thelinuxlink.net

This is a continuation of the "Slack and ATI" thread.
The machine is still the Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook C series (PII 766MHz, 64MB RAM, 6GB HD).

When I run Puppy on this machine the battery lasts a very, very long time (considering the age) and pushing the power button puts it to standby mode very quickly. Getting out of standby to full functions order, including wireless network support, takes about 11 seconds.
I want to get to that same functionality in Slackware. Is there any way to use the puppy settings? Any good resources on getting up to speed on ACPI?

Thanks!

You might want to check out:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_make_ACPI_work
http://slackwiki.org/ACPI_Modules

Also, you could try running PowerTop. This has given my laptop significantly longer battery life.

http://slackbuilds.org/repository/12.1/system/powertop/

Thanks for the info.

I'll give the links whirl this weekend and try to get things set up.

I'll be back with feedback.

I made some progress but got stuck, so I'm baaaaaaaaaaak.

ascpid is running fine and detecting my battery, power button and five power modes. dsmeg gave me all info I needed. I can configure almost everything in KDE but can not find any power management application to run in xfce on Slackware 12.1.
I would like to see the battery charge and put the machine in sleep mode on closing the lid or when the power button is pressed.
Any suggestions?
I compiled battery-applet-4-xfce4, but i does not work (no icon, no settings, no nothing).

Is it possible to have power settings in terminal mode?

Thanks.

This is the last post I make from Slackware. I totally give up on this distribution.

I like the cleanness of it and I did learn heaps from it but I am fed up with having to download and install package after package after package because I want to get one single package running. Yep, the dreaded missing dependency check got me too.

The application that did me in is gcompris. It is depending on heaps of packages and every time I try to compile it it needs something else. Many times those packages need something else too and then some more. I got to four level deep before I could go back up the dependency tree and try to compile gcompris again.
After four evenings of trying to get everything installed I have had enough. I'm switching to something else; most probably Debian.

The moral of the story is though that this very old machine that can barely run Windows 95 can easily run Linux with room to spare. The hard drive is sometimes getting a beating due to the lack of RAM, but by using leaner applications the memory footprint is kept low enough.
Again, the flexibility of Linux is giving me the option and choice to try something else. I love being in control even if it sometimes drives me up the walls.

Debian, here I come .....

BertVK wrote:This is the last post I make from Slackware. I totally give up on this distribution.

I like the cleanness of it and I did learn heaps from it but I am fed up with having to download and install package after package after package because I want to get one single package running. Yep, the dreaded missing dependency check got me too.

The application that did me in is gcompris. It is depending on heaps of packages and every time I try to compile it it needs something else. Many times those packages need something else too and then some more. I got to four level deep before I could go back up the dependency tree and try to compile gcompris again.
After four evenings of trying to get everything installed I have had enough. I'm switching to something else; most probably Debian.

The moral of the story is though that this very old machine that can barely run Windows 95 can easily run Linux with room to spare. The hard drive is sometimes getting a beating due to the lack of RAM, but by using leaner applications the memory footprint is kept low enough.
Again, the flexibility of Linux is giving me the option and choice to try something else. I love being in control even if it sometimes drives me up the walls.

Debian, here I come .....

Slapt-get works great, btw. It's basically the Apt concept on Slackware. Made things a lot easier.

BertVK wrote:This is the last post I make from Slackware. I totally give up on this distribution.

I like the cleanness of it and I did learn heaps from it but I am fed up with having to download and install package after package after package because I want to get one single package running. Yep, the dreaded missing dependency check got me too.

The application that did me in is gcompris. It is depending on heaps of packages and every time I try to compile it it needs something else. Many times those packages need something else too and then some more. I got to four level deep before I could go back up the dependency tree and try to compile gcompris again.
After four evenings of trying to get everything installed I have had enough. I'm switching to something else; most probably Debian.

The moral of the story is though that this very old machine that can barely run Windows 95 can easily run Linux with room to spare. The hard drive is sometimes getting a beating due to the lack of RAM, but by using leaner applications the memory footprint is kept low enough.
Again, the flexibility of Linux is giving me the option and choice to try something else. I love being in control even if it sometimes drives me up the walls.

Debian, here I come .....

When running Slackware, compiling is always my last resort. The first place I check for packages is SlackBuilds.org. They have all the major software that Slackware doesn't ship with. Failing that, LinuxPackages.net and Slacky.it is usually an option.

http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-1 ... ris/8.4.7/

I'm not sure which dependencies it requires, but I'm sure they are available to download from their repository.

Claudio wrote:Slapt-get works great, btw. It's basically the Apt concept on Slackware. Made things a lot easier.

I know about slapt-get, but what would be the reason to stick with Slackware on a destop machine if one would turn the dependency checking back on?

Wally Balljacker wrote:When running Slackware, compiling is always my last resort. The first place I check for packages is SlackBuilds.org. They have all the major software that Slackware doesn't ship with. Failing that, LinuxPackages.net and Slacky.it is usually an option.

http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-1 ... ris/8.4.7/

I'm not sure which dependencies it requires, but I'm sure they are available to download from their repository.

I tried to find tgz packages as much as possible, used Slackbuild as a second choice and if that failed then went to the regular build and checkinstall.
Slackbuilds still compile from source though, they just automate the process.
I used all of the sites you mentioned.

I wanted to get the last version of gcompris working (8.4.7) so had to compile it from source. At one point is was looking for svn, which needed apr-tools, which needed apr. I got stuck on libldap. I could not get that one.

I did love the default setups from Slackware though. I makes setting up a machine a lot easier. But if you have a "play machine" and want to try out different applications, Slackware is just a PITA.

BertVK wrote:

Claudio wrote:Slapt-get works great, btw. It's basically the Apt concept on Slackware. Made things a lot easier.

I know about slapt-get, but what would be the reason to stick with Slackware on a destop machine if one would turn the dependency checking back on?

For me, Slackware is still one of the cleanest and purest distributions out there. Even with slapt-get, I can still enjoy the simplicity of my Slackware installation while having the dependency checking I need for say, something like Ardour. I tried to do it with just the slackbuilds and compiling, but there were so many dependencies that it took an eternity to get Ardour up and running. And what about when it was time to upgrade libraries? I didn't really want to go to EVERY libraries site and download the source or the slackbuild from slackbuilds.org. Slapt-get solved that problem for me.

With slapt-get, I use the official Slackware directory as well as the ones provided by Slacky.eu. I get to have one of my favorite distributions installed while not worrying about the apps I use that need updating.

Claudio wrote:For me, Slackware is still one of the cleanest and purest distributions out there. Even with slapt-get, I can still enjoy the simplicity of my Slackware installation while having the dependency checking I need for say, something like Ardour. I tried to do it with just the slackbuilds and compiling, but there were so many dependencies that it took an eternity to get Ardour up and running. And what about when it was time to upgrade libraries? I didn't really want to go to EVERY libraries site and download the source or the slackbuild from slackbuilds.org. Slapt-get solved that problem for me.

With slapt-get, I use the official Slackware directory as well as the ones provided by Slacky.eu. I get to have one of my favorite distributions installed while not worrying about the apps I use that need updating.

Thanks for your opinion.
What would be your reason not to run Debian?

I ask because I want to try to use one single distribution on every machine in the house, whether it's a server or a desktop. I know Debian can provide me this, even on embedded devices.

BertVK wrote:

Claudio wrote:For me, Slackware is still one of the cleanest and purest distributions out there. Even with slapt-get, I can still enjoy the simplicity of my Slackware installation while having the dependency checking I need for say, something like Ardour. I tried to do it with just the slackbuilds and compiling, but there were so many dependencies that it took an eternity to get Ardour up and running. And what about when it was time to upgrade libraries? I didn't really want to go to EVERY libraries site and download the source or the slackbuild from slackbuilds.org. Slapt-get solved that problem for me.

With slapt-get, I use the official Slackware directory as well as the ones provided by Slacky.eu. I get to have one of my favorite distributions installed while not worrying about the apps I use that need updating.

Thanks for your opinion.
What would be your reason not to run Debian?

I ask because I want to try to use one single distribution on every machine in the house, whether it's a server or a desktop. I know Debian can provide me this, even on embedded devices.

None, really. I love Debian, but I also love the control that Slackware grants me. It also grants me the control to use something like slapt-get if I need to, especially for apps that do require many dependencies such as Ardour and LMMS. I also love the design of the init scripts.....very simple compared to the System V ones in Debian, although I get along fine with those now (but it did take me a while to understand it).

When all else fails, I always turn to Debian. But I just can't give up my Slackware wherever I can run it.

It has been a while since I ran and administered a Slackware machine, but I also remember enjoying the experience a lot. I think I tried it before Slackbuilds was going full steam, so I would probably find the experience even better now. I found most of what I wanted to run at Linuxpackages in those days. I will admit that trying the newest software or latest versions of things was hard if I tried to beat the curve of developers that were making updated packages for Linuxpackages, but I believe that compiling software has never gone as well on any distro than it did on Slackware. I'm on Fedora, but even on Fedora I find myself needing to compile every once in a while, usually to get a printer driver working or to connect to some hardware device.

There must be value in sticking with Slackware even when you add dependency checking because of all the distros that are based off of Slackware these days, it has to be getting close to the number based off of Debian. Wolvix, Ultima, Zenwalk, Vector, Slax, Absolute, Frugalware (adds pacman from Arch), GoblinX, and yes I believe that Puppy now uses Slackware as its base and is compatible with with Slackware packages. All of those are in the top 100 on Distrowatch, and many of them have a great reputation in the community. Personally, I use Slax as a rescue disk to mount hard drives and copy the data to USB drives. I have used Zenwalk in its early days, and installed and enjoyed Wolvix, but unfortunately Wolvix has slowed in updates and has not updated to the lastest 12.1 of Slackware. I believe almost all of these Slackware based distros add some sort of package management with dependency checking. So there must be some good reasons to stick with Slackware and use package management.

Since you did enjoy Slackware so much you might want to consider some of those distros built off of Slackware. However, I would never discourage trying Debian. I believe Debian was the next distro I tried after Slackware, and that worked well for me, but I found quicker and easier help with Fedora. I also have found that Fedora stays so cutting edge that often if I want to try a new program that I hear about on one of the podcasts they often have it in the repo, or there are rpms for the program. So that is why I'm with Fedora. If I had an old computer like the one you are getting up and running, I would be looking to those Slackware based distros, I'm sure.