What is TUXEDO Tomte? - TUXEDO Computers

The term Tomte is Swedish and means something like goblin or leprechaun, and this describes our own little helper software quite well. In different messages, we already talked about Tomte, but we’re going to explain in more detail what our digital goblin is all about.

In a nutshell

Good to know: Your Privacy is not violated

The most important information first: The privacy of our users is respected and no data will be sent to TUXEDO! TUXEDO Tomte changes as little as possible in the system and only as much as needed for correct functioning. The user settings are not overwritten.  

TUXEDO Tomte: A a driver configuration service

TUXEDO Tomte is a configuration service that automatically recognizes the customer’s device and checks for missing drivers or required packages, relieving users of tedious troubleshooting and problem solving. The small program inserts appropriate solutions, for example entries in Grub or other configurations like switching to the TUXEDO mirrors. In this step, the repositories are removed from the sources list - the rest of the system remains untouched. This is necessary so that a kernel approved by TUXEDO can be installed as well as suitable drivers.  

How TUXEDO Tomte works

When the system is started, TUXEDO Tomte automaticaly checks if drivers or necessary packages are missing. For this, Tomte compares a list of about 1,000 repositories. The program detects whether the system needs to be adjusted or not. This way, Tomte takes a lot of work off the users’ shoulders, because necessary adjustments are carried out independently. After the work is done, Tomte is getting closed.

With TUXEDO Tomte you can control exactly how the solutions are installed. When they are no longer needed, Tomte removes them automatically. Users do not have to do anything - just wait and enjoy a functioning device.

Important commands for TUXEDO Tomte

Output of tuxedo-tomte can be called as follows:

tuxedo-tomte
(out)tuxedo-tomte 2.8.12
(out)tuxedo-tomte <COMMAND> NAME...
(out)tomte <COMMAND> NAME...
(out)  list                           List all installable modules with detailed status
(out)  versions                       Like 'list' but with version numbers
(out)  modules                        List all available modules
(out)  description MODULE             Shows the module description
(out)  configure MODULE ...|all       Configure an unconfigured module
(out)  reconfigure MODULE...|all      Reconfigure a configured module
(out)  remove MODULE                  Remove a module from the system
(out)  block MODULE ...|all           Blocks one or all modules
(out)  unblock MODULE ... |all        Unblocks one or all modules
(out)  AUTOMATIC                      Activates automatic configuration
(out)  UPDATES_ONLY                   Only updates will be installed automatically
(out)  DONT_CONFIGURE                 Stops all automatic configuration
(out)  help                           Prints this message
(out)
(out)  more details can be found in the man page

For example, per:

sudo tuxedo-tomte list

the necessary and applied drivers and modules for the respective device are displayed. In addition, information on kernel, tuxedo-repos or tuxedo-mirrors is listed.

If the kernel suggested by TUXEDO should not be installed, this can be prevented with the following command:

sudo tuxedo-tomte block kernel

The command stops the installation of the kernel tested and released by the TUXEDO developers.

If package updates from Ubuntu are to be preferred over the ones from the TUXEDO package sources, this can be done via:

sudo tuxedo-tomte block tuxedo-mirrors

With further updates, the original repositories will be used instead of the ones from TUXEDO. Caution is advised here, because there can be unforeseen updates, which may possibly lead to problems.

To reactivate these modules, you simply have to use the parameter unblock instead of block:

sudo tuxedo-tomte unblock kernel
sudo tuxedo-tomte unblock tuxedo-mirrors

After that, use the following command to reconfigure:

sudo tuxedo-tomte reconfigure all

Debugging

If required, the file /var/log/tomte/tomte.log will provide you with information about the actions performed by Tomte.

tail -f /var/log/tomte/tomte.log
(out)20240325 13:59:28 nothing to do for tuxedo-drivers
(out)20240325 13:59:31 nothing to do for nvidia-driver
(out)20240325 13:59:40 nothing to do for linux-tuxedo-22.04-edge
(out)20240325 13:59:40 Tomte finished
(out)20240326 10:55:45 nothing to do for tuxedo-mirrors
(out)20240326 10:55:46 nothing to do for tuxedo-repos
(out)20240326 10:56:00 nothing to do for linux-tuxedo-22.04-edge
(out)20240326 10:56:01 nothing to do for nvidia-driver
(out)20240326 10:56:01 nothing to do for tuxedo-drivers
(out)20240326 10:56:01 Tomte finished

If the simple log is not sufficient, you can adjust the logLevel in the /usr/bin/tuxedo-tomte file. In the standard configuration, Tomte only writes the actions to the log. At the highest level my $logLevel = 2;, however, you receive detailed information about what happened.

use Data::Dumper;
# logLevel:
# 0 = normal
# 1 = some debug
# 2 = lots of debug
my $logLevel = 0;
$logLevel = $ENV{LOGLEVEL} // $logLevel;

Further Information

Currently Tomte supports our TUXEDO_OS as well as Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 (plus Ubuntu based distributions such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Mate). TUXEDO Tomte can be easily post-installed here.

To do this, download the current DEB package named tuxedo-tomte_VERSION_all.deb and save it in the Downloads folder in your user’s home directory. Then install the package with the following command.

sudo apt install ~/Downloads/tuxedo-tomte*.deb

If you want to get more information from a technical point of view, take a look at the configuration file /etc/tomte/tomte.cfg or the log written by Tomte /var/log/tomte/tomte.log.