KLV-Airedale-rc12 with Void Linux Kernel 6.1.14_1

[keniv]

@fredx181

I think there's no customization for applications in the Whisker menu, it is just reading the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications

From what you have said above I think what I thought must be the Whiskers menu is not in fact the Whiskers menu. In the above are you describing as the Whiskers menu the one that opens when you click on "Applications" in the bottom left hand side of the desktop? If this is the case then Palemoon does appear under "Internet". I added under "Categories=" Network;WebBrowser; to the .desktop file so that Palemoon would appear in the same category as Firefox. This is the menu that is very similar to those you see in the puppies with different desktops to that which r12 uses.
The one which I thought must be the Whiskers menu is the one at the top center of the desktop. It ends in a small circular blue icon which looks like a mouses head with whiskers hence the reason for me thinking it was the Whiskers menu. It is this one that I would like to be able to edit. I hope this post makes sense to you.

Regards,

Ken.

[fredx181]

The one which I thought must be the Whiskers menu is the one at the top center of the desktop.

Yes on top panel, right icon, that's the Whisker menu, so to be clear, Palemoon does not appear in Whisker menu and you did have placed the Palemoon .desktop file in /usr/share/applications ?

[keniv]

@fredx181

so to be clear, Palemoon does not appear in Whisker menu and you did have placed the Palemoon .desktop file in /usr/share/applications ?

Yes that's correct. I've attached an image of what I have in the Whiskers menu. This has brought up another issue. I used "Take a shot" to produce this image. I set it to "Region". However in use I found it impossible to form a rectangle around the region. Instead I got a series of lines some of which can be seen on the image. I wonder if anybody else has seen this?

Ken.

[fredx181]

Yes that's correct. I've attached an image of what I have in the Whiskers menu.

That image shows the top panel, not the Whisker menu, click on the icon on the right and you'll see it and check if Palemoon is under "Internet"

This has brought up another issue. I used "Take a shot" to produce this image. I set it to "Region". However in use I found it impossible to form a rectangle around the region. Instead I got a series of lines some of which can be seen on the image. I wonder if anybody else has seen this?

Yes, seen it too, annoying !, fix (workaround) is to disable the compositor (don't know how from the top of my head, atm, somewhere in settings)
EDIT: It's in "Window Manager Tweaks', tab Compositor, uncheck the checkbox on top:

Screenshot.png (60.81 KiB) Viewed 1697 times

[keniv]

@fredx181

click on the icon on the right and you'll see it and check if Palemoon is under "Internet"

Yes Palemoon is there and will launch from there. I've also found that if I right click on the icon I get a small drop down menu at the bottom of which there is a "Panel" option. I can then click on "Add New Items" but Palemoon is not included in this list. There is an item called "Whisker Menu". I tried adding this and got a second blue mouse icon in the panel which I removed but it did prove to me that I could add items to the top panel just not the ones I want.

Yes, seen it too, annoying !, fix is to disable the compositor (don't know how from the top of my head, atm)

Well at least it's not just me that's seeing it.

Regards,

Ken.

Edit1: Posts crossed. I've followed your instructions above and Take a Shot is now working as it should. Thanks for that.

[fredx181]

@keniv Just disable the compositor, see EDIT in my previous post. edit: Ah, you saw already.

[keniv]

@keniv Just disable the compositor, see EDIT in my previous post.

Posts crossed again. Please see my previous post.

Ken.

[Sofiya]

I'm ok

Right click on the top bar

Panel > Panel Options > Items > Add > Launch Applications > Add > close .... further edit the launch of applications

[geo_c]

I'm running RC-12 on a third computer, and so I don't know if I saw this on the first two and missed it, but for some reason the sda1 "home" drive is showing up on the desktop as a removable drive labeled sda1.

I accidentally unmounted it from the desktop thinking it was USB drive of the same size. Thunar couldn't find the directory I had it opened to, and then I realized what happened, remounted and shutdown. No issues shutting or rebooting apparently.

I don't remember this happening in previous versions. The system drive shows up in /media/root/sda1 and also /mnt/home. My other pups don't allow me to unmount the drive I'm running from, so wondering if this is the way it's supposed to work.

[fredx181]

I'm running RC-12 on a third computer, and so I don't know if I saw this on the first two and missed it, but for some reason the sda1 "home" drive is showing up on the desktop as a removable drive labeled sda1.

I accidentally unmounted it from the desktop thinking it was USB drive of the same size. Thunar couldn't find the directory I had it opened to, and then I realized what happened, remounted and shutdown. No issues shutting or rebooting apparently.

I don't remember this happening in previous versions. The system drive shows up in /media/root/sda1 and also /mnt/home. My other pups don't allow me to unmount the drive I'm running from, so wondering if this is the way it's supposed to work.

Yes that change showing the partition in Thunar and on Desktop is rather recent, from my quick testing:
The "home" drive mounted in /media/... ,if I unmount it (by right-click unmount on drive icon), the xfce4 notification says something like "unmounted", which is wrong, in reality it's still mounted in /media/..., but the /mnt/home symlink is broken (pointing to /mnt/layers/merged/mnt/... ) IMO, It's not really good all together as how it should be, I'd say, but AFAIK it doesn't lead to any system problems .

EDIT: Did find a problem: when doing the same second time (right-click unmount on drive icon) the "home" drive gets really unmounted (forced?!) Still the system runs OK (as changes are in RAM) ,I'm running with w_changes=RAM2 BUT running save2flash failed, as saving changes needs to have connection with an actual filesystem/partition.

[rockedge]

I agree with @fredx181 that the mechanism to add the icon link to the /mnt/home partition onto the desktop is not really the best solution and isn't working as intended. It will need to be revised or removed it seems.

@wiak what is your take on it?

[geo_c]

EDIT:[/b] Did find a problem: when doing the same second time (right-click unmount on drive icon) the "home" drive gets really unmounted (forced?!) Still the system runs OK (as changes are in RAM) ,I'm running with w_changes=RAM2 BUT running save2flash failed, as saving changes needs to have connection with an actual filesystem/partition.

Interesting, and I don't have any w_changes parameters in my menu.1st entry, so I'm running a "normal" install. I was surprised the system didn't crash or show any bugginess, but maybe I caught it in time before calling for any files on the drive.

Seems like it could become a bit of an issue for those unaware. I remember reading about it in earlier topics, but didn't quite grasp what the implications might be.

For now it seems it's best to resist the urge to unmount haphazardly from the desktop, though mounting and unmounting from the desktop icons is one of the pleasures of the Void/Xfce setup.

[Clarity]

Hi @rockedge

SAMBA in KLV: Seems that we may have discussed how to install this before, but I cannot nail where this was covered.

My Question

• Can I install @01Micko's SSM utility into KLV and if so, how?

• How would I add findsmb utility of SAMBA utilities to KLV? ===> Sorry for this question as this and smbclient utilities are already built-in to KLV!!!

• Can SAMBA install in such a way as it creates a 'Network' folder in KLV's Menu containing the SSM Utility?

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

[wiak]

@keniv I think @wiak might know more about Whisker Menu customization. I'll have to look myself how to do it!

I think there's no customization for applications in the Whisker menu, it is just reading the .desktop files in /usr/share/applications (and probably ~/.local/share/applications too).

Maybe (I'm not sure) /usr/local/share/applications too, by default.

I believe can change what dirs are searched for desktop files via env variable XDG_DATA_DIRS, but not needed (?) and not set in KLV-Airedale.

Is anything in below useful(?):

https://specifications.freedesktop.org/ ... nized-keys

NoDisplay: NoDisplay means "this application exists, but don't display it in the menus". This can be useful to e.g. associate this application with MIME types, so that it gets launched from a file manager (or other apps), without having a menu entry for it (there are tons of good reasons for this, including e.g. the netscape -remote, or kfmclient openURL kind of stuff).

I use NoDisplay=true sometimes, when don't want app in menu.

OnlyShowIn, NotShowIn: A list of strings identifying the desktop environments that should display/not display a given desktop entry.

By default, a desktop file should be shown, unless an OnlyShowIn key is present, in which case, the default is for the file not to be shown.

If $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP is set then it contains a colon-separated list of strings. In order, each string is considered. If a matching entry is found in OnlyShowIn then the desktop file is shown. If an entry is found in NotShowIn then the desktop file is not shown. If none of the strings match then the default action is taken (as above).

$XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP should have been set by the login manager, according to the value of the DesktopNames found in the session file. The entry in the session file has multiple values separated in the usual way: with a semicolon.

The same desktop name may not appear in both OnlyShowIn and NotShowIn of a group.

TryExec: Path to an executable file on disk used to determine if the program is actually installed. If the path is not an absolute path, the file is looked up in the $PATH environment variable. If the file is not present or if it is not executable, the entry may be ignored (not be used in menus, for example).

[wiak]

I'm running RC-12 on a third computer, and so I don't know if I saw this on the first two and missed it, but for some reason the sda1 "home" drive is showing up on the desktop as a removable drive labeled sda1.

I accidentally unmounted it from the desktop thinking it was USB drive of the same size. Thunar couldn't find the directory I had it opened to, and then I realized what happened, remounted and shutdown. No issues shutting or rebooting apparently.

I don't remember this happening in previous versions. The system drive shows up in /media/root/sda1 and also /mnt/home. My other pups don't allow me to unmount the drive I'm running from, so wondering if this is the way it's supposed to work.

Yes that change showing the partition in Thunar and on Desktop is rather recent, from my quick testing:
The "home" drive mounted in /media/... ,if I unmount it (by right-click unmount on drive icon), the xfce4 notification says something like "unmounted", which is wrong, in reality it's still mounted in /media/..., but the /mnt/home symlink is broken (pointing to /mnt/layers/merged/mnt/... ) IMO, It's not really good all together as how it should be, I'd say, but AFAIK it doesn't lead to any system problems .

EDIT: Did find a problem: when doing the same second time (right-click unmount on drive icon) the "home" drive gets really unmounted (forced?!) Still the system runs OK (as changes are in RAM) ,I'm running with w_changes=RAM2 BUT running save2flash failed, as saving changes needs to have connection with an actual filesystem/partition.

Maybe above something to do with latest initrd. Been a while since I made that and can't remember overall details so will have to look into it. I'm not sure what the /mnt/home symlinks are about except I imagine to copy Puppy linux type view where /mnt/home is used to refer to the mounted boot partition(?). In FR initrd, I do remember making /media/root the main place to see what is mounted (not the /mnt hierarchy) - that was actually to do with some research geo_c had done regarding how Thunar displays what is mounted. I have to check what freedesktop specs say about that if anything. Anyway, I'll experiment too. If proves to be an issue maybe use the previous initrd for now since that latest one has indeed hardly been tested - main changes in it were to do with Ventoy so irrelevant overall.

EDIT: I do have the HOME icon on my Desktop in KLV, but right-click isn't giving me option to unmount it. I better check I have rc12 version though - might be an older one I'm looking at (?)

[wiak]

Ah... it is not the HOME icon your are talking about. It is the partition containing your frugal installation.
Could you look at top of w_init and tell me the initrd version. In KLV rc12 seems on my system to be:

version="6.0.1"; revision="-rc2" Date: 31 Jan 2023

That's not the latest. I mentioned somewhere to rockedge that I had messed up loading the newest (under experiment) initrd-latest.gz to his owncloud server. I just downloaded what is there and it is that previous 6.0.1 -rc2.

I said to rockedge if he wanted to try the latest, it is the one included in KLA-XFCEbase cos I'm short of time these days to upload and sort that owncloud situation out. Latest is version="7.0.0"; revision="-rc2" Date: 12 Feb 2023

Whether that will sort out what you are describing is another matter entirely. I haven't been able to confirm your findings. I have nvme drive on my system and it has label 'frugals'. With newest initrd that is appearing on Desktop and says unmount but can't unmount since it says in use, which would be correct situation. I have to read what you wrote again and experiment more to understand the problem. However, as I say, nothing new about that initrd in rc12 - seems to be old one from 31Jan so situation must have existed since then if initrd related.

[wiak]

Okay, I think I see what you mean about being able to umount the partition containing the frugal install and thus wrecking w_changes=RAM2 operating since it relies on that partition being mounted to /mnt/layers/uc_ro

I'm still thinking about the issue.

Of course root user can always umount a partition unless it is in use (aside from forcing the umount). This is problematic since umounting when we don't want that to happen can wreck a lot of things...

Well done therefore for noticing this issue, by the way; it stems from something I did in the initrd to provide solution for a different request/issue being the line added to w_init:

mountpoint -q /mnt/${bootpartition} && mount --move /mnt/${bootpartition} merged/media/root/${bootpartition}

That line made items appear in Thunar (and on the Desktop as it happens since Thunar and XFCE Desktop are closely related), which seemed very nice to most all commentators at the time, but this new issue discovered makes it not so nice at the moment. I am still looking into it. Nothing to do with my very latest initrd since done in previous initrd (at least - can't remember which initrd version was first used in). The idea works, but yes, root can umount anything unless the underlying partition is busy (then would have to forcefully umount and that is up to root user - not wise though...!)

Even earlier of course root could have umounted that partition I believe, but earlier it was not mounted to /media/root, but instead to /mnt/something_or_other and as you may know it is the /media/root location that provides the 'convenience' of the mount point appearing in Thunar and thus on the Desktop. Previously it was not appearing in Thunar though could have been manually umounted if root decided to do so manually in terminal at least (but unlikely to do that). One kind of solution would thus be to revert back to that old scheme. Better might be to somehow force that partition to have some process busy using a file in it, which would prevent the umount but keep the convenience.

I'll have to think further on this.

In the meantime, I seriously suggest you DO NOT umount the underlying bootfrom partition since overlayfs can mess up big time potentially that partition (maybe even the disk? since snapmergepup util is using find recursively to try and delete char device whiteout files - goodness knows when it would stop!) since uc_ro isn't actually read/only in practice when in w_changes=RAM2 mode. In that mode it has to be read/write since saves go there! Yes, so this is potentially dangerous since I don't know what happens when save2flash rsyncs back to a mounted partition that isn't actually mounted anymore. I fear the worst moreso because of whiteout delete process char device files via snapmerge util operation. We may at very least need some kind of safety check inside snapmergepup or whatever it is called; I hate to imagine what that utility will do trying to find char devices (overlayfs whiteout markers) and deleting them when uc_ro isn't per say mounted! - I really don't know what could happen to underlying system if that utility isn't checking what it is deleting is safe to delete when the needed to be mounted partition isn't actually mounted. I wouldn't try - I have - though on limited test system and something is wrong... Oh well, all use of being developed system remains at user's risk.

I'm also wondering: surely it is possible to also umount underlying savefolder partition if using Puppy (though like KLV used to be, that partition might not appear conveniently on the Desktop). I presume its save2flash utils are different - and will depend if overlayfs or aufs being used I guess in terms of what may or may not get deleted? Like I said long ago, when I've used any layered distro for business use in the past (we used WDL_Arch64) I purposively never used save on demand mode - both because I didn't want issues from power cuts but also because I don't absolutely trust save2flash type operation; it's clever and fine in most tests on my hobby system, but I don't myself trust such mechanism outside of such usage. Indeed when doubt was cast on sfs-load-ondemand, I felt same should be considered for case of save2flash (and Pupmode 13); maybe safe always, maybe not, don't think safe if underlying savefolder partition unmounted prior to use though.

Maybe I am worrying needlessly, and casting doubt on frugal install save on demand mode generally, but I can see potential issues. Having the underlying bootfrom partition easily visible in filemanager makes umount much easier - but then again that could be done anyway I would have thought. Be careful guys... check DebianDogs and Pups too to see if similar is possible - if not, why not? I'm most worried about overlayfs-using distros - deleting wrong char devices could be catastrophic, so we need to think very carefully about safety of save2flash procedures I feel. A umount of anything on its own should not be dangerous in itself (maybe... not sure about umounting a layer used by overlay though - that is an in-kernel matter, and that is beyond me) - root user can always do that, even forcibly, but save2flash thereafter could be.

[rockedge]

@wiak the problem is the last change made originally made only in the w_init that modified the initrd code.

Code: Select all

mountpoint -q /mnt/${bootpartition} && mount --move /mnt/${bootpartition} merged/media/root/${bootpartition}

Could we revert to the original operational methods?

[keniv]

I'm ok

Right click on the top bar

Panel > Panel Options > Items > Add > Launch Applications > Add > close .... further edit the launch of applications

In mine I see Panel>Panel Preferences>Items>Add New Items. In this window a number of items are listed but this list does not include Palemoon. As a test I highlighted "Trash Amplet". This was added to the top bar. I could also move it's position in the top bar
but I still have no idea how to add Palemoon. Is there a way to add items (such as Palemoon) to the "Add New Items" window?

Thanks for your help,

Ken.

[Sofiya]

I'm ok

Right click on the top bar

Panel > Panel Options > Items > Add > Launch Applications > Add > close .... further edit the launch of applications

In mine I see Panel>Panel Preferences>Items>Add New Items. In this window a number of items are listed but this list does not include Palemoon. As a test I highlighted "Trash Amplet". This was added to the top bar. I could also move it's position in the top bar
but I still have no idea how to add Palemoon. Is there a way to add items (such as Palemoon) to the "Add New Items" window?

Thanks for your help,

Ken.

panel> add new items> here you select "Launch applications" click add and close .
in the top bar on the right you will have an empty icon.
right click on it, then select properties, you will have a new window.
Click on the + icon here. find "Pale moon" click add > close.
after move the icon to the right place on the panel.

[wiak]

@wiak the problem is the last change made originally made only in the w_init that modified the initrd code.

Code: Select all

mountpoint -q /mnt/${bootpartition} && mount --move /mnt/${bootpartition} merged/media/root/${bootpartition}

Could we revert to the original operational methods?

Yes, as I mentioned in my long rant about it above, reverting to that earlier code might do 'for now', but there was some reason I put in the new code - was something to do with a matter yourself and fredx181 were discussing/wanting or affected save2flash or similar; I can't remember. But yes, needs put back to that code from before (including whatever the mountpoint used in the previous move was - don't have that at my fingertips at the moment - I have a feeling it was /mnt/${bootpartition}

I don't think there is a perfect answer right now - I'm still thinking about it. I would have thought Puppy and DebianDog also had potential of similar issue except maybe mount point for the partition holding the savefolder isn't simply shown on the desktop... but that doesn't stop someone finding the mount and deleting it prior to save2flash. Potentially very dangerous situation I feel, particularly maybe with overlayfs since char dev files used as whiteouts and save2flash util may (or may not if lucky) delete char dev files nothing to do with anything during its big find search when underlying partition mounted or unmounted - got to prevent that umount... but meanwhile, yes, the older code at least hides the mount and probably would need commandline to umount it. Will definitely need more thought. Too late here to think more. I have to sleep and tomorrow is another day. I can't even test the puppy iso I have in frugal install since none of recent Pups boot from my nvme drive for some reason - I can boot them from SG2D as isos on usb stick, but can't boot them from usbstick Ventoy on my machine either; I haven't heard anyone saying won't boot via Ventoy, but maybe they have... Anyway, I need to try say Puppy also but on different computer in hope I can boot it and get it to do Pupmode13; do you know any Pup that boots using overlayfs?

[keniv]

panel> add new items> here you select "Launch applications" click add and close .
in the top bar on the right you will have an empty icon.
right click on it, then select properties, you will have a new window.
Click on the + icon here. find "Pale moon" click add > close.
after move the icon to the right place on the panel.

Thanks for that. I've finnaly got it. Please see the image below. I might try a few more now.

Regards,

Ken.

[Sofiya]

panel> add new items> here you select "Launch applications" click add and close .
in the top bar on the right you will have an empty icon.
right click on it, then select properties, you will have a new window.
Click on the + icon here. find "Pale moon" click add > close.
after move the icon to the right place on the panel.

Thanks for that. I've finnaly got it. Please see the image below. I might try a few more now.

Regards,

Ken.

Yes you did right

[wiak]

Need to move the initrd umount issue to the KL-Dev_Work thread since more to do on that matter and not appropriate here except to warn users not to umount that partition...

[fredx181]

@Sofiya @keniv
You can also drag and drop a launcher onto the panel (needs some exercise first perhaps (as you can see below, first try somehow didn't work for me)).

Screenshot(1).gif (280.87 KiB) Viewed 1576 times

[Sofiya]

@Sofiya @keniv
You can also drag and drop a launcher onto the panel (needs some exercise first perhaps (as you can see below, first try somehow didn't work for me)).

This is how it's easier than ever.
Thank you @ fredx181

[keniv]

@fredx181 @Sofiya
This looks a lot easier. The previous method is definitely a bit of a faff. I'll give it a try.

Regards,

Ken.

[rockedge]

A tip on making a desktop icon shortcut by dragging from the Whisker Menu ->

Screenshot(1).gif (279.29 KiB) Viewed 1522 times