Pre announce

[jfm2@club-internet.fr]

Tomorrow I will be merging what I have done in the distrib so we have
a 0.0.0

Focus was on adding graphic packages and in replacing legacy software.
Graphics is because I firmly believe that it is not enough Linux
becoming easy, it must be useful to the user if want people to swith
from Windows to Linux.  Graphics are fun and are useful for a very
important thing: impressing girls :-).  So in the graphic area the
distrib will ship:

-Blender 1.8 with a number of tutorials so you can get something of
 it.  I will probebly end adding Blender 2.0 beta in the preview
 directory

-The Persistence of Vision raytracer 

-A modeller: Giram 

-A vectorial drawing program (Sketch)

-The most recent GIMP (1.1.27) with the 1.1.26 extras and mpeg support

-Gimp's manual so you can really use all the power of Gimp.  It is in
 PDF format because it gives better quality than HTML and this quality
 is crucial in a program like GIMP.  For now you will have to use xpdf
 for viewing it but I intend to add Acrobat reader in future releases

-Of course all this is nearly useless if you can't get good printing
 quality and the fact is in Linux we have poor printer drivers,
 specially for inkjet printers, and an obsolete printing system
 designed with ascii printers in mind.  Indy replaces RedHat's LPRng
 with CUPS who allows the user all the flexibility of Windows printing
 and far more powerfula and easier administration in large networks.
 I also added the whole cupsomatic database so you get far more
 hardware support than in the original GPL version of CUPS.  I merged
 gimp-print (a newer and seemingly more stable version than the
 gimp-print in Mandrake beta) so not only gimp but all applications
 get far better printing quality than we are used to, and we also get
 color calibration.


About replacing legacy applications the idea is that Unix was designed
by and for people who a) were computer professionals b) learned in a
non-demanding environment where a teacher softens the steep learning
path and a system administrator shoots trouble until you can shoot it
yourself.  But now we have to think in people who are only computer
users and have to care for themselves since their first minute.  That
means that Linux people should not accept being bullied into using a
program just because it is in Unix tradition.

-I added a relatively easy editor (LPE) linked in a such way that it
 is available in the direst situations.  Until now you had no choice
 but to use VI if /usr was not available.

-Replaced sendmail by postfix: faster, easier to configure and
 inherently more scure.

-Removed cluster software: it concerns a limited number of people and
 it strengthens Linux image as a system for servers and relatively
 boring applications

-Removed Gnu/emacs since distrib already includes Xemacs


Bugs:

-I had problems compiling KUPS so for configuring cups we ony have its
web based interface I consider unsatisfactory
-There are RedHat texts and logos everywhere.  For copyright reasons they
have to be removed
-Mandrake is easier and better than Indy.  Indy is faster but this is not
enough.

Speaking of speed.  I would need someone with a Celeron/PII/PIII
box accepting to recompile the glibc for 686 so we can put it at Indy
standards.  It is as simple as downloading an SRPM, then "rpm -U
glibc.srpm" then "rpm -bb --target=i686 /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/glibc.spec".
This would make Indy faster.  I cannot do it myself since the building
involves running a program generated by this compilation and that program
will use P6 instructions unavailable to my K6/2.  Contact me if you want
to help.


Next version: In around two or three weeks.  Goal will be to remove
RedHat logos and texts plus improve integration with Windows boxes.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org