Barrys News — Posts tagged "easy-4"

PCmanFM, MC, NetSurf packages

June 29, 2024 — BarryK

XFE file manager is being discussed on the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=11993

It would be good to have more file managers in the package repository, so I have compiled PCmanFM and Midnight Commander (MC) in OpenEmbedded. The former is a gtk+3 app, the latter an ncurses console app.

These are now online. Run PKGget and click the button to update the package databases. In the "oe-scarthgap" repository, in the "Filesystem" category, you will find PCmanFM and MC. MC requires no extra dependencies, PCmanFM requires menu-cache, libfm and libfm-extra.

After installation, you will find PCmanFM in the "Filesystem" category of the menu. MC doesn't have a menu entry; you will have to open a terminal and type "mc".

Here are short reviews of file managers:

https://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/best-linux-file-manager-6-reviewed-and-rated-942826/2

...this is page-2, showing ROX-Filer and PCmanFM.

Compiling of NetSurf web browser is also discussed in the forum. It has been made into a PET package, found in the "Filesystem" category of the "pet-scarthgap" repository in PKGget.

Homepage of NetSurf:

https://www.netsurf-browser.org/

Tags: easy

rev utility broken if LANG=C and UTF-8 char

June 27, 2024 — BarryK

Forum member Caramel posted about this:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=124017#p124017

In the rootfs-skeleton folder in woofQ, ran these tests:

# cd rootfs-skeleton/usr/bin
# grep -rl ' rev ' . | xargs -I XXX grep -l 'LANG=C' XXX | sort
./clean_desk_icons
./inxi
./mscw
./mscw-alsa
./xorgwizard
./xorgwizard-automatic

Also:

# cd rootfs-skeleton/usr/local
# grep -rl ' rev ' . | xargs -I XXX grep -l 'LANG=C' XXX | sort
./bin/drive_all
./easy_version/easy-update
./limine-installer/find-installations
./momanager/momanager
./petget/0setup
./petget/downloadpkgs.sh
./petget/filterpkgs.sh
./petget/installpkg.sh
./petget/installpreview.sh
./petget/petget
./pup_event/frontend_change
./sfsget/dir2sfs
./sfsget/sfsget
./video_upgrade/video_upgrade_wizard-OLD

I studied these scripts to determine if any might be in that situation where 'rev' has UTF-8 characters as input. Found, maybe, sfsget/dir2sfs, petget/installpkg.sh and momanager/momanager

Some scripts have "LANG=C" as they parse output from utilities that might be non-English otherwise. So unwise to just remove the LANG=C without careful consideraton. Instead, in those scripts I just prefixed 'rev' with " | LANG=$ORIGLANG rev | "

Tags: easy

NVIDIA 470 and 525 SFSs created

June 25, 2024 — BarryK

I have created these two, installatable with SFSget, via the desktop "pkg" icon:

nvidia_6.6.32-470.256.02_amd64.sfs
nvidia_6.6.32-525.147.05_amd64.sfs

Was unable to compile the 390.* source, though it did compile with the 5.15.x kernel.

Also unable to compile the 555.* source.

Information about which SFS to use can be found here:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/

These NVIDIA SFSs should just work. Install to the main filesystem, reboot, that's it.

Tags: easy

EasyOS Scarthgap-series version 6.0.2 released

June 24, 2024 — BarryK

Lots of bug fixes. Please read the 6.0 announcement for more details about this new series:

EasyOS Scarthgap-series version 6.0 released — June 18, 2024

Release notes for 6.0.2:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2024/6.0.2/release-notes.htm

Download:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2024/6.0.2/

NLUUG mirror:

https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/easyos/amd64/releases/scarthgap/2024/

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=63

Tags: easy

Some more fixes

June 24, 2024 — BarryK

Continuing finding and fixing bugs.

8. pup_event AppInfo.xml syntax error
Fixed. See: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=123975#p123975

9. Xarchive
/files and /files/downloads group getting changed. See: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=124006#p124006

10. ffmpeg
pulseaudio dependency missing. See: https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=124025#p124025

Getting ready to release 6.0.2

Tags: easy

Yet more buglets fixed in EasyOS 6.0

June 23, 2024 — BarryK

Gee, they are really coming out of the woodwork. Blog post yesterday:

More buglets fixed in EasyOS 6.0 — June 22, 2024

Continuing...

5. German locale
Thanks to Caramel; superb detective work, chased this one down:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=123603#p123603

I have fixed that script.

6. Grisbi
Forum member nnriyer reported that a library is missing, needed by Grisbi email client. Yes, 'libetpan' package is required. Fixed.

7. losetup
FeodorF and Caramel discovered this problem, and solution:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=123852#p123852

Yes, there used to be 'losetup' and 'losetup-FULL'. This harks from the Puppy days. The former was a busybox applet, the latter from util-linux. Now we just have /usr/bin/losetup from util-linux. I have fixed the script; however, just in case we encounter old Puppy scripts that require losetup-FULL, I have created it as a symlink.

FeodorF has discovered another problem with the de locale. I will need to bootup with de locale. Intend to look at that tonight.

Tags: easy

More buglets fixed in EasyOS 6.0

June 22, 2024 — BarryK

This is what happens when there is a major new release version; we get it out there with lots of users, and discover bugs. I posted a couple of days ago about a XKB Configuration Manager bug:

XKB Configuration Manager bug — June 19, 2024

Here are some more...

1. clang
With the devx SFS loaded, clang seemed to be broken. Wasn't sure what was wrong; anyway, compiled llvm/clang 18.1.5 in a running EasyOS 6.0 and created a PET package. This will be in the next devx, instead of the package compiled in OE.

Thanks to the Linux From Scratch guys for guidance how to compile llvm/clang:

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/general/llvm.html

2. Grisbi
In the "Business" category of the menu, the icon for "Grisbi finance management" is missing. Fixed.

3. Chrome and Ungoogle Chromium
I have removed these from Appi and Flapi. Reason is, they are in the menu "Internet" category, and it is much better to install them this way. One advantage is they can be updated from the menu (see snapshot below) and the latest official package is downloaded so don't have to wait on AppImage and Flatpak updates.

4. Firefox
There is also "Download latest Firefox" in the menu:

Rick sent me an email, reporting that after installing Firefox via "Download latest Firefox", there was no menu entry. I have fixed that and you can see above "Firefox web browser" entry.

You can update Firefox at any time, just by choosing "Download latest Firefox". Ditto for the other browsers. Because of that, I have disabled updating from within Firefox. There is now this file, at /usr/lib/firefox/distribution/policies.json:

{
	"policies":
	{
		"DisableAppUpdate":true,
		"DontCheckDefaultBrowser":true,
		"ExtensionUpdate":false,
		"HardwareAcceleration":false
	}
}

...this overrides user setup choices.

For example, the user cannot enable hardware acceleration; would have to edit that 'policies.json' file and delete that line.

The reason I have disabled hardware acceleration is that with it enabled Firefox behaves very badly on some hardware -- weird glitches when rendering. I want the best out-of-the-box experience for all users.

I don't recall why I also put in to disable extension updating. Anyway, if you want to discuss this, please do so at the forum, here.

5. German locale
If the German (de) locale is chosen, there is a black screen at the third bootup. Thanks to Federico and Caramel who chased this bug down, see here. I have not yet implemented the fix.

Notice in the above snapshot, there is no "Download latest Chromium". The reason for this is that Chromium is built-in to easy.sfs and was compiled by me. I compiled it with support for extra video codecs, whereas the official packages from Google do not support "proprietary codecs" and won't play many YouTube videos.

The downside is that you to update Chromium you have to wait until I compile it and include it in a future release of EasyOS. If you want more frequent updates, consider Ungoogled Chromium.

Tags: easy

XKB Configuration Manager bug

June 19, 2024 — BarryK

Forum members FeodorF and BologneChe reported errors with this keyboard configuration tool:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=123399#p123399

It works for me, except for the "Layout Variants" button, the bug that BologneChe reported.

I found that a symlink is missing. Do this in a terminal to fix it:

# ln -s base.lst /stc/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.lst

...that "l" is the letter, not numeric one.

I checked, that symlink does exist in EasyOS Kirkstone.

Note, "XKB Configuration Manager" is script /usr/bin/xkbconfigmanager, and is in the menu, via "Setup -> Date and Time Setup". Or, can find it via the "setup" desktop icon, in the "Hardware" tab.

I don't know about the error FeodorF has reported. Perhaps it is a problem with non-English locale?

The fix will of course be in the next release of Easy.

Tags: easy