Salix Forums

Greetings all,

As a Slackware user with an interest in extending that system more usable and palatable for non-technical users, I have been asked to join this forum. Howdy and good day!

Whenever I test Salix I will be doing so from two perspectives:

1. To help ensure backwards compatibility with the stock Slackware.

2. Testing as most non-technical people might use a computer rather than as an experienced computer user.

Non-technical people do not think like us computer folks and I think that perspective is important to develop a usable and robust computer operating system. We computer folks tend to take a lot for granted when using computers.

My role in the first perspective is subject matter familiarity. My role in the second perspective is presuming ignorance (lack of knowledge). My primary interest is improving and extending Slackware to be more palatable for non-technical users.

I have a lot of experience working with and observing non-technical computer users. I hope I don't frustrate the Salix developers too much in that respect. I hope I can provide value to the Salix developers.

I will be posting some questions and suggestions in the appropriate forum sections.

Thanks much.

Darrell Anderson

Welcome Darrell

woodsman wrote:1. To help ensure backwards compatibility with the stock Slackware.

2. Testing as most non-technical people might use a computer rather than as an experienced computer user.

1. Yes, is is indeed always needed.
2. Good, too. But remember that we want to simplify things for Slackware users, but we don't aim to be a Slackware based Ubuntu.

Welcome Darrel!

A Slackware-based Ubuntu. Oh my.

sudo, sudo, sudo....

No thanks.

Perhaps I misunderstand your mission with Salix. Is your goal to provide only some tweaks that enhance Slackware but you still expect Salix users to be command line gurus? Are you trying to provide an operating system that is almost entirely point-and-click? Do you expect users to build packages? Who is your target audience?

If you know my history then you know that whenever I discuss graphical enhancements at LQ, the die-hard Slackers awaken and start defending the so-called "Slackware Way."

I took notice to Salix because of the additional graphical tools and the desire to keep Salix backwards compatible with Slackware.

The traditional Slackware user is, in certain ways, a masochist. I say this partly in jest because I have used Slackware for several years. I use the terminal dozens of times a day. I write shell scripts. I use command line tools like rsync and rsnapshot to maintain my system. So in a way I'm a masochist too --- if I measure my computer usage to non-computer people.

Yet I have been around computers for three decades. Much of what I do in the command line seems natural to me. Such tasks are not only unnatural to many users today, they are downright frightening.

I keep yearning for enhancements that would encourage me to install Slackware for my non-technical friends and associates. I'll never install a stock Slackware for any of them because none of those people are computer people. Ask such people to use the command line? Never. Ask them to read a man page instead of selecting the Help menu? Unlikely ever to happen.

How much of the "Slackware Way" do you expect Salix users to embrace? Perhaps that will help me better understand Salix so as not to consume or waste developer time with requests that never will be well received.

I speak mainly for myself but:

1. Using the command line sometimes (with few commands) is not harder than anything else to learn. I have proof of this, even for girls.
2. We also try to keep things as simple as possible. Things must not be hidden or difficult to access because of a willing to simplify for dummies/newbies. The KISS principle.
3. In this way, having only a graphical way to do things is not wanted at all.

Keeping this in mind, graphical tools could be built to simplify things even for newbies or dummies. No problem for me and I appreciate it, sometimes even for me.

woodsman wrote:Perhaps I misunderstand your mission with Salix. Is your goal to provide only some tweaks that enhance Slackware but you still expect Salix users to be command line gurus?

No. Definitely not.

The "full" installation mode is intended for users that want to have all everyday common functionality right there after installation: browse the web, watch videos, listen to music, write a letter etc. All of those, and most administrative tasks can be accomplished using a gui. However, a line needs to be drawn at some point. For example, there can be no easy way to setup an apache web server. The user would need to get his hands dirty. The "full" installation mode does not exclude more advanced users though, for example I always want a full installation anyway.

The "basic" installation mode is completely different. It is intended for advanced users that want to start with a basic xfce environment and add whatever they want on top of it. Most administrative tasks can still be accomplished by a GUI.

The "core" installation mode is intended for advanced users too. They start with the absolute minimum and expected to know how to build their system to whatever purpose, be it for desktop usage, server usage or anything. slapt-get is included and helps with installing additional software.

woodsman wrote:Are you trying to provide an operating system that is almost entirely point-and-click?

Yes. For the most part this is possible and already a fact (for the "full" installation mode anyway). However, advanced uses require advanced users. Not everything can be accomplished through a GUI. And there are tasks that can be accomplished a lot easier by using the command line.

woodsman wrote:Do you expect users to build packages?

No. Not if they don't want to.

woodsman wrote:Who is your target audience?

I would say that the minimum requirement is users that are open-minded and can at least follow simple instructions. Different installation modes target different kinds of users though as explained above.

woodsman wrote:If you know my history then you know that whenever I discuss graphical enhancements at LQ, the die-hard Slackers awaken and start defending the so-called "Slackware Way."

I don't agree with what those die-hard slackware users call the "Slackware way" either. They usually just mean "do everything the hard way".

woodsman wrote:How much of the "Slackware Way" do you expect Salix users to embrace?

As much as they want to really. Almost everything can already be accomplished without reverting to command line usage. Anyone is welcome to dig deeper though, the slackware design makes it very easy to learn more if you want to.

woodsman wrote:Perhaps that will help me better understand Salix so as not to consume or waste developer time with requests that never will be well received.

Requests or suggestions are always well received. But maybe it will not be always possible to get adopted.

Welcome Darrel

As far as I'm concerned I see a utility which is often especially at first glance much more useful and easier than cli utilities. I don't mind having them though. For example I used localeconfig for ages not caring which files it actually touches and only recently when I faced a misbehaviour potentially caused by it, checked its source to find that file.
But the more familiar I come to cli, the more I use it. For many tasks it just much faster and more flexible. Is there any gui equivalent to bash or ffmpeg yet?
I also almost exclusively use slapt-get not gslapt, because I don't want to fire up a whole gui everytime and alreadly know which package I want to install. For searching a package or unecessary packages, I noticed that gslapt is more efficient though.
Finally I also see the point that most non-technical users are just too scared of those black'n white screens with text all over the screen. Probably it's the media image of a hacker. Although even this "task" becomes graphical nowadays.

All in all I look upon GUIs as utilities which add aditional abstraction and make it easy to use software without any special background knowledge and potentially help in acquiring it. Although personally many of those utilities can become limiting and some point whereas others stay (partly) useful. I wouldn't write a simple essay with LaTeX, I probably wouldn't write most stuff with it, because I hardly gain more control but have to sacrifice too much of my time for a slightly better, if even, result.

As long as GUI utilities don't limit you, are KISS and potentially time saving (also referring to the time potentially needed for learning the "die hard slacker way"), I'm by no means against them.

gapan,

I have just installed Salix on my old Toshiba laptop today using the full installation option and I can confirm that your aims have been met.

I have no familiarity with Slackware apart from a brief play with Zenwalk a few years ago, yet I now have a full-featured system set up and working well without once having to use the command line. Having used Linux for five years now I am of course used to the CLI but I, like many others I suspect, have come to expect a GUI for standard tasks.

Slackware itself has a reputation for difficulty and I am not interested in investing the time required to learn and operate such a system "the hard way". The same applies to Gentoo, Arch and a few others. Whilst I may get some piece of software to open a second quicker by compiling it myself, how many times would I have to do that to get back the many hours invested in learning how to compile it?

In the two hours I have been using it I am impressed with Salix: it has so far worked flawlessly and it looks good. This machine is very old and slow (Pentium III 646MHz, 320MB RAM, S3 Savage VGA, Yamaha DS-1S audio) but Salix configured everything correctly without any input from me. Online access is through a D-Link USB dongle that requires the rt73 driver which again was automatically set up with my network detected. All I had to do was work out which of the WEP encryption options to use and enter the password.

I don't know if standard Slackware would have installed as easily as Salix as I've never used it, but from what I've read of Slackware I doubt it.

Having said all that, I would like to learn a little more about slapt and slapt-get in particular, and Slackware in general. Can anyone suggest some reading for me?

Nda

Hi nda and welcome!

The best place to start with learning more about slapt-get is the slapt-get manpage (run man slapt-get) and the slapt-get FAQ: http://software.jaos.org/git/slapt-get/plain/FAQ.html

If you want to learn more about slackware and how to dig deeper into it, the slackbook is definitely worth a read: http://www.slackbook.org/

gapan,

Many thanks for those two links; they were exactly what I was looking for.

Nda