Roadmap to 6.0

[vector]

I know you haven't heard much from me as of late.  I have been really contemplating the state of things and where we go from here. I would consider the 5.x releases a resounding success as many with 5.1 won't move to 5.8 for fear of loosing a beautiful thing. Linux and time marches on and so must we. Slackware just spit out 12  which is a challenge as there is a whole new tool chain as well as the X system. With the limited manpower we have I have decided to release Vector more often with incremental changes vs less often with a huge changelog. This is easier on the manpower we have plus bug fixing should be minimal. We will release shortly the first rc of version 5.8.6 which updates xorg from 6.9 to 7.2 and kde from 3.5.6 to 3.5.7 in soho and the same xorg plus latest xfce4 for standard. Next inline will be 5.9.x which will be the move to new tool chain and the beginning of Vector 6.0. Vector 6.0 will have all the gui tools that people and reviewers have asked for at least that is the goal. Please comment ask questions volunteer to do stuff we have lots to do if we want to knock the world on its ass with 6.0................. .............cheers..........vec

[Joe1962]

A quick comment, probably more later...

If we are going for a faster release cycle, we will really need to get the distro-upgrade working 100%, at least within major version numbers. However, I'm not sure that might be at all possible with the toolchain moving to gcc-4.x and xorg going modular. With everything getting recompiled, perhaps it's time for a clean break (and new base repo) and call it 6.0? Then add the GUI tools along the way? I know it's not what we hoped, but now I think Slack 12 is such a big leap forward that it might merit a VL6. Jumping now might allow upgrade compatibility for a while to come within the 6.x line.

Anyway, just a thought to hash out...

PS: Perhaps a quick 5.9 upgrade with just the xorg is possible?
EDIT: with the xfce and kde upgrades too, of course...

[The Headacher]

Why upgrade just xorg and the desktop environment? The VL 5.8 series is close to perfect IMO, and there's still lots of life in it left. But If this is the road to VL 6 and if VL 6 is going to be based on Slack 12 should we not start be building on Slack 12?

Can't we just think of vl 5.8 as a fine finished product and start with VL 6? In the meantime we can just continue using our normal 5.8 installs without having a new vector-5.8.6 repo or weird problems of packages working on 5.8 but not on 5.8.6 or the other way around.

Oh well, I suppose I might be impatient for the slack 12 goodiness in that fine VL sauce .

[easuter]

Can't we just think of vl 5.8 as a fine finished product and start with VL 6? In the meantime we can just continue using our normal 5.8 installs without having a new vector-5.8.6 repo or weird problems of packages working on 5.8 but not on 5.8.6 or the other way around.

Oh well, I suppose I might be impatient for the slack 12 goodiness in that fine VL sauce

I second that.
The new Slackware 12 packages solve practically all the problems that we were having in the GTK/Xorg/Kernel debate, so why not get started with the Slack12 based VL6.0 now?

Anyway, on the VL 6.0 topic, whats the status on more VL specific stuff like VL-hot and the new VASM? HAL is included by default in Slackware 12, but its not as old-hardware-friendly as VL-hot is...so any idea about what VL6 will have?

What about laying out other objectives for areas like:

- Repo layout and maintenance (guidelines about what to do with major package upgrades - should they even exist.)
- Packaging and packaging standards (maybe a more up-to-date how-to with info on scripting would be cool and of course Moe's awesome package builder.)
- Wireless networking integration (I like Wifi-radar, but it would be cool to modify it/create something new to fit into VL seamlessly, in a similar way that NetworkManager does for Ubuntu/Suse/RHEL, but without the bloat and resource hogging).
- Power management tools (this includes suspend support)
- Extra drivers (there are lots of drivers and firmware, especially for wireless cards that can be added to the default kernel package, or included as separate packages)
- ISO size limit (1 CD policy or...?)
- Attention to conflicting Slackware packages (eg: libiconv)
- **insert your ideas here**

Also whats the take on some more radical things like Initng? 

[Toe]

If we are going for a faster release cycle, we will really need to get the distro-upgrade working 100%

You need to get it working even without a faster release cycle.

[Lyn]

Certainly I think a one CD size iso should be the aim for the standard version, maybe with a more modular approach with the soho edition being either on a second cd to install from or alternatively a dvd image.  That way you could have a base install - which would be standard, and "packs" containting say KDE and Openoffice and the other extras for Soho, a games "pack" which could be an additional disk with the extra games, etc..... and with the option of rolling them all into one larger dvd?

[DrGrov]

I really like the ideas that have been brought forward. It seems like Vector is growing by each day, more and more users are becoming familiar with Vector and wanting to try it out. The word spreads fast.
Thanks!

[Freeman]

If it was just me, I wouldn't spend time on separate versions of VL to finally become VL 6.0. If manpower is an issue, and it is, then working on these semi-versions takes time. And I'm afraid the linuxworld moves to fast for that idea. Our own vectorlinux users, where allready searching for solutions to run the latest and greatest Xorg for their Beryl needs and other stuff.

So, I would like to suggest the following to be done in this order:

1  Immediately start on building VL6.0 (as the Headacher suggested) RC1, RC2, GOLD
2. The repositories need to be cleaned.
    As suggested by Joe1962, a tottally new clean repo should be build, with the soulpurpose to serve VL 6.0. From here on, we could start testing and doubletesting the newly built packages, if it would work for a complete distro-upgrade.
3. Leave the older repo's so the other users can still use them if they needed to.

This is just my own opinion. Feel free to correct me where I maybe gone wrong.

[kidd]

There's a recent post about KDE packages, and given KDE 4 is on the way, it would be cool to synchronize the release of KDE4 with a VL release (maybe a 5.9.x?).

I'm not a KDE user myself, but I'm sure it would be a killer feature and many people would try VL if there's a release when KDE4 is still 'hot'.

KDE4 is not intended to be used in old hardware , so maybe it goes against VL direction.  What do you think?

Just my 0.02$

http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.0_Release_Roadmap#Milestone:_KDE_4.0_Released

[Joe1962]

There's a recent post about KDE packages, and given KDE 4 is on the way, it would be cool to synchronize the release of KDE4 with a VL release (maybe a 5.9.x?).

Don't you think we should at least wait for 4.0.2? AFAICT, this is a very major rewrite of KDE, bound to be buggy at first.

[carsten]

There's a recent post about KDE packages, and given KDE 4 is on the way, it would be cool to synchronize the release of KDE4 with a VL release (maybe a 5.9.x?).

Don't you think we should at least wait for 4.0.2? AFAICT, this is a very major rewrite of KDE, bound to be buggy at first.

It will never be finished, so there is no need to wait. So Full speed ahead and s*** on the torpedos 
If somebody wants safety he should try Debian
Carsten

[Joe1962]

It would go against the VL philosophy:

Speed, performance, stability -- these are attributes that set VectorLinux apart in the crowded field of Linux distributions.

Which is why we are more cutting edge than bleeding edge. Unless we change the motto...

[wcs]

As for standard, Xfce 4.4.2 should be released soon and will apparently fix some nasty bugs.
http://www.nabble.com/Xfce-4.4.2---t3961738.html

So, I suppose it should be included on the 5.8.6 release.

[incognu]

There's a recent post about KDE packages, and given KDE 4 is on the way, it would be cool to synchronize the release of KDE4 with a VL release (maybe a 5.9.x?).

Don't you think we should at least wait for 4.0.2? AFAICT, this is a very major rewrite of KDE, bound to be buggy at first.

I agree with Joe1962. 

Looks like Plasma involves some major changes;  probably best to let the first set of bugs get shaken out and the rough edges smoothed. 

My 2 coconut shards.

[Joe1962]

As for standard, Xfce 4.4.2 should be released soon and will apparently fix some nasty bugs.

Great, now if only vec7 can manage to build it without hal...