[OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

jesito · 2018-02-28 23:16:54

Hi, I downloaded the ISO and burned a DVD with it, it starts properly on my barebone. Next will be to do a physical install on the harddrive.
What do you want me to try?.
I started Synaptic and found a very few apps there, I use OpenSCAD (among other apps) but I don't see it there. Other apps I use are Arduino, FreeCAD, Cura, Repetier Host. Will try to install them and see what's going on.
Would it be possible to replace Thunar by Caja?. the two panes of Caja are really useful.
Otherwise, nice look and feel, so far no problems found after an hour work.

Last edited by jesito (2018-02-28 23:18:02)

tknomanzr · 2018-03-01 00:10:30

Ignoring how impossibly tiny everything is, this is Helium Alpha IV running in LIve mode on a Surface Pro IV (with Secure Boot disabled for the time being). I am almost comfortable putting BL on bare metal with this machine.

The tiny fonts and everything else is a side effect of the Hi Dpi display. I pretty much have ot edit themes, fonts, etc to pretty much double everything. It is something that has been on my mind, how we can approach handling hi dpi displays. Atm, I just hack the themes up til I get them looking good enough.

tknomanzr · 2018-03-01 03:27:58

I have Helium Alpha IV running on the Surface Pro IV through a virtual machine now. This will be my notes on this iso:

The terminator config is outstanding imo. But I can see where it might not offer enough contrast for some people. So the solution that I propose is that we append Hydrogen's terminator confing into the profiles section. The code below would serve to offer both Heliums blue defaults and Hydrogen's old defaults. Swapping from one to another is as simple as selecting a different profile in the config dialog.

[global_config]
  dbus = False
  title_font = Monospace 11
  title_inactive_bg_color = "#2e3436"
  title_inactive_fg_color = "#888a85"
  title_receive_bg_color = "#2e3436"
  title_transmit_bg_color = "#2e3436"
  title_transmit_fg_color = "#6daaaa"
  title_use_system_font = False
[keybindings]
  hide_window = <Shift><Control>a
[layouts]
  [[default]]
    [[[child1]]]
      parent = window0
      type = Terminal
    [[[window0]]]
      parent = ""
      size = 680, 535
      type = Window
[plugins]
[profiles]
  [[default]]
    background_color = "#082b4a"
    background_darkness = 0.9
    background_type = transparent
    cursor_color = "#6ab3b3"
    cursor_color_fg = False
    font = Monospace 22
    foreground_color = "#add8e6"
    palette = "#5f5f5f:#d96468:#a2d964:#d9c964:#64a2d9:#9a64d9:#64d9d5:#989898:#828282:#d98f93:#b8d98f:#d9cf8f:#8f99d9:#b08fd9:#8fd9d5:#c5c5c5"
    show_titlebar = False
    use_system_font = False
  [[Hydrogen]]
scrollbar_position = hidden
    palette = "#000000:#cc0000:#4e9a06:#c4a000:#3465a4:#75507b:#06989a:#d3d7cf:#555753:#ef2929:#8ae234:#fce94f:#729fcf:#ad7fa8:#34e2e2:#eeeeec"
    background_darkness = 0.83
    background_type = transparent
    scrollback_lines = 5000
    use_system_font = False
    cursor_color = "#d8d8d8"
    foreground_color = "#d8d8d8"
    scroll_on_output = False
    show_titlebar = False
    color_scheme = custom
    font = Monospace 10
    background_color = "#2e3436"
scrollback_infinite = True

Additionally, while we were working on the terminator config, I found htis little gem of a terminator plugin. https://github.com/EliverLara/terminator-themes. It basically goes out and downloads the terminator theme, then writes a new profile into the config. It offers life 100s of them. Unfortunately it does not have any way to preview the colors. The plugin is written in python though, so it might be a candidate for a fork in the future This implementation is where I drew inspiration for the idea that we can offer some backward compatibility for terminator configs for those that just don't wanna change

I think I found the problem
This phpmyadmin dialog looks hideous.

We are going to need to tweak the palette somewhat. The red on grey is particularly hard on the eyes. Ill see what I can come up with.

For whatever reason, the internet in this part of the world has been terrible at best. I know it is not a problem with a particular provider because it is terrible across providers, so I suspect an infrastructure issue. However, it does make me notice the lack of any kind of progress indicators in bl-welcome for apt-get operations. Would it be possible to get some?

More screens to show yo the theme really is great we just need to adjust the lesser used colors in the palette so they dont clash so bad:

Also, the new graphical installer was pretty enough to make me actually want to use it. I typically prefer the ncurses inerface because it is so quick to zoom through ut loved the Bunsenlabs eye candy in the graphical install.

johnraff · 2018-03-01 07:04:58

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

<Terminator is slow!>I was just reporting what I consider to be an obvious problem with the live system, that's all; it would be remiss of me not to mention it and it will probably crop up again when we test the Lithium ISO image.

I really don't know what to say. We've been through this discussion so many times, and while at one time I thought a mid-range terminal like xfce4-terminal would be a good compromise between speed and features, we just couldn't get any kind of consensus. Plenty of people like Terminator, and lots like rxvt-unicode too, and in between everyone else has their favourite just right terminal. There are so many, too. ...sigh...
Eventually we all got tired of it and decided to stay with the traditional Terminator. It seemed as many people would be pissed off if it was changed as would be happy.

If you want to start it all up all over again, just don't expect any input from me. If you manage to get anything looking like a consensus this time, let me know and I'll edit the package list.

---

johnraff wrote:
fonts-noto-cjk
I agree with tknomanzr — I think we need to provide font support for all users OOTB, it's just a shame the package is so big.

OK I'll put it in. Anyway squashfs is so powerful the iso size shouldn't go up anything like the full 126MB.

---

tknomanzr wrote:

...how impossibly tiny everything is...
The tiny fonts and everything else is a side effect of the Hi Dpi display. I pretty much have ot edit themes, fonts, etc to pretty much double everything. It is something that has been on my mind, how we can approach handling hi dpi displays.

I don't suppose adding 'Xft.dpi: 180' (or whatever) to ~/.Xresources helps at all? There ought surely to be some way of globally setting the dpi so that fonts etc are displayed at the right size?

Oh, Arch Wiki has a page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI#X_Server
Along with Gnome, Kde and much else, a bit about the X server settings. It all looks quite complicated anyway.

Also: https://wiki.debian.org/MonitorDPI

(I don't know if BL might want to think about xsettingsd some day?)

---

tknomanzr wrote:

The terminator config is outstanding imo.

Yes I think it (and urxvt) looks quite nice now.

But I can see where it might not offer enough contrast for some people. So the solution that I propose is that we append Hydrogen's terminator confing into the profiles section.

Why not, indeed? It's just a bit of code to add to terminator/config. Nice idea!

---

This phpmyadmin dialog looks hideous.
We are going to need to tweak the palette somewhat.

For now, I put back the previous CrunchBang/Hydrogen palette, and have already uploaded a fixed bunsen-configs (9.3.7-1) with that. I thought it was somewhat urgent, considering those dialogue boxes (for example, try 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales') were almost unreadable. The #! palette doesn't affect the basic appearance - text, background, etc - but has made the prompt that nasty lime green again

If you can come up with something a bit more civilized while keeping the boxes readable, that would be great!

---

progress indicators in bl-welcome for apt-get operations. Would it be possible to get some?

Apt (as opposed to apt-get) does progress bars I think. We could switch in the apt functions in bl-include.cfg. They would all have to be tested that the surrounding code works as well with apt as apt-get, though, so getting it in Helium OOTB might not be on.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-01 07:54:30

johnraff wrote:

There ought surely to be some way of globally setting the dpi so that fonts etc are displayed at the right size?

I would enforce the correct DPI through the `startx` command, like this:

# ~/.profile
[ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ] && exec startx -- -dpi 180

For BunsenLabs, an Xorg configuration file would be best (works with LightDM) plus a GRUB kernel parameter for the console screen.

The recommended approach is to force the monitor dimensions in the configuration file becuase otherwise X will set DPI to 96 and derive the physical size from the resolution, which is always wrong.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-01 07:57:55

johnraff wrote:

If you want to start it all up all over again

Oh dear me no, I'm not interested in that at all.

I'm dealing with it through cognitive dissonance: having a crap terminal emulatotor is actually a positive thing because it encourages our users to change things and tweakage is what BunsenLabs is all about.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-01 08:03:29

jesito wrote:

What do you want me to try?

Just use it like you would a normal desktop and report on anything untoward, thanks!

jesito wrote:

I started Synaptic and found a very few apps there

Yes, sorry, that's my fault — I suggested that the image be shipped without a package database to save space but that will not be the case for future images.

To get your package list back run:

sudo apt update

jesito wrote:

Would it be possible to replace Thunar by Caja?

This should do it:

sudo apt install caja
sudo update-alternatives --set bl-file-manager $(which caja)

I think Caja is one of the alternatives so it should automatically take the place of thunar for any "file manager" operations

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2018-03-01 08:04:46)

johnraff · 2018-03-01 08:15:47

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

The recommended approach is to force the monitor dimensions in the configuration file becuase otherwise X will set DPI to 96 and derive the physical size from the resolution, which is always wrong.

In fact my display is 88x87 and X is getting this right, somehow, with no entry in .Xresources:

john@bunsen1:~$ xdpyinfo | grep -B 2 resolution
screen #0:
  dimensions:    1440x900 pixels (411x263 millimeters)
  resolution:    89x87 dots per inch

johnraff · 2018-03-01 08:23:41

Another small issue: man pages come up in 'more' not 'less'. The pager less has been dropped from debootstrap's install for some reason - it was there when I did the Deuterium builds.

Anyway, a quick search failed to find any explanation, so I'm just going to add 'less' to our default install list (along with fonts-noto-cjk). It's a much more congenial pager than 'more', and not a big install.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-01 08:45:04

johnraff wrote:

In fact my display is 88x87 and X is getting this right, somehow, with no entry in .Xresources

Awesome

The X server just gets better with every release.

johnraff wrote:

add 'less'

Can we please use most and set that to /etc/alternatives/pager instead?

It's the best pager around (it even works on binary files & MBR records) and will give us coloured man pages OOTB.

tknomanzr · 2018-03-01 13:07:54

^ That would be nice.

Sun For Miles · 2018-03-01 13:42:34

Managed to briefly test live and installed scenario in VirtualBox, both seem to be in order. Installed some extra apps in both cases and ran some basic tests.

Live

Installed

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-01 15:03:22

Installed on the family AMD laptop (UEFI) and it went fine but it skipped straight through the GRUB stage and just made a boot entry without asking, which I consider to be rather rude.

There were pre-existing NVRAM entries and the installer didn't actually change the boot order so the old bootloader was still in place (and lacking a BunsenLabs entry) upon reboot after installation.

The "bunsenlabs" [sic] entry can be booted from the firmware ("BIOS") menu options but is not otherwise accessible.

I do have a very peculiar setup with $ESP/efi/boot/bootx64.efi being used because the NVRAM entries are easily "lost" by the crappy UEFI firmware so perhaps that's why, it would be useful to hear from anyone else installing a UEFI system.

Also, the Windows 10 system on that machine was not recognised at all and no entry appears in the BunsenLabs GRUB menu, I have no idea why.

EDIT: I've just remembered that I may have moved bootmgfw.efi to a non-standard location, that would explain why BL's GRUB can't find it.

I will check later...

EDIT2: yes, bootmgfw.efi is actually systemd-bootx64.efi in a cunning disguise and apparently GRUB is not fooled, hence no Win10 entry.

There was no attempt by the installer to add the BL boot entry to the bootorder list, which is worrying.

I am hoping this is because bootx64.efi is on my ESP and Debian is deferring to that.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2018-03-01 22:16:22)

brontosaurusrex · 2018-03-01 21:17:50

It does install in virtualbox, congrats for the iso.

stevep · 2018-03-02 00:36:18

You can also upload it to archive.org if Google comes down on you for too many downloads. Archive.org also automatically sets up a torrent for it.

Do you want to have it be Virtual Box friendly out of the box? (screen-resizing, shared folders, etc) We did that for MX Linux, but we needed a patched version to shut down an annoying but harmless message when it was installed on real hardware.

johnraff · 2018-03-02 06:08:11

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

johnraff wrote:
add 'less'
Can we please use most and set that to /etc/alternatives/pager instead?

This is a bit like a request to use my favourite text editor as default. Less is what most people expect when man pages open, it has Debian priority of "important" (most is "optional") and comes with most Debian installs OOTB. Most has slightly different keyboard commands (and is ugly IMO.)
Anyway, can we stay with the standard vanilla pager for this? As we always say in these cases, most is just an apt-get and update-alternatives away.

---

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Installed on the family AMD laptop (UEFI) and it went fine but it skipped straight through the GRUB stage and just made a boot entry without asking, which I consider to be rather rude.

Really! That's outrageous. I've never had that happen with a Debian-Installer. I hope it was because of your unusual setup. Anyway, I don't think anything in our preseed file would have affected the grub install stage.

---

stevep wrote:

You can also upload it to archive.org if Google comes down on you for too many downloads. Archive.org also automatically sets up a torrent for it.

Thanks for the idea. Set up an account, and uploading a trial iso now. Unfortunately the licence settings don't have a GPL option.

EDIT: But they do provide a direct download url, along with a torrent which works.
32bit iso alpha-5-i386:
https://archive.org/download/helium-alp … 5-i386.iso
https://archive.org/download/helium-alp … ve.torrent
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f_wmqp … sp=sharing

---

Do you want to have it be Virtual Box friendly out of the box?

Ooh, that's dangerous talk. Expect a virulent execration of VB and all its works any moment now...
...heads down...

Last edited by johnraff (2018-03-02 06:22:58)

Döbbie03 · 2018-03-02 06:58:39

Nice, downloading now. Will report back.

Döbbie03 · 2018-03-02 07:18:55

Still in the live enviroment but I have to say, first impressions are WOW!

Love that welcome screen, the themes are pure magic. Great work guys.

Just a minor quirk, but it maybe your guys preference. In the Help & Resource menu there are separators top and bottom of the first section that clash with the titles separators. It doesn't look quite right.

These also appear in the Multimedia and Graphics menus as well.

Last edited by Döbbie03 (2018-03-02 07:35:26)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-03-02 07:40:12

johnraff wrote:

can we stay with the standard vanilla pager for this?

Yes, of course. I had to try, at least 8o

johnraff wrote:

Really! That's outrageous. I've never had that happen with a Debian-Installer. I hope it was because of your unusual setup. Anyway, I don't think anything in our preseed file would have affected the grub install stage.

I will try again tonight and remove $ESP/efi/boot/bootx64.efi before running the installer to see if that changes things — that .efi loader is only needed for broken UEFI implementations and it could be that the Debian installer recognises that.

Also, the UEFI on that laptop is particularly broken and it won't boot anything except Windows' bootmgfw.efi loader (if it on the EFI system partition), which is why I am disguising my systemd-boot loader so it could be that the installer did attempt to change the boot order but the firmware ignored it.

stevep wrote:

Do you want to have it be Virtual Box friendly out of the box?

That's a nice idea thanks but there is no VirtualBox package available in the current Debian stable release (because their security support was so bad) and I would be wary of providing anything that would appear to endorse the use of VB as a "safe" virtualisation solution.

EDIT: I would be happy to investigate adding native Xen support to BL, if there was any interest

EDIT2: in fact, I think I may do that anyway, it sounds interesting 8)

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2018-03-02 07:54:06)

johnraff · 2018-03-02 08:27:50

Dobbie03 wrote:

Just a minor quirk, but it maybe your guys preference. In the Help & Resource menu there are separators top and bottom of the first section that clash with the titles separators. It doesn't look quite right.
These also appear in the Multimedia and Graphics menus as well.

Thanks for the feedback here. I tend to agree with you that the separator under the title "Online Help" isn't needed. There's no equivalent underline under "man pages" for example.

But the others, I think might have a purpose:
*)between Arch Wiki and Openbox divides general help from specific BL apps - it could come out though
*)under the top item in the graphics and multimedia menus divides off a section that more things will be added to if the user installs something from the "install" sub-menu.

Opinions?
Any other opinions on the menu names etc?

Last edited by johnraff (2018-03-02 08:28:31)

#21 2018-02-28 23:16:54

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#22 2018-03-01 00:10:30

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#23 2018-03-01 03:27:58

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#24 2018-03-01 07:04:58

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#25 2018-03-01 07:54:30

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#26 2018-03-01 07:57:55

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#27 2018-03-01 08:03:29

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#28 2018-03-01 08:15:47

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#29 2018-03-01 08:23:41

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#30 2018-03-01 08:45:04

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#31 2018-03-01 13:07:54

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#32 2018-03-01 13:42:34

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#33 2018-03-01 15:03:22

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#34 2018-03-01 21:17:50

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#35 2018-03-02 00:36:18

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#36 2018-03-02 06:08:11

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#37 2018-03-02 06:58:39

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#38 2018-03-02 07:18:55

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#39 2018-03-02 07:40:12

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

#40 2018-03-02 08:27:50

Re: [OUTDATED]Please help us test the Helium alpha iso.

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