Updated the ISO today to latest -current, kernel 6.1.7, and included some software updates for gnome which have landed in the repo already. Also added a GNOME 3.38.9 Slackware 15.0-based ISO I made for fun for my personal use on my old hackintosh desktop. It mimics the default Debian ‘bullseye’ GNOME install, and has it’s own repo attached. I’ll put up more information at a later date, I’m pressed for time at the moment. Try it out if you like the faster and stable GNOME experience pre-40+ versions. It includes the latest libreoffice 7.4.4 and some desktop games as well as the Gnome-Flashback optional desktop (X11 only). Don’t expect many updates as 3.38 is EOL but I’ll be adding some more apps to the repo over time. Enjoy!
20230110
Updated the ISO yesterday to include all the latest changes to -current. Kernel 6.1.4 is included this time around! Don’t forget to run “slackpkg update && slackpkg upgrade-all” as root to get the latest repo updates (repo was updated after the ISO so the latest changes weren’t included). Cheers!
20230104
Updated the ISO today to include over 20 missing python dependancies for pika-backup which enable the use of google accounts/services to backup your data to.
Also with the latest -current changes as well today.
20230102
The holiday events are over and things will start to go back into their usual flow soon in the world. And as such, it’s Sunday/Monday, my normal day to update the liveslak ISO. So we’ve got the latest in -current and with that also now the Linux 6.1.2 kernel from testing/ instead of the 5.19.17 still shipping in -current.
I’ve also noticed I’ve skipped over some Python deps for Pika-Backup (but it appears to operate?), I’ll be adding those as soon as I finish creating SlackBuilds for them. It never ends with the Python…
I noticed those deps were missing during my initial porting of nwg-shell to/for Slackware. nwg-shell is a sway/gtk-based shell written in Go and Python, and it’s really nice to work from. Only there are still some bugs I haven’t patched up yet (you can’t shutdown/restart from the menu) and others. But there is a repo up for it for “testing” purposes. If you’re feeling frisky, go ahead and give it a shot. Add the repo to slackpkg+ and see what you think (or what you can break)!
20221227
This weeks slightly delayed because of laziness update brings a new package thanks to Nathanial Russell – Endeavour. Endeavour is a personal task manager application for GNOME. I’ve also added pipewire-jack and it’s deps with scripts from Alien Bob’s repo as requested by rizitis. I’ve also moved the ISO to use the 6.1.1 kernel from testing/ on -current, since I’m sure many would like to try out that kernel on their systems. Here’s a perfectly portable reason to do so! – Happy Holidays!
liveslak 20221219
Because today’s changes/updates were so major, I didn’t have the time to get to some things I wanted to add (there’s always next week). I have a request to add AlienBob’s pipewire-jack scripts, so they’ll likely make it in next week, and a few others if time allows. Get it from the usual spot: here.
Boost update and breaking things…
The -current boost package upgrade yesterday broke many things. If you’re running the liveslak and updated with slackpkg, you’ve likely run into this issue. If you haven’t upgraded packages yet… don’t. I’m working on package updates to safely upgrade the system and I’ll post a new iso with them today. If you happened to download and install the boost upgrade and broke your live system, the only real fix is to wait or remove the boost upgrade manually from your persistence folders (likely more effort than it’s worth).
I’ll be posting some rebuilt packages in the repo as well as a new iso at some point today. Again, sorry if your system broke, I have no way to know when Slackware will ship a system breaking library upgrade, I can only adapt to the changes as soon as time allows and hope many users were not bitten by the changes. The best way is to refresh your usb stick with the new (yet to be posted) iso, or upgrade from cli on an existing iso. In either case, taking care of the persistence folders is important, if one has conflicting files, it will wreak havoc on your system.
42.7 github
Before the liveslak was GNOME 43-centric, it was a GNOME 42 system. With the recent 42.7 release, I have updated a few SlackBuilds on github to coincide with that. I don’t offer up a 42-based iso any longer but if anyone’s following along, or still has that liveslak on a usb, I wonder, should I update the now hidden repo with those updates?
I’ll ponder that instead of actually doing it for a while. But it’s buildable from a 43 running system if anyone is bored and really wants to go deep on homegrown Slackware systems 😉
New extension manager, who dis?
I’ve caught mentions of some fancy new extension-manager for GNOME on Reddit for some time now. This new manager appears to replace the combo of using a Firefox plugin and the Extensions application to manage your extensions. Featuring a interface reminiscent of Cinnamon’s theme installer, you can now search, install, and remove extensions right from within this app. It was built upon the newest tech in GNOME; gtk4 and libadwaita, so it’s sleek and will always match your desktop. It’s been available on flathub for a while now, but I’ve taken the liberty to bring it to our live system natively so it’s shipped as standard for all installations (or usb sticks) now.
I’ll include it on the next ISO build, but for now you can always add it from a root shell with “slackpkg install gcs43” and it should pick up the 4 new packages (blueprint-compiler, extension-manager, libbacktrace, and text-engine) to install on your live system for you.
I’m also looking at a RSS extension to include which will notify users of new package updates right on the system so one doesn’t need to run slackpkg constantly hoping for gnome-boxes to drop (I’ll likely never ship it on this liveslak system).
Outside of keeping up with Slackware and GNOME changes, there isn’t too much more I’d like to add to this, or that I can even think to add to this. A nice graphical installer (calamares?) would be nice, and I’ve looked into it a few times, but the project hasn’t come together for me yet. Including PackageKit would be another dream come true, so the entire system can be managed from within gnome-software (much like Fedora can do), but Slackware doesn’t make use of PackageKit and the support for the distro is left unmaintained and lacking in areas that would likely require a coder with some sort of talents to get that up and going. I’m unfortunately not the man for the job, as those are areas I’m not proficient in. I can build a complete system that is beautiful and complete, but I can’t figure out that mess for the life of me.
It may end up quiet here for the next few weeks with holidays and many, many extra work hours coming my way. But I hope everyone has a chance this holiday to sit down and try this GNOME-based system, and if you do, I’d love some feedback on the experience and what you thought about it, any issues, compliments, complaints… I’ll take em all!
bugs and updates
I know it was short lived, but the epic project name “gnackware” shall be nothing more than a distant memory soon. I didn’t go very deep with the name change, and as a result, it broke local installs of the iso image. So I reverted to the original (and timeless) name of Slackware. I do not wish to customize the OS (outside of providing GNOME). I want it to remain a vanilla install, so users can be assured the Slackware featured here is the same Slackware the rest of us use. And silly names change that.
Outside of that, these new images are currently up to date (and local installs work again!) but I’ve also temporarily removed the kooha package, as it is broken. I hadn’t tested the script here. I just realized I had made this months ago and hadn’t used it in some time. Recent changes seem to have broken it. Kooha will be back when I work out what went wrong.
Cheers!