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newsShutdown menu has lockdown and debug items
A couple of days ago, I posted about new kernel boot parameters
to dropout to a shell in the initrd:
https://bkhome.org/news/202008/dropping-out-to-shell-in-initrd.html
And a few days before that, additions to the "Shutdown" menu. For
rollback:
https://bkhome.org/news/202007/shutdown-menu-now-has-reboot-with-rollback.html
And for filesystem check:
https://bkhome.org/news/202007/shutdown-menu-now-has-reboot-with-filesystem-check.html
Yesterday and today, I really went to town on the "Shutdown"
menu. Here is a snapshot:
Choosing "Reboot, with lockdown in RAM" will bring up this GUI:
Choosing "Reboot to initrd (developers only)" will bring up this
GUI:
...well, even if you are not a developer, you can check this out.
It will be a once-only thing, and you will find yourself at a
command shell inside the initrd, totally in RAM. You can then try
out 'mp' and 'nnn'. After playing, type "exit" to continue bootup.
The great thing about these new choices in the "Shutdown" menu,
is you no longer have to choose anything, or edit anything, in the
boot manager (refind, syslinux or grub). Just make the choice in
the "Shutdown" menu, then do a normal bootup.
A few technical details. For lockdown, "qfix=cap2" is deprecated,
it is now "qfix=lock2". Also, "qfix=lock1" is for "Copy session to
RAM & unmount all partitions". But, as I said, you don't have
to mess around with those boot parameters anymore.
So many great new features! I have to do some testing, expect the
next release in a few days. It will be a pre-release of 2.4, as
Debian Buster 10.5 is due out soon, and I will build EasyOS with
the latest DEBs, and that will be version 2.4.
Tags: easy
nnn file manager now in initrd
I posted yesterday about dropping out to the shell in the initrd,
and the new 'mp' console editor:
https://bkhome.org/news/202008/dropping-out-to-shell-in-initrd.html
I have been testing lots of different console file managers, and
have settled on 'nnn'. It varied from too crude, non-intuitive, up
to too sophisticated and too many dependencies. The initrd is a
minimal Linux environment, based on 'bash' and with only
statically-linked binaries. Some console file managers expect
utilities to be there that aren't, and some link in libraries that
bloat the binary beyond what is required.
'nnn' forked from 'noice'. The latter is simple, and would do the
job, except that color-highlighting didn't work when compiled with
musl, and was unable to invoke external apps such as 'mp'.
Probably could have been fixed, but 'nnn' works.
Here is the 'noice' project page:
And for 'nnn':
Both projects are active, 'nnn' very much so. Photo from the
'nnn' project page:
...at this stage, I have no idea how to use those tabs, nor how
to get the dual-pane. This review shows UI snapshots that look
like what I am getting:
...ah, I see, "?" brings up a list of keyboard actions. Here is a
review on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuJHo-aO_FA
...the 'nnn' in the review has all the configure options enabled,
like mouse support. Here are other console file managers
that I considered:
https://lecram.github.io/p/rover/
https://github.com/dylanaraps/fff
https://midnight-commander.org/
https://github.com/mananapr/cfiles
https://vifm.info/
https://github.com/FedeDP/ncursesFM
https://www.han.de/~werner/ytree.html
http://www.clex.sk/
https://github.com/mariostg/nffm
'nnn' is now in the initrd, in /bin. There is also /sbin/xdg-open
and /etc/nnn/plugins, configured to launch 'mp' for any text file.
Threw in /nnn.txt help file, as the app is keyboard-driven,
without any keyboard help within the app. However, it is pretty
intuitive, navigate with the arrow keys, "q" to quit, "]" for a
commandline. There are reminders about those keys when dropout
from the 'init' script.
The 'nnn' binary is 437KB. The only libs it linked to were
libncursesw and libtinfo. There were some optional, such as
libreadline, that I left out. And some other configure options I
disabled, not knowing what they do.
Here are the latest recipes for OpenEmbedded:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/project/oe/
Tags: easy
Dropping out to shell in initrd
The bootup sequence is first the kernel 'vmlinuz', then the
'initrd', then layered SFS filesystem with 'easy.sfs' and a
switch_root onto the desktop.
The 'initrd' is a file containing a complete tiny Linux OS. It is
a file that is loaded into RAM and then the 'init' script inside
the 'initrd' is run. This 'init' script does lots of setting up,
including put together the layered SFS filesystem and performs the
switch_root onto it.
If the 'init' script encounters an error and is unable to
continue, it will drop out to a shell in the initrd. That is, you
will have a commandline prompt and can do basic CLI operations.
For example type "ls" to list files. Users would hold down the
power button at this stage, to turn off the PC, however,
developers can poke around and try to find out what has caused the
problem.
What we have now, to aid developers, is a really great console
GUI text editor, as reported:
https://bkhome.org/news/202008/minimum-profit-3317-now-has-utf-8-support.html
Just type "mp <filename>" and there is a beautiful screen
with pull-down menus and syntax highlighting.
I have added another feature, kernel boot parameter
"qfix=dropout[0-6]", which will cause a deliberate drop out of
'init', at various points. For example, 'init' has this at line
519:
[ "$DROPOUT" == "0" ] && exit_to_initrd " Exited from init script early, nothing yet mounted."
Where $DROPOUT variable has the number extracted from that
"qfix=dropout[0-6]". That line will cause a dropout to a console
in initrd, and it will print the line number in the script where
it exited, and the message as shown above.
You can then poke around, try out that nice 'mp'. Typing "exit"
will exit from the console, back into the 'init' script, and
bootup will continue.
What would be nice is a simple console file manager in the
initrd.
Thinking also, might make this another option in the "Shutdown"
menu.
Tags: easy
Minimum Profit 3.3.17 now has UTF-8 support
I wrote about MP version 5.x required for UTF-8 support:
https://bkhome.org/news/202007/minimum-profit-text-editor-compiled-statically.html
But I found that linking with "-lncursesw" instead of "-lncurses"
fixed it, and UTF-8 characters display. Is it that simple? Surely there
must be more to it, to support UTF-8? There is no mention in the 3.3.17
source anywhere about this.
I very much prefer 3.3.17 over the 5.x series, so this is good. I
have compiled it statically with musl, for x86_64, i686 and aarch64, in
my fork of OpenEmbedded, oe-qky-src. I have uploaded the recipe here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/project/oe/mped-static.tar.gz
Note, I did attempt to compile 5.1.14 in OE, but got strange errors.
It is so much more complicated, with not much gain in functionality -- I
mean relevant functionality, as an easy-to-use (drop-down menus),
syntax highlighting, simple file viewer and editor for use in the
initrd. I don't need the mpsl scripting language that is in 5.x.
Tags: easy
Collection of old MP sources
I posted about compiling MP (Minimum Profit) console text editor
version 3.3.17 statically with musl:
https://bkhome.org/news/202007/minimum-profit-text-editor-compiled-statically.html
I also mentioned that the 5.x series is required for uft8
support. We really do need this. Gone are the days when source
code, shell scripts and config files were just ascii characters.
The latest version is 5.41, however I got a compile error. The
author of MP does not retain the sources of earlier versions. He
erases them all except for the latest, so finding older versions
requires a hunt on the Internet, where people might have archived
the source.
Version 5.36 is archived by James (jamesbond in the Puppy Forum),
in the FatDog source repository on ibiblio.org. That version
compiles.
What I found over the years with MP is that different versions
behave differently. A later version might actually be broken in
some way that an earlier version isn't. Then there are different
features -- generally, the older the version, the less features,
but simpler operation and smaller binary.
Anyway, these are the sources I found:
mped_3.1.8.orig.tar.gz
mped_3.1.11.orig.tar.gz
mped_3.3.17.orig.tar.gz
mped_5.1.2.orig.tar.gz
mp-3.2.13.tar.bz2
mp-3.3.17.tar.gz
mp-5.1.3.tar.gz
mp-5.1.4.tar.gz
mp-5.2.10.tar.gz
mp-5.2.13.tar.gz
mp-5.36.tar.gz
'mped' is the name that Debian gave to the MP package. It was in
the Debian repository a long time ago.
I am particularly interested in the 5.1 series, as it has just
enough features that I want and a very small binary. It is a
contender for being compiled statically.
I found version 5.1.3 readily enough, but did see some
documentation that there was a 5.1.4, but couldn't find it.
Finally tracked it down. They are all uploaded here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/source/alphabetical/m/
Tags: easy
Minimum Profit text editor compiled statically
I want a console editor in the initrd. Busybox does have a small
vi-like editor, but I would like something a bit more
user-friendly.
I have always like MP (Minimum Profit), which is in EasyOS,
however, I have never compiled it statically, which is required
for use in the initrd. Until today.
Firstly though, I compiled NE (Nice Editor) statically with musl.
This has nice drop-down menus and syntax highlighting, like MP.
Compiled normally with libc, it works fine, but with musl there is
no syntax highlighting. it is simple to compile:
# make LIBS="-static -ltinfo" CC=gcc PREFIX=/usr
Here is the project page:
Here is the author's page for MP:
https://triptico.com/software/mp.html
...however, EasyOS uses an older version, 3.3.17. There are
reasons for staying with that old version, that I don't recall
right now, but the downside is prior to the 5.x series, there is
no support for utf-8.
NE compiled statically is 580KB and the syntax files are
separate. MP is 430KB and requires no external files -- syntax
handling is all internal.
I compiled MP with musl, in my port of OpenEmbedded. This has a
github repo, but I haven't uploaded for ages. I need to post how I
compiled MP in OE, but not now, it is now 1.30am.
I have put the 'mp' binary into the initrd, so it can be used if
ever drop out to the console inside the initrd -- which is useful
for debugging.
If you want to see MP in action, it is in the menu "Document
--> MP console text editor". Running it without X, it will be
full-screen, which looks nice.
Tags: easy
Test update from 2.3 to 2.3.5
I posted yesterday about the new automated version updating:
https://bkhome.org/news/202007/automated-and-efficient-updating-of-easyos.html
The new script is /usr/local/easy_version/easy-update, launched
in a terminal window via wrapper script /usr/sbin/easy-update. I
fixed a couple of bugs in it, and this morning tested updating
EasyOS from version 2.3 to 2.3.5.
I have version 2.3 installed on my baby laptop, and I copied the
easy-update script into it, Yesterday I had already uploaded
'easy-2.3.5-amd64.img.gz' to ibiblio, compressed with that
"--rsyncable" option.
Actually, there is an elephant in the room, which is 'easy.sfs'
-- this is compressed with xz, and is inside the easy*.img.gz
file. So I didn't really know what improvement using that
"--rsyncable" option would have. Let's find out...
Pressed ENTER, to reconstruct 'easy-2.3-amd64.img.gz'...
Now it is downloading 'easy-2.3.5-amd64.img.gz'. The file is
544MB, so it will be very interesting how much rsync is able to
reduce the size of the download...
...right, 121MB. Quite a
lot, but far less than 544MB. Possibly a way to get it much lower
would be not to compress 'easy.sfs' when it is created, but that
introduces usage problems.
Pressing ENTER key...
...success, updated!
Next, I went through the same exercise, updating from 2.3 to
2.3.5, this time without "--rsyncable". That is, the online
'easy-2.3.5-amd64.img.gz' was compressed without that option, and
ditto for the reconstructed 'easy-2.3-amd64.img.gz'...
...download is 519MB, 519,588,023 bytes, almost the full size of
545,044,613 bytes. So, we are keeping that "--rsyncable"!
Tags: easy