3.8.20 betatesting

There we go! Elive 3.8.20 beta released - Elive Linux

this release includes a good amount of fixes and improvements over the time, stability and reliability is everyday better!

The newsletters has been sent this time to only a very few selected emails in order to improve the deliverability, feel fortunated if you received it! lol


Sorry @triantares , kernel is 5.10 :stuck_out_tongue: the persistence feature perfectly works, but may be not the best "experience" due to kernels and stuffies
@Franc if something fails in your nvidia tests (i tested them in virtualbox with the boot parameter simulate=nvidia and they compiles correctly on this release), include all the details needed to be able to reproduce the issue, just like explained in the other thread
mentions: @TheTechRobo @Rebel450 @yoda...

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HI, I am sorry to ask you, How to update from 3.8.19 recently instaled in laptop?.
Thanks

Insert the DVD or USB, run the live system (boot 3.8.20) and using the installer, opt for "upgrade installed system" when asked.

Other than that, you can always use "apug" to get your system up to date like with a rolling-release.
The latter wil not upgrade your kernel to 5.10 (you can do this yourself) nor will it show 3.8.20 as elive-version, it will show the original installed version.

Although Elive is 100% rock solid ....... make a backup before playing around!

Just downloaded and booted up on Virtualbox.
2 old gripes already:

  1. Waiting 30 seconds for the language configurator to die ....... gahh!!!

  2. The lower part of the lower pager is blocked by cairo-dock ...... duhh!!

a pro:

  1. The audio tool CD is in the panel now. :+1:
    Suspecting any noob will expect it to give access to a disk-burner app like brasero. :face_with_head_bandage:

i think i have emails entirely disabled for me

what you mean by die?

mmh it was not in my test (not the "resizable" upper part, at least), but i think i still need to configure them a bit more... i just don't want them to be stuck too up

mmmh yeah good point :thinking: :neutral_face:

well to finish off it's 30sec futile life span so the boot proccess can continue.
Sorry,
I still think this is an idiotic script ...... why not just politely ask the user what language he would like in stead of default English?
Much faster and less invasive or even error prone. :face_with_head_bandage:

but to finish what? i don't understand... it works good for me, it appears fast after the desktop start (2 seconds later maybe) and it dissapears instantly when i hit "esc" (not selecting any language, default one is ok)

language is autodetected by geolocation (if internet, if not, the user still needs a way to change / select the language before first using anything), in short is a replacement of what it was the original grub in Live mdoe which poped up asking for language selection as a forced first question, but maybe i should remove it entirely? (then the very few small positivies will have a wrong language and unable to change it because they cannot read what is said on the interface)

Use country flags with the language in local font next to it, like Enlightenment does and then only fools will not understand what is being asked.

Then ask for keyboard lay-out i.e I have never, ever seen a laptop or PC keyboard with Dutch layout.

in e16? :stuck_out_tongue: this is a future feature for when using e24, we are limited to this gadget for now (which works very good but, as you said, with flags looks better, and this worked very good on e17 / elive-3.0

just did a test in vbox, all the process is instant for me, i need to know more details about what you mean by 30seconds stuck :thinking:

A pic say it all:

Will do a fresh bare metal install later today.

oh, yes, that is normal and have been for long time, the delay is needed in order to successfully connect to internet (in case that can) before to continue with other boot configurations that requires internet / geolocation

I've got some gripes with that too.
It feels like somebody sticking a finger in your a**hole, smelling it and telling what you ate lately. :face_vomiting:

So running 3.8.20 on a laptop with an extra screen:

The menu stalls and offers the option to configure the screens (good :+1: ) but only shows up on 1 screen (bad :-1: ) and in doing so apparently jumbles up which is which. i.e the touchscreen it shows up on is the one with a higher resolution but has the lower res(bad :-1: ).
On top the yes/no widget is not accessible with my touchpad, nor via the touchscreen or can it be toggled/navigated via the keyboard (bad :-1: ).

End of story and hard boot required. :face_with_head_bandage:

After getting it up and running (without the second screen) I opt for install.

The installer wants to connect to the net but cannot due to missing wifi-card.
The offered options all consist of either telling me to use a different kernel version (not gonna help :-1: ) or retrying to connect and after a while and a few unclear messages (especially as to the service of the yes/no or OK/Cancel buttons in relation to the text :-1: ) I give up and quit the installer :face_vomiting:

If the network connection is really that desperately needed, we might as well make a much smaller iso and do a net-install. :disbelief:

Just lost 2 new Elive users there. :face_with_head_bandage:

On a side-note:
I let the network and language configuration finish on another machine
As said, it feels bad and invasive, certainly not helpful (more like a WTF?) and in the case of the network should at least ask whether to connect .... i.e I might be running live from USB on someone else's PC and shockingly connecting to their secret wifi with their (secret) password. :disbelief:

Anyway I let the tool it do it's thing .... so it ran in Dutch.

  • The Dutch widgets and Elive texts, really need looking into .... it's horrible and childish.
    Alas I really don't have the time, so maybe someone else can have a look
    I never use Dutch on computers (or phones) so frankly I'm not in the know on what terms are generally used nowadays. I sure hope it's more than that. :shocked:

The world has a myriad of tourists, expats, immigrants, refugees and displaced persons who do not speak the local language.
In the Netherlands there are Bulgarians, Rumanians, Italians, French, Turks, Brits, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, American, Africans, etc... who DO NOT speak a word of Dutch, let alone read it.

  • They all communicate in English be it rudimentary or not .... as you would too, if visiting.
    It's called Lingua Franca. :nod:

If anything, these people would be at a loss with a Dutch interface, the same as I would be if I got presented a Hebrew or Japanese interface solely because I happened to be in that geo-location and connected to a local wifi.

This geo-probing and probing for wifi and passwords in the underlying OS, is not a solution to a real problem ...... it's you, trying to show off how clever Elive is (can be) but it's backfiring and doing the contrary. :face_with_head_bandage:

That other distros don't do this isn't because they cannot, but because they decided not to do it.

My advice:
Be polite and ask the users what they want and don't treat them like idiots ..... and:

Do not touch the underlying OS w.o asking explicit permission!

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what can be the cause of this? :thinking: should arandr detect them by default? is a driver problem?

I assume you mean that's an arandr issue, if updated versions has this not improved we should report that to the authors

I don't know which menu / app / widget you mean, is there any screenshot to see these issues?

well, it asks for you to connect to internet (not forced but very suggested) before to continue, it cannot know if you have a LAN cable to plug or an USB around to do that

since backported kernels are pretty stable in all our tests, maybe we should remove that message? :thinking: (I have been experimenting some unstabilities in my internet like lagged connection after 2 days of use but i don't know yet if is the kernel or another issue, @triantares @TheTechRobo have seen this with 5.10 ?)

hum, do you remember these messages so I can grep the code to search them?, update: the ones I have seen in a fast check looks correct to me

NOTE: the messages of the installer are NOT yet validated, this means that their english is going to be improved next, these messages are very old, I just need to found a bit of time to continue with the translations I have been done the recent issues

We know that Elive aims to be automated / user-friendly / working-by-default, but this question requires a LONG and detailed answer, so I needed to found a bit of time to write all down to a FAQ page, on which explains all the details of the internet / geolocation behaviours in Elive, which we can use if somebody else wants to know about these details (feel free to improve the doc) @triantares @TheTechRobo :

[quote="triantares, post:14, topic:2832"]
The Dutch widgets and Elive texts, really need looking into .... it's horrible and childish...

[quote]

That's a problem with the translations, so translators to dutch can improve this from eltrans (**note: non-validated messages are of course wrongly spoken! that's the final meaning of the validation process, this means for example that the elive-installer is 0% validated and is normal to look wrong in other languages, but others like the usb-bootable tool should be much more correct by default, try it to see, I cannot confirm how looks on dutch)

Because this also requires a long and detailed answer (which also answers your "what about if they don't speak english?" concern), I added an extra entry in the previous FAQ: For what is needed the Internet and the geolocation in Live mode? (called "Why set a default language which is not 100% guaranteed to be the wanted one?")

as said previously, this is not an issue at all, and also uses the best option being on this way

all these things are features to improve both stability and features, but to understand them correctly and the "why's" is needed to know all the details, that's why I wrote that FAQ page

I think you're getting me wrong there. It's not a question ..... I'm ascertaining a behaviour that's invasive and wrong.
No length of explaining (which a new user will not have read in any way) will take that away.
Automating this without asking is an unnecessary need to show off technical prowess ... not even the solution to a problem or issue as they don't exist. :disbelief:

Those that download the iso have done so from an English site, accompanied by an English Email and FAQs and explainers in English... so what makes you think they wont be able to start off with a question in English?
In that sense it's "calamares" that does it right ..... it asks!

The elive installer can use the geo_sensing/wifi_guessing to have the answer to the question pre_filled so that the user only has to hit -Enter- to accept them.
I would still find that unnecessary and invasive (specifically the wifi) but at least some people will not need to search blindly for their keyboard-layout on an unfamiliar one.

To make my point:

It's this widget which clearly is an Elive one.

Sorry if it's in Dutch .... that's where the geo_guessing cleverness already fails :angry:
The issue is that it cannot be clicked i.e the pointer devices have not been activated yet and using -Tab- and -Enter- or -Space- don't work either.

Note:
If I let it sit alone long enough (minutes it feels like), it will continue to boot into the desktop with a good correct setting in relation to arandr.
It's the unusable widget itself that's concerning .... a simple message would be better but would still take to much time. :thinking:

I do want the 'elive Testing' Box in my bookshelf. It would be a perfect fit between HalfLife (which contains all my CD games) and Adobe 7 (which contains all my other needed CDs, like WinNT 4.0).

The problem (as explained in detail before), is that these configurations needs to be done before the desktop starts in order to make things work correctly, and to not end in multiple bugs or a worse user-experience

This is a totally different issue, and caused by another reason (after some google translator I was able to found from where is this message and where in the source code), but as said, this is what happens:

  • it is elive-multiscreens, the widget is run BEFORE the graphical system is run (after X server is run and before the window-manager desktop is started), this is made on purpose in order to make E17 to work correctly (and probably any other desktop), this is why you don't see the borders of the window (no window manager, just a raw window in X11)
  • thanks to this, the desktop (any) is started -knowing- that you have multiple screens connected, in order to run with a correct setup for multiple screens (otherwise, some configurations will be wrong, consider it a bug or not is a need to be run this way if we want to have multiple screens to work correctly)
  • the reason of why the touchscreen is not working yet for you is unknown, the X11 is started so it should work (maybe the window-manager does something to make it working? mmh)
  • in any of the cases it has a timeout of 180 (changed to 120) just to avoid cases like yours where the user cannot click in the buttons, the keyboard should work too as I betatested it in the past (sorry, cannot betatest it here, but I will try with an external tv soon)

exactly, as said before, 180 seconds (now 120) which is a timeout to -not- configure it before the destkop starts (so it may be set up or not correctly, depending of what the kernel or others wants to do with that, let's say unknown state)

yeah exactly, that's the issue as said before (let's see if i can betatest that soon), but the thing is that it -wants- the user to say if wants to configure the multiscreens or leave that to unknown state, in any case if is unclicable in the user's hardware it doesn't matter to -want- to configure it (because nothing will still unclickable), which then timeouts and exists & continue

yeah, could be good if we could print that :slight_smile:

I suspect it has to do with the fact that most laptop hardware uses the USB as "connector".

Which is still fairly long (2 minutes). :thinking:

OTOH, if the installer handles the 2 screens correctly ...... why ask in the first place?
A widget telling what it's configuring would suffice.

  • It's kind of strange that language selection is deemed necessarily automated and dual screen configuration isn't.

changed to 40 seconds only, so the user experience should be enough (cases where the user leave the computer booting while making a coffee, will miss it)

the installer is one thing, to have the desktops correctly configured since the first boot is another thing (also, by making elive to have the screens configured better than any other distro, is a bonus for the user to want to install elive instead other distros)

no, its a question to the user, where he has hte option to "leave as unconfigured" or "manually configure them as he wish"

as said, the "no option" is unconfigured (multiple screens detected but not set to behave in any way), the option to configure them requires user decision of how they should be, then, the desktops starts with the wanted setup

update: I have also forced the tool to show in english when "booting in live mode & pre-desktop mode"

Which still leaves the first issue of not being able to make a choice as the mouse or other touch devices don't work yet.