I've been using -current since the 12.2 release and LOVE 13.0....everything is perfect imho. Admit it was a tough adjust from
kde 3.5 to the present, but hey..you know what..stuff changes...and I must admit that for my daily use which granted is hardly the same as everybody else...*it just works* -- Long Live Slackware

Thats what I find with Slackware, everything just works. I admin Windows servers for a living and do some security reporting for our Unix team and have been sent to RedHat training so when I get home I don't want to tinker with OS's which is one of the reasons I gave up on Windows XP, it took way too much work to keep it running, Slackware I install and it runs, I don't have to mess with it unless I want to upgrade when a new version comes out like 13, then I spend less time than installing the current month's Windows updates and I have a whole new version.

You speak of 4.xx. Did you use the apps in 4.2.4 or previous versions?
Because I use KMail for bulk email work, and it is so far absolutely stable and also faster then its 3.5.10 incarnation. I, too, use Kopete, and I haven't had stability problems with it in 4.2.4, so far.

Kaffeine works just fine, here. I use it for many things, including watching TV vial DVB-T. It never crashed, so far. In fact, it gets stable image, where with previous versions I mostly saw noise, with the same hardware. Only the localisation is rather incomplete, leading to funny mixes of words in different languages.

I totally agree with you regarding K3b and, even more, KOffice. Especially the latter was never usable for anything. KWord still "flushes" ODF documents. Yesterday I gave it try: I loaded a document created with OOo. Adding a few words and saving it "cleared" the text. So KWord actually is the JPEG of word processors: It compresses documents, by removing data.

gargamel

I also am using Kaffeine in Slackware 13 (32bit). I have had no problems with Kaffeine so far. Videos play just ok and without issues.
I also just burned a data DVD with K3B and it burned the disc just fine.

Human beings are adaptable, that's why we're at the top of the evolutionary tree. I adapted to using a computer at the age of 57, I adapted to using GNU/Linux at 60. I can adapt to using KDE4, XFCE, FluxBox, any DE/WM. I can adapt to anything, or adapt
anything to suit me.

slackware64 gets a two thumbs up for me. i have been running current (32bit) before switching to slackware64 13.0 release. i'd say the performance are more snappy and responsive than before. i use kontact heavily for mails, rss feeds and calendaring and it runs fast and stable. the same can be said for kopete and firefox. k3b works fine so far with burning images and data..only that the other day when it didn't report a successful burn when it actually was. dolphin takes a bit of configuring to get it to look and work smoothly, but once i was used to it file operations are a breeze. my system also seems to run quieter and smoother, maybe due to efficient cpu usage but maybe that's just me.

coupled with slackpkg and sbopkg, i can get access to new software rather easily and with much control over the system. all in all i would say the release is awesome and worth the upgrade. big congrats and thank yous to pat, bob, eric and the team behind slackware

IIRC, I started with 4.1.3 and the last version I used was 4.2.1.

I see 4.3.1 was released yesterday, 1 September.

Slackware 13 was just released last Friday and it looks, in regards to KDE, that we are already two steps behind. On Monday I was "chatting" with a friend on Yahoo Messenger via Kopete on my side. Everything worked fine. Yesterday when I fired up Kopete, and each time since, I get a message from Yahoo Admin. telling me I'm using an obsolete version of Yahoo Messenger and I have to upgrade. So, I left a message over at the KDE forum asking if there was a patch for Kopete and received the following reply:

"Unfortunately this means you now need to upgrade to the KDE 4.3 or higher release of KDE in order to get the newer version of Kopete that uses Yahoo's newer protocols. ICQ will likely be fixed by doing the same."

Heck, I haven't even "upgraded" to Slackware 13 with KDE 4.2.4, so I guess that puts me, what, 3 steps behind?


(Not that I consider KDE 4.xx an upgrade, mind you. )

None of the previous 4.xx versions was tested and quality assured as 4.2.4 by "the crew". All I can say is, that I trust in Pat V., Alien Bob, Robby Workman and the other members of the Slackware team, and that they did not disappoint me.

I admit, that there may be scenarios and use cases where the snags and the existing gaps (I don't deny them) of KDE 4.2.4 in functionality may bite you. But for the things I do with my computer they are not that relevant, and certainly none of them is show stopper for me. Your situation may be different. But it also might be the case, that the stability problems you report about KDE 4.2.1 and earlier don't exist in 4.2.4, anymore.

Unfortunately it is impossible (or rather complicated and time consuming, at least) to install both KDE 3.5.10 and 4.2.4. Therefore I cannot really recommend you to try 4.2.4, as this would mean you had to install Slackware 13.0, and then re-install 12.2, in case you still don't like KDE 4.

Regarding Yahoo: Three weeks ago I could chat using Kopete in KDE 4.2.4 on Slackware64-current. Did they really change their protocols in the meantime, making them incompatible with practically all existing software (not only Kopete)?

gargamel

This is nothing new. It's happened several times before.

Yahoo wants you to use their IM client so they get the ad revenue from making you look at all the ads. You can't really blame them, they are a business after all. However, ever since alternate 3rd party IM clients started appearing which allow users to avoid Yahoo's ads then that presents Yahoo with a problem. So, every so often they change the protocols in one way or another in an attempt to break the 3rd party clients. Of course, the 3rd party client developers soon catch up and bring out a new release, but it usually takes a little time and is an inconvenience to the users. Yahoo hopes that this will make the users turn back to their official client and restore their ad revenue.


If the KDE guys had anything about them, they should expect Yahoo to change the protocol from time to time and design the app accordingly by abstracting the protocol related code into an independently updateable plugin module. Requiring users to upgrade not only the IM client, but also the entire Desktop environment just because Yahoo change the IM protocol is just bad design.

Of course, it's far easier to criticise and say how it should be done than to actually do it, but the point still stands.

Well I installed Slack 13 yesterday so I guess it's about time to say what I think:

The installation went smoothly as Slackware installations usually do, and soon enough I was booting into the new installation. I shocked by the 2.6.29.x "Tuz" logo, which I have to admit is a little creepy...

I started kdm and logged in to KDE4. I was impressed by the fact that Slackware 13 has a lot better support for my laptop's power system. I can now suspend, hibernate, use CPU throttling, and adjust volume with the hardware wheel; unlike 12.2 where none of these things worked in a fresh install. My computer also appears to run a lot cooler in Slack 13 than it did in 12.2, in which I was even having overheating problems. These factors make upgrading to 13 worthwile for me.

At first I was pleased with not having to set up an xorg.conf, but then I started noticing display problems like cursor corruption and screen corruption when moving windows and such. I also had no OpenGL support. I tried installing ATI's display drivers (version 9.2) but it did not support the Xorg version or the kernel. I heard the 9.8 version of ATI's drivers work but unfortunately they don't support my card, leaving ATI proprietary drivers completely useless to me. However, after a while of experimenting and some research I'm using the xorg radeon driver without any problems. I downloaded the latest git version of libdrm, the drm kernel modules, the radeon display driver, and Mesa, compiled and installed them and set up an xorg.conf. Finally I have OpenGL support and no screen problems whatsoever using open source drivers instead of ATI's, which is a first for me using Linux!

As for KDE4, I've finally gotten used to it and I like a lot of its new features.
Overall, Slackware 13 is probably the best distro/version I've tried!

I'm planning on trying to install KDE 4.3.1 and KDE 3.5.10 on my Slackware box using these instructions:
http://techbase.kde.org/Getting_Star...sting_Versions

Basically they want the user to make a special account that uses special envvars for compiling one version of KDE so that it doesn't interfere with one that's installed already. I wonder if the same thing could be done by making a startkde script for each version that sets the envvars like the guide suggests your .bashrc does? The only problem is that Slackware installs KDE's executables to /usr/bin, and you'd probably want that in your PATH regardless of what version of KDE you're using. I guess I would have to remove KDE 4.2.4 and install the two versions I want in different prefixes, maybe /opt/kde3 and /opt/kde4...

Sorry for rambling.

I did a full install and I was extremely disappointed. The installation process went fine but the "new" xorg was a nightmare for me. I tried the recommended method of starting up without a xorg.conf and I had no keyboard and mouse with X reporting that it failed to find any input devices.

I'm aware that xorg pulls its input devices from HAL so I figured I would try a minimal xorg.conf from my backups which only included my keyboard and mouse. Still no response from the keyboard and mouse.

Then I tried setting the "AllowEmptyInput" option to off in my xorg.conf and it suddenly finds my keyboard and mouse but still locks up with logs showing that the server is in an "endless loop".

After about 10+ hard resets, I finally gave up and reinstalled 12.2 from my backups. I was really excited about the new release, but it simply didn't work for me and 12.2 does.

A very smooth, easy install, one of the easiest ever. I have only one outstanding issue, and it is one I can live with as there is a workaround: make xconfig (when building a kernel) does not work, it requires qt3. Make gconfig or make menuconfig work fine.

All of my qt apps work as they should (after upgrading to the qt4 version): kdiff3, qjackctl, and scribus, and I switched from kplayer to smplayer.

I don't run KDE, but XFCE works fine.

Kudos to Pat and the crew.

For the benefit of others, the "workaround" would be to install the Qt3/KDE3 compatibility libs. I discovered this too, and since I really like xconfig over the others, I installed the compat libs and all was well again

gconfig is pretty decent too, but xconfig is IMO the best one.

Sasha

The only modification I had to make to my Slackware 13.0 installation was to add the KDE3 compat libraries to be able to burn CDs, DVDs using k3b. This is a first rate version of Slackware!
Many thanks to Pat, Robby, Eric and the entire Slackware team.

2 reviews available on the net:

http://www.techiemoe.com/tech/slack13.htm
http://www.xstore.co.za/wordpress/?p=473