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Slackware 11.0 Almost Done 190

Posted by Zonk from the is-it-worth-the-wait dept.
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."
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Slackware 11.0 Almost Done More

Slackware 11.0 Almost Done

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  • 2.4 kernel? WTF (Score:2, Interesting)

    by LordKazan ( 558383 )
    Seriously.....

    • Re:2.4 kernel? WTF (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:06PM (#15910723)
      1999 called, they want their kernel back...

    • Re:2.4 kernel? WTF (Score:5, Informative)

      by FreonTrip ( 694097 ) <`freontrip' `at' `gmail.com'> on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:07PM (#15910732)
      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.
      • Like people who need to use non-tiny hard drives.

        (Being able to access less than half of my new 300gb drive is FUN!)
      • Slackware's always been designed with maximum stability and reliability in mind.

        Slackware used to include older versions of software like debian stable because it was designed with stability in mind. But since around 7.0, haven't you noticed it includes up-to-date software?

        I think i read somewhere that 11.0 (hence the bump in the major version number) would include 2.6 by default

    • Re:2.4 kernel? WTF (Score:2, Informative)

      by 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 (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tylernt ( 581794 )
        I have 10.2 and am using the 2.6 kernel
        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.

        I love Slackware, it runs all of my servers, but man... I wish 2.6 was the default. 2.6 has some things that 2.4 doesn't, so sometimes I have to upgrade, which is a PITA. What does 2.4 have that 2.6 doesn't?

        • Re:2.4 kernel? WTF (Score:3, Informative)

          by 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:2.4 kernel? WTF (Score:5, Informative)

      by owlman17 ( 871857 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:16PM (#15910803)
      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.
      • > Even DSL uses 2.4

        And so does Redhat EL (or perhaps 4 switched to 2.6, I don't know since I'm still on 3). Until Linus decides to stop making 2.6 his personal playground for unstable features, any stable distribution is going to stay "2.4 + vendor patches" for a long time to come.
        • RHEL 4 did indeed switch to 2.6. It also changed all the redhat-* commands to system-* commands for some reason.

          • RHEL 4 did indeed switch to 2.6. It also changed all the redhat-* commands to system-* commands for some reason.

            I noticed this too. I figured it was part of a harmonization with Fedora. Reduce the number of RH references in Fedora, and since RHEL is based in part on Fedora, certain things would carry through. Or perhaps it just makes more sense to have them be system-* rather than redhat-*. Perhaps they hope that other distros will pick up on the naming scheme, making for a more unified configuration st

    • Re:2.4 kernel? WTF (Score:5, Insightful)

      by farrellj ( 563 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:18PM (#15910814) Homepage Journal
      Because it's considered more stable, and supports things that haven't been up-ported to the 2.6 kernels.

      Patrick aims at the most stable distro...not the latest, flashiest distro. That is why it is used on a large variety of servers...in fact, it has the probably more server installs than any other Distro still built by one person, and his wife. Debian is probably closest, but it is now a large team that works on it.

      Slackware just works...and works...and works...it's sort of the Energizer Bunny of Distros!

      ttyl
                Farrell
    • I'm surprised no one has yet posted this: Slackware Linux Poster [mirrordot.org]

  • Stone Age (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jacek Poplawski ( 223457 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:12PM (#15910768)
    I was using Slackware for few years before I switched to Arch Linux.

    I don't understand why it still uses xorg 6.9. Maybe the reason is that nobody has the time to make so many packages for xorg7? IIRC that was the reason why there is no full GNOME in Slackware.

    Kernel 2.4 - OK, as long as it is 2.6 ready (and it is).

    But guys... what's the point to use so old software? If you don't want to put new desktop stuff, then just remove all desktop packages from distro.

    • Re:Stone Age (Score:5, Informative)

      by narfbot ( 515956 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:53PM (#15911103)
      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:Stone Age (Score:2, Informative)

        by pwrtool 45 ( 792547 )
        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!
      • > Xorg 6.9 and Xorg 7.0 are functionally the same.

        Despite of few rather nice things and few critical (for few people like laptop users) new drivers.
    • But guys... what's the point to use so old software?

      The point is to keep guys like me who don't always feel the need to mess with the "latest and greatest" happy. I like Slackware because Slackware is solid, and Slackware is solid because it moves with caution.

    • I don't understand why it still uses xorg 6.9. Maybe the reason is that nobody has the time to make so many packages for xorg7? IIRC that was the reason why there is no full GNOME in Slackware.

      Slackware is very confused about what it is. It used to be the hacker's GNU/Linux. That title now belongs to Gentoo or Ubuntu. It is not an operations oriented distro like Debian. It is not commercially accepted like Red Hat or SuSE. Who are they protecting with all of the caution?

  • Slackware Screen Shots (Score:5, Funny)

    by neonprimetime ( 528653 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:12PM (#15910775)
    Granted, I don't use Slackware. But when I saw a link stating "Slackware Screen Shot Tour", I fully expected to see a bunch of shell prompts :-P I wasn't entirely wrong!

  • All hail... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ransak ( 548582 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:16PM (#15910804) Homepage Journal
    ... the Church Of the SubGenius! [wikipedia.org]
  • ... looks remarkably similar to Linux!

    Please remind me why this is exciting... Slackware is cool to run. It's not particularly interesting to look at. (the OSX folks have that wrapped up) Just tell me when it's ready to download.

    • (the OSX folks have that wrapped up)

      Turn on Xgl. Seriously. I run it on every one of my workstations now, and I've gotten so use to the enhanced interface I feel like I'll get eye cancer if I use a 'non Xgl'd' system for more than five minutes.

      • Or, download Slacke17, the newest Enlightenment, packages for Slackware as a slackpack. It even makes a 700 Mhz PIII look cool and fast!

        http://slacke17.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

        ttyl
                  Farrell
      • Does Xgl have very specific video card requirements, i.e. nothing higher than a Radeon 9500-level card?
        • 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.
      • > Turn on Xgl. Seriously. I run it on every one of my workstations
        > now, and I've gotten so use to the enhanced interface I feel like
        > I'll get eye cancer if I use a 'non Xgl'd' system for more than
        > five minutes.

        A bit off-topic.

        I have mixed feelings about Xgl (compiz-quinn exactly - Xgl is not something you directly see).

        Recently I've been playing with it and it is great - I do not at all mean eye candy - I mean *functionalities* that I get. I see live pictures of windows as I switch them. I ca
        • Many of the effects in compiz and compiz-quinn have been really exagerated (particularly wobbly). I guess this is to make the eye-candy obvious, but it has the effect of getting in the way. Changing setting in gconf-editor really helps.

  • Re: Stone Age (Score:2, Informative)

    by slummy ( 887268 )
    Gnome was dumped in 10.2. You can still find a nice release of Gnome from Freerock Gnome [freerock.org] built specifically for Slackware.
    • Yeah. Bassicaly - I'am THE MAINTAINER. Screw you guys using GNOME - I don't like GNOME so I'll drop it. It is too hard to maintain - go maintain it yourself. Now that is what I expect of STABLE distro. :) Like *I* don't like whatever you use - go screw yourself.

      Phheeeh. :))) It was also a nice point about Slackware.

      Disclaimer: I don't use GNOME directly, I use various parts of it. And I also use KDE - you know, on Linux/X11 you can use both of them - only the apps you like. But not on Slackware.
      • I don't use GNOME directly, I use various parts of it. And I also use KDE - you know, on Linux/X11 you can use both of them - only the apps you like. But not on Slackware.

        *looks at parent post*

        *Looks at desktop running amaroK and gaim*

        *looks at parent post*

        *looks at /etc/slackware-version*

        *shakes head and shrugs*
  • Isn't Seamonkey just Mozilla 1.8?

    Or is there some deeper hidden difference here?

  • Many Kudos! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by farrellj ( 563 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:41PM (#15911031) Homepage Journal
    To Patrick Volkerding, his wife and Volkerding 2.0!

    This is the oldest existing Linux Distro! Possibly one of the most stable as well. It retains the Unix philosophy that it does a few things really, really well, and gives you the tools to add on to it. It's tanj simple to maintain and update, no "RPM Hell". And it's one person's vision, which gives it a consistancy that is lacking in other "art by committee" Distros.

    And I am biased...I moved to Slackware from Soft Landing Systems (SLS) Linux, and although I have tried many different Distros over the years, I keep on comming back to Slackware...and not just for religious reasons, either!

    Thanx you Patrick and Co for keeping the vision!

    ttyl
              Farrell
    • And I am biased...I moved to Slackware from Soft Landing Systems (SLS) Linux, and although I have tried many different Distros over the years, I keep on comming back to Slackware...and not just for religious reasons, either

      Ditto, ditto and ditto...

      Seriously, many kudos from this long-time user as well. I can't wait for Slackware 59.0!

    • Re:Many Kudos! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by JoeF ( 6782 )
      Cool. Somebody else who remembers SLS ;-)
      When SLS vanished I too moved to Slackware, since the first Slackware distro was derived from SLS.
      I have been using Slack since then on my main Linux box, currently running Slack 10.2 with a 2.6.17 kernel. I play with other distros on a spare machine, but none has come close to Slack in stability and ease of maintenance.
    • SLS!! "A soft landing from a DOS bail-out!"

      I never was so comfortable with the new fangled Slackware after SLS.

    • Re:Many Kudos! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by spaceyhackerlady ( 462530 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @02:31PM (#15911903)

      Hear! Hear!

      Slackware is still my distro of choice. It's utterly stable, and it just works. I actually like the text-based install: it's the right technology for what it does. What more do you need? Besides, it really will run on anything.

      Slackware is one of the few distros that realizes that it's OK for a Linux box to look and feel like Unix. And, yes, I have used real Unix, back in my VAX days. I still have a Solaris box in my cubicle, and I do real work with it.

      Keep up the good work, Patrick. Thank you.

      ...laura, typing this on a Slackware 10.2 box

      • I actually like the text-based install: it's the right technology for what it does.

        Amen. If you have to touch a mouse during the installation of what will become a headless server, you've already failed.

  • Are you sure this is Slackware? (Score:3, Funny)

    by DiscWolf ( 976849 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:41PM (#15911032)
    XOrg 6.9, 2.4 Kernel ... are you sure this isn't Debian?

  • Gotta love Slackware... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:49PM (#15911078) Journal
    ... 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.
    • 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.

      That's the essence of Slackware.

      I use Slackware on my home network. Its runs the gateway on an old 486, my desktop/file-server on a 3.4 Ghz Intel, and on the 32MB Ram Pentium laptop I use to read mail on the couch.

      Like the name says, its the distro for the good kind of lazy. All hail J.R. Dobbs.

  • Patrick, maybe the time's come (Score:5, Interesting)

    by buffoverflow ( 623685 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @12:55PM (#15911119)
    Being a dedicated Slack user for the better part of a decade, I've rarely questioned any of Patrick's decisions in the maintenance of HIS distro. (Most people who piss & moan about Slackware being dated don't realize that it's one of the few distros that is still maintained, for the most part, by a single individual).
    However, with great trepidation, I must say that perhaps some changes are in order.
    Slackware has had a dedicated following for a long time because the distribution filled an industry need. The need for a truly rock solid stable distro that was a fairly easy transition for those coming from a pure Unix world. It seems now that those days are, for the most part, gone. The majority of the engineers out there now days have been brought up on other Linux distros, and many have never touched an actual Unix system. (No need to start any "What is Unix really?" flame wars).
    While I do still prefer the structure and stability of Slackware, I do think it's time to make certain changes. I'm not saying it's time to jump on the "Latest and Greatest Everything" bandwagon. I think it's time for the distro to be re-focused. Possibly into a pure Server OS, with a strong focus on commercial grade clustering & virtualization. All of the other distros that have done this (i.e. RedHat, SUSE, etc.), did not have the right base for it. They were based on bleeding edge, sometimes alpha code, and everything had to be stabilized (which hasn't seemed to work out very well). Slackware does have the right, truly stable base for a dedicated server OS. If Patrick were to shift things to this direction, build in the right set of truly enterprise-class server features, I think he may very well see a new found following.
    The other area that I believe a re-focused version of slack could be very successful is the embedded systems market. Slack is known for is lean, fast, optimized code. I think it would fit well into this segment.

    I think either of these markets are perfect for Slack. Neither is looking for the latest, most newfangled, gui-based, anything. They want lean, fast, stable code, & steady release cycles. Just my $.02.

    • Re:Patrick, maybe the time's come (Score:5, Interesting)

      by KillerBob ( 217953 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @01:18PM (#15911291)
      I disagree. Slackware is what it is: stable. It's also one of the fastest distros I've ever used. There's a reason it's running on all of my servers. There's *tons* of other distros out there that specialise in bleeding edge. Let them do it.

      If you want bleeding edge out of a Slack-based distro, btw, you should check out Zenwalk (http://www.zenwalk.org/). Slack packages are compatible, though they have their own package manager and custom-compiled packages that support dependency checking )while still maintaining compatibility with pkgtool and install/removepkg). The real advantage is when Zen doesn't have a package for what you're looking for... then you can just pop over to slackware.com and grab Pat's version, or over to linuxpackages.net and grab one of theirs.

    • Re:Patrick, maybe the time's come (Score:5, Insightful)

      by freshman_a ( 136603 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @01:23PM (#15911327) Homepage Journal
      No.

      I'm a long-time Slack user. One of the reasons I love Slack and use it everywhere I can is because of it's versitility. I can have a super stable server and a super stable desktop with the same version of the same OS. As it stands, Slack is quick to install, lean, stable, and it just works. Patrick's whole philosophy is Keep It Simple Stupid. Moving in the direction of enterprise-class servers would not be KISS. Also, the people behind Slack consist of Patrick and... well, pretty much just Patrick. How would one person maintain a distro aimed at the enterprise market? I like the fact that one person is behind the distro. Patrick makes the decisions, and that's it. There's no need to fear a split with the maintainers or delays in releases due to arguments about what should or shouldn't be included. I fully agree that Slackware makes a great server OS, but I would be really sad if Patrick re-focused Slack's direction and made it a pure server OS aimed at the enterprise market.

      That's my $0.02
    • You miss the whole point of Slackware.

      It's the OS that Pat compiles to use himself, he just happens to release it to others as well.

      Oh, Praise Bob !
    • I've always thought that while Pat should continue to maintain Slackware stable and current, several people should maintain a full or mostly-full Slackware testing distro, so that making new packages and newer versions of existing packages ready for inclusion into mainline Slackware can be expedited. There's no reason why the Slackware philosophy cannot be extended to newer packages.
  • I remember using Slackware 2.0 in 1994. Ahh the memories, Looking at it now it hasn't changed much. I am not sure if it is a good thing or not.
  • you bastard!

    It was Pain.

    But I got it to work AND dual boot.

  • We are Slackers... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Nichole_knc ( 790047 )
    IF you have not used Slack then you should not be a bashing it.... Slackware 10.# + is the rule at this house. Six boxes total (2 are daily "drivers", 2 are servers with 2 backups). This box here (mine) is a custom built box on a Soyo Dragon mobo that came out of a dumpster. You heard me... a Dumpster.... It started as a Slackware 10.1 stock with a 2.6.10 kernel, not very stable... Went back to the 2.4.28 kernel and had no problems... I have tons of custom apps buolt on this box. It has also been updated be

  • But what I really want to know is (Score:3, Funny)

    by suitepotato ( 863945 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @01:08PM (#15911224)
    when is the next Yggdrasil release? Oh, right, I was thrown back six or seven years by seeing the name Slackware and the list of specs. Never mind.

    • Oh, right, I was thrown back six or seven years by seeing the name Slackware and the list of specs.

      Right. Sure does suck, doesn't it, that there is a Linux distro out there that is extremely stable, and doesn't just jump to the latest version of everything without testing?

      All Linux distros should just be random collections of the latest packages, leaving the users to figure out why nothing works...

      The people that are saying "It's only one guy" are completely off the mark. Slackware is the most stable dist

  • It is official; Netcraft confirms: Linux is dying

    One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Linux community when IDC confirmed that Linux market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Linux has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Linux is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the r
  • "Almost" doing something isn't newsworthy, damnit. Yes I am grumpy.
  • The headline reads like a story from the Onion.

  • "There are still a few changes yet to happen, but let's call this Slackware 11.0 release candidate 1."

    Why not just call it "Slackware 20.0 RC1", and make everyone think it's really advanced? It's not a release candidate when you know it is certain not to be released. It's a beta, tested by people who didn't design or implement it.
  • Well, slackware was my first distribution.

    Back in 1991, I installed Slackware 2.3 (from a set of 20 or so floppy disks).

    So when I saw this article, I thought hmm, got to see that distribution screenshot thingy...

    Well lo and behold, the first handful of screens have hardly changed at all! The same UI the same screens! First deviation was cfdisk, which I think we had to exit to shell and run fdisk in 2.3, but otherwise - EXACTLY the same.

    The KDE screenshots, well, they look like KDE on any distribution, so di

  • Slack is the way to go (Score:2, Informative)

    by kolme ( 981304 )
    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 the
    • 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).

      That may not be exactly true. I've had my system wedge up on me a few times. Of course, it may not be slack-related at all when I think about it, since it seems to happen when I dare to run ActiveState's Komodo and xmms at the same time...

  • the swiss army knife of distros (Score:2, Informative)

    by 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 port

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