Hello guys! I've searched slackware forum until page 5, 6 with the word "gnome". And I see always you recommending freerock gnome, dropline gnome, and others. I had tried freerock gnome but half of the programs in menu don't work. An example is galeon:

galeon:galeon: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/./libgtkembedmoz.so: undefined symbol: _ZTV24nsGetServiceByContractID

I haven't tried Dropline Gnome yet, but people say it changes a lot the system, more than other gnomes, so I am a little afraid of using it.

In all the search I've done for gnome-related topics, I haven't found anyone saying about going to gnome.org and building it from scratch. I am NB to Linux and never tried it, so I don't know if it is possible using GARGNOME or jhbuild as they say in the site. Does anyone of you have any information about that?

If there is already any topic about going to gnome.org, please be patient with me because I searched and didn't find it :P

Another question: Not installing KDE and staying only with Gnome may prevent a lot of programs from being installed? (not the very-kde-related like k*, but another ones?) If yes, is there an option to install only the libs they require and not the whole KDE to see them working?

Thank you all for the attention!

Edit: What about if I wish to not install xfce too, I do the same question I did for KDE.

Hey Stevesk, let's see what we can come up with ...

Dropline, Freerock and others are often advised simply because they're ready-made packages and all set to installpkg. Telling someone to installpkg something is much easier than explaining the potential dependency-hell of compiling the whole lot from source!

And speaking of source, disks 3 and 4 of Slackware hold the source and .slackbuild scripts to the packages that are used in Slack. You may already have known that. Anyway ... the point is, if you skip back to a time when Gnome was present in Slack (10.1) then you'll find that disks 3 & 4 of 10.1 contain the .slackbuild scripts for a large portion of Gnome. I would recommend that as a good starting point for a "SlackGnome from Scratch" project.

Oh, if you just wanna dive in - please please please try using ./configure --prefix=/usr when compiling gtk/gnome-related stuff - you will save yourself a hell of a headache with pkg-config not finding your dependencies. Feel free to do your own research into *why* that is so

And with regards to dependencies ...

There are a whole bunch of KDE packages, including:

Everything else (except the Qt libraries which kdelibs is dependent upon & the internationalisation stuff) in the KDE-area is an application, not a library. As a general rule, apps depend on libs, not other apps. Ok, so front-ends are an exception ... but I *did* say general

Basically you can get away with installing a lot less of the KDE stuff than is actually available. I'm afraid I don't know precisely what depends on what, but install the stuff you want and find out if it works =)

And Xfce? Well, Xfce is easier - you could think of it as a miniature subset of Gnome, really, since it's GTK based. There really are very very few deps to "Xfce programs", but then it doesn't claim to be a Dekstop Environment so leaves a lot of the extra programs that KDE drags along behind.

Hope that helps a little - good luck in your endevours!
- Piete.

Thanks a lot for your answer piete! I am currently not using Linux at home but I am planning to begin using it again this weekend. About building a Slackware-Gnome system from the scratch, this is no problem for me, as I have a plan in mind: install first an easier dist. like Ubuntu or Suse (or another one, but no RedHat or Fedora stuff, I've seen enough of these ones in the past :P) and make it at least 90% ok. And then install Slackware and try to build gnome. I know it will not be an easy task, as I am still new to Linux - last week I tried to compile my first kernel in Slackware whithout using the old config from bare.i, but making a new one. Who said I had success on it? "Kernel panic!". So I need to first solve these kernel panic problem and maybe other stuff before trying to build gnome from gnome.org. But then, after setting the base up, I will try this. And if I spend many hours in frustration trying to make the things work but failing, I back to the other linux, relax a little for some hours, empty my mind, and then get back to Slackware. Seems it will be the only way. And having another dist. working at least 90% will not make me so hurried in seeing everything working on Slackware immediately...at least I hope so . And if one day I be able to make gnome running at least 90% well from the scratch, maybe I could even post here a step-by-step guide which at least worked for me...? Nothing against who likes KDE, but I really dislike this WM and get totally rid of this is a dream I cannot resist to try to make true. I do not know if I would use gnome as my default WM (as I am liking a lot of fluxbox), but at least I would be able to use the many apps that comes with it. And Xfce...well, it is not a bad WM. But it should be a good idea to save some disk space if I don't use it.

Maybe a good idea about living without KDE is just installing the libs that each program KDE-stuff-dependant I try to install say is missing?

Thanks again for your text and..wish me luck, as I will need...a lot of :P

i didt tried what about gsb- gnome slack build script, which will make package for slack.
not free rock gnome,

there was gware i dont know where it went. linuce was good but didnt heard after 2.10.1

Building from source is a good way of installing troublesome software.

I recommend using a ports system like cruxports4slack
( http://www.delilinux.de/cruxports4slack.html ). It works tremendously well for me.

If you are interested in which packages get replaced on a Dropline system, we have a list here:

http://dropline-gnome.sourceforge.ne...pic.php?t=4739

As you can see, there are a few more than with a typical Freerock install; some of which are not explicitly GNOME packages (X11, udev, and Shadow), but we don't do upgrade anything that isn't essential for a 100% functional GNOME desktop. The unfortunate truth is that there are a lot of small workarounds that must be done to make GNOME and Slackware play together nicely.

When I was a Slack user, I usually compiled GNOME from source (not using any build scripts). Usually everything worked out alright, but as others have mentioned, compiling GNOME from source can be a pain and very time consuming.

Did you look at gware?. The site has a script that downloads the needed packages and they are intalled with a single command.

ftp://ftp.gware.org/10.2/2.12.0/packages/INSTALL

All gnome packages have to make changes to the base Slackware intall but I think gware makes the smallest number of changes.

All gnome packages encourage the use of a 2.6 kernel but will work with the standard slackware 2.4.31 kernel. If building a system from scratch the 2.6 install instructions at the end of this website
worked well for me
http://www.bitbenderforums.com/vb22/...?postid=311808

Just a quick warning concerning dropline gnome.

After I installed dropline gnome for my x86_64 based system that is using Slamd64-10.2b (an unofficial port of Slackware 10.2), it essentially killed my system.

My basic everyday apps still ran fine, and I *thought* that I just saved myself a lot of time, but I soon discovered that my most important apps simply would not run anymore.

Cinelerra http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 crashed on startup. Yes, I know that Cinelerra has its quirks, but there are no other comparable video editing apps for Linux. And, most importantly for me, jack (low latency audio server) http://jackaudio.org would not run properly.
Recompiles of jack & cinelerra did not help. And no jack means no Ardour http://ardour.org or any other of my many excellent audio apps.

Since it was a new system, I decided to do a fresh install, *WITHOUT* dropline. And, I compiled gnome-2.14.2 myself. This way, I know that I won't be doing any system changes like dropline does.

I also installed gnome into /opt/gnome-2.14.2 so this way, any upgrades would be easier than using /usr/local .

I'm not slamming the good people behind dropline, but, you may want to consider another gnome distribution, especially for x86_64 systems.

Dropline makes a lot of system changes. Be warned.

Hmm. It would appear that you've posted this message in about 8 different threads that are related to Dropline. Not sure why you did that, but I guess you've gotten your point across.

It should be noted that Dropline GNOME for Slamd64 is not the same as Dropline GNOME for Slackware. The Slamd version is ported by a single, dedicated developer, and is still in a testing phase. In a way, it's an "unofficial" port of Dropline GNOME and will likely remain that way. It also has a different set of packages from what is included in the standard Dropline GNOME distribution.

Regardless, there is no logical reason why Cinelerra might not work in Dropline vs. your own custom GNOME install. It's hard to tell, now, without any actual information in regards to the crash bug.

I would suspect that there is a deeper problem that cannot be traced now. However, there is no reason that you shouldn't use the right software for you. If that is your own custom GNOME build, then it's probably a good choice.