On 4/11/25 12:11 PM, William Morder via tde-users wrote:
> Yeah, you know ... I tried Slackware, way back when, and if I were not running
> Devuan or another Debian-type OS, then I would probably move on to Slackware,
> which seems more in the direction I would move ... except, Slackware is just
> a little too much bother for me.
>
> I don't work in the field. I use my machines to do other things in life. When
> I can live somewhere that I have the space, then I would probably have, once
> again, a room dedicated just to my machines, where I could have a test board,
> and various boxes in different stages of building or disrepair, because I do
> like to tinker with them, and I like building Frankensteins out of found
> junk. But not at the moment; I have other, more pressing needs.
>
> Also, in my own opinion, the Trinity ISOs leave much to be desired. I tried
> installing from some of them, 'Buntus and I think some others. (I have most
> of my stuff packed away in storage.) Like I said, once I landed on Debian,
> that was good, but I didn't like the changes to systemd, and the internal
> chaos and controversies among the devs. Maybe Devuan is just as bad, and I
> just haven't heard about it yet? And maybe Devuan will go the same way as
> Debian, then I'll have to find yet another OS. But for now, I am content with
> Devuan.
>
> If you somehow manage to get TDE working with Slackware, I would definitely be
> interested in that, and will keep following your posts. If you create a disc,
> live or installation images, I will also gladly give them a test drive. Nik
> created some discs with TDE and Devuan bundled together, but he uses a flavor
> of Devuan that is unfamiliar to me, and I never could get it working right.
> There might be a few others out there.
>
> If you are already comfortable running Slackware, then I would say that Devuan
> will be like a walk in the park for you.
Thanks for chatting out loud with me. :)
Not that I can't change, but I've been on Slackware for 25 years or so.
At one time I supported Debian systems as an admin, but the move to
systemd left me cold. There are certain things I like to do with my
computers and systemd does not let me do them. I could be naive and
ignorant about those systemd blockers, but Slackware stays out of my way
and I do what I want. If there is one thing I want in an operating
system is to stay out of my way.
I could adapt to Devuan or some other non systemd distro that is well
supported by TDE. But I'm an old guy. While old dogs can learn new
tricks, old dogs always ask, "Why should I bother?"
The problem is not that TDE can't compile and run on Slackware. I am
doing that fine. The problem is the many paper cut issues I keep running
into. I post here and nobody sees the same thing. So is the problem
PEBKAC? Slackware? An oversight in compiling the package? Something else?
I can't ignore that TDE development is mostly Debian/Ubuntu oriented and
everybody else are outliers. When the TDE project began I was heavily
involved and seemed like about every other day I was posting issues with
compiling that Debian/Ubuntu users never thought about. We fixed the
issues, no complaints about that. Only that without a large involvement
of people using other distros everybody outside of Debian/Ubuntu is
fighting the proverbial Sisyphean uphill battle.
I'm not trying to sound bitter. I am frustrated, that's all. My aging
brain doesn't fire like 15 years ago when TDE began. I do a lot to keep
my mind working, but aging slowly wins this deterioration game. Usually
I solve problems but the thinking process now takes me three times
longer. Or more.
I am not discounting that Slackware is designed differently from what
Debian/Ubuntu TDE users expect. That is not really a problem. The
challenge is getting answers to help resolve the differences. And most
Debian/Ubuntu folks don't know the answers and shrug.
Part of my frustration is finding paper cuts and then discovering I
filed bug reports 15 years ago. Discouraging.
I am working on my own build script environment for Slackware. Takes
time though. I don't really have interest or the skills to create a live
ISO or anything like that. There is one person in the Slackware
community who makes robust ISOs, but TDE is not one of the desktop
choices. Likely with enough grunting I could massage that image with
TDE, but that is far down the road and is something younger whiz kids
should tackle.
So I guess I keep plugging away, keep asking questions, and keep filing
bug reports and feature requests. Not much else I can do. :)
As another Slackware user I thank you for that. Thing is, I recently run into unability to use those root-passwords asking windows (in kcontrol's "Administrator mode" for example) but was completely unsure was it my own misconfiguration, or real bug. While Slackware does not have systemd , it still uses polkit, consolekit, PAM .... they make simple tasks harder, but hopefully harder tasks possible!
For now I dance between old Slackware live media I did for myself (not TDE, just kde 3.5.10 + many many patches, including ones from earlier TDE releases) and NetBSD install and chase some other bugs in my unusual systems.
For example I updated Slackware between 14.2 and 15.0 to some state where it had glibc 2.33 and gcc 11.2.0 yet this config bite my x264 build to death, it seems. I reported bug only to discover gcc 5.5.0 and nasm 2.14.02 from AlienBOB were building x264 just fine. x264 uses -O3 by default so probably sensitive to compiler's bugs.