VectorLinux Core 7 Alpha4 is up and ready to test

[budulay]

I tried installing from hard drive using vinatall-iso script I got from the alpha4 iso file, but it wasn't able to find the iso image.
Then I burned the image to 2 different CD-RW's and couldn't even get through the first screen.
It said that it can't read sector blahblah, so I assumed the CD-RW was busted, but then I tried another one and I got the installer saying that there was no UI specified and it kicks me out to the "boot:" prompt. I burned both CD-RW's with K3b, although it shouldn't be a problem since it worked just fine before.

Edit:

I did do a md5sum check and it came out ok.

[vector]

One small thing, the very nice mushroom wallpaper, isn't that copyright digitalblasphemy?  If is now released great, I rather like it.

Lynn could you check that out........the place I  got the wallpaper from said nothing about copyright not did it have any watermarks that I  could see. I do remember it from digitalblashemy but since it has appeared on other sites perhaps it has been released.
Also, please adjust your slapt-get sources to use vl7 only as the vl6 repo will cause lots of problems. I will fix that next release. All you packagers out there if you have your favorites please start building agains't the vl7 release so we have a decent repo by final release time as I think its stable now and there won't be any major upgrades in key libraries now in the final.

Cheers,
Vec
 

[GrannyGeek]

I wanted to mention that Scribus 1.3.9 is now out. I compiled it for my VL7 installation but did not create a VL package. It compiled very easily, needed dependenciies were already there, and it is working well. I hope the next VL7 release will include Scribus 1.3.9.
--GrannyGeek

[toothandnail]

<snip>
osmo: Depends: libgtkhtml >= 2.11.1-i586-1vl70 is an error message in Gslapt - this is on a clean install of alpha 4

After downloading and installing osmo I get the following error when run from a console
lyn:$ osmo
osmo: error while loading shared libraries: libgtkhtml-2.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

That one is a bit strange. For some reason, the necessary extra files for libgtkhtlm weren't generated., so it probably wasn't found in the repo.

You could try it again - I've just rerun the scripts and it seems to have processed correctly this time round.

Paul.

[Lyn]

Osmo installed just fine...

I found the digital blasphemy image - its not quite the same so its been altered from the original

http://digitalblasphemy.com/preview.shtml?i=fluorescence

I used only V7 repositories initially, which is when I got the errors, but did enable others to install the icewm mod and that was excellent, now disabled and purged the files etc.  So working just from V7 repository now.

Frozen Bubble still gives me the same error - frozen-bubble: Depends: perl-gettext >= 1.05 when I try to reinstall.  But it runs fine.

Filezilla gives the error - wxGTK: Depends: pixman >= 0.18.2-i586-1vl70 and then gives an error when you try to run it from a terminal - filezilla: error while loading shared libraries: libwx_gtk2u_aui-2.8.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory


Incidentally why is Scribus under multi media rather than office?

I think this is coming on well, some polish to do and we need to test the repository for errors. 

Incidentally I don't like the new interface for Cups... not sure what to do with it seems to have an extra step there.

[prince]

In addition to your commitments, Vectorites, I think the time is right to speed up the Linux Kernel with Transparent Hugepage support. This might be the patch you need.
Try:
     
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/andrea/patches/v2.6/2.6.37-rc1/


Parent Directory                                                   -   
transparent_hugepage-32/                      02-Nov-2010 20:51    -   
transparent_hugepage-32.bz2                   02-Nov-2010 20:50   44K 
transparent_hugepage-32.bz2.sign              02-Nov-2010 20:50  249   
transparent_hugepage-32.gz                    02-Nov-2010 20:50   54K 
transparent_hugepage-32.gz.sign               02-Nov-2010 20:50  249   
transparent_hugepage-32.sign                  02-Nov-2010 20:50  249   
   

[budulay]

I decided to give it another try and after burning a CD-R from the same downloaded image, installation started without any problems.
Here's my feedback so far:

On the installer:
Out of 3 times I installed Alpha 4, once for whatever reason selecting boot loader screen jumped in front of the actual installation screen. I saw the selecting boot screed for a few seconds, with no options at all and a countdown to begin installation, just like on the installation screen. After that the installation started, and when it was done I got a message saying that there was an error selecting boot loader and I can either say Yes and continue or say No and try to correct the problem. I said No, and it went back to the installation screen with all the buttons disabled, so I can go neither back nor forward. The only option I had was to quit installation and start over.

Other than that, I love the new installer, especially the boot loader screen, since it gives a lot more options than the old text installer(I mean things like selecting which OS's it should include in the menu and the ability to change labels). Also it detected an Ubuntu install I have on one of my partitions, something that the old text installer could never do. The select partitions screen got my attention as well. Now I can set up mount points for all my partitions in the mount directory(like /mnt/sda1 and so) during the install, or even choose a different directory if I wanted to.

There is a little problem with that, though - when I click on selecting other mount point, I am given a small text field to enter where exactly I want to mount something. If instead I want to go back and let's say mount it to /home, when I click on /home I get and empty field. I don't know if it actually selects /home, but just doesn't show it, or if it just doesn't select anything. If I close that window and then open a new one by clicking on the partition name, then the menu is back to normal. Hope that makes any sence

Also there is another small problem - I can't drag scroll bars. If I press on scroll arrows, then the scrolling works fine. If I press on empty space between a scroll bar and a scroll arrow, the bar moves fine, but if I try to drag the bar, nothing happens.

And I couldn't figure out how to move in space invaders     Space bar for shooting works fine, but arrow keys don't move the guy.

Another thing, is it possible to add something like Super Mario or Crimson Fields to the installer game list, because the installation takes quite a while and the existing games(except maybe freecell) don't help too much.

Now for the Alpha 4 itself:
It is simply beautiful! I am not usually a big fan of eye candy, but compared with let's say VL5.9 with XFCE(that was the last time I used XFCE), well, there is really no comparison.

As for the bad stuff:
My wireless does not work. I can see the card is recognized with lspci. The right modules seems to be loaded, but wicd can't see my router.
It was a royal pain to get it working in VL6, so I was really hoping to avoid that with VL7. I'll look into it more and see if I can figure it out.

On the first install I forgot to mount my home partition, so when I've done it manually afterward and then rebooted, xfce wouldn't start saying that some file in my home directory was missing. Since it was a fresh install I didn't bother to save the home directory and it was overwritten when I mounted my home partition. This isn't really a problem, more like a word of caution. Also I *think* I could do that in earlier versions without much problem.

Also is there any way to include an option to install closed source nvidia drivers either during install or right after with vasm in the future releases? I think it would've been quite handy, since the desktop is kind of slow with the nv driver.

Another thing, are Suspend and Hibernate buttons in XFCE logout menu supposed to work, or is it still work in progress? Because here it says they are missing scripts or something like that.

Overall, I have a feeling that the final version will be amazingly awesome!
Thank you everyone who got VL7 up to where it stands right now for the amazing job you all did.


EDIT:

While trying to get my wireless card working, I realized that ifplugd is not installed by default(I can see it in the repo, but since I don't have an internet connection it doesn't help much). Is that an oversight or does VL7 use another program instead of ifplugd? I was going of this tutorial, and although it's quite dated it helped me to get my wireless going with VL6.


EDIT2:

Another small thing, each time I log in, the mixer values are reset.
Also I have 2 cairo docks on startup.

EDIT3:

While watching video with gmplayer, screensaver came on.

[Vink8]

Please be patient
 
general lib/ program seem needed an update


bluez-lib 3.29    ->  4.83
 bluez-firmware-1.2
 bluez-hcidump-1.42
 obexd-0.38.tar.gz

claws-mail-3.7.6 -> 3.7.8
libpcap-1.0.0      -> libpcap-1.1.1
 Kismet
Opera 10.60       ->  11
qt-4.6.2            ->   4.7.0
wine-1.3.9         ->   1.3.10
wxGTK-2.8.11     ->   2.9.1

I gave a look at
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=vector
e-mail to Ladislav Bodnar is needed?

[budulay]

Couple more things I've noticed:
If I have a CD in the drive during boot, 2 identical icons appear on Desktop and in the file manager. If I eject it and then put it in again, then it works as it should and I only get one icon on both desktop and in file manager.

Also my down arrow key and a left control key don't seem to work. I chose a default keyboard type during install, and I don't remember ever having to change anything keyboard related on any other version of vector I've used so far.
By the way, this is my keyboard.

[GrannyGeek]

Also my down arrow key and a left control key don't seem to work. I chose a default keyboard type during install, and I don't remember ever having to change anything keyboard related on any other version of vector I've used so far.

That happened to me on one of the earlier alphas. I don't remember the solution, but you should find it with a forum search. It may have had something to do with .Xmodmap in your home directory. You could try renaming it, exiting X, restarting X, and seeing what happens. If that doesn't fix it, restore the file you named and hope someone who knows what to do jumps in.
--GrannyGeek

[nightflier]

something to do with .Xmodmap in your home directory

In my case, problem was solved by removing both lines in the file, leaving it empty.

[GrannyGeek]

something to do with .Xmodmap in your home directory

In my case, problem was solved by removing both lines in the file, leaving it empty.

That jogged my memory. I did the same thing and then my keys worked properly.
--GrannyGeek

[toothandnail]

Downloaded and installed alpha 4.1. Install was fine, and most things seem to be working pretty well.

One thing that really needs to be changed - the installer is generating a ~/.bash_profile. Contents is as below:

Code:

# LOCALES ADDITIONS MADE BY THE VL GUI INSTALLER
export LANG=en_US
`setxkbmap -model pc104 -layout gb`
# END OF MODIFICATIONS BY THE VL GUI INSTALLER

While the keyboard layout obviously needs to be set up, 'export LANG=en_US' is both counter productive and annoying - it overides any attempt to set the locale by /etc/profile.d/lang.sh. Setting a keyboard locale correctly and then setting a default language/locale of en_US is pretty silly.

Paul.

[Pita]

Sound Problem with all flavors including latest 4.1.

If I have my USB webcam plugged-in on booting I have no sound.
Sound card cannot be found.

Booting with webcam not plugged I have sound after adjusting sound
levels in alsamixer and enabling controls in xfce4-mixer.

Giving command 'alsactl store' does store the settings, however, on reboot
apparently 'alsactl restore' is not executed and has to be done from the
console after which there is sound.

Whatever is done with sound above alsaconf refuses to detect the sound card.

[budulay]

That happened to me on one of the earlier alphas. I don't remember the solution, but you should find it with a forum search. It may have had something to do with .Xmodmap in your home directory. You could try renaming it, exiting X, restarting X, and seeing what happens. If that doesn't fix it, restore the file you named and hope someone who knows what to do jumps in.
--GrannyGeek

In my case, problem was solved by removing both lines in the file, leaving it empty.

I just ended up installing a later alpha version(Alpha 4.6), which fixed the problem. Thanks a bunch nonetheless.

Speaking of which, I was finally able to install VL7 from CD-RW.
Still 2 cairo docks, though.
Also no luck with wireless.

Does anyone have wireless working in VL7?