Introducing April64

January 05, 2015 — BarryK

I have uploaded the latest build of Quirky April x86_64, version 6.88. This is an alpha-quality build, as there are some issues to resolve.

Here is the download link:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/quirky6/amd64/april-6.89/

You will see at that URL, that there are installation instructions, plus the 'devx' PET.

Although I am rating this build as "alpha quality", it is working well. However, these issues remain to be resolved:

Snapshot and recovery may not work. There are some static utilities that I have to include in the build.

Abiword 3.0.0 has the grammar checker, but it doesn't work -- I think because I linked the grammar plugin statically.

No media player. I did have Mplayer, but it has been going downhill for the last year or so, and has become unusable.

I am experiencing serious rendering problems with the Intel Xorg driver. I change to the 'modesetting' driver and all is well.

Wvdial is broken. This affects usb 3g modems and any dialup using wvdial.

If you haven't been reading my blog, and are wondering what this "April64" thing is all about, please do scan down through my posts.

In a nutshell, this is a momentous occasion, as I have for the first time created a "one-stop shop", compiling absolutely everything from source, required to build a Puppy or Puppy-derivative.

At first, I compiled for a i686 target, that worked. Then the real test came when I compiled for a "amd64" target, also known as x86_64, for 64-bit Intel CPUs. Compiling was successful and I built a Quirky, codenamed "April64". First bootup, it worked.
Apart from the above-listed issues.

The new compile-everything-from-source build system is named woofQ, and I intend to upload that soon.

I will create a thread on the Puppy Forum, and invite feedback and assistance. Those who are into compiling, will be able to assist with fixing Abiword, for example, or compile VLC media player (or whatever).

Note: I plan to create a live-CD .iso file soon.

Comments

I have created a thread on the Puppy Forum for feedback on April64:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=97160

Tags: linux