Boron cleanup

johnraff · 2023-12-16 07:51:20

On to RC2 - building right now - but I just noticed something when booting RC1 - there's no Grub boot splash image.
(The installed system's splash is OK.)

My guess is that we can't use anything bigger that 640x480 after all...

johnraff wrote:

As for the grub screen - I've looked around but not sure if it still has to be 640×480. These days a bigger image might look nicer? The Debian Wiki seems to be saying 1024×768 would be OK:
https://wiki.debian.org/Grub/SplashImage
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question … background
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Displays
Of course the image will be resized (by grub?) to match the screen aspect ratio anyway...

So I resized our ISOLINUX splash.png back from 1024x768 to 640×480 to see if the spash image reappears.

I've left the grub-pc splash at 1024x768, thinking it's a more modern standard, but we'll need feedback from someone booting from EFI (you?) to test if that's OK.

Fingers crossed...

EDIT: with a 640×480 image the ISOLINUX splash appears and looks quite good...
...except that the BL logo comes right under the menu text. It will need moving higher up the screen to be safe I guess. Pity, because that glowing bit of the background came just nicely over the flame. I'm just about to upload RC2 - could you have a look at that?

Last edited by johnraff (2023-12-16 08:27:59)

hhh · 2023-12-18 22:37:55

I was busy over the weekend, so only installed the RC2 today and have only used it a tiny bit, but wanted to post some quick feedback.

~ The notifications are still set to "default" instead of to the "aqua", but the default theme looks fine too, some no big deal.

~ xserver-common and xserver-xorg-core had available updates, I guess that was just coincidence?

~ RAM usage/processes list all looked good.

~ New icon theme for jgmenu looks slick!

~ I did notice the ISOLINUX splash logo placement. It didn't make the menu entries unreadable for me, but I will make a fix as soon as I can.

Feel free to post it on the board, John. When you do, list some the fixes you've included and I'll keep testing. Cheers!

-edit- Oh, and thanks for including the "Alternative" synclient line! I'd suggest the comment should be "Alternative: enable right-click and scrolling on touchpads" or something a little more descriptive.

Last edited by hhh (2023-12-18 23:33:14)

johnraff · 2023-12-19 05:48:32

Thanks for the feedback Has!

hhh wrote:

~ The notifications are still set to "default" instead of to the "aqua", but the default theme looks fine too, some no big deal.

That was a deliberate change. "Default" seems to use the GTK theming instead of the separate notifications theme, but has the advantage that it will switch automatically when the user changes GTK theme. With "aqua" Default looks OK I thought - which wasn't the case before.

xserver-common and xserver-xorg-core had available updates, I guess that was just coincidence?

Yup. Those must have come in just after I did the build. I'll run it again just before we put out the official release so all the Debian updates that go out in the next few days will be included.

New icon theme for jgmenu looks slick!

I thought so too.
People with slower systems might want to switch off icons though, anyway. I found the 32bit "lite" iso quite nice in its own way, with no icons or composition.

I did notice the ISOLINUX splash logo placement. It didn't make the menu entries unreadable for me, but I will make a fix as soon as I can.

The menu is quite usable but - on my VM display at least - the logo is half-hidden under the top line. Not particularly elegant.

EDIT: the installed system's grub splash is fine the way it is though. In fact, if the logo got moved up it would be in a bad place! It looks horribly as if the same image is being used for both functions - installer boot and system boot. Oh dear, what to do? Needs some research...
EDIT2: forget that: the installed system gets a different grub image default.png installed in /boot/grub/images/bunsen
So tweaking splash.png to move the logo up will affect the installer boot splash only. When you have the time...

Feel free to post it on the board, John. When you do, list some the fixes you've included and I'll keep testing.

Fixes done relative to when? Beta2? I'll just write "recent changes" or something...

Oh, and thanks for including the "Alternative" synclient line! I'd suggest the comment should be "Alternative: enable right-click and scrolling on touchpads" or something a little more descriptive.

OK will do. It's quite likely we'll have a couple more small fixes like that for bunsen-configs so a package upload can be pulled into the next (last?) build.

Just a minute: "enable right-click and scrolling on touchpads" I can scroll on my touchpad without that code. Wasn't it about disabling scrolling or something?

Last edited by johnraff (2023-12-19 08:52:29)

hhh · 2023-12-19 12:29:51

johnraff wrote:

Just a minute: "enable right-click and scrolling on touchpads" I can scroll on my touchpad without that code. Wasn't it about disabling scrolling or something?

Yes, my mistake. That line adds right and middle-click taps and the palm detect makes it less likely for the touchpad to steal focus while typing. You could put back in the scrolling if you think it's more usable OOTB that way. I would guess it is.

-edit- I'm curious why you include tint2rc as a symlink, is it needed?

Last edited by hhh (2023-12-19 12:40:01)

rbh · 2023-12-20 00:25:37

Maybe one little thing to change before final release:

The second sentence in the live "welcome-live.txt" is:

To install this operating system to a hard drive, reboot and choose 'Install' (or 'Text Install')
from the boot menu instead of 'Live'.

Today, menu "Text install", is a submenu, not visible at first.

Maybe change the text to:

To install this operating system to a hard drive, reboot and choose 'Install' (or 'Advanced install')
from the boot menu instead of 'Live'.

johnraff · 2023-12-20 02:20:14

rbh wrote:

Today, menu "Text install", is a submenu, not visible at first.
Maybe change the text to:
To install this operating system to a hard drive, reboot and choose 'Install' (or 'Advanced install')
from the boot menu instead of 'Live'.

Yes, thanks for the catch.

Easy to make an update of bunsen-configs-live.

Now committed, but I'll hold the package update in case anything else comes up.

Last edited by johnraff (2023-12-20 02:24:31)

johnraff · 2023-12-20 07:18:46

hhh wrote:

johnraff wrote:
Just a minute: "enable right-click and scrolling on touchpads" I can scroll on my touchpad without that code. Wasn't it about disabling scrolling or something?
Yes, my mistake. That line adds right and middle-click taps and the palm detect makes it less likely for the touchpad to steal focus while typing. You could put back in the scrolling if you think it's more usable OOTB that way. I would guess it is.

It's just a commented-out line, but please choose what you think would be the most useful thing to have, and the most helpful comment. Your wishes will be enacted.

I'm curious why you include tint2rc as a symlink, is it needed?

It's a way of setting the default tint2 on new systems. The alternative would be to ship ~/.config/tint2/tint2-sessionfile with the path to the default tint2 in it. (That sessionfile gets created by the tint2 session script on first run, if it doesn't already exist.) Either way, we'd want a way of setting the default tint2 without having to edit bl-tint2-session with every new release. Conky also uses a symlink ~/.config/conky/BL-Default-conky.conf pointing to the current default conky.

hhh · 2023-12-27 13:52:09

re: synclient, let's set VertTwoFingerScroll=1

re: grub splash, here's a new one at 1024x768...

https://github.com/hhhorb/boron-wallpap … n/grub.png

Direct link...

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hhhor … n/grub.png

Thoughts?

johnraff · 2023-12-28 01:59:10

johnraff wrote:

I'm curious why you include tint2rc as a symlink, is it needed?
It's a way of setting the default tint2 on new systems. The alternative would be to ship ~/.config/tint2/tint2-sessionfile with the path to the default tint2 in it. (That sessionfile gets created by the tint2 session script on first run, if it doesn't already exist.)...
Conky also uses a symlink ~/.config/conky/BL-Default-conky.conf pointing to the current default conky.

Thinking about this some more, as it is, new users when they open bl-tint2-manager see they are using something called tint2rc. That's not as helpful as seeing boron-dark-vertical.tint2rc which is where tint2rc points. If we shipped a tint2-sessionfile the user would see what they are getting right off. Same for conky.

I don't think it would be hard to tweak conky and tint2 session scripts in bunsen-utilities, and add the session files in bunsen-configs, but this close to final release I don't feel like digging it up, just in case a snag appears. Let's leave it for a post-release update, or possibly Carbon. Things work as they are.

hhh · 2023-12-28 03:28:33

^ Agreed.

johnraff · 2023-12-28 05:28:38

hhh wrote:

re: synclient, let's set VertTwoFingerScroll=1

So, add that to the active synclient line, just after VertEdgeScroll=1 HorizEdgeScroll=1 ?
Or in the commented-out alternative settings, replace VertTwoFingerScroll=0 with VertTwoFingerScroll=1 ?

Here's that section of the file as it is right now:

### TOUCHPAD: comment out the next two entries if you don't have one

## Configure touchpad. See 'man synaptics' for more info.
## (Now might be using libinput instead of synaptics.)
synclient VertEdgeScroll=1 HorizEdgeScroll=1 TapButton1=1 2>/dev/null
## alternative:
#synclient VertEdgeScroll=0 VertTwoFingerScroll=0 HorizEdgeScroll=0 TapButton1=1 TapButton2=3 TapButton3=2 PalmDetect=1 PalmMinWidth=4 PalmMinZ=100

## Disable touchpad while typing
syndaemon -i .5 -K -t -R -d &

### TOUCHPAD END

And maybe that 2>/dev/null can come out? Why hide errors?

Last edited by johnraff (2023-12-28 05:30:59)

johnraff · 2023-12-28 07:21:58

hhh wrote:

re: grub splash, here's a new one at 1024x768...
https://github.com/hhhorb/boron-wallpap … n/grub.png
Direct link...
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hhhor … n/grub.png
Thoughts?

Hmm...

1) OK I think the BL logo could still do with being moved up higher, quite a bit higher into that unused space above the menu.

2) This is more down to personal taste, but I think I liked the previous background shapes a bit better:

But if you prefer the new image, I'm fine with that too.

hhh · 2023-12-28 19:14:13

No, I'll redo it. Your first scrot shows me I was designing for the wrong screen.

hhh · 2023-12-29 18:30:52

I have a bad habit of not saving my previous work, so this is a less cropped Emerald backgroubd than the one John likes, but I think this will work well...

https://github.com/hhhorb/boron-wallpap … e-grub.png

Direct link...

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hhhor … e-grub.png

I'm glad to crop it up more if y'all think it would look better.

I also uploaded the splash as a 1600x1200px wallpaper, for the hell of it...

https://github.com/hhhorb/boron-wallpap … 0x1200.png
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hhhor … 0x1200.png

And a greyscale version...

https://github.com/hhhorb/boron-wallpap … 0x1200.png
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hhhor … 0x1200.png

johnraff · 2023-12-30 02:11:51

hhh wrote:

I have a bad habit of not saving my previous work, so this is a less cropped Emerald backgroubd than the one John likes, but I think this will work well...
https://github.com/hhhorb/boron-wallpap … e-grub.png

Looks pretty good to me!
(For sure, I tend not to delete discarded stuff till it's a couple of years old. Sometimes comes in useful.)

For syslinux it seems that the grub image still has to be 640x480 but I can resize that image no problem.

I don't think the efi/grub version has any such restrictions, but I have to see if I can make an EFI-boot qemu VM to test it.
I'd be inclined to use your new image there too, at its current 1024x768 if it looks OK (think it should).

The greyscale image is cool too, but is there any reason to ship it? It will only be used in the installer, not the installed system.

hhh · 2023-12-30 13:08:49

No need to ship the extra images, I put them up in case anyone who came across the repo wanted to use them.

johnraff · 2024-01-13 09:41:50

OK there were some distractions with bugs, and IRL was occupying a lot of time too, but finally caught up.

@Has I've added your improved grub images to live-build, along with a couple of minor tweaks. The bugfixed packages will be pulled in at build time.

I plan to build RC3 amd64 tomorrow, maybe i386 too.
If nothing comes up in a day or two of final testing I'll run the build again renamed as for an official release, and upload the isos to the server download section, along with the torrent and checksum files.

Then it will be necessary to edit the website and get some release notes ready.

hhh · 2024-01-13 14:58:44

You're not confident enough to just release the Official ISO? That's fine, I guess it's better to err on the side of caution.

Last edited by hhh (2024-01-13 14:59:15)

johnraff · 2024-01-14 03:18:00

Confident that this build will be fine, but anyone can make mistakes. Just yesterday I uploaded a quite unwanted modification to bunsen-images-base and had to follow it with another upgrade to bring it back to where it was before.

If we release boron-1 then find a typo somewhere we'll have to put out boron-2 the next day which is poor optics. Better to make sure RC3 is OK then I'll rebuild with exactly the same configs except for a different name. If there is a typo then it goes to RC4 first...

But at this point it's only a check for silly mistakes. The essentials are all good I think.

...and yes, a lot of things can be fixed by package upgrades after release. But the first impression has to be right.

Last edited by johnraff (2024-01-14 03:21:40)

hhh · 2024-01-14 03:30:14

Agreed. Good luck with the builds!

#41 2023-12-16 07:51:20

Re: Boron cleanup

#42 2023-12-18 22:37:55

Re: Boron cleanup

#43 2023-12-19 05:48:32

Re: Boron cleanup

#44 2023-12-19 12:29:51

Re: Boron cleanup

#45 2023-12-20 00:25:37

Re: Boron cleanup

#46 2023-12-20 02:20:14

Re: Boron cleanup

#47 2023-12-20 07:18:46

Re: Boron cleanup

#48 2023-12-27 13:52:09

Re: Boron cleanup

#49 2023-12-28 01:59:10

Re: Boron cleanup

#50 2023-12-28 03:28:33

Re: Boron cleanup

#51 2023-12-28 05:28:38

Re: Boron cleanup

#52 2023-12-28 07:21:58

Re: Boron cleanup

#53 2023-12-28 19:14:13

Re: Boron cleanup

#54 2023-12-29 18:30:52

Re: Boron cleanup

#55 2023-12-30 02:11:51

Re: Boron cleanup

#56 2023-12-30 13:08:49

Re: Boron cleanup

#57 2024-01-13 09:41:50

Re: Boron cleanup

#58 2024-01-13 14:58:44

Re: Boron cleanup

#59 2024-01-14 03:18:00

Re: Boron cleanup

#60 2024-01-14 03:30:14

Re: Boron cleanup

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