Hello and thanks + encrypted usb disk problem

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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seaken64 wrote:

Brian, on my last two Debian installs I had XFCE. Even though I selected “IceWM”. But it may be that I just didn’t do something right. Maybe if I started with NET I could have IceWM only. I will have to try it again. Anyway, I do have IceWM running on both Debian 9 and Debian 10. The menus are not setup as nicely as antiX and I struggle to work with Debian due to a lot of permissions issues. I’m still learning. But this is one thing I appreciate about antiX. It smooths out a lot of the difficulty in learning Debian.

I would be happy the learn how to setup Debian with IceWM without first having XFCE installed. Any tips you can give on what steps I need to take? I get a little overwhelmed at their site. There is so much and it is confusing to know which iso to download.

Seaken64

I am using Debian now. Check this:
sudo inxi -Fxz | more
System: Host: debian Kernel: 5.9.0-12.1-liquorix-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A Desktop: IceWM 2.0.0
Distro: Debian GNU/Linux bullseye/sid
Machine: Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 5558

Notice IceWM 2.0.0 – newer because it is “Sid”.

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Brian Masinick

[Member seaken64]

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It seems the issue is not that antiX cannot support encryption, but that it is not setup with simple features for handling it in the GUI. One will have to use the command line tools or find a compatible GUI tool that is not already a part of the antiX system.

Seaken64

[Member seaken64]

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Brian said:

Mind you, I created the additional wm and software myself, not using some canned set-up. Am I missing something here?

I took another look and tried to get IceWM as the only WM in Debian. The only way I could find was to install the “standard” iso, which is only the core system, no X. Then I would have to install X and IceWM and all the other packages needed to create the IceWM system.

I tried to install from the netiso but could not choose IceWM. The installer defaults to Gnome and I can only choose from other DE’s, not Window Managers.

I remember now that I found this too difficult so I just decided to install with XFCE and then install the IceWM package. It works fine that way but it ends up a type of overlay, similar to how Fluxbox is an overlay on Xfce in MX.

You have more skills and were able to install the IceWM from scratch. I’m still trying to figure out how to do that. I find it all confusing. But I am working thru it. One day maybe you can help me with the proper steps. But then again, this is an antiX forum not Debian. This came up in this thread because I think that most distros handle installing IceWM the same way as I did in Debian. Most people just add it to the DE already installed. It’s likely that this is how the OP did it in LMDE. But they can inform us otherwise in any case.

Seaken64

[Anonymous]

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LMDE4, the preinstalled desktop environment is Cinnamon.
“nemo” is the file manager in Cinnamon.
“In case of an [encrypted] external drive, Nemo will automatically ask for the password, but for an internal one, you’d have to click on it.”
ref: https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2248

A screenshot of the “I was used to be prompted for passphrase” (dialogbox? a nemo window?)
would be enlightening, toward determining which component is responsible for presenting the GUI prompt.
Cinnamon is installable in antiX, yes?
(questionmark b/c I didn’t check to confirm)
Installing it would put you back on familiar turf, denispr.

Possibly, the component responsible for presenting the gui is provided by package “gnome-disk-utility”
which is pre-installed in LMDE and is set to autorun at startup. This package is available and installable in antiX19, in case you want to install it and check (to find out whether it provides the “familiar prompt” you described).

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Regarding Debian, I had an Xfce installation.

All I did to add IceWM was:
sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install icewm

I don’t remember if I tweaked any menu.
I certainly did nothing to create an overlay.

You see, the window manager in Xfce is xfwm. If I had made it IceWM then that would have made it more difficult to separate Xfce and IceWM.

If for some reason the system tried to remove xfwm and Xfce (don’t recall), but let’s suppose it would.

In that case I would have pulled some “magic” and put a hold (pin) on anything that installing IceWM would attempt to remove.
See https://wiki.debian.org/AptConfiguration
See also https://askubuntu.com/questions/18654/how-to-prevent-updating-of-a-specific-package#comment82202_18654

Though I do not remember doing that, in fact I would have worked out a scheme like that, protecting the software I wanted to keep, namely both the Xfce desktop environment and the IceWM window manager.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by Brian Masinick.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by Brian Masinick.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Edit:. Look at the post from skidoo.
I think that it is a more plausible method than mine.

If for some reason nemo and the tools used are not doing what you need then look at my less definite plan b or c,

Regarding encryption there are some packages that can handle encryption. I wonder if they were installed whether or not the kernel would accept them and work with them, if yes then that is all it takes. If not then replacement with different kernels and the key encryption packages ought to finish the job and enable encryption functionality.

I’ll check into it more…

• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by Brian Masinick.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by Brian Masinick.

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Brian Masinick

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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I tested with gnome-disk-utility and it worked.
I wonder if there is a lighter tool that does this?
Hmm – can udisks2 do this?

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Anonymous]

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https://manpages.debian.org/buster/udiskie/udiskie.8.en.html

udiskie is a front-end for UDisks written in python. Its main purpose is automatically mounting removable media, such as CDs or flash drives. It has optional mount notifications, a GTK tray icon and user level CLIs for manual mount and unmount operations. The media will be mounted in a new directory under /media or /run/media/USER/, using the device name if possible.
[..]
-r, –recursive
Recursively mount cleartext partitions after unlocking a LUKS device. This will happen by default when running the udiskie daemon.
[..]
-P, –no-password-prompt
Disable unlocking of LUKS devices
[..]
–password-cache MINUTES
Cache passwords for LUKS partitions and set the timeout.
[..]
-p COMMAND, –password-prompt=COMMAND
Password retrieval command. The string is formatted with the device attributes as keyword arguments, e.g.:
-p “yad –entry –hide-text –text ‘Enter password for {device_presentation}:'”

(the manpage mentioned zenity. I substituted yad here, and didn’t check whether “hide-text” is a valid yad option)

dependencies:
python3
python3-distutils
python3-docopt
python3-gi
python3-pkg-resources
python3-yaml
udisks2

[Member denispr]

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Thank you all for your help !
installing udiskie and putting “udiskie -a &” in icewm startup file did the trick !

Denis

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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denispr wrote:

Thank you all for your help !
installing udiskie and putting “udiskie -a &” in icewm startup file did the trick !

Denis

I happened to be on Endeavor OS when I received the Email for this thread, so I decided to install the package to see if it is available for this distribution and my hardware.

I ran

sudo pacman -S udiskie

and it appeared to install just fine.

I’ll get into antiX soon and try it out on at least one of my antiX distributions.

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Brian Masinick

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