site  contact  subhomenews

Xdialog GUI for shell scripts updated

May 22, 2026 — BarryK

EasyOS is using a very old version of Xdialog, 2.3.1, compiled in OpenEmbedded Scarthgap. There are a couple of git sites that continue to maintain Xdialog:

https://github.com/wdlkmpx/Xdialog

https://github.com/puppylinux-woof-CE/Xdialog

...I downloaded the latest code from the latter, and named it version 2.3.5.1. Compiled like this:

# export CFLAGS='-Wno-error=incompatible-pointer-types'
# ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --with-gtk2
# make
# DESTDIR='/mnt/sda2/downloads/downloads3/input694/0-xdialog/out1' make install

Have created a package, 'xdialog-2.3.5.1-excalibur.pet', that will be in the next release of Easy.   

Tags: easy

EasyOS Excalibur-series version 7.3.4 released

May 22, 2026 — BarryK

Another one! Changes since 7.3.3:

Newcomers to EasyOS are recommended to read the 7.3 announcement:

Download:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/2026/7.3.4/

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=170611#p170611

Have fun!    

Tags: easy

ROX-Filer patch-set overhaul

May 21, 2026 — BarryK

Recent posts about fixes and enhancements for ROX-Filer:

Forum member l0wt3ch has done something fantastic, quite a lot of work to do this I think, has cleaned up the entire patch-set. Forum post:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=170400#p170400

I have compiled with these patches in woofQ2, the PET is now 'rox-filer-20260521-excalibur.pet', uploaded here:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/packages/pet/pet_packages-excalibur/

...will be in the next release of Easy.   

Tags: easy

pBurn optical burner version 4.4

May 21, 2026 — BarryK

Have posted recently about burner apps for CDs and DVDs, including pBurn:

Forum member zigbert did an incredible job with pBurn, it is very sophisticated. Really, if some minor niggles get fixed, it is, I think, superior to the mainstream burner apps such as Xfburn and Brasero.

pBurn is tied into the infrastructure and utilities available in the traditional Puppy Linux. EasyOS maintains all of that so-called "legacy" infrastructure, such as gtk2-based and X11-based Xdialog and gtkdialog. Also, very specific Puppy utilities such as 'cddetect_quick'.

pBurn has been neglected for a long time. For me, because I don't use optical media anymore. But some people do, so there is still a need. I have recently had a need to extract audio off a CD, but Easy has other apps for ripping CDs and DVDs.

Time for pBurn to get some TLC! Fixed a couple of issues...

"File -> Quit" hangs, but does work after the optical media is ejected. Simple fix, put an "eject --cdrom" into the code (full 'eject', not the busybox applet).

pBurn requires 'cdrtools', see link above; Easy now has cdrtools instead of cdrkit. This requires careful thought for a pup that uses 'apt' to manage packages, due to conflicts with the cdrkit packages.

One thing that I recall from using pBurn years ago, quiting by clicking on the window close-box can leave processes running. It is necessary to quit via the menu "File -> Quit". I disabled the close-box by giving the main pBurn window a class-name of "pburn", and this into /etc/xdg/templates/_root_.jwmrc:

	<Group>
		<Class>pburn</Class>
		<Option>noclose</Option>
	</Group>

Strange, but Xdialog "--tailbox" is not working. This causes a log window while burning to remain empty. Fortunately, zigbert created a fallback log window, that is intended to be used if Xdialog isn't available; so using that.

The next release of Easy will have pBurn 4.4 builtin, but for other pups, the 'pburn-4.4.pet' is available here:

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

Have only done some basic testing with a DVD-RW, blanking it and writing a .iso to it. Further testing will be up to you guys. Starting a discussion thread in the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=16907

Very happy to be keeping another "legacy" app alive!    

Tags: easy

Pburn version 4.3.16 to 4.3.19

May 20, 2026 — BarryK

Earlier today, posted about dropping Xfburn, changing cdrkit to cdrtools, and bumping Pburn to version 4.3.16-1:

The Old Puppy Forum shows the latest version of Pburn is 4.3.19; however, the download links are broken. I found it here:

https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linux_Forum_Pets

...that's good, I wonder who has done that, archived all those old PETs? ...ah found, a member of the old forum, named "ally".

I have created 'pburn-4.3.19-1.pet' and that will be in the next release of EasyOS. That "-1" is because of small changes made by me.  

Tags: easy

cdrtools replaces cdrkit

May 20, 2026 — BarryK

I posted yesterday about getting Xfburn to work in EasyOS:

Yeah, works, but disappointing. I blanked a DVD-RW, from within Xfburn, then went to write an ISO file to it, but it said the DVD has not been blanked. Had to exit from Xfburn and rerun it, then it recognized DVD was blanked and wrote the ISO. Quite frankly, that's flakey.

Also, Xfburn has a lot of dependencies, xfce libraries.

I reckon, will stay with Pburn. Forum member zigbert created Pburn, in the old-forum, and it hasn't had any updates for a long time. He created a version that works with 'cdrkit', then later on, kept developing Pburn, but requiring features of 'cdrtools', that are not in cdrkit.

Pburn in the old Puppy Forum:

https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=23881

The story is that cdrkit forked off cdrtools, in 2006, due to a license change in the latter, that the Debian devs found unacceptable. In the Debian package repository, cdrkit is split into three packages; genisoimage, icedax and wodim.

Jörg Schilling, the author of cdrtools, was very unhappy about the fork. Browsing online today, I read that he is deceased, about 4 years ago.

I have compiled cdrtools, based on instructions from the Linux From Scratch guys:

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/multimedia/cdrtools.html

Created a directory 'cdrtools_3.02a9_amd64'  with all the compiled files in it, and converted to a .deb package. The basic method is to create file DEBIAN/control inside the directory, with this in it:

Section: utils
Priority: optional
Standards-Version: 3.9.2
Package: cdrtools
Version: 3.02a9
Maintainer: mrperson <mrperson@gmail.com>
Depends: 
Provides: genisoimage, idedax, wodim
Conflicts: genisoimage, idedax, wodim
Replaces: genisoimage, idedax, wodim
Architecture: amd64
Description: Optical media tools

...hmmm, think have understood the Provides, Conflicts and Replaces fields, so cdrtools supersedes the Debian packages. Then converted to a .deb:

# dpkg-deb --build cdrtools_3.02a9_amd64

This has been placed in wofQ2, in woofq2/builtin/deb-local/x86_64, and "cdrtools" inserted into file woofq2/builtin/deb-local/deb-x86_64-list

Have removed Xfburn from builtin list. Have changed from the 'pburn3-3.7.18-1.pet' to 'pburn-4.3.16-1.pet' builtin.

EDIT:
Some conflicts with the cdrtools .deb package. Instead, have created dummy 'wodim', 'genisoimage' and  'icedax' .deb packages using the 'equivs' tool. One of the utilities in cdrtools is in another package, 'dvd+rw-tools', so removed it. Then rebuilt the cdrtools .deb with this control file:

Section: utils
Priority: optional
Standards-Version: 3.9.2
Package: cdrtools
Version: 3.02a9
Maintainer: mrperson <mrperson@gmail.com>
Depends: 
Provides: cdrecord, mkisofs, cdda2wav
Architecture: amd64
Description: Optical media tools

Package 'dvd+rw-tools' has genisoimage as a dependency, now resolved, as the equivs dummy packages get installed early-on, whereas cdrtools installs later.   

Tags: easy

Xfburn now working in EasyOS

May 19, 2026 — BarryK

This has been a headache. Brasero is the same. They use udev to identify the optical drive; except they don't. Xfburn displays "No burners are currently available" at startup.

Googling, there are thousands of reports about this. The only fix that seems to work is to create a udev rule hard-coded for the serial-number of the optical drive, for example reported here:

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=366884

There is some little difference in the udev rules, or so it seems, in EasyOS compared with say a stock Debian, that is causing this break. Well, except that this problem is being reported in the mainstream distros, such as Mint.

The guys on the forum alerted me to this problem:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=16759

It is very easy to find the optical drive, it is always at /dev/sr0 or /dev/sr1. So why do these apps introduce complications that break them?

I found a solution; xfburn has a compile option to not used udev. Thank goodness they have kept that option. My guess is that would be older code, that probes /dev/sr0 and /dev/sr1 directly. Yes, it works; I blanked a DVD-RW, then wrote a .iso to it.

woofQ2, the build system for EasyOS, has a mechanism to substitute one's own .deb for the official one; I reported on this mechanism awhile ago:

https://bkhome.org/news/202511/fix-for-cpp-and-gcc-pulled-into-easysfs.html

Did the same thing for xfburn:

# apt-get download xfburn
Get:1 http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged excalibur/main amd64 xfburn amd64 0.7.2-1 [428 kB]
Fetched 428 kB in 3s (157 kB/s)
W: Download is performed unsandboxed as root as file '/mnt/sda2/downloads/downloads3/input694/0-xfburn/xfburn_0.7.2-1_amd64.deb' couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'. - pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied)
# 
# dpkg-deb -x xfburn_0.7.2-1_amd64.deb extract1
# dpkg-deb --control xfburn_0.7.2-1_amd64.deb extract1/DEBIAN
# 
# dpkg -b extract1 xfburn_999.0_amd64.deb
dpkg-deb: building package 'xfburn' in 'xfburn_999.0_amd64.deb'.

When it was opened up in 'extract1', edited the 'DEBIAN/control' file and changed the version to "9:999.0". Also replaced all of the 'usr' folder with my compiled xfburn, and a custom usr/share/applications/xfburn.desktop

In woofQ2, this new .deb went into woofq2/builtin/deb-local. The 'xfburn_999.0_amd64.deb' has the same dependencies as the original, and woofQ2 will find those in the Devuan repository.

Note, if you would like to use my xfburn .deb in your distro, it will be inside the woofQ2 tarball at next upload. For EasyOS, it will be builtin in the next release.  

Tags: easy

EasyOS Excalibur-series version 7.3.3 released

May 18, 2026 — BarryK

Yes, another one! Newcomers are recommended to read the 7.3 announcement for more details:

All release notes:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/2026/7.3.3/release-notes.htm

Changes since 7.3.2:

Download:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/excalibur/2026/7.3.3/

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=170379#p170379

Have fun!     

Tags: easy