Refracta no-dbus experiment

fsmithred · 2018-06-15 20:51:34

Refracta no-dbus build (experiment)

The subject of running without dbus comes up from time to time in various places. I decided to try it and see how far I could get. I started with a debootstrap install of devuan ascii, pinned dbus to a priority of -1, and proceeded to make the same changes as I do to make Refracta live isos. Normally, the Refracta isos use xfce, but that's not possible without dbus.

I was surprised to see how much did install without dbus. So I thought I'd share it. This build uses openbox, lxpanel, lxterminal and spacefm.
Maybe someone will want to use it. Maybe it will inspire someone else to do something better. Feeback is welcome.
http://distro.ibiblio.org/refracta/file … 2_0156.iso

sha256sum:
633634c3ac2beb06252b29bc78b3135f5f5ded473a72f42e5dc6c17d326d1f17

Login/Password:

user/user
root/root

No display manager. Run 'startx' to get a desktop.

Edit: I excluded Recommends. That might make a big difference if you're trying to install packages without pulling in dbus.
echo "APT::Install-Recommends \"no\";" > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/norecommends

# These can be installed without dbus and without libsystemd0
rsync bash-completion busybox kbd locales firmware-linux-free deborphan unzip lvm2 cryptsetup sshfs \
hwinfo alsa-utils moc pppoeconf pppconfig pppoe ntfs-3g dosfstools curl \
live-boot live-config live-boot-initramfs-tools live-config-sysvinit squashfs-tools xorriso pmount pv \
syslinux syslinux-common syslinux-utils isolinux xz-utils gdisk parted hexedit iftop smartmontools lm-sensors \
hdparm testdisk fdupes irssi iptraf ethtool scrot wipe mlocate wireless-tools wpasupplicant \ # get libdbus-1-3 here
gddrescue screen feh hddtemp p7zip-full partimage pm-utils sysv-rc-conf tree wodim htop bzip2 whois \
lsb-release file setnet net-tools cifs-utils mdadm arp-scan \
dialog live-boot-doc live-config-doc refractainstaller-base refractasnapshot-base \
btrfs-tools btrfs-progs pciutils psmisc rename tcpd usbutils uuid-runtime dnsutils \
eject telnet usbutils util-linux-locales vrms mutt sudo

# These were installed after allowing libsystemd0
xorg openbox spacefm lxterminal lxpanel obconf lxappearance lxappearance-obconf lxrandr \
linux-headers-4.9.0-6-amd64 build-essential xserver-xorg-legacy xserver-xephyr xterm aptitude \
icewm xarchiver leafpad links2 xpdf mpv yad ***grub-of-your-choice***
x11vnc xtightvncviewer grsync bleachbit meld asunder winff \
mplayer ffmpeg volumeicon-alsa tilda geeqie dkms transmission-gtk gftp \
xserver-xorg-video-intel xscreensaver xinput libnotify-bin hexchat \
abiword hardinfo gdmap gimp geany firejail firefox-esr

deadbeef http://sourceforge.net/projects/deadbee … b/download
firemenu https://sourceforge.net/projects/refrac … nu-1.2.deb
refracta2usb https://sourceforge.net/projects/refrac … -2.3.6.deb

These will NOT install. (and probably a lot more that I didn't try.)
audacious xfburn wicd connman libpam-elogind synaptic gdebi

Panopticon · 2018-06-16 12:00:30

Thanks red i will have to give it a try. So is the systemd shim used to install those packages under libsystemd0 but still not using dbus?

fsmithred · 2018-06-16 12:18:30

No systemd-shim. The only package with systemd in its name is libsystemd0, and that was needed for xorg.

There's a full package list in the root of the iso.

Panopticon · 2018-06-16 14:08:23

Ive given the live iso a try on my laptop and working fine. Internet and browser worked fine although i was just using phone usb0 connection, yet to test the wireless capability.

I will give this a try on a partition for sure.

msi · 2018-06-17 19:35:58

fsmithred wrote:

The subject of running without dbus comes up from time to time in various places.

One of those places being the Friends of Devuan Wiki: https://friendsofdevuan.org/doku.php/co … e_software

devuser · 2018-06-17 19:43:29

Very interesting post. I thought spacefm depended on dbus. If that isn't the case i am down to replacing audacious. Pretty neat.

fsmithred · 2018-06-17 21:51:09

Forgot to mention that I excluded Recommends.

msi, you can add firefox-esr to the list. And maybe audacity under its own category - audio editing

FWIW: Some previous versions of Refracta (the regular one, with xfce) had deadbeef. At some point, we switched to audacious because it was in the repo.

Panopticon · 2018-06-18 13:30:49

I like to use palemoon browser but it uses dbus-glib and in the interest of this thread....

Found this here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic … yLwUCYpBbU

Might be worth a try.

Walter Dnes
16/11/2016
On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 11:52:50PM +0000, Jorge Almeida wrote
> Good to know. I'm currently testing openbox without dbus-launch. No
> problem yet.
>
> It would be great to have some WiKi pages telling what some USE flag
> really do to particular packages, e.g, what does it mean to run
> firefox without dbus.
The current Pale Moon requires glib-dbus. I do my own custom builds
of Pale Moon for my personal use without dbus. I also have an ancient
32-bit-only Atom netbook. dbus is required for Necko-Wifi and Wakelock
in Pale Moon, and presumably also in Firefox...
Necko-Wifi - allows improved geo-location if you have wifi, which most
PCs have, even newer desktops. It works by scanning SSIDs in your
vicinity and comparing against a master global database. The local data
has to be sent off to a master database (e.g. Google) for the comparison.
Wakelock - is a generic API for grabbing a resource and not letting go
of it... https://www.w3.org/TR/wake-lock-use-cases/ It's mostly used
in mobile apps, but on the desktop it's used to disable the screensaver
while a long video is playing.
If you can do without Necko-Wifi and Wakelock, you don't need dbus.
Let me know off-list if you need any help custom-building Pale Moon.
You can also join the Pale Moon web forum https://forum.palemoon.org/
The linux section is https://forum.palemoon.org/viewforum.php?f=37
--
Walter Dnes <walt...@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

siva · 2018-06-18 20:36:03

@fsr: awesome project. I have the same goal ^_^

@panopticon: that sounds like a much more desirable palemoon. I hate bloat.

Panopticon · 2018-06-27 12:49:45

Sorry i forgot to report back, i have this nodbus refracta spin working fine on a partition on my hard drive. I use old hardware so i dont really have any issues with it. Theming was a bit problematic in regards to icons, but i think that is my problem. I followed the github page to install the Suru icon set with meson and ninja but seem to be missing some icons here and there, hardcoded not working and such. Meson build in Devuan repo is not suited to this icon set so i had to manually install the latest meson build with deps, so possibly this is the issue in itself, maybe someone else may have or has had better luck than me. To add, would this be a dbus issue with icons not displaying as they should? I will have to try another icon set like paper, papirus or faenza icons and see if i get the same issue with the panel and home directories showing only adwaita/gnome in some areas. Ill post more another day, in the mean time take this post with a grain of salt.

https://github.com/snwh/suru-icon-theme

Last edited by Panopticon (2018-06-27 12:54:47)

Panopticon · 2018-06-27 13:09:58

Just tried paper icons and they work fine and populate all areas, so must be something wrong with the Suru icons, probably not suited to Devuan only Ubuntu.

fsmithred · 2018-06-28 20:42:49

For the icon sets that aren't working, check their Recommends, which are excluded by default. Something is probably missing.

If you want icons on the desktop and a background image, the easiest way to do it is to set spacefm to control the desktop.

miroR · 2018-08-16 11:53:34

I've learned from Devuan DNG ML about this sans-dbus Refracta when it was released, and have been using it as rescue system. It works just fine!

Talking about dbus, I had issues evading to introduce dbus into my non-dbus system
( somewhat non-dbus, see:
sans-dbus in Devuan: low level core install of dbus remains
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=1825 )
about which Pale Moon build issues see at:
Building Pale Moon on Devuan fails 2
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=19763
but just search for Refracta, as I mentioned it a few times.

@fsmithred, is this no-dbus Refracta also libdbus-free as well?
(And also see there, in particular stevepusser was wondering about things that you could possibly known the answer too:
[ same topic as the of the already given link ]
https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.ph … 94#p147227 )

Last edited by miroR (2018-08-16 12:00:43)

fsmithred · 2018-08-16 14:53:23

Refracta-nodbus has libdbus-1-3 and libdbus-glib-1-2. I don't think they do anything except satisfy some package dependencies. A search for 'dbus' in /var/log/* shows some errors in the refractainstaller log and in Xorg.0.log.

refractainstaller_error.log:

D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up; failed to read machine uuid: Failed to open "/etc/machine-id": No such file or directory
See the manual page for dbus-uuidgen to correct this issue.

Xorg.0.log:

(EE) dbus-core: error connecting to system bus: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.FileNotFound (Failed to connect to socket /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket: No such file or directory)

I'm not sure what question I'm supposed to answer from stevepusser's post.
This? libgtk-3-dev is installable in ascii. I tried to install it, but I already have the latest version.

miroR · 2018-08-16 15:31:28

fsmithred wrote:

Refracta-nodbus has libdbus-1-3 and libdbus-glib-1-2. I don't think they do anything except satisfy some package dependencies.

]
But that's the core dbus... Something from the heart of Gnome/RedHat... for the world domination that was to be...

A search for 'dbus' in /var/log/* shows some errors in the refractainstaller log and in Xorg.0.log.

Sometimes it downright spams the log in my beowulf Devuan. But I do hope those are innocuous.

refractainstaller_error.log:

D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up; failed to read machine uuid: Failed to open "/etc/machine-id": No such file or directory
See the manual page for dbus-uuidgen to correct this issue.

Yeah, I see these all the time, such as when I start Wireshark...

Xorg.0.log:
(EE) dbus-core: error connecting to system bus: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.FileNotFound (Failed to connect to socket /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket: No such file or directory)
I'm not sure what question I'm supposed to answer from stevepusser's post.
This? libgtk-3-dev is installable in ascii. I tried to install it, but I already have the latest version.

Looking up more closely, my fault to have wandered there too much... and for not having a clear question about it myself...

I did install successfully libgtk-3-dev, and it did bring in libqt5dbus5 and not much more... (And I did build Pale Moon successfully, after bannishing gconf from build time dependencies...)
Ah... I thought we'd be having full sans-dbus in Devuan like Gentoo have (as option)...

Thanks for your always useful reply!

Last edited by miroR (2018-08-16 15:33:52)

fsmithred · 2018-08-16 16:11:22

Gentoo can be completely no-dbus because you get to compile ALL your packages. (Anyone is welcome to recompile all the debian/devuan packages that require libdbus*)

miroR · 2018-08-17 10:28:15

fsmithred wrote:

Gentoo can be completely no-dbus because you get to compile ALL your packages.

Very true! I know that so well. Years building my Gentoo in different systems.

(Anyone is welcome to recompile all the debian/devuan packages that require libdbus*)

(The stress is again on: ALL [the debian/devuan packages].)
We are yet to see if a true non-dbus happens anywhere in the debian world of derivatives, or somewhere else, in such way that not such huge work is needed to accomplish that freedom, or if it does not happen anywhere in the whole GNU/Linuxdom, but only Gentoo.

Last edited by miroR (2018-08-17 11:09:48)

msi · 2018-09-18 03:58:00

Apropos compiling: Another web browser (and a rather promising one) that can now be built without dbus is Otter Browser.

See:

Last edited by msi (2018-09-18 04:11:57)

miroR · 2018-09-18 11:33:59

msi wrote:

Apropos compiling: Another web browser (and a rather promising one) that can now be built without dbus is Otter Browser.
See:
https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-b … a775aeda3b
https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-b … 1ec5fccf57

True. It would run without D-Bus, as that code says.

Just wrote:
In search of a privacy oriented browser
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=2260#p11849
in regard.

aitor · 2018-09-20 06:18:27

Hi, simple netaid should be another application to be included in the list since it doesn-t depend on D-Bus. There are funtional .deb packages here:

http://gnuinos.org/simple-netaid/

As I announced in the DNG mailing list, I still have to do some improvements: implement the automatically connect option, fix a segmentation fault after closing the application, fix some warnings during the compilation, improve the wired connection (it takes a few seconds), translations, etc...

Here you are some screenshots:

http://gnuinos.org/simple-netaid/screenshots

Panopticon · 2018-09-22 15:51:23

Decided to re visit this.

Ive installed latest version of tint2 [16.6],obmenu-generator,compton,nitrogen and veracrypt (veracrypt tar from upstream manually installed). Im just wondering if im still dbus free though? Is there a way to check? Ive not touched apt/sources.list.

Last edited by Panopticon (2018-10-04 10:20:11)

fsmithred · 2018-09-23 10:56:20

To install dbus, you would have to go into /etc/apt/preferences.d/ and remove the pins on dbus. (note to self: those pins should really be in their own file, and not in avoid-systemd.) It's possible that other packages with dbus in the name could slip it. I only pinned dbus itself. To see what you have

dpkg -l | grep dbus

Panopticon · 2018-09-23 12:17:46

Just these which you mentioned earlier in the thread. Thank fsmithred.

$ dpkg -l | grep dbus
ii  libdbus-1-3:amd64                                           1.10.22-1+devuan1                  amd64        simple interprocess messaging system (library)
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2:amd64                                      0.108-2                            amd64        simple interprocess messaging system (GLib-based shared library)

In regards to getting wifi connected im doing it manually via wpa supplicant, would there be a way to wrap the commands into a script for use in say yad. I suppose there is an auto start feature somewhere that i havent found. I have to put the device up and then dhclient wlan0 via root each time.wpa_supplicant seems to be set up ok and working fine. I could not figure out setnet.sh , when i tried to Start Bring the interface up (using "ip link set <DEVNAME> up") it would do nothing, so it stalled there because if i cant get the device up then its no use going forward.

regards

PS:

Found this little script, does the job. I suppose i could make it an autostart item in /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart

What are your thoughts?

#!/bin/bash
kill $(ps -e |grep wpa |grep -oP '\d{3,}')
wpa_supplicant -B -D wext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
dhclient wlan0 -v
ping 8.8.8.8 -c 3

Last edited by Panopticon (2018-09-23 12:43:44)

fsmithred · 2018-09-23 13:56:17

You could set up wlan0 in /etc/network/interfaces for one or more connections you use regularly.
Or, you could run setnet.sh to set up the wireless.
I've never used wpasupplicant directly, so I can't comment on the commands, but it looks like the script would work. You could create a .desktop file that runs your script and then use that .desktop file to add an icon to the panel if you want to click to connect.

Here's a sample entry for /etc/network/interfaces.
This example is for WPA2 Personal encryption with shared ASCII key.
Items marked with ### are only needed for encrypted networks.
Use appropriate local IP numbers.:

        # wireless interface
        iface wlan0 inet static
                wpa-driver   wext
                wpa-ssid <ssid>
        ### wpa-proto is WPA for WPA1 (aka WPA) or RSN for WPA2 
                wpa-proto RSN
        ### wpa-pairwise and wpa-group is TKIP for WPA1 or CCMP for WPA2
                wpa-pairwise CCMP
                wpa-group CCMP
        ### use 'wpa_passphrase <ssid> [passphrase]' to generate hex-key
        ### enter the result below
                wpa-psk <hex-key>
                
                address  192.168.xxx.xxx
                netmask  255.255.255.0
                gateway  192.168.1.1 (maybe)

        auto wlan0

Somewhere on this page tells you how to set up multiple logical interfaces for a single physical interface. (set up wlan0 for different wireless networks): https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi … rence/ch05

And this page says that the better way to do it is with wpasupplicant, so maybe you should ignore my advice:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question … -locations

Panopticon · 2018-09-24 13:12:30

^ thanks for that, i tried the /etc/network/interfaces way and it just kept coming up it could not find wlan0.

wpa_supplicant seems to working fine so i will leave it alone.

I created a wifi.desktop file and it just brings up a terminal and executes the script. Pretty no frills way of connecting the wifi but hey it works and i only have two connections i can do in my home, 1 wifi connection or tether my phone for ethernet.

Cheers

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 2018-06-15 20:51:34

Refracta no-dbus experiment

#2 2018-06-16 12:00:30

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#3 2018-06-16 12:18:30

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#4 2018-06-16 14:08:23

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#5 2018-06-17 19:35:58

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#6 2018-06-17 19:43:29

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#7 2018-06-17 21:51:09

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#8 2018-06-18 13:30:49

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#9 2018-06-18 20:36:03

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#10 2018-06-27 12:49:45

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#11 2018-06-27 13:09:58

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#12 2018-06-28 20:42:49

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#13 2018-08-16 11:53:34

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#14 2018-08-16 14:53:23

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#15 2018-08-16 15:31:28

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#16 2018-08-16 16:11:22

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#17 2018-08-17 10:28:15

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#18 2018-09-18 03:58:00

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#19 2018-09-18 11:33:59

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#20 2018-09-20 06:18:27

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#21 2018-09-22 15:51:23

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#22 2018-09-23 10:56:20

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#23 2018-09-23 12:17:46

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#24 2018-09-23 13:56:17

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

#25 2018-09-24 13:12:30

Re: Refracta no-dbus experiment

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