Re: Reference (maybe Live) Distribution for Rev Linux
We have a couple of completely clean installs of Debian (don't ask...), so can have a go on one of them. Also I have someplace a Mandriva install, so will try to dig it out and verify that again with 4.0. Give me a couple of days, not moving very fast right now. Peter -- View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Reference-maybe-Live-Distribution-for-Rev-Linux-tp1472761p1475475.html Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: Reference (maybe Live) Distribution for Rev Linux
Peter Alcibiades wrote: Two problems. First problem is in my Debian install, and here the problem is any sort of printing. Print card, print field, page setup. As a for example, create a field, select it (this is in the IDE) and select Print from the file menu. There seem not to be any printers. But every other application bar none can print, and not only do I have a physical printer configured, I have cupspdf, so I could print to pdf if it could see it or any of the printers that are set up. Second problem was on Mandriva in another install. Here it was able to find the printer, and to print to it, but it truncated the file, and it was impossible to change the settings on the printer, for instance change the orientation or change the percentage zoom, to fit it all in. If I recall correctly, the settings were there, they just had no effect, it came out the same no matter what you put them to. Once the RQCC # was posted here I checked it out under Ubuntu 9.1. There I was able to use revPrintField to print to a .ps file, after changing the page size from the default A4 to US Letter. I also checked using answer printer and answer page setup directly; both seem to work okay in that distro, at least partially: I've found that while I can change page sizes, any change to orientation (Landscape vs Portrait) seems to have no effect. I have not yet printed to a physical printer (I use mine only a few times a year); I'll try that soon. Could this issue be specific to KDE? To the others here: Can you please test this on whatever Linux distros you're using and add your comments to the RQCC report for this so we can pin this down: http://quality.runrev.com/qacenter/show_bug.cgi?id=6478 Thanks for you help on this. PS - An interesting side note in my testing: While using Rev under Ubuntu I found that opening the Dictionary slowed everything in Rev to a painful crawl. So I installed MetaCard there, and its Dictionary works very quickly with no adverse effect on overall performance as there was with Rev's. The main difference between Rev's Dictionary and MC's is that MC's doesn't parse XML files from disk, but instead has everything included as cards in a single stack (in modern systems we've seen no memory limitation which would require otherwise; stacks work fine for the Dictionary even with 1600 cards; know the engine, trust the engine, use the engine g). There are two things that come into play with the Rev Dictionary: file I/O, and XML parsing. I know from my work with WebMerge on Linux that file I/O there seems efficient, on par with the other platforms. So this has me wondering if the XML externals for Linux need a bit of a touch-up. Any of you using the XML lib with Rev on Linux? I tend to parse XML in script so I've not yet used it myself, and it would be good to confirm this hunch before I report it. I wonder if Ken's scripted library would outperform Rev's external on Linux: http://sonsothunder.com/products/xmllib/xmllib.htm -- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Rev training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com revJournal blog: http://revjournal.com/blog.irv ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: Reference (maybe Live) Distribution for Rev Linux
On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 6:27 PM, Richard Gaskin ambassa...@fourthworld.com wrote: PS - An interesting side note in my testing: While using Rev under Ubuntu I found that opening the Dictionary slowed everything in Rev to a painful crawl. So I installed MetaCard there, and its Dictionary works very quickly with no adverse effect on overall performance as there was with Rev's. That's interesting. I posited in one bug report that I thought that the look up to the documentation might be the cause of the impossibly slow movement via arrow keys in the Script Editor. http://quality.runrev.com/qacenter/show_bug.cgi?id=8495 There are other issues with dramatic loss of performance in Rev on Linux to do with field display: http://quality.runrev.com/qacenter/show_bug.cgi?id=8513 I tried to use MetaCard on Linux late last year, but just couldn't get used to it. I guess I'm dependent on the added value that Runrev have provided. Bernard ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Reference (maybe Live) Distribution for Rev Linux
I've got Andre's Suse based distribution but have not yet burned to usb and fired up. However, thinking about this, there are some considerations about a reference distro, which could be a very useful possible way out of the Linux issues. Thoughts: 1) it needs to run Rev exactly as the developers expect. So, if revPrintField and multiple desktops are not supported, they should not work on the reference distribution, and the release notes should say so. Or, if they are, the release notes should say so, and they should work on the reference distribution. Rev Browser as well! This is normal quality management procedures, and Rev needs to start this right away. Define the standard and define the tests and give the results. Then we can be certain that if we don't get the same results, its down to our particular installation. 2) The chosen distribution should be reasonably pure. Many of the larger distributions are not. I don't think this is much of a problem in practice for users, but if you are using a reference distro, it should be one that has as few custom mods as possible. It should be one where you can be pretty sure that if a given feature works on this, it will work on anything, because you know its working on a non-customized install. A personal view: this will rule out using many large favorites as your reference distro. From this perspective perhaps the reference distro should be Slackware? That is the least tweaked distribution there is. A Debian stable standard installation would also be a candidate.What you do not want is one where all the configuration files are covered in ##do not edit this file it is generated automatically## It would be nice if its live, but probably not essentiaI. I am tempted to suggest Slax, which is Slackware live, very popular, and very compact, but its probably excessively customized to serve as a reference distribution. The point of a reference distribution is it should be unquestionable that if a feature works on this, it is implemented correctly. Slackware, I think most people would agree, meets this test. This is probably more important than being live. 3) Testing and certification, if thats the word, should be done running on real hardware, not in a virtual machine. It may be interesting that Rev does not work properly in XP running on VirtualBox on a Mac, but establishing that is not a robust way of testing a reference XP installation. Nor is the equivalent for Linux. Nor indeed would we test Rev for OSX on a Hackintosh as a reference installation! So we should not rely on this approach for Linux. The thing is, to prove a feature is implemented correctly, you only need to produce one standard distro on which it works to spec. At the moment we are in a situation where there is no reference, and people can always say, well, it works/does not work for me. And then they have to start talking which release of which version, all of which may well be, most probably is, totally irrelevant. But how do we know? I assume that when Mac or Windows releases are feature tested, it is against some specific version or feature pack. Same thing is needed for Linux. It would save a huge amount of time, speculation and irritation. Peter ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: Reference (maybe Live) Distribution for Rev Linux
Hey Peter, this is an excellent idea! Of course to make this official it would require action by the mothership. But even without that, having a reference distribution where rev works without major flaws would be very empowering, as one could just point ones clients to the reference distro and let *them* figure out, where their setup differs. The slicker the distribution, the better. :-) Obviously, being a life distribution would be a major plus. Have you considered entering this as a feature request into godzilla? All the best, Malte___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: Reference (maybe Live) Distribution for Rev Linux
Peter Alcibiades wrote: 1) it needs to run Rev exactly as the developers expect. So, if revPrintField and multiple desktops are not supported, they should not work on the reference distribution, and the release notes should say so. Or, if they are, the release notes should say so, and they should work on the reference distribution. Rev Browser as well! revPrintField: What is the nature of the problem with that command on Linux? I searched for those terms in the RQCC and came up empty - what's the RQCC #? I wonder if it's something we may be able to fix ourselves, and deliver the fix to RR. revBrowser: This seems merely a question of resource allocation, but being an external it seems likely something that could be farmed out if there was money available to do so. A couple of us have expressed interest in helping to fund such an effort - any others willing to chip in? I have no idea of the cost, but I'd guess it'd be at least $1k; between myself and my clients we may be able to justify a few hundred, which won't cover it all but if others can come on board with contributions this may well be doable at no cost to RR and therefore no delay to ourselves. -- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Rev training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com Webzine for Rev developers: http://www.revjournal.com revJournal blog: http://revjournal.com/blog.irv ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: Reference (maybe Live) Distribution for Rev Linux
On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Richard Gaskin ambassa...@fourthworld.com wrote: revPrintField: What is the nature of the problem with that command on Linux? I searched for those terms in the RQCC and came up empty - what's the RQCC #? I wonder if it's something we may be able to fix ourselves, and deliver the fix to RR. I did find one 'unconfirmed' report from May 2008 on revPrintField that had been submitted by Peter: http://quality.runrev.com/qacenter/show_bug.cgi?id=6478 Hopefully he can let us know if there is anything else that is not reported. Bernard ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: Reference (maybe Live) Distribution for Rev Linux
Folks, I am building VM images, USB Images and LiveCD. It is SuSe based and Gnome based. I would not switch to build in any other distro such as debian or slackware for they do not provide anything like susestudio which is the only way I can use my free time to build a distro for us. SuSe is a mature linux that has been here since forever, not as old as slackware but again, much more friendly. Gnome is the most popular linux desktop, with all the shift of KDE4, it still needs more time to mature and decide on its changes. IceWM, XFCE are all cool and lightweight but we're not building a linux distro, we're build an environment for Rev testing and development that mimics the most common linuces out there and that requires gnome. For example, many new users are ubuntu users and ubuntu comes with gnome. The distro is now twice the size it was since I added some multimedia, network and printing support which requires hundreds of libraries and dependencies. I added those for people want to test their software doing that kind of stuff, if the support is not there then we fail as a linux test and development stuff. The secondary objective of this distro is to push Rev on Linux forward, to get more users testing and demanding fixes. The tertiary objective is to turn more users towards linux, it may not be Mac OS X but it is better than Windows (this is my own linux slogan). The fourth objective is to create a little RunRev Community Linux ecosystem and community so that we can give away bottoms and USB live drives on the next conference and gain even more popularity. The fifth objective is unknown at the moment but I am accepting suggestions. ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
Re: Reference (maybe Live) Distribution for Rev Linux
Two problems. First problem is in my Debian install, and here the problem is any sort of printing. Print card, print field, page setup. As a for example, create a field, select it (this is in the IDE) and select Print from the file menu. There seem not to be any printers. But every other application bar none can print, and not only do I have a physical printer configured, I have cupspdf, so I could print to pdf if it could see it or any of the printers that are set up. Second problem was on Mandriva in another install. Here it was able to find the printer, and to print to it, but it truncated the file, and it was impossible to change the settings on the printer, for instance change the orientation or change the percentage zoom, to fit it all in. If I recall correctly, the settings were there, they just had no effect, it came out the same no matter what you put them to. So Method B, which I am still using on the Mandriva install, was to export field to a text file, then go out to shell. In the shell, open awk, then pick the columns and put them in with controlled tabs, then pipe the result into kprinter, and bingo out it comes. OK, I personally don't mind doing it like this. But not many will do it. At the time I posted the bug, or a bit later, someone else had an early copy of one of the new releases and he said that the problem had not been resolved in it. So he could reproduce it. I think it was one of the French members. At the time, I was on Lenny when it was Testing. Then Lenny migrated to Stable, and it was the same thing. Now I am on Squeeze, which is Testing, and its the same thing. But its not just Debian, there is also a problem with Mandriva, a different one, but still a problem with revPrintField. Print card works fine by the way on the Mandriva installation, though the fonts come out a little odd. But its acceptable, and it does print into the area specified, as its supposed to. Finally, there are problems with seeing some fonts. Again, this is just Rev, all other programs see all the fonts. Now, it could be something about both of my installs, who knows? But what would be really nice, and is about the minimum I would demand if I were managing it, is to have some specification of how this stuff is supposed to work. Like, am I supposed to be able to see all the installed fonts from Rev, or just some of them, and if so which some? Am I supposed to be able to do revPrintField and then set the zoom level and page orientation, or is this not supported? Are printers supposed to be visible on all distros, or just some, and if so which? And finally, if I were managing it, I would want to go into Development and have them show me a non-tweaked clean installation and do whatever it is, and show it working. End of argument. I would want Slackware, but if they choose Ubuntu or Suse, OK, as long as there is a reference system of some sort that's a known quantity. Same thing by the way with virtual desktops. Is it supposed to work? Like, on Open Office, you can have the dictionary on one desktop and the program on another. Its very useful if you are doing large complicated spreadsheets, which I no longer do, but back then it was a lifesaver trying to get functions to work. You cannot do this sort of thing with the different windows in Rev. Why not? And are you supposed to be able to? I have no idea on either one. I'm not trying to be difficult about this, almost any clear answer is acceptable, but what what we need is some clear statement on what is supposed to work, how its supposed to work, and a reference system on which it has been seen working. Or what is not supposed to work, and what reference system it has been shown not to work on, that will do too. Clarity! -- View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Reference-maybe-Live-Distribution-for-Rev-Linux-tp1472761p1473046.html Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
