Mad Penguin put up an article with some mockups about a Slackware packager front-end. On other interface news, gTask is a daemon and client library that allows programs to communicate the progress of certain long running operations (e.g. downloading files, printing, etc) to the daemon. Various user interfaces can report on the progress of these tasks to the user. The project created after inspiration of an OSNews article. On yet another interface article, here is what Roberto Alsina
wrote regarding the relationship between free software writers and UI designers.
GUI Slackware Package Management? gTask Intro; UI Editorial
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Whoa thats pretty sleek.
That’s a pretty cool idea. I hope the framework is easy enough to integrate apps with this.
I would install it. It would make slack the perfect distro if it worked well =]
If you need/want a GUI package manager for Slackware, you might as well go with one of the “click and play” distros like Mandrake or Xandros.
This would make a nice front-end for my proposed source install wizard:
http://www.studenter.hb.se/~arch/proposals/siw.html
If you need/want a GUI package manager for Slackware, you might as well go with one of the “click and play” distros like Mandrake or Xandros.
Sheeesh! Got ’em in every group don’t we? Have a feeling Linux would move a long a lot faster if it wasn’t for flow resisters like this one.
If what I’m reading from the author of the first article is true, it’s not so much a package manager for slackware as it is for ALL linuxes… a distro-independent package manager capable of working with RPM, DEB, TGZ, and source that could be used with ANY distro. It started as a Slackware package manager, but I think the author wants to make it more universal.
>>If you need/want a GUI package manager for Slackware, you might as well go with one of the “click and play” distros like Mandrake or Xandros.
> Sheeesh! Got ’em in every group don’t we? Have a feeling Linux would move a long a lot faster if it wasn’t for flow resisters like this one.
I think the point he was trying to make was that if you’re a user who looks for these kinds of things, nice gui interfaces and such, you WOULD be better off looking at something like Xandros or Lindows. Even if Slackware did have a nice gui package management system, it really isn’t as a whole geared towards the new user, which tends to be the type who looks for gui interfaces. (Personally, I’m not a command-line zealot who hates gui’s as a matter of course.) At least in most of the reviews I’ve read of Slackware, they usually make a point about Slack being geared towards the medium or advanced linux users’ distro of choice, in other words, linux users who couldn’t give a damn about how it looks.
i happen to like my light slackware distro…if this is ever made default…i would feel very disappointed. Bloat Bloat Bloat
The sole reason i keep #indows on my HD is to “have a break” from the still somewhat unfriendly/uncertain way(& varying ways for each “flavour”) of installing anything. This ain’t a comment to ignite flames, i just want to go have the best OS on my PC/Mac/Sparcstation/Xbox/Gcube/Mob phone etc. A right I’m happy to pay for.
I don’t mind learning and hard work, but i’d rather put that into the apps themselves, to show people WHAT LINUX CAN REALLY DO!!!!!.
🙂
Kudos to the gtask developers. I hope in the future all gnome applications extensively utilize gtasks’ capabilities. I think gnome needs more small, modular and specialist applications, like gtask, that are inter-operable with other applications and are firmly integrated into the desktop. Gtask is a nice step towards visible desktop and application integration in gnome.
Will it be using dbus for communicating the tasks to a central location? This seems like prime usage of the dbus system
The sole reason i keep #indows on my HD is to “have a break” from the still somewhat unfriendly/uncertain way(& varying ways for each “flavour”) of installing anything.
Yup. A good installer should tell you (at least, if you ask it to) exactly what it’s doing — ie. where it’s getting package files from, where it’s keeping them (if at all), which files it’s copying where, along with a nice log file so if the installer blows up, you can always go back and pick up the pieces by-hand.
That said,.. I’m brand new to Slack, but it seems like its nice simple package system doesn’t even need a GUI wrapper.
If anyone wants a better Slackware, then SuSE is the answer. SuSE was forked from Slackware, but it still maintains underneath a few things from Slack. What Slack would need would be a online update tool (swaret sux), with a front end. It’s not a big deal because it would use upgradepkg. In the front-end it could also be included a package manager.
And if we continue to build up on it, we’ll end up with a YaST clone:)
All these can be donne in Python and PyGTK. Also the front-end can be designed in Glade2 and saved as a XML tree, and then with used with PyGTK.
I thought SuSe was a redhat / rpm based fork?
I don’t understand this thing that SlackWare is not user-friendly and not for new users. For me, the installation of 9.1 is straightforward and, once installed, it just works.
It allows the new user to grow their knowledge in a way that the SuSEs, RedHats and Microsofts of this world do not.
If you’re using Fedora, try using the fedora.us version of apt-get with the GUI front-end called Synaptic. For n00bs, that should be sufficient, and meet the needs of what the author is proposing.
For other distros, like Slack, Gentoo, Arch, etc., most users don’t want or need such things.
> If anyone wants a better Slackware, then SuSE is the answer.<
I’m not even going to dignify that comment with a response.
> If anyone wants a better Slackware, then SuSE is the answer.<
I’m not even going to dignify that comment with a response.
And I’m not even going to dignify your response with a … oh wait. doh!