[Musix-users] Musix 0.50, released!

[Marcos Guglielmetti]

=Musix 0.50 released!=

Thanks to the support of the Ututo Proyect, FSF, Ourproject, and to the usual 
collaborators, the Musix project has just released Musix 0.50, whose programs 
were tested for over 1 month, time that allowed us to solve some problems 
over Musix 0.49, and to make the more relevant software updates.

Musix 0.50 can be consider the more stable and functional Musix version until 
now, also, 0.50 can update old Musix versions, as instance Musix 0.40 could 
be updated without re-install all the system.

Musix counts with its own software package repository that has been growing. 
It is hoped to incorporate new software nonavailable in Debian, like mplayer 
or cinelerra (video edition), or Wired.

The Musix project has offered several speeches in different institutions 
during 2005 and 2006, affirming the commitment with the diffusion of free 
software among musicians, sound engineers and users in general.
Important programs/packages updated

* Knoppix-installer was updated (taking parts from Knoppix 5.0.1):
Now you can update a single package or a group of packages from your actual 
Musix installed on HD. As instance, you can upgrade Musix 0.40 to 0.50 
without re-install the system.
* Rosegarden4 1.2.3 should work ok (record audio without crashing). The 
problem was in an old .rg file.
* Installed: linux-image-2.6.16-1-multimedia-486 from 64studio, Removed 
kernel-image-2.6.13-1-multimedia-386 from aGNUla/DeMuDi
* Gparted installed: it's more updated than qtparted, qtparted was removed. 
Now the installation process should be better.

==050 New programs/packages installed==

* Added better support for desktop in German and Portuguese languages (deb 
package created with files for icewm and rox-filer).
* Traverso 0.30 (A multitrack audio recorder/editor)
* Terminatorx 3.82 installed (terminatorX is a realtime audio synthesizer that 
allows you to "scratch" on digitally sampled audio data).
* Created and installed a package with firmware GPL for devices 
MIDISport/Midiman USB 1x1, 2x2, 4x4, 8x8 y USB-2-MIDI (Steinberg) 
https://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php/EZ-USB
* Installed: clearlook theme for GTK2 (Clearlooks GTK+ 2.x engine and theme) 
and KDE (Clone of GNOME's Clearlooks theme for KDE)
* Grubconf was installed (it has a bug)
* Icecast was installed (Ogg Vorbis and MP3 streaming media server)

==Others changes==

* Improved Video hardware detection 
* Musix can be installed on Serial ATA hard disks
* Added a text console menu created by Francisco Tufro, it also lets you 
change the video settings, read the User's Manual, and other tasks.
* New wallpapers
* The system name (Musix GNU/Linux) was corrected into the GRUB boot menu
* Added new script for audio card configuration for 
testing: /etc/init.d/alsasound (apparently it works only with udev). It does 
not yet participates in the boot process.
* The behavior to access to the Admin desktop was changed (stills needs other 
modifications)
* Created "KDE-to-Rox" desktop, which takes icons in kdesktop (of the KDE 
desktop in ~/Desktop) and transfers them to the desktop using Rox-Filer. 
Besides, the "complete" KDE desktop can even be initiated from there.
* Removed residual configuration files

==Solved problems==

Generally speaking, this problems has been solved:

* Solved Portuguese keyboard bug in text console? 
(ln -s /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/pt-latin1.kmap.gz
 /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty/pt.kmap.gz)
* Bug fixes into rosegarden+* scripts
* KDM (desktop manager) takes too long to launch, solved
* After updated GTK, some desktop icons disappear, solved
* After the installation, the system reboots Ok

==Known problems in Musix 0.50==

*  Translation to french, italian and german languages needs more work.
* Apparently, the 'bootfrom=' boot parameter ("cheatcode") does not work from 
the 2.6.16-beyond4.1 kernel.
* In some PCs there is a problem with the network configuration that this 
scrip performs: /etc/init.d/networking
A modified script ( /etc/init.d/networking-fix ) was added so that the ones 
who have this problem can solve it easily.

==Next version, Musix 0.59==

* Hundreds of software packages will be updated
* ... maybe squashfs will be used into the live-cd (more space to include more 
software)
* a DVD version could be a nice idea :-D

-- 
Marcos Guglielmetti  
* Director del desarrollo de Musix GNU+Linux, 100% Software Libre
* CD Donwload: (http://www.musix.org.ar/en/) (www.pc-musica.com.ar/musix)
* Videos, programas y otras cosas en: ftp://musix.ourproject.org/pub/musix/
* Reporte de errores a: 
https://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php?title=Problemas-Bugs
*IRC: #musix channel on freenode