FRAMEBUFFER: Baby (U-Series) Release News

[machinebacon]

This will be a long read, so take your time please.

Ladies and gentlemen and everybody else,

with LinuxBBQ moving to release v5.0 there's a little surprise for you all, but specially dedicated to the Framebuffer Lovers at the grill.

This is a completely new distrolette nicknamed "Baby" and as you can see from the title, it carries the internal label of "U-Series". Sharp minds and thinkers could already image that this stands for Ubuntu. It does not mean that LinuxBBQ now moves to the brownish purple uncles, it just gives us - after over one year fooling around in the official Borklands - the opportunity to break stuff in a professional way, by adding the pest PPAs everybody in Debian dreams of, and the "U-Series" should also act as an 'eye-opener' for those who think that Ubuntu is "slow, heavy and bloated" - because actually, it isn't.

The "Baby" release is not a barebones version like a mini.iso; in fact it comes with a huge bunch of applications and allows the user to work 24/7 in TTY, by using framebuffer for image display. Let's go through the special features, I promise you will love them:

Framebuffer enabled
"Baby" has some framebuffer tools to display images, movies and even PDF files. Enter the command "fbtools" to see them listed, they mostly work from STDIN. fbterm, fbgrab, fbv, our own fbcolors, and more.

Enhanced browsing mode
There are some browsers to choose from, each has its own advantage:
I have set up Elinks in a way that you can watch or download youtube videos directly in mplayer. To achieve this, navigate to a youtube video link and press [y]. Another nice touch is the shortcut mode. After pressing [g] to enter a URL, simply type "y nyancat 100 hours" and Elinks will directly bring you to the search results at youtube.
Other browsers include (x)links2 with the solarized dark colour scheme, and the w3m browser for seamless Emacs integration.

ASCII forever
Of course there are a couple of ASCII tools and games (latter you find in the well-known "bbq" CLI menu). And before wux has a chance to ask: yes, figlet, toilet, libcaca and aafire are installed.

Free of X11
There are no X applications or dependencies apart from those that are needed to build some applications. Talking of build...

Build tools included
You can actually start compiling, because build-essentials, C compiler, and libraries are on the media. To commit your changes, "Baby" comes with git.

Persistence, toram and stuff
These options are enabled thanks to casper, so you can run a persistent session or load it to RAM, from the Live session boot screen, of course.

Emacs? Emacs!
Absolutely no question, of course it is installed. Emacs is good for you.

Network
To get the best results, use 'ceni' to set up your network. I am not sure if your wireless adapter will be detected, please try with a wired connection first and check if you can find drivers, if needed, for your device. Please also note that for wireless support you are on your own here at the grill. The best solution is to check the Ubuntu forums, because "Baby" is plain vanilla Ubuntu. Of course without GUI overhead.

system2iso
In the last days I worked on a set of scripts that can create a snapshot of your running system and squash it to an ISO. The framework is not yet fully finished (right now, bbqinstaller is the installer) but I expect it to be ready by the end of November. What works now is "system2iso" -- and it does work well. The "Baby" is actually created with it.

Problem?
This is not even an alpha, because I haven't had to test it on more than three computers so far. Due to the nature of Ubuntu - everything being merged into upstart and plymouth - I had to apply some changes: no upgrade notifications, no apparmor, no check for new releases, no plymouth splash screen. I can guarantee that stuff works (72 hours non-stop FB session yielded zero errors), but still there are error messages displayed during boot from ISO. These come from casper trying to call deactivated or removed services like those mentioned before and have no impact on the actual system. I am in the process of eliminating them.
Another thing worth to mention: check /etc/modprobe.d/uvesafb.conf, /etc/fb.modes and the fbset output as well as the kernel bootline to adjust it to your screen. It is now set to 1024x768-32.

Reports by users
So far, some users have reported that tmux doesn't start in a normal console session, only in framebuffer, and only on some machines. It is until now not clear what causes this and which hardware is affected. My first suspicion (KMS) is invalid, as it happens with Intels and nvidia cards, too. We are investigating, but anyway, either fb-mode or pure console 'works', and apparently adding X on top doesn't break stuff. Users are encouraged to edit /etc/apt/sources.list to change to a closer mirror (replace cn. with us. for example)

Labrats and guinea pigs wanted!
The live session works well, but what about "bbqinstaller"? Does it do what it should? I haven't tested it on real iron, and I do not recommend it. But if you have a spare partition created, and you have time (especially to hack into the bbqinstaller script if it bails out), please have a try. Actually (!) it should work without a hitch - well, it needs modifications in the /etc/bbqinstaller or /usr/lib/bbqinstaller/* files, I suppose. First things first....

Roadmap?
The sys2iso framework is not yet finished, but I am working on it. For the next days there will be a lite version of baby (guess the release name, it's obvious ;D) without Emacs and build-tools. No, I don't plan on going X with this.

Download location
The file is here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxbb ... amebuffer/

tl;dr

*yawn* ;)

[fog]

:already in love:
You are a mind reader. :D

My 64bit xubuntu custom session begins with 125 MB of ram usage with very little customization.
Less than default #! in my laptop.
A lighter ubu base, a baby U maybe, to roast my ...foguntu baby was always my linux-dream.

[DebianJoe]

Not gonna read all that noise. Will install on system-critical device ASAP.

@fog, I've gotten Ubuntu running dwm at 30MB RAM with almost no effort..so it's very possible to make the U-variants perform well. Best of luck with the spinning.

[machinebacon]

Guys, just writing it again here in big letters:

This is a Framebuffer Release and I have no freaking idea if adding X on top will work as expected.

But a foguntu, that would be easy to create, with a mini.iso and so on. I made one with openbox/tint2/conky and it booted into the 40MB range.

[machinebacon]

Okay, the file is up (438.5MiB/459.8MB)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxbb ... o/download

[DebianJoe]

Live session works great. Quick question...would you like me to change the script at ../consolecolors/theme to be name fbcolors, and also change the default theme message to "run as fbcolor <theme_nickname> so that it will make more sense for future use? Picking out a test system for a full install as we speak.

[machinebacon]

^ Oh I haven't even thought of this - wanted to make all framebuffer things start with fb for easy navigation, though consolecolors works without fb, too...

Keep it as is, I will change the name when Baby gets upgraded. :)

[pidsley]

Installed on the p4.

[machinebacon]

Installed? With bbqinstaller? Great, thank you. Were there any problems?

[pidsley]

No problems installing. The live usb stick will not boot on one test machine, but does boot on three others. Tmux will not run in the console on the P4 or Phenom, but will run in fbterm on both. mocp segfaults but cmus works.

(edit) I should have been more clear -- Joe is right; typing "tmux" in the console does start a tmux process, but nothing happens. I have to switch to another tty and kill the process.

[machinebacon]

I noticed mocp segfaulting and I have no idea where it comes from.
As for the framebuffer stuff, check /etc/modprobe.d/uvesafb.conf, /etc/fb.modes and the fbset output as well as the kernel bootline (I am sure you know this already)
Forgot to mention in the OP.

Thanks for reporting.

[DebianJoe]

Looks like I'm a bit slow. Simply echoing that Pidsley and I are seeing the same thing with tmux. When booted directly from console, and not in FBterm, it starts and according to ps aux, it's running in tty1. Sending an EOF kills the shell still.

Edit: OMFG "welcome" !!!!
Edit#2: @Pids, on mine, C^d (EOF) will exit the process exactly as if you were running a normal tmux session, so I'm guessing (and this is totally a guess) it's capturing keystrokes and perhaps just not displaying output. (scratch that...trying use "send-keys" tmux commands doesn't seem to work.)

[machinebacon]

Joe, is that on an installed or live session, or on both?
Are there any boot parameters added to the kernel line?
Talking of kernel, what is the gfx card in question?

So if I understand it right, starting tmux directly after boot does not start tmux on the tty1, but the process is listed and can be killed?

[DebianJoe]

That's on a live session and install, will retest with VGA mode manipulations shortly. The Graphics card is Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series, no Kernel boot parameters added. You understand the issue correctly.

Fun fact: I had to try it, so I pulled in xorg, hacked /etc/X11/Xwrapper.conf to read "anybody", pulled in aterm, and made a .xinitrc that just contained "exec aterm"

It seems to work. I tried out the "surf" browser, and obviously, I can take a scrot. Seems like a waste of a bunch of good fbtools, but it didn't give me any trouble with starting X for those who might wish to try this route.

[machinebacon]

Lol, nice :) foguntu is thus just an apt-get away :D
Okay, so I am a bit at loss about the tmux thing because here it is totally normal. Booting up, enter user/pass, then tmux - everything normal. switch to tty2, fbterm && tmux, everything normal. Writing this from the t43, so that's Intel onboard. I'd really like to know where this comes from, and why mocp segfaults (by the way, cmus segfaulted too when reading a directory with brackets and ampersands)
Lot of work, it seems.

[DebianJoe]

I get the same result regardless of video mode (vga773 {which is deprecated according to Ubuntu}-vga=792, and nomodeset). I will try on a different system. I may try to rebuild tmux...seems fishy that it works in fbterm just fine, but doesn't work @ tty1.

[ivanovnegro]

You are completely insane and lost your mind Schinken. :D

About MOC, what about this:

http://moc.daper.net/node/928

[4eyes]

Downloading now :)

Excellent - After the 'pony' bbq, I knew it was just a matter of time before we started roasting babies.

[machinebacon]

@dadu: thanks for the link, I'll try with the debian version (bork my Ubuntu with a Debian package, lol)

[machinebacon]

I get the same result regardless of video mode (vga773 {which is deprecated according to Ubuntu}-vga=792, and nomodeset). I will try on a different system. I may try to rebuild tmux...seems fishy that it works in fbterm just fine, but doesn't work @ tty1.

I really doubt that building tmux makes a difference, but hey - sure, try whatever you can to fix this :) As I said, I can not reproduce it (and I'm really sorry about it, because it would be so much better if I had the problem in front of my nose) but will try on another laptop later tonight.