Expirion is alive again

I can only imagine how that feels not having a setup ready to validate such tricky sample of work, but i keep thinking Expirion already survives this other test most nicely: to install (& successfully reboot...) from a 'YUMi-exFAT' USB drive, which spares us time & effort evaluating LIVE mode only to decide if it's possible to go further with more permanent adoption, since on a UEFi system exploiting that tool it turns out every new .ISO update no longer requires a slow/exclusive procedure as when dealing with Windows Rufus & co.

Too bad the owner of a ChomeBook Lenovo N23 didn't keep us posted with his progress ~2 weeks ago, while i'd gladly check on my Atom CherryTrail based transformer LapTop if i could. Yet i may happen to have some potentially comforting news for you: Linuxium for Atom "respins" being now gone this leaves such a select niche relatively unoccupied for Expirion and so i'm pleased to point a finger at this script:


Perhaps an emulator would correctly behave as a 32-bits machine but i vaguely recall these either proved having limited hardware port(s) support and/or only allowed short-term "trial" licensing. What i know better is that in some rare cases it was OKay to only copy these few /efi/boot/ supplemental files, but in others GrUB would drop to its CLI and leave me there for a lack of access to the rest of it. Searching for the « ia32 » string through that old script i find it refers to at least one directly-related debian 'grub-efi-ia32*.deb' package and sure enough if i dig inside then there's directory '/usr/lib/grub/i386-efi/' full of module files indeed. In addition the script refers to 'grub-efi-ia32-bin' and a command with this syntax:

« grub-install --force --target=i386-efi ...»​

So this does confirm my advice of November 4.

In any case it would be great to read that Expirion has been made compatible with these budget ChromeBooks and more!

:cool:
 


Egzoset said:
I can only imagine how that feels not having a setup ready to validate such tricky sample of work, but i keep thinking Expirion already survives this other test most nicely: to install (& successfully reboot...) from a 'YUMi-exFAT' USB drive, which spares us time & effort evaluating LIVE mode only to decide if it's possible to go further with more permanent adoption, since on a UEFi system exploiting that tool it turns out every new .ISO update no longer requires a slow/exclusive procedure as when dealing with Windows Rufus & co.

Too bad the owner of a ChomeBook Lenovo N23 didn't keep us posted with his progress ~2 weeks ago, while i'd gladly check on my Atom CherryTrail based transformer LapTop if i could. Yet i may happen to have some potentially comforting news for you: Linuxium for Atom "respins" being now gone this leaves such a select niche relatively unoccupied for Expirion and so i'm pleased to point a finger at this script:


Perhaps an emulator would correctly behave as a 32-bits machine but i vaguely recall these either proved having limited hardware port(s) support and/or only allowed short-term "trial" licensing. What i know better is that in some rare cases it was OKay to only copy these few /efi/boot/ supplemental files, but in others GrUB would drop to its CLI and leave me there for a lack of access to the rest of it. Searching for the « ia32 » string through that old script i find it refers to at least one directly-related debian 'grub-efi-ia32*.deb' package and sure enough if i dig inside then there's directory '/usr/lib/grub/i386-efi/' full of module files indeed. In addition the script refers to 'grub-efi-ia32-bin' and a command with this syntax:

« grub-install --force --target=i386-efi ...»​

So this does confirm my advice of November 4.

In any case it would be great to read that Expirion has been made compatible with these budget ChromeBooks and more!

:cool:
Click to expand...
I have seen this script you mention it does not support Devuan or Debian from line 34 of the script

SUPPORTED_OS=("Ubuntu" "Kubuntu" "Lubuntu" "Lubuntu-Next" "Ubuntu-Budgie" "Ubuntu-GNOME" "Ubuntu-MATE" "Xubuntu" "Mint" "neon" "elementary" "BackBox" "Peppermint" "Ubuntu-Studio")
 
GatorsFan said:
I have seen this script you mention it does not support Devuan or Debian from line 34 of the script
Click to expand...

This old script wasn't expected to work out of the box for Expirion, especially after noticing this mention:

« ...option is only compatible with an ISO that uses 'systemd'... »​

Which made me vaguely remember some previous post(s) about not using it here. Moreover i'd rather keep Devuan's situation separate from Debian-related scenarios finding there's actually a variable named 'DEBIAN_FILE' and even a comment focussing on the notion of a "Debian binary package" too, so that's a lot of Debian stuff and yet that ain't my point.

The usefulness of 'isorespin.sh' should be limited to being a reminder of what's to be provided to GrUB at boot time, e.g. before the OS can kick in. For example the RAMDisk 'initrd*' apparently gets rebuilt besides 'vmlinuz*' and 'efi.img', i also seen keywords like eltorito, iso9660, joliet, mbr and gpt, etc. So these hints tell me it all maters while still searching for an alternative ia32 bootloader.

In addition i've already described what was involved when i used to "patch" .ISOs for use on my Atom CherryTrail, and i did depend on the 32-bits version of Debian for such graft indeed. Then MX Linux spared me the hasle, after that a few others seemed to follow a similar path but i can no longer qualify their level of compatibility with certainty. At the time i was copying my .ISOs on a Ventoy drive, perhaps this is where ia32 support really came from, go figure...

;)

By the way, that script also refers to 'rEFInd'.
 
Refracta Installer bug fix - hopefully as of 06 July 2025, I have finally fixed an install bug with refractainstaller - it seems on GPT formatted NVME type drives the boot files were not getting stored in /boot/efi without either coping and pasting the files or by running grub-install at chroot
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=debian --recheck /dev/nvme0n1p1
then running
update-grub
It now does well at least on my GPT formatted NVME 1TB drive it is working correctly

Cheers - GatorsFan
 
GatorsFan said:
Refracta Installer bug fix - hopefully as of 06 July 2025, I have finally fixed an install bug with refractainstaller
Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not?

I can't find it.

I have downloaded Expirion-6.0-Xfce-250706.iso, burned it with Ventoy and tried, and then Etcher and tried, but the Installer is not to be seen anywhere (desktop of Live, or Menu contents)

Let me know if I am holding my mouth the wrong way, lol.

Cheers

Wizard
 
wizardfromoz said:
Maybe, maybe not?

I can't find it.

I have downloaded Expirion-6.0-Xfce-250706.iso, burned it with Ventoy and tried, and then Etcher and tried, but the Installer is not to be seen anywhere (desktop of Live, or Menu contents)

Let me know if I am holding my mouth the wrong way, lol.

Cheers

Wizard
Click to expand...
Yep - my bad - I forgot to copy the installer to the desktop - the 250707 is fixed - getting old I guess cannot remember everything - it is being uploaded right now should be good in a few minutes
 
Aah, good, it wasn't just me going crazy (crazier).

Ta, Mate. ;)
 
I have my Expirion 6 XFCE installed now.

05BtFcY.jpeg


... and I have 3 - 4 questions related to the configuration of sources for adding additional software and the like.

- apps of the nature of Timeshift, Alacarte, Menulibre, and the Whisker Menu.

I can start them in a separate thread if you prefer this to be focused on News Releases.

I am in no hurry, the Grub Menu you see is part of about two-and-a-half screens, so I can keep out of mischief. :p

Wiz
 
wizardfromoz said:
I have my Expirion 6 XFCE installed now.

05BtFcY.jpeg


... and I have 3 - 4 questions related to the configuration of sources for adding additional software and the like.

- apps of the nature of Timeshift, Alacarte, Menulibre, and the Whisker Menu.

I can start them in a separate thread if you prefer this to be focused on News Releases.

I am in no hurry, the Grub Menu you see is part of about two-and-a-half screens, so I can keep out of mischief. :p

Wiz
Click to expand...
Instead of TimeShift there should be DejaDup (Backups) - Alacarte & Menulibre are not installed - the Whisker no longer can be resized using Wayland resizing with the mouse does not work in Wayland - So the latest release or any future releases the old resizing feature has been removed - https://gitlab.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin/-/issues/112
 
GatorsFan said:
...the Whisker no longer can be resized using Wayland resizing with the mouse does not work in Wayland -
Click to expand...

OK now there I am confused (I only get confused on days ending in 'y')

I am not on Wayland, I am on Xorg, so we can call that

ISSUE ONE

Code: 
chris@expirion6:~$ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
x11
chris@expirion6:~$ echo $DESKTOP_SESSION
lightdm-xsession
chris@expirion6:~$ echo $WAYLAND_DISPLAY


chris@expirion6:~$

For readers, the absence of a response to the last commands means Xorg, for Wayland presence it would show

wayland-0

GatorsFan said:
Instead of TimeShift there should be DejaDup (Backups) - Alacarte & Menulibre are not installed
Click to expand...

Brings up

ISSUE 2

Typically, under Xorg environment, I should be able to install either of Alacarte or Menulibre, and then with or without needing to use them (depending on the distro), the line 2nd top on right-clicking the Menu icon, greyed out currently, should show as Edit Applications. I need that to use for launchers with my appimages, including Waterfox.

ISSUE 3

Timeshift.

Yesterday, my Thursday (another day ending in 'y'), I ran

Code: 
apt policy menulibre alacarte timeshift aisleriot

and it returned not found errors. I did not record the errors because I thought I could reproduce them today.

Today, I ran those again and all operated fine (go figure), so I installed Menulibre ran it and got my Waterfox set up, then aisleriot and Timeshift. Timeshift worked fine for me to take a snapshot and save it on an external drive.

So my three issues are issues no more, and I can enjoy my Expirion.

I have enclosed a screenshot - Waterfox is the blue icon right of Firefox, and you can see the resizing of the menu works fine under Xorg.

A9aU8hw.png



Avagudweegend

Wizard
 
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