Salix OS

Salix Xfce 14.0RC1 is ready! We are getting very close to a final release and a lot of things have changed since the beta1.

As you will find out, one major change in this release candidate, is that the Mozilla Firefox browser has been replaced by Midori. Midori is a webkit based browser that is lightweight and very fast. Being based on webkit, it is as standards compliant as any browser can be and fully supports all latest web technologies. Midori is also the browser recommended by the Xfce project, so it fits very nicely in our Xfce edition. The decision to move away from Firefox as the default browser was made because Firefox has become too much of a moving target and it became increasingly difficult to support. However, Firefox is available in our repositories and any users that feel the need to keep using it instead of Midori can just install it using the package manager.

Another important change is that the 32-bit iso image only supports CPUs following the i686 architecture or newer. The decision was made due to size constraints. It was decided that the benefits of keeping the iso image inside the CD size limits while also keeping the release feature complete are more than supporting those very old CPUs. However, other future editions of Salix 14.0, such as the LXDE or Ratpoison editions will probably keep supporting even those very old CPUs, by also providing an i486 kernel.

Also, Java is back! OpenJRE 7 is included in full mode installation and OpenJDK 7 is available through the repositories for people that want to develop Java software. The icedtea-web browser plugin has also been included, so Java applets can work inside the browser without a problem.

Meanwhile, a lot more packages have entered the repositories. If you are a packager and want one of your packages to enter the Salix repositories, now is the time to submit it, as the window for submitting packages will be closed after the final release. All submissions after that will enter our SLKBUILD repository instead (with the exception of packages that are needed for other Salix edition releases and of course security updates).

So, please download this release candidate and report any issues you may find. Hopefully there are none. You can download the iso images through Sourceforge using the following links:

i686, 32-bit
(size: 661MB, md5: cc971db8c0d21642dcbb78866d9d568f)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
Torrent: http://salix.enialis.net/i486/14.0/iso/ ... C1.torrent

x86_64, 64-bit
(size: 677MB, md5: 2b1fd54c73ce085008209bba2451884e)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/salix/f ... o/download
Torrent: http://salix.enialis.net/x86_64/14.0/is ... C1.torrent

Thanks for testing!

Torrents?

On a side note, Syslinux 4.06 is out.

_ The README file includes examples for 13.1. Maybe it's time to update them?

_ The CHECKSUMS.md5 file seems incorrect (but I could be wrong). The paths start with "./iso/".


About i486 / i686, is there any chance you could provide a diff download (once the final release is out)? An interested user could then expand the ISO, replace the relevant files (I guess mainly the kernel?) and rebuild a new ISO. Or, alternatively, an xdelta or similar file so to patch the i686 ISO? (Apologies if this is a dumb question.)

Downloaded the 32bit .iso. Tried installing it as a guest in VirtualBox but the installer fails with the error...There was a fatal error attempting to install "*.t?z". whatever that is. the md5 sum is correct.

edit: nope. same thing

loukingjr wrote:Downloaded the 32bit .iso. Tried installing it as a guest in VirtualBox but the installer fails with the error...There was a fatal error attempting to install "*.t?z". whatever that is. the md5 sum is correct.

Oops. That's bad. You're not the only one having this problem. Maybe the files were somehow damaged during upload but md5 doesn't catch the problem. I can't think of anything else, they work fine here...

No, I don't think it's a case of a problem with the upload. sha1 also matches...

gapan wrote:No, I don't think it's a case of a problem with the upload. sha1 also matches...

well while I'm here, is there a way to just update the beta to rc1? I have a working beta except for the pesky Pidgin problem.

Just

lookingjr, since you have both the beta1 and RC1 isos, can you try something for me?

1. Open the beta1 iso with isomaster and extract the isolinux directory
2. Open the RC1 iso with isomaster, remove it's own isolinux directory and place the one from beta1 in its place
3. Save as a new iso file and try to boot that with virtualbox

gapan wrote:lookingjr, since you have both the beta1 and RC1 isos, can you try something for me?

1. Open the beta1 iso with isomaster and extract the isolinux directory
2. Open the RC1 iso with isomaster, remove it's own isolinux directory and place the one from beta1 in its place
3. Save as a new iso file and try to boot that with virtualbox

actually I don't have either the beta1 or rc1 .isos anymore but it only takes me 5 mins to get them if the beta is still around. not sure what isomaster is actually but I can open .isos on my Mac.