News – SparkyLinux

July 2020 donation report

2020/08/02 by pavroo

Many thanks to all of you for supporting our open-source projects, specially in this difficult days. Your donations help keeping them alive.

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

Country	Supporter	Amount
	Olaf T.	€ 10
	Krzysztof M.	PLN 50
	Gernot P.	$ 10
	John C.	$ 5
	Tom C.	$ 15
	Carlos F.	$ 15
	Adam P.	PLN 20
	Andrzej T.	PLN 100
	Krzysztof S.	PLN 50
	Tomasz H.	PLN 33
	Robert C.	PLN 100
	Torsten R.	€ 50
	Rudolf L.	€ 10
	Marek S.	PLN 10
	Alexander F.	€ 10
	Karl A.	€ 1.66
	Antony J.	€ 10
	Jacek G.	PLN 40
	Stanisław G.	PLN 20
	Andrzej P.	PLN 10
	Jorg S.	€ 5
	Grzegorz J.	PLN 25
	Andrzej K.	PLN 50
	Jacek G.	PLN 50
	Ralf A.	€ 15
	Paweł W.	PLN 5
	Bartłomiej P.	PLN 25
	Aymeric L.	€ 10
	Hugh D.	€ 15
	Dariusz M.	€ 10
	Grzegorz T.	PLN 100
	Eric H.	€ 25
	Wolfgang L.	€ 12
	Gerhard B.	€ 50
	Hermann H.	€ 20
	Wojciech H.	PLN 1
	David M.	€ 30
	Total:	77% € 283.66 PLN 689 $ 45

Sparky news 2020/07

2020/08/01 by pavroo

The 7th monthly report of 2020 of the Sparky project:

• Linux kernel updated up to version 5.7.11 & 5.8-rc7
• added new desktop: NsCDE
• added to repo: Shutter-Encoder, Lite Editor, Sparky APTus AppCenter
• Sparky 5.12 Nibiru of the stable line released
• riot-desktop package changed its name to element-desktop

Sparky 5.12

2020/07/07 by pavroo

A quarterly update point release of Sparky 5.12 “Nibiru” of the stable line is out. This release is based on Debian stable 10 “Buster”.

Changes between 5.11 and 5.12:
• system upgraded from Debian stable repos as of July 5, 2020
• Linux kernel 4.19.118
• Firefox 68.10.0esr
• Thunderbird 68.9.0
• VLC 3.0.11
• LibreOffice 6.1.5
• Otter Browser replaced by Epiphany Browser (MinimalGUI)
• added Openbox Noir to the desktop list to be installed as a choice (via MinimalGUI & MinimalCLI and APTus)
• ‘debi-tool’ replaced by ‘gdebi’
• disabled package list updating, during installing Sparky via Calamares; even you install Sparky with active Internet connection, the Debian or Sparky server can be temporary off, so it could stop the installation

System reinstallation is not required; if you have Sparky 5.x installed make full system upgrade:

sparky-upgrade

or:

sudo apt update sudo apt full-upgrade

or via the System Upgrade tool.

Sparky 5 is available in the following flavours:
– amd64 & i686: LXQt, Xfce, MinimalGUI (Openbox) & MinimalCLI (text mode)
– armhf: Openbox & CLI (text mode)

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

June 2020 donation report

2020/07/012020/07/01 by pavroo

Many thanks to all of you for supporting our open-source projects, specially in this difficult days. Your donations help keeping them alive.

Unfortunately, we were not able to collect all the amount we needed for this month, but we thank all of you very much for your support.

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

Country	Supporter	Amount
	Krzysztof S.	PLN 7
	Wojciech H.	PLN 2
	Andrzej T.	PLN 100
	Krzysztof M.	PLN 50
	Ben J.	€ 4.5
	Krzysztof S.	PLN 50
	Robert C.	PLN 100
	Karol N.	PLN 120
	Gernot P.	$ 10
	John C.	$ 5
	Tom C.	$ 15
	Carlos F.	$ 15
	Wilm S.	€ 20
	Bernhard N.	€ 10
	Sebastien M.	€ 10
	Rudolf L.	€ 10
	Luis J.	€ 5
	Karl A.	€ 1.66
	Andrzej M.	PLN 5
	Marek B.	PLN 10
	Artur A.	PLN 35
	Stanisław G.	PLN 20
	Grzegorz S.	PLN 50
	Alexander F.	€ 10
	Antony J.	€ 10
	Jorg S.	€ 5
	Andrzej P.	PLN 10
	Bartłomiej P.	PLN 15
	Dariusz M.	€ 10
	Aymeric L.	€ 10
	Paweł W.	PLN 5
	Jacek B.	PLN 15
	Jacek G.	PLN 40
	The Sailor	€ 50
	Andrew W.	€ 25
	Ryans Products LLC	€ 25
	Daniel H.	€ 5
	Ralf A.	€ 15
	Manfred C.	€ 31.18
	Wolfgang L.	€ 12
	Volodymyr S.	€ 4.5
	Marcelo A.	€ 19.37
	Total:	€ 293.21 PLN 634 $ 45

* Keep in mind that some amounts coming to us will be reduced by commissions for online payment services. Only direct sending donations to our bank account will be credited in full.

* Miej na uwadze, że kwota, którą przekażesz nam poprzez system płatności on-line zostanie pomniejszona o prowizję dla pośrednika. W całości wpłynie tylko ta, która zostanie przesłana bezpośrednio na nasze konto bankowe.

Sparky news 2020/06

2020/06/30 by pavroo

The 6th monthly report of 2020 of the Sparky project:

• Linux kernel updated up to version 5.7.6 & 5.8-rc3
• added to repos: Popcorn-Time, eDEX-UI, Visual Studio Code, VSCodium, Bitcoin-Qt, Litecoin-Qt
• Sparky 2020.06 of the rolling line released
• a point release of the stable line is on the way, stay tuned

Sparky 2020.06

2020/06/072020/06/06 by pavroo

The June snapshot of Sparky 2020.06 of the (semi-)rolling line is out.
It is based on the Debian testing “Bullseye”.

Changes:
• system upgrade from Debian testing repos as of June 5, 2020
• Linux kernel 5.6.14 (5.7.0 in Sparky unstable repos)
• Firefox 77.0
• Thunderbird 68.8.1
• LibreOffice 6.4.4.2
• debi-tool’ replaced by ‘gdebi’
• added ‘spterm’ (Sparky Terminal) to be used by Sparky tools
• Otter Browser replaced by Epiphany Browser (MinimalGUI)
• added RadioStation – a fork of RadioTray-Lite (and Radiotray)
• added Openbox Noir to the desktop list to be installed as a choice (via MinimalGUI & MinimalCLI and APTus too)
• added disk autopartitioning, encrypting and lvm support to the Advanced Installer DEV (still experimental)
• Calamares updated up to 3.2.24; changed password strength to a minimum number of digits as possible in Calamares, as requested a few times by our users (can be used 1 digit, but I recommend to use strong password); thanks to lami07
• added lxappearance to MinimalGUI iso (Openbox)

System re-installation is not required, make full system upgrade via Sparky Upgrade gui or a text based tool:

sparky-upgrade

or via apt:

sudo apt update sudo apt full-upgrade

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

May 2020 donation report

2020/06/01 by pavroo

Many thanks to all of you for supporting our open-source projects, specially in this difficult days. Your donations help keeping them alive.

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

Country	Supporter	Amount
	Jason A.	€ 20
	Olaf T.	€ 10
	Krzysztof M.	PLN 50
	Norbert M.	PLN 50
	Gernot P.	$ 10
	John C.	$ 5
	Tom C.	$ 15
	Carlos F.	$ 10
	Lars G.	€ 20
	Rodrigo C.A.	€ 10
	Fernando F.	€ 10
	Rudolf L.	€ 10
	Karl A.	€ 1.66
	Robert H.	€ 10
	Bartłomiej P.	PLN 35
	Marek B.	PLN 10
	Alexander F.	€ 10
	Gerhard B.	€ 100
	Jacek P.	PLN 10
	Robert C.	PLN 50
	Damian M.	PLN 25
	Stanisław G.	PLN 20
	Jacek G.	PLN 40
	Andrzej P.	PLN 10
	Jorg S.	€ 5
	William S.	€ 70
	Alexandre V.	€ 2
	Aymeric L.	€ 10
	Yvan G.	€ 10
	Krzysztof S.	PLN 50
	Jacek G.	PLN 100
	Bartosz S.	PLN 50
	Bob H.	€ 20
	Dariusz M.	€ 10
	Szymon S.	PLN 20
	Andrzej T.	PLN 100
	Wolfgang L.	€ 12
	Lars G.	€ 25
	John P.	€ 20
	Hendrik P.	€ 10
	Total:	€ 395.66 PLN 620 $ 40

Sparky news 2020/05

2020/06/302020/05/31 by pavroo

The 5th monthly report of 2020 of the Sparky project:

• Linux kernel updated up to version 5.6.15 & 5.7-rc7
• added to repos: Riot-desktop which replaces Riot-web, Xdman, RadioStation (a fork off Radiotray-Lite), Beaker Browser
• Sparky 2020.05 of the rolling line released
• Sparky 2020.05 Special Editions released
• new app: ‘spterm’ (Sparky Terminal) – a very simple terminal emulator (a fork of k3rmit) which will be used by Sparky tools
• new desktop: Openbox Noir – a variant of the Openbox, which provides dark and modern looks and feel of a lightweight desktop; by lami07

Beaker Browser

2020/05/302020/05/28 by pavroo

There is a new application available for Sparkers: Beaker Browser

What is Beaker Browser?

Beaker is an experimental peer-to-peer Web browser. It adds new APIs for building hostless applications while remaining compatible with the rest of the Web. It is an open-source application in development by Blue Link Labs.

From Wikipedia:

Beaker Browser peer-to-peer technology allows users to self-publish websites and web apps directly from the browser, without the need to set up and administrate a separate web server or host their content on a third-party server. All files and websites are transferred using Dat, a hypermedia peer-to-peer protocol which allows files to be shared and hosted by several users. The browser also supports the HTTP protocol to connect to traditional servers.
Beaker is built using the Electron framework and therefore uses the Chromium browser as a renderer for webpages.

Installation (Debian/Sparky testing 64bit only):
It is a prerelease2 version so can be installed from Sparky unstable repository.

It requires nodejs (>= 12.0) which will be installed/upgraded from Sparky unstable repos too. That version removes (but provides too) ‘libnode64’ and ‘npm’ packages.

sudo apt update sudo apt install beaker-browser

License: MIT
GitHub repo: github.com/beakerbrowser/beaker

Sparky & coronavirus

2020/05/20 by pavroo

It happened my friends…

…what we expected, but we were not thinking that it would be so bad.

Our dear friends, the coronavirus changed everything now, and we lost our main source of income, which we used to pay our monthly rent, food and medicine – we both suffer from chronic diseases. In addition, all products and services getting more expensive everywhere, in Poland too.

From your current donations and money from advertising, we will cover only some bills of electricity, gas, water, internet, domains, taxes, small computer equipment (memory, USB sticks, mice, batteries, etc …) and fuel. But there is 400 Euros too short to cover rent, meals and medicines.

Linuxiarze, SparkyLinux, ArchiveOS, SoftMania are our life and passion and we don’t want to give them up.

For this reason, we would like to ask you for slightly more support starting from June, means $ 700 / € 650 / PLN 2.600 at least every month. This is just the amount of the minimum wage in Poland per one person, but it will allow us to pay all the bills and survive another month, and another, just one by one. We can’t do it without you.

We are not entitled to any funding, we are on our own and your help, which never disappointed us and we hope that you understand our situation, because you are the best community in the World.

In short, we have lost the only “normal” source of income we have had, and at the moment we can only count on you!
We don’t know will we be able to return to the time before the pandemic, so without looking back, we try to live here and now as best as possible by creating our services and SparkyLinux for you.

So, will you help us survive this hard times?

With all our heart, we thank all of you.
Stay well.
Aneta and Paweł

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