The officially official Devuan Forum!

You are not logged in.

#26 Re: Devuan Derivatives » [PARTIALLY SOLVED] start difficulties with the 2 new Isos of GNUinOS » 2025-08-01 22:27:32

probably are the problems in 32 bits from the same kind but have only not the same tragic consequence: it seems not to be a matter of rights but only from dysfunction of the input  equipment. I will try it again on my other laptops in the next days (to much time invested for today! I am now in the hurry...) having only an usual keyboard and touchpad...

#27 Re: Devuan Derivatives » [PARTIALLY SOLVED] start difficulties with the 2 new Isos of GNUinOS » 2025-08-01 22:20:15

I did try the same experience this evening with the 64 bit version for AMD.

different from the 32 bit version, with it the installation with the GNUinOS installer did work immediately (and the other way I did use in 32 bit starting from the iso live and installing after the installation from refractainstaller out the live started image would not start).

the result is about the same.

but the problems begin after that trying to start the new version as regular snapshot-ISO from the full installed version from Hard Disk (the normal correct way to do that!): it seems impossible to get keyboard or accede to x from usb card. GNUinISO seems to have a special start modus giving on my PC (it is "transformer" Dell Latitude PC with touch screen and keyboard and touch pad and joystick-pin in the middle of the keyboard between G and H) only disturb. As for the 32 bit Snapshot, the new size is 1 GB (probably 10 % more probably because of the full installation) but the snapshot is not usable (I did try to interchange the display manager from LXDM (why lxdm? it is in the last time unusual) to slim adding JWM to avoid the possible problem of xfce4 having to work with some part of lxde but it is not better: In ram only start of the snapshot iso image, x appears but no keyboard or touch screen reaction (the mouse works! it is possible to start app's!)...
sorry...

#28 Re: Devuan Derivatives » [PARTIALLY SOLVED] start difficulties with the 2 new Isos of GNUinOS » 2025-08-01 11:04:59

complete your installation with some new /usr/share/applications/*desktop files for nano, xcalc, xedit, alsamixer, or, yes, mtpaint4printscreens ; you will find in Puppy linux some exemples... after that, they appear all in xfce4-appfinder = the desktop menu!

#29 Re: Devuan Derivatives » [PARTIALLY SOLVED] start difficulties with the 2 new Isos of GNUinOS » 2025-08-01 10:58:10

burn he new iso is no problem: if the usb-card did already have some refractasnapshot ISO do nothing else as reuse directly after the snapshot is finish:

open thunar, hit on the 3d icon at the top and you see directly /home/snapshot . Hit on snapshot and mark the iso file. right mouse key, select copy then

# dd if=/home/snapshot/(right mouse key, select paste) of=/dev/sdb status=progress

that happens fast as the iso is so tiny!

if the usb card didn't contain such an iso image of a os, prepare it so:

- open gparted to format the card (you can check and see in gparted if sdb is right in your case! It can varie)
- for that iso (until ab. a little less than 2 Gb in case of other ISO's) format it in: vfat16 ! Yes 16 not 32! (only in case of bigger ISO's  select vfat32...)
- mark bootflag (in gparted!) it is important
- unmount /dev/sdb

and continue with dd !

#30 Re: Devuan Derivatives » [PARTIALLY SOLVED] start difficulties with the 2 new Isos of GNUinOS » 2025-08-01 09:59:05

how did I proceed?

at first, I did meet a great difficultie: the option "gnuinos installer" in the original new iso didn't work.

ok the live test did start good.

so no problem to see: is GNUinOS what for me :-) ! I was happy ...

all did work immediatelly (excepted that terrible real Debian installer!).

sudo apt update no problem, aptitude is preinstalled, great.

my installation's line above includes 4 parts in one line:
- not preinstalled refracta tools
- some applications for bash only environnement
- some applications to replace some build in being to big (browser, viewer, etc.
- really supplementary applications under the more small at all of their class and function.

after the installation, I did purge or remove the stuff I will replace, what else!

and now?

simply execute a refractainstaller command...

and it did work!

problems?

yes

as "user"  in the original don't have some password and no access to real root right (https://exton.se, he also is some kind specialist for small reinstallable iso's often with 2 different installers, one of the two is often the refractainstaller, proceed differently: he gives those rights...) and without login

the start is unfriendly from both: harddisk and from next usb-card!

on the harddisk the desktop never opens on my Dell. but I can interrupt the start as soon I see that the disk does not work any more with STRG ALT F1 and start from bash environment after log in in bash. with startx comes the desktop willing.

it did also happen, that the keyboard didn't answer. but as the mouse works willing in all cases, I did log out and repeat log out in the session manager and restart the session. After that was always the rest also ok.

that is my experience with problems, they are really only little problems... I hope I will find some cleaner solution...

#31 Re: Devuan Derivatives » [PARTIALLY SOLVED] start difficulties with the 2 new Isos of GNUinOS » 2025-08-01 09:34:26

INSTALLATIONS NOTES:

sudo apt install refractainstaller-base refractainstaller-gui refractasnapshot-base refractasnapshot-gui gpm didiwiki gocr gv hunspell info lame luakit mgp sakura mplayer xli abiword gimagereader gnumeric gnumeric-plugins-extra librecad mhwaveedit nted osmo viewnior xsane

sudo apt remove atril emacs-bin-common emacs-common emacs-el emacs-gtk gparted icecat refractasnapshot-gui simplescreenrecorder
xfce4-terminal mirage xterm

sudo apt autoremove

sudo apt install qutebrowser-qtwebkit # (luakit is better!)

Suggested packages:
  qt5-qmltooling-plugins python-jinja2-doc libjs-pdf nodejs
Recommended packages:
  geoclue-2.0 python3-babel python3-pygments
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libqt5designer5 libqt5help5 libqt5opengl5 libqt5positioning5 libqt5qml5
  libqt5qmlmodels5 libqt5quick5 libqt5quickwidgets5 libqt5sensors5 libqt5sql5
  libqt5sql5-sqlite libqt5test5 libqt5webchannel5 libqt5webkit5 libqt5xml5
  libyaml-0-2 python3-jinja2 python3-markupsafe python3-pyqt5
  python3-pyqt5.qtopengl python3-pyqt5.qtquick python3-pyqt5.qtsql
  python3-pyqt5.qtwebkit python3-pyqt5.sip python3-sip python3-yaml
  qutebrowser qutebrowser-qtwebkit
0 upgraded, 28 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 25.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 99.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.

#32 Re: Devuan Derivatives » [PARTIALLY SOLVED] start difficulties with the 2 new Isos of GNUinOS » 2025-08-01 09:31:18

README

In my iso's:
my root login : a simple dot (".")
my user name  : a simple f char ("f": it is the key with the little dot on it for the left hand - on the us keyboard etc.)
my user login : a simple dot (".")
- change all that as soon as possible! -

To spare size of iso / occupation of my HD I did remove some (needing) packages
not used frequently packages. As I connect a regular repository,
I can add then on demand!

- at installations time: refractainstaller-gui - this will add gparted
- at writing time: plugins for geany so for hunspell

Working with luakit is very easy!

- open luakit
- enter "B"
- you can now mark your first bookmark!
- hit on that bookmark: you are at the precedent place!
- enter "o" and look at the bottom bar: the invite to enter an url (a short url is enough!) for exemple "lilo.org/search" (a search site with contributive actions! Why not? See pls emmabuntüs.com)
- if you can't enter some text, you are probably not in the "i"nsert mode: enter "i", it helps (the main help for luakit and analog browsers!)
- enter "B" again and mark that CONTRIBUTIVE search engine made in France (but on English too)
- if "i" didn't help, create a new tab:
- enter "STRG t", continue with "o" and enter "inputking.com": you can now input the most languages of the world
- enter "B" again and mark it
- enter "d" to delete also close the actual tab
- if you want to reopen a bookmark, make "gb" (go bookmarks!)
- if you want to go a step back in the history, make "H"

you will also make a bookmark for didiwiki (enter the short url localhost:8000 ) and/or for the cups administration of your printer ( localhost:631 )!

look also at
# info luakit

Hint concerning Luakit: enter your password in the proposed field and after the last char of your password, use the key TAB to enter the real password. Don' t use the mouse to do that (it often works well but not always. TAB works always well!). For French people: it works perfectly also at https://franceinfo.fr also in 32 bits (rare are the other browser doing that!) and it works really good also in the proposed reduced size as well as the commutation reduced/full size!

it's really easy! open and bookmark the discussions forum
open and bookmark google.com because of the ia : the ia search WAYS how to do this or that for you! At Google, you can ACCEPT or REFUSE cookies!

Don't forget to do often

# sudo apt update

I did add following applications having no desktop file at /usr/share/applications :
info as well as aptitude didiwiki (producees txt files in the hidden dir ".didiwiki". Didiwiki it a tiny complet text system with bold, unterlined, italic, title and include of pictures! See the didiwiki help) gocr gpm hunspell mgp (a small presentation for linux starting from command line. In Baslin it was able to make hand drawing with the mouse!)

you have also xcalc xedit xli in the xorg package (xli is as feh!)

I did erase printscreen because it is included in gimp (or mtpaint) as well as all transactions to crop etc the picture. Note: mtpaint is perhaps a bit more easy to use and to save the files in the wished format and size.

See also my text "installation" in /usr/share !

If you will try an other browser, reinstall icecat or install epiphany-browser or qutebrowser-qtwebkit (it's *deb is in /usr/share). I refuse webengine as google stuff!

#33 Devuan Derivatives » [PARTIALLY SOLVED] start difficulties with the 2 new Isos of GNUinOS » 2025-08-01 09:30:00

32bits
Replies: 21

the initial title of my thread was:

« the new iso announced at distrowatch in 32 bits is FANTASTIC »

THANK YOU VERY MUCH TO THE AUTHOR(S) from GNUinOS for i686!

I was really very impressed by the possibility to remaster the 32 iso under 1 Gb making a normal installation of Debian / Devuan full operable AND able to be upgraded like some kind of Puppy linux (great, no major difference: Puppy linux can NOT be really upgraded! Only packages can be reinstalled ... as far as the compability continue to be good!) able to start live as snapshot ISO image with the refracta tools (THANK YOU VERY MUCH TO THE AUTHOR(S) from refracta and refracta tools!).

why is live start so interesting?

simply because the tracking of you is only possible within the actual session! You can accept all smudge of cookies and forget completely long time tracking: If someone will track you, it has to install a data bank on HIS system, not on YOUR hard disk and this is probably not possible and not interesting...

and this is better to do with a refractasnapshot iso image as in Puppy because Puppy linux requires in a lot of situations to use a saving system (file with file system embedded in it or save dir) and needs probably an separate big file named devx.sfs to bind at running time, so in this case, that each Puppy become a big system... That problem does not appear using a refractasnapshot ISO image. Better: different from Puppy linux, you can include easily in the ISO image a lot of preset values, documents (keyboard charts pictures, old man pages not any more maintened in new Linux versions in you own language for people as I having difficulties to read really fluent English, etc.) and have no supplementary discussions with the OS at booting or logout time (tons of little windows asking that or this)...

Following text is the first text of this message until 2025-08-02 09h00 (without any change) :

I did finish now my own remasterisation for me and write with it now. The Iso is less than 1 Mb!

The original iso includes some giant packages: emacs, atril (need a OWN webkit!!!), etc.

Also Icecat is a big one. Other browsers often use webengine. This is a Google line stuff and I prefer webkit.

So I disd replace all heavy stuff and make a refractasnaphot of it. 996 is the mark!

This is really in the range of iso size usual for Puppy linux and I can use my snapshot out the RAM.

In my /usr/share I save 2 text files to remember what I did do:

- installation

- readme

You will find both in the next answers to this message! I hope it can help some one.

(My English is miserable. Sorry, yes, I did never learn English)

#36 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVEDDoes the usual refractasnapshot iso also start directly from HD » 2025-07-15 22:45:17

the new freedom in Linux some kind! ah ah ah...

I did have erase my following note concerning Firefox to avoid more important wave. But that exemple of freedom as well open Linux is too much.

also I restaure and add that note:

fsmithred did write to help me yesterday in the parallel thread about the wrong actualisation «I'm not sure why you don't just remove the troublesome browser» (luakit). Well, I am German and don't like Firefox... I have sensibilities making that I can't like it (it is a PSEUDO also HIDDEN non commercial software and it try to kill the wonderful suite Mozilla since years! It's tactic is to add all what is better for suppliers and not for clients, us! More: it did kill the connection of the browser with hunspell. You see on top, that I work intensively with different languages, and have to load special dictionaries for divers software so a set for the office software, a set for firefox, an other set for chromium etc. is really wore. Hunspell and Tesseract-OCR is enough. More, English speakers have now 2 form of dictionaries, a set of UK dictionaries, a set of US dictionaries! Alone with this change did Firefox open an pandora box against people having to work with different languages. Above languages are not the only one that I use: they are the dictionaries and keymaps that I preinstall all - at working time, I load (fast installation) the supplementary ones that I need). The "dictionary problem" is not the only one problem: Firefox did completely reform the management of the settings compared with Mozilla. As I have to work on a window surface as big as possible, I did never abandon the real Mozilla suite because of that: With 3 virtual keys, you can open / close immediately your bars and have all the surface for drawings and maps. In Firefox, you can also do somewhat but not so fast and that disturbs really). So I don't like that intensively commercial software with high disavantages at working time. I try to avoid google stuff where I can. Hum, you have not a lot of other solutions today! You must consider that it is not possible to login in the official KDE forum with Konqueror or Falkon any more!

The troublesome browser Luakit is a really free and open source and extensible, that is Lua, browser developed by a really totaly staff...

what will Debian? What will Devuan, the fork against the closed freedom at Debian?

freedom or not?

freedom à la new president of USA perhaps?

You are administrator of the official from Devuan and communicate so with people?

#37 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVEDDoes the usual refractasnapshot iso also start directly from HD » 2025-07-15 22:28:33

Notes for the precedent message:

(*1 as far as know is luakit COMPLETELY free an non commercial as well as open source, over that one of the actual browsers also in 32bits, extensible.

(*2 info is less known as man but offers where present really more

(*3 didiwiki is the most small text processing system I know, works in pure console mode in each pure console mode browser and in graphic browsers can manage some picture in the text! The result is saved in a pure text document (hidden in the hidden sub dir named .didiwiki) excepted, of course, the pictures... It proceed different sizes of title, sheets, graphic mode normal, italic, underlined and sizes small, normal and big, and can open external links! Look at the installed size! Didiwiki HAS TO BE in each installation... The help is integrated and is a good documentation also for people with difficulties with English! After the installation, invoque in the url bar localhost:8000 (in luakit type "o" and enter localhost:8000)

(*4 magicpoint is a very small «presentation's software» to start and use from the commando line. it is the unique (as far I know) linux application usable with only 3 modules of Cygwin (being easy to simply copy) in Windows since Windows 95! For people having really rarely to present somewhat (for ex. themself) often enough! In baslin (Basic linux, the graphic Linux for only 2 FD floppy's, the ISO file version continues to be present in the web, but not the excellent Linux training based on it for windowers coming to Linux, balin can be started also directly out the old DOS file system) mgp was one oft the only two graphic applications
but did contain a supplementary function: it was able to support hand drawing with the mouse!

(*5 mhwaveedit = the minimal but about perfect sound processing system

(*6 mplayer: for those using videos to learn somewhat, the old mplayer allows to start exactly at the point of video where you will see a detail detail to learn. See the man page! No problem... To repeat tomorrow the same viewing to learn and learn again, see your hidden file /~/.bash_history! You can copy those files for ex. in a (not hidden) file for ex. ~/sportAshtanga-yogaPattahbiJois002 or transmit then to someone or copy on a different Pc as the times are in real time and don't vary from PC to PC...

(*7 ocr: there are different ocr's in Linux. Tesseract-OCR is probably the good one.

(*8 my lines in /etc/ftab:
/dev/sda5    none    swap    sw    0    0
/dev/sda6    /home/.../0    ext4    defaults    0    2
(as I have different PCs, 6, partially very old and transmit by my dead father, I can't replace then through a modern PC, I continue to use the old hard disk organisation in a logical partition, non important witch one. Sda5 is always swap, sda6 is always data bis about 1 TB in ext. 2 so that also Puppy linux Angel Pup with the emulation of a lot of old computer like Commodore, Sinclair etc. can process the files, and since I do that, never some problem with my data! If only for data, ext2 continues to be the best system! Sda7 is the android86 if present, and sda8, sda9 etc. the full installations...)

#38 Other Issues » [SOLVEDDoes the usual refractasnapshot iso also start directly from HD » 2025-07-15 21:40:03

32bits
Replies: 6

Does the usual refractasnapshot iso also start directly from hard disk?

Why?

THE SITUATION:

As I did explain in different parallel threads because of the need to split into unique thematic, I have difficulties since I did actualise my actual Linux.

until that actualisation, it was my best working Linux since long time.

it is based on Refracta linux, 64 bits, Mate with only a few differences

- luakit (*1 instead of firefox (as Mate uses itself webkit it's Atril, what an orgy (!), luakit spares A LOT of disk capacity after purging firefox and works better as far you can remember the luakit short cuts that you find easy under info luakit in the mate terminal! also not experimented people can do that and you will see: with the iso as it is at sourceforge without actualisation, a phantastical stable an complete browser ...
... until you actualise! I hope the actual luakit and dependencies did not change in the time passed since my installation time)

- info (*2 , didiwiki (*3 , magicpoint (commando apt install mgp) (*4 , mhwaveedit (*5 , mplayer (*6 , xsane, ocr (*7 , gimagereader

- my usual contents of /usr/share/hunspell and add's in /usr/share/fonts/truetype for devanagari, tamil, koreanese, japanese and chinese (*8

- mkdir /home/.../0 in my home (to mount later my data partition on it in case of full installation (*9

it's all!

THE RESULT:

a best installation thank the new Refracta linux 64 bits ISO at sourceforge.

The original size for the ISO fits on a old memory card with only 2 GB. The new size of my refractasnapshot as described before not any more: 2.2 GB, sorry (although a big volume did be erased as Firefox is purged) ...

THE CONSEQUENCE:

But this continues to be a really tiny ISO! So smart it would be possible, instead to reinstall, to start it in the RAM as proposed in the grub menu of each srefractasnapshot ISO! Hm...

I did do it and work actually from RAM (if you does the same to test it: you can unplug the memory card: after the start, it is not mounted any more and does do nothing after that! Exactly like in Puppy linux for those having use Puppy linux).

Now Refracta linux is a formula ONE car. You will immediately feel the great difference!

(My actual PC is a DELL transformer working as well as PC with keyboard as as tablet with touch screen keyboard being closed under the screen, i7, 4 core, 4 GB and 1 TB. I have an second one, the same, also i7, 8 core, 8 GB, but only 500 GB for my living room and TV or to compile as all data can not be packed on it!)

The start time were exactly of 3 minutes depending of my hard ware, especially of the speed of my old memory card.

3 minutes, that is long!

It would be a lot better, if it would start directly from the hard disk (depending of the speed of the hard disk)!

Is that possible with a Refractasnapshot ISO and the automatic generated grub menu?

#39 Re: Other Issues » refractasnapshot » 2025-07-14 20:04:52

Thank you very much but pls look at the date of parution: 7 Mar 2023!

#40 Other Issues » how to use Debian Linux packages under Android? » 2025-07-14 11:19:55

32bits
Replies: 0

because Debian did stop now to develop for i386 and erase the content of SID for that processor subfamily as well as all other 32 bits are user of old PC now without suppliers for more modern software. one immediate effect is, that different very modern sites don't receive all required information for a bidirectional communication any. For example it is not possible to accede to the official KDE forum with Konqueror or other KDE-browsers... It is ridiculous but it is so. In my eyes the only a possible reaction for those refusing to change her systems from 32bits into 64bits (simple upgrade is not possible) is to try to pass from Linux pur to Linux kernel with android and try to use her most important typical linux app's under android. Is that possible?

#41 Other Issues » refractasnapshot » 2025-07-14 11:11:36

32bits
Replies: 2

because Debian did stop now to develop for i386 and erase the content of SID for that processor subfamily as well as all other 32 bits are user of old PC now without supplyers for more modern software. one immediate effect is, that different very modern sites don't receive all required information for a bidirectional communication any. For example it is not possible to accede to the official KDE forum with Konqueror or other KDE-browsers... It is ridiculous but it is so. In my eyes the only one possible reaction for those refusing to change her systems from 32bits into 64bits (simple upgrade is not possible) is to try if Linux continue to respect the old tradition to permit to compile for different hardwares. 2 major distributions did until now propose it as a standard: Gentoo and Linuxfromscratch with BLFS. But what is if you have more an unique old PC with 32 bit CPU? What is if some of those have absolutely not the required performance to compile lot and lot of software? The immediate idea for users of Refracta tools is of course: Would Refracta also work in Gentoo or LFS if I add a few unusual but existing software?

#42 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] wrong actualization. » 2025-07-14 10:42:23

SOLVED! super!

(one question more also to all: are typical and tested snapshot_exclude.list proposed somewhere? If not please propose some here in next answers in that discussion!)

#43 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] wrong actualization. » 2025-07-13 23:15:35

thank you very much. Save and recopy OPEN data is no problem. The problem are the hidden data possibly in divers repertories as /etc , /usr/share and, of course, /home/jef . For ex. I did not find some content for certain app's in /home/jef/.config/somewhat/... . The subdir's somewhat exist but are empty. What is the recommended approach to back up the own personal data just bevor doing refractasnapshot alt. the actualization of the entire system, some kind also of refractasnapshot restricted of the usual and typical own personal data (/etc/alternatives , /etc/grub.d , /usr/share/some_growing_subdir's , /var/some_growing_subdir's possibly containing kind of user' s data, and of course hidden data in /home/jef/ like /home/jef/.config , /home/jef/.mozilla for those using mozilla, etc. if other typical other subdir's contain usually data changed yesterday (I don't speak from very special needs for those installing very special software: they are aware about that, I hope)? Are changes recommended in the settings of the common refractasnapshot? Can then the refractasnapshot be used for that second wave for the own data with other adapted / also special settings to save the own user's data immediately before I start with an important system actualization where I can not appreciate in which condition my system will be after that. Refractasnapshot is so fast and secure, it would be a great tool for that. My OPEN data are all (including /home/jef/Downloads through a link instead of the subdir ~/Download itself in a separate partition mounted in /home/stef/0 through /etc/fstab by start so that I have nothing else to do at actualization time as umount /home/stef/0. They come so never into the snapshot (and would not be possible: the partition is about 1 TB big!)

#44 Other Issues » [SOLVED] wrong actualization. » 2025-07-13 19:59:08

32bits
Replies: 4

my last actualization produces a wrong effect: my weeks and weeks very stable internet using luakit, probably the best browser actually, produces now permanent crashes.

but, probably no problem: I have a refractasnapshot of the complete last young stand of my installation! I will reinstall, restart and forget soon my deception...

but how to reintroduce my own hidden data of course not beeing in the young refractasnapshot?

until now, I did never think about this problem... but I am now afraid, the reinstall a the same place will also erase all of my data?

Board footer

Forum Software