KLV-Airedale-rc13 with Void Linux Kernel 6.1.15

[rockedge]

KLV-Airedale-rc13
Kennel Linux Void Airedale Release Candidate 13 775 MiB download size ↓
KLV-Airedale-rc13
SHA1-MD5.txt
Download from SOURCEFORGE




Complete system update/upgrade and outfitted with a Void Linux kernel 6.1.15_1 on 03/09/2023

The initrd.gz and w_init are upgraded to version 7.0.1-rc1 which are constructed from the latest FirstRib skeleton-initrd.

Added the symlink gtk2dialog that targets the binary gtkdialog-8.5 which is compiled against GTK2 which gives access to either gtk2 or gtk3.

@fredx181 has repaired a bug in save2flash and modified swapper.sh to adapt for the /mnt/home device showing directly in Thunar and on the desktop. swapper.sh activates any swap partitions available to KLV-Airedale during system start.

From a suggestion by @wiak added in a modification to w_init that will display icons for /mnt/home partition in Thunar and on the desktop.

New and improved tuning of the /boot directory boot stanza's. improving the reliability of booting in QEMU, Ventoy and S2SG.

Improved and rebuilt initrd.qz including expanded support for SD cards.

Routine system update/upgrade. And wallpapers from @Sofiya are included, replacing some of the stock xfce4 backgrounds.

@wiak has again done more work improving the boot system menus and further improvement to the initrd.gz boot mechanisms :

The iso config file boot/grub/menu.lst is used to boot from cdrom using that internal to iso provided menu.lst (i.e. he currently uses grub4dos for that purpose).
The iso config file boot/grub/loopback.cfg is used (per usual) to provide the boot menu for SG2D
The iso config file boot/grub/grub.cfg is used by Ventoy (but included no Ventoy-compatible entries until my alterations below)

I have made some modifications to all of the above (though have left previous entries in place for later experimentation and possible modification or deletion).
In particular I have provided the ability when booting via SG2D or Ventoy of using the FR modes:

a. RAM0 for session changes in RAM only (i.e. no save persistence)
b. RAM2 save on demand mode back to upper_changes folder (or ucimg savefile) in same directory iso is stored (or in subdirectory if symlink manually made to iso).
c. RAM2 save on demand mode back to upper_changes folder in, Clarity suggested, partition with LABEL 'Persistence' and directory 'Sessions'
d. Direct save (not in RAM) back to upper_changes folder (or ucimg savefile) in same directory iso is stored (or in subdirectory if symlink manually made to iso).
e. Direct save (not in RAM) back to upper_changes folder in, Clarity suggested, partition with LABEL 'Persistence' and directory 'Sessions'

No editing of the presented SG2D or Ventoy boot menus will be required to achieve these most useful FR initrd modes. User just needs to put the KLV iso in BOOTISOS (or wherever it is put usually) and boot...

starting of the pulseaudio system for any user that is logged in has been fixed and improved. Thanks wiak, Sofiya and fredx181 for the exact steps.

Upgraded to a new version of @fredx181 's save2flash, and set LANG=en_US.UTF-8 in /etc/environment as default localization.

Thanks to @Sofiya for the poorercputemp and Display Control packages that also have been added to desktop.

• Grub4Dos is now included in the System menu. Making KLV-Airedale capable of setting up a boot-able device using GParted and Grub4Dos.
• CUPS starting as a service has been added and is working thanks to @rcrsn51 spotting missing components!

This is constructed from KLV-Airedale-beta27->rc1->rc2->rc3->rc4->rc4.1 and is equipped with a Void Linux kernel version 6.0.12_1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC constructed with @wiak 's scripts that will extract the Void Linux kernel for KLV. Also has had a system wide upgrade. Uses an initrd.gz based on the FirstRib skeleton initrd.gz constructed by the kernel/module creation script. Firmware SFS is from a woof-CE kernel-kit built huge 6.0.0-1 kernel.

KLV-Airedale-rc5 is just as at home on FAT32, NTFS prtitions as it is running from ext2/3/4 formatted partitions.

Also included is wiak's generate a set of boot stanzas script. fredx181's mksplash has a menu entry and the remaster script is installed.

With the addition of a xfce4 desktop tiling configuration. A tip from wiak for configuring Tiling windows done with the Super (Windows) key and an up, down, left, right, home, pgup, pgdown or end key.

gxmessage in the default rootfs.

save2flash has been expanded to handle persistence on FAT32 and NTFS partitions.
The mksplash GUI utility to create splash notification banners.

The latest initrd.gz brings vFat and NTFS formatted partition support to KLV, allowing persistence on NTFS/vFat systems as well as the usual /ext2/ext3/ext4/swap support.

• included htop, Grub4Dos, CUPS
• created a symlink /root/spot with the target /home/spot
• Auto login cleaned up.
• includes also the logout logic provided by fredx181 gives true mulit-user support.
• replaced loop.cfg to the most recent modifications.
• Debian kernel 6.0.0-3-KLV SMP PREEMPT DYNAMIC is used.
• added gtkhash

Plus the other important improvements contributed by the KLV team.


Added @fredx181's save2flash utility that can be used when KLV is started in RAM2 mode to perform session saves on demand for persistence.
This is similar to PUPMODE13 in Puppy Linux.

fredx181's swap partition enable script includes the latest revisions and also added are the packages

• mime-add-1.0_0.noarch.xbps
• edit-sfs-1.0_0.noarch.xbps

KLV-Airedale-beta25 is able to load squash SFS packages on the fly or during the boot sequence.
Squash files and ISO images can be opened from the file manager and the read the contents.

• can run with rootfs, 01fimware and 00module SFS files as uncompressed directories.
• Also able to load compressed and/or decompressed directories,
  once a 2 digit prefix is added to the file name.
• It is possible to mix using compressed squash files and uncompressed directories.

Also can be downloaded from https://rockedge.org/kernels in ISO->Kennel_Linux->Airedale

[keniv]

Have downloaded and installed rc13. Am using the same upper_changes folder as in rc12. Boots to a desktop and I'm posting from it now. Not done much but have noticed one thing. If I go desktop>File System>mnt> I see three folders, layers,sda2 and a sym link to home. This link is said to be broken. If I click on it I see the widow in the image below. I assume this should not be the case.

Regards,

Ken.

[wiak]

Have downloaded and installed rc13. Am using the same upper_changes folder as in rc12. Boots to a desktop and I'm posting from it now. Not done much but have noticed one thing. If I go desktop>File System>mnt> I see three folders, layers,sda2 and a sym link to home. This link is said to be broken. If I click on it I see the widow in the image below. I assume this should not be the case.

Regards,

Ken.

Ah, wait... I think you are saying the symlink at /mnt/home in Thunar isn't working. That would indeed be a bug (I'm just up and haven't downloaded/tested the new release yet). Old swapper.sh program shouldn't have made that symlink (if it is the one I think you are referring to) and old iso root filesystem needed that removed prior to new iso build. The new FR initrd will then correctly remake it. However, if old one has been left behind in building the iso, then the initrd probably can't remake it automatically during boot. The 'old' /mnt/home link would certainly show as a 'broken' one.

My notes to @rockedge relating to that, are here: viewtopic.php?p=83807#p83807
But I see I didn't remind rockedge to actually remove any existing (no longer wanted) /mnt/home symlink; that needs removed for the initrd to auto-create the correctly working one at boot time. If that is the problem then deleting it now in thunar and saving that change and then rebooting should fix the matter (though better will be an iso rebuild with that change implemented unfortunately). Latest KLA-XFCEbase-1.1 release has that fix correctly implemented (though desktop mnthome link needs removed for that one).

[rockedge]

@wiak I made a mistake including the wrong version of swapper.sh which now is okay. The /mnt/home symlink was removed in the root_fs as is every thing else in /mnt.

I've repackaged and uploaded rc13 with all the correct pieces in place.

[Clarity]

Downloaded twice but checksum does not match. Can you confirm: 5b044e095d7d985cf8eb773c87c4669e

[keniv]

@wiak

Ah, wait... I think you are saying the symlink at /mnt/home in Thunar isn't working.

I'm sorry if my description wasn't very clear.

If that is the problem then deleting it now in thunar and saving that change and then rebooting should fix the matter

I've tried the above but after rebooting I still see the problem. I have attached an image in the hope of making what I'm seeing clearer. If I hover the mouse pointer over the home sym link I get a message at the bottom of the window telling me the link is broken. If I click on the link I get the window, the image of which, I attached to my previews post. Hope this is clearer now. I'll download the repackaged r13 once the checksum issue mentioned by@Clarity has been sorted out.
Hope this is of help.

Ken.

[one]

[...] I'll download the repackaged r13 once the checksum issue mentioned by@Clarity has been sorted out.
Hope this is of help.

Ken.

Hi @keniv,

I just downloaded the "new" rc13 and the given checksums match the iso.

# MD5
bf0c54949f24b9186e4bf67760f89c55 KLV-Airedale-rc13.iso

peace

[keniv]

@one
Thanks for that. I'm replying on a phone. I'll download the "new" r13 when I get back to my desktop.

Ken.

[wiak]

@wiak

Ah, wait... I think you are saying the symlink at /mnt/home in Thunar isn't working.

I'm sorry if my description wasn't very clear.

If that is the problem then deleting it now in thunar and saving that change and then rebooting should fix the matter

I've tried the above but after rebooting I still see the problem. I have attached an image in the hope of making what I'm seeing clearer. If I hover the mouse pointer over the home sym link I get a message at the bottom of the window telling me the link is broken. If I click on the link I get the window, the image of which, I attached to my previews post. Hope this is clearer now. I'll download the repackaged r13 once the checksum issue mentioned by@Clarity has been sorted out.
Hope this is of help.

Ken.

Yes, the above issue is what I thought you meant. I understand from rockedge's later post that his latest rc13 release should fix it, but because I'm busy making a new KLA-OT2base release iso right now I haven't downloaded or tested that KLV as yet. Hopefully fine now though.

[keniv]

@wiak @rockedge

Yes, the above issue is what I thought you meant.

Ah, that's good. I just thought it was worth making sure when the fix didn't work. I've just downloaded the "new" rc13. Md5 checksum matched OK. I have installed it using the same upper_changes folder as I use in first rc13. It booted as expected and it appears that the problem I mentioned is fixed. The link no longer complains about being broken and when clicked it takes me to /mnt/home

Thanks again to you both,

Ken.

[Sofiya]

I just can't understand what wrong folders are, I have everything right in the version "Re: KLV-Airedale-rc12"

[geo_c]

I just can't understand what wrong folders are, I have everything right in the version "Re: KLV-Airedale-rc12"

If I'm following correctly, the folders in Thunar are right in RC-12, but the desktop icon containing the system drive allows you to unmount the partition, which is dangerous. So RC-13 fixes the desktop icon, but broke the links in Thunar. So that's why your links are working.

[Sofiya]

I just can't understand what wrong folders are, I have everything right in the version "Re: KLV-Airedale-rc12"

If I'm following correctly, the folders in Thunar are right in RC-12, but the desktop icon containing the system drive allows you to unmount the partition, which is dangerous. So RC-13 fixes the desktop icon, but broke the links in Thunar. So that's why you're links are working.

I never unmount disks, except for those that I insert after.
and it's not dangerous, it just prevents the save from being saved ...... "probably"

[geo_c]

I just can't understand what wrong folders are, I have everything right in the version "Re: KLV-Airedale-rc12"

If I'm following correctly, the folders in Thunar are right in RC-12, but the desktop icon containing the system drive allows you to unmount the partition, which is dangerous. So RC-13 fixes the desktop icon, but broke the links in Thunar. So that's why you're links are working.

I never unmount disks, except for those that I insert after.
and it's not dangerous, it just prevents the save from being saved ...... "probably"

Well I run a normal frugal save directly to upper_changes, so I accidentally unmounted the drive because it was showing as the exact same size as a USB stick I also had inserted and mounted. The system did not crash, but I remounted immediately after noticing Thunar could not find any system directories, and then shut down and rebooted. So it could be problematic for those of us who are careless at times.

[geo_c]

The desktop icon discussion starts here: viewtopic.php?p=83679#p83679

and really gets going here: viewtopic.php?p=83718#p83718

[fredx181]

@Sofiya I also (almost) never unmount a drive, but I think it's always good to prevent unexpected things happening (e.g. saving not possible with save2flash) if a user does something that you may call *weird*.

[Sofiya]

@Sofiya I also (almost) never unmount a drive, but I think it's always good to prevent unexpected things happening (e.g. saving not possible with save2flash) if a user does something that you may call *weird*.

Yes, I understand, it’s better not to make any ruffles, buns, as this is fraught with consequences *for some users *
wooden toys nailed to the floor are safest

[Clarity]

Just downloaded, again and the checksum now matches. Thansk

Booted and running without issues in a VM

Code: Select all

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -vga std -m 2G -smp 2 -device AC97 -name "KLV vrc13 via QEMU"  -cdrom KLV-Airedale-rc13.iso

Changing the VGA driver in the VM gives a different desktop background. The performance and stability is the same with either VGA parm provided. This phenom was shared in earlier release of KLV

Code: Select all

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -vga cirrus -m 2G -smp 2 -device AC97 -name "KLV vrc13 via QEMU"  -cdrom KLV-Airedale-rc13.iso

Again, The system, subsystems, and programs behave identically in my testings.

FYI

[rockedge]

Changing the VGA driver in the VM gives a different desktop background. The performance and stability is the same with either VGA parm provided. This phenom was shared in earlier release of KLV

I use this now as a feature that makes it easy to know which graphics driver type is loaded and functional on first boot of the system. Like an indicator LED or status lights

[Clarity]

YES! That post from me was merely to show that each VGA driver arrives at a different look in its background. AND my post intends to comfort to know that the performance, security, and stability is exactly the same no matter which of the 2 desktops one arrives at.

It is and was not a request for change; although it could have been mistaken for that in my post.

Yes, that feature also alerts me which of the VGA parms I started in booting the distro.

Thanks for all the great work everyone is doing for the KL series as it continues its improvements addressing the kinds of needs users have and the attempts at ease of use that you developers continue to focus on.

[rockedge]

Tip! It's now possible to open a Rox window and drag and drop a *.desktop shortcut file to the desktop directly:

Screenshot.gif (328.63 KiB) Viewed 3594 times

[rockedge]

TIP #2
Same idea this time directly to the panel

Screenshot(1).gif (346.48 KiB) Viewed 3585 times

[wiak]

These KL distros are getting too easy to use Erik. You have to resist boasting to avoid upsetting anyone.

[Clarity]

These KL distros are getting too easy to use

+1

Especially on booting & shutdown processing. It is capable for ANY user, today, no matter which of the boot/shutdown methods one choose, it will work and work successfully with little to NO ISSUES!

The contributors here are exceptionally capable in all of the many contributions that make this forum distro stable, responsive, and complete in desktop offerings.

And, in my opinion, this distro presents a phenomenal presence. (Maybe worthiy of listing on Distrowatch & MajorGeeks in the future.)

A NOTE
In our past life as technologist, many of us grew up with only 1 TV and 1 telephone for EVERYONE in the home. Today, that is NOT the case.

Today everything within the home is moving to connective consciousness that I seem to feel that some continue to want to reject this view.

There are some advantage as well as disadvantages to everything, but that does NOT stop the march forward in time.

Today, EVERY device in our homes will connect via Wifi ... except the hearing-aids some wear.

Our conscious focus, in an effort to be consistent with the progressions we see, will need to continue our efforts to mature in time as well.

So, when I make purchases, in today's 2023 world, it is now done with a conscious look for ability to connect within our home's framework. My parent could not have dreamed of this as I remember them laughing at the "Dick Tracy Watch" (a featured comics character when I was growing up)

We are now links in the chain of our home's connective technolgy. And as has been a staple in Puppyland, we must continue to view products developed to make it as easy and simple with OOTB solutions for home technolgy that we see in our home, today.

This is just an observation as I continue a march toward end-of-life and reviewing the road I have traveled thus far.

Just a note...nothing more.

[geo_c]

I probably missed this somewhere in the mix, or maybe fouled it up along the way by installing recent RC versions under my collected upper_changes, but I've run into a situation where if I log out to the Void login prompt I'm unable to log back in using:

void login: root
password: root

When I type 'root' for the password it prints an 'r' and returns to the Void login prompt. I have to hit the power button and shutdown and reboot.

Do you think this is peculiar to my setup?

[fredx181]

I probably missed this somewhere in the mix, or maybe fouled it up along the way by installing recent RC versions under my collected upper_changes, but I've run into a situation where if I log out to the Void login prompt I'm unable to log back in using:

void login: root
password: root

When I type 'root' for the password it prints an 'r' and returns to the Void login prompt. I have to hit the power button and shutdown and reboot.

Do you think this is peculiar to my setup?

That has been an issue in the past (with one of the betas, I think) but on a pristine install of rc13, I cannot reproduce it.
So probably, yes, has to do with your setup.

[rockedge]

I remember similar problems in one of the beta's and one alpha that was caused by an autologin loop error that we sorted out. There was another issue that caused the shell console to have lost the keyboard during the login.

I feel also like it is setup related. Is there any polkit user agent errors being displayed during or after the initial boot?

[geo_c]

I feel also like it is setup related. Is there any polkit user agent errors being displayed during or after the initial boot?

I was on a very long 12hour-each-way road trip last couple days, so I just now arrived home and checked this out. The laptop I brought with me was experiencing the log in issue.

It appears that the first place I upgraded to RC13, which is a USB install doesn't have the issue, and the other two hard drive installs I upgraded to RC13 do have this issue.

No policy kit user agent errors though. Just the buggy login. Automatic login works fine on bootup, it only occurs when I log out and try and log back in.

So yes, it appears it has something to do with how I upgraded the systems to RC13. I wasn't experiencing any problems like that on RC12 though, and consequently I'm not inclined to think it has to do with earlier RC or beta versions.

Since I have a "good" copy running on USB, maybe I'll try copying my collected upper_changes to the hard drive installs and see what happens.

[geo_c]

UPDATE on the login password:

Copied my "good" usb install to the hardrive and rebooted. LOGIN WORKS!

I don't know what I did wrong initially, but I do remember I was packing for a trip, very distracted, and in a hurry.

Always pays to keep several copies of the XXupper_changes saved on different devices.

[Sofiya]

The test of the latest version showed
economical installation clean
we set up the wallpaper and so on, we reboot, we reach the poll window to save or not to save, we save.
Loaded with save.

when if I log out with Void login prompt I can't login again with:

invalid login: root
password: root

When I type 'root' for the password, it prints 'r' and returns to the Void login prompt. I have to press the power button, turn off and restart the computer.

also if you just click on reboot, the reboot starts, but it doesn’t reach the window with the choice to save or not, it just reboots

Reinstalled twice, same result