GNOME with Slackware 12.2
 

For those of us who prefer GNOME, continued patience to find a release to work with Slackware 12.2 from the usual sources seems inevitable.

GSLACKY - no sign of anything obvious, but as I don't speak Italian it is hard to tell from the forums.

GWARE - no news on their site since Saturday, Sep 20, 2008.

DROPLINE - Nothing since October 2008 when 2.24.1 for 12.1 was announced.

GSB - again nothing obviously 12.2 related.

Anyone from any of the above care to correct me?

Judging from their SVN repository the GnomeSlackBuild team are close to releasing a version of GSB for Slackware 12.2. But you can of course always ask in their #gsb channel on Freenode IRC.

Eric

When 12.2 versions are released if I had to choose I would select GSB. When I ran GSB I was impressed that GSB did not replace many files from a standard full installation of Slackware. Just my :twocents:.

I think it is the only one which is generally useable due to the above, and because gslacky is maintained by italians (and thus the rest of the world does not understand what they are doing). They also have a dedicated team of developers and are agreeable folk.
But most importantly GSB managed to keep PAM out of the equation and it is very easy to de-install if you would want to get rid of it after testing.

Also GSB has 64bit packages for Slamd64.

The others are dead as far as I know.

Eric

Thanks, Eric, I didn't know that. It has been a while since I've tried the other versions.

If you need GNOME within the week, you can probably use SlackBot or pkgsrc to automatically build it. I haven't tried either though.

According to the GSB mailing lists, the devs have already built packages for 12.2 and are just waiting for the right time to make them available.

The GSlacky developer is busy rebuilding packages for Slacky.eu 12.2 repository. He's waiting for the next Gnome release (2.24.3).

giberg

You can install Dropline 2.24 for Slackware 12.1 on a clean install of 12.2.

1. Install the dropline-installer package
2. issue the dropline-installer command with the --force option.
3. Go to town on your new Dropline GNOME desktop


The --force option bypasses the version check of your OS. Without the option, the Dropline installer will print a message stating the packages are for 12.1 and exit.

The Dropline developers don't update their site often, but their packages have since been updated to GNOME 2.24.2, and that is what you will end up with if you perform a new install.

Say what you will about PAM, but Dropline puts together a pretty good desktop. I will concede the inclusion of PAM introduces a headache should one choose to uninstall Dropline. My main gripe is that their development efforts come in spurts. They still haven't rolled out a package for Firefox 3.0.5, for example... still sitting at 3.0.4.

As a desktop for home use, I'm fine with it.


-Andy

Thank you all for the information and comments above.

I've used most of the existing and former GNOME releases, recently preferring GSlacky, as despite the language difficulties on the forum it offers a good balance between features and applications and not straying too far from the Slackware packages on the desktop.

Having seen Eric's (and others) praise for GSB, I may well try that release them on a test machine.

Except when you remove Dropline gnome, it basically kills your system because it replaces lots of slackware packages with its own. When I tried to remove it last time, I couldn't run pidgin, firefox, or xchat when I removed it and my computer started randomly freezing.

Yes. That is why I would choose GSB, it does not make massive changes to a stock install of Slackware.

I recently looked over the replaced packages list for gware and it looks as if it replaces even less this time. If you have a test environment, you could try the current gware. It may just require a recompile. I don't think the build order is documented there though. You could probably pull it from one of those scripts to auto compile gnome.

You can overcome it with this:

http://translate.google.com/

I use it all the time and it is pretty decent.

I have installed the current release of GSB on 12.2. Although there are a few glitches it does work.

I've actually been working on a test build of gnome on 12.2... (I am the process of compiling as I write this). My goal is to make a totally vanilla version. If I'm happy with my basic build maybe I'll make some packages...

You can also try to ask in English in the forum if the translator fails. ;)

The "current" branch of GnomeSlackBuild is now 12.2-ready.

Thanks, now I can install slackware 12.2 and retain my gnome desktop

GSlacky will be ready "sometime" in February. Sometime meaning anytime after the 1st and before the 28th, maybe.

I am using GSB (2.22.1) but just selected packages. Whole GSB is too big, too many packages for the same things. I liked Dropline more because it had less packages, one application for one function.

GSB 2.22.1 is little bit inconsistent about asking root password for some admin tools (i.e. user administration); sometimes asks you for a password and sometimes it does not. And if it does not, all changes you make are not saved. That does not bother me because I never use these gui tools, but GSB has some flaws.

But still .. I like GSB more than KDE although my last KDE was 2.x

I am not a Gnome user, but if I recall it correctly, one nice thing about GnomeSlacky is that it makes it easy to install individual packages, that you really need, without having to install the full-blown desktop environment for only a couple of programs with no KDE (or XFCE or Xlib) equivalent. At least, that's what they claim.

On other distros and with other Gnome ports for Slackware dependency hell can be rather deep, as far as I know.

But I am a KDE user, so the above may be incorrect or outdated.

gargamel

Have you reported this to their mailing lists?

no, I did not and I feel guilty now :).

I had some other problems first time I installed it and after removing all gsb packages and reinstalling only the main ones, everything started to work. I noticed this problem with passwords for admin tools sometimes later but I forgot about it as I do not use these tools. And I never thought about it till yesterday...

To cleanup your Slackware distribution just use slackpkg which is included in the 12.2 distro. It's as easy as 1, 2, 3. Regardless of what version of Gnome you try, after going through their uninstall process you can run:

1. # slackpkg update
2. # slackpkg clean-system
3. # slackpkg upgrade-all

Be sure you have uncommented a mirror close to you in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors file for the 12.2 version.

Note: You may also need to run "slackpkg install-new" if packages are missing.

Gslacky 2.24.3 is now available for Slackware 12.2 - and looking mighty fine.

Thanks to all our Italian friends for their efforts in making this another stable GNOME release.