Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

When I try to install a package called spice-vdagent using the Synaptic Package Manager or using the command apt install, it gives an error:

E: spice-vdagent: installed spice-vdagent package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1.

looking at the details, it gives some 18 warnings like the following but for different shell scripts:

insserv: warning: script '00sys_logger' missing LSB tags
insserv: Default-Start undefined, assuming empty start runlevel(s) for script '00sys_logger'
insserv: Default-Stop undefined, assuming empty stop runlevel(s) for script '00sys_logger'

then it repeats for:
10alsa
cups
efivarfs
frisbe.sh
javaif.sh
man-db
pupmode13
rc.acpi
rc.firewall
rc.ucode
rc.yassm
start_cpu_freq
trim
usb-modeswitch
Finally it says:

Starting Agent daemon for Spice guests: spice-vdagent failed!
invoke-rc.d: initscript spice-vdagent, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing package spice-vdagent (--configure):
installed spice-vdagent package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
spice-vdagent
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code(1)

I made sure this install worked for another Debian linux called LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) and it did.

What could be happening here? How can I make this install successfully?
Thanks

This really baffles me probably since I don't have enough experience to troubleshoot this or to just find the reason this won't install.

First off, the reason for wanting this is to make my puppylinux virtual machine more useful like I have done with other linux distribution virtual machines. I really like the usefulness of such a small and efficient install of puppylinux to do this that doesn't take up so much room like other linux does. The only thing missing that helps me is being able to easily copy from the guest virtual machine to the host. This application is supposed to work on any linux distribution and it is supposed to be an easy installation (which normally is) -

The solution is simple. Just install the package spice-vdagent in the guest virtual machine: sudo apt install spice-vdagent The clipboard is automatically shared - we can copy and paste between the host and the guest

But I see this may just not be possible since no one has responded. I know you guys have a lot of experience in a variety of solutions with puppylinux and offer great help when you can. That's why I submitted this. If you have any ideas that could help make this work, let me know. I've had other suggestions from some of you for work arounds, but nothing directly like this that could be really helpful for qemu and virt-manager.
Thanks

@JusGellin

If I understand correctly, the spice guest-agent daemon (spice-vdagentd) can start via Systemd (not supported by Puppy Linux) or by a Sys-V initscript. Puppy uses traditional init scripts and runlevels.

In Puppy, the spice-vdagent init script (/etc/init.d/spice-vdagent) references the chkconfig utility which manages the init.d runlevel links at boot time. Chkconfig serves as a frontend to insserv which functions as a boot-sequence organizer using the LSB (Linux Standard Base) data in the comment header of the init script.

The LSB header in /etc/init.d/spice-vdagent follows below:

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: 	  	spice-vdagent
# Required-Start: 	$local_fs $remote_fs
# Required-Stop:  	$local_fs $remote_fs
# Should-Start:   	dbus
# Should-Stop:    	
# Default-Start:  	2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:   	0 1 6
# Short-Description: 	Agent daemon for Spice guests
# Description:    	Together with a per X-session agent process the spice agent
#                 	daemon enhances the spice guest user experience with client
#                 	mouse mode, guest <-> client copy and paste support and more.
### END INIT INFO

However, modern Debian package repositories no longer provide chkconfig (frontend to insserv) and this utility (last available in Debian Jessie) is not available in BW64. In this scenario, when installing spice-vdagent, you may see 'missing LSB tag' errors for any scripts in the /etc/init.d directory that do not have LSB tags.

Maybe other forum members will provide additional guidance for installing spice-vdagent in Puppy Linux.

@radky
Thanks for that information. This is really new to me, so I looked at my LMDE6 virtual machine that uses this and is also based on Debian12, and looked to see if it used systemd. I ran systemctl status spice-vdagent I believe it shows it was using this. Here is what it showed:
● spice-vdagentd.service - Agent daemon for Spice guests
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/spice-vdagentd.service; indirect; preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2024-03-13 04:37:27 MDT; 1 day 12h ago
TriggeredBy: ● spice-vdagentd.socket
Process: 1215 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/spice-vdagentd $SPICE_VDAGENTD_EXTRA_ARGS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 1217 (spice-vdagentd)
Tasks: 2 (limit: 4597)
Memory: 832.0K
CPU: 42.600s
CGroup: /system.slice/spice-vdagentd.service

So that must be the reason it worked for that Linux.

JusGellin wrote: Thu Mar 14, 2024 3:38 pm

... The only thing missing that helps me is being able to easily copy from the guest virtual machine to the host. ...

I am not sure which parms you use to boot your VM. I am a QEMU user and I boot the VM with a stanza similar to this:
qemu-system-x86_64 -name "BKWP64 by Radky" -enable-kvm -smp 2 -m 2048 -vga std -device AC97 -net nic -net user -rtc base=localtime -cdrom BookwormPup64_10.0.6.iso

If so, there is no need to install anything as every forum distro running in the VM has, built-in, all that is necessary for host-VM file exchanges. You are merely going to use the host and the guest's built-in facilities. The forum developers have made this all too easy to use.

On the host, I assume you have SAMBA running with some folder(s) that the client see. Here's a sample SAMBA definition for your host

#this is a very simple smb.conf to get you started
#coutesy rcrsn51 and gcmartin
[global]
	workgroup = Workgroup
	netbios name = Your-PC-hostname
	server string = Puppy Samba Server
	security = user
	map to guest = Bad Password
	printing = cups
	printcap name = cups
	load printers = yes

[some-folder]
	path = /some-folder-for-user-exchanges
	writable = yes

[printers]
	comment = All Printers
	path = /var/spool/samba
	browseable = no
	guest ok = yes
	writable = no
	printable = yes

IF SO:

arp # to know what the VM sees
smbclient -U% -L 10.0.2.2  # to see host resources being shared
mkdir -p /mnt/host/some-host-folder  # make a local reference folder 
echo "the following commands connects a host resource to /mnt/host/some-host-folder"
echo "add the username and password the host expects"
mount -o username=if-PUP-use-root,password=if-PUP-use-woofwoof //10.0.2.2/some-folder /mnt/host/some-host-folder

.
Exchange files or folders as you wish.

I'm not concerned with file sharing between host and guest because I do have that working.

I'm trying to get the clipboard copying back and forth between host and guest, not the file sharing.
This is so convenient from my other linux virtual machines because sometimes I just need some text perhaps from some error or run some code I saw on the internet that I want to try just using clipboard copy and paste. I know I could just transfer the text using a shared text file, but it's much easier to just use the clipboard <ctl> c / <ctl>v between the two. I'm able to do this with other Linux virtual machines. Plus the spice-vdagent was made to allow that kind of direct communications between host and guest.

So I'm not just copying files back and forth (which I can accomplish) but I'm trying to just use the direct clipboard copying back and forth like have been doing on other linux virtual machines. I hope that is clear what I want to have.

(long-winded post continues next )

I didn't want to be long winded to what I am doing now so this is a second part to the above reply post.
I have been using the kvm libvirt virt-manager to make the virtual machine guests probably for about a year now. This has made it easy to set up a virtual machine plus it provides a visual app to keep track of the guests and to select the one I want to use.

When I saw how useful and small puppylinux is I wanted to see about using that to at least making a virtual machine with it. But I originally had problems making it work.

I saw that some of you were using QEMU to do this and it seemed to work successfully. So I studied up on QEMU and with your and other's help I was able to make that work and to use SAMBA for the file transfers between host and guest. Plus I learned to make a virtual hard drive that could be used to install a frugal pup linux. All that worked great using QEMU.

Virt-Manager is just another way to access the built in KVM and accomplishes the same thing but with a visual application. It uses QEMU also. I wondered why I couldn't get this to work with virt-manager.

What I found out was that the virtual drive that QEMU would set up was making a default SATA drive with the designation of Sda. But when I tried to use virt-manager, its drives were defaulted to Vda which it calls Virtiofs format drives. On other linux guests, this didn't matter and that just worked. But Puppylinux didn't like the designation to be Vda. I saw a past post on the puppylinux site that someone else that that same problem. He found that the only thing he needed to do was to not use the default drive, but to set it to a SATA drive. So I tried that and joy for joy it worked!!

Then I couldn't make the file sharing like I had before because I thought that it also shouldn't be set up with the default Virtiofs type. You helped me to see that I could use Samba to accomplish this on its own private network. So I looked further to see why virt-manager couldn't do the same thing like my other VMs were able to do. I finally figured out that in this case I could use the virtiofs format for file sharing. So now I can use this. From what I understand is that the virtiofs is a file format that directly accesses the kvm without having to go to the network to accomplish the sharing, which I liked.

Then that brought me to trying to see why the clipboard copying wouldn't work again like my other linux VMs. I found that I couldn't make it work in the QEMU that I tried nor the virt-manager. So I submitted this post for help to do this. This add on service called spice-vdagent allows this and some other features which the linux community has been using for some years now.

Evidently this service, spice-vdagent, uses Systemd to start this, which puppylinux doesn't support. I knew that BookwormPup64 was a Debian 12 system and had a LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) version 12 also. But it was able to use the clipboard copy. I didn't know or understand anything about this until @radky above explained about the systemd part.

Anyway it's been a real adventure to get this far, but I have and keep on learning a lot. What a thrill this is. You, @Clarity have really helped me to get this far to better understand and still have a lot to yet learn. I really appreciate the knowledge that several of you have and especially you have given me.

I now know I can use QEMU to making virtual machines but I can do what I want using virt-manager which is helpful for me. I still wish I could get the clipboard copy part working as well because that would make it complete.

Thanks for your and everyone's help. I think puppylinux is such a great useful product.

JusGellin wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2024 1:02 pm

I didn't want to be long winded to what I am doing now so this is a second part to the above reply post.
I have been using the kvm libvirt virt-manager to make the virtual machine guests probably for about a year now. This has made it easy to set up a virtual machine plus it provides a visual app to keep track of the guests and to select the one I want to use...

Agree 100% to using this approach to VMs for ALL the advantages it brings in Puppyland (same as used in mainstream distros). It provides even 'Beginner users' a fast-track to VM understanding as well as providing performance benefit that KVM brings.

I think its time that we have a "virt-manager" PET or a packaging in the forum distro's REPOs, with some minor forum instructions, to allow members to simply step into this for the various user use productivity it provides.

@JusGellin keep up the good work, its emphasis, and your efforts. We'll continue to do things to help this along.

Clarity wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2024 10:48 pm

JusGellin wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2024 1:02 pm

I didn't want to be long winded to what I am doing now so this is a second part to the above reply post.
I have been using the kvm libvirt virt-manager to make the virtual machine guests probably for about a year now. This has made it easy to set up a virtual machine plus it provides a visual app to keep track of the guests and to select the one I want to use...

Agree 100% to using this approach to VMs for ALL the advantages it brings in Puppyland (same as used in mainstream distros). It provides even 'Beginner users' a fast-track to VM understanding as well as providing performance benefit that KVM brings.

I think its time that we have a "virt-manager" PET or a packaging in the forum distro's REPOs, with some minor forum instructions, to allow members to simply step into this for the various user use productivity it provides.

@JusGellin keep up the good work, its emphasis, and your efforts. We'll continue to do things to help this along.

Still a lot of hassle for something that works well under other Linux distributions. We only have one life to live,

The part that I was thinking would be beneficial for puppylinux is the ability to have clipboard copy/paste between the host and the guest virtual machine.

All the other features of the the qemu and virt-manager work properly like other linux. I know that several of you are using qemu in puppylinux for your work and this, even though not a dire requirement, would complete the virtual machine features for qemu and virt-manager.

I'm very new in learning all about this and am impressed with all the help I have received from a lot of knowlegable individuals. I know that those who help advance the ability of puppylinux give of their own time to do this. That is very much appreciated. It's fascinating to see the devotion and interest given to this product. I'm hoping to learn a lot more about it and its capabilities.

I was wondering since it seems that because puppylinux doesn't use systemd, which seems to be the reason the copy/paste feature can't be added, if any other apps that depend on systemd have ever been added to puppylinux? I really don't understand the complexity of how systemd is used to run background tasks and how puppylinux seems to get around to not having to use it to run its background tasks. Or is that just a too difficult of a thing to do that in puppylinux?

... systemd is used to run background tasks and how puppylinux seems to get around to not having to use it to run its background tasks. Or is that just a too difficult of a thing to do that in puppylinux?

Short answer: Preferences and getting supporting development followings.

Other answers is varied from complexity to not-comfortable to features to ??? in support of continuing/using other options when systemd came on the scene decade ago. Thus there is no one way of doing things seen in just the distros in this Puppy Linux forum; much less those of the general ones found on distrowatch.

Hope this is helpful