What features/changes would you like to see in future Slackware?
 

What features/changes would you like to see in future Slackware?

For most of us, I imagine we would like to see updates of all that is the current goodness of Slackware (if it's not broken, why fix it?).

However, I'm sure some Slack users have some things in mind and I am curious as to what those things are.

For me, personally, I would like to see the option of a modular KDE similar to Arch Linux's KDEmod project. This would be really handy if you only wanted certain KDE apps installed instead of having everything installed in large chunks.

And end up like the dependency nightmare that is Gnome? Let alone the extra work required by Pat to keep this up and maintain it.

This is definitely something I don't want to see.

As for things I would like to see - NetworkManager (with KNetworkManager frontend). Slackware is fine for a 'fixed' network, but for a laptop with a changing network, it doesn't really cut it (Kwifimanager is out of date, and doesn't handle WPA, and the rc.* scripts and wpa_supplicanf.conf are a PITA to work with for just connecting to a wireless network).

I would mainly like to see fewer packages. I do not use any command line mp3 players; nor do I need the plethora of news readers, chat programs. or mail programs. Don't get the idea that I am advocating eliminating these programs (as soon as something is completely deleted, I would have a great need for it & have to package it myself!), but to my mind, moving a bunch of packages to 'extra', or some new directory, would be a good idea.
Regards,
Bill

Updated Slackbook with not only tiny bash/mail/etc manual. I'd prefer some sort of Slackware Bible (like Ubuntu Bible) or smth. One book of slackbook + slackbasics + slackersbible + more. Now everything is thrown around in lots of places (those previously mentioned books, Alien Bob's dokuwiki, slackwiki and more, more, more places).

very good point. It would probably only work if it was maintained as a separate project (similar to dropline GNOME or GNOME SlackBuild).

On desktops I use bootsplash (I know, but I like it). I can't see recommending it for inclusion in slackware because of the kernel mods, but maybe as an add-on package. I also use grub vs. lilo, but again that's a personal preference. Both of those things are very easy to implement post-install.

I use slackware for so many different things that I can't really come up with any ideas for general inclusion except maybe mplayer. I prefer mplayer over xine, and they seem to co-exist peacefully.

Not really a slackware-specific thing but I would like to see a dbus policy manager with more convenient interface. I'm just lazy, I suppose. :D

Patrick and the rest of the team have done such a wonderful job of creating this distribution that it is hard to find any faults with it, imo. I really appreciate the approach of emphasizing stability over including bleeding-edge software.

If Slack was missing anything I wouldn't use it.
Now go guess why I use it? ;)

Lots of info could be gathered from this forum too and added to the book (like these bios or hal things).

I think I agree with the earlier post re mplayer, maybe even smplayer (the excellent graphical mplayer plugin) if the dependencies can be resolved easily, I'm not certain about the codecs and licencing though.

I'd like:
- Official ports for other architectures.
- A more open development.
- A difference between non-free (like Java) and free softwares (i.e a /non-free directory).
- Firefox compiled from source.

Technically it's perfect.

Slackware is just fine the way it is.
But an update of the Slackbook or something similar, as Alien Hominid suggested, is not a bad idea at all.


greetings,

Eddy

Like many others, I don't find Slackware lacking any really important feature, so there aren't many software packages that I'd really like to see added. Probably NetworkManager and KNetworkManager, which were already mentioned, provide really good features for people with laptops that move in varied environments (for the rest of us, a handful of shell scripts than run the needed commands can be incredibly effective). Also, I'd like to see resume from suspend-to-disk support added to the initrd. I already have it working here and sent a "howto" by email to PV, but he hasn't replied since then.

What I find lacking at this moment is what other people already mentioned. There are a lot of good guides, howtos, books, forums, tutorials, etc, about Slackware all over the Internet, but they are not official in any way and there is not a central place to tie them all together. The Slackware official site could have an RSS feed of the different changelogs, links and descriptions to the sites of the different people who have an account at slackware.com (like rworkman) and news not only issued when a new release is made, but every now and then to comment on the decisions and progress made on -current. Maybe polls so we could provide feeback to PV about decisions. An official wiki could be handy too, or at least a link to SlackWiki, that would merge a lot of information from the SlackBook, tutorials, HOWTOs, etc. You know, a more "Web 2.0" site (I personally hate those words), where PV could spend some minutes a day reading the opinions and feedback from his users, and interact with us.

I think Slackware could leave KDE behind like it did with GNOME and leave KDE to other people.
Aehm yes I like Fluxbox *lol*, no but really there would be more time and energy for basic stuff.

Just give us good Compiz HOWTO =)

Hey, I was thinking the same thing :D

I'm one of those weirdos who loves KDE for desktop machines. I don't install it for any other style boxes but for my desktops I've become quite fond of KDE.

Even I would not be against KDE removal, I think it would be an unwise choice, because Slackware would drop even more in popularity just for being w/o full featured desktop environment. Not all Slackware users are console gurus. Lots of them use Slackware because of stability.

isn't XFCE fully-featured enough, without all the bloat and buggyness of KDE ?

Yes... but its ugly.

I don't find KDE to be annoyingly buggy.

I second that. Why have so many apps that do the same thing?

no wait.. .I disagree, me like many apps so its easy to try a bunch out and find one I really like..

but no- I don't like 3 cds...

slackware is good.

Hmm ... what to I want from Slackware? Several things:

1) A minimalist GUI slackware w/o KDE (just having WindowMaker (my preferred window manager) and the other 'minimalistic' window managers)
2) Support for PAM (<= looking over my laptop - was that a flame coming my way?)
3) Fewer packages, like, _one_ program pr. function. E.g. settle for (f.ex.) firefox for
web browsing, thunderbird for email, mplayer for media playing etc. etc.
4) GRUB instead of lilo (<= is that another flame coming my way?)

But hey! I am satisfied the way Slackware is today. It comes closest to the way I want
linux to work for me .....!

I would agree to remove some of the packages.
Another thing I would like to see is better support for ldap.
I have never used slackware as a ldap server/client (But will be my first priority after my final exam the next week). Until now I have only used debian as ldap server/client, as my teacher said slackware needed bunch of upgrading to support pam/nss. My book in that course is fairly old (a few years), so the support could have changed, and I haven't checked it out either.

For everyone who doesn't want KDE included, you do realise that you don't have to install it, don't you? It's a set of selectable packages that you can choose not to select. Remember, Slack doesn't force you to do most things.

What I would like to have in slackware is only one thing...

- FTP/HTTP installation media feature

Yes, there's NFS, but even then, I will like to see that some day and just download a 'debian-netinstall-like'.

One note about having too many packages, well, as always have been, if you have too many programs that do the same, at least in a general way, is becauses not everybody will share the same preferences, for some audacious, for others amarok, for others even mpg321, remove packages is the same as remove choices.

A bad thing will be if you were forced to use one that you don't like ;)



Regards

People who say things like this still don't understand the reasons GNOME was dropped in the first place. Look it up. And get the hell over it. I mean, FFS, this happened more than two years ago!
Of course, you understand that with every package removed, Slackware would become less flexible, right? If you don't want something installed, you can unselect it at installation time. Slackware doesn't force you to install anything.

Hi,

I agree with you XavierP. A lot of people don't realize the custom installs that you can do with Slackware. What about tagfiles? If you don't want everything then setup your Tagfiles to set the way you want the install.

I hope PV never gets in a mindset like 'ubuntu'. I wouldn't think he would be pressured into anything. His stance with the 2.4 kernel was a wise one for previous releases. I'm sure people who have direct contact can give us some insight on this. Alien_Bob has gotten a lot into Slackware; such as the rc configuration files (Alien_Bob's Slackware® rc Scripts) and I'm glad. But PV has stated that Erik has pressured for other inclusions. I'm sure that others have done the same but it is PV's distribution and he has done a great job along with the team to provide a GREAT Distribution.

As someone else has stated and I agree; 'If it ain't broke don't fix it!'.

As a Slackware user we can modify to suit our needs as we see fit without some admin monkey dictating to us that we must wait for the next release to get the application we want. And if something is included that is not desirable then we just strip it out or on the install exclude it.

As for 'my' wants for the next Slackware release; I want to see 'src2pkg-1.7' included and recommended as the official manager. That is a jewel of a manager.

I would also like to see the use of a 'ftp' installer LIKE 'lmo-installer-0.2' for users that are really lazy or just can't seem to burn a good iso image. Yes, I've used the installer and it took '137' minutes to install a full Slackware 12.0. The system was functional. I took it down because of some issues that I was having on my LAN.

I had gotten hooked by some 'Trojans' on my laptop that was lent to my sister-in-law, long story. Yes, M$Vista was active on it's partition. She's a MAC user and would not use my linux. She teaches M$, along with the OS and a bunch of M$ B$. So I figured see was smart enough to work safely. I know it was her but I will solve it by saying that the M$ Vista is broken if she would need it when she visits. Won't be a lie. :)

Back to the point. I would like to see 'Erik's Slackware® 12.0 USB_Install' another great alternate means for installation. Slackware 12.0 on my key chain and I can install it for anyone to see.

As for the Slackbook. I think more volunteers to update or even create another edition would probably help;

I've been pondering about this for sometime. I've just got so much on my platter and it's over flowing. My wife is constantly telling me to slow down. She's got my physician on her side now. So I will probably back off on some of my to-do/want-to-do list(s). I enjoy sharing my knowledge. I hope that doesn't come off to boastful or arrogant to some?? Sometimes my train of thought can be broken. I therefore must read and re-read what I've written. Those damn drugs cloud my brain therefore my train of thought. (Legally taken) I want to continue to breath and the heart pumping.

I've gotten into some debates and after reading them over after a recovery, I'm really embarrassed about some of my points. No excuse but I will attempt to guard myself close. I know that I'm lingering now because the pain meds are kicking in. I've said it in the past, when I'm down. I tend to pickup my machine out of boredom. In hopes of stimulating my mind so the drugs can be handled.

Which ones have you ported? Those things don't happen by magic - they require lots of time and effort (and perhaps animal sacrifices)...

What do you mean by this?

IMHO, that's fodder for Debian - if users are concerned about "non-free" software, they are free to not install it.

Why? Note that there's at least one valid reason wanting this, but I'm curious of what *your* reasons might be.

Disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, all posts are *my* thoughts and/or opinions and/or judgments and should not be perceived as official statements representing Slackware.com

I think what people mean by "more open development" is that they would like to see some sort of direct line of communication between Pat and Slackware users. Something like Pat's Slackware blog (or even myspace page) where users can hear what he has to say about the development process and respond back, give many thanks, etc.

I think something like this would be interesting to see.

I don't really think src2pkg should be the "new" package system, but I do think it should be included (at least in /extra). I think the simple package manager is brilliant.

Having more installation media options is always a good thing because it helps more people to get Slackware!

I agree with previous comments about the documentation, wikis, etc being too spread out over the internet. It would be nice to have an updated slackbook/slackwiki directly on slackware.com. This seems much more like our responsibility than the official Slackware team as they have plenty on their hands.

I also agree that Slackware should not drop packages (unless they cause conflicts) because as previously said they do give more choices. I particularly like that fact that with Slackware you have most of the libraries you will ever need. If people want one package per use then they can use Zenwalk or set up a tag file. If people don't like KDE then don't select it during the install.

It almost seems silly when people ask for certain packages to be added to Slackware because it is such a trivial task to add many of them. For instance, it would be nice to have mplayer + plugins, ntfs-3g, and perhaps more Xfce plugins to come with the install, but a lot of this is very easy to add on your own. And special builds for Firefox...what about swiftfox or SwiftWeasel? I don't see why this should be added as it is readily available; it would be unnecessary work for the Slackware team when they could use that time for something more important.

So what are the top priorities of the slackware team for the near future? Perhaps that where Pat's Slackware blog can answer some questions. More than likely the answer will always contain "keep doing more of the same good thing".

You're right, but one can provide the templates to facilitate the ports.
For instance, PV can put CFLAGS, etc. in a /etc/makepkg.conf, instead of doing in the slackbuild:


It's something very simple, but more serious.

Official developers, a 'bugzilla', a mailing list, etc.


Not every user can know if a software is free or not.
It's something very simple to do again.



Because:
- cf above.
- This is open source. It's psychological. Even if slack is only officially ported for x86.
The question is: what if Slackware was ported for another arch?


There isn't slackware.com. There is Patrick Volkerding.

Just My Opinion.
My Pc Are Old . P3 800mhz Sdram128mb.
And After Try Several Distros, I Feel Comfort With Slack.
Not All Distros Friendly With Old Pc.
Fast,stable,customable.
Slack Is Linux,
I Love To Doing My Work Through Konsole Coz Less Consume My Pc Resource.
Madplay, Mplayer,
Bashburn
Are My Favourite Application.
So, I Hope Next Version
1.there's Alot Of Console App.
2.support And Friendly With Old Pc
3.why Fix If It Isn't Broken

Personally, I would agree to help if this won't be another slackwarehowto.something.net, but the conglomeration of all sources and officialy approved by Pat or Slackware Team (whoever it consists of).

I hope you all know freebsd handbook. One of the greatest manuals ever (and not only for freebsd, but for whole *bsd oses and more). I wish Slackware could have smth similar. Because Slackware is the most Unix like system there (please don't argue with me), it should have such type of handbook just because lots of things written here also applies to other distros most often without problems. Once RedHat was thought as the classic and the only one reliable GNU/Linux (I still have some of those old manuals), but these times are over. Constant patching doesn't increase system compatibility.

What I wanted to say, that Slackware book would/should apply to most GNU/Linux distros.

End of rant...

Even though this isn't the case I still refer some linux newbies to the slackbook because it does offer some good linux basics.

Don't change Slackware.

Expand it (if possible)

Hi,

What exactly do you mean by expand it?

My 2 cents
 

As a newbie in the linux world, I've been facing some tough time finding information in a reliable and structured way.
Thanks to:

• Many folks in this forum
• Hours in front of the computer
• tons of creativity in finding excuses to "dodge" angry wife...:D

, my "slack life" became a lot easier.

The idea of creating a centralized (reliable, oficial, constantly updated) pool of knowledge (be it a book, bible, wiki or whatever) would definitely help bringing in more and more users, and I would think that popularity won't really hurt in this case. Having such knowledge available in one place would make Slackware less scary to the average user.

I would also like to see an "official" port to AMD64 architecture. Last time I checked, SLAMD64 was still on v11...

If this idea moves forward, I would also like to somehow contribute to the project(even being a newbie - but that won't last forever!)

:twocents:

I'd like to help as well...

I shouldn't mind seeing the network support provided by Tukaani's pkgtools included with Slackware. One of the first things I do after a new install is replace SW's pkgtools with Tukaani's.

Hey, already on the third page and no-one has suggested suspend to ram/disk? I'm a laptop user, and I'd like to see both suspend and networkmanager in Slackware. I haven't tried using (k)networkmanager, as the compile seems quite some work, but I did compile s2disk and friends, and it works quite nicely.

There is a SlackWiki, and it has some great info in it.

I concur, with updating the Slackbook. I personally don't have the time or the knowledge to help that project all that much... but I would gladly buy a copy of it and/or donate to the project. I have a copy of the slackbook sitting right next to me and it is a great read, but it would be nice for it to be updated for v12.

Most important:
Intel wireless firmware:
ipw2100
ipw2200
Intel wireless chips are very popular.
(Ubuntu includes them by default)

Nice to have:
A few java developer items

Eclipse IDE, java development tool.
Eclipse has lots of plugins that can be used for php,sql etc.

Tomcat java server
mod_jk apache plugin (tomcat connector)

Maven 2 build tool.

and maybe the Ant build tool

I have rolled my own packages of these, and would be happy to share scripts or packages if anyone is interested.

Regards
Java developer.

Eclipse is very huge. BTW, you just need to download it and that's all. No need to keep it in Slackware. Other people would need NetBeans. There won't be an end for requests.

I say let's make Slackware as bloated as other distros ... then we'll have only bloated distros to choose from.

Agreed. Some things are better left out. Fancy that, we have a package manager and can install them on our own with a whole whoppin' one line command! Much appreciation goes out to people who manage these packages so this is possible.

As far as the documentation, what would be the first step to get it moving in the right direction- towards having a centralized Slackware Bible similar to the BSD manual mentioned earlier?

Hi all,

There's not much that I'd like to see in Slackware that's not there already. If there's a particular application that I really want, I typically build it myself using a SlackBuild script from SlackBuilds.org, or use src2pkg.

I'd like to see src2pkg officially included in the distribution, replacing checkinstall if necessary. I'd also like to see Emacs 22 instead of Emacs 21.

Other than that, an update and expansion to the Slackbook would be helpful. I'll see what I can do to help.

Regards,

-Drew

After checking the size requirements of Eclipse I'd have to admit it is not the kind of application you can fit on a floppy - they range from 80 to 250MB depending on configuration/plugins included.

The other packages would take about 12MB combined in package size, which isn't so terribly bad.

I'm not against drivers. It's hard to download drivers, because you don't have net connection because you don't have drivers --> closed circle.

I'd like to see slackpkg a bit more advanced. For example showing the info (like "make menuconfig" does for kernel modules maybe) against packages when they are highlighted (or when an key is pressed would do fine). I'd also like the ability to do upgrade-all for say only re-packagings, all up to (OR only) minor point 0.0.1 changes, ditto point changes 0.1.0 or major point changes 1.0.0.

If it recognised whether a version number was really higher than would be good too.

TsquaredF and bioe007 mentioned less packages - I'd go with that. A base install (I can almost hear someone typing the response to tell me this exists already) that only has one newsreader, one ftp server, ... etc., package tools are advanced enough that it's easy to install more if needs be.

Other than that, maybe a preinstalled gui firewall application?

But a lot of the packages aren't well described at install time. "Dillons cron" meant nothing to me as a noob.

Hi

Why the floppy reference?

You mean like...
Couldn't you just put all the packages you want to upgrade with in a directory and
You could write a simple script to check for the specific version changes you are looking for.

Shouldn't you be able to do this?

Yes there is a base install :), but you could just make note of the software you don't know if you need, do a full install, and uninstall any you don't need later. Once you've got that figured out write a tag file to customize it and the next install will be even easier. n00bs should prefer having more packages they can install because then they can try more stuff out.

pkg-info script
 

In my last post I mentioned writing your own pkg scripts to check version numbers (or to even make sure you're not trying to upgrade a package with an older version) and package descriptions. I figured I'd list a short script that I just made for showing package info.

Name this something like pkg-info and place it in /usr/bin (with execute perms of course).
So again, I don't see why this is needed in Slackware's package manager as I can easily add this functionality myself in much less time than it takes to create and send this response.