Grafpup 2.0 beta released
Grafpup 2.0 beta is now released. The main work that went into this iso has been in the area of bugfixing but with a few major package upgrades thrown in for good measure. Cinepaint has been updated to the latest stable 0.22-0 release, now with the new ufraw plugin straight out of cvs. Opera is upgraded to version 9.20. On the multimedia side of things cdrtools, growisofs, ffmpeg, flac, xine-lib, and gxine have all been upgraded. In addition to the formats that were supported previously gxine should now also play flv files. The kernel has once again been recompiled, although we are staying with 2.6.20.2 for the time being. This build fixes several errors with sata support and some other miscellaneous bugs with hardware like firewire.
Important bugs have been fixed in X configuration, and it is now possible to run Xvesa without root priveledges. Xorg should function as normal. I have also added the numlockx binary so a user can have numlock on by default when they log into X (manual setup for the time being). There is quite a bit more planned that is related to X, such as better support for Wacom graphics tablets, but some of this will wait until the 2.01 release.
While this release is not final I consider it to be quite stable and ready for most users. This is the most crucial point where beta testers are needed to root out any bugs that have been missed, otherwise they could very well make their way into 2.0 final. The iso image comes in three flavors, the traditional Opera build, Seamonkey, and a small Dillo based barebones version that has just the core desktop without any major applications installed. For downloads see the download page for development snapshots.
April 27th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Congratulations Nathan, have put it on Puppy Wiki News.
April 27th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Hey Nathan.
I’m running under Grafpup 2.0 Beta right this minute (and have been since sometime yesterday)
Other than seeing the “Adobe Flash needed” popups on almost every other web site I visit (including http://www.puppylinux.org), and my account info not being visible in Opera at http://www.sprintpcs.com (screen formatting totally hosed, with already anything viewable under “my account”), it’s running just fine (stable as a rock so far).
I can’t blame you for the flash and browser issues (although I do wonder why http://www.puppylinux.org needs flash).
Questions….
I’ve been using XP Pro and SimplyMEPIS (both 6.0 and 6.5) for a while now. My biggest issue with most distros is out of date code for digital imaging.
I’m started to take a liking to digikam for managing the images (and I like Dave Coffin’s dcraw.c code also). But, the latest version of digikam in most repositories is using dcraw.c 8.41 code (which is now 28 releases behind, since the newest version is 8.69). Some distros are even further behind (still using digiKam 8.22, with dcraw.c code that’s even older).
Of course, that means that raw files from cameras made in recent history are not going to be supported.
Do you have any plans to include the latest digikam (and showfoto) releases, along with the latest kipi plugins in your repositories? Is there a way to make sure dcraw.c code compiled in is current?
If not, any other suggestions (other than figuring out how to compile this stuff myself)?
I’m having a very hard time finding a Linux distro that I can live with that has non-obsolete software for digital imaging.
Another question… I recently used a copy of Muppy to recover files from a crashed hard drive using ddrescue.
I was suprised to see Glapt installed. I was even more surprised when I downloaded and installed some packages (like ddrescue) from the Slackware 11 reposotiries and found that they ran fine from a Live CD.
Is this something that usually works with distros based on Puppy? Do you have a way to install Glsapt in Gragpup, too?
Yet another question… Can you use packages designed for other versions of Puppy?
April 28th, 2007 at 2:06 am
The version of dcraw currently in Grafpup is 8.53, so it’s not entirely up to date, but bear in mind that it was compiled a scant three months ago. Dave Coffin releases the code at a breakneck pace so it’s kind of hard to keep up with the very latest releases. I do plan to do an update soon, OK I think now would be a good time come to think of it. I am committed to keeping these tools as up to date as possible.
Digikam is of course a KDE program, as are the Kipi plugins, so they will probably never be in the base iso. However including them in the repository is definately not out of the question. I can’t make any promises on a timeline for a Digikam package but I’ll plan to get it done sometime.
I personally like ufraw for opening my raw files, either in standalone mode or as a plug-in for either Gimp or Cinepaint. As of the beta snapshot both Gimp and Cinepaint come with the plug-in preinstalled, and you can grab the standalone program and batch processor out of the package repo.
Another project which is now offering some support for raw images is flphoto, but they are doing it a little bit at a time rather than all at once. So some cameras will be supported but most will not. I have a fairly recent version in the repo if you ever want to check it out. I find it handy for just checking things over quickly.
I also tried rawstudio on my Fedora installation but frankly the results were not impressive.
Slackware packages will often be compatible but there are cases where an automatic installation could be troublesome, which MU will probably tell you if you were to ask him. There are a few differences in the way Puppy and Grafpup have their filesystem’s layed out, and quite a few differences in configuration files kept in /etc. Say we have a directory that is actually a link to a real directory, like /usr/share/pixmaps for instance. If you install a Slackware package which has some icons in that location it will write over the links with a real directory, which breaks several scripts. There are worse things which can happen as well. Overwrite a configuration file in /etc with one designed for another distro and you can completely hose the whole thing.
Basically I would recommend that if you want to try a Slackware package it is best to extract the contents and manually install the files by copying them into the correct locations in the filesystem. Better yet look for a native package. Then if one doesn’t yet exist you can always ask someone to compile it for you, or learn to do it yourself. Binaries compiled against the exact system libraries which are on your system are always preferable to getting them from elsewhere.
As for packages from other Puppy varients I’d say 90% of them will work, with perhaps a few disclaimers. Almost all scripts and utilities written for Puppy will assume they are being run as the root user, so sometimes they need a bit of modification unless you are satisfied with that. Also, Grafpup has a rather large number of upgraded libraries, especially when you look at Gnomey stuff (gtk+ based apps). Usually if it was compiled against an older gtk+ it will run, but not the other way round. So expect that most packages compiled for Puppy and other Puppy varients will work in Grafpup, but not the other way round (ie Grafpup packages will probably not run in Puppy, unless they are console tools).
Thanks for the feedback, every little bit helps.
April 29th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Dear Compilers
The New Grafpup 2.0 beta seems to be very good. I ahve one problem: When I try to use MSN on GAIM I am told I need SSL installed. I can use MSN in GAIM in PuppyLinux 2:10 to 2:14!
Thanks Graham