Salix Xfce 15.0RC1

[gapan]

Hi all!

Finally, here is 15.0RC1! I know it took a lot of time, but we're very close to the final release now. With any luck, there will be no show-stopping bugs with this and we can release it in a few days as final.

A lot of work has been done in the repos since the beta. We now host almost everything that exists in SBo as binary packages! There is still a little bit of work do be done, but we now have several thousands of packages ready for installation. Our repositories for 15.0 alone are bigger than all previous Salix releases combined! Add to that the ability to install software through flatpak and there will be no shortage of software for 15.0!

Few other things have changes since the beta, one that is immediately obvious after installation is that the traditional applications menu has now been replaced by whiskermenu. Lots of other fixes here and there, the default GTK theme is now "Salix" and the default icon theme, Qogir, has received several fixes.

If you're updating from a beta installation and you don't want to reinstall, make sure you run something like this:

Code: Select all

sudo slapt-get -u
sudo slapt-get -i spkg
sudo slapt-get -i slapt-get
sudo spkg -d qogir-icon-theme
sudo rm -rf /usr/share/icons/Qogir* # for good measure
sudo slapt-get -i qogir-icon-theme
sudo slapt-get --upgrade

There won't be any breaking changes like this from now on.

Please install and report anything that comes up!

Salix64 Xfce 15.0RC1 (64-bit, x86_64)
(md5: 34065908a1c9f73bf0afe3fc506e62e2, size: 1.4GB)
https://downloads.sourceforge.net/proje ... 5.0RC1.iso

Salix Xfce 15.0RC1 (32-bit, i586/i686)
(md5: 34a36deb0fa2e949023ecac5768b656e, size: 1.4GB)
https://downloads.sourceforge.net/proje ... 5.0RC1.iso

(64bit iso has been uploaded already, 32bit iso being uploaded as I'm posting, should be ready in ~15 mins)

Thanks for testing!

[Papasot]

Just a remark: If you are updating from beta and you want the (now default) whisker menu you have to do it manually. Install xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin, configure it, and remove the old menu.
I'm personally perfectly fine with the traditional menu, but I'm not complaining. Switching to the old menu in a fresh installation that defaults to whisker is very easy.

[hugok]

Great news! Looking forward to the final version.
I will test and report...
Congratulations gapan

[hugok]

Just a quick review of the installation and first use of salix 15.0RC1 ...

The installation was fast and smooth, without issues, on an old acer extensa5620Z / BIOS
(just preferred ext4 instead of the default xfs filesystem)
(made some more corrections to the Portuguese translation in both salix-installer and liloconfig in Transifex)

This laptop has an Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01) wireless card so so I had to use slapt-src to install b43-firmware and b43-fwcutter packages.
Will any slackbuilds GUI tool be included in Salix 15.0? Something like Sourcery?

I installed a program through Flathub launcher without any issue.

The gtkkeyboardsetup and gtkclocksetup tools still has some translations (Portuguese) missing although they are completed!
(translation of the About and Apply changes buttons respectively)

As far as appearance is concerned, Salix looks very nice and well done. Just a few aspects to correct:

The Qojir icon-theme appears in duplicate under Appearence/Settings.

In the panel, the Network icon should be to the right of the Workspaces item

In the panel, the Sound icon is missing, had to add Pulse audio plugin.

In the panel, the batery icon is mising, had to add Power manager plugin.

In the panel, a transparent separator should be between the launchers the and the window buttons

The size of Icon help under Icons/Desktop should be smaller e.g. 64 instead of the default 128

The hostname name in the panel at login(login/display manager) is not centered with the screen. This also happens with other distros...

In conclusion, I am really liking how Salix is turning out. I just preferred Mousepad over L3afpad text editor

[gapan]

Just a quick review of the installation and first use of salix 15.0RC1 ...

Thank you hugok!

The installation was fast and smooth, without issues, on an old acer extensa5620Z / BIOS
(just preferred ext4 instead of the default xfs filesystem)
(made some more corrections to the Portuguese translation in both salix-installer and liloconfig in Transifex)

Thanks!

This laptop has an Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01) wireless card so so I had to use slapt-src to install b43-firmware and b43-fwcutter packages.
Will any slackbuilds GUI tool be included in Salix 15.0? Something like Sourcery?

No, the idea is not to encourage installation from source, since we already have almost everything in binary packages. The broadcom drivers is one of the things that we are not allowed to have though.

The gtkkeyboardsetup and gtkclocksetup tools still has some translations (Portuguese) missing although they are completed!
(translation of the About and Apply changes buttons respectively)

Thanks for noticing. Indeed, this was strange. I had to force pull the translations from transifex to get them, somehow they would not update with just pulling. I will update the salixtools-gtk package with them.

The Qojir icon-theme appears in duplicate under Appearence/Settings.

That's because one of them is the "default" theme in /usr/share/icons/default, which is a symlink to Qogir. Unfortunately we have to use it, as otherwise some applications will not include themed cursors.

In the panel, the Network icon should be to the right of the Workspaces item

No, it was always on the left...

In the panel, the Sound icon is missing, had to add Pulse audio plugin.

Not all users might want this (or even have an audio card installed), so it's not included by default.

In the panel, the batery icon is mising, had to add Power manager plugin.

Not all users have a battery, so this is not included by default either.

In the panel, a transparent separator should be between the launchers the and the window buttons

Why?

The size of Icon help under Icons/Desktop should be smaller e.g. 64 instead of the default 128

I'm not sure I understand what you are referring to.

The hostname name in the panel at login(login/display manager) is not centered with the screen. This also happens with other distros...

Yes, I don't think it's possible to center it completely.

[babam]

Please upgrade intel-media-driver to 22.3.0 and intel-gmmlib to 22.1.1

https://github.com/intel/media-driver/a ... 3.0.tar.gz

https://github.com/intel/gmmlib/archive ... 1.1.tar.gz

It should add /etc/profile.d/intel-media.sh

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh

export LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=iHD

Thanks.

[missTell]

The Qojir icon-theme appears in duplicate under Appearence/Settings.

That's because one of them is the "default" theme in /usr/share/icons/default, which is a symlink to Qogir. Unfortunately we have to use it, as otherwise some applications will not include themed cursors.

Could be done in a different way, but it's a lot of extra work.

In the panel, the Network icon should be to the right of the Workspaces item

No, it was always on the left...

Should be, but yes, it was always placed wrong ...

In the panel, the Sound icon is missing, had to add Pulse audio plugin.

Not all users might want this (or even have an audio card installed), so it's not included by default.

Not all, but definitely most. Who needs a server, doesn't need it, but doesn't need Xfce either.

In the panel, the batery icon is mising, had to add Power manager plugin.

Not all users have a battery, so this is not included by default either.

It's much easier to have a Power manager plugin preinstalled and remove it, then to add it later -- if one thinks of 'users', and not of 'geeks'.

In the panel, a transparent separator should be between the launchers the and the window buttons

Why?

Because!

The size of Icon help under Icons/Desktop should be smaller e.g. 64 instead of the default 128

I'm not sure I understand what you are referring to.

About mouse-over message which is huge and should be 48 Px, instead of 128.

The hostname name in the panel at login(login/display manager) is not centered with the screen. This also happens with other distros...

Yes, I don't think it's possible to center it completely.

Not at all centered -- it should go all the way left, and all the rest, all the way right -- like in my VM and screenshots.

[missTell]

Some icon issues in Salix 15 RC1 ...


1. The first one is easy -- Hostnames icon is wrong for two reasons:

https://ibb.co/Jz1kfpD

- "@" symbol suggests e-mail configuration rather than network configuration. Globe-symbol is a much better choice.

- "@" symbol on this icon is far too big, so if it has to be "@", then it should at least have the size of the globe.

Fix: https://gofile.io/d/2MSO1B


2. Ristretto application icon is wrong.

https://ibb.co/VVcQ3LX

The same icon is used for "no-image" (missing, unrecognized image file...).

https://ibb.co/44yP8Kx

Ristretto needs another icon.

Fix: https://gofile.io/d/2MSO1B


3. Here we get 3 different sorts of issues ...

A. "Favorites" and "Recently Used" both uses "Folder+" icons, but one has a dark (star), and another one has a light (clock) symbol.

B. "All Applications" is using the wrong icon (more about that later), and additionally, it is not a "Folder+" but "Settings".
The same icon, but in another color is also used for "System", and it is again wrong, as it should be "Utilities".

There are so many "if's and when's" here that you should rather VERY CAREFULLY examine the following 3 screenshots beside each other (e.g., in 3 tabs).

https://ibb.co/ZJs0nnB
https://ibb.co/zsL6Z6R
https://ibb.co/cc0R4pW

C. The third issue is the "Accessories" icon, which is changing acording to the "Whisker" size.
This is the very same inconsistency issue which we had with browser icon, and which is a feature of junk icon-sets like Qogir.

https://ibb.co/ZJs0nnB
https://ibb.co/zsL6Z6R


A couple of days ago, I was reading some blog about Linux GTK-themes, which said something like, "we got 555 themes, and all of them are just bad".
The same goes for the Linux icon-themes ... well, for the Linux applications and the Linux distributions too.

Broken Qogir fits well to broken Xfce panel (icon scaling issue) -- so, almost a perfect pair.

Seriously, the issue with Qogir is, as I already told you in the past, that it's put together by combining the different icon-sets.

Such 'constructs' lead according to the icon-size used, to the following behavior:

https://ibb.co/b74GDkS
https://ibb.co/HrV5gMy
https://ibb.co/LpyRQk9
https://ibb.co/mRz48pb

And now, please carefully check the difference, if one uses a high-quality, professionally made icon-set, like Newaita.

https://ibb.co/jkGgcKw
https://ibb.co/z2MSt4N
https://ibb.co/Zd73G58
https://ibb.co/L6SQC3f

Not only that -- the professionally made icon-set works for any size.

Smaller:

https://ibb.co/GsPvb7J

(The smallest available size)

Larger:

https://ibb.co/0yFCKnd
https://ibb.co/StJZR17
https://ibb.co/JkrDH6Z
https://ibb.co/8z9TB8J

https://ibb.co/ZdLV1fw

(The largest available size)

* Of course, no icon-set is perfect and will always be missing some icons for one or another reason.
Sometimes the icons are there, but can't be found, because the application starter changed the icon-name after the icon-set was done.
Example would be 'missing' Ristretto icon in Newaita, which is there, but named 'ristretto' instead of 'org.ristretto...' org-whatever-gnomes-say.


P.S.
And so, the king decided to pull to war, as he judged that his wife was more important then the whole kingdom of Sparta and it's entire population ...

Be aware of choosing something based on "because I like it better" -- that's emotional thinking, which leads to a bad choice.
We know that people either think emotional or rational, and we know that the emotional thinking is inferior, and that'll lead to problems in most cases.

We are supposed to be smart, but the history repeats, and if you didn't know 'why' yet, now you know.

[gapan]

Should be, but yes, it was always placed wrong ...

No, it doesn't make sense. If you put the tray at the right of the workspaces, then the workspaces position will shift as items get added/removed from the tray. This way, workspaces is always at the same place.

About mouse-over message which is huge and should be 48 Px, instead of 128.

I don't see why it should be smaller. When you hover over an icon, it's because you want more details about it. Showing a bigger preview sometimes provides that extra info you need.

[gapan]

In the panel, a transparent separator should be between the launchers the and the window buttons

Oh, I thought you were talking about another separator as I thought one was already there, but apparently that somehow moved to the right of the window buttons and now there are two there... Oops.