Lets hear those reviews guys

Originally Posted by Cheesesteak 10. It appears I can only have sound coming from one source.

A possible explanation follows. ALSA allows several sound sources. But
rc.alsa seems to load OSS compatibility kernel modules. If the kernel OSS compatibility layer is used, it forbids other sound sources at the same time (both ALSA and OSS). All modern programs can use ALSA directly, but they often can also use OSS, and if they try OSS first, they go through the compatibility layer and block real ALSA (and other OSS users, too). The fix: rm the OSS compatibility kernel modules, or don't modprobe them and blacklist them, or something. If you have some prehistorical program which doesn't know ALSA, use "aoss" command which preloads libaoss.so userspace OSS compatibility layer.

There seems to be quite a lot of people, me included, who dislike KDE4 and prefer KDE3.5. That's the only thing, and it's a minor thing, I've found to complain about (so far).

I gave ext4 a try with the "slow format with bad block check" option and was a little surprised at how long the format took on 20 and 40 gig partitions. No other problems yet.

I don't like Dolphin, so I've changed the default file manager to Konqueror. A small thing, but I miss not being able to "open a terminal" from any location on the file system I browse to (under tools in konq, but can be added to the toolbar - in the context menu in XFCE). Particularly when I'm configuring a fresh install. And opening that terminal that hangs off the bottom of the Konqueror window is not the same thing.

I'm getting intermittent mouse pointer corruption in both XFCE4 and KDE4, regardless of whether or not desktop effects are turned on or not. I have not yet tried using the suggestion in hints and tips to explicitly turn off compositing from within xorg.conf because it was not just in XFCE and the terminal redraws were not slow as described. Reminds me of a problem I had where I needed to disable offscreen pixmaps - but that was some time ago and I think it was with the Intel drivers at the time. I'm using ATI radeon mobility X1400 with the open-source radeon driver. Haven't really tried to fix that one yet.

All in all, pretty solid release. Most issues seem to be out of the control of Slackware. My biggest disappointment is with Linux in general and the the loss of support from ATI for my graphics card. Many people seem to want to lay all the blaame at the feet of ATI, but I also think that Xorg as well as the kernel development process share some responsibility.

I gave ext4 a try with the "slow format with bad block check" option and was a little surprised at how long the format took on 20 and 40 gig partitions.

I also used ext4 on a 500GB hard drive with slow format and bad block checks. I think it took about two hours to completely format. I was amazed by this new definition of "slow"

KDE4 is pretty horrible and for me it is a major problem. Setting the launcher to classic style mitigates some of the horrors but it seems that one cannot add Quick Launch buttons to the panel which for me is pretty basic.

Originally Posted by arubin KDE4 is pretty horrible and for me it is a major problem. Setting the launcher to classic style mitigates some of the horrors but it seems that one cannot add Quick Launch buttons to the panel which for me is pretty basic.

Arubin, It's possible. please check my answer in the thread you opened on that topic

For those of us slackers who don't much care for KDE, the XFCE side of things in Slack-13 is looking very well. There are no revolutionary changes in XFCE compared to the move from KDE 3.x to 4.x; but that is what you would expect with XFCE. XFCE is simple to use; and it does what you expect it to do.

As for reviews, there is a blurb about Slackware 13 on today's DistroWatch Weekly:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090831#news

Originally Posted by Nylex I've got to disable HAL and create an xorg.conf and then hopefully that will be all I need to do!

Hi Nylex,

Not sure what you're intention is re: disabling HAL, but I'm having little success with that :/

I AM using my old xorg.conf, as I always have, and that's fine & dandy; I also have in the xorg.conf the three 'magic lines' disabling HAL from my input devices (see ChangeLog for those lines);

However, for me:

Disabling HAL completely, such as during boot before X starts (like chmodding rc.hald to non-executable, or issuing `rc.hald stop`) causes problems. Specifically, X will still start, but all my VTs are dead, so things like CTRL-ALT-F2 takes me to VT2 with no display (typing in the dark).

Uninstalling HAL, makes X not start at all (dependency on HAL libs).

And removing the 3 magic lines from xorg.conf, makes any mouse movement cause X/KDM to restart (so can't use mouse).

There's a thread already called "hal - thoughts?" so rather than hijack this one, maybe we should direct HAL traffic back to that thread. Here's the link: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...&highlight=HAL

Sasha

Yeah, I'm going to try the alternatives to KDE4. In the past, briefly checking them out, I've preferred fluxbox to XFCE.

Some days ago I asked at IRC when would Slackware 13 be released. I got a strong "WHEN IT IS READY"... Well. I have installed it now and I have to smile at that response.

If KDE 4 was not stable yet, why was it included?

As others have said, it is less usable than 3.5.10. And yes, it has bugs. The new Konsole, for an example, makes a mess of itself when trying to modify the existing profile. I also managed to not allow to log myself after changing my icons set to GTK (had to remove all kde config files). KDM has some Lilliputian tiny fonts - which cannot be changed - which are not linux-compatible with my myopia. I also get the "akonadi" errors when logging into KDE as root.

EDIT: Changing Main Menu style from Kick-off to Classic, setting all font sizes to 10, and changing digital clock font to bold & adding date makes the whole set a bit more elegant. Also, I have found you can copy icons to desktop or panel by dragging them from Main Menu to desktop/panel.

All in all, now both main desktop managers for Linux seem to be quite screwed. Buggy and nazi-like Gnome (Torvalds dixit), and flashy-fairy looking KDE. Windows Vista may be heavy and unusable, but it IS beautiful at least.

EDIT: Well, after looking at it a bit closer, I'm starting to like a bit the new look&feel, I guess this is a bit insane.


I won't complain about the new (awful) kernel logo because I have found it was Torvalds issue, not Slackware's. I hope it will be gone in new kernel releases (I would actually vote for Tasmanian devil's extinction ).

EDIT: Added "logo.nologo" (yes, dot, not "=") kernel parameter at boot and the Taz devils were gone. Better than hard killing them (just in case a Greenpeace member reads this).


Well, that's all for the time being

I also get the "akonadi" errors when logging into KDE as root.

See this thread for some suggestions.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...esting.-704430

I would actually vote for Tasmanian devil's extinction

I assume this is because they are ugly, nazi-like, gnomic creatures that only look uglier with face cancer.
There is a theory here that the reason that imported feral animals such as cats and foxes have not taken hold in Tasmania ( with consequent destruction of many native species) is because of these nasty little creatures eating up all the food the imports would otherwise dine on.
Beauty is in the myopic eye of the beholder.

I beg to differ from most comments on KDE4. Overall I'm pleased with KDE4 because it has improved speed (at start up and when launching applications like Firefox) although I confess that I'm not a power user so my needs may be limited versus the possibilities one would expect from a modern desktop.

For purpose of clarity, I explain what I do with my machine:

I use Slackware 13.0 with KDE4 as my main desktop at home to do mostly internet browsing (Firefox), office work (Kword + Kspread), listen to music (Amarok), watch some videos (Mplayer), send some mails (Kmail) and do some console work to manage the machine (Konsole).

I didn't tinker that much with the KDE4 shipped with Slackware:

- I changed my system configuration to use French language - OK
- I changed the background image - OK
- I added quick launch buttons and some plasmoids in the panel - OK
- I added my printer (EPSON Stylys Photo 950) - OK
- I transferred photos from my camera (Canon IXY 800 IS) - OK

I still need to test my scanner (hopefully it should be no big deal).

So far, I have two grievances:

- Koffice 2 looks promising but lacks features from 1.6 series (ex: draw charts in Kspread, arrays do not seem to work in Kword). But for simple clerical work, it's OK.

- I'm using Kmymoney2 personal finance manager and it's not yet ready for KDE4.

So to cope with these shortcomings, I still have 12.2 installed in another partition.

To conclude, I try to use Slackware KDE4 as much as possible and if it does not fit my needs I revert to 12.2. It just happens that 13.0/KDE4 fulfills most of my needs

Originally Posted by El Nigromante I won't complain about the new (awful) kernel logo because I have found it was Torvalds issue, not Slackware's. I hope it will be gone in new kernel releases (I would actually vote for Tasmanian devil's extinction ).

Just grab logo_linux_clut224.ppm and logo_linux_vga16.ppm from old kernel's /usr/src/linux/drivers/video/logo/ directory and put it in new kernel's directory. Then change in Makefile ``Temporary Tasmanian Devil'' name with ``Tux'' name. Finally compile the kernel with default .config. You'll get generic-smp kernel with Tux instead of Tasmanian Devil. I did it.

I'm a KDE4 fan too especially after installing the nVidia binary driver using the SlackBuild. I like the look & feel along with the ability to change the desktop effects. It's different from KDE3 but I'm adapting to the KDE4 way of doing things.

I'm running init3, login, startx currently. When I ctrl-alt-f1 to the startup console there are lots of messages with many reporting errors. I don't remember many (if any) of these message with Slack 12.2 and KDE3.

Originally Posted by w1k0 Just grab logo_linux_clut224.ppm and logo_linux_vga16.ppm from old kernel's /usr/src/linux/drivers/video/logo/ directory and put it in new kernel's directory. Then change in Makefile ``Temporary Tasmanian Devil'' name with ``Tux'' name. Finally compile the kernel with default .config. You'll get generic-smp kernel with Tux instead of Tasmanian Devil. I did it.

You guys could just upgrade to a kernel >= 2.6.30 as Taz is re-replaced with Tux.

Sasha