Hook up with Zenwalk

[blurymind]

collaboration would definatelly make both vector and zenwalk more powerful.
I think we should welcome the perspectives of it and what it could bring... but for a merging both distros will have to do some changes and thats something that should be talked between their core developers and leaders in a private or public matter.

having one repo will bring better and more packages,that are updated and controlled by many more people.
It is a good idea,but again,vector wouldnt take a step away from papa slack...

Zenwalk comunity is very active and has many good graphic designers,packagers and devs...We could use their help if they offer it.

[rbistolfi]

Err... I meant what I said literally, which is that it really is a cool idea to have a huge, well maintained, common repo for Slackware distros. I know personally how hard it is to keep a properly organized repo with little manpower ...

  Sorry Joe, was a long day  . I was thinking on the same direction. The advantage of a common repo are ovious, more packagers for everybody, more packages for the users. I think is the better place to start a colaborative aproach. Linuxpackages is already working like a common repo... I guess many of the things needed are already there. Linux and slack based distros needs to have some standards in minor places, just to start.

PS: hard work, short manpower, few devs. Still the best distro  Imagine what can be done from there.

[easuter]

I guess one of the first "obstacles" would be whether or not they are prepared to adopt LZMA compression for their packages, because I don't think thats something VL will ever drop...

[rbistolfi]

I guess one of the first "obstacles" would be whether or not they are prepared to adopt LZMA compression for their packages, because I don't think thats something VL will ever drop...

of course, is time for other distros to follow vector in some things... debian based included

[The Headacher]

Zenwalk seems to use

Code:

CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i486 -mtune=i686"

and --prefix=/usr. If we would build packages for both distro's we'd probably want to use i486 too.

An interesting question what you'd have to use as a packaging box. Now it's easy, a clean install of VL standard.

If you want to create packages that'll work on most Slack derivatives, there's only one thing to do: build it on Slack with Slack CFLAGs. Upload the packages to slacky.it or linuxpackages.net. That way you'll give back to Slack as well.

[nubcnubdo]

One accidental effect of joining forces could be that curious Zenwalk users would be inclined to dabble in VectorLinux, and that might be all it takes to make a convert.

[Don't tell Jean-Philippe! This message will self-destruct in two days, Mr. Phelps.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMDV-73J30

P.S. Zenwalk just released Zenserver 0.5
http://www.zenwalk.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=57

[metvas]

Hello All:
Lets not get to far ahead of ourselves right now on this issue. we need all our precious resources at the VL table right now to complete what is already in development. The Debian commonality repos etc. is at least 3 years old now or thereabouts. Few folks even know about it. This will require carefull planning and development. It is a project to perhaps begin to look at and idea storm for now anyway.
regards
Darrell

[The Headacher]

AFAIC this is just that: an idea storm. I don't want VL to merge with Zenwalk, I'm not even sure sharing repo's with other Slack derivatives like Zenwalk would work out well (or at all). As I mentioned earlier, it might even make  sense to package on and for Slack, then be glad it works on VL too. Heck, when I get back my laptop I'm just going to do this .

[incognu]

Yeah, this is just kicking ideas around.

Re packing for Slack instead of VL: a little ambivalence here.  Good to give back, but what about the CFLAGs and performance?

I know some people (particularly those using distros set to i386 flags) claim optimising for i686, i586 etc gives no performance boost to speak of, but I'm not so sure of that.

Again, just kicking ideas around, I can see a "hot-slack" repository, with the packages built at least with -O2 -march=i486 -mtune=i686 and better, with our own -O2 -mtune=i686 -march=i586

edit: 'doh, just poking around in slack source packages and found "-O2 -march=i486 -mtune=i686" used.

[rbistolfi]

Of course, this is just a ligth talk. About the packaging box, I read a thread about making a packaging structure without the need of a full install (I think with chroot or something like that). May be this can be done: a bash script will setup a packaging enviroment folowing some standards. Just a command needs to be executed to setup the propers vars. Of course, the setup needs to be compatible with all the distros involved. The script will ensure all the pack boxes has the same setup.

[nubcnubdo]

Shuttleworth has a plan to coordinate collaboration between distros with a common forum, a forum specifically dedicated to the collaboration.

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS8470376604.html

We could have a Slackware-derivative forum for:
VectorLinux
Zenwalk
Wolvix
Ultima
Absolute
Frugalware
GoblinX

But I bet such a forum would be the birthplace of yet another Slackware distro. LOL

Maybe there could be a common forum between just Zenwalk and VL.

Or, VL and ZW could co-sponsor an extra complementary section in each other's forum. With good linking, it would be like having common forums. Zenwalk uses the same SMF forum software, doesnt it? Hmm

[Pita]

I can't even get Zenwalk to connect to the Internet. And be careful, in their forum there are some edgy characters.

As for me, no thank you Zenwalk.

[nubcnubdo]

I can't even get Zenwalk to connect to the Internet.

I had that problem too. Never got the NIC to work.

EDIT: I am seeing that ZW Forum is moderated with one finger on the Ban Button.

[Colonel Panic]

I can't even get Zenwalk to connect to the Internet.

I had that problem too. Never got the NIC to work.

EDIT: I am seeing that ZW Forum is moderated with one finger on the Ban Button.

As I said elsewhere the setup needs work, there's no option for computers with no network card so I was being endlessly returned to the beginning network setup screen. I can't remember how I got out of it.

Pity, because I thought the Zenwalk desktop was elegant. I think ZW's got a lot of promise but I don't think we should be joining forces with their team.

Ultima's another matter, it's a promising distro which has (by its own admission) installation issues. Maybe something could happen there.

[nubcnubdo]

This is an illuminating thread from Zenwalk:

http://support.zenwalk.org/index.php/topic,6533.0.html

Here's a suggested solution to the problem you had with network setup:

I think the installer needs minor tweaking all right, but not all the way to GUI.

Each "sub-step" in the process needs a "next" button so it's clear how to jump to the next step - and a "back" button so you're not hosed if you miss something.

As is, you go into each sub-module and then pop back out when done with "ESC".  Not very common, and can lead to accidentally skipping steps.  Several people report accidentally setting runlevel to 3 (CLI only) - I managed that too.

From my reading, I gather that there definitely is no consensus between ZW Forum members for Zenwalk to be newbie friendly.