I'm not a robot.

Introduce yourself, create test postings or talk nonsense
LibreLenny
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by LibreLenny »

Well done for ditching Windows. It will be one of the best decisions you ever made.
ponzu
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by ponzu »

So, I have a couple questions if you don't mind me asking them here (I guess I could open a new thread but they're nothing serious, just me being a noob and too scared to follow random stuff found on my own by googling a bit). :)

1 - How can I make slapt-get list me the stuff I installed myself outside of the programs that came with Salix by default? I read the docs about it but other than using -installed, which lists all the things, I couldn't find anything that might help me.
2 - Kinda related but how does one keep a "system clean" on Salix/Linux? I installed some stuff and then uninstalled it and I'd like to know if they left behind some remnants/letfovers that I don't need and take up space (I have a small SSD on this laptop).
3 - How to backup? Let me explain: since I can't use VMs and live testing is not really optimal as this laptop kinda sucks, if I were to install another distro but then come back to Salix, is it possible to back up my configs for the programs I like and the Xfce settings?
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Papasot
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by Papasot »

Hi ponzu, welcome!
One of the first things people coming from a Window$ background need to understand is that this is not Window$. Most common issues Window$ people are concerned about either don't exist or they don't really matter on GNU/Linux. One of the major ones is the excessive spyware which is built-in on Window$ 10 and became even worse on Window$ 11 - stuff that it's not easy to turn off permanently even with third-party software specifically designed for that purpose. Such issues simply don't exist on GNU/Linux. Other issues like cluttered registry also don't exist. The list goes on forever, so do not assume what concerned you on Window$ would be a problem here as well - in fact, assume the opposite.

ponzu wrote: 5. Oct 2022, 08:27 1 - How can I make slapt-get list me the stuff I installed myself outside of the programs that came with Salix by default? I read the docs about it but other than using -installed, which lists all the things, I couldn't find anything that might help me.
The system does not keep track of what you installed manually from third-party sources - that's your responsibility. However most of third-party software is installed either at /opt (usually "large" software installed as root), or at ~/.local/share (for software you installed without root privileges). The installer you used for each specific external software should tell you where it is about to be installed, but those two directories are the most common ones.
ponzu wrote: 5. Oct 2022, 08:272 - Kinda related but how does one keep a "system clean" on Salix/Linux? I installed some stuff and then uninstalled it and I'd like to know if they left behind some remnants/letfovers that I don't need and take up space (I have a small SSD on this laptop).
Typically, uninstalled software leaves only your configuration files behind. You should find those either at your home directory or, more often, at a specific subdirectory, namely ~/.config. For example, if you installed "rosegarden" and then decided you don't need it anymore, uninstalling it will leave your own settings for this application at ~/.config/rosegardenmusic. Those can be either backed up in case you will need them in the future, or they can be safely deleted otherwise. There is no registry to be polluted with leftovers.
External software you installed manually rarely saves configuration settings at ~/.config. Instead, look at /opt or at ~/.local/share, the same directories mentioned at question [1].
Note that dependency packages pulled while installing a specific package are not uninstalled when you uninstall said package. However if you uninstall a package all packages depending on it will be uninstalled as well. If you are using Gslapt (the graphical package manager), it is a good habit to look at "Packages to be removed" before hitting "Ok".
ponzu wrote: 5. Oct 2022, 08:273 - How to backup? Let me explain: since I can't use VMs and live testing is not really optimal as this laptop kinda sucks, if I were to install another distro but then come back to Salix, is it possible to back up my configs for the programs I like and the Xfce settings?
In a typical setup you just need to backup parts of your home directory, most importantly ~/.config (this includes XFCE settings). But again, you might want to backup the other directories I mentioned above. Backing up is pretty easy with the default file manager (Thunar). Just right-click on the directory you are interested, then pick "Create Archive". Or you can start getting used to the mighty command line and just type in a terminal something like:

Code: Select all

tar -cvzf backup.tgz ~/.config
Another option is to set your home directory at a different partition (Salix installer lets you do this). In that case you don't need to backup anything.
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djemos
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by djemos »

@ponzu
And NEVER remove a package with slapt-get or gslapt will remove tons of packages.
Just remove a package with
sudo spkg -d package-name
DidierSpaier
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by DidierSpaier »

djemos wrote: 8. Oct 2022, 12:30And NEVER remove a package with slapt-get or gslapt will remove tons of packages.
Patch to prevent that, for what it's worth.

As an aside, if I remember correctly this is the kind of feature that made Patrick remove swaret from /extra in Slackware-10.0 :D
ponzu
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by ponzu »

Sorry for the late reply but thank you all for taking the time to explain things to me. 8-)

I've also been trying out Slackware 15 on another (still crappy) laptop and truth be told, I'm liking it a whole lot. Well the ideology behind it that is. I even managed to successfully install and set up OpenRC on it thanks to a very simple YouTube guide but I'm still in the dark about a lot of basic things I'm afraid: for example I edited the config file for neofetch as root because that was the only way I could operate on it. All good. The problem is that when I run neofetch with my regular user, the changes I made are not read. It works if I run it as root though. This will probably cause me issues in other instances as well down the line but I'm not too sure what I'm supposed to do. Is it about sudo not being enabled for my user account? A dude also recommended me to uncomment the wheel group line in visudo but I'm not really sure if that was really necessary, I don't see anything about it on the official Slackware wiki...
Also no matter how many times I run xwmconfig to make XFCE or anything else my desktop of choice, it always boots into KDE and that is kinda annoying because, well, KDE sucks.
So sorry if I'm talking about something that's not Salix here but I really don't know where to ask these noobish questions... :oops:
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mimosa
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by mimosa »

I think Full is the best choice for almost everybody. As said above, you wouldn't save much anyway. And you could end up with a headache because of missing things.

I'd say the other two options are only for experts who have a good reason.

twapake is an excellent utility for keeping track of what you have installed, though it will only work once you have it, that is, it is not retrospective:
https://docs.salixos.org/wiki/Twapake
ponzu
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by ponzu »

Thank you very much mimosa, that looks exactly what I'm looking for. In the meantime I made a simple text file for keeping track of programs (not dependencies though, in Slackware's case) I have installed myself but sometimes I forget to update it... :lol:
miredia
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by miredia »

ponzu wrote: 26. Oct 2022, 20:32 Sorry for the late reply but thank you all for taking the time to explain things to me. 8-)

I've also been trying out Slackware 15 on another (still crappy) laptop and truth be told, I'm liking it a whole lot. ...
Also no matter how many times I run xwmconfig to make XFCE or anything else my desktop of choice, it always boots into KDE and that is kinda annoying because, well, KDE sucks.
I have done what you did but installed 32-bit Slackware, and everything. So it starts up into Plasma, but I don't care anymore because in no other penguin that carries that D.E. I could disable unwanted touchpad response especially scrolling. Sometimes though when I start Slackware it disables the touchpad, and I had disabled "gpm"...

Trust me that XFCE desktop that comes with Slackware looks like that of Void, nowhere near beautiful and unified that Salix has. <3

I'm on a 10-year-old HP laptop with "Sandy Bridge" CPU and slow 500GB internal hard disk. (Should have said this in the thread I started. :roll: )

I don't promote one D.E. over another. I wish XFCE were more configurable. Salix doesn't preserve the screen brightness so when I boot into it, it always sets to brightest which zaps my eyes. I don't like the mouse pointer (like the screen shots in this thread) with the themes this OS comes with, I'd rather have "Adwaita" or something like that with a slightly larger pointer. This is where Void failed me hard, tried to install other themes only to change the austere look and the mouse pointer but it resisted, and it messed around the last three times I updated it. Got tired of it too, wanted Slackware instead, disliked rolling-release not Arch or Arch-based. I prefer MATE, could disable all annoying animations but I dislike sometimes missing icons, slow-performing Caja and Pluma and other things.
Kingpin wrote: 26. Sep 2018, 11:59 Also, there is nothing like Network Manager to detect your Wifi. So you have to input stuff. Seriously, it's the 21st century...
This reminded me of something! I had tried to install Slackware 64-bit with XFCE and this Network Manager was missing! Probably forgot to select it or something. Yeah but I had to tell the "setup" to install "everything" (including KDE Plasma) on the second attempt...
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Papasot
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Re: I'm not a robot.

Post by Papasot »

miredia wrote: 29. Oct 2022, 23:49Trust me that XFCE desktop that comes with Slackware looks like that of Void, nowhere near beautiful and unified that Salix has. <3
You are right, vanilla Slackware, Void, FreeBSD (and probably others) come with a "bare-bones" XFCE desktop by default. However, I don't think they do that because they are lazy, they just prefer not to customize applications in general. I am not sure default XFCE setup looks that bad either.
miredia wrote: 29. Oct 2022, 23:49I don't promote one D.E. over another. I wish XFCE were more configurable. Salix doesn't preserve the screen brightness so when I boot into it, it always sets to brightest which zaps my eyes.
Truth to be told, XFCE is highly customizable - just not as "easily" as others. Instead of clicking on GUIs, you just have to edit some text files.
Salix and XFCE should work well on that machine, but it might be your hardware's driver that causes this "brightness reset" to maximum everytime X starts. I had the same problem in the past with a "Sandy Bridge" GPU. There are many ways to fix this (such as xbrightness, backlight-brightness and others,) but the one that will always work is as follows.
First you need to identify your screen output. Run, in a terminal:

Code: Select all

xrandr --prop | grep "connected"
You should see something like

Code: Select all

LVDS-1 connected primary 1024x600+0+0 ...
What you need is the name before "connected" - in my case that's "LVDS-1", replace as appropriate. Now, you can set the brightness to, say, half the maximum with

Code: Select all

xrandr --output LVDS-1 -- brightness 0.5
Find a brightness level you feel comfortable with. Now you need to tell your WM to execute this command every time it starts. This depends on the WM, but a way that should work no matter what is to put the command above in your ~/.xinitrc. Set it and forget it.
All that without a DM running - I never use DMs so I am not sure if that changes anything.
A pleasant detail in this forum: several people pick a picture of their pet as their avatar. Who am I to do otherwise? ;-)
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