Slackware 8.1 is Released

MrSnivvel writes: "Slackware 8.1 has been released. Highlights of this release include KDE 3.0.1, GNOME 1.4.1 (with new additions like Evolution), the long-awaited Mozilla 1.0 browser, support for many new filesystems like ext3, ReiserFS, JFS, and XFS, and support for several new SCSI and ATA RAID controllers. Remember to buy your copies at http://store.slackware.com. List of download mirrors here. Public releases of Mozilla AND Slackware in the same month, I'm so happy I've soiled myself."

Comments

Slackware is dead, my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux how Linux was intended. A single CD of beautiful and clean functionality. Minimal, stable and secure - and yet manageable. Slackware should be required for all Linux newbies. AFTER learning to edit rc.files and inetd.conf with vi, AFTER you've mastered ls, AFTER you've learned to download and compile, THEN you may play with KDE. Think how much better the world would be.

Re:Slackware is dead, my ass

[smittyoneeach]

Slackware should be required for all Linux newbies.

I disagree. Slackware was over my head whenever I tried it--7.x or something. The idea of a fistful of ASCII .conf files in standard locations that control everything was too simple and obvious for me to grasp. Forgive me, Father--I did Windows.
Now that I have spent some time with a RH distro, and grasp *nix-think to a sufficient depth, I'm strongly considering a return to Slack...

A question for the community: the reason to go for Slack over, say, Gentoo, is that Slack arrives as canned object files ready to install, whereas Gentoo assumes we have a pipe, time and skill to pull down all the source over TCP/IP and compile from scratch, no? In other words, Gentoo requires a higher level of skill than Slack to build and tweak?

...dons asbestos underwear...

Re:Timing is everything

[Charm]

Really the best thing about Slackware is that it is like C. Not like assembly so that you have to do everything. But not like higher level languages where everthing is done with magic tricks. When was the last time you changed a setting and your distro changed it back. That sort of behaviour is unlikely on Slackware.

The user has full control. There is no crappy config tools to get in the way. This is why it is so good for learning Unix and Linux because you have access to the raw system.

In slackware if I want to change the bitdepth of X windows I have to edit it with a text file. At first this might seem silly but when a Redhat user is trying to do something complicated his fancy tools hold him back. Slack users do not have that problem, they understand how the system works.

Slackware is also very stable thats why it doesn't use GCC 3.1 out of the box.