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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?"
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!
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;
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.
it says "Bittorrent technology" they could have co-opted the protocol, but changed bits and pieces of headers and tracker communication so only a 'mandrake-club' downloader will work with it..
.torrents
or they could just be using the honor system to ask their members not to hand out the
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.
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.
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--
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.
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.
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
Just:
...
# urpmi.setup
(add 9.2 source)
# urpmi urpmi
# urpmi --auto-select
# urpmi kernel
# reboot
No need do re-customise your system
There is a simple solution to that. This is how I
went from 9.0 to 9.1 with only 2 commands.
urpmi.addmedia mandrake9.1 http://...............
urpmi --auto-select
And a couple hours later, i was upgraded.