VectorLinux 6.0 alpha testing ground

[M0E-lnx]

Finally... a meaningful report here
Thanks stretchedthin

Starting with "Find installation media"
       I think a new user will be confused by "Select which distribution to install from the list below" really how many           
       distributions are we expecting to find on this CD.
        Maybe it could be worded...Click "Search Again" to find installation media, if it is not found automatically.
        after the list bar. Maybe something like..."Click next once media is discovered."

The installer actually searches for ISO images on the drives at run time, this allows you to install using an ISO and saves you a cd-r/cd-rw

        There is a lot of room for coaching points on this page. Coaching the newbie on minimum disk space 
         requirements is good, unfortunately, the numbers provided may not be accurate.  I needed much more that 1800 mb for my root.

I agree. This will get fixed though, it's just too early in development to do so

Disk Partitioning.
      I found this a little confusing. First of all, it assumes a new user would be comfortable with GParted without anything in the way of help points at all.

Gparted is probabbly as n00b friendly as you can get when it comes to partitioning. In the future, the installer will have some sort of a a partition "wizard" that will help the user create partitions by simply clicking "next" and maybe an auto-partition setup... in the future.
For now, we are limited to either gparted or some CLI utility like cfdisk or parted which are far less n00b friendly than gparted is.

    Secondly, All the functions available from gparted are not even necessary.
After playing with this disk partitioning section till 4 in the morning trying to get GParted to format a partition to this or that, I found out the systems going to do it for me anyway after I click next.

     GParted needs only to be used to create the 3 partitions needed for the install, all of them can and should be unformatted.  All the formatting options, flags and labels is just confusing clutter.  Once the user sets up his 3 unformatted partitions he needs to be coached to click "apply" and then "next."  As it is now, I have to exit GParted by selecting Quit under the GParted drop down menu.

Actually, the formatting is optional from the installer itself. If you've already formatted your partitions, you can choose ("Do not format") from the installer and it will skip that step.

    The next window then is almost perfect.  It sees the 3 unformatted partitions and lets you choose both mount point and filesystem. (Including Ext3 which was not in Gparted.)  The only suggestion I have here is how hard would it be to have the mount points automatically selected. The smallest being the swap, The largest being /home if three partitions of /root if only two.  Little more math to it than that but you get the idea.

This is a good idea, definitely something to consider for future development of this utility.

    After choosing Next I selected Full install and away I went. Then the surprises...
I first partitioned for a 128mb swap, 2000mb root, and 16gig, home.  The system errored out saying it ran out of space during the install.
Then I tried 128mb swap, 3000mb root and 15gig home. Again a system error, saying I ran out of space.
Finally, I tried 256 swap, 4000mb root and 14 gig home. This worked.

Again, the information about the image/media needs to be updated. THis is done from the media itself, not from the installer, so the ISO needs to be fixed. Uelsk8s is on it


Thanks for your input... really appreciated. Hope you consider riding out the testing cycle with us.

[GrannyGeek]

I installed vector's XFce package and am happy again. Icons were missing. I copied over some directories of icons from my VL5.9 Deluxe partition on the same hard drive and now I have the icons I want.

Before I installed XFce I was in LXDE. I clicked on something and was offered the option to click on desktop to get a menu. I set it to do that, hoping it would work like XFce and give me the desktop menu (what you get from the "Start" menu on the taskbar), but instead I got a lame LXDE menu. I couldn't find a way to get rid of this and return to the behavior before I set it to get a menu with a desktop click. No matter to me, I won't be using LXDE, but if I were, I'd be upset that I couldn't get back to the prior behavior easily.

Now, in XFce--
I think others have mentioned that VASM isn't working right. If I click on the icon and select superuser, it asks for my password and just sits there forever. I was able to run it in a terminal. Also, the fonts are horrible and way too small for a person "of a certain age" like me.

The XFce Settings Manager had only a couple of icons before I copied over the contents of a couple of directories from my VL 5.9 partition.

I installed Opera from the opera.com Web site, as I always do (I don't use VL packages for that). When I tried to play some streaming audio (radio) Opera got stuck. I couldn't tell what was happening because I had no htop. I got things moving again by shutting down Opera processes with ps -e.

There's no Dillo. Is it gone for good? I didn't use it much but liked having it around. I can't see the point of including Epiphany, which looks like just another gecko browser. I do think we must have Firefox included because it's very popular and most Web sites work with it, whereas Opera and multimedia and some javascript are less likely to get along. I'd like to have SeaMonkey back. I think it's better looking than Firefox and works with most Web sites just like Firefox. It doesn't matter to me whether an Opera package is included because Opera is very easy to install from what's available on Opera's Web site.

The only thing I could find to play music files was MPlayer, and it didn't work with a pls stream I listen to very often. I downloaded and installed RealPlayer so I could listen to the music. I'd like to have AmaroK back, also Xine.

I tried to set up my printers with VASM and CUPS. When VASM launched Firefox, I got a 404 for the CUPS page. After trying http://localhost:631/printers I did get in, but it was the same look as we had off and on for the betas of 5.9 Standard, with all graphics missing. I did manage to set up my LJ4PS, but when I tried to install the PCL LJ4 and my Epson Stylus Color 760, I got "Unsupported format 'application/postscript'!" and nothing printed. Also, where are the printer drivers? All I got was one for PCL 4/5 and a generic Epson Stylus Color choice. I know this will be fixed--soon, I hope.

I MUST have Tuxcards and thought there was a package somewhere in the VL repos, but no luck. I also couldn't find tuxcards at slacky.it or linuxpackages.net. So I copied over the files from my VL 5.9 partition and Tuxcards is working fine.

I didn't try to set up my nfs home network yet. Will probably let that go till the next testing release. Internet connection is working fine. This is an easy computer to set up, though. The real test will come when I try to get wireless going on my laptop. It's way too early to test that out, as I have just one Linux partition on it and I can't risk having anything nonfunctional.

In my earlier message I mentioned having the ATI proprietary driver built but getting an error message. It turns out VL gracefully installed the xorg Radeon driver all on its own, which is why the GUI started without problems even though the proprietary ATI installation failed (as I expected it to, but tried anyway). This is a Radeon 9200 card. xorg picked up the 1280x1024 of my LCD monitor with no intervention from me.

Will report more as I test more. I think it's working quite well for the first public alpha.

A few more thoughts on Standard, Gnome, etc. I like the way Standard has been, not including Gnome or KDE except for whatever is necessary for applications like AbiWord, Gimp, Gnumeric, AmaroK, and K3B. Having packages in the repo for installing more of KDE suits me fine. I always add kdelibs and kdebase so I can have Konqueror for access to Windows partitions on other computers on the home network without having to set up Samba. I don't want all of KDE, just enough to run whatever KDE stuff I want to have. I'd like to do the same with Gnome but we haven't had packages in the repo and I had bad experiences with adding Dropline Gnome years ago and didn't do much with whatever Gnome was recommended after that.

I suggest having XFce as the default for Standard, with another lighter alternative included in the ISO. Then have packages for other desktops in the repo for those who want them. Include as much of KDE or Gnome as necessary for things like K3B (which I like very much), Gimp, etc. I see Standard as a not-too-heavy system that provides full function out of the box, with the capability of becoming whatever we want. KDE and Gnome should be available but not forced on us.

Thanks to everyone who is working on this! Thanks especially for XFce. I'm not sure I could have gone through the entire beta cycle if I had to use LXDE or Gnome.
--GrannyGeek

[stretchedthin]

Actually, the formatting is optional from the installer itself. If you've already formatted your partitions, you can choose ("Do not format") from the installer and it will skip that step.

 Yes, that cool. Especially when hoping to preserve information on your /home partition.

I also like the installers gui better when it comes to mount points and choosing filesystems. Much more intuitive than GParted, I think.

Is it, however,  a little redundant to have the ability to format a file system in two different areas?

I'm going to ignore any install scenario where the user wants to use there existing partitions, because I think there is more opportunity, for improvement on the Modify disk partitions side.

New user with only windows partition.
        Starts the install process selects his media and clicks next. Then...
        Chooses Modify partitions option...
        The user then sees a new window asking if he wants to...
        a) Install Vector Linux as dual/multi boot along with other OS(s).
        b) Delete all install Vector Linux only.
        c) Just open the partition manager and leave me to it. I know what I am doing.

The only thing that changes depending on the selection is the coaching dialog that is shown in the space at the bottom of the GParted partition window.

Now here is another twist.  Let's say that GParteds functionality was limited to only creating unformatted partitions.

Scenario 1.
  User chooses a)
           GParted opens up. Coaching at bottom of window reminds user that they should have defragged windows before going any further.  Tells them to shirink the partition to create min x amount of space. Create 3 partitions in that space..suggesting sizes. Then click next.

          When next is clicked GParted makes the sizes in the new partition all as unformated.
          The installer window sees the 3 unformated partitions and assumes based on size the mountpoints for each.
          The user then simply chooses the file format clicks next and away it goes.

Scenario 2.
  User chooses b)
          Well I'm sure you get the idea, coaching changes, unformated partitions are set and the installer takes over after you click next.

Well, I don't know if this idea will have the legs to go the distance, but thought I'd put it out there.

I'Thanks for your input... really appreciated. Hope you consider riding out the testing cycle with us.

Your welcome! I've been a fan for some time now, and I'll be happy to do what I can.

[caitlyn]

@GrannyGeek:  Dillo is no longer being developed.  I've found that Netsurf is a better lightweight browser that has a little more functionality than Dillo and it's still being worked on.  The Slackware 12.1 package at http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-12.1/network/netsurf/1.2/ works properly in both VL 5.9 and 6.0alpha0.5.  Check it out.

I am packaging this for VL and have suggested it for the 6.0 iso.  I ran into a problem with packaging lemon (a dependency, included in the above package so you don't need to go find it) and ran out of time to sort it out.  That's the only reason I haven't posted 5.9 and 6.0 packages yet.  Anyway, check out the Slackware package.  I'd be curious to know what you think of it.

[GrannyGeek]

@GrannyGeek:  Dillo is no longer being developed.  I've found that Netsurf is a better lightweight browser that has a little more functionality than Dillo and it's still being worked on.  The Slackware 12.1 package at http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-12.1/network/netsurf/1.2/ works properly in both VL 5.9 and 6.0alpha0.5.  Check it out.

I am packaging this for VL and have suggested it for the 6.0 iso.  I ran into a problem with packaging lemon (a dependency, included in the above package so you don't need to go find it) and ran out of time to sort it out.  That's the only reason I haven't posted 5.9 and 6.0 packages yet.  Anyway, check out the Slackware package.  I'd be curious to know what you think of it.

I don't know if I'll have time to try out Netsurf. I don't need and seldom use lightweight browsers but I liked Dillo when I wanted something that opened instantly (instead of taking 2 seconds like the others<g>).
--GrannyGeek

[M0E-lnx]

I really can't limit gparted's functionality for this ... other than not giving it it's deps, but I'm not sure that's safe..

LIke I said, there are many ways to improve this, and the first release will definitely not be the best ever, but our goal is to put out one that will get the job done as a base... and we can move from there.

[stretchedthin]

Thanks MOE-lnx
I'll keep it a little more practical going forward.

It's only been 3 years since I switched to linux and starting with Ubuntu, I really didn't learn anything about partitioning.  One thing I liked about the text installer is I came out of the process having learned something.

The humorous coaching points are a Vector Linux Trademark, I feel.  It would be great if that kind of fun-while you learn kind of stuff can be worked into the gui installer as well.

Really interested in seeing what direction you take this, I'll be downloading the next beta as soon as it hits the servers. 
 

Is 6.0 going to remain slackware 12.0 based or is it going to use 12.1?

[M0E-lnx]

I'm sure the base will be changing...
The idea is to put out a basic GUI isntaller at first and keep developing the installer along with the distro until we get it shaped as we want it. (good looking, easy to use and efficient i would say)

[sparkyhall]

Having come from the slow brown one a few months go I was keen to see how quick gnome was in blue.

Burned CD at 4x to be safe, reboot “boot from atapi cd-rom” appears then I end up at my normal grub menu. Burn a second cd from fresh download, same happens again. This seemed rather strange  as I have never had any issues booting from a cd on this pc before. Try my VL5.9 cd and that boots OK. I then try the VL6.0 cd in my old thinkpad 600, this time it boots but ends up with a kernel panic so no go on this either, not a good start.

Eventually I copy the isolinux folder to my hard drive and point grub at the appropriate files and I'm away. Well I have to say this is far less intimidating than the ncurses system but as others have said the text is difficult to read and things get a little messy around gparted. After a quick look at gparted I opted not to format at the next stage as I had already formated the partition prior to the install.

Installation went smoothly and as always I had to edit xorg.conf to get the resolution I use. I decided to re-boot just to make sure all was well and I get bad /etc/fstab.....hmmm. A quick look in fstab revealed that instead of  “/dev/hda7 / ext3 defaults 0 1” for the file system I have “/dev/hda7 /  do not format defaults 0 1”. Fixing this allows me to boot once more so all pretty painless really....well apart from getting the installation started that is.

If the devs want me try anything to help solve the boot issue just ask but only look into if it's worth the time and effort as I have a work arround that's good enough for me.

Chris

[M0E-lnx]

Installation went smoothly and as always I had to edit xorg.conf to get the resolution I use. I decided to re-boot just to make sure all was well and I get bad /etc/fstab.....hmmm. A quick look in fstab revealed that instead of  “/dev/hda7 / ext3 defaults 0 1” for the file system I have “/dev/hda7 /  do not format defaults 0 1”. Fixing this allows me to boot once more so all pretty painless really....well apart from getting the installation started that is.

This is definitely a bug in the code.

Thank you for reporting

if you want to fix it, just replace the "do not format" with ext3 (or whatever yoru partition type is)

[Sty]

Well, I know I'm less reliable than y'all would like, but hopefully I can help out some before school starts back up again.  My initial findings on VL 6.0 A 0.5

Experiences with install:
1)   State “Hit Enter for GUI Install.”  I may be a real nub, but I just followed the instructions and would hit F1 then linux and for some reason kept getting the text installer, haha.
2)   Under custom install, maybe include a small window on the right of what that package includes, etc.  Perhaps, if possible, allow you to choose specific packages from there.  So you have a “master” install of everything gnome, then to the right you can have this game, that program, etc.  In my humble opinion this would be a nice clean way to do things.
3)   For individual packages: description window to the right.  When you click on the package name, you get a description, does not “check” or “uncheck” until you click the box though.
4)   Prepare Host: this step doesn’t make much sense to a newb like me.  Also, wasn’t expecting to start installing right away, got used to the hundred warnings I suppose.
5)   Install Operating System: The “Total Progress Bar” is slightly out of the window on my computer.  The master box ends higher than the bar sits, if that makes sense.  ----________-----  To give an example.  Numbers in the Total Progress Bar are hard to make out.
6)   While waiting for it to install: perhaps change the penguins a bit.  Make them a little more in touch with the steps, if that makes sense.
7)   We need a cleaner way to configure the system.  The exit installer can be confusing.
   During Sound Card Detection I got the following: [mntent]: line 20 in /etc/fstab is bad (line break, though starting directly below and to the right [as if there was no line break]) Updating raria(line break)n database…done.  This stayed on the screen through sound card selection.
9)   Had errors installing the FGLRX driver (will detail later)
10)   LILO is horribly distorted for me…
11)   Seem to be stuck at “Loading linux” right after LILO, have a blinking cursor, going to wait and let it try and do its thing while I run an errand, may need to try reinstall…

[aryr100]

installed on a lenovo R61
there is a error in installer if you click the mount windows partitions sorry did not write it down
after install wifi does not work installed iwlwifi-3945 & 4965 from repo's now wifi is working with VLwifi
but the wifi icon on my laptop is not lighting up worked on vl5.9 ok
gnome is becoming poplar again 

[SuSE-Refugee]

On the topic of partitioning;
Why specifically gparted and not cfdisk?
cfdisk is a lot more intuitive to me (reminds me of the old "fdisk" in DOS, but better....) and, I assume, to most people out there.
Gparted will be a tad too intimidating to people , not very familiar with partitioning.

[gacurt]

Installation didn't seem all that much slower if at all than 5.9. Installation went well, system boots fine. I agree the new installer will make some people more comfortable, and that it should be an explained option at the initial command line.  Am by no means a poweruser, just muddling through and the text based installer was fine for me, and 5.9 was the second functional Linux install I had after PCL2007.  Will play with it more once wireless gets up.    I read the sticky in Networking forum - adapter shows up in lsusb, depmod -aq, modprobe rt73usb, alias wlan0 rt73usb, could not find ifplugd. Decided to try ndiswrapper - command not found.
Works perfectly in 5.9 standard and light rc1 using ndiswrapper.   

[Pita]

It will not print.

trying to print a test page I get: unsupported format 'application/postscript'

cat file|lpr I get: unsupported format 'text/plain'

Configured with cups and printers.conf is the same as in VL-5.9/5.8.
Printer is Epson LQ-300.

Print queue stays empty, status: Epson is ready, no entries.