Slashdot Mirror
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."
It would be interesting to hear if it still runs, and how it stacks up - "then vs now".
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
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
... when Slackware was released... I think it was by SLS, no, which mean "Soft Landing Systems".
... :)
Of course, happy with my Yggdrasil installation (woohoo, a bootable CD distro - in 1992! With X!) I scoffed at the notion of there being yet *another* Linux distro around.
Little did I know, 10 years later, that there would be thousands of Linux choices around. Wow.
Happy birthday Slackware! One of these days, I ought to give you a try
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Slack 9 released (roughly) 10 years after 1.
I'm sure Max from Pi would see something in that.
Slack was the distro I fell in love with first. as of lately, i've been impressed with the portability of Knoppix LiveCDs. But I'm still a Slackware fan. Happy Birthday! w00t!
Still running on an old 386SX NSF server with 125MB of HD and NE2000 card. :-)
ALREADY?!?!? Geesh oh wiz, I got to upgrade *AGAIN*?!?!?
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
In spite of some serious competiton by Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE and other very good distributions, a lot of people still prefer Slackware as their distro of choice. That's a nice 10-year birthday present.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Slackware 0.99blahblah was my first Linux. I had two boxes of 50 floppies that I spent hours downloading and copying at a computer lab at school. All of that fit onto one of the two 100MB partitions on my 200MB disk (the other had Windows 3.0). I still have the boot floppy and every once in a while I pull out the boot floppy to see if it can boot on new hardware. Still works on most!
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Hell...I was using SLS (SoftLanding System) Linux from Victoria Canada in 1992/1993 even before this young upstart Pat started his distribution (I think it was even based on SLS)...ahhh the days of distributions on floppy.
We used v0.95, we downloaded it direct from the Finland FTP site over a 14.4 modem, took all night, and we liked it!
All I wanted to do was run my favorite Unix game: "rogue"
I tried Minix, but rogue wouldn't compile, so I tried Linux and have been using it ever since.
Thomas Dz.
Sure, slack is fun to dink around with and it's nice for a sense of history and all that but today as a business about the only distro I can quote out is Linux 9.0. In todays market customers want support and they want to see a product comes in a box with decals and installation books. Fortuen 500 companies don't really care about the "cool" factor.
Warmest regards,
--Jack
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
11:20:29 up 3651 days, 22:40, 1 user, load average: 0.09, 0.07, 0.02
From the initial Slackware release announcement :
...
There are two main disk series, A (13 disks) and X (11 disks).
In a not-so-distant future, Linux distros will also come on 13 disks. Only not on floppy disks. That's how much GNU/Linux has evolved since the early days
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
For me Slackware is the best Linux distribution period. It's the first one I tried back in 1995 and I've yet to find one that's better. Slackware is compact yet comprehesive, stable, simple ans user friendly. If you're an old-timer like me and you don't mind a non-GUI installer, Slackware rules.
Stick Men
On a serious note... that's kind of the point. Slackware has NEVER been geared towards being 'better' or 'faster' than anything else. It just tries to be as stable and trustworthy as it can. I know of someone that runs a very large mud (about 400-500 people on all the time) on slackware. Been running it for several years now and has never upgraded his base system. No need to.
Not Free(as in beer). Free(as in "I'm free to beat you over the head for being a dumbass")
Linux newbie's log, stardate Thursday 9th June 1994:
"Installation of SLS Linux system [sic]: disks a2-4, b1-8, c1-2, c3 (partial), d1-, t1-3. Disk s1 was corrupt."
And I never looked back...
However, looking over that old notebook now, I see it did take me until December of that year to get my head round sendmail enough to have working mail!
Slackware was my first linux distribution. I used to work at "Bureau en Gros" ( I think it's "Business Depot" in english). I was working in the computer section and this guy ask me about Linux. I thought it was a game at first. But then he told me that it was something new and cool but very complicated. I found the CDs for him in bin. That same day I got myself a copy and wanted to install it on my computer. By then I just thought it was an application. Reading on, I realised that I need a different partition. I read up on it and installed my first Linux system on a 100 Meg zip disk. It was the coolest thing for me. I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to do the simplest things but it was really fun. I had an slow computer at the time ( Pentium 60Hz) and the newer games didn't install on my computer anymore so I had to find myself another way of having fun.
And now I get paid to program device drivers on Linux!
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
Like many, Slackware was my first distro.
Oh what hell it was to get it installed, being that I knew very little about hardware.
Many years later, I laugh at how trivial the setup is now. But had I not had the slackware experience all those years ago, I would probably be a MS monkey, instead of a Linux Geek.
Thank you Slackware (Patrick and all).
...about slackware is what I would change about most linux distros I have used...
Upgrades do not work as smoothly as they ought to
work needs to go into some code in the upgradepkg utility that can migrate the settings, rather than plopping down a new copy of the file and saying you might have to look at it....
Gentoo, my other favorite distrobution suffers from the same problem...
And yes I know if I really want this feature I oughta code it myself and submit patches etc....
I'm to lazy, and my real job takes more time tahn I'd like, so between work and having a life I just haven't got the time...OK...OK
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I remember my first time with slackware way back when in college. I couldn't download it, because I needed to get linux up and running in the first place so I could dial-up to the CS modem pool and PPP. So I went the bookstore, bought a huge stack of floppies and tried 3 times to copy all the distro disks before I got it right - back and forth all day to campus.
Problem was I was copying *.* instead of * to the each floppy having come from a DOS background. That wasn't nearly as bad as blowing my $800 monitor the next day trying to setup X timings. Ahh, the good old days.
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+)
Slackware Linux was my first introduction to Linux way back in 1995, when I installed it on my Toshiba 486DX/25 Laptop, though it had reached Kernel 1.2.something by then!
:)
I still prefer slackware to this day, particularly where I need to tweak and change things quickly and easily - it doesn't have any of the "newbie-helper" kruft which the big-brand distro's have, which tends to hinder more than it helps after a while. It is a small, fast, reliable distribution well suited to both Desktop and Server work.
Heck, I still run an old Slack-3 installation on a 486SX/25 with 12MB of RAM, a 250MB HDD, a 120MB HDD and a couple of ISA NIC's as a router, Firewall, Mailserver, Webserver, DNS server and some other odds-and-ends - though it has had a few upgrades (kernel, glibc, etc) over the years, it's still the same basic setup!
Way to go guys...
Keep up the fantastic work...
Disclaimer: I meant what I thought, not what I wrote! What? You can't read my Mind? Oh dear!
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.
At least, I think that's what it was. It came with the first edition of "Linux Unleashed".
Today, several years later, I am still using Slackware, version 9.0, on several computers of mine, and it's still one of the best distros around. (And yes, I have tried Mandrake, Red Hat, Caldera and several BSDs)
Thanks a ton to Patrick Volkerding... May your slack prosper and grow forever more!!
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Now it's a jolly good distro!
Now it's a jolly good distro!
Now it's a jolly good distro!
Now it's a jolly good diiistrooo!
And so say all of us.
And so say all of us.
And so say all of uuuuuss.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
As a professional consultant for a major Fortune 500 software company, I've recently gotten involved in the whole open source phenomenon as started by Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman with the release of the GNU/Linux operating system (or is it Linux? I'm not too sure on this point).
Anyway, after having compiled a report on the commercial viability of open source as an alternative to closed source in the e-commerce/b2b world, I've become quite interested in Linux myself, and thanks to a handy Corel Linux distribution, consider myself to be someway to becoming a "guru" as people here like to call themselves.
Anyway, my point is that Slackware, as a distribution, doesn't give out the professional image that Linux is trying to gain at the moment. On one hand, you've got respectable players like Red Hat, Corel and SCO pushing Linux's corporate image to new levels of respectibility, but on the other hand you've got a distribution named "Slackware", hardly the name your tech-savvy CTO wants to represent a core part of their enterprise solution.
The whole name seems to give the distribution a half-finished, "slack" even, image, surely not one that's in anybody's best interest, whether they be the average long-haired Linux sysadmin or a suited CTO looking for the next big thing. And this image taints all of Linux.
No, whilst Slackware may produce a decent distribution, they definitely need to think about a name change to ensure continued acceptance in the increasingly corporate-driven Linux market.
Webmasters: If you'd like to keep the awareness of slackware up, grab a banner from here: Slackware Propoganda and link it back to Slackware.com.
For a quick rebuttal of the normal arguments RedHat users and their brethren use against Slackware, you can refer to my handy-dandy already composed never-sent reply to this message I found on Google. To sum it up: If you don't think Slackware is a serious distro, you probably don't have the ability to properly maintain a Slackware system. You'll just have to sacrifice the serious Slackware advantage for a.. less serious distribution.
I hope that he at least applies patches. Otherwise, his machine is probably spamming the world right now.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
I'd never bought so many floppies before in my life...
Ahh, we all remember our firsts don't we?
Unfortunately, this is turning more and more into a high-school reunion. My first was Sally Henderson.
So was mine!
Me too!
Over here!
I'm going to shower now. I feel sick.
You never forget your first love.
;-)
I first heard of Linux in "Unix Review". It was very tempting. I got Slackware on a CD that was included in "The Linux Bible", which I got for $19.95 at a local Barnes and Noble that had just opened. It was the cheapest book with a Linux installation CD that they had. My heart sank when I figured out it was mostly a bunch of HOWTO's, typeset (some very incorrectly). But...
For three hours before I ever put the CD into my machine, I read, checked hardware, and took notes. It paid off. The first installation failed, because I forgot to create a swap partition (required back then). The second attempt succeeded, giving me a Linux 1.2.13 kernel and enough to begin "bootstrapping" my configuration. What a steep learning curve, but it taught me how to do things manually (useful when other systems' "automatic" config managers just can't handle the customization you want). One week later, I had a working X system, running FVWM. Two days after that, I had a working dial-up script. I immediately downloaded Netscape.
I dual-booted for two years, until the Chernobyl virus hit my partition table and both copies of my Windows FAT32. With no hope of recovering my Linux system, I started from scratch with 100% Linux, and have never looked back.
I've tried other distros, but Slackware is so lean and straightforward. Even my ex-wife prefers it to RH/Mandrake/Debian/whatever. Thank you, Patrick! (and thanks for accepting my patch a couple months ago, too!
a freshly cleaned diskette drive, and six hours of downloads at 2400 baud. them were the days.
When you got X up and running on your monitor, you really HAD something. FAQ entries were a woundrous archive of arcane material that made you want to call up the author and say "Thanks, man!" Motherboards that topped out at 64 MB.
Wow.
I STILL remember comparing it to the SCO I had at work, and kept comparing the man pages to the IBM XENIX manuals I had stashed away.
Thanks for the memories, Slakware!
darkstar login
:wq
Happy birthday SLACKWARE and a GREAT BIG _THANK YOU_ to you Patrick for your awesome work!
With tears in my eyes I remember all the great moments Slackware has brought to my life. Patrick and others who work on Slackware, you should be proud! When a job is done well it is done the way you guys do it.
LONG LIVE SLACKWARE!
----
The Nintendo Entertainment System turned 20 this week.
Anyone up for a port?
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Bollocks.
This is what they mean by "non-GUI" installer. Instead of pretty windows and shiny icons shaped like big-eyed penguins, you get something that looks like this:
__________________________________________________ _
Here is our completely and utterly incomprehensible non-gui installation screen:
[ ] I can't stand it, help! What? Where are my shoes? Stupid Slack!
[ ] I think my mouse is broke... stupid Slack!
[ ] Hmmm... I think I may have to use the keyboard... Stupid me!
[ ] Hey, I found the space, arrow, and tab keys! Yay me!
[X] This is pretty easy!
[ OK ] [ Cancel ] [ Back to other Distro ]_ _
_________________________________________________
*That's* "Non-GUI?" The way people bitched, kvetched, and whined, I thought when I put in the CD, I'd get a flashing cursor, waiting for me to do some "pull out of the air" command like LOAD"$",8 and enter in the hex value of the primary IDE boot sector address or something. Dude, that may not be mouse-enabled or have fancy anti-aliasing, but it's "GUI" to me because:
- It is graphical (it has lines and colors!)
- It is a user interface (it's for me!)
- It's how I have been installing Red Hat via Serial interface/low RAM anyway - Back when I started computing, the only GUI we had was a menu system like that...
There he goes again... "back in the day" man...
I think Slackware is a pretty tight distro, I wouldn't call it non user-friendly. I'd say it's friendlier than Debian! [not to knock Debian, it also has great uses and noble goals]
I'd say anyone who knows Liunx/UNIX, and has an i386 box should give this a try at least.
__________________________________________________ ____
www.punkwalrus.com - They'll only take away my gun when they pry my cold dead fingers off Logitech gamepad
I tried Mandrake and that was better, but my contractees wanted RH if they were to use Linux. RH 7 had enough custom C libraries that I couldn't do a simple Apache build. About that time (~ 3 years ago) I tried Slackware and loved it!
My ONLY irritation is mindless COTS vendors who MUST use RPM to install their &^%$ products (IBM, IBM, IBM). I've used Slackware from 7 until now without issue with the distro. The more I use it, the more I like it.
At work now were using RH Adv Server 2.1 (over my objections) and while it has some cool stuff (the 2.5 job scheduler, p_threads, etc.) RH still manages to screw with C libraries (for some of our in-house apps) and not include Perl modules so we can use things like SIS. Slackware 9 OTOH is running like a champ on my pIII 500MHz home PC which I'm using for my Masters project.
In short I'm batting 1.000. I've not had a Slack install I've had issue with and I've not had a RH install I haven't regretted. yes, I know, double negatives and all that...
Don't get wrong, better RH than windows, but all things considered - I'm a Slacker...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who take things at face value, and those who think too far into them...I'm in the second category. Has Slackware turned 00000010, or 00001010?
G. M. Manath
Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both 'Yes' and 'No.'
Speaking from the old folks camp, there are many distros for many people. Slackware is not really a 'newbie' distro, or at least not newbie in the sense of 'I just wanna play with Linux' area. If you are already a technical person, and like detail, Slackware is a great way to learn the insides and out of the system. Very rarely in the 8 or so years of using the distrib have I not been able to find a solution in a howto or usenet. If I download some code and try to compile something, and it does not work, most times I'm the kind of person that will tweak the code and fix it... because I can If I stick with the RPM/DEB/etc thought train, if it don't install.... I'm stuck.
No, I don't tell new people to try Slackware, I throw them a KNOPPIX cd and let them play. But I'm an old fart that enjoys fixing a problem and learning about my system. If that's not for you, there are other distros. I was just looking at my box the other day and realized that I've been on the same distrib version since '99! Happy birthday Slackware! Distros came and go, but it's nice to know that at least one is worried more about the rock solid nature that is Linux's longest claim to fame, and less about the creaping featurism that seems to be spreading slowly across the Linux world. "In my day, we downloaded 20+ disks off a 14.4 modem, and loaded them one by one to install Linux... and we liked it!"
I've been using Slackware since around about the 2.x series (I forget the exact version). I've tried Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE and Debian. I keep coming back to Slackware.
Why? It's the most streamlined and simple ditribution there is and always has been. After 10 years it still has not succumb to the bloat that all the other distributions have done so far. I don't have to fiddle around with the silly "tools" that other distributions (Linuxconfig, ugh! Yast, ugh!) insist I use just to get my system running, Slackware let's me do it my way.
Long may it continue!
I just wanted to say thank you to Patrick and all the other fine slackware developers. You got me started with Linux. It has been a hobby, a passion and now a career. Thank you.
Trey