EasyOS Kirkstone 5.8.2 update

[bugnaw333]

updating from 5.8.1 to 5.8.2:

[BarryK]

Sorry about that.
I have uploaded md5sum.txt

Note that 5.8.3 is likely to be released tomorrow.

[Federico]

Dear Barry,

as you have already noticed by yourself, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 17#p118617, Ungoogled Chromium offers several privacy advantages over simple Chromium or Google Chrome (absence of Google stuff). Me and my family have been using successfully Ungoogled Chromium for the last 3 years now, and we have always had to install it manually or as an AppImage or as a Flatpak.
If it is a possibility, it would be very nice to have Ungoogled Chromium as default browser (or at least directly downladable from the Menu) on Easy OS Kirkstone 5.8.3, which you are going to release tomorrow.
Thank you very much in advance!

Best Regards

[tammi806]

I did the upgrade and everything seemed to be working okay and then with 5.8.2 no working Firefox and also having issues with Chromium so I'll wait until everything gets worked out.

[BarryK]

I did the upgrade and everything seemed to be working okay and then with 5.8.2 no working Firefox and also having issues with Chromium so I'll wait until everything gets worked out.

With 5.8.2 you will have to choose "Download latest Firefox" from the menu.

[BologneChe]

After downloading it (Firefox), I cannot configure it as the default browser. It is not present in the Default Applications Chooser. However, it starts in the terminal and curiously it appears in the Default Applications Chooser and disappears as soon as you close Firefox.

[Caramel]

I confirm that Firefox is broken by the update. At least /usr/lib/firefox is missing.

I returned to Easy 5.8.1(via easy version control) to see exactly what files are missing .
It was a error

Edit : new topic created for the snapshot problem viewtopic.php?t=11559

[BarryK]

I confirm that Firefox is broken by the update. At least /usr/lib/firefox is missing.

I returned to Easy 5.8.1(via easy version control) to see exactly what files are missing .
It was a error

Edit : new topic created for the snapshot problem viewtopic.php?t=11559

Thanks for reporting that.
Yes, I see what the problem is, will fix it.

[BarryK]

I confirm that Firefox is broken by the update. At least /usr/lib/firefox is missing.

That is not a bug. 5.8.2 has changed from firefox to chromium builtin.

Folder /home/firefox should still be there, with all your bookmarks, history etc.

Choose "Download latest Firefox" from the menu to install it.

[BarryK]

After downloading it (Firefox), I cannot configure it as the default browser. It is not present in the Default Applications Chooser. However, it starts in the terminal and curiously it appears in the Default Applications Chooser and disappears as soon as you close Firefox.

Hmmm, Default Applications Chooser is a puppy pet, not written by me.
I will have to study why it is not seeing firefox.

You can make the change manually. Edit /usr/local/bin/defaultbrowser:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
exec firefox "$@"

[BarryK]

as you have already noticed by yourself, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 17#p118617, Ungoogled Chromium offers several privacy advantages over simple Chromium or Google Chrome (absence of Google stuff). Me and my family have been using successfully Ungoogled Chromium for the last 3 years now, and we have always had to install it manually or as an AppImage or as a Flatpak.
If it is a possibility, it would be very nice to have Ungoogled Chromium as default browser (or at least directly downladable from the Menu) on Easy OS Kirkstone 5.8.3, which you are going to release tomorrow.

OK, see blog:

https://bkhome.org/news/202405/download ... omium.html

It will detect if you have a flatpak installed and ask you to uninstall it first.

I think that /home/ungoogled will be retained after uninstalling the flatpak, so all your bookmarks etc will still be there.
...oh, removes it. See line 460 in /usr/local/flatpak/flatpak:

Code: Select all

    rm -rf /home/${aAPP,,}

...I suggest comment-out that line before you uninstall the ungoogled chromium flatpak.

[BarryK]

Version 5.8.3 will have significant fixes:

"Snapshot exclusions bug fix"
https://bkhome.org/news/202405/snapshot ... g-fix.html

"Kernel AMD GPU disaster fixed"
https://bkhome.org/news/202405/kernel-a ... fixed.html

...that latter post means the kernel will be bumped, to 5.15.158.

Version rollback has serious issues in 5.8.2 and earlier. I hope 5.8.3 will resolve them.
Will post to the blog about it.

[Federico]

as you have already noticed by yourself, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 17#p118617, Ungoogled Chromium offers several privacy advantages over simple Chromium or Google Chrome (absence of Google stuff). Me and my family have been using successfully Ungoogled Chromium for the last 3 years now, and we have always had to install it manually or as an AppImage or as a Flatpak.
If it is a possibility, it would be very nice to have Ungoogled Chromium as default browser (or at least directly downladable from the Menu) on Easy OS Kirkstone 5.8.3, which you are going to release tomorrow.

OK, see blog:

https://bkhome.org/news/202405/download ... omium.html

It will detect if you have a flatpak installed and ask you to uninstall it first.

I think that /home/ungoogled will be retained after uninstalling the flatpak, so all your bookmarks etc will still be there.
...oh, removes it. See line 460 in /usr/local/flatpak/flatpak:

Code: Select all

    rm -rf /home/${aAPP,,}

...I suggest comment-out that line before you uninstall the ungoogled chromium flatpak.

Dear Barry,
this is wonderful. Thank you very much. Me and my family are grateful to you and we hope that this will also be useful for every other EasyOS user.
Looking forward to this new release.

Best regards

[Federico]

Version 5.8.3 will have significant fixes:

"Snapshot exclusions bug fix"
https://bkhome.org/news/202405/snapshot ... g-fix.html

"Kernel AMD GPU disaster fixed"
https://bkhome.org/news/202405/kernel-a ... fixed.html

...that latter post means the kernel will be bumped, to 5.15.158.

Version rollback has serious issues in 5.8.2 and earlier. I hope 5.8.3 will resolve them.
Will post to the blog about it.

I have read Barry's post about the Linux Kernel AMD GPU disaster and honestly I'm shattered, because I've never seen something like this happening in my whole life.
How is it possible that a new Linux kernel gets released without having been sufficiently tested in advance? And in such a problematic state?
The question is: why did they do that? For sure I know that open source software is not developed for profit... but that doesn't mean that it should be released without any prior testing. I find this behaviour to be somehow disrespectful towards the glorious Linux operating system itself.
I'm also quite impressed by Barry's abilities: this time he took part in the development / correction of the new Linux Kernel itself (and it also looks like he was more diligent than the developers themselves). If Linux itself has to disintegrate and disappear, I'm happy to see that we are somehow also working for keeping it in a useable state as much as we can.
I offer my participation if anything like this should happen once again in the future.

[tammi806]

I guess I'll be the bad one here but new version of Chromium really stinks.
It's missing codecs for some video formats and spell check doesn't seem to work as it flashes something about turning on enhanced spell check but doesn't work.

Version 127.0.6486.0 (Developer Build) custom (64-bit)

Code: Select all

# inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: EASYPC20579 Kernel: 5.15.149 x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: JWM 2.4.2
           Distro: EasyOS 5.8.1 kirkstone64
Machine:   Device: desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: M11BB v: Rev X.0x UEFI: ASUSTeK (Licensed from AMI) v: 0307 date: 08/07/2013
CPU:       Quad core AMD A10-6700 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 8192 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 29613
           clock speeds: max: 3700 MHz 1: 1847 MHz 2: 1800 MHz 3: 1800 MHz 4: 1800 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Richland [Radeon HD 8670D] bus-ID: 00:01.0
           Display Server: X.org 1.21.1.8 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           tty size: 124x35 Advanced Data: N/A for root
Audio:     Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
           Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Trinity HDMI Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k5.15.149
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8821AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
           driver: rtl8821ae port: e000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 port: d000 bus-ID: 04:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 335.6GB (0.2% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST9320325AS size: 320.1GB
           ID-2: USB /dev/sdc model: USB_2.0_FD size: 15.5GB
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   None detected - is lm-sensors installed and configured?
Info:      Processes: 167 Uptime: 1:04 Memory: 1570.6/7155.8MB Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: N/A
           Client: Shell (bash 5.1.161) inxi: 2.3.8 
# 

Please don't take me wrong but I wished I would have stayed with 5.7 as it all worked great and can't seem to find an iso download now.

[bugnaw333]

I guess I'll be the bad one here but new version of Chromium really stinks.
It's missing codecs for some video formats and spell check doesn't seem to work as it flashes something about turning on enhanced spell check but doesn't work.

Please don't take me wrong but I wished I would have stayed with 5.7 as it all worked great and can't seem to find an iso download now.

here>>>http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/ ... /2024/5.7/

[BarryK]

I guess I'll be the bad one here but new version of Chromium really stinks.
It's missing codecs for some video formats and spell check doesn't seem to work as it flashes something about turning on enhanced spell check but doesn't work.

Version 127.0.6486.0 (Developer Build) custom (64-bit)

Code: Select all

# inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: EASYPC20579 Kernel: 5.15.149 x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: JWM 2.4.2
           Distro: EasyOS 5.8.1 kirkstone64
Machine:   Device: desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: M11BB v: Rev X.0x UEFI: ASUSTeK (Licensed from AMI) v: 0307 date: 08/07/2013
CPU:       Quad core AMD A10-6700 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 8192 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 29613
           clock speeds: max: 3700 MHz 1: 1847 MHz 2: 1800 MHz 3: 1800 MHz 4: 1800 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Richland [Radeon HD 8670D] bus-ID: 00:01.0
           Display Server: X.org 1.21.1.8 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           tty size: 124x35 Advanced Data: N/A for root
Audio:     Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
           Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Trinity HDMI Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k5.15.149
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8821AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
           driver: rtl8821ae port: e000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 port: d000 bus-ID: 04:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 335.6GB (0.2% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST9320325AS size: 320.1GB
           ID-2: USB /dev/sdc model: USB_2.0_FD size: 15.5GB
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   None detected - is lm-sensors installed and configured?
Info:      Processes: 167 Uptime: 1:04 Memory: 1570.6/7155.8MB Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: N/A
           Client: Shell (bash 5.1.161) inxi: 2.3.8 
# 

Please don't take me wrong but I wished I would have stayed with 5.7 as it all worked great and can't seem to find an iso download now.

Yes, I also did a Chromium update recently and it started having trouble loading youtube vidoes in new tabs.

As these are developer builds, quite likely updating again soon should fix it. Hopefully!

Alternatively, I can provide an older version, that you can install.

The "Download latest Chromium" entry in the menu gets it from the developer builds.
I don't know anywhere where stable builds of Chromium are hosted. ...I'll investigate that.

[BarryK]

I have read Barry's post about the Linux Kernel AMD GPU disaster and honestly I'm shattered, because I've never seen something like this happening in my whole life.
How is it possible that a new Linux kernel gets released without having been sufficiently tested in advance? And in such a problematic state?

It happens regularly.
In March 2023, version 5.15.99 crashed at bootup. I don't recall exactly, think it was only on certain hardware.
They fixed it in 5.15.101

[BarryK]

this is wonderful. Thank you very much. Me and my family are grateful to you and we hope that this will also be useful for every other EasyOS user.
Looking forward to this new release.

One thing to be aware of with Ungoogled Chromium:

https://ungoogled-software.github.io/un ... -binaries/

IMPORTANT: These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and submit them, they are NOT official. Because these binaries generally not reproducible, authenticity cannot be guaranteed. For your consideration, each download page lists the GitHub user that submitted those binaries.

...this applies to x86_64 packages and appimages. So you are putting your trust in a volunteer, that the source hasn't been tampered with.
I presume also the same warning applies to flatpaks.

But then, we do put our trust in thousands of developers, with all the software we use.

Sometimes there is a bad egg, such as recently with the 'xz' package. The developer got discovered and bad code got removed from the package.

[tammi806]

@Barry K,

Thanks for the work you do on Easy OS.

I know that problems arise with development of new versions.

Thanks bugnaw333 for the 5.7 link which I'll install and wait until the bugs are worked out and then install the new version.

Thanks to everyone.

[tammi806]

Okay just for the heck of it I decided to download and install Firefox-126.tarbz2 and use it for now.

It seems to be working fine any problems with this way if so please inform me.

Thanks.

[Federico]

@ BarryK, @ all

for sure we know that Ungoogled Chromium is freely released by people who freely take over the task of searching the whole Chromium source code and removing by hand all traces of Google spying / collecting user data and sending it to some server.
For every new Chromium version someone should create the corresponding new Ungoogled Chromium version, otherwise Ungoogled Chromium will inexorably get obsolete.
The hope is that these people will keep on doing that.
Otherwise, sooner or later we won't have any browser at our disposal, which isn't also basically a spyware.
Obviously, when installing free software, there are no warranties of any kind, but I think that much more difficult is to trust some private company which for some reason provides you and maintains a software for free (according to own "needs" and to the "needs" of the biggest commercial operators of the planet).

I personally tested every browser with iftop . I found out that there are only 2 browsers which do not constantly connect and transfer data to specific servers without the user knowing it.

Those are:

- Ungoogled Chromium
- Pale Moon

And Pale Moon got unfortunately too obsolete by now: too many websites don't work on it and it's barely useable.

For testing a browser, one can just:

- Close all applications
- Install and launch iftop
- Check if some service and / or app regularly connects to some server for some reason and take note of the ip adrreses of those servers (or terminate the corresponding services / apps)
- Launch the browser you are willing to test. Do not go to any website: just leave it open
- Check that iftop doesn't report connections to any other server / ip address

A very good idea is also to always use the extensions uMatrix and uBlock Origin when surfing the internet, and to keep them up to date.
The former is a little bit tedious (some web pages can't work with it being activated), but blocks any unwanted connection which the actual web page makes to other ip adrresses; the latter blocks every advertisment popup window, and is very efficient in doing that.

[dogcat]

One thing to be aware of with Ungoogled Chromium:

https://ungoogled-software.github.io/un ... -binaries/

IMPORTANT: These binaries are provided by anyone who are willing to build and submit them, they are NOT official. Because these binaries generally not reproducible, authenticity cannot be guaranteed. For your consideration, each download page lists the GitHub user that submitted those binaries.

...this applies to x86_64 packages and appimages. So you are putting your trust in a volunteer, that the source hasn't been tampered with.
I presume also the same warning applies to flatpaks.

But then, we do put our trust in thousands of developers, with all the software we use.

Sometimes there is a bad egg, such as recently with the 'xz' package. The developer got discovered and bad code got removed from the package.

One other source for compiled Chromium Ungoogled is AlienBob's repository. He still provides 64 & 32 bit versions for Slackware, if they would be compatible.
https://slackware.nl/people/alien/slack ... ungoogled/

[BarryK]

One other source for compiled Chromium Ungoogled is AlienBob's repository. He still provides 64 & 32 bit versions for Slackware, if they would be compatible.
https://slackware.nl/people/alien/slack ... ungoogled/

Thanks for that link. Yes, they could be used.

What we don't know though, is whether AlienBob compiles the source, or just gets the 32bit and 64bit packages from the same place I get them and repackages them as Slackware packages.

I looked at his site in more detail. Looks like he does compile from source. That's good.
I have made a note to consider downloading from there in the future.