This site is only here for archival purposes.
Happy New Year. Sorry for not doing an entry last week. It's not that I didn't do anything with Yor Linux, quite the opposite. It's just that there was so many events going on I totally lost track of which day Saturday was. For the past two weeks I've had installer issues for x86_64 and i386. I've gone through alot of the packages looking for issues. In the end, the real problem was an anaconda bug. It was only resolved today and my first successful test was right before writing this. So, no images yet. As for something completely different. Several people have asked me about my home monitoring software. I have setup several old smartphones pointing out my windows, I gather full size pictures everything 10-15 seconds, then make those pictures into hour long, and day long, videos. Anyway, I finally cleaned the scripts up and put it onto github as video-grab-bag. It's linux only, uses wget, ImageMagick, and ffmpeg. As another side note, ffmpeg and it's dependencies are now in Yor Linux Extras repository.
Next week, expect for the first alpha (or beta) release of Yor Linux for x86_64, i386, and armv7.
Yor Linux 7.2 Beta1 has been released for x86_64, i386, and armv7.
Known Issues
- i386 and x86_64
- Gnome / Graphical Install - On first boot you are greeted with a text screen that tells you about not having a license file.
- Solution: Just hit c ( Continue ) and everything moves on and boots into a graphical desktop.
- i386
- Gnome / Graphical Install - On first boot, after you make it through the text license screen, the graphical desktop tries to start, then dies with a fun dead computer screen. Only replicated on a virtual machine.
- Solution: None at this time other than not installing a graphical desktop. But this is a high priority for getting fixed.
- armv7
- root password is yorlinux
- Change that password first thing.
This week we got the first beta our for Yor Linux 7.2. For the most part it's fairly good. It needs a little cleanup to make sure we have what we want in the images. We also need to get rid of that pesky first startup saying there isn't a license. The i386 doesn't like graphical desktops on virtual machines. This is due to the Fedora kernel and vm drivers. Not much I can do about it, and I don't feel it's worth the pain to fix. I'll call it a feature to keep you from running 32 bit desktops on 64 bit machines. Just go ahead and run a 64 bit desktop on 64 bit virtual machines.
Next week I plan on getting packages cleaned up, then start on the installation documentation.
This has been a week of lots of things happening for everything but Yor Linux.
Next week I plan on getting all the packages cleaned up, verifying I have the versions I want in the release and that x86_64, i386, and armv7 match as much as they can.
I've been making every rpm for Yor Linux myself. I've enjoyed doing it. But as I think about the long term support of Yor Linux I've realized that it might be better for more mature RHEL clones to supply the main rpm's and updates. Yor Linux should just put customized and/or added packages on top of other clones.
This will give me the opportunity to focus more on making customizations and products, and less on the mundane stuff.
Why now? Why didn't I do this at the beginning?
When I started doing Yor Linux, there wasn't any RHEL7 clones released. Those that were planning releases weren't planning on doing i386 or armv7 releases. So building everything myself was the only option. Now I have a variety of distributions to choose from.
The next 7.2 beta of Yor Linux will be based off these releases. And just to make things funner, each architecture will be based off a different release. x86_64 - Scientific Linux, i386 - Springdale, armv7
As I was cleaning up packages and getting the release prepped, I started thinking of the future of Yor Linux. I sketched out what would happen if I released Yor Linux 7.2, following my current support structure, and compared it with a few other alternatives. I also looked at my user base, and my target audience. I'm thinking Yor Linux is going to go through a shake-up.
Next week, I plan on revealing a new roadmap for Yor Linux.
This week I started shifting gears. I started changing from building all my rpms myself, to using the packages from other distributions. I spent time syncing those distributions to a local mirror, changing my build scripts and instructions, and giving things a try. Not everything worked on the first try, but that's ok.
Next week I'm hoping that I'll have beta2 out, at least for x86_64 and i386. RedSleeve hasn't released their 7.2 release yet, so armv7 will have to wait an extra week.
Sometimes life happens and it gets in the way of projects like Yor Linux. Nothing dramatic, just lots of little things. Over the past two weeks I've fixed up my installer kickstarts to work with other distributions, like Scientific Linux, but I haven't fixed up the yum repos to work their magic after an install.
Next week I expect life to settle down and I hopefully will have my first beta2 installer images.
This week I got an updated yor-release finished. This updated yor-release pulls in modified yum repo files for Scientific Linux, Springdale Linux, or RedSleeve Linux, depending which arch you are running. (x86_64, i386, or armv7) I spent some time getting the fine tuning correct, and then ran out of time to get images finished and uploaded.
Next week. I plan on trimming down the Yor Linux repositories to just the packages we will be layering on top of the other distributions. I also plan on creating some installation images. If things go well, I hope to create live cd installation disks as well.
I'm going to mothball Yor Linux. I've backed up everything. At the beginning of May I'm going to start cleaning up the repo's and websites.
There are three main reasons that I'm doing this.
1 - I've proved to myself (and hopefully others) that a single person can still create their own RHEL Clone. I've had a blast. It was fun figuring out everything from infrastructure to building problem packages. I feel that I've met all my goals that I set for myself.
2 - I looked at my user and website stats. To say they were low would be exaggerating. I believe I had one other user, and I've already talked to him. My Hawaiian shirt reviews on my blog get about 1000% more visits than then entire yorlinux.org site.
3 - Bad hackers. yorlinux.org has somehow gotten into some hacking database and gets hundreds (sometimes thousands) of hack attempts every day. It's really juts a matter of time before something happens like what happened to Mint. I need to either constantly keep up the security fight, or bring everything down. I can't just leave my stuff up for others.
I want to thank everyone for their encouraging words as I've worked on Yor Linux over the years. Like I said, I had a blast. It was fun. But it's time to say good bye for now.
