On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 20:34:44 +0100, jjg wrote:

> Keith Keller wrote:
>
>> On 2005-11-30, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> One thing that would be interesting: to know how many people here
>>> actually use Slackware as their main desktop environment? (Stand up and
>>> be counted...)
>>
>> *stands up*
>>
>> --keith
>>
>
> me too!

Have been for 18 months now... but am seriously considering migrating to
kubuntu

--
Hardware, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked

The best way to get the right answer on usenet is to post the wrong one.

Running Slack 9.0 as primary for over two years now. Use it for
everything except video (too cumbersome on Slack).

Regards,

Marv

Niki Kovacs wrote:
> Hi,
>
> (SNIP)
>
> One thing that would be interesting: to know how many people here actually
> use Slackware as their main desktop environment? (Stand up and be
> counted...)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Niki Kovacs

> On 2005-11-30, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:
>
>> One thing that would be interesting: to know how many people here
>> actually use Slackware as their main desktop environment?

Running 9.1 about two years on first, current, and very expensive wife's
Toshiba laptop. Runs well. No issues. Running 10.1 on an old P4 tower. No
issues.

ANC

On 2005-11-30, notbob <notbob@nothome.com> wrote:
> On 2005-11-30, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:
>
>> One thing that would be interesting: to know how many people here actually
>> use Slackware as their main desktop environment?
>
> 24/7

You use your desktop 24/7?!? When do you sleep?

--keith

--
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://wombat.san-francisco.ca.us/cgi-bin/fom
see X- headers for PGP signature information

On 2005-11-30, Keith Keller <kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us> wrote:

>> 24/7

25/8

nb

Shane wrote:

> Have been for 18 months now... but am seriously considering migrating to
> kubuntu

Have been there recently (Ubuntu 5.04, Kubuntu 5.04, Ubuntu 5.10 Desktop &
Server).

I bet my collection of 10 Ubuntu CDs plus 14 Debian Sarge CDs you'll be back
on Slack in less than a month.

(Try it, though!)

Niki

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On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:08:20 +0100, Niki Kovacs wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm aware that my use of Slackware is not the same as it is for most users
> in this newsgroup. Although I do have one "headless" machine (e. g. an old
> PC without screen, mouse or even keyboard) acting mainly as file and
> printer server as well as connection handler (three machines sharing one
> dialup connectionD), my main use of Slackware is as desktop, which means
> a replacement for Windows XP or Mac OS X.
>

I would be surprised if the majority of this newsgroups readers
didn't use Slackware as a desktop OS on at least one machine.

> What I have now - on the machine I am writing these lines on - is a "full"
> 10.2 install (I always feel a bit frustrated during install, when I choose
> "full" install in the ncurses interface... "full" implying I'm not an
> "expert"...), and then I spend some hours compiling and installing all the
> rest I need to make my machine fully desktop-functional: libdvdcss,
> libdvdread, libgphoto2, gphoto2, mplayer, kaffeine, k3b, k3b-i18n, and the
> list is long....

Very similar situation here. I currently have 174 self-compiled
add-on Slackware packages installed on my laptop. Most are the
things I use regularly: enlightenment WM, sylpheed-claws for email,
mplayer, gtkpod, Eterm, gnumeric, inkscape, gringotts. Others are
newer or patched versions of existing Slackware packages, many are
games or utilities I don't use frequently, but want to have
installed when I need them: fontforge, kismet, ethereal.

> Why I do this by hand? Well, I did try some of the packages from
> linuxpackages.net, as well as those from slacky.it... but more often than
> not, the package was buggy or not working at all. I'm not like one of those
> Gentoo users, feeling like a pro only because I'm watching compile messages
> fly by on the screen for hours and hours... and I'd rather use my time for
> something else. Only, I like things to _work_, and this sometimes means
> rolling up your sleeves and doing things by yourself.

That has been my experience with others' packages too. Library
version conflicts or built with options other than what I would
choose. I find that less time is spent compiling something myself
and packaging it, than I spent troubleshooting why someone else's
packages wasn't working.

> Now I'm seriously thinking about putting together an add-on CD with a series
> of scripts to automate all this. And before doing this, a few more general
> considerations.
>

A collection or repository of up-to-date Slackbuild scripts would be
a welcome addition to the available Slackware resources.

> Compiling vs. packages... AFAIK, Slackware packages are "i486"... does that
> mean that they would run on a 486 (in theory)?

Most are i486, but some (jdk) are i586, and some
(mozilla-thunderbird, xine) are i686. There are even some i386s
still around (xfractint, procmail).

> One thing that would be interesting: to know how many people here actually
> use Slackware as their main desktop environment? (Stand up and be
> counted...)

Slackware is my only desktop environment on my desktop computer and one
laptop. I have another laptop that is dual-boot with WinXP, but is
in Slackware mode 99.9 percent of the time.

Haven't even felt like trying another distro for almost 3 years now,
although I did buy the Linux from Scratch book. If I were to try
another distro it would be LFS, but it would end up being so close to
Slackware that the only point in installing it would be the learning
experience.

Brad


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On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:08:20 +0100, Niki Kovacs wrote:

<snip>

> Another possibility would be to write a script or a series of scripts that
> build all the packages, but simplified and based on the nifty checkinstall
> utility (checkinstall --default --pkgname=$PROGRAM --pkgversion=$VERSION
> and so on, you get the idea).

Interesting, and something I'd help with. I already have a CD with a
collection of the various things I like to add to a default installation,
but it certainly isn't automated. Just a collection of .tgz's, .run's,
and .tar.gz's that I manually install. It would be kind of nice to just
run a script to do it all without further input. One thing to keep in
mind is that the various add-on's need to be continually updated on this
CD, which might make it more work than it's worth... Keep us posted.

> One thing that would be interesting: to know how many people here
> actually use Slackware as their main desktop environment? (Stand up and
> be counted...)

Several desktops, and this laptop, none of which have any other OS on them.

--
If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Linux Registered User #327951

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:08:20 +0100, Niki Kovacs wrote:

> One thing that would be interesting: to know how many people here actually
> use Slackware as their main desktop environment? (Stand up and be
> counted...)

My file server is now Slackware 10.2 serving up files via NFS and Samba.
Was SuSE 8.2 for a LONG time. Just changed 3 weeks ago

My Desktop is a multi-boot with Slackware-current (2.4.31) as the main
desktop which is quickly being overtaken by my fresh install of 10.2 with
the 2.6.13 kernel and Freerock Gnome-2.12.1, SuSE 10, and Windows 2000

I spend 95% of my time at home in Slackware unless I'm doing stuff for
work which is heavy MS Office.

I also have a file with all my "added" tgzs, scripts, tarballs that I add
after installing. Plus a file with saved config files in case I forget
what I did to make something work the way I wanted.

I used to like SuSE and just tried Open SuSE 10.0. I also had Debian
Sarge for a while as well as Ubuntu. I guess I've just become so used to
doing things in Slackware that, while there's really nothing "wrong" with
these distros, they just feel cumbersome (except maybe Debian) - I don't
really know how else to put it. Once I got SuSE installed - took a VERY
long time - I just felt overwhelmed with "stuff". I used to like YaST but
now it seems like an added layer of potential confusion.

I like to try distros to see how others implement things - I don't know a
soul that uses Linux besides me. Being self-taught unfortunately leaves
alot of 'holes" in the knowledge base. I never stay with anything other
than slackware though. If I like something I see elsewhere I just try to
make it work the same way in slack.

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005 16:08:20 +0100, Niki Kovacs <mickey@mouse.com> wrote:

-snip-
>Compiling vs. packages... AFAIK, Slackware packages are "i486"... does that
>mean that they would run on a 486 (in theory)?

Yes. They are compiled such that they only use instructions found on an
80486.

>On a desktop computer, I
>rarely do installs on less than a Pentium III 500 with 128 MB of RAM (I do
>have an old Pentium II 266 running with a very light XFCE, Sylpheed and
>everything, but that's just for experimental purposesD). Anyway... how do
>I go about to optimize packages for recent computers, while at the same
>time being sure that they will run on _every_ recent computer?

This really isn't necessary, in most cases. Recompiling packages to use the
i686 architecture won't buy you much in the way of improved performance, and
will take you a _lot_ of time that you could better expend elsewhere.


Mark Post