Barrys News — Posts tagged "easy-2"

GetFlashPlayer updated to version 1.9

November 05, 2019 — BarryK

Or, we just call it GetFlash. It isn't working in latest EasyOS. This is because Adobe keep changing the download URL. Consequently, we have to keep fixing it.

Many people have contributed to this. Looking at the changelog, technosaurus and myself created the original, version 0.5, in 2011. Since then, contributors have been 01micko, shinobar, ASRI, Geoffrey, rerwin and myself.

That brought us up to version 1.8, which no longer works. Forum member 'rooftop' has fixed it, see post:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=1040864#1040864

Here is the GetFlash forum thread:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=74491

Here is the new 1.9 PET:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/noarch/packages/pet/pet_packages-noarch/getflash-1.9.pet

Note, Easy uses the /root/Startup folder to start things when X starts. Older pups do it this way, but recent pups use /etc/xdg/autostart and $HOME/.config/autostart folders, as per the XDG specification, so the PET would need to be modified to work in recent pups -- though, I don't know if woof-CE pups have a fallback and recognise anything in /root/Startup.

Tags: easy

Kernel 5.2.21 compiled for Buster and Pyro

November 04, 2019 — BarryK

Alfons reported unable to boot EasyOS from a USB hard drive. The drive partitions were not being recognised in the initrd, and he discovered that the 'ums_cypress' driver module is required to be loaded.

In the initrd there are no modules, and the kernel is supposed to have all drivers required to recognise and use drives builtin, not as modules. I have compiled the 5.2.21 Linux kernel, up from 5.2.10, and have made this change:

Device Drivers -> USB support -> <y> SAT emulation on Cypress USB/ATA Bridge with ATACB

...who would guess that is needed for a USB drive to work? Unintuitive, but anyway, it is done.

The 5.2.21 kernel has been compiled for both Easy Pyro and Easy Buster, and will be in the next release, coming soon.

I am keen to use the new "lockdown" security feature in the 5.4 kernel, will probably wait for 5.4.1. This feature looks like it has an immediate use in Easy's "Copy session to RAM & disable drives" boot option, to reduce likelihood of any sneaky method of accessing the drives.

Tags: easy

powerapplet_tray updated to version 2.7

October 28, 2019 — BarryK

powerapplet_tray is a battery status monitor in the system tray. Variants of it are in most of the pups, including Quirky and EasyOS. Looking at the source of the one used in Easy, it seems that I wrote it, with input from Puppy Forum member 'rodin.s'. I seem to recall '01micko' having input at some stage, though maybe that was a different battery monitor applet.

Anyway, the one used in Easy has some issues, and Forum member 'rooftop' (identified as 'NC' in the C code comments) has made some improvements:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=1040389#1040389

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=1040451#1040451

The 2.7 source code is here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/alphabetical/p/

PETs:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/packages/pet/pet_packages-buster/powerapplet_tray-2.7-buster64.pet

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/packages/pet/pet_packages-pyro/powerapplet_tray-2.7-pyro64.pet

Tags: easy

SeaMonkey 2.49.5 recompiled

October 27, 2019 — BarryK

I had difficulty compiling this before, and ended up using a Slackware script:

https://bkhome.org/news/201909/compile-system-for-seamonkey-2495.html

However, the "make install" step failed, and I had to do a manual install, without the 'omni.ja' file, and it seems this has caused slower startup.

Today revisited this, and have successfully compiled, with my own script. There is a tarball with script and patches:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/alphabetical/s/seamonkey-build-2.49.5-20191026.tar.gz

I have compiled for Pyro and created a PET, now to do same for Buster.

Tags: easy

Little bug fixes for Pyro 1.2.7 and Buster 2.1.7

October 26, 2019 — BarryK

In Easy Pyro 1.2.7, if right-click on an image file, appropriate apps are offered to launch it. However, mtPaint is missing from the offerings. Fixed.

Thanks to the guys testing these latest releases of EasyOS, and couple more buglets identified.

It was reported that the xine media player needs the 'xvinfo' utility. This is now added to both Pyro and Buster. Here is the PET compiled for Pyro:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/packages/pet/pet_packages-pyro/xvinfo-1.1.4-pyro64.pet

/usr/bin/startx is supposed to be a symlink to script 'xwin', however it isn't in Pyro, it is a script. /usr/bin/startx is in the 'xinit' package. I have fixed it so that 'startx' gets replaced by a symlink.

Tags: easy

EasyOS now mirrored at NLUUG

October 25, 2019 — BarryK

EasyOS files are hosted at ibiblio.org:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/

Ibiblio has setup a ro rsync module for easyos, so that it can be mirrored:

https://answers.ibiblio.org/questions/2560/cannot-mirror-easyos-linux-distro.html

Now NLUUG, which is the Netherlands Linux User Group, has mirrored easyos:

https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/easyos/

Or:

ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/easyos/

I will add this URL to the package manager.

Tags: easy

Netpbm package updated

October 24, 2019 — BarryK

EasyOS, and before that Quirky, use an old version of Netpbm, image manipulation utilities. There was a reason for using this old version, but I forget what it was -- that was many years ago. In the last few years, there has been a problem with the 'xwdtopnm' utility in Netpbm not working properly, breaking the Screeny screen snapshot application. I posted about this on the forum:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=1040268#1040268

I have compiled the latest Netpbm and created a PET:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/packages/pet/pet_packages-pyro/netpbm-10.73.29-pyro64.pet

Scripts that use netpbm utilities:

/usr/local/easy_containers/easy-containers
/usr/sbin/icon_switcher, icon_switcher_cli, screeny, background_reshape

...they all work with the new utilities.

Thanks to the testers for reporting this. The new PET will be in the next release of Pyro and Buster.

Tags: easy

Easy Pyro 1.2.7 and Buster 2.1.7 released

October 21, 2019 — BarryK

New versions of EasyOS! Basically bug fix releases.

Tags: easy

Pyro 1.2.7

Buster 2.1.7

WoofQ