Devuan meet Wed. Feb 07, 2018 @20:30 UTC 🔼

Pad is here: https://pad.dyne.org/code/#/1/view/lKAeNEp6b2xEcopjMp+3mw/VEUV2mHEGdStqKvHj6sjSo1CbkghlbYNT6wnBTRc8IY/

Meet here: https://vdc.dyne.org/devuan

  • Please post notes prior to the meet.
  • Please add your name as 'Present' below when you get to the meet.
  • When adding a comment in someone else's notes, please pre-pend your name like this: (whoever) whatever . . .

Present: amesser, blinkdog, fsmithred, golinux, Irrwahn, jaromil, KatolaZ, merovech, NewGnuGuy, parazyd, rrq

Agenda 🔼

Old Business 🔼

Old Actions 🔼

  • KatolaZ: provide a 2-cd set for the installer
  • KatolaZ: start using isore for systematic iso testing
  • KatolaZ: build the missing xfce4 packages
  • KatolaZ: build the theme package
  • KatolaZ: policykit-1 for experimental

Reports 🔼

Financial report 2017 🔼

New Business 🔼

mini. iso

Welcome 🔼

  • Welcome to the new faces at the meet today! amesser, Irrwahn and merovech

New Actions 🔼

  • blinkdog, rrq: set up "mediawiki" on dev1galaxy.org (on that server not on the forum)
  • [DONE] #A (KatolaZ/parazyd) build policykit-1-elogind (by sunday)
  • re-introduce task-[kde|lxqt|cinnamon] in tasksel
  • [DONE] #A rebuild desktop-base (include file for lightdm-gtk-greeter)
  • [DONE] #A (KatolaZ,fsmithred) build the theme package
  • (KatolaZ) build the missing xfce4 packages
  • keep an eye why blinkdog's emails don't get to lurker (web archive)
  • automated publishing in web and rss of devuan news (https://lists.dyne.org/digest/) or posting on the wiki (new
  • [DONE]rrq: get jaromil to change the mx record for dev1galaxy.org, to what needs to point? to be "dev1galaxy.org"
  • setup CC.deb.devuan.org (CNAME to deb.devuan.org)
  • [IN-PROGRESS] add pkgmaster as a fallback in d-i
  • Setup CNAME for deb.devuan.org
  • Devuan Wiki: As the current state of the Devuan wiki is beginning to develop into a road block, we should try to get the transition going
    • preferably before the ASCII final release
  • (rrq) add wrapper page for access to talk.devuan.org
  • rrq get VPN access from parazyd (login rrq@192.168.16.2)
  • add bitcoin donations balance to the financial report

polkit-1 🔼

  • polkit-1 needs compilation with elogind
  • excludes systemd this way
  • currently stuck here https://ci.devuan.org/job/policykit-1-repos/5/console (weird gir (git?) dependency on "GObject introspection") but amesser has already a solution
  • we push for having this in ascii beta to see how it works
  • more details in the post by irrwahn and amesser, the task is brought forward by hleb too
  • max day to have this working is this sunday
  • dm sessions may need light modifications
  • we aim to default to lightdm/elogind/policykit-1

themeing dms 🔼

  • golinux is happy to work with anyone wanting to theme kde etc.
  • up for a team to work on this. did this already in the past and is feasible

fsmithred 🔼

  • Here are just the new theme files. (need to add config file and
  • Once clearlooks-phenix-darkpurpy-theme is packaged, then desktop-base can be packaged. Here's my repo. I made a merge request several weeks
  • Been working on new live installer and translation. Latest refracta installed on an old Macbook with 64-bit OS and 32-bit bootloader.

Irrwahn 🔼

  • Proposal: Offer a broader set of task-\-desktop choices in the ASCII
  • Background: In preliminary tests we were able to show that the Cinnamon, LXQt and KDE desktop environments can be made to work correctly WRT to session management (think Restart/Shutdown via GUI controls, user mounting of USB drives), by providing a stand-in for systemd-logind. Elogind is capable of acting as such a stand-in, as it is a fork of the systemd-logind component, made to work stand-alone. (This is how Gentoo solved their issues in this area.)
  • Minimally invasive implementation:
  • provide elogind package (gives us libpam-elogind, which provides libpam-systemd)
  • provide policykit-1-elogind package (polkit in the logind flavor, breaks consolekit and "traditional" polkit!)
  • leave task-[xfce|lxde|mate]-desktop as they are (i.e. let these packages keep their dependencies on slim + consolekit)
  • provide task-[cinnamon|lxqt|kde]-desktop, each with a Depends: on lightdm and policykit-1-elogind. (Lightdm actually works with elogind session management, whereas SLiM does not and probably never
    1. Note: sddm, which is the default for some DEs, refuses to play nicely with elogind for reasons not yet known.)
  • Pros: Having fully functional Cinnamon, LXQt and KDE desktop environments available as choices in Devuan ASCII installer. This will hopefully let Devuan look more mature and up-to-date as a candidate for desktop installations, as well as gain a better standing in this respect in future reviews.
  • Cons: It will be impossible to have simultaneously installed any of the set task- [xfce|lxde|mate]-desktop alongside with any of the set task-[cinnamon|lxqt|kde]- desktop. (The only straightforward solution to this restriction would be to swap in lightdm/elogind for slim/consolekit in [xfce|lxde|mate], which seems undesirable at least for ASCII, as it would imply unnecessary work and potential breakage.)
  • DISCLAIMER: I'm only a tester/reporter for this, with next to no packaging experience at all! Andreas Messer and Hleb Valoshka provided the preliminary elogind and policykit packages in the experimental repository, thus are able (and hopefully could be willing) to provide the elogind and policykit-1-elogind packages. The task-[cinnamon|lxqt|kde]-desktop package modification and provisioning would have to be done by a volunteer with sufficient experience in this area. I shall gladly provide as much support as I can in words and deeds (read: testing) to those taking the "dirty" work upon themselves. BTW, thanks to KatolaZ, Andreas and Hleb for making even this proposal possible at all!

blinkdog 🔼

golinux 🔼

  • Been on a quest to find the perfect icon color for darkpurpy. Here's the best iteration so far:
  • https://transfer.sh/I1ajN/icon-color.png
  • Will put together a README for the darkpurpy theme with instructions to re-enable the hidden scrollbars. Someone might actually want that "feature". (shudder . . .)
  • README about the overlay scrollbars disabled by the CPDP theme:
  • https://transfer.sh/jEhsm/README

merovech 🔼

  • Relaunch of Devuan News
  • proposed approach
    • a regular newsletter to communicate general news and information about the project
    • aimed at existing userbase as well as potential converts currently using other OSes
    • brief enough to be a manageable read, with links to further info on each topic
    • technical enough for the relative sophistication of Devuan users (early adopters)
    • each issue to also include links and/or info about how to help the project
    • positive effort to encourage reader input, comments, questions, etc
    • however editorial control should remain with a small team
  • process
    • original in markdown, easily converted to suitable delivery formats e.g. html
    • distribution by multiple channels, e.g. wiki, rss, dng mailing list
    • not setting a target now for how often it will come out
    • these are just suggestions, details to be agreed
  • content
    • small number of articles to cover main topical issues
    • links to new and interesting relevant content available elsewhere
    • right now, progress towards ascii release is the main story
    • suggestions welcome for types of content that are wanted

amesser 🔼

logind session management

  • elogind
  • Changed default behavior to not kill processes on logout. (rrq) +1.
  • Fixed a problem with daemonizing (startpar not terminating). This change has been merged to upstream last week.
  • When used in combination with elogind enabled consolekit, functionality of desktop improves a lot. (e.g. Mounting by clicking on the "USB Drive Plugged" popup works - in contrast with consolekit based policykit)
  • Tests have shown that elogind is not as compatible with systemd-logind as expected.
    • applications depending on logind session management must be using
    1. Elogind uses a different cgroup structure and as consequence session api from libsystemd fails:
    • sdpidget_session()
    • sdbuscredsgetsession()
    • sdbuscredsgetowner_uid()
    • sdpidget_cgroup()
    • sdpeerget_session()
    • sdpeerget_cgroup()
    • other cgroup depending functionality might be affected as well.
    • I consider this a serious issue because most packages are linked against libsystemd, also libelogind does not export the full api of libsystemd and behaves different sometimes:
    • sdbusopen(), sdbusdefault() never opens existing user dbus
    • sdbusopen_user() will not open the user bus but the system bus
    • sdpidgetmachinename(), sdpidgetowneruid() always fails
    • sdpeergetmachinename(), sdpeergetowneruid() always fails
    • libsystemd-dev and libelogind-dev provide same manpages and thus can not be installed at the same time
  • Unclear to me why it doesn't work with slim. logind is activated through PAM modules when a session is opened. So there is no need for any special action within the DM to support it. Maybe this is more related to missing policykit. ((Irrwahn) Not sure which version of SLiM was forked for Devuan. There is https://github.com/Ninja-Koala/slim which aims at better sd-logind support, however last commit is from nearly 3 years ago.)
  • policykit-1
  • Started some work on policykit-1 package.
  • Build policykit in flavours: "consolekit" and "logind" out of a single source package. Required some patching to allow out of directory builds, but works. Only the parts of policykit-1 which directly depend on the backend are individually build:
    • libpolkit-backend-1-0-consolekit + libpolkit-gobject-1-0-consolekit
    • ?-logind Remaining packets are common and do not depend on session management
  • Generally, policykit-1 packaging produces lots of individual library packets at the moment. Most of them are always to be installed when polkit itself is installed: `backend`, `gobject`. Additionally `agent` is installed in almost any case if a DE is installed.
  • In order to work with elogind it must be explicitly built against libelogind at the moment. Do we need a tree flavours? "consolekit", "systemd" "elogind"?

rrq 🔼

  • done nothing; too much home logistics, and it's still too hot summer, except for a diminutive toe dip into using "tor" (not my cup of tea).
  • get jaromil to change the mx record for dev1galaxy.org

KatolaZ 🔼

  • hacked on d-i. The latest issues were ours. Debugging is just a matter of humility. It works now. Complete mini.iso available for install (20180205+devuan1)
  • need to adjust few things there (d-i), including bootsplashes and bootmenu themes (got the material from golinux/fsmithred)
  • created a new d-i optional component "choose-init" that allows to choose between sysvinit and openrc. It just works, and is able to install a "clean" openrc (boots into it without issues). Could be offered in expert install in ascii, if you agree. Customisable to add more options in the future ;-)
  • would like to add a "Console productivity" task to tasksel, based on the package selection made in minimal-live (all console-based tools for personal prod and basic admin tasks)
  • Will work now on netinst/cdrom images for the release (parazyd/jaromil?)
  • Will finalise also minimal-live
  • Should now have finally time to build the few remaining packages and help out with the theme packages

msi (unable to attend) 🔼

  • Devuan Wiki: As the current state of the Devaun wiki is beginning to develop into a road block, we should try to get the transition going
  • Documentation: There has not been another meeting of the de facto documentation team (blinkdog, chillfan, (golinux,) and me) yet.
  • (golinux) Don't forget NewGnuGuy
  • My suggestion is that we put together some Devuan documentation guidelines from what has been discussed so far and then draw up a
  • (golinux) Personally I would start by actually writing documentation and let that shape the guidelines rather than trying to fit documentation into an abstract format.

parazyd 🔼

  • helped a bit to katolaz for d-i
  • been doing things with the sdk, which now works perfectly as a base, and integrates seamlessly with blends
  • let me know if anyone needs any help from my side.
  • tried mini.iso, deb.devuan.org is often out of date. COUNTRYCODE.deb.devuan.org don't exist. we should probably offer pkgmaster as a fallback in the mirror list

NewGnuGuy 🔼

  • looking forward to testing a beta :-)
  • (KatolaZ) just try the mini.iso, please :)
    • (NewGnuGuy) Will do