As reported earlier, Slackware 12.0 was officially released, and that I have managed to get it nicely set up on Edythe, replacing the old Slackware 11.0 that I was running.
Now that Slackware 12.0 is using the newer Linux 2.6 kernel series, ACPI is innately supported by the kernel. Unfortunately, I mis-read the level of support—I thought that the ACPI is supported innately by the kernel, and thus spent lots of time trying to set up the whole thing such that my self-hacked el cheapo battery meter can run properly. Turns out that the kernel did support ACPI, not in situ but as a bunch of kernel modules. A few quick hacks later, I am proud to say that my ACPI is working wonderfully on Edythe now.
One notable change in software is the removal the the old Gaim software. Gaim was the old name of the cross-platform compatible multi-protocol instant messaging system; apparently, it was embroiled with a naming dispute with AIM particularly on the use of the acronym A-I-M within the name. The very last version of Gaim that was available for download before the name change was 2.0 beta, subsequently no further version of Gaim can be found. Pidgin however, is a most interesting successor to Gaim. While most of the interface are still the same (Pidgin is just an improved version of the old Gaim code), it appears to be less buggy, considering the fact that more development has probably been done on Pidgin than the 2.0 beta version of Gaim. In addition to the obvious improvements, Pidgin offers a nice text-mode interface to the program by ways of Finch. Now, Gaim had a text version called Gaim-text, but no one seems to know about it (leastways, not me). So everything seems to be more interesting now. Surprisingly, Ubuntu 7.04 doesn't seem to have a package installation for Pidgin. I say surprising because Ubuntu is based on the Debian packages, and the folks over at Debian are really bleeding edge with regards to the update of the experimental folder for the Debian distribution. So, it is weird that it is not yet available as a package for Ubuntu.
I've tried out the other windowing managers, and have still decided that fluxbox is still the most suitable for me. Amazingly spartan and completely utilitarian, with custom configuration possible through the editing of simple text files, instead of trying to plough through a whole big chunk of XML or even binary file.
Test drive on Slackware 12.0 is fairly uneventful. The Java SDK 6.0 for Linux installs and runs fairly smoothly, with no hiccups yet. I'm still too lazy to install Eclipse.org into the Linux parition on Edythe. There're a whole bunch of reasons, one of which is the size (I only have 10GB on the Linux platform for crying out loud), the configuration (getting Eclipse.org to display text small is not an easy task) and the necessity (I rarely need to hack Java code out in Linux except when I'm at work; programming in Linux usually means coding in C/C++/R/Forth/Prolog/LISP/SML). And since I already have a working JDK 6.0/Eclipse set up on my Windows XP platform (complete with the necessary small-text customisation), I don't see a need to duplicate efforts on another platform for the same thing.
Bottomline: I've managed to set up my Slackware to be in the form that I actually like. The only thing that I probably need to start figuring out is to activate the SCIM under X-Windows so that I can actually start typing non-latin based languages like Chinese or Japanese, and also the activation of the wireless internet access. Other than that, Edythe.Linux.Slackware is operational and ready for action.
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