community.linuxmint.com

Another note:

• The Appearence dialoug is not the modified Mint one but the standard Gnome one.

OK I downloaded LMDE ISO which was uploaded on 09-06-2010 and ran install. All ran as it should. Did updates and no freeze on Mint Update refresh.

@Rovanion. I see.

@mmesantos1 I wanted to add the source PPA for Docky so that I could apt-get build-dep for Docky instead of finding out what package provided what dependency in the Debian repo. One software project is often split up into multiple packages in Debian and inherently Ubuntu

The statement that all software is already in the default repositories is just plain wrong. There is much software that is not in the default repositories, namely all propitary products such as Spotify and Skype.

@Rovanion, it is not recomeneded to add PPA for Ubuntu on Debian system. You are just asking for trouble. Nor is there any need to Add Repo since Debian Repo has all needed software. I am unsure why why you seem to be so insistant for these things when there is nor aparent need to have them added to a Debian install. Please do not misunderstand why I question you, I just do not understand why you feel this is important. Perhaps I am missing something?

@ikey, Yes I think I realised that once I wrote the second comment. Packages in PPAs are built in a clean environment for each version of currently supported Ubuntu. The build-system has no environment of Debian Sid.

It is also not possible to add launchpad PPA's trough software sources.

Are these two repository-related bugs intentional?

add-apt-repository is not included. To preserve compability with many install guides this command is needed.

Does LMDE use GNU coreutils or Busybox? Both are installed.

I think I found something....

On non-US systems the installer tries to localize FF and Thunderbird. On US systems it doesn't.

I tested the ISO in French and English/Ireland (en_IE), I know Suhana uses en_GB and funnily enough, all reports on the forums are from people using en_US...

So, now, onto the weird thing... commands is used in the Grub step, so why doesn't it fail there? Also, it's imported in the non-US part of the code, but also at the top of the script... so I still don't understand why it fails, but at least now we know why it went passed our bug detector :)

Isn't that just typical now? :)

So, let's recap the situation. "Cleaning APT" is the last step of the installer (just before it unmounts the partitions and finishes the installation), so in terms of impact, this bug means people see the installer hang and once installed dpkg isn't clean (resulting in the user needing to run "dpkg --configure -a" after they're asked to do so by the system). Note that it doesn't affect the installation itself.

We're facing a non-critical bug since the system is still usable and the problem can be worked around by novice users... though, this looks bad and it seriously affects the usability of the desktop.

In terms of code now. "commands" is a module, it's used in different places and without any problem so I don't really understand what's going on. Either I'm missing something or Python is acting weird here? It's easy to fix, I can replace the call with os.system, but to be honest I don't see anything wrong with the current code.

In terms of testing, I personally tested this use-case 3 times, it's gone through Rovanion, Suhana and myself, and I can say with certitude that the installer didn't hang! So why is it hanging today with the same code, the same package base, both in UI and in text mode? I guess that's where I start being superstitious and paranoid :)

Anyway, it's decision time. This is serious enough for a new ISO spin. I'll make an announcement on the blog warning about the fact that the ISO present on the mirrors isn't final. I'll fix this issue, go through the minimal set of smoke tests (history, residual config and installer) and I'll update the ISO.

This will delay the release to Tuesday/Wednesday.

@clem This is the blueprint I wrote about preload if you recall: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+spec/include-preload-in-mints-default-software-selection

@ikey Yes, and after reading the blueprint you realised that preload had nothing to do with boot but rather with how fast applications launch once the system is up and running :P

@ikey it was a long time ago, during the summer when I wrote that blueprint about it. And I got the information directly from your fingers, assuming that the ikey in the mint-chat channel was you.

Great work guys, congratulations to all.

@ikey Yes, last thing I heard you sent over an .iso of LMDE with preload for @clem to test. 

@Rovanion: preload's not installed. All defined tests pass successfully and we've eliminated all critical bugs. There's going to be thousands of things to improve on this edition, and whether it comes from us or from upstream, users will get loads of updates for them. We'd never release if we didn't set ourselves goals to achieve, and for the scope of LMDE we now have a very good ISO that can be given to the public. It's missing a few things and it's got some rough-edges but this project is in its infancy and based on a system we don't know as well as Ubuntu. It will evolve and there's no reason at this stage not to let it out.

@clem Wouldn't it be better to first fix this small set of issues before letting it out to the masses who will encounter a ton of more issues?

Oh and yet again, is preload included?

Waoo, there's a lot of feedback there.. :)

Many comments from testers on the previous ISOs (especially the last one) point out things that could be improved on this edition. I'll make sure to go through them while pushing updates and fixes towards LMDE users.

In the meantime, I'm really happy with the current ISO and I don't see any reason to hold the release at this point. I'll go through the remaining tests to make sure all them pass and then we're probably looking at a release.

Changes:

• Changed "CD" to "DVD" in live CD menu's integrity check
• Removed startupmanager
• Modified the installer to perform an automatic "dpkg --configure -a".