Slackware 8.0 Released

cyberkreiger was among many to submit that Slackware 8.0, the distribution that just won't die, has just been released. I'm sure many people here started w/ Slackware back in the day and I'm glad to see it keep moving. You can read the Changelog or the Freshmeat project page. It'll probably be awhile before enough mirrors have caught up to settle demand, so please be patient. And congrats to Patrick and the rest. If it wasn't for your work back in the day, I may never have started using Linux.

Comments

Order your copy. Now !

[fredlwm]

http://store.slackware.com/ and support the Slackware project.

Back in the day?

[astrashe]

Taco's comments make it seem as if Slackware is a kind of museum piece, relevant only as a historical artifact.

But in my opinion if you want a distro to run a specific kind of server (like a name server, or even a data driven web server), and you want to build your own software and not depend on someone else's packages, Slackware is still hard to beat.

Let's say you're running Potato, and you need SSL and Apache. The latest Apache needs a certain version of the SSL module. The SSL module needs the latest Perl to compile. But you can't upgrade your Perl because it's tied into everything Potato in your distro. Sure, you can install debs with Apache/SSL, but what if you need other stuff too?

Package management is a wonderful thing, but it does have some drawbacks. It's not the best way to go in every circumstance. Luckily, we have Slackware for those times.

Re:Back in the day?

[MSG]

But you can't upgrade your Perl because it's tied into everything Potato in your distro.

Comments like this display a serious lack of understanding about package management.

Perl isn't a good example for this one, because the only thing that's *really* going to depend on a specific version of Perl is Perl modules, but we know where you're going with this.

Lets say instead that you needed to upgrade to a newer version of OpenSSL, because... oh, I dunno, maybe mod_ssl complains that yours is buggy. With a package manager, you would get the packages for apache, mod_ssl, and the newer OpenSSL, and tell it to update everything. If anything depended on that specific version of OpenSSL, the package manager would tell you so that you could update those packages as well, and avoid breaking your sytem. If your system lacks package management, then you would probably go right ahead and compile and update apache, mod_ssl, and OpenSSL. But, guess what?

YOUR SYSTEM, THOUGH LACKING A PACKAGE MANAGER, STILL HAS DEPENDENCIES!!!

That's right. The system with a package manager warned you what you were going to break to stop you from breaking them. The system without the package manager let you break them without any warning, and now all of the same packages that you would have been warned about are totally FUCKED. The lack of a package manager hasn't saved you any work. You STILL have to update every one of them. The difference is that you won't *know* that you need to update them until you see them break. That can be a serious problem. How do you fix a server in a remote location when you just upgraded openssl and SCREWED ssh?

There may be times when package management seems like a pain in the ass, but the alternative is *so* much worse.

The Neverending wave of criticism of slackware....

[blacktyde]

If there is one thing I do not understand, is the neverending wave of criticism often dealt out to slackware linux. Either it is attacked for its lack of a package management system, or it is attacked for not being a modern OS, or whathave you.

First and foremost, Slackware linux was never intended to be a 'modern' operating system. It was not intended to follow the broken precident that Microsoft established for operating systems, which is that of bleeding edge dysfunctionality due to attempts at convenience. It was intended to follow the UNIX model of an operating system, more specifically the BSD model. Slackware was originally created because Patrick Volkerding couldn't get 386BSD working on his computer. So he took the time and created the basis of a truely UNIX based linux distrobution. It's a damn shame no one else seems to have followed his lead.

Also, another point: does anyone remember the early glibc nightmares, when redhat would break half the time? I never had that problem on my personal box, because the people at slackware waited until a more stable release came out. I have yet to use a more stable release of linux, having used a good 5 different distros since I have started my linux career back in 94. I never, and repeat -never- have had to deal with any eath shattering flaw out of a stable release of slackware. And it is considerably more secure out of the box than most other distrobutions I have useds.

To address the issue of packages; there is a package tool in development. And development is taking its time, to make sure a stable product is publicly released to the masses. And when it comes down to it, there is still no easier way to deal with source code than the tarbal. It is the one step short of having a CVS tree. Since source is the fundamental element of the GNU revolution,
it must be payed attention to, and Slackware certainly does. Sources are apart of every distrobution. And do you know something? Slackware tarballs are still cross platform compatable to other unixes, or windows. Or at least far more than RPMs or DEBs.

Slackware is a sourcefriendly distrobution that is rock solid from the bottom up. It is not a wonder that it doesn't die, It is only a wonder that people don't take the time to think about seriously using it.

Slackware is the best Linux distribution. Period.

[aussersterne]

I used Slackware for the first time around '93 because it was the simplest to download and install at the time (using a whole stack of floppies). Red Hat hadn't happened yet and X was very cool just being X, no need for integrated API's like KDE and Gnome.

I left Slackware around 4.0 because I wanted the new "glibc" goodness and I couldn't figure out why Patrick wasn't including it. Unfortunately, I soon found out as I fought Red Hat 5.0 for several months. Since then on my personal box I've used Red Hat 5.1, OpenLinux 1.3 (gave up on "glibc" for a while thanks to Red Hat), Debian 2.0, OpenLinux 2.4, Debian 2.2 and Red Hat 7.1. Last night I downloaded Slack 8.0 (the hard way, ISOs weren't out yet) and re-installed it again to replace Red Hat 7.1.

Slackware is as great as EVER! Very stable, nice BSD-like setup with lovely non-spaghetti init scripts, a *working* KDE 2.1.x/Gnome 1.4 setup, X 4.1.0 without having to kludge it in by hand (what's with Red Hat mixing 4.x with the 3.x servers in the same installation?!), and all of the great stuff that nobody else seems to bother to include (Netatalk! XView! fortune!)

And it doesn't try to configure EVERY LAST DAMN THING during the install process. Red Hat 7.1 takes six years to install because it tries to configure things in "anaconda" -- but it's wasted time because you just have to go back and "fix" all of those automatic configs anyway to get them like you like them. Slackware installs it and then leaves it alone so that you can get it right the first time. For example I get to run "X -configure" or "xf86config" myself rather than having to fight some default setup that didn't really work anyway.

And even the installer itself is sheer heaven -- same simple stuff. Boot in, run fdisk then setup, where you make your own tagfiles to select on a package-by-package basis what goes in and what doesn't. Then, you start it off and it runs, no graphics, no having to click-click-click... In short, no shit. Once you save your tagfiles, it's an unintended install, and on as many machines as you want, even on machines without XFree86 or VGA-compatible graphics hardware.

Way to go, Patrick! Slackware still is and will always be the Linux for Unix users. No showstoppers, packages without the strictness of .rpm or .deb, "technical" purity and simplicity! I don't know why I ever left, and I won't leave again as long as it's available. I'm going to go and buy the CD now to support the effort.

Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.