For some media, such as Ventoy, QEMU, and SG2D, you can also use savefolder, but you need to label partitions appropriately sometimes. For details about boot media label requirements for iso booting, see this recent post: viewtopic.php?p=79395#p79395
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KLA-OT2base-1.0
NEW: Has new FR initrd.gz ver 7.0.1 rc1 released 09Mar2023; includes /mnt/home symlink to bootfrom partition. Fixes major umount bug. Includes Arch Linux packages 10Mar2023 rolling release update.
Has over forty (!) new commandline-based utility apps (a few with very simple yad frontends).
There is a cherrytree README notes file on the Desktop that contains lots of details and tips regarding these additions, including a couple of simple yad GUI frontend templates in code form to help others develop their own.
I am no longer using gtkdialog for new app/utils in FirstRib when possible. Many upstream distros no longer have gtkdialog in their repos at all whereas yad is well supported and good enough for most simple frontends.
717 MiB download size
Download from sourceforge here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/kla-ot2base/
md5sum: 0ccb3389c4d4d3592f8ec84f0efc8f67 KLA-OT2base-1.0.iso
INSTALLATION (Alternative methods):
1. On a Ventoy usbstick with ext4 data partition labelled as 'Ventoy', create a folder named /BOOTISOS and simply put the KLA-OT2base-1.0.iso in there and boot your Ventoy usb stick to use KLA-OT2base.
NOTE: With Ventoy, you can save on demand (called RAM2 mode) back to the 'Ventoy' labelled disk partition into auto-created Sessions folder.
Alternatively, if you have a partition on your system somewhere labelled 'Persistence' you can use save on demand persistence to Sessions folder there.
You can also choose from provided grub menu to do 'direct' writes back to same save persistence (either to 'Ventoy' usbstick labelled partition or to external 'Persistence' labelled partition).
2. Boot via QEMU using, for simple example, commandline:
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 2G -vga cirrus -smp 2 -device AC97 -cdrom KLA-OT2base-X.X.iso -boot once=d
If you attach a qcow2 additional -hda disk, and partition it wish one of the partitions labelled 'Persistence', you can use save on demand into the auto-created 'Sessions' folder there too.
3. Create a normal frugal install. For example:
a. mkdir -p </mnt/partition>/KLA-OT2base
b. mount the iso somewhere and copy all of its contents out and into that KLA-OT2base frugal install directory.
c. Open a terminal at that directory and enter command: ./wd_grubconfig
That should give you suitable grub2 or grub4dos accurate (correct UUID or LABEL provided) stanzas to use (assuming you have a working grub bootloader already installed on your computer).
Once again you can choose to use w_changes=RAM2 save on demand mode, or w_changes="" (default) direct save persistence mode.
4. For more usage modes refer to blog articles at https://tinycorelinux.info
Also read the following for additional useful installation-related information:
viewtopic.php?p=82242#p82242
viewtopic.php?p=75863#p75863
trizen (for AUR) and pacman info:
viewtopic.php?p=81188#p81188
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/pacman
NOTE: You will probably have to replace the mnthome symlinks on Desktop and Thunar bookmarks to suit your own system. Easily done: just copy /mnt/home symlink and drop on your Desktop and in Thunar bookmarks and rename to mnthome or whatever you prefer.
Using this base version has the advantage that after installing the likes of Firefox or Chromium upgrades to the browser will overwrite the previous installation in upper_changes rather than use addional space to that of any iso-internal version.
INCLUDES small but effective 'eolie' Internet browser; give it a try, you might be surprised
NOTE: I was really only including a browser to help with any html-based documentation reading, but it has proved to be much better than I intended/expected. In my tests, the selected small browser worked well and solidly with all of Youtube, Gmail, Gdrive, BBC news (but bbc video issues), and Facebook. For many, maybe all you need... Also works great for cut'n'paste page contents to cherrytree notes!!! Bound to be some sites it won't work with though, but you can still add your own later via package manager or portable. Note that opened browserTabs show on left side of window.
NOTE 1: Normal users spot and firstrib are in 'wheel' group with special configuration so they do not normally require password for sudo use. If you ever need passwords, by default user:password is root:root, spot:spot and firstrib:firstrib.
NOTE 2: If you boot in save on demand (RAM2) mode, make sure to press the save2ram button on the desktop prior to shutdown. This KLA-OT2base distro still does not include any autosave at shutdown mechanism. Maybe in a later release if there is any, or add mechanism from KLV-Airedale yourself if you want it
Build plug file f_00_Arch_amd64-openboxBASExxxx_jgmenu_600r5.plug is included in the root of the iso so you can rebuild the main root filesystem from scratch (or modify it via mods to the plugin) at any time for latest and greatest package version, though some aspects, such as gpdf would need to be manually added as well as some other small configs. For how to build see REBUILDING FROM SCRATCH near the bottom of very next post: viewtopic.php?p=73555#p73555
To update the distro it is actually easier and more reliable to simply unsquashfs the 07KLA sfs and use utility umount_chroot.sh to chroot into resulting squashfs_root prior to running pacman -Syu. After 'exit' out of the chroot you then simply run ./umount squashfs_root and then use mksquashfs to squash it all up again (if you wish, or simply leave it uncompressed but rename it to 07squashfs_root).
Includes save on demand (FirstRib initrd RAM2) capability and stable FR initrd such that boot partition shows up in filemanager side panel mounted and iso booting supported to some extent - as per KLV-Airedale.
Should work fine with all of Normal frugal install, QEMU, Ventoy, and SG2D including persistence modes, without user boot-time intervention.
Thanks rockedge for iso/boot/grub general arrangement, and fredx181 for save2flash user-script, Puppy Linux dimkr kernel-kit build: currently using huge kernel/modules/firmware from recent Puppy Upup jammy.
KLA-OT2 can be also be used with persistence on NTFS or FAT32 partitions (with .ucimg w_changes savefile; refer to KLV-Airedale for many a FirstRib-related howto). For savefolder use, w_changes boot parameter should however point to a Linux formatted partition.
Regardng Internet browser.
I see no point in bloating a base iso with any large browser users may well not want.
Since fully-Arch-Linux-compatible KLA-OT2 comes with official and complete pacman package manager (think of it like Quickpet...).
To install Firefox, you simply need to open a terminal and (assuming you logged in as user root) enter command:
Code: Select all
pacman -Sy firefox
though, personally, I prefer:
Code: Select all
pacman -Sy chromium
and run that with --no-sandbox (or I suppose, using run-as-spot script; Actually now includes Start Menu -> Chromium-spot item that works well once chromium-browser installed via apt, but would need to specially configure pulseaudio unix or tcp socket to get audio with that being run from root desktop (isn't done). Haven't tested, but possibly fIrefox works fine anyway once installed).
Currently Includes:
1. Cherrytree hierarchical notebook.
I use this for all my own documentation rather than any html or markup based editor. Main reason is I don't like typing too much and you can simply copy and paste from web pages directly into cherrytree.
2. Openbox, Tint2 panel, pcmanfm filemanager.
3. Mtpaint (also scrot/scrox and gnome-screenshot for screenshots), and
the super featureful geeqie image viewer and more (not scrimping with poor image viewers here)
4. Pulseaudio and pavucontrol
5. Wex for audio, video, webcam, screencasts and video recording out of the box!
Uses ffmpeg backend along with the installed pulseaudio system.
6. Gifenc-sel (by fredx181) for making gifs out of videos (integrated to work via button in Wex).
7. Precord for simple audio recording
8. Geany (for text/code editing)
9. Git (useful for online archiving) plus has AUR helper "Trizen". I think you need to run that as user spot. Consult the Arch AUR pages online and Trizen help for usage.
Just noticed I accidentally also left in 'Packages', GUI package manager..., but some will appreciate that.
10. NetworkManager with nm panel applet
11. Gtkdialog, yad, gxmessage, for simple GUI scripts and scripting.
12. UExtract as right-click Thunar actions. No Gdmap, but can fetch version from AUR via Trizen above.
13. rsync, nano, alsautils, filemnt, uextract, wd_extract, wd_mount
14. mpv (AV player)
15. bluez bluez-utils (but you might like to later add blueman to ease usage - consult Arch Wiki for howto Bluetooth for details): https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/bluetooth
16. Xournal - properly working with paste image support too!
17. Programming languages installed: Lua, Python, Perl, and Bash of course plus yad and gtkdialog (Everything being GTK+3 versions).
18. Absolutely TONS of new utility apps, which are described in provided cherrytree README notebook.
Including simple yad frontends for wd_simpleHTTP and wd_translate (translates text to locale language).
Network apps such as full tcpdump, ngrep, nmon and too many more to describe here (refer to the README available on Desktop).
Most of these utility apps are very useful and I encourage you to make your own yad GUI frontends for some of them.
19. New: gpdf gtkdialog pdf viewer (and more) - thanks to plinej,
exfatprogs, for some ExFAT support (though I haven't tested that at all as yet),
Python html2test commandline utility for those who like that kind of thing
20. basic scientific X11 calculator: xcalc-gtk
21. Window 'tiling' should work too (I forgot to check this time):
Tile top > WindowsSuperKey-UParrow etc...
For more details re: currently installed packages search inside the f_plug file.
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KLA is a fork of revamped FirstRib Arch-based Openbox/Tint2 distro, including KLV-like tiling hot-keys (as alternative to KLV, Void-Linux-based, Xfce desktop) that I'll shortly be donating for community development/modification/refinement to hopefully benefit from the existing work pioneered by KLV-Airedale. Space just being made for it - coming soon.
Starting as a near identical fork to the FirstRib version, the KLA release to this forum community opens up its development to benefit from the many utility resources KLV-Airedale has brought to the table (I have only myself had time to ensure RAM2 save2flash mode works with it). The FirstRib original is unlikely to get all of these KLV-utilities since it is for a particular business-related purpose of my own so it is also likely to diverge over time - hence my going to release this KLA fork for more general community development. Also no attempt is likely to be made to slim down the size of the FirstRib variant (which starts out considerably larger than typical forum distros with manpages/docs and so on - albeit very resource-usage efficient and fast boot time on my machine at least) whereas the community will be free to remove docs and unwanted apps and whatever as well as adding alternatives and sfs-load type functionality for use of typical community portable apps, as so on ala KLV-Airedale productions, depending on forum feedback and users' wishes. The distro is pretty much 100% Arch Linux compatible - AUR works with it too, and it is a frugal install using FirstRib initrd underneath (like KLV-Airedale in that sense).
Such flexible function-providing dev work takes a long time and benefits best I feel when a community development approach is adopted. In fact, whilst I'll be releasing the first (originally somewhat large) iso of this KLA variant for community to do as they wish with (including the build scripts used to build the root filesystem of that original version along with instructions on use), I don't intent leading this development or thread. I just don't have time these days. It would be good therefore if someone with dev skills (and particularly if they have some Arch Linux experience) will step up to the plate and take over the thread after the initial KLA release to hopefully drive this further Kennel Linux development on in line with all the goodies and functionality now embedded into KLV-Airedale. That should include taking over this first post and future iso creation work since I won't be doing that. Rather I'll be continuing to maintain FirstRib build scripts and initrd and also refining my own FirstRib business-related variant; the FR variant is likely to benefit from the community fork work too of course since all of KLV, KLA and the FirstRib Arch-variant (which will likely also be published every so often) can cherrypick from each other when so wanted. Puppy/Dog utilities as used in KLV should most all be compatible too and many KLV-related utils also can be fed back for use in Puppy or the various Dogs. Since much is being done in KLV-Airedale development, it should be relatively easy to advance KLA development in similar manner since the underlying FirstRib initrd flexible overlayfs functionality is the same in each. Will also be able to use Puppy Linux and similar huge kernel/module/firmware sfs addons (as KLV-Airedale has often been doing) or official upstream Arch Linux kernel and others.
Note that since Arch Linux itself is a rolling-release distro, keeping the original KLA base release up-to-date will simply be a matter of updating via Arch's package manager pacman now and then. The w_changes=RAM2 save2flash functionality will work out of the box as will the usual upper_changes, numbered addons (sfs or uncompressed), rollback and so on work identically per KLV-Airedale functionality.
I'm currently working on the slimmed down modules for the initrd for this and then the iso production. The FirstRib variant has been tested for a few weeks now and running fine (looking good on low resource usage too) - hopefully therefore just a few more days till this KLA fork release.