Plans for 2021

[pavroo]

1.
Sparky 4 is still supported, until Debian Stretch wiil be.
Sparky 4 will be moved to oldoldstable after Bullseye become stable.
No new iso images.

2.
Sparky 5 will be moved to oldstabe after Bullseye become stable.
New iso images in 2021:
5.14 - February
5.15 - May
5.16 - November

3.
Present Sparky rolling Po Tolo will be moved to stable 6, 1-2 weeks after Bullseye become stable.

4.
Sparky rolling (Po Tolo) new iso images in 2021:
2021.03 - March

Sparky rolling (next one, no code name yet) new iso images:
1-2 monts after Bullseye become stable.

5.
Not sure to keep ARM images alive, there is no much interesting in that, and too much work with that.

6.
Improve iso images to be able launched on machines with UEFI + Secure Boot on - testers needed!

7.
The 32 bit (i686) iso images will be supported, hope so long as Debian does.

Post below your ideas or anything could improve Sparky, please.

[paolo]

Hello Pavroo!

This plan are good, I have only a suggestion to point 5 and 6.
I think the best option is to leave the ARM images if the users aren't interested.
I ask if if possible to create a i3wm images, I think many people like it. This images can be based to lxqt+xfce power manager (a la Manjaro style  :) ) and maybe adding jgmenu but without the bloat of Manjaro or the others distro using i3wm.
These are only my suggestion, thank to you and all the team for your work

[johnny_rico]

Yes, please continue 32-bit support.

I have been looking for a lightweight distro that has 32 bit LTS, good hardware recognition and is user friendly for those seeking to migrate from Windows.  I refurbish and give away such machines, but have been finding it difficult getting all those requirements in one distro.  Sparky seems to fit that bill, with the added feature of the APTus utility.

Look forward to learning more about Sparky.  Many thanks!

[dhinds]

Hello Pavroo!

This plan are good, I have only a suggestion to point 5 and 6.
I think the best option is to leave the ARM images if the users aren't interested.

I am interested.

Sparkbian may well be the foremost OS of the future!

[Technical]

Improve iso images to be able launched on machines with UEFI + Secure Boot on - testers needed!

I've disabled Secure Boot temporarily and enabled it again after the installation.
I'm running the rolling release and I'm not sure I could help testing the new isos, but I surely can try.

[kd4e]

I think the best option is to leave the ARM images if the users aren't interested.

I'm a Newbie to SparkyLinux and just learned, here, that there's a 64-bit ARM image for RPi4 devices.

https://sparkylinux.org/download/stable/

I'd like to try it and if it works well I'd promote it to others. It would be cool to have my laptops, desktops, and multiple RPi's.

[kd4e]

Have you ever considered a Devuan version of SparkyLinux?

https://www.devuan.org/os/announce/beowulf-point-release-announce-021421

[pavroo]

Yes, I have, but Sparky keep following Debian.

[Technical]

Hi pavroo, I tried, without success to add MX Linux repo and try to use MX Tools in Sparky. Just some of the tools are available, mostly fail miserably.
My dream is to see Sparky with the number of users (and hopefully the funds) of MX. Or, who knows, that we see both joined. After reading and testing a lot of distros, I always come back. Any possibility of gaining momentum and have more arms and brains working side by side with you?

[bsorsdahl]

5.
Not sure to keep ARM images alive, there is no much interesting in that, and too much work with that.

I realy hope that ARM is kept alive .. I love Sparkylinux on my Pi's ! I run it on as my daily driver on a pi 4 .. has replaced my power sucking pc.  Started building 4 Pi servers with Sparkylinux and docker.  This means I might have to rethink all that work done.

Ben

[pavroo]

Sparky ARM spin is built using Raspbian script and repos, but it is not ready for Debian Bullseye yet, have to wait.