Slackware sub-forum

Hi,
I'd like to know if there's a possibility of having a second sub-forum for Slackware. Most Slackware users install non-stock packages using slackbuilds. However, there's no place to discuss problems that we sometimes encounter using slackbuilds except for the main Slackware forum at linuxquestions.org. There is a slackbuilds maillist but it is mainly for people writing build scripts, not users.

It might be nice to have all the slackbuilds questions in one location. If anyone has any feedback/opinions, it would be nice to hear!

Best, brixton

There seem to be about 1 to 5 slackbuild-related posts per day in the Slackware forum. I'm not sure that's enough to justify a dedicated forum. Do you not think a slackbuild question is pertinent in the Slackware Installation forum as well?

--jeremy

Hi Jeremy,
My thinking was that Slackware doesn't have any repository -- there is only stock Slackware. Slackbuilds are the closest thing to an official repo, but there's no central place to discuss problems with builds (and problems come up since it is compilation from source).

The Install sub-forum seems to only be used for problems installing stock Slackware, and a lot of those questions just get asked in the main forum anyways.

As I said, my thought was that it might be good to have once dedicated place for slackbuild questions since they are so central to using Slackware, but not officially part of it. I could be wrong though!

I'd certainly be willing to seriously consider a Slackbuild sub-forum if someone officially associated with the project was willing to participate in the forum.

--jeremy

The slackbuilds.com FAQ says that:

We do not have (nor do we intend to create) a user help forum.

This is one of the reasons I thought it might be nice to see one on LQ.

Originally Posted by brixtoncalling The slackbuilds.com FAQ says that: We do not have (nor do we intend to create) a user help forum. This is one of the reasons I thought it might be nice to see one on LQ.

That's a strange quote, not sure why they would be against a user help forum.

You could try posting about this in the slackware forum, because the Slackware devs mostly go there.

If you have a contact over at Slackbuilds, see if the team would support one here - it may be that they don't want to get involved in the set-up, maintenance and moderation, in which case, we could have one here and they would just be asked to visit the forum to offer help/advice. We would do the heavy lifting.

I've taken your advice Xavier and hopefully we'll get an idea from the slackbuilds guys about whether this is worthwhile or not.

Excellent - keep us posted.

To be honest, I don't much like forums. That's not a criticism of LQ (in fact, I like LQ) - it's just that I prefer mailing lists over forums. We have a -users mailing list, and we *want* issues with our builds to be directed there as opposed to a forum. All of our script maintainers are (expected to be) subscribed to that list, and quite often, they are the ones who actually field questions about their particular apps. That is (or should be) expected anyway, since there's no way that the (small) admin team can be familiar with every app.

Maybe that should go in the FAQ as well Seriously, if there is a preference for users and script maintainers to discuss problems on the list, then we should respect that. But at the moment I believe that most users turn to LQ when they have a problem since the maillist is mainly about script writing rather than script using.

In any case, thanks for the clarification, Robby.

Originally Posted by H_TeXMeX_H Originally Posted by brixtoncalling The slackbuilds.com FAQ says that: We do not have (nor do we intend to create) a user help forum. This is one of the reasons I thought it might be nice to see one on LQ. That's a strange quote, not sure why they would be against a user help forum.

Basically, because they use (and promote) LQ. (That's how I learned about LQ myself.) Why reinvent the wheel, I guess?

F.Y.I. AlienBob makes Slackbuild scripts and he is here all the time, from what I can see.

Originally Posted by ShellyCat F.Y.I. AlienBob makes Slackbuild scripts and he is here all the time, from what I can see.

Yes, but it's unlikely that he'll have time to help with every slackbuild. A few months ago I reported here that there was a typo in one of the slackbuilds and Eric rightly pointed out that LQ was not the right place for such things and that I should either report it on the slackbuilds mailing list or directly contact that slackbuild maintainer.

If such a slackware subforum was to work, it'd be essential that slackbuild maintainers subscribe to it as well.