The Foresight team released the first alpha of Foresight 2 last night.

I had installed a couple of test versions over the last week or two on my test machine, but now we believe Foresight 2 is ready for wider testing. Note I say testing – this isn’t necessarily ready to be your everyday desktop, unless you’re very, very daring.

I’m very daring.

**

The good:**

  • The installer is fast. 7 minutes or less to install on 3 different machines.
  1. Main Desktop: Core 2 Duo (E6300), 2 gigs RAM, Nvidia 7950FGTOC
  2. Test desktop: P4 3.0, 2 gigs RAM, ATI 800XT
  3. Laptop: Toshiba A135-S4467, Centrino Duo, 1 gig RAM, Intel video, wireless and sound
  • x86 and our first x86_64 release
  • Compiz Fusion is installed by default, but you need to run fusion-icon manually at startup, or add it to your session. This includes Emerald as well.
  • Avant-Window-Navigator is installed in a default installation – just need to remove your bottom panel and run it from Applications -> Accessories. Very cool!
  • Package Kit is the default GUI for installing updates and packages
  • If you liked Foresight 1.x, you’ll like Foresight 2.0. Your favorite apps including Banshee, F-Spot, Brasero and more. Codecs like Divx and MP3 working out of the box.

**What needs to be worked on:

**

  • The Intel video card drivers don’t work with Compiz Fusion on my laptop. It loads the window manager, but depending on the program, I either can’t see it’s contents (You don’t see any text inside X-Chat) or you can’t see the text you type, such as in the GNOME Terminal. Switching to Metacity, you’ll see the text you typed you couldn’t in Compiz.
  • Why is sound muted after a default install? 1.x was like that too.
  • The Nvidia drivers aren’t available in the repo. Stop by #foresight and ask for them, and either doniphon or myself can email them to you.
  • Off kernel drivers aren’t included yet, such as the IPW3945 Intel wireless driver for notebooks. (I have a 25 foot ethernet cable going to behind my TV as I type this on my laptop).
  • GIMP is not included in the default install. Using PackageKit or a simple conary update gimp will add it, but there’s no menu icon for it yet. (Yes, I filed a bug report).
  • No sound on my laptop (Intel HDA sound card). I had sound in 1.3 with the 2.6.19 kernel, but the 2.6.22 kernel with 1.4 and 2.0 I don’t have sound.
  • No flash on x86_64 installed by default (haven’t tried to install it yet)
  • Lots of packages need to be re-packaged from 1.4 to 2.0. (Now is a great time to come join the community!)

Please, please, please file bug reports on issues you run into with Foresight 2.0. While it’s quite usable, I wouldn’t recommend it for everyday use, yet. Expect things to break and lots of updates to become available.

I copied my xorg.conf file from my old install, and have Twinview working perfectly, here is your obligatory screenshot of 3560×1200:

A big congratulations to all my fellow developers, volunteers and contributors to getting this first alpha out.

And remember: Use Foresight. Because your desktop should be cool.