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Slackware Turns 10
Sir_Stinksalot writes "DistroWatch is reporting that Slackware is 10. 'Yes folks, it is exactly 10 years today since the release of Slackware Linux 1.0, complete with a brand new Linux kernel 0.99pl11 Alpha, XFree86 1.3 and even a PS/2 mouse support!' Let's all say happy birthday to Slackware."
From: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding)
.99pl11 Alpha.
.99pl8. I'm working on it :^)
/pub/linux/slackware. At least initially,
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Slackware Linux 1.00
Date: 17 Jul 1993 00:16:36 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Lines: 76
Message-ID:
Reply-To: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu
The Slackware Linux distribution (v. 1.00) is now available for
anonymous FTP. This is a complete installation system designed for
systems with a 3.5" boot floppy. It has been tested extensively with
a 386/IDE system. The standard kernel included does not support SCSI,
but if there's a great demand, I might be persuaded to compile a few
custom kernels to put up for FTP.
This release is based largely on the SLS system, but has been enhanced and
modified substantially. There are two main disk series, A (13 disks) and
X (11 disks). Some of the features:
Series A:
About what you'd expect from SLS series A, B, and C. Plus:
Source for the Linux DOS emulator version 0.49.
The FAQ for kernel level 99pl10.
Kernel source and image at
[compiled with these options: math emulation support, normal hard drive
support, TCP/IP, System V IPC, -m486, minix fs, ext2 fs, msdos fs, nfs,
proc support, and PS/2 style mouse support. You may need to recompile if
you have some other type of busmouse. The kernel was compiled with libc
4.4.1, g++ 2.4.5]
The new keytable utilities.
The NET-2 networking package, preconfigured to use loopback.
A public domain version of ksh, and tcsh 6.04 (with the bugs worked out)
GNU gcc, g++, and Objective-C at versions 2.4.5
Includes and libraries at version 4.4.1
mailx, quota utilities, experimental winapi source, sound drivers.
The TCL toolkit and samples.
In addition, the installation program has been improved to offer more
information about the packages (and the installation procedure itself)
as you install.
The install program can also automatically install LILO, configuring it
to boot either from your master boot record or from OS/2's Boot Manager.
Series X:
Also, all the packages you would get in the SLS X series, plus:
XFree-86 version 1.3.
Open Look Virtual Window Manager made the default window manager.
XS3 server offers support for S3 based video cards.
XV 3.00 Image viewer is included.
PEX files from the XFree-86 distribution are included.
Although TEX support is not included in the Slackware release, the you may
install the SLS T series from the install program.
At this point, the install disk itself is running
Also, installation from other than a 3.5" floppy has not been tested, but might
work. 5.25" floppy will not work because of file sizes. At this point, I have
no plans to support a 5.25" version.
How to get the Slackware(tm) release:
The Slackware release may be obtained be anonymous FTP from
mhd3.moorhead.msus.edu in directory
this release will be in the form of 3.5" disk images which should be copied
to floppies using the RAWRITE.EXE program, or dd under Linux.
Please note that our FTP software does not support limiting the number of
concurrent anonymous logins. PLEASE try to go easy on this machine. If things
get out of hand, access may be restricted.
Other sites are, of course, welcome to help out with the load by mirroring
the distribution.
If you find any problems with the distribution, or if you have any suggestions
for improvements, please let me know. If you know of more up-to-date versions
of software in the distribution, I'd like to hear about that, too.
--
Patrick Volkerding
volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu
bf703
Still running on an old 386SX NSF server with 125MB of HD and NE2000 card. :-)
Well, it still runs pretty well on all of my machines. I have had a few forays into playing with RedHat, Debian and even (!) Mandrake, but Slackware is still the simplest to tweak for the machine's purposes, and thus by far my favourite of the distros I've tried.
I can't, in good faith, offer slackwear up as an option to any of my clients though. They need a world class installation and they need cutting edge features like Gnome 2.2 and Mozilla 1.4.
Download Slack 9. It's got more cutting edge software than my RedHat 8 machine at work. Gnome 2.2, KDE 3.1, Mozilla 1.4. You name it...
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein
While it's not v1.0, you can download Slackware v1.1.2 at http://linux.ka.nu/, as well as some other historic Linux distributions (Debian 0.91, SLS 1.05, and MCC Interim 1.0+)
Jeeez.....look up your titles, plz... For a moment I thought that Slack 10 is out, and I even didn't bother to read any further and instead rushed to the slack site to see what's in it....well, as you already suppose I didn't find much.... /. crowd is already downloading _the_ distro...
Next time you may include a "(no pun intended)" in the title, to avoid scaring the shit out of people imaging how 50% of the
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
Believe me, I was only being denigrating to Slackware in jest.
Slackware was where I cut my teeth on Linux and GNU shell software. I did compile my own kernel, as the compiled kernel that was distributed didn't provide support for anything beyond a text mode shell. If you wanted to run X, or access one of the supported sound cards, you compiled the kernel, and it ended up being very stable.
I have since moved off the hardware I started with Slackware on, and in the process have moved onto other distributions. I can honestly say that I don't spend much time remenising about Slackware, as I don't think I want to go back to answering a questionair about the hardware to get to a kernel to support that hardware. I much prefer the module design that came along about the time I moved off of slackware.
-Rusty
You never know...
Slackware users and experts can make a vow, on Slackware's 10th birthday, to be more helpful to new users and Linux newbies. Many a new Linux user has been turned away from Slackware because, although a geek friend might have pointed it out, there is no help or regard for the newbies. RTFM/RTFD!!! is the most common phrase heard in #slackware on many different IRC servers everywhere. This is the same situation for Debian. New users to Linux who want an extremely powerful distribution, complete with friendly help and knowledgeable users who aren't afraid to help a newbie, even if they ask a duplicated question, should check out Gentoo.
This comment was randomly generated by a school of piranhas chewing on the PCB of a Microsoft Natural Keyboard.
Though you'll find Pat keeps everything very much current all by himself; take a look at slackware-current.
Why shouldn't it still run??
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
That would of course ignore the teachings of Bob.
The SubGenius Must Have Slack Church of the SubGenius
nForce does boot, but you'll run into trouble trying to get your nForce audio, nForce network, nForce gfx-card to work.
Mostly because the drivers are closed source, making them troublesome to backport to 2.2...
I booted 2.2 myself the other day, worked like a charm, in some respect even better than 2.4 as 2.4 is less forgiving about faulty DMA than 2.2...
2.4 just went into a lockup while 2.2 at least continued and then just complained about trouble with DMA and didn't initialize the devices that created the trouble...
So there are still uses for 2.2...
I even booted slackware-7.1 the otherday (2.2 based) because of the trouble with DMA and used that to install slackware on a machine (which I later hacked together a 2.4 kernel that worked and upgraded the stuff to slackware-current...)
For those portage/apt-get/ports fans I suggest taking a look at Swaret which fetches and installs (and upgrades) packages straight from your favourite slack-mirrors...