A basic system configuration has been made during installation.
However you will need to re-configure it to add or remove users, add a printer or a new service, change the user's language for instance. This article states how-to perform some configuration tasks for a desktop or laptop with the tools included in Slint.
Slint includes two kinds of configuration tools:
To access the configuration tools intended for a specific desktop:
We will let you discover these specific tools and now present the generic ones.
Many generic tools include two user interfaces:
In console mode, you can only use the TUI: just type the command, after having become root if need be (see below). You can also use the TUI in graphical mode: first click on a Terminal icon or choose a terminal in an application menu to start a terminal emulator.
Most of the icons that allow to start configuration tools are gathered in the Slint Control Center. They are listed at the end of Slint kick start.
Most of the tools used for configuration tasks need administrative privilege in other words to be used as root (super user). To do that:
su
then root's password before typing the command.Two commands are provided to manage users and groups:
These commands allow you to add or delete users and groups of users, and add users to groups.
Bear in mind that each user account is associated by default to its on space in the /home directory. For instance if you add a user leonie, a /home/leonie folder will be created, to which only this user (and root) will be allowed to access.
Two commands are provided for that:
Bear in mind that this settings changes the language used by the applications' interfaces if they are internationalized, not the keyboard map (see below).
Also, localized packages (if available) matching the language chosen have been already installed at end of Slint installation. If you change the default language afterwards, you will need to install the corresponding localized packages if you want.
Localized means “provided in a given locale”, the locale being a language plus peculiarities associated to a geographic area. For instance Portuguese spoken in Portugal and Brazil differ. In the localized packages names, l10n is an abbreviation of “localization” meaning “letter l, 10 other letters, letter n”.
Localized packages are included for many languages. Their name include the base package name, a hyphen, then the language code. We list below the base names of the localized packages:
Base package name | Description |
aspell | word lists for spell check |
calligra-l0n | localized of the Calligra office suite |
kde-l10n | localized KDE desktop |
libreoffice-l0n | localized LibreOffice office suite |
libreoffice-help | localized help for LibreOffice |
To find a localized package, type in a terminal emulator as root (example for kde-l10n):
spi libreoffice
This will display the list of all localized LibreOffice package. Find the one you want and install it. For instance for Persian the language code is fa
(short for Farsi), so to install it type:
spi -i libreoffice-l0n-fa
If you prefer you can use gslapt
. then, type the package name in the search field to display all localized libreoffice packages.
You can change the default keymap used in graphical mode using:
These commands also allow you to choose if numlock should be enabled when the system is started, and if the SCIM (input method) shuold be enabled at system startup.
If you use a window manager with a panel, you can also make this setting through a right click on the keyboard applet (displayed by default as the two letters language code of the keyboard map in use). KDE and Xfce have specific tools for that.
In Slint the CUPS print server manages printers and printing tasks. In its default configuration, recorded in the file /etc/cups/cupsd.conf, only users belonging to the sys
(short for system) group are allowed to perform administrative tasks, like adding or removing a printer.
For a simple setup (printer attached to a desktop or laptop and not shared between machines), you just need to add one user (who will manage the printers) to the sys
group. For instance adding the user didier to the group sys
can be done two ways:
su
then type:gpasswd --add didier sys
sys
. Or the other way round (select the group then add the user to it).
There are several ways to add and configure a printer (remember: this has to be done by an user member of the group sys
):
localhost:631
in the address field of a web browser.hp
logo in the notification area of the panel.cups
in checked among the System Services (it is checked by default in Slint).
In Slint PulseAudio serves as a proxy to sound applications that interact with ALSA, the system that communicates with the sound cards drivers.
By default the services alsa, alsa-oss (that allows to use OSS instead of ALSA for legacy sound cards) and pulseaudio are not activated at system startup. This is intentional as this setting fits most use cases and allows an instance or PulseAudio to be be automatically started when an user logs in with specific settings for that user. Only change that if you know what you are doing.
To change the sound setup, the main tool is the pavucontrol
mixer. You can start it from a terminal or application menu, and also from the Slint Control Center, Settings Category: PulseAudio Volume Control. Actually it allows more settings than just the volume control, take the time to explore all its features.
You can also use volume control applet in the notification area of the panel: a left click allows to adjust the volume, a right click gives access to other settings and allows to start the pavucontrol mixer.
The network has been configured during installation.
Would you need to change its configuration, you can use the netsetup
command as root, or in the Slint Control Center, System category, click on Network Configuration.
In most cases, especially for a mobile computer or using wireless connections, NetworkManager is the recommended choice for network configuration. Then tne network manager applet is displayed in the notification area of the panel. Make left click on it to display available network and connect or disconnect form one of them, a right click right click to configure the connections.
You can also configure the host names, necessary for instance if your computer belongs to a a local network, clicking Hostnames in the Slint Control Center, category System.
During installation you were asked which system services activate by default at startup.
You can change these settings using either:
The services are managed by scripts whose name begin with rc.
in the directory /etc/rc.d/. For instance the service acpi is managed by the shell script /etc/rc.d/rc.acpi. Most of the services are activated at startup if the corresponding script is executable. In the table below we indicate if it is activated at startup (on
in the column A) or not (off
in the column A). If the column is blank the activation of the services depend on a choice made during installation. The Package column indicate which software package provides the script corresponding to the service, case occurring
Service | A | Package | Purpose and comments |
acpi | on | acpid | Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, allows for instance to manage power or reboot pressing a button |
alsa | off | alsa-utils | Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, that provides sound card drivers. It replaces the original Open Sound System (OSS). |
alsa-oss | off | alsa-utils | ALSA OSS kernel modules |
atalk | off | netatalk | Allows Unix-like operating systems to serve as file, print and time servers for Macintosh computers. |
autofs | off | autofs | Kernel-based auto mounter for Linux |
bind | off | bind | Name server. Most users will rely on a remote one. |
bluetooth | on | bluez | Allows to communicate with bluetooth devices. |
brltty | brltty | Allows to communicate with Braille terminal or screen reader. Activated if used for installation | |
cgconfig | off | libcgroups | Runs the cgconfigparser utility that parses /etc/cgconfig.conf to setup the control group hierarchy, including setting the permissions (UID and GID) of the groups and possibly tunable parameters of the controllers. This alleviates doing that ourselves at every startup, for instance running a separate shell script. This script is executable by default but anyway won't do anything until /etc/cgconfig.conf be edited (all lines are commented out as shipped) |
cgmanager | on | cgmanager | Starts the cgmanager daemon that provides an alternate way to manage the control group hierarchy through D-Bus requests possibly through the cgm front-end utility. |
cgproxy | on | cgmanager | Starts the cgproxy daemon, that allows programs and users in a container to make cgroup administration requests using DBus calls, sending the user-ids or group-ids as SCM credentials to the cgmanager. |
cgred | off | libcgroups | Starts the cgroups rules engine daemon that automatically distributes to appropriate control groups the processes that changes their effective UID or GID, applying the rules found in /etc/cgrules.conf. This allows to continue apply resources control resources on such processes that could otherwise escape it. This script is non executable by default but anyway won't do anything until /etc/cgrules.conf be edited (all lines are commented out as shipped) |
consolekit | on | ConsoleKit2 | This daemon is used by polkit's console auth agent, to check privileges of user wanting to reboot or shutdown the system, for instance. |
cpufreq | on | sysvinit-scripts | Settings for CPU frequency and voltage scaling in the kernel. |
cups | on | cups | Startup/shutdown script for the CUPS print server. |
cups-browsed | on | cups-filters | Makes remote printers available locally. |
dnsmask | off | dnsmask | Start/stop/restart dnsmasq (a small DNS/DHCP server |
font | on | kbd | Sets the console font (used in Console mode, not in Graphical mode) |
fuse | on | fuse | Load the fuse module and mount the fuse control filesystem. FUSE is a simple interface for userspace programs to export a virtual filesystem to the Linux kernel. FUSE also aims to provide a secure method for non privileged users to create and mount their own filesystem implementations. |
gpm | on | gpm | The General Purpose Mouse server allows to cut and paste text from the screen on a Linux console. |
inet1 | on | network-scripts | This script is used to bring up the various network interfaces. |
inet2 | on | network-scripts | This shell script boots up the entire network system. |
inetd | on | inetd | BSD “super-server” daemon. The user needs to edit /etc/inetd.conf for the services to be actually used. |
ip_forward | off | netowrk-scripts | start/stop IP packet forwarding, needed for your computer to act as a router. |
keymap | on | installer | Loads the keybord map used in Console mode. |
loop | on | sysvinit-scripts | Loads the loop device kernel module. |
lxc | on | lxc | This scripts starts (if configured to be auto-started) and stops lxc containers. |
mcelog | on | mcelog | Starts the mcelog hardware error logging. This logs and handles CPU hardware errors on x86 systems |
messagebus | on | dbus | The D-BUS systemwide message bus. This is a daemon which broadcasts notifications of system events and other messages, providing inter-processes communication. |
mysqld | off | mariadb | starts/stop the MariaDB server. MariaDB is a fork of MySQL fully compatible with it |
networkmanager | NetworkManager | This is a daemon for automatically switching network connections to the best available connection. Activated if NetwoakManager is chosen to configure the network, during or after installation | |
numlock | salixtools | Activate numlock on the console | |
pcmcia | off | pcmciautils | Script to initialize PCMCIA subsystem. |
php-fpm | off | php | Starts the PHP FastCGI Process Manager daemon. |
rpc | off | rpcbind | start/stop/restart RPC (remote process communications) daemons needed to use NFS. To run an NFS server, starting these is mandatory. |
samba | off | samba | Start/stop/restart the Samba SMB CIFS file and print server for CIFS clients. It allows you to make file space or printers on a Samba host available to CIFS clients (such as PCs running Windows). |
saslauthd | off | cyrus-sasl | saslauthd is a daemon process that handles plaintext authentication requests on behalf of the SASL library. The CMU Cyrus SASL library is mostly used to authenticate to mail servers. |
sendmail | off | sendmail | Start/stop/restart Sendmail MTA (mail transfer agent or mail delivery system). |
serial | off | util-linux | Initializes and sets the serial ports on your system |
syslog | on | sysklogd | Start/stop/restart the system logging daemons, gthat log both kernel and system's messages. |
sysstat | on | systat | Reset the system activity logs, used to compute performance statistics |
sysvinit | on | sysvinit-scripts | This file provides basic compatibility with SystemV style startup scripts found in many binary packages |
udev | on | eudev | This script initializes udev, which populates the /dev directory with device nodes, scans for devices, loads the appropriate kernel modules, and configures the devices. |
ulogd | on | ulogd | starts the userspace ulogd daemon for netfilter/iptables related logging. |
wireless | on | wireless-tools | |
yp | on | yptools | Start NIS (Network Information Services). NIS provides network-wide distribution of hostname, username, and other information databases. |