Tiny Core Linux
Tiny Core Extensions => TCE Talk => Topic started by: bmarkus on September 09, 2009, 04:07:30 AM
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I started to port LXDE to TC 2.3 just recently, hope it will be up in a reasonable time.
There are LXDE components which are independent, depend only on GTK2 and can be used as standalone applications in any desktop environment. Such applications like LXTask, LXTerminal, LXRandr, GPicView, PCManFM, ... I will post them as independent extensions in the mean time.
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pcmanfm is already in the repo
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pcmanfm is already in the repo
True, but it requires a rebuild, as some files were removed in the referred extension needed now.
EDIT:
One more thing. Current version is built disabling DBUS/HAL as HAL was not available that time. Now as HAL is available, enabling it would offer benefits specially as part of a desktop environment. But lets see wheather it is really needed or not when it works.
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Thanks for the effort on LXDE, it will be a very good addition to the tc base.
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Thanks for the effort on LXDE, it will be a very good addition to the tc base.
I believe you meant tc repository. LXDE and all of its dependencies are way too large to even be considered for tc base.
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Thanks for the effort on LXDE, it will be a very good addition to the tc base.
I believe you meant tc repository. LXDE and all of its dependencies are way too large to even be considered for tc base.
Yes of course.
Just how big is LXDE? I read somewhere (can't remember where) it uses under 50MBs of RAM.
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Wait till it will work to see RAM usage :)
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I started to port LXDE to TC 2.3 just recently, hope it will be up in a reasonable time.
There are LXDE components which are independent, depend only on GTK2 and can be used as standalone applications in any desktop environment. Such applications like LXTask, LXTerminal, LXRandr, GPicView, PCManFM, ... I will post them as independent extensions in the mean time.
Any progress to report?
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Any progress to report?
Not yet, it is suspended for a while.
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how is yours LXDE?
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how is yours LXDE?
See my previous mail.
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Any progress to report?
Not yet, it is suspended for a while.
what is happened? :o
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Hey, just thought I'd drop in and say I'm looking to base my netbook on an LXDE TinyCore build with FF3.5 (or whatever is the latest by the time that happens).
looks like development of LXDE on TC has stopped, but if it starts up again, you'll have a user in me.
Best,
P
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Hello. New to tinycorelinux, but excited about it. I am also extremely interested in having LXDE, but with a slightly different motive.
My first question is, where is development documentation and how to build your own modules for tineycore. I'm assuming it would be similar to LFS, but am unfamiliar with what installation tools or dependency checking this distro uses.
And, as you can tell, my motive is to build LXDE myself :)...
Thanks for your great OS, and hopefully helpful as always,
TamusJRoyce
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My first question is, where is development documentation and how to build your own modules for tineycore.
If you mean building extensions, see http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/tiki-index.php?page=Creating+Extensions (http://wiki.tinycorelinux.com/tiki-index.php?page=Creating+Extensions)
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Good news, that I have now a basic LXDE running on TC 2.5 :) Of course there is a lot to do with its configuration, adding TC related menues, packaging, etc. but soon I will post first version for testing.
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looking forward to it.
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+1
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Good news, that I have now a basic LXDE running on TC 2.5 :) Of course there is a lot to do with its configuration, adding TC related menues, packaging, etc. but soon I will post first version for testing.
Looking forward. Greatly appreciated.
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Now public reelase is getting close, I have it running on a stock TC 2.5
(http://tc.hasix.org/scrcap/LXDE1.jpg)
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* drool *
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I submitted the basic LXDE for publication, will apear soon in the repo.
It is tested on stock TC 2.5 both with VESA and Xorg. Install LXDE.tcz which will load all components as dependencies.
LXDE is a modular system. Optional elements will be sent one by one a bit later when core is finalized.
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very nice. thanks for the work.
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To make sure that LXDE starts and not openbox, use 'tinycore desktop=lxde' boot option. You can add 'noicons' also to get rid of wbar which is not visible so no reason to run it.
The whole installed extension set is 16.5Mbyte. By default lxterm is there which is not really needed as aterm is there, but I like its features (tabbing, etc.) so I added it. It is around 600k in size. LXDE is not using DBUS/HAL This can be added using another version of pcmanfm compiled with HAL support, but lets see later it but only as an option, not to the base pack.
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I tried to find some menu having the MC/TC Tools as provided by the desktop menus in the other WM:s supported by TC/MC. Is that to be found somewhere?
/Lars
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I tried to find some menu having the MC/TC Tools as provided by the desktop menus in the other WM:s supported by TC/MC. Is that to be found somewhere?
/Lars
Not yet, but you find the most crucials on the desktop:
- exittc
- appbrowser
- cpanel
This is the first version, collecting feedback.
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Update to LXDE.tcz submitted.
Added to system tools menu:
- exittc
- appbrowser
- cpanel
Added to bottom panel:
- appbrowser
- cpanel
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Not yet, but you find the most crucials on the desktop:
- exittc
- appbrowser
- cpanel
This is the first version, collecting feedback.
Fully understand the young nature of these extensions. I just wanted to avoid trying to find something that could not be found at the moment :)
/lars
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Fully understand the young nature of these extensions. I just wanted to avoid trying to find something that could not be found at the moment :)
/lars
:) Which one are you missing?
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Update to LXDE.tcz submitted.
Added to system tools menu:
- exittc
- appbrowser
- cpanel
Added to bottom panel:
- appbrowser
- cpanel
Thanks for LXDE ! It's a great addition.
I have LXDE loaded on microcore / xvesa. I don't get the gear icons for cpanel or appbrowser on the desktop. Also when I mount an application like opera I don't see any menu entry or desktop icon.
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I have LXDE loaded on microcore / xvesa. I don't get the gear icons for cpanel or appbrowser on the desktop. Also when I mount an application like opera I don't see any menu entry or desktop icon.
Missing desktop icons: they are there with TC, will check MC. Do you see the 'My Documents' and 'exit' items? Are appbrowser and cpanel listed in the menu?
LXDE and Xfce4 (like Gnome and Opera) are using the standard freedesktop.org menu specification. If an extension provides the menu file in /usr/local/share/applications like lxtask, thunderbird, filezilla, isomaster, wifi-radar, ... it appears in the menu, otherwise not. You may run tc2freedesktop command to create menu files based on wbar menu automatically.
Desktop items never created automatically, you have to add them. Most convenient method is mouse right click in the menu on the item, it will offer 'Add to desktop'. Other sulution is to create a symlink in ~/Desktop to the menu spec in /usr/local/share/applications
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Fully understand the young nature of these extensions. I just wanted to avoid trying to find something that could not be found at the moment :)
/lars
:) Which one are you missing?
All of them :)
Seriously, at different points in time I need one or a few of them. It's also good to look at the menu items to refresh your memory regarding what tools that are available.
/Lars
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Missing desktop icons: they are there with TC, will check MC. Do you see the 'My Documents' and 'exit' items? Are appbrowser and cpanel listed in the menu?
I use MC and I get the desktop icons for "My documents", "exit", "cpanel" and "appbrowser".
/Lars
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I have LXDE loaded on microcore / xvesa. I don't get the gear icons for cpanel or appbrowser on the desktop. Also when I mount an application like opera I don't see any menu entry or desktop icon.
Missing desktop icons: they are there with TC, will check MC. Do you see the 'My Documents' and 'exit' items? Are appbrowser and cpanel listed in the menu?
LXDE and Xfce4 (like Gnome and Opera) are using the standard freedesktop.org menu specification. If an extension provides the menu file in /usr/local/share/applications like lxtask, thunderbird, filezilla, isomaster, wifi-radar, ... it appears in the menu, otherwise not. You may run tc2freedesktop command to create menu files based on wbar menu automatically.
Desktop items never created automatically, you have to add them. Most convenient method is mouse right click in the menu on the item, it will offer 'Add to desktop'. Other sulution is to create a symlink in ~/Desktop to the menu spec in /usr/local/share/applications
I deleted the LXDE extensions and reloaded (mounted) them. I do get the mydocs and exit icons but not the cpanel and appsbrowser icons. I tried the tce2freedesktop tool for opera and it works just as you described. However the menu item is added to the system tools category. An applications category would be nice at some point. Anyway great progress!
edit: yes cpanel and appbrowser are in the menu.
edit2: tried the right click on menu entry for opera to create a desktop icon and it works as expected. However the icon is bigger than the others and the text font is bigger as well.
edit3: text font is ok, my eyes are going bad.
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Missing desktop icons: they are there with TC, will check MC. Do you see the 'My Documents' and 'exit' items? Are appbrowser and cpanel listed in the menu?
I use MC and I get the desktop icons for "My documents", "exit", "cpanel" and "appbrowser".
/Lars
It look likes the desktop icons for cpanel and appbrowser depends on having wbar installed.
/Lars
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Missing desktop icons: they are there with TC, will check MC. Do you see the 'My Documents' and 'exit' items? Are appbrowser and cpanel listed in the menu?
I use MC and I get the desktop icons for "My documents", "exit", "cpanel" and "appbrowser".
/Lars
It look likes the desktop icons for cpanel and appbrowser depends on having wbar installed.
/Lars
That would explain it since I don't have wbar or flwm installed.
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That would explain it since I don't have wbar or flwm installed.
Right,
appbrowser and cpanel menus are using icons provided for wbar. I did not consider running it on MC, but why not. In next turn I will include these icons in LXDE package to make it wbar independent.
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Updated LXDE.tcz submitted with embedded appbrowser and cpanel icons for MC compatibility, see LXDE.tcz.info
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lxpanel setting are not retained during a reboot. eg set new panel width and background, reboot, default settings are used again.
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lxpanel setting are not retained during a reboot. eg set new panel width and background, reboot, default settings are used again.
Settings are stored in /home/tc/.config/lxpanel directory. Are you making a backup before exit? It must save your settings and restore next boot except you explicitely disable it with the relevant boot option.
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I don't back up because I have a persistent /home/tc folder.
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Does /home/tc/.config/lxpanel/LXDE exist with a config file and panels dir with also a config fiel inside?
Create a new top panel and check that /home/tc/.config/lxpanel/LXDE/panels/top file created. If not, find where is it created and let me know the result.
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This is just a theory that is untested, but I noticed that when the extension is mounted all the config files in ~/.config associated with lxde are read-only because they are symlinks into /tmp/tcloop. Perhaps having the startup script copy the files out of /tmp/tcloop into ~/.config will fix this problem.
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This is just a theory that is untested, but I noticed that when the extension is mounted all the config files in ~/.config associated with lxde are read-only because they are symlinks into /tmp/tcloop. Perhaps having the startup script copy the files out of /tmp/tcloop into ~/.config will fix this problem.
Thanks, this is not only a theory. The cp command created a symlink instead of copying the file when it was mounted even if copy is the expected default mode. Also interesting the different behavior of cp when extension is loaded into the RAM when it copies instead of symlinking.
Adding -L switch to cp solves the problem. Updated LXDE.tcz is submitted.
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-L is not default?
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I've noticed in mounted extensions that if you use "cp -p" things work as expected, but "cp -a" produces symlinks
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-L is not default?
It was my expectation, but it isn't. You can test it easily copying a file of a mounted extension with -L and without it. To force a real file copy -L is needed explicitely.
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"cp -p" is what I use, but you first have to either check for the existence of the target and copy if it does not exist, or first delete the target. That is unless a force option is used.
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"cp -p" is what I use, but you first have to either check for the existence of the target and copy if it does not exist, or first delete the target. That is unless a force option is used.
I'm checking the existence of the destination directory and file. Now it works fine with -L option. The key message is that these scripts require more testing :)
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I'm checking the existence of the destination directory and file. Now it works fine with -L option. The key message is that these scripts require more testing :)
That is why we are here. Many hands make light work ;D
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Just measured, running LXDE with all extensions mounted the overall used memory is 45M (TC 2.6rc2)
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Just measured, running LXDE with all extensions mounted the overall used memory is 45M (TC 2.6rc2)
That is amazing. Thanks for your efforts.
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To make sure that LXDE starts and not openbox, use 'tinycore desktop=lxde' boot option. You can add 'noicons' also to get rid of wbar which is not visible so no reason to run it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears to me that simply renaming /usr/local/tce.installed/zzzzz_LXDE to LXDE fixes the need for the desktop bootcode. This is on MC_2.6rc2 if that makes a difference.
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To make sure that LXDE starts and not openbox, use 'tinycore desktop=lxde' boot option. You can add 'noicons' also to get rid of wbar which is not visible so no reason to run it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears to me that simply renaming /usr/local/tce.installed/zzzzz_LXDE to LXDE fixes the need for the desktop bootcode. This is on MC_2.6rc2 if that makes a difference.
Not sure. Originally it was called LXDE, but was executed before openbox, so openbox overwrote the desktop setting. Renaming it zzz... was working on some machine and zzz_ was executed after openbox. However I have a PC where it doesn't work. Actually I do not know how these startup scripts are executed :(
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I did some quick testing in a VM. first trying to modify the openbox startup script to not overwrite /etc/sysconfig/desktop if it contained "lxde" and I got an error message during boot saying that /etc/sysconfig/desktop was non-existent which led me to believe that the openbox startup script was running before the lxde script. so I then tried renaming the lxde script as previously suggested, and now I am seeing lxde after booting with no bootcodes. This was tested by unpacking LXDE.tcz, renaming the script, repacking and then rebooting, other mounted extensions included VBox guest additions, xorg, and nano, for the record.
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May be a little hackish, but openbox's startup script could contain something like this:
#!/bin/sh
ls `cat /opt/.tce_dir` | grep "LXDE" || echo "openbox" > /etc/sysconfig/desktop
And the startup scripts are executed with the same dependency logic as before, deps first for those that have a dep file. The order hasn't changed, they just are run at one time at the end of the extension loading during boot. Appbrowser startup script processing has not changed, that is each startup script is run right after the extension is loaded, dependencies first of course.
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And also, naming the startup script to zzzz_appname will not work as the startup script must be the same name as the extension.
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I hope junan won't mind, but I took the liberty of adding this to the openbox startup script to allow use of LXDE:
ls /usr/local/tce.installed | grep "LXDE" || echo "openbox" > /etc/sysconfig/desktop
That works for during boot, during appbrowser use, and when LXDE and it's deps are downloaded to /optional and LXDE is then loaded at a later time. Also, I made it PPI compatible while I was in there. If no LXDE is installed, then openbox gets set as the default WM.
Bmarkus, I went ahead and renamed the startup script to /usr/local/tce.installed/LXDE so it will execute. All should be well between openbox/LXDE.
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Jason, thanks for adjusting openbox startup. It looks the most realible way. Will update my collection.
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The explanation of the startup script order supports what I reported yesterday. Since openbox is listed as a dep of LXDE, the openbox script runs before the LXDE script. That is why my attempts to have the openbox script not write to /etc/sysconfig/desktop if it already contained "lxde" failed, because the LXDE script (nor any other) had not yet written to it.
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I removed gnome-icon-theme.tcz from LXDE dependency list, it deafaults to the built-in icon theme 'nuoveXT2'. This change reduces installation size by 4.3M
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Does this affect pcmanfm as standalone fm as well?
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Does this affect pcmanfm as standalone fm as well?
No, as standalone application it depends on gnome-icon-theme, but you can use any appropriate theme of course. nuoveXT2 is 4.5M in size, a bit bigger. Just thinking it may be a good idea to move nuoveXT2 out to an extension from LXDE to make it more flexible and available for other applications.