Fix for FoxtrotGPS

Forum member LHESTIA reported a problem with FoxtrotGPS in Daedalus running in a container:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=136397#p136397

PKGget reported one dependency, 'libgps'; however, package 'gpsd' is also required. The latter is a daemon, /usr/bin/gpsd, and is started by "/etc/init.d/gpsd start" -- except that it failed to start as wants file /lib/init/vars.sh -- which is in the 'sysvinit-utils' package.

Daedalus has a cutdown 'sysvinit-utils', so I installed the full package, then gpsd started, and FoxtrotGPS was able to access it. There is no GPS device connected to my computer, so gpsd returns "0" coordinates. But, it looks like a goer.

A problem with the Daedalus container, when it starts, none of the daemons in /etc/init.d are started. You will have to run "/etc/init.d/gpsd start". I'm wondering if daemons installed in the container, can be started when the container starts -- will have to think about that.

Here is the FoxtrotGPS homepage:

https://www.foxtrotgps.org/     

Tags: easy

Quick flip out of container

I posted about getting started with this yesterday:

• Enhanced flip out of container — November 22, 2024

I have now implemented a button in the centre of the screen in the container. The button has a small help button alongside. Snapshot showing the button and help window:

After taking that snapshot, I lightened the background colour a bit, and added text that when flip back into the container, the clipboard is copied in.

Perhaps that button can be made more pretty; right now it can be described as "utilitarian". Does the job, you definitely know you are in a container. Click on it and half a second later you are back on the main desktop.

Here are the relevant github commits:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/d927d45ebf4d73a399907b0a670bcb135195b1fb

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/13e7179786c8824f3b6cbf65e33a19807b51af56

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/8e06e233dd1ac12bf0e9fa5eb539e824f13384fc

Note: looking around on the forum, I see that the FatDog guys have implemented a mechanism for running FatDog in a container, with clipboard transfer, here. They did that back in 2021.   

Tags: easy

Enhanced flip out of container

I posted recently about running Easy Daedalus in a container:

• Run Easy Daedalus in a container in Scarthgap — November 19, 2024

Alfons has tested it and reported success with apps installed in the Daedalus container.

He has made a request, that the clipboard contents be transferred between the main desktop and the container desktop. Yes, it is doable, but first I have to setup some infrastructure.

Currently, have to hit the key combination ALT+F6 to flip out of the container. First, thing, I want to have a button on the desktop to do that, as an alternative to typing that key combination. But before thinking about the button, need to think how the switch will be accomplished...

I want to create ALT+F6 programmatically, and xdotool immediately comes to mind. There was a lot of messing around trying different things, but ended up with a very simple implementation.

Here is the modification to /usr/local/easy_containers/ec-chroot, at line 143:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/a27ec38e7ec618fdc0ff24915a7ed811479ac994

Here is the new /usr/local/easy_containers/flip-out-of-container:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/2d71e1b487f6c1cc8a21247b4b618431d512967c

Inside the container, just write anything to /.flip-out-flg and you immediately get flipped back onto the Scarthgap desktop.

Usage of xdotool is very simple, just this:

xdotool key Alt_L+F6

...that sends the key combination to the current window, and from the Scarthgap desktop point-of-view, that is the Xephyr window.

Getting onto midnight. Will relax for awhile and tomorrow think about a "flip" button in the container desktop, and after that code to copy clipboard.   

Tags: easy

Motorola Moto G75 phone

Bought this today. Reason, want to make videos for YouTube, and my current phone (until today) can do 1080p at only 23.98 fps (frames per second) -- even though the documentation says it will do 30 fps. 1080p is OK, but want higher frame rate.

A couple of days ago, posted about first video upload to YouTube:

• PupMTP file transfer, first video — November 17, 2024

I bought my Huawei Y9 in January 2020, so almost five years old. It is still working and the battery is still good, though it has been recharged daily for five years. Don't like to waste a good phone, but now it will be a backup. So the hunt was on for a new phone...

Want a phone that will do 1080p at 60 fps, and with image stabilization. OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) looks good. There are flagship phones that have lots of features but very expensive. But, I only want to spend just enough to get 1080p @ 60 fps and OIS; the cheapest that I could locate, that is sold locally, is the "Motorola Moto G55 5G"; however, it only has 4GB RAM.

My Huawei phone has 4GB RAM and I don't have any problem with that, but these days even fairly cheap phones have 8GB RAM. So ruled out the G55, though the AU$299 price is very attractive. Going up in price, narrowed it down to these two:

1. Nothing Phone 2a 5G
2. Motorola Moto G75 5G
   

The Nothing Phone looks good, a lot for the price; however, two things ruled it out. Price, yes, only AU$426 (128GB storage) or AU$496 (256GB). The two things that ruled it out for me:

1. A couple of users reported bubbles forming on the edges of the display. Maybe this was just an early production problem.
2. Dimmed screen uses PWM 2160 Hz.
   

Point-2 is very interesting. Many OLED and LCD screens use PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) to dim the screen. What this does is turn the pixels on and off very rapidly, such that the overall effect for your eyes is that the screen looks dimmer. What does this do to your eyes though, full brightness, then off, alternating rapidly? It leads to eye strain and headaches.

Apparently, some good quality phones use DC dimming. That is, the DC voltage fed to the pixels is reduced, hence the screen becomes dimmer.

The Nothing Phone 2a has an AMOLED screen. I did some online searching and found that the Nothing 2a phone uses DC dimming down to 50% brightness, and below that uses PWM at 2160Hz. See here, though, they describe above 50% as "DC-like" which I don't understand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A5h7UynfnQ

The Motorola G75 has an IPS LCD screen, and I discovered that it uses PWM for dimming, but at a very high frequency; 40,000Hz. See here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PWM_Sensitive/comments/1gbunmt/moto_g75_opple_results/

The high frequency is apparently easier on the eyes, though personally I remain to be convinced. Anyway, bought the G75.

Very nice phone. Flat screen (I dislike screens with curved edges), 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, 50MP main camera with OIS, records up to 4K (UHD, 2160p) at 30 fps. etc. Specs here:

https://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_moto_g75-13372.php

Motorola's webpage:

https://www.motorola.com.au/smartphones-moto-g55-5g//smartphones-moto-g75-5g/p

Here is a YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdrnGTm7AKI

The G75 is very new, only got released in Australia this month. Cost was AU$497, including ear-buds and a soft plastic protection back. Some dramas transferring data from my old phone, as I don't use online sync'ing; was able to do it via a USB cable.    

Tags: tech

Run Easy Daedalus in a container in Scarthgap

This was how I originally envisaged running extra applications that are not in the main package repository. Easy Scarthgap has a small repository via PKGget; however, does have Appi to install appimages and Flapi to install flatpaks.

There is another mechanism; Easy Containers. Another linux distribution can be run in a container, and apps from the package repository in that distro can be installed.

Easy Daedalus is built with Devuan Daedalus (Bookworm) packages, and PKGget can install from the huge Devuan/Debian package respository. This morning I announced the release of Easy Scarthgap and Easy Daedalus, two separate distributions; however, you may not need to run Easy daedalus, as now it can be run inside Easy Scarthgap.

The method to install, is click on the desktop "pkg" icon, choose "SFSget", then click the "easyos/devuan/daedalus" radiobutton. There you will find file 'daedalus_6.4.4_amd64.sfs' -- install that. You will then get this window:

And yes, there will then be an icon on the desktop:

...click on "daedalus" and the Easy Daedalus desktop will start.

The 'daedalus_6.4.4_amd64.sfs' is about 850MB. That might be too big for some people to download. There is one person on the forum who goes to a library to download big files. If that is your situation, you can download the files from here:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/packages/sfs/easyos/devuan/daedalus/

...three files, download to /mnt/wkg/sfs/easyos/devuan/daedalus:

...you can then run SFSget and install it.

Running Easy Daedalus in the container, I installed ShotCut, and it works great.

However, there is a fix required...

EDIT: Fixed!
No need to apply the fix described below. You can install 'daedalus_6.4.4_amd64.sfs' and run "Download latest Firefox" and it works.

That fix is useful to know about, as it can be applied to other SFS distributions that can be run in a container. The file 'daedalus_6.4.4_amd64.sfs' contains a file '.control/configuration', that I edited with the fix, as described below, then re-uploaded the SFS.

A technical note: "EC_CAP_file=true" prevents "chown" and "chmod" from working; the former is required when setting up Firefox to run as user "firefox".

Fix required in container

I'm going to make this the default; however, for now you have to do it manually. In Daedalus, I chose "Download latest Firefox" from the menu; it did download, but would not run. You need to apply this fix, before downloading Firefox (and with the Daedalus container not running):

On the Scarthgap desktop, click on the desktop "setup" icon and chose "EasyOS" button, then "Easy Containers":

See these two outlined in red:

...in the "Manage" section, select "daedalus", then in the "Security options" section, untick "file" and tick "accel. graphics". Then in "Manage" section click on "Update & exit".

The above can also be done manually, by editing /mnt/wkg/containers/daedalus/configuration. This is the important line to fix, set it to "false":

EC_CAP_file='false'

I also tested "Download latest Chrome" and it works. I started chrome from a terminal, to see any error messages, and Chrome reported unable to connect to dbus; so that is something we will need to investigate.

It has been a long time since Easy Containers got some TLC. Need to get back into it.    

If you try this and have any issues, please report to the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=136046#p136046

I want to improve Easy Containers, as it is a great way to install packages of another distribution.    

Tags: easy

EasyOS Scarthgap and Daedalus 6.4.4 releases

Bringing both of these to the same version number. Scarthgap is the "main guy", the one I recommend if you are new to EasyOS.

Scarthgap
Only small changes since 6.4.3, see release notes:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2024/6.4.4/release-notes.htm

Download:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2024/6.4.4/

Fast mirror in Europe, courtesy of NLUUG:

https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2024/6.4.4/

Mirror in Australia:

https://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2024/

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=136046#p136046

Daedalus
Daedalus is built with DEB packages from Devuan Daedalus, so the PKGget package manager has access to the large Debian/Devuan package repository.

Again, only small changes since 6.4.3, see release notes:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/daedalus/2024/6.4.4/release-notes.htm

Fast mirror in Europe, courtesy of NLUUG:

https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/easyos/amd64/releases/daedalus/2024/

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=136047#p136047

Have fun!    

Tags: easy

Arabic language support added to EasyOS

Forum member Chiaseed requested this:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=135770#p135770

As I posted further down in the link, LibreOffice supports Arabic, but not Urdu. So I have only added Arabic support.

So, many apps, such as LibreOffice, will now be displayed with Arabic text; however, someone would have to put a lot of work in with MoManager to translate many other menus, scripts and applications.    

Tags: easy

PupMTP file transfer, first video

I recorded a 59-second video of my custom recumbent trike, and uploaded it to YouTube. This is "putting a toe in the water", as I knew hardly anything about video recording, editing and completely new to publishing on YouTube. Still know hardly anything, but managed to create the video, convert it from 1080p to 720p and upload.

I recorded the video indoors, with my "Huawei Y9 Prime 2019" phone. This is the last one that Huawei made with Google Services -- after that, Huawei was forced to go it's own way, developing Harmony OS and becoming very successful in the huge Chinese market -- another example of the US shooting itself in the foot.

This is a budget phone, maximum video resolution is 1080p at 30 FPS; however, I only got 23.98 FPS (Frames Per Second). Interesting, watching playback can see the jerkiness when panning, at that low frame rate. The 59-minute video is 85MB, MP4.

I decided to process it down to 720p, to make the file smaller. I read online how to use ffmpeg, here. Following that advice:

# ffmpeg -i input-1080p.mp4 -vf scale=w=1280:h=720:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease:force_divisible_by=2 -sws_flags lanczos output-720p.mp4

...the result is 21MB.

Then I remembered that EasyOS has "yff" created by Jason (plinej in the forum, here. It is in the "Multimedia" menu. Used that, accepting defaults, and got a 14MB file, again MP4. Played both the 21MB and 14MB, they look the same. Wow!

Prior to performing the 1080p to 720p tranformation, I copied the file off the phone. Did this by plugging in a usb cable; and much to my surprise, up popped "PupMTP":

...I had just about forgotten that existed! The above photo is after I clicked on the "MOUNT" button. Also, a window popped up on my phone, and I clicked on "files transfer" radiobutton.

Thinking back, PupMTP was created by old-forum member mistfire, see here, and I introduced it into EasyOS in December 2020 -- four years ago. Here are blog posts:

"Considering MTP access to an Android phone"
https://bkhome.org/news/202012/considering-mtp-access-to-an-android-phone.html

"How to run long-time process on udev event"
https://bkhome.org/news/202012/how-to-run-long-time-process-on-udev-event.html

"Four ways to transfer files to and from a phone"
https://bkhome.org/news/202012/four-ways-to-transfer-files-to-and-from-a-phone.html

Very interesting, and I haven't looked at any of that since 2020. I have used the ADB method a few times more recently, which works via the desktop "share" icon. Was going to do that again, but, very interesting, PupMTP popped up, so used that instead.

Ha ha, haven't posted a link to my YouTube video, as it is embarassingly primitive. Only 59 seconds, yet I managed to get in a few "um" gap-fillers in the audio. Also, it was taken in my lounge room; would like to get the channel going with videos of the trike taken outside. Also, would like to achieve better video quality -- time for a new phone?

Flowblade video editor is builtin to EasyOS Scarthgap, and have started learning how to use it. Previously, have only tested video editors very superficially. Yesterday, I installed ShotCut and OpenShot flatpaks, and played briefly with them. Didn't get anywhere with OpenShot, as it crashed when attempted to drag my .mp4 file onto it -- but then, have read several online comments that OpenShot is prone to crashing. Staying with Flowblade.    

Tags: easy