b3rx

Cheers M8 for the super info.

"so if you want i can throw you a list on what sources are needed to be downloaded."

That would be fantastic, throw away M8 :-).

P.S. What was duration of the build process on your system? I plan to compile the sources on a Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz System and I'm wondering roughly how long that would take.

Regards

Hold on dizzi, I've got something for you that should work.

O.k.. My scripts look like they are done. I want to give it one more run thru on a fresh install before I say so tho. Haven't uploaded new stuff yet but I'm getting ready to.

@b3rx... I have identified a problem with the menus not showing up under certain circumstances. To be precise, the Applications menu won't show but Places and System will minus the Administration and Prefrences under System.

I've built 4 times now each on a fresh install. 2 times I did a complete "FULL" install, everything JUST WORKS. 2 times I did a FULL install minus KDE, the menus were broken. This last time around on my FULL install with KDE, I did a:

removepkg /var/log/packages/kde*

and walah, the menu broke half-way thru. I re-installed all the kde packages and my menus are working. I've also noticed that there are a few "(required)" listings after some of the kde packages when I reinstalled them....

I have done ZER0 troubleshooting on this because I've just identified the problem, but without thinking, I'd have to say that Slackware is now a full blown KDE distro. I've re-run all my maintainance/doinst.sh commands to no avail. The menus stay broken if KDE isn't installed. If you build Gnome without KDE installed you get the same effect, altho I haven't tried installing KDE afterwards to see if the menus start working.

Can't say that I'm too happy about this. Something changed from Slackware 11 to Slackware 12... Off hand I'd say that something needs to be rebuilt like desktop-file-utils or god knows what. 10:1, I'm guessing, something in my "already-installed" directory needs to be in the "new" directory so it's rebuilt. Don't know but it's a fair guess.

So... I don't know. I really can't reccomend anyone try this unless they have KDE on the system. Which, the idea of having KDE installed just to run Gnome is about the most silly thing I've ever heard.

I'm going to upload my new scripts, wipe my partition and then do another build. If my scripts complete without bombing and everything gets installed as it should, I'll post back and say the scripts are "done". Then I'll work on what the hell is happening with KDE and Gnome...

b3rx, It would be most helpfull to me if you could mount your Slackware CD and installpkg on everything in the "kde" directory. I'm assuming you don't have KDE installed. Am I right? If you don't have KDE installed and then install everything in kde/, do your menus work? That would be most helpfull if you could do that. Thanks!

Also @AriciU, do you have KDE installed? It would be most helpfull to hear back from you as well.

jong357

Thanks M8 I will wait till you have sorted things out. Like you though I think its a bit "peculiar" that Slack would need KDE for a proper Gnome installation. I have no problems with KDE and I use often but that's certainly most unSlack-like.

Cheers

Well, I think the problem here is that I'm trying to get away with using as many stock Slackware packages as I can and something doesn't like it. Again, it's just a guess. I never get this problem on my DIY build because KDE never touches my system.

Actually it's not really that bad. There are some useful KDE applications that I use on Gnome (Kalarm for example), and Skype would be a pain in the south end to get working properly without KDE. So I really don't mind, even though it's a bit strange. Thanks for all your work!

-A

Yeah, i have KDE installed. I installed the FULL slackware 12 (~5gb)... everything except kde language support or whatever it was called.

I'm on ym if you wanna chat about it...

Thanks AriciU. That's what I thought. Now if I can hear from b3rx that should just about confirm it.

This also might have something to do with the fact that KDE in now in the /usr directory... I'm still open minded to the idea of my scripts being the culprit but I rather doubt it.

I just don't like KDE being on the system. I really almost hate that DE... It also re-organizes your menu from the way that Gnome has it. The menu just winds up being a cluster **** of apps I never use and the ones I do use, I can't find... Many of the KDE launchers don't have icons and it's just plain annoying.

@dizzi, check the new/ directory on my file server in a few minutes. There will be a source.htm file. That should make it a tad easier but your still left with having to put them in the right directory. I've seperated them by directory, so there shouldn't be any question as to where they go. It's just going to be a pain in the butt to download them all by hand. I would tar all the source up for you, but I'm already over my limit with my web server and they haven't said anything. Don't want to push my luck.

As long as the source is already in the right place, the scripts won't attempt to download them.

lolz! and what do you know.. I didn't install KDE and KDEI in my slack12.0 box. Well since I didn't think of it as a necessary. Well the main reason behind why I didn't install KDE is because I like GNOME better. It's like a personal preferences. so I guess you're right jong357, there might be packages in the KDE directory that is needed to fix the applications menu. and yes all menu works except the applications, systems and admin. thanks for the info by the way.

@dizzi, it seems that jong357 beat me to it. check the source.htm for the sources and download them. after which you need to move them to the right directory for this is needed so that the script won't run the wget command. im not sure now many hours it took me to build those things, but what can i say... your processor is much faster than mine. so it will not take you long.. or at least not longer than mine.

It takes right around 4 hours on my P4 3ghz HT box.

Just got done with another run. Didn't have KDE installed and then built gnome. No menus. Here is a kicker. Installing everything in kde/ afterwards doesn't help matters. Seems you have to have KDE on your system before you begin and this is making no freaking sense to me.

I'm gonna stick a fork in it and call it temporarily done because it's getting kinda old. The scripts run to completion however so they are in a working state.

Seeing as how you have to have KDE installed before you begin plus keep it on the system in order to use this gnome, I don't really see a point in it now. Up to you guys. If you have plenty of hard drive space and leave KDE installed and then edit your menus to ditch all the clutter, it might be aceptable for some.

Pfffft... Whatever.

I'll get back to it in a few days (or more) to see if I can't track down what's happening but right now I'm a little crispy (not to mention irritated).

if i cant have the application menus without installing KDE, then i think ill have to pass. thanks though. It really was fun compiling GNOME using your scripts.

b3rx

Cheers lads for the assistance and relevant info. I plan to keep KDE on my system so I guess I won't have too many issues but I can understand the frustrations of those who wish to use Gnome exclusively. To be honest for Gnome to depend on KDE to some extent borders on the absurd :-).

Regards

Yea, I feel the same but there is something else going on here. I just can't put my finger on it yet... Initially I thought it might be an xdg problem but it doesn't appear to be. I'm still looking. 2 heads are better than one if anyone want's to help...

Now, on this last run I did a full install minus the KDE package set. Built gnome, no menu. Manually installed KDE, no menu. Removed Gnome. KDE still installed, rebuilt gnome, no menu! So.... The plot thickens. This seems to lead me back to install "setup" stage, I don't know. Something really wierd is happening here.

I also haven't been overly happy about replacing the stock python from the get go. I think I'm going to bust pygtk and friends out into their own packages. I don't think that's related to what's happening but its proper anyway. I'll keep chipping away at it.

Alright cats... I feel really stupid. It was an xdg problem. All seems to be well now. It was a 2 fold problem.

1.) I wasn't truely running a 'stock' slackware system.
2.) I was exporting $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS from an improper place.

I was using an /etc/bashrc (which I manually added and isn't a part of any gnome packages) to export the /etc/gnome/xdg location. It was a hold over from my DIY build that I forgot to rectify, and indeed, wasn't even aware of. Variables like that need to be sourced on your login shell. Now I was aware of the actuall /etc/bashrc file and wasn't using it during most of my testing, which just guarantees that /etc/gnome/xdg isn't in the CONFIG_DIRS path which = no menus.

What was happening was it was only picking up on /etc/kde/xdg for the menu. Once you remove KDE the "applications.menu" file get's uninstalled and your menu's break.

I did a:
mv /etc/bashrc /etc/bashrc.null
and then made an /etc/profile.d/gnome.sh file which exports $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS and now it just works regadless of what's on the system. Which it all makes perfect sense now. After making the new file, you need to log out of X and log out of your login shell. Log back in and restart X.

Doh! So, b3rx, just do this if you still have Gnome installed and it should work. Make a /etc/profile.d/gnome.sh file and put this in it.
I'll amend the profile.d script to gnome-menus and then upload new stuff. I think I'm also going to split my py* bits out of the python package and quit replacing the stock python package as well. That will leave us with just replacing gnome-icon-theme and firefox. If anyone doesn't wan't firefox replaced, you may be able to just remove "mozilla-firefox" and "yelp" from Build-Order.txt tho I haven't tested that. Most people don't use yelp anyway. For that matter, I see no reason why you couldn't run with the stock gnome-icon-theme package as well. You should just have slightly different icons. If all that works, you would have ZERO package replacement, no help browser for Gnome and a 2.14.x icon set.

O.k.. I've fixed/uploaded new stuff. Completely revamped the gnome-2.18.3 directory along with reworking gnome-menus... I redid GNOME.README to reflect all my changes and removed inapropriate DLG jabs. Sorry. It was subconcious. It's actually a pretty tight DE except for PAM and all the programs I don't use...

So.... Anyhoo.... Removing python is what I'll be working on next. It's in the best shape now that it's ever been. Just a little python reworking and a quirky (but working) alacarte is what I have on the table at the moment.