Live architecture of antiX can be applied to other Linux distros

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Thanks for the clear update Dave.

I’m confident that all of you are doing very good work and I appreciate your time and explanation.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member andyprough]

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Wow, this is incredibly interesting, I had no idea the antiX tools could just be dropped in so simply to another distro and still retain all the functions. Does anyone know if this works with Devuan? I could do some really cool stuff with a hybrid antiX/Devuan respin.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by andyprough.

[Anonymous]

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the antiX tools could just be dropped in so simply to another distro and still retain all the functions.

careful, that’s an overly broad inference. Some of the tools absolutely cannot “just be dropped in”.

The appimage version of live-usb-maker distributed by MX Linux, it can be used ala MintStick (“dd mode”) in other distros.

Usage of { isosnapshot, live-remaster, live-usb-maker, live-kernel-updater } will require, for instance:

‣ adding antiX repository, if compatible (??? Devuan “beowulf” <–> antiX19 <–> Debian ‘buster”)
or retrieving the source code of the various dependent “moving parts” and repackinging for the other distro.

‣ unpacking the initrd.gz, customizing its content to suit the other distro, and repacking. (ref: /usr/local/lib/cli-shell-utils/bin/unpack-initrd or /usr/local/bin/ps_initrd.sh)

edited to add:

Someone can chime in if I’ve missed anything, but at a minimim the list of “moving parts” includes:

remaster-antix (depends: antix-libs)
live-usb-maker (depends: cli-shell-utils and others)
live-kernel-updater (depends: cli-shell-utils)
iso-snapshot-antix (depends: iso-template-antix, remaster-antix, antix-viewer and others)
iso-template-antix
antix-libs
cli-shell-utils
antix-gfxboot
-=-
squashfs-tools
syslinux-utils
xorriso

additional edit:

antiX kernels include fbcondecor patch. Several of the “moving parts” listed above probably expect, if not require, components provided by the “fbsplash-antix” package.

[Member Dzhigit]

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andyprough wrote:

Does anyone know if this works with Devuan? I could do some really cool stuff with a hybrid antiX/Devuan respin.

Unfortunately some newer Debian packages do not have LSB init scripts. For example, Intel’s iwd, a replacement for wpasupplicant, works very nicely with connman. Devuan tries to add scripts to these packages, and it did so in the case of iwd. So, I am also curious about antiX with Devuan repos. Will look in to it.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=966518

[Member andyprough]

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Dzhigit wrote:

Unfortunately some newer Debian packages do not have LSB init scripts. For example, Intel’s iwd, a replacement for wpasupplicant, works very nicely with connman. Devuan tries to add scripts to these packages, and it did so in the case of iwd. So, I am also curious about antiX with Devuan repos. Will look in to it.

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=966518

Thanks for the info. I did have trouble with networking, particularly wireless. I added the Devuan iwd package, and now I can get networking by killing and restarting NetworkManager, and wireless by running the ‘wifi on’ command. Not sure if iwd was a help for that at all or not, but suddenly I can get it working whereas before I could not.

So far, what works is that iso-snapshot-antix and live-usb-maker installed on Devuan with some dependencies including antix-libs, antix-viewer, cli-shell-utils, iso-template-antix, live-usb-maker-gui-antix, and remaster-antix. I also installed format-usb, and from the Devuan repo I installed lockfile-progs to allow antiX persistence to work. All these programs seem to work on Devuan as they would on antiX.

Devuan boots from the antiX boot screen, and root persistence works, and saving persistence works. That’s what I’ve tested. I tried to do a frugal install but I’m getting a failure message. I’ll try again and copy the failure message to this thread. Hopefully it’s just a missing package. If anyone knows a package I should install to try getting frugal install working, please leave a comment for me.

The toram option didn’t work the first time I tried it. I’ll mess around with that a bit more, I didn’t put any effort into it.

The nice thing was that ISO Snapshot copied everything, down to my wifi password and my browser extensions. antiX has turned the entirety of my Devuan desktop into a Live USB with persistence, which is very awesome.

UPDATE – frugal and toram not working were my fault. I had too little ram for toram and I needed to reformat my frugal partition for the frugal install.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by andyprough.

[Member Dzhigit]

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andyprough wrote:

Thanks for the info. I did have trouble with networking, particularly wireless. I added the Devuan iwd package, and now I can get networking by killing and restarting NetworkManager, and wireless by running the ‘wifi on’ command. Not sure if iwd was a help for that at all or not, but suddenly I can get it working whereas before I could not.

https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkManager/iwd
There are some steps to use iwd as the backend for network-manager.

andyprough wrote:

So far, what works is that iso-snapshot-antix and live-usb-maker installed on Devuan with some dependencies including antix-libs, antix-viewer, cli-shell-utils, iso-template-antix, live-usb-maker-gui-antix, and remaster-antix. I also installed format-usb, and from the Devuan repo I installed lockfile-progs to allow antiX persistence to work. All these programs seem to work on Devuan as they would on antiX.

Devuan boots from the antiX boot screen, and root persistence works, and saving persistence works. That’s what I’ve tested. I tried to do a frugal install but I’m getting a failure message. I’ll try again and copy the failure message to this thread. Hopefully it’s just a missing package. If anyone knows a package I should install to try getting frugal install working, please leave a comment for me.

Wow, thanks for the info! I will download antiX-net ISO and try changing to Devuan repos.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by Dzhigit.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by Dzhigit.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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What is the benefit of using Devian repos?

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member Dzhigit]

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anticapitalista wrote:

What is the benefit of using Devian repos?

Some of the Debian packages, like iwd, are not adding LSB init scripts anymore.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=966518

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Care to try my systemd-free version (buster)?

https://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/Testing/

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

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Member Dzhigit]

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anticapitalista wrote:

Care to try my systemd-free version (buster)?

https://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/Testing/

Thank you, it is working for me in antiX 19. But the point is that this problem is probably with more than one package, and it will get more common with newer packages. Debian does not require init scripts anymore, only systemd units. Devuan and antiX developers add scripts where Debian developers don’t, not to mention the work that Devuan developers have put in to modifying DEs.

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

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Glad that it works – I’ll upload it to our repos.

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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But the point is that this problem is probably with more than one package, and it will get more common with newer packages.

Let’s park the “probably”.
The devuan project Devuan currently maintains only 118 packages.
https://gitea.devuan.dev/devuan?page=8
I say “only” because
1) this total is less than when previously checked (back a few years when updating the nosystemd.org wiki)
2) many casual users falsely believe Devuan has “rescued” a huge number of systemd-tainted packages

.
Of those 118 packages, 60 are related to devuan infrastructure or are otherwise unuseful uninteresting to anyone running a desktop, non-devuan, system:
linux-raspi
linux-sunxi
devuan-baseconf
pkgsel
unattended-upgrades
devuan-keyring
www.devuan.org (web docs packagename)
documentation (was devuan-doc)
infrastructure_doc
installer-iso
gitea.devuan.dev (web assets)
clearlooks-phenix-lightpurpy-theme
clearlooks-phenix-darkpurpy-theme
clearlooks-phenix-purpy-theme
darkpurpy-icon-theme
clearlooks-phenix-cinnabar-theme
cinnabar-icon-theme
devuan-lintian-profile
choose-mirror
choose-init
live-build
openstack-devuan-images
pdns-recursor
debootstrap
base-files
apt-setup
net-tools
reportbug
rootskel-gtk
anna
base-installer
lsb
ltsp
ltspfs
ldm
pcsc-lite
ansible-role-nginx
jenkins-debian-glue
releasebot
jessie-support
cryptsetup-modified-functions
desktop-base
389-ds-base
tellpackage
debian-installer
gitea-spammerblock
sacc
dak
tasksel
sanity
britney2
main-menu
popularity-contest
distro-info-data
devuan-sanity
debian-config-override
amprolla3
pinthread
rrqnet

.
Another 30 or so packages are unappealing (same/older versions, or lesser functionality) compared to packages available via antiX repo or MX Linux repo:
refractasnapshot-base
refractasnapshot-gui
refractainstaller-gui
refractainstaller-base
xfce4-session
xfce4-systemload-plugin
xfce4-settings
xfce4-panel
plymouth
lightdm
dbus
policykit-1
cowdancer
xlennart
rsyslog
bash-completion
firejail
util-linux
valgrind
procps
apt
gpsd
colord
consolekit2 (deprecated, unneeded in antiX 19)
udev (unneeded in antiX 19)
libvirt
sysvinit
gdisk
cups
slim
apulse
elogind
eudev

Having discounted the above, only a short “shortlist” remains. Notes-to-self from my recent check show the following as the only noteworthy packages “of possible interest”:

dnscrypt-proxy
fontsnaps (for xfce-4)
gvfs
init-system-helpers
iwd
meson
net-tools
network-manager
openvpn
packagekit
pulseaudio
python3-fusepy
seatd (nascent project, elogind alternative)
setnet
sshguard
surf2
tomcat9
udisks2
upower
vdev
wicd
lxc-templates
cgroupfs-mount
cgmanager

[Member ex_Koo]

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Please keep meson/ninja up dated my version 0.56.2 running on 21a this is so important to me for installing my source & binary.

[Anonymous]

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If you already have 0.56.2 installed, you are ahead of the pack!

debian buster-backports has 0.56.1-1
https://packages.debian.org/buster-backports/meson
devuan has 0.54.3-1 https://gitea.devuan.dev/devuan/meson/src/branch/suites/unstable/debian/changelog

[Member Dzhigit]

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I decided to try this with antiX-19.3-runit-sid_x64-net.iso in a VM. However I am getting this error. desktop-session was missing a lot of dependencies. I think installed python3-xdg and several more manually, but I cannot figure this one out.

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