Clearing CheckList

The list of packages that are in SlackBuilds's CheckList is now getting shorter each day. With so many dedicated people are working to clear this list, the progress is amazing.

Big thanks to Ponce, Robby, and David who tracked and fixed most of the packages and merged them back to the SlackBuilds's GIT master so that it will be used when Slackware 14.0 is released and the new branch will be introduced.

Preparation of Slackware 14 in SBo Projects

Usually, when a new Slackware release is coming up, admin in SlackBuilds project are busy testing the packages for the upcoming releases by themselves while the contributors are waiting until the next release and they just submit a patch to make it work on the new release, but i guess that changes now. On the preparation phase for Slackware 14.0, contributors of SBo projects has started to sent bomb of messages to the mailing list about their package status. While most of them are buildable on future Slackware 14.0, some of them are no longer compilable and need more patch or version upgrade. With the original maintainer taking care of this, it should be easier for the admins to make sure the package is ready when Slackware 14.0 gets released. This is how the community works around Slackware Linux Project to make sure it still has good quality control before public users uses them.

Announcing SlackHacks

Today, i wanted to announce SlackHacks, my new repository at GitHub that contains updated SlackBuilds script that i modified to work with Slackware-Current. Some of them are scripts from SlackBuilds Project, but they have newer version and it's working on -Current (which may have different toolchain such as GLIBC and GCC). They also contains several other contents, such as translated SlackBook and SlackBasics in Indonesian language and also some simple bash scripts.

This SlackBuilds repository is more like a simple hack to help Slackware-Current development by providing and testing some SlackBuild script so that they will be ready when next Slackware is released. The content is not permanent as they will be removed once the same version has been published in SBo project or in the Slackware tree. I will just continue to work on newer version that might need some time to get into Slackware or SBo projects.

Playing with GIT

I have started a new GIT repository on GitHub called SlackHacks. It's just created few hours ago and i wanted to use this repository to put my "hacked" SlackBuild that works for Slackware-Current.

Usually, SlackBuild scripts are designed to work with Slackware-Stable, not for Slackware-Current. Unfortunately, the nature changes in -Current looks more interesting for me, because there might be time when new changes in -Current break compatibility with older version and need some "magical touch" aka patches to work with newest version.

As the policy in SlackBuilds required us to submit packages compatible to -Stable only, the only way to provide updates for Slackware-Current users is via third party repository which is outside the SlackBuilds project.

I will also use this repository to learn more about GIT.

Playing With ArchLinux

One of my friend has suggested me to try on ArchLinux since last year (or probably two years ago), but i haven't had time to try that Linux distribution, even though i have heard about it since long time ago. Well, that day is now over as i have successfully installed ArchLinux on my old laptop replacing Fedora 14 which has been installed since last year.

I started to download the latest ISO of ArchLinux which already contains the basic packages needed for minimal installation yesterday and prior installing it, i read some tutorial described on their website. It's very detailed and since i have been using and installing Slackware several times, i didn't have problem understanding it in no time.

So last night, i decided to overwrite Fedora 14 with ArchLinux after i burnt the ISO into a CD and boot with it. It installed without any problem. The key of success was to read the instructions that has been given. I bet you can also do the installation if you know basic knowledge about device naming and have been using Linux before. Since it was basic installation, it ended up without no X, no KDE/GNOME, no fancy apps, etc. It's just a plain shell with some basic utilities.

First thing i did was to configure the network as it's the primary means of updating my systems. I finally use my cable to connect my laptop to my D-Link wireless router and start installing several packages, starting from XOrg, KDE/GNOME, and many other packages i need for daily activities. Somehow, GNOME wasn't working on my laptop, so i decided to threw it away. I'm already used to KDE and it worked out-of-the-box on my laptop, so i'm using it. I'm also comfortable with it.

So far, i'm quite impressed with ArchLinux. It boots very fast (i can have my login prompt under 10s in 1.5 GHz Intel Pentium M processor and 1 GB of RAM) and it's very stable (just like in Slackware). Since ArchLinux and Slackware share similar philosophy, i have no problem adapting to ArchLinux's way. There are some differences between ArchLinux and Slackware, but i get the main idea.

One of the biggest difference is the package management tool. Pacman is like apt-get in Ubuntu. It can help users to resolve dependencies during new package installation, but sometimes it could be a problem as well, since it could bloat the system just because it's linked to other libraries and packages, so even if you don't need that library/application, you still need to install them just because it's part of other package dependencies.

I must admit that i really like how bleeding-edge ArchLinux is. Their repository is very up to date and i could get new update everytime i ran pacman -Syu on my terminal (let's say once per hour). Since they use a rolling-release model, it's natural for them to have the up-to-date packages on their repository so fast. For most of their users, it's no big deal, but for someone who isn't used to it, it could be a problem as users (we) are responsible for our own system. If you do full system upgrade, you must be prepare that the upgrade process could break your machine. No one can predict that from happening.

Lucky for you, ArchLinux has (probably) one of the best documentation on their Wiki page. Everything you need to know about ArchLinux including their package details is already written there. All you need to do is search and read it.

ArchLinux also has AUR (ArchLinux User Repository) which works like SlackBuilds project. It provides users with a PKGBUILDs script that could compile a source code into ArchLinux's native format (tar.gz).

Even though i like ArchLinux, i never said that i would leave Slackware and move to ArchLinux. Slackware will still be my favorite distro and probably i will add ArchLinux to be my second one.

Wesnoth Progress

It's been two months since the last development version of Wesnoth, a free, turn-based tactical strategy game with a high fantasy theme, featuring both single-player, and online/hotseat multiplayer combat. Usually they release a new development release each month, but until today, i still haven't seen any public progress on their website.

I have been waiting for the next 2.0 release as i'm also the current maintainer for Wesnoth for SlackBuilds. If it's possible, i want to make sure Wesnoth 2.0 is buildable on Slackware 13.1 and also in the next Slackware 13.37 release. Meanwhile, please grab the 1.8.5 version on SlackBuilds. You can also try to use the same SlackBuild to compile 1.9.4, the latest development version, but you need to comment one line that is the patch required for 1.8.4 for libpng. It's no longer used for 1.9.4 as the patch has been included in the codebase.

patch -p1 < $CWD/wesnoth-libpng-1.4.0.patch

Switching to QTwitter

For few months, i have been using TwitterFox (now Echofon) to update and manage my Twitter account. I don't have problem with Echofon at all in the past, until i upgraded my Firefox to 3.6 and since then i have problem with it.

Whenever i wanted to reply a tweet from my follower, i couldn't write anything after i clicked on the reply icon. I have close the Echofon window and reopen it again, tab the End key to move the cursor to the end and start writing my replies. This is very annoying for me, so i started to find several other Twitter client, until finally i saw an email from SlackBuilds mailing list about QTwitter, a new Twitter client which work on Slackware.

I download the source and also the SlackBuilds script and install it without any problem and after trying to authorize my account several times (it's not quite stable for me), i managed to make it work and now, i love it. It works like a widget, so you can just put it on your desktop and it will start grabbing updates from friends you followed.

I would recommend this application if you are looking for a Twitter client application.