I want to switch to slackware because I've heard it's great. I really like being able to customize my operating system, and while red hat is a step above windows, I think slack will be a step above that. I have some general questions about compatability and stuff before I start.

First, I've used ximian evolution on red hat and really liked it, but ximian.com doesn't offer a build for slack. is there a known port or should I find another e-mail client and if so which should I use? I'm looking for a gtk/gnome one with support for multiple accounts.

Next, do many people experience problems installing xine (more so than usual, I mean. I got it to work on red hat)?

How do I maintain my /home partition during the install and is ext3 good for slackware (just want to make sure)?

what is the package manager like? does it have a gtk frontend? how easy is it to install/remove packages?

last, any common pitfalls to avoid?

thank you.

I'd be surprised if you couldn't get a .tgz for Ximian but just compile it from source and install with checkinstall. Voila! Ximian slackpack. (You'll need to install checkinstall, itself, though - think it's in /extras on Slack mirrors.

Dunno - I use xmms for music and haven't really messed with video.

Ext3 should be fine but I use Reiser. Just don't format your home partition.

It's a TUI package manager but it doesn't get any easier than the command line - 'installpkg foo' Boing. Though the TUI's fine, as well.

Pitfalls? Um. Not really. Just be prepared to learn your system and how to manipulate it, especially with command line tools. Then again, that's just personal - I suppose KDE's KDE, I just don't use it. What I mean is, I suppose you could treat Slack as a KDE-platform and do much of what you want with KDE tools but treating Slack as *the* thing in itself is better to me.

Welcome aboard, or whatever expression is appropriate.

for packages, it'd be safest to get em from http://www.linuxpackages.net

all those packages there are for slack

the package manager is real easy, just download the .tgz packages, and u just gotta use the terminal to go to the directory containing em and type: pkgtool, and it'll install the packages in that directory for u, or u could just specifically use: installpkg bla.tgz

u can even change rpms to tgz with rpm2tgz bla.rpm

so yea, definitely nth to worry about

I agree with gerghk; linuxpackages is a great site for locating Slack packages. Regarding Evolution, you might also consider installing Dropline. The latest version will include Evolution v1.4 automatically, and it (Dropline) has a heck of a lot of other useful stuff as well. You can get Dropline at: http://www.dropline.net/gnome/

It's pretty simple to install and definitely made a positive difference for me. Note that it will set you default windows manager to Gnome; if that's not your preference you can easily set it back by running xwmconfig. -- J.W.

i put xine on two previous versions of slack and it worked-i don't usually employ a package install system because i got tired of the dependency thing and i learned how much there is to learn from the guys who write apps and programs with their readme and install files- the configure, make, make install allow a better conformance for stuff to my own machine as well. i would try mplayer also; i've had luck with it and it seems more manageable and versatile.
if you repartition for slack, leave your current /home partition alone and then when the installation asks you to target partitions, designate that one as /home and do not format it-you could call it something else and make a new /home formatted to an fs(ext3, no problem) you choose as well.
only other thing i might suggest is to leave out what you don't need when you install-except i don't think you can have too many libraries or too much documentation; you may need kde and gnome for the stuff they bring along. keep at it, you'll like slack!

Just to report back, I got everything installed just fine, /home mounts well and a lot of my old app data migrated without incident. I installed dropline and it works well. I did leave out a lot of those duplicate tools setup wanted to install, and I used the 'newbie' install so as not to screw up anything important. I had some trouble getting X configured but found an XF86Config file through google for my laptop which I am now using and works great--in my infinite foresight I forgot to make a backup of the one I was using before; I'll remember next time. I got xine installed without incident (and very quickly, I might add). Thanks all for the help.

I take that back about dropline...it's not working.

Dropline has been experiencing frequent server problems this week, if thats what your are refering to.

Dropline should have installed xine automatically. It will install totem as a frontend for xine.

I have a few more things to ask.

What is the equivalent of rpm -q packagename in slack?
How do I set ls to always show colors?

If you want to check the available information about a package, you can run pkgtool and pick view from the first menu to look at the information about an installed package. You can also view some information about a package that is not installed by picking one of the install options in pkgtool (Current and Other). You can always say no when it queries you as to whether you want to install it. Not as much information is available from pkgtool about programs not installed. I am not certain as to whether there is a practical way to view additional information about packages that have not been installed other than manually looking inside at the files and install scripts. Keep in mind that there is not as much information to see in a Slackware package as in an RPM because Slackware's package manager does not keep track of dependencies.

To get ls to always show colors in Slackware 9.0 you should change your LS_OPTIONS environment variable. By default it is this:
LS_OPTIONS=' --color=auto -F -b -T 0'

You need to change it with this command:
export LS_OPTIONS=' --color=always -F -b -T 0'

If you type in the command at the command prompt it will change this for your current session. One way to have it be changed for all of your sessions is to put this line in your .bashrc file in your home directory. You will probably have to create this file, since it doesn't exist by default. Just remember to make it executable (chmod +x .bashrc).

one more:
I installed dropline-installer and it has taken over my cursors in X. the gui utility to change the cursor theme does not change the theme. I'd like to use the default and not the cursors that dropline has implemented. Is there a text file somewhere I can edit to change this?