libera/#devuan/ Friday, 2024-04-05

nemogreetings #devuan - my mom is trying to resurrect an old tablet she neglected to leave powered on for 4 years00:50
nemoit is running an ancient (probably 32 bit) intel atom 1.33 ghz00:50
nemoI'm thinking a really minimalistic devuan might work, does anyone know offhand how much a minimal desktop requires, space-wise? say, mate..00:51
masonnemo: you could probably be happy with half a gig. I think there are numbers out there somewhere.00:54
nemomason: that sounds promising00:54
nemois the live installer reliable these days? she'd probably be most comfortable in that00:54
nemohm. also do 32 bit images still exist00:55
masonDunno. I just do debootstrap installs. It's probably quite reliable.00:55
nemootherwise I need to find one elsewhere00:55
masonThat I don't know.00:55
nemooooh i386 live image00:55
fsmithrednemo, I made an image for a 2010 asus EEE that uses lxqt.01:04
fsmithredhttps://get.refracta.org/files/experimental/refracta_12-EEE_lxqt-20230905_1348.iso01:05
fsmithredthe devuan-live just provides xfce. If you want mate, do a netinstall.01:06
nemofsmithred: ok. I was just trying to find something with a gui for her01:11
nemofsmithred: that might be close to what she has01:12
fsmithreddo you know what desktop she's using?01:12
nemoshe is trying to revive an asus "tablet"  that uses an Intel Atom Z374001:12
nemo2 gigs of ram01:12
nemo833 MB of storage free (supposedly - might be more. I'm sure they reserved some space for the now-dead recovery file system)01:13
fsmithredmine has 2G. Hang on and I'll check the cpu.01:13
fsmithredno hard drive?01:13
fsmithredatom z520, 1.33GHz01:14
nemofsmithred: if it's a "tablet" it probably has an internal ssd01:14
nemoand most likely, because she left it unplugged for years, it has hopelessly drained the nand cells01:14
fsmithred239mb ram by ps_mem.py01:14
nemowhich is why it went to bios and said, literally "locate simple file system protocol failly!!"01:14
nemoyes it did say "failly"01:14
onefangIt failed at failing.01:16
fsmithredI think asus does not hire good translators.01:16
gnarfaceit should have a microSD slot you can use for extra storage, i would assume01:16
onefangOr USB OTG maybe.01:17
gnarfaceit might not be obvious that it's there; the ASUS tablets i've seen practically hide it01:17
nemowell. she just wants to use it for web browsing I imagine. maybe document editing at most01:17
nemoso if she can get some basics into half a gig or so..01:17
gnarfacethere will be a completely innocuous unlabeled slot the width of a microSD card that could be easily confused as a ventilation slot or a hidden mic01:17
fsmithredEEE has a regular sd slot01:18
onefangSounds plausible, but sounds like you'll have hardware problems.01:18
onefangI don't suppose you can convince the thing to boot from USB?01:19
nemoonefang: going to see if we can get to that point.01:19
nemoI'm finding a good candidate for a USB stick01:19
nemo(she's hunting through her drawer)01:19
nemo"I don't know if I can use this one. it has wedding photos on it"01:19
onefangTry the live one, if that boots, then an installed version will work just as well.01:19
nemoI just lectured her about not using a flash drive sitting in a drawer for long term storage01:19
onefangOr stick with the live one, leave the internal storage alone.01:20
nemoonefang: that's a thought01:20
nemomight be easier01:20
fsmithredyou can mount the internal storage if she needs to save any files01:22
fsmithredmy EEE lxqt system uses about 3.5G disk space01:22
nemofsmithred: is it a live image or an installer?01:23
nemolive image w/ unionfs or similar..01:23
fsmithredthat's the installed size. There is a live image that I linked above.01:23
fsmithredit has refractainstaller01:23
onefangSo both.  B-)01:23
fsmithrednote: that particular image does not have a display manager. I left stuff out to keep it light.01:24
fsmithredlog in console and run startx.01:24
nemoshe found a thumb drive they'd used for installers before, but it was 64 bit, and was a 2.6Gig install partition for ubuntu 20.04 plus 52 gigs of totally unused space.  it seemed like overkill for this and I suggested she hang on to it for live boots of other things if she could find a wimpier usb lying around :)01:24
fsmithredoh, desktop comes up automatically in live01:24
nemofsmithred: ah. wow. that *is* minimalist01:24
nemofsmithred: you know, I did have a laptop long ago that only had 96MiB of ram, and I was able to still run a very very minimalist X on it, including a launcher. but things may have changed since then01:25
fsmithredhow do you fit ubuntu into 2.6G???01:25
nemoanyway she has 2 gigs of ram so no concerns01:25
nemofsmithred: 20.04 live image? it's probably basically just the dvd01:25
nemofsmithred: and then it writes to the larger image for persistence01:25
fsmithredoh yeah, the live is compressed.01:25
nemoI don't know where she got it from. she may have followed a guide01:25
nemomy mom is rather adventurous. I had no involvement in any of her recent installs01:26
fsmithredI'm impressed.01:26
fsmithredwe have a visual install guide for the live installer at devuan.org01:26
nemofsmithred: oh. that could be useful thanks01:27
golinuxhttps://www.devuan.org/os/documentation/install-guides/daedalus/live-gui01:28
fsmithredlive installer requires manual partitioning01:28
nemofsmithred: well. the disc is basically trash anyway so if it has decent default selections for the manual, nbd...01:28
nemohmmm that guide seems very manual01:29
nemomaybe she's better off with the netinstall01:29
fsmithredlive installer does not partition. It will format partitions you select.01:29
fsmithredhas she used debian-installer before?01:30
golinuxhttps://www.devuan.org/os/documentation/install-guides/daedalus/install-devuan01:30
nemofsmithred: I think she's only ever used the ubuntu one01:30
golinuxPick your poison01:30
nemowhich is much friendlier :)01:30
fsmithredneither01:30
nemobut ofc ubuntu is 64 bit only nowdays sooo01:30
fsmithredand it's a resource hog.01:30
nemoI think I'm going to recommend she try a live boot (esp if she can find a microsd) or the netinstall01:31
fsmithredI didn't install any wireless firmware in the EEE image, and it looks like I didn't even include the deb packages.01:32
fsmithredthe devuan-live all have wireless firmware installed. Good for testing.01:32
fsmithredoh, nm. My wireless is working without nonfree firmware.01:33
nemofsmithred: mm. that's a bit inconvenient with the netinstall01:35
nemosince it's probably not bundled on it01:35
nemoso would need setting up ahead of time01:35
gnarfaceearlier devices often only need firmware for WPA support01:36
fsmithredwireless firmware is included in all the installer isos01:36
fsmithredmine has atheros. works with free.01:36
gnarfaceah01:36
nemooh good01:37
nemohm. well. odds are her wifi is WPA01:37
nemoand I don't feel like explaining WEP to her01:37
fsmithredI wish it had more ram. 2G is barely enough for a web browser01:37
nemofsmithred: heh. you know, years ago I had a laptop with 96MiB of ram01:37
fsmithredthat used to be enough01:38
nemoI ran a minimalist gentoo desktop... seamonkey kinda functioned okish on it01:38
gnarfacefirefox needs too much ram, but you can do better01:38
nemoI feel like browsers can run in less than 2 gigs if there's nothing else around. esp w/ like noscript or umatrix but she might not want those01:38
nemoshe'd probably want firefox01:38
nemobrowser.tabs.unloadOnLowMemory might help01:39
nemoalso setting number of processes to 1 instead of default of 401:39
nemoanyway. I had to leave her for now. kids need baths :)01:39
onefangMy super desktop has 256 GB, in a box near it is a x486 with 512 MB I put Linux on for a client.01:39
rustyaxedid i fall in  time machine?02:11
gnarfaceno it's just nostalgic computing day today02:12
rustyaxeid power up my kaypro ii and join in, but its raining and my db25 to db9 adaptors are in truck :P02:13
rustyaxehttp://istabpeople.com/junk/kaypro/IMG_20230706_151121.jpg02:14
* rustyaxe installs devuan on his TeeVee02:44
rwpI had a friend with the Kaypro portable (luggable) and my biggest complaint was that the fans on that thing were as loud as could be.02:55
onefangDoes anyone know anything about kernel post install and post remove scripts?  I'm trying to get kernel and initrd copied to another disk whenever they get updated.07:49
onefangThere is scripts in /etc/kernel and I put one there, it runs.  But when a kernel is removed, it runs BEFORE the initrd removal, so I get the last initrd instead of the current one.07:50
onefangHmmmm, or are they run at the same time?  I put a sleep in my script, and now it gets the current initrd.07:52
CueXXIIIthey should run in lex. order, see man 8 run-parts08:23
onefangThey are in lex order already.08:24
CueXXIIIare they? ls -u :)08:25
CueXXIIIbut run-parts sorts them before running them08:25
onefangFunny thing is I see a message that the symlink fram /initrd.img has been updated BEFORE my script runs, and still it gets the old one.08:25
CueXXIIIyou could put some deugging output in your scripts to see when it actually is run08:26
onefangI am.08:26
CueXXIIIhm, run-parts has no way of specifying to run in parallel… let me check what the official kernel images use08:28
CueXXIIIyeah, they use run-parts, too08:31
onefangMaybe the initrd building tool does the actual building in parellel?  I noticed it has protection against running multiple times.08:35
onefangAnd there IS multiple initrds made, coz the system likes to do that.08:36
onefangI might have to bite the bullet and hook kernel and initrd separately.09:00
CueXXIIIwhat initrd tool do you use?09:03
onefangWas hoping to find a single "both symlinks have been updated, now you can copy what they point to" place I could drop a couple of cp commands.09:03
onefanginitramfs-tools09:03
onefangIf there is a better tool, I'm happy to switch.09:04
CueXXIIIit shouldn't run in parallel as far as i can see, i wonder why it does for you09:08
onefangMaybe something is getting lost in a cache?09:09
CueXXIIIi'm using dracut, no idea if it is better or worse, but it is developed seperately from debian09:09
CueXXIIIyou could put a pstree (or ps -faux) in your script to see what is actually running when it is called09:09
onefangWhat do you like / hate about dracut?09:10
CueXXIIIi don't particularily like initrds… but dracut works for me09:11
CueXXIIIand i was a bit concerned update-initramfs might drop sysvinit support sometime09:12
onefangLooks interesting.  I'll try it.09:14
onefangAh, I'm using initramfs-tools coz that's the default, I never specified.09:15
onefangAHA CAUGHT IT!  When I later install the desktop-base package, something in there generates a new initrd, which is a different size, but doesn't call my hook to copy the result.09:30
onefangDracut seems to work fine, and I got rid of the initrd rebuild during the install of desktop-base.  Seems to be fixed now.  Thanks CueXXIII11:06
avir327I am using dracut with Daedalus on two computers, without issues. Only a warning is issued on updates, that 'dracut-systemd' (or such) is missing a dependency..11:17
onefangI got three of those errors - dracut: dracut module 'systemd-initrd' depends on 'systemd', which can't be installed11:19
onefangWhich I think means if you are not using that systemd module in dracut, then it doesn't matter.11:19
onefangWorked fine with no config on my part.  I'll read the manual after dinner.11:20
CueXXIIIyeah, i get those diagnostics about no systemd, too :)11:49
tolsen718Hello.  Just following up from yesterday re: PGP key server.  I was able to access the keyserver by being more specific about protocol and port:22:09
tolsen718# gpg --keyserver http://keyring.devuan.org:11371 --search-keys 94532124541922FB22:09
tolsen718That works for me22:09
masontolsen718: good22:12

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