Switch to Slackware for desktop OS
I am thinking about doing the switch -- and my main concerns are the amount of time I'll spend configuring and getting things setup. I used slackware way back when, probably 5-6 years ago, only for a short time as a desktop OS.
My experience with linux is server/professional level. I've gotten to the point in my day to day activities at home where Windows is annoying me, and would rather have a stable platform to work on. Some of my dev servers have been up for over 2300 days.... lol I am trying to gather a list of items I'll need to successfully go through with this, and a few things that concern me are: 1. NVIDIA Drivers + Multiple Displays I've got to be able to have my GPU running, and configured pretty easily. I remember having problems with dual monitors, but eventually found a solution which I do not remember. 2. Steam This could cause some issues with the 32-bit dependencies, not sure if anyone has insight on how easy/hard this will be to setup 3. KDE + Eye Candy One thing I really enjoyed about KDE was either how good your system looked, the look and feel -- or how terrible it looked. I remember back that some GTK/other "display" stuff was missing and everything looked like complete shit. Then one day, I magically found the correct packages, (eg. for firefox) and everything was completely different and smooth! 4. Open Broadcasting Software Free, open source product for Windows to stream content online. Is there an alternative to this, that integrates easily with the current online live streams, such as twitch.tv etc..? EDIT: 5. On board sound (Realtek HD) I've got speakers plugged into the back of my computer, surround sound. In the front, I also have a headset for skyping. On Windows, I am able to switch between which is "Default" -- often times I want to listen to music using my speakers, and at night I'd like to use my headphones. Certain applications even give me the option to pick a default device (speakers, or headphones) for them. Would this be possible on Slackware? END EDIT. I do recall slackbuilds having a lot of the things I needed. I am unsure whether I'll have issues with going 64bit, which is crucial or else there goes 12 GB of my RAM... Let me hear some opinions. |
1: NVidia drivers. Two options, either use the SlackBuild, or the NVIDIA-Linux-*-*.run from the Nvidia website. No idea about dual-monitors.
3: Alien Bob provides good releases of KDE. I'm using his 4.10.5. No issues here with 64-bit. Have a look at the Slackware Documentation site linked in my signature. |
Moved: This thread is more suitable in Slackware forum and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.
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Setting up Steam is very easy if you have a 32-bit or multilib system.
Just install Alien Bob's package: http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slac...s/steamclient/ If you need to set up multilib, visit: http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/multilib/ |
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3. The KDE 4.10.5 of Slackware-current looks immensely much better than the KDE 3.5.10 which was featured in Slackware 12.2, 5 years ago. 4. Perhaps you should like into Webcamstudio as a Linux alternative to Open BroadCaster Software. 5. Skype allows you to pick the recording and playback device from the list of available devices. So does VLC and probably other GUI applications too. And KDE4 has configuration widget fo sound devices and their priority. When my son plugs in his USB headset with microphone, he can use it immediately in his KDE Desktop. Eric |
Awesome great feedback! I shall keep you guys posted on my endeavor after work tonight.
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Running 24/7 on a Slackware64 14.0 public server with Icecast, MPD and NCMPC. If you want your Slackware desktop to JustWork(tm) out of the box, you might give one of these a spin: http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/ MLED is based on Xfce 4.10, MLWS on KDE 4.10.5 with some more lightweight apps. MLES is the "server" pack and contains the streaming audio apps built against a full set of codecs. Cheers, Niki |
One of the steps I took was switching over all the stuff I used to cross platform running under windows (firefox, thunderbird, openoffice, etc) so that when I switched to linux the stuff I used I was already familiar with. Then I did a couple instals under vmware player (would use virtualbox now) so I could test a distro or two while still in windows.
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I don't use Steam or OBS or have a Realtek card. But I've been running Slackware as my primary OS at home for around 10 or 11 years. I do have a dual-boot with XP, but I can't remember the last time I booted to it. The main thing that I have had to keep Windows around for is streaming video from Amazon.
I use 64-bit Slack with Alien Bob's multilib packages and, though I was a bit wary of dealing with multilib at first, it's really been pretty seamless. Have to pay a bit more attention to package updates/upgrades, but other than that, it's been a breeze. yes, some things have required some messing about, but not that many and it's kind of a hobby for me. Good luck! Dave |
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So far so good, I will keep updates rolling on this thread. I am having an issue with my USB ports not working after a certain amount of time. It's very frustrating ... the two ports my mouse and keyboard are connected to randomly stops working, which at first made me think my OS crashed. Then I found two new USB ports on my machine and they worked there. But the problem comes back, now those USB ports do not work....
I had to restart the machine for my all of my USB ports to come back alive. The "dead" ones -- give power to my mouse or keyboard, which ever is plugged in... but turns off right away. What's going on?? |
I had the same problem on one of my computers a month or so ago, all 4 of my usb ports would just stop working. an update/upgrade solved it, I do run current! and update regular.
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For the USB issue, here is some output of my controllers. Code:
bash-4.2$ lsusb Also, I have Skype up and running now, except my microphone doesn't seem to work. I know that the mic is enabled, because I can hear my self through the kmixer... Any suggestions? The error I get on Konsole is Code:
ALSA lib conf.c:4692:(snd_config_expand) Unknown parameters CARD=PCH |
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On my systems, sometimes I use Infinality, and sometimes I just add some nice default fonts and turn on anti-aliasing. I've found the way fonts render in Slackware depends heavily on what hardware I'm using. Sometimes they need tweaking, and other times they are perfect out of the box. Dugan's page (the one you linked) really has a lot of good material on fonts in Slackware. I would read through it completely and do what it says, and then if you still have a problem, give us more details. And welcome! |
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