Dropline GNOME

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The desktop where the word processor and the spreadsheets are running.

Dropline GNOME is a version of the GNOME desktop environment. intended for use in the Linux distribution, Slackware. As Slackware has not included GNOME since 2005, Dropline GNOME is an option for Slackware users who wish to use GNOME as their desktops.

Dropline Gnome 2.16.1 was released on Saturday, November 2, 2006^[1].

1 History
2 Installation system
3 Criticisms
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

Due to developer constraints, the version of GNOME included with Slackware was inferior to that of many other distributions, and was later dropped entirely from the distribution ^[2]. Dropline GNOME was created to account for the shortcomings, and managed to fill the void left by this decision.

Todd Kulesza, Dropline GNOME's founder, has retired from further work on it. Dropline GNOME is now being maintained by a small group of volunteers from around the world who build different parts of the system.

[edit] Installation system

The primary method of installing Dropline GNOME is through the Dropline installer, a program one downloads and installs, which would download and install the rest of Dropline GNOME^[3]. The installer is similar to Slackware's pkgtool program, which is text-based and menu-driven. The installer is, in fact, simply a wrapper for Slackware's own 'upgradepkg', with the addition of the interface and the package download capabilities. One can select which parts of Dropline GNOME one wishes to install, using the program, and it will download the packages, verify them and install them.

An alternative installation method is to use the Dropline GNOME CD ISO, which contains all of the binary packages that Dropline GNOME includes.

[edit] Criticisms

Dropline GNOME has been criticized by some, including Slackware creator Patrick Volkerding, for adding PAM to the system, and replacing large system files, including the whole X11 system ^[4]. However in the most recent release 2.16.1, the Dropline GNOME team have discontinued the custom X11 builds, opting to build upon Slackware's instead.

Cases such as the PAM addition are not done without merit, however, as pam_console is an essential component in providing functional automount support via HAL and the GNOME Volume Manager. In order to keep users informed of the package replacements, the Dropline GNOME project provides a list of packages that are replaced on a stock Slackware system ^[5].

As of November 2006, Dropline GNOME is the only one out of the three Slackware GNOME options (the others are GWARE and Freerock GNOME) to offer a stable release of Gnome 2.16.