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Actually, Linux 7.0 has been out for a while - I dunno why it was big news last week.

:)


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Slackware is rock-solid distribution. Tired of Red Hat (NASDAQ:RHAT)? Try Slack.

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Slackware Linux. 6-9 months between releases. Always stable, always high quality. No need for Red Hat's "release bugs" or Debian's "release after the next ice age" extremes. You can have release often and release stable :)
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While I appreciate the desire to avoid changing do we really want a release to be forced to maintain such functionality.

Slackware has been at 7.x longer than anyone else -- why are the other distributions so far behind? ;)
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Well, yeah, anyone putting a stock RedHat box on the net is an idiot. Anyone putting a stock *anything* box on the net is probably an idiot too. ;^)

However it's true that RedHat is particularly bad - that doesn't mean Linux is bad - RedHat != Linux. If you want a Linux distro that is reasonably secure by default, give Slack a try. I know it gets a bad rap for supposedly being hard to install, but 1) if you are using OBSD already that's surely not a concern for you and 2) when I finally gave it a try, I found it to be little if any harder to install than RedHat or Mandrake were anyway. The selection of packages available with the native package management system is smaller than the RPM collection, of course, but it usually includes all the important stuff and is very up to date - check out LinuxMafia if you need something that isn't included. Plus you can always compile yourself, use the included rpm conversion tools (rpms usually but not always will work fine after a quick conversion) or even install RPM if you want to. YMMV, but I've found Slack to provide a very nice middle ground between OBSD and RedHat.

...the people get slack.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

But then you spoiled it all with your lame "disclaimer", which is neither funny nor accurate. What monolithic config apps are you talking about? In what does RH prevent you from mangling the whole of /etc with vi(1)? How is RH strongarming the competition or ruining compatibility with others (not SuSE, Mandrake or Caldera, for sure)? Can you pinpoint the incompatibilities between the lates RH beta and "potato" for instance? Or is this incompatibility you're talking about mainly with some other distro (which used to be very popular a long time ago), that is, incidentally also incompatible with all the other distros I mentioned. Now, is it really RH's fault?

More to the point, what is it that bothers you so much about Redhat apart from the fact that they try to make GNU/Linux palatable to newbies? And if it's that fact mostly, then I have to ask you why?
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It looks like Patrick Volkerding of Slackware is wearing a BSDi company card. I guess Slackware didn't have their own booth...

Why 1500 packages? Just get some packages from the A, AP, D, K and N disks. Slackware

Not to mention that in the Europe, cell phone technology was developed first. In fact the first ever deployment of a cell phone system happened in the Britian, with the help of phone giant Nokia.

It's true that the US is losing it's traditional technical lead to the upstarts like Linux and Nokia.

• Built-In Firewall
  
• Great Documentation for the Responsible Administrator, (as contrasted by The Micro$oft Knowledgebase
  
• Timely Security Updates from our Vendors and our Enemies to help us patch things quickly
  
• Source Code; ...that's 2 different links, people...
  

Someone posted a link to a 1994 Pat Volkerding interview done by Linux Journal in which, among other things, he talks about how Slackware came into existence.

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Another way of partitionlessly installing Linux that a few distros (Mandrake and Suse, maybe others) are offering now is to use a loopback filesystem. I've had ZipSlack on my HD for a little bit and have become entirely too fed up with UMSDOS. So, with a little tweaking of the setup scripts, I installed LoopSlack to a 1.2G file. Kent Robotti has put together a prepackaged LoopLinux that is essentially the same thing.

Loopback-Root-FS-mini-HOWT O
LoopLinux
The easiest distribution to futz around with for stuff like this.
And if anyone cares to know what I did (which is a bit of a different approach than Kent took) feel free to ask.

And yes, this is also essentially what BeOS Personal does.

Remember ZipSlack? It was quite similar, but used a 100 MB Zip disk. It also usd the UMSDOS filesystem, and thus could simply be placed into a Windows/DOS directory and used from there.

This is still cool, though, because I have an LS-120 and not a Zip drive.

J

".. A second primary concern is what software a vendor ships, and how it is configured..."

".. I have not fully covered Slackware and Debian, with their ridiculously slow release schedules..."

Hello, McFly? Part of the reason Slack doesn't ship a new revision or make lots of little changes to keep up with software updates is because of using well-tested, stable, secure software. You want a rock-stable distro or the most-current-toys distro? These two things are usually not equal.

From slackware.com: " What is Slackware Linux? The Official Release of Slackware Linux by Patrick Volkerding is an advanced Linux operating system, designed with the twin goals of ease of use and stability as top priorities."

Look at the whole package, including the philosiphy behind the distro itself. Is it better? Not for me to tell you... but your opinion might change a little (though I doubt it..)

I beg to differ on that point. As one who follows Slackware development very closely, there is almost always daily changes to the ChangeLog. These fixes typically consistent of either upgrading a package to a more recent current version or fixing a security bug (a more rare occurence).

Just as with every other distributions, Slackware stays on top of new developments and security fixes. The main version may not increment as often (it typically jumps two or three times a year), but it is nowhere near backward or slow as the reviewer seems to imply. Check out Slackware's main site for evidence of my opinion.

Version 2 was expected sometime soon so imagine how perplexed us tech support engineers were when the customers started calling us and asking us about the upcoming version 3.5.

We told the customers there must be some mistake because we were only just about to release version 2.

The calls got so frequent that finally we asked a customer where they'd heard about this 3.5 (not sure if that was the exact number but that's approximately correct). He'd seen it in our full-page magazine ad in a major Unix magazine.

I asked our ad guy what that version number was. He told me that they'd decided to go with version 3.5 because the Santa Cruz Operation was on version 3.4.

Of course we were all pretty pissed off, not just that the company was being dishonest but that they didn't tell the people who took the phone calls - those of us on tech support - and the customers must have thought it was hilarious when the ads kept appearing even though they'd heard it straight from the company that they were misinformed!

And, BTW, look at the reason why Slackware jumped from version 4 to 7

There's a note in the file that says it will disappear when the upload is done. Apparently the Slashdot article got posted when the release was announced, but the loading of the files is still in progress!

Eagerly,

Isn't there a little rubber Tux toy in Corel Linux or something?

(I'll never find out)

There is an explaination on the site as to the jump Here.

All of the information on what the current release includes is here, on slackware.com

You can always get all of the newest stuff by looking in the "current" directory on any slackware mirror.

Pretty much, Slackware went to 7 because Patrick was getting bugged by people who didn't realize that the numbers are just numbers, and thought that RedHat was eons ahead of Slack. Also, several major changes were made in that release, including shifting to glibc.

Slackware is very friendly to local compilation of software, if you don't like how far up to date a piece of software, just compile it yourself, also, you should always compile a customized kernel to get optimal performance from your machine with any distibution.

It is suprising that the next distro is not 8. I held off on submitting the beta as a story. The beta is actually an excellent product. It includes X4 and the newest verions of just about everything that there is to have the newest version of.

BTW, Slack is the best distro ;-)

There is an explaination on the site as to the jump Here.

All of the information on what the current release includes is here, on slackware.com

You can always get all of the newest stuff by looking in the "current" directory on any slackware mirror.

Pretty much, Slackware went to 7 because Patrick was getting bugged by people who didn't realize that the numbers are just numbers, and thought that RedHat was eons ahead of Slack. Also, several major changes were made in that release, including shifting to glibc.

Slackware is very friendly to local compilation of software, if you don't like how far up to date a piece of software, just compile it yourself, also, you should always compile a customized kernel to get optimal performance from your machine with any distibution.

It is suprising that the next distro is not 8. I held off on submitting the beta as a story. The beta is actually an excellent product. It includes X4 and the newest verions of just about everything that there is to have the newest version of.

BTW, Slack is the best distro ;-)

http://www.goingware.com/laptop

Note that the machine came with Windows 98 installed and doesn't support NT; NT was the most difficult installation and still doesn't work very well.

On the other hand I've been testing the 2.4.0-test1-ac* kernels every few days and generally they work pretty well. The only serious problem I had was that my Adaptec 1480 SlimSCSI card didn't work; that wasn't a problem with the laptop itself but some problem in the Linux PCI drivers as well as a temporary bug in the SCSI driver. Recent 2.4.0 kernel patches work great and I can burn CD's off my laptop through SCSI.

If you're considering buying a laptop, I encourage you to read my page on my laptop, as I think the information I give could improve the wisdom of your choice.

Generally I've been happy with how it works, but I'm afraid I'm not so happy with the mechanical design of the thing; there's a ribbon cable in the DVD drive that gets tangled when I close it if it's been opened too far, and the most serious problem right now is that the power adapter doesn't always make good contact so the battery drains even when it's plugged in. Sometimes if I leave the house with Linux running it will power down while I'm away. Note that I've only had the unit for 7 months; if they could have the same electrical design but built for more rugged use I think I'd be happy.

I'm the red-shirted guy from Mailbox Internet who was buying the beer on the Friday, and spent most of the Expo talking to people who didn't believe I was who I said I was because I was wearing a tie and not the usual ThinkGeek fare ;)

On the subject of suits and geeks, I'm actually glad I had the shirt on - most of the geeks got hold of me because I was talking tech, and a lot of the suits gave me more time because I had a shirt and tie on - sad but true.

Anyway, my personal score for the show:

• Dust Puppy from Dark-Side Dave.
• £120-worth of books.
• A 4ft-high penguin (yes, we were the ones who took it to the pub).
• Squishy penguins from SGI and Alphanet.
• The Walnut Creek set of Slackware CDs.
• Tux cufflinks for those "I've just been told to be smart" moments.
• A new news peer for Mailbox, and several traffic peers with people in Telehouse.
• Two consecutive hangovers, and a large bar bill.
• Sore feet.

Hugs to y'all,

Joel
MD of Mailbox Internet

There was some previous discussion on a similar topic a while back (The Perfect Distribution), where many of us had the same lament. The general concensus seemed to be a minimal Slackware.

My advice, if you don't want package managers, would be to avoid RedHat like the plague. Avoid Debian. Use Slackware, or use the Linux From Scratch resources to make your own distribution. This route is guaranteed to make you happy (in the long run, at least), but is significantly more difficult than just installing an "established" distribution.

Freshmeat has had a few editorials on package managers, incidentally, like The Universal Source Package, which might be of interest to you.

darren

Patrick Volkerding of Slackware fame preferes Boxes to Breifs. Do you agree with this, or have negative feels towards this?

Do you think this issuse has any impact on the Open Source Movement, and do more OSS developers prefer one to the other? What is the trend with commerical developers, and how is the Boxers or Breifs issuse related to software development?

SLACKWARE

Grtz, Jeroen

The first one to do it, of course, was ZipSlack.

More recently there is a beast called BigSlack...same basic deal, but with all the goodies.

Neither makes much sense as a dayly driver, but they're great as a save test drive, or when you just need a Linux box *now* as a stop-gap.

Folks should really consider having a look at Slackware. Due to the influx of new folks who don't understand what it takes to build a stable system, Slack has developed an unfair rep as not being an innovative and current distro. See for yourself, don't take other people's word for it.

Remember: Most people are stupid.

Got Slack?
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If your map and the terrain differ,
trust the terrain.

these guys are awesome... i had just picked a new sony viao before comdex and, since the flop is usb, was wondering how to get slack on it. i had completely forgotten that loadlin even existed ;) but sure enough, these guys helped me out... even hooked my system up to their network and helped me get it installed so that by the time i got back to my hotel that night, it was running like a dream. plus i was now able to plug into the cat 5 at the andover booth! i saw the install comp, rob. patrick got screwed with that system... ;)
don't change the install at all. ncurses rocks. perhaps on the next rel, you could have an option on the cd to load up a vga server (ha! like novell 5 [shudder]) and install through that, but leave the old one there!

why did they skip three version numbers so people would think that Slackware is newer

Well, if you go to: the FAQ where it talks about just this, you will have your answer.

He did not do it just so it looks "newer".

I searched the Slackware Linux site without success for the "Get Slack" banners/icons that their old site used to make available. The best I could find (beyond grabbing the "Slackware Linux" logo from their webpage) was a product photo of a Slackware mouse mat (at Walnut Creek) that had the Smoking Penguin Slackware mascot on it.

Anyway, I Got Slack, so I'm happy. ;-)

"Slashdot will have an interview with Bob Bruce (President of WCCDROM)later today which should answer some questions."

As for vmlinuz being installed into /, by default, it is, but in the Makefile in the kernel source you can change the Install Path. It has it set to /boot and is just waiting for you to uncomment it! Reading the Slackware Install Forum this question has come up all to frequently, way more frequently than any other question.

Its a small problem on an otherwise excellent distribution that I plan on using for years to come...

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However -- what are the advantages to slackware?

Incidentally, something similar is BigSlack (on the same page as ZipSlack). It is a mostly (as opposed to fairly) complete system, including a pre-configured X. It also uses a UMSDOS filesystem (a la Phat Linux), and the above statements about moving it also apply. It weighs in a little heavier, though; around 800 megs. But, obviously, you don't have to repartition or anything if you don't want to.

Let's see -- more stuff. Slackware is often considered to be a hacker's paradise because it imposes few restrictions on you, and I've heard it said that this is a sweet distribution if you like to roll your own binaries. And (like most Linuxes) it's highly customizable. FWIW, it uses BSD-style init scripts, but it also fakes SysV for those programs that insist on it.

Downsides: "Slackware package management" (that's an oxymoron, right?) is a joke. There are utilities like installpkg and pkgtool, but these are just scripts with an (n)curses-based front-end (as are the installation and configuration programs). What else? Installpkg insists on unpacking your tarballs relative to root, unless (I think) you have a certain $ENV_VAR set. I didn't bother to figure it out, so if I decide to remove some of the stuff I put in, I'll have a hell of a time tracking down all the cruft. (Yes, it My Own Damn Fault.) RPM is thrown in there, but I tried it on an .rpm I downloaded (couldn't get a tarball) and it choked and refused to run because it couldn't find some database-type (I assume) file it needed. So I used the rpm2tgz utility. And for some odd reason, the kernel would oops and dump core in ZipSlack 7.0 whenever I hit the /dev directory (while trying to copy it over or even a simple 'ls /dev'). (4.0 didn't do this.) Could be my hardware, but I don't know.

A little disclaimer: Slackware is the only distro I've used so far. I've been thinking of taking Debian (potato, after it's stable) or SuSE for a spin, but I haven't yet. ("Plan to throw one away" applies here, right? {g})

Overall, I'd say it has a very fun feel. And it seems that Pat V.'s taking it a little more seriously (if that's the right word -- professionally, maybe?) now, with a separate directory for updates to slackware-current, security updates and mailing lists for same, etc. And 7.0 was upgraded to one of the latest glibc2's, whereas 4.0 labored along with libc5. Take it for a spin. Put it on a spare or development box and play around with it. I consider this one to be nice to learn on, if you're a computer nerd like me. IMO, this Linux is not going to be the "Linux for the desktop," but as a hacker's distribution, it's pretty cool.

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Personally, I enjoy the rc.d scripts right where they are in Slackware, but that's why there are different distros - everyone has different tastes and needs. Chacon son gout...

As for glibc, I just did:

# cd /bin
# ldd *

and I got:

[snip]
touch:
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4001c000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)
umount:
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4001c000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)
uname:
libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x4001c000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x40049000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)

..etc.

So yes, Slackware uses glibc2 :) It also says so on their site http://www.slackware.com if you scroll down and read the news about Slack 7.0.

Woz

the new release will become version 10? I mean, after all, this is a significant change, and slack needs the upper hand on the other distributions ;) (if you don't understand, go here.)
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First, this is not a web-only service. We do like to provide web interfaces to as much as possible, but we do realize that for some things, program compliation and testing included, nothing can substitute for shell access.

A lot of people are asking about other hardware architectures and OS's. For now, the Compile Farm is i386 based, and contains several Linux distributions and FreeBSD. This does not mean that we have ruled out other possibilities. This is just another step in what we hope can be an expanding feature set for Open Source developers on SourceForge.

There is a lot of setup involved in something like this Compile Farm, not the least of which is having thousands of skilled Open Source developers with shell accounts on a set of boxes. We're attempting to keep things as secure as possible while also offering enough features to make this thing useful. One reason for the limited number of distributions/architectures/OS's now is the limitation of variables in a very complex system. Hopefully, we can work out the kinks in this system soon so that it can become a valuable resource to developers who might not otherwise have the capability of getting their hands on so many different machines.

Please be patient as we test this new system. We're definately open to criticism, but please also be constructive with it so that we can continue to improve these services. Thanks to all of the SourceForge users who have contributed patches, criticism, and helpful suggestions. Every day my confidence in the Open Source model increases...

I have also wanted to create my own distribution for some time now. every distribution i've seen is either lacking something i want/need or doesn't give me enough control over how and what it installs. Slackware comes the closest to providing the kind of control i am interested in; perhaps the best plan is to build on Slackware.

I think the best use for a custom distribution is in a situation where you envision a large scale rollout, for example when you are going to upgrade or install Linux machines for everyone in your office. In this case, the main advantage would be that you can do all the customizations in advance (non-standard file locations, standardize on applications, customize NFS and NIS, etc). RedHat provides this with their KickStart option, but it's still installing the RedHat distribution, for better or worse.

My ideal distribution: A custom kernel and a bunch of well-written and well-thought-out Makefiles. It would handle fresh installs as well as upgrades (of the system and of individual packages). It could also possibly allow you to install different kernels -- Hurd anyone? With severla binaries for GCC (Linux, Hurd, FreeBSD, etc) and the preferred kernel, and source for everything, the same install media could handle *BSD, Hurd, or Linux (if you choose Hurd, rather than Linux, for example, the install procedure would compile the packages from the included source using the correct GCC, otherwise it would install the precompiled Linux binaries).
My mind is a mind that I have come to know,

Slackware IS package-based. :P

First off.. Do not just "Scrub" the system. Wipe the HD, LLFing if possible. Backup data files first, via the network to a known good server first (via anon FTP so any remaining sniffers, etc, will not read any important password).

Then go and reinstall a recent Linux distro. I recommend Slackware. It may not have the bells & whistles of Red Hat, but its BSD-style init scripts are easy (easy as config.sys and autoexec.bat) to learn, and tends to ship with reasonably secure daemons. Of course, OpenBSD is another possible solution :-)

Now, if you want to just give them FTP access (and nothing else), ProFTPD provides a nice solution. Granted, earlier versions had some interesting security holes (poke), recent versions have been a lot better security wise. Set it up with mod_linuxprivs (which uses the POSIX.1e interface of 2.2.x and later kernels to drop all root privs except for the ability to bind to ports less than 1024). (For the configure impaired, try "./configure --prefix=/usr --with-modules=mod_linuxprivs").. This lets them have ftp access (I'd also recommend you setup ProFTPD to chroot the various users to their homedirs). Disable telnet. Install SSH or OpenSSH and only allow your own login to use it (login.access allows this). Only allow your user to execpt su (perhaps as part of the wheel group), and have your root password as something other than your normal account password. At this point, you will have a secure system, FTP access for normal users, and secure remote access for your own administration. Of course, this doesn't get you out of your duties to monitor Bugtraq for possible advisories. I also recommend (very much so) that you read LASG -- the Linux Administrator's Security Guide. It's very good :-)
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It's all marketing.

This was all very clearly explained when Slackware made the jump from version 4 to version 7. Patrick Volkerding made the huge number leap because of all the people who kept asking him if why he wasn't supporting (at the time) "Linux 6," and who basically didn't understand that distribution version numbers and Linux versioning numbers were two separate entities. You can read the statement he made about it on the Slackware web site, under the FAQs section.

Perhaps, because Slack jumped ahead of all the other distributions, others felt it necessary to "keep up with the Jones" and match the version number.

*shrug*

It's all marketing.

This was all very clearly explained when Slackware made the jump from version 4 to version 7. Patrick Volkerding made the huge number leap because of all the people who kept asking him if why he wasn't supporting (at the time) "Linux 6," and who basically didn't understand that distribution version numbers and Linux versioning numbers were two separate entities. You can read the statement he made about it on the Slackware web site, under the FAQs section.

Perhaps, because Slack jumped ahead of all the other distributions, others felt it necessary to "keep up with the Jones" and match the version number.

*shrug*

Slackware just recently jumped from 4 to 7. Here's their explanation why. Personally I think its peer pressure... RedHat is in the 6.whatever tree and people look at Slack 4.0 and think, perhaps even subconsciously, "Hey this RedHat thing has a bigger number... that must mean it's better!" It's all a matter of marketing and psychology.

I'm just waiting for the day where version numbers skyrocket into absurd numbers. "Yeah I installed Windows 2010 the other day.." "2010 as in the year?" "No, just version 2010." ;)

Slackware just recently jumped from 4 to 7. Here's their explanation why. Personally I think its peer pressure... RedHat is in the 6.whatever tree and people look at Slack 4.0 and think, perhaps even subconsciously, "Hey this RedHat thing has a bigger number... that must mean it's better!" It's all a matter of marketing and psychology.

I'm just waiting for the day where version numbers skyrocket into absurd numbers. "Yeah I installed Windows 2010 the other day.." "2010 as in the year?" "No, just version 2010." ;)

> The thing I don't like about both distros is the
> initialization scripts. I would really prefer a
> *BSD style bootup, rather than that modified
> SySV thing.


What you're looking for is Slackware.

:-)

Just go to Slackware.com's forum. It's fun to hang around, help people, learn things, and even ask your own questions :-)
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Head over to Slackware and check out ZipSlack and BigSlack. Both linux distros for the UMSDOS filesystem only requiring winzip and a simple edit of a batch file to install. ZipSlack is bare bones (~80meg) and BigSlack is bigger with KDE and X. This LinuxOne stuff is a total joke. I wish the SEC would stop this IPO since it is obviously a bunch of garbage. I thought that a company had to have 4 million in assets before going public. I would be surprised if these jokers did.

Hey as some have mentioned above no hacking was done! Look at the new Slackware site . It got a refreshing new look, but I actualy prefer the previous black background. White background gives me a headache with all the glare.

Regarding the IIS pages, did Patrick and friends actually bought NT and fooled around with it for this page? Or they just rip it off a NT hosted site elsewhere? Anyway nice joke.

Emphasis on sounds like.
When I first heard about Caldera, it sounded like a wet dream. I went out and bought 2.2 and realized it wasn't anywhere near a wet dream, not even an erotic fantasy.
The installation and video detection were the only pluses. That, and the bundled RPMs (which were all corrupted to some extent).
CALDERA'S SUPPORT IS A WASTE OF TIME. Pardon my shouting, but it's true. If you have a problem, so do they; they don't know how to help. My modem was detected during the installation but didn't work worth a damn. My sound card was ignored completely. The COAS was also a big plus but I'm not sure if the modules even loaded in right.
Now, I'm relatively new to Linux, and I'll give all the beginners here the advice nice people on /. have given me: Slackware. If you want to learn Linux, Slackware is the way to go (except for the libc stuff and I still have no sound or internet connection). I've had more fun messing with Slackware than I did staring at the Caldera log on prompt in KDE (which was loads of fun, let me tell you : )
I'd love to try OpenLinux 2.3, but I'm just too happy having CONTROL over my operating system with Slackware.
Oh yeah, and Mandrake sounds promissing, but again...

miyax