DO NOT get rid of the fortune messages. One of the first things I did when I had Debian or Ubuntu was install fortunes & fortunes-off, and edit ~/.bashrc to get a quote before the prompt (found out how to do it from the example .bashrc in the "Advanced Bash Scripting Guide").

Woodsman,

This is an excellent post! The links in it, especially, are very helpful. They helped me last year when I was setting up Slackware 11, and I'll use them again in a few days when I set up Slackware 12.

I think posts like yours, and the links in them could be compiled into a section of a revised Slackbook on post-installation configuration.

Regards,

-Drew

Thanks for the kind comments.

Well, I do have an entire section at my web site devoted to that issue. Check my sig.

Regarding my comments about the fortune cookie program. I did not mean to imply removing the package from Slackware, only that users should be provided some kind of option or warning about installing. A common question posted in Slackware forums is about the "cryptic" messages that appear at logon. I don't think new users are mentally prepared for fortune cookies --- that was my only point.

BTW, removing the fortune cookie package (as opposed to merely disabling in profile.d), will disable the Xfce Tricks and Tips tool. For some reason, the Xfce developers have directly tied their Tricks and Tips tool to the Fortune Cookies run-time engine.

Now isn't that something. I've gone to your site a bunch of times and used quite a few tips from it. I didn't make the connection between your sig on this board and that site. It just goes to show how much attention (or not) I pay to signatures at the end of posts. :-)

Regards,

-Drew

How about improved media support, at least in firefox? I had a massive headache when I first installed slack playing content embedded within webpages (ie bbc news media), gxine wouldn't play ball, and I've eventually got things working with mplayer

1 members found this post helpful.

*shameless mode*
better hylafax + avant fax support.
OFFICIAL binary package for hylafax and avantfax in /extra maybe?
(I trust Pat's made pkg..well,who isn't? )

I also don't like to see any greater changes within Slackware.

Specifically, I like that "traditional" documentation applies perfectly and howtos/manuals provided from any kinds of projects themselves. I really HATE these "foobar on blabla Linux 7.3" specific explanations and I hate that every distribution cooks its own stuff and style. Some projects deliver GREAT manuals and what good is in this effort if nothing any longer applies because the distributor or package maintainer chose to change locations and configurations and stuff like that? (That, btw. is exactly why I think Slackware is good for beginners - you just don't have to learn a Linux AND RH-style but just go to let's say the documentation of ldap or qmail or whatever and simply do what they tell you and you will come up with something running..)

Second I like that literally everything I tried and installed and fiddled around over the last years worked - certain problems of compiling or stability simply don't come up on Slackware - at least not to my needs.

A really good book on the other hand I'd also like to see (because there are so many bad Linux books out there and I would definitely participate and do my share of writing.

Regarding new packages .. well.. a small i18n section maybe? Stuff like scim with a handful of all the underlying libs (anthy etc - depending on the languages) would be nice. But that's really a minor thing.

I like it the way it is.

Seconded, it's nice the way stuff in slack 'just works'. You CAN download source and compile it without fighting a package manager for dependencies, you CAN configure it the way generic linux books say you should be able to - it's just left as it should be.

I would like to see a proper compiz guide though - whilst annoying over time, compiz is pretty cool to show off to non-linux users, is currently bundled with slack, but documentation on getting it working right is as rare as rocking horse s**t!

My greatest wishes have already been mentioned:

* FTP (or HTTP!) installation support. (Extra points if it also gets the latest /patches)

* Some kind of official bugzilla or similar (So Pat doesn't have to keep answering e-mails saying that either X is not a bug, Y won't get fixed or Z is already fixed either in -current or in mainstream. It would also mean that somebody extern to slack can take a look at pending bugs and propose a fix).

* Some basic tagfiles present in the install disk (like http-server, mail-server, one-covers-all-server, lightweight-desktop, full-featured-desktop ...).


For the first one, I kind of remember that there are already some installer variations floating on the net.

With the bugzilla thing, well, that's totally up to Pat to decide.

As for the tagfiles... maybe they aren't actually worth it (it's quite easy to just drop entire series before hand-picking packages from series which you actually want, later you can use http://alienbase.nl/slackware/tools/...e_generator.sh to generate the tagfile from whatever you installed).

This would indeed be nice. It takes time and effort to do though.


That's where this forum plays a huge role - it largely acts as a bugzilla. If you read it regularly, you will note that several of the Slackware contributors (even if their nickname doesn't indicate as such) keep tabs on postings.


See below

I won't speak for him, but I personally don't see the need. As stated earlier, this forum, the various IRC channels, the Slackware newsgroup, unofficial mailing lists, etcetera handle this quite effectively. In fact, it's not infrequent that someone posts both a bug report and a fix to one of those places.


Yep, you answered your own question

Hi,

I have a very selfish wish for the next Slackware release which is that John E Davis manages to somehow get slrn version 1.0 complete (or even version 0.9!) and it makes whatever deadline is necessary to be included with Slackware.

The current non-release versions are easily compiled under Slackware but the cachet of being a part of the distro would be wonderful. Just my own personal wish :-)

Andrew

I like having many packages. Sure, I can download and install the tarballs
(I have machines running slack that are not and will never be on the internet)
, but it would be nice to have:
-Compilers
ifort for f90
also, all perl Tk modules
-Graphics
Grace and gnuplot
Media:
-kaffeine
-mplayer
(plus associated codecs)

.... and maybe document that annoying erratic mouse problem!

Gnuplot already comes with Slackware... and which "erratic mouse problem" are you talking about?

Yes, you're right about gnuplot-it was anoher distro I had to install from the tarball. Regarding the mouse problem, the point is that the mouse is
erratic in some installations(works fine at home with an optical mouse and Slack 12, but at work the pointer all of a suden jumps to a corner and becomes too
responsive) See
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...st26.s-377385/
and
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...st26.s-380890/

This was referring to Slack 10, but it's the same with Slack 12 on one machine with an Intellimouse.