Slint 14.2 beta (64 bit)

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DidierSpaier
Posts: 518
Joined: 20. Jun 2016, 20:15

Slint 14.2 beta (64 bit)

Post by DidierSpaier »

Slint 14.2beta (64 bit) is now up for grab.

tl;dr: http://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2/iso/

As the saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words. Three are provided, but this won't spare you reading a very long post ;)

Actually you will have to follow the links.

http://slint.fr/images/twm_in_Slint.png
Here you see that the Twm windows manager gets a panel (lxpanel) with application launchers, the Slint Control Center from which we headed to the Slint documentation, an xterm, the pcManFM file manager with auto-mounting of removable devices, and access to the usual "places" (including the trash, an applications browser, the devices and the network) and a root menu including an application menu, auto updated and localized thanks to xdgmenumaker, cf. https://github.com/gapan/xdgmenumaker.

The icons on the right of the panel show you that the applets are auto-started in the tray or notification area (after a 5 seconds delay): in this case nm-applet, blueman and hplip.

The last icon on the right is that of salix-update-notifier. This tells us that software updates are available, awaiting to be installed.

http://slint.fr/images/fluxbox_in_Slint.png
In Fluxbox you see the same default background and panel (with a task bar) that includes an auto-updated application menu including the usual applications as in other windows managers. This application menu gives access a Logout (Déconnexion in French) window from where you can also shutdown|restart|suspend|hibernate the system as a regular user.

From the Slint Control Center we started the applications list, the gslapt graphical package manager (a left-click on the salix-update-notifier icon also starts it if you want) and the "preferred applications" widget.

The default applications are Xterm, pcManFM, Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird in Blackbox, Fluxbox, Twm, WindowMaker and Xfce. If e.g. you change the web browser in "preferred applications" this change will occur in all. But you can also make a change for only one WM from its own panel. Pluma is the default text editor.

http://slint.fr/images/lxdm.png
This last pic shows the greeting screen of the lxdm desktop manager (in runlevel 4, in Slackware parlance). The WM or DE that you will have set as default during installation will also be the default for lxdm.

Most of the user interfaces in attached pics are in French. They will be in your language, chosen at end of installation. This stands for Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thuderbird and LibreOffice and many more.

The installer is also polyglot and accessible to blind users through a Braille display, allows to create regular user accounts and to choose the default start-up mode: Console (run level 3) or Graphical (using lxdm, run level 4). Only a full installation is available. You can remove packages afterwards, but this will void you guarantee.

In addition to Slackware's pkgtools, Slint includes tools shipped in Salix for system configuration (packages salixtools and salixtols-gtk) and for packages' management with automatic software updates notification (updates easily applied with "gslapt") and dependency resolution.

You need to initialize the packages database for this to work. As root, just type "slapt-get --add-keys" then "slapt-get -u". Of course this needs a working Internet connection. All these tools: those included in salixtools and also slapt-get, gslapt, sourcery (that build packages from SlackBuilds) and spi have associated (and localized) man pages. spi is a front end to soorcery and slapt-get that can find and install a package and/or build and install one using a SlackBuild provided by https://slackbuilds.org, with dependencies resolution.

Slint includes all packages but most of those in extra/ and those in testing/ from Slackware 14.2 (up to date as of Fri Nov 4 03:31:38 UTC 2016), some adapted to Slint, as well as tools and applications provided and/or hosted by Salix.

Beyond Slackware packages, configuration and packages management tools, you get from Slint out of the box LibreOffice, ClawsMail, the terminal emulators bicon, fbterm and mlterm, the file managers X File Explorer (xfe) and pcManFM, the archive manager engrampa that allows to compress/open/extract archives from PcManFM, the po4a and poedit tools for translators, the doclifter, pandoc and txt2tags documents' format converters, the fontforge font editor, guefi (EFI boot menu editor written by George Vlahavas), inkscape and scribus for graphics, flash plugin, the atril document viewer, zenity (graphical dialog) and other utilities like hardinfo.

It's not enough? To install the Mate desktop just type "slapt-get --install-set mate". Maybe LXDE will come later. For Lumina it's slightly too early in the development process.

The Salix repository for 14.2 includes 711 packages and extra-14.2 2589 packages at time of writing, some shipped in the Slint ISO.

These sources of packages are included by default alongside those for Slint and Slackware repositories in /etc/slap-get/slapt-getrc, hence available through slapt-get, gslapt (its graphical front-end) and spi. And you will be notified of all updates of installed packages coming from the Slint, Slackware, Salix and extra-14.2 repositories.

The repository "extra-14.2" maintained by Salix is fed of packages built by a tool written by George Vlahavas from slackbuilds provided by contributors to https://slackbuilds.org, see this blog post: http://salixos.blogspot.fr/2016/08/our- ... itory.html. This is rather new so if you find missing dependencies please report them.

To know more, follow the links under Information in the Slint Control Center after having installed Slint.

Bugs? Of course! Your mission, if you accept it, is to spot and report them, either in this thread or in this forum.

Some are already known e.g. after having used Fvwm, Twm won't start until you restart the X server.

Beyond fixing bugs, my main tasks to prepare the release candidate is to write documentation and to provide an updated POT file for translators as there are a few more messages to translate.

I will also have to tune the default MIME apps, maybe the default configuration of some windows managers (if one looks weird, please report) and upgrade Fvwm to 2.6.7 as it includes huge enhancements.

The Slint project exists mainly through to the hard work of the Slint translation team and other contributors, thanks to all of you!

Thanks also to George Vlahavas for his advice, tools and invaluable help, and to other member of the Salix team.

Thanks to the contributors to the SlackBuilds.org project, whose work helps building so many additional software.

And of course, the Slint project would not exist without Slackware, brought to us by Patrick J. Volkerding and contributors. Thanks Pat and crew!

As Slint relies on Slackware, I encourage all Slint users to contribute to its funding, and also to donate to the Salix project.

Enjoy!
travis82
Posts: 29
Joined: 17. Jan 2015, 05:48

Re: Slint 14.2 beta (64 bit)

Post by travis82 »

Congratulation Didier
I look forward to try Slint and report the outcome.
DidierSpaier
Posts: 518
Joined: 20. Jun 2016, 20:15

Re: Slint 14.2 beta (64 bit)

Post by DidierSpaier »

I will be glad to receive your feedback Hosein.

I will soon publish a beta2 or release candidate.

Oh, and although not in top of it, making the installer bidi-able is still in my TODO list.
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