SUSE is very much a dying distro. The quality of the releases has been going downhill for some time, and the only reason it's still alive is that they got another $100 million from Microsoft last year.

Microsoft Corp. and SUSE, an independent business unit of The Attachmate Group Inc., today announced a four-year extension of the groundbreaking agreement struck nearly five years ago between Microsoft and Novell Inc. for broad collaboration on Windows and Linux interoperability and support. This relationship will extend through Jan. 1, 2016, with Microsoft committed to invest $100 million in new SUSE Linux Enterprise certificates for customers receiving Linux support from SUSE.

While they tried to spin it as being from "strong customer response", the fact is that those certificate renewals were not happening, even with 75% discounts. So it was worth it to Microsoft to throw in another $100 million over the next 4 years, because Microsoft is the lead company in CPTN Holdings, the group selling the Novell patents. This deal helps compensate Attachmate (otherwise, there'd be yet another nasty court battle wrt Novell).

You're missing a LOT of the main points here.

# 1. I made a direct comparison to Mandriva, another distro that is in financial straits, not a "we have 28,0000 packages on 9 dvds" like debian. Mandriva issues security updates almost daily. Slackware? Months can go by.

The comparison with Mandriva is apt, because both Slackware and Mandriva are dvds, so they're more or less within the ballpark in terms of being comparable. In other words, I made an apples-to-apples comparison, not the apples-to-oranges you tried to make it out to be when you just threw Debian into the mix (BTW, I *never* mentioned Debian).

So, your claim that "Updates to stable happen only if there is a security problem with a packages (sic)." is simply bogus, since even that doesn't happen in a timely fashion.

# 2. Slackware (the site) being dead was barely noticed because nobody is using it. Same with the non-existent package browser. Nobody is using it.

Sure, slackware still has numbers on distrowatch - but those are people who look, not people who download and install. People who did like I did - downloaded the dvd then realized that slack has turned into a zombie distro - aren't users.

You keep on saying that slackware is stable. Dead is also a stable state, so in that sense you may be right.

# 3. Again, wrt "Updates to stable happen only if there is a security problem with a packages (sic)." Funny how you try to claim that slackware is stable, and only needs to keep up with security updates between releases, when not only does it NOT keep up with security updates, but among the few updates, the biggest was updating Moz/FF, not for any particular security bug, but because of their release schedule.

# 4. Who is going to recommend a distro that can't even keep their web site up for days, never mind weeks at a time? When you're of the net, you're dead to the world. To allow this situation to go on for so long is a sign of incompetence, same as having a package browser that for a year now says "in a few days."

How you can turn around and say "So what you see isn't bad at all and largely expected"? It's a disaster. The only thing that mitigated it to some extent is that nobody notices slackware any more except to ask the question "Is slackware dead (again)?"

In a sense, Facebook managed to put *all* the money from the underwriters fees back into their own pocket, since the underwriters are sitting on millions of shares that they had to buy back at the $38 price. However, this is *not* a good thing for Facebook, because now these same underwriters are going to need to get rid of that stock at a profit, or at least not at a loss.

So, Facebook is going to come under a lot of pressure from them to make their business generate Google-sized profits, asap. In other words, Facebook is no longer in control of its destiny. Because if they don't make the underwriters "whole" again, they (Facebook) will never be able to sell the massive amount of stock shares they have left (about 85%).

In a sense, this is about the worst outcome that could have happened for them, long-term.

Both RedHat and FreeBSD release security patches in a timely manner. Mandriva, even in its current situation, rarely goes more than a few days w/o updates and patches.

Slackware, on the other hand, has really been slacking - for a year now.

I was really dismayed when I went to switch back to it and found out just how badly it's deteriorated. I figured slackware would be around forever, but even if they do "revive" it, it's always going to be more like a zombie now than a viable distro; the damage has been done, and the competition has moved on.

You're not the only one asking that question.

People have been noticing the lack of security and bug fixes for a while.

More directly towards your question, this thread raised what some people called a sh*tstorm when Caitlyn Martin wrote about rebasing off another distro because a slackware.com contributor wrote about the problems being due to an old server and finances.

Realistically, who wouldn't be worried after a year of semi-somnolence, long outages (in a distro that people use as a server because of its' bsd-like reputation... oh the irony), and a reply like that?

Ultimately, the original question - the lack of any activity for months at a time - hasn't been properly addressed. It's worse than the Mandriva situation - Mandriva continues to have timely bug fixes and security updates - on an almost daily basis - and their web site is always pretty responsive.

If there were only a few linux distros out there, maybe slack could make a come-back - but there are ~1,000 distros, many with much larger user bases, much more activity, that are far better supported. Unfortunately, in view of that, it's irresponsible to recommend slackware to anyone looking for a Linux distro, either for their own use, business, or as a base to build a spin-off, unless they're ready to assume the burden of maintaining and improving it going forward.

You'd be surprised how many people stop using facebook once they get an ipad - simply because they have something else to waste their free time on. FBs biggest competition is AAPL.

What's more significant is that Zynga crashed - down 17% and trading halted for almost an hour. If FB were so great, why did their BFF take a nasty shot to the head?

Like misrepresenting the facts?

According to your own link, there were NO updates between December 14th and February 1st, ONE update in December, Moz and 5 other updates in November, Moz in October, Moz again in September (plus an update to httpd), 10 (including Moz again) updated in August, 6 (including Moz yet again) in July, half a dozen (including Moz, duh!) in June. That's pretty slack behaviour.

Take out the Moz/Seamonkey stuff and you've got almost NOTHING going on between June of last year and today. Even with the Moz stuff, you've STILL got almost nothing.

No wonder the mirrors I looked at were almost empty - you're still stuck on LibreOffice 3.5.3 despite 3.5.4 being out since June 3rd of last year, and 3.5.5 since February.

That's absolute crap, same as your argument. Slackware is dead. Trying to convert it into being an almost-dead zombie isn't going to work. A year of neglect, being mostly off the net, and not having timely updates has killed it. Go collect your red shirt award.

Read the comments in response to Patrick's comment:

considering you can get a linux VPS anywhere from $5 USD to $20 USD a month, especially since the ISOs are torrent only, your ramblings are ignorant and telltale of the system in front of you.

and

I'm more than a little surprised that slackware.com was running on a 10-year old server in colocation... if the hardware really was that old and underpowered, somebody needs to get fired. I wouldn't keep hardware in colo more than 5 years, and even that is pushing it, simply due to the upgrade cycle and lifecycle of the hardware. I've had a hardware blow up (craters on one of the IC's) on systems that were less than that, and it wasn't pretty.

and

Instead of paying to colo two really, really shitty 'servers', why don't you just get a small linode vps? Worry about the distro instead of wasting time fighting with a $3 eth card.

and

move a page or two to appspot for goodness sake. geez..

server is dead? what a joke in this day and age.

and

Keeping a core server live for a decade is like being proud of how long you've worn the same underwear. You may think it's funny, but it tends to drive sensible people away. The crusties do tend to accumulate, and they're unlikely to survive cleaning.

They make some very valid points. Points that have yet to be answered (because there really is no excuse in this day and age). Who in their right mind is going to recommend a distro that has had a year of screw-ups?

Do you want to turn this into a Monty Python "Dead Parrot" skit?

Any distro that goes for 9 months with only a couple dozen updates is dead.

Any distro that is "off the net" for months is dead.

Any distro with a link on its main page to their official package browser that doesn't exist, and hasn't existed for a year, is dead.

It's not just "pining for a new server." It's not "resting". It's not "a fine example of the breed." It's dead. Who in their right mind is going to recommend slackware after a year of screw-ups?

To you, this (very late in the game) burst of activity may make it still seem alive, but to users it has the stale musty smell of the crypt.

Plus, if it's happened repeatedly, chances are it's going to happen again. Months with no security updates. Just the thing to inspire confidence.

A few days, a few weeks, sure, cut slackware some slack. But this situation has been going on way too long. One of the posters defending this posted this link. Many of the readers didn't buy it - letting such a situation go on for almost a year reeks of indifference or incompetence - or a dead distro.

Perhaps the time, talent, and energy now being used to bring it back from the dead would be better spent on a more viable distro?

I checked a whole slew of mirrors 2 months ago, the most that anyone had was 3 dozen updated packages - the majority had a couple dozen or less. Slacker zombie or dead, whichever, but to someone looking to switch back to a long-abandoned distro, that was both a big disappointment and an absolute vote of non-confidence.

Stuff like this doesn't inspire any confidence whatsoever. "A few days" has turned into a year. And remember - this is the recommended package browser linked to from the slackware.com home page.

The sudden "OMG we have to pick up the slack because people are saying (and have been saying for months) that slackware is dead" is simply too little, too late. And that's sad, because I remember slackware from the download-and-install-from-floppies days of 3x.

Excuses, excuses. It's DEAD! It's not just "problems with the web server" - which have been going on for a year now.

Abandoning the old package browser, because the new one will be ready in a few weeks ... that was last year too.

What point is there installing a distro that had no security updates for ages? That's just too slack for most people.

As far as most users are concerned, Slackware is dead. Being on and off the net (mostly off) over the last year, only a couple dozen updated packages 9 months after release (I checked - this latest flurry of activity has the odor of a last-gasp hail-mary attempt), a broken package browser for a year now ... calling it dead isn't trolling.

"Oh, slackware's not dead. It's pining for a new server."

All good things come to an end, and I have fond memories of slackware, but that was the previous century.