AFAIK Linux Mint no longer comes with KDE which is easier for Windows Weenies, especially the newer Win 8 Touch Screen Nuts, since a similar interface is selectable in KDE. When Mint dropped KDE, a really good fork was created, SolydXK, which comes in 2 flavors, Xfce and KDE. It is compatible with Debian repos and very simple and solid. There is also a Business Edition. Check it out here

To be perfectly candid I tried it out for gaming and frankly wanted to hate it. I've tried to break it with common "stupid pet tricks" and, well, it's rather resistant to such "efforts". I don't know what's in the water in The Netherlands or the genes of Dutchmen but some surely seem to know how to do "simple and solid".

Sorry, not so,

http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2530

http://linuxmint.com/

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mint

I really liked gnome-pkgtool in the past:

http://gnome-pkgtool.sourceforge.net/

nostalgia

Hi Woodsman,

In your search for slackware-based system administration guis, are you finding they are pretty much all out-of-date? In my understanding, they are. Would it be acceptable to you if we brew one up for your needs? Since your question mainly is of package management, I think it would be easy to create a gui front-end to slackpkg. I have done some of this for other purposes before, and if you don't want to get involved in programming, I would be glad to help.

My biggest concern with KDE is Akonadi. The KDE devs have moved KDE toward the enterprise (not a bad thing), but with respect to PIM apps basically left single users out in the cold. I have KDE 4.10.5 installed and Akonadi serves no useful purpose on my system. For me, the only thing Akonadi does is duplicate all PIM data files. I have created script wrappers to use Trinity PIM apps whenever I use KDE.

Many of our potential customers will be single home users or small business owners who do not have or need enterprise support. For such users Akonadi creates a burden I do not want to deal with. Please understand this is not a KDE bashing statement. This is a usability statement. Akonadi does not set well with me and never will. Currently there is no compatible PIM option for KDE users who do not want the Akonadi overhead, even with Razor-Qt.

Trinity PIM apps are much better behaved because Akonadi does not exist, but Trinity is a slow moving project. I am comfortable using Trinity daily, but I need an official R14 release before I would offer that desktop to users.

By the way, the Whisker menu for Xfce is much nicer than the stock Xfce menu. Niki, you might want to look at that. Available at slackbuilds.org too.

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To be specific, Linux Mint comes with a KDE version but only with the Ubuntu base. I will not use any 'buntu derivative.

LMDE does not include a KDE base --- only Cinnamon and MATE. I am sure KDE can be downloaded from the Mint repositories, but I do not know whether the Mint look-and-feel comes with those packages. If not then perhaps SolidXK fits the bill, or at least the KDE packages from SolidXK.

Yesterday I made an initial test run with LMDE Cinnamon. I am enormously impressed with the complete GUI experience. A boot splash, wonderful control center, a superb package manager, well designed menus, GUI package update notifier, a clean and crisp design. I would like to see Cinnamon 2.0 build scripts for Slackware (I see the thread discussing this but haven't looked for build scripts).

Not to forget that LMDE is a semi-rolling release with regular update packs (service packs in Windows lingo), which is easier for customers.

My first impression is the difference in philosophy. We Slackers enjoy Slackware because Slackware is a distro that is tailored and intended to get in our way the least. As many have stated through the years, Slackware is not a hand-holding distro. That is exactly why I use Slackware.

Yet I am not naive enough to believe typical non techie users want any of that. They do indeed want hand holding and they treat computers as appliances rather than tools. Linux Mint is very much designed for these types of users.

Can Slackware be molded into such a project? Yes, of course, but do I have the savvy to create such an environment? Probably not and certainly not without a lot of screaming and four letter words. That said, I am evaluating Slackware derivative distros to learn whether I can pull together pieces. Something similar to MLED in approach. My first criterion is whether I can do (almost) everything without a terminal. Second criterion is look-and-feel.

A noticeable difference with Mint and Slackware derivatives is I don't see the same spit and polish with any derivative. There is an underlying presumption with all Slackware derivatives that users must use the command line. Linux Mint is not built with that underlying philosophy.

Bear in mind that if we use a non Slackware base then I more than likely have to leave Slackware too. I will need to be intimately familiar with whatever we support. That intimacy is created only through daily usage. I am not too enthused about leaving my own comfort zone with Slackware.

At the moment I see Linux Mint as a great option for customers, but no so much for me. That is, I am very comfortable with Slackware through the past decade or so. At the moment I am resisting stepping out of my comfort zone. A Debian based system is plenty different enough to introduce a learning curve for me.

I recall at one time asking here in LQ whether a GUI front-end was in the future plans for slackpkg.

I lack the skills for any such project. If you want to do this for your own satisfaction and challenge then please do so, but do not do this for me. We haven't yet even written a business plan let alone allocate a budget for outsourcing development.

To my knowledge the only Slackware GUI package manager tool is gslapt, which is a GTK2 app. I have no idea how much work would be involved to adapt gslapt to GTK3, Qt4/5 or TQt (Trinity). Also gslapt is a GUI front-end to slapt-get rather than the stock slackpkg.

To me, a better approach is to write something from scratch in Python that wraps around slackpkg (and slackpkg+) and supports hooking into GTK2, GTK3, Qt4/5, and TQt. A GUI package manager should match the surrounding desktop environment.

Likewise with other existing GUI tools, such as those found in Salix, Zenwalk, or Absolute. From my limited needs, those tools should be expanded to support the different GUIs rather than only GTK2. I am not expecting or asking those project developers to do that because that is, understandably, beyond their project scope. I am just offering an observation.

Woodsman,
Many thanks for that. Very nicely done.

Debian is a first rate OS. Debian+XFce is very light and fast. I have a vm of it and run it on my netbook from time to time.

Oh, I agree. In my previous post I was referring only to my own learning curve. While I expect no difficulties, I nonetheless have to spend sufficient time to learn the Debian/Mint way. Time, time, time....

I am rather fond of apt-get it is an interesting package manager. I predict you will also like it a lot. At the moment I'm making an effort to learn more about my favourite version of Unix(OpenBSD). I bought a really good book, Absolute OpenBSD.

I haven't used it myself but I remember reading about QTGZManager, which is a GUI package manager for Slackware (that can also update packages from patches/). However, I don't think it supports third-party repositories (though again I haven't used it) so it is only half a solution.

One of the key principles of my business is the strict separation of system administration and system use. When a client (school, town hall, public library, company, whatever) asks me to install a Linux-based network for them, I am in charge of system administration, which means I install the system, configure it, take care of integrating applications, etc. The user, on the other hand, only has to use the system, e. g. log in, fire up the desktop, start applications and work with them. These are two completely different tasks, and they never ever have to be mixed up.

If a client asked me to do what you describe, I would simply refuse to do it. I would explain to him that what he wants to do boils down to system administration, and since he wants to take care of it, well, he can take care of it. But if he needs someone to clean up after his mess, he will have to call someone else. Experience with self-appointed Linux-admins taught me some lessons.

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You can make the transition from Windows to GNU/Linux only so much pain free. The rest are just aesthetics that can be easily avoided like bootsplash. As long as KDM or GDM work, then why fuss over it?

While I respect your thought as keeping things simple and pure. Slackware is a very stable tool built to run software as vanilla as it can.
So think of Slackware as the best tool belt in the world and up to you to put the tools you want in them.

Hey that's a Admin decision