EasyOS 5.8.2 released

I have uploaded version 5.8.2; however, the menu item "Rollback to previous version" in the initrd does not work.

I checked the logic of the code carefully before releasing 5.8.2. Updated a 5.6.7 installation to 5.8.2 ok; however, when I tried to rollback to 5.6.7, it failed. I discovered that busybox grep in the initrd does not recognize the "-A" option.

I need to sort that, either tonight or tomorrow, and will follow up with version 5.8.3.

Version 5.8.2 release notes:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/kirkstone/2024/5.8.2/release-notes.htm

Download:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/kirkstone/2024/5.8.2/

The delta files are massive. Updating from 5.6.7, the download is 808MB.  

Tags: easy

initrd menu improvements

Recently, when I updated EasyOS on one of my laptops from version 5.7 to 5.8, I got a black screen, which required holding down the power button to power-off. I reported about this:

https://bkhome.org/news/202405/kernel-515150-disaster-for-amd-gpu.html

To recover, I had to rollback to version 5.7. I knew how to do this, but for anyone else, there is a problem. The menu in the initrd offers two choices, to rollback to "pristine first bootup" or "the last snapshot". The problem with these two choices is that they only apply to the current version.

I have added a new menu entry "Rollback to previous version". This will enable someone to recover if they find themselves in the same situation as me.

Another change I made is hit the spacebar to stop the menu 15 second timeout. This was implemented in QV, and I really like it. The user can then peruse the menu entries at their leisure.

Here are the commits:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commits/d549cd97be743e1f6f7f5cfe29af3e5d86e88b41/   

Tags: easy

EasyOS going back to Chromium builtin

EasyOS 5.8 and 5.8.1 have Firefox as the builtin web browser. I do want to support Firefox, as the only remaining non-Chrome browser; however, there are things about it that annoy me too much.

Mostly, I still have the problem of the menu locking up. I posted about that in December 2023, with a photo:

https://bkhome.org/news/202312/firefox-is-still-disappointing.html

The main reason that I switched to Firefox from Chromium, is no longer able to compile Chromium in OpenEmbedded, at least not in the Kirkstone-series as clang is too old. But, can still compile Firefox.

The xz-compressed Chromium package compiled in OE, last time I did compile it, is 93MB. I checked the official x86_64 package provided by Google; downloaded as a .zip file, that I repackaged as .xz, and it is 109MB. Bigger, because it is using less of the host system shared libraries. I can live with that bigger size.

Here are the recent woofQ commits:

https://github.com/bkauler/woofq/commits/dc209c385e1be391a431cd2f284765adabc15735/

One thing to note, it does not have the Google API keys. Personally, I have never missed their absence.

Note that you will be able to update Chromium any time you want, via "Download latest Chromium" entry in the "Internet" category of the menu. This will download the latest Google build.

You will still be able to use Firefox of course. It is available for download via the "Internet" menu category.  

Tags: easy

The US economy and de-dollarization

The last political post to this blog was in August 2023, and a little bit before that I puzzled over why the USA hasn't become bankrupt:

• Misinformation and more misinformation — August 25, 2023
• When will the USA be bankrupt? — August 22, 2023

However, there was a more recent post about spin in YouTube channels that touches on international politics:

• Spin, spin and more spin — December 26, 2023

I'm still immensely puzzled over how the global economy works, and in particular how the USA survives given the huge foreign debt and budget deficit that just gets bigger year after year.

I've taken to watching Lena Petrova. She is a Chartered Accountant, so does have a few clues about what is really going on. She is predicting, basically, that for ordinary Americans there is going to be a steady decline in their buying-power, also infrastructure will continue to crumble, and social services will dry up.

A big question; do the leaders in the US Government understand the economic dangers they are facing? Lena posted this quite shocking interview with Jared Bernstein, the President's chief economic advisor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcxlWFSQnnU

...yikes!

I don't understand everything she says, but do try and pick up the salient points. I never came across her predicting a marked collapse of the US economy, or maybe I missed that video. However, recently she posted a talk by a Chinese economist, that not only predicts likelihood of financial collapse, but also sets a date; about 4 years from now.

Hmmm, I can't find that video. The talk is probably still there in one of her videos. What particularly interested me about the talk were the factors that might affect the outcome of the US economy; he said it depends on the the ability of the US to continue to "harvest" foreign countries.

That word "harvest" is startling. But yes, that is how the US survives, or so it seems from my understanding so far, the Dollar being the main medium of international transactions. Many countries and foreign entities are trying to de-dollarize international transactions.

On the topic of de-dollarization, here was another video, Lena again I think, quoting what Donald Trump will do if he becomes president. He has stated that he will go all-out to sanction any country that tries to de-dollarize. Found this though, from Palki Sharma:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTLHlAZnAis

There is something else that shocked me a little bit, though it shouldn't have. I have posted previously that George W. Bush committed war crimes by invading Iraq under the false pretext of "weapons of mass destruction". After that, amazingly, he got re-elected, which spoke volumes about the lack of truth in US media. Anyway, President Bush covered himself from being charged with war crimes by the International Court in Brussels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le3noqdHnSA

...yikes again!

You might have contrary viewpoints to what is presented above. OK, I'm just posting this as something to think about, viewpoints that are probably different from what you get in the mainstream media.

EDIT 2024-05-11:
I found a YouTube video where that Chinese economist is giving a 4 year timeline for USA economic collapse, subject to various conditions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5VnpVs4Nx4

While searching for it, I stumbled across "Double Down News" channel. This Australian guy is posting how the Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu, was caught telling lies to President Biden, that Biden then repeated publically:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mxfnya3ZRc

Reminds me of another Aussie guy, Jerry Grey, residing in China, who has "Jerry's Take on China" channel. He got upset by ongoing Western media misinformation about China, so started the channel.

He counters the many who have accused him of being a "Chinese shill" on the pay of the CCP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9LUhxsAMDs   

Tags: ethos

Lots of utilities compiled for EasyOS Kirkstone

Forum member Flash posted about the 'tree' utility:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=118592#p118592

I compiled it in OpenEmbedded/Yocto, then a lot more, 25 in total:

atop       "Monitor for system resources and process activity" https://www.atoptool.nl
cmark      "CommonMark parsing and rendering library and program in C" https://github.com/commonmark/cmark
daemonize  "A tool to run a command as a daemon" http://software.clapper.org/daemonize/
devmem2    "Simple program to readwrite fromto any location in memory" 
dfu-util   "Device firmware upgrade" https://dfu-util.sourceforge.net
dhex       "dhex is a hex editor that includes a diff mode" http://www.dettus.net/dhex/
eject      "Eject CD/DVD" https://eject.sourceforge.net/
gengetopt  "skeleton main.c generator" https://www.gnu.org/software/gengetopt/gengetopt.html
gpm        "Console mouse driver" https://www.nico.schottelius.org/software/gpm
hstr       "bash and zsh shell history suggest box - easily view navigate search and manage your command history." http://dvorka.github.io/hstr/
joe        "Console text editor with good functionality good choice for vi-haters" https://joe-editor.sourceforge.net/
links      "Text-mode web browser" http://links.twibright.com/
logwarn    "A utility for finding interesting messages in log files" https://github.com/archiecobbs/logwarn/wiki
monit      "Manage and monitor Unix systems" https://mmonit.com/monit/
nano       "Small and friendly console text editor" https://www.nano-editor.org/
nmon       "Performance monitor" https://nmon.sourceforge.io/pmwiki.php
picocom    "Lightweight and minimal dumb-terminal emulation program" https://github.com/npat-efault/picocom
pv         "Terminal-based tool for monitoring the progress of data through a pipeline" http://www.ivarch.com/programs/pv.shtml
rdfind     "Rdfind is a program that finds duplicate files" https://rdfind.pauldreik.se/
rsnapshot  "A filesystem snapshot utility based on rsync" https://rsnapshot.org/
rtc-tools  "Useful programs to test rtc drivers" 
satyr      "Automatic problem management" https://github.com/abrt/satyr
synergy    "Synergy - control multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse" https://symless.com/synergy
toscoterm  "A very small and simple terminal emulator" 
tree       "A recursive directory listing command" http://mama.indstate.edu/users/ice/tree/
xmlstarlet "Command line XML toolkit" https://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/

These have been uploaded and are available in the repository, via PKGget.    

Tags: easy

QV version 240506 pre-alpha released

This is basically the same as the previous release, 240425:

https://bkhome.org/news/202404/qv-version-240425-pre-alpha-released.html

Except have reverted the pam/shadow change, as it caused some breakage, reported by Caramel:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?p=117978#p117978

Download from here:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/void/

Note, as I am typing this blog post, 'qv-240506-amd64.img' is still uploading. The Internet connection has become very slow.   

Tags: quirky

Gittyup GUI Git client

I have been using SmartGit for years. It is a commercial product, with a free license for non-commercial use. It is a great product; however, sometimes there are inconveniences. It "phones home" at every startup, and frequently insists on perfoming an update. A few times, I had to re-validate the free license. Recently, at startup it reports downloading "git", but I already have git, and I hit "Exit" then restart SmartGit and then it doesn't try and download git. Weird.

Anyway, I want to get away from it. The last few years, many free Git GUIs have emerged. There is one, "GitAhead", that was a commercial product; however, a couple of years ago (not sure exactly) it became free open-source. The homepage states that it is no longer being developed, just bug fixes:

https://gitahead.github.io/gitahead.com/

However, looking at the commits, still fairly active:

https://github.com/gitahead/gitahead

GitAhead rates well in reviews. For example at slant.co:

https://www.slant.co/options/18757/~gitahead-review

Slant.co has rated it number 10 in GUI Git clients, all platforms:

https://www.slant.co/topics/4985/~visual-git-guis

...SmartGit comes in as number-1.

There are YouTube videos on GitAhead, such as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhQqSSbYPQ

Then I found "Gittyup", which is a continuation of the GitAhead project:

https://github.com/Murmele/Gittyup

...yes, very active.

I have compiled Gittyup, created a PET, and it will be in EasyOS Kirkstone-series devx SFS from now on. For the record, here is how I compiled it:

# git clone https://github.com/Murmele/Gittyup.git gittyup-1.3.0
# cd gittyup-1.3.0
# git submodule init
# git submodule update --depth 1

# cd ..
# dir2tgz gittyup-1.3.0
# sync
# cd gittyup-1.3.0

# cd dep/openssl/openssl
# ./config -fPIC
# make

# cd ../../../
# mkdir -p build/gittyup-1.3.0
# cd build/gittyup-1.3.0
# cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_INSTALL_SYSCONFDIR=/etc \
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LOCALSTATEDIR=/var -DENABLE_UPDATE_OVER_GUI=OFF -DUSE_SYSTEM_OPENSSL=OFF \
  -DUSE_SYSTEM_QT=ON -DUSE_SYSTEM_LUA=ON -DUSE_SYSTEM_HUNSPELL=ON -DUSE_SYSTEM_LIBGIT2=OFF \
  -DUSE_SYSTEM_GIT=ON -DUSE_SYSTEM_CMARK=OFF -DENABLE_TESTS=ON  ../..
# ninja
# new2dir ninja install

It requires openssl 1.1.x, whereas Kirkstone has 3.x, so configured for builtin. Also builtin libgit2, as the Kirkstone libgit2 caused scintilla compile fail. Haven't tested it yet; just started it, but took it no further.   

Tags: easy

EasyOS Kirkstone-series version 5.8.1 released

Version 5.8 was withdrawn a day after release, due to a black screen with the 5.15.157 kernel:

https://bkhome.org/news/202404/easyos-kirkstone-series-version-58-released.html

https://bkhome.org/news/202405/kernel-515150-disaster-for-amd-gpu.html

Easy 5.8.1 has the 5.15.149 kernel.

Download:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/easyos/amd64/releases/kirkstone/2024/5.8.1/

If you are new to EasyOS, please read the 5.7 announcement; it has more details:

https://bkhome.org/news/202402/easyos-kirkstone-series-version-57-released.html

Feedback welcome at the forum:

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=11398    

Tags: easy