[SOLVED] MLED - Microlinux Enterprise Desktop - a full-blown production desktop (KDE or Xfce)
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Thanks to your kind advice I have installed on RAID 1 arrays, and am now at the point where I am told by the MLED Xfce 14.1 64-bit Installation Guide to "chroot into the newly installed environment, configure and build an initrd and replace the HUGE kernel by the GENERIC kernel."
I have not found any clear info on how to do that in the How-to's, or the Slackbook. Would your kindness extend to a pointer of where to look ?
Thanks to your kind advice I have installed on RAID 1 arrays, and am now at the point where I am told by the MLED Xfce 14.1 64-bit Installation Guide to "chroot into the newly installed environment, configure and build an initrd and replace the HUGE kernel by the GENERIC kernel."
I have not found any clear info on how to do that in the How-to's, or the Slackbook. Would your kindness extend to a pointer of where to look ?
Assuming your new installed environment is mounted as /mnt:
Code:
mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
chroot /mnt
# Follow instructions in /boot/README.initrd
exit
good morning. When I run #slackpkg update (after having run #slackpkg GPG) I get some errors messages:
Quote:
!!! W A R N I N G !!!
Repository 'multilib' does NOT contain the GPG-KEY
You SHOULD disable GPG check by setting 'CHECKGPG=off'
in /etc/slackpkg/slackpkg.conf or use slackpkg with
'-checkgpg=off' : 'slackpkg -checkgpg=off install packge'
!!! W A R N I N G !!!
Repository 'desktop-base' does NOT contain the GPG-KEY
You SHOULD disable GPG check by setting 'CHECKGPG=off'
in /etc/slackpkg/slackpkg.conf or use slackpkg with
'-checkgpg=off' : 'slackpkg -checkgpg=off install packge
Quote:
!!! N O T I C E !!!
Repository 'desktop-extra' does not contains MANIFEST.bz2
Don't worry... it will work fine, but the command
'slackpkg file-search' will not work on that
repository
cezarrangel, this happens to me too from time to time. This is because for some weird reason hostnames are not always resolved on the first try. Usually running `slackpkg update` a few times helps. Also, the repo might be in the process of updating, so just try again later.
Some updates on MLED, after a little while. This last month I haven't had much time to dedicate to the project (due to an absurd lawsuit a right-wing journalist filed against me after I google-bombed him). On the technical side, I had a little faith crisis following my inability to setup LDAP-based authentication on MLES (due to the absence of PAM). This even led me (briefly) to consider other distributions than Slackware, but as it is, easy solutions often create unexpected new problems. So here we go again.
The MLED project has been around for quite some time now (the first version dates back to 2006), though it wasn't called MLED at the time. Then it went to hibernation, to come back around Slackware 13.37. The project tries to evolve with a maximum of user input. Counting the MLED installations I performed for my clients and judging from my server logs, there are a couple hundred MLED installations out there. It's about 80 % Xfce-based MLED vs. 20 % KDE-based.
AlienBob has been right from the start: it's nearly impossible to maintain two different desktops. These last six months I wanted to prove him wrong and maintain both the Xfce-based and the KDE-based spin, and this task has been extremely time-consuming, contrary to what I wanted to believe. Maintaining two different spins of MLED means maintaining no less than six installations in VM's: one desktop-agnostic, one Xfce-based, one KDE-based, and twice all this for 32-bit and 64-bit. With a limited amount of time, there's only so much details I can care about.
Judging from the total amount of user input both here in France and on LQ, the Xfce-based spin is a winner, in the sense that folks seem to really like it, and there have been no major problems reported. Some folks do appreciate the KDE-based spin, but lately some of my local users have experienced some weird problems with it. Apparently people like to shoot themselves in the foot and do things like get rid of their panels. When configured in a traditional desktop view, KDE has the nasty habit of making files appear and disappear randomly (a misbehaviour that I've experienced myself). Add to that the fact that I'm more than often confronted with relatively modest hardware. With all that in mind, the answer to the question ("Which desktop environment should I support in the future?") seems clear. On a personal note, I've been using KDE almost exclusively over the last few months. I'd say I really like most of it, but some details also tend to get on my nerves and make me crave for something more lightweight. (And the KDE release policy is just insane.)
So, what will the future bring for MLED? I have a little notebook, filled with user remarks on MLED. Many of these have been adressed to this date, many of these have yet to find an answer. I like the idea of having at least one desktop that comes close to something like perfection. The next few weeks will be spent working on these ideas in a separate directory tree (not "desktop-base", "desktop-xfce", desktop-kde" or "desktop-extra", but just "desktop", true to the KISS principle ). I'm always a little embarrassed when MLED turns into a moving target, but hey, it's for the greater good.
No changes to the repos already in place for the moment. Work is going on under the hood, and I'll keep you posted as soon as I have something that's worth publishing. And all this to say that no, MLED is not dead. I guess it's somewhere between adolescence and maturity.
So, back to Xfce-only? The question is, will there be MATE afterwards, again
I'm an easy target for jokes right now.
But seriously, I realize it's a mistake to "dance at all the weddings", as we say in my native Austria. Willy and Chess are already providing a fine MATE environment, and Eric does incredible work on KDE. Both environments can be easily completed with a handful of packages from SlackBuilds.org. What's missing most here, IMHO, is a bells-and-whistles Xfce, the kind where users just peek at it and say: wow, I want to use this.
Of course I'm not Sisyphos (you know, the guy from the Greek myth condemned to push a rock up a hill only to see it roll down), so there won't be any dramatic changes to MLED's Xfce base. I'm thinking more of a code cleanup and a series of small improvements. I took note of your previous remarks, fsLeg, and some suggestions will be implemented in the near future.
No changes to the repos already in place for the moment. Work is going on under the hood, and I'll keep you posted as soon as I have something that's worth publishing. And all this to say that no, MLED is not dead. I guess it's somewhere between adolescence and maturity.
If you're curious to see what's brewing under the hood, check out the ChangeLogs:
You'll probably notice that I got rid of some package categories like locale/ and multimedia/. These have been replaced by the more traditional categories. The reason behind this is that some users decided to install only packages from the multimedia/ category... and then complained that some stuff didn't work (because of the odd missing package from d/ and l/). I do keep the profile/ category, since these packages can all be used on a LAN server for central user management.
Some more work has gone into the artwork. I packaged the nice elementary-xfce icon theme provided by Shimmerproject, and IMNSHO this is the best icon theme currently available for Xfce. It's beautiful with a nice hint of understatement, and it's as complete as, say, KDE's Oxygen theme.
I'll be busy the next few days cleaning up SlackBuild scripts, updating packages and documentation.
Don't be surprised if there's no change in the repositories for the next ten days or so. I'm going on vacation to Paris, and I'll continue to work a little bit on my laptop. If you want to have a glimpse of the latest changes, check out the Git repo:
Don't be surprised if there's no change in the repositories for the next ten days or so. I'm going on vacation to Paris, and I'll continue to work a little bit on my laptop. If you want to have a glimpse of the latest changes, check out the Git repo:
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