VL-5.9-STD Bugs/annoyances

[Dweeberkitty]

I think it's fixed now. I found that I was using an older kdebase package (-2vl59). I updated to the -4vl59 package and it seems to be working a lot more stable now.

[JohnB316]

I think it's fixed now. I found that I was using an older kdebase package (-2vl59). I updated to the -4vl59 package and it seems to be working a lot more stable now.

The issue with the kdebase package had nothing to do with the prefix but rather with the sysconfdir setting. For all the kde packages in the 5.9 except for the 2vl59 build of kdebase, the sysconfdir setting was /etc/kde, mainly to allow other kde-based apps built against Slackware-12.0 to install correctly on VL (FWIW, the sysconfdir setting for kdebase-3.5.8-i586-2vl59 was /etc - hence all the crashes, etc.). NTIM, but I did the package building for KDE in VL 5.9 and am confident that all of them work. I'm posting from VL 5.9 STD final using the kde 3.5.8 packages in the VL 5.9 testing repo.

Hope this clears the air,
John

[mr_volvo]

I just wanted to say thanks to all the devs for this. I'm running kde at the moment and it is working like a charm.

[Mihail121-tera]

I just noticed something funny after installing truecrypt and exiftool. It appears that /usr/share/man is not in the MANPATH variable on startup. Just execute 'echo $MANPATH | grep /usr/share' and let yourself be convinced. Hope this would be fixed in the new releases.

[InTheWoods]

I have recently acquired a Toshiba Tecra which I have installed both Vec 5.9 and 5.8 on. Both run well with few problems, but I notice during boot up that APM fails to load with 5.9. It does load with 5.8.

I don't believe APM is required on this laptop as it probably uses ACPI  (see here).

Should I disable it. If so how?

I also have all applications occasionally locking up. The cursor is still movable but I cannot click on anything. Right clicking on the touch pad button usually releases the screen lock.

While typing this in AbiWord and trying to copy and paste between work spaces, one of the AbiWord toolbars appeared on all work spaces. It disappeared when I removed the highlight from the text being copied. This happens every time.

There are a few other small issues but I think most of those are me getting used to 5.9 and this new ( to me ) laptop.

[JohnB316]

I just noticed something funny after installing truecrypt and exiftool. It appears that /usr/share/man is not in the MANPATH variable on startup. Just execute 'echo $MANPATH | grep /usr/share' and let yourself be convinced. Hope this would be fixed in the new releases.

Slackware typically does not include /usr/share/man as part of the MANPATH variable. Patrick V and his crew do their best to put all manpages into /usr/man. Packagers, myself included, need to go through the packages we make and ensure that the manpages end up in /usr/man, either by passing --mandir=/usr/man to the configure script or by just plain moving them there in the post-build package processing for configure scripts that disregard the --mandir=/usr/man argument. Right now, the only package that appears to be putting its man pages in /usr/share/man on my VL 5.9 standard final box is the sg3_utils package.

With that said, I don't see harm in one adding /usr/share/man to the MANPATH variable manually.

HTH a bit,
John

[nubcnubdo]

Has anyone gotten VLC to work in VL 5.9 Std? I installed VLC with Gslapt from VL 5.9 testing repo. Doesn't work.

Code:

vector:/~
user:$ xine /home/user/Desktop/YouTube/vid.flv
This is xine (X11 gui) - a free video player v0.99.5.
(c) 2000-2007 The Xine Team.
vector:/~
user:$ vlc /home/user/Desktop/YouTube/vid.flv
VLC media player 0.8.6d Janus
[00000254] main playlist: nothing to play

Xine plays FLV file, VLC fails.

[Pita]

I just found that in rc.keymap it says:
"The keymaps are in the /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386 directory."
when in fact they are in
/usr/share/kdb/keymaps/i386

Regards

[lucky13]

I've been using Vector 5.9 since December/January, primarily on my old laptop.

1. I ran into an initial problem (no console after killing X) which I resolved (added vgafb16 to rc.modules). While deciding to experiment with different console fonts, I got the following error when attempting to run the setconsolefont script:
/usr/bin/setconsolefont: line 41: $REPLY: ambiguous redirect

I also have Vector 5.9 installed on a partition on one of my desktops and it reports the same error. No big deal because I know how to setfont and had an idea which to try.

2. I set up my wireless (bcm43xx) using vasmCC.
a. Peeve: after asking to check for binary drivers, the file manager dialog opens to /usr/bin. This takes way too long to populate on less endowed computers. Please change it to a default directory that has fewer files (such as $HOME); users whose drivers might actually be found in /usr/bin (I didn't see any there but I also didn't look very hard) can always navigate there without waiting forever for it to respond again to input.
b. Initial setup didn't result in connection, but required rebooting. Then it was flawless (to my great relief because I'd expected to pop the card out and have to find my network adapter card).
c. Once I was again able to see output to console, I found out why the signal light on my wireless router would continue to flash after I shutdown. I finally was able to see that it couldn't find wlan0. This surprised me because my card is set up at eth0.So I looked and found that etc/wireless/interface.conf  listed INTERFACE="wlan0"  instead of "eth0."

These aren't drastic issues but I want to point them out. To me these are tolerable compared to things like bloated icons -- especially in jwmrc -- and high resolution wallpaper. I ended up stripping the icons and recompiling jwm without xft and image support  that really bog it down. Seems I'm recompiling a *lot* of stuff because many packages seem to have been compiled with more interest in features than size or speed.

Which brings up an off-topic question I have after seeing screenshots yesterday. Will Vector Light use the same packages as Vector or a separate less-bloated repository? And what's the difference between Vector and Vector Light other than the former installs xfce with its X package but allows the window managers of the former as options? If that's it, you should just make xfce an option along with the other two window managers so users wanting "light" won't end up with ostensibly the same weighty packages and overhead in their systems when they start installing packages.