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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?"

17 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And I love things spelled with an "e" by Omicron32 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Eugina is a "she" and also runs that site.

  2. sound wasn't really Slack's fault, and others by motorsabbath · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
    1. Re:sound wasn't really Slack's fault, and others by BusterB · · Score: 2, Informative

      I agree. At least the sound hardware was autodetected, which is a lot better than the old days. The new hotplug package works wonders on my laptop (except for the soft-modem), and my rc.modules file is completely empty. Even my orinoco card automatically grabs an IP address with no extra configuration.

      Arts, which is part of KDE, does a passable job of duplexing cards that lack mixing in hardware or in the driver. One can just run 'artsdsp xmms' with xmms running with the OSS driver, and the sound will automagically be mixed by arts to the sound card. Arts does seem to use about 10% processor though for this functionality. Esound is supposed to do this too, but I haven't looked closely. Both are included with Slackware.

  3. Re:Genuninely Curious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Because Apache 2.x isn't ready for production consumption, so says just about every third-party add-on that "supports" it. NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE.

  4. Re:Genuninely Curious by BusterB · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can get it and a lot more Slackware extra packages
    here:.

    If you really want it in the base distribution, just ask Patrick. He is usually prompt and if you make a good case for a package, he will add it. It also helps if you can give some built tips for particularly onery packages.

  5. Swaret Kicks! by big_groo · · Score: 4, Informative
    I have this installed now...it *really* is simple.

    swaret --update
    swaret --upgrade

    Lots of options, you can even specify default 'yes' for all upgrades. Resolves dependencies too.

  6. Linux Mandrake 9.1 HOWTO and Documentation Guide by mandrakewilson · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

  7. Re:No Fun. by BusterB · · Score: 4, Informative

    Swaret's dependency checking is actually pretty neat. For some dependencies, it is able to get a list of package relations from an external site maintained by the swaret project. For other dependencies, does something like an ldd on the binaries in a package to determine which libraries are missing. Sometimes, it can then deduce which packages need to be installed from this information. If not, at least you have some clue as to what is missing.

    As for building software on Slack, usually 'configure' catches any missing dependencies before compiling begins. One nice thing about Slackware is there are no '-dev' packages. Just install the compiler, and all of the necessary include files are already there from the other packages.

  8. Re:Screenshots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
  9. Not REALLY dependancy checking by contrasutra · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hey, I love Slackware, but this is not a "fix" to dependancy checking.

    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 /extra packages.

    I think Slack should go with PACMAN/ABS from archlinux.org. GREAT package manager and "PORTS" system.

  10. I'm buying Mandrake 9.2 by LittleLebowskiUrbanA · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  11. Re:AMD64? by joestar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Did you have a look at Mandrake's website?

    September 24th, 2003 - Mandrake 9.2 Beta1 for AMD64 - The first beta of Mandrake 9.2 for AMD64 (Athlon64 and Opteron) is now available. Release informations and places to download are available here.

  12. Re:No Fun. by narfbot · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nothing has really changed as Swaret is not required, or installed by default, or even in the standard package set. It's in extra. So have all the fun you want with 9.1.

  13. menus, not text based by breman · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  14. Re:... dependency checking ... by LinuxSneaker · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ok, since you brought it up:

    The dependency checking does not work by including additional information in the tgz package's metadata. Instead, swaret checks each executable program installed with ldd (which is part of the * package). If the executable depends on a library not on the system, swaret downloads a small text file that lists each package in Slackware that contains a library, and also gives what the library name is. The example below is a small snipper from the libraries-current, which is from http://mhlug.linuxorbit.com/swaret/libraries-curre nt (or http://gma.sourceforge.net/swaret/libraries-curren t). In the same directory are files from the 9.0 and 8.1 releases. These files are checked nightly against Slackware's ftp site.

    qt-3.1.2-i486-4.tgz: usr/lib/qt-3.1.2/lib/libqui.so.1.0.0
    qt-3.1.2-i486-4.tgz: usr/lib/qt-3.1.2/lib/libqt-mt.so.3.1.2
    procps-3.1.8-i386-1.tgz: lib/libproc.so.3.1.8
    procps-2.0.13-i486-1.tgz: lib/libproc.so.2.0.13
    popt-1.7-i386-1.tgz: usr/lib/libpopt.so.0.0.0

    This methode does not guarantee that there will be no errors. An example where it will not detect a dependency is when a package depends on another because of a command, not a linked library.

  15. Re:Genuninely Curious by ThatComputerGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've asked various people in the past why I would want to upgrade to Apache 2.x, and most people admit that the main reasons wouldn't convince many users to upgrade yet, especially combined with the the authors of PHP and other modules stating that Apache 2.0 doesn't yet work very well with these other packages.

    Until it becomes very compatible with these other modules and proves itself to be reliable with increased usage down the road, I doubt 2.x will be included in Slackware very soon. Also, with the type of user that Slackware attracts, it's not unreasonable for those that want Apache 2.x be expected to be able to build it for themselves.

    Then again, there's always LinuxPackages.net, but that's another story (notice how I didn't link to the site...).

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  16. Slack mirro by bigjnsa500 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Being an official Slackware mirror and probably the only one that makes -current ISOs (last one made 09/17), seems like I need to make ISOs tomorrow for this RC 2 release.

    Slack rocks!

    Slackware Mirror

    --
    This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.