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EasyOS Excalibur-series version 7.3.8

June 04, 2026 — BarryK

Major changes this time!

Release notes since version 7.3.7:

As Easy is positioned as a "retro" distribution, it would seem a good idea to replace Xorg/X11 with Xlibre. That is done, but there is one downside; there are less xserver-xorg-video-* drivers, which may be an issue on very old hardware. Will see how it goes; if anyone running on an old PC reports video problems... well, I suppose will go back to Debian Xorg.

One requirement of Xlibre is that it requires some packages from the Debian "excalibur-backports" repository. I went the whole way, and gave that repository the highest priority, so Easy got built with all packages in excalibur-backports getting preference. Upside is later package versions, downside is not as well tested as the stable repository. Again, we shall see.

Note, excalibur-backports, also known as stable-backports, has packages back-ported from the Debian "testing" repository.

Easy 7.3.7 has the SMPlayer media player, as Celluloid, that we have had just about forever in earlier releases of Easy, has been troublesome. EcoTube is a fork of Celluloid, works for me; let me know how it works for you.

Newcomers to EasyOS, recommend read the 7.3 announcement:

Download 7.3.8:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/2026/7.3.8/

If already running EasyOS, just click the "update" desktop icon, as usual. The .img and devx sfs delta (difference) files are big this time, due to so many changes. Normally, we would expect the delta file to be small, under 100MB, but this time about 300MB.

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=171493#p171493

Have fun!    

Tags: easy

Custom desktop icons lost after version update

June 03, 2026 — BarryK

Forum member retiredt00 reported this problem and Caramel posted a fix a bit further down the page:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=171362#p171362

The fix has been implemented.   

Tags: easy

Limine Installer tested

June 03, 2026 — BarryK

Forum member l0wt3ch reported boot fail after installing Limine, using Limine Installer:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=171406#p171406

...there is no need to install the Limine .pet, it is already builtin in EasyOS.

Running the latest EasyOS, 7.3.8RC on a usb-stick, ran "limine-installer" in a terminal, so as to see any error messages. Firstly, booted on my Zenbook laptop, UEFI bootup, and OS installations were found:

/EasyOS Excalibur64 (partition nvme0n1p2, path excalibur)
    comment: EasyOS bootup
    resolution: 800x600
    protocol: linux
    kernel_cmdline: rw intel_iommu=igfx_off wkg_uuid=a6446008-7f3a-4196-be5c-c0416f4edf44 wkg_dir=excalibur
    kernel_path: guid(cd4fe787-417f-4806-a16e-f63c360b135d):/excalibur/vmlinuz
    module_path: guid(cd4fe787-417f-4806-a16e-f63c360b135d):/excalibur/initrd

/EasyOS Scarthgap64 (partition nvme0n1p2, path scarthgap)
    comment: EasyOS bootup
    resolution: 800x600
    protocol: linux
    kernel_cmdline: rw intel_iommu=igfx_off wkg_uuid=a6446008-7f3a-4196-be5c-c0416f4edf44 wkg_dir=scarthgap
    kernel_path: guid(cd4fe787-417f-4806-a16e-f63c360b135d):/scarthgap/vmlinuz
    module_path: guid(cd4fe787-417f-4806-a16e-f63c360b135d):/scarthgap/initrd

/EasyOS Daedalus64 (partition nvme0n1p2, path daedalus)
    comment: EasyOS bootup
    resolution: 800x600
    protocol: linux
    kernel_cmdline: rw intel_iommu=igfx_off wkg_uuid=a6446008-7f3a-4196-be5c-c0416f4edf44 wkg_dir=daedalus
    kernel_path: guid(cd4fe787-417f-4806-a16e-f63c360b135d):/daedalus/vmlinuz
    module_path: guid(cd4fe787-417f-4806-a16e-f63c360b135d):/daedalus/initrd

/EasyOS Excalibur64 (partition sda2, path easyos)
    comment: EasyOS bootup
    resolution: 800x600
    protocol: linux
    kernel_cmdline: rw intel_iommu=igfx_off wkg_uuid=ee414d80-252b-45e1-a9eb-f687271ee44e wkg_dir=easyos
    kernel_path: fslabel(easyos2):/easyos/vmlinuz
    module_path: fslabel(easyos2):/easyos/initrd

...drive /dev/nvme0n1 is gpt, the USB-stick /dev/sda is mbr.

Chose to install to the usb-stick, rebooted, all of the above are in 'limine.conf' in first partition of the USB-stick, and all menu entries work.

Next, booted the Easy 7.3.8RC usb-stick on my Lenovo PC, which is UEFI but capable of legacy-BIOS bootup; chose the latter. This time, Limine Installer put up this message:

img1

...clicked "CONTINUE", OS installations were found:

/EasyOS Excalibur64 (partition nvme0n1p2, path easyos)
    comment: EasyOS bootup
    resolution: 800x600
    protocol: linux
    kernel_cmdline: rw intel_iommu=igfx_off wkg_uuid=f992c44c-80f3-4c0c-b915-5a40907fb548 wkg_dir=easyos
    kernel_path: guid(641de803-19ae-43c6-b886-b4687e99ce6d):/easyos/vmlinuz
    module_path: guid(641de803-19ae-43c6-b886-b4687e99ce6d):/easyos/initrd

/EasyOS Excalibur64 (partition sda2, path easyos)
    comment: EasyOS bootup
    resolution: 800x600
    protocol: linux
    kernel_cmdline: rw intel_iommu=igfx_off wkg_uuid=ee414d80-252b-45e1-a9eb-f687271ee44e wkg_dir=easyos
    kernel_path: fslabel(easyos2):/easyos/vmlinuz
    module_path: fslabel(easyos2):/easyos/initrd

...note, drive /dev/nvme0n1 is gpt, the usb-stick /dev/sda is mbr.

Chose again to install to the usb-stick, rebooted, again chose legacy-BIOS bootup, got the above two menu entries, both work.   

Tags: easy

EasyOS built with Xlibre

June 02, 2026 — BarryK

Xlibre is a fork of x11, keeping it alive, for those who do not want to go the Wayland route. Xlibre webpage:

https://x11libre.net/

More information about Xlibre in my blog post in October 2025:

https://bkhome.org/news/202510/xlibre-is-rocketing-ahead.html

Some of the guys on the forum who build Puppy-variants have experimented with Xlibre, for example fredx181:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=15924

Also rockedge:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=16966

fredx181 used a Xlibre repository for Debian here, showing the devuan folder:

https://github.com/xlibre-deb/devuan

Unfortunately, it is a bit out of date. rockedge used this repository, again showing devuan folder:

https://github.com/xlibre-debian/devuan

...very active and up-to-date, so I am using this one for EasyOS.

There is one problem with the xlibre-debian repository; it requires packages to be obtained from "stable-backports". Discovered this when building the 'xserver-xlibre-video-amdgpu' package; package versions in Debian-stable were too old.

There is potentially a problem building with stable-backports, actually excalibur-backports; these are packages backported from the "testing" branch and potentially introducing instability or undesirable behaviour. It is possible to pick out certain packages from excalibur-backports and for the rest of the build only use excalibur-stable; however, I got into a mess with the dependency chain. Instead, have enabled excalibur-backports globally as first choice when building.

EasyOS is built with woofQ2. The script that creates the basic rootfs is woofq2/rootfs/1create-rootfs. Now building with Xlibre, but don't want to "burn the bridges", so there is a new variable in woofq2/configure/x86_64/build-choices:

BUILD_X_XLIBRE='yes'

Here are changes made to 1create-rootfs:

. ${L1}/configure/${xARCH}/build-choices #20260602 has BUILD_X_XLIBRE=yes

Add keyfile for Xlibre repository, also download Packages.gz for later use:

 #20260601 add xlibre repo keyfile...
 if [ "$BUILD_X_XLIBRE" == "yes" ];then #20260602
  cd $SB
  if [ -f Packages-xlibre ];then rm -f Packages-xlibre; fi
  if [ -f Packages.gz ];then rm -f Packages.gz; fi
  if [ -f Packages-xlibre.gz ];then rm -f Packages-zlibre.gz; fi
  download_file https://github.com/xlibre-debian/devuan/raw/refs/heads/master/dists/main/stable/binary-amd64/Packages.gz
  mv -f Packages.gz Packages-xlibre.gz
  gunzip Packages-xlibre.gz
  if [ ! -f /usr/share/keyrings/NexusSfan.pgp ];then
   #download_file https://github.com/xlibre-debian/devuan/raw/refs/heads/master/pool/stable/n/nexussfan-archive-keyring/nexussfan-archive-keyring_1.0.0-1_all.deb
   KEYdeb="$(grep '^Filename: pool/stable/n/nexussfan-archive-keyring/nexussfan-archive-keyring_' Packages-xlibre)"
   KEYdeb="${KEYdeb##*/}" #ex: nexussfan-archive-keyring_1.0.0-1_all.deb
   if [ -f ./${KEYdeb} ];then rm -f ./${KEYdeb}; fi
   download_file https://github.com/xlibre-debian/devuan/raw/refs/heads/master/pool/stable/n/nexussfan-archive-keyring/${KEYdeb}
   dpkg -i ${KEYdeb}
  fi
  if [ ! -s /usr/share/keyrings/NexusSfan.pgp ];then
   echo "Failed to install NexusSfan.pgp"
   exit 1
  fi
  cd $L0
 fi

The excalibur-backports and xlibre repositories added:

 #20260601 add xlibre repo...
 echo -n '' > ${SB}/rootfs/etc/apt/sources.list
 if [ "$BUILD_X_XLIBRE" == "yes" ];then #20260602
  mkdir -p ${SB}/rootfs/etc/apt/sources.list.d
  echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/NexusSfan.pgp] https://xlibre-debian.github.io/devuan main stable' > ${SB}/rootfs/etc/apt/sources.list.d/repo-xlibre-debian.list
  #ref: http://deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/
  echo 'deb http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged excalibur-backports main' >> ${SB}/rootfs/etc/apt/sources.list
  #20260601 set priority...
  mkdir -p ${SB}/rootfs/etc/apt/preferences.d
  echo 'Package: *
Pin: release a=excalibur-backports
Pin-Priority: 501' > ${SB}/rootfs/etc/apt/preferences.d/backports-priority.pref
  echo 'Package: *
Pin: origin xlibre-debian.github.io
Pin-Priority: 502' > ${SB}/rootfs/etc/apt/preferences.d/xlibre-priority.pref
 fi
 
 echo -n 'deb http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged excalibur main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged excalibur-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged excalibur-security main
' >> ${SB}/rootfs/etc/apt/sources.list

...notice the "Pin-Priority" to give these new repositories first-choice when building.

Alternative sources.list files for URLs elsewhere in the world. Take out excalibur-backports if not required:

if [ "$BUILD_X_XLIBRE" != "yes" ];then #20260602
 #get rid of excalibur-backports repo...
 sed -i '/excalibur-backports/d' ${SB}/rootfs/etc/apt/sources.list*
fi

Further down, building from a list of Devuan packages, exclude these:

for aPKG in ${PKGLIST}
do
 [ "$aPKG" == "" ] && continue
 if [ "${aPKG:0:1}" == "#" ];then continue; fi
 if [ "$BUILD_X_XLIBRE" == "yes" ];then #20260602
  case "$aPKG" in
   *xorg*|*xserver*) continue ;;
  esac
 fi
 ...

Then, build the Xlibre packages:

if [ "$BUILD_X_XLIBRE" == "yes" ];then #20260602
 XL='xlibre-x11-common xserver-xlibre-core xserver-xlibre xserver-xlibre-xnest xserver-xlibre-common xserver-xlibre-xephyr xserver-xlibre-input-evdev xserver-xlibre-input-kbd xserver-xlibre-input-libinput xserver-xlibre-input-mouse xserver-xlibre-input-synaptics xserver-xlibre-input-wacom xserver-xlibre-video-amdgpu xserver-xlibre-video-ati xserver-xlibre-video-fbdev xserver-xlibre-video-intel xserver-xlibre-video-nouveau xserver-xlibre-video-qxl xserver-xlibre-video-radeon xserver-xlibre-video-sisusb xserver-xlibre-video-vesa xserver-xlibre-video-vmware xserver-xlibre-video-voodoo'
 for aPKG in xlibre-archive-keyring ${XL} #20260601
 do
  [ "$aPKG" == "" ] && continue
  if [ "${aPKG:0:1}" == "#" ];then continue; fi
  if [ -n "$WAITASK" ];then
   echo
   echo -n "ENTER to install '${aPKG}', any other char to quit: "
   read WANTMORE
   if [ -n "$WANTMORE" ];then
    break
   fi
  else
   sleep 2
  fi
  chroot ${SB}/rootfs apt install ${aPKG}
  chroot ${SB}/rootfs apt-mark hold ${aPKG}
  #is there a post-install fix?...
  if [ -d ${L1}/builtin/deb/fixes/${aPKG} ];then
   echo "  ...found builtin/deb/fixes/${aPKG}"
   if [ -f ${L1}/builtin/deb/fixes/${aPKG}/pinstall.sh ];then
    cat ${L1}/builtin/deb/fixes/${aPKG}/pinstall.sh >> ${SB}/pinstall-1.sh
   fi
   if [ -f ${L1}/builtin/deb/fixes/${aPKG}/FIXUPHACK ];then
    cd ${SB}/rootfs
    bash ${L1}/builtin/deb/fixes/${aPKG}/FIXUPHACK
    cd ${L1}/rootfs
   fi
   if [ -d ${L1}/builtin/deb/fixes/${aPKG}/REPLACEMENTS ];then
    cp -a -f --remove-destination ${L1}/builtin/deb/fixes/${aPKG}/REPLACEMENTS/* ${SB}/rootfs/
   fi
  fi
  sync
 done

...this will uninstall any conflicting packages from the stable repositories. Note, I did try to install the Xlibre packages first, then the stable, on the reasoning that the Xlibre package "provides" field in the control file will cause the normal stable package names to be recognized as already installed; however, that didn't work.

Notice also above, "apt-mark hold" on each of the Xlibre packages.

Unfortunately, the Xlibre packages have some "-dev" packages as dependencies. Very odd, for example 'xserver-xlibre-video-amdgpu' has dependency 'mesa-common-dev', which also pulls in some more -dev packages. Yes, very odd.

These -dev packages are not needed in easy.sfs, only required in the devx sfs; however, cannot just delete them as it will break apt dependency handling. So have used this brute-force method of removing them:

echo -n '' > ${SB}/dev-rootfs-removed
if [ "$BUILD_X_XLIBRE" == "yes" ];then #20260602
 #xlibre pkgs have installed lots of -dev pkgs
 for aDEV in $(grep -o -- '^[a-z0-9-]*-dev/' ${SB}/pkgs-installed.txt | tr -d '/')
 do
  [ -z "$aDEV" ] && continue
  chroot ${SB}/rootfs dpkg --remove --force-depends ${aDEV}
  chroot ${SB}/rootfs apt-mark hold ${aDEV}
  sed -i "/^${aDEV}/d" ${SB}/pkgs-installed.txt
  echo "$aDEV" >> ${SB}/dev-rootfs-removed
 done
fi

The intention is that when building the devx sfs, "apt-mark unhold" will be run on these packages and they will get installed. That is not yet implemented.

Went ahead and did a build, created 'easy-7.3.8-amd64.img', wrote it to a usb drive, booted, all OK.   

Tags: easy

EcoTube media player

May 31, 2026 — BarryK

Easy 7.3.7 has SMPlayer media player, as we have had some problems with Celluloid that is in all previous releases.

EcoTube is a fork of Celluloid and has many improvements:

https://github.com/ecotubehq/player

Audio and video working OK on my Zenbook, so going to give EcoTube a go at being builtin. SMPlayer is excellent; however, it requires the Qt5 libraries, which increases the size of the .img download file considerably.

I have compiled EcoTube and created a Debian .deb package, 'ecotube_260402_amd64.deb', which is in woofQ2, not yet uploaded.    

Tags: easy

Global IP TV Panel bumped to 2026MK9

May 31, 2026 — BarryK

Forum member ETP has released a new version of this streaming TV viewer, see forum thread:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=689

2026MK9 has a new URL for "France 24".  

Tags: easy

Overhaul of optical drive detection

May 30, 2026 — BarryK

A little while ago, we were testing Xfburn CD/DVD burner app, and it was failing to detect the optical drive. Today, forum member vtpup testing Easy 7.3.7 reported pBurn not detecting the optical drive because /dev/cdrom did not exist.

Have figured out what is wrong. The udev rule /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/60-cdrom_id.rules was removed in the woofQ2 build system. Instead, /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit does some optical drive detection and creates symlinks /dev/cdrom and /dev/dvd to /dev/sr0

That is ancient code in rc.sysinit, back from the very early Puppy days. Useless now, as it only works for internal optical drives. I recently purchased a usb optical DVD drive for testing, which made me realise how useless that rc.sysinit code is.

The optical detection code has now been removed from rc.sysinit, there is now /etc/udev/rules.d/60-cdrom_id.rules:

ACTION=="remove", GOTO="cdrom_end"
SUBSYSTEM!="block", GOTO="cdrom_end"
KERNEL!="sr[0-9]*|xvd*", GOTO="cdrom_end"
ENV{DEVTYPE}!="disk", GOTO="cdrom_end"

# unconditionally tag device as CDROM
KERNEL=="sr[0-9]*", ENV{ID_CDROM}="1"

# media eject button pressed
ENV{DISK_EJECT_REQUEST}=="?*", RUN+="cdrom_id --eject-media $devnode", GOTO="cdrom_end"

# import device and media properties and lock tray to
# enable the receiving of media eject button events
# BK do not lock tray...
#IMPORT{program}="cdrom_id --lock-media $devnode"
IMPORT{program}="cdrom_id $devnode"

KERNEL=="sr0", SYMLINK+="cdrom", OPTIONS+="link_priority=-100"

# BK cdrom_id should have set ID_CDROM_DVD
KERNEL=="sr0", ENV{ID_CDROM_DVD}== "1", SYMLINK+="dvd", OPTIONS+="link_priority=-100"

LABEL="cdrom_end"

Now, when I plugin my usb DVD drive, /dev/cdrom and /dev/dvd appear, unplug and they disappear. Great!

Most important, the rule runs 'cdrom_id', which sets lots of parameters, that we can read:

# udevadm info /dev/sr0
P: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-1/3-1.2/3-1.2:1.0/host1/target1:0:0/1:0:0:0/block/sr0
N: sr0
L: -100
S: cdrom
S: dvd
E: DEVLINKS=/dev/cdrom /dev/dvd
E: DEVNAME=/dev/sr0
E: DEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-1/3-1.2/3-1.2:1.0/host1/target1:0:0/1:0:0:0/block/sr0
E: DEVTYPE=disk
E: DISKSEQ=52
E: ID_CDROM=1
E: ID_CDROM_CD=1
E: ID_CDROM_CD_R=1
E: ID_CDROM_CD_RW=1
E: ID_CDROM_DVD=1
E: ID_CDROM_DVD_PLUS_R=1
E: ID_CDROM_DVD_PLUS_RW=1
E: ID_CDROM_DVD_PLUS_R_DL=1
E: ID_CDROM_DVD_R=1
E: ID_CDROM_DVD_RAM=1
E: ID_CDROM_DVD_RW=1
E: ID_CDROM_MEDIA=1
E: ID_CDROM_MRW=1
E: ID_CDROM_MRW_W=1
E: MAJOR=11
E: MINOR=0
E: SUBSYSTEM=block
E: USEC_INITIALIZED=5199413668

This is good, I am now fully expecting that Xfburn will work, though not yet tested.   

Tags: easy

unifont package removed

May 29, 2026 — BarryK

Chasing ways to reduce the size of the Easy download .img file, posted earlier about reducing the size of the 'libllvm19' package:

Using Gdmap to have a pictorial view of what else might be causing unnecessary bloat, discovered the 'unifont' package. This is a dependency of SolveSpace (parametric CAD app), but SolveSpace will work without it, as there are already adequate installed fonts.

unifont has two dependencies 'fonts-unifont' and 'psf-unifont', and all three occupy about 57Mb space, uncompressed. That's a lot of bloat.

Simple solution, I created a dummy package for 'unifont', using equivs. The other two are still available in the Devuan repository, but are no longer being pulled in builtin into easy.sfs.   

Tags: easy