PCLinuxOS Education 2011.12 - please test it ! :)

[melodie]

Hi,

Tomorrow an updated version will be available. It also has a few more things and a few less also.
Added : a few gstreamer packages, so that most of the multimedia can be available at once.

Removed : all office apps such as Abiword, Gnumeric, and their main depends

Replaced : Geany by Leafpad.

Added : prelink, but in the Live only. I added a "rpm -e prelink" in the post-install section of rc.sysinit : it seems to me that in current use, it tends to make the hard drive a bit noisy during some time... when the prelinking is refreshed.

Files : I have let the Gcompris configuration files in the home of the user, and copied them in the /etc/skel directory as well, otherwise it takes a long, long, time to start. This is also the reason why I installed prelink for the Live versions.

This new version will need to be tested, I tried it, but in Virtualbox only, and didn't have time to even finish the test with an install. The day has been short. I would say, once burned into a CD, it looks like the prelinking makes Gcompris start really faster. It has been tested with the French version, which I think is even more slow to start in a Live than the English one.

It does need testing... as well as the multimedia part : what are the files that play well ? that don't play ? ...

I will be back as soon as the upload will have been finished.

Regards,
Mélodie

Hi,
A new version to be tested is online. It has prelink with configuration done especially to boost the launch of Gcompris in the Live CD. Explanations are at this post and the following:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,100316.msg854399.html#msg854399

and the newer version is available here:
pclinuxos-education.2011.12.12.iso
pclinuxos-education.2011.12.12.md5sum

Thanks for your feedback,
Mélodie

[melodie]

Hi,

This version is now available. You will find it here:
pclinuxos-education.2011.12.iso
pclinuxos-education.2011.12.iso



Regards,
Mélodie

[jlf001]

Hi Mélodie,

I've got 2011.12 up and running in VirtualBox.  All seems well, except for the boot time.  For some reason, it takes over 5 minutes to load.  I don't have this problem with your full OpenBox and Bonsai versions.

Jeff

[melodie]

Hi Jeff,

Starting 23:13:31 in Virtualbox non free.

After hitting enter with the first boot line selected it stays black for a while. After about one and a half minute the plymouth image starts.

The machine in which I run Vbox is the Nec with celeron 1.46 ghz, and 1 Mo RAM. I uses to lag a lot when vbox starts as live. It is possible that it is longer to start as usual. It could be due to the prelink program installed in the Live. Did you finish the install in vbox ? Is it as slow after the install ? At first boot ? At second boot ?

The prelink is there to solve Gcompris which was not starting fast enough in a Live CD or Live USB. I saw it much snappier in the Live CD, but could not yet experiment very well on the Live USB. And I didn't do the test on the same machine either. But in Vbox, in this old Nec M160 it looks like it is really much faster to start than it was.

Thank you for your feedback.

[djohnston]

All seems well, except for the boot time.

Same here. No problems with boot time on the live CD. It occurs after the OS has been installed. The very first boot takes a little longer because draklive-install is not installed and prelinking is removed. Each boot after that takes maybe a minute less. Madwifi AUTOINSTALL not set in its dkms.conf message still comes up every boot. But the slowest part is just after Plymouth screen shows up, and before "Welcome to PCLinuxOS 2011" message is displayed.

Problem with dkms modules or with Plymouth? I don't know.



The only other obvious thing I see so far is that the Firefox icon in lxpanel actually belongs to GIMP.

[melodie]

Hi

I take a look at the dkms thing. For now, I see a bunch of related messages on the web (more or less related in fact) and in the system (pc edu) there is a dkms.conf file under /etc/depmod.d, with this in it:

search dkms dkms-binary built-in

This file belongs to the package "dkms-minimal". It's source rpm is dkms-2.0.19-2pclos2010. I don't know what else to look for ?

About draklive-install : the package is installed right in the Live, just after the icon is clicked, which icon does execute the "Install_PCLinuxOS" script which is under /root/.cache.

I could suppose as this is performed in the Live, in might not follow during the post-install process. If you retry an install, could you comment out in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit this line:

Code: [Select]

        rpm -e draklive-install
before starting the install ? If we get sure draklive-install will really not be there anymore after install, I could comment it out for the next remaster. (I would do one more in the coming days, if the number of little issues fixed and or updates make it interesting).

But the slowest part is just after Plymouth screen shows up, and before "Welcome to PCLinuxOS 2011" message is displayed.

Do you mean after install, at each boot ? It does not seek for new hardware anymore at that moment ? (And I have also kept the services to the minimum... I think).

What about uninstalling madwifi ? Is wifi necessary for schools and children ?
(And Flashplugin, and... several non free packages... ? )

For the icon, I will check in the desktop file.

Thanks ! 

[djohnston]

The firefox desktop file, /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop is calling for firefox.png. But the icon in /usr/share/pixmaps is firefox3.png. The version of Firefox installed is 8.0. So, either copy a firefox.png to /usr/share/pixmaps or rename the existing one from firefox3 to firefox.

I'll look at the other stuff.

EDIT: There are two kernels installed, 2.6.38.8-pclos3 and 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs. 2.6.38.8-pclos3 was the last one installed, Dec 6th, but the 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs kernel, installed on Aug 8th, is the default one. /boot/config, /boot/kernel.h and /boot/System.map all point to 2.6.38.8-pclos3. But /boot/initrd.img and /boot/vmlinuz point to 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs.

[melodie]

The firefox desktop file, /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop is calling for firefox.png. But the icon in /usr/share/pixmaps is firefox3.png. The version of Firefox installed is 8.0. So, either copy a firefox.png to /usr/share/pixmaps or rename the existing one from firefox3 to firefox.

Hi,

I see the firefox3.png in /usr/share/pixmaps, but in the /usr/share/icons/GartoonRedux directories, the icon which is in use is really named "firefox.png", and it appears to me that it looks a lot like the gimp icon, but it is really not the Gimp icon. See here ?

Not really like the Gimp icon : http://www.yasi.fr/sites/yasi.fr/files/users/eddy%20m./gimp.png

Should the icon used be the more known one, or the default from the icon theme in use ?

I'll look at the other stuff.

Thank you !

[melodie]

EDIT: There are two kernels installed, 2.6.38.8-pclos3 and 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs. 2.6.38.8-pclos3 was the last one installed, Dec 6th, but the 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs kernel, installed on Aug 8th, is the default one. /boot/config, /boot/kernel.h and /boot/System.map all point to 2.6.38.8-pclos3. But /boot/initrd.img and /boot/vmlinuz point to 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs.

Oh yes ! That will help and gain space !

LOL, and thank you again !

[djohnston]

Simple fix. Change the Icon=firefox line /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop to Icon=firefox3, or rename the /usr/share/pixmaps/firefox3.png file to firefox.png. Logout and log back in. Problem solved.

EDIT: Renaming the firefox3.png is the better way because the desktop file is supposed to use firefox.png as its icon.

[melodie]

Simple fix. Change the Icon=firefox line /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop to Icon=firefox3, or rename the /usr/share/pixmaps/firefox3.png file to firefox.png. Logout and log back in. Problem solved.

EDIT: Renaming the firefox3.png is the better way because the desktop file is supposed to use firefox.png as its icon.

Well, I know how to change an icon for another. I was just trying to say I really like the look of the GartoonReduxIcon theme, and I am not sure I really want to change the firefox.png icon which is used in Gartoon Redux...

What do the other testers think about it ?


GartoonRedux:


Gimp:


Red panda cubs:

[melodie]

Hi,

I removed madwifi, it didn't solve. I removed dkms packages, it solves : no more error message about dkms.conf at boot. I am reinstalling madwifi. I wonder how much dkms is needed ? In which cases ?

Thanks,
Mélodie

[melodie]

Hi,
I have read the thread Playing with Prelink and had a look at http://linux.die.net/man/8/prelink then noticed it is possible to configure prelink.conf, possible to do a dry run too to see what libs would be prelinked.

So I wonder if I could configure it in a way such to only prelink Gcompris (which takes several minutes to launch in the Live otherwise), and then not remove prelink at all at post install ?

Does someone want to digg and test this idea ?

Regards,
Mélodie

[melodie]

Hi,

I found more explicit doc, so now I think I can make a new try:

Removing prelinking from all binaries
# prelink -au

http://crast.us/james/articles/prelink.php

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/prelink-howto.xml

Now I can start to fancy how to tweak that.

Probably something looking like:

 # /etc/prelink.conf
 -l /bin
 -l /sbin
 -l /usr/bin
 -l /usr/sbin
 -l /lib
 -l /usr/lib
 -h /usr/local/lib
 -h /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.3.1
 -h /usr/lib/mozilla
 -h /usr/X11R6/lib
# prelink /usr/bin/gcompris

(and also needs to be checked against the default prelink.conf file, which contains lots of -l switches which probably need to be kept, and I need to check again what the other switches used do : -b, -c)).

I'll have to look at the cron job file to see what it looks like. I may not want the "-a" option, for instance. Other users and testers : you are welcome to also test on your side, if you can find some time for it. This could be a great improvement for the Edu versions.

Regards,
Mélodie

[djohnston]

One question. Which kernel is to be used? bfs or non-bfs?