We were having a discussion over on this thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=379368 about the startX script, and we got some ideas about putting handy fixes to common problems in a slackpackage, to allow one to fix something.

I'm sure many of you are thinking: "Why bother? I know what's wrong, I know how to fix it.", "I learnt the hard way, so should everyone else!" and finally: "Slack is supposed to this way. Leave it alone!"

The concept isn't to customise Slack into Vector. It's not going to make any n00bs installation problems go away, it's just a power-toy (excuse the windowsism) that might be handy if you're doing support work. I will probably start making something like this for myself, regardless if anyone else wants it (or shares different ideas about what it should be) ...

LQ is a great resource, as is the web, but in some situations you just don't have those resources to call up to help with a common problem, or you need to get a setup done quickly. Instead of making new bootable disks, a 350k package could really help out.

Previous thread was about ideas for a specific problem, we were moving off topic, so ... let's continue the discussions here =)

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Woodsman: I think you and I have some subtly different ideas on what the tweaks would accomplish. Ultimately they'd be useful for power users, because, although the power users know what tweak they need - they may not necessarily remember the exact syntax, or find the page it was on ... etc etc etc

So my thinking is that this package/idea/concept isn't going to make Slackware any more userfriendly, just provide finger-tip-fixes for common issues. You've got to know what your problem is still, and you need to know what fix to apply, but all the fixes are there ready to be applied should you need/want it.

Sometimes you're setting up your own box, but sometimes you're setting up someone elses and trying to support them. Instead of explaining how to edit /etc/X11/gdm/Xsession using vim (I can't use it, I still use joe!) through a terminal window in single user mode, over the phone, you could just say: "open a terminal, run slacktweak and tick the box that reads: gdm fix".

Off hand I can't think of a reason to add any tweaks to that particular file, but, it's just an example =)

I'm with you on that, all the way! I'm thinking this should be here to help those of us who force Slack on unsuspecting users to get things set up quickly, not really to help unsuspecting users set themselves up.

Anyway, I'm at risk of repeating myself more without making myself any clearer, so, any comments/ideas and so forth are welcome =)

- Piete "OMG Not Another Essay" Sartain.

Not that different. My heart goes out to the mom and pops and the noobs, but usually ideas that help them often helps the power tweaker too.

I hope to have a small web site of sorts soon and then I will be able to more easily share ideas. Nonetheless, based upon recent conversations here at LQ, I have improved my startx, .bash_login, and .bash_logout. Also, long ago I colorized all of my rc.d scripts to improve the visual feedback when my box is booting. Also in the past few days I wrote script that I now use to help me with my dial-up connection. When I get my site running I hope to have a section dedicated to Slackware tweaks. If those ideas can be merged into your Tweaks.tgz idea then great!

But the certain 'tweaks' will have different effects on different computers. I'd imagine this would be at least part of the reason Slackware ships the way it does. How can you guarantee that everything will work the same on all possible hardware combinations?

IMO, this is going to be much more difficult than you'd believe.

Not much to believe!

I do not underestimate the complexities of automating such a project. In the end possibly the best approach might be to provide a package of files and then let the user decide and manually install.