torios team mailing list archive

[JM <meets@xxxxxx>]

On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 01:14:19 +0400
Ali Linx <amjjawad@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 
> On 01/21/2014 01:01 AM, Joern wrote:

> > But now I have a question: who is going to package all the stuff we need? So much
> > packages we will need are now unmaintained in Precise, for example Openbox.
> >
> > That is a tricky task and is quite time consuming.
> >
> > Jörn

> I have no idea where the 'confirmation' of using Openbox has come from? 
> I haven't even voted with 'Yes' or 'No' but it seems everyone is in 
> hurry here :D


Hi Ali, Jörn, and all,

This is a good question, and a very delicate one. Ali, you have told to everybody, that I,
Mélodie, take the lead of the development. 

You said on your blog that the project I lead around Bento since July 2012, will probably
join and merge with ToriOS. I told you I agree with that. 

Bento is built around Openbox. 

Before I explain more I will talk about my experience of remastering to the people who
don't know me yet. I have had experience with remastering PCLinuxOS as Openbox flavors,
from 2009 to 2012 and some have been the basis for other versions.
http://meylodie.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/pclinuxos-openbox-bonsai/
http://www.pclinuxos.com/pclinuxos-2010-openbox-edition-now-available/

I had also remasted regularly all the other flavors (KDE, Gnome, Xfce, Lxde) to French
language in order to help the other French speaking users with the special method used in
that distro to get it into languages other than English. This experience has allowed me
knowing the inside of *nix filesystems much better, as well as some useful tricks.

So I agree about joining Bento, the ongoing project, to ToriOS, the community project you
started.

About hurrying ?
You said a version of ToriOS should need to be ready preferably before April, when the
time comes that XP will end it's live definitely at MS company. 

Everyone is in a hurry ? How strange ! Where did you get this idea from ? :D

Time flies my friend. We should not wait until the deadline to get into a panic, so
everyone who has already done some work for the project, in my humble opinion, did very
well.

Now, just tell me and tell everybody, that you, for ToriOS, don't want Openbox as the main
desktop: and I will just withdraw my contributions here and will continue to work on my
side. 

I will share here what I have told you so far (in fewer words possibly, don't worry) and
at the end I will explain (in few words if possible, don't worry) how I want to make it
evolve. 

The stage where Bento is now: http://linuxvillage.org/en/2013/11/bento-ubuntu-remix-rc/

has needed lots of work, and many ISOs uploaded and tested by people since 2012, July. It
is not finished, as you can guess from the "RC" in the name. A few things are still
needed to make it a shiny finished product. 

Bento Ubuntu Remix is built with Openbox, and it is built without any DM –Desktop
Manager– 

You can see among the screenshots presented for Bento, there is a lxpanel, which in fact
is optional, because tint2 is also installed and can be activated on the fly at any time.
The role of this lxpanel is to comfort the newcomers with the idea it looks like Windows
XP enough to be easy for them to handle: this is a panel, it is down the screen, and it
has a "Menu" button for applications. And it is the easiest panel out there to configure.

ToriOS can have it or have another one, or even none.

What you can't see on the screenshots are the programs which make the difference. They
are mainly openbox-menu, obsession, xdg-autostart, obsession-logout. (All standalone,
small and light), there is also zram-config and a modified configuration for it which
suits best to desktops.


The basis and tool used:

Started from Ubuntu Mini Remix, (not from Mini ISO, because I tried and
that DID NOT work because that one ISO is not built for that kind of purpose), the tool
which worked best so far for building purpose is Ubuntu Builder. 

References needed? ;-)

* Ubuntu Mini Remix:
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-mini-remix
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mini-remix/+faq/33

"Which packages are bundled in Ubuntu Mini Remix?

Ubuntu Mini Remix contains:
- ubuntu-minimal (this is a metapackage, details at http://tinyurl.com/2cpw6o)
- ubuntu-standard (this is a metapackage, details at http://tinyurl.com/323nu8)
- casper
- lupin-casper"

Which other packages (and configuration files) are the basis for Bento ? You can have a
look at this script (this is a work in progress, for I could not use it directly into
Ubuntu Builder):
http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/BentoVillageProject/scripts/OBUbuntu.sh.txt

and several more packages which took many days to figure out. I had to use a diff,
invoked against the filesystem.manifest file from my version and the one from Lubuntu,
with the -aur options and echoe the result in a new file, before taking a few hours to see
what packages could be missing to my list.

This might not mean much to some of you, but I will tell you this research has been very
time consuming. Some parts of Ubuntu are not "straightforward", all is not perfect under
the hood. So some packages should be included in one of the base packages, such
as ubuntu-minimal, but they aren't. :-(

http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/BentoVillageProject/paquets-utiles.txt

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Commit Log for Mon Feb 11 16:36:14 2013

Installed the following packages:
libc-dev-bin (2.15-0ubuntu10.3)
libc6-dev (2.15-0ubuntu10.3)
linux-libc-dev (3.2.0-37.58)
manpages-dev (3.35-0.1ubuntu1)
xscreensaver (5.15-2ubuntu1)
xscreensaver-data (5.15-2ubuntu1)
ibus (1.4.1-3ubuntu1)
ibus-gtk (1.4.1-3ubuntu1)
ibus-gtk3 (1.4.1-3ubuntu1)
libibus-1.0-0 (1.4.1-3ubuntu1)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

the manages-dev are not a dependancy anymore. The *ibus* list needs to get into a post
install remove list. The xscreensaver packages are optional, the other ones are important
to have.

These packages made the difference between a distribution that behaved and booted up to
the desktop as the other official and officially supported, and one which didn't even
offer the choice of languages at the start, and ended on the login screen instead of
finishing on the desktop.

* Ubuntu Builder:
https://launchpad.net/~f-muriana/+archive/ubuntu-builder

The developer just moved all from code google to lauchpad and some more information should
be available within a few days. This is a very good tool.


/!\ To end this discussion about which window manager and desktop: if ToriOS is to be
ready before April, no hurry no… But it would better be decided fast enough!!!


I have offered to join ToriOS and make a very minimal ISO out of Bento, because the goal
of ToriOS and the one of Bento look very much alike, and since I have started longer ago,
I can make the present project gain lots of time. Moreover, I intended to put Bento on a
diet next, after having fed it with the Christmas turkey, and brought it to become a DVD
of 1.8 GB large! :D

/Available now, still as a RC. Anyone who wants to test is welcome to ask for the link,
because once slimmed-down it could become the first ToriOS alpha soon provided, if Ali
decides it, of course… :-)


Openbox, and packages:
Yes Bento, proposed as the basis to build ToriOS on, is an Openbox Remix. 

Yes the version of Openbox in Precise is frozen, and it will not be updated. However the
newest Openbox version is already in Trusty.

The package has been done by Mati75 who is the official Debian maintainer of this
package. He also adopted my "ITP" : Intend To Package for openbox-menu, the light little
program written in C, allowing to have menus generated and maintained dynamically in the
Applications menus of Openbox.

I hope soon obsession will follow:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=731278

Packagers: we need packagers!

If you have again a look at this script:
http://meets.free.fr/Downloads/BentoVillageProject/scripts/OBUbuntu.sh.txt

and from there have a look at this one which I have used as a first model:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop/+junk/lubuntu-tools/view/head:/iso/lubuntu-build.sh

thanks to Julien Lavergne, who provided it to me, when I asked his help back in 2012.

Then you will see that some meta-packages also are needed, but not only. 

Some new configuration files for Slim to replace the default ones which trigger strange
things in the session, which I would like to use as a replacement for lightdm, and other
kinds of programs which I have been thinking about for some time.

And I have also a small list of programs for which it would be nice to have some official
packages: packaged for Debian sid, where all the Ubuntu official packages for the next
release come from.

I hope I have put in a new perspective on all this. I hope I can continue what I started.
If the decision of continuing with Bento and ToriOS merging, and Openbox used as the
basis for a light and easy new Ubuntu remix.

Plans for the coming days and weeks:
My first plan if it is accepted, is to use my actual work where I will keep only
Midori, Mousepad, and Sakura as main end-user programs. (And perhaps Xchat for fast
help if needed). 

A bench of cli tools might be still in it for the first next Alpha, which could be
removed when a full list will have been done.

Later, if ToriOS sticks to it's initial plan of being small with few programs, I will
continue Bento as a full fledged distribution, which is something I need currently, to
help people around me IRL, with their old machines and their limited knowledge.

And about Openbox, don't forget that it is a versatile window manager, which can be used
standalone, and also not only with Lxde but also with Gnome and with KDE where it
contributes to make them lighter, as a "Openbox/Gnome" session or as a "Openbox/KDE"
session. 

And it is always possible when the "desktop" is not tied up too much with the rest of the
system, to install and switch to other desktops: JWM, IceWM, Fluxbox, to quote a few other
light ones. (I am not familiar with their use, though).

I am opened to more questions if any come to you.

Best regards,
Mélodie