In this exciting issue, we'll look, as usual, at the state of e17 and OzOS over the past couple of weeks, talk about what some cafelinux members have been up to and make a few pithy observations about LTE (Life, the Universe and Everything).
Fresh Code! Get Your Fresh Code!
After several weeks of unstable code making updates difficult, we have had a great start to the new year with the svn updates being mostly useable. A few of the changes did create issues for those of us who update obsessively – but, as is usual, most were corrected in later updates.
I will mention a few of the “gotchas” from the past couple of weeks just in case they do happen for others:
“Default” vs “standard” profiles: Yeah, they renamed it. I don’t know why, but this kind of thing does happen now and again. The problem this time was that “default” profile became orphaned and didn’t receive some critical patches. Users, including anyone just starting with an OzOS 0.9 install, should switch to the “standard” profile (or anything other than “default”) if they want full functionality of the “System” settings (Settings>Settings Panel>Settings>Profiles and remember to load up the System module too and use a theme that handles the new Settings Panel). I completely missed this particular development because I tend to create a new profile each time I want to test something a bit radical – and I haven’t switched back to “default” for ages.
The /debian issue: Last week sometime, the debian packager for e17 uploaded a whole lot of new code specific to debian packaging (what does that suggest, hmmm?). Anyway, OzOS users don’t need this stuff but it did throw a lot of errors during download – apparently there was a permissions problem for many packages and neither update_e17 or easy_e17 could get past the first instance of a /debian directory not being accessible. The workaround is very messy - manually delete every existing /debian directory in /var/cache/e17_src/<package name> and then use easy_e17 to reinstall. Painful!
Module breakage: For a few updates there, we were experiencing a bit of module breakage that meant Enlightenment would not load any modules until you sorted through the list and reloaded them one by one. All the “standard modules” seem to be fixed now but there are several popular “third party” modules that haven’t been updated (Itask-ng is one that I particularly like but which is still refusing to play).
The .po problem: If you have been using e17 from source for a while, you will be familiar with the problem of conflicting .po files (as opposed to “Profiles”, which is something else). Updates won’t proceed until you tell the script what to do about the conflict. It happened again last week and we had to “tf” our way through the update. With any luck, THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN – thanks to Rui inserting a –fix-conflicts into the standard easy_e17.conf file. This is one of the few benefits users are seeing from the move to svn – more switches!
OzOS Updates
And speaking of Rui fixing things, he has also added some neat features to e17_svn and oz-desktop-tools this week. New flags are available and, if you are using execwatch to monitor updates, it also now gives you prior warning about cafelinux notifications of “bad code days”.
Backups via the Applications>System Tools>Backup e17 (sudo update_e17.sh –B) are now named by revision number (instead of date). This is particularly welcomed by those of us who either update or break things several times a day!
The revised default OzOS theme (RustedEmerald) has also been updated and my “Oz_Magpies2” theme (with the color switcher script has been included in the e17_themes package.
These new features, plus the --fix-conflicts switch in easy_e17.conf, are available by updating from the OzOS repositories – just “sudo apt-get update & sudo apt-get update” is you already have them enabled.
By the way, if want to visually review what’s on offer in the OzOS repos, use Synaptic, click the “origin” button and select cafelinux.org from the list.
Most of the OzOS packages have changed in significant ways since we last made an iso. It really is important to update if you do a fresh install.
Rui’s Zorro-like behaviour - sudden appearances after long absences and frantic activity while he’s with us - are very much appreciated at the café. We only hope that his studies in advanced physics (which is what keeps him busy) won’t result in him getting a better offer in a parallel universe.
Jaunty What?
Throwing caution to the wind, I installed the OzOS packages onto an Ubuntu “Jaunty Jackalope” alpha and was pleasantly surprised that I got a workable OzOS desktop. Sure, there were some errors and back-tracking, but nothing too difficult. We really are getting to the stage where the OzOS desktop metapackages are almost version independent as far as Ubuntu goes. If we can get it working to the same standard on pure Debian, we’ll be very happy.
Arch Villainy
Our resident Arch Villian, Smartboyathome has been working on his own script to “port” OzOS functionality to………you guessed it! - Arch. And it looks like he’s getting close – check it out in this thread. http://cafelinux.org/forum/index.php/topic,2457.msg8724.html#msg8724
Ordinary Villainy
X11, the member formerly known as …….., is also spending a bit of time hitting the books – yes, he’s gone back to school! That should be a lot of fun for everyone concerned. Hopefully he will reappear at cafelinux when he has settled into life at the university. I'm sure we all wish him well and hope the university survives.
E17 Stability
Something happened recently that caused me to reflect on how stable e17 now is.
I was compiling material for a How-To and decided I needed a screenshot of the infamous e17 “seg’d” dialog – the nasty black on white one that says “Something bad just happened” and tells you to always compile your code with a –g (what does that mean?). Anyway, I realized that I would have to crash e17 inside a Virtual Machine if I was to get the shot I wanted (a Seg. Fault disables screenshots, of course). I have been trying for a week and still can’t get the dang thing to crash! Six moths ago I would have just fired up the Advanced Themes Dialog or turned on compositing. But for the life of me I can’t find ANYTHING that doesn’t work! I guess I’ll have to wait for a really bad update now!
See you on the forums.
Aubrey
