VL-5.9-STD-BETA2 Bugs/annoyances

[caitlyn]

Downloaded and installed B2 on my Toshiba Satellite 1805-S204.  Here's what I ran into:

• Grub installation is still a mess.  The menu generated lists Linux on (/dev/hda<x>) for every possible partition, those with an OS and those without.  Vector Linux entry works fine -- those for other distros required manual editing.
• X configuration (auto) for this laptop still doesn't work.  I get a small screen with lots of black space all around.  FWIW, Slackware 12 does the same thing but some other Slackware based distros get it right automagically (Wolvix, AliXe).  I can post the differences between a good xorg.conf and what the VL installer generates if it will help.
• I ran into the udev issues (already reported) and I am downloading the new iso
• No Bluefish icon in Xfce menu even though the package is installed by the installer

The good news:  it's very fast and most things I've tried so far do work.

I have mixed feelings about xfburn being the only burning software included on the iso.  It is very small and lightweight and seems to work fine but it is terribly feature poor.  I'd still like to see gnomebaker offered in the repository.  Maybe I'll have to build it when I have time to get back into packaging things.  The number of text editors have been paired down as well.  I liked having at least one developers' editor (i.e.: medit) available as an install option.

I'll reinstall from the new iso and play some more...

-Cait

[uelsk8s]

Install was fine, with one exception. Using 'auto' to configure X left me with a US keyboard layout  in X instead of the UK layout I selected in the prior stage.

I need some help from those of you that use keyboard layouts besides US.
I need you to run vxconf as root and choose the desired layout and then post the contents of the keyboard section of xorg.conf
mine looks like this

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier  "Keyboard0"
Driver      "kbd"
Option  "XkbLayout"  "us"   ## KEYBOARD_MAP!
EndSection

after that let me know if the keyboard map works for you and if not what you had to do to fix it.
Thanks,
Uelsk8s

[thump]

D/L'ed and installed beta2. The only problems I found were that the beta driver for nvidia cards won't install and my Ensoniq sound card wasn't detected. Beta1 got them both right.
D/L'ing beta2.3 now. Will install tomorrow after work, and try to get in a report.
@ uelsk8s
I read where you wrote that you did something wrong with the udev rules (was that right? ).
Read carefully: It's a beta. It's supposed to hose the computer. If it didn't, I'd never have any fun testing and hosing my computers. (4 of them for playing, 1 for serious stuff :p )
Thanks for the hard work you've done.
Bill
edit: I promise I'm not tripping! I just looked at my install disc, and it's beta2. So it's the Ensoniq card and the nvidia beta driver that won't work with b2. Sorry for the mix-up.
B.

[GrannyGeek]

I worked some more today with Beta2 on the Celeron computer. When I went to install my LaserJet 4 PostScript printer through CUPS, I couldn't find any PostScript drivers for the LJ4 in the CUPS list. They all used CUPS + Gutenprint or GimpPrint, but PostScript printers don't need those. What I did was copy a LaserJet 4 PostScript PPD from my Windows partition, which CUPS used, and that worked fine. I'm sure that in Beta 1 there was a PostScript option for the LJ4.

All the NTFS drives I mounted allowed access only to root. I fixed that by copying a line from /etc/fstab in my VL 5.8 partition on the same computer. Some guidance for users who want to have user access to their NTFS drives would be very useful, as well as instructions to use ntfs-3g in fstab if they want to write to their drives.

I'm happy to report that my ancient Microtek ScanMaker E6 attached to an old, old Adaptec cheapo ISA SCSI card is working very well on beta 2.

I'm downloading the new ISO in hopes it might fix the problems I had on the Turion laptop.
--GrannyGeek

[GrannyGeek]

grannygeek>I had the no sound problem with pseudo. try alsaconfig.
I think there was something wrong with the mixer then.The problem was not with the sound device but with xfce.Every time i logged in,sound was turned off by default. I had to do something to enable it,but i dont remember anymore what it was.

Thanks for trying to help. I've run alsaconfig--again and again. The mixer is right, though limited. It offers just Master, Capture, and Mic. Master is not muted. Sound is on when VL loads and XFce loads. I have tried numerous LiveCDs for various distros and none of them can get sound out of the speakers, either. They all *think* sound is working. There's no sound when I play an audio CD, either.

When I get around to it I'll send a message to the ALSA developers.
--GrannyGeek

[mcrofutt]

Hi all,
 this is a brand new install of 5.9 beta2. Install went as smooth as ever, reboot was as fast as ever, but, when I ran Gslapt package manager to update it froze solid. There were a few updates using the stock repositories so I chose to install. Things were smooth until it was updating the AbiWord plug-ins. That's where it froze. I thought it was just a lengthy process so I went on to bed. Well it was still frozen 7 hours later.
Anyone else have this happen? How'd you fix it?
Mark

[toothandnail]

Hi all,
 this is a brand new install of 5.9 beta2. Install went as smooth as ever, reboot was as fast as ever, but, when I ran Gslapt package manager to update it froze solid. There were a few updates using the stock repositories so I chose to install. Things were smooth until it was updating the AbiWord plug-ins. That's where it froze. I thought it was just a lengthy process so I went on to bed. Well it was still frozen 7 hours later.
Anyone else have this happen? How'd you fix it?
Mark

Same here. At the same point as well. In the end I could only kill Gslapt. Tried a couple of times, and it locks up at the same point.

If I restart, it locks up again attempting to upgrade cruxports4slack.

paul.

[mcrofutt]

I logged out and back in and restarted gslapt. It finished the AbiWord update then hung at the desktop config of the final update. After logging out and back in again, gslapt showed all ok and I guess the quirks are something to look into.
Overall I really LIKE this distro as it's SUPER fast on my system!
Mark

[toothandnail]

Install was fine, with one exception. Using 'auto' to configure X left me with a US keyboard layout  in X instead of the UK layout I selected in the prior stage.

I need some help from those of you that use keyboard layouts besides US.
I need you to run vxconf as root and choose the desired layout and then post the contents of the keyboard section of xorg.conf
mine looks like this

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier  "Keyboard0"
Driver      "kbd"
Option  "XkbLayout"  "us"   ## KEYBOARD_MAP!
EndSection

after that let me know if the keyboard map works for you and if not what you had to do to fix it.
Thanks,
Uelsk8s

Ok. Just ran vxconf from a terminal. Strange. It worked correctly this time. The keboard section of the new xorg.conf is as below:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier  "Keyboard0"
Driver      "kbd"
Option  "XkbLayout"  "gb"    ## KEYBOARD_MAP!
    Option      "XkbModel" "pc102"    ## KEYBOARD_MODEL!
    Option      "XkbVariant" ""    ## KEYBOARD_VARIANT!
EndSection

The xorg.conf produced during the original install had "Xkblayout" "us", which had to be changed to "gb".

No idea why it worked this time but not during the installation. I made the same choices again...

paul.

[nightflier]

Beta 2.3:

Optical drives, hdc=DVDROM, hdd=CDRW
- Only one show up in fstab:
  /dev/cdrom   /mnt/cdrom   iso9660      users,noauto,ro
- With VL-Hot, no auto-detecton or automount. I can mount manually.
- With HAL, both pop up on the desktop when I insert a disc, but only one, hdc, will automount or eject from desktop icon.
-- On the good side, xfburn did pick up the drives and identified the burner.

Keyboard:
- Trying to select Norwegian during setup had no effect, stayed at us.
- After running vxconf and selecting "no", I did get some changes in keyboard behavior on command line, but it was not Norwegian as I know it. When running X it returned to "us".

xorg.conf section, Initial:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier  "Keyboard0"
Driver      "kbd"
Option  "XkbLayout"  "us"    ## KEYBOARD_MAP!
Option  "XkbModel"  ""    ## KEYBOARD_MODEL!
Option  "Xkbvariant"  ""    ## KEYBOARD_VARIANT!
EndSection

xorg.conf after vxconf:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier  "Keyboard0"
Driver      "kbd"
Option  "XkbLayout"  "us"    ## KEYBOARD_MAP!
    Option      "XkbModel" "pc104"    ## KEYBOARD_MODEL!
    Option      "XkbVariant" ""    ## KEYBOARD_VARIANT!
EndSection

[exeterdad]

Installed vl5.9b.3 yesterday morning.  Thought I'd test drive awhile. I like it! rules.d sure looks cleaner.  It's a shame we aren't using that neat cdrom rule making script, that thing was a work of art. But the one we are using now "just works".  My multi-function drive won't burn ram disks without some rule tweaking, but the rules are fine for the majority of users.

/dev/dvd   /mnt/dvd   iso9660      users,noauto,ro

Did show up twice in fstab.  Not a biggie.

Noticed many things mentioned earlier are fixed.  Thanks for listening guys 

I've been working on a few things that will give "progress" and notification of completion, for some of the right click functions in Xfce.  I'm in agreement that it's a bit unsettling for the user. I'm going to polish them up a bit before submitting to the dev's for approval and possible use.

[uelsk8s]

exeterdad,
I have the vinstallpkg and vremovepkg fixed so they give a progress message while the package is being installed or removed.
they will be in next release let me know what else you are working on.

Thanks,
Uelsk8s
 

[GrannyGeek]

I installed 5.9 beta 2.3 on my very difficult laptop, hoping for the best. Unfortunately, the same problems persist. I had to use the sata boot option. Using the default kernel resulted in the same hang just after the Floppy Drive line early in the process. With the sata boot option everything proceeded nicely. I'd say beta 2.3's installation went much more smoothly than my previous tries with beta 1 and beta 2.

I am not using LILO and I boot into 5.9 on the laptop by typing
sata root=/dev/hda6 ro
at the boot prompt of the installation CD. When I check lsmod it looks as if the proper modules are loaded. Unfortunately, no sound comes out of the speakers, which has always been the case. I'm getting the correct mixer and everything seems okay, but no sound can be heard. No distro or LiveCD has ever gotten sound out of the speakers. The sound works fine, as it plays well in Windows Vista and in my 5.8 Standard in a VirtualBox vm under Vista.

Unless I can get wireless working, there is no point in doing anything with the installation. I need to use ndiswrapper and carefully followed the Wireless HowTo up to the point of doing
modprobe ndiswrapper. That returns FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found. So I can't go any farther if I can't get the module loaded. I had the very same problem with beta 2. Also, there are apparently no usual ndiswrapper drivers included, as the one I loaded for rtl8185 is the only thing that appears in /etc/ndiswrapper or when I do a ndiswrapper -l command. Is anybody else having this "Module ndiswrapper not found" problem?

So that's where we stand with the laptop.
--GrannyGeek

[uelsk8s]

GrannyGeek, and anyone else that needs ndiswrapper with the alternate kernel
you can get the ndiswrapper module here http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/Uelsk8s/ndiswrapper.ko
put it in /lib/modules/2.6.22.10sm/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ and then run "depmod -aq"
you should then be able to use ndiswrapper

thanks,
Uelsk8s

[Pita]

Installed fine w/o freeze unlike beta1 on vlatin installing.

Blank screen after logout fixed, great.

Could not get an audio CD to play.

In xfce4 frozen-bubble crashes and kills xfce4. In fluxbox frozen-bubble can be played, no crash.