Hi,

I've spent the last week doing a major overhaul to MLED 14.1. Here's
what's new at a glance.

Packages are now built using a master build script:

http://www.microlinux.fr/microlinux/...top.SlackBuild

This script parses the build_order file, which was a bit tricky to
figure out:

http://www.microlinux.fr/microlinux/...ce/build_order

Packages are now organized in categories inspired by upstream. Besides
AP, D, F, L, N, X, XAP and XFCE, there's also LOCALE, MULTIMEDIA and
PROFILE. For those who may wonder: profile contains the user profile
packages with default settings for the console and Xfce.

http://www.microlinux.fr/microlinux/...p-14.1-source/

And on another side note: the use of these categories changes absolutely
nothing for the end user. Repository URLs remain valid.

Under the hood, this whole new organization means a slight improvement
in quality, without any forgotten dependencies, without inconsistencies
between the 32-bit and the 64-bit version, thanks to the semi-automated
package building framework.

For the 64-bit version of MLED, I've pondered the pros and the cons for
quite some time, and in the end, I decided to opt for the pure 64-bit
version without the 32-bit compatibility layer. The use of Multilib has
created some problems on my build host. In the end, I've preferred
sacrificing a few packages to keep things sane and clean.

A few things were removed for the repositories, mostly "problematic"
packages: Steam, Skype, Spotify, Wine, Apulse, Liferea and Webkitgtk.
These either require a multilib layer to work, or they're a PITA to
maintain.

This being said, let's say you absolutely need to install a package like
Steam or Wine. In that case, nothing prevents you from installing a
multilib layer on your MLED machine and then install Steam on top of
that using sbopkg.

One notable exception has been made: VirtualBox. It requires a multilib
layer to build, but can still run on pure 64-bit. I decided to keep it
in the repo, and for the build, I temporarily install a multilib version
of the gcc* and glibc* packages. Then I remove them afterwards. It's a
bit of a quirk, but it works.

I haven't yet updated the documentation accordingly, but will do so in
the days to come. As for MLED 14.2, I'll resume work on it as soon as
Slackware 14.2 is out, and then things will be organized in the same
fashion as MLED 14.1.

I will paste the last ChangeLog.txt files in a separate message. As you
can imagine, they're quite a mouthful.

One general word on MLED. I'm regularly reading other distributions'
forums, mailing lists, etc. Many people are quite fed up with
Debian/Ubuntu moving to systemd and increasingly lacking quality. I want
MLED to become a sane alternative for an Xfce-based desktop. Hence my
primary focus on quality. Don't forget: less is more.

Cheers from the foggy South of France,

Niki

Hi from the sunny North of France,

Thanks for the work on MLED.

On 64-bit edition, slackpkgplus.conf still comes with reference to "multilib". Do you intend to remove it later or did you decide to keep it in for those who might still want to install multilib?
If you want to keep it, maybe it would be better to switch the alien mirror from taper to bear.

Also, now that you have reorganized packages in categories, I'm wondering why you did not create a l/ category in extras repository for those dependencies that are only useful for extra packages. I guess that one reason would be for extras repository to be limited to applications so that user should focus only on the end applications when having to decide which one to add (for ex, using slackpkg install microlinux-extras)

I hesitate between removing it or leaving a couple of commented lines.

I did think about that. The thing is, some of the stuff in extra/ has a host of dependencies, so I thought the lesser evil would be to install a handful of extra dependencies "à la louche", as we say here.

I will be testing this with the latest mledauto script. I will report back asap. Thanks for the update.