I am proud to announce that PostX 0.3. is now available. Now, there are two versions available: 32-bit and 64-bit.
Quickstart
You can get both versions from the distribution’s Sourceforge page:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/postx-0-3-openbox/
user under live-mode: audax
password under live-mode: live
If you wish to burn the iso to usb stick open terminal and execute the following command: ALERT: Make sure that /dev/sdb is your actual usb stick – since all data in it will be erased.
sudo dd bs=4M if=name_of_the_file.iso of=/dev/sdb && sync
Tip. Use Fat32 file-format and check you device name with gparted. Open terminal and type sudo gparted
Tip2. You can view all the available shortkeys by pressing Winkey+x
You can start the installer under live mode by pressing F2 and writing the text appearing on this screenshot
Here are the key highlights of the release:
The distribution comes with Linux Kernel version 4.1.15.
Crosslinker FM (revision 2): This file manager now comes with Gtk3 support and has some nice new features like Open File integration and decompression/compression integration coming from Miimo.
*When you decompress files they always end up to a folder called decompressed
** When you make a zip file from a folder it ends up to an upper directory tree. For example, if you made an archive when you were selecting a folder called folder2 from : /home/tester/archives/folder2 it ends up to become /home/tester/archive/folder2.zip
Winkey+W opens Sysman2 which provides some useful launchers for common programs.
The Cli version of Miimo tool matures as well and brings new features.
As requested: Apt-fetcher gets remove packages functionality.
Power manager provides common power management functions. Notice that these functions are also integrated to Crosslinker FM.
If you need to mount something then Simple mount is there to help you. You can mount usb devices or hard disks with it. To edit/move/delete stuff you need to become a sudo user.Open terminal and type: sudo clfm (or any other file manager of your choice). Be extra careful when using sudo.
You can change wallpapers with Wall selector, which uses feh as its backbone. You do not need to run the Setup step, as a PostX user – since it is done by default.
RunIT browser: This webkit browser is now the default: It should play Html5 videos and it also has DuckDuckGo search integration. You can also open Tabs, Close Tabs and Find text from page. See more from: RunIT program’ s File –> About
*RunIt is still missing Open Pop-up functionality. To remedy this: Right click on a hyper link and choose: Copy link location.
**When you want to Download: Copy Link location to address bar and press Download button. This should create a new folder to contain Downloaded files (look within your user’s home) and respected history entries.
*** If video sometimes fails to load then retry. This is more than likely a connection issue. On some cases it might be an issue with the actual video itself. RunIT should also work with Flash, although I did not test the feature fully – since Flash is a memory consumer and my computer is low on the resources (but still awesome).
**** RunIT will have many new features upon future releases but remembering browser history is likely not one of them – since for security it is good to be always “on a private mode”
Vlc has a new skin.
Artwork and look & feel is upgraded.
Slim dm is back with two new GPL themes: First and Second.
Openbox as a Window manager with 4 custom made themes.
No default large office suite: Abiword was crashing and Libreoffice is huge. PostX still comes with Geany and Gnumeric, which should provide a good balance with productivity.
ADDED TIPS: Networking and Wlan
After you have installed the system run Netset to setup your network – so that you gain Internet access. The live-mode does not require network setup. If you use Wlan(a.k.a. wireless) take a look at this older post, which contains information about the drivers you may want to install: https://www.techtimejourney.net/networking-and-audax/
Sound setup
Remember to setup your sound card with sound-selector so you will get audio playback. (Bluetooth audio does not currently work with Alsa – since Bluez4 fails to run correctly with more up-to-date systems).
Run alsamixer from terminal to fine-tune your sound card selections. When setting up HDMI playback make sure you sound channels are not muted (MM) on the screenshot. Press m key to mute and unmute channels.
IF YOU MUST HAVE PULSEAUDIO AND BLUETOOTH:
open terminal and type:
sudo apt-get install pulseaudio pavucontrol pulseaudio-module-bluetooth bluez blueman
*Pavucontrol is the program to control sound devices within Pulseaudio.
** Blueman is a bluetooth device pairing program to help to pair, for example, headsets.
Do remember to add blueman-applet & entry to .xinitrc file to autostart the respected bluetooth device program in question.
If you notice any bugs feel free to let me know.
I will be pushing the PostX 0.3 repository Online within a few days – after I clean my build environment. It was a hassle to create a 32-bit and 64-bit releases – as I did encounter many /usr/bin/env bugs that delayed me a bit. In any case I hope you enjoy PostX 0.3.
Extra note: I will also push some legacy+extra packages to PostX 0.3 repository from previous releases. Stuff to be included are: a big collection of Wallpapers, which appeared with the Fluxbox version of PostX, previous Slim dm themes, Darker outlook variation+settings. If you would like some extra feature or package to appear in PostX 0.3. repository drop me a note via Deviantart.
Short info about the future and things to come
I will start making designs from 12th of January onwards and draft the future PostX 0.4. release. I will most certainly add functionality to RunIT browser to make it even more usable. I am also currently building a Gtk3 front-end for Vlc, which will also most likely be usable when PostX 0.4. will be released as 32-bit and 64-bit in the future. As I did experience many problems with Live-build system when making the 0.3. release I have decided that I will not use Live-build again to make the release. Instead, I will do things more manually with debootstrap and chroot and automate only the most general tasks. In any case, future looks interesting for PostX Gnu/Linux.