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EasyOS Daedalus-series version 6.6.2 released

February 08, 2025 — BarryK

Easy Daedalus has now reached feature-parity with Easy Scarthgap version 6.6.2. They are, however, built with different packages; Scarthgap with packages compiled in OpenEmbedded/Yocto and Daedalus with Devuan Daedalus (Debian Bookworm) .deb packages. There are advantages and disadvantages of each, but newcomers to EasyOS are recommended to choose Scarthgap.

Scarthgap 6.6.2 was released yesterday:

The previous release of Easy Daedalus is version 6.5.7:

Here are the highlights of Daedalus 6.6.2 since 6.5.7:

Also, the kernel has been rolled back from 6.12.10 to 6.6.75.

Download:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/daedalus/2025/6.6.2/

...which also has release notes and getting-started readme.

Feedback is welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=142184#p142184

Have fun!    

Tags: easy

EasyOS Scarthgap-series version 6.6.2 released

February 07, 2025 — BarryK

Version 6.6.1 was released on February 4:

Here are the highlights of 6.6.2 since 6.6.1:

Rolled back from 6.12.x kernel to 6.6.x! Also fixes for detection if USB SSD supports TRIM.

Download:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2025/6.6.2/

...also has release notes and a getting-started readme file.

Kernel source with patches and build scripts:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/kernel/6.6.x/6.6.75-20250204/

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=142147#p142147

Have fun!   

Tags: easy

Detect NVME SSD in USB caddy support trim

February 06, 2025 — BarryK

Code implemented in 'init' script in the initrd:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/773c23392fb8292763742e2920a9c1622916ca0a   

Tags: easy

Statically-linked sg_vpd utility compiled in OE

February 06, 2025 — BarryK

There is an on-going effort to detect if USB SSDs support TRIM. In the initrd, the 'init' script uses 'hdparm' to probe for TRIM support; however, this works for SATA SSD in a USB caddy, but not NVME SSD. There is online information about using the 'sg_vpd' utility, for example:

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/enabling-trim-on-external-ssd-on-raspberry-pi

https://ivanb.neocities.org/blogs/y2023/fstrim

I didn't have a NVME SSD in a USB caddy, so this morning spent AU$29 for the caddy and AU$59 for a Crucial E100 NVME M.2 SSD 480GB. The cheapest SSD they had in my local computer parts store; not a long-life, very basic but good enough.

As I posted yesterday, the 'sg3-utils' package is now in the Scarthgap package repository:

I experimented with the 'sg_vpd' utility, looks like 'fstrim' now works; or rather, it ran without giving any messages and returned zero, meaning success.

I have compiled 'sg_vpd' in OpenEmbedded, statically-linked with musl and placed it into the initrd. The OE recipe is here:

https://github.com/bkauler/oe-qky-scarthgap/tree/main/quirky/meta-quirky/recipes-quirky/sg3-utils-static

The 'sg_vpd' binary is here:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/tree/main/easyos/easy-arch/amd64/target/boot/initrd-tree/bin

Next up, plan to put code into the 'init' script in the initrd.    

Tags: easy

Dune3D parametric CAD added to Flapi

February 06, 2025 — BarryK

Easy, using the "Customize" button:

img1

This will be in the next release of Flapi.

Homepage:

https://dune3d.org/   

Tags: easy

sdparm and sg3-utils compiled in OE

February 05, 2025 — BarryK

I have compiled 'sdparm' and 'sg3-utils' packages in OpenEmbedded, and added to the Easy Scarthgap package repository. You can install via PKGget, after updating the package database, or download directly:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/packages/compat/oe/scarthgap/

sg3-utils has a utility that can detect if a drive supports TRIM, in cases where other methods fail. I will experiment with this.  

Tags: easy

hdparm updated in initrd

February 05, 2025 — BarryK

The initrd has the binary executable 'hdparm' statically-linked with musl, version 9.58. Caramel has observed that a later version, in the main Easy filesystem, 9.65, seems to be better behaved:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=141941#p141941

I have compiled hdparm 9.65 statically-linked with musl, in OE. Actually, this is an old version of OE, from the EasyOS Pyro-series, that I keep for musl static compiles. Here is the binary:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/tree/main/easyos/easy-arch/amd64/target/boot/initrd-tree/bin

This does need some more investigation. The 'hdparm' utility has worked for me, but all of my USB drives are pendrives or SATA SSDs, or SATA HDDs. The problem may be with a NVME SSD in a USB caddy. So, I will investigate 'sg3-utils' to get around the limitation of 'hdparm'.   

Tags: easy

Linux 6.6.75 kernel compiled

February 05, 2025 — BarryK

EasyOS Scarthgap and Daedalus series have used the 6.6.x kernel, up until recently. Scarthgap 6.6 has the 6.12.11 kernel and 6.6.1 has the 6.12.12 kernel.

It has put me in a quandary, as the AVS audio driver does not work (it loaded on my Acer Aspire 1 but no sound, whereas legacy driver works), and the 6.12 kernel has removed many legacy audio drivers, forcing us to in some cases use AVS. Which is bad if the fallback legacy driver is no longer there.

I would like to rollback to a LTS kernel before 6.12, but unfortunately that is 6.6. The inbetween, 6.8, 6.9, 6.11, are all EOL.

But there is good news. Although kernels after 6.6 have improvements for the Intel Core Ultra 7 and Ark GPU, I have compiled 6.6.75 and video and sound now both work on my Asus Zenbook S13. This is using the i915 video driver and legacy audio driver.

So, going to stay with the 6.6.x kernel for Scarthgap, and probably Daedalus also. For now anyway.

Although I want EasyOS to work on recent laptops, the main focus is that Easy will work on older computers, right back to the very first with 64-bit CPU. I want all the legacy drivers.   

Tags: easy