DevuanDog 'beowulf' build system

[johnrpm]

I have just tried the beowulf build system on a frugal install of beowulf, just wanted to say a big thank you to fredx181 for all his hard work, it is a pleasure to watch the script do its magic and produce the iso, normally far beyond my capabilities as a user, I selected the crystal option expecting to see a different desktop but it appears the same, must be my lack of understanding, I also noticed firefox esr download but no sign of it, again must be my lack of knowledge.
I am not a fan of systemd hence my interest in beowulf, but as time goes by will be harder to resist, I am thinking of biting the bullet and trying ghostbsd.

P.S. I use MX on a T430 and Mint on a T61p (soon to be changed), but I am distro hopping on this toshiba portage with intel graphics at present.

[fredx181]

Hi johnrpm, thanks for your interest.

I selected the crystal option expecting to see a different desktop but it appears the same

If you selected the fvwm-crystal option from the GUI choice of Desktop environment, there should be "zz_fvwm-crystal_config.squashfs" in the "live" folder. That contains the configuration for the fvwm-crystal desktop. If it's not there, something went wrong during the build.

Fred

[johnrpm]

Yes,I noticed that sfs and loaded it, but did not find anything regards the crystal stuff, maybe should log out, or re-startx, I confess that I have mainly been playng with the frugal install of beowulf (which is another thread) and will spend some more time on the iso build, my main reason for posting was to thank you for your work (along with those you mention) producing the excellent dogs, I used stretchdog as a daily driver for some time, very impressed with it, then went to q4os for some time, but something keeps pulling me back to puppy, the reason I wandered was the package availability in normal puppies, but with your dogs that is no longer an issue.

i am no doubt talking rubbish (not the first time) but would it be possible for the script to interrogate the system (inxi for example) and suggest an appropriate kernel, for the iso, not linux from scratch but a lot of issues seem to come from old hardware with new kernels, maybe something already exists, or it is not feasible, anyway only a suggestion.

[fredx181]

*** Updated mklive-beowulf ***

Download (and make executable) then run 'mklive-beowulf' script , e.g.

Code: Select all

./mklive-beowulf -gui

From partition (Linux filesystem formatted, e.g. ext3 or ext4) with at least 3GB free space.
This script can be used best from a 'Dog' based OS, e.g. DebianDog, StretchDog, Xenialdog, BionicDog, DevuanDog, see below for running from a Puppy OS (appimages, dependencies are included).

Web Page

Changes and fixes:
- Fixed, when checking for internet connection, that message appears "There no network connection" (and will exit) while there is actually a working connection.
This happened in some cases if 'ping' requests are blocked by a firewall or by a network admin, now using 'curl' rather than 'ping' so should be more reliable.
- Better error checking, e.g. if the base system install by debootstrap fails for some reason, the script will exit instead of continuing.
- Fixed that running this could interfere with the mklive-stretch build system.
(previously it could happen but now config files are overwritten in case of running both in same session)

Appimages for to build DevuanDog Beowulf. For use on most modern Puppies (dependencies included), make executable before running:
32-bit appimage: mklive-beowulf32
64-bit appimage: mklive-beowulf64

Run e.g. from partition (Linux filesystem formatted, e.g. ext3 or ext4) with at least 3GB free space:

Code: Select all

./mklive-beowulf32 -gui

And follow the instructions.

Discontinued "mklive-ceres", removed links to the appimages, it appears to be broken, the Devuan 'ceres' (unstable) development is behind in keeping up with the rapid changes from Debian Sid.

Fred

[westwest]

The ALSA equalizer from "libasound2-plugin-equal" does not show up in the menu, and i cannot figure out how to start it from command line. There is no problem with it in DevuanDog64 proper, only when using mklive-beowulf (and ceres)...

I've tried installing additional related packages and libraries, but the problem persists. Any help very much appreciated.

[fredx181]

Hi westwest, probably you did one of the 'minimal' builds?
Shows up in the menu only with a 'full' build, but here's a .deb package that contains the required files and Alsa equalizer should be in menu after install:
https://fred181.gitlab.io/devuandog/NoR ... -0_all.deb
Make sure that the packages lists are updated before installing, so first:

Code: Select all

apt-get update

Hope this helps.

EDIT: btw I discontinued working on mklive-ceres, it's a little broken now and I expect it will be even worse in the future (because of the rapid changes in 'unstable').

Fred

[westwest]

Thanks Fred, Alsa-equal installed fine with the DEB.

I have paid attention to your warning about CERES, and so am using BEOWULF for the time being. And i did make a "minimal" build, as i prefer the plain Openbox-LxPanel combination, which boots to ~100mb in RAM, and since I do not need or want Jwm, XLunch, or even Firefox for example.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i suppose Synaptic doesn't pull dependencies it presumes should be present in the base system? If so, i will try to figure out which packages are omitted in the "minimal" build and add them as required, since i'd rather build "from the ground up" (well, not quite...) than strip DevuanDog64 and then remaster.

Thanks again for your quick and helpful reply!

[fredx181]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i suppose Synaptic doesn't pull dependencies it presumes should be present in the base system? If so, i will try to figure out which packages are omitted in the "minimal" build and add them as required, since i'd rather build "from the ground up" (well, not quite...) than strip DevuanDog64 and then remaster.

I'm not completely sure if I understand what you mean, but I'l try to answer (if I misunderstood please explain a bit more with examples maybe)
Synaptic (in fact dpkg) "knows" almost all about what's inside DevuanDog (I'd say 99%), but there are some exceptions (one of them are the additional alsa-equal files) some 'Dog core' scripts and configs are by default included and not registered by dpkg or Synaptic.
The files from inside https://fred181.gitlab.io/devuandog/dog ... 503.tar.gz (for beowulf) are included in every possible build (minimal or full) and the additional squashfs files belonging to the DE choices are here (mostly for Desktop configuration, startup scripts etc..): https://debiandog.github.io/MakeLive/modules-beowulf/

The 64bit DevuanDog repo is here: https://fred181.gitlab.io/devuandog/amd64/Packages/
These packages can all be found and installed with Synaptic (or apt-get) and are fully registered when installed, with dependency checking.

Also you can have a look at the config files here: https://debiandog.github.io/MakeLive/configs-devuan/ and see what packages there are in different build configs.

Fred

[westwest]

So if i understand correctly, i've stumbled upon an exception that cannot be handled by dpkg using Devuan repos or DevuanDog repos in the "minimal" build? And that would be because some "Dog core" files are not registered by dpkg in the "minimal" build (hence perhaps minimal?), though they are in DevuanDog proper, and not because of missing dependencies?

I also am puzzled by the source of the DEB you've provided, which pointed to a missing file on a page in mandarin or cantonese.

But I do not want to waste your time with an issue that has been fixed, and apologize for the confusion.

[fredx181]

So if i understand correctly, i've stumbled upon an exception that cannot be handled by dpkg using Devuan repos or DevuanDog repos in the "minimal" build? And that would be because some "Dog core" files are not registered by dpkg in the "minimal" build (hence perhaps minimal?), though they are in DevuanDog proper, and not because of missing dependencies?

Yes, not perfect, but I'd say don't worry about this too much., to be honest I can't think of another exception other than the "alsa equal" scripts (which is an extra addition of mine, not provided by Devuan).
They are in DevuanDog proper because I added these extra custom stuff manually, but almost all custom 'Dog' scripts and programs are inside packages from DevuanDog repo.

I also am puzzled by the source of the DEB you've provided, which pointed to a missing file on a page in mandarin or cantonese.

Yes, I see, that's wrong, I took that Homepage URL (without checking it) from the official "libasound2-plugin-equal' package, so can't really blame me

Fred

[westwest]

Ok, thanks Fred, wonderful work as per usual.

[fredx181]

*** Updated mklive-beowulf ***

Download (and make executable) then run 'mklive-beowulf' script , e.g.

Code: Select all

./mklive-beowulf -gui

(for use on 'Dog' based systems, see below for appimages, for use from a Puppy OS)

Web Page

Changes and fixes:
- Major change is that there will be no extra .squashfs module included for Desktop configuration anymore in the 'live' folder (e.g. zz_openbox_lx-jwm_firefox.squashfs), it's merged now in the main 01-filesystem.squashfs. (when using one of the preset DE choices)

Appimages for to build DevuanDog Beowulf. For use on most modern Puppies (dependencies included), make executable before running:
32-bit appimage: mklive-beowulf32
64-bit appimage: mklive-beowulf64

Run e.g. from partition (Linux filesystem formatted, e.g. ext3 or ext4) with at least 3GB free space:

Code: Select all

./mklive-beowulf32 -gui

And follow the instructions.

Fred

[dancytron]

Does anyone have any suggestions or maybe a procedure documented somewhere on how to install the proprietary Nvidia drivers. The driver I need is the 340 legacy driver.

After I bit the bullet and stopped trying to make sfs files, it was pretty simple in Stretch, just

# apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed 's/[^-]*-[^-]*-//') nvidia-legacy-340xx-driver

-create xorg.conf by installing and running nvidia-xconfig.

and then cleanup and blacklisting nvidia audio so my regular sound would continue to work.

Maybe the second kernel sfs makes it so you need to so something different?

No hurry, Stretch is working fine for me, but I'd like to eventually move over to the next version.

For my reference: https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#configure

[rcrsn51]

You didn't identify the specific problem you had with DevuanDog, but I suspect that it is the following:

I first tried to build the Broadcom wl WiFi driver in DevuanDog. It compiled OK, but loading the module failed with "Exec format error".

I then tried to build the nVidia Xorg driver and got the same error. Again, the new driver failed to load.

There is lots of google info about this error, none of it helpful.

[dancytron]

I am narrowing it down.

I am pretty sure it has something to do with this:

Building for 4.19.0-5-amd64
Module build for kernel 4.19.0-5-amd64 was skipped since the
kernel headers for this kernel does not seem to be installed.

I'm not sure if it is not installing the kernel headers or if it is not seeing the right ones or what, but I'll make another try tomorrow and see if I can narrow it down.

[fredx181]

Hi Dan, since you have kernel 4.19.0-5-amd64 installed it should be this:

Code: Select all

apt install linux-headers-4.19.0-5-amd64 nvidia-legacy-340xx-driver

# apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r|sed 's/[^-]*-[^-]*-//') nvidia-legacy-340xx-driver

-create xorg.conf by installing and running nvidia-xconfig.

Above only works when booted with latest kernel (4.19.0-6 at this time)
(upgrade-kernel can be used to create new kernel .squashfs + initrd + vmlinuz1)

Fred

[rcrsn51]

On a DevuanDog install, I ran "upgrade-kernel". I dropped those new files into its "live" folder and rebooted. This got me k4.19.0-6.

I built both the Broadcom wl WiFi driver and the nvidia Xorg driver. Both loaded and worked correctly - no "exec format error".

I then upgraded a Stretch install to k4.19.0-6 using the DevuanDog files.

I installed the wl.ko wifi module and blacklist.conf file from DevuanDog into Stretch. The Broadcom WiFi worked!

I didn't try to pull the nvidia Xorg driver over from Devuan - that looked too complicated.

Thanks.

Bill

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

[fredx181]

*** Updated mklive-beowulf ***

Download (and make executable) then run 'mklive-beowulf' script , e.g.

Code: Select all

./mklive-beowulf -gui

(for use on 'Dog' based systems, see below for appimages, for use from a Puppy OS)

Web Page

Changes and fixes:
- Changed the GUI for editing packages to be installed (with tabs using yad notebook), more convenient IMO because of better overview and more space in the different sections. (see pics below)
- Removed the 'Kiosk' option from Desktop Choices (outdated)
(for a new prepared Kiosk ISO version, here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=116976)

Appimages for to build DevuanDog Beowulf. For use on most modern Puppies (dependencies included), make executable before running:
32-bit appimage: mklive-beowulf32
64-bit appimage: mklive-beowulf64

Run e.g. from partition (Linux filesystem formatted, e.g. ext3 or ext4) with at least 3GB free space:

Code: Select all

./mklive-beowulf32 -gui

And follow the instructions.

Fred

[dancytron]

Built one with the new script.

Did Xfce version minus Firefox and Flashplayer choice this time. Seems to have built fine.

Just watched a few youtube videos on my portable firefox.

Will try to install my nvidia drivers later this week sometime.

[Diogenes08]

I just built an iso using this script, and it seems that flashplayerchoice does not work. When I launch it, it just stays at the "Please wait, checking for updates" screen. launching from the terminal provides no output, and I don't know offhand where to find more. I am looking into it so I can provide more information, but this is the first/only setback I have had with what is otherwise my favourite daily driver. Thanks for all of the great work, and please don't take this as a complaint. Ultimately it is really minor.
Here are the contents of /tmp/.flash_update/flash_url:

Spider mode enabled. Check if remote file exists.
--2019-10-18 20:19:48-- http://adobe.com/software/flash/about/
Resolving adobe.com (adobe.com)... 192.147.130.204, 193.104.215.58
Connecting to adobe.com (adobe.com)|192.147.130.204|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ [following]
Spider mode enabled. Check if remote file exists.
--2019-10-18 20:19:48-- https://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/
Resolving www.adobe.com (www.adobe.com)... 104.77.247.130, 26000:5a4::1efd, 26000:586::1efd
Connecting to www.adobe.com (www.adobe.com)|104.77.247.130|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response...