dropline GNOME

Hi, its been a while since we have announced anything in here on the main web page. I think its time now that we can say something which will be interesting to all of you who are still waiting for the unreleased gnome desktop you prefer. So lets start to update you with some interesting stuff.

1) As you maybe know this time we are in sync with 2 archs the usual one on i686 with Slackware 12.2 and on x86-64 with Slamd64 12.2. Since at the time of preparing the gnome 2.26 we didn’t knew that there will be a Slackware 64bit variant. Next release of dropline GNOME will be most probably based on the 64bit Slackware version also. As for Bluewhite we had reports that this release should also work.

2) Our development has been moved on the trac platform supplied by sourceforge.net, so all bug reports and problems, wishlists and other stuff related to dropline should be in a unique database there. They are now called with a new name, which is tickets. You can see them here or add a new ticket here but you mush have a sourceforge.net account and be logged in.

3) Forums are still up and soon will be upgraded to the better spam protection version. We will add reCAPTCHA as soon as possible. All people is encouraged to use the forums to make the community alive as mush as possible.

4) So for all of you who are using our desktop we want to say thanks and we encourage you to do
fresh installs if possible. To get the installers please follow for now those links:

Installer for Slackware 12.2:
http://saxa.droplinegnome.org/i686/2.26/dropline-installer-2.26.0a-i686-1dl.tgz
http://saxa.droplinegnome.org/i686/2.26/dropline-installer-2.26.0a-i686-1dl.tgz.md5

Installer for Slamd64 12.2:
http://saxa.droplinegnome.org/x86_64/2.26/dropline64-installer-2.26.0a-x86_64-2dl.tgz
http://saxa.droplinegnome.org/x86_64/2.26/dropline64-installer-2.26.0a-x86_64-2dl.tgz.md5

Many thanks for using dropline GNOME !

– The dropline GNOME Development Team

It’s been a while since this page was updated, and now I think we need to do it again.

For all our users out there, I wanted to communicate that we are working hard on the upcoming release. Yes, soon we will have the dropline GNOME 2.26 desktop. Not to push too much, but just wanted to let you know that some people have left the project because they felt that they weren’t devoting the necessary time for the project, and because of new responsibilities they took in real life. The good news is that there are newcomers that have been helping us greatly, and they were decisive in the progress we made over the last few weeks.

We all want that this project continues to go ahead in the best way. We would like to thank all of you who have contributed until now, but won’t be able to contribute anymore. And also many thanks for all of you who have joined us and gave us the help needed to continue this awesome project.

That’s it for now. Please stay tuned and if you are willing to help, don’t hesitate to join us at the irc channel #dropline at irc.freenode.net.

– The dropline GNOME Development Team

dropline GNOME 2.24.1 Beta for Slackware 12.1 is here!

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/dropline-gnome/dropline-installer-2.24-i686-1dl.tgz

Since there are major changes in the latest releases of GNOME, there are still a few tweaks and loose-ends that we need to take care of before we consider this one “stable”. But most of the 2.24.1 desktop is in a rather usable state and may be ready for more technical users that like living on the bleeding edge.

Users that still wish for a stable and fully-tested desktop may still wish to use the stable Dropline GNOME 2.20.3 for Slackware 12.0 for a bit longer.

Please post comments on this beta release in our 2.24 forum thread:

http://forums.droplinegnome.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5903

-The dropline GNOME Development Team

We stopped coming up with nicknames for our releases a few years ago, but figured that “dropline GNOME Forever” best describes 2.20.2 simply because of the extended amount of time that was taken in developing this release. But that’s okay, because it means that we spent even more time trying to fine-tune every little detail to make this the best GNOME desktop that you’ll find on Slackware (and we’d say just about anyhere else as well). Our goal is to make a GNOME desktop that “just works”!

dropline GNOME 2.20.2 is here! Existing 2.18.3 users (for Slackware 12.0) can upgrade their systems by upgrading to the latest installer and choosing the “upgrade” option. New users can install dropline GNOME 2.20.2 on Slackware 12.0 by following the instructions on the Download page.

As usual, our forums provide a great place to discuss new releases or talk about GNOME and Slackware. All users are welcome (and encouraged) to register.

-The dropline GNOME Development Team

dropline GNOME 2.20 is almost ready to go gold, check it out here:

http://osdn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/dropline-gnome/dropline-installer-2.20-i686-1dl.tgz

With just a few outstanding issues at-hand, we’re still working on finding ways to work around Slackware-specific issues without resorting to having to replace a few Slackware packages that are preventing a “complete” release. That said, the 2.18.3 release is quite stable and ready for the majority of users. Most of the remaining issues *have* solutions, but they all involve replacing Slackware packages to solve them (NetworkManager, for instance, would still need a DHCP rebuild). Note that this is what people have asked for, so this is what is holding up a final release, and we don’t think that it’s fair to call something “complete” when we still feel that there are small things to take care of. It’s just that these bugs have held us up for weeks now, and users are getting tired of waiting for us to call this release complete.

If these minor issues are not of importance, we’d suggest that all users make the transition to 2.18.3 on Slackware 12.0.

http://osdn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/dropline-gnome/dropline-installer-2.18-i686-3dl.tgz

Outstanding Issues:
1. Metacity windows may minimize a bit slowly due a a bug in Slackware’s libX11. Solution – Update LibX11. We may be providing an extra package for those who are affected by this bug.
2. NetworkManager does not work. Solution – Rebuild Slackware’s DHCP package, or fall back to the version that we included in 2.16. We are investigation its inclusion again for 2.18. (EDIT – We’ve come up with a workaround and this is now working.)
3. A handful of icons do not display for some apps. Solution – Update Slackware’s dated hicolor-icon-theme package. Alternately, we can probably patch the affected packages to use different icons instead.
4. System-tools-backends do not work. (EDIT – Fixed! Thanks to Saxa, Juice, and Stik for their work on this!)

Additional notes may be found in the following forum thread:

http://forums.droplinegnome.org/viewtopic.php?t=5609

-The dropline GNOME Development Team

dropline GNOME 2.18.3 Beta for Slackware 12.0 is here!

http://osdn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/dropline-gnome/dropline-installer-2.18-i686-3dl.tgz

We’re excited about the recent Slackware release news, and have been working bring the next dropline GNOME desktop to Slackware 12.0 users! Slackware 12.0’s new features and numerous updates will help us to build the best dropline GNOME release yet.

The total number of packages has dropped by 23 compared to our 2.16 release. More importantly, dropline GNOME is more Slackware-friendly than ever before, now replacing only a mere *8* Slackware packages in order to obtain the best possible GNOME functionality while retaining Slackware 12.0 compatibility.

We think that what we have so far is ready for the majority of testers, but there are still a handful of bugfixes that we will be supplying over the next few days. Please feel free to submit bug reports and share your comments in our forums:

http://forums.droplinegnome.org/viewtopic.php?t=5609

-The dropline GNOME Development Team

We’re excited about the recent Slackware release news, and are working to bring the next dropline GNOME desktop to Slackware 12.0 users! Slackware 12.0’s new features and numerous updates will help us to build the best Dropline GNOME release yet.

Keep an eye on this site. In the next week, you will begin to see several updates in regard to the progress of dropline GNOME for Slackware 12.0!

dropline GNOME 2.18.1 Beta (for Slackware 11.0) is currently available for testing. New users and existing 2.16 users can install/upgrade to this release with the 2.18 Series beta installer.

Please post comments on this beta release in our 2.18 forum thread.

-The dropline GNOME Development Team

The GNOME 2.16.2 service updates have just been posted to SourceForge, and are now available for download. You can upgrade your existing 2.16 systems by running the dropline-installer and selecting the “upgrade” option from the menu. New dropline GNOME users who install via the Internet will automatically obtain the latest packages as well. To see a full list of what’s new, check out the ChangeLog here:

https://www.droplinegnome.org/?page_id=9

-The dropline GNOME Development Team