QV version 240409 pre-alpha uploaded

[BarryK]

I recently started a new thread "Quirky has returned":

viewtopic.php?t=11029

However, what has evolved is far more than Quirky Linux. The common factors are does not use aufs/overlay, nor SFS files.

I am naming the new distribution "QV", which could be an acronym for "Quirky Void", or "Quantum Vis" (which is Latin for "as much as you want").

A couple of days ago, posted about Lockdown mode:

"QV lockdown implemented"
https://bkhome.org/news/202403/qv-lockd ... ented.html

Today posted:

"QV strategies to reduce SSD writes"
https://bkhome.org/news/202404/qv-strat ... rites.html

"QV snapshot management"
https://bkhome.org/news/202404/qv-snaps ... ement.html

Snapshots are a really great feature of btrfs.

[BarryK]

An update on that "QV lockdown implemented":
I tested a Flatpak and an AppImage, they worked in Lockdown mode.
Also, a swap partition will be detected at bootup and used, in Lockdown mode.

[williwaw]

"Quantum Vis"

re:snapshots
how much disk space does a typical snapshot take up, if for instance one adds a 100 mb app before snapshotting?

[BarryK]

re:snapshots
how much disk space does a typical snapshot take up, if for instance one adds a 100 mb app before snapshotting?

No space.

As this guy reported, he was using 60GB in the partition, after taking a snapshot, partition usage still showed 60GB:

Obviously though, there has to be some space required to setup a snapshot. I haven't been able to find a size for that, presume it is minimal.

I haven't got my head around how the actual storage usage of each snapshot can grow as files are changed. Here is one analysis, but I haven't studied it (looks complicated):

https://dustymabe.com/2013/09/22/btrfs- ... snapshots/

This explains how to determine actual usage of each snapshot:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... pshot-size

...I haven't tried any of that yet.

Regarding your question. If there is a 100MB file in the current snapshot, and you make another snapshot, that 100MB file in the second snapshot is only a link to the original, not a copy. If you then modify that file in the second snapshot, then it will be copied and the storage size of the second snapshot will grow by 100MB.

[BarryK]

OK, here is QV version 240403 pre-alpha:

https://bkhome.org/news/202404/qv-versi ... alpha.html

Bug reports welcome!

[Keef]

Posting from it now. Had to use a rather slow Toshiba USB stick, but it booted without problem.
Clicked on the Update icon just to test the internet connection and got this:

Code: Select all

The latest online version is: qv-240403-amd64.img
The current installed version is: 240403
Newer online version, so can update...

stat: cannot read file system information for '/mnt/sdc2': No such file or directory
stat: cannot read file system information for '/mnt/sdc2': No such file or directory
expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error
/usr/local/easy_version/easy-update: line 210: [: -lt: unary operator expected
Good. Required free space in /mnt/wkg is 3GB, you have: MB
/usr/local/easy_version/easy-update: line 222: cd: /mnt/sdc2/quantumvis/: No such file or directory
...

Downloading qv-qv-240403-amd64.img-amd64.img ...
Something went wrong with the download. Aborting

Tried launching Firefox from the WWW desktop icon, but still hadn't loaded after a couple of minutes, so killed it in Htop.
I am currently using a copy of Firefox on the internal SSD, and it is running well.

Audio was muted and had to use alsamixer to unmute it.

Machine Dell Inc. Precision M4600 (version: 01)
Mainboard Dell Inc. 08V9YG (version: A00)
CPU Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2640M CPU @ 2.80GHz (2 cores)
RAM Total: 7919 MB | Used: 1933 MB (24.4%) | Actual Used: 684 MB (8.6%)
Graphics 1920x1080 pixels (Display Server: X.Org 21.1.11)

[BarryK]

Tried launching Firefox from the WWW desktop icon, but still hadn't loaded after a couple of minutes, so killed it in Htop.
I am currently using a copy of Firefox on the internal SSD, and it is running well.

I wonder which is causing most of the slowness, the low read speed off the Toshiba stick, or the zstd:15 decompression.

I tested on a "be" USB stick, which has a Innostor controller chip. It is quite fast, better than my SanDisk Ultra drives.
FF took about 2 seconds to start first time.

I got an email from Alfons. He has tested lots of things, and reports samba broken, ssh broken, ccrypt needs ccrypt-error to be installed, and he couldn't get sound to work.

...so, things to do!

[bugnaw333]

Global IP TV does not work.

[TerryH]

Global IP TV does not work.

QV has Version 2023 Mk7 installed, which does work in my install. Some of the channels don't play, but this would be due to the application rather than QV.

[TerryH]

New install using EasyDD GUI. All initial basic checks OK. As previous mentioned by Keef, had to play around with ALSA mixer to unmute speakers to get sound with MSCW. Firefox working with sound., As mentioned in prior post, TV Panel running. So far looking good.

Edit: Install is on a Patriot 16 GB Rage XT Flash Drive. It's a few years old, but running OK. Write speed when written with EasyDD was about 27 MB/s. Apps are opening snappily. Shutdown and start up are good. Running on ASUS laptop.

[williwaw]

EasyDD to Sandisk Ultra Fit. Boots fine as expected compared to Easy on identical device.

Maybe this is useful information if you have an Intel GPU. Booting on my Lenovo desktop PC, with 8th Gen i3 CPU and Intel GPU, the QuickSetup window shows that Xorg has chosen the "intel" Xorg driver. What I notice after a very short time, is text not displaying properly on the screen; characters missing. I have even had Xorg freeze.
The solution is to exit from X, then run "xorgwizard" from the shell prompt. A window will tell you that the intel driver is using 'sna' acceleration, and will offer to change to 'uxa'. This fixes it for me.

Having an Intel integrated gpu in a HP desktop with HD Graphics 4600 Core i7-4790 Haswell, I restarted X and ran xorgwizard. uxa was indicated as currently in use. Is testing desired for sna? the dialog informs I am using uxa and offers to switch to uxa, not sna.

Firefox loads in 3 seconds.

sound works OOTB when unmuted with middle click

[BarryK]

bugnaw333,
I checked, there is /usr/bin/python3.12, and /usr/bin/python3 a symlink to it.
I'll fix that, thanks for reporting the bug.
You can fix it now, just make a copy of the python3 symlink, name it "python".

[BarryK]

Having an Intel integrated gpu in a HP desktop with HD Graphics 4600 Core i7-4790 Haswell, I restarted X and ran xorgwizard. uxa was indicated as currently in use. Is testing desired for sna? the dialog informs I am using uxa and offers to switch to uxa, not sna.

I guess if it is already running uxa and no problems with Xorg, then leave it as-is.

sna is supposed to be the successor to uxa. I can't remember the details, but there are reports that sna is faster but less stable.
sna was introduced a long time ago ...not sure, maybe 12 years... so I would have thought Intel would have got the driver right by now.

But the intel xorg driver has often been criticized. I think that some Linux distributions no longer include the 'x86-video-intel' package anymore, and use the xorg modesetting driver instead for the intel gpu.

[bugnaw333]

bugnaw333,
I checked, there is /usr/bin/python3.12, and /usr/bin/python3 a symlink to it.
I'll fix that, thanks for reporting the bug.
You can fix it now, just make a copy of the python3 symlink, name it "python".

Thanks Barry

[BologneChe]

I did a test with an Acer Spin 1 - Intel Celeron N3350 and 4 Gb of RAM

Wireless
Keyboard layout (fr_ca)
User interface in my native language
Configuring the touchpad
The sound
Speed of execution of the system: incredible!
Speed of application execution
Updating repositories
System update
Backing up my data (except wallpaper)

I will continue my test as an “end user”. This is extremely promising! You are a magician Mr. Kauler!

[BarryK]

For those who are interested in what btrfs can and cannot do...

There is a mount option "commit=<seconds>" which sets how often the RAM buffers get flushed to the storage media.
Described here:

https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ ... nt-options

QV currently has "commit=240", which is 4 minutes.

I had the idea, why not make it something enormous, which would give the effect of "running in RAM". A sync operation would be expected to flush the buffers whenever desired.

So I mounted with "commit=18000" (5 hours). Then booted with swap partition disabled, on my Lenovo with 32GB RAM, and downloaded a 1.2GB file using wget.

While it was downloading, I expected "free -m" to show steadily decreasing free RAM, but it didn't. Furthermore, the LED on the Flash drive flashed every 30 seconds.

Huh? 30 seconds is the default for the commit value. In other words, it is ignoring the 18,000 second value.

I also booted with "commit=240" and while downloading the file, the LED flashed even more frequently than 30 seconds.

Of course, the LED will also flash when the flash drive is being read. I ran iotop to try and see more information, but couldn't see anything more informative. The 30-second flashing interval does strongly indicate there are writes happening.

Weird.

[Caramel]

After a reboot, the modifications on the desktop disappeared.

I have added a icon for a directory and one for an application to the desktop. After a reboot, the icons are no longer on the desktop. The others modifications (as the addition of the application to the OS) was preserved.

I retried, making a backup of /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin (other than PuppyPinBACKUP) in the same directory. Again the desktop's changes was deleted. PuppyPin was returned to its initial state. The backup was still in the directory.

(Tested on both an usb stick and an internal partition)

[bugnaw333]

Global IP TV does not work.

QV has Version 2023 Mk7 installed, which does work in my install. Some of the channels don't play, but this would be due to the application rather than QV.

Just update youtube-dl for you to get all the channels.

[TerryH]

Global IP TV does not work.

QV has Version 2023 Mk7 installed, which does work in my install. Some of the channels don't play, but this would be due to the application rather than QV.

Just update youtube-dl for you to get all the channels.

Thanks, after that earlier post I did the update to both programs and also python symlink, so working well.

[BarryK]

Just update youtube-dl for you to get all the channels.

When building QV 240403, I did update to latest youtube-dl, but got it from here:

Code: Select all

# curl -L https://github.com/ytdl-patched/youtube-dl/releases/latest/download/youtube-dl -o ./youtube-dlNEW

...so I probably would have got the 2024.04.03
I'm very surprised if that isn't working.

...ah, I see, on that site, there are daily releases, but the last commit is 10 months ago!

Well, that it a bit useless. OK, I will change the update script.

This fork of the official site has nightly releases that are up to date:

https://github.com/Dexus-Forks/youtube-dl

This is how to get it:

Code: Select all

curl -L https://github.com/Dexus-Forks/youtube-dl/releases/latest/download/youtube-dl -o ./youtube-dlNEW

[Caramel]

After a reboot, the modifications on the desktop disappeared.

I have added a icon for a directory and one for an application to the desktop. After a reboot, the icons are no longer on the desktop. The others modifications (as the addition of the application to the OS) was preserved.

I retried, making a backup of /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin (other than PuppyPinBACKUP) in the same directory. Again the desktop's changes was deleted. PuppyPin was returned to its initial state. The backup was still in the directory.

(Tested on both an usb stick and an internal partition)

(Test with the frugal install)

Same problem with relaunch the server X in the Fix menu.

I haven't been able to understand why and how PuppyPin is rewritten with each reboot in Easy, so I won't find the cause of the problem.

But, to permanently modify the desktop, a solution is to overwrire PuppyPinBACKUP (in /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/) by PuppyPin after the modifications (before a reboot or a relaunch of X).

[Caramel]

After a reboot, the modifications on the desktop disappeared.

Same problem with relaunch the server X in the Fix menu.

I haven't been able to understand why and how PuppyPin is rewritten with each reboot in Easy, so I won't find the cause of the problem.

But, to permanently modify the desktop, a solution is to overwrire PuppyPinBACKUP (in /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/) by PuppyPin after the modifications (before a reboot or a relaunch of X).

Once again the problem is linked to the translation in French

In /root/.xintrc (executed when X is launched) there is a test to determine if /root/Choice/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin has been corrupted (PuppyPin is the configuration file with the names of the icons to display and their location on the desktop)
This test is

grep -q 'www' /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin

If the exit status is not 0 (i.e. the test failed) PuppyPin is overwritten by a previous PuppyPinBACKUP file.

"www" is the name of the icon for the default browser (defaultbrowser) (English version)
The problem with the French version is that www is translated as WWW (with capital letters!) So the test failed even if PuppyPin is not corrupted.

I couldn't find where the French translation for PuppyPin is stored

[BarryK]

Latest news, new QV Installer, see post this thread:

viewtopic.php?p=116393#p116393

[williwaw]

would you be kind enough to point to the script used to create snapshots?
tx

[BarryK]

In /root/.xintrc (executed when X is launched) there is a test to determine if /root/Choice/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin has been corrupted (PuppyPin is the configuration file with the names of the icons to display and their location on the desktop)
This test is

grep -q 'www' /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin

If the exit status is not 0 (i.e. the test failed) PuppyPin is overwritten by a previous PuppyPinBACKUP file.

Thanks for finding that. Fixed, I replaced the test "www" to "defaultbrowser"

That code was created a long time ago, 2016. I think that someone reported PuppyPin getting corrupted, maybe empty, so put in a sanity-check.
Probably not needed anymore.

[BarryK]

would you be kind enough to point to the script used to create snapshots?
tx

It is done in the initrd.
Click on it to open it up, and there is rootfs-expanded/sbin/take-snapshot and manage-snapshots

I decided to do it entirely in the initrd, just in case there are problems if do it in a running QV.

[BarryK]

Here is the announcement for QV 240409:

https://bkhome.org/news/202404/qv-versi ... oaded.html

Here are the latest scripts needed for a direct install to partitions in an internal drive:

[don570]

I wonder why error messages aren't gettext'd ??

Code: Select all

 echo "ERROR you must run this script as the root user."

[nnriyer]

I would like to install QV on separate internal partion of Nvme SSD. However, while trying to format using gparted from easyos, the same is not possible. btrfs option is showing but not live (not turning black/grey) and not able to select ?. Hence not able to format as btrfs. How to proceed with format partition of internal SSD as btrfs.

[williwaw]

I would like to install QV on separate internal partion of Nvme SSD. However, while trying to format using gparted from easyos, the same is not possible. btrfs option is showing but not live (not turning black/grey) and not able to select ?. Hence not able to format as btrfs. How to proceed with format partition of internal SSD as btrfs.

you will need to install btrfs-progs with PKGet to enable that in gparted