Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

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gapan
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Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by gapan »

Hi all!

So here is the first beta for Salix 15.0! There's a ton of improvements and additions compared to the last alpha release. We're definitely getting a lot closer to a final 15.0 release.

I believe that all problems that have been reported with the last alpha relase are now fixed. Additionally, more of our standard tools, such as salix-codecs-installer and guefi are included. Our main package manager, spkg, has been updated to fix several issues that had popped up with 15.0.

One very important addition is that Flatpak is now installed by default and supported out of the box. This makes a huge range of software immediately available to Salix users. Just visit flathub.org (there is also a menu entry for that), search and click install! Desktop integration of flatpaks is possible through our new flatpak-tools package. I may yet add a few more tools in that package to make flatpak management in Salix even easier. Or use the flatpak tool from the command line, which allows you to install, upgrade and remove flatpaks.

Our own repositories have been filled with more than 1000 additional packages since the alpha and there is a lot more to come. There is not going to be a shortage of available software in 15.0, we're aiming for building almost everything from SBo and having it in our own binary package repositories.

With respect to Sourcery and spi, these tools are probably not going to make it to 15.0. There is not going to be a shortage of available software in 15.0, we're aiming for building almost everything from SBo and having it in our own binary repositories. Having users deal with the complications of building packages from source is something that I'd like to avoid. slapt-src is going to be included though, so doing it is not going to be impossible for anyone that wants to.

On a different note, we now have a new default icon theme and a new cursor theme, both coming from the Qogir project as well as a new Xfwm4 theme, specially made for Salix. The desktop layout has remained the same classic layout though, I don't find anything else as productive as that. We may still make some further changes until the final release, like replacing the standard Xfce menu with whiskermenu. Opinions welcome.

You may download the beta release using the following links:


Salix64 Xfce 15.0beta1 (64-bit, x86_64)
(md5: e52680bc676a0251da60cedd0836ca55, size: 1.4GB)
https://downloads.sourceforge.net/proje ... 0beta1.iso

Salix Xfce 15.0beta1 (32-bit, i586/i686)
(md5: 22a2eb8e1ac61c636189030aeca8a451, size: 1.4GB)
https://downloads.sourceforge.net/proje ... 0beta1.iso

Please include the following information if you report something:
* 32bit or 64bit iso
* UEFI or BIOS (in case of 64bit iso)
* Language during installation

Thank you for testing!
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laprjns
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Re: Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by laprjns »

Ok, I'll ask the question. If we have been keeping our alpha installed up to date with slapt-get --u & slapt-get --upg are we at beta or do we do a complete reinstall? Also, is it better from a testing standpoint to have us do a fresh install of beta?
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gapan
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Re: Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by gapan »

laprjns wrote: 27. May 2022, 10:47 Ok, I'll ask the question. If we have been keeping our alpha installed up to date with slapt-get --u & slapt-get --upg are we at beta or do we do a complete reinstall? Also, is it better from a testing standpoint to have us do a fresh install of beta?
You don't really have to reinstall. Only if you want to test the beta itself. Otherwise if you keep your system updated and install the few packages that were added, you should be OK.

So here's a more detailed list of what changed:
* vim was replaced by neovim
* pv was added
* flatpak and flatpak-tools + deps were added
* salix-polkit-settings was added
* a few packages replaced by their *-nogui versions (cmake, hplip, v4l-utils)
* salix-codecs-installer added
* guefi added
* qogir-icon-theme replaced mate-icon-theme and obsidian-cursors and became the default
* retrosmart-icon-theme was removed from the iso (appropriate changes to lightdm-greeter to change to qogir)
* salix-xfwm4-theme was added and became the default

And I think that's mostly it. Everything else should be covered by regular package updates. You'll need to change the default icon theme, cursors and xfwm4 theme yourself to the new ones if you want for your existing user, but new users should have the new themes by default.

BTW, laprjns, I don't know if you've already seen this, but if you can provide some input here: https://github.com/gapan/guefi/issues/1
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laprjns
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Re: Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by laprjns »

gapan wrote: 27. May 2022, 11:41 BTW, laprjns, I don't know if you've already seen this, but if you can provide some input here: https://github.com/gapan/guefi/issues/1
Yes, I saw the email and am planning on testing it, but the only rig I have with multiple drives is down right now. I need to find some time to get the rig back up and running. The good news is that I have multiple EFI partitions on the various drives, so once I get it working, testing should be quick.
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hugok
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Re: Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by hugok »

Excellent news @gapan. I will test the beta version and then give my feedback.

Regarding the classic Xfce menu or the Wisker menu I can't say for sure which I prefer. The classic menu is simple and easy to use but I find the whisker menu more modern and with more features. By the way, who wants to help with the translation of Whisker menu, this is where: https://www.transifex.com/gottcode/xfce ... dashboard/
Hugo Carvalho
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PelleB
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Re: Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by PelleB »

Nice work!

No problems booting and installing in an imac with dual core Intel Core2 Duo E8135 and 2GB memory. So far no problems running it either, but I just got started...
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mimosa
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Re: Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by mimosa »

Installation was straightforward (64 bit, UK English). The installer wouldn't install over my guest OS, though, even when I changed the partition type from 8303 (which is what MX Linux did) to 8300. I had to delete the partition and create a new one, which might have been awkward had this not been the last partition on that disk.

My setup has two hard disks, with an efi partition on each, but the installer only gave me the option of using the one on the disk I was installing to. rEFInd can see everything though.

I couldn't find the NM tray icon, but managed to connect to wifi using the "advanced" network configuration.

The tray icons for leafpad and browser don't seem intuitive to me - is the first one meant to be a pencil? In the alpha I think they were application-specific, with a nice green leaf, and the Mozilla globe.

Maybe I mean "panel" rather than "tray", I've never quite been sure of the difference.

salix-codecs-installer worked perfectly, and video playing well.

Thunar now opens other hard disk partitions with password.
hugok
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Re: Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by hugok »

The installation went well, on a old Acer Extensa 5620Z with the Portuguese(Portugal) language selected.
No problems booting also.
I will just improve the Installer translation a bit in some strings to make it more noticeable and fluid to the user when installing.
Besides that the system is very fast in this old laptop.
Nice overall artwork. Just find the window controls a bit small and tight l(minimize, maximize, close buttons) in the default theme.
The browser icon in the panel seems strange.
My wireless adapter is an Broadcom 4312 so no wireless out of the box, need to install b43 drivers...

So far so good...
Hugo Carvalho
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Papasot
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Re: Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by Papasot »

Now that we have reached beta, I wonder if there will be a "contributed packages" period, as when 14.2 reached beta. People familiar with Salix packaging tools could upload well-tested extra packages and post the corresponding output of slkbuild-postgen in Sourceforge so that those packages could be included in the final release.
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EricC
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Re: Salix Xfce 15.0beta1

Post by EricC »

Xfce panel size

The default panel row size of 30, changed Web Browser icon to something that is hard to decipher. If you change the panel row size to 36, the Web Browser icon returns to what I consider normal.
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