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Author: Rowland Penny
Date:  
To: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] Request for Removal of slim package from Devuan
On 24/05/16 15:08, Irrwahn wrote:
> To the Devs in charge, and to whom it may concern.
>
> I just filed an issue against the Devuan slim package,
> requesting its removal from future Devuan releases.
>
> Full quote below signature.
>
> Regards
> Urban
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Request for Removal of slim package from Devuan
>
> I hereby request that the slim package, containing the SLiM
> Simple Login Manager, be removed from future releases of Devuan,
> at least from the Jessie and testing suites. It may have its place
> in unstable for the time being.
>
> The reasoning that leads to this appeal is as follows:
>
> 1. It has no upstream.
>     The project has evidently been abandoned, the homepage was
>     taken off the web, leaving behind a stale github mirror that
>     as of today carries only a README file dated from 2016-04-12,
>     containing the following information, verbatim quote:
>     "Note: This repository was used as backup source and is no
>     longer maintained." [1]

>
> 2. SLiM has various apparent issues, notably:
>        * not playing nice with X session managers
>        * being unable to preserve the last chosen session between logins
>        * it is a nuisance to provide user support for

>
> 3. It has already been removed from Debian testing and unstable (sic!).
>     There is reason to suspect it would have been removed from Debian 8,
>     were it not for the early Jessie freeze on 2014-11-05.

>
> 4. The Devuan package appears orphaned, the code has not been touched
>     for about a year. Considering its upstream is no longer maintained
>     either, the package might impose a security risk not tenable for a
>     stable release.

>
> [1] Cf. https://github.com/data-modul/slim
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
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If you want another reason not to use slim, how about, it doesn't seem
to work if your authentication is coming from Samba AD. I have just set
up a new PC, compiled the latest Samba (4.4.4), set it up as a domain
member, checked that getent showed my username and then logged out of
the GUI. Tried to login with my username, entered password when
prompted, it went back to 'username' and wouldn't let me login as root
again.

Good job I still had a terminal open, found the offending 'slim' PID and
killed it, I could then log into slim as root again. Logged out again
but still couldn't log in with my username. Installed 'lightdm',
rebooted and then I could log with my username.

In my opinion (for what it is worth) slim is not fit for purpose.

Rowland