Salix Ratpoison 14.0.1RC1

[gapan]

Here is an updated iso for Ratpoison, this time a Release Candidate as the very few problems that were found with the beta have been fixed here. Hopefully after some testing we'll be able to release this as final.

The short list of changes since the beta release is:
* The exposé function didn't work anymore. It needs a perl module that is now deprecated, so it was removed both from the ratmenu and the default keyboard shortcuts.
* In Basic mode, the "Manage Printing" menu item was removed as cups is not installed.
* Gmountman didn't really work. The udisks and libatasmart packages were added to fix that.
* Viewnior was added back to the iso so that you actually view a graphics file when hitting the enter key in gnome-commander.
* A couple of security fixes that were released in the mean time have been included.

Once again, a reminder: this is not your average newbie-friendly distribution. There is no graphical login screen, when you login, you enter the linux terminal. You are expected to run "startx" to start ratpoison itself. Even then, it is not much more newbie-friendly than the linux terminal. You'll have to use keyboard combinations to do anything. Some hints:
* the "Ctrl-t ?" keyboard combination will show a screen with all available keyboard combinations. They all start with "Ctrl-t" and then another key/keyboard combination.
* you can get the ratmenu by hitting "Ctrl-t r". This menu is keyboard driven only as well.
* the Vimprobable2 browser is started with "Ctrl-t v"
* use "f" to follow links in Vimprobable2. Make sure you read the manpage too.
* the terminal is started with "Ctrl-t c"
* all ratpoison configuration is done in your ~/.ratpoisonrc
* the menus themselves are scripts in the ~/.ratmenu directory.
* run "man ratpoison"to get more information on setting up ratpoison. It can really be scripted to do just about anything with keystrokes.

You can download the RC using the following links:

Salix Ratpoison 14.0.1RC1 (i486 and i686, 32-bit):
(size: 535MB, md5: 336bde2de5e763f51ba55ace51c6ec75)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download

Salix64 Ratpoison 14.0.1RC1 (x86_64, 64-bit):
(size: 476MB, md5: 5cc194b3064635c195e8dd74b7321c69)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download

Thanks for testing!

[aurlaent]

* The exposé function didn't work anymore. It needs a perl module that is now deprecated, so it was removed both from the ratmenu and the default keyboard shortcuts.

What were you using, and would skippy-xd be an alternative?

[gapan]

What were you using, and would skippy-xd be an alternative?

It was a ratpoison script written in perl. And no, skippy-xd can't be used because it doesn't work with ratpoison. It only shows a single window, the active window and nothing else. Besides, it needs compositing to work, which is not at all certain to be possible.

[mimosa]

whaawmp fails toplay an .avi file, giving an error - something about gstreamer. The same file works fine with MPlayer.

multimedia codecs are installed. I also had trouble with flash-plugin on youtube - the same clip plays fine in Salix xfce 14.0.1.

Code: Select all

 root[mimosa]# slapt-get --se gstreamer
gnonlin-0.10.17-x86_64-1gv [inst=no]: gnonlin (a set of GStreamer elements)
gst-ffmpeg-0.10.11-x86_64-1gv [inst=yes]: gst-ffmpeg (FFmpeg-based plug-in for gstreamer)
gst-plugins-bad-0.10.23-x86_64-1gv [inst=yes]: gst-plugins-bad (a set of plug-ins that need more quality)
gst-plugins-base-0.10.36-x86_64-2 [inst=yes]: gst-plugins-base (base set of GStreamer plugins)
gst-plugins-good-0.10.31-x86_64-1gv [inst=yes]: gst-plugins-good (a set of good-quality plug-ins under LGPL)
gst-plugins-good-0.10.31-x86_64-3 [inst=no]: gst-plugins-good (good set of GStreamer plugins)
gst-plugins-ugly-0.10.19-x86_64-1gv [inst=yes]: gst-plugins-ugly (plug-ins which might have distribution problems)
gst-python-0.10.22-x86_64-1gv [inst=yes]: gst-python (python bindings for gstreamer)
gst123-0.3.1-x86_64-1gv [inst=no]: gst123 (a GStreamer command line multimedia player)
gstfilters-0.10.1-x86_64-1cp [inst=no]: gstfilters (Gstreamer convenience library)
gstreamer-0.10.36-x86_64-1 [inst=yes]: GStreamer (streaming multimedia framework)
libnice-0.1.2-x86_64-1cp [inst=no]: libnice (The GLib ICE implementation)
parole-0.3.0.3-x86_64-1gv [inst=no]: parole (a modern media player for Xfce)
phonon-4.6.0-x86_64-1 [inst=no]: phonon (multimedia framework for KDE4)
phonon-gstreamer-4.6.2-x86_64-1 [inst=no]: phonon-gstreamer (gstreamer backend for phonon)
pitivi-0.15.2-x86_64-1gv [inst=no]: pitivi (a free, intuitive and featureful movie editor)
salix-codecs-installer-1.1.1-noarch-1gv [inst=no]: salix-codecs-installer (install restricted multimedia codecs)
soundconverter-2.0.4-x86_64-1gv [inst=no]: soundconverter (Convert sound files to other formats)
whaawmp-20120810-x86_64-1gv [inst=yes]: whaawmp (An audio/video player using gstreamer)
xfce4-mixer-4.8.0-x86_64-1 [inst=no]: xfce4-mixer (Sound mixer applet for Xfce)

[mimosa]

I've now installed the 32-bit version.

One minor point: in this version, in wicd, the wireless and wired interfaces are correctly preset to wlan0 and eth0, but in the x86_64 version, these settings are blank.

gstreamer video fails just the same as in 64 bits. So that suggests it is something about this machine that's causing the trouble.

The same problem too with youtube and flash.

[mrstordal]

I experienced an issue with mocp, that the volume percentage that used to be at the bottom right "PCM" reads "00%", and there is no way to adjust the volume. The <> buttons and the ,. buttons have no effect. The play/ pause works though. At first I thought it could be keymap settings in the console, but when I exit mocp, the keyboard settings seem alright. I reinstalled the moc from the Gslapt, but the problem persists. It used to work fine with 13.37 rp. With whaaw, the volume works. I tried to use moc also before I gave the startx command, but it's the same.

Oh, yes, and I use the 64 bit version. Hardware 7 year old asus laptop.

[mrstordal]

ehem... now it works. Don't know what happened. Reinstalled it again, that's it.

Edit: The volume buttons only work when I open mocp in a root terminal..

[gapan]

mstordal: is this with a fresh installation and with a clean homedir? Can you create a new user and try with that? Volume buttons work fine here.

[mrstordal]

I just installed the 1RC1. So as far as I understand, it was a fresh install. But I did as you said, added a new user, and then it works normally, volume and all.

[gapan]

So, you probably used a user that you already had from a previous installation the first time, or even with a different distribution? If that's so, some configuration option in there is messing it up for you.