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indexSuccess compile 5.15.180 kernel with aufs patch
I posted before that the aufs patch doesn't work with the latest 5.15.x kernel:
- EasyOS Kirkstone-series maintenance release 5.9 — April 18, 2025
However, thanks to forum members peebee and jamesbond, there is a fix:
https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/commit/44d447aa6d0f01efc57efa4e391e705430086986
So, have now compiled 5.15.180 and that will be in the next
release of Easy Kirkstone.
Tags: easy
Swing-arms for Meanderer trike
Continuing the build-from-scratch recumbent full-suspension leaning tadpole trike project, codenamed the "Meanderer", here are the previous two blog posts:
- Useful aids for drilling and tapping — April 14, 2025
- Meanderer front suspension plates assembled — April 07, 2025
Those front suspension plates will have swing-arms attached, and shock-absorbers and wheels. There are many different ways that the swing-arms can be constructed; my previous trike project is welded steel:
Or, you could just bend a steel or aluminium bar; actually, that would be the easiest and simplest method, but I was reluctant to bend aluminium. It depends on the formulation of the aluminium; some types are strong but brittle, some are malleable. For the brittle type of aluminium, a flame is required to heat the aluminium bar before bending.
Anyway, I decided to contruct the swing-arms out of solid aluminium, no bending, pieces bolted together. It is taking me a long time to construct and the arms are quite heavy. Firstly, showing the end result:
I bought a couple of 200x300mm 6mm thick aluminium sheets off eBay, and the square rod is 12x12mm and 20x20mm from Bunnings here in Australia. The bolts are m6. Here are the plans, firstly the top swing-arm:
One change though; the large holes at the pivot-points are shown as 14mm -- I changed my mind and drilled only 10mm -- will explain that later. Here is the SolveSpace file, gzip-compressed:
Here is the drawing for the bottom swing-arm:
...same thing, the 14mm diameter holes were only drilled to 10mm. Here is the SolveSpace file, gzip-compressed:
You will see in the final-result photo, lots of holes drilled in the 6mm sheet; that is to reduce weight. In the bottom swing-arm, have left an area without holes, as two pieces of angle will need to be bolted on for the shock-absorber. The exact placement of that angle depends on the length of the shock-absorbers, which is not yet finalized.
The way I constructed was to mark out all four swing-arm plates on the 200x300 sheet and centre-punch for the holes:
Used a 4mm drill bit, for pilot holes, followed by 10mm for the weight-reducing effort:
After the pieces are cutout, threads have to be tapped into the square rod, and clamps were required:
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...drilled with an battery-electric hand drill, 4mm pilot holes. For the square rod, drilled-out to 5mm, then tapped for m6 thread, pitch 1.0mm. 1.0 is the standard pitch for m6.
In retrospect, what do I think about this method of constructing
the swing-arms?
Heavy, and taking awhile, but OK I suppose. There is an advantage, as if decided to change the design of those side-bars, such as make different length or different hinge design, can just unbolt and replace. But then, constructing by bending an iron bar is simple and quick, if want to make a change.
Anyway, have gone down this path, and the swing-arms will do the job.
Probably next-up will be to get back onto building the suspension
plates, attached to the 50x50mm square tube backbone of the trike.
Then the hinges can be made to attach the swing-arms.
Tags: light
Kernel 6.6.87 compiled in Easy Daedalus
This morning, posted about compiling kernel version 6.12.23:
- Kernel 6.12.23 in Easy Daedalus without AVS — April 20, 2025
But, frustrating; see this thread:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=14311
One frustration with the 6.12.x kernel, is some traditional Intel audio drivers have been removed, replaced by AVS. It seems, disabling AVS does not bring back those traditional drivers.
I commented in that forum thread, that the aufs developer will stop supporting the 6.6 kernel soon. My previous experiments with overlayfs have been bad news, but I'm going to give it another go; I think, see something that might have caused the problem.
So, have compiled 6.6.87 with overlayfs enabled. There was some discussion on the forum awhile back, about what configure options to enable. I asked Google, and "Generative AI" gave this answer:
For optimal performance and functionality with Overlay
Filesystems, especially in container environments, the following
kernel configuration options are generally recommended:
1. CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS: This is the core option to enable
OverlayFS support in the kernel.
2. CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR: Enabling this option
(CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR=y) makes OverlayFS behave more
like a standards-compliant filesystem. It ensures that directory
renaming operations on lower or merged directories do not result
in an "Invalid cross-device link" error.
3. CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_INDEX: This option
(CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_INDEX=y) is also recommended for standards
compliance. It prevents hard link "breaking" when a file with
multiple hard links is copied up into the upper layer.
4. CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_XINO_AUTO: Enabling this
(CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_XINO_AUTO=y) is highly recommended as it
helps maintain consistent behavior for stat and readdir
operations across different layers and filesystems.
5. CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_METACOPY: Enabling this
(CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_METACOPY=y) can significantly improve
performance for operations like recursive chmod and other file
attribute changes.
In Summary:
To enable OverlayFS, enable the core CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS, and
for better compatibility and performance, enable
CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR, CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_INDEX,
CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_XINO_AUTO, and CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_METACOPY.
Which means, I configured the kernel like this:
<*> Overlay filesystem support
-*- Overlayfs: turn on redirect directory feature by default CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_REDIRECT_DIR
[ ] Overlayfs: follow redirects even if redirects are turned off
[*] Overlayfs: turn on inodes index feature by default CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_INDEX
[*] Overlayfs: auto enable inode number mapping CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_XINO_AUTO
[*] Overlayfs: turn on metadata only copy up feature by default CONFIG_OVERLAY_FS_METACOPY
[ ] Overlayfs: turn on extra debugging checks (NEW)
There is a github project that has lots of example kernel configs:
https://github.com/nyrahul/linux-kernel-configs
...looking through some of them, it looks like only Arch Linux has the same overlayfs config choices. The others only have "follow redirects even if redirects are turned off" enabled and all the others disabled. Hmmm.
Looks like the next Easy Daedalus will stay with the 6.6 kernel.
Next up, plan to experiment again with
overlayfs.
Tags: easy
Kernel 6.12.23 in Easy Daedalus without AVS
Right now compiling the 6.12.23 kernel in Easy Daedalus, with
Intel AVS audio support disabled. Because it doesn't work, as reported
in earlier blog posts.
Device Drivers -> Sound card support -> Advanced Linux Sound Arhitecture ->
ALSA for SoC audio support
< > Intel AVS driver
This will be in the next release of Easy Daedalus.
Tags: easy
truncate utility broken in Easy Daedalus
This was reported by forum member Thanos:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=14260
This "broken" utility is in the 'pup-tools' PET package; however, it
isn't broken, just needs some commandline parameters. But there is no
help, so pretty useless.
This utility is in Easy Scarthgap, but renamed to
/usr/bin/truncate-pup, so as not to conflict with the busybox 'truncate'
applet.
Have now done the same thing in Easy Daedalus. The busybox 'truncate' is all we need.
Tags: easy
EasyOS Scarthgap-series version 6.6.7
I was going to assign it number 6.6.6; however, that doesn't seem appropriate over Easter!
Version 6.6.7 brings the infrastructure up to date with the
Daedalus-series version 6.6.5; see Daedalus release notes for
details.
The builtin browser has been changed to Firefox, version 137.0.2.
Note, although the Scarthgap-series continues to be supported, new users are recommended to download the latest Daedalus-series. The reason is that many users want the bigger Devuan/Debian package repository.
The previous release of Scarthgap-series is 6.6.3:
- EasyOS Scarthgap-series version 6.6.3 released — February 19, 2025
Download 6.6.7:
https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2025/6.6.7/
Feedback welcome at the forum:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=147203#p147203
Tags: easy
Firefox builtin starts with English menu
EasyOS Kirkstone-series, version 5.9 announced yesterday, has Firefox browser builtin. Firefox was built in woofQ by specifying the 'firefox-skeleton' PET package and downloading the official en-US Firefox and langpacks via the '1download-latest-firefox' script; see these commits:
"1download-latest-firefox has all langpacks"
https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/2dc8c9949b896c59a174c0d4ac74a6788c26f072
"3buildeasydistro: build from firefox-skeleton pet"
https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/224c82b96cf0196798b2022ffd960be6fecd1043
"firefox-skeleton pet fixes"
https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/1c4c11a6def00751ee59aeb8f0fe7ad72c835325
The problem was, at first bootup, if I choose a non-English language, say "it" (Italiano), Firefox still started in English, and it was required to go into the Setup and choose the Italian language pack.
I could not find the solution for this. The official Mozilla documentation is that Firefox will read the $LANG variable and set the default language accordingly. If not, there was various advice, such as clear cache, but nothing worked. So, I implemented a workaround, see this code added to /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit:
"rc.sysinit: firefox start with correct langpack"
https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/dd2d03079ca261cf0c4e0129c5be8d1cb39ce9ea
Kirkstone-series 5.9 has this fix.
Tags: easy
EasyOS Kirkstone-series maintenance release 5.9
The previous release was 5.8.5:
- EasyOS Kirkstone-series maintenance release 5.8.5 — December 01, 2024
Version 5.9 is another maintenance release, sync'ing with the
infrastructure of the latest Scarthgap and Daedalus-series
releases. Not recommended for new users of EasyOS, but if have
Kirkstone-series installed, can update.
Note, there was one user report that Kirkstone-series video works
on his hardware, not the later series, in which case a reason to
stay with Kirkstone.
The kernel bumped to 5.15.169. Currently not possible to use a
later 5.15.x kernel, as the aufs patch doesn't work. At time of
writing latest 5.15.x is 5.15.175.
Firefox bumped to 137.0.2. Note that the menu has "Update to
latest Firefox" entry, so you can upate to the latest whenever you
wish.
Download:
https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/kirkstone/2025/5.9/
Recent github commits:
https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commits/db959157a719cca063be06790f5988cd3b80eac6/
New users are recommended to download the Daedalus-series,
currently at version 6.6.5.
Forum feedback welcome here:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=147176#p147176
Tags: easy
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