I am about to start on the 23.0.0.1 series. I am posting this here so I can link to it in all the release posts instead of typing it out in each one.
A few things have come up in the last week
The projects website and repository host have went down, with no timetable for return. At least the host posts updates that they are working to restore functionality.
The projects release site on OSDN has also been down but sometimes pops up and then errors out. This is even more frustrating because there is no way to know why or check for updates.
That being said I have gotten a free website host and the site is back up. I have resurrected the old Soureforge page that had not been used in over a year to host the repository and releases.
That being said the Sourceforge repository is slow and sometimes errors out. The main reason I stopped using it. But there is no money to pay for hosting. I am disabled and living on a fixed income. So free resources are my only way to host this project.
Hopefully Tuxfamily and OSDN return at some point. When they do it will be easy to go back to using them. But the Soureforge site will always be kept up to date as a backup. Way to much time went into getting it back up to speed.
A bit of good news this morning. The projects repository and web host, Tuxfamily, were back up. I have switched the sites back to them in the dns that cover the repository and website.
Sadly the last few months have seen them go down a few times. As a backup I took an old computer last nite and turned it into a server. It will be there to easily switch over if there is any interruption of services.
OSDN is still erroring out, but Sourceforge is a good host for distribution purposes.
It appears that Pantheon is fubared. I have spent 5 hours trying to get it working, and its beyond me. I will try again once the rest of the series is done. But so far the desktop crashes and all the fixes I have found online produce an unusable desktop.
Panthon is better with the last update, but its really not usable. Its still slow and some apps crash. I will not be building it for the 23.0.0.2 series.
The website host (Tuxfamily) has been down a lot recently. I have started hosting the website on my nas. Its been quite “fun” setting it up and getting https to work.
Unfortunately I have been using the spins.tuxfamily.org links in my announcements. I will be using spinsbykilz.com, the projects domain, from this point going forward. That way wherever the site is hosted the url will work.
I have noticed that a lot of real old links for old spins have gotten achievements lately. Sadly a lot of them are on OSDN which has been unreachable for the last few months. I will be using Sourceforge for the foreseeable future, leaving the 2 most recent releases up.
As a best practice with Manjaro get the most recent spin, even if you like older themed spins. Any Manjaro spin can use older themes and the Manjaro Themes page details which packages are needed for the theme.
I wasnt planing on building a Manjaro series until later in the month. Its only been 15 days or so since the last one finished. But I delayed that one, so it was later than usual. Then the holidays are at the end of the month. There might not be an update then, and I would rather have that time for family, church, and friends. Since I finished the themes a couple of days ago now is as good a time as any. It will be a point release, 23.1.0.1.
Pipewire has replaced Pulse Audio in all SbK Manjaro spins as of the 23.1.0.1 release.
Two days after I started the 23.1.0.1 series when a stable update was released, a stable update gets released. This one has security updates. Its a no brainer to to just rebuild the 2 desktops already built. It will delay the rest, but Its likely worth it.
Due to family commitments this weekend and working the polls on Tuesday of next week almost all the releases will be announced today. It has taken a lot of work to get them ready. Usually I take my time getting a release out, but that just isnt possible this time.
Talking Mate is the only exception. It will be released sometime next week. The older version still works so if its needed it can be installed.