Improve low-battery warning

Easy 7.4.7 has powerapplet_tray version 3.1, which added a beep when battery discharges below 10%, repeated every 15 seconds (and only when discharging, not on charge).

One of the tester guys commented that it wasn't very noticeable, and unfortunately I also discovered the same. Running the laptop in my tent, it wasn't on charge, and I did hear the beep, but didn't connect that with the battery being low. The tray icon also flashes, but I didn't notice that either. Then the laptop suddenly died.

I have bumped powerapplet_tray to version 3.2, and this time it calls an external script, /usr/sbin/bat-low-warn, every 15 seconds:

#!/bin/ash
#20260827 /root/Startup/powerapplet_tray will call this every 15 seconds
#when battery below 10%.

export TEXTDOMAIN=bat-low-warn
export OUTPUT_CHARSET=UTF-8

paplay /usr/share/audio/error.wav

M0="$(gettext 'WARNING LOW BATTERY')"
popup "background=#ffa0a0 terminate=5 timecount=dn name=batlow|<big><big><b>${M0} </b></big></big>"

sleep 1
paplay /usr/share/audio/error.wav
###end###

...that should get our attention!    

Tags: easy

Phone signal in tent

Ha ha, this is funny. I have been camping here for two weeks, at a campground on the south coast of Western Australia, and had to walk about 5 minutes to the beach to get a phone signal.

Wasn't getting a signal in my tent; however, today discovered if raise my phone, and get it into just the right spot, there is a weak 4G signal:

It is weak, some websites timeout, but can do basic browsing with phone a wifi hotspot; gmail and forum access ok. The signal may be dependent on the weather, we shall see.  

Tags: nomad

EasyOS draft submitted to Wikipedia

Forum member pp4mnk submitted this to Wikipedia awhile ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:EasyOS

I didn't mention it earlier, as I thought that it looked OK and would be accepted. But it hasn't, see the commentary prepended.

pp4mnk sent me this in a private message, June 26:

I consider positive if easyos users can visit it and make suggestions to improve it, but they must take into account wikipedia basics, so a post publishing that I have prepared a Wikipedia draft, and it is currently awaiting review. If anyone would like to take a look and notices any errors, references that could be improved, or sections that could be made more neutral, I would be greatly appreciate any suggestions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:EasyOS

Many people think Wikipedia has very few restrictions, but it's actually quite the opposite. The standards are very strict, and depending on which reviewer evaluates your draft, getting it accepted can sometimes be quite challenging. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

I greatly appreciate the effort that pp4mnk has put into this. Maybe someone could edit it, take out what they consider to be LLM-generated.  

Tags: easy

Fix for pulseaudio causing app crash

Described this earlier today:

https://bkhome.org/news/202608/pulseaudio-mixer-causes-apps-to-crash.html

I'm concerned that apps other than geany might also crash, and apps other than pavucontrol might cause the crashes.

So, have restored this in /etc/profile:

export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

As was described in a github link in the previous blog post, enabling that variable causes issues with Asian languages in chromium. So, instead have disabled it in chromium.

/usr/bin/chromium is a script, that will run chromium as user "chromium". I have inserted this into the script:

unset XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS

The script is generated by /usr/local/clients/setup-client, by woofQ2 when EasyOS is built.

Interesting, I wonder if some other mysterious crashes that some users have reported, will now be fixed.   

Tags: easy

Pulseaudio mixer causes apps to crash

Forum members vtpup and NorthernSoul have reported the problem:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=175677#p175677

Look in /etc/profile:

#20230918 remove... ref: https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3867
##v2.10 MU: rox crashes with DRI modules. solution:
#export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

That link:

https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/woof-CE/pull/3867

That variable was unset due to Chromium unable to properly display Chinese and other Asian characters if it is set.

I'll think about it, but probably won't set it globally, just set it when run 'pavucontrol', as the guys have suggested.  

Tags: easy

More packages compiled in woofQ2

Just to let you guys know, I'm still working on EasyOS; currently compiling packages in woofQ2.

The Excalibur-series is built with a lot of binary packages from the Scarthgap-series. Scarthgap is built with binary packages compiled in OpenEmbedded/Yocto, and there are a lot that are not available in the Devuan/Debian repositories. Hence, those binary packages have been used to build the Excalibur-series. But, I am gradually porting them into woofQ2, so they will be compiled in a running Easy Excalibur.

Doing the nomad thing right now, and likely for sometime into the future, so at times won't have Internet access. Right now where I'm camping, don't have a phone signal, but do have one nearby. A five minute walk, where I am right now.  

Tags: easy

EasyOS Excalibur-series version 7.4.7 released

Right now, I'm camping on the south coast of Western Australia. My campsite does not have a phone signal, but a short work away, overlooking the ocean, get 4G Vodafone and Optus signals. Weak, but usable.

I went there this morning and started to upload the Easy 7.4.7 release. But, so slow. So, drove to a nearby town, which has the phone tower where the 4G is coming from at my campsite. This time, quicker upload, and interesting, Vodafone performing better than Telstra. Was anxiously watching the battery level, now down to 22%, after everything has uploaded.

This town has a library and community centre, and they are happy for me to bring in my laptop and plug it into the mains power. So will do that next time, if I'm still here.

Highlights since 7.4.6:

• Xlibre and gtk2-ng are back! — August 09, 2026
• Remove user-installed package if builtin — August 09, 2026
• Continuing getting APT to work in a layered filesystem — August 08, 2026
• Grey with pink-highlights theme — August 01, 2026

Download:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/2026/7.4.7/

See you on the forum!   

Tags: easy

Xlibre and gtk2-ng are back!

Xlibre, the continuation of X11, and gtk2-ng, the continuation of gtk2, were in EasyOS 7.4. In a subsequent release, I removed Xlibre as the 'nouveau' driver caused the X server to crash. Then in another later release, gtk2-ng was removed, as it caused Xdialog to misbehave.

Well, good news, these are active projects, and the developers of both have fixed the problems. See my issue posts and the replies:

"Xdialog calendar broken"
https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng/issues/27

"Xserver crashes for all testers with nouveau driver"
https://github.com/X11Libre/xserver/issues/3144

I haven't personally verified that these are fixed. Will build Easy 7.4.7 soon, and will be able to verify Xdialog fixed, but you guys with nVidia GPU can verify that nouveau now works.   

Tags: easy