Just one small thing...

I've been using slackware full time since 7.1 and the only thing I miss is Enlightenment on the install media. I got ahold of GEM and the included E17 was beautiful fast and efficient. I'm not advertising E by any means, just pointing out it used to be there for a reason.

I believe it was removed to "save space" on the install media and space is no longer an issue on install media.

Throw it back in, Include the linking to the full KDE suite again and make it the default GUI.

That's all I'm saying.

Why not change anything else? Simple as Slackware itself.

Slackware is the only distro you can do a "FULL" install of and not end up with a filthy OS. YES, I am advertising now

I have much love and respect for the ones who install it all then close it all down.

There is one problem. E17 can't get stable and PV probably won't include it while it's not. And welcome to LQ!

And yeah, E17 is great.

Hi,

The Tagfiles link provides a good discription.

tagfile_generator.sh script by Alien_Bob will help you create a tagfile for your installed system.

These links and others are available from 'Slackware-Links' .

Feature I would like to see is an html index of man pages and basic simple instructions on how to access them, ie. Are man pages normally .gz files that have to be unzipped before users can access them and how are man pages stored. I know someone is going to say well man pages are well documented which is the standard answer for long time linux users but how user friendly is all the documentation? Bottom line how user viable an alternative to microsoft do experienced linux developers want linux to be?

A standalone desktop or laptop installation that can be used out of the box for business or personal use without spending hours, days, weeks, and even months, tweaking and geeking to get it setup to do what you want it to do.
And, that would be:
Word processing (OpenOffice).

Faxing, Hydrafax would be nice if it can be used for a standalone system, or eFax if you must.

Scanning (Sane sucks, but it all we have to something better comes along).

Printing (that seems to work fairly well for me).

Sound that works without having to be configured.

Monitor and grahics cards that are automatically configured without having to spend HOURS testing and file editing to get graphic acceleration working.

DigiKam.

VLC or MPlayer as gxine or xine doesn't cut it and Noatun is not much better.

Something like RPPPPOE to connect via a DSL connection that can be used by all user without having to edit some arcane file.

Ditto, not having to manually add users names to a file so they can use all of the above.

An easier way to setup a network.

The automatic installation of the necessary dependencies, so you don't spend hours hunting them down and installing them so you can run that one applicaton you need.

Centralized documentation. Sorry, man/mac have rarely told me what I've needed to know and/or they are written in geek speak. I'm always going back to my first edition of "Running Linux."

I've recently been running Ubuntu 7.10 in VMware and if I didn't have so many years invested in learning and using Slackware I would jump to the Ubuntu or Kubuntu camp in a heart beat. The reason Ubuntu is so popular is they have figured it out, and that is, most of us don't have the time, or the inclination, or the money to spend on a geek squad, to get Slackware to do what we want it to do. Pure and simple. So simple you wonder why someone didn't think of it before.

I agree with you about about the programs you suggest except RPPOE and after, it went downhill after that, what you are talking about is getting rid of the stuff that makes slackware, slackware. If you don't like how slackware does something then don't use it, simple as that, I could just as well say why don't we make LFS a complete distro from the outset so we don't have to build one, which completely misses the point of using LFS.

IMO it depends on your age. Start using true Linux as young as possible and you won't feel so abused by configuring. When you know what exactly you are doing, you'll do it in a blink of an eye.
The thing is, I even had a depression. I SAW my friends spending a couple of seconds clicking buttons in Windows, and compared with mine half-day configuring the Slackware. And understand, that if I have never used Windows, then started using Slackware at about age of 15: there will have never been any problems. Younger generation is easer to adapt and learn, then even when you are at 20, time flies faster things never slow down.

cwizardone, no offense, but it really sounds like you would be better off going to another distribution with that list of issues. Most of us are running Slackware because of the things you list as faults.

I use Slackware to avoid automation as much as possible, so that I can manually tailor the system to my needs. If you want something that is just click-and-go, you would be much better of making the jump to Ubuntu.

Hi,

It is the age at which you start then adding experience & knowledge as you age. How much you really research and want to know about something, be it Linux or rocket science. The desire and curiosity are what drives most to understand too learn something new. As you experience something over & over then that is just repetition not learning. If someone has twenty years of turning a screwdriver doesn't mean they have twenty years of experience but just twenty 'one' year experiences.

As too the reference about Windows, I assume your speaking from a GUI standpoint. If so then most of the work has been done for someone. They just know where to point & click. The front end is there and they will detail using such. But when they need to really polish something they are then lost if any attempt to get into the intricacies of the system because of the limiting factor of the GUI.

As for your regret about using Windows, at least you moved to a OS and method of controlling the same that will allow you to do as you wish. That's the glory of using a open operating system!
You will benefit more from this experience than a turnkey system where you are dependent on someone else doing the work or waiting for that someone to do any correction or adaptation. With Open or GNU you are not dependent on someone else to change something but you are free to make changes if you have the means to do it.

You will need to define the 'Younger generation'!
From my point of view, I'm still part of a 'Younger generation' just aged a little along with my group. I know people who have started using something at a late age an were naturals at the task. No previous experience, just the drive to acquire the understanding and knowledge because of their intelligence. Sure a little common sense didn't hurt.

My goodness....cwizardone


That proposal will be like taking the heart out of slackware :c how dare you! after this you could go to the gentoo forums and ask to take out that USE thing from portage so you don't have to make decisions before emerge something xD


And like the others I have to disagree, and quite frankly I don't think that automation is all good, plain and simple, with automation you don't have control of your own system. I think that the beauty of slackware is that offers you that control by letting you choose what do you want and what you don't and how your system should run by letting you configurate it as you like.




Regards

I got my first computer at the age of 58, about 5 years ago, wasn't interested in them before then. Messed about with Windows for a couple of years, then found out about GNU/Linux. Did my first dual-boot at age sixty with Slackware 10 or 10.2. All you need at any age is a willingness to learn.

none realy everything is good may be gparted

This many problems is usually the result of being exceptionally stubborn about some things...

Okay, I'm pretty much with you on these two. Thankfully, I don't fax anything anymore (because everyone has email).

This would be the reason I avoid printers that don't do PostScript if I can help it. Even on Windows this is a pain in the butt just because everyone's got it into their heads that making proprietary interfaces for checking ink levels and so forth is the key to Big Profits.

With the notable exception of the highly brokenriffic Intel HDA drivers, this is already the case with pretty much every PCI audio card.

One word... "nVidia"

Almost the same issue as printers, although it doesn't help that down at the low end are about thirteen-thousand cheapie Chinese webcams that don't adhere to any sort of standards at all, up to and including using the same product and vendor codes for 30 different models (which is highly against both the spirit and purpose of USB identifiers). LIRC is also somewhat plagued by issues like this.

You can thank patent lawyers for this one.

Honestly, I don't see this one changing until people start learning to read. Anyone daring to do anything like an automatic GUI configurator for PPPoE gets to look forward to days upon days of "bug reports" because the end user can't figure out how to even begin to answer the questions about what insane permutation of PPPoE their ISP might have implemented. This is another place where just spending a few bucks on a router appliance to "just deal with it" helps greatly.

This requires the latest version libfatpsychiclady.so so the system can determine whether or not the user is really allowed to down the network interface in the middle of your gigantic can't-be-interrupted-because-the-site-doesn't-report-partial-HTTP-transfers download.

One word: "DHCP".

LOL. Doubtful that's going to happen anytime soon, if at all. Users will just override the thing and still break their systems. The view Pat seems to have is one shared by many... that if you're doing administrator-level things, you should at least be aware enough of what you're doing to know what pieces something needs so that you don't break everything. A corollary to this can be found in why we don't let nine-year old kids drive cars or repair their engines.

Both GNOME and KDE have really comprehensive help systems. I've no idea what the name of KDE's tool is, but Yelp (for GNOME) can read pretty much everything... Info pages, man pages, text files, Scrollkeeper/rarian files, and the DE's own documentation set.

Oh I hear you there. I practically had a crisis of faith when I took their 7.10 release for a spin. They're also assuming a large number of things about what you want to do with the computer (namely that you want it to be a graphical desktop with X and that you have a decent/modern video card), and Patrick isn't making those assumptions. If you try to step outside of their assumptions and do something else with the machine (like install it with no X because it's just going to be your mail server) you're looking at even more pain for what would otherwise be a simpler task.

Reading through the replies, particularly the later ones, I am compelled to tell you all that most of your suggestions have already been implemented in this distro. Enjoy.

Very nice, Very nice