(Solved) - Sparrow wallet xzm module converted from .deb is not working on Porteus 5.01 KDE, help please, thanks.

[joejac]

In order to be used a module has to be Activated which means it is seen in the /mnt/live/memory/images folder. Sparrow doesn't show as being there in your image.

Do you have the extamod= cheatcode in your boot parms? If you're using the porteus.cfg menu add it to the APPEND line. If your using a grub2 menu add it to the /boot/syslinux/vmlinuz line.

Hello @Ep_P and thank you:
This link shows a screen capture showing Vivaldi module working fine, placed in modules folder, and also in menu; Sparrow module is also in same modules folder and activated, but sparrow does not run nor is in the menu. I added the cheatcode as you can see from porteus.cfg This time I checked again that Vivaldi and Sparrow, both are in the mnt/live/memory/images folder, but Sparrow is not running, Vivaldi is running fine.
https://ibb.co/544whMr

From the documentation, if I place and activate all new program modules under porteus directory (porteus/modules), I assume it should work as it is working Vivaldi.
Reference: http://www.porteus.org/component/conten ... -them.html

extramod=/path/folder_with_modules
extramod=/path/folder_with_modules;/path2/folder_with_modules

... This cheatcode lets you load modules from one or more external
folders that are located outside of the /porteus directory.
Multiple folders can be specified, with full paths separated by
a semicolon without any spaces.
Examples:
'extramod=/mnt/sdb3/porteus-modules'
'extramod=/mnt/sdb3/porteus-modules;/mnt/sdc4/inkscape_modules'

What am I doing wrong?
Thanks and regards

[roadie]

Hello @@roadie,
Your module does show Sparrow wallet on the Internet menu and it works fine, but not the module generated with Porteus in any of my installations, KDE nor XFCE.
Here is a screen capture, of the result of the last 2 commands, same issue.
https://ibb.co/2dq10qh

In XFCE is 1 MB more (101.0)
Also the owner is root, I do not know if this can cause problems.
Thanks

This is really weird, the activate command shows no errors when you ran it. The sparrow module should show in /mnt/live/memory/images, but doesn't, therefore the module isn't activated. The ownership isn't a problem as root privileges are needed to build the mod, so they're all owned by root. The size difference might be due to the compression used, zstd will be larger than xz.

The only thing I can think of is that Virtualbox is stopping the activation from completing, but then an error should show......as I said, I have no experience with Virtualbox.

[roadie]

@joejac,

Maybe try extracting the sparrow module into a folder and run dir2xzm on it......probably no difference, but I'm lost. Copy the sparrow mod into /tmp and in a terminal, run:

Code: Select all

su
toor
cd /tmp
mkdir -p sparrow
/opt/porteus-scripts/xzm2dir sparrow_1.9.1-1_amd64.xzm sparrow

If you think that this admittedly dubious idea might work, at this point you could cd into sparrow and create /usr/share/applications and move the /opt/sparrow/lib/ .desktop file into it, You would need to edit the .desktop file to replace "Network" with "Internet" on line 7, then cd back into /tmp and run:

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/opt/porteus-scripts/dir2xzm sparrow sparrow_1.9.1-1_amd64.xzm
activate sparrow_1.9.1-1_amd64.xzm

Yes, I'm grasping at straws.

[joejac]

Yes, I'm grasping at straws.

Hello roadie,
I guess is not a straws, it is a magic wand!
https://ibb.co/nbMYb2M

Sorry, I followed your recommendation, but via Thunar
Now I go back to my loved KDE to open a wallet in testnet and test some more.
Thanks a lot to all for your kind help, and to roadi with his magic wand.
At the end of my tests I will mark this topic as resolved.
Best regards

[roadie]

Yes, I'm grasping at straws.

Hello roadie,
I guess is not a straws, it is a magic wand!
https://ibb.co/nbMYb2M

Sorry, I followed your recommendation, but via Thunar
Now I go back to my loved KDE to open a wallet in testnet and test some more.
Thanks a lot to all for your kind help, and to roadi with his magic wand.
At the end of my tests I will mark this topic as resolved.
Best regards

No problem, Thunar works too, I just default to the terminal so errors can be seen. I'm thinking Virtualbox is playing games with things.

[joejac]

Hello and thanks.
1. I have a problem now, it is normal that Porteus KDE, once installed in the virtualbox machine, has a VDI of 2.4GB while same installation on Porteus XFCE has a VDI of only 664 MB?. On the KDE VM I created a new user but I deleted the guest user, so, does anybody knows why is there such a huge difference between KDE and XFCE in terms of disk usage? if I installed, on both VMs, only 210 MB in 2 xzm modules: Sparrow and Vivaldi. I deleted all downloaded files, and cleared the .cache directory and I still have 2.4GB VDI for Porteus KDE 5.01.

2. I reinstalled Porteus KDE 5.01 and noticed an initial VDI of 590MB at the end of the installation, which is fine for me, then I only added 210MB in 2 xzm files, because I deleted all the downloaded files and all the content of .cache directory and I still have about 2GB VDI for porteus KDE 5.01. About 1.1GB were lost, what happend with this 1.1GB?

This virtual machine is only for sparrow so it should not have more than 1GB VDI, this is my main goal, and I love KDE but this behavior worries me.

Sorry, but I need to understand why so big difference in VDI size between XFCE and KDE, thanks.

[i3slkiller]

To shrink VDI image:
- On VM fill free space with zeroes

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dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/sda1/zero
rm /mnt/sda1/zero

- After powering off VM type such command:

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vboxmanage modifymedium disk path/to/vm/disk001.vdi --compact

[joejac]

Thank you i3slkiller, nice name, but before I kill the vdi wtth that command, first I need to now: why is that huge discrepancy from KDE to XFCE VDIs size? if both have ony 2 additional programs installed and are the same . then if I have to use XFCE, much to my regret, I will run that command since I will have to delete both KDE 5.01 VMs, anyway.

Reading this, I think that command is very risky and does not answer my concer about KDE consuming 1,1GB extra without a know reason to me:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... dev-sda-do

Thank you and regards.

[i3slkiller]

why is that huge discrepancy from KDE to XFCE VDIs size?

Hmm, I did an experiment which proves that regardless if selected kde or xfce, it does not have a huge impact on virtual disk space usage.
I installed systems on VMs with 1536 MB RAM, 8 GB vdisk with ext4 partition only, no swap; on both VMs added Vivaldi and Sparrow exactly the same way:
- premade Vivaldi downloaded using "Browser Selection and Update Tool" and moved to porteus/modules
- premade Sparrow downloaded from link on this thread in Vivaldi and moved to porteus/modules

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                                        kde    xfce
after install:                          519M   445M
just after first boot:                  549M   450M
while later not doing anything:         552M   450M
downloaded premade vivaldi:             666M   563M
move vivaldifrom aufs to prt/modules:   771M   674M
after reboot:                           776M   676M
first start vivaldi & pass oobe:        804M   694M
while later when vivaldi running:       827M   694M
while later when vivaldi running:       846M   698M
restart vivaldi:                        857M   701M
while later when vivaldi running:       860M   705M
open this thread:                       861M   706M
open mediafire page with sparrow xzm:   888M   708M
download sparrow xzm:                   1054M  896M
close vivaldi:                          1055M  896M
move sparrow from aufs to prt/modules:  1055M  904M
after shutdown:                         1056M  905M
just after boot:                        1060M  906M
started sparrow:                        1060M  906M
sparrow new wallet:                     1061M  908M
close sparrow:                          1061M  908M
after shutdown:                         1064M  908M

Conclusion is that you somehow did more operations causing writes on KDE VM.

Reading this, I think that command is very risky and does not answer my concer about KDE consuming 1,1GB extra without a know reason to me:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... dev-sda-do

Yes, it is very risky when writing directly to disk/partition, however we are writing to file here, so we only risk temporary lack of free space on virtual disk, especially when these commands are executed on unprivileged user and not pointed to existing file (because will be overwritten). EDIT: Although you have to be careful too.

[joejac]

Thank you @i3slkiller for your detailed explanation and your valuable time invested in testing both installations.
Checking further, I noticed a discrepancy in the directories: home and opt of KDE and XFCE, and discovered that despite I have in porteus.cfg in Graphics mode:

APPEND changes=/mnt/sda1/porteus

I found that everything I had installed in XFCE: sparrow and vivaldi, that both consume about 500MB among xzm modules, opt and config files, was lost when shut off the vm, I realized that now. For this reason XFCE was so low in disk usage inducing me into wrong thinking. But I think I still have to fine tune KDE.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, and clarification of the dd command.
Regards

[joejac]

Hello and thank you all for your kind help.

Sparrow runs in Porteus. Unfortunately, it did not run as expected. I observed that submenu are detached from the main menu, making it very difficult to select an option. So I decided that it is not safe to use Sparrow in Porteus if it does not run 100% well. I tested in KDE and Cinnamon and had the same issue. I also tested on a native Debian distro and this issue was not observed.

I will mark this post as resolved because Sparrow does run, but does not run 100% well for some reason. I understand that Porteus is based on Slackware, which is not Debian. It is doing a great job translating .deb to .xzm but it seems to me it is not 100% perfect. This might not be important for non-critical programs, but I think it is not advisable to take risks with a program that handles cryptos.

Thanks and regards.