Looks like some of the work has been done with moving all binaries and libs to the /usr folder. I have been able to get a bootable (and installable) ISO now for both archs. This move is pretty signifcant and actually breaks existing installs if you just try to update the rpms. Really I hope it’s the first and last time I have to do that. I love rolling release distributions, but I haven’t found a way to allow this to roll cleanly. I have the base packages for KDE 4.8.1 done but still many more to do. I’m going just to move to 4.8.2 for a lot of those packages. On the Razor-Qt side of things they are talking about creating test releases which I will most likely start to package when/if they do. This will allow a little bit better stabilty then just doing a git pull and hoping all is well. Lately though I have been looking into how I can improve Synergy’s very simple installer. I really love the way Pardus organized Kaptan and I think the bones of Kaptan would allow for a pretty decent looking installer. So I have been playing with kaptan’s source a little and seeing if that is a viable option. I guess we’ll see. Test the latest ISOs and let me know if anything major crops up. Thanks.
Category: Applications
March 29, 2012
January 21, 2012
Graphical installer works, but aint pretty.
Friday I placed what I currently have for a Graphical installer onto the LiveCDs I have been making. It works but it sure is not pretty. I have also been able to build both 32 and 64Bit ISOs. Things are slowly progressing. The installer is written in PyQt4 and has a built in auto partitoning option (auto-part) that works but could use a lot more work as well. In the next few days as things improve I will post these as projects on dev.synergy-linux.com and give them a SVN commit.
Another thing I have been working on is razor-qt in what spare time (like now) I have found. In case you don’t know razor-qt is a desktop environment written for Qt4 and is light very weight. My hopes are this will work even better then KDE4 on EeePCs and I can make it an option much more sooner then something like kde3. In fact it may even replace a need to build kde3 if it’s stable enough. We’ll see.
July 6, 2011
New App, KDE Setup
There’s a new application I have added to the CD. It’s called KDE Setup. For some of you it may look familar. I borrowed it from Pardus (known as Kaptan, there) renamed it, took out Smolt, (for now) and I am integrating the Synergy Feedback application into it. It works for the most part other then the wallpappers don’t show a preview image because the default Fedora wallpaper and Syenrgy wallpaper aren’t true wallpaper themes. I am going to see if I can fix this ie. have the application handle non wallpaper themes better. We’ll see. You can play with KDE Setup on one of the nightlys (more to come on that) by running kdesetup in konsole. You can also grab the rpm, it’s called kdesetup or compile it out of SVN.
July 5, 2011
Next release: FireFox 5 and Thunderbird
I caved.. The next release will have Firefox and Thunderbird, this all comes from getting a decent mail client. Claws-Mail in look and feel just wasn’t cutting it. I did my own version changing the icons etc.., but it still wasn’t mixing well with Oxygen-Gtk. I found a great IMAP PyQt4 based client called Trojita but it didn’t have Pop3 support (I may still package it). So finally I settled on Thunderbird which pulls in a majority of the requires for Firefox, so I just might as well include it. I Also tried to get LibreOffice Writer on the CD as well but that pushed me up to 780Meg well over what a CD can handle and a CD is where I want to stay (no DVD Releases in the near future) so LibreOffice (for now) is a no, but Firefox and Thunderbird is Yes. Kword will handle word-processing until I find something better or someone reading this gives a decent argument to change 
June 30, 2011
It’s Thursday, new Beta day
It’s been a few days since my last post. I’ve been hammering away at the next Beta (Beta 2) and I think it’s finally ready to be released. This Beta release come with a fix for NetworkWork Manager, it seems the latest version we were using had some issues that weren’t caught by upstream. I’m running the latest greatest packages for NetworkManager so that comes with some risks. However the issue has been reported to be fixed with this last update to NetworkManager and I have yet to have my CPU spike as it was before. We wills see though as further testing happens with Beta 2. I have also done some more branding (greening) various aspects of the System including kio_sysinfo and system-book marks (and little stuff). 
The more predominant future of this release is the Synergy Linux Feedback Application that will pop up on the LiveCD and ask you if you would like to leave feedback. It’s a very simple form, but it will allow us to get your thoughts, opinions and bugs reported. If publish worthy they will end up on the forum. I have also included QSynergy (and of course synergy) in this release, because it’s an awesome app with an awesome name.
The ISO can be found in the normal places:
Locally Hosted – 32Bit ISO (md5) and 64Bit ISO (md5)
Torrents – 32Bit Torrent and 64Bit Torrent (md5sums are included)
June 25, 2011
New Package included on the LiveCd for your WebCam Needs
After playing with kamoso for a bit I have decided to put it on the LiveCD for those of us who have webcams and are enthralled (at times) by them. 
Here’s a Screenshot.
June 25, 2011
Synergy LiveMedia Bug fix and feature preparation.
In Alpha 3 Richard reported that the Synergy Live Media Creator, also known as the “Compressed Installer” for us limited on hard drive space, wasn’t smart enough to properly calculate the size left over for a persistent overlay file. Of course it will do it properly for ISO files but installing while running Live it didn’t. So I spent some time today working on that and also preparing for future features by adding a drop down. As of right now you can only install a “Clean” system while running live. Meaning none of your changes while running live will be copied over to the new media. However, it is my plan to implement a “Current” install that will copy over the current “Live” system with all of it’s “Current” changes. This will allow those of us running “Live” on our devices like the EeePC to be able to update the squashfs image and clean out our persistent overlay, leaving more room for personal files rather than system updates.
June 23, 2011
Synergy Linux 2 Beta 1 is released.
I’m proud to announce the first Beta of Synergy Linux 2. This now issues in a feature freeze. Pretty much all the install features etc.. will be frozen unless too fix major bugs. Some things have changed in this release, we went with a greener icon theme. Maybe a little much but it was fun. There are now various defaults that are now created when users are, that are meant to make things easier. There will still be various tweaks with minor individual default application settings (most likely icons as well). I’m sure there’s a lot more stuff I’m forgetting between the nightly releases that I have been testing that has changed. Instead of writing though a huge changelog now. I am just going to remember to do my changelog page from now on and leave you with a screenshot.
Torrents can be found here:
The local ISOs can be found in their normal location:
http://www.synergy-linux.com/iso/latest-iso/
** PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK **
Report any suggestions, question or bugs on the forum:
June 17, 2011
Synergy Linux 2 Alpha 3 (Last Alpha)
The Synergy Linux crew is proud to announce the 3rd and final Alpha release of Synergy Linux 2. In this release we include a few updates and additions. Base System Packages include KDE 4.6.4, Kernel 2.6.38.8 and all the packages that are offered from the Fedora 15 repository. Changes from Alpha 2 to Alpha 3 include some graphic work with kplash, a more simplified version of of our Plymouth theme and updates to the “Compressed Installer” fixing a bug that didn’t update UUID’s in syslinux.cfg. Additions include gtk-gnash for some flash support, Quickformat (a Simple and fast USB Drive formatter) and Arora (A Webbrowser to test gtk-gnash). The ISO already included other applications like Claws-Mail (a Mail Client) and Kword (a Word Processors). For a more complete Application list for check the forum announcement. Please leave feedback!
You can find the 64Bit and 32Bit ISOs at the normal location:
http://synergy-linux.com/latest-iso/
Expect a Torrent file to be posted soon.
** Edit **
You can find the torrent here:
http://synergy-linux.com/latest-iso/Synergy-Linux-LiveCD-2-Alpha3-x86.torrent
June 16, 2011
Some Bugs Squished
Even though Synergy Linux is still Kinda in alpha state (more like Beta) I still use it for daily use. Last night I ran a few tests on my EeePC, I have installed Synergy from a CD Rom Drive but hadn’t really practised from a USB Drive that had been installed from another Live environment. So I gave it a go, and it failed, falling too the dracut console 
after further investigation I found syslinux was looking for the drive using the UUID (A way to identify drives)of the previous install. So the config file wasn’t getting updated with the new systems UUID. After a little bit trying to find out why I created a solution and all seems well. It’s just been updated on the repos and I should have a Alpha 3 out soon with it included.. and then we go too Beta 1