Q1: I've just installed GSB. How do I make it my default desktop environment? Q2: How do I start the GNOME Display Manager? (GDM) Q3: How do I uninstall GSB? Q4: I would like to install all GSB packages. How can I do that easily? Q5: After installing GSB, my keyboard does not repeat keys any longer. How is that fixed? Q6: My KDE Menus are all messed up after installing GSB. How do I fix them? Q7: How do I add KDE/XFCE menu items to my menu? Q8: I installed KDE after GSB was installed, and now some icons are missing or broken? How do I fix it? Q9: How do get the weather and temperature working in the GNOME panel clock applet? Q10: How come my scores aren't saved when I play the GNOME games? Q11: How do I install templates for Nautilus so that I can create new documents from my desktop? Q12: Where are my GNOME settings stored? What do I need to copy if I switch home directories? Q13: How can I configure GNOME Power Manager to catch a power button press? Q14: How do I configure my laptop for hibernating and suspending in GNOME? Q15: When I click 'Places' in the GNOME menu, Dolphin or Thunar start up instead of Nautilus. How do I fix that? Q16: When I reboot, my volume settings are reset. How can I preseve these settings? Q17: What's the difference between GSB and Dropline GNOME? Q18: Do you support GSB installed on Slackware-current? Q19: How come slapt-get does not upgrade some packages? ----- Q1: I've just installed GSB. How do I make it my default desktop environment? A: You should be able to simply select GNOME by running xwmconfig. Choose xinitrc.gnome or xinitrc.compiz-gnome from the menu. You can then start the desktop using startx. ----- Q2: How do I start the GNOME Display Manager? A: GDM (the GNOME Display Manager) provides an alternate display manager for the X Window System. The X Window System by default uses the XDM display manager. However, resolving XDM configuration issues typically involves editing a configuration file. GDM allows users to customize or troubleshoot settings without having to resort to a command line. Users can pick their session type on a per-login basis. GDM also features easy customisation with themes. If you would like to enable GDM on system boot, you will need to edit /etc/inittab and change the default run level from 3 to 4. # Default runlevel. (Do not set to 0 or 6) id:4:initdefault: For the order of XDM selection, consult /etc/rc.d/rc.4. The GDM interface is customisable using /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf. ----- Q3: How do I uninstall GSB? A: Please note that when uninstalling, you will have to reinstall some packages from the "l" package set (and possibly others). Please read the SLACKWARE_REPLACED_PACKAGES.TXT for a list of packages you will need to reinstall from the official repository. We have 'tagged' all our packages with a 'gsb' moniker. It will easily allow you to identify and remove GSB packages. Simply run: $ cd /var/log/packages $ ls -1 | grep gsb$ | xargs -n 1 removepkg This will remove all GSB packages from your system. Be sure to replace all those files listed in SLACKWARE_REPLACED_PACKAGES.TXT using installpkg. ----- Q4: I would like to install all GSB packages. How can I do that easily? A: You can use slapt-get to easily manage all your packages, and this includes installing all GSB packages. Simply run: $ slapt-get --available | awk {'print $1'} | grep "gsb$" | \ xargs slapt-get --install This will install everything, including all the Openoffice language packages. You may want to exclude them when installing: $ slapt-get --available | awk {'print $1'} | grep "gsb$" | \ grep -v l10n | xargs slapt-get --install ----- Q5: After installing GSB, my keyboard does not repeat keys any longer. How is that fixed? A: From GNOME Menu Bar, choose "Desktop -> Preferences -> Keyboard", then check the "Repeat Keys" box. ----- Q6: My KDE Menus are all messed up after installing GSB. How do I fix them? A: The KDE menus might be changed if you install GSB because of the gnome-menus package. The gnome-menus package implements the freedesktop.org desktop menu specification. There is a simple fix for this. Just add the following near the top of the startkde script: export XDG_CONFIG_DIRS=/etc/kde/xdg If the improper menus persist, run kbuildsycoca from Konsole after you have logged into KDE. ----- Q7: How do I add KDE/XFCE menu items to my menu? A: Right-click your GNOME menu and select edit (launches alacarte menu editor). Enable the items you wish to see in your menu. Done! ----- Q8: I installed KDE after GSB was installed, and now some icons are missing or broken? How do I fix it? A: Installing the package "kdebase" can break the hicolor icon specification for GSB. If you find that you're missing any GNOME icons, your best bet is to reinstall the standard Slackware package "hicolor-icon-theme" again. ----- Q9: How do get the weather and temperature working in the GNOME panel clock applet? A: You will need to add your location by clicking the 'Edit' button within the applet. Your location will then be added to the list below the calendar. If you hover your mouse over top of your new location, a 'Set...' button will appear. You will need to 'Set' your location as home, and authenicate as yourself. A home icon will appear next to your location and weather and temperature will work in the clock applet. (Be sure that you have the ticked in your applet preferences.) ----- Q10: How come my scores aren't saved when I play the GNOME games? A: To get proper scoring working with gnome-games, you have to add the user name to group "games". ----- Q11: How do I install templates for Nautilus so that I can create new documents from my desktop? A: This is quite easy though not immediately obvious. You'll need to create a directory in your home directory called ~/Templates. Then, using whatever application you wish to create a template for, save an empty file in your ~/Templates directory. For example, start up abiword and create a blank new document. Then save this empty document in your ~/Templates directory with the name "AbiWord Document". Now, when you right click on your desktop and go to 'Create Document', your new file will be there. You can do this with almost any application that has a MIME type. Just be sure not to overwrite your template files with creating new documents from them. You can also install various scripts for Nautilus. For a wide range, please see gnome-look.org. ----- Q12: Where are my GNOME settings stored? What do I need to copy if I switch home directories? A: You will need to copy the following directories over if you wish to preserve your GNOME desktop settings: ~/.gconf, ~/.config, ~/.local, ~/.gnome2, ~/.evolution. If you would like to preserve your icons and themes, you will also need your ~/.icons and ~/.themes. ----- Q13: How can I configure GNOME Power Manager to catch a power button press? A: If you press the power button, Slackware will normally just halt the machine. If you prefer, you can configure GNOME so that gnome-power-manager will catch the shutdown button and display a dialog for shutdown/sleep (or simply do the one you choose). You need to comment out the following lines in /etc/acpi/acpi_handerl.sh: power) /sbin/init 0 ;; ----- Q14: How do I configure my laptop for hibernating and suspending in GNOME? A: The first thing to do is make sure your laptop is correctly configured to suspend and hibernate without GNOME. Make sure you have the pm-utils package installed from the official Slackware repositories, and read through /usr/doc/pm-utils-1.3.0/README.SLACKWARE. You will need a swap parition to get hibernation working. Once suspend/hibernation are working, you should be able to 'suspend' from GDM. For your GNOME desktop, make sure that the gnome-power-manager package is installed from GSB. The default behavior is to hibernate after an idle time has passed -- this is configurable from the 'Preferences' menu; you can change the sleep type when you have critical battery life left, and for lid-close on battery. You can also change the idle sleep time, but unfortunately, not the idle "sleep" type. You can manually change the default sleep type to "suspend" by typing: $ /usr/bin/gconftool-2 --direct --config-source="$(usr/bin/gconftool-2 \ --get-default-source)" --type string \ --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/actions/sleep_type_battery suspend You can also configure GDM to use pm-utils as well! You will need to edit your /etc/X11/gdm/custom.conf, and edit the line 'SuspendCommand' and tell it to use '/usr/sbin/pm-suspend' ----- Q15: When I click 'Places' in the GNOME menu, Dolphin or Thunar start up instead of Nautilus. How do I set Nautilus to be the default? A: You can fix this by setting a few gconf settings. Run the following command (all on on line): $ /usr/bin/gconftool-2 --direct \ --config-source="$(/usr/bin/gconftool-2 --get-default-source)" \ --type string \ --set /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/filemanager \ "nautilus" ----- Q16: When I reboot, my volume settings are reset. How can I preseve these settings? A: This is properly a Slackware issue which doesn't save the alsa volume levels before reseting. Eugene Wissner has suggested: > On shutdown (for example in /etc/rc.d/rc.local_shutdown), we > should be executing: > /usr/sbin/alsactl store ----- Q17: What's the difference between GSB and Dropline GNOME? A: Not a whole lot, actually. Dropline GNOME is a similar project, and has been around longer, though it is less maintained at the moment. It's simply another choice/alternative of a GNOME distribution for Slackware. GSB does not "compete" with Dropline, and in fact, the Dropline and GSB teams sometimes collaborate together periodically. The main difference is that GSB does not add PAM to Slackware, and tries to replace as few standard Slackware packages as possible. ----- Q18: Do you support GSB installed on Slackware-current? A: Unfortunately, no we do not, and only have time to support GSB on Slackware 13.1 and Slackware64 13.1. You are of course welcome to try to install GSB on Slackware-current, but we cannot help support it, usually due to the difficulty of package rebuilding against a changing foundation on -current (e.g., glibc, compilers, X, etc). ----- Q19: How come slapt-get does not upgrade some packages? A: slapt-get uses a weighted system for upgrading packages. You might be interested in reading: Slapt-get FAQ 57. How do I assign priorities to my package sources? http://software.jaos.org/git/slapt-get/plain/FAQ.html#slgFAQ57 You will need to add a :CUSTOM entry to your SOURCE= which points to the GSB repository, otherwise it will consider official Slackware packages the most important and refuse to upgrade to other versions.