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#51 Desktop and Multimedia » [Solved] Upgrading from Chimaera to Daedalus Slim / x11 non-responsive » 2023-08-31 07:00:11

czeekaj
Replies: 0

Hi everyone.

Upon trying my luck upgrading from Chimaera to Daedalus, (tried twice) and once beowulf to Daedalus (I know ;)

I end up with it loading slim and becoming completely unresponsive. Cannot even get into a tty. Force shutdown and boot in recovery works.
I ended up doing two things and got slim working but might only be temporary solution. upgrading from beowulf I ended up with a slim that would only ask for a username and never change to a password prompt. (close but hit a possibly solvable bug)

update-rc.d slim disable
apt install seatd
reboot
invoke-rc.d slim restart
update-rc.d slim enabled

I can manually tell it to start, not sure if installing seatd fixed my issue or not or it's an issue having it start through boot up. Either way after disabling slim again and booting. I got slim running using invoke-rc.d, just making a snapshot so I don't have to deal with the upgrade process again. Slim boots fine now after enabling slim to boot automagically. Unsure if seatd solved the issue but seems likely. I don't see anything on debian regarding this package. Either way it should be added as a dependency for slim if this is the case? For it's small size and rather automatic configuration I think that would upset no one if it was included as a recommended package or dependency.

I didn't see much in the logs. But little things I got out of notes I am seeing on Daedalus.
1. It is using dash instead of bash by default (Upstream debian)
2. now it is using wayland instead of x? Is this why I had slim hang? 
3. Is it possible to get a distro release note pushed on a distro upgrade much like earlier ascii documenting some of these large changes. Rather then grabbing the new Iso and finding a text file on the desktop? Every release the readme file be it for the installer or just general release notes has helped me in some way.

either way. With such large changes, I am surprised it's as smooth of a transition as it was.
I'm looking forward to the new stable release. Hoping I can contribute in some way.

#52 Re: DIY » Chimaera Minimal Live ISO Customization Question » 2023-08-31 06:08:39

Manually could I run while chrooted in for example:

dpkg -i /root/grub-coreboot.deb
grub-install /dev/sda
update-grub

Is that all it takes to do it manually? I believe grub-coreboot is just grub-pc but maybe just a few tweaks possibly maybe a few compatibility features. I am playing with a spare machine when I have time to work with everything at once.
In order to maybe implement grub-coreboot to automatically be used when coreboot is detected would take some some of check to verify the user is running coreboot bios. Which could require some creative check to see it. Might be simpler to just include the package in root directory. As grub-pc again works just fine to install. If there is an advantage to installing with grub-coreboot then manually might be quick enough anywho as it is very deliberate.

The required packages to have a encrypted snapshot? might be expected to work on a already encrypted system? Or specific packages needed for a live system to work? I don't know the specifics but I will play with it more when I get the chance.

I'll see how building an encrypted iso goes. I stumbled into it by accident in Ascii, My installer iso now is still on beowulf, but I did see the daedalus patch when I slowly try to upgrade. It takes time if I break something in upgrading to re-install of course.

Are you familiar with how the live ISO loads? As it's a hybrid iso with grub-efi and grub-pc installed. Does the bios decide which to boot than load grub essentially?
I am curious what modules the iso's grub might be loading by default if it differs on the live iso then the install or default devuan configuration. As libreboot will be removing several grub modules soon, I am curious what I would be looking to want loaded by default at a minimum from the normal devuan configuration file.
Apologies if it's a little off topic but I am curious how the live ISO sets up it's bootloader and if it's a typical grub config like a regular install? I noticed since chimaera os-prober is now disabled by default. Which is a good move.

Thanks again fsmithred

#53 Re: Off-topic » Why still they don't solve that infamous systemd shutdown problem » 2023-08-31 05:47:15

use reboot. Then hit the power button when it boots back up.
It's near instant.

We would probably need to redo the way shutdown passes halt. Play with devuan jessie. See if you can see what the heck is going on that changed between devuan and debian at the start of the fork. There might be a clue what the heck is going on there.

#54 Re: Devuan » Do not install LibreOffice in Desktop Live » 2023-08-23 11:57:37

yeah. This is true. You also can't just remove it with a simple apt purge libreoffice.
Start with minimal iso maybe and build a snapshot.

Either way it takes some time.

#55 Re: DIY » Chimaera Minimal Live ISO Customization Question » 2023-08-23 03:28:33

Hi fsmithred.

Thanks for this.

I managed to get a hybrid iso. Devuan detects that both grub-pc and grub-efi are needed and apt will keep both accordingly.
The install went smooth.

So the iso boots live in bios boot (grub-pc). But it identifies efi partitions and will actually with refracta installer preform both.
Prior when I booted in bios mode. efi grub would become un-needed and apt would want to remove it. Thus making a live iso from that running system would result in an ISO that only boots in bios mode. Where efi systems would be able to boot both so it was preferable when working on the live system to work on a UEFI system.

However, fortunately somehow the hybrid iso is working on a libreboot system. While doing efi installs is working quite well. So I endup with a live iso that can boot on almost any hardware without much issue. I can install grub-coreboot and it keeps grub-efi as well. You end up with a hybrid iso that can install MBR and GPT. on UEFI and legacy bios. Which is exactly what I was hoping to have.

Thank you fsmithred.

I stumbled onto encrypted persistence using snapshot tool. It made a iso that asked for luks password at boot but haven't ended up with once since. That'll be my next step when I get there! Also side note libreboot is adding luks2 support so it's getting a bit more versatile.

Also, adding XFS support on install is another feature I'd like to achieve with the live iso.

#56 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Alsa firefox and unseen audio device in aplay » 2023-08-23 02:48:55

Solved,
Was in fact a kernel module loading EC firmware

On both T400 and x200 running libreboot the EC portion of firmware would load and be default alsa device. This was corrected and is no longer visible in system.

acpi tables are complicated, I know they can be de-compiled and re-compiled. Could be custom setups that may yield more minimal setups. However, I have not experimented with custom setups yet.

#57 Re: Devuan » Can anyone fill me in on why and how exactly systemd took over Linux? » 2023-08-23 02:21:19

Well I've only been a user of gnu/linux for a few years I can count on one hand.
Most of the use started as typical user orientated tasks. With very little knowledge of the inner workings of the system.

Most of the auditing and configuration of my personal system has been all guess work and very little in the way of knowledge.
Access to good documentation and improving knowledge base would be well needed before a 'user' can turn into a contributor.

As such I've just been riding on the coat tails of people who have contributed. It's getting good but, again most I can do is maybe start hosting and doing small things. Maybe stumble into bugs and try to fix any small issues.

In terms of writing something to automate or make someones life easier is beyond my capabilities at the moment.

As far as systemd files still in devuan I have manually removed many of them without much issue.
I don't like seeing a systemd socket when I run netstat.
I know it's there for compatibility but I still am confused when running sysV init how this socket opens up by simply having systemd files present. 
As far my use goes removing these files has not broken anything.

#58 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED][Daedalus] Laptop lid open/close issue » 2023-07-25 11:39:24

Also, one way I just noticed to effect lid closure. Depending on your hardware and what kernel module you load. Is to blacklist your vendor specific kernel module for acpi table and just use generic kernel mode will be fallback. Might effect laptops radio kill switch.

run
lsmod

can use modprobe for testing. setting can be in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
syntax is for each line
blacklist {module_name}

#60 Re: Documentation » after Refracta-Snapshot... » 2023-07-02 01:20:38

While you boot, from Live. Recovery style.

Depending what version of Devuan. how you had the snap shot Configured.

Upgrade path from Beowulf to Daedaleaus has been a little bit of a learning experience.

I started right at ascii / jessie. Upgrade path was a little bit to learn. Like $PATH bugs. but drivers were always solid.

Couple bugs... I should of reported. But now are now in time are bugs for Old Stable.I am realizing now.
If you had a good minimal install. Is best starting point sometimes. But, EFI installing will be harder. And, will just not work on some new hardware without some hacking with bios.Or I just need to learn the grub console better. I know how to rebuild efi entries. But working with MBR and legacy boot I have learned more about how hard drives are working. Some have firmware differences. I had installed, on Devuan repositories mind you. fwupdate, Never found any updates. But it could see my hard drive. I ran a few commands and it could of changed something on the HDD firmware side. Maybe it can be enabled to auto update as well. Depending on how you boot or if cron is scheduled or something.

dd is a pretty useful tool. Working with a new format it's basically the first thing you should grab. Nuke your drive.all memory area's you want to focus.Can write a couple times. Gutman wipe is 38 times. But that's way more then you'd ever need.

Now depending on hardware. It's good to keep EFI. as EFI enabled live USB. Can boot on almost all hardware.
So it's a lot more bloated. And up upgrade path you'd have to update grub after minimal install and then save efi built USB to get a more minimal upgrade route.

But I remember Ascii. and Jessie. pmount then it got phased out because it's just so much easier to just use regular mount. It can mount almost every file system XFS enabled is a good idea when you are building an ISO. Keep that in your tool kit. Because if you don't have in your live iso. You have to build it from the Live boot. And again, I have had much more minimal success with./

Also I ended up with an ISO that was encrypted at boot. Which was pretty cool.
refracta2usb. Don't just dd it onto the drive. Start from minimal.

Install refracta vintage that is solid place to start. And update into mainline devuan. Is simple and quick. It's got everything pretty much by default for most hardware.

#61 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED][Daedalus] Laptop lid open/close issue » 2023-06-28 15:54:17

Nicely done,
Now there is no way to get it working using slim?
Right now on my machine the lid closure does absolutely nothing running openbox.

Basically I have no suspend features. Where XFCE I would have such features.

#62 Re: Documentation » HOWTO : use bash instead of dash as the default shell in daedalus » 2023-06-28 15:42:25

Deviating too far from debian would indeed make maintenance of Devuan a tricky feat. The magic of Amprolla is much appreciated.

#63 Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Alsa firefox and unseen audio device in aplay » 2023-06-28 15:23:23

czeekaj
Replies: 1

Hi everyone,
On my thinkpad
running aplay -l returns

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: CX20561 Analog [CX20561 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: CX20561 Digital [CX20561 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Now in alsamixer i see a EC audio device hw29. I imagine this is part of a kernel driver? Something to do with the Kernel and the EC firmware. Firefox-esr no longer has audio but rest of system does. I imagine it's just because I have updated firefox and Alsa only is broken again? or because I removed several packages such as pipewire.

It must be a pipewire thing no?

But on a side note, anyone know anything about think pad EC or Kernel driver configuration in Debian?
Minor thing but curious about it of course. I can include a screen shot.

8xxlmbG.png

#64 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Devuan does not detect Huawei smartphone hardware! » 2023-04-23 10:35:42

android has specific protocol to access its file system.
It has built in security for many devices not to be auto accessible when connected by USB.

If you enable developer settings in android you can auto enable to use it as file system. That is if it recognizes being plugged into your system.

However, the root directory and much of the system will not be mountable without rooting or mounting the device in a off state from what I understand.

#65 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED][Daedalus] Laptop lid open/close issue » 2023-04-23 10:30:59

acpid might also help with passing events to acpi / the EC
It will help with power key I believe in a more minimal manner.
acpi also deals with lid closure.

Glad xfce4-power-manager works for you though.

#66 Hardware & System Configuration » acpi - power button working and system logging » 2023-04-23 10:18:50

czeekaj
Replies: 0

Hello,
recently I started playing with acpid.
read the manual briefly and noticed systemd supposedly handles acpi events.

Upon running acpid. My power button functions as it should, prior to running it the power button did not function on specific machines.
Due to acpi in system firmware being a component of hardware enumeration.

Not always happy with the dmesg results on acpi tables loading up early. I like to imagine watching your first step includes the first couple seconds of boot up. acpi is one of those things.
The bios pushes the tables which get reserved memory by the kernel I believe. That memory as far as I understand cannot be regained by the user without some serious control. I saw some black hat talks where apic registers were movable and exploited but only on one obscure cpu architecture.  But also most SMM entry methods I've seen involved very specific timing attacks which ultimately is only practical with in depth knowledge of the hardware.

Most of acpi functions seem trivial. power management and the like. However, because it handles hardware enumeration, as I mention before and after reading a mention of Mark Shuttleworth who compared ACPI with Trojan horses.  My thoughts might not be entirely baseless. Even if it's a slightly un-informed opinion. I am just feeling with my gut and reading dmesg outputs every now and again.

With the behavior of certain hardware vendors. Is there even a good reason to trust their code when it comes to acpi?
https://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1332
Here is a opinion piece from the Ubuntu dev.

What can we do on the software side of things to mitigate the impact of acpi?  Setting up logging might be maybe a half hearted step. Any other reading pieces out there I can divulge in?

#67 Re: Freedom Hacks » Do not use pulseaudio » 2023-04-09 21:36:31

PedroReina wrote:
czeekaj wrote:

When trying to play a movie on a TV from the laptop. ...  I had no sound through the HDMI port so no sound out of the TV.

It can be because of the media player is bypassing the general ALSA settings. I'm not an expert on this, but I know that with VLC you can choose any output for sound, on the fly. Worth trying it.

What it was Alsa was defaulting to the speakers.
I wasn't using dmixer. So no audio went to the HDMI.

Yeah pipewire seems pretty massive. Reminds me of the PAVP intel developed. But I am sure it'll be a useful package and hopefully stays modular and light. I don't like giant meta packages

#68 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » BlackLotus malware, Secure Boot and Windows machines » 2023-04-04 07:26:44

Oh I'm sure there is some boot malware that can bypass secure boot implementations.

What I am interested in the possibility to buy separate TPM module from 3mdeb.com and harden the boot process.

I have had some boot issues that were questionable. Secure boot seems to have corrected it with efi stub. But if it wasn't a dell I probably wouldn't of had to use it.

#69 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Shutdown encrypted LVM on Beowulf » 2023-04-04 04:44:25

fsmithred wrote:

  I haven't tested this yet, because I have't been able to boot into my encrypted lvm install.

Have you tried using the Debian installer?
For LVM install I find it works flawlessly.

#70 Hardware & System Configuration » Daily use without dbus. » 2023-04-04 04:35:37

czeekaj
Replies: 2

has anyone been running devuan without dbus running?

I find it breaks XFCE gtk-3.0 themes. But other then that it seems to run alright.  But some dbus sockets will open depending what you are doing.
Chimera seems to use it a little more.. Is this a trend?

Is there a reason or a way to completely do away with dbus?  I see issues down the road, does anyone else see it?

dbus dependency seems like a catastrophic design flaw.

#71 Re: DIY » Chimaera Minimal Live ISO Customization Question » 2023-03-29 19:17:10

Thanks for the tips.

If anyone knows how to create an Iso in legacy bios that also boots in efi would be much appreciated.

#72 Re: Installation » [SOLVED] How to get devuan 3's XFCE appearance into devuan 4? » 2023-03-23 08:12:37

I was working on a dark theme for clear looks for a bit.

It's a tricky one to do and have everything remain perfectly readable. Dusk was very easy to keep dark.
I'm sure it's possible, but will take some time. Just like matching between gtk3 and 2. Migration to gtk4 might be a future issue.

#73 Re: Installation » Trouble with Nvidia drivers » 2023-03-23 08:06:02

Older cards I find will run best with nouveau drivers. They will play very nice.
Older nvidea cards also have minimal firmware on the hardware.

They are good to hold onto. Especially if you have a machine without an integrate gpu and need a card.

Lots of new gpu will introduce issues also you do not need them as newer machines will also have integrated graphics processing.

#74 Re: Installation » [SOLVED] Where did obmenu go? » 2023-03-23 08:00:31

I still use the og obmenu.
I made a .deb package to make it easier to install as you can't grab it from the repos any more.

Now it's going to pretty much be pre-installed on and live iso I will make.

If it is of use. If I can learn how to I can maybe put the package to share save some people some time if they like the old gtk obmenu. Still works without a hitch. Just like you'd expect it to. There is really no reason for it to not work besides it not being maintained / depreciated. After all we still use slim.

#75 Re: Installation » Can you unravel where this went wrong? » 2022-07-21 04:34:41

The computer I was using doesn't have an ethernet connection available, so I had to install over wifi. Booted into the (network install) iso.

Honestly, mistake one I'd say. Network install is really great and all. But that's for guys who are building all the time. First time installing a distro you should of tried the live iso, minimal, or just an offline classic debian installer.

No firmware available for my wifi. A little annoying, but fair enough; (very limited) shell. Running mount directly gives me uninterpretable errors (just "bad argument", I think) for all the relevant partitions.

Again, using a minimal iso would fix a lot of this issue. You'd have a full bash shell, my first installs back on Jessie and ascii also came with every. single. non-free. wifi driver I could imagine. Honestly, I still have the same folder from live install to live install. We may of had to use pmount back then but we had live iso. To be frank, the automounting in other distro's drives me mad.

Pre-installed and a nice little script someone made to auto remove all those non-free drivers when I have a card that doesn't need it or I know which driver I do need so I uninstall everything but the one by hashing out the prebuilt script that was prepackaged in devuan and came with a nice little release note that outlines this.
Regarding mounting there is good release notes that covers how to setup an install to work EFI or MBR. How to set it up and what flags to use.

Rebooted. UEFI cannot find grub.

Back into gentoo. Mounted the partitions of the Devuan install and discovered that it installed the kernel and initramfs file on the main partition rather than the EFI partition for inexplicable reasons. So I manually copied them to the right partition and bypassed grub by using efibootmgr to create an appropriate boot option.

Devuan finally boots.

Honestly, I've had to use efibootmgr. But it's usually when the encrypted fs's efi bootloader gets lost.

Look around to see what's available. Looked for networkmanager and connman (mentioned as options in this documentation page here – https://www.devuan.org/os/documentation … ation.html – though "connman" is mispelled there), but they're not installed by the installer I guess. Of course there's no way for me to install them without network access. Other tools I've used for wifi like iwd, dhcpcd, openresolv, etc., are also missing.

But it looks like wpa_supplicant and dhclient are there. OK, I used wpa_supplicant on Linux From Scratch, so this should be doable.

I use a script from Katolaz called setnet.sh
I am trying to massage in an openvpn menu and list all your ovpn config files.
I'm not too skilled have some kinks to figure out before I can say it's working.
Or wicd-gtk works fine. No issues on the recent releases works perfect. Except when you don't have a gui. ofc smile

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