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Slackware 8.1 is Released

Posted by timothy on from the free-toilet-paper-with-cd-purchase dept.

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."

16 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. Nice! by bjtuna · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wonder how long till The Slackware Administrators' Security Toolkit will have an 8.1 version.

    Anyway, go Patrick!

    --
    Intercarve Networks, LLC
  2. how many floppies by matthew.thompson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My first memory of Slackware was installing it off 30 odd floppies - how many does this come on?

    M@T :o)

    --
    Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
    1. Re:how many floppies by stikves · · Score: 4, Informative
      slackware no longer supports "any" floppy installation.


      It used to support full floppy installation before (I guess) 7.0. After that you could only install bas and network series with floppies.


      Now they have dropped all floppy support and merged a1, a2, a3.. into a. (a1 a2 were base system floppies).


      Anyways go try it. I used pre8.1 images from slackware-current. It realy rocks. If you need floppy installation, you have to copy everything to a hard drive and boot setup from floppies (almost every distro does it this way).

  3. Woody by ultrabot · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm so excited I'm getting a Woody...

    Or not.

    Aagh, the temptation. I feel I *must* get a new distro soon (rh7.3 doesn't quite cut it), and Woody will probably never be released. It's Slackware for me, at least when it gets to the mirrors.

    --
    Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
  4. A good sign by analog_line · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Slackware Store has been slashdotted. Good job everyone who's making that server's life hell for a good cause!

  5. Timing is everything by mustprotectdata · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm glad to see a distribution that is releasing at "the right" time. RedHat, the normal distie of choice, if only because of it's market dominance, seems to have developed the knack of releasing just too early.

    i.e. - gcc (where is v3.1)?
    - mozilla (not v1)
    - kde 3.0.0 (effectively a late beta)

    etc...

    What I really want is the latest, reasonably stable version of everything. i.e I want to be current but not bleeding edge.

    Go Patrick

    1. Re:Timing is everything by Charm · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --
      -- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
  6. List of unofficial mirrors here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    rsync://slackware.orbital.us/slackware/slackware-8 . /
    rsync://slackware.orbital.us/slackware/slackware -8 . -iso/
    ftp://slackware.orbital.us/slackware/slackware-8 .1 /
    ftp://slackware.orbital.us/slackware/slackware-8 .1 -iso/

    rsync://rsync.devney.net/slackware/slackware-8.1 -i so/
    ftp://devney.net/slackware-8.1-iso/

    rsync://drazi.ifjf.uib.no/slackware/slackware-8. 1/
    rsync://drazi.ifjf.uib.no/slackware/slackware-8. 1- iso

    ftp://inferno.bioinformatics.vt.edu/linux-distro s/ slackware/slackware-8.1/
    ftp://inferno.bioinformatics.vt.edu/linux-distro s/ slackware/slackware-8.1-iso/

    rsync://rsync.rez-gif.supelec.fr/pub/slackware/s la ckware-current/
    ftp://ftp.rez-gif.supelec.fr/pub/slackware/slack wa re-current/

    rsync://closeedge.net/slackware/slackware-8.1/
    ftp://closeedge.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.slackware.co m/ slackware-8.1/

    ftp://ftp.linux.ucla.edu/pub/slackware/slackware -8 . /

    rsync://mindflux.dns2go.com/slackware/slackware- 8. 1/

    rsync://stalecracker.org/slackware/slackware-8.1 /
    ftp://stalecracker.org:2121/pub/slackware-8.1/
    rsync://diethanks.dyndns.org/slackware/

    rsync://alphageek.dyndns.org/slackware/slackware -8 . /
    rsync://alphageek.dyndns.org/slackware/slackware -8 . -iso/
    ftp://alphageek.dyndns.org/slackware/slackware-8 .1 /
    ftp://alphageek.dyndns.org/slackware/slackware-8 .1 -iso/

  7. Slackware is dead, my ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Slackware is dead, my ass by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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...

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  8. A few pointers... by NoMercy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please do not download the ISO's from the primary slackware site, it only has a 6Mb/s bandwidth and all it takes is a few people with cable modems or DSL to totally flood it, then there is no bandwidth left for the mirrors to use and thus the rest of us have to wait longer, only check the primary site for checksums and file sizes so you can later check if your local mirror has got the full ISO transfered.

  9. Why as why? by sonnyjz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Are you joking?

    Slackware is easy as 1-2-3 to install and takes about 20 minutes to complete.

    You say it supports obsolete ext/2 fs? I beg to differ, supports all of the filesystems that the 2.4.x supports. READ THE README for more information. Or do you ignore documentation?

    You say you have to edit at least 2000 files? I also beg to differ. You don't have to edit a thing, but I suggest you edit a handful of the rc files to make sure you aren't loading a ton of unneccasary modules and services.

    Finally recompiling your kernel is a good idea. Or do you also ignore meaningless tasks like that?

    Doing all of the above is done in all distro's for any person that runs linux or is interested in running a tight ship for their favorite distro.

    As far are your *hints* go I got one for you.
    Read documentation and get a clue before you attempt to bash something you have no idea about.

    Believe me, you won't sound as simple as you really are.

    --
    - Sonnyjz
  10. Please, enlighten me... by labratuk · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm so happy I've soiled myself

    Is that supposed to mean:

    - The fact that I've soiled myself brings me great pleasure.

    - My immense happiness has caused me to soil myself.

    ...?

    --
    Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
  11. Re:Yeah, but what about by (startx) · · Score: 4, Informative

    rpm2tgz, then you can cd / ; tar -zxvf packagename.tgz. or if you want to install it rpm wise, use the force and nodeps options of rpm.

  12. Hooray! by Mister+Snee · · Score: 4, Informative

    And to think I just went and downloaded the entire slackware-current source tree to try out RC1 only three days ago. -_-

    Seriously though, Slack 8.1 looks great. There are a few little tweaks that really make a difference (for instance, I thought I saw ESD behaving at one point) and some of the stuff packaged with it is just cool (am I the only one who noticed the full-colour Lynx? :D).

    My only complaint is one I can't verify with the actual CD release of Slack 8.1, but at least with RC1 it was very very hard to do a clean "upgrade" of my current system. In fact I eventually had to back up all my important configuration files and delete the entire filesystem except for the directory where I'd made a copy of the -current tree and the utilities I needed to "installpkg". Nothing short of that would make it work cleanly. This isn't really a big deal for desktop systems but it makes me very nervous about upgrading my servers, most of which are running Slack 8.0 or 7.1.

    Still, a great release that was well worth the wait.

  13. Slackware 8.1.01 ... by leiz · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's been some last minute updates to slackware. From the changelog:

    Wed Jun 19 07:02:39 PDT 2002
    Slackware 8.1.01-stable is released.
    a/sysvinit-2.84-i386-19.tgz: Added -M to fix quotacheck for reiserfs.
    d/cvs-1.11.2-i386-2.tgz: Added docs in text format.
    n/apache-1.3.26-i386-1.tgz: Upgraded to apache-1.3.26.
    This fixes the issue described in:
    "CERT Advisory CA-2002-17 Apache Web Server Chunk Handling Vulnerability"
    While the impact of this issue is minimal on 32 bit Linux systems, we felt it
    was important enough to stop the presses and get these fixes in before sending
    the Slackware 8.1 discs in for replication.
    (* Security fix *)
    n/mod_ssl-2.8.9_1.3.26-i386-1.tgz: Upgraded to mod_ssl-2.8.9_1.3.26.
    rootdisks/rescue.dsk: Added network/pcmcia scripts.

    Tue Jun 18 10:47:47 PDT 2002
    Slackware 8.1-stable is released! :-)