Slackware 9 Unleashed to World

kiltedtaco writes "Slackware Linux 9.0 is out! Based on gcc 3.2, and equipped with kernel 2.4.20 (ptrace-patched), XFree86 4.3, GNOME 2.2 and KDE 3.1. You can read the full announcement, or just go grab a copy for yourself at either the Slackware Store or these lovely mirrors." I know a lot of people who first cut their teeth on Slack when trying Linux. It's cool to see that it's still around.

Comments

First useful post?

[BRTB]

Since the official Slack FTP is a bit slow from everyone trying to grab it, here are a couple (unofficial) mirror lists:

alphageek.dyndns.org
AbnormalPenguin.com

I've already downloaded mine, so everybody have at it. ;)

Re:I love Slack!

[phreaknb]

autoslack - written by David Cantrell

Re: fp

[ThePurpleBuffalo]

I'd just like to point out that user "volkerdi" is Patrick Volkerding - the head Slackware guy.

Personally, I laughed out loud when I saw this post.

I think it's unfortunate that Mr. Volkerding, who has worked very hard for MANY years to help Linux, is rarely recognized.

Or maybe it just seems that way...

Beware TPB

Re:What's so special about Slackware?

[Rooktoven]

Au contraire.

I've found that it is much more forgiving in the way of dependencies than RPM based systems-- in other words, you can install slack-packages and ./configure && make install other software without getting trapped in dependency hell. The only time I have ever encountered any library issues is when riding on the bleeding edge of slack current, and even then all the essential networking tools have remained rock-solid.

At my company we're moving our mix of Suse and Red Hat servers to all slackware, and I for one couldn't be more overjoyed. (But then I'm lazy and like to just installpkg *, read my fortune and get on with life.)

Re:What's so special about Slackware?

[Anonymous Coward]

its complete lack of package managment,

It does have package management: installpkg, removepkg, and upgradepkg. It is far, far superior to RPM-based hell. RPM breaks the golden rule of programming (KISS) with a giant sledgehammer; just look at rpm --help, which I won't list here, as it's 154 lines of help options. That's just inexcusable.

The beauty of slackware's package management is that is doesn't check for dependencies. At first that might seem like a bad idea, but for power users (which is Slackware's target) that is best. What if I've upgraded a package manually, by installing from source (or really any way besides installpkg/upgradepkg)? For Redhat, you've got to fight rpm because it really doesn't like to install without all the dependencies listed in its rpm database. On Slackware there is no problem at all.

Additionally, RPM files suck. How do you get the files out of the package, if you just want to see the files and don't want to install? Use alien to convert it to Slackware tgz format.

And how do you see what files each package includes? For rpm, you've got to use rpm to "query" the binary database. Uck. Not very powerful. However for Slackware, all the files are listed in text files in /var/log/packages/, each file representing a package. You can use any of the many powerful file and text processing tools that come with all GNU systems, for example to see what packages put files into /sbin, just do "grep ^sbin /var/log/packages/*" - now that's powerful! And to find what files are in a Slackware .tgz package, just do "tar ztvf package.tgz".

Slackware - a sharp tools distro

[spaceyhackerlady]

My first "real" computer was a 486/66. I bought it used, and it came with Windows 3.1 on it. After firing it up and marvelling that people actually paid money for such a piece of crap, I went to the local bookstore and came home with a book that included a Slackware CD. Dunno what distro, but it would have been an old one (3.0?). I've run Slackware ever since.

I had no difficulty getting the thing going, PPP, sound (an excellent excuse for boning up on DSP!), the works. It ran fine in 8 MB RAM. OK, except for Netscape, which page-thrashed for about 2 minutes then ran fine. Upgrading to 32 MB (the capacity of the motherboard) cured that. Now I run a Pentium 3 with 768 MB RAM, plugged in to ADSL. The OS started as Slackware 8.0, but I've upgraded many packages, and run a 2.4.20 kernel. It flies...

To this day I recommend Slackware as a "sharp tools" distro - if you know what you're doing, it's immensely powerful and flexible. If you don't know what you're doing, you're screwed.

FWIW, my most recent Slackware install was Slackware 8.0 on a Toshiba laptop that RedHat 7.3 (the company standard) refused to install on. It would get to about 3 packages before the end, crash, reboot, say GRUB and sit there staring at me. The PCMCIA network card did all the right things, automagically. I had to fiddle a bit with the X configuration to set up yet another weird-ass laptop video card. Big deal.

Thanks, Patrick. Well done!

...laura

Slackware Linux Essentials

[Alan Hicks]

You'll notice at the slackware store that there is a wonderful paperback book licensed under the GPL entitles, "Slackware Linux Essentials". It is perhaps one of the best linux books I have ever read and am thankful to be involved with.

Mysel and many of the "BOZOs" in alt.os.linux.slackware are currently working on a revised edition to bring this book up to date with the latest release of Slackware Linux. You can take a look at our (so far meager) progress here. I encourage anyone who wants to participate to give me an e-mail, you can find my address at that link, as well as a mailing list for this project. Any contributions would be greatly appreciated.

Slack on!