Introduction ============ Slint version 14.2.1 includes a new desktop: LXDE and provides a few new and upgraded packages, a few removals and some bug fixes. Big change "under the hood": all packages that previously came from a Salix or an extra-14.2 repository have been rebuilt and are now stored in a Slint repository, a few ones upgraded. This change, not directly visible for the user, brings more flexibility when adding repositories of third-party packages to slapt-getrc, the user being able to choose which ones will have priority over others, and will allow to deal with security issues more easily. This results in many added, removed and rebuilt packages in a big batch of updates on the occasion of the 14.2.1 release. All these updates are listed in the Change logs. in addition, global instructions to help current Slint users experience a smooth update are provided in UPGRADE.TXT. Please note that to be able to use the new LXDE desktop current users should install them with these commands typed as root: slapt-get -u slapt-get --upgrade slapt-get --install-set lxde A few post-install actions are also needed, they are described in UPGRADE.TXT. New users should now use only the Slint 14.2.1 ISOs. This way they will avoid all the actions needed to upgrade, and they won't have to download and install all the packages updates released since the 14.2 release, as the updated packages at tile of release are included in the new ISOs. Packages added, removed upgraded and rebuilt in the Slint repositories ====================================================================== We list the packages migrated from the salix and extra-14.2 repository only when upgraded or otherwise updated on the occasion. Packages just rebuilt are listed in the Change logs. *** Packages added to the new ISOs: grub-scripts (scripts to use GRUB) bbkeys (keygrabber for window managers, used with blackbox) isomaster (an open-source, GUI CD image editor for Linux and BSD) podofo (library to work with the PDF file formatdependency of scribus) mozilla-firefox (added language packs) python-lxml (Python bindings for libxml2 and libxslt, dependency of inkscape) BeautifulSoup (dependency of python-lxml and inkscape) numpy (scientific computing with python, dependency of inkscape) gnome-common (common scripts and macros to develop with GNOME, build dependency of viewnior) cmark (C implementation of CommonMark, dependency of pandoc) gpicview (simple and fast image viewer for X, shipped in the lxde desktop) lxappearance (simple GTK theme switcher, component of the lxde desktop) lxde-common ( set of default configurations for LXDE, component of the lxde desktop) lxde-icon-theme (set of icons, theme nuoveXT2, component of the lxdedesktop) lxinput (component of the lxde desktop) lxlauncher (component of the lxde desktop) lxmenu-data (component of the lxde desktop) lxrandr (component of the lxde desktop) lxsession (component of the lxde desktop) libunique (dependency of lxsesssion, installed when installing lxsession) lxsession-edit (component of the lxde desktop) lxshortcut (component of the lxde desktop) lxtask (component of the lxde desktop) lxterminal (component of the lxde desktop) potrace (bitmap utility, dependency of inkscape) libcdr (CorelDRAW Import Library, dependency of inkscape) As a reminder, these components of the lxde desktop were already included in Slint version 14.2: libfm libfm-extra lxdm lxpanel Component(s of the lxde desktop not shipped in Slint: We do not include lxpolkit, neither stand-alone nor built in lxsession, as we have enough polkits agents already. We do not include lxhotkey that only supports openbox, not shipped in Slint. *** Packages removed from the new ISOs All the removals are intended to not ship packages whose security would only be insured upgrading regularly webkitgtk-2, cf. this article: https://blogs.gnome.org/mcatanzaro/2016/02/01/on-webkit-security-updates/ But upgrading webkigtk-2 would need to also upgrade all packages that depend on it, if ever possible, which is out of question. Practically the only victims of this policy are poedit users, as atril and geany-plugins have been rebuilt without webkitgtk-2, with few drawbacks (for instance this prevents to build geany's fancy plug-in). So, following packages are removed from the ISO: cld2 (was needed as dependency of poedit) LucenePlusPlus (was needed as dependency of poedit) poedit (depends on webkitgtk-2) webkitgtk-2 wxGTK-3 (was needed as dependency of poedit, depends on webkitgtk-2). You may use them as they can still be installed with slapt-get, but at your own risks. *** Packages upgraded claws-mail 3.3.2 => 3.15 fbterm 3.7 => 3.8 geany 1.28 => 1.31 geany-plugins 1.28 => 1.31 grub 2.00 => 2.02 lxpanel 0.9.2 => O.9.3 inkscape 0.91 => 0.92.2 libreoffice 5.1.4 => 5.3.4 mlterm 3.7.2 => 3.8.2 pandoc 1.17.0.1 => 1.19.2 *** Packages rebuilt with modifications atril (removed dependency on webkitgtk-2) engrampa (removed dependency on caja) libfm (removed dependency on caja) blackbox (keygrabber bbkeys shipped separately) brltty (some cleaning) libfm (modified pcmanfm's default configuration etc/xdg/libfm/libfm.conf) pkgtools (updated Norwegian translation of man pages) qcontrolcenter (internationalized the main window's title) slapt-get-0.10.2t-x86_64-6slint.txz (modified /etc/slapt-get/slapt-getrc) slint-control-center (additions and classification changes) slint-user-settings (various changes, mostly to integrate the LXDE desktop) x11-skel (make LXDE the default WM/DE in xwmconfig) *** OTHER NOTABLE CHANGES AND HINTS *** Printing, scanning, and bluetooth usage require that your user account be a member of the "lp" group (membership in the "scanner" group is no longer needed by any of the included scanner drivers, though some third party drivers may still need it); we had to configure sane to use the "lp" group or else multifunction devices (e.g. print/scan/copy units) would only do one or the other (depending on whether the group ownership was "lp" or "scanner"). Since pulseaudio is now included with Slackware, you'll almost surely want /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa to be mode 0644 (non-executable) since it no longer needs to be run on system boot. Xorg no longer uses /etc/X11/xorg.conf by default (and in most cases, there is absolutely no need for it). You can still create an xorg.conf file if you wish, or you can create some minimal xorg.conf snippets with only the specific contents that you wish to override (as an example, to use a binary video driver) as separate files in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ directory. /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ is the "packaged" configuration directory; all files ending with ".conf" in this directory are used by the X server unless there is an identically-named file in the local sysadmin directory. The local sysadmin config directory is /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ - all files ending with ".conf" in this directory are parsed. There are several default config files in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/: * 10-evdev.conf a "catchall" file for input devices using the evdev driver; this should work for most hardware in the absence of a better driver * 10-quirks.conf a collection of quirks and blacklists/whitelists for known weirdos * 50-synaptics.conf overrides the earlier 10-evdev.conf file and uses the synaptics driver for all touchpads * 50-vmmouse.conf overrides for the earlier 10-evdev.conf file for vmmouse * 50-wacom.conf overrides the earlier 10-evdev.conf file and uses the wacom driver for Wacom tablets * 90-keyboard-layout.conf this sample ("normal" en layout) keeps the "old" default of allowing Zap'ing the Xserver. If you need to modify any of these defaults, then copy the relevant file from /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and edit the copy. Now that KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) for graphics cards has (mostly) stabilized, it is enabled by default for intel, ati, and nvidia graphics chipsets. It is possible to disable it use "nomodeset" as a kernel append in lilo.conf, but Xorg will not work at all on intel and ati chips (and maybe others) if you do that. If you want to change the resolution of the KMS console, that can be done with something like this as a kernel append in lilo.conf: append="video=1024x768" Speaking of lilo.conf and KMS, make sure you use either vga=normal or vga=extended -- some of the framebuffers don't like KMS very much... If your cd/dvd drive is not visible inside a gtk-based desktop environment (e.g. Xfce), you may need to add "comment=x-gvfs-show" to the /etc/fstab line for the device. For more information, see this document: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gvfs/tree/monitor/udisks2/what-is-shown.txt If you have set up an encrypted root partition, you will need to have access to your keyboard in order to type the passphrase. This may require you to add the uhci-hcd and usbhid modules to your initrd image if you have a USB keyboard. Also note that if you are using a non-US keyboard, you can use the '-l' parameter to the 'mkinitrd' command in order to add support for this keyboard to your initrd. If you have permission errors when attempting to burn a cdrom or dvd image, such as the following: /usr/bin/cdrecord: Operation not permitted. Cannot send SCSI cmd via ioctl then cdrecord almost certainly needs root privileges to work correctly. One potential solution is to make the cdrecord and cdrdao binaries suid root, but this has possible security implications. The safest way to do that is to make those binaries suid root, owned by a specific group, and executable by only root and members of that group. For most people, the example below will be sufficient (but adjust as desired depending on your specific needs): chown root:cdrom /usr/bin/cdrecord /usr/bin/cdrdao chmod 4750 /usr/bin/cdrecord /usr/bin/cdrdao If you don't want all members of the 'cdrom' group to be able to execute the two suid binaries, then create a special group (such as 'burning' which is recommended by k3b), use it instead of 'cdrom' in the line above, and add to it only the users you wish to have access to cdrecord and cdrdao. If you're installing on a virtual machine with QEMU/KVM using virtio disks, you will need the following line in /etc/lilo.conf to make it recognize the /dev/vda devices: disk=/dev/vda bios=0x80 max-partitions=7 Input methods for complex characters (CJK, which is shorthand for Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and other non-latin character sets have been added. These input methods use the SCIM (Smart Common Input Method) platform. The environment variables for SCIM support are set in /etc/profile.d/scim.sh The requirements for getting SCIM input methods to work in your X session are as follows: (1) Use a UTF-8 locale. Look in /etc/profile.d/lang.sh for setting your language to (for instance) en_US.UTF-8. As a word of warning: maybe you should leave root with a non-UTF-8 locale because you don't want root's commands to be misinterpreted. You can add the following line to your ~/.profile file to enable UTF-8 just for yourself: export LANG=en_US.UTF-8 (2) Make the scim profile scripts executable. These will setup your environment correctly for the use of scim with X applications. Run: chmod +x /etc/profile.d/scim.* (3) Start the scim daemon as soon as your X session starts. The scim daemon must be active before any of your X applications. In KDE, you can add a shell script to the ~/.kde/Autostart folder that runs the command "scim -d". In XFCE you can add "scim -d" to the Autostarted Applications. If you boot your computer in runlevel 4 (the graphical XDM/KDM login) you can simply add the line "scim -d" to your ~/.xprofile file. This gives you a Desktop Environment independent way of starting scim. When scim is running, you will see a small keyboard icon in your system tray. Right-click it to enter SCIM Setup. In 'Global Setup' select your keyboard layout, and you are ready to start entering just about any language characters you wish! Press the magical key combo in order to activate or deactivate SCIM input. The SCIM taskbar in the desktop's corner allows you to select a language. As you type, SCIM will show an overview of applicable character glyphs (if you are inputting complex characters like Japanese).