Dropline GNOME

. As Slackware has not included GNOME since 2005, Dropline GNOME is an option for Slackware users who wish to use GNOME as their desktops.

Dropline GNOME 2.20.2 was released on December 23rd, 2007 [ [http://www.droplinegnome.org/ dropline GNOME ] ] .

History

Due to developer constraints, the version of GNOME included with Slackware was inferior to that of many other distributions, and was later dropped entirely from the distribution [ [http://www.droplinegnome.net/?page_id=14 dropline GNOME » About dropline GNOME ] ] . Dropline GNOME was created to account for the shortcomings, and managed to fill the void left by this decision.

Todd Kulesza, Dropline GNOME's founder, has retired from further work on it. Dropline GNOME is now being maintained by a small group of volunteers from around the world who build different parts of the system.

Installation system

The primary (and preferred) method for installing Dropline GNOME is by using the Dropline installer--which is itself installed as a package. Once installed, the user then runs the "dropline-installer", makes their package selections, and then the installer downloads and installs the rest of Dropline GNOME [ [http://www.droplinegnome.net/?page_id=6 dropline GNOME » Download ] ] . The installer is similar in appearance to Slackware's "pkgtool" program, which is text-based and menu-driven. One may select which parts of Dropline GNOME one wishes to install and the installer will download the packages, verify them, and then install them. Rather than reinventing the wheel or risking contaminating the system package inventory, the installer invokes Slackware's normal "upgradepkg" utility to do the work of installing each package.

An alternative installation method is to use the Dropline GNOME CD ISO, which contains the installer package and all of the other binary packages that Dropline GNOME includes, alleviating the need for the individual packages to be downloaded from the Internet by the installer application. This greatly reduces the time of installation for dialup users and facilitates installation on machines with no network connection.

Release Cycle

Each minor (second version number) release of GNOME results in a new installer application and package group being released once things have been tested and polished to the package developers' satisfaction. However, subsequent micro (third version number, e.g. from 2.16.1 to 2.16.2) releases of GNOME are typically distributed in the form of individual package updates as source packages are updated, and do not require replacement of the installer package. To ensure that users do not easily fall behind in package updates, Dropline GNOME includes a panel applet to notify users when new packages for their installed release are available for download.

Criticisms

Dropline GNOME has been criticized by some, including Slackware creator Patrick Volkerding, for adding PAM to the system, and for replacing large system files, including the whole X11 system [ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-10.2/ChangeLog.txt] . However, the Dropline GNOME team has discontinued rebuilding X11 as of version 2.16.1. They use the official Slackware packages whenever possible, and publish a list of conflicting packages for each targeted Slackware system/release.

Cases such as the PAM addition are not done without merit, however, as pam_console is an essential component in providing functional automount support via HAL, the GNOME Volume Manager, and other software.

References

External links

* [http://www.droplinegnome.org Official website]
* [http://gnomeslackbuild.org/ GSB: GNOME SlackBuild]
* [http://www.gware.org/ GWARE]