SalixOS 15.0RC1

Hi!

It feels like for.ev.er since Slackware updated to 15 from 14.2, and even lonnnnnger since it’s awesome Xfce derivative was updated. But I’m pleased to announce that “Linux for Lazy Slackers” has released Release Candidate 1 of SalixOS 15.0! Read the announcement here. It is available in both 64-bit and 32-bit ISOs, both systemd-free, lightweight, and they work with the usual mind-bending speed users have come to expect.

Newest Xfce desktop with Whisker menu, flatpak-enabled, choose between Lilo and Grub, vast software repositories bigger than any previous for Salix! SalixOS 15.0 RC1 boasts the new Qogir icon theme and some new features.

Sourcery is gone, but hopefully not forever. In the meantime there’s the wicked-kewl slapt-src tool, but it’ll probably rarely be needed now that SalixOS offers flatpaks.

Screenshots courtesy of “Gaucho.” There is a cool dark theme called “Dracula” and some different light and dark themes to choose from.

It’s Xfce, so infinitely configurable of course, and easily so. The top photo is the “Full” version as it appears on first boot.

One of the testers, who apparently would rather use Ubuntu, Zorin, Elementary, or Mint to read her posts, has suggested all kindsa add-ons and features that the big one-size-fits-all distros use. The backlash against that is nearly universal, thankfully. Add all the bling you want in a few clicks, for cry’n out loud, but the Keep It Simple mantra, and the one-application-per-task philosophy that has served Slackware and SalixOS so well for so long remains popular with the niche of users Salix is aiming for: Lazy Slackers. But not irresponsible ones who are loath to open a terminal window for any reason.

Development has been deliberately slow and steady, both for the usual quality of getting things right early and for a shortage of testers. But “Gapan,” the project lead, has devoted countless hours to it. He’s in the forums frequently and takes suggestions happily and speedily. Needed changes find their way to the repos often the same day they are requested or suggested in the forums, and instructions posted.

Whoever the heck over at Distrowatch ever suggested that this project is “dormant” needs to repent in dust and ashes, say three Hail Gapans and at least three Our Salixes as penance for such blasphemy!

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Salix Xfce 15.0RC1

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gapan

Salix Wizard Posts: 5919 Joined: 6. Jun 2009, 17:40

Salix Xfce 15.0RC1

• Quote

Post by gapan » 8. Aug 2022, 00:17

Hi all!

Finally, here is 15.0RC1! I know it took a lot of time, but we’re very close to the final release now. With any luck, there will be no show-stopping bugs with this and we can release it in a few days as final.

A lot of work has been done in the repos since the beta. We now host almost everything that exists in SBo as binary packages! There is still a little bit of work do be done, but we now have several thousands of packages ready for installation. Our repositories for 15.0 alone are bigger than all previous Salix releases combined! Add to that the ability to install software through flatpak and there will be no shortage of software for 15.0!

Few other things have changes since the beta, one that is immediately obvious after installation is that the traditional applications menu has now been replaced by whiskermenu. Lots of other fixes here and there, the default GTK theme is now “Salix” and the default icon theme, Qogir, has received several fixes.

If you’re updating from a beta installation and you don’t want to reinstall, make sure you run something like this:

Code: Select all

sudo slapt-get -u sudo slapt-get -i spkg sudo slapt-get -i slapt-get sudo spkg -d qogir-icon-theme sudo rm -rf /usr/share/icons/Qogir* # for good measure sudo slapt-get -i qogir-icon-theme sudo slapt-get --upgrade

There won’t be any breaking changes like this from now on.

Please install and report anything that comes up!

Salix64 Xfce 15.0RC1 (64-bit, x86_64)
(md5: 34065908a1c9f73bf0afe3fc506e62e2, size: 1.4GB)
https://downloads.sourceforge.net/proje … 5.0RC1.iso

Salix Xfce 15.0RC1 (32-bit, i586/i686)
(md5: 34a36deb0fa2e949023ecac5768b656e, size: 1.4GB)
https://downloads.sourceforge.net/proje … 5.0RC1.iso

(64bit iso has been uploaded already, 32bit iso being uploaded as I’m posting, should be ready in ~15 mins)

Thanks for testing!

Top

SalixOS 15 Beta

Hardly the “dead project” that some people wrongly assumed, Slackware-based SalixOS, which I have posted on before, is still n Beta development and not yet suitable for “mission-critical” use on the desktop. SalixOS attempts to make Slackware suitable for intermediate-level Linux desktop users, with some sweet GUI tools and such. It’s “Linux for Lazy Slackers.”

I think that packaging is going to be a big deal with the new Salix. Appimages and Flatpaks may be the way to go, at least for now, since Sourcery is obsolete now and gslapt-get doesn’t work nearly as well now as it always did in Salix 14.2. Theming breaks the simplest of apps, and it’s trial-and-error to get things working as they should. Even Micro$oft Winblows does a better job of running open-source apps like LibreOffice, believe it or not. SalixOS is definitely not ready for prime time, but then it doesn’t claim to be. Theming, especially if you like dark themes as I do, is still a big problem so far.

My current daily driver remains my own highly-modified Xfce version of antiX, with it’s wicked-kewl tool set and it’s complete absence of twisted systemd and Pulseaudio crap “there as a necessary dependency for other applications but otherwise but not used.” Why fill up the hard drive with all that?

It’s the same issue with Flatpaks, appimages, and snaps on Slackware/SalixOS. Flatpaks and appimages fill up the hard drive with libraries that aren’t shared by all the apps that depend on them. It’s fine if you have a 500-zillion terabit hard drive, but come on already. If the old Slackware philosophy of one application per task remains in effect, but applications don’t share libraries or dependencies, what the heck! I say one library per app is not in keeping with one app per task. Wasted disk space on an aging hard drive is not a good practice. That said, I think that if gsplat-get catches up in Slack/Salix to be like what it was in the previous stable version, Salix will be awesome. So here’s hoping.

With gratitude for those who can handle the testing, and for the careful devs who create and maintain both Slackware and SalixOS, hats off. I salute you!

YESSSS!

It was not easy to do on Salix like it was on just about every other Linux distro I’ve ever installed. Underneath the friendly “Linux for Lazy Slackers” is Slackware, after all. Second only to Gentoo or Arch “from scratch” in level of difficulty for an ordinary mortal. Much less a technophobe. But I did it. Somehow.

YESSSSS!

I got the icon set and themes I wanted that were not in the repositories, and the Brave browser (also not in the repositories and without resolution from Slackbuilds using Sourcery, the very cool Salix tool that builds Slackware packages). I actually found it in another Slackware-compatible third-party repository and unpacked it and installed from the command line. Imagine li’l ol’ me using the command line for anything! Much less making and installing software from outside my distro’s own repositories. And no, not like from just adding some high-risk dumbass PPA for Ubuntu either.

And I think that’s the point in using a Slackware-based Linux distribution. You really can’t help but “learn Linux” just from using it as an ordinary casual user. Yet another good reason to use it.

Likely to Be my Permanent – and my Only – Linux OS

This one bears repeating even though it’s a couple of years old now. I must have had a flash of common sense once, but then soon wandered off. And look where I ended up – right back here again!  So I’m changing the date of this post just to show ehere I keep coming back to.

I have kept Linux Lite and MX-Linux around for a long while, mostly to help introduce new users to Linux. Many of them got started because the Microsoft OS they were used to is such a freakin’ resource-hog that you have to buy a new computer every three years or so just to keep up! Why let a perfectly good working machine go to the landfill because Micro$oft has decided not to support it anymore, right? So, Linux to the rescue, right?

Nope, not nearly as much as it ought to be. A trip to the Swap Shop finds a dozen or so vendors offering refurbished computers for $40 or so, but they still have Windows and they’re slower than snails. When I used to brag about how Linux could make them run better than new, and without any need for the dreaded terminal, I won a few “converts,” and a few more by cleaning up and donating old computers with a lightweight “newbie-friendly” distro pre-installed. Of allllllll those people I helped, guess how many are still using Linux?

One. Just one. As far as I know, anyway, we lost touch when I moved away. So maybe none! All of them – and we’re only talking a dozen or so – have since traded up to new computers and – one guess – they’re Windows or Mac.

So, my OS is gonna be for ME, not for anyone else. Not to “show off” to others in hopes of winning them over; not on my computer so I can walk others through the steps of configuring, fixing, tweaking, and installing software. Not for the coolest, awesomest, most thrilling visual effects and eye candy I used to care about. No more of that now… my ‘puter is my own, and it’s just for me, and it’s gonna be what I want: Blazing fast, graphical, simple, uncomplicated, and basic. No systemd. No bloat. Nothing I don’t need or want. One application per task, faithful to the old Unix ideal, quaint and outdated as that might seem to others who like the bleeding edge, eye candy, and super gaming capability. Does anyone know of a Linux distro that offers just that, without all the busy bovine excrement that has to be included in the OS just to make this-or-that other thing work that you actually want? One that is still supported and up-to-date without the instability of the Big Major desktop distros? I can think of one. It’s an old faithful standby that has kept my ancient spare 32-bit Dell out of the landfill for over a year now, with no issues. And it’s mind-bending fast on my higher-end 64-bit desktop and laptop.

I’m so disheartened by the fact that all my enthusiasm, “evangelism,” and newbie support for Linux hasn’t actually changed anyone’s mind for more than a temporary short period, that I think I’m pretty much done with all that now. I’ve got better things to use my computer for than just writing about computers, OSes, software, and why these things should matter to people. In fact they don’t matter to most people, and desktops and laptops have largely been replaced by smart phones and tablets now anyway. You like your Chromebook? Cool. Does it matter to most people that it’s Linux-based? Prob’ly not. Does it matter that it’s a Google gadget and it’s likely spying on you and reporting back to the Mother Ship for targeted ads and to predict what you’re likely to spend money on and where you go every day? Apparently not.

Well, it matters to me. And to maybe 2% of all desktop computer users on Earth. The other 98% are content to be carried along, captive to a single vendor and subject to it’s whims. Fine, fools.

I’m moving on.

SalixOS, Revisited

The exact opposite of my friend Orca who loves the bleeding-edge, rolling-release, high-drama, I-dare-you stuff, I want my operating system and software to be rock-solid, super-stable, tried-and-true, old-reliable almost-never-updated (because updates break stuff, especially in those bleeding-edge, rolling-release systems). I’m a simple user, and simple is good. I still couldn’t resist a peek at Artix, though, the Arch-based systemd-free spinoff. A short peek. Nice! But scary for a technophobe. Suprisingly simple to install.

SalixOS, however, was not so simple to install and set up. It was needlessly complicated by an obsolete repository (easily prevented by issuing a point release that is possible to update without having to search the rarely-used forums for a solution). Neither the Wiki nor the User Guide has been updated in a lonnnnnng time.

Repository Mirror to the Rescue

Right in the System menu is the solution: Labeled, “Repository Mirror,” it looks around the Interwebz (that’s how the cool kids spell it, right?) for current repositories and mirrors that are running. I even found one very close to where I live! Once refreshed, updating in adding a few favorite softwares was easy. My old favorite showed up then, too. Seamonkey, now non-Mozilla (in spite of all the Moz references) so probably safe to use. I replaced Firefox and ClawsMail with my old favorite.

Salix comes in different flavors, but most of the big changes in the last couple of years aren’t there, since this is based on Slackware 14.2 (stable). The upcoming 15.0 will offer KDE-Plasma, Xfce 14.6 with all the cool GTK3 stuff. But all that new stuff is still “Beta” in the Slackware world. So wha’d’y’think that says about the legendary Slackware stability? To me says, “Made especially for Robin.”

And like the logo says, it’s “Linux for the Lazy Slacker.” Absolutely made especially for Robin, because it’s simple, got the cool toolbox you would never find in Slackware where everything is as challenging and geeky as they can make it. When Slackware 15 comes out, Salix 15 will follow quickly upon it, as they are already testing the new stuff. That one is called “Slackel,” and it’s kinda sorta like “Beta Salix.” I guess you could say like Debian Testing and Debian Stable, both Slackware and Salix have testing and stable releases too. Slackel is the more up-to-date stuff with it’s attendant risk, however minimal, while Salix is the “especially made for Robin” stuff because it’s rock-stable and proven reliable over centuries of time. Wellll, maybe not centuries, but y’knowhatimean.

After PCLinuxOS pissed me off to such a severe degree, conscience (sort of) demanded a change in my OS. This one was a little familiar because I’d toyed with it before. It was also good because it’s systemd-free, which means it’s not logging and journaling and keeping track of every little freakin’ keystroke and mouse gesture. And it’s true to the good ol’ Linux philosophy, “Do One Thing (and do it well).” Salix certainly does that, and the one-application-per-task rule keeps it lightweight and easy to manage. Long may it live.

A Great Review of SalixOS

Hi everyone! Here is a great review of SalixOS for responsible users. The reason I’m looking into this again is that my beloved MX-Linux, based on Debian Stable, may not be able to avoid systemd once Debian Buster is released (MX is based on Debian Stable). And there are plenty of good reasons to avoid systemd, even for us ordinary non-technical folks who just want a reliable OS that doesn’t spy on us and report back to the Mother Ship and stuff, as systemd does (didjya know it’s linked to Google!?!), journaling and logging everything!

It’s probably totally unrealistic of me to hope for, but just imagine if MX-Linux (which has been at the top of Distrowatch for awhile) got together with SalixOS (which is ranked even below server-only distros, unbelievably). Maybe the Salix devs could teach MX how to get around systemd in spite of Debian’s efforts to make it impossible, and MX could teach SalixOS about the supercool tool set that makes it so awesome. Both distros have the same mission: To make Linux manageable for us ordinary casual users, while avoiding the instability, unpredictability, and bloat of the popular “newbie” distros.

Yup, probably totally unrealistic of me to even wish for such a thing. But I suspect that SalixOS will be inheriting a lot of new users once MX-19 comes around, if they are unable to avoid systemd.

A Totally Boring Operating System

Tinkerers on Linux like excitement. They enjoy messing with a distro until it breaks, then learning how to fix it. They like testing new updates, new software, new ways of doing ordinary things.

Developers, testers, experimenters – thank God for them – love that stuff. I say thank God for them because if it weren’t for all the wonderful geeks that do the scary stuff, trying out the new versions of stuff, coming up with cool ideas and making sure they work, the rest of us would be on the phone to tech support all the time, searching the forums for answers to new issues and better ways to fix old ones.

But for this technophobic sidekick, a positively boring OS is lots better! It’s stable, reliable, stays out of my way and lets me get my work done, and with no surprises, no interruptions, no random mysterious malfunctions. I bet I speak for the majority of computer users, too. Unfortunately most of them are still using Windows just because that’s “what came with the computer” and they either don’t know there are alternatives or they’re not aware of how easy it is to change their OS.

I have a wonderful, totally boring operating system on my old 32-bit desktop – just the way I like it.

I also have, on a spare 64-bit laptop, a more exciting one: Rolling-release, a little more techno-drama to challenge my inner geek, yet popular with beginners, and systemd-free. It dual-boots with another systemd-free favorite of mine that is every bit as boring as the old desktop.

All three are awesome.

It’s hard to pick a favorite from among these wonderful Linux mixtures. So much so that I’m stuck with all three of them! I suppose if I had to choose only one, it would be Linux Lite, but not without the added – and not officially supported – additions that help make it so wonderfully boring.

SalixOS doesn’t need any such safety features as the Mint Updater (adapted for Linux Lite by the venerable and talented “Ralphy” from unlockforus.com), because updates simply don’t break it. It’s Slackware! Legendary stability, ultra-long-term support. Salix is “friendly” enough, but better for experienced users than for newcomers to Linux. It’s Linux “for Lazy Slackers,” a phrase coined from the common term for Slackware users – “Slackers.”

If I ever get wildly paranoid of systemd again, Salix is where I would run to for safety, I think, rather than PCLinuxOS, because it’s Xfce by default and design, based on and fully compatible with it’s parent, so you get these vast repositories of awesomeness and some cool tools for compiling your own favorites. I even have “MintStick” in my Salix! It’s rolling-release kinda sorta, but not quite the all-or-nothing update methodology of PCLinuxOS.

• For beginners, I recommend Linux Mint.
• For beginners with modest hardware, I recommend Linux Lite with modifications I have described in a few posts here.
• For beginners who want to explore and learn about this wonderful world of Linux, I recommend PCLinuxOS without reservations.
• For experienced users with older to modern hardware who like stability and simplicity, I recommend Salix without reservation.

I’m enjoying the best of Linux with these three distros!

Better Mozilla Replacements

Last month I wrote about replacing all the Mozilla stuff on my computer, as a kinda-sorta protest against their stupid, purely political decision to fire their CEO because he dared to hold and dared to express a politically incorrect opinion about gay “marriage.” I love the Mozilla products, especially Seamonkey – the wonderful Internet Suite risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the Netscape project. I was hoping to find an equal replacement for Seamonkey that is entirely free and open-source. I tried out a few and settled on two awesome applications that not only give me everything Seamonkey did, but with less demand on system resources.

My browser is Xfce’s own wonderful ultralight browser, Midori. It can “identify” as any browser you wish, has built-in and customizable “add-on” options like Ad Blocker (which I don’t use, by the way, perhaps more on that later). It used to crash inexplicably all the time. Now it’s rock-stable on Linux Lite, Xubuntu, and SalixOS.

KMail

KMail is a sweet little KDE application that does almost everything quickly and simply, but it doesn’t allow for embedding images while composing HTML messages. That’s it’s only drawback – that and, of course, all the KDE dependencies that come with it when trying to install it in Linux Lite (Xfce desktop environment). Very nice, but not as full-featured as Thunderbird or Seamonkey just because of the Composer.

Geary / Pantheon-Mail

Pantheon-Mail is ElementaryOS’ own fork of the little Gnome e-mail client called Geary. I found absolutely no difference between the two at all, installing Geary from the Ubuntu repositories and Pantheon-Mail from ElementaryOS’ PPA. Both seem identical to me. The only difference was the default icon for the Xfce Panel, and the absence of any icons for certain options in Pantheon-Mail. Why fork a good project just to change it’s name? I found no difference whatsoever in my week-long comparison of the two. Neither has a proper Address Book, but depend on gathered addresses from incoming and outgoing e-mail. Rich Text is available but without any choice of font – just the default font and size, and the only rich-text options are color, Bold, Italics, Strikethrough, and Underline.

I didn’t even bother with the very popular and supposedly “full-featured” email clients Claws-Mail and Slypheed. I didn’t bother because neither has a mail composer that offers anything but plain text. It’s possible to write HTML messages, but you have to add a whole ‘nother application, an external editor. Hey I’m just a simple little sidekick, still scared of “complicated” software, and I prefer to keep things simple. For those who are aware of HTML’s “risks” and prefer only plain text, these two are very popular in the Linux world.

Evolution

I guess I have avoided this one for so long because of it’s association with Novell, a big office software company. But it’s FOSS, released under the GPL license, officially a Gnome project distributed by Novell (whatever that means, I got my copy from the repository, lol). Not available in Slackware or Salix because there’s just no Gnome stuff available for Slackware users, it is absolutely awesome. Full HTML composing using a Thunderbird-like WYSIWYG editor (oh, that’s “What You See Is What You Get”) and a truly super-cool interface, friendly enough for a little, mildly technophobic sidekick.

That’s the options available in the Composer window. Actually more options than Seamonkey offers, believe it or not. This post is being composed and published entirely via email, which is simply the way I prefer to do it when I can. Perhaps a leftover habit from back when we were on dial-up Internet and I did all my reading and writing offline anyway using an e-mail client (Eudora on Windows, then Thunderbird on Linux, and now Evolution (on Linux but not available as a Slackware package or Slack-build). When I’m ready I’ll test them out on Void Linux and write about it!

Sticking With Salix!

Well this is certainly unexpected! The first time I tried Salix, it refused to boot after an update, and I was like, “I’m done. I thought ‘borked by an update’ was uniquely a Debian/Ubuntu phenomenon until now. Screw this.”

What an ignorant and impatient fool I was. When an update includes a kernel update, you also have to update your bootloader to load the new kernel. That’s what I did wrong, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own, for not reading the instructions and assuming far too much. Typical, perhaps, of a technophobic user playing with a Slackware derivative for the first time after using almost exclusively Ubuntu-based distros previously. I was used to being spoon-fed and giving the operating system too much automation. Simplicity does not mean “everything happens automagically and you don’t have to do anything but click Okay.” The user is responsible for knowing what the heck he or she is doing!

Salix tells me what my choices might mean during installation and updates, and when it refused to boot after I made a stupid decision, I should have known. Silly spoon-fed Ubuntu user and Slackware rookie.

But y’know what? I think I’m just gonna leave Salix on my old ancient relic desktop computer for good. I’m probably all done messing around with other distros, at least on this particular computer. Here are my reasons:

It’s Slackware-based and fully compatible with it’s parent distro, unlike most of the other Slackware-based “lightweight” distros. This means it has Slackware’s legendary stability and reliability, and ultra-mega-super-duper-uber-long-term support.

It’s super simple! In keeping with the whole Slackware philosophy – and Linux philosophy, for that matter. One application per task. Do one thing and do it well. Stay the heck out of the user’s way.

It’s systemd-free. I know, before you jump all over me about it, I’ve read all the debates and I think I’ve probably never personally had any issues with systemd, except that even my beloved Xubuntu began to slow down over time (almost like “Windows rot”) and had to be rebooted regularly just to refresh it and dump cache and stuff. It didn’t do that before Ubuntu (and thus Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint, and all their derivatives and spin-offs and remixes) adopted systemd, so I wonder if that might be part of the reason. The “one ring to rule them all” feature of systemd is counter to the “do one thing and do it well” principle that has made Linux so awesome to begin with (until recently). I don’t reboot Salix. I don’t need to. Could systemd be the reason? I don’t know, but it sure is nice not to have the gradual loss of speed over time that I experienced with Xubu and other old favorites.

Yeah, he’s talking to systemd.

Salix doesn’t include kernel updates by default. Why should they? The installed kernel works fine, it’s secure, and my computer doesn’t need support for all kindsa features it doesn’t even have. It ain’t broke, no need to fix anything. The only thing I change is the wallpaper occasionally, or fonts and stuff. It’s perfectly boring, as it should be.

My distro-hopper-stopper is Salix.

I haven’t tried it on the laptop yet, but that’s another post for another day.

Round Two: A Technophobe Tries SalixOS Again

I didn’t even mean to do it! All I wanted was to try it on a Live USB stick, just to see what’s new with Salix since Slackware 14.2 came out. Slackware is the oldest Linux distro there is, and is known to be rock-solid stable, but not for newbies to Linux – and certainly not for technophobic users who just want a ready-out-of-the-box distro that doesn’t require a bunch of setup and tweaking to make it functional. It has some big advantages though:

No systemd being one of the big ones, although opinions on that vary greatly of course. “Do one thing and do it well” is a Linux philosophy that has made Linux awesome, and systemd runs completely counter to it, and many users of the major distros that depend on systemd have found it to be a resource-hogging daemon that imposes itself on every process from boot-up to launching applications. “One ring to rule them all” doesn’t agree with not conform to the keep-it-simple rule that even the geekiest and nerdiest of Slackware users (hereafter called “Slackers”) try to stick to.

Another advantage (again, in my opinion) is ultra-long-term support. Much earlier editions of Slackware are still supported. It’s rock-stable and reliable for many years. In the case of an ancient relic of a computer that isn’t even upgradable anymore hardware-wise, Slackware won’t become obsolete and require an upgrade or reinstall to keep a perfectly good old computer out of the landfill for hopefully (but by no means guaranteed) 3 to 5 years. Even my beloved Xubuntu and LXLE are outrunning this old heap. I still recommend them for newbies and people with newer hardware than mine (it’s an abacus compared to anything built in the last 10 years). But I’m all about making this old relic last as long as I possibly can, just for fun, and I don’t want to limit myself to Debian and Ubuntu-based distros.

But this isn’t a review of Slackware. This is SalixOS – a Slackware spin-off that remains fully compatible with it’s parent distro. Other Slackware derivatives like Vector Linux and Zenwalk are meant more for newbies and users that want that out-of-the-box readiness where everything “just works.” But to get there they need to distance themselves from their parent, kinda like Ubuntu has done from Debian. If I was to describe SalixOS in a single sentence, it might be “SalixOS is Slackware with automated dependency resolution and some cool tools for compiling and installing software from source.” The developer calls it as a distro “for lazy Slackers.” Sounds perfect!

Anyway, I didn’t start out intending to install it, just revisit it in a Live environment to see what has changed. I really liked it before, and only quit using it because one day it just refused to boot at all and even a reinstallation didn’t fix it.  Now that turned out to be simply a matter of updating the bootloader to a new kernel. Anyway I accidentally downloaded an installation iso instead of a “LiveCD” of Salix. But once I loaded I figured, “what the heck, this should only take about 30 minutes anyway.” WRONG. It took less than half that time! Badda-bing badda boom, done in under 15 minutes. And that’s including the time it took to figure out that graphical-but-not-for-new-users installer.

Three modes of installation are available. Being a technophobe, I installed “everything,” which really isn’t very much. That’s because the one-application-per-task philosophy doesn’t double up on a bunch of applications that do the same job. SalixOS is available in multiple flavors, but being an Xfce fanboy I installed the Xfce flavor and “full” install. You can download a minimal version with just a CLI to completely customize it. But that’s a really geeky option, certainly scary for a technophobe. My gosh, y’all, it’s Slackware and that’s scary enough! But I might have chosen “Basic,” and had Xfce and some GUI tools. So even with “Full” installation and that not-so-newbie-friendly installer, it still took mere minutes to completely install. That’s the fastest install in the history of ever, I think.

It was definitely not ready “out-of-the-box” for instant use though. But look, cool, Seamonkey is in the Slackware repository! And installing it using the gslapt GUI is as easy as Synaptic Package Manager is in the Debian/Ubuntu-based distros. But the biggest deal and coolest feature of Salix is the automatic dependency resolution that Debian and Ubuntu users take for granted but which most Slackers don’t even want. But simple technophobes need it and depend on it! I’d rather be a “lazy Slacker” than forego the advantages of Slackware altogether. You can choose a repository mirror near you, anywhere in the entire universe. That is done during installation, which is pretty cool. I installed my favorite Internet suite effortlessly in mere seconds. No adding the Ubuntuzilla PPA and going through all that rigmarole to get a single application. Simplicity! That’s why I like Xfce. And it’s also why the Slackware philosophy (one app per task) and the Linux philosophy (do one thing and do it well) appeal to me.

Y’want an app that’s not in the repos? No problem. Salix’s other cool tool can compile and install it right from the source code! This wonderful geeky application is another super awesome feature of SalixOS! I couldn’t find my old favorite icon themes in the repos, but Sourcery found them and installed them automagically!

So very cool. Again, no need to add a PPA just for an icon set to jazz up my Xfce desktop without adding “weight” to it. I was always warned about adding PPAs in Xubuntu, and LXLE is slap full of extra PPAs for everything from Mozilla stuff to the latest versions of LibreOffice. Probably not a good idea for brand-newbies who would have no idea what to with issues caused by all those extra PPAs. LXLE does get props for having a PPA Manager in LXLE, but I wouldn’t think a newbie would know what to do with it. In Salix there’s no need for PPAs, much less the need to manage an overabundance of them.

The only glitch this time was no sound at startup. Easily fixed by adding Pulseaudio and ALSA to the startup menu – again, and awesomely for a user scared of the terminal, graphically!

However, I did have to create a file a file using Leafpad in /home/user, named “asoundrc”. It simply reads:

pcm.!default {
type hw
card 1
}

ctl.!default {
type hw
card 1
}

Credit for that goes to “Jdemos” who posted it in the Salix forums here.

Here’s the system services menu.  Pulseaudio and ALSA were not ticked.

Maybe it should have been enabled by default at installation, but this is Slackware after all. Simple, not more than the user really needs. I just ticked the services I wanted enabled on startup and un-ticked stuff like Bluetooth and Wireless that I never use on this old relic.

It’s Xfce! Infinitely configurable and beautiful, and best of all, simple enough for little old me.

Today is only Day Three since installation (during Hurricane Matthew, so I had enough time on my hands to play a little), but rebooting, suspension, and all that have been trouble-free so far. I haven’t decided whether or not to keep it, but unless I have an issue like last time, I’m likely to just leave it in place.

UPDATE:  This system is gorgeous, simple, and fast!  The Slackware repositories are vast, akin to Debian’s, and whatever you don’t find in there can probably be compiled and installed using Salix’s awesome Sourcery tool.  Day 7 and it’s effortless and trouble free after multiple reboots (thunderstorms and stuff around here, so I shut down to protect this old relic) and updates.

My simple, beautiful Xfce desktop with cool SalixOS wallpaper

Thanks for reading!