Hi fellow Slackers,

MLED is dead. Long live MLED!

Here's a detailed presentation of the new KDE-based MLED, as well as a detailed step-by-step installation guide:

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/M...bit/README.txt

Here's for the 64-bit version:

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/M...bit/README.txt

I'd say this stuff is duly tested beta quality, meaning I'm already running it on a handful of machines, including my main workhorse PC, and everything runs very nice so far. Feel free to give it a spin and send your remarks, suggestions, bug reports and other feedback here. I've decided to open a new thread, since information about prior MLED versions is either confusing or obsolete or both.

On a side note: if you use very old hardware, you might want to wait for the first beta release of MLTC (Microlinux Thin Client), a 32-bit-only light desktop based on Xfce. It's currently in the cooker and will be released in a few weeks.

Cheers & have fun,

Niki

PS: I haven't found the time yet to update the MLED-related information on the microlinux.fr web site. Please ignore it for the moment.

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Thank you! Now I know what I'll be doing with my laptop tonight. Haven't used KDE since I tried Linux for the first time, I guess it's time to give it another go.

sounds great!

I just added UPGRADE.txt which explains the migration process from Xfce or MATE to the KDE-based MLED, so users with an existing MLED can avoid reinstalling everything.

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/M...it/UPGRADE.txt

Hello Kikinovak,

Now that MLED is KDE-based, I'll just have to test it and see if it's smooth enough for my old ASUS laptop (2005).

I'll keep you informed.

By the way, I hope that the torrent files shown in the screenshot are legal ones It's supposed to be a corporate desktop

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I had an old ASUS laptop from 2005, the W6F if I remember correctly. I think with 1 GB RAM this should work fine.

I upgraded and it looks pretty good. Performance is about the same as MATE (maybe it takes longer to start). I like it so far. A few annoyances though, but all of them are fault of KDE itself.

1. KDE's NetworkManager applet is very buggy... Well, at least I can connect from my laptop, on my PC with vanilla Slackware64 14.1 this applet pretty much makes it impossible to connect at all unless I reboot or disable NetworkManager and use old CLI tools.
2. No conventional desktop. Google says there used to be a setting for that, but I don't see it. Perhaps it was removed.
3. KDE notifications are inconvenient. They stack, don't update if they are of the same type from the same app and you can only clear them by clicking on the [X] button. Very annoying when using an audio player or instant messenger that uses notifications. Had to configure my apps not to use them.

That aside, I like it so far.

I don't see a way to format a USB stick. Is there one, except fdisk + mkfs? If not, I still suggest mintstick.

There's only one thing that kinda bothers me in the corner of my mind. And that is a heterogeneous environment. GTK and Qt apps are mixed together. Perfectionist inside me says it shouldn't be like that. Although as long as it all works together it's good for enterprise, I guess.

Another question: why OpenShot and not Kdenlive? OpenShot may seem easier, but its filters are kinda obscure (for example, try to zoom some part of the video), and some of them are buggy. It's slower. It lacks precision when cutting the clips. Also it's a GTK app. I think Kdenlive is superior here. Never used neither of them extensively, though.

Another thing. KMix by default is very sensitive to mouse wheel (10% or more at each step). Try implementing this solution into /etc/skel.

That's all I can say for now. Great job, kikinovak!

That's one of the things I still have to look into. RHEL/CentOS use the GNOME Networkmanager in their default configuration.

Yes, there is, though the settings for that are a bit tricky to find. Search for something called "Folder View", activate it and point it to ~/Desktop.

I'll check out the suggested app, and I'll see if I can include it.

Well, they have the same look and work fine. So why bother?

You're not the first person to note this. I choose Openshot because it's quite intuitive for newbies. But I guess I'll add Kdenlive to the extra/ repo.

Cheers,

Niki

First, thank you for your dedication to continue to improve MLED. I was initially a bit reluctant to go with KDE (MATE was fine for me) but I upgraded my ACER ASPIRE 7220 machine to KDE MLED 32bit (I incorrectly stated that I had an ASUS laptop. My mistake)

Disclosure: I didn't install these MLED packages: aMule, remmina, virtualbox, filezilla, firefox and thunderbird l10n and user-settings-console.
And I kept the AlienBOB packages for flashplayer-plugin, libreoffice, jdk (actually openjre).
But I used the modified KDE packages from MLED.

I can confirm that it takes longer to get to the desktop after login (KDM) than with MATE (GDM). KDE appears to be ready for work about 35-40 seconds after login vs. about 20 seconds for MATE (the later estimate is from memory since I didn't actually measure it).

But when the desktop is up and running, I don't notice any sluggishness. Applications are responsive (Dolphin, Firefox, Thunderbird, Kplayer, Clementine, Libreoffice were used most often since I upgraded). It will take some time to make the most of those KDE applications that I haven't used for a long time (Dolphin in particular).

At first impression, the desktop is clean and looks professional. The one-application per task approach means an uncluttered menu where one can easily find the most common applications (office suite, audio & video player, image viewer...).

I also find the KDE notification management annoying (there doesn't seem to be any trivial way to set a time-out). One can work around this by putting her own settings in System Controls or disabling application notification in the applet.

I don't regret the upgrade. Again thanks for putting the effort.

Finally I have a question regarding Clementine: why haven't you kept Amarok? (besides Clementine appearance is GTK. I don't know if it's because of my incomplete MLED installation).

Judging from the comments, I get the feeling that Slackware users are 50 % KDE users vs. 50 % non-KDE users, e. g. Xfce, MATE, Fluxbox, etc. I did much thinking and scribbling and experimenting and more scribbling and tinkering this afternoon, and I think I found a solution that won't leave those other users in the cold while still being manageable for me as a single maintainer. Since I already have to build a 32-bit Xfce-based desktop for those clients whose hardware is not powerful enough to decently run KDE, it's not much more work to offer a 64-bit version as well if I already have the 32-bit version. The first versions about a year ago were much work, but more recent ones are automated with build scripts, so downloading and compiling the stuff is done quite fast.

There's many common packages between the KDE and Xfce desktops: stuff like libreoffice, libreoffice-langpack, translations for Firefox and Thunderbird, JDK, Flash, Truetype fonts, all the multimedia stuff, wallpapers, common apps like Inkscape, Openshot, Scribus, Transmission, etc.

I think splitting the repos is the way to go here. It would avoid the overhead and greatly simplify maintenance. I already had experimented in that direction earlier this year, but I guess I wasn't ready to go through with it. Now I'm hacking away in half a dozen virtual machines, and it all feels rather simple and clean. Anyway, here's my idea for a better organization of the repos:

• desktop-base-32bit
• desktop-kde-32bit
• desktop-xfce-32bit
• desktop-base-64bit
• desktop-kde-64bit
• desktop-xfce-64bit
• server-32bit
• server-64bit

The desktop-base-* repos would contain the largest number of packages, and both the KDE and Xfce-based desktops would depend on them. On the other hand, the desktop-kde-* repos would only contain some KDE-specific stuff like the rebuilt kde-baseapps, k3b, Clementine or Kdenlive. Similarly, desktop-xfce-* would offer the Xfce counterparts, things like Xarchiver, Xfburn or Brasero, etc. The main advantage of this organization being this: even if you don't use either KDE or Xfce (like MATE in your case), you can still benefit from the whole desktop-base-* repository to deliver you most of the commonly needed packages. The only thing I can't do here is going into the artwork and theming detail for other desktops. Curiously enough, building user profiles for different desktops is also one of the more time-consuming tasks.

This all sounds complex, but it isn't really. All you will have to do is download and install slackpkg+ from my repo, which comes preconfigured for all this stuff. And then it's just a matter of uncommenting a line for either a KDE-based or an Xfce-based desktop, or two lines if you just want the base-* stuff, and then install the full monty with 'slackpkg install microlinux'. That's almost all there is to do. As a bonus, I could document a procedure that makes it easy to switch between desktops without leaving all the cruft in place.

Admittedly, this is a bit more work and will probably take me another week or so. But I think it's worth it, and more importantly, it is fun to do it.

Disclaimer: everything stays in place for now until this is finished, and then it will just be a matter of changing two lines in /etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf to switch to the new repo layout. Anyway, I'll keep you posted. We're slowly but steadily getting there.

Last but not least, I think a more modest naming scheme is required. Why not simply "Microlinux Desktop 14.1 KDE Edition" and "Microlinux Desktop 14.1 Xfce Edition"?

Cheers,

Niki

PS: don't be suprised if there's a radio silence of a few days. I have to upgrade, reconfigure and/or reinstall the local school's network, two servers and 14 desktops. All Slackware BTW.

Nice work Niki!

For names, how about "Microlinux 14.1 KDE Desktop", "Microlinux 14.1 Xfce Desktop" and "Microlinux 14.1 Server"?

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I guess it won't run at my dad's PC: some old Pentium 4 with a 6200TurboCache NVIDIA card (I am not sure about this one and not sure about the other hardware) :/ Does anyone here run KDE4 on a hardware that old? Like 10 years old.
It is running a buggy Xubuntu install.

Then wait a few days and install the Xfce version. As I stated in my previous post, maintaining two desktops is less work than I thought if I split the repositories. I guess I will have something workable around the next weekend, september 20th. The initial Xfce-based desktop ran fine on first generation Pentium IV processors with 512 MB RAM.

My dad's PC has even more RAM, I think it has 768 MB. It will probably run fine I guess.

Then the only potential showstopper will be your video card. If it's not too obsolete, you can even go for the KDE version.

What's the output of the following command?