meilix-default-settings

Read more about the article Functionality and Customization of the Meilix Metapackage meilix-default-settings

Functionality and Customization of the Meilix Metapackage meilix-default-settings

Meilix has is made of build file and metapackages. Build file is responsible for executing commands and successfully implementing the work of metapackages.

Metapackages in Meilix
Name of metapackages used in Meilix are: meilix-artwork, meilix-default-settings.

meilix-default-settings

meilix-default-settings have 3 major folders debian, etc and usr and a Makefile. We are only concerned with etc and usr folder here.
etc and usr folders are folders in which if changes are made that can be seen the ISO. One can assume this as two folders present in the root folder of a Linux Distro.

Its directory is like this:

meilix-artwork

meilix-artwork has 1 main folder named as usr which contain share folder in which plymouth configuration is made. One can make changes here and it will directly seen in the Linux Distro.

Its directory looks like this:

How these meta packages actually work?
To get the answer one has to jump into the debian folder of any of the metapackage. It contains a control file. This contains information of the metapackages.

Source: meilix-default-settings
Section: x11
Priority: extra
Maintainer: meilix <vanhonit@gmail.com>
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 8.0.0)
Standards-Version: 3.9.2
Homepage: http://mbm.vn

Package: meilix-default-settings
Architecture: all
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Description: default settings for meilix
 Various system settings tailored for meilix.

One can update the metapackage from here and tweak with its depends. One come to know about the maintainer of the metapackage which can contacted in case of any issue. We can also know for which architecture this metapackage is made and about its description.
The whole debian does the work but after making any changes in the metapackage, it needs to be rebuild which is performed by debuild.sh. This is how a metapackages in Meilix works.

References:
Linux Metapackages – Matthartley from linux.com
Creating a Metapackage – Ajmitch from askubuntu.com

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Read more about the article Updating of Linux Standard Base (lsb) and Shorten of log of Meilix Build

Updating of Linux Standard Base (lsb) and Shorten of log of Meilix Build

Updating the Linux Standard Base of the Meilix

Originally Meilix uses the Ubuntu mirror to fetch the Kernel source for the building of the Operating System. Therefore whenever a user type lsb_release -a for fetching the required information, they get the Ubuntu build info. The task is to change the config file to update the Linux Base Information from Ubuntu to Meilix.

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 17.04
Release: 17.04
Codename: zesty

We need to patch a file in the location meilix-default-settings/etc/lsb-release which contains the information of the lsb release and this will overwrite the original configuration of Meilix.
This is how the lsb-release file looks like now:

DISTRIB_ID=Meilix
DISTRIB_RELEASE=17.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=meilix
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Meilix 17.04"

We made the required changes in the file as shown above and the output is as follows:

Shorten the log length of Meilix in Travis

We are facing issues while deployment of Meilix ISO in Travis and the error follows is ReadTimeout Error. Example log of one of fail build is:

This error gets solved automatically and the the ISO gets deployment after 1 or 2 restart of the build. But this time the error doesn’t get solved and after several attempts of restart of build, the ISO doesn’t get deployed.

Reason behind the error:

Travis is taking a lot of time to build the ISO. Travis logs are exceeding the time limit.

Proposed solution:

Reduce the time of build or shift to a new CI.
Reduce the log of the build so as to get the log within 9999 lines.

Solution Implemented

The best solution is to reduce the number of lines used in the log and this will also reduce the time of the build.
I tried concealing some command outputs by appending >/dev/null 2>&1 to some of the commands that has long outputs and adding -y to the commands like:

apt-get -qq -y --purge install file-roller unrar

References

Wiki of Linux Standard Base
Linux Foundation lsb
Ubuntu answer to reduce log

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Read more about the article Turning off Power Management and Blanking of Screen in Meilix

Turning off Power Management and Blanking of Screen in Meilix

Meililx has the LXQt desktop environment which already have the lxqt-powermanagement package. We don’t need to configure the power management during an event. Every time when an ISO is booted a pop-up arrives which asks to configure power. On the one hand, the pop-ups are a disturbing element during a presentation, slide-show, etc. On the other hand, while a presentation is going on and the presenter is explaining a slide for a longer duration then there is a possibility of the screen to turn blank or screen saver to get started due to inactivity. In this post we will discuss to resolve the above two issues.

Disabling Power Management
The issue has been filed #133 to solve. We can follow two approaches to shutdown the power daemon which is responsible for starting the power-management everytime during startup.

In the beginning the issue looks as:

One is to copy the script to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf by editing the meilix-default-settings metapackage. 

1. [panel1]
2. alignment=-1
3. animation-duration=0
4. background-color=@Variant(\0\0\0\x43\0\xff\xff\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0)
5. background-image=
6. desktop=0
7. font-color=@Variant(\0\0\0\x43\0\xff\xff\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0)
8. hidable=true
9. iconSize=22
10. lineCount=1
11. lockPanel=false
12. opacity=100
13.panelSize=32
14. plugins=mainmenu, desktopswitch, quicklaunch, taskbar, tray, statusnotifier, mount, volume, clock, showdesktop
15. position=Bottom
16. show-delay=0
17. width=100
18. width-percent=true

Explanation of code:

In the Monitor section, DPMS (Desktop Power Management System) is turned off by setting the value to false
In the ServerLayout section, Blanktime, Offtime, SuspendTime, StandbyTime are set to “0”, so that they will be disabled.
Through this way we are suspending the power-management to use it feature by making changes in the script. This approach will make sure that this feature can’t be changed through the GUI, too.

And the other approach is the basic one but it’s also fulfilling the similar need. Adding a line to chroot.sh

apt-get purge lxqt-powermanagement

Both will solve the issue and the pop will not arrive at the startup of the OS.
Now LXQt desktop starts as:

Disabling Blanking of Screen in Meilix
A presenter never wants to turn his monitor blank or screensaver while presenting his presentation. Here we will edit the .profile file in the home folder to fulfill our requirement.
For get the same file in the ISO, we need to patch the file meilix-default-settings/etc/skel/.profile.
Skel folder has the property to transfer the tree inside the folder to the home folder of the new user created. For example here, the new user created will have .profile folder inside its home directory and it will apply the requested changes.

Important code which is responsible for turning the blanking of screen off:

xset s off && xset -dpms

 

Link to important pages:
Disabling Power Management – Arch Wiki
Code for turning Power Management (PR) – @meets2tarun (author)
Code for turning off blanking of screen (PR) – @meets2tarun (author)

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