How to create a busybox-respin of antiX for MY use ?

[PDP-8Member]

SOUND fixed. Well, no pipewire yet.

But, the alsamixer fix to get a volume control was slacker easy. Saw that it didn’t even need root, I just had to specify my default card (zero)

alsamixer -c 0

I put this into a one liner script in my home directory to toggle it on called simply ./mixer

WAIT WHAT? The mouse scroll works in it when you use the “no mouse” option with the capital M? Yes! Mind blown

alsamixer -M -c 0

And, I don’t mind the steampunk-sized alsamixer master control. Resized it to a thin vertical window and minimize when not needed. Scroll-wheel usage crashes it when you hover in the window, but keys are ok. I’ve seen alsamixer use scroll-wheels without crashing, so I’ll look into that. Update: see previous fix!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PDP-8.

[PDP-8Member]

Slacker solution to the $PATH problem for the busybox applets.

Now that my login shell is the busybox ash shell, I still need a way to use it’s own commands or applets. The canonical way to do this from your home directory is:

mkdir bbx (bbx common for holding the symlink executables if you will. Name not critical.)

Crank out those symlinks manually by hand into that bbx directory:

for i in $(busybox --list)  <---hit enter
do <--hit enter
ln -s /bin/busybox bbx/$i  <---hit enter
done  <--hit enter

Ok fine. They are there. You can execute the symlinks manually, but that’s not convenient.

So, one changes their path, PREpending the path with this bbx directory:

typically either

export PATH=/home/demo/bbx:$PATH
or
PATH=$(pwd)/bbx:$PATH bbx/sh

Problem: Any attempt by me to to put these into .profile, ends up startx immediately firing up X, and shutting down.

My slacker solution: I know that aliases work fine in .profile. Until I figure out something better, I just might type in the 100 or so busybox commands manually in .profile. UGH.

alias ls=’busybox ls’
alias df=’busybox df’
alias chmod=’busybox chmod’

and so forth. There’s an interaction somewhere I can’t see. But this is doable, if not an ugly way to handle it. 🙂

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PDP-8.

[PDP-8Member]

GOT IT! How to avoid the pain:

Simply change to a STATIC version of busybox with Synaptic, if you don’t want to hassle with making symlinks, changing your path, etc.

I was going to reinstall busybox, and when I tried to remove it, synaptic allowed it, but forced an install of the static version! Of course. And that solved it.

One could simplify this.

1) As above, as root, change to the /bin directory. Run

echo "busybox sh -l" > bbsh
chmod +x bbsh

One could now manually edit the /etc/passwd file to change their shell to bbsh, or using your own name instead of “demo”

usermod -s /bin/bbsh demo

Now after a friendly restart/reboot/login, you’ll find Roxterm up an running with the busybox login shell, AND all available applets too since we have changed to the static build using synaptic. No fussing around. I had never done that before, so a bit anxious.

Still, I do edit my .profile to add little touches like:

alias ls='busybox ls --color'

WHEW! Thought I was going insane. Still likely, but so happy this works. Can’t wait for the next antiX to play with ver 1.37

Tip: I think at this stage, if you are going to do any apt updates and so forth, still do them from the bash shell just to be sure.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PDP-8.

[Brian MasinickModerator]

Nice job, @PDP-8!

I think you are most of the way to your end goal regarding your creative busybox work.

Though this topic is an EXCELLENT journal of your journey, when you are 100% complete it would be nice to have a single HOWTO or essay on this, perhaps with an optional general respin, assuming there is interest from others.

While it would be difficult to do it, maybe you are the successor to our previous snapshot respin champion, @calciumsodium, a.k.a. “CaNa”. Both of you have had some great ideas. Though not my personal ideas – I have my own, and that’s why they are “personal”, it doesn’t take a thing away from your creativity and willingness to mess stuff up, only to learn something from it and make it better; that’s one thing we definitely have in common.

Best wishes on your continual experiments. Like me, it keeps both of us “off the streets”, making our communities safer places! [big grin]

--
Brian Masinick
Alternate "Search B":
This search page

[PDP-8Member]

Thanks! But sorry I’m kind of a stream-of-consciousness writer. 🙂

Humor: you won’t believe how I found this solution. I was starting to type in a pages-long .profile filled with aliases. I tested them along the way.

cd:not a valid applet

I started to freak – I must be defaulting to the gnu utilites for cd ! And it’s not on the server as a single downloadable applet. I downloaded older binaries, and “cd” isn’t among them either! How is the BB world functioning like this without cd? I MUST tell the world my discovery!

Wait, maybe if I “reinstall” busybox on antiX, the missing cd will show up! That’s when the automated removal of linked-busybox forced a selection of the static-busybox took place. Then a bolt of lightning! OMG, “cd” is a built-in! Of course it’s not an applet!

Nerd smacks forehead. I learn from crash-n-burn! It’s fun.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PDP-8.

[PDP-8Member]

BTW, anyone wanting to play along, and compile a large static build. I saw some runit stuff in there too, but I didn’t play with that.

Once you download the source (most recent “snapshots” available too!)

1) Use synaptic or apt install “build-essentials“. Then as root:

tar -xvf busybox-1.37.0.tar.bz2

2) CD into the new directory holding busybox source. Then:

make defconfig

make clean && make LDFLAGS=-static

NOTE: There is no space between = (equals) and – (dash)

You don’t have to INSTALL. You can just copy your new busybox executable somewhere in a test directory to play. They are root, so perhaps change them to your own user:

chown demo busybox
chgrp demo busybox 

The 1.37.0 version has it’s TOP capable of showing all cores by pressing the #1 key. Nice.

This is not meant to be comprehensive, but just enough to whet your whistle.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PDP-8.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PDP-8.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by PDP-8.

[ProwlerGrMember]

Interesting one @PDP-8

I also have the impression that the latest Knoppix release (9.1 or 9.2) had ditched systemd for busybox as the init.
I haven’t really looked into it, but if you’re interested maybe give that a spin to see if there is anything useful that can be transferable to your nice project.

[PDP-8Member]

Hi ProwlerGR! I was waaay into Knoppix for that reason! Brings back memories. That and what was essentially a live-snapshot/usb maker all in one blew my mind. The ability to easily replicate / remaster itself is one reason I became interested in antiX when I first saw it.

Gosh, those early days were when people were still just yanking usb sticks out, and then pushing the power button. That was one reason for his choice of FS back then. Not going there today..

And, many were downloading that > 4gb iso onto their old fat32 hard disks, cutting it off and complaining that “I dd’ed it, but it won’t boot!” waaah..

I’ll have to dig up 9.1 again. I believe that inside the main iso was also the “mini” iso within. Can you imagine if antiX Full also contained a separate iso for Base? (Not suggesting we do that!) It was so hard to please everybody. The work he did for his wife Adriane and that specialized iso was a labor of love.

[Author]

Posts