Impressions after full transition from 14.2 to 15.0
Posted: 15. Sep 2022, 10:37
So, I finished installing 15.0 in all the computers I use myself, or maintain for others. It took me less than I thought it would, because Salix 15.0 installation was quick and flawless in just all the PCs/laptops. Literally zero issues. Performance-wise it's more or less the same as 14.2. At least my benchmarks based on multi-threaded numerical calculations show statistically insignificant difference compared to the results I got with 14.2 - which is what I would expect anyway. It is just a tiny bit slower starting Xfce; on older (but still decent) computers I can clearly see PulseAudio plugin delaying to appear. Ah that PulseAudio thing... at some point I will have to bite the bullet and see how I can get rid of it in favor of Pipeware or just plain old-good ALSA. Some of the software I install from the repos pull Pipeware anyway, so it shouldn't be that hard.
As for the elogind thing, which I am strongly against, I realize there is nothing gapan can realistically do about it once PV hardcoded it to basically everything. So I had to either accept this or leave any Slackware-based distro (and many others). I like Salix plus I know my way around it, so I opted to just accept, very reluctantly, the fact elogind is here now. I don't want to think what the next step PV will take is, but if he goes as far as adopting systemd altogether then the only option for me would be to sadly wave goodbye. We'll see how it goes. Enough "complains", now back to some more remarks.
In general, transition from 14.2 to 15.0 was as smooth as it gets. Default software in "full" is very close to what I wanted it to be. I barely needed to remove anything, and added a lot more from the repos - and I understand very well why they aren't installed by default. I also put my main PC on "heavy duty", with compiling and testing heavy libraries, and even some "heavy" (for my gear) games. Again, Salix did its job just as I expected, within the limits of my hardware (which is nothing to write home about, including my "flagship PC"). It even performed decently with the default Xfce environment on an old laptop with only 1Gb of RAM - but in that case I opted for Openbox since every byte of RAM counts.
Now, some further fine tuning was needed, just because I want as less services as possible to start at boot. For example, part of the software I need to be there is Audacity, Rosegarden, and LMMS. All of them pull PostgreSQL - which would be fine, except PostreSQL is then started by default every time the computer boots. I didn't even need to check because I boot at runlevel 3 and it clearly tells me PostgreSQL is started (it also asks me to take further action as root, to initialize the PostgreSQL database). I will never need that database directly and even the music software I mentioned doesn't need it except in special cases, so I see no reason for PostgreSQL being there active all the time. I easily got rid of the PostgreSQL service starting at boot using servicesetup (or gtkservicesetup). Similar action had to be taken to stop the bluetooth service on a PC that doesn't even have bluetooth, the cups service on a laptop that most probably will never need to connect to a printer, and so on. Minor things, but fine tuning always helps to get the most of my hardware.
All in all, I am quite happy with the result and, again, may thanks to gapan, the core team, and the people who helped.
As for the elogind thing, which I am strongly against, I realize there is nothing gapan can realistically do about it once PV hardcoded it to basically everything. So I had to either accept this or leave any Slackware-based distro (and many others). I like Salix plus I know my way around it, so I opted to just accept, very reluctantly, the fact elogind is here now. I don't want to think what the next step PV will take is, but if he goes as far as adopting systemd altogether then the only option for me would be to sadly wave goodbye. We'll see how it goes. Enough "complains", now back to some more remarks.
In general, transition from 14.2 to 15.0 was as smooth as it gets. Default software in "full" is very close to what I wanted it to be. I barely needed to remove anything, and added a lot more from the repos - and I understand very well why they aren't installed by default. I also put my main PC on "heavy duty", with compiling and testing heavy libraries, and even some "heavy" (for my gear) games. Again, Salix did its job just as I expected, within the limits of my hardware (which is nothing to write home about, including my "flagship PC"). It even performed decently with the default Xfce environment on an old laptop with only 1Gb of RAM - but in that case I opted for Openbox since every byte of RAM counts.
Now, some further fine tuning was needed, just because I want as less services as possible to start at boot. For example, part of the software I need to be there is Audacity, Rosegarden, and LMMS. All of them pull PostgreSQL - which would be fine, except PostreSQL is then started by default every time the computer boots. I didn't even need to check because I boot at runlevel 3 and it clearly tells me PostgreSQL is started (it also asks me to take further action as root, to initialize the PostgreSQL database). I will never need that database directly and even the music software I mentioned doesn't need it except in special cases, so I see no reason for PostgreSQL being there active all the time. I easily got rid of the PostgreSQL service starting at boot using servicesetup (or gtkservicesetup). Similar action had to be taken to stop the bluetooth service on a PC that doesn't even have bluetooth, the cups service on a laptop that most probably will never need to connect to a printer, and so on. Minor things, but fine tuning always helps to get the most of my hardware.
All in all, I am quite happy with the result and, again, may thanks to gapan, the core team, and the people who helped.