Slackware 11 Has Been Released

CCFreak2K writes "Slackware 11 has been officially released, just over a year after Slackware 10.2 became available. Software available with Slackware 11 includes KDE 3.5, Mozilla Seamonkey 1.0.5 and X11R6 6.9. As usual, ISOs are available through BitTorrent and FTPs, packages can be synced through FTPs, and you can always buy a copy."

Glad to hear it

[Rob Kaper]

Congratulations, and kudos to Pat Volkerding. Many distributions have tried to convert me away from Slack in the past decade: none managed. Debian got close at some point, but with slapt-get in place Slackware's package management has become much easier (updated my laptop from 10.2 to -current with ease). Vanilla rocks.

You... you...

[TransEurope]

... can read my mind !!!??!

I use Slack since 1999, no other distribution of Linux
wowed me like Slack did. Nothing comes close, other
distributors try to overload their distros with lot's
of slow and bloated administration-services like YAST2
and so on. But Slackware just runs, and runs and runs...

Re:Theoretical question

[Ravenscall]

I concur here. It is not easy, but hell, if you want easy there is OS X and Windows. Using Slackware, customizing and tweaking it, you will learn, because, well, you HAVE to. However, it also allows you unparalelled customization without locking you into a specific format package manger. And if you cannot get a package to install, you can always just Use the Source.

It is funny, Using slackware, I always wondered what the big deal was with Gentoo users compiling thier own programs and such, until I tried Ubuntu one day and tried to compile something...

Re:Theoretical question

[Noryungi]

What does Slackware offer the newbie Linux user that something like Ubuntu doesn't?

The thing is (as far as I know) with Ubuntu (and many other distributions), you can use Linux just like you can use Windows: without knowing much, and without having to learn how to use a command line. It's nice, smooth, and not too hard. But you don't learn that much.

(Please note this is not to criticize Ubuntu, or any other distribution : Ubuntu is a great answer to a tough problem, how to make Linux useful for complete newbies).

With Slackware, you will have to learn . Sure, it will be tough, at first. But what you learn, you will be able to use on any Linux distributions, and on many other UN*Xes. I started with Slackware and I am today managing 10+ Solaris servers, as well as 12+ SuSE server. IMHO, what I learned under Slackware has been invaluable to the job I am doing today. YMMV, of course, but everyone I know who uses Slackware credit it with .

What selling points does Slackware have for the interested & experienced Linux geek?

Slackware is interesting for hard-core Linux Geeks because:

1. You have to learn. See above.
2. You get to compile tons of stuff, which is also a great learning experience. Plus, you learn how to be independent from one distribution.
3. Everything is open, everything is readable, everything is understandable. All configuration files and utilities are simple text and shell files. All the software compiled on Slackware, including the kernel, is vanilla: no annoying distribution-specific patches.
4. Slackware is your distribution, your way. Except you don't have to waste countless hours to compile everything, like you have to do under Gentoo or with LFS. It's usually faster and simpler to install than either of these Linux distributions. Install it, and you have the basis of a rock-solid Linux system, ready to go, and ready to go your way , not the "Debian", the "Red Hat" or the "Mandriva" way. That's a big difference.

Try Slackware, you may find yourself hooked!

And, again: this is not an attack on such-or-such distribution. I love all distributions, but Slackware always had -- and always will -- have a special place in my heart. And on my computers.

Re:Theoretical question

[Bandman]

Some friends of mine have a saying.

Use RedHat for a year, and you know RedHat really well.

Use Slackware for a year, and you know Linux really well.

It works, and requires that you learn. It's not a distobution for someone who wants to use a desktop and doesn't care how things work. It's for the person that says "I wonder what that file does".

Re:I see...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I consider Slackware to be the best linux distro for a server. My order of preference is this:

1. Slackware
   
2. FreeBSD
   
3. OpenBSD
   
4. Debian
   

The only thing Slackware is good for is learning a little about how Linux works, then you move on to a distro that allows you to get things done.

Au contraire, if you can't "get things done" using slackware then you haven't learnt anything about *nix!

Re:I see...

[cp.tar]

1: Lack of proper package management

What about slapt-get etc? Sounds like package management to me... one of the posters here stated he'd upgraded from 10.2 to 11 without a glitch.

2: Lack of configuration tools. Want to get things done? Want that thing setup now? Go to your favorite text editor and edit those config files by hand, even though it's utterly brainless work that any decent distro should have automated.

That, really, is a matter of taste.
I like manual configuration; you have to learn where things are, but once you do, no automated confiuration is that quick and flexible.
Of course, I do not despise automagically created defaults that work...

Anyway, thank you for the explanation.

Re:old packages...? is there a reason?

[slummy]

STABILITY

Re:hold on there buddy

[Anonymous Coward]

*Many* people want computers they can use like appliances. Most people, even. But in case you hadn't noticed, there are also a lot of people who actually love computers for for their own sake, who love to dig in deep under the hood and learn, because they're curious, because it's fun, because they want more control than an appliance allows, and/or because they want to build better ones. Those people explicitly don't want appliances. For those people, Slackware isn't "broken", it's almost the only operating system that is completely unbroken, utterly perfect.

If you disagree with me you are simply wrong. By your reasoning everyone should have switched to a Mac a long time ago, and there would be no programmers, no progress, no one who knew how fix anything, no one who could do anything but stupidly *consume* and *use*.

Your preferences are fine for yourself. But don't tell me that my curiosity and ambition make mine wrong. You're wrong, not because you want a dumbed down appliance but because you see no legitimacy in anything else, for anyone else.

I've been using Slackware since 3.2

[sdaemon]

I've tried other distros over the years, and have found the package management systems unwieldy, untrustworthy, and no less time-consuming to get things set up like I want than manually building from source and editing config files. I've learned details about system operation and file system layout through working with Slackware that have helped me debug problems on a variety of systems.

I'm a big fan of what I like to call Fire-and-Forget computing. I like to set up a system right the first time, then never have to touch it again (or as little as possible). Slackware has been very good about letting me do exactly that. My firewall/NAT box has been running happily without any unexpected reboots since sometime in 1998. For the most part it was only getting rebooted every time I moved from one dorm room/apartment to the next.

Slackware's also better at running on older hardware than any other distro I've found. I've just tried to get Ubuntu installed on some bare-minimum-specs HP e-PCs, without success, and there didn't appear to be any sort of lowmem option there.

I do miss the base floppy set for installing a minimal working system, done away with somewhere around slack9. I do miss that awesome little booklet that was tucked inside the 4-cd set (the first Linux book I ever read, and the most useful IMHO). I've always disliked the lack of a ftp/wget-based installation option on the stock install disk. And I've never been able to get the slack-build scripts to build new openssl-libs and openssh for me. Those are pretty much the only complaints I've ever had that were slackware-specific.

If you don't like the minimalist attitude of slack, use something else.

Yeah, let's all play the game

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO slackware and the rest of the *nixs are broken at the very core in that they require learning to be useful.

IMHO English and the rest of the languages are broken at the very core in that they require learning to be useful.

IMHO math and the rest of the sciences are broken at the very core in that they require learning to be useful.

IMHO pianos and the rest of the musical instruments are broken at the very core in that they require learning to be useful.

 

Re:Theoretical question

[Anonymous Coward]

In one sense, slackware is the Heathkit of Linux.

Back in the day you could buy plans and parts to build a radio from Heathkit, and by the time you were
finished with it, you would understand some things about modulation, soldering, and debugging circuits.

Today, you can buy a $5 radio from Wal-Mart that works and sounds just as good as the Heathkit radio.

I for one have learned a lot about linux already, and I don't want to be a sysadmin anymore than I have to in my free time. In one sense I can understand JWZ's switch to the mac, he wanted something that just works.

For me, and I'm speaking for me alone here, I don't want a heathkit system anymore. I want it to install correctly, detect my hardware automatically. I don't want to spend time in help forums or irc channels. I don't need or want to understand the semantics of sendmail.cf. I just want it to work.

Slackware is your distribution, your way.

That's marketroid speak. Slackware is your distribution the slackware way. Ubuntu is your distribution the ubuntu way. Fedora is your distribution the fedora way. Gentoo is your distribution the gentoo way, etc.

*My* way aligns itself the ubuntu way. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just different. All distributions let you peek under the hood to see the way it works. Slackware gives it to you all at once -- kinda like drinking from a firehose. Fedora and ubuntu lets you see if you want to, but they also put a nice shiny chrome wrapper around it too.

This is very good news!

[ODMahowny]

I'm new to the linux world. Just started using it about 4 or 5 months ago. I'm not in the I.T. business. I'm that annoying marketing guy on the phone you guys mention from time to time, but I've been a "closet case" computer geek sense I got my first Apple II. I've known about linux for a long time and I finally had some extra scratch so I decided to pick up an box and experiment with an OS I've been wanting to dive into.

I shopped around for distributions. I used Debian, Ubuntu, and Mandriva. Those all left me wanting more, I guess you could say they just didn't do it for me. I found slackware, read up about and really liked it's history, the community, and the KISS system just made a whole lot of sense. So here I am now a few months later, I have my second computer up and running with slackware 10.2, my sound works, my video works. I can print, I can play mp3s, write documents using the provided software. Hell I even have a Samba server going so I can swap files between my systems. Some might call me crazy for saying this but it's been easy with Slackware!

Between google, http://www.linuxpackages.net/ [linuxpackages.net], and the fellas at http://www.linuxquestions.org/ [linuxquestions.org] any obstactle I've bumped into has been easily over come. I really don't see why Slackware is classified as a hardcore linux or not for beginners. With all the excellent documentation it has been easy for me to do the things I want to do. Pretty much everything I do with my windows system I can do on my slackware system. Infact these days I use it more often because I rarely have to shut it down!

I'll be ordering up slackware 11 asap. It's definitely an OS that I will use for a long time. Thanks Pat V, for creating and maintaining an excellent OS even a non techie noob can use productively :-).