Lowarch

I just write this to let you know that I haven't lost interest in Lowarch, I'm just very busy with other projects right now.
I think the first thing I will work on is to open up the update system for Lowarch so it will be possible for other people to update and contribute packages, since I know there are a few people who would be interested in this. The way I've organized the update routines now, makes this very difficult.
If someone are experienced with this kind of project management, I'm interested in suggestions about how it could be done.

The second release of Lowarch is just uploaded. This is a minor release, but there are quite a lot of small changes and bug-fixes.

Changes from Lowarch 0.1.0:

• The installation floppies are now ready
• The old [current] repository address doesn't work anymore. You should use the new installation cd or floppies if you want to do an ftp install.
• Most of the desktop programs now show up in the xfce4 menu
• New, updated and deleted packages

Todo:

• More testing. A few people have given very good feedback, resulting in fixed bugs. But there are probably many more to find.
• Fine tune the package selection even more.
• Find ways for Lowarch to work with even less resources. Especially the installation method uses too much RAM and requires many packages to be installed that some people can do without
• Fix some driver issues on old hardware, e.g to fix PCMCIA network cards support.
• Documentation
• Upgrade packages. This last one will of course be an everlasting job.

Go get it while it's still warm. I hope you'll enjoy it :)

I'm happy to say that I found a solution to the repository problem. The repo is now hosted at this address:

http://lowarch.slackforge.net/current/os/i486

I've started the process of releasing the next version of Lowarch. Since I'm still using the web hosting server for both the package repo and the iso, I don't have room for a new version and keeping the old one at the same time.
I'm moving the repo to the ftp server, so the old settings in /etc/pacman.d/current doesn't work anymore. You can change it now to:

ftp://anonymous%40linuxophic.org:nopass@ftp.linuxophic.org/current/os/i486

I haven't tested this very well yet (how could I before moving it?), so I hope it'll work.

I'm deleting the iso from my server before uploading the new version. If you want it, download from the mirrors. Or even better, come back soon and get the new version.

EDIT: It doesn't work. I have to move the repo back again. Only wget understands the %40 for @ in the line above. I can't get pacman or snarf to use that address, and there's no room for wget on the floppy.

Some people have discovered that the standard forum system in Drupal, which is the one that was used here, is extremely awkward, in fact, almost unusable. Therefore I've changed this site so it uses the forthcoming replacement for the standard drupal forum, uieforum. I hope this will be a lot more convenient for everyone who wants to communicate something.
For now, the old forum will be in place, but I have disabled new threads. Please move all ongoing discussions (not many) to the new forum, since I'll disable the old one soon.

It seems like users that are not logged in can't access the forum at all.

For some reason, when downloading packages from the server, it will fail after a certain number of packages. This happens most frequently with fast lines. Starting the upgrade/install process again will continue downloading where it was aborted, so eventually all the packages will get through. I complained about this to the isp, but they say that's how the server is supposed to behave. I disagree, but I understand that my web hosting server probably isn't intended to be used for serving hundreds of package downloads one after each other.
I will start to search for more appropriate repo mirrors, and I will move the package repo from http to the ftp server (at the same site), which seems to work much better.

I thought a distribution needs its own domain, so I grabbed lowarch.org. So now, after some fiddling this site should also be reached through this address: http://www.lowarch.org.
I'd really like it if you would use the new address, even though I suppose the old one will work as well.

Several people have asked for installation floppies for Lowarch. I even promised someone that I'd have some ready before the weekend was over. I failed to manage that, but now they're ready.
Ready is probably an overestimation. I'll say they're ready for testing. They worked for cd installation on the only machine I have with a workable floppy. I still haven't had the possibility to try out the ftp install, so I'd love to hear some feedback on that.
For now, the boot, root, ethernet and pcmcia_wlan discs are in place. I'll put out the usb and others as I finish them this evening.
Look in th

I'm glad to officially announce the release of the very first version of Lowarch: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala).

Lowarch is a lightweight Arch Linux base distribution for old systems with i486 processors and newer. Arch Linux's flexibility and simpicity of design makes it perfect for old machines, but the whole Arch Linux is optimised for the i686 and x86_64 architectures, and will not run on anything less.
Lowarch builds on the elegant design of Arch Linux, and tries to change it into a optimal low-end distribution.

Lowarch is not a full port of Arch Linux. Only packages that seem usable on old machines, and packages neccessary for newer architectures will be maintained. As Lowarch evolves, there will probably be other differences as well.

The final testing is finished. I have installed Lowarch on two i586 laptops, and everything seems to work. So later today I'll go to a café with a good and open wireless connection, and I'll upload the iso.

There will be more information in the realease announcment.