[solved] antiX Base 64bits with LIghtdm

[Member melodie]

The same way I have been able to make a snapshot with Openbox in antiX i486, I wanted to do the same with a x86_64 version.

Some time ago I struggled with that, because I wanted to use lightdm, and lightdm would not play well with the session, which could not be rebooted/shutdown and so on. So I solved it installing systemd, which in turn came with other issues such as some related libs which I had to mark on hold, else, an update would have removed most of the packages from the distro.

Now I am trying something else. I took a antiX Base 64bits and first, installed lightdm and lightdm-gtk-greeter. Then I met with the same issue as previously but this time I used a method presented by a Devuan user. Devuan also works without systemd. This is the method to have lightdm play nice in a non systemd distribution:
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=2282

I could do everything but one : no way to get libpolkit-backend-elogind-1-0, because it needed a libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0 with the same number version as his, and that would not happen. I tried several ways removing one plus depends, trying to switch to another repos, but couldn’t make it, so I restored the repos and reinstalled modemmanager and it’s depends.

Then I thought well there is a bunch of sources in /etc/apt/apt.sources.d why not adding one more? So I added “deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf main” in a “devuan.list” file, added the signatures from here : https://www.devuan.org/os/keyring then I commented out the antiX repos and did an apt update. Then I removed the antiX package libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0 and installed libpolkit-backend-elogind-1-0 which then came nicely with the right matching versions of itself plus libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0 from the *Devuan repos*.

Then I restored the antiX repos, commented out the Devuan repos and marked the packages on hold, in Synaptic and in the console.

It is almost solved, not quite.

I have never practices much the pinning method. I would like some help with that, because “hold” never holds very well as far as I could see last time, especially from one install to the next snapshot. Can someone explain me how to do the pinnning the right way?

Thanks!

• This topic was modified 1 year, 12 months ago by melodie.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by anticapitalista. Reason: edited title to solved as requested

[Anonymous]

Helpful

Up

0

::

apt-mark hold <packagename>
is straightforward, and is durable.

If you decide to wrestle with the task of effectively pinning, you really must read the debian wiki and learn the nuances — probably via trial-and-error — to suit your specific case.

[Member Xecure]

Helpful

Up

0

::

melodie wrote:

Some time ago I struggled with that, because I wanted to use lightdm, and lightdm would not play well with the session, which could not be rebooted/shutdown and so on.

Do you mean from inside openbox or from lightdm? For lightdm no need to overcomplicate. You could have searched the forum and found:

Xecure wrote:

Reason: lightdm is expecting systemd. The fix is easy (for both) edit /etc/pam.d/lightdm-greeter with your preferred text editor (root privileges). Change
session optional pam_systemd.so
to
session optional pam_elogind.so

Then reboot.
If it still doesn’t work, you may need to install policykit-1 and/or pm-utils, but hopefully not.

No need for installing anything else.
If it is from inside openbox, you need to see what dependencies does the session-manager program used by openbox need to manage this.

Search the antiX forums first.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member melodie]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Xecure wrote:

Search the antiX forums first.

I didn’t search the forum, because it has beeen a _random discovery_ while trying several light GNU/Linux distributions in order to attempt to revive a very old laptop. (18 years old, but very nice looking on the outside).
I had discovered Devuan which I didn’t know of, as well as their snapshot tool, and tried to figure how to have the poweroff reboot etc. working with lightdm instead of slim. Both antiX and Devuan use no systemd with elogind and so on, so I figured I might try the same method on antiX.

Now what you are saying makes me think, I’ll try your way, no additional package else than pm-utils, well at least I’ll try removing both “libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0” and “libpolkit-backend-elogind-1-0” (devuan8 packages) and see what happends. I keep both as deb packages in a directory just in case.

But : shouldn’t them packages in the antiX distribution sources be the same version so that installing one will not create a conflict preventing the other to be installed? Shouldn’t it be an issue that should be addressed? (I am not sure how, obviously… )

I enclose a screenshot of Synaptic in antiX 64bits, with emphasis on the two packages and *the versions mis-matching* offered as a *possible update*.

Also : openbox is a window manager with some advanced features, not a desktop manager nor an environment manager so it relies not on itself to manage the desktop, but on the components which are installed along with it. LightDM meaning Light Desktop Manager, the session will require a few things to be working properly as for a full fledged Desktop Environment such as LXDE for instance, but with just some of its components the system will be even lighter.
Now you might argue that antiX is already light, whatever desktop you choose, which is right, but it’s too large to fit in some of the very old laptops when booted as live, once the squashfs is decompressed it fills all the RAM and the boot process hangs.

Also antiX and its Snapshot program is a great tool to have to make your own version. The users targeted for the versions I rebuild are *end users* with *limited needs*, so I make the ISOS as small and simple to use as possible and the users can have it evolved later as they see fit (of course they can ask for help to do that if necessary). You can have a go with the latest 32bits available, here : http://downloads.linuxvillage.org

As soon as a similar 64bits will be ready, I’ll try to write full descriptions with a few screenshots.

Thanks for your help.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by melodie.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by melodie.

Attachments:

1. 

   VirtualBox_antiX-base-64bits.png
   

[Moderator christophe]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Now you might argue that antiX is already light, whatever desktop you choose, which is right, but it’s too large to fit in some of the very old laptops when booted as live, once the squashfs is decompressed it fills all the RAM and the boot process hangs.

When booting live, try persist_static or p_static_root (and definitely not toram) in cases like that. This will not use your RAM for storage.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Anonymous]

Helpful

Up

0

::

no way to get libpolkit-backend-elogind-1-0, because it needed a libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0 with the same number version as his, and that would not happen.

here, I am just restating the issue

currently available from antiX19 stable repository:
libpolkit-backend-elogind-1-0 v1.05-25.0nosystemd3
libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0 v1.05-29+antix1

The latter is uninstallable due to absence of a same-versioned “backend” package.

shouldn’t them packages in the antiX distribution sources be the same version so that installing one will not create a conflict preventing the other to be installed?

Yes, they should. You have correctly identified a problem regarding the antiX19 stable repository status quo. Apparently libpolkit-gobject-elogind-1-0 is an “extra” that nothing preinstalled in antiX 19 needs, and no one (prior to your attempt) has previously attempted to install.

Best course of action would be to send a PM to anticapitalista, requesting a matching 1.05-29+antix1 libpolkit-backend-elogind-1-0 ~~ we should not trust that the pinned//stapled “0nosystemd3” analogue will be fully compatible.

[Member melodie]

Helpful

Up

0

::

christophe wrote:

Now you might argue that antiX is already light, whatever desktop you choose, which is right, but it’s too large to fit in some of the very old laptops when booted as live, once the squashfs is decompressed it fills all the RAM and the boot process hangs.

When booting live, try persist_static or p_static_root (and definitely not toram) in cases like that. This will not use your RAM for storage.

You see this is not the issue. I have been very much used to these things along the years, and I don’t use toram. I don’t need to. However I have not see a p_static_root in the options.
And it remains that the ISO is too large to be burned on a regular CDROM (as many Linux distros now) whereas some computers have only two options : install from CD, or install from another computer and reinstall the hard drive or SSD afterwards (which is not always quite convenient).

Therefore I still think pursuing the goal of created a spinoff that works out of the box using the best of what antiX provides is still worth pursuing.

[Member melodie]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Anonymous wrote:

Best course of action would be to send a PM to anticapitalista, requesting a matching 1.05-29+antix1 libpolkit-backend-elogind-1-0 ~~ we should not trust that the pinned//stapled “0nosystemd3” analogue will be fully compatible.

I will, right away. Thank you!

PS: I have not trusted any pinning, I have removed the package to test further, but I just reported to anticapitalista anyway, and I won’t use the additional Devuan repos for now.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by melodie.

[Member PPC]

Helpful

Up

0

::

melodie wrote:

only two options : install from CD, or install from another computer and reinstall the hard drive or SSD afterwards

There’s one third option: boot yout pc from a cd-rom that has plop installed (https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html), and then boot from a usb-drive- think of it as a tiny distro that can access your usb drive even if the pc itself can’t boot directly from a usb drive… (I used it a lot on a very old desktop)

P.

[Anonymous]

Helpful

Up

0

::

boot yout pc from a cd-rom

melodie maintains a respin distribution.
Reposting the link (already posted, above): http://downloads.linuxvillage.org
also, across years, has maintained the linuxvillage.org website: https://linuxvillage.org/
.

[Member melodie]

Helpful

Up

0

::

PPC wrote:

There’s one third option: boot yout pc from a cd-rom that has plop installed (https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html), and then boot from a usb-drive- think of it as a tiny distro that can access your usb drive even if the pc itself can’t boot directly from a usb drive… (I used it a lot on a very old desktop)P.

Yes it was worth mentioning. However I have tried Plop Boot Manager on the targeted laptop. It is a Dell D820, has 4 GB RAM and well even with Plop on a CDROM I was unable to boot to USB, the Plop environment just froze after attempting to detect the USB device. This is why I have decided to install using another computer. This is the beauty with our GNU/Linux distributions, if it were Windows or Mac, just forget it! 😄

/Let’s cross fingers, after 10 times rebuilding since I started to modify antiX base amd64, I am finally seeing it through, the next will be the eleventh, and I’ll install it for real! ^^
If all goes right it will be online shortly after!

PS: I don’t know here in the forum how I managed to send a message to anticapitalista yesterday. I have seen a mail notification he answered but I am not sure how to answer back. / fond it in “Change your settings”. It’s not so intuitive. 🙃
PS2: Thank your for the presentation of some of my work, it is very kind of you! 🙏

• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by melodie.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by melodie.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by melodie.

[Member melodie]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hello,
here it is solved, but I can’t edit the first post to remove the word “Almost” from the title. Can someone fix it?

[Author]

Posts