just a thought - slack 13

[operator]

hello all beloved slack users,

i'm back today not to post a request of help on technical issues, etc., but rather to hear other user's opinion on the new slack13 -

I have been now playing with it for about a month and it appears to me that slack (or maybe linux) is, kind of, following the rival microsoft in terms of how the GUI looks, the way you open/close programs/icons etc, "magic" funny tricks with application-windows, sidebar-gadgets, etc (by the way, i thought that only teens would find those impressive, but ... even to those experts out there it must get boring after a while with all this waste of resources) - surely, a more appealing GUI could have been designed especially with the new KDE, many of the new packages have lots of bugs (when they should have, instead, improved the old working ones), strengthen the MAJOR and BIGGEST difference from microsoft OSs: The Console.

however, i never doubt its stability and/or its power as a home OS compared to windows vista or the new windows 7, but I believed that linux was trying to conquer microsoft users by proudly showing it's power-differences and not its look-similarities

I must be honest, i have been thinking of reinstalling the previous version, 12.1 as that was as far as I would go

Nevertheless, this is just my humble opinion, and I don't mind reading other people's opinions on this topic

thanks

p.s.: apologies to those who find my comments offensive or inappropriate, perhaps, I need to spend more time with this new slack to get used to the changes

[reed9]

Alright, I'm not a Slackware user, but if I may...

It sounds like your issue is with KDE4 more than Slackware. Now, I primarily use pekwm these days, but I don't hate KDE4. It's come a long way very rapidly from the intial 4.0 release. I think in another couple of major releases, KDE4 will have surpassed KDE3 and if I wanted a full blown desktop, it be would my go to DE before GNOME or XFCE.

I agree that the eye candy right now is too much of a performance hit. A litte eye candy is fine, but it shouldn't be too much of a hog. I'm hoping that will change as kwin matures.

It's unforunate that a lot of distros adopted KDE4 too early, but I'm all for rewriting a project from the ground up, if it means correcting past mistakes or writing cleaner code. I'm fine with the change to GRUB2 for the same reason. One of the things I love about linux is that it doesn't try to cling to old code or maintain backwards compatibility the way Windows does. Open source projects have greater freedom to move forward.

Speaking of freedom, last point, if KDE wants to look like Windows, that's fine. (Although there is an argument that Windows 7 copies from KDE more than the other way round.) A lot of people want their computing environment to be like that, and I'm happy they have the option and the power to choose. Those of us who get annoyed at the bloat have options too. (Seriously, pekwm is great.) There's room for all of us.

Pretty pekwm

[oz]

Lots of users feel that the KDE4 devs have gone for a high level of shininess over practical use, so you aren't alone in feeling that way. If you'd want to consider running Gnome, you can check the following sites for some builds that might work well for you.

GNOME SlackBuild - a GNOME distribution for Slackware Linux
dropline GNOME
GWARE - An unintrusive GNOME Packaged for Slackware Linux

Otherwise, I think Xfce4 also comes on the Slackware 13 DVD if you'd want to try it.

[Freston]

As the others above pointed out, your issue seems more with the swtich to KDE4 than with Slackware itself.

Pat has made KDE3 available for Slackware 13. If you don't install KDE4, it should be a rather big download but also an easy install to put KDE3 back. And if you like the console, maybe you like IceWM? It's very configurable, but without nasty dialogues just plain text config files.

[oz]

Pat has made KDE3 available for Slackware 13. If you don't install KDE4, it should be a rather big download but also an easy install to put KDE3 back.

Thanks for the info... that's good to know and sounds like great option for those that don't like KDE4.

[Freston]

Thanks for the info... that's good to know and sounds like great option for those that don't like KDE4.

Those that don't like KDE4 yet I suppose. I've not lost my faith in KDE, but I'm still at 3.5 at the moment. The 4 series is not stable enough in my experience.

[operator]

thanks for all your inputs guys! it's silly that I hadn't realized my primary issue was KDE and not the actual new slackware!
thnx again