EasyOS Kirkstone-series version 5.2.3

[BarryK]

Version 5.2.3
April 30, 2023

Blog announcement:
https://bkhome.org/news/202304/easyos-k ... eased.html

Feedback starts on page 16:
viewtopic.php?p=87947#p87947

Version 5.2.2
April 15, 2023

Announcement:
viewtopic.php?p=86946#p86946

Version 5.2.1
April 4, 2023

Announcement:
viewtopic.php?p=86034#p86034

Version 5.2
March 28, 2023

Blog announcement:
https://bkhome.org/news/202303/easyos-k ... eased.html

Forum feedback starts on page 10:
viewtopic.php?p=85362#p85362

Version 5.1.1
March 20, 2023

Announcement and download links:
viewtopic.php?p=84675#p84675

Version 5.1
March 17, 2023

Announcement and download links:
viewtopic.php?p=84472#p84472

Version 5.0
February 26, 2023
Leadup to 5.0 has been versions 4.99 and 4.101, discussed in this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=8072

Here is the blog announcement for 5.0, with download links:

https://bkhome.org/news/202302/easyos-k ... on-50.html

I tested the "update" icon from a 4.101 installation, works, and the update file is only 3.6MB. That's all that has to be downloaded to update from 4.101 to 5.0.

Here is the snapshot again, on a 1024x768 monitor:

kirkstone-desktop2.png (302.25 KiB) Viewed 3610 times

[cebd]

Bonjour,
Petite question :
Comment installer MC : Midnight Commander ...
Je vous remercie.
Daniel.

[BarryK]

Ah ha, I found a typo!

/usr/share/applications/ROX-Filer.desktop has a missing closing square-bracket:

Code: Select all

Comment[fr=Gestionnaire fichiers ROX-Filer

Open in text-editor, insert the closing bracket:

Code: Select all

Comment[fr]=Gestionnaire fichiers ROX-Filer

Save, then in a terminal type this:

Code: Select all

# fixmenus
# jwm -reload

ROX-Filer will then appear in the Filesystem category of the menu.

[BarryK]

Bonjour,
Petite question :
Comment installer MC : Midnight Commander ...
Je vous remercie.
Daniel.

In my opinion, MC is very much inferior to ROX-Filer.
If you are accustomed to a 2-pane file manager, ROX takes a bit of getting used to, but then you will never look back.

Anyway, if you want MC, I have compiled it and created a PET. You can download directly (2.3MB):

À mon avis, MC est très inférieur à ROX-Filer.
Si vous êtes habitué à un gestionnaire de fichiers à 2 volets, ROX prend un peu de temps pour s'y habituer, mais vous ne regarderez jamais en arrière.

Quoi qu'il en soit, si vous voulez MC, je l'ai compilé et créé un PET. Vous pouvez télécharger directement (2.3MB) :

https://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64 ... tone64.pet

then just click on it to install. There will be an entry in the menu Filesystem category.

Alternatively, click on the "pkg" icon, then the button to update the pkg database, then find MC in the "kirkstone-pet" repository.

puis cliquez simplement dessus pour l'installer. Il y aura une entrée dans la catégorie Filesystem du menu.

Sinon, cliquez sur l'icône "pkg", puis sur le bouton pour mettre à jour la base de données pkg, puis recherchez MC dans le référentiel "kirkstone-pet".

Note, it has been compiled without gpm support, so must run in a X environment.

Notez qu'il a été compilé sans prise en charge de gpm, il doit donc être exécuté dans un environnement X.

[cebd]

Bon Dimanche,
Merci beaucoup,
j'aime bien MC, j'ai ça partout, sur Freebsd et les linux .
Rox est génial mais il lui manque certaines ruses...
Encore merci...

[ghoen]

Thanks for your enthousiasm and good work.
Just a question, do I miss devx_5.0 ???

Greetings

[BarryK]

Thanks for your enthousiasm and good work.
Just a question, do I miss devx_5.0 ???

Greetings

Click on the "sfs" icon and devx sfs can be installed.

[Caramel]

@BarryK

Problem with the mirror,
https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/eas ... /2023/5.0/

the size of the file img is only 6.7M

[BarryK]

@BarryK

Problem with the mirror,
https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/eas ... /2023/5.0/

the size of the file img is only 6.7M

I have removed the NLUUG link from the blog announcement.

I will contact them, let them know something has gone wrong with the mirroring.

[dcung]

EasyOS is quickly becoming one of my favorite OS.
Very quick and easy to install - for me frugal install.
Fast and snappy!
I'm gonna try this on few more of my hardware collection.

Thank you @BarryK

[BarryK]

Thanks for your enthousiasm and good work.
Just a question, do I miss devx_5.0 ???

Greetings

Click on the "sfs" icon and devx sfs can be installed.

The thought has occurred to me; newcomers might not be aware about the differences between those two "pkg" and "sfs" desktop icons.
It is documented, but there is a forest of documentation, which can be tedious to trawl through.

So, in a nutshell, "pkg" is a traditional package manager. It has "oe-kirkstone" which are all packages that were compiled in OpenEmbedded, about 1.950 packages. Then there are "pet-noarch" and "pet-kirkstone"; the former are architecture-independent PET packages, the latter are PET packages compiled for EasyOS -- they were compiled in a running EasyOS.

"sfs" icon has big packages, put together with all required dependencies into a single .sfs file. You can download and install these onto the main desktop or in a container. This is what it looks like:

sfs-1.png (106.86 KiB) Viewed 2073 times

...yes, although the devx sfs can be installed in a container, there are currently some issues, so not recommended.

What is not obvious to newcomers is that sfs files can be installed from any of those paths. You are not restricted to just "easyos/oe/kirkstone"!

For example, look in "easyos/oe/dunfell":

sfs-2.png (106.43 KiB) Viewed 2073 times

The "astudio" sfs is shown -- it is big! You will need fast Internet and a generous data allowance. Notice the dependencies: "easy" and "devx" -- these are sfs files that will go underneath "astudio" in the aufs layered filesystem in the container.

"astudio" and the other sfs files shown were developed to run in the Dunfell-series of EasyOS. That is no problem, it is the "easy" and "devx" sfs files from the Dunfell-series that will be used in the container. -- you will need to know that these add about another 0.9GB download.

But yeah, click on "zoom" or whatever, it will download, along with the "easy" sfs from the Dunfell-series, the container will get setup, and an icon created on the desktop, and you are good to go.

Let me know if a sfs doesn't work for you.

[Misaligned]

Just downloaded and "installed" the Kirkstone V5. So far it works great. The only issue I noticed so far is having problems switching the desktop background. After selecting a different (JWMDesk-Wallpaper) background and clicking on "Apply" nothing happens. The background stays the same. It changes back and forth with every right click on the desktop. Restarting X / Rebooting brings back the old background. I noticed this behavior in older Dunfell versions, the later Dunfell versions acted as expected.

I am not sure, and I don't know enough about scripting, but the following section in the xinit.rc seems to be, at least part of the problem?

#160417 PuppyPin backup...
if [ -f /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPinBACKUP ];then
touch /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
if [ "$(grep 'defaultbrowser' /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin)" == "" ];then
cp -a -f /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPinBACKUP /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
fi
fi
cp -a -f /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPinBACKUP

As far as I understand this, PuppyPin gets overwritten with PuppyPinBACKUP at reboot/restart X. I just don't see that the backup file gets updated if I make changes? But anyways, just wanted to mention this.

Also the "Right Click Menu" doesn't show Rox Filer anymore. At least I could not find it. Maybe it is at a different location now.

[bugnaw333]

No problem on me...

[bugnaw333]

Also the "Right Click Menu" doesn't show Rox Filer anymore. At least I could not find it. Maybe it is at a different location now.

Ah ha, I found a typo!

/usr/share/applications/ROX-Filer.desktop has a missing closing square-bracket:

Code: Select all

Comment[fr=Gestionnaire fichiers ROX-Filer

Open in text-editor, insert the closing bracket:

Code: Select all

Comment[fr]=Gestionnaire fichiers ROX-Filer

Save, then in a terminal type this:

Code: Select all

# fixmenus
# jwm -reload

ROX-Filer will then appear in the Filesystem category of the menu.

[williwaw]

Just downloaded and "installed" the Kirkstone V5. So far it works great. The only issue I noticed so far is having problems switching the desktop background. After selecting a different (JWMDesk-Wallpaper) background and clicking on "Apply" nothing happens. The background stays the same. It changes back and forth with every right click on the desktop. Restarting X / Rebooting brings back the old background. I noticed this behavior in older Dunfell versions, the later Dunfell versions acted as expected.

I am not sure, and I don't know enough about scripting, but the following section in the xinit.rc seems to be, at least part of the problem?

#160417 PuppyPin backup...
if [ -f /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPinBACKUP ];then
touch /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
if [ "$(grep 'defaultbrowser' /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin)" == "" ];then
cp -a -f /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPinBACKUP /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin
fi
fi
cp -a -f /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPinBACKUP

As far as I understand this, PuppyPin gets overwritten with PuppyPinBACKUP at reboot/restart X. I just don't see that the backup file gets updated if I make changes? But anyways, just wanted to mention this.

Also the "Right Click Menu" doesn't show Rox Filer anymore. At least I could not find it. Maybe it is at a different location now.

I find this happens when making a desktop change during the first boot
try holding off till the second boot and see what happens

[tallboy]

Hi BarryK, I just booted EasyOS 5.0 from a USB stick on an old Dell E6230 laptop, and it works great, thank you. A Dell E6400 laptop did not like EasyOS at all. I have used EasyPup 2.4.91 on my main PC since it was published, and I use a Vivaldi browser. I am new to EasyOS, so I wonder how I can use the Vivaldi in EasyOS 5.0?

tallboy

[kinoe]

@tallboy did you try an appimage? https://github.com/area-of-dev/Vivaldi. ... e/releases

[kinoe]

@BarryK Thanks again for your great work Barry! I'm loving EasyOS and fancy every update, even though or maybe because it is work in progress.
I'm on Kirkstone 4.99 on a USB-flash. Starting the update to 5.0 throughs this error:

capture5370.png (187.3 KiB) Viewed 2006 times

Should I update manually or do I have to download 5.0 and install from scratch?

[Misaligned]

@williwaw, you are right. After second boot, I can adjust background as expected.

Another thing I noticed, not sure what's happening there (see attached screen shots),
Geany toolbar icons vary in size, quite a bit, the same thing in Rox Filer?

geany.png (22.72 KiB) Viewed 1934 times

desktop-files.png (66.24 KiB) Viewed 1934 times

[don570]

I have removed the NLUUG link from the blog announcement.

I will contact them, let them know something has gone wrong with the mirroring.

There is probably no problem with the link. It's likely there is a delay of few hours for the repository to load the file
and make it available. This is a common problem with repositories that do mirroring.
______________________________________________________________________________-

[kinoe]

Should I update manually or do I have to download 5.0 and install from scratch?

Manual update failed. Installed 5.0 from scratch.

[tallboy]

kinoe, I don't even know what an appimage is, and how to use it. Is there a way to make for example a .deb version usable in EasyOS?

tallboy

[BarryK]

@BarryK Thanks again for your great work Barry! I'm loving EasyOS and fancy every update, even though or maybe because it is work in progress.
I'm on Kirkstone 4.99 on a USB-flash. Starting the update to 5.0 throughs this error:
capture5370.png
Should I update manually or do I have to download 5.0 and install from scratch?

Yes, in 4.99 the "update" script is broken for non-English.
That's because it looks on line expecting a "de" folder; however, we no longer have separate language-specific easy*.img builds.
The script was fixed in 4.101

I have attached script 'easy_update', with a false ".gz" appended.
Replace the old one at /usr/local/easy_version, and make sure it's exec flags are set.

[BarryK]

kinoe, I don't even know what an appimage is, and how to use it. Is there a way to make for example a .deb version usable in EasyOS?

tallboy

An appimage should work. You download it somewhere convenient, right-click on it to set the "exec" flags, then just click on it.

.deb packages will work in Easy, as long as all dependencies are present. The PKGget package manager (ppm) can handle .deb packages. Just download the .deb and click on it to install.

You can also convert a .deb into a .sfs (SFS), using 'deb2sfs' script.

"Easy creation of SFS from DEB packages with deb2sfs"
https://bkhome.org/news/202209/easy-cre ... b2sfs.html

"Zoom SFS created using deb2sfs"
https://bkhome.org/news/202209/zoom-sfs ... b2sfs.html

Of course, you will need to know if the .deb needs any extra dependencies. That will need a bit of chasing up.
You could install the .deb then try to start it from a terminal, and it will tell you if a library is missing.

[BarryK]

@tallboy
I went to vivaldi.com/download and downloaded the .deb, to /files/downloads
Then just clicked on it to install
An entry is created in the "Internet" section of the menu, but it doesn't start.

Running "vivaldi-stable" in a terminal:

Code: Select all

Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported.

In a terminal, I typed this and Vivaldi starts up ok:

Code: Select all

# vivaldi-stable --no-sandbox

But we can do better, read on...

Hmmm, I noticed something...
I opened /usr/share/applications/vivali-stable.desktop in geany
Hmm, weird, the "Exec=" line is incomplete.

Well, can edit it. Firstly, I renamed /usr/bin/vivaldi-stable to just /usr/bin/vivaldi
and renamed /usr/share/applications/vivaldi-stable.desktop to just vivaldi.desktop
(I have a reason for doing that)

Edit the vivaldi.desktop file, for all the "Exec=" lines:

Code: Select all

Exec=vivaldi

Hmmm, also the logo has gone awol.
Copy /opt/vivaldi/product_logo_48.png to /usr/share/pixmaps, and rename it to just 'vivaldi.png'

Then in vivaldi.desktop:

Code: Select all

Icon=vivaldi.png

It will be much nicer if can run vivaldi non-root, then will not need that "--no-sandbox"...

Go to the menu "System -> Login and Security manager", click on "More" button...

do what it says. In the file manager, go to /root, right-click to show hidden files, then click on '.clients-status' and edit it, append this line:

Code: Select all

vivaldi=false

Almost there!
Close that little red window, exit from "login and Security Manager", then restart it. See checkbox for vivaldi:

vivaldi-client1.png (65.75 KiB) Viewed 2442 times

...tick the "vivaldi" checkbox, click "OK" button

Now I have my fingers crossed, typed this in a terminal, without "--no-sandbox"

Code: Select all

# vivaldi

...yippeee, vivaldi starts!

Quit vivaldi, now try from the menu...

But because I changed the .desktop file, do this first:

Code: Select all

# fixmenus
# jwm -reload

yay, vivaldi works!

vivaldi is now running as user "vivaldi", home folder is /home/vivaldi

In the future, I would like to automate the steps of getting any app to run as a non-root user.

[kinoe]

@BarryK

In the future, I would like to automate the steps of getting any app to run as a non-root user.

I wonder if there is an easy(OS) way to run an appimage as non-root? For running Ungoogled-Chromium.appimage as root with the --no-sandbox option is pointless. The way you mentioned with the .deb package seems to work only with an installed package not with an appimage? There is .deb package at https://ungoogled-software.github.io/un ... -binaries/ and i'd give it a try, though the version is outdated. I'm asking out of curiosity.
Thanks for the updated easy-update script, i'll give it a shot with 5.1

[tallboy]

Thank you, BarryK, I'll download Vivaldi deb and play.

In my Puppys and EasyPups, Vivaldi is installed to /opt/. I open the /opt/vivaldi/vivaldi script, and add --no-sandbox to the last line.

Code: Select all

# Note: exec -a below is a bashism.
exec -a "$0" "$HERE/vivaldi-bin" --no-sandbox $@

The text in my Vivaldi desktop icon executes this script:

Code: Select all

/root/my-applications/bin/Vivaldi-stable

The script Vivaldi-stable executes the modified /opt/vivaldi/vivaldi script. The /usr/bin/vivaldi-stable is not a script, but just a link pointing to /opt/vivaldi/vivaldi, so I skip that command. The /root/my-applications/bin/Vivaldi-stable script:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
wmctrl -s 1
exec /opt/vivaldi/vivaldi

wmctrl opens Vivaldi in the virtual desktop no. 2 out of 4. Depending on the sisze of the screen, I often add a line making wmctrl open the browser in a certain size and position also, to avoid overlapping of desktop icons, if necessary after letting it sleep for 2-3-4 sec.. I could of course let the text in the desktop icon open /opt/vivaldi/vivaldi directly, or modify the text in vivaldi.desktop to do the same, instead of using my script with wmctrl.

The latest Vivaldi opens very quick, and should be a part of the packages in all OS's.
The fact that Vivaldi doesn't see and store any info about the user, and use encryption, makes it feel very safe. It is also very interesting to check the number of blocked ads and trackers. Some sites show staggering amounts of both!

tallboy

[BarryK]

Should I update manually or do I have to download 5.0 and install from scratch?

Manual update failed. Installed 5.0 from scratch.

I posted about this here:

viewtopic.php?t=8132

Now I am intrigued, have to try it for myself.
Let's see... I have 4.5.3 on a USB stick, will try manual update on that and report back.

I have reported back on that other thread -- success.

Just a couple of manual fixes required.

I copied 'vmlinuz', 'initrd' and 'easy.sfs' to the 4.5.3 usb-stick, then booted it on another computer.
So was able to report back here immediately.

[williwaw]

@BarryK

In the future, I would like to automate the steps of getting any app to run as a non-root user.

:thumbup:
I wonder if there is an easy(OS) way to run an appimage as non-root? For running Ungoogled-Chromium.appimage as root with the --no-sandbox option is pointless. The way you mentioned with the .deb package seems to work only with an installed package not with an appimage? There is .deb package at https://ungoogled-software.github.io/un ... -binaries/ and i'd give it a try, though the version is outdated. I'm asking out of curiosity.
Thanks for the updated easy-update script, i'll give it a shot with 5.1

Kinoe, please post your method to run ungoogled chromium as a user, ie without passing the --no-sandbox option if you get it working.

I did get my portable install of ungoogled chromium running as user "ungoogled" without the --no-sandbox option,.... after a couple of tries.

I edited .clients-status as described above, and ran the login and security manager after ticking the box. the user "ungoogled" was created fine,

but in order to run the --no-sandbox option, I had to copy /usr/bin/chromium to /usr/bin/ungoogled and edit the first two lines to adapt it to my install of ungoogled-chromium.

@BarryK
Is the login and security manager supposed to also create a /usr/bin/ungoogled script? perhaps I was looking for it in the wrong place.

[BarryK]

@BarryK
Is the login and security manager supposed to also create a /usr/bin/ungoogled script? perhaps I was looking for it in the wrong place.

Yes, after ticking the ungoogled checkbox, then click ok button, it will create a new script /usr/bin/ungoogled and rename the old one to /usr/bin/ungoogled.bin