Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin

[Taco.22]

Update - additions have been made.  See Changelog

Village_RC2 is now available for download.

ISO - Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso         415mb
md5 - Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso.md5   59kb

The usual info -

It is based on Openbox Wheezy with Testing enabled.  If you want to change to Stable or SID then just edit /etc/apt/sources.list accordingly.  The wallpaper and DM login have been given their own look.  Feel free to workshop those!  It comes with Openbox-menu; lightDM as DM; Thunar as FM; WICD for networking; Gigolo for local networking; Midori as browser; Sakura as default terminal; Geany as editor; XFburn for writing CD/DVDs; Catfish for file search; Geeqie for images; feh for wallpaper; Synaptic as package manager; Tint2 as panel; Xcompmgr for desktop effects; Remastersys for remastering and conky as system monitor.  The desktop keybindings remain the same.  Screenshots are enabled by scrot through the right-click menu or by hitting "PrintScreen".  CUPS printing is available through the browser via its own command under "Applications-System Tools - Print".

Thanks to djohnston Village_RC2 is able to set Language and Locale preferences.  Feh controls the wallpaper as a plugin to Thunar - right-click on a picture and set it as wallpaper.  Launch Gigolo from the tray and it uses Thunar to display network shares - double-click in Gigolo to open in Thunar.

It has been designed as a basic but fully functional base for people to build their own spin.  If you want to overlay LXDE or another desktop manager; change browser, file manager or panel; set up a multimedia or diagnostic spin; port it to another language; add things like ZRAM and sudo;  it is the raw canvas that will allow you to build what you want.  Or you can use it just as it is!
This will allow members of the Village to do their own builds and share them through Village community.  We can all troubleshoot issues and bugs together, and the spins can be promoted through the Village website.  So please make use of this resource - after all, it is yours.  Enjoy.

Screenshots -

• xcompmgr in action
• Gigolo and Thunar
• Setting wallpaper

Notes on Installation -

A note on the installation procedure with the Remastersys Live Installer and Village_RC2.

When you initially boot the live cd/usb there can be a wait of up to half a minute whilst the system loads.  It looks like nothing is happening but be patient - this depends on the speed of your machine.   The system will bring you directly to the desktop - remember there is no root account - no password is needed to activate the installer.  Because there are no desktop icons on this remaster, you need to activate the right-click menu and go to Applications-System Tools.  Once there click on "Live Installer"

The installer is pretty straightforward.  It will ask you if you want to continue, which keyboard and locale to use, which partition to use, and then it will open gparted.  Go ahead and adjust your partitions accordingly - if no action is needed just quit out of gparted.  You will then be asked which partition root will go, which file system you want, where to put /home, and then password/user details.  Scorpio does not run sudo, so you will have a root account to set up.  Just be aware that if you are used to "keyboarding" your way through a list, hit "tab" not "return"  when filling in the user details - "return" will take you to the end of the list and give you an error message.  You will then be asked where you want the bootloader installed, and to set the time zone.

At this point you will then be given the location of where the install will go, and asked if you want to continue.  If all is well click yes.  The install does not take long on hardware - however be patient if loading into VBox.  When installing grub a terminal will pop up with some scary error messages on it.  Just close your eyes!  A minute or two later when you open them again they will be gone and you will have a dialogue box telling you a that the new system is installed and asking if you want to reboot.  If you click "yes" the system will spit out the cd/usb and reboot.  The whole process from boot to reboot should be no more than ten minutes.

All being well you will have the lightDM login screen appear - just login with your user name and start playing!

Remember, you can use Remastersys to create your own build.  Just go to Application-System Tools-Remastersys Backup and you too can create your own spin as a backup, to give to friends or as your own mini distro.

[melodie]

Hi,
feh as a plugin seems nice and smart. How do you do the setup to get it this way ?

Notes on Installation -

A note on the installation procedure with the Remastersys Live Installer and Scorpio_Openbox.

don't you mean "Village" ?

When you initially boot the live cd/usb there can be a wait of up to half a minute whilst the system loads.

It might be because of the higher compression. My bet would be that in old machines, with Celeron processors, or PIII... any slow proc, it will be much slower. Wasn't there an intermediate compression algorythm ? In pclos Texstar had added 3 methods, from gzip to xz, but I don't remember which one was the intermediate : lzma maybe ? It might be an idea to try making one iso with lzma compression, if it compresses just a little less than xz, to see if it is faster decompressed in a significant way.

When installing grub a terminal will pop up with some scary error messages on it.  Just close your eyes!  A minute or two later when you open them again they will be gone and you will have a dialogue box telling you a that the new system is installed and asking if you want to reboot.

I want to see the scary message!²

What does it say ?

It all looks very nice. I'll test it as soon as possible (don't know why though, I have a bunch of things ahead).

[Taco.22]

Sorry about the Scorpio bit - copy and paste from that website.  Now corrected.

The thing that swung me in favour of feh was being able to incorporate it as a plugin to Thunar, which removed command line and text editing from setting wallpaper.  Just select and click.  Even easier than using Nitrogen, except Nitrogen's broken at the moment.  A simple line in autostart enables feh to remember the setting on reboot. 

The initial wait whilst isolinux loads the system can take up to half a minute depending on the speed of the machine.  The problem is that there is no indication that anything is happening.  The first couple of times I was sure I had a system hang, but fragadelic assured me that wasn't the case and to be patient.  So on boot, just wait - things will happen.  On a fast machine they will happen quicker.  It's certainly not the slowest loading live cd I've met by any stretch.  In overall terms it's one of the quickest from live boot to new installed system reboot.  In one sense the installer is not polished and shiny like a lot of others - on the hand it gets the job done quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

As to the scary bits - during install terminal is opened at one point and all sorts of error messages scroll through.   To the uninitiated they don't look good!!  So to quote Queen Victoria - "Just close your eyes and think of England!!"

[djohnston]

Excellent! This is a good base. I've found only one slight problem - not with the remaster - but with the file manager, Thunar. This is a long-standing issue with Thunar and gvfs. You may have noticed that the first time you start the file manager after a login, it may take one to two minutes to appear. When the window does finally appear, a second window will open a few seconds later. It is a bug in Thunar when trying to open network shares.

Anyway, the fix is done at system level and is a very simple fix. As root, edit /usr/share/gvfs/mounts/network.mount and change AutoMount from true to false. This disables the network browsing when Thunar starts up, but still lets you mount network storage such as samba shares on demand. It will not disable Gigolo functionality, either. It's a small price to pay for having a file manager behave as expected.

If the fix is not applied, after every login, you will see the erratic file manager (Thunar) behavior. It will only occur once, then Thunar will behave normally. If the fix is applied, it will always behave normally. It just will not automount network shares at login.

[Taco.22]

Yeah, I was kind of wondering if that issue would raise its ugly head!!  I haven't experienced it here yet but I will set the parameters as you suggested.  Another few shakes and the bugs should be out!   

[melodie]

Hello,

I remember about this now : never met the issue myself, because I mostly never used Thunar these paste years but I heard about it. I suggest you add the information in the tips and tricks section. I hope that during this year we will find time and energy to setup a dokuwiki in two languages. We have this one which has been setup long ago now, and we could just reuse what we know and the list of plugins, to make one for LinuxVillage (in two languages of course).

[Taco.22]

Thanks djohnston.  I have reinstalled a fresh version of Village and although I didn't have more than about a few seconds delay after first launching Thunar your tip completely removed it.  I have applied that to my current system and removed any lag.  Gigolo works just fine with Thunar regardless.

We'll see how the rest of it goes.

[djohnston]

You're welcome. Anything to help the Linux Village effort. It takes a village ... Nevermind.

[Taco.22]

Mate, you really have to get over that Hillary thing 

Changelog - I have made a number of changes and modifications to Village_RC2.

• Fixed the network mount glitch that can cause Thunar to pause on start.  Thunar and gigolo still work together fine.
• Installed numlockx to allow numlock to turn on at boot.  Due to some laptop thingy I need to know if autostart default needs to be off.
• Edited Remastersys to allow a "Boot to RAM" option in the live cd/usb device.
• Removed Azenis icon theme and installed MelaieSVG.  Retained Tango as root icon theme, plus it fills the gaps that MelaieSVG leaves.

I'll give it a test run and upload it in the next day or two.  It will still be RC2 and this thread will remain live. 

[melodie]

• Installed numlockx to allow numlock to turn on at boot.  Due to some laptop thingy I need to know if autostart default needs to be off.

In my T30 it has always been a painful moment when trying to login. I finally discovered how to deactivate numlock, but strangely kept forgetting how do to it each time I met again with this issue. It's a bit of a trick... something such as "shift+Fn+numlock(blue keyboard-key)"...

[Taco.22]

Not having a laptop I'm not familiar with some of their foibles but on researching I find that numlock on can be problematic for many of them.  Thus I have set numlockx to be off by default.  Easily edited in autostart by those who prefer it on - like me!

[Taco.22]

Changelog Update

I have uploaded a bug-fix/extras Village_RC2.  Same download location and no version change.  Changes are as follows -

• Fixed the network mount glitch that can cause Thunar to pause on start.  Thunar and gigolo still work together fine. Just click the network share and it will mount and stay mounted for the session.
• Installed numlockx to allow numlock to turn on at boot.  Default is OFF due to some laptop incompatabilities.  Edit autostart to switch on.
• Edited Remastersys to allow a "Boot to RAM" option in the live cd/usb device.
• Removed Azenis icon theme and installed MeliaeSVG.  Retained Tango as root icon theme, plus it fills the gaps that MelaieSVG leaves.
• Did a couple of cosmetic changes to Tint2 and so on.

In answer to a couple of queries patrick013 had elsewhere on this forum; yes, Village_RC2 will boot to RAM and also install from there.  I tried out an install to a usb stick and all went well.  The total install only occupied 1466mb and it is fully functional.  On a 4gb drive that's a lot of portability!  The only "foible" with the Remastersys installer is that it insists on a swap partition.  Just make one 3mb in size - yes, that's MB! - and all is well.  This goes for any install by the way.

One other thing.  It is something I hadn't noticed until I installed to the usb device because all my test installs are to a multi partition machine - the grub image.  It is a left-over from a previous build and although I can change it easily enough, maybe we need a generic LinuxVillage image there.  The sort of image that can be on all spins, with minor variations for spin names.

[patrick013]

Request :

Provide an option to use xfs filesystem for the full install.

I have more trouble with filesystems that have multi block
descriptor locations.    Drives my flash drive crazy, actually
makes the install unuseable.

xfs works fine, ext3 works fine but I need to add extent to the
format options, ext4 only works without flex_bg.

On a regular hard disk I can't see a problem.

Thanks Taco,

Patrick

[Taco.22]

Hi Patrick,

Gparted has the option of formatting to xfs when installing.  I'm currently researching how to do get Gparted to do this but in the meantime maybe you could check out this FAQ.

EDIT - looks like we need  xfsprogs and to reconfigure the kernel!  By the way, I've not had an issue installing to a usb stick.  What exactly is your install doing?

[melodie]

Hi,
Why would you need to modify the kernel ? In Archlinux, with kernel 3.6.11 (3.7-something available but didn't switch yet):

Code: [Sélectionner]

$ zgrep XFS /proc/config.gz
CONFIG_XFS_FS=m
CONFIG_XFS_QUOTA=y
CONFIG_XFS_POSIX_ACL=y
CONFIG_XFS_RT=y
# CONFIG_XFS_DEBUG is not set
# CONFIG_VXFS_FS is not set
$

What does the same command return in your Debian install ?

About the package, here are two debian wheezy xfsprogs packages:
http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/xfsprogs

http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/xfsprogs-udeb