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Rollback broken after pristine reboot

May 09, 2026 — BarryK

Forum member retiredt00 reported this problem:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=169853#p169853

I think it is fixed. Will test and bring out next release soon.   

Tags: easy

Message while snapshot in progress

May 09, 2026 — BarryK

Forum member vtpup about the problem here:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=169778#p169778

...when a snapshot of the current state of the system is being taken, it may take awhile, and the user may be uncertain when it has finished.

I have added a message at top of the screen, that will be there for the duration:

img1

Just before the final step, when user is asked to enter a comment, that message will disappear, and after entering the comment another message will popup that snapshot completed.

img2     

Tags: easy

EasyOS Excalibur-series version 7.3.1 released

May 08, 2026 — BarryK

Newcomers, please read the 7.3 announcement, it has a lot more information:

Version 7.3.1 brings very nice improvements:

Download:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/2026/7.3.1/

The 7.3 announcement has links to download mirrors.

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=169773#p169773

Have fun!   

Tags: easy

Phomemo thermal printer drivers for Linux

May 06, 2026 — BarryK

I posted recently about purchasing a Phomemo P831 thermal transfer printer:

"Printing while tent-camping"
https://bkhome.org/news/202604/printing-while-tent-camping.html

...which has a link to Linux drivers.

I have made the Linux drivers into a PET package, this is for the full range of Phomemo thermal printers, and it will be builtin to the next release of EasyOS.

I was surprised today; looked at phomemo.com, and it looks like the P831 has been discontinued. They are only selling thermal-direct printing, that requires thermal paper. Yet, the P831, can print to ordinary paper when a ribbon is inserted, and be a normal thermal-direct printer, using thermal paper, when the ribbon is not inserted. This seems like the best of both worlds, so very surprised the P831 is discontinued -- Google AI confirmed it seems to have been discontinued. Ribbons still available.

Thermal paper is cheap, for example Kmart here in Australia has 4-pack rolls for AU$10. So also being able to print to thermal paper, if you don't mind it fading away after 6 months, is great.

Searching online, found mention of a "P832"; yes, available on Alibaba:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/NEW-300dpi-Portable-A4-Printer-thermal_1601072883119.html

...AIMO brand; this looks like direct from the factory in China. It seems very much like Phomemo obtain their printers from AIMO. So perhaps Phomemo will be selling the P832 soon.

img1

Also checked on AliExpress, lots of vendors of the Phomemo P831, no P832. Also here in eBay Australia, lots of vendors of the P831.

Anyway, back onto the Linux driver, the PET is here (9.3MB):

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/packages/pet/pet_packages-excalibur/phomemo-printer-driver-20260506.pet

...this is for x86_64 CPU. As already stated, this will be builtin.

Have also installed the Android driver, which talks to the printer via bluetooth. The Linux driver requires a USB cable.

The printer arrived today, and so far have only tested printing from my Android phone. Works well, remarkably dark black. The 300dpi is very nice; some other thermal printers are only 203dpi.   

Tags: easy

Restore ctrl-alt-backspace to exit from X

May 06, 2026 — BarryK

It used to work in the old pups. /etc/X11/xorg.conf had this:

Section "ServerFlags"
# Enables mode switching with xrandr
# There is a report that this can cause Xorg not to work on some
# video hardware, so default is commented-out...
# but i want to use it in xorgwizard so leave on...
    Option "RandR" "on"
# Xorg 7.4, Ubuntu Jaunty, CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE is disabled by default...
    Option "DontZap" "false"
EndSection

However, many years ago, Xorg stopped recognising "DontZap", as explained here:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/375/how-to-enable-killing-xorg-with-ctrlaltbackspace

Forum member Caramel discovered this, and posted the fix here:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=169477#p169477

I have implemented this. /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev-puppy.conf now has this:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev keyboard catchall"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
        Option      "XkbRules" "xorg"
        Option      "XkbModel" "pc102" #xkbmodel0
        Option      "XkbLayout" "us" #xkeymap0
        #Option      "XkbVariant" "" #xkbvariant0
        Option "XkbOptions" "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
EndSection

Mystery solved!    

Tags: easy

Menu search feature for JWM

May 05, 2026 — BarryK

Forum member l0wt3ch has created this fascinating menu text-search feature for JWM window manager:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=16835

Easy 7.x has JWM that was compiled in OpenEmbedded, for Easy Scarthgap. I have now added compiling of JWM in woofQ2, with l0wt3ch's patch, and created a PET. This will be in the next release of EasyOS.

Have uploaded the latest woofQ2 tarball, dated 260505:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/woofq2/woofq2-project/      

Tags: easy

ROX-Filer wider rename, copy, save dialogs

May 04, 2026 — BarryK

The very narrow dialog boxes in ROX-Filer is an annoyance. A little while ago, MochiMoppel posted a very simple fix:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=6493

At the time I saw this, I thought that's great, but then it slipped my mind. Now reminded, have put it in immediately, into /root/.jwm/jwmrc-personal in woofQ2.

I love these little refinements; we keep edging closer to "perfection".    

Tags: easy

Fixes for version update

May 02, 2026 — BarryK

Forum member vtpup was reporting some customizations getting deleted when there is a version update.

Custom changes to /usr/local/bin/default* files fixed:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=169456#p169456

An SFS file deleted:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=169462#p169462

No icon in menu when a .deb installed:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=169455#p169455

Amazing, it never ends, we keep finding things to fix!   

Tags: easy