We are happy to announce the beta release of Calculate Linux 13. Bootable ISOs will be available very soon, but if you are a CL user already, you can update right now!
The major change we made was migrating to Calculate Utilities 3.1 (though also in betas for the time being).
In v3.1, templates are not package-bound: they can now call variables of different modules, thus reducing the number of calls and remodeling the tree, which has become event-based. As for events, they have, respectively, become more numerous, including events for unmerging packages and for updating the Portage tree (calling ‘eix-sync’). New functions, variables and options were added. Some functions now have more elaborate syntax; we’ve made some renaming in order to make them easier to read. Clt files have become more functional due to the new modular approach, and you can force a Clt file onto a package. calculate-desktop and calculate-client were updated even before v3.1, meaning you can access them from the GUI interface as well. In CL 3.1, variables are viewable once again; in fact, you can not only list them, but also modify them. All defaults were moved to calculate.env files in your distro’s profile.
The big news is that meta-packages are no longer used to build dependencies: these are now handled by templates. Note that, when upgrading to CL13, the world file (located at /var/lib/portage/world) will be rewritten. Please take time to edit it if needed, so that all packages be included in the update procedure. At the last moment we decided not to merge the world with packages: it just seemed way too risky.
In Calculate Linux 13, every one of the seven editions has its own theme. To toggle themes, edit the THEMES flag in your make.conf file.
Working on this version included much interface optimization for Calculate Linux Desktop XFCE. It now looks as fancy - if not fancier - than other CL flavours, and as fast as ever. The Tango icon theme was replaced with Elementary, the new Calculate theme based on Adwait was added, a more advanced and long expected SMplayer comes instead of Gnome-mplayer.
Calculate Linux Desktop GNOME has the new 3.4 desktop, featuring AxeMenu, a particularly user-friendly application menu. On the other hand, if you are already using CLDG, you might have noticed the changes already.
Later on, a couple of new features will be also added to Calculate Directory Server: namely support for SMTP authentication and new encryption protocols for Jabber services.
To cut the long story short, there will be no doom’s day for us this December, 2012: we simply must wait and see the new Calculate Linux 13 