VectorLinux 6.0-alpha2- PRODUCT

[Masta]

Please post all but installer stuff here.

[toothandnail]

Installed in a VM, so some of this may change with a real install.

First boot after install left me with no network, ACPI failed to start, HALD failed. Had to use startx to get X going, even though I had selected GUI boot. A reboot of the VM seems to have cleared most of that. I also used Vasm to do a basic network setup, though the first boot showed almost no modules (other than sound) loaded, so I'm not sure whether the Vasm step was necessary or not.

First impressions - looks excellent, very clean. I don't like the large menu button on the task bar (thought there was a smaller one produced for the 5.9 Standard final?), but that is minor.

I can't use the Xfce terminal at all - that was the same with Xfce under the last alpha. I'm not sure if that is some artifact of the graphics support under VB, will have to see on a real install. At present, I get a large window, with a divide down the right side. Can't enter any text.

Alt-F2 does not get me the run dialog - had to select Run from the menu to open an xterm. Urxvt has keyboard problems - HOME and END keys don't work - I'll have to apply the fix from the dyna version, if I can find it again.

VasmCC doesn't start from the taskbar. Trying it from a terminal as root gets me a 'command not found'. Also, the gksu (?) prompt is a bit strange - hitting enter after entering the root password doesn't work, I have to click on OK.

Quit menu in Xfce only offers logout, both shutdown and restart are grayed out.

More later....

paul.

[toothandnail]

Annoyance - Mousepad is set up for some enormous screen size. I had to delete ~/.config/mousepad/mousepadrc before I could get it to a size usable on my poor old 1024x768 laptop screen. The mousepadrc provided in /etc/skel needs to be fixed or removed.

Vcpufreq seems to be missing? Doesn't work from either the taskbar or terminal, and I can't locate it.

Same goes for Xscreensaver....

paul

[toothandnail]

  Next episode....

Mplayer has a menu entry, but is not installed.

Mplayer plugins are installed in Seamonkey, but without the base package, they don't work.

Missing menu icons for about xfce, settings > autostarted applications

Gslapt doesn't work from the menu, but does work from the toolbar launcher (/usr/share/applications/gslapt.desktop does not call /sbin/vsuper).

Media refresh from the taskbar launcher fails - sginfo is not found.

No wbar! Installed from the 5.9 repo works, but the wbarconf found by slapt-get fails - doesn't pick up the correct Python deps.

More later....

paul.

[toothandnail]

Last one for the night, I promise....

ntfs-3g is not installed, even though it is used by Vasm when adding an NTFS mount point to the system. Works once its installed, just not there in the install.

paul.

[toothandnail]

Another niggle - using the Vasm network menu to set hostname doesn't work. Doesn't change /etc/hosts, nor does it make changes to /etc/rc.d/rc.S. As a result, any change to host name ends up with complaints about address lookup when Xfce starts.

paul.

[GrannyGeek]

I installed it today on my 1.3 GHz Celeron. No installation problems. This computer is my only one with a floppy drive, so I put LILO on a floppy disk. I had created a Linux-formatted floppy disk from my VL 5.9 partition right before I installed Alpha2 on another partition. LILO is working fine.

I'm thrilled to have XFce back. When I start XFce I get an error message: "Could not look up internet address for vector.linux.net. This will prevent Xfce from operating properly." I tell it to Continue and haven't noticed any problems.

As already noted, vasmCC doesn't work. In fact, it doesn't appear on the partition. VASM appears to work okay from the desktop icon, though I need to enlarge its window.

I wanted to set up my SCSI scanner but I couldn't find sane or sane-find-scanner. They appear to be missing.

mplayer is available but when I try to start it from a terminal, I get an error message: error while loading shared libraries: libfaac.so.0. I can't play an audio stream in SeaMonkey, probably because mplayer isn't working. I'm happy to have SeaMonkey back.

Alt-F2 doesn't do anything. I have to get a Run... box from the desktop menu.

I set up my network connection with no problems using VASM and connected to the Internet right away (I use static IP addresses). This is a wired connection. I quickly set up my nfs network with my other Linux machines without problems.

This alpha version feels a bit more ready for use than the previous version. I need to copy over some fonts and icons from my 5.9 partition and will try to install OOo, Scribus, and Inkscape. I've already installed Tuxcards and CheckBook Tracker, which I must have on all of my Linux machines.

No ntfs-3g on this system--I won't write to NTFS partitions until it's available.

I couldn't find any display power management settings. I like to set a time for my monitor to turn off.

I feel things are coming along nicely. Thank you, Vec and devs! Will post more as I delve deeper.
--GrannyGeek

[toothandnail]

No ntfs-3g on this system--I won't write to NTFS partitions until it's available.

That seems to be an oversight. Can be installed using Gslapt - its in the current repo.

I couldn't find any display power management settings. I like to set a time for my monitor to turn off.

The screen power management options are part of xscreensaver. Also available in the repo, and, I presume, another oversight in the iso build.  I also ended up enabling CPU throttling manually (this laptop gets pretty hot if it runs at 1.8 GHz all the time).

I feel things are coming along nicely. Thank you, Vec and devs! Will post more as I delve deeper.

Indeed. The GUI installer has quite a few issues as yet, but looks promising. Once cleanly installed, VL6 alpha is looking very good indeed. I've already built a few packages against it for my own use (things like conky, dar, aterm). So far, they've all built cleanly (and more easily than against the dyna.7 build that I was using for VL6.0 stuff - far less problems with dependencies).

paul.

[Masta]

mplayer is available but when I try to start it from a terminal, I get an error message: error while loading shared libraries: libfaac.so.0.

Thank you! This is more informative than "Mplayer doesn't work, I think it's not installed".


As a tip to anyone else testing (obviously some of you know, so just discard) , when an application is not working from the menu, or as a plug in, please try to run that application from a terminal and post output when possible.

[toothandnail]

I've hit a problem with the Thunar right-click context menu. Using 'install package' to install an upgrade results in the data for both packages being left in /var/log/packages. And, in some instances at least, with old files being left behind. This didn't happen under 5.9 Standard.

In both cases, the custom action calls /sbin/vinstallpkg. Under 6.0 alpah 0.12, vinstallpkg uses installpkg to install the package. Under 5.9, it uses upgradepkg --install-new --reinstall, which seems to be a much better option.

paul.

[Pita]

mplayer is installed, however, not some libraries:

:$ /usr/bin/ldd /usr/bin/mplayer|grep found
        libfaac.so.0 => not found
        libx264.so.59 => not found
        libsmbclient.so.0 => not found
        libspeex.so.1 => not found
        libdv.so.4 => not found


Here Alt-F2 is working shows a run box.

ImageMagic is installed and opening, however, is not in the Menu under Graphics.

Gslapt will not open from Menu, it does from a terminal command.

Unable to get my printer working. This time the device I need for my printer is not listed in cups. I think it should be just LPR. It was listed in the previous alpha version.

I run this out of dillo, the version found in DSL which I have in my /usr/local which I have attached to VL-6.0, the same with my old /home from slackware. All works fine.

[toothandnail]

Problems with a USB hard drive, NTFS format. The drive mounts, Thunar opens, then complains that it cannot open the directory, permission denied.

Seems to be due to /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-ntfs-policy.fdi being missing. Copying one from a 5.9 Standard install fixes the problem.

paul.

[GrannyGeek]

Due to a brain cramp,  I posted a rather lengthy message reporting my successes and failures in the past two days in the wrong place. Rather than repeat it, I'll give the link to it here:

http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=7061.msg49311#msg49311

Please check that out if you're interested.
--GrannyGeek

[Pita]

Just installed the latest fluxbox-1.1.0 in prefix=/usr and it runs flawlessly in combo with xfce4-panel.

[Pita]

Anyone tried to start lxde from the console? It gives error:

/usr/bin/slartlxde no such file.....

It's an obvious typo in xinitrc.lxde.