MX Linux Forum

So far, official releases have taken place only once a year. Thus, someone who downloads and installs an official release may have up to a year's worth of updates to install, and that could take hours.

I'm pleased to see that monthly snapshots are available to save time on post-installation updates. That way, someone who downloads and installs the latest snapshot won't have to make more than a month's worth of updates, and this should take just a few minutes. Why aren't these monthly snapshots official releases? Why can't the future monthly snapshots be versions 16.1, 16.2, etc.? Windows had Service Packs between major releases. Ubuntu LTS and Linux Mint have *.1, *.2, and *.3 releases.

That's an idea, I didn't consider snapshots as anything special is just the regular release with latest packages from the repo, there's no change to any configuration file and usually there are no changes, only the things that come from the repo. They are also build with mx-snapshot tool not with the official build script, they are pretty similar but there are some subtle differences.

Having minor version releases would not only benefit users but MX Linux and the Linux community in general. I like the fact that Debian Stable offers periodic minor releases every few months.

Having multiple releases each year means that new users would get to see an even more polished version of MX Linux from the get go. Having more releases would really signal a message of continuous improvement and make a splash. Also, having more frequent releases is a better strategy in general for software development. You'll know the idea is a big hit in the Linux community when other distros copy it.

When will development begin on the Debian Stretch version of MX Linux? I'm thinking that a good time to get started would be during the freeze, which is scheduled to begin on February 5th. Start off with alpha releases of MX 17, keep improving it, make beta releases, and keep improving it further. If all goes well, MX 17 can be ready for its first official release just days after Stretch becomes the new Debian Stable.

jhsu802701 wrote:Having minor version releases would not only benefit users but MX Linux and the Linux community in general. I like the fact that Debian Stable offers periodic minor releases every few months.

Having multiple releases each year means that new users would get to see an even more polished version of MX Linux from the get go. Having more releases would really signal a message of continuous improvement and make a splash. Also, having more frequent releases is a better strategy in general for software development. You'll know the idea is a big hit in the Linux community when other distros copy it.

When will development begin on the Debian Stretch version of MX Linux? I'm thinking that a good time to get started would be during the freeze, which is scheduled to begin on February 5th. Start off with alpha releases of MX 17, keep improving it, make beta releases, and keep improving it further. If all goes well, MX 17 can be ready for its first official release just days after Stretch becomes the new Debian Stable.

mx development will start in earnest after the stretch version of antiX is ready.

dolphin_oracle wrote: mx development will start in earnest after the stretch version of antiX is ready.

That seems awfully late. How much overlap and collaboration are there between the antiX Linux and MX Linux teams? When will antiX Linux start working on a Debian Stretch version?

jhsu802701 wrote:

dolphin_oracle wrote: mx development will start in earnest after the stretch version of antiX is ready.

That seems awfully late. How much overlap and collaboration are there between the antiX Linux and MX Linux teams? When will antiX Linux start working on a Debian Stretch version?

there is a lot of overlap. and since mx is based on antiX, we need it ready before going too far. As to development, I suspect development is going on already.

jhsu802701 wrote: When will development begin on the Debian Stretch version of MX Linux? I'm thinking that a good time to get started would be during the freeze, which is scheduled to begin on February 5th. Start off with alpha releases of MX 17, keep improving it, make beta releases, and keep improving it further. If all goes well, MX 17 can be ready for its first official release just days after Stretch becomes the new Debian Stable.

Debian devs say that squeeze will use a stable 4.10 kernel. There isn't one yet available (only rc builds upstream from kernel.org) so there is no hurry. Typically a Debian release is several months after the 'final' freeze. I predict Debian 9 to be ready October/November 2017.

Having more releases would really signal a message of continuous improvement and make a splash.

I'm afraid that we'd try to make too much splash with too little effort, the snapshots take 10 minutes to build (maybe 20 for both 32 and 64 builds), I just boot to LiveUSB and do an apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and then take a snapshot, I don't think that warrants much splash. I mean I like the idea to keep MX in the eyes of the public and have Distrowatch news, but I doubt in general it's a good idea to make a big fuss about snapshots.

That being said the one coming in a couple of days will be more important because it will have the Debian 8.7 update and also all the fixes we made to our packages from the release. I will let other people to decide how this snapshot will be announced.

Maybe we might want to announce the start of a new series of monthly snapshots.

I really appreciate the Monthly and update my Ez2boot USBs after Adrian's snaps go up; and with new snapshots of my own 32 & 64 bit after dist-upgrade'ing them.

The support reasoning for recommending the official release is responsible, but I always use a Monthly for any
Install from scratch, so to speak. It saves me keeping
an archive of 32 & 64 bit updates.

Recommend that all reviewers use the latest monthly for review. But that's just my opinion.

Richard said: "Recommend that all reviewers use the latest monthly for review. But that's just my opinion."

Fully agree. Recently a reviewer commented on a problem - one that had already been fixed in the next snapshot.

Aren't they already deemed official?

They are in the main Parent Directory of the MX downloads page, instead of in the Community Respins Directory.

http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/?C=M;O=D

The official MX16 release iso files are all there as well.

Aren't they already deemed official?

Good point, I guess it's a matter of definition, what "official" means. If we post an official release statement and they are announce on Distrowatch and other forums. At least for this upcoming one that might be warranted because like I said is going to include Debian 8.7 changes and all the fixes from the official release (Bluetooth fix, theme fixes, etc)

Adrian wrote:...At least for this upcoming one that might be warranted because like I said is going to include Debian 8.7 changes and all the fixes from the official release (Bluetooth fix, theme fixes, etc)

That will be good, because the Bluetooth issue was raised in Dedoimedo's review and affected some members who bothered to post in the forum (leading to the discovery and fix of the issue via updates).

If the problem arose because of a package that was accidentally left out of the original iso, then this fix should come with an official announcement. For instance, I note that Peppermint had an announcement in today's Distrowatch Weekly of a bug-fix release of fresh isos to address an installer bug.

Also, regarding the standard Greybird theme and its theming glitches, will the point release include some fix to that? It's already in the MX versions of Greybird.

Also, regarding the standard Greybird theme and its theming glitches, will the point release include some fix to that? It's already in the MX versions of Greybird.

The snapshot will include any change that is in the pool, so if the package was updated then the fix will be included.

We pushed the Bluetooth package so all users have it now.

Jerry3904 wrote:We pushed the Bluetooth package so all users have it now.

Yes, I know, the snapshot is not for people who run the installed MX, it's for people who want to download MX Linux without the bugs that were fixed, also not many people run the updates on the Live environment. I think this point needs to be made clearly in our announcement, nobody who has MX installed needs this upcoming snapshot (unless they want to run as Live and don't want to bother with the update and remastering process themselves)

The monthly snapshots aren't on the Sourceforge site. Also, they'd look more official if they were numbered minor releases. Thus, the January version about to be released would be 16.1.

They are not point releases, or in fact *releases* at all. They are just the original release that has been updated for user convenience but otherwise identical.

I think the OP is suggesting it might be good to have an update officially announced as a point release once in a while.

Maybe they could come after a big Debian update and the developers could then also point out any key fixes or new tools that have been included in the new iso.

The main difference I see is that the snapshots are not as rigorously tested before being made available to public.

anticapitalista wrote:The main difference I see is that the snapshots are not as rigorously tested before being made available to public.

Yes, it's only MX-16 with regular updates applied if those updates break something then we don't want that to be the "official" dot release. Also this is build with mx-snapshots, although I worked with BitJam to make it as consistent as possible, there are still some subtle differences between snapshots and official builds that were made with the build-iso script.