Mateo

The basics of the OS are ready, but as I add more and more functionality to the OS (applications, libraries, etc.) the more bugs show up. Simplicity definitely is a virtue.

One major hurdle has been Open Office. Slax does not run Open Office natively, instead Thomas went for a hacked version of KOffice.

Now, that makes sense, since Slax is designed to be a minimal live CD, not desktop OS. The fact that people like what Slax is, and want to use it as a desktop, is a testiment to Thomas's effort.

Originally, I thought that Abiword and Gnumeric where sufficient for our gamer's OS: a word compatible document creator and a excel-like spreadsheet. Both work well together, and have alot of the functionality of commerical products. Only one problem: no presentation creator.

One solution is to use KPresenter, which is part of KOffice. KOffice is integrated right into the KDE desktop and contains virtually every type of office function, including visio like diagramming and gant charting. The downside is that it isn't very MS-Office compatible.

http://www.koffice.org/

In addition, trying to grab KPresenter on its own is virtually impossible. Like Powerpoint, there are KWord and KSpread dependencies that can't be satisfied if you install it on its own.

So you would have to install KWord, Abiword, Gnumeric, KSpread, and KPresenter. That's 2 document creators, 2 spreadsheets, 1 presentation software.

I can't see a point in that: one app for everything should be the Tactical OS creed.

Back to Open Office.

http://www.openoffice.org/

It's big: 100mb. It requires JRE, which adds another 30mb. Actually, that is a soft requirement. If you want to use the database functionality, you better have it. Otherwise, you can do without it....but what OS does not have a java virtual machine in it?

Open Office, in it's latest incarnation (1.9.100) has just about everything you could want from a modern office suite, and some things you probably don't. Guess they learned that from Microsoft. Unfortunately, it doesn't run on Slax.

But it is now running on Tactical OS! The secret has glibc2. Now, for the non-linux heads, glibc2 is sort of similar to .Net: its a set of code that is essential for just about everything, but appears to be useless. Apparently the Open Office interface and XML backend are pegged to this code package.

Of course, alot of other things are broken now, but hey, Open Office is running and stable.

Another major milestone was to get gslapt up and running.

http://software.jaos.org/screenshots/gslapt_main.png

What gslapt does is to give users an automatic way of updating the OS via a network, similar to synaptic. Check the application you want, and it will check dependencies, and install/uninstall them for you, all wrapped up in a nice GUI. Woot!

Since that interface might not be for everyone, I also included slackins.

http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=17300

A little more user friendly, not to mention more colorful.

What else is broken?

• New versions of Slax, Wine, Nvidia drivers, ATI drivers, and Cedega have been relased since Tactical OS started, which means trying to get all those things integrated.

• Slax 5.06 broke several critical modules, including the Nvidia module.

• The Slax installer also appears to be broken with the latest release.

• Most of the menus are shot, since the apps are mostly removed, and replaced with others. The icons need to be fixed as well.

• Themes are coming along, but slowly. They are last on my list.

I may roll back to the 5.05 version (older kernel, older version of Xorg, etc.) if these things are not/cannot be fixed.

Many of these things can only be fixed via a HD install, so that will be coming up this week. Yes, I'm doing all this on XP at the moment.

I'll post some screenshots in a bit to show the OS's progress.

Head over to

http://www.tacticalblog.com/TGMateo/

for more on TacticalOS!
-Mateo

IceCold

I was totally following you until you said G slapped you.... Who is "G" and why didn't you kick his butt for having slapt you?

Seriously, that's when your post lost this poor Windows user.

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AntiVisual

I have no idea how to build or do anything at this level. I shoulda majored in CS. Oh well.

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Mateo

Self taught. Learning by doing is at the core of linux.

Mateo

Yeah, I guess I could have been a little more....windows friendly!

Trooper

the key to being windows freindly is haveing a help file that does everything else but help you...

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that sounds like a good idea trooper.
-Vulcan

CingularDuality

So.... Gslapt is like a combination of Windows Update and an installer program

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Mateo

Yes, that's the idea.

In the linux world, there is no clear boundary between updating the OS, and the applications running on it. So tools like this let you do both.

Iceberg

I feel less nerdy reading that, and that is saying something. Cant wait to try it out

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Mateo

I'm so proud!

CingularDuality

Do I just not know how to work a "blog", or has it not been updated since June?

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Mateo

It was updated, but I pulled down the last two posts. They were the same text as was in these forums, so you didn't miss anything.

Why? I'm contemplating a code change. Some things that I want to do with Tactical OS are just not possible if I use SLAX as the basis for it.

I have to decide how important some of them are, and some of them aren't, to the long term project before we go on.

One of them, Slax's apparent handcuffing of users into ROOT/Admin only is just about a deal breaker.

CingularDuality

Is the "LiveCD" something that you really want? It's kinda cool, I suppose, but why do you want it for TacticalOS? I thought you were trying to offer a desktop replacement OS for gamers?

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Mateo

Live CD I think is key.

It gives everyone a chance to test out the OS on their system, without commiting to changes. If something is seriously wrong (audio doesn't work, for example) you know about it before the install.

Maybe the way to go about it, however, is to do what Ubuntu does, and seperate the live CD from the install CD.

The ultimate goal is to provide a desktop replacement for gamers, but we can figure out ways to ease the transition, right?

CingularDuality

I guess I don't understand the difference between a LiveCD and an installed OS, I guess. I was assuming that the only difference was that the LiveCD ran off of the CD, RAM and a pagefile... What's the difference between using a LiveCD and an installed OS, then? Just that you'd have to uninstall some stuff if it doesn't work? Big deal...

If you have to decide between a LiveCD that works for most people with most of the games that TG hosts and an installed OS that works for ALL of the people and ALL of the games that TG hosts, then I'd certainly opt for the installed OS.

My ignorance is probably skewing my responses, though...

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran: