VL6-Light Alpha

[nightflier]

Funny you should mention it. I was also thinking the same thing, that only those two apps made the cut.  I can easily have an install script delete some .desktop files after the packages are installed.

I am still having some font issues with PW, though. I try to change the font, but as soon as I start typing it goes back to "times". If I highlight a block of text and try to change it to another font, it crashes. Looks like the fonts are "hard-wired" into the app?

[overthere]

Hi
how easy is it to get siag working with cups?
I like the idea of siags classic office available for vl-light6, those proud to recycle older hardware will love it if it works
abi has become a standard in linux distros and may be favored on ageing systems fast enough to use it comfortably
abi can also be used on windows offering more versitility as a default and may be excluded during an install for those intending to  add siag...nice work caitlyn.. I have not used siag in a while...deli I think
will download and try as soon as time permits
just one users opinion
cheers

[caitlyn]

Funny you should mention it. I was also thinking the same thing, that only those two apps made the cut.  I can easily have an install script delete some .desktop files after the packages are installed.

I am still having some font issues with PW, though. I try to change the font, but as soon as I start typing it goes back to "times". If I highlight a block of text and try to change it to another font, it crashes. Looks like the fonts are "hard-wired" into the app?

I can't replicate what you see.  I changed to MS Sans Serif and it worked.  I highlighted a block of text and changed to Courier and that worked too.  I did notice that changing to Helvetica reverts to Times, but other fonts do seem to work properly for me.

[caitlyn]

overthere:  It should be just a matter of going into Tools-->Environment and changing lpr to cups.  I haven't tried cups on VL 6 but I have to do some printing so I will definitely test it and let you know.

[overthere]

I would be interested...and would just try myself but I have to much on the go and have not even downloaded the vl6's yet...I was hopeing to get vl5.9 on a thumb ,will have more time in a month or so to play, attempting to keep a handle on whats new
cheers

[caitlyn]

I get no sound trying to play an mp3 through vlc.  I downloaded and installed xmms and it plays the same mp3 and sound is fine.  You can imagine what my first impression of vlc is

[Joe1962]

Don't let first impressions fool you, vlc is a great application. And the 0.9.x series has a much better playlist management. Try Tools, Preferences, Audio, then set the audio output type to alsa.

[caitlyn]

I tired setting the audio output to alsa as you suggested.  I still have no sound.

I poked around a little.  My impressions:  large and overly complicated.  This is "Light"?  Not hardly.

There are a whole host of media players, some of them decidedly not light, that play music without problems or fiddling on my system, as in everything from amarok to aqualung.  vlc doesn't.  Give me plain old xmms for listening to music any day, and reliable xine for video.  If vlc is included in VL 6 I'll simply remove it.  I am decidedly not impressed. 

[nightflier]

Caitlyn, you may be happy to hear that I already have Light set up with xmms, xine and ripperX, just like in 5.9 Light.

The vlc package was included as it was brand new at the time and we wanted some testing done on it. There will likely be more rotation of packages throughout the testing cycle. All input is welcomed.

[caitlyn]

Going back to PW and font issues:

It really does look like PW has a fixed list of fonts.  It doesn't know about other X fonts you might install.  It wants and expects what's in the Latin2 font kit, nothing more or less.  Most of the fonts in Latin2 are available in font packages which are part of X.org but not installed by default in VL 6 Light, at least up through alpha 0.11.  When it can't find the font it wants it chooses something else or reverts to Times.  I've also noticed that if you try to switch to Helvetica when you first launch the application it reverts to Times.  Later on Helvetica works fine.  I'd put that in the category of weird bug.

What I think I'm going to do is look at packaging Latin2.  The fonts.txt file will need to be converted to a more modern .conf file so this is going to take some work on my part.  I tried installing the Latin2 kit into SIAG per the README and nothing really worked.  If the X Adobe 100dpi package wasn't there it couldn't find Helvetica and wouldn't run.  The solution appears to be to install the fonts (all Adobe Type 1) into X.  Again, I need to look at what I can do.  Clearly PW can work with the X fonts it looks for when they're installed.  I just think it would be easier for users if we had everything in one easy to find place, perhaps automagically installed with SIAG office as a dependency.

The only downside I can see is that some of these fonts duplicate ones available in a different format (most bitmapped fonts) in X so someone could end up with two iterations of Courier, two iterations of Helvetica, etc... if they install Latin2 and what's offered with X.org.

Yes, it would be easier to just go with AbiWord and Gnumeric but they are 20x the size and don't run nearly as well on really old legacy hardware.

I'll let folks now how this progresses.

[caitlyn]

Caitlyn, you may be happy to hear that I already have Light set up with xmms, xine and ripperX, just like in 5.9 Light.

The vlc package was included as it was brand new at the time and we wanted some testing done on it. There will likely be more rotation of packages throughout the testing cycle. All input is welcomed.

Mostly happy.   I still like grip a whole lot better than ripperX but it does have some GNOME dependencies that I understand you might want to avoid.

I don't mind tinkering a bit but I don't want to have to tinker just to listen to music.

[nightflier]

I still like grip a whole lot better than ripperX but it does have some GNOME dependencies that I understand you might want to avoid.

Yes, gslapt wants to pull in 19 additional packages to satisfy grip. It all adds up to a 19 MB download, 110 MB total install.

RipperX was a quick 340K install, albeit from the 5.9 repo. You may want to look at that. In http://ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/vectorlinux/veclinux-5.9/packages/x-apps/ there is a package "ripperX-2.6.7-i586-1vl60".

[wcs]

I always found the best way to rip cd's is to use k3b.
It needs kdelibs, but that's the only thing (I think the repo package asks for kdebase, but it works fine without it).

Of course, ripperX is much lighter and doesn't need anything from kde or gnome, so it seems like the right choice for VL Light.

[nightflier]

Alpha 0.12 is available:
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-current/iso-test/VL6-Light-A0.12.iso
md5sum: 786b576b047e3912ffcbcd6a570c79bc
delta from 0.11:
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-current/iso-test/VL6-Light-A0.11to12.delta

Main change is the upgraded kernel, but there are also numerous other tweaks.

Changelog:
____________________________________
October 31, 2008: VL6-Light-A0.12:

Upgraded:
enchant-1.3.0-i586-2gsb -> enchant-1.4.2-i586-1vl60.tlz
kernel-2.6.25.15-i586-1vl60 -> kernel-2.6.26.7-i686-1vl60
kernel-modules-2.6.25.15-i586-1vl60 -> kernel-modules-2.6.26.7-i586-1vl60

Added required:
aumix-2.8-i486-1.tlz
netkit-ftp-0.17-i486-1.tlz
font-adobe-100dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-adobe-75dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
xmms-1.2.11-i586-1vl60
xine-ui-0.99.5-i686-1
xine-lib-1.1.15-i686-1vl60
synaptics-20080519-i486-1vl60
ripperX-2.6.7-i586-1vl60

Removed:
madwifi-r3856_20080903_2.6.25.15-i486-1vl6 (ath5k module works with new kernel)
xine (separate packages added to required)
vlc-0.9.3-i586-1vl60

Changed:
zxmisc:
# doinst.sh:
-  added action "fc-cache -f" and "xset fp rehash"
# files changed:
- usr/bin/browser: Minor edit to streamline code
- .icewm/update-icewm-menu.sh: Minor edit to streamline code
- sbin/vsetbrowser: Moved to usr/share/icewm/vsetbrowser
- .icewm/menu_noicons and menu_witicons: Edited to reflect above change
- .icewm/update-icewm-menu.sh: Added default entries for multimedia submenu (play CD and DVD)
# files added:
- usr/share/applications/htop.desktop
- usr/share/icons/htop.png
- usr/share/applications/aumix.desktop
- usr/share/icons/sound.png
- usr/share/applications/xmms.desktop
- usr/share/applications/vwifi.desktop: Edited to place in "Network" on menu
- usr/share/applications/leafpad.desktop: Edited to place in "Utilities" on menu
- usr/share/applications/ripperX.desktop: Edited to place in "Multimedia" on menu, and for icon path
- etc/skel/.config/pcmanfm/main: Edited for wallpaper Norway_F-16
- etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc: Excluded vl-hot from upgrades
- root/.config/pcmanfm/main: Edited for no wall paper and solid red background
- .icewm/preferences: Edited for menu entries and behavior
- .icewm/keys: Edited to reflect developer's personal preferences 
- .icewm/menu_multimedia_withicons
- .icewm/menu_multimedia_noicons
- .xmms/config: Edited to use digital audio extraction for audio CD's
- .ripperXrc: Edited to use http "freedb.freedb.org/~cddb/cddb.cgi"
- Xmodmap: Edited, deleted key bindings for "Super" key
- usr/share/hwdata: Added missing directory

ISO size ~400 MB

[gamfa]

Alpha 0.12 is available:
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-current/iso-test/VL6-Light-A0.12.iso
md5sum: 786b576b047e3912ffcbcd6a570c79bc
delta from 0.11:
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-current/iso-test/VL6-Light-A0.11to12.delta

These don't exist...?

There seems to be an install problem on A 0.11. If you chose not to install the optional DEV package, the install will fail, at least it did for me each time I tried it without the DEV. Things seem to go as planned but I get a dialog that says things went OK but then it says "I don't know about the configuration". It never gets to the configure stage of the install. On reboot off CD it chugs along and then says "can't execute /sbin/mingetty" "no more processes left in this runlevel".

I really like what I see in this VL. So glad to see JWM and icewm. Icewm has been my window manager of choice since Mandy 8.2. JWM has become my #2.