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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."
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.
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
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")
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).
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+)
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.
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.
That would of course ignore the teachings of Bob.
The SubGenius Must Have Slack Church of the SubGenius
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.
darkstar login
:wq
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.
So... You're the reason for the lawsuit... damn you!!!
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