WINDOW MAKER LIVE 0.95.7-3
This is an updated build mainly to address the recently fixed
glibc getaddrinfo stack-based buffer overflow as described at
https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2015-7547 in
more detail. Also includes all official updates released for
Debian/Jessie at the time of building these ISO images. As an
additional benefit, the included 3rd party programs have been
updated to their most current release versions.
The main idea behind this project is to apply the Window Maker
window manager as default user interface on top of a standard
Debian/Jessie Linux base system. It also serves as alternate
installation medium for Debian/Jessie.
To make the Window Maker based desktop as useful as possible, it
has been carefully preconfigured to provide a practical
environment with a unified visual appearance. For practical
reasons, it includes selected components taken from the XFCE4
desktop environment.
We invested only little effort to make this a beginner friendly
Linux distribution, but rather took care to make this an admin
friendly system. We wanted a worthwhile toolset to work with.
We have included lots of useful command line and console tools
which usually would require to be added on manually after
installation of other Debian based distributions which
primarily seem to target novice home users. For example, there
is no 'easy to use' editor included, but rather powerful editors
like vim and emacs. In fact, wmlive is a rather versatile system
for sysadmins.
For detailed information and latest news regarding Window Maker
and its related projects, refer to the following web sites:
http://windowmaker.org
http://lists.windowmaker.org
http://wmlive.rumbero.org
We are maintaining a dedicated package repository to provide
bugfixes and enhancements specifically crafted for wmlive at
following URL:
http://wmlive.rumbero.org/repo
For every software related issue not related to any wmlive
specific package, everything regarding upstream Debian applies.
So feel free to explore the support and information channels at
http://www.debian.org for information.
Further development of Window Maker Live depends on feedback,
critique, suggestions, patches, or any other contribution from
its users base.
This also includes monetary funding, and therefore we would like
to encourage you to consider a donation to support and speed up
our work on wmlive. Free software ultimately also depends on the
financial appreciation of its users, if they consider a project
worthwhile enough to survive.
To support our work on wmlive, donate any amount you consider
appropriate on https://paypal.me/wmlive if you want to express your
appreciation for our work in a meaningful practical way. We also
gladly accept Bitcoin via '13uafVXfUE1mfQGbCZFz9NmCpzbmdYhavc'.
If you find any issue, want to contribute enhancements, or have
any idea for improvement, don't hesitate to send a message to
wmlive@rumbero.org to share your thoughts. Your feedback is
always welcome!
WHAT IS NEW SINCE THE LAST RELEASE?
* The latest Window Maker 0.95.7 is used as default window manager. As
fallback, additionally a minimal xfce4 desktop has been included.
* Thanks to the fantastic work of Jean-Pierre Sutto Bucciol, finally
a GTK3 based theme named OneStepBack, approximating the looks of
the WINGs widget set, has come into existence. It has been applied as
the default GTK3 theme in wmlive. Merci beaucoup, Jean-Pierre!
* This release is built on top of Debian stable release Jessie, and
contains all updates and security fixes accumulated up until the
date this final wmlive release version was built.
* In addition to the standard Debian/Jessie kernel 3.16.7, after the
system has been installed to disk, the backported kernel 4.2.6 will
be available in the i386 variant, and 4.3.3 in the amd64 variant.
* The preferred default web browser is now Palemoon, a mature fork of
Firefox. It has removed unnecessary bloat recently introduced with
upstream Firefox, while still retaining full compatibility. Palemoon
actually proves to be the web browser Firefox once promised to be.
Older 32bit systems whose CPU does not support the SSE2 instruction
set will automatically use midori as default web browser.
* Telegram Desktop has been added as mobile messaging application.
For further information, see the https://desktop.telegram.org website.
Older 32bit systems whose CPU does not support the SSE2 instruction
set will automatically default to pidgin as messaging application.
* For connectivity, the much more versatile network-manager is used.
* Virtual Machine Manager using qemu/kvm and libvirt has been included.
A preconfigured virtual machine to run wmlive within itself from its
installation ISO has also been provided.
* Most wmlive specific components have been modularized as Debian
packages. These will be maintained separately, in order to provide
future upgrades and bug fixes. Additionally, these packages should
also be installable on compatibe Debian based systems.
* The wmlive ISO has been created as hybrid iso image, allowing you to
simply dd it to an USB stick and boot it directly from there. Check
out http://wmlive.rumbero.org once in a while for howto articles
explaining advanced usage tricks for wmlive USB sticks.
SOME KNOWN ISSUES:
* Due to an unfortunate limitation of Debian Installer, installation
of grub fails if no network connection is available to update package
lists during installation to disk. Because we require grub to also be
successfully written to the MBR of the target disk even for offline
installation, we replaced Debian Installer's boot loader installation
routine with a straighforward script. The original MBR will have been
backed up to /boot/mbr_backup.img on the installed system and can
be easily restored using the dd command.
* The default init system still is sysvinit. For practical reasons,
e.g., to serve as a rescue medium, we have avoided to use systemd
as init default. In order to enable an easy switch to systemd once
wmlive is installed to disk, use the 'wmlive-initswitch' utility.
* The binaries for Palemoon/Thunderbird/Telegram shipped with wmlive
were directly downloaded from their respective websites and are not
managed via the Debian package management system.
To upgrade any of these programs, manually run their respective
upgrade script (pmoonfetch, tbrdfetch, tlgrmfetch) as root or via
sudo in a terminal window.
* Dialogs of the main wmlive scripts and menus are only in English.
While translation of the user interface is not as complete as users
might wish for, further internationalization requires the practical
contributions of dedicated helpers.
SOME WORDS OF CAUTION
Before you start to install wmlive to disk, please be aware of the
following constraints:
* There is no support whatsoever included for UEFI machines, wmlive
was only tested on BIOS based computers.
* If you plan to use an USB stick instead of a DVD-R for installation,
don't even think trying to create a bootable USB stick from the wmlive
ISO image with something like 'unetbootin' or 'Universal-USB-Installer'
or any similar tool. These tools don't properly handle isobybrid ISO
images. They unpack and copy the ISO contents to the USB stick and thus
severely break their functionality.
The wmlive ISO images are isohybrid images containing an embedded
partition table. They requires to be dumped in raw form to the USB
stick to work as intended. In Linux you would use one of these commands
(the # sign represents the shell prompt) to write to a USB pendrive:
# dd if=wmlive_0.95.7-2_amd64.iso of=/dev/sdx
or
# cat wmlive_0.95.7-2_i386.iso > /dev/sdx
Replace /dev/sdx with the device file name of your actual USB stick.
This process will completely erase it, there is no way back. So be very
careful to not overwrite your hard drive!
If you still depend on Windows, you can use either the dd mode of the
excellent 'rufus' utility from https://rufus.akeo.ie or also WinDD from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/windd/.
* The installation routine does give no choice where to install grub
and always writes grub to the MBR of the same disk where /boot is
located, without asking for confirmation. A backup of the original
MBR can be found after installation at /boot/mbr_backup.img on the
booted system.
* The installation procedure has been limited to offline installation,
so no network configuration will be performed during the
installation stage. Network configuration will later be managed
exclusively by NetworkManager on the running system after successful
installation to disk.
If you find any issue, fault, or simply have any idea for improvement,
please don't hesitate to send a mail to 'wmlive@rumbero.org' to share
your thoughts. We need your feedback to widen our own perspective!
Enjoy Window Maker Live!
