Slackware 11.0 Almost Done

linuxbeta writes "DistroWatch reports that the development process for Slackware Linux 11.0 is almost over. OSDir has some sweet shots of Slackware 11.0 RC1 in the Slackware 11.0 RC1 Screenshot Tour." From the article: "'There are still a few changes yet to happen, but let's call this Slackware 11.0 release candidate 1.' Other recent changes include upgrade to stable kernel 2.4.33; upgrade to udev 097, and rebuild of glibc 2.3.6 for both 2.4.33 and 2.6.16.27 kernels. The new release will ship with X.Org 6.9.0 and KDE 3.5.4, and will provide SeaMonkey instead of Mozilla."

Re:2.4 kernel? WTF

[FreonTrip]

Slackware's always been designed with maximum stability and reliability in mind. Patrick thinks that 2.4 is still the safer bet, so he's gone with it as a default. The option to install with a new 2.6 kernel is also available, for those who'd prefer something a touch more modern.

Re:2.4 kernel? WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on its Slackware you should know better ;-p. besides you have a choice of installing either 2.4 or 2.6 its not like you have to use 2.4. I have 10.2 and am using the 2.6 kernel that came with it and its fine. THe kernel really is the only thing thats old but even then its a recent version thats stable.

Re:2.4 kernel? WTF

[owlman17]

2.4 is old but by no means 'dated'. 2.4 is significantly leaner than 2.6, runs on old hardware and has a lot of backports from 2.6 http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/ChangeLog- 2.4.33 [kernel.org]

Even DSL uses 2.4. I still use 2.4 on my old PIIs and newer hardware myself.

Slack aims to run on as many types of hardware as possible. Besides, you can always compile your own 2.6 kernel into your slack system.

Re: Stone Age

[slummy]

Gnome was dumped in 10.2. You can still find a nice release of Gnome from Freerock Gnome [freerock.org] built specifically for Slackware.

Gotta love Slackware...

[ClickOnThis]

... for its venerability as well as its stability. It was my first, and still favourite distribution. It's not on the bleeding edge, but it has other virtues. One is that it can be scaled easily to install as much or as little of it as you need, and run on machines with very different CPU and memory resources and amounts of disk space. Great for turning a bunch of old mismatched PCs into a Beowulf Cluster.

Semi-automatic package management has taken awhile to evolve, but for some time now it has been very good indeed. There are several good PM clients; I think slapt-get has the edge right now. And if you can't find what you need in the distro, there are several sites (such as http://www.linuxpackages.net/ [linuxpackages.net]) that offer lots of additional packages and goodies.

Re:Stone Age

[narfbot]

Argh... don't make assumptions.

Xorg 6.9 and Xorg 7.0 are functionally the same. The only difference is installation methods in that 7.0 is modular, puts things in /usr, and will break many apps. The distros that adopted 7.0 so fast were foolish and likely caused problems for their end users. So when you call Xorg 6.9 so old, you are so wrong. Xorg 6.9 and Xorg 7.0 are essentially the same code and released the same time.

I'm not going to detail the other things people have done, but I will also state, that slackware has supported 2.6 for a long time now. Not only that, I've been running it with 2.5/2.6 since about 2003.

Re:wonderful screen shots...

[Ransak]

Yes, since it's makes heavy use of your video card. I run SuSE 10.1, the list is in a package called xgl-hardware-list [novell.com] which installs a file to /etc/X11/xgl-hardware-list. I'm not sure of other distros, but Google should have the answers you seek.

Re:Stone Age

[pwrtool 45]

I wish I had mod points. Your comments about X.org are spot on. The resultant binaries are the same. X.org 7.0 is just the modularized source for X.org 6.9. I mean, geez. It's the second item [x.org] on their web page!

Re:Seamonkey vs. Mozilla?

[Anonymous Coward]

Code-wise, Seamonkey is pretty much the code that could have become Mozilla Suite 1.8.

The Mozilla Corporation/Foundation are not supporting Seamonkey in the same way as they did the Suite - Seamonkey is now a community-driven project, and while it's still mostly hosted by the Mozilla Foundation, the coding is now done by volunteers rather than anyone employed by Mozilla (except for the back-end which is code shared by Firefox, Thunderbird, Camino, Sunbird, etc)

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/news.htm l#2005-07-02 [mozilla.org]

Re:2.4 kernel? WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried using the bundled 2.6 once, and I encountered some problems. I ended up getting the vanilla source from kernel.org and it actually worked better.

What are you talking about? Slackware is the only high-profile distro that uses Linus' tree. It's all the other distros that patch the kernel. Slackware doesn't.

Re:2000 called, they what their kernel back

[tjw]

Kernel 2.4.33? Is that serious? What is wrong with 2.6.x?

Nothing is wrong with 2.6, but for some of us having the 2.4 option is essential. For example, certain applications built for 2.4 LinuxThreads will tend to be very unstable running on the new POSIX threads in 2.6.

People are looking at this the wrong way. It's not that Slackware doen't included the 2.6 kernel (it does), it offers the versatility to run either 2.4 or 2.6 which is a major advantage over other distros. Especially for us poor bastards who have to run expensive closed-source proprietary software at work.

Re:What's the proper way to upgrade Slack distros?

[ledow]

I've done upgrades over at least three version of Slackware that I can remember (and a lot more clean installs) but all went smoothly.

- Follow UPGRADE.TXT to the letter (in the root of the CD for the new version) not forgetting to move any .new files over to their proper names but with your configuration details entered (use the .new because sometimes the format changes a lot)
- Boot in single user mode and upgrade to latest kernel version (kernels go out of date too fast to rely on the default one being worthwhile for more than a few weeks or so). Don't forget lilo/grub etc.
- Make sure that any graphics drivers/kernel modules/etc. that you compiled in are recompiled with a version suitable for your new kernel
- Reboot and X should work just fine, then you may need to recompile or upgrade some of your software (e.g. if it's compiled against an earlier glibc or kernel).

It's a pain in the bum, especially if you have a lot of software or driver modules that are fussy about what they compile against, but it's usually a damn sight easier than trying to transfer all your software, config, etc. over to a new clean install.

Slack is the way to go

[kolme]

I've run Slackware on my computer for 4 or 5 years, then switched to Ubuntu. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages, but if you know your way around, Slack is way better.

• Slackware is significantly faster. And much faster with a custom kernel. All the system scripts are written in plain old bash, and the init system, based on BSD's, it's simpler and more elegant. It's just more Unix-ish.
• The package system is simple, so simple it'll never break. You won't have dependency problems, because there aren't any dependencies. All the headers come with the packages, so you don't have to install any *-dev packages to compile some app.
• All the software bundled with Slack is unmodified. It's a plain Kernel from kernel.org, with plain GNU stuff and a plain KDE. No especial artwork, nor funny shit you'll never use. Come on, everybody changes the wallpaper and theme after installing a distro.
• Never crashes, unless you've messed up the config files. I've sometimes seen Fedora and Ubuntu behaving sluggish or buggy. In Slack this NEVER happens (or never happens to me).

Ubuntu is still installed on my computer, and although it's a nice distro, I'll be back slackin' in no time.

the swiss army knife of distros

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a shame that people see slackware as dated. Slackware's stability, and flexibility, makes most other distroes look like another windows. Slackware is a stable base on top of wich you can put whatever you want. Slackware isn't an enterprise solution, but you can easily build an enterprise solution on top of it. Its basically ready to go as a simple webserver though. Slackware is like a blank canvas, just gnu, linux, and a few basic utilities. Gentoo is probably the closest linux to it, but gentoo's portage and weird init scripts are very particular to gentoo. And rebuilding my OS when I want to upgrade isn't very appealing. Slackware's package management, and configuration scripts, are so basic and unobtrusive that they never break or get broken by any modifications you may need to make. I can see why this is annoying to some. Most people would rather spend time using their OS than adding to it or maintaining it. I can see why ubuntu and fedora tend to be the OS of choice for desktop users, but I fail to see their advantage to power-users and server admins. If you're a control freak, and don't have enough time to do LFS, slackware is a great starting point. For what its worth, here is a shot of my laptop running slackware: http://home.comcast.net/~diabolix/shot.png [comcast.net]