There are new live/install iso images of SparkyLinux 2019.08 “Po Tolo” special editions: GameOver, Multimedia & Rescue available to download. Sparky ‘Po Tolo’ follows rolling release model and is based on Debian testing “Bullseye”.

GameOver Edition features a very large number of preinstalled games, useful tools and scripts. It’s targeted to gamers.

Multimedia Edition features a large set of tools for creating and editing graphics, audio, video and HTML pages.

The live system of Rescue Edition contains a large set of tools for scanning and fixing files, partitions and operating systems installed on hard drives.

Changes:
– system upgraded from Debian testing repos as of August 7, 2019
– Linux kernel 4.19.37
– Calamares installer 3.2.11
– new Sparky6 theme
– new Tela icon set
– refreshed desktop look

Sparky 2019.08 Special Editions is available as follows:
– GameOver 64bit Xfce
– Multimedia 64bit Xfce
– Rescue 32 & 64bit Openbox

System reinstallation is not required.
If you have Sparky rolling installed:
• make sure your OS uses Debian ‘testing’ repos
• change Sparky repos to ‘testing’ if your OS uses ‘stable’ repo
• make full system upgrade:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install sparky6-apt
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

New rolling iso images of Sparky “Po Tolo” can be downloaded from the download/rolling page.

There are new live/install media of SparkyLinux 2019.08 “Po Tolo” available to download. This is the 1st snapshot of the new (semi-)rolling line, which is based on the testing branch of Debian “Bullseye”.

Changes:
• system updated from Debian testing “Bullseye” repos as of August 1, 2019
• added gcc 9 (gcc 8 is still the default one)
• new Sparky6 theme
• new Tela icon set
• refreshed desktop look
• sddm instead of lightdm (LXQt edition)
• Linux kernel 4.19.37 (5.1.21 EOL, 5.2.5 & 5.3-rc2 available at Sparky unstable repos)

As I mentioned before, Sparky of the rolling line is available to amd64/x86_64 machines only. Sparky rolling 32 bit is fully supported so if you have it, simply keep it up to date.

System reinstallation is not required.
If you have Sparky rolling installed:
• make sure your OS uses Debian ‘testing’ repos
• change Sparky repos to ‘testing’ if your OS uses ‘stable’ repo already
• make full system upgrade:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install sparky6-apt
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

New 64bit rolling iso images of Sparky Xfce, LXQt, MinimalGUI & MinimalCLI can be downloaded from the download/rolling page.

Big thanks go to lami07 for his deep testing and reporting bugs.

Many thanks to all of you for supporting our open-source projects!
Your donations help keeping them alive.

Don’t forget to send a small tip in August too, please

The 7th monthly report of 2019 of the Sparky project:
• ChourS finished translating all Sparky tools to Russian; thank’s a lot!
• Linux kernel updated up to version 5.1.21 EOL & 5.2.5 & 5.3-rc2
• Sparky 4 “Tyche” transferred to ‘oldstable’ line
• Sparky 5 “Nibiru” transferred to ‘stable’ line
• the last live/install media of the 4 line (oldstable) – 4.11 released; Sparky 4 will be supported next 2 years about
• the first live/install media of the new stable 5 line – 5.8 released
• updated all Sparky rebranding packages of the next rolling line; you should get it as a regular update already
• new rolling iso images are on the way, stay tuned

A few years ago, Sparky was releasing as a Rolling edition only, with no additional changes at its repositories required; it used just Debian & Sparky ‘testing’ repos.

After added Sparky ‘stable’ line, the rolling/testing edition automatically becomes ‘stable’ when ready, so there is manual installation of ‘testing’ repos back required now. With this fact, make sure, Sparky Rolling is a Semi-Rolling edition now.

As before, after releasing a new stable version of Sparky, there are a few changes to do.

So…

Sparky 4 “Tyche” is moved to oldstable line now.
The latest 4.11 release is the last one of the 4 line, but it is still supported, the next 2 years about.

Sparky 5 “Nibiru” just released, moving it from testing to stable line.
The stable live/install media are available for i686, amd64 & armhf archs (the same as the older release).

The present rolling line is based on Debian testing “bullseye” and…
• new iso images will be published for amd64 arch only (rolling only)
• according to Debian’s support of 32 bit packages, Sparky also supports the i386 repo and packs, so if you have Sparky i686 installed, simply keep it updating
• new iso images of Sparky rolling change their version’s number from a static one to a date, such as: YYYY.MM; it makes much more clear which one is stable (static number), and which one is rolling (date); so Sparky 6.0 will be published as a next stable release in about 2 years (after Bullseye become stable)
• next Sparky 6 code name is “Po Tolo” – it follows Sparky’s code names of planets

What does the “Po Tolo” mean?
In the language of the African Dogon tribe, “Po Tolo” means Sirius B.

From Wikibooks (PL):

The Dogon believe that they come from the space and landed to the accompaniment of roars and flames on a side of Lake Debo. They believe that they come from the star of Sirius B – a white dwarf star located near the Sirius A, which is the brightest star in the sky. Dogoni named the Sirius A – Sigi Tolo, and Sirius B – Po Tolo… …it was not known until the nineteenth century that astronomers in Europe assumed the existence of Sirius B, and its discovery took place in 1970.

There are new live/install media of SparkyLinux 5.8 “Nibiru” available to download.
This is the 1st release of the new stable line, which is based on the Debian 10 “Buster”.

Changes:
– based on Debian 10 stable “Buster” now, repositories changed from ‘testing’ to ‘stable’
– system upgraded from Debian stable “Buster” repos as of July 14, 2019
– Linux kernel 4.19.37-5 (i686 & amd64)
– Linux kernel 4.19.57-v7+ (ARMHF)
– the Calamares installer updated up to version 3.2.11
– apt-daily.service disabled
– sparky-tube installed as dafault
– removed old 3rd party repositories
– added obconf-qt (LXQt edition)
– nm-tray installed instead of network-manager-gnome (LXQt edition)
– network-manager added to CLI ARMHF image
– small fixes

System reinstallation is not required. If you have Sparky 5.x installed make sure your OS uses Debian’s ‘buster’ or ‘stable’ repos, and make full system upgrade:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install sparky5-apt
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

Sparky 5.8 is available in the following flavors:
– amd64 & i686: LXQt, Xfce, MinimalGUI (Openbox) & MinimalCLI (text mode)
– armhf: Openbox & CLI (text mode)

New stable iso/img images can be downloaded from the download/stable page.

Changing the repositories moves Sparky 5 from ‘rolling’ to ‘stable’ line now.
If you would like to keep Sparky rolling, read the post: https://sparkylinux.org/sparky-5-transition/

New live/install iso/img images of Sparky 4.11 are out.

Sparky 4.11 “Tyche” is the last release of the 4 line which moves the base system from Debian stable “Stretch” to Debian oldstable “Stretch”.

Make sure that Sparky 4 will be supported next 2 years about, so if you keep running your machine with Sparky 4, do regular system upgrade.

Changes:
• all packages upgraded from Debian & Sparky ‘oldstable’ repos as of 2019/July/09
• fixed root password at armhf images (toor)
• added network-manager (nmtui) to armhf-cli image

No need to reinstall your existing Sparky 4 installation.

Make full system upgrade as follow:
Check is your system uses ‘stretch’ repos at the /etc/apt/sources.list , then:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install sparky4-apt
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

Sparky 4 iso/img images can be downloaded from the download/oldstable page.

The first release of Linux kernel of the new 5.2 line just landed in Sparky “unstable” repository.

Build status:
– amd64 – build and installed OK -> uploaded
– 686-pae – build and installed OK -> uploaded

The Sparky’s Linux kernel is available in Sparky “unstable” repository, so enabled it to upgrade (if you have older version already installed) or to make fresh installation:
https://sparkylinux.org/wiki/doku.php/repository

Follow the Wiki page: https://sparkylinux.org/wiki/doku.php/linux_kernel to install the latest Sparky’s Linux kernel.

Then reboot your machine to take effects.

To quick remove older version of the Linux kernel, simply run APTus-> System-> Uninstall Old Kernel tool.

Sparky 5 based on Debian 10 “Buster” has been moved to the new stable line now.

What you should do now?

1. Check Debian repositories to make sure your OS uses ‘buster’ (or ‘stable’) repos at the /etc/apt/sources.list

2. Sparky 5 automatically changes its own repositories from testing to stable, by upgrading the ‘sparky5-apt’ package:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install sparky-apt sparky5-apt

3. Then make full system upgrade:
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

Sparky Upgrade Tool should install the latest ‘sparky5-apt’ package before performing the system upgrade, but if it doesn’t, close the Upgrade Tool and do it manually in a terminal emulator, as above.

If you would like to keep using the rolling edition based on Debian testing:
1. Check Debian repositories to make sure your OS uses ‘testing’ repos at the /etc/apt/sources.list
2. Temporary change Sparky repos from ‘stable’ to ‘testing’ at the /etc/apt/sources.d/sparky-stable.list if your system uses Sparky ‘stable’ repos already, and refresh package list:
sudo apt update
3. Install the latest version of the following packages: ‘sparky-apt’, ‘sparky6-apt’, ‘sparky-core’; the ‘sparky5-apt’ package has to be removed.
sudo apt install sparky-apt sparky6-apt sparky-core
4. Then make full system upgrade:
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

Let me know if you find any problem with upgrading your Sparky installation, please.

Sparky 4 based on Debian 9 “Stretch” has been moved from stable to oldstable line now and is still supported.

What you should do now?

If you would like to keep Sparky 4 based on Stretch, you have to:
1. Check Debian repositories to make sure your os uses ‘stretch’ repos, at the /etc/apt/sources.list
2. Install the latest version of ‘sparky4-apt’ package which points to Sparky oldstable repos now:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install sparky-apt sparky4-apt
3. Then make system upgrade:
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

Sparky Upgrade Tool should install the latest ‘sparky4-apt’ package before performing the system upgrade, but if it doesn’t, close the Upgrade Tool and do it manually in a terminal emulator, as above.

More info about Sparky Oldstable repositories can be found at the Wiki page: repository_oldstable

If you would like to upgrade Sparky 4 to Sparky 5 – it is possible, but I recommend to make fresh Sparky 5 installation.
By the way, if you decide to make such upgrade, do:
1. Change Debian repos from ‘stretch’ to ‘buster’ or keep ‘stable’ at the /etc/apt/sources.list
2. Temporary change Sparky repos from ‘oldstable’ to ‘stable’ at the /etc/apt/sources.d/sparky-oldstable.list if your system uses Sparky ‘oldstable’ repos already, and refresh package list:
sudo apt update
3. Install the latest version of ‘sparky5-apt’ package which has to remove ‘sparky4-apt’:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install sparky-apt sparky5-apt
4. Then upgrade the system:
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
If any problem:
sudo apt install -f

Let me know if you find any problem with your system upgrade, please.

Many thanks to all of you for supporting our open-source projects!
Your donations help keeping them alive.

Don’t forget to send a small tip in July too, please

The 6th monthly report of 2019 of the Sparky project:

• Sparky 5.8 RC based on Debian testing Buster has been released
• Linux kernel updated up to version 5.1.15 & 5.2-rc7
• added to repos: Baka-MPlayer, Atom editor
• preparations to next Sparky stable 5 “Nibiru” are on the way
• Sparky 5.8 RC2 ARMHF for RaspberryPi is out and ready for testing

New images of Sparky 5.8 RC2 for RaspberryPi are ready to go. Sparky 5.8 RC is a release candidate and is based on upcoming Debian stable Buster.

The ARMHF images are available in two flavours:
• CLI – a text based OS only, so you can configure the system in your way
• Openbox – graphical version with the Openbox window manager and a few pre-installed applications

Known issues:
– Openbox edition: the Openbox starts, but other tools (panel, wallpaper, network manager, audio applet, etc.) could not start at first time; if so, wait 2 minutes about to let one of my scripts works and simply reboot (an active network connection required!)

Please test the new images and report whatever you find.
The 5.8 release candidate iso/img images can be downloaded from the download/development page.

Edit 2019/07/01:
Image 5.8 RC3 fixed the above problem, but the first Openbox loading can be a little longer than normal.

New live/install iso images of Sparky 5.8 RC are out. Sparky 5.8 RC is a release candidate of the next stable line and is based on upcoming Debian stable Buster.

Changes between Sparky 5.7.x and 5.8 RC:
• Debian repo set to buster now, not to testing
• Sparky repo still points to testing, and will be updated automatically soon
• usrmerge set dirs symlinks (can be removed after)
• added inxi tool to all iso images
• all packages updated from Debian Buster repos as of July 3, 2019
• due to a few feedbacks I got, some of you are not happy with switching from LXDE to LXQt edition, so there is the Xfce edition re-built and ready to use
• due to problem with sparky5 theme in the Xfce edition, a new sparky6 theme is set as default (Xfce only)
• many Sparky apps have gotten Russian translations, thank’s to ChourS
• Calamares updated up to 3.2.9
• Firefox replaced by Firefox ESR

Please test the new iso images and report whatever you find.
The 5.8 release candidate iso images can be downloaded from the download/development page.

Many thanks to all of you for supporting our open-source projects!
Your donations help keeping them alive.

Don’t forget to send a small tip in June too, please

The 5th monthly report of 2019 of the Sparky project:

• Sparky 4.10 based on Debian stable Stretch has been released
• Linux kernel updated up to version 5.1.6 & 5.0.20 & 5.2-rc2
• Lumina Desktop 1.5.0 re-compiled on Buster/Sparky5 and works fine so moved back to Sparky testing repos; Sparky 4 still uses Lumina 1.4; the Lumina been also put back to APTus and Sparky Advanced Installer
• added to repos: Draco Desktop (a fork of Lumina), QtFM file manager

There is a new tool available for Sparkers: QtFM

What is QtFM?

Lightweight desktop independent Qt file manager for Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and macOS.

Features:
– XDG integration
– Customizable interface
– Powerful custom command system
– Customizable key bindings
– Drag & drop functionality
– Tabs support
– Removable storage support
– System tray daemon
– Extensive thumbnail support

Installation:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install qtfm
The package is built and tested on Sparky 5/Debian Buster 64 and 32 bit only.

Make sure this is the first build of QtFM on Sparky so let me know if you find any problem, please.

The QtFM GitHub page: github.com/rodlie/qtfm
The project developes: Ole-André Rodlie, Michal Rost, Wittfella; it is licensed under the GNU GPL-2.

There is a new desktop available for Sparkers: Draco

What is Draco?

Draco is a simple and lightweight desktop environment. While small still features XDG integration, freedesktop services and integration, power and storage management, desktop, panels, multi-monitor support and much more. Draco does not include any user applications.

Installation:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install draco-desktop
The package is built and tested on Sparky 5/Debian Buster 64 and 32 bit only.

Make sure this is the first build of Draco on Sparky so let me know if you find any problem, please.

The Draco GitHub page: github.com/rodlie/draco
The project developer is Ole-André; it is licensed under the BSD-3, LGPL-2.1 and GPL-2.

The first release of Linux kernel of the new 5.1 line just landed in Sparky “unstable” repository.

Build status:
– amd64 – build and installed OK -> uploaded
– 686-pae – build and installed OK -> uploaded

The Sparky’s Linux kernel is available in Sparky “unstable” repository, so enabled it to upgrade (if you have older version already installed) or to make fresh installation:
https://sparkylinux.org/wiki/doku.php/repository

Follow the Wiki page: https://sparkylinux.org/wiki/doku.php/linux_kernel to install the latest Sparky’s Linux kernel.

Then reboot your machine to take effects.

To quick remove older version of the Linux kernel, simply run APTus-> System-> Uninstall Old Kernel tool.

New live/install images of SparkyLinux 4.10 “Tyche” are available to download.
Sparky 4 is based on Debian stable line of “Stretch”.

Sparky 4.10 offers a fully featured operating system with a lightweight LXDE desktop environment; and minimal images of MinimalGUI (Openbox) and MinimalCLI (text mode) which lets you install the base system with a desktop of your choice with a minimal set of applications, via the Sparky Advanced Installer.

Sparky 4.10 armhf offers a fully featured operating system for single board mini computers RaspberryPi; with the Openbox window manager as default; and a minimal, text mode CLI image to customize it as you like.

No big changes, new images feature security updates and small improvements, such as:
– full system upgrade from Debian stable Stretch repos as of May 2, 2019
– Linux kernel 4.9.168 (PC)
– Linux kernel 4.14.98 (ARM)

There is no need to reinstall existing Sparky installations of 4.x line, simply make full system upgrade. Make sure you have ‘sparky-apt’ & ‘sparky4-apt’ packages installed, before performing the full upgrade.

Sparky PC:
user: live
password: live
root password is empty

Sparky ARM:
user: pi
password: sparky
root password: toor

New iso/zip images of the stable edition can be downloaded from the download/stable page.