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SFS loading order error

July 30, 2026 — BarryK

I am amazed that we keep finding new things to fix, where we think that area is OK. Posted about a problem with loading the devx sfs on the main desktop:

https://bkhome.org/news/202607/partial-fix-for-devx-sfs-loaded-on-main-desktop.html

This lead me to a startling discovery; the easy.sfs and devx.sfs layers were loaded in the overlayfs, but the devx.sfs was on the bottom! That is not supposed to happen; extra sfs's are supposed to be stacked on top of easy.sfs.

They do stack correctly in containers, and that is where my attention has been. Have neglected loading of extra sfs's on the main desktop. The cause goes back to when EasyOS adopted overlayfs, and dropped aufs.

The overlayfs mount has a format like this:

mount -t overlay -olowerdir=/lower1:/lower2:/lower3,upperdir=/upper

...where /lower1 is top of the read-only layers, /lower3 the lowest.

I had it the wrong way round, probably from "aufs thinking". Have fixed these files in the initrd:

/sbin/extrasfs
/inc/layer-lockdown, layer3, layer2, layer1, layer0

In many cases, an sfs stacked below easy.sfs will still work, but in the case of the devx sfs, it mucks up apt. Now on the track to properly fixing the problem that forum member retiredt00 reported.   

Tags: easy

Partial fix for devx sfs loaded on main desktop

July 30, 2026 — BarryK

Forum member retiredt00 has drawn my attention to this problem:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=17248

I booted up Easy on a usb-stick and ran SFSget to installed the devx sfs on the main desktop, not in a container. the window has some out-of-date information:

img1

...that is very old information: "NOTE: It is currently recommended to install to the main filesystem, NOT in a container"

I have changed that text to "NOTE: it is not necessary to install it with SFSget; just click on the devx icon on the desktop and it will be downloaded and installed into the devx container -- this is now the preferred method."

Yes, loading the devx sfs in the devx container is now the recommended method. See documentation:

https://easyos.org/dev/how-to-compile-source-code.html

Keeping coding and development separate from the main desktop is a vast improvement. If coming from Puppy Linux, please do adjust to this!

However, if the user does want to load the devx sfs on the main desktop, it should still work. Currently, the packages in the devx sfs are not recognized by APT.

I have modified /usr/local/petget/alias/sync-dpkg-layers, modified at line 106:

##############
#handle NEWstatus...
DEVXloaded=0
#20250822 careful, devx sfs may be loaded...
if [ -f /INSIDE_devx ];then
 DEVXloaded=1
fi
#20260730 devx sfs loaded on main desktop...
losetup --all --output BACK-FILE -n | grep -q -F 'devx.sfs'
if [ $? -eq 0 ];then
 DEVXloaded=1
fi
for aNEW in ${NEWstatus}
do
 [ -z "$aNEW" ] && continue
 grep -q -F "|${aNEW}|" /root/.packages/user-installed-packages
 [ $? -eq 0 ] && continue
 #20250822 careful, devx sfs may be loaded...
 if [ $DEVXloaded -eq 1 ];then
  grep -q -F "|${aNEW}|" /root/.packages/devx-only-installed-packages
  [ $? -eq 0 ] && continue
 fi
 #want to purge it from db, as no longer exists...
 sed -i "/^Package: ${aNEW}$/,/^$/d" /var/lib/dpkg/status
 rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/info/${aNEW}:* 2>/dev/null
 rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/info/${aNEW}.* 2>/dev/null
done

However, that is only part of the story. Need to keep thinking about it...   

Tags: easy

EasyOS Excalibur-series version 7.4.5

July 29, 2026 — BarryK

Important fixes since 7.4.4, and new graphical installer:

Have dropped gtk2-ng, back on Debian's gtk2 packages. Have reported a bug to the gtk2-ng project site:

https://git.devuan.org/Daemonratte/gtk2-ng/issues/27

The graphical installer, "Easy Installer", is a beta-release. Testers are most welcome, but probably best if you test on a computer that you don't mind if something goes wrong. Well, it may be 100% OK, but at this stage cannot make any guarantees. Well, can never make a guarantee of 100% infallibility.

Download:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/2026/7.4.5/

Newcomers to EasyOS are recommended to read the version 7.4 announcement, as it has more details:

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=174637#p174637

Have fun!   

Tags: easy

Xdialog displays date incorrectly

July 29, 2026 — BarryK

If you click on the clock icon in the tray, there is a menu, one entry being "Set date and time". This ends up running /usr/sbin/set-time-for-puppy, which runs this:

# Xdialog --stdout --title "$TITLE" --calendar "$(gettext 'Please set the date...')" 0 0 0 0 0

However, as was reported to me recently, the date is displayed incorrectly. Today is Wednesday 29th July:

img1

Xdialog is a gtk2 application, it relies upon getting locale and date information via gtk2.

Xdialog calendar has worked for us for "forever", right back from the early Puppy days. So, what has gone wrong?

I tested in Easy Scarthgap, calendar is OK. used the Scarthgap Xdialog utility in Excalibur, get the wrong date. This is looking suspiciously like something wrong with gtk2. Unfortunately, that means gtk2-ng. WoofQ2 has a configuration file, woofq2/configure/x86_64/build-choices (/root/.packages/build-choices in a runnging EasyOS), with these lines:

#20260602 yes or anything else for no...
BUILD_X_XLIBRE='no'
#20260608
BUILD_GTK2_NG='yes'

...I had already abandoned Xlibre, as it causes the Xorg nouveau driver to crash Xorg, reported awhile back but still not fixed. All that they have done is deprecate the nouveau driver, to use modesetting drive instead.

Now it is looking like will have to abandon gtk2-ng also. Yes, I also checked an EasyOS Excalibur version before using gtk2-ng, and the Xdialog calendar is OK.    

Tags: easy

New desktop icon sets

July 28, 2026 — BarryK

Forum member nilsonmorales has created these, see forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=174371#p174371

I have packaged these into PET packages and uploaded to the "noarch" repository:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/noarch/packages/pet/pet_packages-noarch/

The new packages are:

desk_icon_theme_3dfluency-20260728.pet
desk_icon_theme_arcade-20260728.pet
desk_icon_theme_color_glass-20260728.pet
desk_icon_theme_stickers-20260728.pet
desk_icon_theme_w11byicond8-20260728.pet

These will be available via the PKGget package manager in the next release of EasyOS. You can of course download them directly now, if you want to try them immediately.     

Tags: easy

YouTube video icon-free desktop

July 28, 2026 — BarryK

This video shows how to switch between the default icons-on-desktop and icon-free -desktop, and usage while in icon-free desktop:

"EasyOS Part23: Icon-free desktop"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btg2MAdS36I    

Tags: easy

Tray power-applet now beeps when low

July 26, 2026 — BarryK

Someone requested this recently, and I was reminded when my laptop suddenly died today.

The battery level indicator in the tray does start to flash when very low; however, I didn't notice it. The sudden death is not graceful; my Zenbook loses its date setting and I have to reset it. Logging into gmail, have to revalidate with a message to my phone.

So, have modified the source of 'powerapplet_tray' in woofQ2, so that now it beeps every 15 seconds. The file is /usr/share/audio/error.wav. The new source is:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/alphabetical/p/powerapplet_tray-3.1.tar.gz

That one has been on the back-burner for a very long time.    

Tags: easy

EasyClone copy user-installed kernel modules

July 26, 2026 — BarryK

EasyClone was discussed somewhere in the forum. Ah, yes, recall, it was in relation to the graphical installer:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=17171

If the person has booted up Easy from a usb-stick, got it all setup nicely, used it for awhile, then decides would like to install to internal drive of the computer, EasyClone is optionally used to copy selectively the setup of the currently-running Easy to the new installation. Like for example, browser configuration, history, bookmarks.

The EasyClone GUI has a checkbox to select the kernel modules setup. The "Kernel modules (blacklist, etc.)" checkbox can be seen here:

https://easyos.org/install/how-to-clone-a-easyos-installation.html

However, one thing is missed. The person may have installed the Broadcom wifi wl.ko module, which is available as a PET package. if that particular checkbox is ticked, then any user-installed kernel modules should also be cloned.

I have added a lines to /usr/local/easy_install/easyclone script:

if [ "$EXC8" == "true" ];then #kernel modules
 mkdir -p /mnt/${WKG_DEV}/EASYCLONE/.session/session1/etc/rc.d
 cp -a -f /mnt/wkg/.session/session1/etc/modprobe.d* /mnt/${WKG_DEV}/EASYCLONE/.session/session1/etc/ 2>/dev/null
 cp -a -f /mnt/wkg/.session/session1/etc/rc.d/MODULESCONFIG /mnt/${WKG_DEV}/EASYCLONE/.session/session1/etc/rc.d/ 2>/dev/null
 #20260725 user may have installed the broadcom wl.ko pet package...
 if [ -d /mnt/${WKG_DEV}/${WKG_DIR}.session/session1/usr/lib/modules/${KERNVER} ];then
  cd /mnt/${WKG_DEV}/${WKG_DIR}.session/session1
  find usr/lib/modules/${KERNVER} -mindepth 2 -type f -name '*.ko' -exec cp --parents {} /mnt/${WKG_DEV}/EASYCLONE/.session/session1/ \;
  cd /
 fi
fi

Note, the Broadcom module is provided as a PET package, not builtin to 'easy.sfs', as it is a proprietary closed source driver, and conflicts with the open-source drivers provided with the kernel; these are bcma, b43, brcmsmac, ssb -- these may have to be blacklisted to be able to use the Broadcom wl.ko module. The wl module is preferred by some people as has superior performance.       

Tags: easy