Barnix / DebXPde Website - XPde as Default Environment.

[sbkryan]

That is the correct md5 checksum

[Vintage Season]

That is the correct md5 checksum

So the checksum for isolinux.bin is incorrect, in the internal set? With the image mounted, I get the following replacement checksum for that file:

34a4ab36fc0419830730339cb62950dd ./boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin

Now to burn a disc, and see whether everything boots correctly....

- M.

[gmwest5]

Vintage Season please give us some feed back about what you think of the distro.

Both i and Ryan Gosnold Will help with any problems

Michael West
BARNIX / DebXPde Developer
Westnold Developments

[Vintage Season]

Vintage Season please give us some feed back about what you think of the distro.

Both i and Ryan Gosnold Will help with any problems

Michael West
BARNIX / DebXPde Developer
Westnold Developments

Will do so shortly; at the moment I've still got a couple of tasks running in Windows XP, and I'd like to let them finish before I reboot.

- M.

[gmwest5]

Ok Vintage Season

No Rush

just let us know when you have tried it.

Michael West
BARNIX / DebXPde Developer
Westnold Developments

[Vintage Season]

Well, I've successfully booted into Barnix and am accessing this page through Mozilla Firefox (included as the default browser), but am a little puzzled that several obvious shortcuts appear to be non-functional.

Desktop: "Internet Browser," "Command Line" and "Gimp" function as expected, but clicking on "My Documents," "My Computer," "My Home," "My Network Places" or "Recycle Bin" doesn't do anything.

StartMenu: Programs in "StartMenu" > "All Programs" are functional, but the large-icon links above that (those directly above "All Programs") and all of the "My ..." categories appear to be disabled (... possibly a single-click versus double-click issue?) "Control Panel," "Printers and Faxes," "Help and Support," "Search" and "Run..." also yield no result.

Appearance: The taskbar font is oversized, and italicized (and rather unattractive to boot!). Same font appears is currently used for buttons in the desktop properties dialog. No QuickLaunch menu (as yet; if it's there I can't access it, since right-clicking on the taskbar doesn't do anything). Several programs, such as WINE, are still present, although they must currently be called through the xterm "Command Prompt." Appropriate "Start Menu" > "All Programs" shortcuts would greatly simplify navigation, for those not intimately familiar with the included components.

Performance: Seems to load considerably slower than Knoppix 3.4 standard, and accessing programs (those that could be accessed...) causes considerable seeking on the disc. Question: Was the disc re-ordered before compressing the KNOPPIX image, and could this be affecting seek/load times?

Overall five-minute first impression: I know it sounds like I've criticized a lot in the last few paragraphs, but this is still an impressive first public step toward a visual approximation of Windows XP. Would I recommend it as an acceptable replacement system yet? No, since it seems for the moment to be far less functional than even Knoppix 3.4, on which it was based... still, it is a hint of what is hopefully to come! Currently the feel of Barnix may more closely approximate the "Safety Mode" of a Windows installation, but if the performance issues can be resolved this could easily become a viable springboard for non-Linux natives to begin adaptation. With the anticipated adoption of existing XPde Tools, Themes and Components and a little more development, this could even become a convincing XP emulator.

Need to log off for now, as my wife is waiting for me across town.

- M.

P.S.: Additionally, I've just discovered that the Windows/Logoff button on the keyboard is not currently functional in this system (ideally it should call the "Start Menu" with "Shut Down" highlighted, as in a true XP system). One bright note, however - my scrollwheel mouse is scrolling just fine.

[gmwest5]

Now i Will Explain Some Things About the www.xpde.com Environment

Desktop: "Internet Browser," "Command Line" and "Gimp" function as expected, but clicking on "My Documents," "My Computer," "My Home," "My Network Places" or "Recycle Bin" doesn't do anything.

As this environment with the addition of the start menu was a pre release for this distro, some items were not finished, those buttons which do not work, don't work becuase the havent been configured in the hard coding of the environment.

StartMenu: Programs in "StartMenu" > "All Programs" are functional, but the large-icon links above that (those directly above "All Programs") and all of the "My ..." categories appear to be disabled (... possibly a single-click versus double-click issue?) "Control Panel," "Printers and Faxes," "Help and Support," "Search" and "Run..." also yield no result.

Same as above the only part that works in the start menu is the All Programs section as the other parts havent been coded yet, we may try to contact Jose again to see if he has done any more, but he maynot give us another release.

Appearance: The taskbar font is oversized, and italicized (and rather unattractive to boot!). Same font appears is currently used for buttons in the desktop properties dialog. No QuickLaunch menu (as yet; if it's there I can't access it, since right-clicking on the taskbar doesn't do anything). Several programs, such as WINE, are still present, although they must currently be called through the xterm "Command Prompt." Appropriate "Start Menu" > "All Programs" shortcuts would greatly simplify navigation, for those not intimately familiar with the included components.

yes majority of the programs are present we just havent gone into much detail in the structure of the start menu and that maybe done in our next release as i have said before this is still in beta stages. although if you look at the knoopix cheatcodes you can still use kde3.2.2 if you enter the code at startup.

Performance: Seems to load considerably slower than Knoppix 3.4 standard, and accessing programs (those that could be accessed...) causes considerable seeking on the disc. Question: Was the disc re-ordered before compressing the KNOPPIX image, and could this be affecting seek/load times?

It does say in the remastering guides that remasters will be slower and that is becuase it is being changed and we are looking into ways of helping the performance.

P.S.: Additionally, I've just discovered that the Windows/Logoff button on the keyboard is not currently functional in this system (ideally it should call the "Start Menu" with "Shut Down" highlighted, as in a true XP system). One bright note, however - my scrollwheel mouse is scrolling just fine.

yes we do know about the logoff key and reason is in the last version of XPde in 0.4 and the first version of 0.5 when you click to shutdown it would close the environment and the go into KDE and we wanted it to shutdown like it was supposed to and that is why the shutdown button would use the halt command and also the logoff will eventually goto a window manager which Jose is currently working on.

Michael West
BARNIX / DebXPde Developer
Westnold Developments

[Vintage Season]

It does say in the remastering guides that remasters will be slower and that is becuase it is being changed and we are looking into ways of helping the performance.

Yes, I am aware of the speed hit remastering often induces; in this thread on the debian-knoppix list, Klaus Knopper addresses the question and offers his own scripted method of preparing the image by using file access times as the sorting criteria, and I wondered whether such might enhance the performance of Barnix/DebXPde.

- M.

[gmwest5]

this maybe able to help us but i am not too sure i will get our other developer Ryan Gosnold to have a look at the that post and get him to reply on here tell you wether it willl help us and he can tell me whether it is worth trying.

Michael West
BARNIX / DebXPde Developer
Westnold Developments

[arkaine23]

Bandwidth limit exceeded for this month. My host can torrent our iso's pretty quickly and seed from a server with unlimited bandwidth but a narrower pipe. Not sure if he'll do it for us for just a few days, or if he'll just wait until July 1st... I have messaged him though.