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A Slackware Desktop Enhancement GuideA More Flexible rc.4 Script© Copyright Darrell Anderson. The stock Slackware barely supports booting into graphical mode at runlevel 4. The default is to boot into the console at runlevel 3, no questions asked. Many end-users are left scratching their heads how to boot into graphical mode. Doing so requires manually editing the /etc/inittab file. Yet even after progressing to that stage, end-users again struggle to select the login and session manager of their choice. Starting with Slackware 10.2, GNOME no longer is a part of the Slackware system, but the underlying rc.d initialization script never was updated to reflect the change. Probably because third party support for GNOME remained strong. The underlying rc.4 script is barely functional and for novices is not fun or easy to customize. The script uses an IF-ELSEIF-THEN approach toward programmatically selecting a login manager. With that type of approach, to modify the preferred selection sequence requires rearranging the entire script. Doable for experienced script writers, but not novices. All that is needed is a replacement script that does not require major editing, but instead provides the means to edit one variable—something even novices can handle. The attached updated script is only a beginning, however. Ideally, the stock Slackware, or derivative Slackware distros, should provide users a GUI front-end tool (ncurses and native QT and GTK) to automatically modify both the boot type and the preferred login manager, which then would modify both the inittab and rc.4 script. That front-end tool would provide users a method to toggle booting into runlevel 3 or 4. If the user selects runlevel 4, then the second option becomes available to select the preferred login manager. More ideally, all distro developers would dispense with the awkward and limited either-or approach toward booting that forces users to only select runlevel 3 or runlevel 4. Both options always should be provided in the bootloader menu options. Within the context of this mini how-to, that graphical front-end tool would modify inittab for the user’s preferred default runlevel, modify or update the bootloader menu options to provide both runlevel options, set the preferred runlevel option in the bootloader as the default, and modify rc.4 appropriately. The word of the day is usability. The concept is known as being user-friendly. /etc/rc.d/rc.4 Finis. |
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