Salix OS

The first alpha release of Salix 14.2 is here. This release mainly targets developers and packagers that want to have an easy and fast way of installing a preliminary clean 14.2 system, without having to install 14.1 first and then upgrade that to 14.2.

It has been a lot of time since 14.1 was released, so almost everything has been updated. And due to all the changes, most likely everything will need a rebuild from what is found in 14.1.

Here's a list of known issues:

- you might not be able to launch X on a UEFI system and the 64bit iso. At least it wasn't possible for me in a single Virtualbox installation that I have tried. This could probably be only just an issue with Virtualbox and UEFI,
because I installed the VirtualBox additions and then I could get X. It might not be a problem with installing on real UEFI hardware. More testing is needed.
- if you use the 64bit iso, at boot, select the english locale. All others won't work anyway.
- during installation, make sure you select the correct source for packages with the first try. If you're installing from a CD, don't select "USB stick" as the source. The installation will later fail and you'll have to restart the
installer.
- the wpa_gui, hplip and v4l-utils GUIs don't work
- leafpad doesn't start. Update the package using the package manager (You should get a notification about it soon after boot).
- you'll have to start NetworkManager manually after first boot to have network access: sudo service start networkmanager
- you'll have to select firefox as the default browser when you first click on the quicklaunch icon
- no locale packages in the repositories yet
- some applications/packages are missing. The main ones are: webkitgtk, claws-mail, flash-plugin, libreoffice, openjre, transmission, zim
- a lot of codecs are missing, as well as salix-codecs-installer. So don't expect anything gstreamer-based to play proprietary formats.
- the artwork is exactly the same as in 14.1. This will change (we're open to suggestions).

There's a lot of work to be done. You can start submitting packages now. Feel free to package anything you're missing from your day-to-day work first.

In the mean time, Didier Spaier has been working hard on the installer. He's made it possible to translate the installer in different languages and borrowing translations from his slint project (http://slint.fr/), most of the
translations are almost complete! This alpha does not include these translations, but these will appear in future releases. We're hoping to support as many languages as possible in the installer and we will ask translators for contributions when the infrastructure is ready.

You can download this release from Sourceforge or using a torrent client, using the following links:

Salix Xfce 14.2alpha2 (32-bit, i586)
(size: 763MB, md5: 3c74fc08b0c4c68bd1ffeea6563fb50f)
Sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/ ... o/download
torrent: http://people.salixos.org/gapan/iso/sal ... so.torrent

Salix64 Xfce 14.2alpha2 (64-bit, x86_64)
(size: 711MB, md5: c3614cdf85e620a2dedf262961d5dbdf)
Sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/ ... o/download
torrent: http://people.salixos.org/gapan/iso/sal ... so.torrent

Happy testing!

Another issue: atril (the pdf viewer) won't start unless you install the libmate-desktop package.

Did a uefi install if Salix64 14.2 on real hardware (Asus Laptop) using the installation iso on a USB stick. Did have one problem running the installer. Immediately after selecting a repository and pressing the enter keying reposetup it dropped down into a command line prompt and print out the following error; ERROR: Expected a number for token 3 of --yesno use --help to list options, however I was able to reboot and start up the new 14.2 installation.

Another issue was with Networkmanager. I was able to start the network service, and it was able to display a list of available Wifi network, but I had no clue how to enter the wifi password and connect.

Downloading the 64 bit ISO now. Just saw a mention of it on Distrowatch. Will post results back soon.

laprjns wrote:Did a uefi install if Salix64 14.2 on real hardware (Asus Laptop) using the installation iso on a USB stick. Did have one problem running the installer. Immediately after selecting a repository and pressing the enter keying reposetup it dropped down into a command line prompt and print out the following error; ERROR: Expected a number for token 3 of --yesno use --help to list options, however I was able to reboot and start up the new 14.2 installation.

Another issue was with Networkmanager. I was able to start the network service, and it was able to display a list of available Wifi network, but I had no clue how to enter the wifi password and connect.

I got the same "Expected a token" error on both 64 and 32 bit installs.

'sudo service start networkmanager' got the network running for me.

In Virtual Box I tried Auto Install and got an installpkg error #2. Tried a manual install, creating a 1GB swap and a 9.5GB ext 4 root and then Install full. Got to the Xfce desktop, but no network connection. Will try a real install tomorrow.

jsalpha2 wrote:In Virtual Box I tried Auto Install and got an installpkg error #2.

Thanks for the report! Did you use the 32bit or the 64bit iso?

jsalpha2 wrote:Tried a manual install, creating a 1GB swap and a 9.5GB ext 4 root and then Install full. Got to the Xfce desktop, but no network connection. Will try a real install tomorrow.

Please read the known issues in the first post. You should be able to get network-manager started.

Hi all. Long time, no Salix!

I installed 14.2alpha1 on my HP Pavilion (ca. 2007) laptop. No issues to add to what others have already observed.

It works great - more beta than alpha quality, once you get past the installer - and is fast as all get out. I like it.

Hmm, one quirk: applications using ALSA directly (e.g. moc, alsamixer) don't work correctly, since they can't open the mixer. It looks like Pulse doesn't have ALSA emulation enabled by default.

My current workaround is to comment out both lines in the default /etc/asound.conf. This make the system fall back on ALSA entirely, and actually prevents the Pulse daemon from spawning. For me this is an entirely adequate solution. It might not be if you have a USB sound device or something, though.

laprjns wrote:Did a uefi install if Salix64 14.2 on real hardware (Asus Laptop) using the installation iso on a USB stick. Did have one problem running the installer. Immediately after selecting a repository and pressing the enter keying reposetup it dropped down into a command line prompt and print out the following error; ERROR: Expected a number for token 3 of --yesno use --help to list options, however I was able to reboot and start up the new 14.2 installation.

Another issue was with Networkmanager. I was able to start the network service, and it was able to display a list of available Wifi network, but I had no clue how to enter the wifi password and connect.

sudo service start networkmanager" might get you up and running for the first time - however you will need to do some adjustments in /etc/dbus-1/system.d.
i had to do it as the network manager wont hold across reboots. It is simple - you will need to use gksudo to edit the dbus folder. ( remember su/root is disabled by default)

anyway read here : the chapter where it says "running as a non-root user"": ( you will find only 3 .conf files :NetworkManager.conf/nm-applet.conf /nm-avahi-autoipd.conf . Make the change for all 3 of them that will suffice.
https://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Nm-applet

Then reboot and enjoy the new Salix - its lightning fast!