SparkyLinux 5.9 “Nibiru” is out. This is a quarterly update of live/install media of the stable line, which is based on Debian 10 “Buster”.

The base system has been upgraded from Debian stable repos as of October 4, 2019.
It works on the Linux kernel 4.19.67 LTS.
As usually, new iso/img images provide small bug fixes and improvements as well.

Sparky project page and Sparky forums got new skins; no big changes about the colors but they are much mobile devices friendly now.

Nemomen finished translating Sparky tools to Hungarian (thank’s a lot), but many of them still waiting for adding to packages.

Make sure our forums have been moved to a subdomain: https://forum.sparkylinux.org

System reinstallation is not required; if you have Sparky 5.8 installed make full system upgrade:
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
or via the System Upgrade tool.

Sparky 5 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.

Like every year Sparky needs YOUR help now!

As you know, SparkyLinux is a non-profit project so it does not earn money.
And probably some of you know that we have to pay bills for hosting server (vps), domains, the power (electricity), broadband (internet connection), etc., etc., from our personal, home budget.

The time for paying for our server coming quickly again so help us sending donation now!

This year we need a little more than last year: 1500 PLN for a newer and faster VPS which has to be paid until November 9, 2019. Due to often overloading the present one, it has to be replaced with a newer and a little faster one. I already made some improvements to make it working faster, but a new one is required anyway. There is also a new skin at the project and forums pages to make them much mobile friendly.

And as every month, we also need 500 PLN for other bills to cover most of our needs.

So all together, this month, we need your donations for about 2000 PLN / ~500 Euros / ~540 USD), please.

We also asked for donations our community at Linuxiarze.pl and ArchiveOS.org as well. Our virtual server hosts a few web pages, all IT / Open Source / Linux related: SparkyLinux.org, Linuxiarze.pl, ArchiveOS.org and SoftMania.org.

So please donate now to keep Sparky alive, any donation will be very helpful.

You are the best community in the Universe so I really believe we CAN do it!

Visit the donation page to find how to send out money.
Aneta & Paweł

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

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

The 9th monthly report of 2019 of the Sparky project:

• Sparky 2019.09 (semi-)rolling based on Debian testing “Bullseye” released
• Linux kernel updated up to version 5.3.1 & 5.2.17
• added to repos: Riot, Anydesk
• build Bauh, a nice GUI tool which lets you install Flatpack and Snap packages, but it needs newer deps than can be installed from Debian testing/Sid repos in this moment; have to wait
• Sparky project page and Sparky forums got new skins; no big changes about the colors but they are much more mobile devices friendly now
• Nemomen finished translating Sparky tools to Hungarian; thank’s a lot!
• Sparky forums have been moved to a subdomain: https://forum.sparkylinux.org

Sparky forums have been moved to a separate subdomain:
https://forum.sparkylinux.org

All settings, users, posts, etc. transferred successfully, but let me know if you find any problem, please.

There is a new tool available for Sparkers: Riot

What is Riot?

Riot (formerly known as Vector) is a Matrix web client built using the Matrix React SDK. Riot is officially supported on the web in modern versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Other browsers may work, however official support is not provided.

Installation:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install riot-web
or via Sparky APTus-> IM tab.

Alongside to Riot, two more the Matrix network client have been added to the APTus IM module as well: Quaternion and nheko.

The Riot project page: about.riot.im
It is a free and open source application, released under the Apache License 2.0.

There are new live/install media of Sparky 2019.09 “Po Tolo” available to download. This is the 2nd snapshot of the (semi-)rolling line, which is based on the testing branch of Debian “Bullseye”.

Changes:
• system upgraded from Debian testing “Bullseye” repos as of September 1, 2019
• fixed issue in Advanced Installer which did not set home partition on non-root partition with no-formatting option (thank’s lami07)
• Firefox-ESR replaced with Firefox Latest
• GCC 9 is the default compiler now, GCC 8 removed
• Calamares installer 3.2.13
• Linux kernel 5.2.9 (5.2.11 & 5.3-rc6 available in Sparky unstable repos)
• Xfce 4.14
• LXQt 0.14.1
• Openbox 3.6.1-8

No reinstallation is required if you have Sparky 2019.08 (of the line 6) installed, simply make full system upgrade.

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

Know issues:
– upgrading Xfce desktop to the latest version 4.14 lost some desktop settings (wallpaper) so set it back after rebooting.

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 September too, please

The 8th monthly report of 2019 of the Sparky project:

• Sparky 2019.08 (semi-)rolling based on Debian testing “Bullseye” released
• Chours translate Wiki pages to Russian, so I do that to Polish as well; let me know if you would like to translate Sparky Wiki to your language
• Sparky 2019.08 Special Editions released
• Linux kernel updated up to version 5.2.11 & 5.3-rc6
• Nemomen started translating Sparky tools to Hungarian
• added to repos: FreeOffice office suite

There is a new tool available for Sparkers: FreeOffice

What is FreeOffice?

SoftMaker FreeOffice is a complete office suite. SoftMaker FreeOffice is powerful and fast, and reads and writes Microsoft Office documents flawlessly. It comes with the TextMaker word processor, the spreadsheet program PlanMaker and the presentations software Presentations…
…With FreeOffice 2018 you can not only open, but also save documents in the Microsoft file formats DOCX, XLSX and PPTX. Share files directly with Microsoft Office users, without having to export them first.

Installation:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install softmaker-freeoffice-2018
or via Sparky APTus-> Office tab.

The FreeOffice project page: www.freeoffice.com
It’s completely free for both personal and commercial use.

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.