Slackware 13.0 RC1 has been released. Or tagged. Or whatever you'd call it in the Slackware world. "The TODO isn't entirely empty here, but it's pretty much down to minor nits, and so we're going to call this release candidate #1 and (mostly) freeze further updates unless they happen to fix problems. Regarding the kernel, 2.6.29.x has been well tested with this userspace and seems like the best choice to ship for production use. Perhaps we can put something else (at least source and configs) in /testing, though."
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2006-01-24
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2009-02-19
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2006-12-05
I'm kind of nervous about the next Slackware, given that it uses KDE4 by default. These days, I'm sure the bugs in the 4 series are mostly minimal, so that's not really my concern, but another problem remains. KDE4 is a *monster* on system resources and in my experience hogs up a lot of memory. Basically, to the point where it's not even usable as an installed OS, let alone a live CD which (by its nature) is heavier. With 256MB of memory, you might as well not even bother with it--that's been my experience. However, Slackware has always tried to be as simple as possible, which leads to its tendency to feel lightweight and fast compared to others. Has anyone tried KDE4 in Slackware vs. KDE4 in, say, Kubuntu/Pardus/etc.?
Member since:2008-10-09
In Slackware, there is no such thing as default window manager. In fact you may choose not to install any window managers at all. All installation is text-based and one of the last questions it asks is what window manager the user prefers. Later this can be changed with xwmconfig.
I for example installed slack 12.2 without any WM then compiled my own XFCE 4.6.0 (Slack 12.2 had 4.4) and used that.
Slack is too modular to complain about resource hogging.
Member since:2009-07-03
Member since:2008-10-09
Used xfce.org dependency list as guide to compile the sources: http://www.xfce.org/documentation/requirements
Also created the slack build scripts to install the compiled modules as slack packages (for removal purposes if needed later). Browse in the slackware source directory to see the available SlackBuild scripts as samples and create your own based on them.
After the scripts are created just run them and the sources are compiled and packaged for installation.
Actually only special thing about those scripts are the fact that 'make install' is called with destdir parameter to install the module to specific directory and them slackware package is created by compressing that directory.
Edited 2009-07-03 16:35 UTC
Member since:2009-07-03
Member since:2006-12-05
Maybe I should clarify myself. By "default," I meant that Slackware, if you choose KDE, now uses KDE4 instead of KDE3. Xfce is good, and if it comes down to it I might just end up using that if I move back to Slack. I just have some serious doubts of KDE4 running well at all on my machine.
I've tried compiling various small programs; some worked, and some didn't, usually because of dependencies. The last thing I would want to do is compile an entire desktop environment. In fact, the last time I did it was actually Xfce, with their fancy GUI "installer" and all. Even after installing a bunch of dependencies, I got nowhere. What fun.
Agreed, but assuming a typical user is used to running KDE3 in Slackware... it seems that either they're going to have to pack their bags and switch window managers, or hope they've got the resources to run its successor.
Member since:2006-11-08
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Dude, since when did I say I *wanted* KDE4? I still have yet to try it--even with a more powerful machine--and come away saying, "man, I like this better than KDE3..." I'm just not impressed, and still would much prefer to run KDE3. Also, not having the money for a new machine is not "refusing" to match hardware. Hardware upgrades? Hah, this thing's honestly not worth putting any more into at this point, except possibly a memory upgrade--but even those are prohibitively expensive with the current conditions. I've already fed it loads of money, and it's just getting flakier.
Edited 2009-07-03 22:18 UTC
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2007-04-26
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That was the main reason of firefox being slower on Linux than other platforms.
I assume you're referring to the following:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_2629_bench...
This performance issue doesn't impact on Linux 2.6.29 and in regards to older kernels, unless you're going to flog the system by doing 12,500 inserts you won't experience any major performance issues. For some reason I don't think the average user using Firefox will be doing 12,500 inserts.
Edited 2009-07-03 16:59 UTC
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2009-02-22
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2009-07-07