Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

New features which should be implemented in Porteus; suggestions are welcome. All questions or problems with testing releases (alpha, beta, or rc) should go in their relevant thread here, rather than the Bug Reports section.
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Ahau
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Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#1 by Ahau » 21 Feb 2012, 20:48

I'm pleased to report that the XFCE desktop has been accepted as an official desktop for Porteus!

You can download the Porteus-XFCE 32-bit ISO here:
http://ponce.cc/porteus/i486/testing/Porteus-v1.2-rc1

This ISO is based on the standard edition of Porteus and uses the same kernel, initrd, and the following base modules: kernel, core, xorg, devel and firefox. To these modules, I've added a module containing the XFCE desktop and a module with several desktop applications.

The ISO has modified bootloader configs, so you can install it exactly the same as the standard edition, and the default options will get you into XFCE.

If you're interested, please download and test it, and report any issues you find here. Also, I've got some room left for additional applications, so feel free to suggest things you'd like to add. I do want to keep this ISO as one application per task, so keep that in mind for your suggestions.

Known Bugs:
- on rare occasions, I've had the desktop hang for about 30 seconds when I logout from the session using the buttons in the panel (running reboot or halt from the command line is not affected). This appears to be an upstream bug, but I haven't sorted out when it occurs or why, so please let me know if this happens to you, and we'll get it sorted.
EDIT: This only seems to occur when applications that write to ~/.cache are left open (e.g. medit) while logging out. To avoid this bug, please close these applications prior to logging out. If you get hit with this bug with saved changes applied, you'll need to delete the contents of the ~/.cache/sessions/ directory in order to get the window manager working properly again.

Changelog from last beta release:
- dropped several packages from the XFCE build: gnome-keyring, gstreamer, and all dependencies
- replaced xfce4-mixer with retrovol, a neat little panel mixer app from the puppy distro
- replaced xfce4-volumed with some keymappings -- please let me know if your laptop/keyboard volume/mute buttons stop working
- replaced xfburn with pburn (also from the puppy project) to eliminate gstreamer
- dropped parole (gnome-mplayer is already available in the 002-xorg.xzm module)
- replaced xnoise with audacious
- dropped midori from the ISO, but it can still be downloaded from the google code page, here: http://code.google.com/p/porteus-xfce/downloads
- dropped SLiM login manager -- XFCE now loads through lxdm, which has been moved into the 002-xorg.xzm base module
- added abiword and gnumeric to the office section
- removed "opaque" cheatcode, this functionality is now available from the second boot option in extlinux/lilo, using the cheat "autoexec=xf-compositing~off". This turns off compositing for the XFCE window manager, but it will be turned on at each boot-up by default unless this cheatcode is used.
- removed international language support (locales) -- this will be added to the downloads for Language Selection Tool, so users can set up internationalization just as they would in the standard editions.
-other minor tweaks to the DE to improve the look/feel

Thank you for testing!

Posted after 1 day 2 hours 16 minutes 56 seconds:
@all,

There are a few menu items under the "System" heading that are broken: the Porteus save.dat manager, Language Selection Tool, and Porteus-Settings-Centre. There were some last minute upstream changes that modified how the *.desktop files were handled, to improve their usage in Trinity. However, those changes broke these menu items for XFCE.

I've uploaded a patch, which you can download here:
EDIT: linked patch is now depricated -- see post below
Simply download that patch and activate it (double click in Thunar) to restore functionality. Those who have installed to writeable media (flash drives and hard drives, etc) can place the patch in /porteus/modules and it will be activated at startup.

Don't use this patch with the standard edition ISO (Trinity) -- it will break these same menu items there. It seems trinity and XFCE disagree on how to load ktsuss...

Thanks!
Last edited by Ahau on 23 Feb 2012, 14:57, edited 4 times in total.
Reason: Stuck it
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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#2 by francois » 23 Feb 2012, 03:12

I am the first happy tester. :)

1) Booting without changes with a hdd install, I have to login, password and startx to get XFCE going on. Is it possible to get the system to boot all the way within X?

2) Using nVidia-173.14.31-porteus-v1.2-rc1-i486-1beny driver for my nvidia 7150m laptop driver, the panel becomes ill placed and out of reach on the stand alone display located at the right of the laptop. There is no way to grab the handle that is located on the left end of the panel to recenter it. Is is possible that it gets centered already in the right screen or simply that it comes out in the left screen the laptop as before?

3) in the same way firefox will open fully extending on the two screens.

Thanks.
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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#3 by Ahau » 23 Feb 2012, 15:22

@ all -- I've pushed a new patch to my google code page, you can get it here:
http://porteus-xfce.googlecode.com/file ... 3-i486.xzm
this fixes the broken menu items as well as module activation and deactivation for guest users. It does not conflict with kde or lxde, so you can now peacefully boot all three DE's from the same install :)

@francois:

RE #1 -- does this behaviour occur when you do not have the nvidia driver present? If it boots into XFCE when you drop nvidia, then I think you have the wrong driver (try the 295 series in the testing folder on the Porteus server). I had a similar experience with a faulty nvidia driver (had the wrong kernel installed for it, lol), and I think fanthom may need to tweak the startup process, because if the proprietary driver fails, it should still boot you into the GUI using the open source drivers. (fanthom, if you'd like some testing done, just let me know)

RE #2 and #3, do these also occur when you are not using the nvidia driver? I don't have a dual display setup, so it will be a little harder for me to troubleshoot these...regarding the panel, you should be able to right click on the panel, go into the preferences dialog and unlock it's position. That should allow you to move it, though it is set by default to be 100% the width of the screen, so I'm not sure if this will work.

Posted after 7 minutes 10 seconds:
@francois

per this site: http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-disp ... river.html
under the "supported products" tab, I see that your graphics card should be using the 295 series nVidia driver. Please repeat your tests with that one and let us know how you fare.

Thanks!
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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#4 by Rava » 24 Feb 2012, 02:20

This is all in a sudden going so quickly, first the stand alone thread of XFCe inmcluion, and like *woosh* with 1.2rc1 it's part of official Porteus. :Yahoo!:

Me is a happy Porteus camper! :D
Cheers!
Yours Rava

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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#5 by francois » 25 Feb 2012, 02:38

Sorry for taking so much time.

In my first intervention, I was working with a hp pavilion 2713ca laptop (the one with the nvidia 7150m driver). I have tried without the nvidia module with the same result as for point 1).

With a second box MSI340X, I get the same behavior:

1) Booting without changes with a hdd install, I have to login, password and startx to get XFCE going on. Is it possible to get the system to boot all the way within X?

The is an error message about respawning too fast.
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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#6 by Ahau » 25 Feb 2012, 03:37

@francois, are you perhaps booting with saved changes, rootcopy, or extra modules from an earlier version of porteus-xfce? If so, you may have some files in there messing with your boot-up (likely culprit is /etc/rc.d/rc.4). If you haven't already tried in always fresh mode, please do. If you have anything in rootcopy, please rename your rootcopy directory as well to avoid loading those files.
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#7 by francois » 25 Feb 2012, 17:04

No additional modules except the xfce iso, not even your patch. However, in case it would be problematic, here is my menu.lst entry:

Code: Select all

title porteus v11_32 on sda7/32bit_v12rc1 XFCE 4.8 NO CHANGES
kernel (hd0,6)/32bit_v11/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda7 from_dir=/32bit_v11/porteus toroot autoexec=xconf;telinit~4 max_loop=256
initrd=(hd0,6)/32bit_v11/boot/initrd.xz
boot
Last edited by francois on 25 Feb 2012, 23:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#8 by Ahau » 25 Feb 2012, 19:45

Hi francois,

Please try adding the cheatcode 'xfce'. This is still needed because I'm using 001 and 002 modules from the standard edition with very few modifications. You can also drop 'telinit~4', as this is the default runlevel for porteus 1.1+.

That said, you should still be getting into xfce without that cheatcode, via startx (xfce cheatcode logs you into xfce via lxdm, but the system ought to default to startx with whatever DE is present). I'll look into this problem, maybe I didn't create the xinitrc symlink properly.

Thanks, as always, for testing!

Posted after 37 minutes 15 seconds:
Please also apply this patch: http://porteus-xfce.googlecode.com/file ... -patch.xzm

to fix booting into xfce via startx/xinitrc.
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#9 by francois » 26 Feb 2012, 17:18

Using:
1) xfce cheatcode in menu.lst
2) removing telinit 4
Thus the menu.lst entry becomes:

Code: Select all

title porteus v11_32 on sda7/32bit_v12rc1 XFCE 4.8 NO CHANGES
kernel (hd0,6)/32bit_v11/boot/vmlinuz from_dev=/dev/sda7 from_dir=/32bit_v11/porteus xfce toroot autoexec=xconf max_loop=256
initrd=(hd0,6)/32bit_v11/boot/initrd.xz
boot
3) inserted patch:
http://porteus-xfce.googlecode.com/file ... -patch.xzm

Everything works fine for porteus xfce hdd frugal install. :D

I will be using it currently. I will come back and report. If you have any demands don't hesitate to ask me. I am not always on the forum, you can reach me thru email address.

Posted after 14 minutes 19 seconds:
However, at logout I get in the same problem as with slim, that is in the login manager. XFCE panel logout will not allow shutdown from X environment.
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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#10 by Ahau » 27 Feb 2012, 15:48

@francois -- that bug is driving me crazy! Thank you for confirming that it still exists. At least now we are using the lxdm display manager, which should be easier to shut down from (it has a menu for this I believe, so you don't have to know special commands like you do for slim). For now, I'm afraid you'll need to shut down using the 'halt' or 'reboot' commands from the command line, use a save.dat, reformat your drive to ext4, or logout to lxdm and shut down from the dialog there :(

I keep checking for an upstream fix (and there is a newever minor version of xfce4-session that I will include in RC2) but haven't seen anything in their bugzilla or changelog that would suggest a fix has been written.
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#11 by Hamza » 28 Feb 2012, 08:34

Maybe an error (permission?) between Unix users (/etc/shadow) and X Session Manager ?
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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#12 by Ahau » 28 Feb 2012, 15:16

@Hamza, I would think that is unlikely, as this issue is only present with saved changes on ext2 filesystems. Unless francois is experiencing a new problem, "Reboot" and "Shut Down" are available for him to select from the popup menu when he logs out from XFCE; however, selecting either of those options crashes the Xorg server without fully executing the shutdown procedure. This restarts the Xorg server, which loads LXDM again. This issue has been reported upstream:
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7887
I've applied that patch, but it doesn't seem to help francois...

@all: New 'pxf-sound' script is up on the google code page: http://porteus-xfce.googlecode.com/file ... nd-gtk.xzm

This module is architecture-independent (works on both 32 and 64-bit).
Please give it a try if you have a chance, I'd like some more testing prior to RC2. Download the module and put it in /porteus/modules on your flash or hard drive. On reboot (preferrably 'always fresh' mode), please check that retrovol (the sound icon in the panel notification area) is configured for the right sound device and Master Volume channel. Then, push your volume up/down and mute buttons and make sure everything works and displays properly. I've set this up so that retrovol should always default to the 'Master' channel (rava, this should fix the issue where it was defaulting to some PCM channel).

Cheers!
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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#13 by Hamza » 28 Feb 2012, 15:22

I had this bug on Ubuntu and I run a strange command that regenerate grub files after the bug was immedialty solved after a reboot. Maybe this can help.
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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#14 by Ahau » 28 Feb 2012, 15:23

Do you have a link?
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

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Re: Porteus-XFCE-v1.2-rc1-i486.iso is ready for testing!

Post#15 by Hamza » 28 Feb 2012, 15:29

NjVFQzY2Rg==

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