Dropline Gnome Update Issue
 

I was a little curious about something i just noticed with DG. When i first installed it there was no updates available but after updating my packages including the gdm-2.4.4.3 to gdm-2.4.4.5 there was updates available but when i views the update(s) the only thing that was there was a update to go back to the old version why is that? Is it because dropline hasn't posted the current updates that are required?

Really you shouldnt even be using dropline gnome imho. Slackware 9.1 comes with Gnome v2.4 which most people find fits their needs perfectly if they like the gnomeish feel. Dropline edits a lot of your files and once installed you can't go back, its really not a good way of doing things.

I find it fits my needs pretty well, actually. I like having all the latest gnome packages and apps, and this is definitely the easiest way to get them. I actually like the way it edits my files, as well, because most of the modifications are things I would have done anyway.

Well it isn't much of a big deal for me because the pc i am using i always end up formatting and starting al over again. But as for the laptop i am going to be getting i will take that into consideration.

I agree with both posters - if you want a dropslack gnomeware box, go for it, but be sure that's what you really want, because it isn't going to be a Slackware box anymore. I tried it on Slack 9.0, not being fully aware of what I was doing and it's nice enough but I didn't use it and was suddenly a stranger in my own box. One of the many reasons I did a clean install for 9.1.

Well what makes having a slack box so much better over a DG box? I saw where it was mentioned that it edit your files but lets say on the laptop i am getting in a few weeks i did load slackware 9.1 on it what would be the better set up for it? Give me your honest opinion.

What about the use of fluxbox would that be the way to go because i am a little curious about it seieng how by default you get nothing in your menus so you will have ot add programs piece by piece.

Where as in DG everything is right there in front of you no need to do much editing but is there that much of a difference between flux and DG?

Window Manager

Desktop Manager

Huge difference. I personally prefer a desktop manager comming from the windows world.

Well i am not really concerned with the windows world anymore i just would like stability and speed so Fluxbox would be the choice would it not?

It's ok, I just didn't "click" with it.

You would be better off going with the Gnome 2.4 included with Slackware 9.1 on the second cd.

I disagree with the comments that Dropline will cause your Slack machine to transform into something strange and no longer familiar. Personally, I consider Dropline to be a hugely beneficial thing, which automatically installs a large number of common and popular packages, thus saving me a great deal of time and hassle. Additionally, now that Dropline includes Evolution, I'm in heaven. Obviously everyone will have their own individual point of view, but Dropline was a key step for me to finally remove XP from my machine, and I'd just like to toss in my 2 cents worth of positive feedback on Dropline. -- J.W.

I wasn't saying anything against dropline-gnome *as such*. Like I say, *if* that's what you want, go for it. But dropline overwrites and removes a large number of packages as well as adding a lot, changes everything from font configuration to various scripts to removing 'fortune'(!). And it's keyed to the Slack distro and always lags behind - several people had 9.0 and dlg, upgraded to 9.1, and had all kinds of problems - or installed 9.1, tried to put dlg on that, and had all kinds of problems. If you have Slack 9.0 and are happy and like Gnome but would like it to be a little niftier, and don't mind a lot of automatic activity outside your control, then dlg is the greatest thing since sliced bread, no mistake.

If you want 9.1 and want to move to the next release without worrying about external things, if you don't use Gnome or are satisfied with how it is, and like to know what's going on with your box and make specific changes yourself, and you like fortune *g*, you're not going to be happy with dlg after the novelty of playing around in gnome wears off. Not to mention, if you're cramped for space, you're going to fill and lock or something - dlg adds a lot of disk usage. So if you don't want to commit to dlg, you don't want it. It's not for casual 'let's see what this dlg is all about' usage.

That's all I was saying - not that dlg was a hideous blight and the project should be disbanded. *g*

Now, back on flux - yeah, there's a huge difference between the two, and flux is very fast and very stable.

This is the filelist of the single package of fluxbox

FILE LIST:
etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.fluxbox
usr/doc/fluxbox-0.1.14/TODO
usr/doc/fluxbox-0.1.14/README
usr/doc/fluxbox-0.1.14/AUTHORS
usr/doc/fluxbox-0.1.14/INSTALL
usr/doc/fluxbox-0.1.14/ChangeLog
usr/doc/fluxbox-0.1.14/COPYING
usr/X11R6/bin/fbrun
usr/X11R6/bin/bsetroot
usr/X11R6/bin/bsetbg
usr/X11R6/bin/fluxbox
usr/X11R6/bin/fluxbox-generate_menu
usr/X11R6/man/man1/bsetroot.1.gz
usr/X11R6/man/man1/fluxbox.1.gz

These are the *packages* containing the word 'gnome', each of which contains many, many files.

/var/log/packages/gnome-applets-2.4.1-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-audio-2.0.0-noarch-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-desktop-2.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-extra-themes-1.0.1-noarch-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-icon-theme-1.0.9-noarch-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-media-2.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-mime-data-2.4.0-noarch-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-panel-2.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-session-2.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-speech-0.2.7-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-system-monitor-2.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-terminal-2.4.0.1-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-themes-2.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-utils-2.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/gnome-vfs-2.4.0-i486-2
/var/log/packages/gnome2-user-docs-2.4.0-noarch-1
/var/log/packages/gnomeicu-cvs20030910-i486-1
/var/log/packages/libgail-gnome-1.0.2-i486-2
/var/log/packages/libgnome-2.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/libgnomecanvas-2.4.0-i486-1
/var/log/packages/libgnomeprint-2.3.1-i486-1
/var/log/packages/libgnomeprintui-2.3.1-i486-1
/var/log/packages/libgnomeui-2.4.0.1-i486-1

The per-user configuration of gnome is a huge hierarchy of directories of xml and other files, not to mention more general configuration. The configuration of flux is 2-6 small plain-text files in a single directory, plus whatever themes you may have. It's almost impossible to break something specifically in flux and very easy to fix if it happened. And there's very little to go wrong in the three binaries and handful of scripts. I have six desktops, a toolbar with a clock, more windowing controls than I could count, a nifty right-click menu if I want it, but with dozens of keyboard launchers, and I run my apps with nothing in the way. I have gkrellm for any nifty doohickeys I want and it's withdrawn in flux's slit. I don't waste time with menus and dialog boxes and 'control panels' and rely on the complicated structure of gnome to manipulate my files second hand - I do 'joe file' or whatever I feel like to make a quick edit to a file and rely on the simple editor binary to record my changes - just like I rely on the editor to record anything else. I don't wait for gnome to load up its goofball help system and go wading around in that - I do 'man file' and read it. Basically, you've got a multi-tasking OS with graphics capabilities. Thus you launch multiple GUIs and need something to manage their windows. Flux does that and little else, and looks good doing it. And you've got an xterm (or a dozen *g*) for everything that GUIs just get in the way of. You keep most of your configuration and your problems at the X server or system level. The instability layer of having a bare window manager is minimal. If I want eye-candy like a transparent aterm, I get it. If I want to strip the window decorations like I can with eterm, that may be a window manager issue. But that's an extremely rare thing. I basically run flux without ever wondering how to do anything with it. Gnome adds a gigantic layer of instability and slows down every app it runs by having to fire up all the subsystems to keep up with it - no 'man file' but a huge hierarchy of binaries heaving up a massive system-wide help system complete with gui. To fire up gedit, all the bonobo and glade and this lib and that and all the configuration and history tracking systems have to fire up. And you need the gnome help system a lot because you're basically learning two operating systems for the price of one. There's Linux-other-than-the-IDE and the IDE itself. In return, you get gui-configuration tools, the help system, a bunch of apps designed to work more with gnome than linux, a bunch of panels and applets and desktop icons. And bugs and headaches. Or I do. I mean, whatever makes people happy and makes their system fun to use for them. I could surf on the console or maybe use framebuffer graphics apps or whatever. But I like mozilla and a graphics environment is fine by me, despite the huge overhead and complexity of the X Windows System. I *don't* like the huge overhead and complexity of an IDE on top of *that*. But that's just where I draw the line. Others would say the X Window System was ridiculous and go CLI only. On the other end, others say X and a wm is too bare and, since we've got the graphics overhead, the comfort of an IDE is worth a little additonal overhead. So it's entirely up to you. But, yeah, there's a huge difference.

Sorry about all that - no idea what caused that rant.

im sorry but the new kde alpha just blew me away

well that was defintely a long rant for real but i was wondering if there was good documentation on making your own menus for fluxbox seeing how it comes with no menus preloaded. Or is there a way to integrate it with gnome support in slackware?