The status of Mint Fluxbox CE

[shane]

Is there a mailing list which I can sign up for. Possibly I can help with the code - or at least something to let me know when it is done?

thanks

current discussions on the public beta are this thread

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=16784

[ShadeTree]

Please disregard, the RC1 version came out the day after I posted this. With this method you would not have the opportunity to readjust all your settings and get used to the new applications.

ShadeTree

So what is the 'correct' path to upgrade? I have run debian, redhat, centos, etc (even ubuntu) and there has tended to be a guide. If I am using 4 flux how to upgrade to 5 'correctly'?

Is it as you suggested, simply changing repos? It would seem not as you said "Please Disregard" . . . so then what method should be taken?

Thanks

Benjamin

My personal recommendation is that if you don't need any of the new features, which I didn't and you're already running Mint Flux CE 28 is to go ahead and use the update method I outlined above. Incidentally I now have flash working perfectly. The machine has seen a lot of use lately with no problems all the features that were there before are still there, of course as I outlined I did NOT add the new programs as suggested because that was for a gnome box and not a lean mean Fluxbox machine. As for not having a successful upgrade, I haven't found anything that doesn't work. Best yet if you follow the upgrade instructions you'll be taking advantage of all the new mint tools. I am an advanced user so maybe I did better than the average since I had no problems. I don't have a vested interest, you can take the easy way or hard way, one man's heaven is another man's hell. At least I know I won't have to upgrade again on this notebook because Ubuntu is going to keep updates coming for four more years. At this point my bed has been made and I can't loose.

Sorry to muddy the waters but more than six weeks had passed without any updates to the Fluxbox forum what so ever so out of desperation I tried the upgrade path I outlined above and was 100% successful. After have such surprising results I decided to be a good bloke and pass along the good news. I had no way of knowing there would be an RC1 release the next day out of the wild blue yonder.

ShadeTree

[wrender]

Is Mint 5 Fluxbox still active? Or is it shifting to development towards a Mint 6 version?

[shane]

the final release is under going testing by the team... hang in there

[mrreality13]

Nice job to all,I been using it for a few weeks now and its smooth
i love the simplicity of flux box
**(added bonus it keeps prying eyes out as im the only one i know in my circle of people who uses linux so flux confuses them to all hell )
Keep up the good work

[ku]

what do you mean, could mint 6 flux get released (or at least rc-ed) anytime relatively soon (like at least a first rc in 2-4 weeks)? and will there be a 64-bit version?
not being a dev or ever have had maintained a distro or anything comparable, i really don't see a huge difference between making a x86 and a x86_64 version of the same distro version (please correct me ).
anyway, i'm really looking forwarward to, please feel free to cool me down

[kei]

so what is the actual status of this project? i'm looking for the release of mint fluxbox 6

[shane]

Hi,

I am working on the Fluxbox Felicia edition but I in my opinion I have to tackle some issues that were raised after the Fluxbox Elyssa release. The main issue being resource usage of the distro. Many people were not happy with a Fluxbox distro being as heavy as the Elyssa version was. This means diverging even further from what the other Mint distributions are doing and even from what Ubuntu is doing. It has turned out to be harder than I thought initially and so I will require more time. I will try to have it ready ASAP but it does remain a ready-when-done affair.

I have completely rewritten the menu system. It now works much better as a menu system than the previous version. It categorizes applications more accurately and the icon searching algorithm is spot on. As a bonus it uses less resources on idle than the previous version. However, the initial menu generation is pretty CPU intensive compared to the previous version.

I have also rewritten how the Quit dialog works... You will now be able to Shutdown, Reboot, Suspend, etc without having to enter an admin password. This is done without editing sudoers and so there is no risk of messing that up... that was the main reason the Elyssa version did not give these permissions to users.

I have replaced gdm with slim. This has been the biggest change yet... and I am still working on it. So much in Ubuntu and Mint uses gdm that a lot of work has to go into making it work right. Slim not having an auto log in ability is causing a bit of a headache with the LiveCD...

I plan on making the LiveCD run even lighter than an installed system. I'm sure many will appreciate this.

Anyway... there is quite a lot to be done and I can only do as much as time will allow. But I'm glad at least some are looking forward to it... I appreciate your enthusiasm and will try my best to get it done soon.

shane.

[tawan]

good luck shane sounds like lots of hard work but will be appreciated. I am just spreading my field of interest to fluxbox and your felicia fluxbox will be my first look at it.

[Gnarly]

Hi,

I am working on the Fluxbox Felicia edition but I in my opinion I have to tackle some issues that were raised after the Fluxbox Elyssa release. The main issue being resource usage of the distro. Many people were not happy with a Fluxbox distro being as heavy as the Elyssa version was. This means diverging even further from what the other Mint distributions are doing and even from what Ubuntu is doing. It has turned out to be harder than I thought initially and so I will require more time. I will try to have it ready ASAP but it does remain a ready-when-done affair.

I have completely rewritten the menu system. It now works much better as a menu system than the previous version. It categorizes applications more accurately and the icon searching algorithm is spot on. As a bonus it uses less resources on idle than the previous version. However, the initial menu generation is pretty CPU intensive compared to the previous version.

I have also rewritten how the Quit dialog works... You will now be able to Shutdown, Reboot, Suspend, etc without having to enter an admin password. This is done without editing sudoers and so there is no risk of messing that up... that was the main reason the Elyssa version did not give these permissions to users.

I have replaced gdm with slim. This has been the biggest change yet... and I am still working on it. So much in Ubuntu and Mint uses gdm that a lot of work has to go into making it work right. Slim not having an auto log in ability is causing a bit of a headache with the LiveCD...

I plan on making the LiveCD run even lighter than an installed system. I'm sure many will appreciate this.

Anyway... there is quite a lot to be done and I can only do as much as time will allow. But I'm glad at least some are looking forward to it... I appreciate your enthusiasm and will try my best to get it done soon.

shane.

When you say Resource usage are you talking about Performance issues or the size of the Distro?

[shane]

When you say Resource usage are you talking about Performance issues or the size of the Distro?

I mean performance issues like boot speed and RAM usage in LiveCD and also installed system. Things like that.

[Gnarly]

When you say Resource usage are you talking about Performance issues or the size of the Distro?

I mean performance issues like boot speed and RAM usage in LiveCD and also installed system. Things like that.

Ok thanks. Well I wish I knew how to help. Thanks for your devotion to this project. I am looking forward to installing it.

[FedoraRefugee]

sounds like quite a job shane, but it also sounds like you are on the right track! I especially like that you have stuck to your guns on using slim, it will be worth it in the end. I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

[EvilGnome]

I'd just like to say that I, too, am very excited for this project, and really appreciate the amount and quality of work you're putting into it. Thanks.

[shane]

Thanks for the encouragement! yesterday I almost blew it all... I was testing some script that had some nasty bug in it... and before i knew it, instead of removing a lock file it deleted almost all of my hard drive! what a dumb blunder that was yeah I know I should backup... but I wasnt expecting something that drastic! so yesterday was basically salvaging the data on my hard drive... which lead me to finding a brilliant recovery tool for ext3... ext3grep

http://code.google.com/p/ext3grep/

http://www.xs4all.nl/~carlo17/howto/undelete_ext3.html

This thing works wonders!

[shane]

We need some feedback from you, the users. Head down to the following thread and vote and comment!

viewtopic.php?f=142&t=21677

[.ee]

I tried to find a download of the latest beta to try, but I haven't succeeded.

[shane]

i would suggest you hold on just for a little longer... a few days at the most. the Felicia release candidate should be out soon. You can get that one.

[merlwiz79]

I wouldn't recommend skipping the Release announcement.
If you are impatient here is a link:
http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/ ... ox-RC1.iso

[shane]

oh... people already know it's on the servers?