October 2016 - Arch-general - lists.archlinux.org

[arch-general] Announcing pacpak
by pelzflorian (Florian Pelz) 22 Feb '17

22 Feb '17

Hello, A specter is haunting the GNU/Linux ecosystem: the specter of per-user containerization. Software like Flatpak and Snappy promise fully sandboxed GNU/Linux application bundles (instead of merely launching an application with fewer privileges but without hiding the operating system, like Bubblewrap or Firejail do). Bundles ship with the version of their dependencies which they need. Dependencies are not force-upgraded with the operating system, but easily upgradable by the bundle creator. The same files in different bundles and versions are deduplicated to save space. Applications can be containerized once for all modern GNU/Linux operating systems. Unlike Docker, Flatpak works without root privileges. Flatpak allows you to run, say, a sandboxed and containerized copy of LibreOffice where opening an infected file can only cause harm to what the sandbox has access to, but not compromise the integrity of the system as a whole. Untrustworthy games can be isolated and run without fear of a system compromise. More generally, most GUI applications should probably be installed to and run from a Flatpak sandbox. This has major implications for traditional package managers. Pacman would be demoted to providing the base system on top of which Flatpak bundles downloaded from elsewhere are run (e.g. from gnome.org or from reallytheofficialwebsiteoflibreofficeipromise.com). However, I would prefer having a unified pacman-like interface for installing containerized and non-containerized applications. I believe a PKGBUILD is a good way to specify how to build an application for Flatpak as well. I do not want to lose the many packages from Arch and derivative distributions. tl;dr: Therefore I started writing a tool called pacpak which uses pacman to populate Flatpak application bundles. Its interface is meant to be similar to pacman’s. For example, in order to install gedit into a Flatpak application using a bundle of the gnome packages as a runtime, you install pacpak from the AUR and use: $ pacpak -S Base xterm You can run the resulting application like this: $ flatpak run $(hostname).app.xterm pacpak is still in its early alpha stages. I do not currently have the time to devote more than a day per week to its development. However, I’d like some feedback on the basic idea. I am also looking for a home for the project in the longer term, since I do not currently like to administer a bug tracker on my own rented server and dislike centralizing all free software development on GitHub or Sourceforge (I’d rather administer my own then). This will only be helpful once all the basic features are implemented of course. I would be glad if pacpak or a similar tool eventually becomes an official Arch project. Let me conclude by thanking those who develop Flatpak, those who package and maintain Flatpak for Arch and all the other Arch and free software developers we rely on. Regards, Florian Pelz

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[arch-general] What's with Ray Rashif?
by sekret＠posteo.se 17 Feb '17

17 Feb '17

Hey guys! I'm not writing this mail to complain, I'm just wondering! I use ardour quite a lot and of course I wanted the update to version 5 as soon as possible. The first release 5.0 didn't build here, so I thought ok, maybe the maintainer of this package is struggling with it too. The current version is 5.3 which compiles and runs just fine. So now I wonder why we don't get an update. So I looked at the other packages of the maintainer, see this link https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?packager=schiv and well, I see a lot of red there! So I must wonder: Is Ray still active? Best sekret

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[arch-general] Single Drive Fresh Install (mbr/grub2) Fails to boot (can boot existing from .iso??)
by David C. Rankin 31 Dec '16

31 Dec '16

All, After 7 years and 30+ installs, I thought I had seen it all. I have a new (used) laptop, that I put a fresh 1T drive in, partitioned and loaded arch. The laptop can't find the drive to boot? Huh? There is only a single drive in the laptop, but it will only boot if booting from grub hd1 (instead of hd0). The failure isn't a "grub prefix/root" problem, the problem is the laptop cannot even find grub to begin with when it is booting on it's own. The only way booting happens is to boot the installer (from USB) and then "Choose existing OS" and edit the prefix (from 0 -> 1). Which itself is wonky, because booting from USB creates the USB thumb-drive as /dev/sdb to begin with and the hard drive as /dev/sda where it should be. This is a strange laptop, it has 2 hard drive bays (HP Elite 8760w). The bios is configured to scan both (as well as USB and PXE) for boot. I can boot the install .iso without issue, install went fine, but in order to boot the new install, I have to "Boot existing OS" from the .iso menu, then 'tab' and change hd0 0 to hd1 0 (I took the existing Win10 SSD out of the same bay I put this drive in - which is also a simple mbr boot - no UEFI). The setup is dead simple (.iso is sdb below) $ lsblk NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sdb 8:16 1 980M 0 disk ├─sdb2 8:18 1 40M 0 part └─sdb1 8:17 1 792M 0 part sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk ├─sda7 8:7 0 880G 0 part /home ├─sda5 8:5 0 500M 0 part /boot ├─sda1 8:1 0 1K 0 part ├─sda8 8:8 0 1G 0 part └─sda6 8:6 0 50G 0 part / and $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0xff7d45aa Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 2048 1953525167 1953523120 931.5G 5 Extended /dev/sda5 * 4096 1028095 1024000 500M 83 Linux /dev/sda6 1030144 105887743 104857600 50G 83 Linux /dev/sda7 105889792 1951383551 1845493760 880G 83 Linux /dev/sda8 1951385600 1953525167 2139568 1G 82 Linux swap / Solaris grub is installed to /dev/sda with grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda (no errors on install), and grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg I've searched for anything related to HP laptops or this model, but only find issues failing to boot the install CD or the newer UEFI pages like https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HP_EliteBook_840_G1. Has anyone encountered something similar? There is no longer a /boot/grub/device.map file installed by grub2, but given the fact the bios isn't seeing the drive at all for boot, I don't see how mapping hd0 to hd1 would make a difference. Does anyone have a link or any idea what the issue may be? I'm happy to send whatever additional information may be required. I'm ssh'ed into the box right now, I just need to get the boot and plasma ironed out. Any ideas? Thanks. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.

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[arch-general] Whatever happened to speps?
by David Runge 28 Dec '16

28 Dec '16

Helloes, I was wondering, if anyone knows anything regarding the current status of speps. I tried to ping him about some long-outdated packages (supercollider, pd), but haven't gotten a reply in a week. With supercollider we're currently already at 3.7.2 and with pd at 0.47. The latter will also require some fixes, because unpatched/unmodified it's unusuable in its current state (in a JACK setup). Not to be annoying, it's just that an outdating of more than 6 months is very unusual (in the case of supercollider) and I'm using them regularely. I'd be happy to help get the packages back on track. Best, David -- https://sleepmap.de

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[arch-general] Screen lock stopped working
by David Rosenstrauch 22 Dec '16

22 Dec '16

I've noticed that my screen lock / screensaver has stopped engaging as of a couple of days ago. I check the settings (which I haven't changed recently), but they seem to be set correctly. Anyone have an idea what package upgrade might have caused this and/or which bugs I should watch for a resolution? I'm running XFCE desktop btw. Thanks, DR

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[arch-general] ensuring integrity of sources (was: [arch-dev-public] todo list for moving http -> https sources)
by Patrick Burroughs (Celti) 01 Nov '16

01 Nov '16

On Mon, 31 Oct 2016 16:16:21 +0100 Levente Polyak <anthraxx(a)archlinux.org> wrote: > On 10/31/2016 04:03 PM, Patrick Burroughs (Celti) wrote: > > As a middle ground, I think it would be more reasonable (or at > > least, less unreasonable) to modify makepkg to allow signing > > PKGBUILDs, or at least parts of them. For an existing example, > > OpenBSD's signify(1) uses their cryptographic signature system to > > sign a simple list sha256sums. > > > > Perhaps makepkg could include, e.g., a sha256sumsigs array, that > > contains a PGP signature (signed by the developer/TU's official key) > > of the contents (properly serialised by makepkg so there's a minimum > > of possible ambiguity) of the sha256sums array? > > > > That is literally a _completely_ different topic that addresses > _completely_ different areas. > You are speaking about authenticating the build scripts itself. That > does not solve _anything_ at all what this thread/topic/todo-list is > about. It really is not. I am not speaking of authenticating the build scripts; both this thread and my proposal are talking about ensuring the integrity of downloaded source files. Specifically, I am speaking of cryptographically signing the checksums for source files downloaded by the build scripts, so that they download what the author of the build script _intended_ them to download. This is presumably the same reason for ensuring sources are downloaded via HTTPS instead of HTTP, where possible — adding a cryptographic authentication to ensure someone building a package does not get sources without being aware they are modified: only embedding signatures in the PKGBUILD is trusting the Arch devs via the pacman keyring or parallel method, instead of the (flawed) CA system. If there is another reason to switch to HTTPS, please — make me aware of it! Also the very first reply in the thread talked about adding upstream signatures instead of changing the protocol, where possible — only not every upstream offers or _wants_ to offer them, so I proposed, in response to a prompt for discussion on the subject in the mail I quoted, a way to make that feasible. > Don't get me wrong: I don't judge about it at all, I'm just saying > that both are fully independent from each other and you should please > open a new thread if you want to discuss this rather then hijack this > thread :) I really, really don't think they're independent from each other, and as I'm not authorised to post on arch-dev-public and didn't expect to draw this out into a conversation, I simply replied to the thread on arch-general. Bowing to peers, however... et voila: a new thread. ~Celti

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[arch-general] kde --> xfce how to remove all packages kde
by Maykel Franco 31 Oct '16

31 Oct '16

Hi, I have migrate my archlinux system desktop kde to xfce. How to remove all kde packages and dependecy? Thanks in advanced.

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Re: [arch-general] [arch-dev-public] todo list for moving http -> https sources
by Patrick Burroughs (Celti) 31 Oct '16

31 Oct '16

On Mon, 31 Oct 2016 15:19:40 +0100 NicoHood <arch-dev(a)nicohood.de> wrote: > Using PGP signatures is another discussion, also the hash algorithm. I > think we should discuss that in another post, appart from https. From > my point of view its highly important to use a strong hash function > as its highly important for the source integrity and not only meant > as checksum for corruption detection. And as always: more secure does > not hurt nowadays Not a dev, here, but... I strongly think that source integrity should not rely on hash functions alone. makepkg already includes validation of PGP-signed sources, but it's perhaps not reasonable to expect every upstream to offer signed sources. As a middle ground, I think it would be more reasonable (or at least, less unreasonable) to modify makepkg to allow signing PKGBUILDs, or at least parts of them. For an existing example, OpenBSD's signify(1) uses their cryptographic signature system to sign a simple list sha256sums. Perhaps makepkg could include, e.g., a sha256sumsigs array, that contains a PGP signature (signed by the developer/TU's official key) of the contents (properly serialised by makepkg so there's a minimum of possible ambiguity) of the sha256sums array? ~Celti

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[arch-general] Browsers crashing
by Zorro 29 Oct '16

29 Oct '16

Hi, On my Arch Linux x32 system most (all) browser regularly crash. I have tried Firefox, Midori, Xombrero. For instance for Xombrero journalctl shows: systemd-coredump[6615]: Process 6478 (xombrero) of user 1002 dumped core. Stack trace of thread 6478: #0 0x00000000b4d0be50 n/a (libjavascriptcoregtk-3.0.so.0) #1 0x00000000a7b8e842 n/a (n/a) Midori behaves similarly. It happens on sites with many scripts and pictures when scrolling down. Firefox crashes at startup. It first displays its own start page, processor load goes to 100% and then firefox disappears leaving a core dump. Do others experience this too? Harm-Jan Zwinderman

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Re: [arch-general] Single Drive Fresh Install (mbr/grub2) Fails to boot (can boot existing from .iso??)
by jeff.rollin 29 Oct '16

29 Oct '16

AFAIK it needn't be the first one on the disk - if memory serves, my Linux laptop came with Windows installed and the UEFI boot partition on the second partition, and the first first few Linux-only installed kept that layout - but it must be VFAT and it must be flagged bootable. Sent from Samsung Mobile on O2 -------- Original message --------From: Juan Carlos Villegas Botero via arch-general <arch-general(a)archlinux.org> Date: 29/10/2016 05:03 (GMT+00:00) To: General Discussion about Arch Linux <arch-general(a)archlinux.org> Cc: Juan Carlos Villegas Botero <juankvillegas(a)gmail.com> Subject: Re: [arch-general] Single Drive Fresh Install (mbr/grub2) Fails to boot (can boot existing from .iso??) And I also think that I read somewhere that theboot partition (EFI) must be the first one in the disk. On 10/28/2016 10:59 PM, Juan Carlos Villegas Botero wrote: > Sorry for the html response :S > > On 10/28/2016 10:58 PM, Juan Carlos Villegas Botero wrote: >> >> I'm not 100% sure that this is the solution, but if you are loading >> from UEFI, the boot partition must be formatted using GPT: >> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFI_System_Partition >> >> >> On 10/28/2016 09:58 PM, David C. Rankin wrote: >>> All, >>> >>> After 7 years and 30+ installs, I thought I had seen it all. I have a new >>> (used) laptop, that I put a fresh 1T drive in, partitioned and loaded arch. The >>> laptop can't find the drive to boot? Huh? There is only a single drive in the >>> laptop, but it will only boot if booting from grub hd1 (instead of hd0). >>> >>> The failure isn't a "grub prefix/root" problem, the problem is the laptop >>> cannot even find grub to begin with when it is booting on it's own. The only way >>> booting happens is to boot the installer (from USB) and then "Choose existing >>> OS" and edit the prefix (from 0 -> 1). Which itself is wonky, because booting >>> from USB creates the USB thumb-drive as /dev/sdb to begin with and the hard >>> drive as /dev/sda where it should be. >>> >>> This is a strange laptop, it has 2 hard drive bays (HP Elite 8760w). The bios >>> is configured to scan both (as well as USB and PXE) for boot. I can boot the >>> install .iso without issue, install went fine, but in order to boot the new >>> install, I have to "Boot existing OS" from the .iso menu, then 'tab' and change >>> >>> hd0 0 >>> >>> to >>> >>> hd1 0 >>> >>> (I took the existing Win10 SSD out of the same bay I put this drive in - which >>> is also a simple mbr boot - no UEFI). The setup is dead simple (.iso is sdb below) >>> >>> $ lsblk >>> NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT >>> sdb 8:16 1 980M 0 disk >>> ├─sdb2 8:18 1 40M 0 part >>> └─sdb1 8:17 1 792M 0 part >>> sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom >>> sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk >>> ├─sda7 8:7 0 880G 0 part /home >>> ├─sda5 8:5 0 500M 0 part /boot >>> ├─sda1 8:1 0 1K 0 part >>> ├─sda8 8:8 0 1G 0 part >>> └─sda6 8:6 0 50G 0 part / >>> >>> and >>> >>> $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda >>> Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors >>> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes >>> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes >>> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes >>> Disklabel type: dos >>> Disk identifier: 0xff7d45aa >>> >>> Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type >>> /dev/sda1 2048 1953525167 1953523120 931.5G 5 Extended >>> /dev/sda5 * 4096 1028095 1024000 500M 83 Linux >>> /dev/sda6 1030144 105887743 104857600 50G 83 Linux >>> /dev/sda7 105889792 1951383551 1845493760 880G 83 Linux >>> /dev/sda8 1951385600 1953525167 2139568 1G 82 Linux swap / Solaris >>> >>> grub is installed to /dev/sda with >>> >>> grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda (no errors on install), and >>> grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg >>> >>> I've searched for anything related to HP laptops or this model, but only find >>> issues failing to boot the install CD or the newer UEFI pages like >>> >>> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HP_EliteBook_840_G1. >>> >>> Has anyone encountered something similar? There is no longer a >>> /boot/grub/device.map file installed by grub2, but given the fact the bios isn't >>> seeing the drive at all for boot, I don't see how mapping hd0 to hd1 would make >>> a difference. Does anyone have a link or any idea what the issue may be? I'm >>> happy to send whatever additional information may be required. I'm ssh'ed into >>> the box right now, I just need to get the boot and plasma ironed out. Any ideas? >>> Thanks. >>> >>> >>

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