Salix KDE 14.1beta1

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djemos
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Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by djemos »

First I want to apologize to KDE Salix flavor. Last year i could not use it because of a hardware failure and i could not have 2 Salix flavors installed on my laptop. I really enjoyed working on it again. KDE is my first love.
Since i am responsible for KDE Salix edition, i decided to present Salix KDE as a whole.

Salix KDE 14.1beta1 complete release is here. Installation and Live ISO images.

Salix KDE 14.1 beta1 includes the stable 14.1 tree of Slackware and KDE 4.10.5 accompanied by a very rich collection of KDE centric software. Linux kernel is 3.10.17. Qupzilla is the web browser, KMail and Ktorrent are the main networking applications included in this release, followed by Akregator, an RSS reader for KDE, Kopete, the KDE instant messenger and more. It comes also with Openjre-7u51, rhino, icedtea-web. Wicd is used for setting up your wired or wireless networking connections.

In the multimedia section Bangarang has been replaced by dragon multimedia player, because Bangarang is not stable any more, Clementine 1.2.1, K3b 2.0.2 included. The Salix codecs installer application can be used, to quickly and easily install patent encumbered codecs to your system.

A wide variety of office applications are included. Calligra Words, Calligra Stage, Calligra Tables are the main office applications present while there are many more like KOrganizer, KAddressBook and the Okular document viewer.

In the graphics section Krita, Karbon, Gwenview, KColorChooser, KSnapshot.

The graphical Salix system tools are present too, making administrative tasks easy for everyone. Package management, as always, is done using slapt-get and its graphical frontend Gslapt. Sourcery graphical tool for managing and installing packages from SlackBuilds is included.


The Salix Live KDE 14.1 beta1 ISO includes the same programs as the installation ISO, with the addition of gslapt and deps for it, need for partitioning before making the installation. It is build using Slackware Live scripts from Slackware Live -LiNomad and includes the SLI installer i have written in c (gtk+2) and glade. From SLI installer gui user can set new username and password ( there is no root account, as in the installation ISO). (e)Lilo is used as the boot loader for 32 and 64 bit systems, same with the installation ISO image's. Also can install the system in a usb (frugal) and use persistent changes, having Salix in your pocket.

There is no live kernel. The kernel used is exactly the same with the 3.10.17 kernel of Slackware.
With this approach creating the installation iso's, at the same time using the already downloaded packages can build the live flavor too.
source's on github for creating live isos.

You don't need a password for the regular user and auto-logged in user one
Password for user one is “one” and you need it for kdesu since this is superuser.

Screenshots

You can download iso images from our sourceforge project page, using the following links:

Installation ISO images
32-bit (i686):
(size: 844MB, md5sum: cd2149b113a955b6a65824b803558324)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download

64-bit (x86_64):
(size 853MB, md5sum: 50c3113a89905b8210d432437da36821)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download


Live ISO images
32-bit (i686):
(size: 903MB, md5sum: 2c1a0c09dd6d0fb03fdfa39e6bcc3bd4)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download

64-bit (x86_64):
(size: 935MB, md5sum: e0963f7a5124db9f178fda5df7a10366)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download


Thanks for testing.
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laprjns
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Re: Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by laprjns »

64-bit installation iso booted uefi, installed without problems and new install boots via uefi. Once up and running i didn't run into any problems except for Kwalletmanger which didn't start up.
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?"
djemos
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Joined: 29. Dec 2009, 13:45
Location: Greece

Re: Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by djemos »

Thanks laprjns.
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mimosa
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Re: Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by mimosa »

Very slow launch of X on slow hardware - not unexpected but does seem particularly slow.

Dolphin won`t open most partitions, perhyaps something to do with permissions. Here is an example message

Code: Select all

An error occurred while accessing 'Home', the system responded: The requested operation has failed.: Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 1: helper failed with:
ntfs-3g-mount: user has no write access to mountpoint /mnt/sdb7
If there was an option during boot to set a non-US keyboard, I missed it. But I think this is working in the official Live alpha

It's nice to have GParted even though there is a native KDE partition manager. I think GParted is better. However, again, it is extremely slow to scan the USB stick (created with dd) and conclude that it doesn\t have a proper partition table - ten minutes and counting.

I do have another faster machine I[ll test this on when I have a moment; most of my hardware isn`t really powerful enough for KDE Live /)

... finally, composing this post in Qupzilla, I click on submit, and the forum server tells me my messge contains too few characters. I cut and paste into dwb. Here goes ...

EDIT

Also, when I search for GParted in the launcher, two options appear - 'Gparted" and "run gparted". Neither of them work, something about kdesu setup. Ihave to call gparted from terminal. This time I see a message saying the "circular partition table" problem is a parted bug, and everything works more quickly.

I suspect many of these problems are due to insuffucient respurces and no swap (1GB RAM on that machine, I think)
djemos
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Re: Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by djemos »

I suppose you test KDE Live beta1.
First you need a lot of memory 1.6 to 2GB to run it in virtualbox. KDE is hungry on resources. I could not run it in virtual box in my machine (I have 2 GB total memory, i can give only more than 740MB on virtualbox) so maybe all these problems come because of this.
About ntfs paritions i will take a look. But i think i have corrected this is init on initrd image to not mount on boot time partitions on /mnt.
Dolphin then does this when user click on these partitions from dolphin.

Edit: I have done the corrections on slackel-kde. Since salix-kde announced first. I did not made the corrections. I changed the initrd and i have rsync isos in repos. I am writing this from salixlive kde-4.10.5-64 update iso, running from livedvd after burning to a dvd disk.
ntfs partitions are mounted fine from dolphin. Folders in ntfs partitions with greek names or files are shown fine also.
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mimosa
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Re: Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by mimosa »

On reflection I think some of the problems I had with mounting may have been because I tried the installer, and aborted it; probably some partitions remained mounted, but with restrictive permissions. Yes, it was Salix KDE live beta. Yes, low memory - probably just 1GB.

I also had some problems with odd colours like black, for instance when I installed dwb after the trouble I had posting the previous post with qupzilla. I've seen this before with KDE.
djemos
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Re: Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by djemos »

Colors for gtk applications in KDE are the same as in previous KDE. This has been solved. Only the hints help messages in installer have letters in white with a dark background, which is ok. On all other gtk appplications letters are black in a light blue background as in previous kde edition.
I did not find any app crashing. It is very stable.
For kwallet. User can run it. Then next to clock to the bottom click on arrow and there is kwallet. Once click on kwallet, it appeared and user can set a new wallet and set password for it. So kwallet is running fine.
Running live kde from a dvd i show 640MB of memory was used. I have 2GB of memory on my laptop. Of cource from booting to come up in desktop KDE need 2GB. It is a heavy environment and not for old pc. For this reason user can use xfce or openbox, fluxbox. They are lighter environments. Openbox on a cold boot need 100 to 110MB and for everyday work ( to use libreoffice etc) 256MB of memory are enough. It is turbo. :)
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mimosa
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Re: Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by mimosa »

Indeed, then I tried SLackel OPenbox 6.0 Live :)

However, I used the dd method. Looks like there is no install-on-USB.sh in /boot. Is there an alternative way? Or an earlier Slackel Live you'd recommend?

Other than that, the only option seems to be Salix Live 13.37. For now, I have Xubuntu with persistence - it is very slow, slower than Salix KDE Live ;)

EDIT

Regarding funny colours, try dwb - I think this affected hinting. Type o $URL to open a website and f for hinting. ESC to get back to 'command' mode, if in insert mode or typing something like a URL.
djemos
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Re: Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by djemos »

You can use the dd method to install on usb. Or use the installer while running a livecd.
Choose copy to /dev/sdb or whatever is you usb mounted. Don't choose /dev/sdb1,2 etc.
So usb will be formated and a frugal installation wil happen. And also usb will become bootable.
Thereis also another method but you will need syslinux installed and i have to check it also.
You can try slackel-live 3.1 openbox which created using SaLT. So there is install_on_USB.sh in /boot.


Edit:
There are also these live iso images which are working fine.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download

And this installattion image which also is working fine.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download


It is a pitty there are remained as betas.

I hope salixlive-kde-4.10.5 to not be another beta, since it is working fine.
If this will happen this will be the last salix live KDE edition made by me. Anyone else of cource can build in the future a KDE iso.
In case it will remain beta again.

I want to say it is worth the time to build a salix openbox installation and live cd and remain again beta since people not interesting. We have to ask users what editions they like to use and then stay on these editions.
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mimosa
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Re: Salix KDE 14.1beta1

Post by mimosa »

It can be tricky to get users to test betas ;) but that doesn't mean there is no interest. We need to discuss as a team the best way to coordinate, focus and promote development work in the broader Salix community.
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