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gtk2-ng introspection compile fix

June 09, 2026 — BarryK

Easy 7.3.9 has gtk-ng, compiled with "--introspection=no". This was raised as an issue:

https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng/issues/21

Great, now fixed.

We have been discussing gtk2-ng in the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=16898  

Tags: easy

EasyOS Excalibur-series version 7.3.9 released

June 09, 2026 — BarryK

This is a release-candidate for 7.4, marking a fundamental commitment to a "legacy" architecture, embracing Xlibre and gtk2-ng. And, finally successful, supporting Sound Open Firmware (SOF), so audio will work on very modern computers.

Changes since 7.3.8:

Note, not built with excalibur-backports repository (as is version 7.3.8).

ROX-Filer is one of our fantastic gtk2-based apps, and we have been on a roll enhancing it; the latest feature is video-thumbnails. We intend that a lot of other excellent but neglected gtk2-based apps will find their way into EasyOS.

Release notes, showing details of past releases:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/2026/7.3.9/release-notes.htm

Download the drive image file:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/2026/7.3.9/

If you are a newcomer to EasyOS, please read the version 7.3 announcement, as it has more getting-started information:

Also, an overview of how and why EasyOS is unique:

https://easyos.org/about/how-and-why-easyos-is-different.html

The change to an SOF-enabled kernel brings with it some trepidation, given past troubles. Let me know if you experience any audio issues, like no sound or some input or output channels being wrong.

Hopefully, we will just fix and tweak a few things, then with great fanfare release version 7.4!

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=171787#p171787

Have fun!   

Tags: easy

EasyOS built with gtk2-ng

June 08, 2026 — BarryK

Posted a couple of days ago, the next release of EasyOS will be built with Xlibre, replacing Devuan's X11 packages. GTK version 2 has also been revived, the project is named "gtk2-ng", here:

https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng

I have compiled it in woofQ2; however had to configure with "--enable-introspection=no". Raised an issue:

https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng/issues/21

...undefined symbols, looks like a header file is missing somewhere.

Anyway, going ahead with putting this into the next release of Easy, without the gobject introspection; currently no gtk2-based apps need it, none being builtin to Easy anyway. There are some python-based apps that need introspection, but they are using gtk3.   

Tags: easy

ROX-Filer video thumbnails

June 08, 2026 — BarryK

I recently received an email from Rick, reminding me that he would very much like if ROX supports video thumbnails. I vaguely recall, someone else on the forum also made this request. Personally, I had no interest, so let it slide, until now.

How to do it is described in the original ROX User Manual:

https://rox.sourceforge.net/Manual/Manual/Manual.html#id2504872

However, we found that it doesn't work. We have discussed the problem in the forum, and we found that the Jun7 fork of ROX does work, but the original source, the woof-CE source, and my own fork of ROX in woofQ2, do not. Forum member Burunduk found the reason, that the .png thumbnails need metadata:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=16991

Excellent, but I found that my fork used in EasyOS still doesn't work; which narrowed down to a particular source patch. Took out the patch, and now works. We will examine that patch sometime in the future. Anyway, now working in EasyOS:

img1

ROX looks for scripts in /etc/xdg/rox.sourceforge.net/MIME-thumb to generate the thumbnails.

img2

For example, script 'video_mp4':

#!/bin/sh
# $1-path to source, $2-path to output, $3-pixel size 
exec ffmpegthumbnailer -i "${1}" -s ${3} -t 10 -q 8 -a -m -o ${2}

...ffmpegthumbnailer is a little binary executable, available via PKGget. All of this will be in the next release of Easy.

This is a nice feature to have. We are on a roll recently, improving ROX, so this is one more.   

Tags: easy

Kernel 6.12.92 compiled with SOF enabled

June 07, 2026 — BarryK

Yes, having another go! Here is blog post about the previous attempt:

Forum member NNI has compiled the kernel and reports success:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=171595#p171595

I have used basically the same kernel config, except disabled some "Kernel hacking" debug features. I doubt that Sound Open Firmware would require them, and one of them, CONFIG_LOCKDEV, caused the Broadcom "wl" module compile to fail, with "GPL only symbol: lockdep_init_map_type"

Interesting, in a previous blog post I reported using a script from the SOF project site, to determine what to enable in the '.config' file, and it enabled lots of kernel debugging features. Which I have now disabled. But, very odd, the script failed to enable what NNI found to be essential for SOF to work; CONFIG_SND_SOC_INTEL_SOUNDWIRE_LINK_BASELINE.

The '.config' file will be in woofQ2 when I next upload it, also uploaded separately here, with false ".gz" appended.    

Tags: easy

Alternative method to build EasyOS with Xlibre

June 05, 2026 — BarryK

Continuing a series of blog posts how Xlibre was compiled in EasyOS:

An earlier post described how Xlibre was builtin to EasyOS 7.3.8:

...in a nutshell, setup two repositories for APT to access; 'xlibre-devuan' and 'excalibur-backports'

On reflection, decided on a much simpler method; do away with all of that previous effort. Instead, just build Easy from Devuan packages as normal, then as a final step, install a single xlibre package that will overwrite all the Devuan X11 packages. And, those Devuan packages will be put on "hold" so won't get updated.

Simple, and the single big xlibre package could be a .deb package, but instead I chose the build a .pet package. PET packages are the original native package format in Puppy Linux, still supported in the EasyOS PKGget package manager. Note, it was forum member lobster who, a long time ago, stated that PET is an acronym for "Puppy Extra Treats".

A good thing about PET packages is that APT knows nothing about them. This is something that we can take advantage of; the script '4create-pet' will create a package, named, for example 'xlibre-25.1.0-260605-amd64.pet' that, when installed, will overwrite all of the X11 files. Here is the script:

#!/bin/sh
V="$(grep -o "version: '.*" xserver/meson.build | head -n 1 | cut -f 2 -d "'")"
 D0="$(date +%y%m%d)"
 D="${V}-${D0}" #ex: 25.1.0-260607
 [ -d xlibre-${D}-amd64 ] && rm -rf xlibre-${D}-amd64
 [ -d xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64 ] && rm -rf xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64
 [ -f xlibre-${D}-amd64.pet ] && rm -f xlibre-${D}-amd64.pet
 [ -f xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64.pet ] && rm -f xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64.pet
cp -a image xlibre-${D}-amd64
 sync
#for debian compatibility...
 mv -f xlibre-${D}-amd64/usr/bin/Xorg xlibre-${D}-amd64/usr/lib/xorg/
 echo '#!/bin/sh
 #
 # Execute Xorg.wrap if it exists otherwise execute Xorg directly.
 # This allows distros to put the suid wrapper in a separate package.
basedir=/usr/lib/xorg
 if [ -x "$basedir"/Xorg.wrap ]; then
     exec "$basedir"/Xorg.wrap "$@"
 else
     exec "$basedir"/Xorg "$@"
 fi' > xlibre-${D}-amd64/usr/bin/Xorg
 chmod 755 xlibre-${D}-amd64/usr/bin/Xorg
find xlibre-${D}-amd64 -type f -exec sh -c 'file "$1" | grep -qE "ELF.*(executable|shared object)"' _ {} \; -exec strip --strip-unneeded {} +
 sync
mkdir -p xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers
 mkdir -p xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64/usr/lib/xorg/modules/input
 mv -f xlibre-${D}-amd64/usr/include xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64/usr/
 mv -f xlibre-${D}-amd64/usr/lib/pkgconfig xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64/usr/lib/
 mv -f xlibre-${D}-amd64/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/*.la xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/
 mv -f xlibre-${D}-amd64/usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/*.la xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64/usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/
 sync
S="$(du -sk xlibre-${D}-amd64 | cut -f 1)"
 echo "xlibre-${D}-amd64|xlibre|${D}-amd64||BuildingBlock|${S}K||xlibre-${D}-amd64.pet||Xlibre X11 server and drivers|devuan|excalibur||" > xlibre-${D}-amd64/pet.specs
 S="$(du -sk xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64 | cut -f 1)"
 echo "xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64|xlibre_DEV|${D}-amd64||BuildingBlock|${S}K||xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64.pet||Xlibre X11 server and drivers|devuan|excalibur||" > xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64/pet.specs
dir2tgz xlibre-${D}-amd64
 tgz2pet xlibre-${D}-amd64.tar.gz
 dir2tgz xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64
 tgz2pet xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64.tar.gz
 sync
 echo "Created: xlibre-${D}-amd64.pet, xlibre_DEV-${D}-amd64.pet"
 ###end###

...the script also creates a separate 'xlibre_DEV-25.1.0-260605-amd64.pet' package.

The '4create-pet' script uploaded, with false '.gz' appended, here.

I could have created a 'pinstall.sh' post-install script inside the .pet, to put all the Devuan packages on "hold", for example:

# apt-mark hold xserver-xorg-video-vmware

However, I intend to do that in woofQ2. The xlibre PET is going to be installed into 'easy.sfs' in woofQ2, and one of the build scripts will do those "hold" operations.

Installing files without APT knowing, or removing, is done all over the place in woofQ2, mostly as exercises to reduce the bloat of 'easy.sfs'. So not doing anything new here.     

Tags: easy

Xlibre video drivers compiled in EasyOS

June 05, 2026 — BarryK

Here are the two previous blog posts:

Here is the '3xvideo' script:

#!/bin/sh
mkdir -p video
export XLIBRE_SRC="$(pwd)"
 export XLIBRE_BUILD="${XLIBRE_SRC}/build"
 export XLIBRE_PREFIX="${XLIBRE_SRC}/image"
cd video
 #fail, rem: qxl v4l
 Vn="intel amdgpu voodoo siliconmotion vmware ati cirrus geode xgi savage ast r128 fbdev dummy chips trident sisusb s3virge rendition nouveau mach64 neomagic mga i128 i740 ark apm vesa nested"
for aV in ${Vn}
 do
  [ -z "$aV" ] && continue
  [ -d xf86-video-${aV} ] && rm -rf xf86-video-${aV}
  case "$aV" in
   amdgpu)
    #requires pkgs from stable-backports. hmmm, don't want that, get older..
    Br="-b release/25.0"
   ;;
   *) Br='' ;;
  esac
  git clone ${Br} https://github.com/X11Libre/xf86-video-${aV}.git --depth=1
  sync
  cd xf86-video-${aV}
  if [ -x autogen.sh ];then
   #hack so autogen.sh doesn't complain...
   #note, tricky, to escape ] it has to be the first after ^ ...
   [ -f configure.ac ] && sed -i 's%xorg-server >= [23456][^] ]*%xorg-server >= 21.0.0%' configure.ac
   case "$aV" in
    intel) Ex="--enable-sna --enable-uxa --with-default-accel=sna --enable-dri2 --enable-dri3 --with-default-dri=2 --enable-udev --enable-dga"  ;;
    amdgpu) Ex="--enable-udev" ;;
    vmware) Ex="--with-libudev" ;;
    qxl) Ex="--enable-udev --enable-xspice=no --enable-kms" ;;
    ati) Ex="--enable-glamor --enable-udev" ;;
    savage) Ex="--enable-dri" ;;
    r128|mach64|mga) Ex="--enable-exa --enable-dri" ;;
    vesa)
     #compile fail, needs hacks...
     grep -qF '<signal.h>' src/vesa.c
     if [ $? -ne 0 ];then
      sed -i 's%#include <fcntl.h>%#include <fcntl.h>\n#include <signal.h>%' src/vesa.c
     fi
     sed -i 's%std=c99%std=gnu99%' configure.ac
     Ex=''
    ;;
    *) Ex="" ;;
   esac
   NOCONFIGURE=1 ./autogen.sh
   PKG_CONFIG_PATH="${XLIBRE_PREFIX}/usr/lib/pkgconfig" \
     ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc/X11 --localstatedir=/var ${Ex}
   make
   DESTDIR=${XLIBRE_PREFIX} make install
  fi
  cd ..
  #hack, avoid conflicting .h files...
  cp -a -f --remove-destination ${XLIBRE_PREFIX}/usr/include/xorg/* /usr/include/xorg/
  sync
  echo -n "ENTER: "; read keepgoing
 done

There were some issues. Firstly, the latest xf86-video-amdgpu source requires packages from 'excalibur-backports', also known as 'stable-backports'. This is unfortunate, as backporting from 'testing' can cause issues elsewhere. So I downloaded the "release/25.0" branch, which is 6 months old. Not satisfactory.

The 'xf86-video-vesa' source does not compile. As can be seen above, I patched it so it will compile. This needs to be raised as an issue on the github project site. I took out 'qxl' and 'v4l' drivers, as they failed, but didn't bother to try and fix them.

Script '3xvideo' is uploaded, with false '.gz' appended, here.

I set these three scripts to all install into the 'image' folder. The reason for this is want to create just one package, that will install and replace all the Devuan X11 packages. Will explain that in the next blog post.   

Tags: easy

Xlibre input drivers compiled in EasyOS

June 05, 2026 — BarryK

Previous blog post, explains how compiled the Xlibre server:

For the input drivers, created script '2xinput':

#!/bin/sh
mkdir -p input
export XLIBRE_SRC="$(pwd)"
 export XLIBRE_BUILD="${XLIBRE_SRC}/build"
 export XLIBRE_PREFIX="${XLIBRE_SRC}/image"
 #export XLIBRE_PREFIX="/usr"
cd input
 #rem:  egalax elographics
 In="evdev joystick vmmouse wacom libinput void synaptics keyboard mouse"
for aI in ${In}
 do
  [ -d xf86-input-${aI} ] && rm -rf xf86-input-${aI}
  git clone https://github.com/X11Libre/xf86-input-${aI}.git --depth=1
  sync
  cd xf86-input-${aI}
  case "$aI" in
   joystick) Ex="--disable-debug" ;;
   synaptics) Ex="--disable-unit-tests" ;;
   void) Ex="" ;;
   wacom) Ex="--disable-unit-tests --disable-debug --with-systemd-unit-dir=no" ;;
   *) Ex="" ;;
  esac
  NOCONFIGURE=1 ./autogen.sh
  PKG_CONFIG_PATH="${XLIBRE_PREFIX}/usr/lib/pkgconfig" \
     ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc/X11 --localstatedir=/var ${Ex}
  make
  DESTDIR=${XLIBRE_PREFIX} make install
  cd ..
  #hack, avoid conflicting .h files...
  cp -a -f --remove-destination ${XLIBRE_PREFIX}/usr/include/xorg/* /usr/include/xorg/
  sync
  echo -n "ENTER: "; read keepgoing
 done

Not much explanation required, pretty straightforward. Perhaps could have figured a way around it, but to be sure that the correct header files are always seen, copied them to /usr/include/xorg, as mentioned in the previous blog post.

Notice the "--with-systemd-unit-dir=no" for the wacom driver. This is because EasyOS uses busybox init, with pup_event service management. Definitely no systemd!

The script '2xinput', with false ".gz" appended, uploaded here.

Next blog post will explain how the video drivers were compiled.   

Tags: easy