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?"

Comments

Don't get BitTorrent comment . . .

[Idou]

"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.

Setup, where art thou?

[imag0]

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!

Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, in Slackware2.png read the email subjects. They're pretty funny.

Re:Mandrake

[Baron of Greymatter]

I have Mandrake 9.1 and Slackware 9.0 dual-booted on one machine (cheap no-name 1.1 GHz with 224 Mb RAM). I was able to get Mandrake to work, but it was problematic enough to not recommend it. I hope 9.2 is better.

Slackware installed and ran without a problem, while Mandrake had several problems, notably configuring X (no screen definitions) and not seeing my wheel-mouse. I had to copy my XF86config file from my Slack partition to get Mandrake to work. Not good.

In addition, Slackware is about 20% faster than Mandrake on the same machine, although memory usage was about the same. This was when running either KDE, GNOME, or WindowMaker. In fact, this machine running Mandrake is about as fast as my old 433 MHz Emachine w/192 Mb RAM running Red Hat 9.

Like I said, I hope Mandrake 9.2 is an improvement over 9.1. Otherwise it just isn't worth trying.

hmm

[ShadowRage]

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

Interesting, but I'm sticking with Gentoo

[vandan]

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.

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 ... stable.

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.