Progeny Debian 2.0 Developer Edition Beta 2 release

Hi,

The second beta of Progeny Debian 2.0 Developer Edition is now
available. More information is available at
http://componentizedlinux.org/progeny/ and in the following release
notes. 

Please report additional problems and issues you find with Progeny
Debian to the Componentized Linux mailing list
http://lists.progeny.com/listinfo/cl-workers.

Thank you.

Jolene Watkins
Director of Marketing 
Progeny


                 Progeny Debian 2.0 Developer Edition

                                Beta 2

                              09/14/2004

Welcome to the second beta of Progeny Debian 2.0 Developer
Edition. Progeny Debian 2.0 is the continuation of the popular
commercial product published by Progeny in 2001 and is based
on Progeny Componentized Linux (http://componentizedlinux.org/).

Progeny Debian 2.0 Developer Edition aims to provide an unmatched
"out of the box" environment for software developers
building applications for the Java, Mono/.NET and LAMP platforms.

Progeny Debian 2.0 Developer Edition also serves as a showcase for
Componentized Linux and includes all CL technologies. As such, it
is also an excellent development platform for builders of CL-based
distributions.

For more information about Progeny Debian and Componentized Linux,
please see http://componentizedlinux.org/.
Please send bug reports and other feedback to the cl-workers list:
cl-workers@lists.progeny.com.


                              Components

Progeny Debian 2.0 Developer Edition is based on Debian sarge
(with some components derived from Debian sid)
and includes the following features from Componentized Linux:

* LSB 2.0 compatible runtime with extensions (e.g., CUPS 1.1 printing
  support, Discover 2.0 hardware detection support, etc.)

* LSB 2.0 development environment based on glibc 2.3.2 and GCC 3.3.4

* Linux 2.6 with integrated NVIDIA graphics drivers

* Sun Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) 1.4 runtime and SDK

* Mono 1.0 runtime and SDK

* Complete desktop environment including XFree86 4.3 and Gnome 2.6

* Evolution 1.4, with Evolution 1.5 available as an optional add-on
  component for those wishing to target the Evolution 2.0 platform

* Mozilla 1.7 and Mozilla Firefox 0.9

* Openoffice.org 1.1

* Integrated support for popular audio, graphics, and video file
  formats

* Eclipse 2.1 integrated development environment

* Emacs 21.3 and VIM 6.2

* Perl 5.8, Python 2.3, and XML development environments

* Componentized Linux development tools, including component
  development and maintenance tools, the Anaconda for Debian
  installer and picax for creating Anaconda-based ISO images


                         Changes since Beta 1

Beta 2 incorporates numerous changes and improvements from Beta 1.
Highlights:

* All components updated to upstream as of 9/8/2004

* Anaconda for Debian updated to Fedora Core 2 codebase

* All components now derived from sarge *except* Eclipse 2.1
  (sid), Evolution 1.5 (experimental/sid),
  Mono (sid), Mozilla 1.7 (sid) and Mozilla Firefox 0.9 (sid)

* Linux 2.6 component updated to Linux 2.6.7 and pre-compiled NVIDIA
  drivers supplied

* New components: Eclipse 2.1, Mozilla 1.7 (1.6 also available), and
  Mozilla Firefox 0.9 (0.8 also available)

* Components now include -dev packages as optional elements for
  installation via apt-get

* Improvements to the default desktop environment, with more on
  the way

* Many, many minor component refinements to produce a better or
  more complete platform

* ReiserFS now supported (boot the installation CD with "linux
  reiserfs")

* LVM and RAID now supported (see "Known Issues/Problems" for
  one known problem with LVM/RAID)


                        Known Issues/Problems

As with previous alphas and betas, there are several known problems
with Beta 2:

Anaconda:

* Rescue mode does not work. Anaconda attempts to find existing Red
  Hat/Fedora installations, which, of course, does not work for us. We
  are replacing this functionality with a mechanism that allows a root
  file system to be specified and simply boots the user into a chroot
  shell on that file system, but it is not ready for inclusion in the
  Beta 2

* Pre-existing LVM volumes are not displayed on the partition setup
  screen

* XFS installation fails because of an XFS-related grub issue

* JFS installation does not work

* LVM and RAID cannot be used together on /

* Installation is slow. This is because DMA is not enabled in
  the default Debian kernel. We are working on a solution,
  which may entail shipping a kernel built to include support
  for DMA enabled

* The value to be displayed by grub on the boot loader configuration
  screen is overwritten the first time update-grub is run. We are
  working on a solution that allows update-grub to respect the string
  currently in use rather than always replacing it with
  "Debian GNU/Linux", but it is not ready for inclusion in the Beta 2

* The choice between graphical vs. text login is not presented in some
  cases (related to multi-CD installs?)

* The installation CD is not automatically ejected on multi-CD installs

* In some cases, you may be required to re-insert a CD that has
  already been installed. This is due to a bug in picax related
  to the ordering of packages on the CD sets

Components:

* Discover does not load the nvidia kernel module, so X will fail to
  start if using the NVIDIA drivers.  As a workaround, add nvidia to
  /etc/modules

* gnome-cups-manager (Applications -> Desktop Preferences -> System
  Tools -> Printing) crashes when attempting to add a new printer


                               Roadmap

Our roadmap calls for a Release Candidate of Progeny Debian
2.0 Developer Edition in the late September timeframe.
Our development focus between now and the Release Candidate
will focus on the following issues:

* Addressing the known issues and problems listed above, as well as
  any new bugs reported by users of Beta 2

* Providing internationalization components and tying those
  components into Anaconda so they will automatically
  be selected when the user selects a non-English language.

* Finishing the work to improve the default desktop experience

* Including more Java tools and integrating those tools with the
  Eclipse integrated development environment as much as possible

* Adding support for LAMP, specifically with new components from
  Componentized Linux: Apache 1.x and 2.x, MySQL and PostgreSQL,
  PHP, and better Perl and Python development environments

* Providing a basic component management tool, so users can install
  and remove entire components, not just packages


-- 
Ian Murdock
317-578-8882 (office)
http://www.progeny.com/
http://ianmurdock.com/

"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of." --Ogden Nash