VectorLinux 6.0-alpha2- PRODUCT

[vector]

There seems to be a lot of confusion on the gnome part of things with 6.0. The first very alpha had gnome as default. This was a test for community reaction............mostly negative so second release we went back to xfce4. Xfce-4.6 alpha was just released I built and tried it no where near usable at this point and they are saying december for a stable release.I was actually kind of excited about a gnome release for 6.0. We have never been there and slackware fans tend to hate gnome ,,,,,,,,,,,,but in its latest carnation not that bad. So I would like to use a stripped gnome for 6.0 with xfce4 as backup but i think just going out as 6.0 with gui installer and nothing much else to offer except xfce4 and normal updates will gain us little. Vector needs something to get some publicity if gnome is still a bad idea then alternatives please?

Cheers,
Vec

[kc1di]

Just my two cents worth Vector- I think Vector Standard has always been known for being able to run well on older equipment and that is one of the reasons there is so much reluctance to Gnome.  Perhaps a try with E-17 may be in order, just a thought. It's reletively fast and been fairly stable on those machines I have tried it on.  I'm not a big fan of Gnome, though it's a good desktop it's just never been a good fit for me personally.  I've usually gone for KDE or XFCE. though LXDE shows promise it's still not quite there yet. Which ever desktop you decide I know Vector will still be one of the best out there.  A move to E-17 would however generate the publicity,  I don't know if it will be able to do all the ordinary things easily that people want to do
Cheers!
Dave

[uelsk8s]

Errr..  two issues, Pita:  6.0 is based on 12.1 not 12.0.  We have a complete GNOME in our 6.0 repository under gsb.  There's even a meta package for installing the whole kit and kaboodle.

I was going to install the complete Gnome on my VL6a2 today, but I noticed it was going to install Firefox 2.0.0.something. I have Firefox 3.0.1 that comes with VL6 and was afraid I might get some conflict if I had both Firefoxes installed. Is this is valid concern?

If having the two Firefoxes won't cause problems, I'll install it once I get an okay on this forum.
--GrannyGeek

You can have both versions of FF installed at the same time. It shouldn't cause any problems.

[Joe1962]

A move to E-17 would however generate the publicity

Indeed, last time we released something with E17 we got a boatload of good press...

[caitlyn]

Hi, Vector, and everyone else,

In VL 5.9 we had three choices for the desktop (Xfce, Fluxbox, and JWM).  I'd like to see three again on 6.0, with the choices being Xfce (default), Enlightenment, and LXDE.  My preference is Xfce but that set of choices at install time would be pretty unique.  Leave GNOME as a post-install option or put it on a second disk (Deluxe?). Don't make VL just another full featured but heavy and bloated distro.  Also have fluxbox and JWM as post-install options.  (I'll build the new JWM package shortly.)

I also think stripping down GNOME would be a huge mistake.  Folks who like GNOME are like folks who like KDE:  they want all the bells and whistles.  If you strip it we'll get press for sure:  about our "crippled" or "incomplete" GNOME.

The 2.6.25.x kernel is new enough to have the open source Atheros driver, isn't it?  ath5k works well on some card but not others (including mine) and the same is true with madwifi.  No distro offers the choice to choose one or the other if an Atheros card is detected.  In Zenwalk 5.2, which has ath5k, I had to blacklist the module and then compile and install madwifi from source.  It would be really nice, and also unique to VL, to offer the user the choice either through the installer, through vasm, or both.

The thing that has always been missing in VL is localization.  A relatively simple tool to allow changing the default locale and language added to vasm would be a huge step forward.  The scripting is simple enough that even I could write the back end.  The GUI part is what I can't do.  I'd also like to see a version of the display manager (gdm?) that also allows language/locale switching.

With those changes plus all the updated apps there would be enough new to make 6.0 a major step forward for VL.

[GrannyGeek]

You can have both versions of FF installed at the same time. It shouldn't cause any problems.

Great! I'm installing gsb-complete through Gslapt as we speak.

The complete package is putting in a ton of stuff I don't want, but I don't know what I do want so I went with the whole thing (and also for testing purposes). I do like to have any KDE and Gnome components and libraries needed for using whatever KDE or Gnome programs I want, even though I don't use their desktop environments.
--GrannyGeek

[GrannyGeek]

I'm using VL6a2 heavily on my testbed computer (the Celeron 1.3 GHz desktop). It is working very well and has been quite stable for me. I have added quite a few apps that I always put on my Linux systems.

I've been asking myself "what's new?" as I'm testing. I can't try the graphical installer on this system because its CD-RW/DVD drive has gotten flaky and won't read a homemade CD. So I've had to use a direct-from-ISO-on-hard-drive install and it doesn't offer the graphical installer. I don't expect to be able to try the graphical installer until I replace the drive, and that won't be any time soon.

So it has come down to "new kernel" and "newer versions of apps" so far. This computer has always been very Linux-friendly, so I wasn't missing anything with 5.9's kernel. The real test will come when VL6 is far enough along for me to put it on my laptop, where I have wireless to contend with. I had tons of trouble with wireless during 5.9's beta and RC days, but by the time 5.9 went Gold wireless was working pretty well.

Gnome seems too far removed from the philosophy of VL Standard to be the default desktop. I personally don't care about "lightness" because even my oldest computer (the Celeron) has a gig of RAM and loads of hard drive space and a processor powerful enough to run 32-bit VL quite well even though it's quite obsolete. But even though we now have VL Light for those with really old hardware, I don't think we should abandon the philosophy for VL Standard. What I've always liked about Standard is that it gives me a complete, basic system out of the box and I can then add whatever I want so it suits me exactly.

I think Caitlyn's ideas about what desktops to offer in the ISO are good. Gnome should be an option in the repos and on a second Deluxe CD. Same for KDE. I'm right now installing Gnome from our repos and there is an awful lot in it that I don't want, but I don't know what I do want so I'm getting it all. Maybe Vec's idea of a stripped Gnome would be good for a repo package. That is, include whatever would be installed in an ISO Gnome in an optional package so that someone like me could get a minimal Gnome without trying to figure out what basics I needed.

A tool for easy setup of wireless that works almost all of the time would be a real plus for VL6. Setting up video also seems to be a weak point, though I haven't had much trouble. We do see this brought up fairly often on the forum, though. Another problem is that the repos have less in them than the distros that get all the publicity. I know packagers work on this (thank you!) so it's not that we're not trying, but prospective users don't care about that. We seem to have quite a lot of "geeky stuff" but basic things like Scribus and Inkscape aren't there. I compiled Scribus 1.3.3.12 (the latest stable) myself and also Inkscape 0.46, but my packages don't conform to the Vector rules though they work for me.
--GrannyGeek

[caitlyn]

GrannyGeek raised some excellent points.  There doesn't just have to be one meta package for a desktop environment.  There can be one for complete and one for minimal.  I think that's a great idea that I'd like to see done for GNOME, KDE, and Enlightenment if we end up offering it.  Meta packages aren't hard to do (not much more than a slack-required file and a slack-desc file) and I've been thinking about making ones for language support, i.e.: install everything you need to have French fully supported on VL 6 Standard.  Of course, it's impossible to make a meta package until the package list for the final release has become reasonably stable.

I also agree with Granny on philosophy.  SOHO is the full-featured VL, Standard is the sleek and slim version for ordinary systems, and Light is for the old and the netbook/UMPC crowd.  That's the way t seemed to work on 5.9 and it's a sensible approach.

Packages available really depends on what the volunteers want to do.  We've got a steady flow of 6.0 packages going into testing now thanks to folks like toothandnail and kc1di.  We've even had updated (bugfix) packages and security fix packages already (thanks, Paul and Dave) which I hope will be incorporated into the next development release iso.  Hopefully by the time 6.0 releases we'll have a decent repository ready.

[wcs]

with the choices being Xfce (default), Enlightenment, and LXDE.

I agree. Seems like a great combination, and all these are relatively light.
(I guess having vl with E17 as default would make it quite unique, but I don't know how stable it is for that)

The problem seems to be that xfce 4.6 is only coming in December so we wouldn't have time to test it properly before releasing. In the end, the package will show up in the repo, and (at least some) users will upgrade, with whatever problems that may bring. I remember this being discussed before, but I would favour a shorter release schedule for vl. Perhaps a release with pretty much only the graphical installer, and a later release (say, 6 months) with the new xfce. I'm aware this must be very difficult (for developers, packagers, and testers), but I think it would really get the word out more.

As for the apps, by having the gnome libs we could invest in having a great app mix. That could be what would make vl a bit more distinctive: the combination of apps both light and not so light (some of them gnome apps).
It doesn't have to be gnome, the same thing can be done by having kdelibs and kdebase. And, say, Amarok and k3b on top of that, or some other kde package.
And, of course, users could then choose if they want this stuff at install time. The counterargument being "what's the point in this, if users can also just install a simple system and then go to the repo and get gnome and kde apps, if they feel like it?".

Which brings us back to the repo, which should be quite beefed up by the time of release....
Choices, choices.....

[Pita]

I made a new install to get rid of all the "fake" gnome. Then started to install the real gnome from the VL repository untill I thought I had enough to open the desktop. It took for ever with my connection to download.

Boy it looks great I am sure kids will love it. Just when one switches virtual screens, what an effect. Not that I will use it, I love my fluxbox too much.

I then left it unattented since my tea time was up. When I came back gnome had switched to screensaver and froze the keyboard possibly the whole system. That was not nice.

Dirty reboot.

As for printing I switched to HAL and could print a test page, hower, nothing else. On second reboot even the test page would not print anymore. Changed to VL-Hot, again noting doing re printing.

[Masta]

I've personally been near dying for E-17 on VL, without having to compile and install it myself, or without grabbing the latest slack -E17 and work over the scripts.

I've never really hated gnome, but it never really appealed to me either. Since we've played with it and tossed it into our first testing release, I have to say that it does have potential, even on older machines (just need to gut it down some, or strip it as Vector mentioned).

This is a very good opportunity for the community to decide what goes in as default though.

[GrannyGeek]

Today I installed the complete Gnome package from our repo. It includes many very nice applications but it does take almost 4 gigs of space. Therefore, I don't think a complete Gnome system fits into VL Standard as a "lean and mean" distro. So I vote for having a complete package to give a user the whole thing and a stripped down package to supply just the basics. I don't like Gnome as a desktop and will keep XFce.

I installed xsane from the repo and now my scanners are working. O happy day! I nearly fell over when the system recognized the scanner part of my Lexmark X1270. That's a new addition to sane. Unfortunately, the driver isn't that great. There are faint wide vertical lines on the scanned image. They don't matter for quick and dirty scanning but are not good for a serious scan. I know it's the driver and not the scanner glass or the scanner because I booted into Windows XP on this computer and ran the scanner from Windows. No streaks, no vertical lines. So I wish there were a better driver for Sane, but what we have is a lot better than nothing. My very old Microtek ScanMaker E6 has a good Linux driver and I use that if I need a good-quality scan. The important thing is that my scanners are working in VL6a2!

I also installed JPilot and am syncing with my Sony Clie. And I have AmaroK working well.
--GrannyGeek

[Pita]

Having started Linux with RedHat it was naturally gnome. Then I switched to slackware and at that time both gnome and kde were offered to either install. I stayed with gnome since I never develeoped a liking for kde.

When slackware dropped gnome I used for a while enligtenment, FVWM, xfce and finally settled with fluxbox.

I had always gnome installed even in VL-5.8, dropline-gnome, since I am so used to some of their programs. That is why I welcome the idea to have gnome as a choice. It makes it easier at least for me. One would expect to be always up-to-date.

My choices are fluxbox, gnome, xfce4.

[vector]

First of all thank you for all the feedback. To me the general consensus points to xfce as the default de. Several have mentioned e17 as a secondary choice if for nothing else the wow factor and eye candy. The third being lxde or fluxbox for those wanting a more minimalistic approach. There also seems to be a consensus that some gnome applications would be good but not the full blown de. I have some basic packages for e17 built (ie only 5.9 at the moment) but easy enough to do for 6.0. I think that pcmanfm looks to much like thunar from xfce and is the major component of lxde so to me fluxbox might be the good choice as the third option. I am intrigued by e17 as several distro's are basing themselves there but I would need a small task force to explore it's options and to come up with a good configuration that fits VL.
Finally the gnome apps that would warrant inclusion? We need a list of say the top ten then maybe distill it down to a half dozen or so. Hopefully. we can come to general consensus here so we can commit to a template to build 6.0. If all agree to xfce e17 and fluxbox as the template then we will start separate threads for each as well as a general thread for the combined effect. Now seems like a good time to vote or offer a different template so we can move forward.
cheers,
Vec

[toothandnail]

Two things the alpha is lacking at the moment might be candidates. First, no GUI digital camera application (at the moment I can't build Gtkam because I can't get libexif-gtk to build), so Gthumb might be a good alternative. I think its a better app than Gtkam anyway, but it does carry quite a few deps. Its already in the gsb repo.

Second is a good CD/DVD burner. Brasero is now quite mature, and is no longer dependant on Nautilus CD burner to function. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of K3B, but fits a Gtk base system better than K3B and does a pretty good job.

While there are a few things broken in the alpha, it has been very stable for me, impressively so for alpha level code. I'm looking forward to the next one.... 

paul.