PorteuX 0.7 has been released

[rych]

Even when you have several USB thumbdrives plugged in at boot time, say sdb and sdc, and you boot from sdc

Ha, that'd be an interesting experiment! I believe as long as there is at least ONE (and only?) /porteus folder on ANY recognized drive it will be found and used. In my case, it's just on a different partition on the same disk -- and I never have to specify which one -- it's found automagically

[Rava]

automagically

I see what you did there.

Added in 8 minutes 45 seconds:

I believe as long as there is at least ONE (and only?) /porteus folder on ANY recognized drive it will be found and used.

Indeed, but believe me, I had the described experience more than once in the past. And the results can be annoying.

Back to my example:
You tell your BIOS to boot from sdc
On sdc you have the most recent version of porteus or porteux.

Let's presume on sdb you also have an outdated malfunctioning version of porteus or porteux.

Lets make this example more easy and say we only have porteux kernel and porteux/ folder to concern us with.

What will happen: having given no UUID instructions, the kernel will search for the first porteux/ folder it can find. And while the initrd and kernel have been taken from sdc, the kernel will use porteux/ from sdb since sdb is found first, and sdc is found just after that. (Presuming you need not to have your boot process sleep some seconds to have all devices be ready, the easiest way to get there is use 2 identical USB thumbdrives: same manufacturer, same size, both will initialize and be ready at almost the very same time: meaning sdb will always be found before sdc will be found)
Now recall that on sdb there is an outdated and malfunctioning porteux/ ? That would be loaded and either your boot process will create errors, or you will load outdated modules that might clash with the newer kernel from sdc.
Especially since 000-kernel.xzm is meant to fit the kernel you use.

And even when the outdated modules not create any issues: these are not the droids modules you have been looking for: since you booted from sdc you most likely wanted porteux to load the newest versions of your modules from /mnt/sdc?/porteux/base and not from /mnt/sdb?/porteux/base

(I put in a "?" because some USB thumbdrives are formatted by the manufacturers to be mounted as /mnt/sdb/ while most are formatted to be mounted as /mnt/sdb1 .)

[porteux]

If PorteuX installer for Linux (/boot/porteux-installer-for-linux.run) is used, it will record the storage unit UUID inside initrd, so during boot it will first try to match, and for the fallback it will try to search for the first unit found that contains /porteux folder.

[Rava]

^
I did not know that (thanks for the heads up), so my above example is false and would only work for Porteus (unless one uses a different bootloader setup than the porteux-installer-for-linux.run - e.g. adding it to an existing Porteus thumbdrive, or using an existing GRUB setup, or an existing LILO setup…)

[Rava]

Rebooted Porteux V0.7 with the NV driver. Used text mode.
Logged in as root: all is well in the Virtual Console world.
Logged in as guest and executed startx: no such luck.

Used my old trusty "ct" script (for "capture terminal") to display the output of any virtual terminal to capture via redirect into a file the last few lines of the failed startx:

Code: Select all

        Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
        to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
        (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Sun Nov  5 09:10:54 2023
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
(==) Using config directory: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d"
(==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
================ WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING ================
This server has a video driver ABI version of 25.2 that this
driver does not officially support.  Please check
http://www.nvidia.com/ for driver updates or downgrade to an X
server with a supported driver ABI.
=================================================================
(WW) NVIDIA: The driver will continue to load, but may behave strangely.
(WW) NVIDIA: This driver was compiled against the X.Org server SDK from commit e
6ef2b12404dfec7f23592a3524d2a63d9d25802 and may not be compatible with the final
 version of this SDK.
(EE)     (EE)xinit: giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused
xinit: server error
guest@porteux:~$

I had to use the "R" only of REISUB (see Magic SysRq key if you are unfamiliar with it ) to get control of the keyboard back from some undefined state, or else I could not have captured the above since the screen was black-ish, no mouse, and no reaction when pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get back to the root virtual terminal.
Alt+SysRq (keep pressing Alt) Alt+R was needed to be able to do anything with the keyboard again.

Added in 3 minutes 5 seconds:
"downgrade to an X server with a supported driver ABI"
I am sure downgrading the X server would be no small feat, and would most likely affect many other programs?
Am I correct in that assumption, porteux?

[rych]

If PorteuX installer for Linux (/boot/porteux-installer-for-linux.run) is used

Oh, I haven't run those installers in years. Have I been wrong in not doing so? I just copy from the mounted iso onto my partitions -- that's all the porteus installation and updating I seem to need. What does /boot/porteux-installer-for-linux.run even do besides the above, perhaps I'm missing on something important? My Porteus and PorteuX both seem to work well without it though

[Ed_P]

Have I been wrong in not doing so?

No, they are mostly used with USB installs to make the drive bootable.

[rych]

they are mostly used with USB installs to make the drive bootable

Yes, but you know what: I'm also installing on a USB, with the first partition FAT32 containing EFI and boot folders -- and that seems to be enough for it to be UEFI-bootable -- none of my partitions even have "boot" flag seen by GParted, and I never ran any porteus/x installer.sh on any of it.

[porteux]

@Rava, reverting Xorg is not a resonable option. Are you using PorteuX current? If so, try PorteuX stable since it has an older version of Xorg.

If you have the same error using PorteuX stable, so I'm afraid you'll have to either upgrade your hardware or keep using an old kernel/driver. Another option would be just using nouveau drivers -- considering your hardware is too old I don't think using Nvidia drivers would make much difference.

[Rava]

If you have the same error using PorteuX stable, so I'm afraid you'll have to either upgrade your hardware or keep using an old kernel/driver. Another option would be just using nouveau drivers -- considering your hardware is too old I don't think using Nvidia drivers would make much difference.

I presume PorteuX stable v0.7 uses the same kernel as PorteuX current?

If PorteuX stable v0.7 and your NV driver also fails, which older kernel do you recommend?

When I reboot I want to try out more than one option if possible since my workflow got interrupted anyway, and thus trying a few alternative options in one go is a better way than just trying one single option (and after that reporting the errors, like I did above) and back to Porteus 5.01 I am once more.

In Port 5.01 I use this kernel and NV driver for years:
▀▄ uname -a ▀▄ ls -d 010-nvidia*xzm ▀▄ cat /etc/porteus/* ▀▄ Xorg -version ▀▄

Code: Select all

guest@rava:~$ uname -a
Linux rava.myporteus.net 5.4.30-porteus #1 SMP Sat Apr 4 20:11:00 UTC 2020 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU       Q 720  @ 1.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
guest@rava:~$ ls -d /mnt/live/memory/images/010-nvidia*
/mnt/live/memory/images/010-nvidia-340.108-k.5.4.30-porteus-v5.0-x86_64_rava.xzm
guest@rava:~$ cat /etc/porteus/*
001-core.xzm:20230922
002-xorg.xzm:20231001
002-xtra.xzm:20230922
003-xfce.xzm:20230922
06-man.xzm:20230915
initrd.xz:20220928
guest@rava:~$ Xorg -version

X.Org X Server 1.20.14
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Slackware 15.0 Slackware Linux Project
Current Operating System: Linux rava.myporteus.net 5.4.30-porteus #1 SMP Sat Apr 4 20:11:00 UTC 2020 x86_64
Kernel command line: quiet BOOT_IMAGE=vmlinuz initrd=initrd.xz from=UUID:d76a6490-6853-48db-93db-1380a4acaad5/Porteus_5.0.1 ramsize=10% zram=8% timezone=Europe/Berlin volume=75% kmap=de lang=de fsck 3 
Build Date: 29 March 2023  01:43:21PM
 
Current version of pixman: 0.40.0
	Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
	to make sure that you have the latest version.

and I get much better results than with just using nouveau.

[Ed_P]

Is there a way to change the color of the taskbar panel? And to change the size of the mouse pointer?

Added in 15 hours 45 minutes 18 seconds:
Apparently not. I've tried every menu option.

[Rava]

Is there a way to change the color of the taskbar panel? And to change the size of the mouse pointer?

Added in 15 hours 45 minutes 18 seconds:
Apparently not. I've tried every menu option.

What kind of DE are you using?

[Ed_P]

What kind of DE are you using?

Cinnamon. PorteuX 0.5 has been released (Post by porteux #94812)

Added in 8 hours 18 minutes 17 seconds:
Found a way to change the taskbar's panel.

Menu > Preferences > System Settings > Themes > Desktop > Mint-X-Blue yields a lighter grey color.

A yellow shade or some other color would require downloading and testing multiple themes. Probably a similar approach needed for a larger mouse pointer.

Added in 15 minutes 20 seconds:
Found how to change the mouse pointer's size.

Menu > Preferences > Mouse & Touchpad
Mouse
Pointer size and speed.

[Rava]

Good you have been able to fix both the taskbar and the mouse size.

What kind of DE are you using?

Cinnamon. PorteuX 0.5 has been released (Post by porteux #94812)

Do you use the v0.5 porteux Cinnamon module in v0.7 porteux?

[Ed_P]

Do you use the v0.5 porteux Cinnamon module in v0.7 porteux?

It's the only one that I'm aware of. I used to use the Porteus 5.0rc* one in porteux 0.4. When it stopped working in 0.5 porteux made the new one.