Granular 1.0 RC Release notes

Introduction
Welcome to Granular Linux Wiki.

These are the release notes for Release Candidate of Granular 1.0. RC is the last development release before the final Granular 1.0 release. This release comes after much delay and Team Granular apologizes for this inconvenience.

You can find the release notes of the previous release here: Granular 1.0 Preview Release notes.

Note: This RC release is intended to give you an idea about how the final Granular 1.0 would be like use. You may download this release and try it out. Do keep in mind that this release should not be deployed in production environments. As always, make sure that you have backed up your important files etc, before attempting installation onto your Computer.

General information related to this release are:
 * Name: Granular 1.0 RC
 * Type: LiveCD
 * Size: 694 MB
 * Desktop Environments: KDE (default), E17
 * Installable: Yes

Features and changelog
This new release (Code named Esto Vox) includes significant advances over the preceding version, 0.90 (Esto Vello).

There are many new features in this release:


 * Granular 1.0 now utilizes our own new repository.
 * All updated packages.
 * Our own Linux Kernel.
 * Packages include Kernel 2.6.24.7, KDE 3.5.9, Enlightenment 0.16.999, Firefox 3.0, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, KOffice 1.6.3, CompizFusion 0.7.6, Gimp 2.4.6, to name a few.
 * Updated Artwork.
 * Out-of-the-Box support for audio and video files.
 * Multimedia plugins for Firefox are now pre-installed.
 * Support for Multimedia keyboards and the extra laptop keys.
 * Support for Read/Write to NTFS partitions, using ntfs-3g.
 * Video Installation Tool included to help you install your video drivers easily.

Changelog:

Please check the changelog for Granular 1.0 Preview here, the previous release.
 * KBFX has been removed pertaining to some instabilities resulting because of it.
 * Brasero has replaced K3b as the CD/DVD burning application.
 * Firefox 3 has replaced Firefox 2.
 * Updated Granular Control Center (drakconf).
 * drakconf and drakxtools updated to use the new version of perl.
 * MultiGet has been removed; it earlier came installed as a GRL package.
 * Updated default GTK2 theme (Nodoka).
 * Metabar has been added.
 * Easy switching between different GTK themes has been made possible by the inclusion of "gtk-chtheme" command.
 * Bug fixes include :
 * Minor problems in Granular StartPoint.
 * XMMS replaced by Amarok as the default audio player in hotkeys.

System Requirements

 * 256 MB RAM
 * Pentium III class processor or higher
 * In case of 'dual booting', a minimum HDD of 5 GB is recommended.

How to get Granular 1.0 RC?
There are two methods to download Granular.
 * Via torrent
 * This is the recommended method of download. Use this to get consistent download speed and help others download it too.
 * Direct download (http and ftp)
 * Use this option only if necessary. Using this, you may suffer from slow download speeds.

Please visit http://www.granularlinux.com/download.php to choose your method of downloading.

Important points to consider while downloading

 * Using torrent is the recommended way to download. Downloading through torrents is very easy. .torrent files can be opened in one of the many popular bittorrent clients, like Azureus, uTorrent, KTtorrent, BitComet, etc.
 * After you have downloaded the ISO:
 * Check the md5sum of the downloaded iso for integrity
 * Burn the ISO onto a CD: for Windows users | Linux users

Screenshots
Find some screenshots of this release at http://www.granularlinux.com/screenshots.php.

Workarounds

 * If on using CompizFusion, the windows appear with no borders, right-click on the CompizFusion icon in the system tray and choose Select Window Decorator > Emerald.
 * Due to an updated X system, choosing the default "Granular" option when the livecd is booted may end up in a command-prompt in some laptop systems. To successfully boot into the normal graphical mode, choose the second option (VideoSafeModeFBDev) or third option (VideoSafeModeVesa) from the boot menu, depending on what works in your case.
 * You'll have to manually enable the NTFS writing support. It is disabled by default. To enable it, open Menu > System > Configuration > Hardware > NTFS Configuration Tool
 * On some systems, Kaffeine may display video with high brightness by default. You can try to correct this by opening Kaffeine > Settings > xine Engine Parameters > video, and set the driver option to "opengl".
 * In case double-clicking the My Computer icon on the desktop displays an error saying "sysinfo:/ Protocol died unexpectedly", do this:
 * Right-click My Computer and select "Open With". In the resulting dialog box, enter kwrite and press Enter.
 * Locate the word sysinfo:/ and replace it with system:/.
 * The Standby option for laptops is disabled by default. To re-enable it:
 * Go to Menu > System > Configuration > Control Center.
 * Navigate to Power Control > Laptop Battery > ACPI Config. If you are not logged in as root, click on the button "Start Helper Application". Enter the password for root.
 * Then, check the options "Enable Standby" and "Enable Suspend".
 * Accordingly, modify the options in other tabs too, if needed, to your choice.

Errata

 * There is a typo in the welcome page in browsers. Instead of "1.0 RC", it is written "1.0 Preview" in the first line.
 * Hotkeys has to be set manually.

Extra Credits
The login music has been taken from the Cleanus system sounds set available at www.kde-look.org.