorrow the grass is too long.

I somehow thought that with the correct 32-bit rEFInd bootloader, it will handle a 64-bit Linux kernel. But, it seems not.

Maybe will have to create a pyro32, with 32-bit kernel. The 4.13.11 Linux kernel in Pyro32 0.5 is not suitable, as I configured it without EFI capability.

EDIT
Quoting from here:
https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/26734.html

Things get irritatingly more complicated due to a quirk of UEFI. UEFI is based on executing code in native mode. That means that 32-bit UEFI systems can't execute 64-bit code in firmware, even if the CPU is capable of it. A 64-bit OS can only boot on 32-bit UEFI if it has very ugly compatibility hacks, including having to rewrite structures and register state every time it makes a UEFI call. The only OS I'm aware of that implements this is MacOS X. Having looked into what it'd take to implement it in Linux, I decided that hammering rusty nails through my feet would be a preferable use of time. Thankfully, I went drinking instead.

OK, tonight I will recompile the 32-bit Linux kernel with EFI enabled.
Then build another Pyro32.

EDIT2
There was something nagging at my memory about this. Found what that was:

https://lwn.net/Articles/589193/

https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/EFI_MIXED.html

I have to recompile the 64-bit kernel with CONFIG_EFI_MIXED enabled, then Pyro64 should boot on a 32-bit UEFI.

Right, will do.

[jamesbond]

There was something nagging at my memory about this. Found what that was:

https://lwn.net/Articles/589193/

https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/EFI_MIXED.html

I have to recompile the 64-bit kernel with CONFIG_EFI_MIXED enabled, then Pyro64 should boot on a 32-bit UEFI.

Right, will do.

For whatever it is worth. I did this about 6 months ago. I got one of those "mini pc" from Aldi, which has some "Trail" CPU (can't remember whether it is of the Bay-variety, or the Clover one, or whatever). It came with 2G RAM and 32GB SSD, which of course means 32-bit Windows and 32-bit EFI. I went through the same hoops to get Fatdog64 to run on it; and EFI_MIXED worked great. I had to disable secure boot though, because there is no 32-bit shim.

I didn't hold to that minipc for too long however, because the kernel I was using at that time didn't support sound; and the BIOS isn't exactly supportive of having anything else as default other than Windows. Plus, I figured out, with a couple of dollars more, gumtree offers me a **real** machine with 8GB RAM or more, and 250GB or more of disk, with i5 CPU instead of Atom has-beens. And that approach will win me Sage's approval too --- so that minipc quickly found its way back to Aldi.

[gcav]

Hi @Barry,

fsck was not working for f2fs on reboot or demand so..

fsck.f2fs was missing from Easy's /bin. and
modified sbin/fscheck as:

#GC f2fs
if [ "${DEV1FS}" == "f2fs" ]; then
echo "hey..a f2fs.. cool cleaning.."
fsck.f2fs -a -f /dev/${PDEV1}
else
e2fsck -p -f /dev/${PDEV1}
fi
#GC f2fs

gcav

Ooops... Needs a static compiled fsck.f2fs and remove the -F to avoid a long volume fsck.

[Sage]

...BIOS isn't exactly supportive of having anything else as default ... will win me Sage's approval

Be careful invoking YT here, jb, I'm an outsider with no IT quals in my cupboard. Maybe pity me instead as the slightly bemused recipient of a gifted Zotac Zbox with same unfortunate characteristics as your Aldi monstrosity*.

*PS. The only way to deal with those things is to strip them, remove the HD/SSD, reformat & reload a proper OS using your ever-faithful doorstop. [All the series inter-converters are, fortunately, available from our Asian friends on the Web.]

[BarryK]

dd'd to a usb stick running on a lenovo thinkpad x230 (4xi5, 8Gb ram)

first thoughts on the theme wasn't good but it grew on quickly, like it!

sadly running was 'sluggish', selecting a program took a couple of seconds to load, seemed ok when loaded, every selection took too long

will try from a cd in case my usb is the cause

Yes, running a full installation of Linux from a USB stick, the performance is very much affected by the speed of the drive.

Some cheap USB pen drives are awful. Brands that I have bought locally that fall into that "awful" category are Emtec and Verbatim.

If you buy a cheap USB3 stick, even running it in a USB2 socket, you will get much better performance.

The speed difference can be startling, especially write speed. A good drive may be ten times that of a bottom-of-the-rung drive.

Here is a test I did, comparing cheap Emtec and Lexar USB2 drives from BigW:

http://bkhome.org/news/201707/emtec-vs- ... ticks.html

And a cheap USB3 drive:

http://bkhome.org/news/201707/innostor- ... ticks.html

...though, I don't recommend those Innostor Hub 8GB drives from Woolworths anymore. I bought two of them, and something has gone wrong with both of them, can't boot from them.

I also have a Innostor Hub 16GB drive from Woolworths, and that continues to work. However, only ever saw one for sale, which I bought, none after that.

I was in Woolies a few days ago, they don't have any of those Innostor Hub drives anymore.

[BarryK]

2. The nouveau driver lacked hardware acceleration as did Easy Linux 0.5 pre-alpha, released Oct. 02, 2017 and requires
the items detailed in this post: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 820#969820

I have just been reading this:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ha ... celeration

...can't say that I am any less confused

[gcav]

Hi Barry...

While playing with your oe-quirky...
Seems like Peter released a new Bacon version, and this needs updating...

recipetool create -o bacon_3.6.bb http://www.basic-converter.org/stable/bacon-3.6.tar.gz

This seems to break the whole compile.

I am new to bitbake so I'm learning who this whole thing works..
Just thought to let you know...

Thanks,
gcav

[BarryK]

Hi Barry,
Thanks for this latest release. I am testing it, and will probably migrate to if from slaq64...

I miss Quirky's F2FS boot and the speediness of it. This is by far
the fastest distro I have tested. TBH ext4 does not work nicely on a flash drive. Will F2FS be avaliable on -esp- syslinux boot?

Note that Quirky/Easy is using ext4 without-journal, to minimize writes to the flash.

[BarryK]

BarryK

This is what I get:

Code: Select all

2.9G personal storage, free space 2.8G

The actual partition has about 73G free. This is with the frugal install (full install wouldn't boot up). The devx pet expands to just over 2gb.

With Quirky, the live-CD and frugal install run totally in RAM, in a "zram".

So, it doesn't matter how much hard drive space you have, you need to have enough free space in the RAM to install the devx pet.

Installation requires more space than the final installed space of the pet. The install script estimates how much space will be required based on the size of the pet, and this errs a bit over what will actually be needed.

If you have a PC with 4GB RAM you would be ok. Otherwise, you will have to do a full install.

There is a report about the installer full-install being broken. I plan to test that tonight.

[BarryK]

You need only set TCLIBC = "musl" to enable building musl instead of glibc.

IIRC, Barry did an open embedded build with musl libc, but I cannot seem to find those results. Were they just discarded?

Must have been discarded.