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EasyAPT launch from menu

March 17, 2025 — BarryK

I posted about EasyAPT, a simple substitute for the Debian APT 'apt' CLI utility:

To bring EasyAPT to the attention of users, I have added it to the "Setup" menu category:

img1

Selecting which, will open a terminal, with the help information for using 'apt' displayed:

img2

For now, very basic; will probably add more functionality later.    

Tags: easy

NeoAPT simplified replacement for apt utility

March 16, 2025 — BarryK

The question came up in this forum thread:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=14004

It is a convenience to run the 'apt' or 'apt-get' utilities in a terminal, to perform various package-management functions. One of those conveniences is to specify multiple packages to be installed.

EasyOS has a package management system that is different from Debian. PKGget, the EasyOS GUI program, can, in the case of Easy Daedalus, install from the Devuan/Debian package respositories. However, the package database format is different from that of Devuan/Debian, which means that the 'apt' utility won't work.

There are some Puppy distros that attempt to get 'apt' to work with the Puppy Package Manager (PPM), but it is a hack.

Another approach is to write a replacement for 'apt', that is just a wrapper for PKGget. I have got the ball rolling, to show how this works. There is a new directory, /usr/local/neo-apt, for now with a simple 'apt' script that only implements the "install" commandline option:

img1

What it does is call PKGget for each of the packages specified on the commandline. So for the first one, PKGget will run:

img2

Which is a good thing, to have the GUI present you with all the required dependencies, rather than just blindly going ahead and installing a gazillion packages.

This is just a start; we could add "search", "update", "list", etc.

Note, this NeoAPT will work in Easy Scarthgap also. It has nothing to do with Debian package DBs, it is just a wrapper for PKGget.

Here are the github commits:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/215a7417e87e8d4d0ce9593c9ca409715976f1de

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/5f6ac2782d43cbd92d88d1bf6b0fd72d044cf2a4

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/ea6241621a38cd9259b138865b9d3d4bbff91a19

As apt and related packages do not work in Easy Daedalus, have blacklisted them:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/5a08374e6fa9d437ff925f34c9fc8c941068a2ff

Changing the subject, I have added some 'gvfs' packages to Easy Daedalus, as it seems needed by some filemanagers:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/f11ede856b3405d580f0980403b92696cca2ec85 

EDIT 2025-03-17:
Decided to change the name, from NeoAPT to EasyAPT.     

Tags: easy

Kernel 6.12.19 compiled for Daedalus with AVS enabled

March 16, 2025 — BarryK

I have previously compiled the 6.12.x kernel in Easy Daedalus, but had problems with Xe video and AVS audio drivers, so turned them off:

Decided to have another go, compiled 6.12.19 with AVS enabled, and sub-category "Intel AVS machine drivers" all enabled as modules. The failed audio had previously only occurred on my Acer Aspire 1; this time, audio works.

Interesting, running "dmesg", although 'snd_soc_avs.ko' has loaded, it looks like the legacy audio driver has grabbed the audio first.

With Easy Scarthgap and Daedalus, I reverted to the 6.6.x kernel, specifically 6.6.67, and that's what is used in the latest releases. But now, for Easy Daedalus, plan to go back to using the 6.12.x kernel. Maybe Scarthgap also.   

Tags: easy

EasyOS Daedalus-series version 6.6.4 released

March 11, 2025 — BarryK

Version 6.6.3 was released on February 19:

EasyOS Daedalus-series version 6.6.3 released — February 19, 2025

Highlights of 6.6.4, since 6.6.3:

Release notes:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/daedalus/2025/6.6.4/release-notes.htm

Getting started notes:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/daedalus/2025/6.6.4/readme.htm

Download:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/daedalus/2025/6.6.4/readme.htm

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=144474#p144474    

Tags: easy

Limine Installer efibootmgr usage fix

March 09, 2025 — BarryK

Problem and fix reported by Caramel:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=13986

Fix commited:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/b6659b50045762a59c4aefef7dc413bc418b378c  

Tags: easy

Fix browser menu entry disappear when update

March 02, 2025 — BarryK

The menu in EasyOS that I'm running right now:

img1

I have Opera and Chrome installed. If click the "Download latest ..." from the menu, for example Opera, update occurs; however, the "Opera web browser" entry disappears. Same thing will happen with the others. Now fixed.

The problem was reported in the forum for Vivaldi:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=13874      

Tags: easy

Fix orange-ball install as root

March 01, 2025 — BarryK

EasyOS has "orange ball" menu entries, apps that are not yet installed. Alfons reported that installed Aqemu, but at the final step where the Orange Installer offered to open Rox-Filer to be able to drag the icon onto the desktop, there was an error "Directory /home/aqemu not found".

The reason is that some apps default to install as the root user, and there will not be anything under /home directory. This is set by the $UN variable; for Aqemu, look at /usr/local/orange/config/aqemu

Fixed, see github:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commit/4a66c2d92a5baf0d081ae21ec971a369742659ae   

Tags: easy