release_notes_for_hamara_sugam_beta.md

Release Notes
==

### Introduction
The release notes document for Hamara Sugam 2.0 explains the detailed changes which took place for this release. 
It lists all the bugs/tasks that we have worked upon for this beta release.

### Significant Changes. 

#### Moving towards Calamares installer for installation of Hamara Sugam.

We realised that Debian installer is a great installer with detailed options for installation of an operating system. 
At the same time debian installer is sometimes confusing for newbies who are trying to do installations. 
Many times even for those with some experience. This led us to consider alternate installers. 
We tried to port the most famous of them all Ubiquity. But after a lot of tries with it we abandoned the effort on Ubiquity,due to many technical reasons. 
That is when we discovered Calamares. The Distribution independent Installer. And we integrated it with Hamara Sugam.

Calamares is an easy to use installer providing the options suitable for newbies as well as for people who want to do fine grained 
configurations while installing the operating system on there machine.

#### Changes to the theme of Hamara Sugam

We migrated to the Materia theme for the Hamara Sugam Desktop. Previously we were using Paper theme. 
We identified issues in GTK 2 environments when using Paper and found that Materia gave a more accurate Material Design experience. 


#### Generic Names for Applications

We decided that Applications should have a generic name, based on there purpose. 
With this opinion, we renamed a few applications. So MATE terminal becomes just Terminal or MATE color chooser 
becomes just Color chooser and like wise. All this naming has been done to make sure the application names should be 
generic wherever possible.

#### Update to Linux Kernel 4.12

Although our immediate upstream Debian is using the Linux Kernel version 4.9 in the stable build, we would be using the recent Kernel version 4.12 instead.

## Download Hamara Sugam Beta

ISO's can be downloaded from our official website of [Hamara Linux](https://hamaralinux.org/downloads)

FIXME
<Links to beta Release ISO>


### Detailed changelog
Apart from notable changes listed above the detailed changelog is below for the worked issues.


- [Top Panel Icons need to match font size and weight](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=300)
- [Installer does not obey desktop theme](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=342)
- [Change hamara sugam theme to materia-theme](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=372)
- [Update default wallpapers and include new wallpapers in package](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=329)
- [Change default syslinux resolution to more high resolution](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=351)
- [Make syslinux UI menu similar to GRUB](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=357)
- [New plymouth boot splash for hamara sugam](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=302)
- [Update debian installer to latest upstream release](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=315)
- [Design new pop-up window for Login screen](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=317)
- [Use latest hamara artwork  in debian installer](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=318)
- [No Settings for touchpad](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=326)
- [Package lightdm-webkit-greeter-hamara](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=331)
- [Create hamara-live package for live mode changes](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=361)
- [New login screen for hamara sugam](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=301)
- [New wallpapers for hamara sugam](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=314)
- [New color schemes for hamara sugam](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=319)
- [Should have Hamara brand book based on new design](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=323)
- [Have a nice customized looking terminal prompt](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=339)
- [Grub2 theme for hamara sugam](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=282)
- [Debian Installer leaves the sources.list file empty when installation is done offline.](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=333)
- [update bootloader config of GRUB in live-build](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=322)
- [Only include one terminal application with sugam](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=335)
- [Remove the meta packages and include the pacakges in live-build lists instead.](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=338)
- [Installer does not use hamara base font (source sans pro)](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=341)
- [Hamara Logo in Installer seems big and does not maintain aspect ratio](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=343)
- [Hamara Logo in syslinux menu does not match 2.0 brand guide](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=344)
- [Should have mate menu icon for different Indian languages](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=269)
- [What to do about the state of uefi and secure boot](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=321)
- [Booting in Full screens by default in virtual machine softwares](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=340)
- [Rename applications to have more generic names](https://bugs.hamaralinux.org/show_bug.cgi?id=345)


#### More Information

Detailed information on the Hamara Linux project can be found on the Hamara Linux Wiki at wiki.hamaralinux.org

### Reporting bugs.
bugs can be reported on bugs.hamaralinux.org

#### Contribute in the development of Hamara linux.
Get involded in creation of the Hamara Linux project and join hands in creating the operating system for the Indian Diaspora. More details here https://www.hamaralinux.org/contribute/