Gnome removed from default slackware

cactus · 2005-03-28 03:49:48

wow..this seems like big news to me.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/28/009237

I don't know how hard it is to package gnome (maybe you gnome maintainers can relay the info), but it must not be "trivial" if pat is dropping it from default slack, and letting the dropline folks do the work for it. I believe he still has kde and xfce in there...

Maybe this will push the gnome devs to making packaging/compilation a bit easier to do..

Comments?

iBertus · 2005-03-28 06:12:12

Maybe he just didn't see the point in making a GNOME package when most people like the dropline tweaked version better. Dropline is a GNOME build taylored for slack, so I could see not wanting to do the same work twice.. It also must show that Pat trusts the dropline devs to do good work. Back when I used slack I always replaced the default GNOME with dropline if I was building a desktop box.

cactus · 2005-03-28 08:06:15

from the slack changelog where the info recently appeared..
http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?cpu=i386

There is also Dropline, of course, which is quite popular. However, due to
their policy of adding PAM and replacing large system packages (like the
entire X11 system) with their own versions, I can't give quite the same sort
of nod to Dropline. Nevertheless, it remains another choice, and it's _your_
system, so I will also mention their project:
http://www.dropline.net/gnome/

zeppelin · 2005-03-28 10:59:02

for those who won't install DropLine GNOME, we should expect more users coming in ArchLinux from Slack.
Pat chose the wrong path IMHO

cactus · 2005-03-28 11:03:20

In all fairness, the above excerpt from the changelog is only in reference to dropline. He did talk about other gnome providers that have better slack integration....read the changelog for more info.

It is an interesting decision. Many distros focus on one environment, like knoppix, mandrake, suse, et al. focusing more on kde; ubuntu, redhat, et al. focusing more on gnome. Still, given slackware's heritage, it will likely be a tough pill for some to swallow.

uselpa · 2005-03-28 11:51:23

Pat once gave 2 major reasons some time ago:

-1- Gnome took much more time to build in a Slack environment; maybe it's due to the fact that Gnome requires kernel 2.6 and PAM, and for Pat 2.6 is still in testing and PAM is crap

-2- he considers Gnome not as stable as KDE, and stability is one of his main selling points.

miqorz · 2005-03-28 16:37:16

If those are his huge goals. Remove X all together.

phrakture · 2005-03-28 16:45:12

miqorz wrote:

If those are his huge goals. Remove X all together.

or just supply the kernel and "sh"

miqorz · 2005-03-28 17:17:37

I think his reasons are a stupid ploy to just cover up the simple idea of personal preference.

Why can't he just say. "This is my distro, I don't like GNOME. Go fuck yourself."

That I would respect.

uselpa · 2005-03-28 17:53:43

While it is certain that the removal of Gnome is his personal choice alone, I believe he has a record of sound technical choices he's made over several years now and Slackware is a mature and highly stable distro.

And although I do not always agree with his choices, I think he deserves a lot of respect for what he has achieved.

That being said, I personally couldn't care less if GNOME is in or not, KDE and XFCE are all I need.

phrakture · 2005-03-28 17:58:47

even though I use neither, gnome is much better than KDE, imho

uselpa · 2005-03-28 18:04:45

From what point of view, then?

phrakture · 2005-03-28 18:08:14

uselpa wrote:

From what point of view, then?

mine

uselpa · 2005-03-28 18:13:09

I see.

miqorz · 2005-03-28 18:19:47

phrakture wrote:

even though I use neither, gnome is much better than KDE, imho

Ditto.

beniro · 2005-03-28 18:44:02

This is rather big news...I can't help but think that maybe the magnificent Slackware is slowly slipping...

But it's a great distro...and there's still Dropline.

Would there be any possibility of packaging Dropline Gnome for Arch? I know there are some similar (and not so similar) elements shared between Slack and Arch. And Dropline professes (or is professed to) possess some of the polish that the default Gnome lacks.

I'm not really proposing anything...just wondering how feasible it would be.

cactus · 2005-03-28 21:25:56

As to the posts that gnome is better than <insert wm here>, it may well be. I still don't like it.

Spatial nautilus. Whether or not it is an improvement on file management is to be seen. The fact that the gnome devs took so long to even make an easily selectable way to disable it, all the while saying, "we know what is best for you, use it and quit whining", really turned me off from gnome.

the scuttlebutt that sun and hp have been trying to improve gnome, and the gnome devs have been slapping them in the face with their efforts to help, also bears consideration,if it is indeed true.

Sounds like gnome devs are too pompous to consider any ideas but their own..
*shrug*

Poprocks · 2005-03-28 23:29:24

cactus wrote:

Sounds like gnome devs are too pompous to consider any ideas but their own..
*shrug*

I don't know about that... And how have they been ignoring Sun? Take a look at that usability study that was done in 2001, by Sun -- pretty much all of their recommendations were implemented around GNOME 2.0 or 2.2.

And I subscribe to a handful of the GNOME mailling lists -- the developers seem to be very open to new suggestions. A menu editor is still not included with GNOME -- but that's not for any pompous reason ("we don't think you need one, therefore you don't") but more a matter of priorities -- applications should add menu entries automagically with .desktop files. However, there is a 3rd-party tool available, and people are in the midst of writing an official one right now.

The developers accept patches all the time too -- I constantly see little patches being committed that have been submitted by casual hackers. So it's not like they operate in a non-FOSS way or anything.

As for spatial vs. navigational... well that is a bit of a pickle isn't it. I personally admire the decision for many personal reasons -- first of all, they've abandoned the idea of Nautilus being a "universal file reader" which is a Good Thing (tm) IMHO. After all, the UNIX philosophy is to do one thing and to do it well. And with the address bar and the navigational buttons... it looked just like a web browser and I bet that was confusing to most users. They jumped in, they made a decision, and while many people may not agree with it, I think it's safe to say that many people do -- GNOME's "market share" seems to have increased substantially in the last 6-8 months or so.

puntmuts · 2005-03-29 00:10:56

This is not big news and was expected. Starting at Slackware 10.1 the gnome support was already gone and dependencies were removed where possible. The version that came with 10.1 was a big laugh (as that Slackware version was too, I have the feeling that it is the worst Slackware version in years). Pat told that compiling, troubleshooting and packaging Gnome was a pain in the butt. So he dropped it.

Dropline Gnome for Slackware sucks. It is way too intrusive and will screw your (Slackware) system, uninstalling is almost impossible.

mezoko · 2005-03-29 00:48:07

Well I was switcher yep main reason I went looking for a new distro
and I found arch

slackhack · 2005-03-29 03:09:34

dropline is awful, please don't bring it into arch. :shock:

i don't like gnome as a wm, but i like using the gnome apps in xfce4 a lot, requiring the libs, etc. they have a much better feel than the kde stuff, imo (which i really can't stand, i think i even prefer XP over kde ). i use slack 10 on my laptop, but after it gets more outdated i'll probably convert that over to arch, too.

once again, not much to say but thank god for arch.

uselpa · 2005-03-29 06:14:23

puntmuts wrote:

The version that came with 10.1 was a big laugh (as that Slackware version was too, I have the feeling that it is the worst Slackware version in years).

Slackware 10.1 runs very well on my boxes, I found no difference in quality and stability from 10.0.

Why do you think it was bad?

Mordrek · 2005-03-29 10:45:25

uselpa wrote:

puntmuts wrote:
The version that came with 10.1 was a big laugh (as that Slackware version was too, I have the feeling that it is the worst Slackware version in years).
Slackware 10.1 runs very well on my boxes, I found no difference in quality and stability from 10.0.
Why do you think it was bad?

I am wondering about that too. I am currently dual-booting Arch and Slackware 10.1, and i am perfectly happy with the Slackware install.

puntmuts · 2005-03-29 12:18:05

My concerns about the new Slackware version are:
- not a new version, but an updated 10.0, even pkgtools were reverted
- no default 2.6 kernel
- 4 days before releasing 10.1 glibc was updated to a new version
- no firefox
- broken gnome packages
- until the 26 of march unsupported/unmaintained, status of security fixes is uncertain
- X.org 6.8.2 release was not included
- apache/php old versions
- ...

So what news does this release bring ? Some updated versions but nothing new, he missed the Xorg release, firefox is not included, php 4 and apache 1.3. The 2.6 kernel was at version 2.6.10 when he released 10.1 and the 2.4 kernel is not active being developped anymore, only fixes. That leaves the impression it was released to soon and has hardly added value compared to 10.0.

My major concerns about Slackware don't have anything to do with the quality of the release, but there are some minor concerns on that as well. A new glibc version 4 days before releasing a new version is rather odd. Or better I find it odd. Together with the impression that it had to come to a release in a short period with limited time/resources without any release candidates could have impact on the quality of the release. So what's the hurry to release this ?

Maybe Pat needs the money. He has serious health problems as we probably all know. But the lack of communication about dropping security fixes for older versions/any version made me aware of the weakness of the Slackware project: it is a one man show. And that has some big advantages as well, but the disadvantages are there too, as we all know. And I can't say communication is a strong point of him.

So I decided to remove Slackware of my machines. I want security fixes and I don't want to do that by myself. Slackware does or does not maintain their versions right now, I don't know.

There are things that need to change before I ever will use Slackware again. And that starts with communication. A mailing list or the website is a good place for that. Not the way it is going right now.

uselpa · 2005-03-29 15:28:24

puntmuts wrote:

My concerns about the new Slackware version are:
- not a new version, but an updated 10.0, even pkgtools were reverted
- no default 2.6 kernel
- X.org 6.8.2 release was not included
- apache/php old versions
- no firefox

To me, these are not really issues. I have no problem with pkgtools as they are, kernel 2.4 is working well, and firefox wasn't in 10.0 so I'm not missing it. It is also readily available from linuxpackages.org.

puntmuts wrote:

- 4 days before releasing 10.1 glibc was updated to a new version
- broken gnome packages
- until the 26 of march unsupported/unmaintained, status of security fixes is uncertain

For the first point, it seems strange, but he obviously knew what he was doing. I have no information of any problem related to that.
For Gnome, as I said, I don't care, and Slackware users who want Gnome have started relying on other projects. I do however agree that if I were a Gnome user, I would not have appreciated this move.
The security issue is a strong point. Although fixed Mozilla packages have appeared last weekend, no one can be sure if security is still looked after in the -stable branch.

puntmuts wrote:

Maybe Pat needs the money. He has serious health problems as we probably all know. But the lack of communication about dropping security fixes for older versions/any version made me aware of the weakness of the Slackware project: it is a one man show. And that has some big advantages as well, but the disadvantages are there too, as we all know. And I can't say communication is a strong point of him.

I fully agree. That is one of the strong points of Arch. There's no way to file a bug or feature request for Slackware, unless you mail Pat and he chooses to respond.

puntmuts wrote:

So I decided to remove Slackware of my machines. I want security fixes and I don't want to do that by myself. Slackware does or does not maintain their versions right now, I don't know.

That seems to me like an over-reaction. If your Slackbox is working well, I'd rather go for a self-made compilation (knowing that the build scripts are provided by Pat) rather than change the distro. This is a major move, and unless you know another distro as well as Slack, this requires preparation and thought. Of course, it also depends on what you do with your machines and how critical they are.

I am currently trying to get to know Arch as well as Slackware. I might then do the move myself. But for now, I'll keep them in parallel.

Anyway, thanks for your long post. It is a very understandable position.

Arch Linux

#1 2005-03-28 03:49:48

Gnome removed from default slackware

#2 2005-03-28 06:12:12

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#3 2005-03-28 08:06:15

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#4 2005-03-28 10:59:02

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#5 2005-03-28 11:03:20

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#6 2005-03-28 11:51:23

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#7 2005-03-28 16:37:16

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#8 2005-03-28 16:45:12

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#9 2005-03-28 17:17:37

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#10 2005-03-28 17:53:43

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#11 2005-03-28 17:58:47

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#12 2005-03-28 18:04:45

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#13 2005-03-28 18:08:14

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#14 2005-03-28 18:13:09

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#15 2005-03-28 18:19:47

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#16 2005-03-28 18:44:02

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#17 2005-03-28 21:25:56

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#18 2005-03-28 23:29:24

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#19 2005-03-29 00:10:56

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#20 2005-03-29 00:48:07

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#21 2005-03-29 03:09:34

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#22 2005-03-29 06:14:23

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#23 2005-03-29 10:45:25

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#24 2005-03-29 12:18:05

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

#25 2005-03-29 15:28:24

Re: Gnome removed from default slackware

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