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Fix for version depth limit

January 25, 2025 — BarryK

Alfons discovered a little bug. He sent me a snapshot of Easy Version Control (in the Filesystem menu), showing that the depth-limit is 5, yet there are now 6 versions. In other words, when he updated to Scarthgap 6.5.6, it was the 6th, so the oldest version, 6.4.4, should have been deleted.

The cause was that /var/local/version-history-depth did not exist. This is read by the 'init' script in the initrd, but if the file doesn't exist then depth calculation will be messed up.

File /var/local/version-history-depth only gets created when Easy Version Control is run, and it looks like Alfons had never run it before. And of course the session has to be saved after running Easy Version Control.

I fixed it in the 'init' script by creating it if it doesn't exist, and assigning a default of "5".    

Tags: easy

Linux kernel 6.12.10 compiled in Easy Daedalus

January 24, 2025 — BarryK

I posted about compiling 6.12.10 for Easy Scarthgap:

...as well as the droidcam v4l2loopback-dc.ko and broadcom wl.ko kernel modules.

Ditto for Easy Daedalus.

Also have now compiled the NVIDIA 565.77 kernel modules and packaged as an SFS (installable vis SFSget), for both Scarthgap and Daedalus.

The next release of Daedalus will have the 6.12.10 kernel. Ongoing for both, now using the 6.12.x kernel.    

Tags: easy

Fix partition icons redraw every bootup

January 23, 2025 — BarryK

You have probably noticed this. When the desktop starts up, some of the partition icons get redrawn, some don't. The internal drive sd* partitions do not, the internal nvme* partitions do get redrawn, as do any USB partitions.

The internal nvme* parttions icons do not need to be redrawn, as they are always there, and the device name will not change.

This bug has been there since 2018! That's how long it has taken me to fix it. This morning decided, about time to fix it, so did. It makes the startup a bit faster.

Here is the commit:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/f6ce712ec207bb8c3f67e7c6454c3d674950fbd4  

...it was just a stray space character making two strings unequal when they should have been equal.    

Tags: easy

EasyOS Scarthgap-series version 6.5.6 released

January 22, 2025 — BarryK

The previous release, version 6.5.4.2, was released on January 12:

Note that the Daedalus-series latest is 6.5.5. This is a separate build of EasyOS, built with Devuan DEB packages, whereas Scarthgap is built from packages compiled by me in OpenEmbedded.

If you are running Scarthgap 6.5.4.2 and happy with it, there is no need to update to 6.5.6; in fact, there could be new issues|problems with the kernel bump from 6.6.x to 6.12.x. This latest version has targeted working on a very recent laptop with Intel Ultra 7 CPU and integrated GPU. Highlights:

Release notes:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2025/6.5.6/release-notes.htm

Download:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2025/6.5.6/

Feedback is welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=140974#p140974

Have fun!      

Tags: easy

EasyOS audio and video work on Zenbook S 13

January 22, 2025 — BarryK

This has been a saga of about a week. I posted about purchase of Asus Zenbook S 13, with Intel Ultra 7 CPU:

And attempting to get Linux working on it:

With EasyOS, as soon as the i915 kernel GPU module loads, get a pink screen and only recoverable by holding down the power button.

I posted about examining the modules loaded by Manjaro, and created a config file to compile the 6.12.10 kernel for EasyOS Scarthgap. Still only a pink screen. Examined errors in "dmesg", did a lot of online reading. This went on for many days, but here is the working end result...

Reading dmesg, the GPU was failing to initialize, and reported as "wedged".  The issue seems to be related to the amount of memory allocated to the GPU; in the UEFI-setup it is set to 64M -- online reports are that increasing to 256MB fixes the problem. However, in my UEFI-setup there are only two choices, 32MB or 64MB.

Another recommendation is "intel_iommu=off" in the kernel commandline. Yes, that works, get a desktop. However, that seems a bit drastic, and another option "intel_iommu=igfx_off" works.

With the latter, the GPU still works; however, is disabled in VMs (Virtual Machines); at least that is what I uderstand from online reading. I can live with that.

I'm going to put "intel_iommu=igfx_off" as the default on the kernel commandline for the EasyOS USB-stick.

Note also, the 6.12.10 kernel, with updated firmware, audio works from the internal loadspeakers.

There is still a mystery; Manjaro does not require that "intel_iommu=igfx_off". I suppose there is some other kernel config setting that I did not pick up on.

Anyway, I was very happy today, seeing the desktop come up, and audio working!

Kernel source, patches and config here:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/kernel/6.12.x/6.12.10-20250121/

...the broadcom wl.ko and droidcam v4l2loopback-dc.ko compiled successfully. Running the kernel right now, aufs working ok. I will probably bump Easy Scarthgap and Daedalus to the 6.12.x kernel from now on.

EDIT:
Very interesting, the Manajaro kernel has been configured with this:

# CONFIG_INTEL_IOMMU_DEFAULT_ON is not set

whereas, in EasyOS kernel, it is:

CONFIG_INTEL_IOMMU_DEFAULT_ON=y

So Manjaro kernel is defaulting to Intel IOMMU turned off. Looking at the grub bootup, the kernel commandline:

lang=en_US keytable=us tz=UTC misobasedir=manjaro misolabel=MANJARO_XFCE_2421 quiet systemd.show_status=1 splash apparmor=1 security=apparmor driver=nonfree nouveau.modeset=0 i915.modeset=1 radeon.modeset=1

...not turned on there, so Manjaro has avoided the problem by running with "Intel_iommu=off". Hmmm, perhaps EasyOS is doing it a better way.       

Tags: easy

Installing Linux Mint on Asus Zenbook S 13

January 19, 2025 — BarryK

This is the 2024 Zenbook with Intel Ultra 7 CPU. I posted yesterday about installing Manjaro:

...what I didn't mention in that post is that booting from Limine, only get to the commandline, cannot start X. This is the XFCE version of Manjaro. I tried the usual methods of starting XFCE, but all I can get is an empty panel across top of screen. Type CTRL-ALT-DEL creates a shutdown window, and mouse suddenly starts working.

Today downloaded Linux Mint 22.1 Cinnamon, booted it on a USB-stick and installed to an ext4 partition in the Zenbook. I love the installer, lots of choices. Could not disable installing the bootloader; I had previously created a vfat esp partition, in which had installed Limine. No problem, Mint installed Grub in there as well. The UEFI setup now offers a choice of both.

Mint desktop works, sound works ...until the third bootup, then got a black screen. Thereafter a black screen, but booting in "compatibility mode" works -- that is using the vesa driver only.

This is what I now have in 'limine.cfg' file:

VERBOSE=no
TIMEOUT=10
DEFAULT_ENTRY=1
INTERFACE_BRANDING=EasyOS Limine Boot Manager
INTERFACE_RESOLUTION=800x600

:EasyOS Scarthgap test1 (/dev/nvme0n1p9 easyos/test1)
    COMMENT=EasyOS Scarthgap bootup
    RESOLUTION=1440x900
    PROTOCOL=linux
    KERNEL_PATH=boot://9/easyos/test1/vmlinuz
    MODULE_PATH=boot://9/easyos/test1/initrd
    KERNEL_CMDLINE=rw nomodeset
wkg_uuid=79ac733a-5f33-4875-bbdc-65d333bbd15f wkg_dir=easyos/test1/

:Linux Mint 22.1 (/dev/nvme0n1p8)
    COMMENT=Linux Mint bootup
    RESOLUTION=1440x900
    PROTOCOL=linux
    KERNEL_PATH=boot://8/boot/vmlinuz
    MODULE_PATH=boot://8/boot/initrd.img
    KERNEL_CMDLINE=rw nomodeset root=/dev/nvme0n1p8

...etc...

...notice the "nomodeset". The Zenbook screen is 2880x1800. Setting half that, 1440x900, in limine.cfg is just right on the 13" screen. Both distros run the desktop at that resolution. They both work real nice, except of course no GPU acceleration.    

Tags: easy

Installing Linux on Asus Zenbook S 13

January 17, 2025 — BarryK

I posted recently about purchasing the Zenbook:

Running Windows (Windows 11 Home), I used its partition manager to shrink the C: drive partition from circa-850GB to 128GB. Also turned off "fast startup" and disabled BitLocker partition encryption. All of these operations were done within Windows, by reference to some YouTube videos.

Booted Manjaro from USB-stick (to which the ISO had been written), and ran Gparted to create partitions in the empty space of the drive. A 64MB vfat esp boot partition, and three ext4 partititons (62GB, 62GB, last one to fill remaining space). The good thing was that Gparted was already builtin.

Whenever I use one of the mainstream Linux distributions, I become very frustrated; Manjaro is no exception. I should have made notes of the frustrations as encountered.

I ran "sudo thunar" in a terminal, as was surprised how many error messages. Things were missing, such as the 'gvfs' package. I wanted to mount the newly-created partitions, but no way could I find how to do it. Not via any GUI anyway; I resorted to doing it in a terminal, then could access them in Thunar.

Went ahead and installed Manjaro in one of the new ext4 partitions. It was taking awhile, so I went outside to water the garden. Came back in, and found the screen had locked, and it wanted a password to unlock. The default user is "manjaro" and from online docs the default password is "manjaro" -- but it just said "incorrect password". So I unlocked as the root user, and low-and-behold, it accepted "manjaro" password. However, the install had aborted.

Examining the ext4 partition, however, it looks like everything has installed.

Is it just me? Why are there so many hassles with using a mainstream distro, when one should be expecting very streamlined and refined experience? Anyway, moving on...

I booted EasyOS from USB-stick, and able to get low-resolution 800x600 vesa desktop. Workable, ok to use.

Installed Limine into the new vfat esp partition, and created an entry for Manjaro. Used this as reference:

...however, there was no 'initramfs-6.12-x86_64-fallback.img' in /boot folder. I had to bootup Manjaro from USB-stick again and create it:

> sudo mkinitcpio -P

Was then able to boot the Zenbook with Limine, to installed Manjaro.

Also installed EasyOS, into another ext4 partition. Which of course is super-easy, just copy 'vmlinuz', 'initrd' and 'easy.sfs'. Then create an entry in 'limine.cfg'

With Easy, still only have low-resolution vesa, also no sound.

Next up, examined the configuration of the kernel in EasyOS versus in Manjaro. I did this by running "lsmod" in both, then determining what extra modules Manjaro loads. I then worked backwards and determined what "CONFIG_*" settings need to be enabled. This website helped greatly:

https://www.kernelconfig.io/index.html

Then created a script that modified my kernel ".config" file:

#!/bin/sh
MODS='8250_dw|CONFIG_SERIAL_8250_DW
ac97_bus|CONFIG_AC97_BUS
acpi_tad|CONFIG_ACPI_TAD
 ...etc...
x_tables|CONFIG_NETFILTER_XTABLES'

cp -a -f DOTconfig DOTconfigNEW
echo -n '' > changes.log
sync

for aM in $MODS
do
 [ -z "$aM" ] && continue
 echo -n '.'
 aC="${aM/*|/}"
 if [ -z "$aC" ];then continue; fi
 grep -q -F "${aC}=" DOTconfig
 if [ $? -eq 0 ];then continue; fi
 grep -q -F "${aC} " DOTconfig
 if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
  echo -n " ${aC} "
  echo "modify ${aC}" >> changes.log
  sed -i -e "s%^# ${aC} .*%${aC}=m%" DOTconfigNEW
  continue
 fi
 echo -n " append ${aC} "
  echo "append ${aC}" >> changes.log
 echo "${aC}=m" >> DOTconfigNEW
done
echo
sync

It is possible to determine the CONFIG_* from module-name from the kernel source. I found this online:

 aC="$(find linux-6.12.9  -name "Makefile" -exec grep " += ${aM}.o" {} \; | grep -o 'CONFIG_[^)]*')"

...where $aM is the module-name. However, it only works sometimes.

The script is crude, as some modules require prerequisites that might not be enabled. Anyway, I used the generated "DOTconfigNEW" as the new '.config' and kernel 6.12.9 is compiling right now.   

Tags: easy

EasyOS Daedalus-series version 6.5.5 released

January 16, 2025 — BarryK

If you are new to EasyOS, I recommend that you read the version 6.5 release announcement for further information:

To find out what has changed since 6.5, read the 6.5.5 release notes:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/daedalus/2025/6.5.5/release-notes.htm

Some introductory notes are here:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/daedalus/2025/6.5.5/readme.htm

Download 6.5.5:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/daedalus/2025/6.5.5/

Feedback is welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=140297#p140297

Have fun!   

Tags: easy