From libreinator at disroot.org Mon May 6 09:59:39 2019 From: libreinator at disroot.org (Pranav Jerry) Date: Mon, 06 May 2019 09:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Assist] Updating the Parabola ISO Message-ID: <66dbf412d837422712d5b1479ee636e2@disroot.org> Hi! The Parabola ISO available for download is a little old. How is the default ISO made? The wiki page Hacking:Parabolaiso states it is outdated. I've consulted the ArchWiki. It says you have to copy /usr/share/archiso/configs/profile/ (parabolaiso in this case) to some dir and run ./build.sh -v It that it, or is there something more to do? PS my pc is quite old (celeron 450, ddr2 666 or 800) and doesn't have more than 800MiB free space in the home partition. Therefore I can't do it myself before upgrading my pc. Can anyone volunteer to build a new ISO and make available for download? Sorry if I was rude. From alex3kov at zoho.com Mon May 6 13:42:27 2019 From: alex3kov at zoho.com (Aleksei) Date: Mon, 6 May 2019 16:42:27 +0300 Subject: [Assist] Updating the Parabola ISO In-Reply-To: <66dbf412d837422712d5b1479ee636e2@disroot.org> References: <66dbf412d837422712d5b1479ee636e2@disroot.org> Message-ID: <20190506134227.xsjxdmnwuwcek5dk@gnulinux.localdomain> Latest ISO on download page is dated 2019.03.10. On Mon, May 06, 2019 at 09:59:39AM +0000, Pranav Jerry wrote: >Hi! > >The Parabola ISO available for download is >a little old. How is the default ISO made? >The wiki page Hacking:Parabolaiso states it is >outdated. > >I've consulted the ArchWiki. It says you have to >copy /usr/share/archiso/configs/profile/ (parabolaiso in this case) >to some dir and run ./build.sh -v > >It that it, or is there something more to do? > >PS my pc is quite old (celeron 450, ddr2 666 or 800) and doesn't >have more than 800MiB free space in >the home partition. Therefore I >can't do it myself before upgrading >my pc. Can anyone volunteer >to build a new ISO and make >available for download? > >Sorry if I was rude. >_______________________________________________ >Assist mailing list >Assist at lists.parabola.nu >https://lists.parabola.nu/mailman/listinfo/assist From libreinator at disroot.org Wed May 8 16:11:01 2019 From: libreinator at disroot.org (Pranav Jerry) Date: Wed, 08 May 2019 16:11:01 +0000 Subject: [Assist] Updating the Parabola ISO In-Reply-To: <20190506134227.xsjxdmnwuwcek5dk@gnulinux.localdomain> References: <20190506134227.xsjxdmnwuwcek5dk@gnulinux.localdomain> <66dbf412d837422712d5b1479ee636e2@disroot.org> Message-ID: <47d8622b7289daf1d9b292b5d203ad4f@disroot.org> Hi! The ISO you mentioned is the OpenRC one, not systemd. The current systemd iso doesn't work in my new PC (gigabyte H310M H, i3 8100). I guess it should work fine with the new kernel. Thanks! May 6, 2019 6:57 AM, "Aleksei" wrote: > Latest ISO on download page is dated 2019.03.10. > > On Mon, May 06, 2019 at 09:59:39AM +0000, Pranav Jerry wrote: > >> Hi! >> >> The Parabola ISO available for download is >> a little old. How is the default ISO made? >> The wiki page Hacking:Parabolaiso states it is >> outdated. >> >> I've consulted the ArchWiki. It says you have to >> copy /usr/share/archiso/configs/profile/ (parabolaiso in this case) >> to some dir and run ./build.sh -v >> >> It that it, or is there something more to do? >> >> PS my pc is quite old (celeron 450, ddr2 666 or 800) and doesn't >> have more than 800MiB free space in >> the home partition. Therefore I >> can't do it myself before upgrading >> my pc. Can anyone volunteer >> to build a new ISO and make >> available for download? >> >> Sorry if I was rude. >> _______________________________________________ >> Assist mailing list >> Assist at lists.parabola.nu >> https://lists.parabola.nu/mailman/listinfo/assist From bill-auger at peers.community Wed May 8 17:51:50 2019 From: bill-auger at peers.community (bill-auger) Date: Wed, 8 May 2019 13:51:50 -0400 Subject: [Assist] Updating the Parabola ISO In-Reply-To: <47d8622b7289daf1d9b292b5d203ad4f@disroot.org> References: <20190506134227.xsjxdmnwuwcek5dk@gnulinux.localdomain> <66dbf412d837422712d5b1479ee636e2@disroot.org> <47d8622b7289daf1d9b292b5d203ad4f@disroot.org> Message-ID: <20190508135150.46e141a3@parabola> On Wed, 08 May 2019 16:11:01 +0000 Pranav wrote: > The current systemd iso doesn't work > in my new PC what exactly does not work? - does it boot? From alex3kov at zoho.com Thu May 9 08:03:26 2019 From: alex3kov at zoho.com (Aleksei) Date: Thu, 9 May 2019 11:03:26 +0300 Subject: [Assist] Updating the Parabola ISO In-Reply-To: <47d8622b7289daf1d9b292b5d203ad4f@disroot.org> References: <20190506134227.xsjxdmnwuwcek5dk@gnulinux.localdomain> <66dbf412d837422712d5b1479ee636e2@disroot.org> <47d8622b7289daf1d9b292b5d203ad4f@disroot.org> Message-ID: <20190509080326.xo24pbdgepqbxhjd@gnulinux.localdomain> I installed Parabola with systemd from that ISO with no problems. Just because ISO uses OpenRC doesn't mean you must install the system to the drive with OpenRC. On Wed, May 08, 2019 at 04:11:01PM +0000, Pranav Jerry wrote: >Hi! > >The ISO you mentioned is the OpenRC one, >not systemd. The current systemd iso doesn't work >in my new PC (gigabyte H310M H, i3 8100). > >I guess it should work fine with the new kernel. > >Thanks! > >May 6, 2019 6:57 AM, "Aleksei" wrote: > >> Latest ISO on download page is dated 2019.03.10. >> >> On Mon, May 06, 2019 at 09:59:39AM +0000, Pranav Jerry wrote: >> >>> Hi! >>> >>> The Parabola ISO available for download is >>> a little old. How is the default ISO made? >>> The wiki page Hacking:Parabolaiso states it is >>> outdated. >>> >>> I've consulted the ArchWiki. It says you have to >>> copy /usr/share/archiso/configs/profile/ (parabolaiso in this case) >>> to some dir and run ./build.sh -v >>> >>> It that it, or is there something more to do? >>> >>> PS my pc is quite old (celeron 450, ddr2 666 or 800) and doesn't >>> have more than 800MiB free space in >>> the home partition. Therefore I >>> can't do it myself before upgrading >>> my pc. Can anyone volunteer >>> to build a new ISO and make >>> available for download? >>> >>> Sorry if I was rude. >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Assist mailing list >>> Assist at lists.parabola.nu >>> https://lists.parabola.nu/mailman/listinfo/assist From bill-auger at peers.community Thu May 9 21:22:39 2019 From: bill-auger at peers.community (bill-auger) Date: Thu, 9 May 2019 17:22:39 -0400 Subject: [Assist] Updating the Parabola ISO In-Reply-To: <20190509080326.xo24pbdgepqbxhjd@gnulinux.localdomain> References: <20190506134227.xsjxdmnwuwcek5dk@gnulinux.localdomain> <66dbf412d837422712d5b1479ee636e2@disroot.org> <47d8622b7289daf1d9b292b5d203ad4f@disroot.org> <20190509080326.xo24pbdgepqbxhjd@gnulinux.localdomain> Message-ID: <20190509172239.78988624@parabola> On Thu, 9 May 2019 11:03:26 +0300 Aleksei wrote: > I installed Parabola with systemd from that ISO with no > problems. Just because ISO uses OpenRC doesn't mean you must > install the system to the drive with OpenRC. > > On Wed, May 08, 2019 at 04:11:01PM +0000, Pranav Jerry wrote: > >The ISO you mentioned is the OpenRC one, > >not systemd. The current systemd iso doesn't work > >in my new PC (gigabyte H310M H, i3 8100). that is true, but you still did not indicate what worked and what did not work did you use one of the installers or did you install manually o the command-line? - then after the system was installed, what is not working? - does the installed system boot? - what exactly are you suggesting? - do you need any help or are you only suggesting that a new batch of ISOs be made? From je-vv at e.email Mon May 27 00:53:57 2019 From: je-vv at e.email (Javier) Date: Sun, 26 May 2019 18:53:57 -0600 Subject: [Assist] [assist] Shepherd, firmware and intel-ucode Message-ID: I'm looking forward to migrate from Arch to an Arch based non systemd, and even better if Shepherd init system distro. I noticed Shepherd is included as a Pcr-Testing package, so it means one can start testing it. However I didn't find anything related to how to migrate from Arch to a Shepherd based Parabola. Moreover, I didn't find how to deal with Shepherd, meaning whether most SW with daemons have a Shepherd daemon counterpart, to avoid having to write them, also how to start/stop and enable/disable daemons. Also, it seems Parabola doesn't include the intel-ucode package, which is loaded into the HW as an initrd in Arch. I see the iucode-tool though. How does Parabola deals with intel ucode upgrades (amd ones as well for that matter)? I'm afraid several security issues are closed through ucode upgrades, so it's important to keep them up to date I'd guess. Finally, for FW in general, currently on Arch I don't bother about installing specific FW for the most part. Depending on the system I use, the only particular packages I've installed on Arch: nouveau-fw linux-firmware nouveau-fw Not sure if there are global FW packages in Parabola that would avoid discovering the hard way what FW is missing to get some HW working. Also, it came to my attention that for some wireless drivers [1], one needs to get the FW from the linux kernel, is there a way get an unofficial package with the FW instead, to also keep the FW up to date, and not get with a stale outdated FW? Sorry for so general questions. I'd like to understand what implications there are by migrating, and these are like big topics for me. BTW, I'd like to avoid migrating to openRC if my plan is to migrate to Shepherd, to avoid going through 2 learning curves. If the suggestion is to wait until Shepherd moves to the Pcr repo, then I might migrate only until then, but is there a way to find out (news subscription or similar) other than monitoring where the package is? Thanks ! -- Javier [1] https://wiki.parabola.nu/Wireless_Setup -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 228 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From bill-auger at peers.community Mon May 27 02:06:02 2019 From: bill-auger at peers.community (bill-auger) Date: Sun, 26 May 2019 22:06:02 -0400 Subject: [Assist] [assist] Shepherd, firmware and intel-ucode In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20190526220602.78d6482b@parabola> init scripts are not usually part of a daemon software, but written custom by each distro; especially in the case of a new or less popular init-system, someone must write them - i assume that shepherd itself probably works as expected already with the core system daemons; and most of the work needed to move shepherd out of testing would be writing the init scripts to adapt shepherd for each optional daemon no one has worked on shepherd support for some time - the main focus has been on getting openrc working very well for everyday use - that is fairly solid now; so if you are willing to help test shepherd, then maybe someone will be interested to work on it some more as for microcode and linux-firmware, parabola does not distribute those because there is no source code available - parabola uses the 'linux-libre' kernel and 'linux-libre-firmware' those are the analogs to linux and linux-firmware but do not include proprietary blobs - if those do not have everything you need, then you would be on your own to install and upgrade whatever is necessary for your computer that is not recommended or supported by parabola, and it is rarely necessary; but it is not difficult to accomplish, if that is your wish - most computers function perfectly without any non-free firmware; though some graphics cards would not have hardware-accelerated 3D but would use software rendering instead, and some wifi radios would not function - even in those cases, those hardware parts can be replaced with compatible one the h-node website can be used to find which hardware is compatible with libre distros https://h-node.org/hardware/catalogue/en From GNUtoo at cyberdimension.org Mon May 27 14:01:11 2019 From: GNUtoo at cyberdimension.org (Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli) Date: Mon, 27 May 2019 16:01:11 +0200 Subject: [Assist] [assist] Shepherd, firmware and intel-ucode In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20190527160111.54aa908d@primarylaptop.localdomain> On Sun, 26 May 2019 18:53:57 -0600 Javier wrote: > Also, it seems Parabola doesn't include the intel-ucode package, > which is loaded into the HW as an initrd in Arch. I see the > iucode-tool though. How does Parabola deals with intel ucode > upgrades (amd ones as well for that matter)? I'm afraid several > security issues are closed through ucode upgrades, so it's important > to keep them up to date I'd guess. Security is always relative to a threat model. For instance for most smartphone manufacturer, having the device users being able to replace the bootloader is a security issue. For me and many people in the free software movement, not being able to replace that code is a freedom, privacy and security issue. Here, since it's common for proprietary software to include more malware-features (surveillance, restrictions, etc) in the later revisions and that the Intel microcode is nonfree and encrypted[1], using nonfree microcode carries additional risk. If you manage not to run any nonfree software and that you are not forced to run any program you don't want on a given computer, the bugs related to speculative execution stops becoming an issue[2]. > Finally, for FW in general, currently on Arch I don't bother about > installing specific FW for the most part. Depending on the system I > use, the only particular packages I've installed on Arch: > > nouveau-fw I don't know what's inside but many GPUs that are supported by Nouveau have a free software firmware that is shipped directly by the Linux kernel. > linux-firmware We have some firmwares in linux-libre-firmware too, but only the ones that are free software. As several drivers require a proprietary firmware to work (because no one replaced them yet with free software) some hardware may not work. The most common issues are the WiFi card not working and/or the GPU driver not working. For ATI/AMD GPUs, this can easily be fixed, by modifying linux-libre to make the driver still load, and testing the change for your specific GPU. It won't give 3D acceleration but it still enables you to use many features like multi-display, native display resolutions, etc. > Not sure if there are global FW packages in Parabola that would avoid > discovering the hard way what FW is missing to get some HW working. You could test it on a livecd. You could also test Trisquel as it also uses linux-libre (but it uses an older version, so for instance some ATI GPUs might only work in newer versions). > Also, it came to my attention that for some wireless drivers [1], one > needs to get the FW from the linux kernel, is there a way get an > unofficial package with the FW instead, to also keep the FW up to > date, and not get with a stale outdated FW? This is not the way to go with Parabola and most of the distributions that are validated by the FSF. As some hardware doesn't work without nonfree software, most of the distributions will simply not support that hardware to ensure that the software remains fully free. The way that the users deal with is is usually to do the opposite: instead of trying to make the hardware work by using nonfree software, they typically choose hardware that works with their distribution. For instance to get working WiFi they typically either: - buy a computer that already works with fully free software like the ones listed on the FSF website: fsf.org/ryf - assemble a similar computer themselves. The process is documented in the Libreboot documentation[3]. - are lucky and the computer they currently have work fine with fully free distributions. Unlike the two solutions above, this doesn't mean that the computer is fully free as the boot software (BIOS/UEFI) is not necessarily free in this case. - add an external WiFi card when it's a laptop (as many boot software (BIOS/UEFI) refuse to boot if you removed or changed the internal WiFi card. - change the Internal WiFi card (in the case of a laptop where the BIOS/UEFI doesn't have such restrictions or in the case of desktop computers. > I'd like to understand what implications there are by migrating, and > these are like big topics for me. - You get a fully free software distribution. As nonfree software is malware[5] most of the time, you have way better guarantees for your freedom privacy and security. While everything is not perfect as software has bugs, including sometimes freedom issues that are found and fixed, we have a least a fighting chance to make the software really respect users freedom, and most of the time it does. - Some hardware may not work. It's best to try a livecd of Trisquel or Parabola and try to test as much hardware as possible with that. You could also install it aside Arch and use a dual-boot system until you're confident enough to do the migration. The issues that are typically found in nonfree applications are also found elsewhere if the software is nonfree. For instance if the WiFi firmware is nonfree nobody can fix the bugs but the company that owns the copyright on that firmware. And that company interests might not be to fix the issues that are important to you, or to the community of users in general, but instead make as much money as possible. This means that security issues like the WPA group key issue might remain unfixed, that features could not be added to the driver due to the inability to change the Fimrware, etc. In contrast the ath9k driver which doesn't require a nonfree firmware is one of the driver that gets most of the work to improve the WiFi stack. The ath9k_htc driver and compatible firmware also gets fixes and improvement. > BTW, I'd like to avoid migrating to openRC if my plan is to migrate > to Shepherd, to avoid going through 2 learning curves. If the > suggestion is to wait until Shepherd moves to the Pcr repo, then I > might migrate only until then, but is there a way to find out (news > subscription or similar) other than monitoring where the package is? GuixSD[4] is a fully free GNU/Linux distribution that already has GNU Shepherd. As it is also fully free, all the comments above about hardware support also applies to it. References: ----------- [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Microcode#Microcode_update_format [2]https://jxself.org/afraid.shtml [3]https://libreboot.org/ [4]https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/ [5]https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.html Denis. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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