VL6 A0.5 Testing, My Comments
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Philosophy
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OK, I've been out of the loop for a while and have had no input to what VL6 actually will be. I am assuming this version is our "Standard" version. My concern is using Gnome. I get Gnome requiring 256MB just to boot up with 134 MB of RAM used (excluding cached memory). This compares to VL5.9 SOHO (with KDE) using only 111MB of RAM. So it appears as though our Standard version, is now using even more RAM than our SOHO version! OK, I understand we are providing LXDE, but it is using 81MB of RAM, much the same as xfce did on VL5.9 Standard. So we seem to have upped the memory usage significantly. Admittedly, there are more processes - ssh and the samba daemons are now running by default. But maybe we are getting away from being a fast distro for older machines. I understand we now have a VL Light version, but I am just raising this memory issue here to point out where we are headed.
Installer
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I used vinstall-iso and the text installer so will comment about graphical installer another time. Text installer went funny at Let's Configure the System screen. ASCII characters went crazy for a few screens. Anyone else noticed this? I will reload later to see if this was just a glitch, but it is a serious concern if not something just on my system.
Gnome
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1) vasm missing from menu (in LXDE also)
2) xpdf a bit dated. What about a better pdf viewer?
3) do we really need to provide 3 browsers?
4) applications, programming, leafpad: it's really just an editor! What about providing geany and bluefish?
5) applications, system tools, manage printing: throws error: "failed to execute htmlview"
6) urxvt: replace with mrxvt for multiple tabbed terminals?
7) places, home folder: throws error: "could not open, no default application associated..."
8) gslapt: throws error: package_data: no such file....
9) system, help: takes over 15 seconds to load on a fast machine? Why?
10) system. lock screen: does not work.
LXDE
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- right click on desktop, desktop settings: throws error: "/etc/bootsplash/themes/RA/images: no such file..."
OTHER
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-login screen, Sessions button has more Window Mangers listed than are actually installed in the system
-VASM, SUPER does not work from icon launch
-VASM: has much cruder font than we had in VL5.9 - what happended?
Larry