R9 Information

[biffster]

**As you can see this information has changed quite a bit...please be sure and read the release information posted on 5-30-2015 that has the latest release information**

Hi all,

Thought I would share some early wattOS R9 information. Here is what I can tell you today.

1. wattOS R9 will be based on Debian Jessie. It is frozen now, and I have been testing for a while with good results.
2. wattOS R9 will have an LXDE and Mate'  version with both 32bit and 64bit versions. (briefly looked at Cinnamon, but seemed a little to heavy)
3. There will be a microwatt version, but the details of that are not settled yet as there is more testing to do (and information). It will be 32bit only and be focused on old hardware/small footprint
4. The application list (core apps) will be forthcoming soon. (days not weeks from now)
5. The target release is late December or early January.
6. Its not clear if the upgrade path from R8 to R9 will be "rolling release" like Debian normally is, or new type install as in the past (with ubuntu upstream). I have been testing R8 to Jessie paths, and there is more work to do as early testing has resulted in breakage and dependency issues..... Obviously the desired path for some would be to execute an upgrade path with a script or simple commands rather than a reinstall, but no promises yet.

Feel free to ask questions here, or if you have certain "desires"

enjoy.....biff

[blaze]

Looks fine to me. Personally I prefer a fresh install, instead of an upgrade. But I guess that will not be a problem?  Though we better be finished with this one question right from the start, I know there is many wondering about it, why no 64 bit of the Openbox Microwatt release? 

[cheiron]

Little bit disappointed to see we're staying debian here with R9 given the issues from 8 and installation problems of needed programs like skype, nautilus and other pae packages essential for modern use.


I do understand why the stay with debian though also and hope these issues can be worked through.


I'll keep an eye on the forums for further information on R9

[leenie]

I am glad you decided on the testing version. Maybe clean up the menu a little and do a boot splash (I like the one from wattOS R5...)

[biffster]

Thanks for the replies all.

the 64bit openbox answer is really an answer of time and focus. wattOS evolved from one version one version to now 5. (32 and 64bit LXDE and Mate' and 32bit Openbox). Its easy to say that they should be the same (32 and 64bit), but the reality is that they are not. There are always small issues and differences found in the 32 and 64bit packages and setup. So it testing and effort more than anything. Also looking at downloads of distros by type, I am unsure how large the 64bit openbox would be vs the work. I honestly don't run any of these DE's daily any more (LXDE, Mate', or openbox). I use pure I3WM, but its a tiling window manager and has a learning curve to it. Its extremely lightweight, but the average user would be frustrated by it.

Cheiron and Leenie  - I appreciate the feedback and your help over time for sure... . My efforts are to make this significantly cleaner and smoother than 8 since it was the first release on Debian....

[ausmuso]

Hi Biffbaxter,
My main suggestion is to change the treatment of NVidia drivers on your DVD because it can cause a live session to hang. It did so in my case, both in the 64bit and 32bit DVD versions.

My desktop has a GEForce 7050 chip, the recommended NVidia driver is 304.xx. This is the default NVidia driver in Wheezy, a legacy driver in Jessie.

The DVD started up normally until it came up with the message:

Code: [Select]

cannot access /usr/lib/nvidia/legacy-*/nvidia.ids: no such file or directoryThe process then went on for a few more lines until it came to

Code: [Select]

(. . . .) Waiting for /dev to be fully populated ..... here the boot-up got stuck.

Luckily it is possible to install from the fail-safe mode, but this causes extra work. The internet connection won't be recognised -even though it may be up and running fine. As a result, the locales and the time zone won't be properly set, also the autologin wasn't enabled even though it was specified during installation. All this issues can be fixed manually afterwards (I did) but it's an unwelcome hassle.

Other distros use the "Swiss army knife" Nouveau driver for live distro and initial installation. This works with any NVidia chip even though it doesn't do it all that well. It is then up to the user to install the right proprietary driver, preferably "the Debian way" using DKMS. This is not rocket science, there is abundant how-to documentation.

I've been working with other Debian-based distros (like Mint LMDE, Crunchbang and PointLinux) this way for some years now and I can only recommed you follow their example.

[cuscotravelservices]

With wattOS R8 LXDE 32-bit, the Installation interface was not presented in Spanish even though Spanish (Peru) was selected for the installation.

Also, there is no Spanish .mo file in /boot/grub/locale which is rather incomprehensible given that Spanish is the second most common language.

[cuscotravelservices]

wattOS R8 LXDE 32-bit:

The current installer always requires a File System Format to be selected for the / partition. This doesn't allow you to format the drive in advance in the way you would like which means you have to do the following from a Live environment afterwards.

1:  Backup the partition (gzip etc)

2:  Format the partition

3:  Restore the partition (gzip etc)

4:  Edit the /etc/fstab file for the new UUID created when the partition was formatted

5:  Mount the partition

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sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
6:  Bind the directories that grub needs to have access to

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sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo mount -o bind /proc /mnt/proc
sudo mount -o bind /sys /mnt/sys
7:  Set up the chroot environment

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sudo chroot /mnt
8:  Recreate grub's configuration file

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sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
9:  Exit the chroot and unmount everything so the Live system is back to normal

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exit
sudo umount /mnt/sys /mnt/proc /mnt/dev /mnt
10: Reboot

Zzzzzz.....

[blaze]

Thanks for the explanation biffbaxter, appreciate it. Two more questions though, of a small practical kind. When I enable the Openbox menu in the lxde desktop, would it be possible to have the full Debian menu there just as when in the Openbox session by default? Would it also be possible to have the run option (Alt+F2) by default when in the Openbox session with the lxde version?

[thriftee]

Thanks for filling us in on where things are going...

I would be most interested in an LXDE / Openbox version, and since most of my systems have 4 gb of memory or less, and some are 32 bit machines, I would hope to see a 32 bit PAE version.

I also would like to see a self regenerating menu that adds new programs added to the menu structure and a "Run" command from the menu.

I wouldn't be upset if there was no automatic upgrade from R8 to R9, and suspect it might be a lot of effort to get it to work.

Your R8 is very quick, and I think you should put that effort into trying to stay with that tradition as much as you can because that's the BIG thing that distinguishes your distro from the others.

Thanks again for your efforts...

[ausmuso]

Hi all,
6. Its not clear if the upgrade path from R8 to R9 will be "rolling release" like Debian normally is, or new type install as in the past (with ubuntu upstream). I have been testing R8 to Jessie paths, and there is more work to do

One complication, Biff, is Debian's switch from sysvinit tot sysd, effective as from "jessie". This may make a fresh install the path of least resistance.

Keep up the good work!     

[biffster]

I am currently reviewing the latest releases from many of the debian (and non debian releases). Are there any applications that you consider a must? The basics will be there like always and the core applications for each desktop environment will be there as per usual, but want to make sure. I am reviewing the obvious list of distros over the next few days for a point of reference. (point linux, lxle, sparky, lubuntu, zorin, antiX etc)

tks...biff

[cheiron]

thunderbird for email client and vlc are priority for me..

[Maroman]

lxde version.
for me less means better. even if wattos is entry level distro almost everybody can install needed apps (some might be installed and uninstalled individually). I can see some issues of R8 release I want to avoid in the next one. firstly drivers. ought to decide if all nonfree are installed or not. do not know why some are arbitrary chosen. in my case any of installed driver was not appropriate. no problem for me to install but it's not elegant.
next bluetooth. it should be front-end for it. blueman? and of course it should be configure in right way for DE (so probable small repo is needed to keep maintained apps).

wattos should be more individual. at the moment it is just Debian LXDE (nice) remix.

cheers,

[thriftee]

to me...

LXDE is desirable much more than Mate.

microWatt should be a minimalized version of the full LXDE, without the LXDE desktop, and a super-light footprint desktop, like jwm, fluxbox, icewm or openbox/tint2, using light browser