DSL v4.0 alpha2
Forum: Release Candidates
Topic: DSL v4.0 alpha2
started by: roberts
Posted by roberts on July 31 2007,04:46
Change log for DSL v4.0 Alpha2* Fixed bug reported upon shutdown - cleanup now working.
* Added more associations for dfm.
* Updated exit.lua to support swm "exit to prompt".
* Fixed bug with dfm when booted "legacy".
* Added .mtoolsrc mtools_skip_check=1
* Cut rarely used modules (will be available as a separate download).
* Restored netfilter modules for rc.firewall.
* Fixed bug in cpanel concerning start of cron (MyCron).
* Fixed bug in dsl-config for hard drive installations.
* Fixed wrong cloop in core affecting hard drive installations.
* Improved hard drive installation for new MyDSL system.
* Fixed bug in flux2jwm affecting menu items doubling up.
* Updated many icons for better appearance.
* Red folder now opens with root privileges.
* Commented out xload monitor in jwm since torsmo provides this.
Posted by sankarv on July 31 2007,17:27
Good to see another alpha in this short time. dfm has a new look and nice, looking forward to see the stable version.
Posted by roberts on July 31 2007,22:17
Forgot one more item on the change log dsl4a2:* Added runlevel 3 support, as per suggestion in the forum (dsl 3) provides multiple root text consoles
Posted by cmanb on Aug. 01 2007,03:27
These alpha releases are not available as torrents?
Posted by andrewb on Aug. 02 2007,02:10
RobertS:DSL 3 gives multiple (4) consoles logged in as user DSL, not root.
See also my post in the NET section on Unionfs. The same behavior is seen in DSL 3.4 & 4.0a2.
Posted by roberts on Aug. 02 2007,03:50
Opps, my bad. I was working on DSL v3.4.1. Not yet in 4a. But will be.
Posted by jls legalize on Aug. 03 2007,13:47
Roberts, did u change any files that we could have in our backups from alpha1?win95=win4.0 similar to dsl4.0
legalize cannabis , etc
Posted by roberts on Aug. 03 2007,14:17
Upgrade an alpha? Brave soul..dfmext
.dfminfo
.dfmdesk/
| Quote |
| win95=win4.0 similar to dsl4.0 |
Only one of many personalities ( UI ) of dsl4.0
Depends on boot options chosen (fluxbox, swm, noicons, lowmem, etc)
Current default is actually closer to OS/2.
Posted by humpty on Aug. 04 2007,21:24
Am getting used to dfm now.Knowing the shortcuts really helps.
I think the help section on 'Icons and File Management' should be bumped up a section in the help file. And there are other useful shortcuts
(e.g ctrl-d, ctrl-n, ctrl-s, ctrl-i, shift-double-click). This would help the newbie a great deal before giving up.
Where's the theme changer in jwm ? fluxbox menus seem to to better here.
The help file also says "When using fluxbox.. right click on the
bottom edge of the screen.." - but this doesn't seem to do anything except bring up the right-click menu, (which it does anywhere). (?)
yeh, the dfm site does mention it being based on OS2. the new icons and fluxbox does help get rid of some of that taste though.
(Oh I do miss those app icons. i think i'll go search for a png converter..)
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Aug. 04 2007,21:38
| Quote |
| The help file also says "When using fluxbox.. right click on the bottom edge of the screen.." - but this doesn't seem to do anything except bring up the right-click menu, (which it does anywhere). (?) |
Posted by humpty on Aug. 04 2007,21:44
oh i see. (i had context turned off!).also is there any chance of a default bigger mouse cursor with the final 4.0 ?
Posted by roberts on Aug. 04 2007,23:02
| Quote (humpty @ Aug. 04 2007,14:44) |
| oh i see. (i had context turned off!). also is there any chance of a default bigger mouse cursor with the final 4.0 ? |
Try some out with...
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr
post what you like and lets see.
As for icons, it is amazing how much space can be used up with many png/gif/jpg icons. Also, many of our smaller brothers could not even display these icons. I am trying to save as much space as possible and still look ok. Also, to allow the very oldest of hardware to display them. I am using xpm for that reason. Also, because I want to ability to directly manipulate them via lua.
You can use imagemagick's convert to this format.
xtdesk can display xpm as well. A batch script could be run to convert all the extension's icons to this format. However, we were using 48x48 and often when resizing down to 32x32 you lose quality. It is trying to support the exising dsl v3x and prior and the new dsl v4. It would be easier to drop support for the older versions of DSL and move on. But I don't think that is likely at this point.
Posted by lucky13 on Aug. 05 2007,00:25
| Quote |
| Where's the theme changer in jwm ? fluxbox menus seem to to better here. |
There's not a changer. Your menu is XML, so are the themes. Scroll down to "Themes."
< http://24.254.249.181:8080/jwmguide.php >
Posted by humpty on Aug. 05 2007,22:46
Am just voicing the newbie's viewpoint here, this milestoneis a good opportunity to gain more followers;
roberts> xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr
Tried those before, they are all small. I'm currently using
Mikshaw's dsl-artwiz.tar.gz - cursor.pcf, but this seems like
a long way of going about it.
lucky13> There's not a changer. Your menu is XML,..
Again, some predefined themes and a simple way to change them
for the newbie.
Icons: A mass convert on the depositry is not a bad idea, at least
something would be shown instead of the 'box' icon, although the
older dsl versions would lose quality. An 'inline' convert in the
extension loader would be better, but the overhead in the extra code
might be too much. A compromise might be a mass convert to .xbm (48x48) (edit:I mean .xpm)
and inline coding to just resize.
Posted by lucky13 on Aug. 05 2007,23:06
| Quote |
| Again, some predefined themes and a simple way to change them for the newbie. |
Did Robert use jwm 2.0+? See the red letters. Can't miss'em. :-)
< http://24.254.249.181:8080/cgi-bin/themes.pl >
That leave the fun, easy way: Open .jwmrc, choose your font, choose your colors, choose your sizes for tray and borders. RTM and decide what other options you want (tray on top or side, autohide, etc.).
Posted by infinitycircuit on Aug. 11 2007,02:53
Is anyone else experiencing an awful interaction between torsmo and dfm? Whenever I boot DSL 4.0 with the background context of dfm enabled, right-clicking on the desktop and using a dfm feature results in torsmo reseting and failing to show up again for a couple seconds, instead of the usual quick return. Similarly, when it refreshes every 5 seconds, it takes several seconds to even reappear. I suspect double_buffer might not be set, but I don't have it in in front of me to check.
Posted by humpty on Aug. 11 2007,13:58
| Quote (humpty @ Aug. 06 2007,02:46) |
| A compromise might be a mass convert to .xbm (48x48) (edit:I mean .xpm) and inline coding to just resize. |
It appears dfm accepts icons other than 32x32 (e.g aterm).
Anyways, I offer an .xpm resizer (albeit no lua);
< http://petepr.hopto.org/dsl/tools/tools.html >
Posted by lucky13 on Aug. 11 2007,16:07
Think of 32x32 a uniform standard or convention.| Quote |
| Anyways, I offer an .xpm resizer |
I offer another:
| Code Sample |
| imagemagick convert -geometry ... |
Posted by humpty on Aug. 11 2007,16:36
| Quote (lucky13 @ Aug. 11 2007,20:07) | ||||
I offer another:
|
eh, I meant for the extension loader (can't expect the distro to include imagemagick). It can probably be done with lua, and it would be a lot smaller too (anyone up for the challenge?)
Posted by roberts on Aug. 11 2007,16:57
I would rather batch convert the extensions and have 32x32 be the new standard. Perhaps I will issue a 3.x with resized xtdesk icons as well.
The less processing done dynamcially, as this only benefits eye candy, the better the performance on our smaller machines.
Posted by infinitycircuit on Aug. 11 2007,17:24
I was just digging through the (unfortunately) outdated wireless configuration script and I encountered something interesting. The variable declaration in wlcardconfig:| Code Sample |
| WLDEVICES=`grep -v "|" /proc/net/wireless | awk -F: '{print $1}]` |
This seems to produce two leading spaces when executed, i.e. it gives:
" wlan0"
When I tried to use this command in another script, the two leading spaces caused errors. (I removed these with the ugly addition of a third pipe: "| sed -e 's/ //g' ".)
Is there any reason why these leading spaces don't produce an error in the current wlcardconfig? I personally use a text-based script I wrote that autoconfigures wpa_supplicant in the same way for my wireless configuration, but I was just curious in terms of the script in DSL why this wouldn't produce an error.
On another note, cpu frequency scaling on my Gateway Turion 64 laptop, which worked in DSL 3.4 but failed in DSL 3.4RC1 also does not work with DSL 4. I could find no discernable reason why it would work in 3.4 final but not 3.4RC1; it might be some weird problem that can't be easily fixed.
Finally, Dillo autostarting is not working for me in DSL 4 - it doesn't show up like it does in previous versions.
Posted by lucky13 on Aug. 11 2007,23:18
| Quote |
| I could find no discernable reason why it would work in 3.4 final but not 3.4RC1; it might be some weird problem that can't be easily fixed. |
Excellent, because 3.4rc1 was *superceded* by other release candidates and ultimately the official version (3.4). See the notes/changelog. I don't know why you would be concerned about a release candidate when the official version is already out.
| Quote |
| Dillo autostarting is not working for me in DSL 4 - it doesn't show up like it does in previous versions. |
How are you running DSL? CD, USB, frugal, debian-style?
Posted by roberts on Aug. 12 2007,00:39
I usually try to be responsive to fourm user requests and other observations that I have come to my attention. Specifically two areas are presently on my mind.1. The real benefits of the 2.4.34.1 kernel presently in alpha.
2. The real need for support of ipw2100 and ipw2000 wireless.
Both ipw2x00 and sata were supported in 2.4.31 (dsl 2.1b). Several other extensions were made for 2.4.31including an nvidia one.
No one has yet to contribute a 2.4.34.1 module based extension. Therefore we have less hardware support than before. And it appears that some hardware such as ipw2x00 is no longer supported by later 2.4.x kernels, or at least newer hacks are not available. Of course a 2.6 kernel easily supports these but is physically much larger than a 2.4.
Since we are still at an alpha stage, is it worth considering for me to deploy the 2.4.31 kernel and modules of dsl 2.1b to the new basis for 4.0?
We would instantly gain additional hardware support. Some of which 2.4.31 was the last kernel for which a hack is available.
Would like feedback from the community.
Future roadmap would be DSL v5.0 to be a small core 2.6 kernel based system.
But for DSL 4.0, the question I pose to the community, is shall DSL use 2.4.31 with existing modules or 2.4.34.1 and hope that some who have such hardware and/or a hack exists to create such module(s).
-- Robert
Posted by infinitycircuit on Aug. 12 2007,02:37
| Quote (lucky13 @ Aug. 11 2007,19:18) | ||||
Excellent, because 3.4rc1 was *superceded* by other release candidates and ultimately the official version (3.4). See the notes/changelog. I don't know why you would be concerned about a release candidate when the official version is already out.
How are you running DSL? CD, USB, frugal, debian-style? |
With regard to the issue of DSL 3.4 RC1, it was the only release candidate, and the changelog between it and the final version did not mention changes to the acpi scripts, as far as I know. I don't want to get off topic - I'm just mentioning it as a reason why acpi might be having a weird interaction with something else.
I have performed Frugal, Hard Drive, and LiveCD 'installs' and have never gotten Dillo to autostart.
Posted by roberts on Aug. 12 2007,03:00
There have been no changes to the acpi scripts.
Posted by lucky13 on Aug. 12 2007,05:01
| Quote |
| Future roadmap would be DSL v5.0 to be a small core 2.6 kernel based system. |
If that's where the road is leading, then 4.0 may as well use 2.4.31 so the existing module extensions can be used. It doesn't make much sense to put out a call for new 2.4.34 modules if DSL will abandon 2.4 in the (relatively) near future.
Posted by lucky13 on Aug. 12 2007,05:07
| Quote |
| I have performed Frugal, Hard Drive, and LiveCD 'installs' and have never gotten Dillo to autostart. |
Did you edit it out of your .xinitrc? It's definitely in mine -- I know it's on the CD and was on my desktop hard drive install til I edited it out (just did fresh install Saturday morning).
Posted by humpty on Aug. 12 2007,05:23
has the 'optional' directory been done away with?
Posted by Key on Aug. 12 2007,05:42
For me it doesn't make a big difference, if the kernel of 2.1b or if the kernel of 4.0 alpha is used - both are not working on my new computer.Yesterday, I have tried Ubuntu for the first time, but I also do not like this, as well I do not like Puppy.
So I'm still hoping for a new supported kernel in DSL.
Till there is a DSL 5, this could take a year approximately or even longer?
With nearly no Linux programming knowledge, I unfortunately still do not know how complex it is to have one version with 2 different kernels.
Is it more complex than I think?
Or is it just a question of philosophy?
Posted by lucky13 on Aug. 12 2007,05:58
| Quote |
| Till there is a DSL 5, this could take a year approximately or even longer? |
I wouldn't think it would take that long, but I'm not the developer. What was the time between 2.0 and 3.0 -- something like six months? Robert moves development along at a pretty brisk pace.
| Quote |
| Is it more complex than I think? Or is it just a question of philosophy? |
Complexity is in the eye of the beholder. Part of it is finding time to work on it (which I haven't had since we last discussed this), part of it is demand, etc. I don't know what Robert's thoughts are on having only one version (4) of DSL support two kernels if he's moving development of the next major version (5) to only one of them anyway. I know what my thoughts are and you probably don't want to hear them...
Posted by infinitycircuit on Aug. 12 2007,16:09
| Quote (lucky13 @ Aug. 12 2007,01:07) | ||
Did you edit it out of your .xinitrc? It's definitely in mine -- I know it's on the CD and was on my desktop hard drive install til I edited it out (just did fresh install Saturday morning). |
It is in my .xinitrc, I just checked. Whatever - I read it so it's just as well that I don't have to edit it out myself now.
I think that moving back to 2.4.31 would be fine if that allows you to save work roberts without much lost functionality.