Vector 6.0 Standard RC1 feedback and bug reports

[caitlyn]

I have new kernel mesa and libdrm in the repo, between the 3 of them I have 3d video with openchrome driver

Let me know if they work for you.

You're a genius!  Yes, video is perfect now.  Very, very cool.  Please tell me these new packages will be standard issue in rc2 and the final    2.6.27.10 is also supposed to support my webcam natively so that is on my list for tomorrow.  The video issue was the big show stopper for me.  Now that it's solved I know I'll be able to run VL6 on this machine one way or another.

Vector:  To get sound working again I had to rip out and reinstall the alsa packages.  Now I'm back to square one.  I may try rebuilding alsa per the Ubuntu forum instructions unless you have something else you want to try.

[caitlyn]

I forgot to mention that the new 2.6.27.10 kernel breaks TuxOnIce   The message goes by too fast for me to jot it down when booting but some file or directory it thinks it needs is now missing.

[Pita]

Tried the kernel-2.6.27.10 on VL-6-Light-A0.14/0.15.

Can't get an internet connection.

The lilo splash screen looks awful in my opinion.
Quickly went back to the happy tux from VL-5.8.

[toothandnail]

Paul:  After I installed VL6rc1 on my netbook I configured the slapt-get-notifier to check periodically (every four hours I think).  Sure enough I got a bright red icon on the Xfce panel.  One click to get the updates installed.  When it works it is absolutely brilliant and makes keeping a VL box secure a snap for anyone.

Nice to know that it does work....

I, of course, have no clue why it doesn't work for you.  What I am saying that it can work.

Which is good to know. In my case, it looks as though the notifier daemon is starting, but dies sometime later. I'll have to have a search through the logs and see if I can spot it. Also have to check soon after boot to see if it really is starting, or whether it dies during the startup.

Its something I would very much like to see. I don't find Gslapt very useful when it comes to locating updates, so the notifier would be very useful indeed.

paul.

[ethyl]

Hi there,

are there any news about the blurry fonts? It looks pretty bad and the worse thing is that I have to admit that it sometimes hurts to look at the screen with fonts that blurred. I was thinking about recompiling freetype with BCI enabled and using some of the msttcorefonts for the interface, but to my surprise enabling BCI does almost nothing. All the fonts look weirdly skewed and plain ugly - even the msttcorefonts. I wasn't used to that. I am using B2.10 (aka pre RC1). Has anyone tried enabling the BCI? Any hints?

TIA

ethyl

[pevsner]

Hi,
I agree ethyl,rc1 fonts are no better for me.
I have made several post regarding the blury fonts, looks like xfce hinting doesnt work to me, tried adding fonts, and other hacks mentioned on forum, but all no good.
I love Vector 5.9; my main useage is graphics, 3d presentation,achitecture work and the fonts just plain bug me!
I cant even get to testing all the rest because of the visual appearance.
Also as commented before, no downgrade nvidia modules for geforce fx5200 in repos.

Thanks for including the nimbus icons and gtk theme.

[toothandnail]

More on the slapt-get-notifier thing. It seems that the daemon dies almost as soon as it starts. I tried running ps as soon as the desktop came up, but there was no sign of the daemon running. I then used 'restart' to start it, and it seems to still be running. It initiated an update of the slapt-get list, but, even though there are several updates, nothing further has happened - no notification showing anywhere.

Is there anything I can do to troubleshhoot this? At the moment, I have this running:

Code:

fang20:$ ps aux | grep slap
fang20    3656  0.0  0.5  14604  5888 ?        Ss   20:05   0:00 slapt-update-notifier
root      4022  0.0  0.1   3000  1528 ?        S    20:18   0:00 /bin/bash /usr/sbin/slapt-update-notifier-d

I've run dmesg and had a look through syslog, but can't see anything relevant to the update notifier in either. Is there anywhere else I can look? Also, is there any way of working out why the notifier doesn't put an icon in the toolbar when there are updates?

paul.

[vector]

I agree ethyl,rc1 fonts are no better for me.
I have made several post regarding the blury fonts, looks like xfce hinting doesnt work to me, tried adding fonts, and other hacks mentioned on forum, but all no good.

Here is something to try. First update your gslapt and get the latest version of freetype should be build 3vl60.tlz. Next go to /etc/fonts/conf.d and remove the symlink to local.conf. Last but not least copy the following code and save as .fonts.conf in your $HOME folder.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">

<fontconfig>
<!-- Enable sub-pixel rendering -->
<match target="font" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
                <const>rgb</const>
        </edit>
</match>

<match target="font" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
                 <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
</match>

<match target="font" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
                 <const>hintfull</const>
        </edit>
</match>


<match target="font" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
                <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
</match>

<match target="pattern" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
                <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
</match>

<!-- Disable autohint for bold fonts -->
<match target="font">
        <test name="weight" compare="more">
                <const>medium</const>
        </test>
        <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
                <bool>false</bool>
        </edit>
</match>

<!-- Font Replacement -->
<match target="pattern" name="family" >
        <test name="family" qual="any" >
                <string>Helvetica</string>
        </test>
        <edit mode="assign" name="family" >
                <string>Bitstream Vera Sans</string>
        </edit>
</match>

<!-- Location of local fonts -->
<dir>~/.fonts</dir>

</fontconfig> 

Thats it now reboot hopefully things should improve. I find the standard nv driver sucks eggs in the font dept so if we can find a way to build an nvidia driver that you guys need against the 2.6.27.7 kernel that should be a big help too.

Cheers,
Vec

[caitlyn]

Openchrome update:

I still have intermittent video weirdness with the new libdri, new mesa, and the 2.6.27.10 kernel.  Before the upgrades it was constant and a real problem.  Now it's very intermittent and I can work around it.  What Uelsk8s did made a huge different but it's still not 100%.  I will try to see if I can hack at the genuine Via driver and get it to compile on VL6.

Vector:  I see you still referencing the 2.6.27.7 kernel.  Does this mean that 2.6.27.10 won't make it into VL6?  That would be seriously bad news.  Via Chrome is a very popular video chipset on new hardware.  In addition the webcam support in the newer kernel isn't present in the older one.  Oh, and yeah, my webcam now works as it should. 

[pevsner]

Thanks vector,

Followed your instructions,
51-local.conf deleted and added font.conf to home folder, upgraded freetype and installed  deja vu fonts.
Much better thanks, not quite as good as 5.9 still. One small thing, I thought that without sub pixel hinting, fonts where rendered greyscale, it appears not, as  I can see coloured edges.
Is there anyway to get the nvidia driver for my geforce 5200 working, 173.xxx.xxetc pre latest module, tried downgrading to the 5.9 one but get dependancy issues vxconf>=5.9 required.

Pevsner.

[uelsk8s]

caitlyn,

I have a new kernel up today. can you try it and let me know if your sound works with it?
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/kernels/kernel-2.6.27.10-i686-2vl60.tlz
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/kernels/kernel-modules-2.6.27.10-i686-2vl60.tlz

[vector]

Is there anyway to get the nvidia driver for my geforce 5200 working, 173.xxx.xxetc pre latest module, tried downgrading to the 5.9 one but get dependancy issues vxconf>=5.9 required.

Good news we found a patch that works with current kernel should have a pkg up soon.

Cheers,
Vec

[caitlyn]

caitlyn,

I have a new kernel up today. can you try it and let me know if your sound works with it?
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/kernels/kernel-2.6.27.10-i686-2vl60.tlz
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/kernels/kernel-modules-2.6.27.10-i686-2vl60.tlz

Sound is the same as before:  it works great through the internal speakers but I get nothing through the headphone/speaker jack.

Video is still good most of the time

[vincent2]

Bonjour!
Bon 2009 a tous!

Installed vl6 rc1 a few days ago,
still lost keyboard(japanese ,jp105) and mouse(on mousepad) from time2time running savage driver on this Sharp mebius laptop(twisterK IGP + via KN133 based mb+amd athlon xp-m 1500+) no matter how i adjust the configuration at "xorg.conf".....then i 've got to plug in  USB mouse and keyboard (continuing running xfce4 instead of just press power-switch to reboot) to avoid losing my edited data file.

Here is something to try. First update your gslapt and get the latest version of freetype should be build 3vl60.tlz. Next go to /etc/fonts/conf.d and remove the symlink to local.conf. Last but not least copy the following code and save as .fonts.conf in your $HOME folder.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">

<fontconfig>
<!-- Enable sub-pixel rendering -->
<match target="font" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="rgba" >
                <const>rgb</const>
        </edit>
</match>

<match target="font" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="hinting">
                 <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
</match>

<match target="font" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="hintstyle">
                 <const>hintfull</const>
        </edit>
</match>


<match target="font" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="antialias">
                <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
</match>

<match target="pattern" >
        <edit mode="assign" name="autohint">
                <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
</match>

<!-- Disable autohint for bold fonts -->
<match target="font">
        <test name="weight" compare="more">
                <const>medium</const>
        </test>
        <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
                <bool>false</bool>
        </edit>
</match>

<!-- Font Replacement -->
<match target="pattern" name="family" >
        <test name="family" qual="any" >
                <string>Helvetica</string>
        </test>
        <edit mode="assign" name="family" >
                <string>Bitstream Vera Sans</string>
        </edit>
</match>

<!-- Location of local fonts -->
<dir>~/.fonts</dir>

</fontconfig> 

Thats it now reboot hopefully things should improve. I find the standard nv driver sucks eggs in the font dept so if we can find a way to build an nvidia driver that you guys need against the 2.6.27.7 kernel that should be a big help too.

oh, that method made wonders for font rendering!now no more blurrrr.......

Regarding USB webcam, pls. do add WXCAM& its dependencies /or other smart webcam tools in next RC2 release.

[ethyl]

Hi,

tried the font thingy from Vec and it works. Looks much much better now.

regarding slapt-update-notifier-d - it is started by init, but shuts down because there is now network connection (yet). The cause for me was that I used the text installer with no option to configure the network. I configured it later from wicd, but this isn't enough. You have to have an executable rc.inet* with your network details in /etc/rc.d. The updates are checked every hour via crontab (default setting is to run it 47 minutes after each hour). If you know there are updates to be installed, and want to check if the notification works, just run
/etc/cron.hourly/slapt_check as root. You should get an icon in the tray. Be sure to have slapt-update-notifier enabled in autostarted applications in xfce settings.

HTH

ethyl