LinuxVillage

Projects and resources (En) => Contributing to FOSS => Create masters => Discussion démarrée par: Taco.22 le 06 février 2013 à 23:46:36

Titre: VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 06 février 2013 à 23:46:36
VillageBox now has its own information and download page on the main site at LinuxVillage.org (http://linuxvillage.org/).  This will be kept up to date as regarding improvements and updates.

This thread is specifically for questions, queries and problems relating to VillageBox.  More general discussions can still take place in other threads such as Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin (http://linuxvillage.net/index.php/board,31.0.html).
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 07 février 2013 à 02:52:40
Hello,

VillageBox is a good name. I would just wish you add "Debian" behind.*

Sure : when a Ubuntu Openbox, a antiX Openbox, and many more to come will be ready to be tested again, what will be left for us, non Debian users ? ;)

Hu hu! turzin must have striken, the LinuxVillage skin is away... I'll be back!

Good job Taco!


* or  something like "Debian Remix"
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: konaexpress le 07 février 2013 à 07:43:03
Good job dude!
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 07 février 2013 à 11:38:41
Thanks all, but don't forget, it takes a village ... aaghh, better not go there!!
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 09 février 2013 à 06:19:07
Changelog Update

I thought I should add the Changelog to this thread.  Same download location and no version change.  Changes are as follows -
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 09 février 2013 à 11:14:00
Hello,

very good, but why don't you give it a new number ? Maybe something such as "RC2-b" or "RC2-2" if you don't want to make it look like a major version ? And what is the date of the change this time ? Should I mirror a new version or are the mirrors up to date ?

Thanks for all your work anyway !

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 09 février 2013 à 11:26:09
No panic - I've not changed anything.  I just posted the Changelog from the Village_RC2 thread so I can keep track of it.  Still trying to work out where to put it - maybe it should go on the VillageBox page, maybe down the bottom?

EDIT - I have added the Changelog to the bottom of the VillageBox page - seems to be the logical place.  Anywhere on the forum it will just keep moving around!
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 09 février 2013 à 18:13:58
Very right!
And one more little thing, I have noticed you didn't list openbox-menu in the list of installed programs. Is it a miss ?

Titre: Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 10 février 2013 à 00:35:25
I have noticed you didn't list openbox-menu in the list of installed programs. Is it a miss ?

Fixed.
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 10 février 2013 à 00:51:58
Thank you sir!  :)

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 07 avril 2013 à 11:03:02
I am currently in the process of updating and fine-tuning VillageBox.  I have replaced Geany with Juffed as editor.  Juffed is highly configurable and lots faster.  I have also removed Sakura as VillageBox already has Xterm as default terminal for Remastersys.  No need having multiple terminals and I have configured Xterm to look a bit flashier!  I have also installed "gnome-system-tools" without all the extra 90+mb of crud which gives GUI apps for Networking, Services, Time and Date, and Users and Groups.

Interestingly although Thunar is still at Version 1.2.3 it launches straight up from cold and also mounts the network share.  Something must have been fixed/improved somewhere.

I want to know if additional firmware for wireless broadband is needed.  I have looked at what apt had to offer and it included things like -
      wireless-tools - Tools for manipulating Linux Wireless Extensions
      broadcom-sta-common - Common files for the Broadcom STA Wireless driver
      broadcom-sta-dkms - dkms source for the Broadcom STA Wireless driver
      broadcom-sta-source - Source for the Broadcom STA Wireless driver
      firmware-atheros - Binary firmware for Atheros wireless cards
      firmware-brcm80211 - Binary firmware for Broadcom 802.11 wireless cards
      firmware-ipw2x00 - Binary firmware for Intel Pro Wireless 2100, 2200 and 2915
      firmware-iwlwifi - Binary firmware for Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 and 802.11n cards
      firmware-libertas - Binary firmware for Marvell Libertas 8xxx wireless cards
      firmware-ralink - Binary firmware for Ralink wireless cards
      firmware-realtek - Binary firmware for Realtek wired and wireless network adapters
      b43-fwcutter - Utility for extracting Broadcom 43xx firmware
      firmware-b43-installer - Installer package for firmware for the b43 driver
      firmware-b43-lpphy-installer - Installer package for firmware for the b43 driver (LP-PHY version)
      firmware-b43legacy-installer - Installer package for firmware for the b43legacy driver
 
There were a few other bits and pieces but I am not familiar with wireless as I am connected to ADSL broadband and also don't run a laptop.  If there is anything on that list or anything else you can think of that you would consider required software let me know.

Hopefully the updated version of VillageBox will be up by the end of the week.

Screenshots - click on pic for full size.

Terminal xterm
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/xterm-tn.png) (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/xterm.png)

Juffed editor
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/juffed-tn.png) (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/juffed.png)

Gnome-system-tools with Time and Date, Networking, Service Settings, User Settings with Create New User
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/systools-tn.png) (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/systools.png)
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 07 avril 2013 à 12:26:30
Hi,

Please don't forget to let me know what needs to be removed and added here (http://tyruiop.eu/~melodie/Downloads/ISOS/Debian).
Titre: Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: pdurbin le 07 avril 2013 à 13:20:42
Thanks all, but don't forget, it takes a village ... aaghh, better not go there!!

I knew someone would say it eventually. :)
Titre: Re : Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 07 avril 2013 à 14:28:32
I knew someone would say it eventually. :)
Hey, don't blame me!!  I hold djohnston wholly responsible for this embarassment  ;D

@melodie,
No problems - any requests regarding wireless software/firmware?


By the way, I have put pytyle, a window tiling application, back in.  It works from a keybinding on the fly - if you never use it you would never know it was there!  I am gearing up to installing VillageBox onto my wife's computer and she uses pytyle every now and then when she has two instances of Thunar open to drag and drop files - gives Thunar a twin pane mode when you need it.
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 07 avril 2013 à 18:48:06
As far as I know some broadcom components are needed by Rob, (ka9yhd) and I would install all from your list except the source package, unless it is not too big. I also like when people providing feedback are able to report "everything works out of the box! great! all the other distros tried so far never make all my hardware work!".   :D

 
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 08 avril 2013 à 04:13:35
OK, I'll install that lot and see what the bill comes to.  Thanks.


EDIT - well I went to install and it turns out that all of the above are already present in VillageBox.  Now this may not be the case with the current Scorpio which is based on an earlier build.  However I have prepped a revised and updated version of Scorpio based on VillageBox, so the hardware support will be identical for the two.  Both will be uploaded later in the week - looks like it's just a bit of fine-tuning to do.
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Slystone le 08 avril 2013 à 13:30:13
By the way, I have put pytyle, a window tiling application, back in.  It works from a keybinding on the fly - if you never use it you would never know it was there!  I am gearing up to installing VillageBox onto my wife's computer and she uses pytyle every now and then when she has two instances of Thunar open to drag and drop files - gives Thunar a twin pane mode when you need it.

Hum, you know you can have a twin pane in Openbox without Pytyle, right? You press Super+Alt+left/right arrow, and job done! (or super+left/right arrow for different sizes)
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 08 avril 2013 à 14:12:39
Hum, you know you can have a twin pane in Openbox without Pytyle, right? You press Super+Alt+left/right arrow, and job done! (or super+left/right arrow for different sizes)

This is depending of the content of your rc.xml file. :)

You might want to seek for the part which does this in your install and paste it here ?  (in code tags)

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Slystone le 08 avril 2013 à 14:20:28
Ok, I'll need some time then. I just remember that in the different Openbox that I've tested, it was a possibility.
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 08 avril 2013 à 14:51:39
The rc.xml file can be set up just about any way you want.  I remember trying a while back some code for rc.xml that enabled pseudo-tiling in OB.  However it was entirely manual, the keybinding was awkward and the code had to be configured to the screen size.  No good for a general distribution.  Pytyle allows tiling on the fly, or as a global setting.  You can set two instances of Thunar as "twin pane", especially if one is user and one is root - really good for loading up /etc/skel when remastering!  Or you could have a file manager and text editor side by side, opening and editing files as you go.  Pytyle is nothing more than a simple python script with no deps other than python-xlib.  I use the 0.7.2 version of Pytyle - it's old but it works!     
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Slystone le 08 avril 2013 à 15:07:24
Well, I admit I don't know how it works. But in Crunchbang it works with default settings. These guys seem to have actually done it (see discussion): http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=15002 (http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=15002)
I hope it helps (I'm too noob to be helpful).

Edit : there is also a github for hot corners: https://github.com/corenominal/cb-wmhacks (https://github.com/corenominal/cb-wmhacks)
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 08 avril 2013 à 15:43:41
Hi Slystone,

I had a look at the Crunchbang link - interesting.  I wouldn't apologise about being "too noob to be helpful" though, as half the code went straight over the top of my head  :D

By the way, if you want to try Pytyle I have uploaded pytyle-0.7.2.tar.gz (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/pytyle-0.7.2.tar.gz) so you can download and install it.  Just make sure you have python-xlib installed, follow the install instructions, logout/in and use "Alt - a" to tile and "Alt - u" to untile.  If you run Openbox (I think you run Crunchbang?) you need to add  "pytyle &" to ~/.config/openbox/autostart.  Enjoy!
Titre: Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: mimas le 08 avril 2013 à 15:47:54
I remember trying a while back some code for rc.xml that enabled pseudo-tiling in OB.  However it was entirely manual, the keybinding was awkward and the code had to be configured to the screen size.
It was for a french keyboard. :) And it was a dumb tiling. I'm still using it, though.
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 08 avril 2013 à 16:52:20
Hi mimas,

I was trying to remember if the code came from you.  I now recall setting it up for English keyboard - bit confusing when it was for French  ;D
Glad to hear it's still in operation.
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 05 mai 2013 à 09:01:59
I've trying to do a remaster to post but I'm hitting a couple of issues.  The first is that the live iso on USB fails to execute the reboot and shutdown commands from the menu.  That goes hand-in-hand with not being able to open partitions in Thunar - not authorized.  The other is that xterm presents with a white background - opposite to what is in the .Xresources file.  I have made two attempts, replaced files in /etc/skel but no luck.  All works fine on the master but the remaster is not working out.

Any ideas? 
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: djohnston le 05 mai 2013 à 15:29:34
I just installed Village from the Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso (http://tyruiop.eu/~melodie/Downloads/ISOS/LinuxVillage/Debian/Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso) and updated it. Is that the right one to start from?

Which version of Thunar are you using? 1.2.3 or 1.6.2? (1.2.3 still has a startup delay if AutoMount=true is specified in /usr/share/gvfs/mounts/network.mount).

Have you changed any sources lists yet? I had to change these:

## Updates
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ (http://ftp.debian.org/debian/) testing-proposed-updates main contrib non-free 
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ (http://ftp.debian.org/debian/) testing-proposed-updates main contrib non-free 

The testing-updates directory is no longer there for the US server. I don't know if the testing-proposed-updates directory is a valid directory to update from, but I did it anyway.

EDIT: What method are you using to put the iso on the USB drive?
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 05 mai 2013 à 16:05:02
Just about to hit the sack but that sounds like the current version.  I have updated and changed a couple of things.  Juffed is now the default editor and a couple of other bits were added.  Nothing outside of the repos though.

Currently still at Thunar 1.2.3 - works fine both on the master system and my own setup.

Sources list I need to look at - not sure if testing-proposed or not.

Just using the usual "dd if=name_of_iso of=/dev/thingy"

All has been fine until now - not sure what has changed.  Could be that VillageBox is based on testing - I have read that SID is a bad place to remastersys from.  Have added a couple of things - mostly http://linuxvillage.net/index.php/topic,102.msg1870.html#msg1870 (http://linuxvillage.net/index.php/topic,102.msg1870.html#msg1870).  Turns out all the wireless stuff was installed!



   
Titre: Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: djohnston le 05 mai 2013 à 18:14:00
Could be that VillageBox is based on testing - I have read that SID is a bad place to remastersys from.
That could be, but Sid is the unstable branch, not testing. I don't know what the new testing name will be, now that Wheezy is the stable branch (http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504). But, Sid will always be the name of the unstable branch.

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 05 mai 2013 à 18:39:00
Yes, SID stands for Still In Development. There is just one thing I don't know about in the versions, you can see in the packages debian page versions drop down menu:
http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages (http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages)

there is also a branch having for name "experimental".
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: djohnston le 06 mai 2013 à 01:56:34
Taco.22,

I'm getting the same result. I haven't looked into what's going on yet.

1 The testing repos are too volatile right now. The packages and available updates are changing every hour. I ran into a situation where it wanted to remove the package less. I went with it. After removing it, refreshing the package lists, I tried to reinstall less. apt wanted to remove man-db. I could have one or the other, but not both.

I reinstalled from the iso again and changed all testing sources to wheezy, then did a full upgrade.

2 I commented out the graphics mode line in /etc/default/grub and reran update-grub. My replacement video card can't handle 1280x1024, although the monitor can.

3 I can't get a wireless connection using wicd. I tried everything from rescanning for network, entering the SSID for the home network, changing configuration prefs, etc. I'm going to have to install network-manager-gnome to get a wireless connection. But, that has nothing to do with the immediate problems with Thunar and xterm.

4 I burned the iso to a USB drive the same way. dd if=Village_RC-2_TEST_xz_Wheezy.iso of=/dev/sdd That works fine. I have to boot from the PLOP floppy because the PIII BIOS doesn't allow for booting from a USB device.

5 I was able to mount the hard drive and write files to my home partition. I can't mount the hard drive from Thunar. Permission error. I opened a terminal.

sudo su
mkdir /mnt/disk
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/disk

I was then able to browse all the files from Thunar. Something's screwy with permissions.

6 For example, from the Preferences menu, Internationalization & Localization will start and gksu will prompt for the root password. (I don't know what the password is, though.) GParted (gparted-pkexec) and Synaptic (synaptic-pkexec) won't start at all.

7 I was able to shutdown the live session, but had to do it as root. The error I got trying to do it as live user was:

live@live:~$ dbus-send --system --print-reply --dest=org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit /org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Manager org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Manager.Stop
Error org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Manager.NotPrivileged: Not Authorized
live@live:~$

I don't know if that's any help or not. Opened a terminal, did sudo su, then ran the dbus command again. The system shut down cleanly.

8 In /etc/skel, I only updated the files that had changed. Before I remaster again, I'm going to wipe all the /etc/skel files and repopulate from scratch. Don't know if it will do any good or not.

9 Have you changed any remastersys files? I haven't looked, but don't even know if I would recognize one that has changed.

EDIT: I only had time to look up this ConsoleKit error message (http://us.generation-nt.com/answer/bug-597937-consolekit-power-management-error-org-freedesktop-consolekit-manager-notprivileged-not-authorized-help-200452551.html). Haven't looked through the responses yet. Gotta cook supper.

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 06 mai 2013 à 17:42:49
Hi,
I remember each time Debian has made a testing version stable, the following testing version was unreliable for a while. I would suggest you fix the current VillageBox with the stable repos from now on, for about the next 6 months.

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: djohnston le 06 mai 2013 à 20:39:30
Taco.22,

The problem is not consolekit. The version number for consolekit, libck-connector0 and libpam-ck-connector is still  0.4.5-3.1. That hasn't changed since July 30th, 2012, as far as I can tell.

darrel@Village:~$ ls -l /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90consolekit
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1027 Feb 29  2012 /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90consolekit
darrel@Village:~$ ls -l /usr/share/pam-configs/consolekit
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 169 Jul 30  2012 /usr/share/pam-configs/consolekit
darrel@Village:~$ ls -l /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.consolekit.policy
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1652 Jul 30  2012 /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.consolekit.policy
darrel@Village:~$

The remastersys file is correct, too.

darrel@Village:~$ ls -l /home/remastersys/remastersys/dummysys/etc/X11/Xsession.d/90consolekit
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1027 Feb 29  2012 /home/remastersys/remastersys/dummysys/etc/X11/Xsession.d/90consolekit
darrel@Village:~$

There's something else going on I haven't narrowed down. I just burned the DebWeb_RC3 iso to a USB drive and booted from it. It has the same Thunar version 1.2.3, which allows me to browse the hard drive with no permission errors. I started xterm, and it has the black background. Then I shutdown the machine with no permission errors.

Maybe you can figure something out by comparing the DebWeb iso to yours. I haven't started doing that yet. Nor have I tried the DebWeb_1.0 iso, because it uses the latest version of Thunar. (I have to replace wicd with network-manager-gnome on that one, anyway.) As soon as the iso has uploaded to my Dropbox account, I'll post the link.

EDIT: Here's the link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31006290/DebWeb_RC3.iso (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31006290/DebWeb_RC3.iso)

If you'd like to free up some space before remastering, all of the Plymouth themes are installed, but none are in use.
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 07 mai 2013 à 01:12:10
Thanks for the investigative work.  I might try switching the repos back to stable for a bit and see if that does anything, although it may be that the horse has bolted.  I'll go back through the apt log and check out what else I have installed - the last thing was libmtp-runtime but I can't see that upsetting things.  Remastersys isn't reading something it should though, otherwise the master itself would be throwing up these errors. 
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 11 mai 2013 à 15:48:08
Well that was annoying!  I changed the repo listing to Stable Wheezy as suggested but after I updated dist-upgrade showed no updates.  No surprise!  So I took the ISO that I had uploaded and worked on that instead.  Installed it, changed the repos, updated everything, then made the changes - replaced Geany with Juffed, removed Sakura, added pytyle, installed gnome-system-tools (abridged) and libmtp-runtime.  Moved appropriate files to /etc/skel, cleaned everything up, ran Remastersys, transferred to USB stick, booted and had exactly the same issue as with the Testing repos!!!  Thunar is denied permission to root and xterm's background is white and Reboot/Shutdown doesn't work.

The next option is to try the ISO again and just update as Stable and then remaster.  In the meantime I tried the Scorpio build with Testing repos, doesn't have the gnome-system-tools but does have Juffed - got the same result on remastering.  Not sure where to go from here.  Maybe someone else could install Villagebox, change the sources.list to Stable, update and remaster.  I am in the process of doing it now - I have been using the sources list that patrick013 posted, (http://linuxvillage.net/index.php/topic,328.0.html)  but minus the "us" location. 
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 11 mai 2013 à 20:30:23
Hi,
I would not bother and would start fresh from a Wheezy netinstall.

Titre: Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 12 mai 2013 à 00:57:45
I would not bother and would start fresh from a Wheezy netinstall.

The idea of using Wheezy Testing was that when it went Stable you had Wheezy!  I can't say I'm interested in starting from scratch again - the VillageBox ISO as-is works on install and successfully updates - it just doesn't quite remaster.  I think the problem lies with Remastersys - it is now unsupported until OS4 gets its act together, and who knows when that might be. 
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: djohnston le 12 mai 2013 à 01:07:37
I started from the Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso again. Changed all the sources from testing to wheezy. Did a full update, then rebooted. The libconsole package was showing in Synaptic as auto-removable, so I removed it. Refreshed the package list, then reinstalled libconsole. There were a lot of residual config packages showing, so I removed them all. Repopulated /etc/skel and set ownerships. Remastered.

Booting from the iso in VirtualBox worked fine. Booting from a USB on bare metal did not. After doing a little more research, I found the problem. The solution is easy. Copy the following to a text file and save it as /etc/apt/sources.list.d/remaster.list:

deb http://www.remastersys.com/debian (http://www.remastersys.com/debian) wheezy main
deb-src http://www.remastersys.com/debian (http://www.remastersys.com/debian) wheezy main


If you need the repo key, run as root:

wget -O - http://www.remastersys.com/debian/remastersys.gpg.key (http://www.remastersys.com/debian/remastersys.gpg.key) | apt-key add -

Update remastersys packages. After doing that, I remastered again. Everything works from USB on bare metal. If I were you, I'd remove wicd-gtk and replace it entirely with network-manager-gnome. Don't worry about the dependencies it adds. It won't make that much difference in the size of your iso. From my last test, Thunar works, shutdown and reboot work, xterm has the black background and network-manager-gnome allows me to connect to the wireless network. It didn't before I updated remastersys.

I'll hang onto the iso I created, just in case.

EDIT: You'll have to redo the GRUB and syslinux splash screens, etc. after updating remastersys. But's that's a helluvalot easier than starting completely over. What was it you said once about keeping something that works?  ;)

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: patrick013 le 12 mai 2013 à 01:51:49
When I did a Scorpio remaster about 10 days ago it worked.

1) chattr closed the remaster config file

2) updated etc/skel from within remastersys only

3) made a copy of my /home/user files to extract after the install

4)  put the iso on a usb and just installed it to another usb

Only problem was a few permissions in /home/user config folders.

Will put the remastersys repos in the sources.list  but not going to
update anything just yet.    What do you have to do to the grub
screen anyway  ?     

regards,

patrick
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 12 mai 2013 à 02:41:16
Thanks all.  I'll put in the Remastersys repo and try again.  Hopefully all will continue on - couldn't face doing all that work again  :o

@ patrick013 - you set the grub and splash images in Remastersys via the options offered when you launch it.  DistBoot and DistGrub allow to set your images. 
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 12 mai 2013 à 03:14:16
Great news! Congrats to all for this good job!

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 12 mai 2013 à 08:47:09
HOORAY !!  Added and updated the Remastersys repo and the remaster worked fine.  I'm not sure why I never added the repo in the first place - I may have been trying to be conservative and stay away from the bleeding edge.  I will now apply the same fix to the new Scorpio as it is based on VillageBox, unlike the current downloadable version.

Hopefully the Remastersys repo will run for a while - OS4 look to be making it an integral part of their distro so hopefully System Imager will be available for all to use.

@djohnston - thanks for your perseverance.  By the way, what advantage does network-manager-gnome have over wicd-gtk - is it the gtk element?
Titre: Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: djohnston le 12 mai 2013 à 17:30:00
@djohnston - thanks for your perseverance.  By the way, what advantage does network-manager-gnome have over wicd-gtk - is it the gtk element?

You're welcome. Glad I could help. After testing wicd-gtk several times with two different wireless setups, it's impossible to get a wireless connection. The detectable local networks, (a few in the neighborhood), won't even show. With network-manager-gnome, I don't get a connection right off the bat because we're using WPA2 encryption. I can't connect to our home network without supplying the password. But, network-manager-gnome shows all the available networks by SSID and immediately offers to connect to one. It's easy and painless.

Hopefully the Remastersys repo will run for a while - OS4 look to be making it an integral part of their distro so hopefully System Imager will be available for all to use.

fragadelic won't be doing any more development, as you know. However, the repo will be up for a while. This is a good time to grab the packages for local storage. After testing your respin again yesterday, I happened to remember there was a Debian update to syslinux which "broke" part of remastersys. That's the reason remastersys was again updated beyond the version you were using.

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 12 mai 2013 à 19:50:02
Hi,
In the Ubuntu spin I had done lately with wicd-gtk inside instead of gnome-network-manager we could not succeed having the wifi connection working either. So back to gnome-network-manager too.

Titre: Re : Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: patrick013 le 12 mai 2013 à 23:44:59
After testing wicd-gtk several times with two different wireless setups, it's impossible to get a wireless connection.

I'm using wicd-gtk --tray and am very happy with it.
There must be a permission conflict somewhere in that
directory.   Debian 7 is supposed to be super with hardware
so it should work.

Otherwise updated remastersys thru the repo, lost the
graphical screen during boot, but did assign a default
Debian screen for that purpose for later use.    Changed the
font size and weight on the grub text screen instead.

regards,

patrick
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 13 mai 2013 à 14:47:07
Well that's a bit of a dilemma - to wicd-gtk or not :-\  I noticed that patrick013 referred to "wicd-gtk --tray".  That is the default placement for VillageBox so I was wondering how others were launching wicd.  Maybe that is a key?

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 13 mai 2013 à 14:59:02
Hi,
In Ubuntu, whether you start it or not from a desktop file or from the autostart file, the result is the same. The key is probably somewhere else "out there", in the python code or such.

My idea of the problem is that it belongs to the developers of the wicd program. I make use of it in Archlinux, where I am not using wifi for the time being. In Ubuntu I have reinstalled the gnome network manager package because it contains nm-applet.

I think nm-applet is better because it faces more situations, then as you know each user can switch later at will, if he wants another program better.

The ideal scheme here would be to be able to bring some valuable content with some relevant logs and precise information on the hardware, software used, conditions, and go bring some feedback upstream.

See here for information: https://bugs.launchpad.net/wicd/+bugs

The title of this issue looks like the issue we met when trying at home:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/wicd/+bug/415719

At the last pages of the bug reports, you can open the first bug and the last bug of the page, and notice one is from 2012 and the last one is the most recent as of 2013 and they seem to have been posted in the void for no one answered.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/wicd/+bugs?orderby=-importance&memo=&start=150&direction=backwards

This does not look very good to me.

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 13 mai 2013 à 16:09:45
My issue with network-manager-gnome is the amount of crud it brings with it.  Full install is 19.1/41.9mb including gnome-icon-theme and imagemagick(!), and even without recommends it's still 12.6/22.8mb - still with that dang theme.  What about network-manager on its own?  Maybe not - it needs a front end.  Problem is that Debian recommends wicd for lightweight systems like XFCE and OB without Gnome dependencies.  I hate getting too close to the likes of Gnome - I gave up on Nautilus because of all the tentacles.  Really starts to add ballast to "light-weight" systems. 

My main problem is that I don't have wireless here set up for Linux.  The two units using wireless are an iPad and a Windows laptop, so I don't have a way to test things.  However, thinking out loud, I could run VillageBox on USB through the laptop - that might give me a test bed.  Something to try out.

And don't ask about the Windows thingy - that was an accidental acquisition :-[
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: mimas le 13 mai 2013 à 17:01:01
Wicd could not connect to the wifi spot on my laptop when I tested Bento. It's strange because I use wicd to manage wifi connections on my archlinux and it works well. Is the Ubuntu version buggy ?

I'll try wicd again and look up for a way to resolve this issue.

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: djohnston le 13 mai 2013 à 17:03:29
I'm using wicd-gtk --tray and am very happy with it.
There must be a permission conflict somewhere in that
directory.

Can you post a screenshot of wicd showing local wireless networks? Or a screenshot of the connect to a wireless network dialog?

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: patrick013 le 13 mai 2013 à 20:51:06
Can you post a screenshot of wicd showing local wireless networks? Or a screenshot of the connect to a wireless network dialog?

Yes, but I'm not using Scorpio right now.   I'll try it out on
the test reinstall of Scorpio I did on a flash drive.    Perhaps
that will replicate some problem.   The eth0 part works
fine on that however.

What does your terminal say about that ?     Perhaps kill it
and restart it in the terminal to get some error clue  ?
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: djohnston le 14 mai 2013 à 05:28:56
I was finally able to connect to my wireless network using wicd. I booted from a standard Debian installation with the LXDE desktop. wicd is the network manager installed by default with the LXDE desktop packages. The wireless interface is not entered in the configuration by default. You have to fill in the blank. Left-click on the wicd icon in the systray. The app will scan for wireless networks and probably report there are none. Left-click the arrow to the right of the Refresh button to get a drop-down menu. Select Preferemces. Under the General Settings tab, fill in wlan0 for the wireless interface.

(http://i44.tinypic.com/b8slzb.jpg)

Save and close the window. Click the Refresh button, If you're lucky, some wireless networks will show. Click the Connect button for the one you want to connect to. If it's password protected, fill in the password. After saving the password, you'll have to click the Connect button again.

On the first three attempts, my wireless network would not negotiate the password. It's a long one, but nm-applet has no trouble with it at all. On the fourth try, the password was finally accepted. I waited for an assigned IP address. It failed. I tried a fifth time. The password negotiation was successful, getting an assigned IP address failed again. On the sixth try, after waiting about a minute, I finally got a connection. (Note that the password was entered only once. It was retained in the settings for each subsequent attempt.)

General comparisons:

wicd showed a signal strength of 97% for my network. nm-applet showed 83%.
wicd showed 3 available networks. nm-applet showed 6.
wicd took approximately 60 seconds to connect. nm-applet took approximately 5 seconds.
wicd took 6 attempts fo connect. nm-applet connects successfully the first time, every time.

YMMV

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: patrick013 le 14 mai 2013 à 23:14:10
(http://i39.tinypic.com/671m5c.png)

Scorpio with wicd.

Works 100% here.
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 16 mai 2013 à 14:11:36
I finally managed to prise the Windows laptop from my daughter's hands!  I mounted VillageBox from a USB stick and using the default installed wicd-gtk went looking for our wireless network.  It doesn't pick things up automatically - you have to tell it to look.  I don't know much about wireless as I am firmly attached to our ADSL line!  I followed djohnston's instructions - it did find a network,  mentioned encryption and then wouldn't connect without a key.  Key, what key?!?  Turns out it needed a password.  Had to hit my youngest daughter up for that one!  So armed with a password and picking the right protocol I finally had the wireless network up and running.  I'm in new territory here - anyone else would have done that straight-up.  On our setup it was all straight forward.

My inclination is to leave WICD as default in VillageBox.  It works for some, not so well for others but it is the lighter of the options.  It is a bit like selecting a web browser - whatever is chosen as default will be replaced by a proportion of users with their own choice.  I guess if wicd-gtk really doesn't work for your system then you need to replace it with gnome-network-manager - with or without recommends I'm not sure.

Just out of curiosity, is it possible to get wicd-gtk to auto-connect to a wireless network like it does to a wired one.  I know it may ask for a password but if Windows and Apple can do it, why not Linux?     
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: mimas le 16 mai 2013 à 19:10:54
> is it possible to get wicd-gtk to auto-connect to a wireless network like it does to a wired one.  I know it may ask for a password but if Windows and Apple can do it, why not Linux?

It is possible to do so with wicd. There is a checkbox "Automatically connect to this network" (or something similar) with every wifii network listed in the wicd-gtk windows. If wicd doesn't detect any wifi netkwork, well... you can't check it.
Titre: Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: patrick013 le 16 mai 2013 à 20:35:48
My inclination is to leave WICD as default in VillageBox.   

I've always been happy with wicd whenever it was installed OK.
Preferences, Properties, have to have a few config's filled in.

The modem/router wireless key/password is usually on the
bottom of the unit unless somebody went inside (with the
router system password) and changed it.   Everything's
automatic then.    WEP has to be WEP, WPA2 has to be WPA2
also.     Can't mix those up.
Titre: Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: djohnston le 16 mai 2013 à 21:34:59
It is a bit like selecting a web browser - whatever is chosen as default will be replaced by a proportion of users with their own choice.

True.

I guess if wicd-gtk really doesn't work for your system then you need to replace it with gnome-network-manager - with or without recommends I'm not sure.

I like things as light as possible, too. That's why I did the following. After installing the network-manager-gnome package, I removed everything I could. Here's the full list of packages first installed, including recommended packages:

bluez (4.99-2)
dnsmasq-base (2.62-3+deb7u1)
gir1.2-gnomebluetooth-1.0 (3.4.2-1)
gnome-bluetooth (3.4.2-1)
gvfs-backends (1.12.3-4)
imagemagick-common (8:6.7.7.10-5)
libbluetooth3 (4.99-2)
libc6-i686 (2.13-38)
libcdio-cdda1 (0.83-4)
libcdio-paranoia1 (0.83-4)
libcdio13 (0.83-4)
libexif12 (0.6.20-3)
libgd2-xpm (2.0.36~rc1~dfsg-6.1)
libgnome-bluetooth10 (3.4.2-1)
libgphoto2-2 (2.4.14-2)
libgphoto2-l10n (2.4.14-2)
libgphoto2-port0 (2.4.14-2)
liblqr-1-0 (0.4.1-2)
libmagickcore5 (8:6.7.7.10-5)
libmagickwand5 (8:6.7.7.10-5)
libnetfilter-conntrack3 (1.0.1-1)
libnl-route-3-200 (3.2.7-4)
libnm-glib-vpn1 (0.9.4.0-10)
libnm-glib4 (0.9.4.0-10)
libnm-gtk-common (0.9.4.1-5)
libnm-gtk0 (0.9.4.1-5)
libnm-util2 (0.9.4.0-10)
libopenobex1 (1.5-2)
libsoup-gnome2.4-1 (2.38.1-2)
modemmanager (0.5.2.0-2)
network-manager (0.9.4.0-10)
network-manager-gnome (0.9.4.1-5)
obex-data-server (0.4.5-1+b3)
obexd-client (0.46-1+b1)

That's quite a list. I knew you don't need imagemagick packages for a network manager, so I set about removing anything unnecessary. After refreshing the packages list from the repos, I marked the following for complete removal and removed them:

gnome-bluetooth
imagemagick-common
libmagickcore5
libmagickwand5
obex-data-server
gvfs-backends
libgphoto2-2
libgphoto2-l10n
libgphoto2-port0

That left the following packages showing in Synaptic as auto-removable:

bluez
gir1.2-gnomebluetooth-1.0
liblqr-1-0
libopenobex1
obexd-client
libbluetooth3
libcdio-cdda1
libcdio-paranoia1
libcdio13
libexif12
libgd2-xpm
libsoup-gnome2.4-1

After removing all those packages, as well, the total list of necessary packages for network-manager-gnome comes to:

dnsmasq-base (2.62-3+deb7u1)
libc6-i686 (2.13-38)
libgnome-bluetooth10 (3.4.2-1)
libnetfilter-conntrack3 (1.0.1-1)
libnl-route-3-200 (3.2.7-4)
libnm-glib-vpn1 (0.9.4.0-10)
libnm-glib4 (0.9.4.0-10)
libnm-gtk-common (0.9.4.1-5)
libnm-gtk0 (0.9.4.1-5)
libnm-util2 (0.9.4.0-10)
modemmanager (0.5.2.0-2)
network-manager (0.9.4.0-10)
network-manager-gnome (0.9.4.1-5)

Those are the ones still installed. Functionality is still the same. Note that libgnome-bluetooth10 cannot be removed without removing network-manager-gnome. Any bluetooth packages wanted can be reinstalled without upsetting the network-manager-gnome dependency chain.

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 01 juin 2013 à 11:52:18
OK, I bit the bullet.  I have removed wicd from my test VillageBox  and installed network-manager-gnome by installing only those items you listed as remaining in your previous post.  libc6-i686 was already installed, but gnome-icon-theme HAS to be installed, and it takes up most of the 24mb of install space!  I hate that theme!!  And why the hell tie in themes as dependencies??  But don't get me started!

Anyway it all seems to be working fine - I haven't tried to do anything with it as I don't do wireless, but the icon appears in the tray, gigolo works and info bit shows all the right things.  I'll sit on it for a bit - if wicd proves too problematic we may have to go with this, or we could at least try it out and see which one of the two is least problematic. 
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 01 juin 2013 à 14:24:43
Hi,

Wicd can be problematic at times, and it would need to be debugged and bug reported. And yes, gnome icon theme is the very load in those distros, including Ubuntu where I could get rid of it… just it was replaced by a theme yet bigger! ^^

Could you let me know about the link to the new version once available, so I can replace the former version?

Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 02 juin 2013 à 02:12:25
VillageBox_2013-1 is now uploaded for evaluation.

VillageBox_2013-1.iso (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18945176/VillageBox_2013-1.iso)           442mb
VillageBox_2013-1.iso.md5 (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18945176/VillageBox_2013-1.iso.md5)   56b

This is VillageBox with the repos set to Wheezy Stable - will stay that way until the repos settle down.  There has been a general clean-up and error fixing, but the one big change is in networking.

Network-manager-gnome has been installed in preference to wicd, due to inconsistencies some users have been having with wicd.  It is a stripped down version of network-manager-gnome as per djohnston's efforts (http://linuxvillage.net/index.php/topic,102.msg2334.html#msg2334).  We can now do a back-to-back comparison between network-manager-gnome and wicd and see which is the least problematic.

I won't be putting this version of VillageBox out into the public arena until I am sure it works the best for the most.
Titre: Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: melodie le 02 juin 2013 à 02:40:50
I won't be putting this version of VillageBox out into the public arena until I am sure it works the best for the most.

Does this mean the above link should be the only one, or would you like me to add it to the webspace at tyruiop for convenient download anyhow?
Titre: Re : Re : VillageBox Support Page
Posté par: Taco.22 le 02 juin 2013 à 06:12:10
Does this mean the above link should be the only one, or would you like me to add it to the webspace at tyruiop for convenient download anyhow?
I think just leave it as is for the time being.  If it works as it should and people are happy with it then it will become the next official release.