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Quirky Werewolf64 7.2.3 released

November 02, 2015 — BarryK
I don't want this to be announced as an official release of Quirky on Distrowatch or anywhere else.

Having said that, this build is working really well.
There are, however, a few things that I would like to tweak and improve.

For example, the firmware is getting a bit old -- I created the firmware PETs back at kernel 3.17.
I am now using kernel 4.2.5, so the firmware needs to be updated. In particular, the new 'amdgpu' module needs firmware -- anyone with AMD video might like to experiment with this ('linux-firmware' and 'linux-firmware-nonfree' DEBs are available via the Package Manager, and maybe they have the required AMD firmware).

There is one thing about this build that greatly pleases me. On my laptop with Intel video hardware, the Intel Xorg driver has been most unsatisfactory. This problem has been there for a long time, and it is not just me. It works OK at first, but after awhile there is deterioration -- it may start with missing menu items in the GTK pull-down menus (requiring mouse-over to fix), progressing the tearing and artifacts in windows and even all over the screen, especially when scrolling in a window, and progressing to all fonts rendering scrambled.

I have had this video problem with all Quirkies and pups, for the last couple of years, and I always "solve" it by changing to the Xorg 'modesetting' driver.

Anyway, the Xorg Intel driver is working fine, so far, in Quirky Werewolf64 7.2.3.

Brief release notes:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/releases/werewolf-7.2.3/docs/release-werewolf64-7.2+.htm

Download from here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/releases/werewolf-7.2.3/

...x86_64 only, I have not done a x86 32-bit build.

'devx' PET, kernel source PET:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/packages/pet_packages-werewolf/
(note, mp and seamonkey 2.38 PETs are already in the build).

Kernel source:
http://bkhome.org/sources/kernel-4.2.5/

Might as well post feedback in the existing Quirky 7.2 thread, as I am interested to know if some of the issues posted there are solved with this new build:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=101217&start=90

Tags: quirky, linux