Gnome Slackbuild vs Dropline...which has better NetworkManager integration?
 

I have a laptop with Ubuntu on it that I use for work. NetworkManager is perfect for what I do at work. I would like to install Slackware on it, just because I like Slackware more than Ubuntu. NetworkManager is the only thing that has kept me from going with Slack on the laptop as I just don't want to do without it at work. NetworkManager is available in the 2 versions of Slack that I'm aware of so I was thinking I would install Slack without KDE and then go with one these Gnome versions.

I've installed it in Salix from the GSP and it's just not as quick to react in Salix as Ubuntu. Could someone with experience with the two let me know which of these has better NetworkManager integration?

I haven't tried networkmanager but wicd does all I need for roaming.

I never tried gnome with slackware, but wicd is very powerful and stable.

It's not the roaming I need. It's the superfast profile changes from one static IP to another, and back to DHCP.

I don't think anyone here would have installed both GSB and Dropline recently.

However, I would recommend GSB anyway because it (or at least its website, which is a good indicator) is significantly much more up to date.

If you want to know how good GSB's Network Manager integration is, without having to install it, then you can look through the build scripts:

http://github.com/gnomeslackbuild/gs.../master/src/n/

I'm not running Gnome for Slackware at the moment, but, I have in the past. I've used both GSB and DLG. I'm running XFce 4.6.1 and Fluxbox 1.1.1 on my Slackware LAN. In my opinion GSB is a better version of Gnome for Slackware, it has an installation routine that does not replace that many standard Slackware files (non-intrusive).
Just my :twocents:.

Recently I have tried Dropline Gnome. I wanted to establish a connection from my computer at home with the server at work, and the networkmanager that came with Dropline Gnome seemed to be suitable for that. The installation went smoothly. I used Dropline Gnome 2.26 in combination with Slackware 12.2. A number of original Slackware packages, however, were replaced in this proces. And the networkmanager didn't perform, I could not use it for the vpnc connection I wanted, and it was difficult or impossible to connect to a remote server. I couldn't explore this problem any further because I borked my system in trying to solve it.

I hope this experience is of any help. Now for the time being, I have Arch-linux with gnome and it does what I wanted. I would recommend Gnome Slackbuild, but I haven't tried it out yet. You may also consider to take a look at gslacky from Slacky.eu, I doent know if that offers a good gnome+slackware invironment.

Good luck, I am a fan of Slackware and I know some day I will return.

Seems that i posted my reaction twice

The Gnome Slackbuild Project gets my definite recommendation for anyone wanting to try it! It was fast and easy and so far NetworkManager has been flawless. Slackware install took about 8 minutes to do a "full" install without emacs, kde, kdei, and games. The GSP took about 30 minutes to install (it's a single command to do a full install, much like using slackpkg to upgrade to current). Everything so far is VERY WELL DOCUMENTED. My ISP had an outage or I would have reported my results earlier. The last thing to deal with is sound, which seems to be documented well also. It also installs gslapt and slapt-get by default, which I don't want on my main machine, but on my laptop where I like things to be fairly automatic I'm looking forward to getting more familiar with them.

All in all it was a no-event and I'm very happy with the results! :)

EDIT: I have to add that this was the FIRST SLACKWARE INSTALL EVER that I didn't even have to do anything to get sound working. No unmuting or anything! I'm thrilled with this! :):)

I've had the opportunity to test the gnome slackbuild at work, having to go immediately between 2 different wireless networks and 2 different wired networks, and I have to say this is the best gnome distribution I've ever used. Honestly I think this could be a drop in newbie-friendly replacement for Ubuntu. Everything just feels so easy! There are a couple of things that have to be configured/installed/activated in order to get all the functionality, but it's all very well documented here and dthe package management tools are just a shade behind Synaptic for ease of use.

I'm just thrilled with how this turned out.
:):):)

Just to add my two cents, whenever I use Ubuntu, I remove NetworkManager and replace it with wicd. NetworkManager seems much slower to pull an IP address for me than wicd.