VL6-Light Alpha

[gamfa]

I have been using the latest Firefox and Seamonkey from Mozilla on A13 for several days with no problem at all. Have Flash 10 loaded to both.

[caitlyn]

gamfa:  Did you install the packages in the VL testing repo or directly from Mozilla?  I'm referring to the packages in testing.  Both have dependency issues so if you used those I have to ask how you installed them.  Did you use the --no-dep option or do you also have gsb-desktop installed?

[gamfa]

I used the packages directly from Mozilla.org. I had tried to load the Seamonkey from the repositories and noticed it was going to load a mess of Gnome files an quit the download. I found out the package was compiled on something other than a clean machine. My install was to VL Light as installed with no modifications.

Since they are working with no problems, I have been using Light A 0.13 as my day to day user.

I don't know if you have tried Mplayer or not but my install was missing libcaca. I installed it through Gslapt and it is now working fine.

[kultex]

Just downloded and installed it on my Compaq ipac PIII 500

1) question - I did not find fluxbox - is it gone?

[kultex]

Some notes:

Installation was without any problems

Programs:

With HV3 I had quite a lot of crashes on different sites - suggestion of another lightwight browser: skipstone http://www.muhri.net/skipstone/page.php3?node=home

with gtkfind it is not possible to find files in root - permission denied - an alternativ perhaps: searchmonkey http://searchmonkey.sourceforge.net/index.php/Main_Page

Siagoffice - nice, but to work with this in an office is impossible - do you know Softmaker Office - http://www.softmaker.com/english/ - it is small and absoult microsft compatible, on my PIII 500 it is really quick. They do sometimes special offers - like the Windows Version 2006 was now for free in a german Computer Magazine - one linux version (I think version 2002) was part of easys http://easys.gnulinux.de/en/index.php/Main/News. I am using it since 2002 - so if you want I can ask them, if they perhaps will do an offer for VL-light.

umts-software: In Europe now the cheapest way to connect to the internet is via UMTS - so I think it should be at least one possibilty available:

1) http://umtsmon.sourceforge.net/
2) Thomas Schönhütl the author of fluxflux, a german openbox PCLinuxOS-Remaster wrote a very nice script for Huawei modems (in Europe I just know Huawei Modems for UMTS) which is under GPL, Version 2 - if you are interested I can send it to you.

Now my whishes:

I am working for netculturelab and Greenpeace Austria  on low energy computers. The small one needs 6 - max 8W with an Alix.1c board (with VL-light) - the big 15 - 28W with an Abit AN-M2HD and AMD X2 4050e (with the fluxflux PCLinuxOS-Remaster).

For my small one, it would be nice to have the geode-videodriver on the Image - for me VL-light is also the best software on the OLPC laptop - for this you also need the geode driver.

And I would whish for the new VL-light to have better fonts and fontrendering: I show you 2 screenshots of fluxflux -
http://www.kult-ex.org/fotos/fluxflux1.jpg
http://www.kult-ex.org/fotos/fluxflux2.jpg

on my presentations sometimes I changed the software - FluxFlux on the small and VL-light on the big. And nearly everybody (especially the children) was all the time gooing to fluxflux, even it runs horrible slow on the Alix Board

I hope you dont missunderstand - I adore VL-light for its quickness, but a better layout would be a real kick. Because I think it is the best software for all the nettops and netdesk.

kultex

[nightflier]

A new version is available for testing:
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/iso-test/VL6.0-Light-A0.14.iso
md5sum 9ca9fd47a2379657949719454afebe24

This is a major revision. The base system has been upgraded to VL Standard Beta 1. Hopefully some underlying problems have been solved, and undoubtedly new bugs have found their way in.

I did have a problem once when installing from a burned CD, experienced the issues reported by Pita about kernel and some packages not getting installed. New burn to different brand media helped. If you experience this, try burning at slower speeds, using different media, or do a hosted ISO install.

Again, a big "Thank You" to all brave testers who donate your time and effort. It's the team work that makes this fun. The developers read all your comments and suggestions, and address what we can. Some things, like UMTS, we do not have the hardware nor service. If there are requests by someone who have the needed parts and can test for us, please let us know.
________________________________________
From the changelog; VL6.0-Light-A0.14

Reset. Changed base to VL6.0 Standard Beta 1.

Required:
- unrar-3.8.2-i586-1vl60: Added new
- gkrellm-2.3.1-i486-2: Added new
- ndiswrapper-1.53_2.6.26.8-i586-1vl60: Modified package

Driver:
- gutenprint-5.0.2-i486-1: Added new
- ghostscript-8.62-i486-5: Added new

zxmisc:
- .icewm/update-icewm-menu.sh: Edited to look below /usr/share/applications
- .icewm/menu: Edited to add scroll bars to xterm
- .icewm/keys: Edited to add scroll bars to xterm
- .icewm/menu_system*: Added Root Terminal with inverse colors
- .icewm/menu_system*: Added entry for xkill
- .gkrellm2/themes/invisible-black (and -white): Added new
- .Xdefaults: Edited for allowing Alt key to be used for inserting special characters
- etc/skel/.config/pcmanfm/main: Edited for wallpaper Utah_trail.jpg
- usr/share/applications/xcalc.desktop: Added new
- .icewm/keys: Edited to map Alt+F2 to fbrun
- Desktop/vasm.desktop: Edited for name "Settings"
- Desktop/docs.desktop: Edited for name "Help Documents"
- Desktop/help.desktop: Edited for name "Help Forum" and URL

[caitlyn]

kultex, I find your comments interesting, perhaps because they are so opposite my own experiences.  I haven't had a single crash with hv3 so I have to wonder if the package on your burn was corrupted.  I looked at packaging Skipstone but it requires the Mozilla gecko engine, making it neither small nor terribly lightweight.  It also hasn't been updated in quite a while.  We have three lightweight browsers in the repo now (hv3, dillo, and links) and midori will be the fourth.  Between all of those options I think we're in good shape.

By "can't work" with SIAG it seems you mean "not really Microsoft compatible", which is certainly true.  I don't see how that stops people from working other than people who need to regularly import/export MS Office documents.  We do have AbiWord and Gnumeric in the repo and they do work on older hardware pretty darned well.  They just aren't small anymore.  I think Vector Linux would have a major user rebellion on their hands if they tried to include closed, proprietary, for sale software.  I also can't imagine SoftMaker giving away their office suite for free, which is the only way it would ever get into VL.

[Pita]

Briefly tested alpha14. Christmas baking is up.

Made a hosted installation and all was installed.

Installation went w/o a hitch.

Got my USB connected printer working. Hurray!!

Internet connection was just there.

Xterm does not give special characters.

mplayer freezes desktop. Have to get out with
Ctrl-Alt-Backspace

Audacious on menu only.

Regards

[kultex]

@caitlyn  i.e. open mozilla.com in h3v, sometimes its ok after 30  secends, sometimes it crashes directly, but at least after clicking something and go back it crashes - on A0.13 and PIII 500. I tested skipston on delilinux and found it quite stable. But I am fine with Opera - it was just a suggestion.

softmaker was also just a suggestion - they do not give away the new version for free, but older with a special offer to suscribe for the new one for half price they do. And compatibility with microsoft office is not even possible with openoffice in daily office use. I just say letterhead - I was fighting for years with the workers in our ofiice (and it is just a cultural office). I just succeded recently with Softmaker Office 2008.

But perhaps the difference is in the fact, that I am not looking for a software, that runs on old computers, just for modern "quick" office distribution, that is very quick on at least 256MB Ram (alix.1c). But perhaps both aspects can be compatible.

[nightflier]

Briefly tested alpha14. Christmas baking is up.

That was quick 

Xterm does not give special characters.

When I run X-windows and open xterm, holding down Alt key and pushing a letter or number key produces characters like "¶àøå". Are you referring to something else, or does this not happen on your system?

mplayer freezes desktop.

Does this happen with both IceWM and JWM?

Audacious on menu only.

Audacious was removed back in a0.11, maybe there is a leftover .desktop file.. do you see one in /usr/share/applications or below?

[Pita]

Briefly tested alpha14. Christmas baking is up.

That was quick 

Xterm does not give special characters.

When I run X-windows and open xterm, holding down Alt key and pushing a letter or number key produces characters like "¶àøå". Are you referring to something else, or does this not happen on your system?

Yes that's what I mean the special characters with Alt-some-key. It works only in IceWW not in JWM. Strange?

mplayer freezes desktop.

Does this happen with both IceWM and JWM?
[/quote]

It only happens in JWM, mplayer does not fully open and desktop is already frozen.

Audacious on menu only.

Audacious was removed back in a0.11, maybe there is a leftover .desktop file.. do you see one in /usr/share/applications or below?
[/quote]

Now all in IceWM

Found xmms and is playing fine.

Tried to open all listed programs on menu. None crashed. Gslapt working fine as well. Installed a few for me essentials.

gkrellm is not listed on the Menu.

To open gslapt an vasm as root one has to enter the root password and then has to click OK instead of just Enter. Small annoyance.

Opera opens with a decent size now. Dillo has no black pages.

[wcs]

And compatibility with microsoft office is not even possible with openoffice in daily office use

I've been very impressed with the ms compatibility in openoffice 3.0 . If you have the microsoft fonts installed, it shouldn't be much of a problem.
Openoffice calc has even flawlessly run one of my excel macros with a couple of thousand lines of code.

[caitlyn]

Installed a0.14, hosted install under VL 6.0 Standard Beta 1.  For the first time the install did NOT go smoothly.  Rebooted for second stage of install and the machine shut itself down before getting through any of the final configuration steps.  No errors logged to explain why.  Next boot brought me to the command line.  Completed X configuration, network configuration, alsa configuration, adding users, changing root password, and editing the /etc/inittab file to boot to runlevel 4 by default all the old school, command line way.  Rebooting again and most everything was back to normal.

What still isn't right:  /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 has two iterations:  rc.inet1.new and rc.inet1.old.  Both have permissions set at 755 yet neither correctly brings up my wired ethernet.  I ran rc.inet1.new from the command line and DHCP did then correctly assign an IP address to my NIC.  Very weird that this was necessary.

Two old problems remain:  vxconf doesn't work correctly with the Trident CyberBlade chipset in the Toshiba Satellite 1805-S204.  It still provides an itty bitty screen surrounded by black.  xorg.conf-fbdev does work correctly as always.  VL 6.0 (any version) still doesn't reboot my machine.  Ubuntu is the only distro that gets this right.

I was surprised to still see kdm-small rather than gdm which is now used in VL 6.0 Standard.  It would be nice to be able to easily change language and locale.

The SIAG issue in the welcome.txt:  I've though about this and ALL of the fonts are part of X.org  Packaging duplicate fonts really doesn't make sense.  If you want PW to work correctly require more of the X.org fonts.  I added 21 font packages to my system.  It cost all of 18MB and I see no discernable change of performance even on my ancient hardware.  I can make a list if you want.

The background is nice again

I'm sure I'll come up with more as I use the new alpha more.

[Pita]

Installed firefox-3.0.3. Played flash. When trying to close the flash window firefox hang.
Killed it with xkill. After that I could not open firefox anymore it claimed another firefox is running.
Kill pidsof firefox would not kill, neither killall firefox. The pids remained and firfox would not open.

Opera had no such problem.

[kidd]

killall -9 firefox-bin