VL-5.9-STD-BETA2 Bugs/annoyances

[uelsk8s]

That didn't take long...

I have a number external USB drives, both flash and hard drive. The most recent of these is a Seagate Freeagent Go 120 GB unit. It is NTFS formatted.

Under Vl-hot in the earlier betas, I could access it, and read/write data to it. Using HAL, it mounts, but I can only access it as root, even for reading purposes. I can access another drive, which is FAT32 (haven't tried writing to it yet).

I would guess that is something in a udev rule, but I'm afraid I don't even know where to look..

Can anyone tell me which rule I should be looking at? I'd like any external drive to be full access  for normal users.

One (related) item. When selecting to unmount such a device, it would be nice if there was some way to tell when it has been fully shut down. In the past I've had problems with an external drive formatted HPFS - it frequently doesn't seem to be shut down cleanly when I unmount it.

paul.

still looking into this, but here are some things to try

1)create an executable file mount.ntfs in /sbin with the following content:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
ntfs-3g $1 $2

2) create a file 10-ntfs-policy.fdi in /etc/hal/fdi/policy with the following content:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
    <device>
        <match key="volume.fstype" string="ntfs">
            <match key="@block.storage_device:storage.hotpluggable" bool="true">
                <merge key="volume.fstype" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
                <merge key="volume.policy.mount_filesystem" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
                <append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">locale=</append>
            </match>
        </match>
    </device>
</deviceinfo>

[nightflier]

No showstoppers.   

Proprietary video drivers installed and ran without a hitch on GF2MX400 and GF6200. On Radeon 9600 I had to do ctrl-alt-del when the screen went blank, but worked fine after reboot.

A few minor things that I have found workarounds for:
With multiple optical drives, I need to manually edit fstab, then all works well.
Hardinfo does not like "sensors" on two Intel based machines. It crashes, but I can view sensors output in a terminal. AMD machine fine.

[toothandnail]

still looking into this, but here are some things to try

1)create an executable file mount.ntfs in /sbin with the following content:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
ntfs-3g $1 $2

2) create a file 10-ntfs-policy.fdi in /etc/hal/fdi/policy with the following content:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
    <device>
        <match key="volume.fstype" string="ntfs">
            <match key="@block.storage_device:storage.hotpluggable" bool="true">
                <merge key="volume.fstype" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
                <merge key="volume.policy.mount_filesystem" type="string">ntfs-3g</merge>
                <append key="volume.mount.valid_options" type="strlist">locale=</append>
            </match>
        </match>
    </device>
</deviceinfo>

Neat. Done that, the device mounts, and can be opened by normal users. Thanks...

paul.

[Lyn]

sssshhhhhhhhh beta 2.8 is out and about rumor has it this will be our first public rc release. We will announce this Sunday night so there is time if you want to do a final test for us. http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/Uelsk8s/old-pkgs/VL5.9-STD-B2.8.iso
We are looking for show stoppers and maybe some help completing the fluxbox menu. Also test the bugs you encountered before let us know which are ripe and which are dead.  Any last minute suggestions would be welcome too. Thanks for all the input to date.

cheers,
vec

Sorry to rain on your parade here but still no joy in enabling keyboards with anything other than US layout.  Also opening a terminal or a terminal ap will instantly crash X and I have to log back in, and this is using the new beta 2.8
quite a few other things missing too, like no way of stopping errant programs.  Xfce had a nice little graphical utility for that, and as I can't call anything from the command line am a bit stuck with that..
On a plus point the sound is working.
Running now on my second machine - a 900MHz Compaq deskpro EN machine, with an Intel i810 graphics chip.  Only one cd drive so can't report on it resolving more than one drive.  have Audacious playing an audio CD so all good on that point.   Though no control of volume through the volume control via Xfce only through the actual application.

[Joe1962]

Just installed Beta 2.8 (though it says RC1) on vmware and went through some preliminary testing. The good news is the install went like a hot knife through butter...    Except for the keyboard layout that is. I chose US international and US acentos, but no luck. In fact, I set it twice, as we still have an unselected option at the top of the list for that and I always select it, forgetting that it will happen anyway at the end. We really should get rid of that redundancy.

The X autoconfiguration during install now works like a charm inside vmware. Strange though, I picked 1024 x 768 and that's what I got on first login, but after logging out of xfce (to kdm) and back, it picked a much larger resolution. The xfce display settings showed a very large selection of resolutions, even beyond what the LCD can handle, so I picked up 1280 x 768 (weird I know, but it fits well inside the 1440 x 900 of the LCD) and that's what stayed whenever xfce came up, though kdm seems to be at about 800 x 600.

I first logged in as root and found some very ugly (to my taste) theming, though the wallpaper is nice, even though I didn't keep it. The normal user themeing is much better, though I always change those to my preferred curve and xfce-curve. The qt colours need changing IMO (weird tone on window innards) and fixing (disabled options show a grey square all around).

The user menu is missing vl-hot-config in System, though it is present in the root menu. I'll try and check out why in a while.

That's it for now I guess, probably more later.



EDIT: dang! Why are .txt files set to open in Abiword by default?   

[exeterdad]

EDIT: dang! Why are .txt files set to open in Abiword by default?

Not fond of this either. 
I'd also like to see a menu entry for Thunar (root).

Few other preference type things that are odd to me but other than that, the install went perfect, and I can't find anything broken.  At least nothing that affects "my" hardware.

Didn't notice anything odd with boot splash as was reported earlier with this version.

[GrannyGeek]

quite a few other things missing too, like no way of stopping errant programs.  Xfce had a nice little graphical utility for that, and as I can't call anything from the command line am a bit stuck with that..

If you hit Control-Alt-Escape do you get the xkill cursor you can click on the window you want to close?
--GrannyGeek

[Pita]

Beta-2.8

All sems to be working well, except

frozen-bubble and Mega Mario still crash and kill X in xfce4, however, not anymore in fluxbox.

It did configure xorg.conf correctly for my system. I had to do my own usual for my Davicom eth card to get Internet connection.

The boot messages do not fit into the console frame, too low.

[uelsk8s]

what resolution does the text come lower than the terminal window in bootsplash?

[Lyn]

If you hit Control-Alt-Escape do you get the xkill cursor you can click on the window you want to close?
--GrannyGeek

Thanks for that yes I do, I had quite forgotten about that method.  Even so it would be nice to have the xfce tool that enables you to see all running processes and be able to kill through that.

[toothandnail]

what resolution does the text come lower than the terminal window in bootsplash?

I'm running vga=791 in Grub's menu.lst, so 1024x768. I didn't have the problem with earlier betas.

paul.

[Pita]

what resolution does the text come lower than the terminal window in bootsplash?

In lilo vga=791.

Previous VL5.9 Betas it was within the terminal.

[Joe1962]

Xfce had a nice little graphical utility for that, and as I can't call anything from the command line am a bit stuck with that..

It's still there, just not in the menu. I think I saw it on the fluxbox menu though.

Try it: Alt-F2, xfce4-taskmanager.

[Dweeberkitty]

Okay, I finally downloaded Beta 2.8. Here are some of the things that I noticed (In no particular order).

•   Spelling:

You are working as dweeberkitty
Frequently used programs:
Configuration  : vasm
File manager   : mc (press F2 for usefull menu)
Editor         : mcedit, vi
Multimedia     : alsamixer, play
localuser:root being added to access control list
vector:/~
dweeberkitty:$

Watch your spelling! "usefull" should be spelled like this: "useful"
Also, get rid of the last line there: "localuser:root being added to access control list"

•   Terminal:
The current default terminal is nice, but it is horribly slow. Especially on older machines. I don't notice anything on my desktop, but on my laptop it seems to take forever to load. Changing the default terminal from 'Terminal' to 'xterm' makes a huge difference.

•   HAL:
HAL works great now! Cool!

•   Browser testbed:
Everything works except PDF files are not displayed within Seamonkey or Firefox. They both think it's just a download.

•   Vector Documentation:
The VL documentation really needs to be updated. So does the README on the installer.

•   Lilo screen:
"Press Tab to Enter Boot Options" There needs to be some sort of artwork for this instead of a black screen. In fact, what would look best would be if the boot option input opened below the lilo screen. Also, is it possible that a sharper login screen could be made? No matter what monitor I display it on, it always looks pixelated and crummy. Not that the design is crummy but the visual quality certainly is.

•   Bootsplash:
The bootsplash looks better except that the Vector logo is not centered on the screen; it is too low. Also the progress bar refreshes every time it changes what it is doing.

•   KDM login:
The new look on the login screen looks better than before! However, I think it should be redesigned a little bit. Here's why:
   1. If one adds multiple users, then they all have to fit into that little tiny box that has to be scrolled. This makes it look ugly and cumbersome. I think that the login should be redesigned to make it easier to accommodate more users.
   2. The System and Session buttons only work on the right half of the buttons. In other words, they only 'light up' when your mouse goes over the right half. (Like to the 't' in System and the second 's' in Session) The left half of them does not work.
   3. After setting up my machine with a bunch of users, I found that there were a bunch of little links in my home folder that pointed to the users login pictures. This is not a very good place to put them. It clutters up ones home folder. Also, there needs to be an easy way to change ones login picture.
   4. There should be an "Enter" button on the login screen. Many people naturally look for it. I personally don't use it and just hit the enter key but there are many who look for the button and expect it to be there.

I'm not saying that the current login screen doesn't look nice. It does. I'm just saying that there are some 'physical' limitations to the design.

•   Mplayer:
Mplayer does not read files that have spaces in them. It gives an error. Renaming the file allows it to read it correctly. This did not happen for me in the 5.8 series.

•   Xfce on Laptop:
My little WinBook does not have a network card. I did not try to configure one. Here is what Xfce says to me when I try to login:

Could not look up internet address for vector.linux.net. This will prevent Xfce from operating correctly. It may be possible to correct the problem by adding vector.linux.net to the file /etc/hosts on your system.

Then it has two buttons "Continue anyway" and "Try again"

•   Laptop touchpad:
PLEASE oh PLEASE include an option for touchpads! I see that the Synaptics 0.14.6 driver is already installed. All it would take would be for a "touchpad" option in the mice section that would add some sections to the xorg.conf file. See here: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Synaptics_Touchpad

•   Laptop logging out:
On my laptop, WinBook, logging out of the desktop (fluxbox or xfce or whatever) I get a black screen a lot of times. I have to switch to vt1 and then back to vt7 to get the login screen to show up. This doesn't happen all the time though. There have been many times where it has worked correctly.

•   Suspend and Standby:
Standby works like a charm. There's a button on my laptop for it and it works great. Suspend however is another story. I used to have VL 5.8 SOHO installed on this laptop. When I closed the laptop, it would automatically do a suspend. Now, with 5.9 installed, when I close the laptop, it doesn't do anything. When I open it again, the screen goes blank for a second and then comes back on. I have a suspend button on my laptop but it doesn't work so well. When I press it, it seems like it's suspending but when I press it again, I get nothing and have to switch terminals back and forth (like loging out sometimes) and then I suddenly get the login screen even though I used suspend while logged on. Other times, the computer will just freeze and be totally unresponsive. Nothing wakes it from it's eternal slumber. Until I pull the cord! The suspend button worked correctly in VL 5.8 SOHO.

Over all, this feels like the most stable and clean system yet! Keep up the good work!

P.S. In what version is the GUI installer going to be used? What's the progress on that?

[Lyn]

Xfce had a nice little graphical utility for that, and as I can't call anything from the command line am a bit stuck with that..

It's still there, just not in the menu. I think I saw it on the fluxbox menu though.

Try it: Alt-F2, xfce4-taskmanager.

I refer the honourable gentleman to the problem I outlined earlier, ie try to run anything from the command line and the system crashes.  :-( 

Mind you if it was on the fluxbox menu then it should be on the xfce menu too.  The menus should be as much as possible showing the same things.