Installing xfce from source. Do I need to uninstall the old version first?
 

Hi:
I run Slackware 12.0, which comes with with xfce 4.4.1, which I'm presently running. Now, I want to install xfce 4.10 (from source). Do I need to uninstall 4.4.1 first?

You won't be able to do what you want to do. Too many missing libraries.

Best bet to have Xfce 4.10 on your machine: install Slackware 14.0.

I'll give you this link, from a moment ago here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...6/#post4813532

I'll get you this link, from about a year ago:

http://connie.slackware.com/~rworkman/xfce-4.8/NOTES

These are Robby Workman's detailed notes for building Xfce 4.8.3 and its dependencies on a stock Slackware 13.37 system. Maybe you can figure out 4.10 on Slackware 12.0. If someone forced me to do that, I'd say give me a couple of weeks, but I can't promise you anything.

Well, keith-hedger, the poster in my link, made me look at it as a simple thing to do. I'm a bit confused now. I went to the xfce official site and they give detailed instructions to compile and install their latest version. I will have to do some research, although your words have certainly discouraged me.

Do you have any precise reason to remain with Slackware 12.0? (This is a real question, not a rhetorical one.)

I'm just asking, because in your case, installing Slackware 14.0 which already ships with a perfectly functional Xfce 4.10 out of the box would be the simple solution, adhering to the KISS principle. No hunting down dependencies, no compiling, no debugging, no testing. Just installing and using.

Compiling Xfce 4.10 on Slackware 12.0, on the other hand, would adhere to the KICK principle. Keep It Complicated Kiki. :D

The only reason is an old machine (Pentium III Tualatin processor, running @1100MHz, 256MB RAM). Some people in LQ have told me they have installed 12.0 in very old machines, but I think this would put me in the same case you are pointing out. Too complicated (that is, to put 14.0 into my machine). The burden for the machine is, like always, the damned GUI. But I depend on it for quite a few things.

To go back to the thread subject, suppose I have a package or a suite of packages called foo installed in my machine by my installation disk installer. And assume further the package has many dependences. I now want to go to aa newer version of foo. Should I uninstall the old version before installing the new one, or can I install directly above the old?

You certainly should uninstall the old one first. That's exactly what "upgradepkg" does for Slackware packages.

Removing a Slackware package with "removekg <package>" will remove only that package but no dependency as Slackware packages do not include information about dependencies, so it's safe to use that command.

<off topic>Meanwhile you could try Fluxbox</off topic>

But I'm installing from source, Didier.

I'll give it a try, thanks.

Even in that case you can use "removepkg" to remove the formerly installed Slackware package for a previous version.

If you intent to install from source, may be you could consider making yourself a Slackware package to ease further system maintenance. I can't remember now of an "how-to" about that but there certainly are some.

Thank you for your illustrative post and, yes, I think I know of an LQer who has made a program to make Slackware packages. It's in his signature.

Slackware 14.0 with Xfce 4.10 will run just fine on your PIII. Not enough to get whiplash, but it should be acceptable. RAM consumption on a Panasonic Toughbook with similar specs is 99 MB when the bare Xfce desktop is loaded without any apps launched.

Eventually, you might add another 256 MB RAM, which will make a huge difference.

Cheers,

Niki

This is very promising. Thanks a lot, kikinovak.

You're welcome.

I guess the Microsoft Windows universe is responsible for the misconception that every new release of an operating system needs you to throw away your existing hardware and buy something at least twice as powerful.

This is simply not true for Slackware. It may be true for recent versions of Ubuntu and the likes, though.

I'm becoming fond of your posts, Niki. I've just talked on the phone with a friend with tells me modern desktop machines need in excess of 2GB to run their software. Of course, he uses Ubuntu. And of course, the more modern a machine is, the less RAM it needs. By the way, Volkerdi gives 128MB of RAM as part of the hardware requirements.

I'd like to make you a question: one usually runs the setup program once the O.S. has finished booting from the installation disk. As the last step, setup asks you to configure the system (Configure option). And within the configuration, it finally gives the choice to install some services, such as HAL (the hardware abstraction layer), SSHD (secure login) and so on. How do I know which of them to choose and which not to select? If too many, less RAM. If too few, I may be lacking something I would not like to miss. Nowhere in the Slackware-HOWTO which comes with the installation disk is anything told about this! Could you give me some advice on this matter? Regards,

Enrique.

Ubuntu and the vast majority of general purpose distributions (openSUSE, Fedora, Mageia) have indeed become more and more resource-hungry. One of the many reasons I use Slackware, since this is about the only distribution where I can be positive the installer won't choke on some piece of old and/or exotic hardware.

BTW, there's no direct link between the "modernity" of a PC and the amount of RAM it has. I'd say there's a suitable amount of RAM for every machine and every use. You can have a perfectly working desktop with 512 MB - there's one right next to me - and you can have barely enough with 8 GB of RAM and an 8-core processor (on a scientific calculation workstation, for example).

Concerning the services to launch on startup, you'll be fine with the default choice. Unlike the usual suspects among distributions - see above - Slackware doesn't launch every single service on startup, but tends to default to a reasonable minimum. For a desktop, you might want to enable CUPS for printing, and that's it. And you can always do it when the time comes to configure your printer. And BTW, there's no HAL anymore. It's replaced by udisks now.

Cheers,

Niki

Ubuntu and the vast majority of general purpose distributions (openSUSE, Fedora, Mageia) have indeed become more and more resource-hungry. One of the many reasons I use Slackware, since this is about the only distribution where I can be positive the installer won't choke on some piece of old and/or exotic hardware, and the system will run on quite many low-spec configurations.

BTW, there's no direct link between the "modernity" of a PC and the amount of RAM it has. I'd say there's a suitable amount of RAM for every machine and every use. You can have a perfectly working desktop with 512 MB - there's one right next to me - and you can have barely enough with 8 GB of RAM and an 8-core processor (on a scientific calculation workstation, for example).

Concerning the services to launch on startup, you'll be fine with the default choice. Unlike the usual suspects among distributions - see above - Slackware doesn't launch every single service on startup, but tends to default to a reasonable minimum. For a desktop, you might want to enable CUPS for printing, and that's it. And you can always do it when the time comes to configure your printer. And BTW, there's no HAL anymore. It's replaced by udisks now.

Cheers,

Niki

First rule of thumb: install what is proposed as the default and don't worry.

After installation you will be able to revise your choices anyway running as root the 'pkgtool' utility. Choose the 'setup' option then 'services' to do that.

To make sound choices, first read the comments at the beginning of the scripts included in /etc/rc.d/ directory.

The RAM used is not the only concern though: security is even more important.

So, second rule of thumb: only keep selected services you are sure you will need.

EDIT. Too late, again... This doesn't matter after all as I was not the addressee of that question ;)

I only mean that, given a machine and given a certain application, the most powerful the hardware, except RAM, the less RAM you'll need to perform at a certain speed. To take a simple example, CPUs have RAM inside it. First of all, registers (the old accumulator, for instance. Now imagine the CPU has 10^18 registers. Why would you want RAM? The more RAM, you yourself have said, the more speed you'll likely get (it depends, of course). Inversely, the less RAM,the less speed, which can be compensated by a 10 core multiprocessing processor. That's it.

Now, what concerns me, is the following: the first time I run setup (or pkgtool) I can see the default selection. I modify the selection and, a year later, I want to modify again and I find setup (instead of running pkgtool I boot with the installtation disk and run setup) has forgotten the default selection and has mine instead, which, if I did not write down in a paper which ones they were, is a real inconvinience.

Example, last time I deselected HAL and found certain problems when running the GUI. So I reran setup. But the values (things preselected) were not the same as in the first time! So I had no other choice than, besides selecting HAL, to select all of the services, except some of them that were clearly useless to me.

Many of the software included in Slackware is intended for portable machines, by the way, which is rather a annoyance for desktop users. And even some things are setup for use by portables, as energy administration. I want to save energy too! Regards,

Enrique.

In fact there is no 'default selection' of services proposed by Slackware, even at time of installation. The proposed selection of services, be it during installation or later, is not 'built-in'. Instead, it is built dynamically, scanning the list of configuration files present in /etc/rc.d. This list of files in turn vary depending on which packages are installed.

That's sound: what would be the point of proposing you to launch at boot time a service bound to an application which is not even installed?

That's part of the 'Slackware philosophy', so to speak: install then run what you want, the way you want. Slackware helps you configure your system but will not decide for you.

Well, let's say a fast machine without enough RAM is like a Porsche with wooden tyres. All the horsepower under the hood will be lost.

Concerning your service selection, remember the KISS principle. Just leave your preselected minimal services as is, and you're good. Don't try desperately to trim this selection, you'll only save a neglectible amount of system resources, but end up shooting yourself in the foot and pulling your hair out.

Thanks Didier and Niki. I now know a bit more than before starting the thread. One thing, however. Let's call the services A, B, C. At system installation I select A, B. Some time later I change my mind and decide to get rid of B. But in the meantime, I have forgotten which were the ones I initially selected. What shall I do? I think its a helpless scenario if I am just a beginner. As I had no idea what these services do, I can't start from scratch again and select the whole set of services I want to be run.

If I do not make myself sufficiently clear do not hessitate in letting me know.

Just write down on a paper the list of services you select at time of installation, then document on the same paper the changes you make afterwards.

If you have no idea of what a service does, on which basis will you decide to select it or not?

Again, read the comments at the beginning of the scripts in /etc/rc.d to figure out their purposes and if you have specific questions someone here will be pleased to answer.

The /etc/rc.d directory holds all your services. Here it is.

Let's say I want to know if rc.cups is activated:

It is, since the script is executable (-rwxr-xr-x).

Now let's check something else, for example rc.httpd:

This script is not executable, so it will not launch on startup.

It's because I can know what ONE service does. E.g., I know I do not need PCMCIA because my machine lacks it. So I never select it.

Maybe a page in SlackDocs listing all scripts in /etc/rc.d/ in case of a full installation with a terse description & purpose & use cases for each could be useful then, if it doesn't exist yet.

Didier, I'm seeing your link's page, although I can't find the exact place within it. Of course, many thanks for the link and I'll go on trying to find the place (it ought to be a link within the page).

You know?, I'm installing Slack 14.0, after Niki's insistence (here), . As I installed it on a second hard disk in order to test it, and left 12.0 on the first one, I'm getting the message 'VFS: Cannot open root device "801" or Unknown-block(8,1)' when booting 12.0. Bad lack. It's going to take me some time to solve this. Regards.