Xfce-4.6.0 for Slackware

Xfce 4.6.0 has released, and as expected, it's wonderful.
As usual, I've got a package for the latest stable release of Slackware - it's in the usual place.

Xfce 4.6

Xfce 4.6 is due to release within the next couple of months, and as everyone knows, I'm a big fan of the Xfce desktop environment. I've been using a subversion checkout for several weeks now, and as expected, it's more of the same - in other words, it's exactly what we've come to expect of the Xfce developers: fast, attractive, and stable.

In case anyone running -current wants to give it a try, I've just pushed some packages to http://xfce46.rlworkman.net along with a few selected "goodies" compiled against it. Be sure to check out the xfce4-power-manager addon; it's a much needed and long awaited addition to Xfce, and was written by a Slackware user too :-)

Lots of updates

PiterPUNK has released updated packages and sources of udev-104 and sysvinit-2.86 for testing on Slackware 11.0 - nearly identical packages are also hosted here.

I've released updated packages of Xfce-4.4rc2 with vte split from the main package; you will need to install the vte package after upgrading to the new Xfce package. If you were using the Xfce package built against dbus and dbus-glib, it's been removed - the Xfce /testing package now requires all of dbus, dbus-glib, and gamin (plus the common dependency of vte), so be sure to get all of those if you want all of the "bells and whistles" in the new 4.4 release candidates. I debated moving this out of /testing into the main repository, as it seems very stable and usable here and in feedback I've gotten, but for the time being, I'm going to leave it in /testing.

I've also rebuilt quite a few packages in the last few days after cleaning up the build scripts; I caught at least one bug in my patch to apcupsd, so that was a productive exercise. Check the ChangeLog to see the full list.

I've rearranged the site a fair amount over the last few days too - the SlackBuilds Section is now much less populated, as package sources are no longer placed there. Instead, I moved all of the package sources here to maintain better compliance with the GPL (which means I don't have to bother with email requests for sources any more) :).

Finally, we've been busy over at SlackBuilds.org too - we had more than 25 new commits in the last ChangeLog there. Thanks to all of the other admins and all the submitters for the great work!

DBus 1.0 Released; Xfce Rebuild Coming Soon

DBus 1.0 was released a few days ago (thanks to MagicMan for the heads-up), and I've finally got the kinks worked out of the init script for it, so packages of it and dbus-glib (rebuilt against dbus-1.0) are now available. If you were experiencing any bugs with it, be sure to upgrade to the newest version.

In other news, I'm currently recompiling and testing Xfce 4.4rc2 adding --with-sound=alsa to the configure script for the mixer, and preliminary results indicate success :) Thanks to all of you who emailed about it. I'm not entirely certain about this, but I'm guessing that the differences due to 2.4/2.6 kernel headers as they pertain to alsa are responsible for this - the autodetection routines in the configure script don't seem to work with the 2.4 kernel headers, but then, I've not tested it with 2.6 headers (nor do I plan to do so until Pat upgrades them in stock Slackware), so I may be totally off-base on that. Regardless of the cause, the moral of the story is that it should work now with that simple change to the build script. Assuming everything goes as planned, I should have new Xfce packages (in all flavors - with and without {dbus,dbus/gamin} dependencies - available within a day or two. Keep checking the ChangeLog for updates, because it probably won't be posted here.

Xfce 4.4rc2 Rebuilt - bugfix

For those monitoring this instead of (or maybe in addition to) my ChangeLog, I've rebuilt the Xfce 4.4rc2 packages with a patch I backported from the svn repository to fix the missing printer icons in the Settings menu.

For those interested, I'm also trying to find the least intrusive way to include "real-time" file change notification for xfdesktop, and it looks like gamin is going to fit the bill. I've built a gamin package as well as an Xfce 4.4rc2 package linked against it. The preliminary results of my testing here were inconsistent and unpredictable, but it seems to be stable and consistent now for whatever reason, so there is hope. Testing and feedback are encouraged... :-)

Xfce 4.4 RC2

The Xfce developers have released 4.4 Release Candidate 2!!!
Packages for Slackware 11.0 are available in my package repository, and there are also packages for the extra plugins as well.
Be sure to read the ChangeLog entry from today (20061105). If you prefer to build it yourself, feel free to get the SlackBuild Script and other needed files.
Testing and feedback are encouraged and appreciated; thanks to everyone who's already involved - I appreciate it!

Slackware 11.0 RC5 Released

Pat has released Slackware 11.0 RC5, and he added desktop-file-utils to the official package set, so I'll be rebuilding xfce 4.4rc1 tonight and eliminating the included d-f-u package from it. Also, the gnupg team released version 1.9.23 of gnupg2 (development version headed to 2.0) today, so I'll also be building it tonight. Of importance in the list of changes is that this release includes all of the code contained in gunpg 1.4.5, so the development version technically could replace the old stable version now (although it's still not recommended). They're hoping for a release candidate in October, so if all goes well, maybe we can get gnupg 2.0 (and other related stuff) in Slackware 11.1 so that KMail/GPG integration is fully functional (including S/MIME support).

Several new things...

I've made some major changes to both the build scripts and packages of the xfce goodies; instead of one large package containing all of the goodies, they are now built and packaged separately to allow more fine-grained control over what's being installed on the system.

I'm tentatively declaring success on my project to get the gnupg integration and kmail working properly; based on my preliminary tests, I am able to successfully decrypt both my own sent mails as well as encrypted mails sent from others. Both the build scripts and packages are available, and testing/feedback are encouraged. :)

We seem to be creeping closer to the 11.0 release of Slackware; it's been at Release Candidate 4 for a couple of weeks with only a couple of non-minor changes since then, so here's hoping :)

New xfce goodies package!

I've just updated the xfce4-goodies package; in addition to several of the included plugins being updated, I've also added the thunar-archive plugin and the wavelan plugin. Enjoy!

Xfce Rebuilt; New Goodies Coming...

I've just posted a rebuild of the xfce 4.4rc1 package - I've added an unofficial patch from Mike Massonnet to fix a problem where the volume slider bar in the panel is too tall.

Several of the goodies have been updated, and there's finally been a release of the wavelan plugin for 4.4, so I'll have a new build of the goodies up tomorrow.

Packages for xfce 4.4rc1

Well, after much discussion on IRC and various other places, I've got xfce 4.4rc1 packages for Slackware -current built and posted here.
I'm not extremely happy with having to do this, but I was more or less forced to build xfce against dbus and dbus-glib (which required building those two and getting them working). Brian Tarricone (the xfdesktop maintainer) implemented a new Trash icon with some interactive features (for example, an "Empty Trash" function), which depend on dbus. Unfortunately, he's not finished with the code, and he's been away on holiday for the last week or so, and the current state of the code does not allow one to disable the dbus dependency. I've explained it in a bit more detail in the ChangeLog, so read through it if you want more information. The main thing to keep in mind right now is that you MUST install the dbus and dbus-glib packages available from the main package link above, or you should build them yourself with the SlackBuild scripts prior to starting xfce. Regardless of which route you go, make sure you follow the instructions for dbus setup.

This dbus issue should be resolved in the next release candidate of xfce 4.4, so I'll hopefully be able to offer a build without requiring dbus next time.

Xfce 4.4 RC1 Released

Xfce has finally released the 4.4 RC1 sources, and I've got them downloaded, so I should have new packages built for Slackware -current within a day or two. Unless something changes between the Slackware 11.0 RC4 and the official 11.0 release, these packages will also be advertised on the xfce mailing lists for 11.0.

On another (unrelated) note, I've been experimenting with some gnupg additions (libgcrypt, libgpg-error, libassuan, gpgme) trying to get email decryption working in KMail. It's turned out to be a bit more difficult than I thought it would be, and it may not even be possible without the development version of gnupg (which includes gpgsm), but we'll see. Wish me luck... :)

OpenOffice.org and Xfce Updates

I've rebuilt the xfce 4.4 beta 2 (4.3.90.2) packages, as the author of xarchiver released a new version yesterday. I also made several changes to the xfce4-goodies package; the battery plugin and weather plugin were upgraded to newer versions, which should fix the various issues people were having with them, and I've added three new plugins: thunar media tags, sensors, and xmms.
I've also upgraded the openoffice.org package; I've been working on the build script a little at a time for several weeks while reading quite a bit of the freedesktop.org information. Instead of including our own, we now use the *.desktop files included with the official binaries. Also, we no longer create/replace /etc/mailcap and /etc/mime.types, as these didn't accomplish my objective at all, and otherwise provided no measurable benefit so far as I can tell. To make a long story short, I don't see a way to set OOo as the system-wide default for anything other than its own file types - this has to be done by each user. See the shared mime info spec and standard mime actions spec at FreeDesktop.org for more information.

Update to xfce 4.4 beta 2 packs and build script

For those of you following my progress on xfce in Slackware -current, this is old news, but I'm almost certain that I've got the last of the existing problems solved. From the Change Log:

Thu Aug  3 19:56:45 UTC 2006
It's Christmas in August! New kde packs in -current, and now
the xfce build here should be working as intended by its
developers - see below  :)
current/xfce-4.3.90.2-i486-5rlw.tgz: Rebuilt; removed
hicolor-icon-theme, as it's not needed any more due to the
 xinitrc changes in the previous build.
Added desktop-file-utils, which fixes the problem Thunar
 was having with associated file types with applications.
Thunar should now be working completely as intended by the
 developer. :)
current/xfce4-goodies-4.4_20060803-1rlw.tgz: Upgraded the
 verve-plugin package to 0.3.4; this is a bugfix release.
current/sysvinit-2.86-i486-4rlw.tgz: Rebuilt; incorporated
 Pat's changes from yesterday in -current.  I've got to track
 down a potential problem with an error message being generated
 in rc.S (related to /proc/filesystems), so hold off on this
 upgrade unless you're brave (although it's working fine here).

As you noticed, I've also been working on updates to sysvinit; based on earlier conversation, expect this to be mainlined with PiterPunk's work soon.

xfce 4.4 beta 2 - looking good!

Wonderful news - I've *finally* figured out at least one way to fix the problem I've been having with icons for kde apps not displaying on the xfce menu. An updated package is available, and details on the "fix" are available in the Change Log.

On another note, we're shooting for an official launch of the SlackBuilds.org project sometime next week, so wish us luck! :)

Two updates in one day!!!

Well, I managed to get xfce 4.4beta2 and the goodies rebuilt and packaged while sitting in class, so they're available in the package repository. I've also updated the build scripts for both of them (and included the source tarballs in there too).

New changes to -current

Well, Pat just committed a large batch of updates to the -current tree, and one of them was libpng 1.2.12. This version renumbers the shared object files in /usr/lib, and the only way to maintain compatibility with apps linking against the older number is a symlink. I experimented with upgrading libpng in troubleshooting some issues with xfce 4.4beta2, but I ran into this problem with quite a few apps, and like Pat, I wasn't happy with the idea of a symlink. I expect that link to be removed soon once he gets all the apps depending on libpng recompiled against the new version, so I'll be recompiling all of mine (including xfce 4.4beta2 and hplip, probably others) within the next few days. If I'm lucky, this might have some impact on the problem where icons for kde applications are not showing up in the xfce menu, but I'm doubtful - the more I look at the freedesktop.org standards, I'm coming closer to the conclusion that it's a kde problem (specifically, the separate directory for icons in /opt/kde/share/icons as opposed to using /usr/share/icons)...

Temporary Break Coming Soon...

Well, I still have three or four different assignments to complete (and final exams), but next Thursday is the last day of the summer semester - maybe I'll finally have a bit of free time to get some work done ;-)
With a bit of luck, I'll figure out the problems with kde application icons not being displayed in xfce 4.4beta2, and there are a few other minor things on my TODO list...

Recent Developments

There are quite a few things going on right now:
1. I'm enrolled in graduate school working on my Master's degree in Educational Administration, and I'm taking four classes this summer - as should be readily obvious, I'm quite busy with those... :)
2. I'm working with a good group of people on a project (SlackBuilds.org) to provide build scripts for additional software applications not included with Slackware "out of the box." We're not at all happy with new users of Slackware becoming dependent upon third-party sources for precompiled packages, as they tend to introduce unnecessary dependencies on other applications (and occasionally security problems), and new users don't yet know enough to tell the difference. Our goal is to provide both scripts to compile the source code of those needed applications as well as educate new users on how to work with the scripts.
3. The release of Slackware 11.0 will be coming soon; Pat Volkerding (the maintainer) has indicated in the ChangeLog that the -current tree is stable and that a new release is close at hand...
4. I've been testing some experimental work on "bleeding-edge" udev | sysvinit | sysfsutils | pcmciautils stuff done largely by Roberto Batista (aka PiterPunk), and based on my results, it looks promising. The decision is ultimately up to Pat, but we're hoping it will be stable (and reliable) enough to hit -current sometime after 11.0 releases; if not, we'll keep working until it *is* stable enough... :)
I've recently done some hacking to the newest version of sysvinit (2.86) and forwarded the results to PiterPunk, so maybe it will hit the experimental tree at some point...
5. My preferred window manager, xfce, is approaching the release of version 4.4. The beta 2 was released yesterday, and after hacking around on Pat's script for the 4.2 series, I've got a package built for -current. While it's much more usable than the beta 1 release (in fact, I'm now using it exclusively), there's no hope of it being included in the 11.0 release of Slackware - it's nowhere near ready for that. There's still a problem where some kde icons don't show up in the various menus, and I've had one random crash that had no rhyme nor reason :)