We are well known for our beautiful artwork here at Sabayon, and I would like to share this amazing cartoon, produced by wolfden.
If you are the devel mailing list you will have seen this already in the ongoing debate over “What is Sabayon” with regards to user group focus and the website. If you have any opinion on what Sabayon is, please leave it in the comments.
Today I stumbled across Netrunner GNU/Linux Community Distro and it made me wonder about a few things.
Originally, it was Ubuntu with out the “evil Mono(tm)”, now of course mainline Ubuntu has no mono either, so their USP was gone! So they changed their main idea.
The latest release is based on Kubuntu (which makes it a 4th generation distro) and aims to improve the KDE that is provided by Kubuntu by, this is what really got me, integrating more of Gnome into KDE.
Yes, really. Dolphin for instance is replaced by Nautilus, because Nautilus is more “Feature complete”. I’m not sure how they came to that conclusion at all and especially within KDE Dolphin really shines, its integration with tech like Nepomuk and friends is a big plus.
In fact, which missing features of Dolphin? You mean the integrated terminal? No forced breadcrumb navigation? On wait, they are things Dolphin can do and Nautilus can’t. If anything, nautilus is getting worse, espesially with Gnome’s ongoing war against features that could confuse anyone with less mental power than a domesticated turkey.
(Domesticated Turkey fact: Young Turkeys don’t know how to eat. Turkey farmers make use of the chick’s natural attraction to bright colours: marbles or strips of foil are placed into their food, or their food is sprayed with green food colouring. In pecking at the colours, the turkeys learn to eat. )
One idea on their suggestions forum was to ship Windows apps pre-installed, uTorrent in fact. Native applications aren’t feature complete either?.
I suppose this is the strength of Linux – if you are looking for a Linux flavour for any particular purpose there will be one available - even if what you want is a KDE/Gnome/Windows cross-breed Mongrel.
Earlier I posted a dirty hack how to get the sound going again with flash on 64bits.
Now we have www-plugins/adobe-flash-10.1.53.64-r11 in the repositories with a cure for that.
If you did follow my previous post on how to get it working with mozilla-firefox, you should undo that (remove the libflashplayer.so from ~/.mozilla/plugins )
equo update && equo install www-plugins/adobe-flash-10.1.53.64-r11
Now you should check if you have /etc/asound.conf with the following contents:
pcm.!default {
type pulse
}
ctl.!default {
type pulse
}
Reboot and all should be fine again.
Just as a note to myself and maybe helpful to others.
To compress all files in zip file in a directory:
zip test.zip *.*
creates:
-rw-r--r-- 1 joost joost 111M Jul 21 14:23 test.zip
If you want to split up the zip file because it is a bit too big (111MB) we can use the zipsplit command.
Lets pass the -t parameter to first let it explain what it would do:
joost@xbox-360 ~/Desktop/moos $ zipsplit -tn 10000000 test.zip
12 zip files would be made (100% efficiency)
ooh yes I wants that!
joost@xbox-360 ~/Desktop/moos $ zipsplit -n 10000000 test.zip
12 zip files will be made (100% efficiency)
creating: test01.zip
creating: test02.zip
creating: test03.zip
creating: test04.zip
creating: test05.zip
creating: test06.zip
creating: test07.zip
creating: test08.zip
creating: test09.zip
creating: test10.zip
creating: test11.zip
creating: test12.zip
And there you have it.
Well due recent changes I noticed that using flash on firefox was hijacking the sound on my system.
If you aren’t a careless internet surfer and still want to use the latest amd64 flash version that didn’t have the sound problems you can try this.
mkdir ~/.mozilla/plugins
then download this flash release.
Extract libflashplayer.so into the directory we just created and restart firefox.
Some other people say they have benefit by setting an environmental variable but that didn’t work for me.
I’m not sure if the issue is only related to x86_64 yet.
A few posts back I posted about setting up your own spin. Things got moving quickly and we decided to overhaul the way we maintain our iso’s server-side.
Sabayon 5.4 will have everything based on the SpinBase iso and all applications on top off this will be placed in sets. A KDE set is going to be written soon.
A first result of the reorganization are the LXDE and XFCE spins released today!
Some important recent changes:
- On amd64 we moved to 32bits flash.
If you have a problem with it consider reinstalling nspluginwrapper. I know it is not the most elegant solution, but keeping users with a potential security risk was worse. And upstream Adobe did NOT provide a 64bits version.
- ATI-drivers 10.6 problems
Due a bug in the new ati-drivers that only affects people with a default xorg.conf (most off you) the light went out and X would die with a segfault. Check out this bug report on debian. As a result we decided to mask 10.6.
Sabayon Linux 5.3 “Extra Spins” releases
Our crew, is happy to announce the immediate availability of XFCE, LXDE and SpinBase/OpenVZ Sabayon 5.3 “Spins” built on top of Sabayon “SpinBase” ISO images.
Under the “Extra Spins” umbrella, the Sabayon developers are going to experiment new Stable Releases with different package compositions.
Consider these “Extra Spins” an appetizer of what you will get in the upcoming months: more “Spins” are planned and more external contributions will be accepted.
Just like the other regular Sabayon releases, these “Extra Spins” are also daily built by our Build Servers and available in our mirrors inside the “iso/daily” directory.
Download sources
Our Mirrors Page:
Just choose a link from the list and get to the “iso” directory
- http://www.sabayon.org/download
Bittorrent:
- http://tracker.sabayon.org
MD5 hashes of released files
71923122a703af647cf9128356edf103 Sabayon_Linux_5.3_amd64_LXDE.iso
dba2212e09764186ab56c74fdeb70922 Sabayon_Linux_5.3_x86_LXDE.iso
66c54177b3c26226689b571bb6eb9aa2 Sabayon_Linux_5.3_amd64_XFCE.iso
ec605701b7cbd24c07c82d956377be3e Sabayon_Linux_5.3_x86_XFCE.iso
ee2b3e08ab98e99713df9fa0c2f0fad3 Sabayon_Linux_SpinBase_5.3_amd64_openvz.tar.gz
aec80516bf2992d70960e337842eb8ec Sabayon_Linux_SpinBase_5.3_x86_openvz.tar.gz
Sabayon OpenVZ templates are being added to our build server and will be generated nightly based on DAILY SpinBase ISO images.
“In short, OpenVZ is the only highly scalable virtualization technology with near-zero overhead, strong isolation and rapid customer provisioning that’s ready for production use right now. Deployment of OpenVZ improves efficiency, flexibility and quality of service in the enterprise environment.” [from: http://wiki.openvz.org/FAQ]
equo install sys-kernel/linux-openvz vzctl vzquota vzdump rc-update add vz default
You may want to turn NetworkManager off and switch to plain /etc/conf.d/net configuration (replace net.eth0 with your NIC id)
rc-update del NetworkManager default && rc-update add net.eth0 default nano -w /etc/sysctl.conf # and set net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 reboot
Remove the Sabayon standard kernel and drop all the proprietary/external_driver stuff
equo remove sys-kernel/linux-sabayon
OpenVZ will read configuration defaults from /etc/vz/conf/*-sample files [ve-light.conf.sample, ve-unlimited.conf-sample, ve-vps.basic.conf-sample], make sure to edit the desired file and tweak DISKSPACE and DISKINODES parameters to make your Sabayon OpenVZ template to fit (I advice to set DISKSPACE to at least 4194304:4612096 and DISKINODES to 800000:880000).
Now download, for example, the amd64 OpenVZ template from our mirrors: Sabayon_Linux_SpinBase_DAILY_amd64_openvz.tar.gz and place it into /vz/template/cache.
Now you’re ready to install the template!
vzctl create 101 --ostemplate Sabayon_Linux_SpinBase_DAILY_amd64_openvz \ --config vps.basic
NOTE: 101 is the so called “veid” that will be used to identify your virtual machine (it’s a virtual machine ID). You can omit the –config parameter or set it to “unlimited” (for unlimited virtual machine resources) or to “light“. But really make sure that the disk quota assigned to the veid is enough to make the .tar.gz content to fit.
You’re done! Just start the virtual machine with: “vzctl start 101” and enter it with “vzctl enter 101“. The newly created virtual machine will start at boot. If you want to change its settings (adding more RAM or disk space), you can either use “vzctl” or edit /etc/vz/conf/101.conf.
Have fun!
A quick little guide on helping and getting involved with the future releases of Sabayon. I know and see people asking what they can do to be more involved in Sabayon. If you have some experience, time and capabilities, you can help test the weekly iso images or add the entropy limbo repository and test packages. I wouldn’t recommend this for or on your production system. You can and will run into broken stuff, but that is the fun in testing! I like to use rsync as it saves on bandwidth of having to re-download the entire ISO. With rsync you only download the changes. So how does one do this you may ask. It’s pretty easy, find a mirror on our download page that supports rsync.
Let’s for example use Italy – Garr mirror. You will notice rsync://na.mirror.garr.it/sabayonlinux [1000Mbit/sec].
This is what you are looking for. I myself have created in my home directory two directory structures /home/wolfden/isos/x86 and /home/wolfden/isos/64. You have the option to rsync the entire directory which will grab all the iso images from the server. I do not want to do that. I only want the 64 bit ones as that is all I use. So I rsync the Gnome and KDE editions of the x86_64 isos. You will have to decide what you want to do. Either do all or pick the one(s) you want.
Now I just need to run a simple command via terminal:
rsync –progress -av rsync://na.mirror.garr.it/sabayonlinux/iso/daily/Sabayon_Linux_DAILY_x86_G.iso /home/wolfden/isos/x86 (it’s a double dash in front of progress)
That will go out and fetch the iso file and place it into the directory. I always grab the md5 file also and check the iso image. Just like this:
rsync –progress -av rsync://na.mirror.garr.it/sabayonlinux/iso/daily/Sabayon_Linux_DAILY_x86_G.md5 /home/wolfden/isos/x86
than to verify
md5sum -c Sabayon_Linux_DAILY__x86_G.iso
Now that you have the file, in the future when you run the above commands, it will update your iso and md5 by downloading only the changes instead of the entire iso file again. You can of course download your first iso(s) off the ftp side of the server and move it to the correct directory and than run the rsync. As long as the iso and path all point correctly it will update.
If you want to download all the isos, you can simple do something like:
rsync –progress -av rsync://na.mirror.garr.it/sabayonlinux/iso/daily/Sabayon_Linux_DAILY_x86_G.iso /home/wolfden/isos
That will grab everything in the directory. To get a directory listing:
rsync –list-only rsync://na.mirror.garr.it/sabayonlinux/iso/daily/
I like to use unetbootin and a flash drive for testing iso. Save a blank cd/dvd-r and use a flash drive if you can.
Maybe you don’t want to test iso(s) and just want to test packages. We have the entropy limbo repository that is the testing ground for packages before they get moved into the main line repository. One of the entropy team members will give a shout out here and there for specific testing of limbo packages even. You can enable the limbo repository through sulfur or by editing the /etc/entropy/repositories.conf, please see our wiki for that. Also make sure you are on the Sabayon Dev Mailing List to stay in touch with announcements and changes for testing. Getting on the Dev ML should be your first step.
So now you are testing and find an issue or bug and need to report it. You can use the Sabayon Dev ML, Sabayon Bugzilla or discuss testing in the special forum section devoted to just testing. When reporting, try to keep in mind a few important things that are needed:
The more information you submit, the easier it is for us and there is no cat and mouse chasing to get the required information. Stating that the latest entropy limbo update crashed your desktop isn’t what we want to see. Reports like that are usually deleted as they are useless. So try and remember that the more information you can give, the better. Someone will usually try and recreate the issue to confirm or deny the issue. Feel free to confirm or deny the issue(s) as they are posted.
Being a tester is usually for experienced users and you usually don’t want to run it as your main operating system. Some ask that they don’t have enough hard drive space to test and want to know if they can use Virtual Box. Yes you can. We need all aspects tested. This includes things like virtualization, running it in live mode, and doing actual installs. New users are gonna get their first impression from the Live mode, so we need that working flawlessly. I like to use unetbootin for this. Just let us know how you are running it, again, the more information you can provide, the better. Test anyway you can and help make a stronger Sabayon and be apart of that.
Thanks to all that do already and will be in the future.
Recently I seem to have been neglecting my blog a bit, I will try to keep it more regularly updated from now on.
The next Sabayon Linux release will be 5.4 as usual it will have the usual skew of package updates and bug fixes. We are tracking the bugs earmarked for fixing before 5.4 using the Sabayon 5.4 Tracking Bug. This means that you can see which bugs will be fixed for 5.4 and the status of each issue individually; it also means you can report bugs and we can easily target those before each release. This is a new public approach for to nailing down issues before release and is due in part to structural changes within the Sabayon testers group.
Previously the Sabayon testers team (who are one of Sabayon’s most valuable assets) had a closed mailing list and IRC channel, as of this week both of these are being closed and all activity will be moved over to the existing public infrastructure of the Sabayon-dev mailing list and #Sabayon-dev IRC channel on freenode. The ‘opening up’ of the process was done to improve communication with the wider community, ideally it will get some more testers involved in testing and encourage more widespread input on the varying aspects of the the distribution. If you want to get involved, just grab one of the Sabayon daily images and hop on the devel mailing list with any issues.
I have decided to pick my artwork duties back up for 5.4 (as no else has volunteered to do art!) which means I can also reveal some things regarding the theme for 5.4. Firstly there will be a new theme which shares a colour scheme with the current 5.x theme, hooray! Secondly, the Sabayon “hens foot” logo will be brought back as the official Sabayon logo! Woot! There will also be a brand new KDM theme and wider KDE will be getting some theming love too.
In conclusion then, there is a lot to look forward to in Sabayon Linux 5.4, stay tuned for more information.