[SOLVED] MLED - Microlinux Enterprise Desktop - a full-blown production desktop (KDE or Xfce)

kikinovak · 09-24-2014, 05:07 AM

The Microlinux Enterprise Desktop is a full-blown production desktop based on Slackware Linux, with many enhancements. It is currently used by various small town halls, public libraries, schools and local radio stations in South France.

MLED is shipping in two different flavours:

the standard KDE-based edition
MLED Light, based on Xfce

MLED is not some derivative Linux distribution. It aims to provide all the stuff that's commonly missing in Slackware - popular applications, multimedia codecs, plugins, fonts, translations - through a series of package repositories that can be easily managed through Slackware's package manager. These package sets are installed on top of a trimmed-down but otherwise mostly unaltered Slackware base system. A handful of stock Slackware packages have been rebuilt for enhanced functionality or visual consistency. Elegant and sober artwork fit for use in a corporate environment is included.

Learn more about MLED here:

Use this thread for all MLED-related questions, bug reports and suggestions.

Have fun,

Niki

PS: I'm still taking feedback from previous MLED-related threads on LQ into account. Please use this one from now on.

fsLeg · 09-24-2014, 06:45 AM

Nice touch with additional repo desktop-extra.

I noticed, that, ironically, only Xfce edition has video editor. I assume KDE will get one later?

Still don't see a user-friendly way to format removable media.

As they say, third time's the charm (or is it already the fourth?). I hope you won't have to redo the whole MLED add-on all over again.

kikinovak · 09-24-2014, 07:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fsLeg

Nice touch with additional repo desktop-extra.

I noticed, that, ironically, only Xfce edition has video editor. I assume KDE will get one later?

Still don't see a user-friendly way to format removable media.

As they say, third time's the charm (or is it already the fourth?). I hope you won't have to redo the whole MLED add-on all over again.

Yes, I'm planning to include Kdenlive in the days to come. I was unsure whether to include Openshot in both versions. But I wanted to update the project page and the installation guide before.

I've taken your remark about user-friendly formatting into account. It is on my TODO-list. Right now I'm building a more recent HPLIP, since the local school just purchased a brand-new HP laser printer, and according to Murphy's law, it is fully supported by hplip-$VERSION + 1.

Cheers,

Niki

onebuck · 09-24-2014, 09:16 AM

Hi,

I really like the idea of a trimmed customized Slackware Desktop that provides users with the two popular Desktop choice. KDE & XFCE are good choices that a new user can use out of the box.

KDE;

Quote:

MLED follows a one-app-per-task policy and strives to find a good balance between stability and functionality. All non-KDE applications are visually integrated using the Oxygen-GTK theme.

Lightweight variant;

Quote:

MLED Light is the lightweight counterpart to the standard KDE-based MLED desktop. It is based on the Xfce desktop environment and targets users with modest hardware, or simply those who prefer working with Xfce.
Like the standard edition, MLED Light provides a full set of common applications, multimedia codecs, plugins, fonts and translations through easily manageable package repositories. The set of applications is slightly different in order to achieve better integration with the Xfce desktop. Last but not least, much thought has also been given to this lightweight version's look & feel.

Hopefully this MLED project will meet the needs for new users wanting a trimmed Slackware Desktop ISO. As seasoned Slackware users, we have seen many a post/thread with a request for small Slackware ISO that provides a workable system. Now that MLED is available, this task has been done for that class of members. Plus will have a good MLED package and source repositories available to enhance their install to suit future needs.

Great job Niki!
Hope new users/everyone are helped by this new project.
Have fun & enjoy MLED.

kikinovak · 09-24-2014, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onebuck

KDE;Lightweight variant;Hopefully this MLED project will meet the needs for new users wanting a trimmed Slackware Desktop ISO. As seasoned Slackware users, we have seen many a post/thread with a request for small Slackware ISO that provides a workable system. Now that MLED is available, this task has been done for that class of members. Plus will have a good MLED package and source repositories available to enhance their install to suit future needs.

Thanks for the kind words, onebuck. I have to add a little precision though. From the MLED FAQ:

Quote:

Where can I download the MLED installation ISO?

MLED doesn't ship on its own installation ISO. All you need is a vanilla Slackware installation disc and a working internet connection. Once the base Slackware system is installed, all you have to do is fetching the packages using slackpkg.

MLED is not a Slackware spinoff, nor will it ever be one. In a nutshell, the project aims to provide the most common things that are missing for a complete desktop experience: some popular applications, multimedia libraries, plugins and codecs, fonts, translation files. Initially I had the idea to create a spinoff with a separate ISO, but I rejected it in favour of a handful of repositories.

onebuck · 09-24-2014, 10:11 AM

Hi,

Great! Thanks for clearing things up.
Appreciate all the work you are doing.
Have fun & Enjoy!

fsLeg · 09-24-2014, 02:18 PM

Question: why is MuPDF in desktop-base, if desktop-kde provides Okular and desktop-xfce provides evince?

kikinovak · 09-24-2014, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fsLeg

Question: why is MuPDF in desktop-base, if desktop-kde provides Okular and desktop-xfce provides evince?

That's a very good question. Until very recently ( = this morning) I was convinced that MuPDF provided a PDF browser plugin for Firefox, that enabled it to open PDF documents directly. Now I was very puzzled to see that I had direct PDF rendering within Firefox on a machine that did not have MuPDF installed.

Question: how comes Firefox can suddenly display PDF files directly? Is this a builtin?

gegechris99 · 09-24-2014, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kikinovak

Question: how comes Firefox can suddenly display PDF files directly? Is this a builtin?

Yes it is. But I can't remember when it got added. Refer to:
using-the-built-in-pdf-viewer

Didier Spaier · 09-24-2014, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kikinovak

Question: how comes Firefox can suddenly display PDF files directly? Is this a builtin?

Yes it is a builtin. Suddenly is relative; this feature appeared in Firefox 19

See also the initial annoucement.

And if you want to disable it (it's still awful at consistently identifying where the baseline is in PDFs compiled by pdflatex and xelatex, for instance, so it's currently useless for my purposes), you can set Firefox's "pdfjs.disabled" preference to "true" (globally, if you like) and fall back to whichever plugin you were previously relying on to display PDFs. Long-term I think pdf.js is the most secure option for in-browser rendering of PDFs, but I think it just renders too slowly and buggily for widespread use at the moment.

kikinovak · 09-25-2014, 04:31 AM

And here's today's batch of updates.

MuPDF and OpenJPEG2 have been removed, since they are no longer needed.

Kdenlive has been added to the desktop-extra repository. Version 0.9.8 unfortunately has a nasty localization bug in non-english versions, so I opted for the previous version, 0.9.6, which works fine.

All missing dependencies for Kdenlive (amrnb, dvdauthor, dvgrab) have been added to the desktop-base repository.

If you install Kdenlive, make sure to install xine-ui as well as recordmydesktop from Slackware's extra repository. I've modified the tagfiles accordingly.

Openshot has been moved from desktop-xfce to desktop-base. In my humble opinion, it's the most intuitive lightweight video editor, so I've finally decided to include it out of the box in both desktops.

Check out the ChangeLog.txt files at the root of each repository for details.

Cheers,

Niki

cezarrangel · 09-25-2014, 07:33 PM

Hello. Everything seems to be fine when I start installing microlinux. I chose the desktop-xfce option

I manage to enter #setup and then I go to the point at which I show the path to tagfiles: /tag. Then the installation begins and finishes very quickly.

Well the problem is that after the installation of the tagfiles finishes the installation seems to be already complete and so goes directely to reboot time with ctrl+alt+del.

The installation process skips the following steps: 1) use utf-8 text console:yes; 2)confirm startup services to run; 3)select default window manager for x

I cannot understand what is happening. I am trying to install in /dev/sdc/

the result of #fdisk -l is:

Code:

[root@arch cezar]# fdisk -l 

Disco /dev/sda: 465,8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 setores
Unidades: setor de 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Tamanho de setor (lógico/físico): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Tamanho E/S (mínimo/ótimo): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Tipo de rótulo do disco: dos
Identificador do disco: 0x7df3d782

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         2048 613730303 613728256 292,7G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       613730304 762170903 148440600  70,8G 83 Linux
/dev/sda3       762170904 976773167 214602264 102,3G 83 Linux

Disco /dev/sdb: 232,9 GiB, 250059350016 bytes, 488397168 setores
Unidades: setor de 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Tamanho de setor (lógico/físico): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Tamanho E/S (mínimo/ótimo): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Tipo de rótulo do disco: dos
Identificador do disco: 0x94110a5e

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *           63 167975639 167975577  80,1G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2       167975640 484488269 316512630 150,9G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3       484488270 488397167   3908898   1,9G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disco /dev/sdc: 931,5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 setores
Unidades: setor de 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Tamanho de setor (lógico/físico): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
Tamanho E/S (mínimo/ótimo): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Tipo de rótulo do disco: dos
Identificador do disco: 0x00000000

Device     Boot     Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *         2048  419432447  419430400   200G 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2       419432448 1953525167 1534092720 731,5G 83 Linux

Disco /dev/sdd: 931,5 GiB, 1000194400256 bytes, 1953504688 setores
Unidades: setor de 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Tamanho de setor (lógico/físico): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Tamanho E/S (mínimo/ótimo): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Tipo de rótulo do disco: dos
Identificador do disco: 0x454db989

Device     Boot Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdd1  *     2048 1953503231 1953501184 931,5G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Disco /dev/sde: 931,5 GiB, 1000194400256 bytes, 1953504688 setores
Unidades: setor de 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Tamanho de setor (lógico/físico): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Tamanho E/S (mínimo/ótimo): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Tipo de rótulo do disco: dos
Identificador do disco: 0x34809cdb

Device     Boot Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sde1  *       64 1953503999 1953503936 931,5G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

[root@arch cezar]#