As for me, I had been busy in my internship and some other exam preps. That’s the reason I was not able to update the repo since a long time, which I intend to do soon.

Anyway, one thing is clear that we were not able to release Granular 1.0 final in the last month, which was the expected time according to our road map. Another thing to be noted here is that it seems it will take some more time to get to the release date, as I have a tight and packed schedule in front of me in the coming days. Same’s the case with Chris too.

And as usual, Gemini was the catalyst at our forums since the last few days. We all saw him indulging in his “newly-found” interest of RPM packaging and coming up with some quality RPMs, and, at the same time, some artwork too (which is his favorite task). 

We’ll try our best to make the release as soon as possible. Let’s hope everything gets back to the previous pace soon.

Thanks for bearing with us this far.

The road map for Granular 1.0 has been updated. View it here.

For the past one week, we had been busy updating the RPM packages for our repository in preparation for the RC release. As soon as all the packages are finished updating, the ISO will be prepared which will then be released after a few days. So, you could expect the RC release announcement sometime in the first week of June.

Granular 1.0 RC will host a number of updates and changes as compared to our previous Preview release. So, stay tuned for it. It wouldn’t be long after the RC release when the final Granular 1.0 release comes out.
We have come to know that meanwhile the PCLinuxOS team is also preparing for the first beta of PCLinuxOS 2008. We all here wish them luck for the new release, probably one of the most awaited release of the year 2008.

The last week saw some new updates in the Granular repository. The main packages updated being amarok, drakxtools and drakconf. Our 2008 repository has now about 350 packages in total. So, slowly and steadily (depending upon the needs), the repository is expanding. As we get more RPM packagers, the speed of this expansion would certainly increase.

Meanwhile, Paul (aka Gemini) came up with some cool artwork, the main being the Blue Moon set of artwork, which includes themed KDM login screen, KSplash theme and desktop wallpaper. He also added pre-Esto Vox artwork on our artwork website. Some previous interesting artwork added were the Endless Fields set of artwork.

To download these cool artwork, visit our artwork website - GRANUMINATI.

Well, some good names came up, like VisiVox, Arse, EyeStorm, ShapeShifters, Luminati, and so on… These were the suggestions of the other mods. When I had a look at the last name, that I mentioned in the previous line, it just seemed to appeal me a lot. As next was my turn to give a suggestion, I came up with the name Granuminati, meaning:

Granular + luminati = Granuminati

This suggestion struck the rest of the mods and everyone agreed to it. And here we are, finally, with a nice name for our cute artwork team.

(The name Granuminati not to be confused with an ancient secret society Illuminati )

http://www.linux.com/feature/130941

Also in response to the sound problems reported on our forum. There will be a new kernel available later tonight or tomorrow. The kernel is updated with several sound patches and I believe will solve some of the issue reported.

Also noted in the review was an interest in the Granular Control Center. The control center is based off of the Mandriva Control Center. We have a new version being built now, and have a testing version available in our repository. This new version includes some updates, and will have an OS-K icon set to match our default theme. Screenshots and information can be found in a post on our forum. We will also look into adding in some version information for our version of drakconf. More than likely in the about screen.
http://www.granularlinux.com/forum/index.php?topic=567.0

These updates and several other updated packages will be available for the next beta or rc release.

Check out the nice and honest review of Granular 1.0’s preview release here:

http://www.linux.com/feature/130941

We thank the author of the review for highlighting the points we need to work upon in the next release. We have noted all those points down and will surely try to iron out all the issues.

Among the most notable changes, we added these packages to our repo:

1. K3-D 0.6.7.0
2. VLC 0.8.6e
3. Python 2.5
4. Metabar 0.8

The major packages that were updated are:

1. Kernel 2.6.24.4
2. drakconf 10.18.1
3. VIT 1.1

Hopefully, there’s more to come this week (or the next week) . After my mid-sem exams are over, I would also be able to package some RPMs, mostly from our to-do list.

We are also having some interesting things going on the artwork front. I’ll keep the readers updated of the progress in future too.

On March 14, 2008 the first preview of Granular 1.0 was released. And I would like to offer thanks and congratulations to all of the developers at Team Granular.

On behalf of Team Granular we would like to also offer a special thanks to

LinuxTracker
http://linuxtracker.org/index.php

Especially, mcangeli and johncoom

DistroWatch
http://distrowatch.com/

ibiblio
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/

And lastly our members. Especially the members that stepped up to help seed the release.

CCR
HarryS
fire-storm

And if I missed anyone please visit the topic on our forum.

http://www.granularlinux.com/forum/index.php?topic=476.0

We would also like to thank those that indirectly contributed to the development of Granular Linux

PCLinuxOS
http://www.pclinuxos.com/

Mandriva Linux
http://www.mandriva.com/

The release seemed to go fairly well, and was the most ambitious release of Granular to date. We made an effort to set some challenging goals and it’s still yet to be seen, if we’ll achieve all of them. One of the greatest challenges we have set is a road map for our release schedule. And because we are a small development team, just creating and setting release dates was a challenge in itself. Depending on the development, and bug reporting, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll meet every date on the road map. If there’s a small amount of issues the road map will probably be cut short as we move towards the release. And if we find a lot of issues, the releases will be cut in half to spend more time focusing on the problems.

If the release dates are to be changed, updates will be posted on the wiki

http://wiki.granularlinux.com/en/Current_events

Also in moving towards the release, we have added to the wiki a to do list. The list will be updated in an effort to provide our current status. And the general direction the distro is moving in.

http://wiki.granularlinux.com/en/To-do-list

Where are we currently at? The packaging is going ok for the next release.

kdelibs – we had issues packaging kdelibs for the first preview. Our version was proving to have some bugs. So we released with the PCLinuxOS version of the package. We have now finished packaging our rpm, and consider it stable enough for the next release.

drakconf – has been updated, and should become available as an update soon. And will also be included in the next release.

metabar – has also been updated, and will be included in the next release. This should be included with our kdeaddons rpm.

kdeaddons – will be updated to our own rpm possibly as an update in the repos. But will also be included in the next release.

kdemultimedia – is updated to go along with kdeaddons. And will also be included.

kooldock – will be an updated package, and is ready to go. We will repackage it again before the next release to update the icons one more time.

The remainder of the list of rpms to be updated can be viewed here.

http://wiki.granularlinux.com/en/Next_release_to_do

With the first preview of granular, we included the addition of our own repository. So our future plans are to continue providing granular rpms at a pace we can handle. And as our community grows, I am sure we will increase the number of rpms we are providing.

Also to the members of our forum, we have a gallery feature available. It’s still a growing gallery, but members are able to add their own artwork. And also view or use the artwork of other members, and the graphic dept at granular. The gallery is a work in progress, and is also in the process of being updated.

Also now being worked on, is the new granular newsletter. The work has just begun and I think we will see some very nice work coming from the newsletter.

This blog is also a work in progress so to speak. And is the first attempt to provide a current event, or development status. Hopefully the information provided is helpful, and the plans for now are to update the blog 3 to 4 times a month. I hope to be able to get more into detail in the future updates.

As always if you’re interested in contributing to the granular project please visit

http://www.granularlinux.com/joinus.php

And again thank you to everyone who contributed to this release. There are so many who contributed, and contributed is so many ways.

Chris Zurawski

s

With all the fun stuff packed in the DVD, you’ll never run out of tools that let you enjoy, and that’s for sure. With 4 action-packed desktop environments, you’ll love using Linux like never before. KDE, XFCE, Enlightenment, and Looking Glass are the chosen ones to never let you get bored. In addition to these, there are other applications and utilities to let you customize your system in the way you want it to be.

Get Internet-ized

Communication is as easy as cutting a piece of cake. Surf the Internet your way using Firefox, Flock, or Opera. Chat with your friends through Pidgin, Skype, or Kopete. Download your content using MultiGet, Azureus, or KGet. Upload your content using gFTP and FileZilla. Easily connect to remote computers and share data over the local/remote networks. Send & receive emails using Thunderbird and KMail. Subscribe to newsfeeds using Akregator, RSSOwl.

Get Entertained

Granular FunWorks 2007 offers out-of-the-box support for multimedia playback. Through the various applications, it can play virtually any media format existing on Earth. The all-time favorites, like VLC Player, MPlayer and Xine form the most versatile players for Linux. There can play almost any type of video as well as audio for you. And then we have Amarok, XMMS, RealPlayer as the main stream audio players. Picasa and digiKam can easily manage your vast or small image/photo/picture collection. A TV tuner card owner can also watch TV channels through TVTime.

Get Professional

Create animations using Blender, create & edit images using GIMP and Inkscape, edit sounds using Audacity.

Get Working

With FunWorks 2007, you get complete OpenOffice and KOffice suite which let you create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, charts, and more… In the development area, FW2007 offers the KDevelop suite to let you work with C/C++, Scripts and Ruby. Cervisia is the CVS management app and esvn & KDESvn offer support for SVN. Adobe Reader and KPDF let you view you pdf files.

Get 3D
Beryl and Compiz are the two terms use synonymously with 3D effects on Linux. These are two different light-weight software applications that provide high quality 3D effects that are both useful and full of eye-candy. In addition to these, FW 2007 has Sun Microsystem’s Looking Glass which aims at giving a complete 3D experience to the end user in the form of a full functional desktop environment.

Play

Playing games is an essential part of life. FW2007 will not disappoint you in this area as well. Loaded with many 2D and 3D games, you’ll never get bored using Granular. Some of the 3D games included are: Cube, AssaultCube, Battle For Wesnoth, XMoto, and Planet Penguin Racer. FW2007 also contains the complete KDEGames suite among some other good games. Your really have to try all the games your self to get a glimpse of all of them.

Get Educated

FW2007 contains some quality educations tools too, such as Childsplay, complete KDEEducation suite, Google Earth, Celestia, Stellarium, and more.

Get Emulated

Through the powerful tools, like QEMU and VirtualBox, you can literally run a full-fledged operating system within another operating system, like Windows XP in Granular! Wine is another software that lets you run/install certain native Windows applications on Granular.

Other Features

Some other apps of FW2007 worth mentioning are:

The Granular Control Center is the central place where all Granular’s configuration tools are located. It is like the Control Panel of Windows.
K3b lets you easily burn CDs and DVDs.
ntfs-3g provides writing support on NTFS partitions.
Synaptic Package Manager lets you download & install extra softwares, and keep your system updated.
soundKonverter is the frontend to various audio converters.
XSane is an excellent tool to scan documents & pictures through your scanner.
Granular StartPoint lets you know about most of the applications which come bundled with FW2007.
Granular Extras is a small collection of media to cheer you up.
Granular Package system (grls) let you apply the officially released patches for your system with ease.
A vast number of login themes, wallpapers, splash screens lets you customize your system in the way you want it.