Salix Xfce 14.1beta1
Posted: 31. Dec 2013, 16:00
We have finally packaged all the software that is required for an Xfce iso release, so it's time for a first beta for 14.1! This release includes a lot of changes compared to the previous 14.1alpha1 release and to the 14.0.1 release.
First of all, there are changes with the installer. The most obvious change is that reposetup is run at the end of the configuration stage now. Also, if a hard disk with a GPT partitioning scheme is present, it should be detected and cgdisk should be run instead of cfdisk. This hasn't been tested at all though. In EFI enabled systems, the 64bit release should prompt to install ELILO instead of LILO, but this hasn't been tested at all either. It might work or it might not work at all. Since I have no hardware to test all that, it's mostly guess work. We had some talks about Grub replacing LILO, but from what I'm reading online ELILO has a much bigger success rate compared to Grub, so we're sticking with that, just as Slackware did. The installer itself was tweaked to allow Grub installation though, if Grub is available in the iso (which isn't). So if someone adds a Grub package to the iso and LILO is also there, you'll get a dialog asking which one to use (which you don't get now, because there's only LILO there). If only Grub is included in the iso, it will be used by default. But we have LILO and ELILO and that's it. Confused yet?
The 32-bit iso only includes an i686 SMP enabled kernel, as the 14.0 releases did. The iso size has grown considerably and it was a big struggle to make it fit within CD size. The 64-bit iso is beyond the CD size limit anyway. The flash-plugin package was removed from the iso, not only because of size. I would like to get rid of it in general, but for now it will be installed if you run the Salix codecs installer along with all other codecs. Pitivi was also removed from the iso, it was probably the application that was used less than anything else on it. It will be available in the repositories later though. Also, subversion and cvs have been removed from the iso. They took up a lot of space and I don't think a lot of people use them anymore, it seems everyone uses git these days and everyone that actually needs them probably knows how to find them through the package manager.
There are a lot of things that have been added to the iso as well though. Most are stuff that run in the background. Gstreamer 1.x packages have been included and installed side by side with gstreamer 0.10.x packages, since one version is needed by some applications in the iso and the other from some other applications. Also, GTK+3 is included too, as Transmission only works with GTK+3 now, dumping GTK+2.
One major addition (although tiny in size) is the inclusion of spi, a new command line package management tool that is now the recommended way to search for and install packages and SlackBuilds. spi is a tool that acts as a wrapper around slapt-get and slapt-src and also allows dependency handling crossing over to the "other side" if needed. Please run man spi (or gtkman spi) to read how it works, it should be easy enough.
Another change is the switch to our own gksu implementation that is gnsu. This actually uses sudo as a backend and if you want to run something in the system menu, you'll need to provide your own password now, instead of the root user password. You can tune up sudo permissions by running visudo from a root terminal. By default, everyone in the "users" group is allowed to get superuser priviliges by running sudo.
As far as all other software, everything has been updated to newer versions (if available). Not too many surprises there. A lot of software has already been added to our repositories thanks to our packagers. We're still not at the same level as our 14.0 repositories, but we're getting there.
We also have a new logo, created by our user Alejandro Simón. You'll see it in the Xfce menu. It hasn't yet replaced the old logo in this website and everywhere else, but it will eventually.
So, please download the beta and report any problems you might find.
Salix Xfce 14.1beta1 (32-bit, i686):
(size: 702MB, md5: c2094a13039542f5ef7e3ccab394f73a)
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
torrent: http://download.salixos.org/i486/14.1/i ... so.torrent
Salix64 Xfce 14.1beta1 (64-bit, x86_64):
(size: 715MB, md5: 7289de679e257d9c98464199b06c51d9)
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
torrent: http://download.salixos.org/x86_64/14.1 ... so.torrent
Happy testing and a happy new year!
First of all, there are changes with the installer. The most obvious change is that reposetup is run at the end of the configuration stage now. Also, if a hard disk with a GPT partitioning scheme is present, it should be detected and cgdisk should be run instead of cfdisk. This hasn't been tested at all though. In EFI enabled systems, the 64bit release should prompt to install ELILO instead of LILO, but this hasn't been tested at all either. It might work or it might not work at all. Since I have no hardware to test all that, it's mostly guess work. We had some talks about Grub replacing LILO, but from what I'm reading online ELILO has a much bigger success rate compared to Grub, so we're sticking with that, just as Slackware did. The installer itself was tweaked to allow Grub installation though, if Grub is available in the iso (which isn't). So if someone adds a Grub package to the iso and LILO is also there, you'll get a dialog asking which one to use (which you don't get now, because there's only LILO there). If only Grub is included in the iso, it will be used by default. But we have LILO and ELILO and that's it. Confused yet?
The 32-bit iso only includes an i686 SMP enabled kernel, as the 14.0 releases did. The iso size has grown considerably and it was a big struggle to make it fit within CD size. The 64-bit iso is beyond the CD size limit anyway. The flash-plugin package was removed from the iso, not only because of size. I would like to get rid of it in general, but for now it will be installed if you run the Salix codecs installer along with all other codecs. Pitivi was also removed from the iso, it was probably the application that was used less than anything else on it. It will be available in the repositories later though. Also, subversion and cvs have been removed from the iso. They took up a lot of space and I don't think a lot of people use them anymore, it seems everyone uses git these days and everyone that actually needs them probably knows how to find them through the package manager.
There are a lot of things that have been added to the iso as well though. Most are stuff that run in the background. Gstreamer 1.x packages have been included and installed side by side with gstreamer 0.10.x packages, since one version is needed by some applications in the iso and the other from some other applications. Also, GTK+3 is included too, as Transmission only works with GTK+3 now, dumping GTK+2.
One major addition (although tiny in size) is the inclusion of spi, a new command line package management tool that is now the recommended way to search for and install packages and SlackBuilds. spi is a tool that acts as a wrapper around slapt-get and slapt-src and also allows dependency handling crossing over to the "other side" if needed. Please run man spi (or gtkman spi) to read how it works, it should be easy enough.
Another change is the switch to our own gksu implementation that is gnsu. This actually uses sudo as a backend and if you want to run something in the system menu, you'll need to provide your own password now, instead of the root user password. You can tune up sudo permissions by running visudo from a root terminal. By default, everyone in the "users" group is allowed to get superuser priviliges by running sudo.
As far as all other software, everything has been updated to newer versions (if available). Not too many surprises there. A lot of software has already been added to our repositories thanks to our packagers. We're still not at the same level as our 14.0 repositories, but we're getting there.
We also have a new logo, created by our user Alejandro Simón. You'll see it in the Xfce menu. It hasn't yet replaced the old logo in this website and everywhere else, but it will eventually.
So, please download the beta and report any problems you might find.
Salix Xfce 14.1beta1 (32-bit, i686):
(size: 702MB, md5: c2094a13039542f5ef7e3ccab394f73a)
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
torrent: http://download.salixos.org/i486/14.1/i ... so.torrent
Salix64 Xfce 14.1beta1 (64-bit, x86_64):
(size: 715MB, md5: 7289de679e257d9c98464199b06c51d9)
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
torrent: http://download.salixos.org/x86_64/14.1 ... so.torrent
Happy testing and a happy new year!