Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Revision 7 released - Introducing LFClass

So here it is, a new revision of LFScript 4, and a few (big) announcements.


Functional changes
The most important functional change is the addition of the new LFClass library, which is now required for ./lfscript to run properly (because the new, fast and improved dependency resolution has been written in Java).

This introduction of a Java based application into the core of LFScript will (hopefully) go unnoticed for most people, because two standalone executables (one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit) are included in the release, making the presence of a JVM entirely optional.

However, if you do experience problems, please file a bug on it.

A list of all code changes can be found in the changelog. 

The road to LFScript 5
LFScript 4 will be used as a platform for the development of LFClass, which eventually will become the fifth rewrite of LFScript, warranting a version bump to 5.0.

Because LFClass will be developed at the same time as LFScript 4 (gradually replacing LFScript 4 code with LFClass), version 5.0 will slowly come into existence, while previous version bumps where instantaneous.

While not all code has been replaced with Java, LFScript will keep a version number 4. Revision 7 includes LFScript 4 v0.4.

Legal changes
LFClass (which includes ScriptFactory) is released under the MIT (Expat) license. The license is short, simple, permissive and accurately describes how I currently feel my software should be used.

However, the main application in LFScript  ('./lfscript') will remain GPL licensed until all of it's contents have been remade in Java.

As all scripts generated from LFS and BLFS already were MIT licensed, you can deduce that in time all of LFScript will be MIT licensed.

(Note that the binaries included in revision 7 in 'lfc/build' are also subject to other licenses. Read 'lfc/binary-license.txt' for details) 

Download
Link to the latest version: http://lfscript.org/latest.tar.bz2

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Development code access and contributions

In stead of periodically uploading new revisions, I now give you direct read-access to my local development copy of LFScript. This copy may not always be in working order (you should never assume it is), but it is the exact version I'm currently working on. Any change I ever make, is on-line in minutes.

There are two ways to access my files, either by viewing them online through a web interface, or by launching an on-line version of Wuala (no login is required in either case).

The web interface is limited. If you want to download more than one file, use the on-line version of Wuala; In the web interface, click "Open in Wuala" (Java required).

Also, anyone with a free account can now upload their own contributions to the new "lfscript" Wuala group. Any contributions made are also visible to people without an account. Any contribution should be either in the public domain or MIT (Expat) licensed, otherwise it is removed.

Any contribution which is properly licensed, will remain available either in this group or will be moved to LFScript's development folder. So even if it is not included in LFScript, it will remain published here (unless you yourself removes it).

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Three new video's

Well, I will never speak of release dates again. It seems I do not keep to them anyway. So I won't tell you that I'll release LFScript rev. 7 within 48 hours. No, you will not get it out of me...

I will tell you however, that today I've produced three new video tutorials. One of them is not a screencast of a Virtual Machine. Can you tell which one?

Installing a system (using LFScript)

Creating a Live CD

Installing the live cd system (without using LFScript)

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Al-... most... done....

I'm currently building the 32-bit binaries for the next Live CD. Tonight I'll build the 64-bit base system. Tomorrow I'll combine the two in one ISO and publish it.

As usual, there are some scripts which do not quite like the upgrade to the new version of LFS and BLFS... (Oh yeah, surprise! I do include scripts from the latest snapshot of BLFS in next release.) If this last rebuild again presents these problems, the Live CD will feature KDE3 in stead of Gnome, but released it will be!

LFScript rev. 7 may possibly be released later today, and otherwise it will be released together with the Live CD, tomorrow.

Also, I've been working on the dependency resolution issue I blogged about a few months ago. Possibly, a fix will be included in rev. 8. However, the fix might be a bit unorthodox... More on this later...