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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.
Hey, do I get fp? :-)
its amazing the popularity slackware maintains despite its simplicity. Just goes to show how desireable simplicity can be for some.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The only thing that makes me happier than FreeBSD releases is Slackware releases. Always clean and small, always reliable, always complete. My first and favorite distro.
Thank you Patrick.
it dosent hold your hand, so you learn the right way
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.
No you didn't because it was actually released on Wednesday (technically late Tuesday), so if you downloaded anything Wednesday from -current it would have been 9.0final. I knew about it, but didn't want to post it to Slashdot until I got it all downloaded :).
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
I've also got it running nicely on my laptop (HP Omnibook 9000), it's damn fine. Kudos to Pat and the gang.
Smegma.
The answer to all your questions is no and that's exactly what makes Slackware so attractive.
It is clean and tidy distribution which keeps everything as simple as possible. It is beautiful.
Have a old computer that doesn't have a whole lot of space? ZipSlack.
Have no CD-Rom on a computer or just want a FAST easy ready made distro? Big slack. (just extract the zipped files over from a zip disk on the Hard Drive. Edit a text file... reboot :-) Fully functional Linux Distro.
The problem is that usually it takes a bit after the main release before the goodies really come out.
I use SuSE for most everything else but these ready made Distro are great.
Patrick Havens (Mr. 573333 to you.) Graphic Artist / Coder / Father / Journeler
I know a lot of people who first cut their teeth on Slack when trying Linux.
I almost didn't become a Linux convert thanks to Slackware...I made the mistake of trying to install Slackware as my first Linux O/S back in '96. It was a nightmare straight from the bowels of O/S hell. I spent weeks trying to get my 486 running with X (this with no prior Unix knowledge). I finally gave up, and a few years later discovered SuSE and their YaST installer.
Ironically, I now run Slackware on most of my machines...go figure. It's a slick distro, and I've learned a lot since those dark days of '96.
Mandrake is for newbies. Slackware is for newbies that don't want to stay newbies.
Some people think the ease of use found in modern distros is a sign of weakness. I think its a sign of progress.
This is such a troll, but I'll bite anyway. Slackware is not a "throwback" distro. It is all about simplicity. Believe it or not, some people don't WANT to use lots of GUI stuff, and they don't WANT everything set up for them from the start. Slackware is great for building a system that does what YOU want, and ONLY what you want. It also does so while being more UNIXy than other distributions, which is either a feature or a curse depending on your point of view.
And IMO, the installer is not hard to use. It's very straightforward and offers details that make it pretty simple to get things set up the way you want. Okay, it's not going to go through and auto detect your sound card for you, and it's not going to resize your partitions. But honestly that's not what Slackware is for. It's about being simple, clean, and full featured (or not, as you desire).
There is without doubt elitism in the Slackware community, but that is not what Slack is all about. And for the record I have never seen someone use the term "Redhate". If they did, they still wouldn't be half as trollish as you, my friend.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
Happy memories.
*raises glass* This one for you, Patrick, thanks.
I remember back when software was soft and cuddly, with short little legs; we didn't need leashes for it. And we *liked* it that way!
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
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".
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
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!
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
We would, but apparently the right passed a law against this kindof thing...
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. --Herbert Hoover