VectorLinux SOHO Beta3 bug reports and suggestions

[Joe1962]

Joe1962,

I get the same exact output as you. I don't have any of the problems that you are though. Very strange. 

I reinstalled and don't get the problems now... weird! Even "Lock the screen" works, which was just crashing before...

BTW, I didn't install from CD2 during install, so then I tried to set that up as a repo at which point I found that the gslapt / slapt-get on SOHO don't handle the new txz packages...

[toothandnail]

Should probably start a new thread..... Beta 4.

Installed, though due to a screw-up on my part (brought the wrong CD with me), I've so far only installed from CD1.

Installer was fine in operation, though it still has a problem with keyboard layout. I selected UK during the install and I'm getting UK on the desktop. Console is defaulting to US. Please fix!

I created a new user, as a test to see if UID was being correctly handled. Just as well I'm going to reinsall later - I'm still ending up with UID 1001 when creating new instead of importing. This really is a pain!

Every time the desktop starts, I get a prompt for the root password - wicd wants root access. I know I've seen that one before, but I can't recall what the problem is....

Attempting to log out results in a grey screen with a flashing cursor top left. No way to get back to the login prompt. I have to login to console and shut down from there. That is a new problem - not seen it in any of the previous betas.

Every time the desktop starts, I get a box - starting Akonadi server ?? Followed by another box about migration of the default address book. Once is surely enough - I really don't need to have this on every start, do I?

I had to fight to get my sound working - the last couple of beta's it has simply come up. Not this time, I had go Mixer > Settings > Configure Channels and (after a good deal of swearing) drag and drop the speaker item to get it in the contols, then tick the box to get it unmuted. That is a distinct step back, and one that will almost certainly throw any newbie trying to get an Intel HDA system producing sound.

Long standing KDE bug - even though I've selected UK, it still thinks I'm in Gurnsey. Worse, this build doesn't allow me to change that - no way to get root access to make the change.

Hurray! I now get prompted for the root password if I select Samba from the advanced KDE settings. So that has been fixed.

Still errors with power management. It complains about issues, then comes up with an error regarding Consolekit or Powerdevil. CPU scaling policy fails to allow 'ondemand', which is my prefered option.

I'll reinstall once I have the second disk available, and this time either import an existing user or create a new one after install to avoid the UID problem. More then....

Paul.

[pevsner]

I get the same as toothandnail:-

Every time the desktop starts, I get a prompt for the root password - wicd wants root access.

[newt]

KDE Kickoff-style menu display problem - just shows the outline of where the menu should be but none of the actual menu itself.  This happens on my system using the 'nv' driver.  I've been able to fix this by adding the following option to xorg.conf: Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "1"

This option has also resolved many issues relating to rendering problems in Firefox and seamonkey using various open-source display drivers (nv, ati, radeon, openchrome).

[toothandnail]

This is strange. I've got home (I do love 13 hour shifts), and reinstalled B4 with both CDs available. I also skipped adding a normal user, logged in as root, removed the new user created by the first B4 install and created a new user (which got me the needed 1000 UID).

The install is almost completely different. Different wallpaper, different setup on the taskbar. Different default icon sizes, different font size in konsole. Overall, a much more usable setup. But I don't understand why there should be such a substantial difference between the two installs.

A few different problems. I'm still getting US default keyboard layout (didn't really expect that to change). I'm also still being prompted for the root password on initial logon (my error in the earlier report - it is only on initial login, not any time the desktop is started). Once that is done, Wicd works as it should.

I still can't set locale data correctly.. I select the correct locale, 'apply' is grayed out. So I try to move on. At which point I get prompted to apply or discard the changes. If I select 'apply', I get a popup error box which says:

Code:

Unable to authenticate/execute the action: 4

When I click ok after the error box, the systems setting applet closes.

While I am now able to access the Samba settings in the advanced mode of System Settings, when I came to enter a share name, I get an error for every character I enter. I managed to get the basic share path entered, but I had to acknowledge an error for every character of the path. Not usable at all.

VasmCC is still showing an icon for vlcpufreq, but nothing happens if I attempt to open it.

On a more positive note. The desktop seems markedly snappier in operation. And with all the fancy screen effects turned on, responsiveness is a good deal better than it was with the earlier beta.

Looks good, but still has a number of outstanding issues.

More later.

Paul.

[GrannyGeek]

I installed beta 4 on the 1.3 GHz Celeron today. The GUI installer worked flawlessly for me. I'm sorry to see that the option to install LILO to a floppy disk is missing, as it has been on all the betas I've tried. No big problem--I can install LILO to a floppy later with VASM. I reboot with the installation CD.

It would be good to have a prompt and pause for removing the CD before the reboot following installation. At the end of the installation, the second CD is in the drive. If the user is going to reboot through the CD, the wrong CD is in the drive. Some CD drives close rapidly if you open them while something is going on and the user doesn't have enough time to remove CD2 and replace it with CD1. I can select to boot from the CD drive by hitting Esc when I boot, but not all computers offer that option.

I skipped creating a user account at that point in the installation because I remembered the user would get the UID 1001, which creates a HORRIBLE mess if you want to network with other computers having that user or if you want to mount other VL installations on your computer and transfer stuff from that user's home directory. toothandnail reports that the user created during installation is still being numbered at 1001. I created the user through VASM after the initial reboot and the UID was 1000, so all is well.

I got asked for the root password for wicd. I didn't think I had wicd running, as I don't have anything wireless, but I couldn't confirm this as I don't know where it loads.

CUPS--what happened to the driver selections? No gutenprint drivers. I installed hplip during the installation but didn't see any signs of it, but I don't know what to look for. I tried to open the hplip thing from the Launcher but nothing happened. I ran Gslapt and installed gutenprint and whatever else was lacking and was then able to set up  my printers.

I was sorry to see that older versions of Firefox and SeaMonkey were installed. Since the newest versions have important security fixes, I think they should be installed, not the older versions. And we should get them out of testing and into the regular repo. I have them on three systems and they're working fine. And why not use the latest Flash version? That's another security upgrade. I installed it myself and it's working fine in all the browsers.

Performance seems reasonably good, considering that I'm using SOHO beta 4 on pretty old hardware (see 1.3 GHz Celeron in my sig). I toned down the eye candy quite a bit, mostly to make it easier for this aging computer but also because I really don't like most of those effects. For that matter, I don't like KDE, either, but being a good Vectorian I feel duty bound to test the beta.<g>

Will do more testing tomorrow. So far, so good.
--GrannyGeek

[MikeCindi]

I guess the beta3 thread is now the beta4 thread.

While a cursory load and look through went without a hitch further use produced problems. It is distracting having wicd as for root authority on each boot as is mentioned above. I have also had frequent "hard freezes" with the following: using a USB flash stick (PNY Attache 1Gb) locks up everything every time, when using Audacity, 1.3.7 from the repo, if I use ctrl-z to undo anything all locks up everytime, and I get a few random freezes after no user input for a while (I don't know how long as I'm away from the machine and come back to find I have to power off then on). Other notes that don't freeze the machine are that my external drive is not recognized (it is a USB device) and suspend to RAM works intermittently.

[prince]

Will the latest SOHO support features like the Btrfs file system, KDE 4.4 and Xorg server 1.8?