Wolvix GNU/Linux

Wolvix Cub 2.0.0 beta1

The first beta version of Wolvix Cub 2.0.0 is ready for testing.

Grab the ISO here:

Oithona.com: wolvix-cub-2.0.0-beta1.iso
RubyRingTech.com: Wolvix download mirrors
List of packages: packages-wolvix-cub-2.0.0-beta1.txt
Md5sum: 90dc9f6d958a5fe3b68b414c73c4f64e

Wolvix Cub is a smaller edition of Wolvix featuring Fluxbox as it's default window manager and a moderate selection of lightweight applications. The Fluxbox desktop can be optionally enhanced with an application launcher bar (wbar) and a system monitor (Conky) from launchers in the menu. It also features LXDE, a lightweight desktop environment.

Netbook compatibility has been improved for Asus Eee PC models 901 and up with the inclusion of the Ralink rt2860 driver. And for all Eee PCs with the addition of the ACPI scripts which controls the hotkeys.

Some screenshots taken on my Asus Eee 1000H:

shot1 shot2 shot3
shot4 shot5 shot6

Known issues: The bug with gksu still unresolved so Cub is also affected by this. And there's an issue with SLiM which seems to be related to the Intel graphics drivers where an image of the login screen appears in a window. It's an annoying, but harmless bug. Just close the window and you'll get the desktop.

Give Wolvix Cub a spin and let me know what you think of it.

-Wolven

Wolvix GNU/Linux 2.0.0 beta2 is ready

It's time for another beta release, Wolvix 2.0.0 beta2 is now ready for download. The changes are mostly minor, but we've managed to weed out a few annoying bugs and quite a few packages has been updated and a few new applications has been added. If you have a HDD install of beta1 and you've keep it up-to-date via the package repository there's no real reason to get beta2. Doing a full upgrade from the repo on beta1 will get you up to par with beta2. (slapt-get --update && slapt-get --upgrade)

Download Wolvix 2.0.0 beta2: (Md5: 7bea8514062835621ce64a14e8f46f58)

Some of the changes from beta1 includes:

Dual menu entries for some applications has been fixed.
The bottom panel has been cleaned up a bit, the pager has been removed and the number of launchers has been reduced.
SLiM (login manager) has been patched, so it should start faster now and it should also be re launched on Ctrl+Alt+BckSpace.
An old bug in the WCP which didn't allow for files to be executed on a dedicated home partition has been fixed. And the USB installer should be working properly now.
The missing libcap has been added, so Samba should be working out of the box. (If you're on a beta1 HHD install just install it and Samba should be working)

New cheat codes:

nowicd - Prevents Wicd from running at boot
netconfig - Launch the netconfig tool during boot up
timeconfig - Launch the timeconfig tool during boot up
mouseconfig - Launch the mouseconfig tool during boot up
composite - Enable composite in xorg.conf (Now default to off)

There are still two rather annoying bug still lingering which I've been unable to solve so far. First the problem with gksu which sometimes won't exit properly, which prevents it from working the next time it's called. The second bug is the missing window decorations when compiz is launched. Any help and/or insight to resolve these issues are greatly appreciated.

The response on beta1 has been overall very positive and it has had less problems than anticipated. Most of the problems we've seen are due to corrupt downloads, faulty burns or user errors, but this doesn't mean there aren't room for improvements. Hardware detection (auto configuration of xorg) is still hit and miss for some users. Oithona is working on some changes to the HDD installer which will prompt the user for the creation of a non root account. And we're also very keen on improving the hardware support for popular netbooks, such as the Asus Eee. We do not have the means to get hands-on experience with the Eee yet, so if you have one, please help us in our quest to support it better. Feedback on other netbooks are of course also very welcome.

This will (most likely) be the last beta release for Wolvix 2.0.0, next up will be the first release candidate, so if you haven't already done so, grab a copy of the beta and tell us what you think. Even though it's a beta release most users who's tested beta1 tout it as very stable and polished, so you should have little to fear. ;-)

-Wolven

Heads up wolves!

With April fools day safely behind us I thought I'd give you all a heads up. The response on the beta has been great, I'm very happy too see so many of you enjoying the release with out too many serious problems. The forums has gotten a breath of fresh air with new users joining up and old users coming out of their hives. It gives me a lot of inspiration to see the community alive and kicking.

Speaking of the forums. I'm having a hard time keeping track of all the activity there now, in particular with remembering which bugs to fix and what features to add. So I want you all to start using the bug tracker at launchpad.net. We'll continue to discuss and fix problems in the forums, but once a bug has been verified, (we've concluded that it's a bug and not a faulty burn, flaky hardware, user problem, etc) please add it to the tracker, so I don't have to hunt around the forums to find what I need to fix. You'll need to register at launchpad to be able to post, but it's quick and painless, I promise. ;-)

As you might have gathered by now, I'm not the fastest developer in this world. I work in waves, some days I do nothing but sit around staring at the screen. Other days I work non-stop for hours. Right now I'm working on Wolvix Cub. I'm still playing around with what apps to include and checking out LXDE, which most likely will be the default DE in Cub. I'm also adding and updating packages in the package repository. When a new ISO (beta2) will be out I'm not sure yet, but I'm hoping it won't be too long.

You might have noticed the new 'Shop' link in the navigation above, and as speculated in the newsletter, Oithona and I plan to start selling our own CD's and USB keys preinstalled with Wolvix in order to cover some of the expenses, and hopefully to be able to get some needed hardware. There's nothing in the shop right now, and probably won't be for some time to come, but I'll let you all now when we open the doors. I'd also like to hear your suggestions to what else we could sell there.

That's all for now, keep posting in the forums and come hang with us in the IRC channel!

-Wolven

New direction for Wolvix

After a lengthy discussion between Oithona and me, we've come to the conclusion that Wolvix is simply too small, fast and stable to be able to compete with the latest installment of Microsoft Windows®. So the decision has been made to move Wolvix over from Slackware to a Ubuntu base using KDE 4.0 as the default desktop environment.

During our internal testing we found that the new Ubuntu based Wolvix was still to fast to mimic the speed of the latest Windows version. As a response to this Oithona has developed a Python script that will consume about 85% of all the CPU resources, and fill up all available RAM in order to get the OS to constantly use the swap partition. Work is in progress to create a program that will pop up and ask for confirmation (Cancel/Allow) for 1 out of 3 tasks the user performs - We're also looking into forcing all applications to run as root. Modifications has been done to the installer ensuring that the new Wolvix will not use any less than 20GB of hard drive space. The install process will take about 2 - 3 hours depending on your hardware. (A quad core 3.5GHz CPU and 4GB RAM is recommended)

We've spent hours discussing what the new Wolvix version should be named. Oithona wanted to follow in the tradition of other Ubuntu derivatives and call it Wolfbuntu, while I had my mind set Wolvix Wista. As a compromise we've agreed that the new name will be Wolfbuntu Wista. We expect to have the first alpha version of Wolfbuntu Wista ready in 5 to 6 years, so stay tuned.

-Wolven

Wolvix 2.0.0 beta1 is ready

I'm happy to announce that the first beta release of Wolvix GNU/Linux 2.0.0 is ready for download.

Wolvix 2.0.0 is based on Slackware 12.2 and Linux-Live version 6.2.9. It features Linux kernel version 2.6.27.9, Xfce 4.6.0 and a lot of up-to-date software like: Firefox 3.0.7, Thunderbird 2.0.0.19, GIMP 2.6.5, Pidgin 2.5.5 and much more...

Download Wolvix 2.0.0 beta1 from one of the links below: (md5sum)

Screenshots: Screenshot1 Screenshot2

New in 2.0.0 is that nothing has been stripped out, (translations, headers and docs) and that (most) everything you need to compile from source has been included. This of course makes the ISO larger than previous releases and it will no longer fit on a 512MB USB flash drive. I've opted to make the wolf a bit "fatter" as many of the questions and requests for previous releases has been about adding translations and/or compiling capabilities.

Another change is that there are no 'Hunter' and 'Cub' editions, just one release, at least for now. I might do a smaller and lighter edition later on in the development.

Great care has been taken to make sure that all major hardware components - wifi, sound, SD card, webcam - works as intended on Acer Aspire One netbooks. Oithona is fortunate enough to own one of those, so we've had the opportunity to test Wolvix 2.0.0 on it.

As always we depend on you to test our development releases and give us feedback, so give the beta a spin and let us know what's broken. Have fun! =)

Wolven

New build available

Since it's out in the open anyway, I might as well announce the availability of a new build iso. Wolvix 2.0.0 build40 is available for download here: http://wolvix.oithona.com/downloads/wolvix-2.0.0-build40.iso

I was planning that this build would be the first beta release, but late last night I found that I need to upgrade a few packages and tweak a few settings first. So next ISO that I produce will be beta1. It should be ready in a few days at the most, depending on how much development time I get.

Wolven

Someone got a bit too eager. =)

Looks like someone got a bit too eager and tipped off DistroWatch about the latest development build ISO, or that DW has been snooping around on the user forums. =) It's great to see that people are anticipating the next Wolvix release and that they are curious to see what the development status is. However this is a bit unfortunate as there are still a few bugs I'd liked to have fixed before the ISO went public and as the ISO is hosted on my private internet connection it means that all downloaders are getting a crappy DL rate.

I ask those of you who have downloaded build39 and who are reading this to please set up a torrent for me at LinuxTracker, so I can get some traffic off my server and people can get better download speeds. (P.S. We only need one torrent, so check on LT if one already exist and help seed instead.) Once a torrent is up I'll inform DW so a new download link can be set up.

In other news for those who've been following us the last months, you've probably noticed that the website did not go down as I feared. Why the site did not go down is a mystery to me, as I was not able to pay the bill before it was WAY over due. Guess the Linux gods are watching out for us. ;-) I want to thank everyone who has donated you helped me get over a financially difficult time. I'm back on track again (for now). As requested I'll keep the donation button on the site. Not quite sure where to put it yet, so I'll just place it here:

We are getting close to the first beta release of Wolvix 2.0.0 now, the plan is to have it ready before the end of this month, (February) but some unforeseen personal issues has come up, so there might be a slight delay.

That's all for now, keep an eye out for the beta and please help me set up that torrent I mentioned above.

Cheers!

Wolven

UPDATE:

Oithona has set up a second download mirror for the build ISO: wolvix-2.0.0-build39.iso

Servers will most likely go down

Due to the fact that I've been unable to pay my internet bill which was due about one month ago, my internet connection will be shut off for a while, unless I manage to conjure up the money (which I don't have) by Wednesday 31.12.2008. Since I'm hosting wolvix.org from my home this website and the forums will be unavailable until I get this fixed. The ISO files and the repository will be available as normal, since this hosted by our sponsors.

I'm sorry it had to come to this, but I'll try to get it sorted as soon as possible. If you're reading this, please help me spread the word, so people will know that Wolvix is still alive and that I'll try to get things up and running again.

UPDATE:

I've got the bill postponed until Monday 05.01.2009. It won't help me much, but I won't loose the connection until then. Also Oithona has offered me to upload the site and forums to his private web host, so I'll put the site up there before I go offline.

As requested by some users, you can now donate to help get the bill payed (The PayPal account is set up by Oithona)

New download and repository mirror

We have gotten a new Wolvix download and package repository mirror today. Generously sponsored by Hasan Ali at jkxbm.net.

The ISO mirror URL is: http://jkxbm.net/wolvix/ftp.wolvix.org/wolvix/
And the URL for the repository is: http://jkxbm.net/wolvix/repo.wolvix.org/

Thanks a lot for the mirror Hasan, it's highly appreciated.

-Wolven

Second website progress report

Here's the second and possibly last progress report for the new Wolvix website

The code has been cleaned up and all pages should now validate as XHTML strict. Content has been added to the links page. It's not complete yet, but it's getting there. The news page has gotten some improvements, all articles now have perma links (click the headline) and new code for the pagination has been added. RSS feed has been added to this site, so you can now keep track of the news posting with a feed reader.

Wolvix has finally gotten a bug tracker. (See the bugs link) It's not completely configured yet, but I'll work on that. It requires registration (for now) to prevent/limit spam.

The Wordpress install used for the Wolvix newsletter is up and running again, but is sorely lacking a dedicated editor, so if you'd like to become an editor for the Wolvix newsletter, please contact me via the forums, or our IRC channel. Don't contact me about this unless you're really serious about it.

That's all for now. Over and out.

- Wolven

Website progress report

Here's a progress report on the new Wolvix website.

The forums has now gotten a new theme, which is similar in colors to this site. It has also gotten a lot of new categories and over 1500 posts have been moved to their respective boards. (Thanks to Oithona for helping me out) It should be a lot easier to search and keep track of posts now.

After a grueling 24 hour marathon the FTP server is up and running again, the OS has been upgraded and the hardware has gotten a much needed overhaul. The poor CPU in the server was overheating and it's been running on too low voltage for ages. It's a wonder the old website has gotten so much uptime as it did, being hosted on that box. There are now two servers responsible for hosting Wolvix.org. The new web server, which in reality is not new at all, and the old web server, which is now just an FTP server.

For those interested in such, here are the server specs:

Web server - AMD Athlon 2100+, 1Gb DDR-RAM and about 160Gb disk space.
FTP server - AMD Duron 1600, 512MB SDRAM and about 260Gb disk space.

While it might be better to let others do the hosting on fancy servers, and not on some old boxes at home, I actually enjoy the challenge and the fun of running my own servers in a closet. ;-)

Next on the agenda is finishing up this website and getting back to working on the next Wolvix release.

Wolven

New Wolvix website up and running

A new Wolvix website is up and running. All the registered users and forum posts has been transfered to the new SMF forum. The new forum is work in progress, it will get a new theme and categories and topics might be added, changed, moved, etc.

I chose to make a new website mainly because I wanted us to have a better and more traditional forum. The Drupal forum has always been a bit quirky to use and there have been problems with user registrations since day one. The Drupal install is also outdated now and in dire need of an upgrade, which is a pain, to put it mildly.

The new website has been designed and coded from scratch and it's still under development, so it might change slightly, but the basics are in place. You'll also find that the FTP server is currently down, so the files hosted there will be temporarily unavailable. I had to move to the new website now even before the transition was complete because the old site was dying.

I hope you all like the new website and forums, even if it's still somewhat incomplete. I'll keep on working at it the next few days.

- Wolven