Slashdot Mirror
Slackware 9.1RC 2 Out, Mandrake 9.2 Soon
Colin writes "The founder of Slackware, Patrick Volkerding, released version 9.1 RC-2 of the upcoming Slackware. Good ol' Slack comes with new versions of packages while the addition of the Swaret tool adds dependency checking on Slackware for the first time! Here is an enthusiastic preview of Slackware 9.1 with plenty of screenshots." And pacc points out that Mandrake 9.2 will soon be ready, but only for Mandrake Club members at first. "But it will soon come to a mirror near you(TM). Though by choosing to distribute it with BitTorrent, do they effectively limit the downloads for a limited release?"
"adds dependency checking on Slackware for the first time!"
Well that's going to take all the fun out of it, I'll have to change distros, it just wouldn't be the same if after 2 hours of compiling it doesn't bork. Hell, I'd even pay extra for that, dependency checking is for pussies, with too little time on their hands.
Um, what is there that this guy *doesn't* like? I guess he didn't mention Commodore Basic...
Apache 2.x: when, why not now?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Eugina is a "she" and also runs that site.
Alsa is a separate entity from Slack - if Alsa had issues with the sound card it wasn't Slack's fault. Also, the driver on the cheaper onboard sound rigs emulates full-duplex in software, right? At least sometimes? Setting up full duplex in software can probably be done but with quite a bit of work. The issues never exist on a card with onboard full-duplex support but one must still learn and use Alsa. The Slack/Alsa combo worked fine for basic sound support.
As to the Slack install, it is what is is - easy and quick. Just like FreeBSD's - there's no reason to change it, it's fine.
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Makes me wonder if he loved Windows 98 too when it came out, because we all loved win98...right?
"Though by choosing to distribute it with BitTorrent, do they effectively limit the downloads for a limited release?"
As opposed to NOT using BitTorrent and having all the bandwidth eaten up so that each person gets 4k/s ?
Oh, I get it . . . you meant "Though by limiting the release, do they effectively make the BitTorrent method of distribution less effective?"
Well, there are over 16,000 Mandrake members. Let's say only 10% decide to download at the same time (an obviously conservative figure), that is still 1,600 simultaneous downloads. Is that suboptimal for BitTorrent?
Personally, I don't think Mandrake cares. The other way couldn't handle the traffic so they are using BitTorrent. If members get 150k/s instead 200k/s because of the limitted release, big deal. That is a small price to pay to get freeloaders involved in the actual realities behind creating a product they obviously value.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Man when will they switch to numbering schemes even remotely resembling anything real? Come on, the version is based on kernel 2.4.x - name it version 2.4.x, that's it. Not 9.2 or 22.34!
Just installed the latest Slack on an extra drive the other day and was suprised that the venerable and much appreciated 'setup' was missing.
I've used Slack off and on since the 0.96-pre-1 days and it was the first time since then that I noticed it was gone from the system.
Here's hoping for a new, revamped (still curses!) 'setup' app in the near future.
Thanks for years of great software, Patrick and company!
That "guy" is a girl. Eugenia, not Eugene. Just wanted to clarify. Credit to where credit is due!!!
You are not what you own.
Which will be the first mainstream and complete distribution that'll have a non-beta AMD64 version? I'm asking because I can't find any of them right now and I don't what the state of the AMD64 versions are for Mandrake, RH, Debian, Suse, etc...
Sebastien Loisel
For always releasing such sweet, sweet distros!
Like many of the other geeks here, my tastes are very peculiar. It takes me months to get my system customized just the way I want it. As soon as I do, Mandrake comes out with a new version of their distro with all kinds of creamy goodness that I just can't pass up.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
swaret --update
swaret --upgrade
Lots of options, you can even specify default 'yes' for all upgrades. Resolves dependencies too.
Just posting this link again to try to get through to new users. Time for M$ whores to take the plunge!
A MANDRAKE HOWTO
The Complete Step-by-Step Guide to LINUX Mandrake 9.1
http://mandrakeuser.cjb.net
New web site up on how to set up mandrake 9.1 to ease the configuration pains of the new linux user. Written and catered for the moderate computer user. It covers how to get and install mandrake and add in most of the needed applications. Covers most of the major software included in the distribution, other freely available applications, newbie command line tutorial, how to handle some common and annoying bugs peculiar to each application.
PART I
1. Introduction
2. Indispensable Tools for the Linux User
3. Useful links
PART II - Mandrake Installation
1. Getting Mandrake 9.1
2. Installing Mandrake 9.1
3. Going through the install sequence
4. Using Mandrake
5. Nice things to add easily
6. Configuration with Mandrake Control Center
7. Configuration with Gnome Control Center
8. Important Configuration of Menus and MIME Types
9. More Advanced Configuration
PART III - Linux Shell and Apps
1. Navigating around terminal
2. Shells -- bash, csh, rsh, sh
3. Environments and Paths
4. File Permissions
5. Editing files
6. Linking
7. Finding Files
8. Using grep
9. Basic bash scripts knowledge
10. Running Remote X applications
11. Mounting Remote File Systems
12. Language setup for man pages
13. Handling Print Jobs
PART IV - Software Packages
1. What are packages?
2. Specifying Sources For Online Downloading - Mandrake Mirrors, Texstar, PLF
3. Packages to be installed from Mandrake CDs - Mesa, mplayer, Timidity, pan, gaim, mozplugger
4. Packages to install from Texstar - Macromedia Flash, nano, Real Player
5. Mplayer and Codecs
6. Other essential packages- Open Office, Sun Java, Adobe Acrobat 5, BitTorrent
7. Setting up SMB share for Windows
8. Using vncserver for remote desktop applications
9. File Sharing - p2p networks - Limewire, edonkey, lmule
10. Running M$ Office under Linux.
11. Games - SNES, MAME, WineX
PART V - Advanced FAQ
1. How do I get DRI 3D acceleration to work?
2. Mandrake Fonts Deuglification and Anti-aliasing
3. Email Clients and Web Browsers (Handling mailto: and http:)
4. Full Mozilla Plugins Configuration (Quicktime, Java, Flash, Mplayer)
5. Konquerer Plugins Configuration
6. X Windows xmatrix screensaver
7. How to adjust the sound volume permanently
This HOWTO is my first contribution to the linux user community, and since I have found documentation sorely lacking for the total newbie, I have decided to write one myself. It is based on my experience in the past month trying to install everything from scratch. This HOWTO will be short, brief and to the point. Further information can be found in documentations on other websites, this one is just for the impatient, and users who want to reduce their startup time. Why Mandrake? Firstly, it is easy-to-install, and the first distribution that I've tried that has come very close to the ease-of-use of windows. If you can install and customize windows, you will not have much trouble with the Linux installation. Who is this HOWTO written for? This document is meant for the average user who is at least accustomed to tweaking and customizing their own OS. It will definitely not be a tutorial on how to point and click or use GUI interfaces.
This HOWTO is my first contribution community, and since I found newbie documentation wanting, I wrote one myself. It is for
I'm sure you're running an upatched stock version of Win98 with Office 97 right?
It's a very interesting approach: Mandrake Club & contributors (developers, translators...) are thanked, while business (retail sales) is boosted!
Here is the full message posted on their website:
____
Mandrake 9.2 ISOs available for Club and contributors in advance!
Next ISOs of Mandrake 9.2 Download Edition will be available for Club Members and all people who have contributed to the new version (including developers and translators), prior to retail packs and public download release.
This new policy was strongly suggested by Club Members for a long time. It is now possible to offer this opportunity with the new BitTorrent technology.
Mandrake 9.2 ISO images will be released in advance to Mandrake Club users, hopefully before October 15th, when all last tests will have been achieved.
Thanks to all people who made possible this new promising release of Mandrake Linux.
MandrakeSoft Team.
____
That "credit" being simply her existance as a female?
Defnitely gotta get credit for being a girl. I guess.
A few months ago I tried setting up Linux From Scratch. I discovered that to make it not completely suck, I had to patch various things. It occurred to me that Slackware has already done exactly these things (plus more I wouldn't think of) for me.
/var/run, but I want to run named as a non-root user, meaning /var/run wouldn't be writable. The only configure option is --localstatedir which defaults to /var, meaning it would create a subdir called "run" under wherever I chose to put it, which is pretty stupid IMHO. Slackware uses /var/run/named/named.pid so you can change the ownership of /var/run/named to match the user you run named as.
./bin/named/include/named/globals.h.
The other day I upgraded BIND to the new version which I downloaded from ISC, so I could work around Verisign's DNS hijacking. I ran into a snag: it wanted to save a PID file in
So I popped in the source CD to see how they do it, since I couldn't find a config option for that. Guess what? There's a diff file, and a shell script that patches the source (along with other build options). The changes are toward the end of
Yes, that's right, when I got the source off the CD, I got the original unmodified source tarball, a diff file, and a shell script with build options - not some mysteriously customized source tarball that the distro thinks is somehow better than the original, but the original tarball plus Slackware's modifications - meaning, I can easily make the same modifications to a new version of the source.
Is Slackware perfect? Well, no, maybe not - but that's OK, because if something's not to my liking, Slackware doesn't get in my way if I want to do it myself. I can just build a new version of BIND from source, uninstall the old one, install the new one, and not worry about other packages maybe depending on BIND somehow, or anything else weird.
So, let me join the other Slackware fans here with a hearty "THANKS, PATRICK!"
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Heh, in Slackware2.png read the email subjects. They're pretty funny.
She's as ugly as a horse, but since she's Greek, she probably does take it up the back door.
Fortunately, there are plenty Linux distributions that are not slackware-like. It's good to see slackware to finally overcome this stone age limitation though.
I use 9.0. It is good. If you look at the Slack Book's HTML, you'll see that it was created with MS Word; is that telling?
I hope they soon get the 2.6 kernel going.
9.0 kernel builds and works with Gcc 3.X, which is more than some distros can claim.
I want Slack to have a "make world," like the BSDs, then I'd be set; although I must say that Slack generally uses stock sources, as opposed to patched-to-hell, like some others.
Thanks, Patrick
In college, I was the ideal Slackware user. I wanted to learn programming, loved to compile my own stuff and felt that Redhat was only useful in removing the user from my goal of learning *nix. I extolled its virtues at every opportunity. I didn't have to hunt down an RPM just to install a new kernel, and I certainly knew how to compile my own kernel. I didn't know of any other serious distributions in 1996.
When I entered the real world and had a job and non-computer hobbies, I still had the need (perceived need as opposed to life or death need) for a *nix machine for my home mail, DNS and web serving. I no longer had the time, however, for fixing dependencies, applying source code patches and hunting down the minor details that I had arduously learned how to hunt down in the previous years. Debian came to my rescue. Dselect may be rough around the intuitive UI edges, and it's not quick on my 486, but it's consistent and only requires occasional answers to keep my machine well patched. It's been years since I've had to compile my own kernel, let alone wanted to.
I fondly remember Slackware as I remember my first girlfriend. It was a good idea at the time, but that time has since past and I have moved on. I am much happier now, but the lessons and memories will stay with me for a long time.
Swaret's dependency checking isn't a core functionality of swaret, it's actually a dependency list maintained by the swaret team.
A nice attempt at a troll, but. . .
The point you miss is that with the various flavors of Unix you can install a system and just use it for 5 years without updating, or even 10 years.
Many, in fact, do just this.
Most Unix improvements these days are really only chasing the changes mandated by the "improvements" driven by the propriatary companies.
To this day when I want a good, solid Unix solution to just get some real work done I install Red Hat 5.2.
It's killer.
KFG
Try running Windows XP then without downloading any updates. I'd be surprised if it stays up half a day.
The stars that shine and the stars that shrink
in the face of stagnation the water runs before your eyes
And I'm not even religious
Sunny Dubey
that's the greek males you're thinking of.
Um, the dependency checking tool is called 'ldd'. Slack has had it for a long time.
Want automatic dependency checking? Run the program, and if it is missing something, it will tell you what it is.
Maybe automatic dependency solving is what slackware is missing. But slack has a file that comes with it called MANIFEST.bz2. I just 'bzcat MANIFEST.bz2 | less' and type / and the shared library name. Find the associated package name and installpkg. Works every time. Well, maybe not for third party tgz's, but it's the same for third party rpms too-- you make your own trouble by doing this. Now the way to avoid problems with programs not included in slack is to compile it yourself.
All swaret does is combine all those steps into one tool. Same old stuff, different approach.
Now what does BSD have over this?
Call me dull, but I usually just plug some speakers into them. Anyone else?
Hey, I love Slackware, but this is not a "fix" to dependancy checking.
/extra packages.
This uses Swaret to actually declare and manage the dependancies.
TGZ and PKGTOOL still have no idea what a dependancy is. This is a problem of course, because you rely on Swaret being right.
Not to mention, that it only works on the official Slack servers, which basically have what's on the ISO, and maybe 5-10
I think Slack should go with PACMAN/ABS from archlinux.org. GREAT package manager and "PORTS" system.
And Linux is a kernel.
The lack of an option to turn off the installation of '-dev' stuff is a nice thing?
If it bothers you so much, just hack a small option to apt or whatever to automagically grab the -dev packages while its installing stuff.
Slackware or Debian? I heard Debian now comes with Mozilla 1.0 installed so they are not out of date anymore.
I'm buying Mandrake 9.2 I use Redhat, Debian, and OpenBSD mainly but I tried Mandrake 9.1 on my laptop and replaced Redhat w/ it. urpmi surprised me (almost as good as apt) and the overall speed is noticeably better than Redhat. Combine this w/ the excellent packages from texstar and plf and I'm very happy.
This guy is way out there
Or were you just downloading at your own convenience?
It makes a BIG difference (I average 200K/s !)
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I like how every single message in the email client is spam. Mostly pr0n spam, for that matter.
-twb
I hope they have sorted out their problems. My Mandrake installation 9.1 is all Fuxored up. I installed ok, and used it for a little while, and I liked it much. I added software and had some fun. Mandrake really lets you try some net stuff out. But then it messed up Mozilla, and now mozilla wont save any preferences. Its like starting it new over and over. Additionally, I found Mandrake very slow compared to my latop using Suse 8.2 and my workstatins using Redhat 7.3 and 8 and 9. I have been thinking about scrapping the whole thing for Gentoo.
If anyone can fix my problems with Mozilla and Mandrake I would love to hear about it.
fixed the installer in 9.2. I had no end of trouble with mandrake 9.x's installers. Selected packages would often not be installed, hardware would be missdetected, the installer would crash. It's a real bummer after 8.2's great installer. Once it's installed, Mandrake's the best behaved linux I'ved used so far (provided you can find good urpmi mirrors).
On a side note, I don't see much worth having in 9.2 over 9.1 otherwise. I've got nearly all the updated packages courtsy of Texstar and the PLF. Does anyone know why Mandrake didn't just wait for Kernel 2.6.0?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
appreciate Linux sluts. After all we give it away for free. :)
The Linux I use is a complete OS, kernel, drivers, tools, GUI, the works. When I turn on my computer, it loads Linux. If someone asks me what it is, I'll tell them "It's Linux." Why? Because most people don't care about the specifics. It's something different, and they want a name to put on it. It seems "Linux" is the name people recognize from the media etc., and they go: "Oh, yeah. I've heard about that."
:)
If you don't like that... heh, you're probably a GNU/Linux user.
Linux is a kernel?
GNU is someones ego.
Which one do you support?
I can only assume that they have payed SCO for every copy downloaded.
What is slashdot?
Which Debian are you talking about? Sid is as up to date as any others......Woody is rock solid, that's the advantage. And upgrading can be done with one simple command.....
"I want Slack to have a "make world," like the BSDs, then I'd be set..."
Umm, the BSDs have that now.
So what are you waiting for?
You really need to stop trolling
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
She was showing off the brand new SVG icons in GNOME 2.4.
Mmmmm....scalable.
I forgot to mention this in my last post about Mandrake-vs-Slackware. It didn't install about 50 of the packages I had selected, including about half of GNOME, Midnight Commander, and a few console apps.
Microsoft's VP of Customer Service is Helen Waite. If you are having problems with their products go to Helen Waite.
only thing making slcakware 9.1 orgasmic is swaret and pretty screenshots of gnome, not saying slackware is bad, slackware is awesome, but I dont see why people are creaming their pants over the new build, you can install swaret on your existing slack system, and swaret is optional in slack 9.1 :P
Presumably, it's not safe to upgrade the devs package and assume all the changes went to disk when devfs is mounted. Any changes written to the devfs /dev will be lost at next reboot.
This is a kind of dependency that isn't checked for. Should it be? Of course, since i'm running devfs, my on-disc /dev doesn't matter, does it? What if i want to boot an older kernel or decide devfs isn't for me?
(Slackware does support devfs, i think. It at least includes devfsd)
PS I modified my on-disc /dev today by:
# mkdir /devdisc
# mount --bind / /devdisc
# rm /devdisc/dev/.devfsd # -- what i wanted to do
# umount /devdisc
Besides, Linux != Unix
Hello fellow Slackware users and newcomers, just a few comments to help clarify a few things.
Slackware 9.1 comes in two CDs and it's Installation is text-based.
I would personally describe this as a menu based installation. ie: use arrow keys to select packages/options.
The only snag might be that the user will need to use the command line and not extremely user-friendly fdisk application to create partitions for Slackware.
cfdisk is also available which is menu based.
Hmmm. This whole OSS business is supposed to engender, among other things, choice.
Now, for various reasons, some geek, some pragmatic, some even business-like, I - a die-hard Windows user/programmer of over 10 years - am interested in Linux. Not to the exclusion of Windows, hoever.
It's not necessary to call us whores. Not all of us. At worst, there are the vast majority who think there is no choice, and they certainly need to be educated. But, having educated myself on the alternatives, I still choose to use Windows, and damned if I will apologize for it. If you want to convert the intelligent Windows geeks, (we're out there, lost in a sea of clue-bies) you might want to consider that we're worth a little respect.
By the way, I'm loading Mandrake on a virtual as I type this.
meh.
We will soon be adding the ability to have a line in the swaret.conf file such as this:/
REPOS=GreatSite:http://www.website.com/slackstuff
and then all the packages that are there can be managed just like the main Slackware packages. However, the site has to be set up like Slackware's site (FILELIST.TXT, CHECKSUMS.md5, etc). Made some scripts to make this easier, under the heading of swaret-tools.
Big disclaimer-we haven't added this yet. Been very busy.
is an absolute piece of crap. Get a real distro like Suse.
You know, I've used Slackware for many years, and I never noticed that program. I'll look into using it instead of my "hack" with the libraries-current file.
Thanks.
So Slackware 9.1 RC2 is out, now where the fuck do I download it from?
You might not mind being refered to as a she, especially when you are all "dressed up" for your partner. He probably likes calling you his bitch also. But most people don't like it when they are referred to in the wrong gender. It's not like her name is Chris or Mel or some other gender neutral name.
How is it at handling Slackware packages?
Half a day? Probably about 60 seconds after connecting to the internet.
$ su - ./download-updates9 .0/patches/packages/*.tgz'9 .0/patches/packages/kde/*.tgz' /etc/rc.d/rc.whatever stop (or) killall whatever
/sbin/lsmod
# cd patches
#
wget -c 'ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-
wget -c 'ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-
# ls -ltr
# shutdown now (or)
# upgradepkg whatever.tgz
# (edit whatever's config files)
# init 3 (or) so on...
And if it's not a Slackware package, it gets 'make uninstall'ed or otherwise deleted, and recompiled.
Obviously, this 'Swaret' tool would just fsck up my homegrown solution. And I can't be having that, can I.
Joy!
P.S.: Whenever I start posting actual procedures I use on my computer onto Slashdot, they're usually very bad as far as *nix protocol. Examples: sudo
Go figure. Also go lightly.
Slackware is very solid, there's no doubting it. It makes a good server system. I'd rather rely on it that RedHat because you don't have to learn all the changes they make to various packages - ie things behave as they should. It's simple and clean and just works. I used Slackware for 2 or so years before moving to Gentoo.
... stable.
I've been using Gentoo ( unstable; ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~x86 ) for about 18 months or so now. There are sometimes a few glitches, but that's what you get when you choose the unstable branch. I'm sure the stable branch is more
The things that set Gentoo apart from Slackware ( they're otherwise quite similar ) are:
1) Portage. It's just beautiful. You can do incremental upgrades till the cows come home, and it even handles major changes like upgrading glibc from 2.2.5 to 2.3.2 without any hickups. Amazing!
2) User forums. They *feel* like a nice, friendly, communal place where you go to hang, chat, and talk about Linux and stuff. In comparison, alt.os.linux.slackware feels like an Afghani desert - after the US military have finished with it. And of course it wouldn't be complete without the regular gang of vultures sitting atop their nests, waiting for the next non-boys-club member to turn up and ( God forbid ) ask a question. Yeah , yeah, I know. Tough love and all. Don't ask stupid questions. RTFM. That's all beside the point, which is that the they're just plain rude and childish, and I'd rather not go there - even if it is someone else who's getting flamed. It makes me feel bad to be a member of the Linux community when I see how they carry on.
I have the deepest respect for Pat. To hold together a Linux distro by himself for so long is nothing short of incredible. Well done Pat. If I need to put together a no-fuss server or even someone else's desktop that I don't wanna maintain, I'll most likely choose Slackware.
Um, maybe he doesn't like BE...
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
Slack rocks!
Slackware Mirror
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Once Slack, :-}
Never Back.
I run Slackware 9, on 7 of my 8 computers (alas one's a doze box - but hey, compatibility is a bitch [the next idiot to mention VMware gets my boot, in your face.])
Dependency checking is going to help quite a bit when I update these machines, I have had several sessions where after setting up a distrobuted compile, and leaving it a while, the whole thing borks and I have to go hunting for extra files.
-Gwala
#!/bin/csh cat $0
Linux has many good points in it's favour. It is more secure. I can if I so choose audit code. It is great for a server demanding minimal and well managed downtime. It is free as in speech and free as in beer.
But it also has negative points, at least from my viewpoint. Drivers are not commonly available to provide the full functionality of many pieces of harware. The code for many applications is convoluted, and requires more time than I have to fix. Taking a stock system (Compaq, Dell, etc.) it is difficult many times to get set up to provide the full capabilities of the system. Games are difficult to find and play on Linux.
Windows, likewise, has it's share of ups and downs. But based on what I need and want, I have made a choice using logic rational measures of the effectiveness of both.
At work, I use Windows. It has the stability I need, is fully (and I mean 100%) compatible with our servers and internal network, and most importantly, it is mandated by the company. I program all day at work in C++, Java, Visual Basic, SQL, and whatever else I need to get the project done and accomplish the goals set by my bosses.
When I come home, I boot my PC to Linux, and use Linux for the things I have to have 'just work.' Balancing my checkbook. Checking my e-mail. Managing my home. For these simple tasks, having Linux is a great pleasure. I go in, run the apps I need, and don't suffer feature bloat or downtime. I can rebuild the whole Linux side of my machine in an hour in case of crash, thanks to the wonderful structure of the tree. I keep my data completely seperate from my apps, have a cron job to back it up to the family server daily. All the features Linux advocates are so proud of. But the things I do not want to do when I get home is have to write 500 lines of code to make a feature work, or spend 2 hours compiling a kernel. Some days, when I feel mashochistic, I pull out my spare machine and hack away. But when I need it to work, I need it to work then.
Then I switch to Windows, and play a couple of games, do my artwork. Yes there are games for Linux, but the selection I have for Windows dwarfs the choices for Linux. The graphics capabilities of Linux are still shadowed by the commercial programs I can get in Windows for my artwork.
I look forward to the day when I can ditch Windows completely. And although there are a great many people spending hour upon hour working on perfecting and improving Linux, it still has a few hurdles before I can. I need graphics packages that are on par with AutoCad, capable of complex solids modeling in mutliple 3-D layers, that will not crash when I try to model complex kinematic animations. I need games, simulation games, role playing games, things I can play on the network with my roommates. I need the ability to hook my television to my NVidia and get simultaneous output (without spending an hour editing XF86Config files) to watch our productions.
Linux advocates are very vocal about the virtues of Linux. And equally vocal about the flaws of Windows. Eventually, their hard work will bring Linux to the point I will really have the choice to run it full time. Of that I have no doubt, and I put my money where my mouth is. But I know, for my needs, it is not there yet.
And all I ask is that while extolling the virtues of Linux, please acknowledge it's limitations. Please realize that even some of the geekiest of us would rather go home and play a game instead of hacking a kernel driver.
To all those who have poured hours into Linux, I say one last thing. Thank you. Keep up the good work.
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
Sure you can run older software. But what about security?
I don't want my fast, stable, little server running a vulnerable version of glibc.. yet if I upgrade glibc I need to upgrade the compilers, then the kernel, etc etc.
If it's an isolated machine, or has no listening services and a smart user at the console, sure older stuff works great, but otherwise you pretty much have to use somthing newer.
Newer software has more bloat. Why is it I could run my webserver on a 486dx/66 with 16m ram before, when now I need at *least* a pentium 233 with 32meg? Simple static HTML mind you. Bloat bloat bloat.
It would be interesting to fix the security issues in older distributions, such as slackware 4, but who has the time.
GO SLACK! The good o'le distro! Viva Slackware!
I'm looking at the screenshots; the backdrop is over-compressed and too low resolution, the KDE (or is it gnome) taskbar-wannabe still looks plain and bland, as if they've somehow tried to round the 3d appearance of the buttons (and it looks like ass), The fonts are badly hinted and waaay too thin, and just generally not visually appealing, the underlining of the letters in the menu looks like something from Windows 3.1...actually, it's mostly just the fonts (and whatever engine draws and renders the glyphs), and the ugly 3d elements.
The Media Player winamp thingy looks great, beautiful clean interface with nice fonts. The rest of the OS? not so good. It reminds me of the harsh appearance of intuition on the Amiga. The shades which make the GUI elements look 3d need to be waaay more subtle. And just stupid things like in the panel at the top of the screen, the icons are just rammed across the top of the screen, with not so much as a 2 pixel border to make them look nice (look at the XMMS icon). And those two buttons near the xchat icon stick out like zits on a teenager.
Compare to the elegance of this. Ignore the one pixel cut off on the left side of the toolbar buttons (beta software glitch...)
Perhaps it's just what you're used to, but most people seem to agree the UI in linux is it's worse attribute, and that it's one of OS X's best. Please, PLEASE steal some ideas, and/or concepts. Go read Apple's UI guide, or even Microsoft's if they have one.
--THIS IS NOT A TROLL, THIS IS CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM--
You have to be blind. OSX and its trademarked unfixable blurry fonts, overrendered windows, eyecandy for the sake of eyecandy and ONE limited window manager. What's with using that to criticize linux? With a Linux desktop the user has choice. The choice to pick just which font rendering you want, if you want it at all. The choice to pick where your screen widgets go, the choice to pick which gui toolkit you like, and how you want it to work. The choice to use the input device you want without being forced to do it the Apple way
If the Apple way wasn't blurry fonts, useless eye candy and one (overpriced) button mice it may be a valid option, but in the real world where users want choice, restricted thinking like Apple's will ensure it stays at a 1.5 to 2% market share or less.
I don't want to start a holy war here, but I need to vent guys and here I hope I find sympathy! I HATE NETCRAFT! *BSD is dying
Yet another cripping bombshell hit my beleaguered TiBook as I spent the good part of five hours helping a friend at his freelance gig while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder on less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. 5 hours. The amazing thing is at home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this MAC, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. This serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Now, I got the job to fix this as I'm the "Computer Guy" and can generally help friends and family with there computer problems. I have never seen such a tragedy as the titanum powerbook! It is collapsing in complete disarray as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
In addition, The hand writing is on the wall; during this file transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, straining to keep up as I type this, having lost 93% of its core developers.
OpenBSD leader Theo won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Macs, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its Wintel counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. MacOS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs faster than this TiBook at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine. A recent article put the TiBook at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 TiBook users.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems. MacOS is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
I don't, I really don't, see how Apple can claim to be tops in design. Even my A600 continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, My TiBook is dying.
Fact: TiBooks running BSD at a Freelance gig are dying.
64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE
READY.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
" The packaging system is minimalistic. It does not support dependency resolving, but so far I did not felt that I need any."
When will people learn that "minimalistic" is not a fucking word. If your vocabulary fails to exceed that of your average three year old, goddamnit, don't make up words to suit your stupid self.
- IP
Having been forced to recently use Windows *shudder* I can confidently say the AA for font on modern Linux distros is first class.
If you want beauty and elegance try AbiWord-2.0 or Gnumeric-1.2 (available on this slack pre-release)
You can make a Linux desktop look anyway you like. Both the GNOME and KDE desktops are fully themeable. If you can't design your own themes there are lots of themes available that can be installed with a single click. Got bored of your desktop? Try a new layout!
See:
http://art.gnome.org/
For GNOME themes. There is a similar site for KDE but I don't run KDE so I don't know where it is.
Anyway, learn a bit before you spout off on slashdot. We're happy to flame cluseless newbee's here.
Martin
Eugenia runs OS News and seems to not like very much. The fact that she really likes it is a surprise.
I started with Slackware 96 in 1996 and used it until the Redhat hype got to me. Ran Redhat from 6.1 to 8.0. I'm a web application developer which means I build LAMP servers (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl) from source all the time. With each release, Redhat was seriously get in my way of accomplishing this. I was singing the RPM dependency blues (install Perl to install VIM?).
/. will make abundantly clear, you'll spend a couple days or hours if you have a weekend and are sedentary to compile your base system. Of course you can start with a stage 3 install and save 8-16 hours of compiling time.
I finally decided to give a source based distribution a go, and I went with Gentoo. As most trolls on
But, brother, once you've got your base system installed, you'll wonder how Redhat became the poster boy distro for Linux. It is nice. You've just got to try it.
The same can probably be said for Debian or Slackware. You simply get a "truer" Linux the closer you stick to source code based distros.
Themes = putting lipstick on a chicken.
I have never ONCE seen a linux theme work properly. They seem to work for one group of apps, with nice background colors, pleasing simple buttons and controls, font smoothing in a way I like it (although proper hinting still seems beyond it. That's OK for a few lines of text, but a screen full of text in any WP still looks kludgy) and things work fine.
One problem is GIMP. I set EVERYTHING to look fine in KDE that I possibly can, but it doesn't change a thing in GIMP's UI. xnmap is another sinner, that seems also to escape KDE's radar when it comes to gui customisation.
Clearly you're a clueless Mac bigot who can't code and doesn't understand why everyone doesn't lick Steve Job's arse.
I'm not a clueless mac bigot, it's just that I have used a number of operating systems (BeOS, NeXTSTEP, Amiga, Windows, QNX, Mac OS 9) over the years and linux has by far the most nonstandard and confusing out of the lot; the way it looks bad reminds me of a java application using Swing.
I think linux is a great operating system - it's stable, fast, and free - the interface just stinks.
* I know the linux is just a kernel and the gui is other software all together, blah blah save it.
lol this is why you're having problems clueless idiot, you're starting out trying to change a gtk+ app's settings using *KDE*
Oh spare me. Use a little thought before complaining about things you know nothing about
Clara , one of my fine feathered friends looks pretty hot in lipstick. Aztec Copper is her favourite, and I home made a durn pretty little frilly blouse for her and a wig with blond curls and oh my she's a sweetie. should see her ass as she runs^H^H^H^Hwalks away from me and I just... y'know I just can't control muhself sometimes
brb, chicken.
If you had a clue about how to code an interface you would see why nobody bothers or cares about some ideology of consistency that Steve Jobs has decreed. If you can't handle change when going from app to app then why you're using a computer in the first place?
Why not? It's the rule of thumb for blacks, too. Extra points for not being a young white male.
Wow. Red Hat 5.2 was the first version of linux I ever ran.
I was SO stoked when I finally booted the machine and was able to compile hello world.
I didn't even know about X at the time. Eventually I got x configured properly for my video card, and figured out how to make linux talk to my metricom wireless modem. The next major milestone was checking my hotmail email for the first time under linux. Pretty cool.
Then I installed samba and diald, and set the linux box up as a nat box/firewall, print and file server for my housemates, and we shared the slow-ass metricom connection. Heh. To download anything big (like a new kernel) I had to start it up before I went to bed, and the next day it would still be going.
Over time I upgraded my libc, my gcc, my Xserver, the kernel. Until it eventually wasn't really a redhat 5.2 box anymore, because I did all my upgrades from sources, not packages.
Around that time I tried linux from scratch, and that was fun. (by this time I had DSL, or I never would have done linux from scratch). I learned how to build pretty much everything on a typical linux system that way. I installed X and gtk and the enlightenment window manager (which has a ton of dependencies).
Now I am using slackware 8, although my firewall system is still running linux from scratch. No web server, no ftp, no telnet, no services of any kind, except a cache-only dns server for the LAN side.
It sure has been fun. Thanks for taking me down memory road.
I'll probably try out gentoo next.
MM
--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
If linux is trying to proposition itself to be successful desktop OS, why the hell should the end user have to know what GUI toolbox any particular app was written in? That's absurd.
bitches.
The day part III belongs to part V is the day Linux is ready to the masses.
A MANDRAKE HOWTO - The Condensed Version
1) Insert CD.
2) Click.
3) Click.
4) Click.
5) Click.
6) Click.
7) Take CD out and reboot.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Here. Nothing beats an eye candy screenshot full of pr0n spam.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
$echo Mac OS X | grep e
$
Sorry, no 'e' in there.
The next RedHat release will, of course, be "10.0", invalidating all of the people who got their RHCE on 8.0, just like they invalidated all of the 7.x RHCE's by jumping straight from 8.0 to 9.0.
RedHat should just drop the
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Go check out screenshots from decent distros like Mandrake, Red Hat, and SuSE. Unlike Slackware, the others actually give a shit what the end result looks like.
M$ Whores ?
For such a helpful post, was that really neccessary ?
It's people like you who give Linux a bad name.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Hey mods this is only slightly offtopic OK!
'Ole Suse seems to be falling behind in the version wars here, anyone know when 9.0 is due out? Hopefully in time for the Xmas rush, so maybe any day now?
Skiing? Check out The Independant Skiers Portal
I love this screenshot they have. Check out the Evolution Inbox with 133 Spams in it ;) fR33 Pr0n? ;)
RebateFX.com - Spread rebates for Forex traders
why the hell should the end user have to know what GUI toolbox any particular app was written in? That's absurd.
No, that's just common sense. KDE theme app controls the look of KDE apps. Period. gtk+ apps like GIMP are controlled in a completely different manner. If someone felt the need was there to code a themer that worked across the varied types of GUI toolkits, it would have been done by now. Since there hasn't, i think you're just acting like a spoilt child who wants every button on every appliance in his house looking the same. Ick. Conformity.
If linux is trying to proposition itself to be successful desktop OS, why the hell should the end user have to know what GUI toolbox any particular app was written in? That's absurd.
What's your alternative solution to providing a wide range of choices to user's without requiring them to know what they are?
Like what I said? You might like my music
As Alan writes in previous reply there is new edition in work now, which is done outside of Slackware core team (AFAIK).
Umm... At least in my opinion the Mandrake default KDE theme (is it called "Galaxy") looks disgusting. The titlebar is far too large and the curved line thingie in the middle looks coarse. Also the control buttons are too small and look plain ugly.
Red Hat's Bluecurve is much better. The rounded window corners don't look too good (because the obvious lack of anti-aliasing) but otherwise it's quite nice. Unfortunately the new version included in recent Rawhide packages has smaller, no-so-good-looking buttons.
(I don't really know about SuSE, since I haven't tried it out in a while.)
Coz you clearly no nothing about what is happenning in the world of Linux GUI's and based your statements on typical MAC arrogance.
There is a very well defined set of Human Interface Guidelines for GNOME. GNOME 2.4 which is used in slackware, is almost totally compliant with these.
The panel can be put anywhere you want (which has always been the case). The AA Fonts used in Slackware are just totally beautiful. Fully on par with anything on OSX.
GNOME 2.4 comes complete with a very easy to use built-in browser which is far more standards compliant than safari or IE and MUCH easier to use than Mozilla.
There is LOTS more stuff here than you have a clue about.
Maybe you should write to the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary. They seem to believe it is a word.
Ok , which 13 year old idiot moderator made the parent a troll?? He's quite correct about ldd , its
a standard unix tool for gods sake thats available on every version of *nix out there. Just because it doesn't have a fluffy wuffy fwunt end for idiots doesn't
mean that it can't be used!
I don't want my PC connecting to unknown bittorent users all over the world, potentially exposing security holes in the client software
LOAD "*",8,1
Sadly I no longer remember the load syntax of my lovely Spectrum. :(
Just:
...
# urpmi.setup
(add 9.2 source)
# urpmi urpmi
# urpmi --auto-select
# urpmi kernel
# reboot
No need do re-customise your system
RUN
You know, some of us have lives and real work to do on our computers. In the real world, gumdrop widgets and drop shadows etc. DO NOT an effective working environment make.
OS X looks pretty, yep, but I'd rather have my bland, chunky Linux desktop rather than some sluggish, distracting eye-candy-laden half-proprietary thing from a single vendor.
If you're doing important work, widget effects etc. simply aren't all that important -- look how CDE was used on professional UNIX workstations for ages. People had real work to do, not spend time slavering and tweaking.
Just putting some perspective on this.
Wumpus
I have a Dell PC with Win-XP home. I was dutifully installing Microsoft Updates until one of the updates hosed me up. I then completely reinstalled Win-XP and have never downloaded an update since (I have antivirus, and HW/SW firewalls which I keep current). Since my reinstall, my machine has never crashed.
"--THIS IS NOT A TROLL, THIS IS CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM--"
If you really want to be constructive, go get the source code and show us all how it's done.
Scott Strungis
Maybe this is why some people are put of on linux. The guy makes some comments about the visual appeal of a screen and suffers verbal abuse and the typical "If you don't like it, fix it".
Criticsm can be a good thing. Now I'm not a huge fan of the Mac screenshot Xyde presented, but lets not be children about this. Personally, I think the Mac fonts of the screenshot did look better than the Gnome shots. Since I'm not a font magician and can't just fix it, does that mean I'm not entitled to say I like those fonts better.
Come on and grow up!
hehe, I couldn't remember the proper syntax for loading from the floppy. I still remember "double siding" my floppies with a hole punch. Ahh... the memories...
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
you're thinking young greek boys, but only during war time or when the troops are in the field.
Since we are talking about ease of installation, new users may find it interesting to know that you can run version of Slackware from a DOS/Windows partition called ZipSlack/BigSlack without having to resize or reformat your existing drive. Just unzip and edit a batch file. I think the web site says it best...
What is ZipSlack?
The text below is taken from the URL above.
ZipSlack is a special version of Slackware Linux. It's an already installed copy of Slackware that's ready to run from your DOS or Windows partition. It's a basic installation, you do not get everything that comes with Slackware. If you want everything with ZipSlack, then you should try BigSlack.
Spectrum syntax is:
LOAD ""
Aren't you getting a little defensive? So you think that the comment "Why is it still so damn ugly?" is constructive? For your enlightenment, that type of comment is called an insult.
Gee wiz, I've never heard anyone suggest reading Apple's UI guide. What an orriginal suggestion.
My comment was not even slightly abusive. In fact it appears to be quite constructive. The guy just wanted to bitch and I suggested that he stop bitching and do something about it.
Oh, and do you really believe that slashdot is the appropriate forum for constructive critisism regarding UI design? Perhaps the KDE or GNOME forums would be more appropriate. Just a constructive suggestion.
"Maybe this is why some people are put of on linux."
If anyone is "put off" by the idea of helping out, screw them. I don't give a shit if people don't like Linux or feel put off, they should just stick to their Mac or Windows or whatever. Linux is by users, for users - I'm sure an intelligent, sensitive person like yourself already knows that. And being one of those users myself, I also know that you don't need to be a magician to write code.
So, just for you I'm going to regress to childhood - you grow up and take a little responsibility instead of assuming everyone else should fix it for you. Mommy still wiping your ass too?
Besides, this is slashdot - you know, the place where a bunch of idiots come to reveal their stupidity in a public forum.
I seem to remember a app to play a song using the floppy head. Talk about abusing hardware...