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newsLinux kernel 4.14.27 compiled
I have compiled this in EasyOS Pyro64 0.8.1. That release came
with kernel 4.14.23, which I compiled with the 'nvm' driver builtin,
following advice from forum member scsijon:
Device drivers
<*> NVM express block device
Yesterday, scsijon advised on the forum about the new very fast 'ufs'
flash memory. Previously, I had the driver for this as a module.
However, for the 4.14.27 compile, I have changed it to builtin:
Device drivers --> SCSI device support
SCSI low-level drivers
<*> Universal flash storage controller driver core
<*> PCI bus based ufs controller support
<m> Platform bus based ufs controller support
The intention is to support computers with these very new flash memory architectures at bootup.
Revisiting device-mapper
I investigated device-mapper, for Quirky, back in 2016:
http://bkhome.org/news/201611/investigating-device-mapper.html
http://bkhome.org/news/201611/device-mapper-compiled.html
As Quirky does not have an initramfs (well, the live-CD does, but not
the full installation), I was interested in the kernel patch created by
Chrome OS developers, to setup device-mapper direct from the kernel
commandline.
The problem is, it only seems to allow specifying devices by name,
example "sda1" or by major:minor device node numbers. However, this is
not satisfactory, as these assignments are subject to change. The above
link contains a link to a post from me to the "linux-lvm" mail-list
about this, but noone replied,
Note, that patch was v5, and and there is now a v8 (May 2017):
https://www.redhat.com/archives/linux-lvm/2017-May/msg00053.html
As the patch is not suitable, I need to run 'dmsetup' in an
initramfs. My interest is to setup COW (Copy On Write), as a replacement
for aufs/overlayfs layered filesystems.
First step, compiling kernel 4.14.24, with the drivers builtin:
Device Drivers --> Multiple devices driver supportThat last one is very interesting, will be able to use pup_event to pickup device-mapper changes. The crypt option is also very interesting.
<*> Device mapper support (CONFIG_BLOCK_DEV_DM, was dm-mod.ko)
<*> Crypt target support (CONFIG_DM_CRYPT, was dm-crypt.ko)
<*> Snapshot target (CONFIG_DM_SNAPSHOT)
[*] DM uevents (CONFIG_DM_UEVENT)
Qsync now handled by pup_event Service Manager
Qsync is my app for synchronizing the time from the Internet, see blog post November 2016:
http://bkhome.org/news/201611/qsync-ntp-time-sync.html
Prior to that, I was using tasmod's Psync:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42978
...which I think most of the pups are still using.
The problem with Psync is that it expects the Internet to be up. At
installation. 'timesync.sh' is copied into /root/Startup, so it runs
when X starts. For ethernet, it expects the Internet to be up
immediately, for wireless, has a "sleep 15".
With Qsync, I fixed the problem of only running after the network is
up, by launching it from network_tray. This is a C program, that runs in
the tray, and it was version 3.2.1.
Now however, I have generic mechanism to run services when
dependencies are met, so I have reverted network_tray to version 3.1
(and bumped it to v3.3). /etc/eventmanager now has this:
PE_SERVICE_MANAGER='network%cups-net-fixONESHOT:qsyncONESHOT'
And I have created a script /etc/init.d/qsync to launch /usr/sbin/qsync
That's it, pretty simple.
Note that Qsync is one-shot, as it just runs 'ntpdate' once at
startup, to sync local time. No more sync'ing occurs while Easy/Quirky
is running.
Note also, Qsync has a GUI, in the menu "Desktop --> Qsync set time from Internet".
woofQ March 01, 2018, uploaded
This is the woofQ used to build EasyOS 0.8 and Quirky 8.5.
Tarball uploaded:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/project/woof-project/woof-project-20180301.tar.gz
More efficient handling of one-shot services
In the latest release of Quirky Xerus64, version 8.5, /etc/eventmanager has this line:
PE_SERVICE_MANAGER='network%cups-net-fix'
/etc/init.d/cups-net-fix is a service that will run after the network is up. This is handled by /etc/rc.services at bootup.
However, 'cups-net-fix' is a "one-shot" service, just runs at
startup, no daemon in it, no "stop" option. So, once started, the
pup_event Service Manager is not required anymore to monitor and stop it
when the network goes down.
So, I have added a bit of extra code to /etc/rc.d/rc.services and
/etc/rc.d/rc.services_ipc, to stop the Service Manager in the cases of
one-shot services, after they have started. This improves efficiency.
The enhancement is explained in the latest document here, with the new code shown in dark-blue (update 180228):
http://bkhome.org/docs/pup_event/pup_event-service-management.htm
For anyone who wants use this enhancement, just append "ONESHOT" to the service name in PE_SERVICE_MANAGER:
PE_SERVICE_MANAGER='network%cups-net-fixONESHOT'
I did consider automating it, by searching for "stop)" in a service
script, and if not exist then it is one-shot. However, decided that
might not catch them all.
Quirky Xerus x86_64 version 8.5 released
Version 8.4 was released February 9, 2018, and the pace of
development has continued rapidly, just 18 days later and we have 8.5.
release notes are here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/releases/xerus-8.5/release-xerus64-8.5.htm
Install instructions:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/releases/xerus-8.5/howto-install.htm
Download:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/releases/xerus-8.5/
Forum feedback:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=984243#984243
Have fun!
Tags: quirky
PETs upgraded, PPM bugfix
Puppy Forum member 'rcrsn51' maintains the "Peasy" series of
PETs. These are great apps, and some of them are in EasyOS and Quirky.
I have upgraded PeasyPDF to version 4.1:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=70680
And upgraded PeasyScan to 2.12:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=61046
The PETget Package Manager (PPM), also known as the Puppy Package Manager in official Puppy builds, has a bug in the latest EasyOS and Quirky releases.
If a PET package was selected to be installed, no download URLs were offered, only "LOCAL FOLDER".
This bug was discussed on this forum thread:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=112761
The bug has been fixed.
New 'getlocalip' utility
I am working on pup_event, and in 'pup_event_frontend_d' I have
been exploring various ways of determining when a network connection is
up or down.
An offshoot of that, is I wanted a very quick and efficient way to
determine the local IP-address, that is, the IP address assigned to the
computer, that other computers on a network will use to access this
computer.
It can be found by the 'ifconfig', 'ip' and 'hostname' utilities,
though I hasten to add, not the Busybox 'hostname'. The full 'hostname'
has this option:
-I, --all-ip-addresses all addresses for the host
...that is, a capital letter I, as in "India". In my case;
# hostname -I
192.168.0.2
I thought that it would be nice to have a specialized utility to
return the local IP-address. I thought about parsing /proc/net/fib_trie,
however, after a bit more research, settled on this simple C program:
#include <arpa/inet.h>Running it:
#include <ifaddrs.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct ifaddrs *addrs, *tmp;
getifaddrs(&addrs);
tmp = addrs;
while (tmp)
{
if (tmp->ifa_addr && tmp->ifa_addr->sa_family == AF_INET)
{
struct sockaddr_in *pAddr = (struct sockaddr_in *)tmp->ifa_addr;
printf("%s: %s\n", tmp->ifa_name, inet_ntoa(pAddr->sin_addr));
}
tmp = tmp->ifa_next;
}
freeifaddrs(addrs);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
# getlocalip...bonus, it also shows the interface, in this case "eth0".
lo: 127.0.0.1
eth0: 192.168.0.2
I got that code from here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20800319/how-do-i-get-my-ip-address-in-c-on-linux
The source is in 'pup-tools-20180225.tar.gz':
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/sources/alphabetical/p/
BaCon Forum member 'airr' has converted it to BaCon code:
http://basic-converter.proboards.com/thread/999/example-find-local-ip-addresses
...great!
'getlocalip' will be in the next release of Easy and Quirky, in /usr/sbin.