Month: February 2023

20230221

I’ve slowly been going through these packages and running them through the sbo-maintainer-tools, not to prepare them for submission (-current packages cannot be added) but to help me find issues/errors in them. I am maintaining 3 branches of scripts and things tend to get lost in the shuffle. I’ve found some errors and fixed things along the way for a few packages that have been bothering me for some time now. Flatpak should now correctly place it’s shell script in /etc/profile.d (before it always kept the .new suffix), I’ve re-built xdg-desktop-portal-gnome again finally fixing regressions in the package. This package controls the xdg-portals within GNOME mostly for flatpak packages. I’ve updated Epiphany to 43.1 (along with webkit2gtk 2.38.5), and I’ve added Gradience – this application themes GTK4 apps and is becoming very popular. It has a repo of themes and soon will be able to theme gnome-shell as well, for a complete desktop feel. GNOME 43 has settled down and is a bit more stable now than at first, so I figured it’s a good time to add this one. I’ve also set the ISO to enable pipewire by default, which fixes the built-in gnome-shell screen recording functionality. You can now record video on your desktop without configuring pipewire on the ISO. This is not the default in Slackware, and is controlled by some shell scripts in /usr/bin. If you have issues with pipewire, you can disable it by running “pipewire-disable.sh” as root (it’s in your path). Note by enabling pipewire, Flashback/metacity will not operate, you must disable pipewire to use the GNOME Flashback desktop session. I don’t like shipping it in a semi-broken state, but I’ll assume most are not using the Flashback desktop (although I do quite like it), hopefully eventually Metacity will work with pipewire.

Along the way, I’ve removed a few Slackware packages,  mostly ones that interfere with GNOME in some way. easytag is one that no matter the xdg setting, would always pop-up when I wanted to open Nautilus from a notification. Removing it fixes all my woes. I’ve also removed a bunch of legacy apps from the /xap series since the GNOME desktop mostly replaces them.

I’ve also added D-Spy, a d-bus explorer application that will show you what open apps are actively using d-bus services. This is mostly useful for debugging issues with applications, but could prove useful to a slacker.

I’m still submitting packages to SBo for the nwg-shell which I’m trying to get up before the end of the week, so liveslak things will be tapering off for a while. I’m working on the GNOME 43 packages for aarch64, which I’d like to have available before long. GNOME 44 will be out eventually, so that’s coming up, and I’m going to let this simmer for a bit for a change, instead of constantly updating the iso. Enjoy.

 

20230206

Nothing much new this week (yet). I’ve updated the iso with the latest -current and kernel 6.1.9. I haven’t added anything new, but I am considering to remove some Slackware shipped X11 apps. Things like thunderbird, xmms, and other things covered by the GNOME desktop, I may remove to shrink the iso a bit, as it seems to keep growing. Maybe next revision.

I’ve been working on getting scripts for nwg-shell SBo-ready. Which means they have to build on 15.0 and comply with their guidelines. In the end, I’m going to have a way for users to build it locally, a SBo install option will exist, and I’ll have a package repo available as well. This way one can do as they wish to get the software. I know many users want a simple solution, and SBo works for that, so hopefully I’ll finish that work soon. And within the week nwg-shell should be available there as well.

Nothing else cookin’ this week. I need to do my taxes and other fun adult stuff, but I’ll keep doing this and avoid it all, like a seasoned vet 😉

20230201

Changes in the latest GNOME-liveslak ISO are plenty this time around, as I try to fill out missing pieces I’ve skipped over along the way. I’ve added the extra optional “GNOME-Flashback”, Metacity-based throwback Desktop as an option. Select “GNOME-Flashback (Metacity)” from your GDM gear menu to load the Desktop. Metacity will use the current set theme for light/dark mode, and it will pick up your icon set as well. Slackware’s adwaita-icon-theme is missing some icons, as such, I’ve added a re-pack to the repo which fixes this as it effected menus in Flashback. I don’t know if it’s Adwaita to blame or issues with Slackware’s provided package, as I’ve yet to look into it.

I’ve also added “orca” the GNOME screen reader for visually-impaired users. My logs have been cluttered for months complaining this isn’t there when I login, so this should provide a fix for that, as well as making GNOME-liveslak now usable for people with visual impairments. I happen to be visually-impaired, but I can’t say I want my computer to talk to me but I do hope it’s useful for those who need it.

Additionally I’ve added apostrophe, a WYSIWYG markdown editor which I’ve been too lazy to get building for months now. But this is an amazingly useful MD editor and since I’m still planning on moving this site to a MD-based site at some point, this will prove useful to me at least, maybe you as well!

The ISO has been updated with other package updates as well as the latest -current, now on kernel 6.1.8, Firefox 109, gstreamer 1.22 and more. As of today, Slackware has offically updated gjs,mozjs102, and polkit, and I couldn’t be more ecstatic about these changes finally getting in -current! I’m going to continue refining and doing housekeeping as I go, and we already have the 44 Alpha release in our hands so eventually the ISO will be brought to that branch. If you wish to stay on 43, the option will exist as well if you have an installation or just no longer update anything on the ISO. The 43 repo will still receive updates while we work toward 44.

Outside of all this, the nwg-shell repo has seen some updates in preparation for the ability to auto-update nwg-shell on Slackware. There are still a few kinks there, but it’s a very solid DE. I’ll soon have package sets for x86_64 15.0 and for aarch64-current in repos since it’s moved on from being a work-in-progress to a viable desktop option, so look out for those updates soon!