VectorLinux 6.0 beta1 has been released!

[kidd]

So it's written in... BASIC?!!! (Gambas)

Yeah :/ . It's not in my favourite languages list, but vinstall-ng main dev seems to be quite fond of it.

We're open to suggestions for future projects (I've always found difficult to choose a language with good GUI creation support),  well, at least I am.

Actually my projects related to vl are cli based, so I have more freedom to choose

[caitlyn]

One minor nitpick with the release announcement:  Neither the latest AbiWord nor the latest Gnumeric are actually included.  AbiWord is at 2.6.4 instead of 2.6.5 and Gnumeric is at 1.8.2 instead of 1.8.3.

[caitlyn]

Why are (some of) the packages on the CD newer than the packages in the online repositories?!

(Not to mention that this way the sources are missing too.)

(Oh, and the sources for the new GUI installer?)

That should be fixed by tomorrow.  Now that I know what's on the beta I'll move the relevant packages from testing to packages, including all relevant source code.  That should give you a complete source repository that does match up with the iso.  VL devs have been taking providing source code and GPL compliance very seriously.

[kidd]

What about telling we upgraded to last perl (5.10.0) in the announcement?

[caitlyn]

Why are (some of) the packages on the CD newer than the packages in the online repositories?!

(Not to mention that this way the sources are missing too.)

I've done the requisite repository maintenance and this should no longer be an issue.  There is one outstanding package, GIMP 2.6.3, and I am pinging the developer/packager to resolve this.

I've also moved a fairly large number of packages from testing to extra.  You'll be pleased to know that this includes both the Romanian and French language packs for Firefox 3.0.4.  aspell and ispell dctionary packages and Thunderbird language packs will be available soon.

[uelsk8s]

I've done the requisite repository maintenance and this should no longer be an issue.  There is one outstanding package, GIMP 2.6.3, and I am pinging the developer/packager to resolve this.

The gimp package is in my contrib along with the new LXDE packages and a few others.
I also built about 20 more today that I will be uploading shortly

Thanks

Uelsk8s

[caitlyn]

Thanks, Uel!  I'll catch you off list to learn what goes where (packages for next iso, patches for the rest).

[roywhite]

I downloaded a copy of 6.0 b1 and I can't get it to boot up. Actually I downloaded 2 iso's, one from distro watch and one from the forum notice. I even burnt the first iso twice to make sure that the cd was ok. same thing neither cd would boot. The problem is not my computer because I've got about 8 different vector linux cd's and they all work. As a matter of fact I'm using vector 5.9 standard to post this with. If this is a bug, it's a show stopper.
Roy

[stretchedthin]

I downloaded a copy of 6.0 b1 and I can't get it to boot up. Actually I downloaded 2 iso's, one from distro watch and one from the forum notice. I even burnt the first iso twice to make sure that the cd was ok. same thing neither cd would boot. The problem is not my computer because I've got about 8 different vector linux cd's and they all work. As a matter of fact I'm using vector 5.9 standard to post this with. If this is a bug, it's a show stopper.
Roy

Roy, your boot doesn't happen to fail when it is trying to launch the xserver. does it?

Ken

[roywhite]

Sorry to wait so long to answer I was feeling under the weather
No, everything works on my current box. (vector 5.9,win xp & pclos 2007)
I just wondered if this was a bug that the developers needed to be aware of.
I've had no problems from previous releases of Vector. as a matter of fact vector has the easiest and fastest
install of any linux distro that I've tried and Thats a bunch.
Roy

[sparkyhall]

I downloaded a copy of 6.0 b1 and I can't get it to boot up. Actually I downloaded 2 iso's, one from distro watch and one from the forum notice. I even burnt the first iso twice to make sure that the cd was ok. same thing neither cd would boot. The problem is not my computer because I've got about 8 different vector linux cd's and they all work. As a matter of fact I'm using vector 5.9 standard to post this with. If this is a bug, it's a show stopper.
Roy

I can't boot from this version either on two of my PCs, I get the message Boot from ATAPI CDROM: Failure (had the same problem with alpha0.5). I am in the process of building a media PC and the same CD boots fine with that, very strange. As an experiment I removed the DVD reader from the media PC and fitted it to one of the PCs that fails and it still fails to boot so I guess there is some incompatobility between bios and this version of VL. For what it's worth VL 6.0 B1 fails to boot on the following HW:

 Mobo Asus A7N8X Deluxe (Nvidia nForce 2 Chipset)
 CPU AMD XP 3200+
 RAM 1Gig
 DVD drive Pioneer DVR-106D

 Mobo Abit BE6-II (Intel BX chipset)
 CPU Intel P3 750MHz
 RAM 384Meg
 CD drive Samsung SW-204

HW that works :

 Mobo Abit AN-M2HD (Nvidia nForce 630a chipset)
 CPU AMD X2 4850e
 RAM 2Gig
 DVD drive LiteOn DH-20A3P

I can of course install directly from hard drive, although I have not tried with this version as yet. This is obviously a concern for new users wishing to try VL so if there is anything devs need me to try let me know.

Chris

[curtdodds]

I cannot get this release to boot on any computer with a via chipset.
It will boot ok with an intel chipset.
I have verified the md4sum of the burned CD on each of the via chipset computers.
All of my computers have PATA drives.
This suggests your iso does not have drivers for via PATA hardware.

[GrannyGeek]

I cannot get this release to boot on any computer with a via chipset.
It will boot ok with an intel chipset.

This is very interesting to me. I have been unable to get any VL 5.9 or 6 CD to boot on my Celeron desktop, which does have a VIA chpset. I thought it was my CD/DVD drive getting flaky, as it can boot from commercial CDs but has trouble with some home-burned CDs. I think the only bootable home-burned CDs I've tried are Vector CDs. I'll try with a home-burned SystemRescue CD to confirm that it's only the VL CDs that won't boot. If so, I'll lean toward some compatibility problem between the Vector CDs and the computer with the VIA chipset. These CDs have all booted on other computers that do not have VIA chipsets.

I'd be very happy not to have to buy a new DVD writer, which I can ill afford at this time even though they're not that expensive. We're retired and are taking a big hit on our monthly income due to the poor stock market.
--GrannyGeek

[toothandnail]

I cannot get this release to boot on any computer with a via chipset.
It will boot ok with an intel chipset.
I have verified the md4sum of the burned CD on each of the via chipset computers.
All of my computers have PATA drives.
This suggests your iso does not have drivers for via PATA hardware.

I can't reproduce that here. I've booted the B1 disk on my AMD machine - Sempron 2800, Via chipset, PATA DVD-ROM and CR-RW, SATA hard drive. No problems booting, or finding the partitions on the 320 GB Seagate drive I've got in the machine.

paul.

[edgeofthewoods]

Well I am not he best Vector guru, but I'll give me experience with V6.0B1. I think most of my issues are with my inexperience with XFCE, I have used KDE for years and have got to be comfortable with it. First the GUI installer did well until partioning. I tried to partion the disk the way I wanted it, (160 gb SATA.) Basicly I wanted 20gb root, 4gb swap and the rest as home. Well it gave me 160 gb root and used my /dev/sda6 swap from my 5.9.1 install. Ok so I canceled and rebooted to 5.9.1 and used CFDISK to partion the drive how I wanted it. and rebooted back to the installer. Things went well until I got to LILO. Kept getting this error

Warning: LBA32 addressing assumed
Reading boot sector from /dev/sdc
Warning: unable to determine video adapter in use in present system
Using bitmap secondary loader
Calling map_insert_data
Warning: The boot sector and map file are on different disks
Mapping bitmap file /boot/bitmap/boot-bmp -> std.bmp
Mapping RAM disk /boot/tamu/initrd-sda1
Fatal: open /boot/tamu/initrd-sda1: No such file or directory
FAILED

Oh well I choose do not install LILO and trudged on. Next the hardware detection. It found all including my older NVIDIA FX series card. I choose use NVIDIA driver and it did it's thing until it said the current driver will not work with my card. The driver I use is 173.14.12, and the one that the installer wanted was I think the latest 177.82. Oh well I can fix that once everything was in. Rebooted to my trust 5.9 cd and fixed LILO and set to work. Hmm no sound. ok opened VASMCC and redid the sound install. Still no sound. OK I'll work on that later. Got the correct driver for my old GEForce FX 5500 card and tried to run the install . Opened up Abiword. tried to run in the CLI opened up Abiword. Ran it as root got permission denied. chmod it to make sure it is executable, (Getting ready to execute my machine!) got permission denied. That part I think is my not being up to speed on XFCE. But I do remember this is a Beta1 so bugs are to be found. I'll download a fresh copy later and giver her another go.

Chuck