xfce 4.8-well someone had to ask

[davidlondonuk]

Hi,

I am using VL 6 std gold, I will probably upgrade to soho to get the newer libs. Is it possible to compile xfce 4.8 for soho and will it work with VL 6 soho if I do?

Thanks for any help.

[sledgehammer]

Don't know.  Do know that it would be nice if you could get the "newer libs" without "upgrading" to soho.  I see these wonderful builds, kde etc, but wonder if we would not be better off to concentrate on keeping VL 6.0 standard up to date.  Can't folks who need soho or kde find the equivalent elsewhere?

[GrannyGeek]

Don't know.  Do know that it would be nice if you could get the "newer libs" without "upgrading" to soho.  I see these wonderful builds, kde etc, but wonder if we would not be better off to concentrate on keeping VL 6.0 standard up to date.  Can't folks who need soho or kde find the equivalent elsewhere?

No. Why be down on SOHO? It's a lovely version and if you buy SOHO (i.e., financially support VectorLinux), you can install XFce during your distro installation because it's included and you have the choice to install it along with the rest. In fact, you never need to start KDE if you also install XFce with VL6 SOHO Deluxe. If you get the freebie SOHO FINAL, you can add XFce from the repos.

My question is if you want the "newer libs," why can't you upgrade to SOHO? You don't have to use KDE.

Upgrading to newer libs and kernel amounts to creating a new distro. Well, you have that in SOHO. You want things to work, don't you? Upgrading to "newer libs" will break some things, and you don't really expect packagers to create new packages for VL6 that will work with the new libs, do you?

It sounds as if you think VL6 Standard should be the final version of Standard, with just upgrading to "newer libs," newer kernel, newer XORG, and that somehow this doesn't amount to creating a new distro under the old name.
--GrannyGeek

[davidlondonuk]

Thanks for comments granny.

I'm was just interested in compiling xfce 4.8:

VL6 std gold comes with gtk2 2.12.9 & glib 2.16.3 but to compile xfce 4.8 you need gtk2 2.14 & glib 2.20.

They should both be backwards compatible with any VL6 installed apps or system software so I don't really see a problem.

My knowledge of make a distro is a bit limited so are my assumptions ok or am I going to trouble or break my install?

Thanks for any help

[stretchedthin]

I had built the newest gtk+, glib, pango etc, which where required for my build of liferea on vl60std.  It worked and liferea was up and running but as a result xarchiver stoped functioning fully and deluge bittorrent client would not even start.  Some other applications just needed to be uninstalled and reinstalled to see the change and they were fine.  Don't know what or if there is a solution other than waiting for the next VL release.  Maybe someone else can weigh in here.

[GrannyGeek]

I'm was just interested in compiling xfce 4.8:

VL6 std gold comes with gtk2 2.12.9 & glib 2.16.3 but to compile xfce 4.8 you need gtk2 2.14 & glib 2.20.

They should both be backwards compatible with any VL6 installed apps or system software so I don't really see a problem.

My knowledge of make a distro is a bit limited so are my assumptions ok or am I going to trouble or break my install?

I have no idea. I don't know anything about "innards." I do know that upgrading some libraries will break some applications. I don't know which ones.

I guess all you can do is make an image of your present installation, install the libraries you need, compile what you want, and see if everything is working satisfactorily. Hopefully, you'll have no problems. If you do, restore the image. And be sure to let us know the results.
--GrannyGeek

[davidlondonuk]

Thanks for the replies.

Upgrading to the newest gtk, glib etc would break some VL6Std packages as you would probably need to compile pango, atk & cairo as well.

I think you might be right granny, I might be better off waiting for VL7Std to come out but I am intrigued with trying out xfce 4.8 and the gtk+ & glib versions required are compatible with the pango, atk & cairo versions installed by VL6Std- so no problems there.

Any ideas when VL7StdGold is coming out? It must use xfce 4.8 surely?

The xfce developers have been pretty clever in cutting down on dependencies like gvfs and used gio instead (part of gtk) and rewriting modules like the panel where needed to keep xfce up to date. I have used kde & gnome in the past but xfce is the right mix for me, kde & gnome seem to try to do too much.

[Joe1962]

Robby Workman has packaged xfce-4.8 for slack-current, if you feel adventurous, you could download his source build tree and give it a shot, but it seems he had to build or rebuild a lot of deps for it. Read his NOTES carefully first.

URL: http://connie.slackware.com/~rworkman/xfce-4.8/

[GrannyGeek]

Any ideas when VL7StdGold is coming out? It must use xfce 4.8 surely?

VL7 Standard Gold will come out "when it's ready." That has been true of all Vector releases. I hope it doesn't take as long as VL6 SOHO did.<g> We're still on alphas and haven't started with the first beta yet, so it won't be real soon. If bugs are detected and zapped before we get to the betas and release candidate(s), I figure two or three months are the best-case scenario. I have no inside information whatever on this.

I think one reason VL6 SOHO took so long to get out the door was that KDE, kernels, and other things in it were moving targets. Updating a major component during testing means more testing is required.

I hope XFce 4.8 will be included, but I don't know. We'll see what's in beta 1 soon (I hope).
--GrannyGeek

[Joe1962]

I have been working on building xfce-4.8 for VL6 SOHO, but going through rworkmans list of deps simply uncovered more deps (since he built it for slack-current, much more uptodate than VL6 SOHO). As of right now, I am pretty much stuck on udev, which won't build probably due to the old glibc. I started on udev-165, but even 147 (minimum required for latest udisks) fails to build. I am very tempted to switch to VL7 now, even though I have already built and updated A LOT of semi-dangerous stuff on VL6 SOHO (glib, atk, pango, cairo, gtk, qt, etc....), but I think I will draw the line at glibc this time...

[sledgehammer]

I have always thought of Vector Linux in terms of its VL standard series (5.8, 6.0, etc).  I have always though SOHO was roughly the same as fedora or suse or one of several other linux flavors.  I encourage Vector to keep (or make) the VL standard series as its flagship.  I think it sets Vector apart and that concentration on a VL standard/gold as its flagship series would enable VL standard to be updated more rapidly.  I think that would be good for all concerned.   

John

[Pita]

I have always thought of Vector Linux in terms of its VL standard series (5.8, 6.0, etc).  I have always though SOHO was roughly the same as fedora or suse or one of several other linux flavors.  I encourage Vector to keep (or make) the VL standard series as its flagship.  I think it sets Vector apart and that concentration on a VL standard/gold as its flagship series would enable VL standard to be updated more rapidly.  I think that would be good for all concerned.   

John

I second that!

[roarde]

You've a third right here, have we a quorum? Let's find out.

VL 6.2 (calling SOHO's base 6.1) would buy more time to get 7 ready.

On the other hand, if the usual devs were to deviate for 6.2 or such, 7 just won't be ready.

Having VL 7 as soon as a good 7 can be had is important and will take the dev team + more. There're just not enough of the usual crew to do both. I don't like the concentration on 7 as, like you, I don't want it for my own use right now. Given available people, it's the right call for VL's future though.

I still want my 6.2. If that's to happen, ideally it'd be without anyone on the dev team participating -- maybe looking in, but not taking any time.

So from here, it looks like it'll have to be done by people who have, on average; less knowledge, perhaps little project experience, and precious little time. If that's generally true, my suggestion is to work on the parts one can or will individually, but publicly. Otherwise more time is spent talking and organizing than doing. The hope is that with everyone's work, thoughts, and study available, a consensus might coalesce. Not all that likely, but it wouldn't be a waste. True, 95% of efforts wouldn't be included even if something did come of it, but that comes with the territory.

Now if someone can start putting a place to try that together  (I'm fairly new, but pretty sure this isn't the place) I'll do what I can, when I can, which isn't much or often. But it's something. So is your not much or often.

It's bound to be vaporware. Call it "vaporlinux". "vl" (lower case) for short, which is both classy and of course quite original.

Worst case somewhere else, we'd alienate each other; but as the population is that of the VectorLinux community, I think our worst case is we might learn something or have fun. And maybe, just maybe, we can develop some things, processes, or people along the way that can really contribute to big VL.

If you just wait long enough, I'll start putting the venue together. But it's the kind of thing I'm worst at and will take longer than producing VL 7 or even VL 8 will. Someone's handy at this and can do it fairly quickly. As "this" hasn't been defined yet, how well it's done isn't as important as when. It's gonna change anyway.

Prospects for solid results aren't good, so I'm as much open to another method as any of us. We know there are enough people interested to have a quorum. But are we interested enough to try and fail and fail and fail again, and then maybe . . . ?

I can't just bite through my tongue anymore, how about you?

[pierce.jason]

VL6 std gold comes with gtk2 2.12.9 & glib 2.16.3 but to compile xfce 4.8 you need gtk2 2.14 & glib 2.20.

They should both be backwards compatible with any VL6 installed apps or system software so I don't really see a problem.

My knowledge of make a distro is a bit limited so are my assumptions ok or am I going to trouble or break my install?

Thanks for any help

Hello David, if you take a look at this thread on enabling ext4 filesystem usage, you will see how you can use the packages from the SOHO cd, to update your current system.

Having updated the packages on my VL6 Light system, to those avail on the SOHO cd, I have the following package versions that might be relevant to your interests:

cairo	1.6.4-i586-1vl60
atk	1.22.0-i486-1
pango	1.20.0-i486-1
.	.
glib	1.2.10-i486-3
glib2	2.16.3-i586-1gsb
glibc	2.7-i486-10
.	.
gtk+	1.2.10-i486-4
gtk+2	2.12.9-i486-1

I'm not sure which of these packages are updated from VL6 Light's versions. How does this list compare to what you have and what you need?

ON SECOND THOUGHT: I might not have updated all my packages to SOHO's. I believe I just selectively updated the ones that I needed for ext4 support! However, if you put the SOHO cd as a repository, and upgrade everything available... you should have matching versions of everything that counts.

pierce.jason

[pierce.jason]

I'm not really sure I understand what you mean sledgehammer.

I have always though SOHO was roughly the same as fedora or suse or one of several other linux flavors.

Did you think that SOHO was a totally separate distro, and not part of VectorLinux?

I encourage Vector to keep (or make) the VL standard series as its flagship.

From what I can tell, inclusion of KDE is what sets SOHO apart. Are you proposing that VectorLinux team not support KDE, or do you mean something different here?

pierce.jason