SoftWare on ousfifty's blog

eUICC management explained

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 22:39:01 +0800

Introduction

As established in my previous post on UICC history, an eUICC is a programmable platform. Android™ provides multiple ways for users to manage their eUICC (referred to as ’eSIM’ below), including but not limited to using LPAs (Local Profile Assistants) via OMAPI (Open Mobile API, requires Android 9 / API level 28 or later) or the Android Telephony API (requires root permission and Android 11 or later; you can replace the default eSIM management portal on your phone using Magisk).

This article mainly demonstrates the difference between OMAPI and Android Telephony API using OpenEUICC and EasyEUICC apps. These apps are developed by Peter Cai and shared the same codebase. The only difference is the management API used (EasyEUICC for unprivileged users and OpenEUICC for privileged users). Their differences are shown below:

	OpenEUICC	EasyEUICC
Privileged	Must be installed as system app	No
Internal eSIM	Supported	Unsupported
External eSIM ¹	Supported	Supported
USB Readers	Supported	Supported
Requires allowlisting by eSIM	No	Yes – except USB
System Integration	Partial ²	No
Minimum Android Version	Android 11 or higher	Android 9 or higher

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EasyEUICC - OMAPI

Note
Unless you compile the EasyEUICC by yourself, you have to make sure your external eSIM device is compatible with EasyEUICC, which means the device MUST comply with the GSMA SGP.22 specification and MUST support this specific ARA-M SHA-1 value: 2A2FA878BC7C3354C2CF82935A5945A3EDAE4AFA before proceeding.

Download

You may download the app directly from EasyEUICC official page.

First usage

At first launch, the EasyEUICC app will check your Android phone’s OMAPI compatibility and show the SIM slot(s) you can use to manage your compatible external eSIM devices

Click the Continue button to proceed, and you will be taken to the main interface:

Note
If you just want to add/manage your eSIM profiles, just go here

Settings page

Click the ⋮ button in the upper right corner to check the settings:

Add eSIM profiles

Click the + button in the lower right corner, and select the eSIM device you want to download the profile to:

Note
You should check your eSIM via eID, not ICCID. eID is your eSIM device(the card inserted into your phone) identification number and ICCID is your eSIM profile identification number.

Choose the method you want to use (usually scanning a QR code with the camera or loading it from the gallery). The profile download will start after checking with the target server:

Warning
Make sure you have a stable and reachable connection when you are downloading profiles. Otherwise you may lose your profile permanently since the profile issuing server has marked your profile as downloaded.

If you need to download profile with raw data provided, or QR code is not working

Then select the last option Enter manually. Type in the strings your provider gave you:

After Profile downloaded

When the profile is downloaded, you can view, toggle, and rename the profile on the main page:

Note
I have been using esim.gg every day for several years, and it has been exceptionally reliable and stable while I travel globally. Currently there is no discount for data-only eSIMs, but you can get 0.3 EUR off if you purchase a new Estonian number using ous50 at checkout.

Troubleshooting

OMAPI detection failed

In this case, your phone or system does not support EasyEUICC via OMAPI. Consider using OpenEUICC after gaining root access, or switch to a more modern device.

Profile download failed

Check the error code, try scanning the QR code again or downloading the profile manually.

Warning
Make sure you have a stable and reachable connection when you are downloading profiles. Otherwise you may lose your profile permanently since the profile issuing server has marked your profile as downloaded.

If you have run out of download attempts, contact your eSIM profile provider for further assistance.

no eSIM card/device found

Your eSIM card/device might not be compatible with EasyEUICC. Check here for more information.

FAQ

Will I get banned by my provider for using this app?

Generally no. But providers have their own blacklist. Some eSIM card manufacturer/models might be blacklisted. Purchase a good eSIM card listed above and follow the instructions from your provider.

Can I use these cards on other phones?

Yes, you can use these cards like normal physical SIM cards after you have properly set up the eSIM card/device and have toggled and configured your desired profile.

You can use the EasyEUICC app on any OMAPI-compatible Android phone to manage profiles on compatible cards.

For eSTK cards, you can even manage your profiles on iPhones using the STK application.

Footnotes

Also known as “Removable eSIM” ↩︎
Carrier Partner API not implemented yet ↩︎

How I Create Seamless Network Using OSPF on Routeros and Shellcrash on PVE

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:58:18 +0800

Note
Please be advised that this article is written for RouterOS 7.20.1 and ShellCrash 1.9.4beta6 on 2026-01-29, both operated as KVM instance in PVE. Contents might vary for different version of RouterOS and ShellCrash.

Introduction

Previously I used DHCP gateway nomination to let devices in my network use proxy. Although it successfully enables me to use proxy seamlessly, I can’t expand this experience to all devices, since sometimes ShellCrash may really “crashed” and would affect normal network traffic. I have heard OSPF feature for a long time, so recently I set up OSPF using RouterOS according to DeepRouter’s article. This article is to record my experience and share my way to enhance the robustness.

ShellCrash and Bird Configuration

Although it is fine to deploy ShellCrash and BIRD in separate instance, it is highly recommended to deploy in the same one.

ShellCrash installation process is ignored, just make sure you are using MIX in DNS configuration(press 2(feature setting) - 2(DNS Setting)).

Check IPv4 and IPv6 forward configuration

run sudo sysctl -p and check if the following are properly configured:

net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1

If not, edit /etc/sysctl.conf.

BIRD

We will use !chnroutes to distinguish chn ips.

Make sure you doesn’t enable/start bird service after installation. There are several things to do.

For Debian:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install bird2 make

bird.conf

Edit /etc/bird/bird.conf and change as below.

make sure:

router id is your ShellCrash/BIRD instance IP
The interface in both ospf v2 and v3 is set to the interface this instance used to connect to the gateway(the LAN port). You may check using ip a or ip link, and find the one OTHER THAN lo.

log syslog all;

router id 192.168.114.51; #This line change to instance IP

protocol device {
 scan time 60;
}

protocol kernel {
 ipv4 {
 import none;
 export none;
 };
}
protocol kernel {
 ipv6 {
 import none;
 export none;
 };
}

protocol static {
 ipv4;
 include "/etc/bird/routes4.conf";
}
protocol static {
 ipv6;
 include "/etc/bird/routes6.conf";
}

protocol ospf v2 {
 ipv4 {
 export all;
 };
 area 0.0.0.0 {
 interface "ens18" { # Change this to your networking interface
 type pointopoint;
 };
 };
}

protocol ospf v3 {
 ipv6 {
 export all;
 };
 area 0.0.0.0 {
 interface "ens18" { # Change this to your networking interface
 type pointopoint;
 };
 };
}

Generating routes

git clone https://github.com/ous50/nchnroutes.git
cd nchnroutes
make

If you have trouble connecting to github.com, use a mirror instead:

git clone https://hk.gh-proxy.org/https://github.com/ous50/nchnroutes.git
cd nchnroutes
make

You are pleased to continue if the following output is shown:

python3 produce.py
sudo mv routes4.conf /etc/bird/routes4.conf
sudo mv routes6.conf /etc/bird/routes6.conf
sudo birdc configure
BIRD 2.0.12 ready.
Reading configuration from /etc/bird/bird.conf
Reconfigured

RouterOS Configuration

You need to set up bypassing routing table first to prevent looping instantly after OSPF neighbor is found.

Bypass ShellCrash looping and setting up exceptions

We are going to make another routing table to bypass the traffic from ShellCrash to prevent loop.

/routing table
add disabled=no fib name=bypass-shellcrash
/routing rule
add action=lookup-only-in-table comment="Bypass Shellcrash Gateway using Routing Mark" disabled=no routing-mark=bypass-shellcrash table=bypass-shellcrash

Migrate your routes from main to bypass-shellcrash:

/ip route
add disabled=no distance=1 dst-address=<Your LAN with CIDR> gateway=lan routing-table=bypass-shellcrash scope=30 suppress-hw-offload=no target-scope=10
add disabled=no distance=1 dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=<Your Internet Gateway> routing-table=bypass-shellcrash scope=30 suppress-hw-offload=no target-scope=10

Firewall tagging

Make sure:

Change the dst-address to your LAN, preserving the !.
Change the src-mac-address to the ShellCrash networking interface port MAC address(check using ip link in shellcrash instance or directly from PVE)

/ip firewall mangle
add action=mark-routing chain=prerouting comment=bypass-shellcrash-gateway dst-address=!192.168.0.0/23 new-routing-mark=bypass-shellcrash src-mac-address=11:45:14:19:19:81

OSPF config

By default you do not need to change anything in this script.

/routing ospf instance
add disabled=no name=shellcrash
add disabled=no name=shellcrash-v6 version=3
/routing ospf area
add disabled=no instance=shellcrash name=ospf-area-v4
add disabled=no instance=shellcrash-v6 name=ospf-area-v6
/routing ospf interface-template
add area=ospf-area-v4 cost=10 disabled=no priority=32 type=ptp
add area=ospf-area-v6 cost=10 disabled=no priority=32 type=ptp

Tricks

Robust DNS setting

Due to the fake-ip used by ShellCrash, you should set ShellCrash’s DNS as an upstream.

In this case we assume nominating RouterOS’s DNS to clients and use the following RouterOS script to update upstream DNS source to enhance the robustness, in case of ShellCrash failed.

:global ospfInstance "shellsrash"
:global ospfDNS "1.1.4.5" # Your ShellCrash instance IP
:global publicDNS "223.5.5.5" # Change this DNS for your direct internet access

# (true / false), turn debug off after testing or your logs have abundant annoying debug messages.
:local DEBUG false

# marking the final status default value is false (down)
:local isOspfActive false

# Trying to find the neighbor
:local neighborIds [/routing ospf neighbor find instance=$ospfInstance]

# check if neighbor is found
:if ([:len $neighborIds] > 0) do={
 # Note: In this case we will only use one instance.
 # If you have multiple instance, you might need to traversal and find the instance.
 :local neighborState [/routing ospf neighbor get ($neighborIds->0) state]
 
 :if ($DEBUG) do={:log info "[DEBUG] Neighbor found! State: $neighborState"}
 
 # Only consider ospf active when state is "Full". Remember, not "full". This state might vary on different RouterOS version
 :if ($neighborState = "Full") do={
 :set isOspfActive true
 }
} else={
 # if length is 0, this neighbor is not found. check bird configuration/status.
 :if ($DEBUG) do={:log info "[DEBUG] No OSPF neighbor found. Logic assumes DOWN."}
 :set isOspfActive false
}

# change DNS according to the variable isOspfActive 
:local currentDNS [/ip dns get servers]

:if ($isOspfActive) do={
 # OSPF Up
 :if ($DEBUG) do={:log info "[DEBUG] Decision: OSPF is UP."}
 
 :if ($currentDNS != $ospfDNS) do={
 :log warning "OSPF Shellcrash Up: Switching to OSPF DNS ($ospfDNS)."
 /ip dns set servers=$ospfDNS
 /ip dns cache flush
 } else={
 :if ($DEBUG) do={:log info "[DEBUG] DNS is already correct (OSPF)."}
 }
} else={
 # OSPF Down (or missing neighbor)
 :if ($DEBUG) do={:log info "[DEBUG] Decision: OSPF is DOWN/MISSING."}
 
 :if ($currentDNS != $publicDNS) do={
 :log warning "OSPF Shellcrash Down: Switching to Public DNS ($publicDNS)."
 /ip dns set servers=$publicDNS
 /ip dns cache flush
 } else={
 :if ($DEBUG) do={:log info "[DEBUG] DNS is already correct (Public)."}
 }
}

Switch off bird when shellcrash is crashed

We will use a bash script to actively check if shellcrash is alive. If the API is unreachable, it will stop the Bird service to withdraw OSPF routes.

Copy and paste the following block into your PVE Shell (logged in as the clash user, or a user with sudo privileges):

# 1. Create the watchdog script
# Note: We use 'EOF' (quoted) to prevent variable expansion during creation.
sudo tee /home/clash/check_clash.sh > /dev/null << 'EOF'
#!/bin/bash

# Configuration
API_URL="http://127.0.0.1:9999/"
LOG_FILE="/home/clash/clash_watchdog.log"
DEBUG=false
INTERVAL=3

# Init state (0=unknown, 1=normal, 2=crashed)
LAST_STATE=0

while true; do
 # Check ShellCrash API
 HTTP_CODE=$(curl -s -m 1 -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" "$API_URL")
 
 if [ "$DEBUG" = "true" ]; then 
 echo "[DEBUG] Dashboard code: $HTTP_CODE"
 fi

 if [ "$HTTP_CODE" == "200" ]; then
 # ShellCrash is ALIVE
 if [ "$LAST_STATE" != "1" ]; then
 DATE=$(date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
 
 # Check if Bird is running using systemctl's return code (more reliable)
 sudo systemctl is-active --quiet bird
 BIRD_EXIT_CODE=$?
 
 if [ $BIRD_EXIT_CODE -ne 0 ]; then
 if [ "$DEBUG" = "true" ]; then 
 echo "ShellCrash detected. Starting Bird..."
 fi
 echo "[$DATE] ShellCrash recovered/detected. Starting Bird..." >> $LOG_FILE
 sudo systemctl start bird
 fi
 
 LAST_STATE=1
 fi
 else
 # ShellCrash is DEAD
 if [ "$LAST_STATE" != "2" ]; then
 DATE=$(date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
 if [ "$DEBUG" = "true" ]; then 
 echo "[$DATE] Alert! ShellCrash died (Code: $HTTP_CODE). Stopping Bird!"
 fi
 echo "[$DATE] Alert! ShellCrash died (Code: $HTTP_CODE). Stopping Bird!" >> $LOG_FILE
 
 sudo systemctl stop bird
 LAST_STATE=2
 fi
 fi

 sleep $INTERVAL
done
EOF

# 2. Make it executable
sudo chmod +x /home/clash/check_clash.sh

# 3. Create Systemd Service
sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/clash-watchdog.service > /dev/null << EOF
[Unit]
Description=ShellCrash Watchdog for Bird OSPF
After=network.target

[Service]
User=clash
Group=clash
ExecStart=/home/clash/check_clash.sh
Restart=always
RestartSec=3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

# 4. Enable and Start
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now clash-watchdog.service
sudo systemctl status clash-watchdog.service

Install Easytier on Pve

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 10:30:16 +0800

If your internet provider interferes with the GitHub, you can use the following commands to install EasyTier:

apt update -y sudo unzip openssl 
wget -O /tmp/easytier.sh "https://ghfast.top/https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EasyTier/EasyTier/main/script/install.sh" && sudo bash /tmp/easytier.sh install --gh-proxy https://ghfast.top/
systemctl disable --now easytier@default.service

Check the latest proxy here.

Otherwise just simply use the default GitHub URL.

apt update -y sudo unzip openssl 
wget -O /tmp/easytier.sh "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EasyTier/EasyTier/main/script/install.sh" && sudo bash /tmp/easytier.sh install
systemctl disable --now easytier@default.service

Should you wish to use easytier dashboard to manage, you can enable the service with the following command:

export USER=<your_username>
echo "[Unit]
Description=EasyTier Service
After=network.target syslog.target
Wants=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/easytier-core -w $USER

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
" | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/easytier.service

systemctl enable --now easytier.service

Then you are able to access the EasyTier dashboard at https://easytier.cn/web.

Compiling Lineage OS on WSL2

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 03:46:22 +0000

Install WSL Linux and Compiling Dependency

By default Ubuntu is installed:

# Make downloads faster by not displaying progress bar:
$ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'
# Using the URL you found above, download the appx package:
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://aka.ms/wslubuntu -OutFile Linux.appx -UseBasicParsing

# Make a backup and unpack:
Copy-Item .\Linux.appx .\Linux.zip
Expand-Archive .\Linux.zip

# Search for the installer:
Get-Childitem -Filter *.exe

# Install compiling dependency for Ubuntu
sudo apt install bc bison build-essential ccache curl flex g++-multilib gcc-multilib git gnupg gperf imagemagick lib32ncurses5-dev lib32readline-dev lib32z1-dev libelf-dev liblz4-tool libncurses5 libncurses5-dev libsdl1.2-dev libssl-dev libxml2 libxml2-utils lzop pngcrush rsync schedtool squashfs-tools xsltproc zip zlib1g-dev git

For Debian Bookworm:

sudo apt install bc bison build-essential ccache curl flex g++-multilib gcc-multilib git git-lfs gnupg gperf imagemagick lib32readline-dev lib32z1-dev libelf-dev liblz4-tool libsdl1.2-dev libssl-dev libxml2 libxml2-utils lzop pngcrush rsync schedtool squashfs-tools xsltproc zip zlib1g-dev libncurses5

Install build packages:

Repo

curl https://storage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo |sudo tee /usr/bin/repo
sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/repo

Platform tools

If you haven’t previously installed adb and fastboot, you can download the original version from Google and extract it:

wget https://dl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools-latest-linux.zip
wget https://dl.google.cn/android/repository/platform-tools-latest-linux.zip # For readers located in China

unzip platform-tools-latest-linux.zip -d ~/.local/bin

Now you have to add adb and fastboot to your PATH. Open ~/.profile and add the following:

# add Android SDK platform tools to path
if [ -d "$HOME/.local/bin/platform-tools" ] ; then
 PATH="$HOME/.local/bin/platform-tools:$PATH"
fi

Run source ~/.profile to update your environment, or simply restart the shell.

Python

For Lineage OS 18+, python3 is required to build a package.

Configure Git

You would have to set your name to sync android source code.

git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
git config --global user.name "Your Name"

Some large files may be required to download when syncing source code, hence install git-lfs:

git lfs intall

Make new directory to pull source code

mkdir lineage-21.0 && cd lineage-21.0

Initialize repo

repo init -u https://github.com/LineageOS/android.git -b lineage-21.0 # Sync the whole repo with all commit log, takes a lot of spaces.
repo init -u https://github.com/LineageOS/android.git -b lineage-21.0 --depth=1 # Only pull the latest commit without commit logs, takes not much spaces

Start syncing repo

repo sync -c -j$(nproc --all) --force-sync --no-clone-bundle --no-tags

Then follow Lineage OS building guide…

Installing ArchLinux With Btrfs in Vmware

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 23:07:11 +0800

Before installation

Create a virtual machine and adjust depend config on your need(Except for the UEFI firmware part):

To prevent the creation of vmem files for acceleration, add the following lines to your .vmx file(:

prefvmx.minVmMemPct = "100"
MemTrimRate = "0"
mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"
sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"
prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize = "TRUE"

Boot up the vm, and check if the firmware is UEFI or not:

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

if it’s legacy BIOS, it will returns No such file or directory.

Partitioning

Create a new GPT partition table and partitioned with an EFI Partition no less than 300MiB and an Linux partition with cgdisk or any other partition tools you want to use:

cgdisk /dev/sda

Format partitions

EFI

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1

Root system

mkfs.btrfs -f -L Arch /dev/sda2

Building BTRFS subvolume

@：corresponding to /
@home：corresponding to/home
@cache：corresponding to /var/cache
@docker：corresponding to /var/lib/docker
@log：corresponding to /var/log

Enabling COW in @cache, @log is not needed.

Mount root partition to /mnt:

mount -t btrfs -o compress=lzo /dev/sda2 /mnt

Generally we lzo is good enough. Reports shows that btrfs is way slower even under Zstd:1, while lzo has nearly no difference compared with non-compressed.

Create subvolumes:

btrfs subvol create /mnt/@
btrfs subvol create /mnt/@home
btrfs subvol create /mnt/@cache
btrfs subvol create /mnt/@docker
btrfs subvol create /mnt/@log
btrfs subvol create /mnt/@tmp
btrfs subvol create /mnt/@swap
# Use chattr to disable COW 
chattr +C /mnt/@cache
chattr +C /mnt/@log
chattr +C /mnt/@swap
# Umount the partition
umount /mnt

Mount partitions and subvolumes

mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@ /dev/sda2 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/{boot/efi,home,var/{log,lib/docker,cache},tmp,swap}
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@home /dev/sda2 /mnt/home
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@log /dev/sda2 /mnt/var/log
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@docker /dev/sda2 /mnt/var/lib/docker
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@cache /dev/sda2 /mnt/var/cache
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@tmp /dev/sda2 /mnt/tmp
mount -o noatime,nodiratime,ssd,compress=lzo,subvol=@swap /dev/sda2 /mnt/swap

Mount EFI partition:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/EFI

Install the system

pacstrap /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware btrfs-progs networkmanager dhcpcd iwd vim sudo zsh zsh-completions {intel,amd}-ucode net-tools linux-headers curl git wget

Generate fstab

genfstab -U /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab

Check again carefully after generation. Then proceed to post installation.

Post Installation

arch-chroot /mnt

Set mirror for pacman

Use reflector or just update /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist, then apply changes via pacman -Syy.

Install bootloader

In this article we use grub as the bootloader, since it is one of a few bootloaders has a good support to btrfs.

pacman -S grub efibootmgr os-prober

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=Arch

successful results is shown below.

Then do some optimization. Increase the log level and add nowatchdog param to accelerate the speed of booting and powering off:

nano /etc/default/grub

and edit as below:

- GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= "loglevel=5"
+ GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= "loglevel=5 nowatchdog"

Save it and then generate new grub config file to apply changes.

[root@archiso /] # grub—mkconfig —o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-linux
Found initrd image: /boot/intel—ucode.img /bootzamd—ucode.img /boot/initramfs—linux.img
Found fal Iback initrd image(s) in /boot :
intel—ucode.img amd—ucode.img initramfs—linux—fallback.img
Warning: os—prober will not be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Systems on them will not be added to the GRUB boot configuration.
Check documentation entry.
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
done

Set hostname and hosts

newHostname="Your-new-hostname"
echo $newHostname > /etc/hostname
echo -e "127.0.0.1 localhost\n" "::1 localhost\n" "127.0.1.1 $newHostname.localdomain $newHostname" >> /etc/hosts

Set Timezone

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Hong_Kong /etc/localtime

Set locale

nano /etc/locale.gen

and uncomment en-US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and any locale you wanna to use, then generate locale and set en_US locale:

locale-gen && echo 'LANG=en_US.UTF-8' > /etc/locale.conf

Setting up user accounts

First set the root account password:

passwd root

yourName="example"
useradd -m $yourName && echo "Set a new password for the user $yourName" && passwd $yourName

Desktop Environment

In this article we install KDE:

pacman -S plasma plasma-wayland-session egl-wayland kde-{accessibility,graphics,multimedia,network,pim,sdk,system,utilities}-meta

VMware Tools

Arch Linux is not supported in the official VMware Tools. OpenVMTools is commonly used.

Using Open VM Tools one cannot resize the screeen properly. Here’s a solution following to a reddit post:

sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S open-vm-tools
sudo pacman -Su xf86-input-vmmouse xf86-video-vmware mesa gtk2 gtkmm
echo needs_root_rights=yes | sudo tee /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config
sudo systemctl enable --now vmtoolsd

And you are good to go.

Reference:

https://blog.zrlab.org/posts/arch-btrfs

https://wiki.archwiki.org

https://ericclose.github.io/Installing-Arch-as-a-guest-with-UEFI-and-GPT.html

https://arch.icekylin.online/rookie/basic-install.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/b0ona0/vmtools_on_arch_linux_full_screen_or_resizing/

How to make a combined brother printer driver AUR package

Tue, 25 Jan 2022 03:46:22 +0000

How to make a combined brother printer driver AUR package

TODO

Analyze differences of file trees between the two types
Analyze differences of the installation processes between the two types

Intro

Traditionally, Brother printers’ drivers are divided with cupswrapper and lpr. The Arch-Wiki gives the solution on how to package them. But there’s some printers, e.g. DCP-B7500D and HL-L2350DW, have a combined driver with different file tree. This article is to record how I package.

Preparation

Arch-Linux PC (of cause)
.deb or .rpm download link
Have learn how to make AUR package https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_package_guidelines

Write PKGBUILD

Usually they have a common version 4.0.0

Just make your own adaptation to my PKGBUILD (adapted from Roman Schmocker’s brother-hll2350dw package):

# Maintainer: ous50
pkgname=brother-dcpb7500d
printerModel=DCPB7500D
pkgver=4.0.0
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Printing driver for Brother DCP-B7500 printer"
arch=("i686" "x86_64" "armv7l") //check the '/opt/brother/Printers/$printerModel/lpd' in the data.tar.gz
url="https://support.brother.com/g/b/producttop.aspx?c=in&lang=en&prod=dcpb7500d_as_cn"
license=("EULA")
groups=("base-devel")
depends=('cups' 'ghostscript')
depends_x86_64=('lib32-glibc')
install="$pkgname.install"
source=(
 "https://download.brother.com/welcome/dlf103663/dcpb7500dpdrv-$pkgver-1.i386.deb"
 'cupswrapper-license.txt'
	'lpr-license.txt'
 )
md5sums=(
 "c5d5c7febae0eab6254cb7332f4038c0"
 '97ad0cffd216059e9d1d3121899d8646'
 '5e87a3dc0f3e3438c088eda0f3565f0d'
)

package(){
 tar xf data.tar.gz // If you use .deb as your source, you must use this to fully decompress. (Not tested on .rpm packages)
 cp -R "$srcdir/opt" "$pkgdir/opt"
 ln -s "/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/lpd/$CARCH/rawtobr3" "$pkgdir/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/lpd/rawtobr3"
 ln -s "/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/lpd/$CARCH/brprintconflsr3" "$pkgdir/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/lpd/brprintconflsr3"

 install -d "$pkgdir/usr/lib/cups/filter/"
 ln -s "/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/cupswrapper/lpdwrapper" "$pkgdir/usr/lib/cups/filter/brother_lpdwrapper_DCPB7500D"

 install -d "$pkgdir/usr/share/cups/model/"
 ln -s "/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/cupswrapper/brother-DCPB7500D-cups-en.ppd" "$pkgdir/usr/share/cups/model"

 install -Dm644 "$srcdir/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/LICENSE_ENG.txt" "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname/LICENSE_ENG.txt"
 install -Dm644 "$srcdir/opt/brother/Printers/DCPB7500D/LICENSE_JPN.txt" "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname/LICENSE_JPN.txt"
}

Remember to get ‘cupswrapper-license.txt’ and ’lpr-license.txt’ or just delete them from source

For better notice of user installation, you could write a xxx.install file to help(in my case the filename is brother-dcpb7500d.install):

post_install() {
	post_upgrade;
}

post_upgrade() {
echo "Restart CUPS service to load the new files"
echo "You can now register your new printer using the web interface at:"
echo " http://localhost:631/"
}

Test installation and upload

After you have saved the PKGBUILD, do a test installation:

makepkg -rcsi

restart cups.service after installation and go to check if your model has shown in the list:

If it’s shown, then you could upload it to AUR

Tips:

In settings you might see an error like:

Failed to search for a recommended driver: 'The name org.fedoraproject.Config.Printing was not provided by any .service files'

In this case you need to install system-config-printer package:

sudo pacman -S system-config-printer

Thanks

Many thanks to Roman Schmocker. Without you it would be much harder to finish my AUR package and of course, this blog.

Thanks Arch-Wiki contributors for good documentations.