What? :-)

Well, slackware offers you the following options for WM/DE by default:

kde, xfce, fluxbox, blackbox, windowmaker, fvwm2, twm

then there are 3rd party options, should you prefer mate, lxde, lxqt, icewm. And Plasma, of course.

The beauty of Linux - freedom of choice.

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I don't use Slackware installer, because "setup" program is pretty much useless today. And for default WM, it's not hard to make a symbolic link.

Other distros also offer twm, xyzwm, abcwm and other ... . But besides those "amazing" WMs, they also offer openbox, for example. In case of Slackware, in order not to stay on twm with xv, seejpeg and bsd games, I have to build a lot of needed, good and widespread things on my own. Or if I want Xfce 4.14 which was released a year ago, I have to build it too.

The Beauty of choice is great, no doubts. But strange combination of default and optional packages scares new users, forcing them to switch to another distro.

Re:
How many distros are you aware of that don't default to one specific DE? It seems to me most are like Ubuntu and Kubuntu, having any alternatives created as a different distro with just one different DE. Original Arch was closer to LFS since it's Installer only gives a basic bootable system from which to build one's DE. Manjaro, a spinoff, defaults to Plasma iirc. etc etc etc

If you want any WM/DE in those distros you have to install it, assuming their repository has what you want. I've tried hundreds of distros in the past 20+ years and not one of them came with more than one WM/DE and a chooser menu in it's DM, whether xdm, gdm, kdm, sddm, or LightDM... except Slackware. It comes with several given the Full Recommended Install.

One of the most important tenets of PatV's design imperative is diversity, not assuming how users will use the system but giving them the tools to morph it into whatever they desire. I happen to think this is exactly the reason that Slackware has a lower user base than say, Ubuntu. More people prefer to have things done for them, while accepting User Uniformity, than want the responsibility and work load to be your own Admin.

Is that not your experience I.G.O.R?

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To quote Mythbusters (quoting archtypical car mechanics)

"Well there's your problem right there".

Please, I.G.O.R, do tell all of us who actually prefer a flexible ncurses installer just how is it "useless" to you? There actually is a reason for Full Recommended Install, not the least of which is ease of building packages without constantly running into dependency issues.

To my mind, the value of such an approach, is that the base system is fully integrated and protected from the jump while automated package management accept rebuilding some of the base system routinely with after-installation package choices. This is exactly why the base system in Slackware is basically never at risk. With manual package management and dependency resolution the worst that can happen is the package or source won't built or if it does, just won't run or run right. In other distros things, deep things, break rather routinely. Message boards are full of "After I installed Xfoo package, A,B,C, & D no longer work"

The Base is more important than any one peripheral package in my view.

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I don't understand why you post in the Slackware forum. I suggest that you use the distro of your choice and enjoy it. I don't post messages in the forums of distros that I don't use. This is very odd.

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And the trolling continues...

setup has worked for me for 15+ years. I was able to use setup to install Slackware on my Ryzen 7 CPU desktop and my Ryzen 3 APU mediacenter, both using UEFI.

So, just because it doesn't do what you want it to do doesn't make it useless.

Slackware's pre-installed WMs/DEs are perfectly fine. If Pat decides to add Mate, then so be it. If he decides to drop KDE4/Plasma5, then so be it. But based on comments from Pat and his dev team, it's largely expected that 15.0 will ship with the same WMs/DEs, including a relatively up-to-date KDE and xfce, in the form of Plasma5 and xfce 4.14 respectively.

Time and again you've shown that Slackware does not seem to be the best distro for you. Why do you persist using it if you are so against its ideals and principles?

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What? Then, how should be an useful setup program of today?

Let me guess - it should be graphical, with a nice GUI and it should be capable to auto-create complicated partitioning schemes, to offer sets of packages to install, to install them and to do the basic system configuration ... then what?

Honestly, I do not think that an installer software being GUI or TUI really matters, and from what lacks - regarding the lack of fancy partitioning, did you considered that that could be a conscious choice?

Yes, the Slackware installer does not do partitioning at all, BUT if we add that partitioning, where and when will be a generally accepted auto-partitioning solution?

I am not a specialist on the art of doing partitioning from a Linux installer, but I remember that a particular forum member, who made himself a powerful graphical installer for Slackware-like distributions, arrived to create for partitioning something similar with GParted (of those old times) but written in Qt3.

After years, I remember that he said that considers to be a really wise decision the fact that Slackware avoids the partitioning into installer.

Because it is really a can of worms, once opened the users wants the installer "to think" for themselves, and no matter how "smart" are the partitioning algorithms, they never satisfy everyone - unless the installer itself is self-aware.

Then, better to leave everything regarding partitioning in the user duty.

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Thankfully Slackware ships with FDISK and CFDISK; they're excellent utilities to partition your hard drive. They work far better for me than shiny, clicky GUIS.

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And gdisk and cgdisk for easier times creating GPT partitions (although, fdisk and cfdisk support GPT, it defaults to MBR unless you know to change it).

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Yeah, but those (C)FDISK can do automatically: snapshots capable LVM over encrypted RAID6 devices, of course with a separate RAID1 for /boot ?

Things like this some gentlemen expect to solve from pull-down menus and few mouse clicks - from installer.

Preferably, with not so much mouse clicks, because that's sign of a non-ergonomically design and they think's so complicated to click four times.

As regards the MATE desktop, I rather like it. I do like it more than I like XFCE, in fact. But I much prefer KDE applications to those native to other DEs. Anyway, I always seem to end up using Fluxbox.

So put me down ans 6-5 for MATE.

As regards the Slackware setup routine, I have found that it works quite nicely. The primary objection seems to be that Slackware does not offer to partition drives automatically. I've always considered that one of its charms.

In fact, I found the Slackware setup routine so intuitive that, when I first installed Slackware (mumble) years ago, I installed it three times that first day, not because of problems with the installer, but because of problems with some of the decisions I made during install. I had no issues with the installer, but I must confess that I knew how to use DOS fdisk, so I figured out cfdisk in seconds.

(Before I installed Slackware, my only usage of Linux was running Knoppix as in live mode and deciding then and there I wanted to use Linux. Knoppix was using KDE 3.x at the time.)

Just my two (or three) cents.

I like MATE too, but there is no way to disable those g-ddamned tool tips. So I use Xfce.

That answers that. /thread

I use Mate as my daily DE. Personally I would rather not burden Pat with another DE. Seems fine to just to keep as a community add on.

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