My point was that Slackware is not a "bleeding edge" distribution. You said that the earlier concept was stability and reliability. I don't think that has changed one bit. It is just as stable and reliable as it has ever been.

This the way when a distro is coming to an end. When its developers stop to listen to users of its distro.
I don't understand what principles are you talking about.
It is no longer 'his' distro. He created it - he is one of the most important maintainers but nothing more.
I feel respect for what people done not because they "should be respected".

My real response became a rant, so it put it on my LQ Blog.

The point is....

The right tool for you is obviously Slackware 12.2. If you want Slackware to remain in the past, make KDE3/Trinity install and play nice side-by-side KDE4/QT4. Unfortunately, that would involve changing the name of every single tool and the QT3 library.

/opt is not an option for long-term support in Slackware. That requires a little extra know how to make other programs compile against QT3.

OK. Say that for me it changes to fast.

Just a few points I want to make before leaving this thread:

1) Slackware in NOT bleeding edge, it's probably one of the furthest from it. I don't care about KDE, I don't use it.
2) Pat V is one of the greatest BDFL, show some respect, alright, it IS his distro, and it is great.
3) Go ahead and abandon a distro because it no longer uses a DE that is no longer developed. Good luck finding a distro that still uses and will continue to use this DE.

Over and out ...

1 members found this post helpful.

Do you not understand WHY Slackware switched to KDE 4.x? KDE 3.5.x is no longer maintained. Any security vulnerabilities that are found will not be fixed, leaving your system in a dangerous state. Any bugs will not be fixed. The code will not be updated for recent versions of Xorg, and it would become increasingly difficult to get it to build and function while the rest of the Linux software world grows up. At the moment, in order to have *any* working KDE3.5.x, you must use software released around the time of 12.2. You can hack it to work with 13.0 but in order to get KDE3.5 working with 13.1 and any other future release, and indeed any other Linux distribution with remotely new software, you must rely on the Trinity project, which is definitely in its infancy. Regardless of whether Pat prefers KDE4 or KDE3.5, the switch was a necessity, not a matter of ignoring its user base. If you wish to use KDE3.5, *my* advice to you is to stick with 12.2 until Trinity becomes usable with newer software -- it may be there already, but I don't believe anyone using Slackware has had a successful attempt at building Trinity for anything newer than 12.2. Hopefully that will change in the future.

I do not like KDE4.x at all. In fact, when I went from 12.2 to 13.0, as a long-time KDE user, I switched to xmonad (a radical departure) rather than use KDE4.x. I get your point, but to blame Slackware is to be totally ignorant of the Linux community and the problems of maintaining a modern Linux distribution. If KDE3.5 was still maintained, it would probably be sitting in extra/ alongside the default KDE4.x. But it's *not* maintained, and it has a final resting place in unsupported, which may work in 13.0 but will not work in 13.1.
If Pat stopped releasing Slackware, there is absolutely no guarantee that it would continue. There are other important contributors, but Slackware most definitely is Pat's distro. I believe that has been made very clear by both Robby and Eric, two of the larger Slackware contributors. Pat has been releasing Slackware since 1993, and it remains as the oldest surviving Linux distribution. It has a vibrant and knowledgeable community of users and continues to stick to its principles (there is still, thankfully, no PAM in Slackware, and it uses BSD-style init scripts instead of the de facto standard SysV init scripts, for example). By your own statement, Pat should be respected for what he has done and not merely because he 'should be respected'.

3 members found this post helpful.

Why do not you try to install Slackware 13.1 without KDE4 and then just add Trinity + QT3? Thus no need to rename applications etc. Have you tried such setup?

I am not very respectful person - in the sense that people who I really respect I may count on fingers of my hands.
And sometimes I have to pay really great price for this. But I cannot change how I feel.
To be precise - there is no support for KDE 3.5.x in Slackware today and all what comes out of stock is not enough for me. Sorry but I also need computer to work. If you need to transport 30T of material you use a truck not thirty pickup's.

Alright then stick with 12.2 or use something else, no amount of debate is going to make today's Slackware work with KDE 3.5 series.

I have this distinct feeling that you are simply trolling. Everyone here uses his/her own computer for work. Just because I use my computer to edit photos doesn't make my task any less important than yours. It's obvious you refuse to take any clue from all these posts here.

Maybe, just maybe, could you develop what really "hurts" you with KDE 4.X ?

I had a bit of frustration myself on the transition, at the point where I changed the "quicklauncher" with the old way menu (KDE 3.x/MSWin-style)... And finally went back to use the 'vanilla' KDE 4.X, it was mostly a matter of habit, and I get bored with the old menu style after a few weeks, and now I'm ok with KDE 4.X.

Of course you might have your own reason, but maybe we could find a workaround, so you'd have an up-to-date WM, that suits your needs (fills what you lack from KDE 3.X). And as the other contributors said : there's quite a choice of WM with slackware (which is a huge positive point ), so you might even wanna try to play around with the other alternatives.

And yes, that might sound rude, but it's somehow childish to expected Slackware to support EVERY past version... What about the ones who'd religiously expect KDE 1 ?? You'd be selfish not to think about them ... No offense, I just wanna help you to find a solution, but some solutions is sometimes laziness, and listening to other people remarks can "unlock your mind" for pragmatic thinking.

Wish you luck in your WM pilgrim !

Cheers.

(Sorry if my english sounds clumsy...)

1 members found this post helpful.

I'll help. That is an idiomatic expression for "I hope you're not being serious." And the reason why the person posted that is because Slack is noted for stability and functionality. Now if you do want to experience some bleeding-edge slackness, download -current and get to it.

<SARCASM>
You don't have to abandon Slackware for KDE 3.5.x, you can pick from 1000 different reasons.
</SARCASM>

Even IF (and I don't think it is the case, but I'm not a slacker) the current Slack didn't have a backport of KDE 3.5.x, you can always download the source and compile it. That's the beauty of OSS.

Enjoy,

Forrest

Compiling KDE3.5.10 on 13.1 or current almost certainly won't work as too many libraries, X and the kernel have become incompatible. If it actually did compile, it would not be safe to connect to the Internet as it contains rafts of security bugs, that have been highlighted to the malware community by similar issues fixed in the 4.x tree

KDE4.x.y is ok these days, making KDE3 feel very "Windows 98ish"

The old story of the abandoned KDE3 lovers.

I think there is great confusion. A Linux distribution is a team of packagers, not software developers. When a software solution is abandoned by its developers after some time it becomes unusable.

For example, KDE-3.5.10 can not compile on Slackware-current, because of dependencies APIs were changed. Even the GCC's has changed.

Major Linux distributions or companies have the habit of paying teams of developers for specific projects on they are interested (glorious is the case RedHat vs GNOME). Still, it is sad that KDE3 was abandoned by those major Linux distributions.

BUT, KDE3's fans still have a chance offered by Open-Source, as their favorite DE to be maintained. That they themselves pay for the programmers.

So if KDE3's fans are willing to pay programmers, they will be ported KDE3 in Slackware-current, Slackware 13.2, Slackware 14.0, Slackware 15.0, etc..

The question is, how much does it cost the salary of a C++ programmer? Well, in Eastern Europe, you can hire a good programmer with 1,000 euros per month.

Another question is, how many developers have to maintain KDE3?

I myself know very well that Qt3 and KDE3, so I can do a small estimate ...

Porting the current SO toolkit, maintaining: 1-3 full-time programmers.
Porting the current SO toolkit, maintaining and fixing security bugs: 3-20 full-time developers.
Porting the current SO toolkit, maintaining, fixing security bugs, porting to Qt4, replacing KHTML with WebKit, some additional features: 20-100 full-time programmers.

So if in the whole World, 10 KDE3 lovers are willing to pay 100 euros per month, KDE3 will live anemic.

So if in the whole World, 1000 KDE3 lovers are willing to pay 100 euros per month, KDE3 will become one of the most vivid DE.

Dear KDE3 lovers, please do not complain further like a cry-baby. Instead, show you your money or Shut up. Your money have cutting edge sharper than the samurai swords, even in Open-Source.

You don't need to pay, all you have to give is some help to the Trinity Project developers, they are planning to port it to Slackware 13/13.1, but lack the time to do it. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4127474