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Slackware 10-RC1 Released

Chaxid writes "According to the latest Slackware ChangeLog, release candidate one of the next iteration of Slack is upon us. I asked Patrick Volkerding via e-mail if the 2.6 series of the Linux kernel would be included in this version, and this was his response: 'To have support for using the 2.6 kernel in the installer might not be a good idea quite yet, and it would delay the release a lot. I'm planning to wait on that for the next one'. It's worth noting the Slackware 10 RC1 is fully 2.6 compliant however." As TouchOfRed writes, though, "A test kernel 2.6.6 option is offered via the 'testing' tree. Slackware does not offer ISOs for the RCs (however there are some third party users that compile the RCs or the -Current tree regularly as ISOs), so if you are already running Slackware 9.1, you can use the excellent Swaret to upgrade to the latest packages (make sure you edit your /etc/swaret.conf prior of using swaret to allow for kernel upgrades and other options)." This release includes kernel 2.4.26 , Gnome 2.6.1+, KDE 3.2.3, GCC 3.4, XOrg 6.7 and more.

346 comments

  1. Can anyone say why they don't release... by Dagny+Taggert · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ISO's of RCs? Is it to help the guys selling ISO CDs? Seems to me they would want to make it easier to get and test.

    --
    Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
    1. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by pestilence4hr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Probably because bandwidth isn't free...just a guess.

    2. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why mirrors exist.

    3. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by boojit · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because their current form of distribution is superior to ISO download. By using an rsync mirror, you can not only easily download an entire distro, but update that distro with any changes as they occur...without downloading the entire ISO again. For instance, when RC2 comes out, by using rsync you'll be able to easily download just the changes from RC1 to RC2. (I don't use swaret as i've got some custom scripts built to use some rsync mirrors I know of, but I'm sure it works on this concept and uses rsync).

      Also: this distro method allows you to pick only those packages you want to download. Don't like GNOME? don't download it. Don't want any gui at all? skip gnome, kde, and X.

      Once you've downloaded your distro, just do an NFS export on the distro dir on the host machine. Then build yourself a boot CD or boot floppy (as you prefer). Once you've booted on the target machine, you can install straight off the NFS share to the target. Works great, I do it all the time...I did my first ever Slackware install this way, even though the host machine was a Windows box.

      Honestly, ISO downloads of distros kinda sucks, once you start doing things this way.

      DaC

    4. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by bersl2 · · Score: 1

      To my recollection, a torrent was set up for a 9.1 ISO at its release.

    5. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can find nightly builds of slackware-current ISO's here.

    6. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by Short+Circuit · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That doesn't really help those of us who burn ISOs at work in order to take them home, where we don't have an internet connection. (Yes, Linux is still useful without the Internet. :)

    7. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by boojit · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sure it does. Just download the distro at work (using straight rsync or swaret or even FTP if you want but that doesn't work very well) and then build your own ISOs from the distro. It's a piece of cake, there is even a text file there to tell you exactly how to build the ISO. You can even build your own CD with just the packages you want on it, so you can have the whole thing on 1 CD if you want.

      If all else fails, unofficial sites do release ISOs of the current releases. Some have been mentioned in this forum.

      DaC

    8. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by ahaning · · Score: 1

      What about people with restrictive networks that don't allow outbound connections on anything other than web, ftp, pop3, telnet, and maybe ssh? Those people are screwed and the ISOs would be useful for them than rsync.

      But really, you shouldn't be downloading ISOs at work. ;-) (Yes, I've done it, too.)

      --
      Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
    9. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by boojit · · Score: 2, Funny

      What about people who only have three fingers on their left hand? It is very hard to type "rsync" if you only have three fingers on your left hand.

      And what about robots which have been programmed to love? WHAT ABOUT THE ROBOTS, HAS ANYONE THOUGHT ABOUT THE ROBOTS?!?

      But the serious answer is, if you are on such a restrictive network, then you shouldn't be downloading an ISO. But you already knew that.

      DaC

    10. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by ThisIsFred · · Score: 1

      So having someone else mirror it makes it free for everyone involved? Please explain how this works.

      --
      Fred

      "A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
      -RMS
    11. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by ThisIsFred · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What's so bad about a Slackware subscription for $25 a year? Consider it a donation to the Slackware Project.

      --
      Fred

      "A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
      -RMS
    12. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by Forge · · Score: 1

      ISO images can be burned by novice users on any OS which suports CDRW drives including Windows ** and MacOS.

      Creating a buteble ISO image from a Linux distribution tree on a Windows machine is chalenging.

      --
      --= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
    13. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by boojit · · Score: 1

      There are plenty of distros out there which excell at holding the novice user's hand while softly whispering in his ear, "don't worry, everything is going to be OK. We'll get through this together, you and me."

      Slackware is not one of them. That's why we like it.

      DaC

    14. Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... by GbrDead · · Score: 1

      restrictive networks that don't allow outbound connections on anything other than web, ftp, pop3, telnet, and maybe ssh

      Wow, I can't believe you are complaining! I have ONLY an HTTP(S) proxy at work. Well, I had :-) Got a real IP for my home machine, tuned OpenVPN, and voila :-)

  2. Slack by wobedraggled · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Cousin to Gentoo I guess you would call it. Glad to see it's still chuggin along. I may just have to install it again one day.

    --
    Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
    1. Re:Slack by ananke · · Score: 4, Funny

      more like grandfather. slackware predates gentoo by ages :)

      --
      --- d'oh
    2. Re:Slack by gorre · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Cousin to Gentoo I guess you would call it. Glad to see it's still chuggin along. I may just have to install it again one day.

      No offence, I have used Gentoo myself for some time, but what makes you think Slackware is a cousin to Gentoo? The only thing that I can think of that they have in common is they're both Linux distributions.

      --
      "Madness is something rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule." -- Nietzsche
    3. Re:Slack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably all the compiling that's going on.

    4. Re:Slack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      They both have a disdain for GUIs, for one.

    5. Re:Slack by AndroidCat · · Score: 1, Funny

      Weird old uncle "Bob". Sits there smoking his pipe and smiling all the time.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    6. Re:Slack by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Funny

      No more than a fish disdains a bicycle.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    7. Re:Slack by RLiegh · · Score: 3, Informative

      For allegedly having a "disdain" for GUIs, it's ironic that it was because of fitting both Gnome and KDE (and sources) that they had to jump to two cds, instead of one. Not to mention the fact it's one of the first to distribute (in the RC, at least) X.org as part of its' distribution (afaik, mandrake doesn't do that yes, and neither does redhat).

    8. Re:Slack by Monkelectric · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Actually, WTF is up with gentoo? Has anyone else noticed the new packages have slowed to a trickle in the last few weeks? GCC 3.4 has been out for 12 days and theres no ebuild for it.

      --

      Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley

    9. Re:Slack by linuxelf · · Score: 1

      Fedora does, at least in their latest Core release.

      I don't understand the "disdain for GUIs" comment, personally. I'm a very happy Slackware/GUI user, have been for years.

      --
      - "That's just the kind of fuzzy-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten."
    10. Re:Slack by Dan+Ost · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They both have a clean feel that is lacking in the commercial distros.
      Also, they both claim to be "BSD inspired" or somesuch.

      Even so, I would never have thought of calling them cousins.

      --

      *sigh* back to work...
    11. Re:Slack by Bralkein · · Score: 1

      Yeah sorry, I don't agree with that... I have used Gentoo recently and I am using Slackware at the moment, and I have to say that they don't really seem very similar to me. They are both pretty "nerdcore", but that's about it. Slackware has a kind of elegant simplicity that Gentoo lacks. Gentoo has an entirely different feel to it.

    12. Re:Slack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would be me, exept my name isn't Bob and it isn't a pipe that I'm smoking...

      And how come the above post is troll? Have you seen the propaganda.

    13. Re:Slack by bbowers · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Slack is the oldest active Linux distribution, however it's worth noting that Slackware is a distribution of Linux and not a distribution "based on" Linux like many others.

      --
      Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.
    14. Re:Slack by The+Conductor · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Perhaps Debian is a more apt comparison, if you look past the glaring exception of how they manage packages. Though Slack is still very much the elder cousin. The strongest parallel to Gentoo seems to be that both are most popular in academia. (Just like Slack's eponymous Cult of the Subgenius)

    15. Re:Slack by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

      Whatever the moderators are smoking, it can't be frop! ;)

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    16. Re:Slack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      root@blah blah # emerge -pv gnupg

      These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

      Calculating dependencies ...done!
      [ebuild R ] app-crypt/gnupg-1.2.4 +X -caps -idea -ldap +nls -static 5 kB

      how bout you set -X use flag! that might help!!!!!

    17. Re:Slack by koekepeer · · Score: 1

      who ever said that patrick, or slackware users in general, had a disdain for GUI's? you sir, are either ignorantly repeating hearsay, or trolling. bad, bad, bad!

      PS. by-the-way, if it were for patrick, GNOME would be booted rightaway *grin*

    18. Re:Slack by RLiegh · · Score: 1
      who ever said that patrick, or slackware users in general, had a disdain for GUI's?

      This guy said that, I was refuting him. (Not sure if you realised that or not since your post appears after mine, and not his).
    19. Re:Slack by 0racle · · Score: 1

      Care to explain what you use to differentiate between a linux distro and 'based on Linux' phrase.

      --
      "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
    20. Re:Slack by clymere · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I run KDE on mine, which is pretty much the epitomy of GUI eyecandy.

      --
      once you go slack, you never go back
    21. Re:Slack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Real linux distros run the FreeBSD kernel :-)

      Sorry, had to say it.

    22. Re:Slack by Martigan80 · · Score: 1

      You must be nutts or a cousin of it. To call Slackware a cousin of Gentoo is nutts. Also to say "Glad to see it's still chugging along" is down right disrespectful. Slackware is one of the stable Distros that follow a set standard and doesn't try to make it's own-seeming to be a new breed. If you feel that you and your distro are far superior to Slackware then please don't install it! We don't need to try to live up to your standards.

      --
      This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
    23. Re:Slack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You absolutely wanker. Slack was out back in the days of Yggdrasil and SLS. I know what kind of person you are, yes indeed; a 15-year old rich American kid, whose Dad is probably quite important at the town parish. You masturbate prolificly, and you regularly sniff your sisters knicknacks. When it comes to Linux/UNIX, you bullshit to all your friends about how you're going to write this driver, or that utility, when all your bookshelf boasts are a long line of yellow books with black spines (think dummies guide). You my friend, are an arsehole, and England are going to win the football tonight.

    24. Re:Slack by koekepeer · · Score: 1

      yeah i should learn to keep my big mouth shut when someone takes someone else too seriously. nevermind me. :)

  3. How odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting


    This release includes kernel 2.4.26 , Gnome 2.6.1+, KDE 3.2.3, GCC 3.4, XOrg 6.7 and more.

    Not much interested in those. Half the reason I run Slackware is because it's not bleeding edge and bloated. Good to see they don't force 2.6 on the users.

    1. Re:How odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bleeding edge would be development releases of packages that distributions like Mandrake tend to use and occasionally Redhat. Slackware rarely sends development releases out the door.

    2. Re:How odd by Wild+Wizard · · Score: 1

      In fact gcc is 3.3.4, 3.4.0 is in testing and as such is not a package that can be installed from the installer (can be upgraded or installed later with installpkg/upgradepkg)

  4. Fully 2.6 compliant by mpitcavage · · Score: 5, Informative

    Slackware 9.1 was fully 2.6 compliant, too.

    1. Re:Fully 2.6 compliant by ananke · · Score: 5, Informative

      this new release has a couple of things that will help with 2.6.x kernel more than 9.1 release did. first udev packages have been added, second, updated hotplug packages seem to work better with 2.6.x

      --
      --- d'oh
    2. Re:Fully 2.6 compliant by 13Echo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm currently using 2.6.6 with Slackware 9.1, but I noticed this too... While it works fine, the hotplug system seems to not work as well as it did with 2.4.22. Most specifically, ALSA seems to act a little goofy, but it's nothing that can't be fixed by adding a specific init command to load the proper modules. As for the rest of the important stuff (power management, networking, etc.) - I just built all of that into the kernel instead of making it into modules.

    3. Re:Fully 2.6 compliant by HaloZero · · Score: 1

      Were you able to get the VESA framebuffer working with 2.6.6?

      --
      Informatus Technologicus
    4. Re:Fully 2.6 compliant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh yea +4 Informative for repeating something that is in the slashdot summary. Seriously, mods if you aren't going to bother reading the short paragraph at the top of the page don't use your mod points.

    5. Re:Fully 2.6 compliant by 13Echo · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes I was. I had to disable the extra specialized framebuffers though, like nVidia/ATI specific. I kept it simple and left only "Vesa/VGA graphics support". On my first attempt, it started with a blank screen, when I enabled some of the other modules as well. Simplifying it seemed to fix the problem.

      If you'd like, I can post a copy of my ".config" file so that you may see the options that I used.

    6. Re:Fully 2.6 compliant by HaloZero · · Score: 1

      I would much appreciate the .config file, if you please.

      Thanks!

      --
      Informatus Technologicus
    7. Re:Fully 2.6 compliant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here is the contens of my .config file for 2.6.6. It's tailored towards Athlon CPUs, VIA chipsets, and Broadcom b44 LAN, but most of the other stuff is pretty standard. I may have left out some things that I don't use, like IEEE1394.

      http://borgerding.org/config

    8. Re:Fully 2.6 compliant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really ? Did it mount sysfs ?

  5. Happiness :) by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It fills my heart with glee that a fellow dutchy is making (among other people of course) one of the more popular linux distros.

    Congrats to him (and the team)

    --
    This is the sig that says NI (again)
    1. Re:Happiness :) by BrokenHalo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One of the things that makes Slackware so well put together is that it's a one-man show.

    2. Re:Happiness :) by Banner · · Score: 1

      I've been using Slackware since it came out (was using SLS prior to that). I've always been happy with Patrick's releases, and I've noticed that the bugs and exploits other distro's have are never in Patrick's either!

      I reccomend Slackware to anyone who wants to use Linux over all of the other distro's, nice and secure out of the box. Why use anything else?

    3. Re:Happiness :) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      he's an american, believe it or not all of our ancestors came from somewhere else.

      http://www.slackware.com/about/

    4. Re:Happiness :) by kfg · · Score: 1

      he's an american, believe it or not all of our ancestors came from somewhere else.

      That's right, and this resident of an old Dutch colonial village in New Holland is proud that that makes Patrick a fellow. . . African-American.

      KFG

    5. Re:Happiness :) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      So Holland has the best weed in the world, and the best Linux distribution in the world... anyone else going to be moving soon?

    6. Re:Happiness :) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      No, because it's a dull, lifeless place with no purpose whatsoever.

    7. Re:Happiness :) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why use anything else?

      Because Slackware is painfully difficult to install and get into a nice desktop environment?

      Okay. Obviously you talk to geeks only, not to curious (maybe tech oriented) Linux newbies or people who will stay non tech oriented (but want to use Linux anyway), so I can't say you're wrong, but you're narrow...

      Don't get me wrong, Slackware is a great way to learn Linux if you can take it. But for a great many people it would just be a sure death of any of their curiosity and enthusiasm about Linux. I see a lot of those people, so I don't recommend Slack much.

      Of course I would warmly recommend it to a geek, but they never ask me. :-P

  6. Vim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does it have Vim 6.3?

    1. Re:Vim by hattmoward · · Score: 3, Informative
      Slackware-current Changelog
      Mon Jun 14 00:39:32 PDT 2004
      ap/vim-6.3.004-i486-1.tgz: Upgraded to vim-6.3.004.
  7. Swaret by Tribbin · · Score: 4, Informative

    I swaret my way to the newest versions. (swaret.org)

    It's nice to have an up-to-date installation-CD though.

    --
    If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
    1. Re:Swaret by capt.mellow · · Score: 1

      yep--my swaret is currently upgrading packages in the E's now . . . elvis, eog, . . .

    2. Re:Swaret by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How to do 9.1 => 10 upgrade with swaret when 10 comes out?

    3. Re:Swaret by capt.mellow · · Score: 1

      ahem, timothy does not jest when he advises to comment out the 'exclude=kernel' statement in /etc/swaret.conf . . . without the updated kernel, you'll get lots of errors for modules not being found (as I did with the sound card). I thought I was being conservative by not updating the kernel, but that was a foolish decision. Fortunately, it was very easy to remedy by modifying the /etc/swaret.conf file and typing 'swaret --upgrade kernel'. My only gripe now is that my mouse wheel is still not working. :-/

    4. Re:Swaret by Tribbin · · Score: 1

      This is where I am supposed to tell you to RTFM.

      There is a lot of documentation on the website.

      In the /etc/swaret.conf set VERSION=current to get the latest and greatest. If you just want security-fixes then set it to the version number you want.

      If ~/slackware-current/ is forked to ~/slackware-10.0/ on the FTPs then you can set VERSION=10.0 in swaret.conf.

      --
      If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
  8. Obligatory complaint by Shadowlion · · Score: 3, Funny

    And I just installed 9.1... *grumble*

    1. Re:Obligatory complaint by bhtooefr · · Score: 0, Troll

      RTFA (or heck, RTFBlurb) - you can use something called Swaret to update the distro to 10.0 RC1.

    2. Re:Obligatory complaint by Shadowlion · · Score: 2

      It was a joke. Hence the "obligatory complaint." Whenever there is an announcement of a new distribution, somebody always complains that they had just installed the last version.

      Yeesh. Have a sense of humor, will you?

    3. Re:Obligatory complaint by bhtooefr · · Score: 2, Funny

      I thought you were joking AND being serious. Heck, when Mandrake 10 Community came out, I HAD just installed 9.2...

  9. Terminology nit-pick by johnw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Surely you can't release an RC? You can issue an RC, but once it's released it's a release, not a release candidate.

    1. Re:Terminology nit-pick by Man+in+Spandex · · Score: 1

      The Debian Team releases released a TestCandidate of the Debian-Installer. Does that mean that they "can't" release a testing version?

    2. Re:Terminology nit-pick by saderax · · Score: 0

      shaddup. your not welcome here....

      waiting for the 20 second timer....

      *muzac*

    3. Re:Terminology nit-pick by lanswitch · · Score: 2, Informative

      A released release candidate that is released for testing purposes is still a release candidate for release to the big world.

    4. Re:Terminology nit-pick by mrogers · · Score: 1

      Releasing something doesn't make it a release. You can release a ferret, for example.

    5. Re:Terminology nit-pick by nine-times · · Score: 4, Interesting
      It seems like everyone is going "release candidate" crazy lately. It seems to me that "release candidate" used to mean "we think this may end up being the 'final' version, but we're going to do some testing, just to make sure. If we don't encounter any HUGE bugs, this will be final." Developers didn't even hit RC2 unless there was some big and unexpected bug in RC1.

      Now, people are releasing release candidates as "a full release that we don't yet guarentee is free of bugs", but they don't exactly guarentee the final release is bug-free either, so I'm never sure what the difference is. Plus, they plan on going through 3 release candidates before the final release, which means that "Release Candidate 1" is never really a candidate for release as "final", and yet it is released. It seems like either the terminology or numbering schemes could use some revision to reflect what the developers actually mean.

    6. Re:Terminology nit-pick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I figure RC is a missing link between beta and release. My understanding is that an alpha is missing features, a beta has all features but has a lot of bugs to work out, and an RC still has bugs but is considered usable. Perhaps they should call them, uh, whatever greek letter comes after beta.

    7. Re:Terminology nit-pick by nine-times · · Score: 1
      "My understanding is that an alpha is missing features, a beta has all features but has a lot of bugs to work out, and an RC still has bugs but is considered usable."

      Well, yeah. That was my point. At the risk of being repetitive...

      This is what software developers seem to be using, but it seems like the terminology poorly describes what's going on. So it used to be:

      Alpha- early builds that did not have all the features built in yet, or bugs significant enough to render major features useless.

      Beta- builds with all the features, but still too many bugs to release. (everything between Alpha and final release)

      Release Candidate- A build that would, technically, be a Beta (as it is pre-release), but the developers think is complete and bug-free enough to be the final release. So it is a "candidate for release" or a "Release Candidate". Good terminology.

      But now, it seems developers have decided they need further division of the process. I suspect this is a result of the openness of OSS, and the fact that we are often using "pre-release" software. So now the old terms take on new meanings. Consider this: we just had the "release" of Mozilla Firefox 0.9, but anything before 1.0 isn't, according to the old use of the term, a "release". Firefox 0.9 is still a BETA, even though we might have ALPHA, BETA, RC, and FINAL versions of 0.9.

      A number of projects have tried to overcome the confusion by focusing on stability and branching, but it seems like we may need to reform the whole numbering/versioning scheme if we really want to be consistant. But maybe we don't really care about being consistant. It gets to be a test of geekdom to see if you know what the numbering scheme means for which project. I'd like to say that non-geeks should just stick to final releases, but I've actually found that keeping up-to-date with the most recent "stable" versions are what end up making the system most usable to non-geeks. Eh, well...

    8. Re:Terminology nit-pick by GbrDead · · Score: 1

      whatever greek letter comes after beta.
      Gamma. Don't tell me you never studied mathematics :-)
      Greek alphabet

    9. Re:Terminology nit-pick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Sorry. I guess I misunderstood your point when I read this:
      Now, people are releasing release candidates as "a full release that we don't yet guarentee is free of bugs", but they don't exactly guarentee the final release is bug-free either, so I'm never sure what the difference is.
      It seems we agree on the definitions, but I'd say the problem you're describing is pretty old. Look at almost any software product at random. Does it have a version number? Is it 2 or higher? What was the rationale for designating it version 2.0 instead of version 1.4? I don't think anything short of major changes to the feature set (not just the GUI!) should justify changing a version number, so where did all the 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0 software come from? Probably marketing departments, which long ago co-opted version numbers for their own nefarious purposes. :) In regards to "releasing" a release candidate, what other word would you suggest?
    10. Re:Terminology nit-pick by XeRXeS-TCN · · Score: 1

      Well the basic premise, based on projects such as both UnrealIRCd and UltimateIRCd (to name but two open source projects):

      1. Alpha - Very buggy, many features being added, highly inadvisable to use on production level servers. Mostly for the dedicated community who almost *plan* on finding bugs.
      2. Beta - A lot of the bugs have been fixed, features may still be added, but not drastic changes necessarily.
      3. Release Candidate - No more feature requests will be accepted until later versions, and developer time is fully focused on bugfixes. Bugs may still be present, but it's the stage where they will be mostly weeded out, to ensure that less technically minded people will (*should*) be able to use the product without issue.

      At this point the final is released, which *to their knowledge* is bug free, and ready for production level use.

      Yes, it's nitpicking over terminology, but it's simply a *candidate* for release, namely something which they consider to be pretty much the final product, unless some other bugs come up. They are not adding more features at that point, so it is generally assumed that the number of bugs left to find is a static value, and after some amount of testing, it is classified as final. If you're going to nitpick over that, you may as well claim that you can't release a beta, because it's being released.

    11. Re:Terminology nit-pick by Hatta · · Score: 1

      No, the thing is you can't release a release candidate, so you couldn't test a test candidate.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    12. Re:Terminology nit-pick by rynoski · · Score: 1

      if you look at the front page of the slack site you will see these releases: 9.1 9.0 9.0rc1 8.1 8.1rc1 so i dont know where you are getting 3 release candidates from...

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: 1) those that can extrapolate from incomplete data.
  10. PAM? 2.6? by hkb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Until Slackware has a solid PAM implementation, it will be delegated to my smaller, simpler tasks. And yes, I've read Patrick's rants about his dislike of PAM.

    And 2.6 is quite stable, not to mention a hell of a lot faster than 2.4... so why are we still stuck in the stone age? If you want to be really elitist about it, stick with 2.2...

    --
    /* Moderating all non-anonymous trolls up since 2004 */
    1. Re:PAM? 2.6? by hattmoward · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you want PAM, you can roll your own and make packages of it, or you can use the PAM packages from Dropline GNOME. I still don't recommend it! =)

    2. Re:PAM? 2.6? by Jane_Dozey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "And 2.6 is quite stable, not to mention a hell of a lot faster than 2.4... so why are we still stuck in the stone age? If you want to be really elitist about it, stick with 2.2..."

      This is one of the benefits of slackware. It's picky about new versions. Mature software is bound to be more stable. Like the article states, the new RC is 2.6 compliant but it's a Good Thing that it's not forced on users. It's not about elitism at all.

      "Until Slackware has a solid PAM implementation, it will be delegated to my smaller, simpler tasks. And yes, I've read Patrick's rants about his dislike of PAM."

      Why put in the work when there are some major problems with PAM? If you want it, you can either look for packages other people have made, or you can impliment it yourself. Yes, it's annoying not to have that option in the official distro, but then again, it's a whole lot of effort just for the sake of making a handful of people happy.

      --
      Silly rabbit
    3. Re:PAM? 2.6? by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If you want PAM, use it. Pat doesn't stop you, and it's a one-liner to get it running. And Slack has worked fine with 2.6 since, err, since 2.6 was released.

      And if you don't want to roll your own colonel, then don't. Pat has built one for you. Otherwise, just do what the rest of the Slackware crowd has been doing for the last 10 years and roll your own. After all, ease of customisation is what Slackware is all about.

      If you must have an out-of-the-box solution, you're probably better off with that *other* OS.

    4. Re:PAM? 2.6? by hkb · · Score: 1

      A one-liner? Explain exactly how it's a one-liner. Is everything in Slackware already compiled to make use of PAM, if available?

      --
      /* Moderating all non-anonymous trolls up since 2004 */
    5. Re:PAM? 2.6? by Malc · · Score: 1

      I haven't read his rants. What are the problems with PAM? I use Debian and it seemed to me for a server here on my LAN at home that PAM was the most obvious choice. I don't even know what the consequences would be to chose something else.

    6. Re:PAM? 2.6? by hkb · · Score: 1

      Does Dropline actually drop a working PAM infrastructure on top of Slackware, or just use PAM libs?

      --
      /* Moderating all non-anonymous trolls up since 2004 */
    7. Re:PAM? 2.6? by Bandman · · Score: 1

      it's another layer of failure. I don't run it on my slack box, and Patrick has more of less eschewed it's use because of the added unnecessary complexity, I believe. If you use it and you like it, then go for it. If you want to use biometric security, use it. If md5 passwords are good enough, then don't worry about it.

    8. Re:PAM? 2.6? by swerk · · Score: 1

      It's not as though either of those things can't easily be added. I would bet that anybody who knows and cares what PAM is (i.e. you) wouldn't install a distro's defaults and be done with it anyway. I use Slackware, but do all kinds of system tweaking myself, compiling new sendmail's and apache's from source when there's a bugfix or new feature I care about. If I also cared about PAM, I'd install that too. There's nothing about a Slackware box that makes it any harder to set up PAM than anything else, unless you're looking to have it installed and enabled by default, which is a security risk especially for the install-and-forget-about-it types.

      I'm personally a little disappointed 2.6 isn't going to be the default Slack 10 kernel, but in all honesty, I haven't run an out-of-the-box kernel for years. If the modutils and everything are ready for it, as looks to be the case, I don't see how it's any different than doing an install and then building a fresh kernel.org kernel.

      Say you got the latest Red Hat, Fedora I guess it's called now, would you keep the default kernel, or keep the security systems set up according to their defaults? Given the fact that you can even discuss PAM and that you consider 2.4 stone-age, I'm guessing no. :^)

      I guess what set me off is that you'd only use Slack for "smaller, simpler tasks", which is sort of a silly thing to say based on its default selection of packages. I like its traditional system layout, simple package handling, its old-fashioned /etc/rc.d/... stuff like that should determine what you use a distro for, not whether or not it defaults to using the new kernel or the almost-secure-now-we-hope authentication system of choice.

    9. Re:PAM? 2.6? by mrogers · · Score: 1

      FWIW, 2.6 is not suitable for desktop machines with 32MB RAM - it runs into swap storms in tight memory situations which 2.4 handles without a problem.

    10. Re:PAM? 2.6? by Slack3r78 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It drops in a working PAM infrastructure, as well as up to date Gnome and other packages.

    11. Re:PAM? 2.6? by hkb · · Score: 1

      Thanks for your insightful input. As an aside, I don't hate Slackware or any such. About the only Linux distribution I CAN stand is Slackware, due to it's relative simplicity and sanity.

      --
      /* Moderating all non-anonymous trolls up since 2004 */
    12. Re:PAM? 2.6? by hkb · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the reply, I'll look more into it.

      --
      /* Moderating all non-anonymous trolls up since 2004 */
    13. Re:PAM? 2.6? by GbrDead · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you want to use /etc/passwd & /etc/shadow through PAM, just put this in /etc/pam.conf (the binaries are part of the glibc package):

      #
      # default; standard UN*X access
      #
      OTHER auth required /lib/security/pam_unix.so
      OTHER account required /lib/security/pam_unix.so
      OTHER password required /lib/security/pam_unix.so
      OTHER session required /lib/security/pam_unix.so

  11. Wow, 10 already? by Nick+of+NSTime · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Slackware was the first distro I ever used, way back in 1995. I had read about Linux in a small InfoWorld article, back when InfoWorld was tabloid size instead of regular magazine size. The article said you could run an entire operating system on a single floppy disk. Of course, I had to try this on my 386SX with 4M RAM. I downloaded Slack over a 14.4 modem and then copying it all to a set of floppy disks. I wish I could remember the name of that tool. Anyway, I ended up installing Slackware using UMSDOS so I could keep my DOS/Windows data.

    I remember I had to completely reinstall Slackware any time I wanted to add a new piece of software because I didn't know how it all worked. The very first question I asked on a Linux newsgroup was, "What's darkstar?" It, of course, was the default hostname for a new Slackware install. Heh. Starting X would dump you into fvwm with only an xterm and a pager; not much has changed there. :)

    Ultimately I used that Slackware machine to learn about Unix and make the move from client-focused to enterprise-focused. Those were fun times.

    1. Re:Wow, 10 already? by ism · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The tool to write the images to floppy, rawrite?

      I used that the other day for an old machine that couldn't boot from CD. First time I used that was about the same time you did. I got Slack 2.2 or 2.3 (can't remember) off a Linux Unleashed book. I give more credit to that book since it pointed me to the right distro for learning. Turns out it's a great server distro too!

    2. Re:Wow, 10 already? by Roofus · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, we're at 10 because Patrick likes to count 2, 3 4, 7 , 8, 9, 10 =)

    3. Re:Wow, 10 already? by baywulf · · Score: 2, Informative

      The reason Slackware is release 10 is because they jumped numbers a few years back because they thought they were falling back in the "numbers game."

    4. Re:Wow, 10 already? by Unique2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, not really, Slackware did a version jump from 4 to 7 because people did not realise the difference between the Slackware version and the component packages version. See: Why the jump from 4 to 7? from the Slackware FAQ.

      --
      No trees were harmed in the posting of this message. However, a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
    5. Re:Wow, 10 already? by cheide · · Score: 1

      Slackware was my first introduction to Linux, too. Back then the only real choice was either Slackware or FreeBSD, and other people on campus recommended at least 8 megs of RAM for FreeBSD. Since I only had 4, Slack it was...

      I still use it on my server simply because I got used to upgrading and installing packages manually, and Slackware puts minimal interference between me and the package's own standard configuration methods.

    6. Re:Wow, 10 already? by innit · · Score: 1

      No, Patrick did that VERY reluctantly. Basically, everyone was comparing Slackware against other distros by their version numbers.

      "Slackware's on 3.6, but RedHat's on 8.0! That must mean that Redhat is 4.4 versions better than Slackware!"

      Eventually he tired of explaining to people that it was actually the other distros that have seriously abused the traditional software release version numbering system, and so rather than try to beat them, he joined them.

      Stuii!

    7. Re:Wow, 10 already? by the+chao+goes+mu · · Score: 1
      Nothing new there. SunOS/Solaris counts 1,2,3,2.4,2.5,2.6,7,8 ...

      --
      Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
    8. Re:Wow, 10 already? by zarr · · Score: 3, Funny
      1,2,3,2.4,2.5,2.6,7,8 ...

      Ha! That's nothing!

      1, 2, 3, 95, 98, 2000, 2003, ...

    9. Re:Wow, 10 already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Starting X would dump you into fvwm with only an xterm and a pager; not much has changed there.

      The first thing I did after installing Fedora Core 2 on my laptop was to install FVWM1, transfer over my old fvwmrc, and set up my .xsession to run fvwm instead of Gnome. FVWM is harder to learn than Gnome and Kde, yes, and it's not as pretty, but I'm a lot more productive in that environment.

    10. Re:Wow, 10 already? by Hatta · · Score: 1

      The very first question I asked on a Linux newsgroup was, "What's darkstar?" It, of course, was the default hostname for a new Slackware install.

      Killer. Gotta love dead-head hackers. Brings to mind the old joke, "Two major products came out of Berkely in the 1960s, LSD and UNIX. This is not believed to be a coincidence."

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    11. Re:Wow, 10 already? by Wild+Wizard · · Score: 1

      Eventually he tired of explaining to people that it was actually the other distros that have seriously abused the traditional software release version numbering system, and so rather than try to beat them, he joined them.

      Which begs the question what was Redhat thinking when they released Fedora 1.0?

    12. Re:Wow, 10 already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That does not "beg the question" you fucking dipshit.

  12. Yea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slack is still my first choice when building a server. Glad to see that Patrick is still keeping it going.

  13. Re:KDE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't get it

    WE know... you have been bitching about that for years here...

    cripes... give up.

  14. Memories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can still remember my grandpa telling me stories about this distro.

    1. Re:Memories... by devphaeton · · Score: 1

      I can still remember my grandpa telling me stories about this distro.

      Ahh yes... but did he conveniently leave out the 12 BSD users that said "Linux is Dying(tm)"? :-D

      (Disclaimer: I use debian, slackware and fbsd and love them all)

      --


      do() || do_not(); // try();
    2. Re:Memories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can still remember my grandpa telling me stories about this distro.

      No, no, that was him calling you a slacker!

    3. Re:Memories... by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      I was talking with Patrick at an LWCE a few years ago. He was in a tiny shared booth space, looking over at the humongous Redhat pavillion, and saying "I remember the days when Redhat was begging for space at MY booth..."

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  15. Re:KDE by ananke · · Score: 1

    uhmm, genius, slackware comes with both, so YOU can PICK one you like. or use both. or use neither.

    --
    --- d'oh
  16. No. by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

    No.Try out http://www.dropline.net - it's the best distribution of Gnome I've seen, and it's for Slackware.

    1. Re:No. by Bandman · · Score: 1

      Saw dropline on a fellow Lugnut's laptop, and I was highly impressed. Very smooth, slick, and sharp. Of course, I'll let go of Windowmaker when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

    2. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you live in the Dayton, Ohio area? Sinclair college is having an installfest next weekend...

      http://www.dma.org/linuxsig/events.shtml#Install 6- 04

      It would be great to see another Slackware fan there.

  17. I started with Slackware... by Noryungi · · Score: 5, Informative
    I think it was way back in 1994-95 that I downloaded my first version of Slackware. It was love at first install, or something like that.

    And I am still using it today. Why?

    • The KISS (Keept It Simple, Stupid) principle of Slackware makes it a breeze to use.
    • Slackware tries to be as UNIX-ish as possible.
    • Slackware -- with its BSD-style init -- is easy to configure.
    • Slackware is a complete system, and yet one that is still reasonbaly lean, since it includes only the most important software.
    • Slackware does not include any of the cutesy-yet-useless GUI thingie that are supposed to 'help' you configure your system while treating you like a jerk.


    All in all, thanks Patrick ! Another great version of a great distribution !
    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
    1. Re:I started with Slackware... by reallocate · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Agree. I've been using Slack just about as long as you. Everytime I use another distribution I eventually bang my head against their packaging and configuration schemes. Life's too short to waste it learning about proprietary voodoo.

      --
      -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
    2. Re:I started with Slackware... by boojit · · Score: 1

      I've used Slackware since 98, so not as long as you, but I would like to echo your comments. My experience with other distros is slim (bit of RedHat, bit of Knoppix), but I haven't seen a compelling reason to change. Slackware has been like a good friend to me.

      A short incomplete list of things I like about the distro: Slackware makes you learn stuff (not a bad thing). Slackware doesn't molly coddle you. Things make sense. It's configurable to a fault. It's up-to-date. Patrick kicks ass. Nuff said.

      DaC

    3. Re:I started with Slackware... by ColdCoffee · · Score: 1

      Totally agree. While cutting my teeth on Linux with Redhat 7 through 9, I grew my Linux skills, and eventually became disenchanted with the 'Microsoftness' of RedHat. After the whole Fedora mess, I started shopping for a new distro. Slack had intimidated me as a n00b, but I now find it quite comfortable, clean, easy to maintain and upgrade (swaret --upgrade -a !), and rock solid! Stable is a bit outdated for me, but I find current to be just the ticket for my continued learning curve in the Linux world. Thanks Linus! Thanks Patrick! Thanks Slackware!

      --
      Sig? - yeah, whatever.
    4. Re:I started with Slackware... by devphaeton · · Score: 1

      Agree. I've been using Slack just about as long as you. Everytime I use another distribution I eventually bang my head against their packaging and configuration schemes. Life's too short to waste it learning about proprietary voodoo.

      Well said. And interesting to note, it seems that the Linux camp is getting more and more divided into the "everything by console and text editor" and the "eyecandy clicky clicky" types. There used to be somewhat of an integration, but now it's looking like some huge rift between the two camps, both with different ideals, different desires and of course, different types of zealots and trolls.

      It's like we've got an extra camp now:

      Windows crowd
      OSX snobs
      BSD crowd
      sparse-distro-linux crowd
      heavy-distro-linux crowd

      oh yeah, and then the my-gentoo-is-just-like-bsd-but-bsd-is-too-hard group.

      --


      do() || do_not(); // try();
    5. Re:I started with Slackware... by brunes69 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Slackware -- with its BSD-style init -- is easy to configure.

      I would take issue with this. IMO SysV init is much simpler to use and administer one you understand what it is doing. Since each daemon has its own startup and shutdown script, and since the order they are being executed in can be determined by a glance. It is also very easy to re-order daemon startups, and to start / stop /restart individual processes while the system is running through /etc/init.d. BSD style init does not have this benefit, and since everying is all mismached together it is also often quite cumbersome to manage dependancies.

      From my experience the people who prefer BSD init because it is "simpler" are just people who do not want to take the 5 mins to understand SysV and set it up properly. Investing a few mins setting up your SysV will save you hours of headaches you'd have later on with BSD style.

    6. Re:I started with Slackware... by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      Slackware will run any SysV style script you put in too. What do you think the "rc.sysvinit" startup script is for? As for BSD being cumbersome , umm how exactly? Everything runs in series in the init files. Couldn't be simpler. If you want to stop something running you just comment it out. If you want to stop something running in a SysV init you have to find the its startup file amongst all the other similarly named files and links pointing everywhere in the rcX.d dirs then rename it, more it to a different dir or edit it manually and shove an "exit" in it. What a pain in the arse. Give me BSD style init anyday.

    7. Re:I started with Slackware... by ColdCoffee · · Score: 1

      Now I'm interested! Knowing nothing about SysV (weeee! a n00b again!), could you give me any tips on getting/using this OS?

      --
      Sig? - yeah, whatever.
    8. Re:I started with Slackware... by quarkscat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I started my linux experience with Slackware 0.96,
      in late 1993 or early 1994. I still have the CDs.
      Okay, so I was already something of a "geek" at
      the time, but it wasn't hard to do even then.

      The installation tools are simple, and pretty
      darn solid. No surprises, and no helpful "Bob"
      or "Clippy" GUI that misconfigures the system.
      And generally very stable. That tradition
      continues to this day. I am running 9.1, with
      the 2.6.6 kernel.

      I haven't downloaded Slackware (even BitTorrent),
      but buy the CDROM packaged distribution in order
      to help support the project. While it would have
      been nice to get the 2.6 kernel standard with the
      10.0 release, I agree that it would not have been
      in keeping with Slackware's reputation for solid
      reliability.

      IMHO, Slackware is the best linux distribution
      going, and I have tried most of them.

    9. Re:I started with Slackware... by gomoX · · Score: 1

      If you want to stop something that is running with BSD, you have to kill it manually - that sucks. With SysV you do, say "/etc/init.d/apache stop".
      And you dont modify scripts or whatever in order to add or remove programs from the startup list - you use a tool for that, in Debian it's called "update-rc.d" although redhat and most others use chkconfig.
      $ update-rc.d -f xdm remove
      tada!, no more X on startup
      $ update-rc.d apache defaults
      tada!, apache on startup, no need to ever edit any script and most important, an easy way to stop and restart system processes.

      --
      My english is sow-sow. Sowhat?
    10. Re:I started with Slackware... by Alan+Hicks · · Score: 2, Funny
      MO SysV init is much simpler to use and administer one you understand what it is doing. Since each daemon has its own startup and shutdown script, and since the order they are being executed in can be determined by a glance. It is also very easy to re-order daemon startups, and to start / stop /restart individual processes while the system is running through /etc/init.d. BSD style init does not have this benefit, and since everying is all mismached together it is also often quite cumbersome to manage dependancies.

      Have you ever used Slackware? Seriously. I've used about every distro out there, most of the SysV init, and I can honestly say that BSD init is much simpler, more intuitive, and as a result easier to use. In saying that SysV init has a startup script for everything you're neglecting that BSD init does too. Look at rc.samba, rc.httpd, rc.portmap, etc.

      Basically SvsV init works by having an absolute ton of symbolic links to each startup script. Init checks each of these links to see if that service should be started in that runlevel or not, and in what order they should be started. Not only does this contribute to long startup time by having to seek all over the drive to find these files, it's hell on the user to track down everything.

      Don't want mysql to startup on boot? In SysV init you mave to rename six symbolic links to begin with the leter "K", and possibly reorder them. In BSD init, you just remove the executable permission from rc.mysql.

      Want to change the order that your startup scripts run in? In SysV init have to make these changes for numerous sym links in six different directories (one for each runlevel). In BSD init, you just open two text files (one for boot up and one for shutdown) and move the blocks of text to where you want them.

      Bottom line, BSD init is much simpler on the sysadmin. The only advantages I've ever seen in SysV init are the ability to:
      A) Have each runlevel start things in a different order (also easily manageable in BSD init, if not as straight forward), and:
      B) Allow automagical setup tools to make changes in system initialization (something a control freak hates).

      --
      Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
    11. Re:I started with Slackware... by Slack3r78 · · Score: 1

      Funny thing, I've always killed processes in Slackware in the exact manner you just described as being System V.

    12. Re:I started with Slackware... by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

      It took me weeks to figure it out. No Unix background, a proprietary CDROM and an RLL HDD.

      Everything from finding the documentation to figuring out the exact parameters to pass to LILO, then installing... getting mysterious read errors on my CDROM... I'd leave the kernel compiling while I went to class. Don't forget there were no modules in the 1.x series.

      I never did get ppp working.... but before Windows 95, ISPs weren't very standard in their dial up configurations.

    13. Re:I started with Slackware... by Banner · · Score: 1

      I've been using Slackware since like 95, and the question other slackware users always asked me was, 'why would anyone use a lesser version of linux?'.

      Considering my box has never been hacked (and it's been attacked many times by pro's - but that's another story), I have to say I can't complain, especially when I've seen my friend's redhat and other boxes completely hacked.

      And it is fairly easy and straight forward to install securely. Many other distros are not secure out of the box and require you to make a lot of changes to get it secure. What good is that?

      Plus Patrick seems to always take the time to get it right. Can't argue with that at all! Thanks Pat!

    14. Re:I started with Slackware... by norkakn · · Score: 1

      is there a use it where it makes sense group?

    15. Re:I started with Slackware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get a free copy of Solaris SVR4 UNIX here:
      http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binari es/inde x.html

    16. Re:I started with Slackware... by jcostom · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Don't want mysql to startup on boot? In SysV init you mave to rename six symbolic links to begin with the leter "K", and possibly reorder them. In BSD init, you just remove the executable permission from rc.mysql.

      Why on earth would you do that? Use the tools your distro provides: RedHat/Fedora/Mandrake: chkconfig mysqld off Gentoo: rc-update del mysql default Debian: update-rc.d -f mysql remove Those things are much simpler IMHO than tracking down some filesystem permissions issue later. Suppose they change the behavior to not directly exec rc.whatever, but rather do something like /bin/sh /etc/rc.d/rc.whatever, now you're sunk. Your rc.whatever will be run even if +x isn't set..

      --

      The unsig!
    17. Re:I started with Slackware... by beakburke · · Score: 1

      ummm, how are you gonna run it if x isn't set?? But I do agree, If you must use SysV init, then it is easier to use the distro tools to change all of the stupid simlinks.

      --
      ----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
    18. Re:I started with Slackware... by Rooktoven · · Score: 1

      in slackware to make apache start at boot-->
      chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd

      To make it not start at boot-->
      chmod 644 /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd

      No script editing necessary.

      --

      Acquiescence leads to obliteration
    19. Re:I started with Slackware... by Blnky · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Why on earth would you do that?
      Because that is how it is defined to be done on Slackware. Simple and sweet.

      Use the tools your distro provides
      The checking for the +x during startup is provided by the slackware startup scripts. Thus, we are indirectly using the tools provided by the distro.

      RedHat/Fedora/Mandrake: chkconfig mysqld off Gentoo: rc-update del mysql default Debian: update-rc.d -f mysql remove Those things are much simpler IMHO than tracking down some filesystem permissions issue later.
      I would content that chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.someserver is much simpler than the commands you have provided. Since all of the scripts are in /etc/rc.d they are not hard to locate. chmod is also a very standard unix command and well documented.

      Suppose they change the behavior to not directly exec rc.whatever, but rather do something like /bin/sh /etc/rc.d/rc.whatever, now you're sunk. Your rc.whatever will be run even if +x isn't set..
      As the behavior of checking the executable bit is an integral part of the startup script processing, this would be a drastic change to the standard setup. You make a drastic change to any system's default behavior and you will always be sunk. It would be just as plausable to say "What if they changed 'chkconfig mysqld off' to return true if mysqld was configured to not run at startup?" Or perhaps you would prefer "Suppose they change the behavior to not indirectly exec rc.0/00whateverS and instead directly exec /etc/rc.d/whateverS. Your whatever will be run even if the link isn't set." Again, if any distro makes such a dramatic change then you will always have to change what you are doing. RedHat, Gentod, Debian, DistroX, have nothing special that can avoid this issue.

    20. Re:I started with Slackware... by Rooktoven · · Score: 1

      all system startups in Slack are in /etc/rc.d. What's to track down? Why should I suppose they change the behavior to not directly exec rc.whatever? THEY AREN'T SYMLINKS, as opposed to the stuff in SysV systems. Nothing in Slackware does a /bin/sh /etc/rc.d/rc.whatever, to my knowledge.

      I appreciate you telling us how easy chkconfig is, but the fact remains, you have a line to type either way. Someone who knows a bit about Slackware will probably find it less complicated to deal with than other systems.

      --

      Acquiescence leads to obliteration
    21. Re:I started with Slackware... by Blnky · · Score: 1
      If you want to stop something that is running with BSD, you have to kill it manually - that sucks. With SysV you do, say "/etc/init.d/apache stop".
      Slackware: /etc/rc.d/rc.apache stop

      And you dont modify scripts or whatever in order to add or remove programs from the startup list - you use a tool for that
      It could be argued that your tools is doing the modification on your behalf. However it isn't clear what you mean by modifying scripts. I would not consider changing file permissions a modification of a script in this context.
      Slackware: chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.apache
      tada!, apache on startup, no need to ever edit any script and most important, an easy way to stop and restart system processes. Though, or a restart, I would suggest "/etc/rc.d/rc.apache restart" instead of individual stop and starts.

    22. Re:I started with Slackware... by Alan+Hicks · · Score: 0
      Your rc.whatever will be run even if +x isn't set..

      Oh really? From /etc/rc.d/rc.inet2...

      # Start the system logger.
      if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.syslog ]; then
      . /etc/rc.d/rc.syslog start
      fi
      --
      Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
    23. Re:I started with Slackware... by jcostom · · Score: 1

      try it for yourself.

      make a shell script, but don't set +x, then do: /bin/sh /path/to/myfile

      Your commands will exec.

      --

      The unsig!
    24. Re:I started with Slackware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, would you recognize a hypothetical situation if it jumped up and socked you in the head?

      It was a hypothetical situation. Scripts change, too easily in fact.

      You're so happy with bsd init? How nice for you. Those of us who don't like hackish solutions like removing an +x bit prefer something manageable, like sysv.

    25. Re:I started with Slackware... by Blnky · · Score: 1
      It is also very easy to re-order daemon startups.

      While I am familiar with the SysV init scripts I will pose a question here that I am not clear on. The above claim states that it is very easy to re-order daemon startups. Would someone mind explaining how this can be easily done dynamically? I am talking about the system using the scripts in a different order based on what it discovers as it boots up. It has never been quite obvious to me so I am willing to hear an answer before I just go off and say "SysV can easily re-order daemon startups so long as you only do it staticaly and not dynamically at startup."



      From my experience the people who prefer BSD init because it is "simpler" are just people who do not want to take the 5 mins to understand SysV and set it up properly.


      Seriously, do you work at Microsoft? I have heard this same thing with respect to completely securing IIS.

    26. Re:I started with Slackware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      From my experience the people who prefer BSD init because it is "simpler" are just people who do not want to take the 5 mins to understand SysV and set it up properly. Investing a few mins setting up your SysV will save you hours of headaches you'd have later on with BSD style.

      Agreed .. and for those folks that just must have everything done in a single file, you have rc.local in most sysvinits. I use it to run a few "fixup" type scripts like publishing my IP address.

    27. Re:I started with Slackware... by sysopd · · Score: 3, Insightful
      It was a hypothetical situation. Scripts change, too easily in fact.

      Slackware's init scripts haven't changed the way they call /etc/init.d/rc.* scripts since I've been using it (Slackware 3.x), and probably have always worked that way. That is how BSD style init scripts work. Just as the SXX, KXX, etc prefixes in the rc.X directories under SysV work a certain way since thats how they were designed.

      Those of us who don't like hackish solutions like removing an +x bit prefer something manageable, like sysv.

      I'd hardly call BSD inits hackish, rather I'd call it logical, and elegant in its simplicity. Take all the tools away and which one is easier? I believe one of the primary ideas behind slack is that anything should be fast and easy using only a text editor and the standard unix tools (chmod is one of those). In that vein it succeeds. If you look at SysV in this light, you are forced doing what others have pointed out (manual renaming/linking/removing/etc of scripts in several subdirectories).

      Many of us Slack users have been around the block and had to fix things in a pinch. Doing things manually prepares you for these times and also teaches you a little more about how the underlying system works. If slack forced you to do it manually but used SysV no one would like slack. But slack makes it easy to do 'the hard way'. And this extends way beyond the BSD/SysV debate. Everything follows this notion, which is the reason why so many have brought up slackware's ease of administration. Everything is up front and there for the tweaking.

      If you haven't given slackware more than a simple glance, I suggest running it for awhile to get the feel of it. I am not a blind-eyed zealot either, I have used redhat, mandrake, gentoo and sourcemage and run several distros regularly. I believe there is wisdom to be gained from most distros and that 'everything according to its purpose' is a good mantra here.

    28. Re:I started with Slackware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is NOT true.

      In Slackware, with the BSD-style init scripts, you do the same thing. /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa start /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa stop /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa restart

    29. Re:I started with Slackware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I must admit that I'm firmly on the side of BSD style inits as being much easier to maintain on a system.

      There are some benefits to BOTH ways of doing things:

      BSD Inits boot faster (much less code to get through to get started); SysV gives you finer control over running processes (being able to run "service apache restart" is probably the only thing I miss about running a SysV based system). BSD is MUCH easier for a beginner to maintain (only a handful of rc.X scripts to deal with rather than a mass of and rc.X directories and symlinks).

      As for managing dependencies in BSD where's the problem? It's no harder to place a command a bit higher up in the script than it is to rename S99_foo to S20_foo to ensure that S80_bar is able to run, oh yeah, not forgetting to add in K20_foo and K80_bar if required (sheesh), and link these in EACH OF THE RUNLEVEL DIRECTORIES THAT FOO AND BAR ARE RUNNING FROM. Easier? I think not.

      If you REALLY want SysV with Slackware it can be done - but personally I'd rather have a fast booting, easily manageable system, if you've no objections (and to be honest, I don't give a stuff if you DO object).

      IMHO of course ;-)

    30. Re:I started with Slackware... by brunes69 · · Score: 1

      Don't want mysql to startup on boot? In SysV init you mave to rename six symbolic links to begin with the leter "K", and possibly reorder them. In BSD init, you just remove the executable permission from rc.mysql.

      For one, this is totally false. All you have to do is remove the SXXservice symlink from your current runlevel, or make its /etc/init.d copy non-executable as you say (this is really wrong though; by making an init script non-executable you are also preventing shutdown scripts to work). The KXXservice links are shutdown links, they have nothing to do with starting a service.

      For another, every distro has GUI tools to do this for you anyway. You just see the list of services and basically check and uncheck boxes.

      B) Allow automagical setup tools to make changes in system initialization (something a control freak hates).

      Personally I like the fact that when I run "apt-get install mysql", it will install the package *and* ensure it is run at boot time, rather than me having to screw around hand-editing conf files.

    31. Re:I started with Slackware... by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      I would agree with you if it weren't for the weird SysV script names and the "linkfarm from hell" that I would have to deal with.

      The new style BSD init scripts use the best of both worlds. Check out the "rcNG" scripts for a breath of fresh air.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    32. Re:I started with Slackware... by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      I think it's indicative of the complexity of SysV that there are a myriad front end tools for it. It's almost like they do not want you in control of your system.

      WARNING: No user servicable components in this operating system. Any attempt to circumvent the provided graphical interfaces will void your warranty. Do as you're told and no one will get hurt.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    33. Re:I started with Slackware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      If you haven't given slackware more than a simple glance, I suggest running it for awhile to get the feel of it.

      Oh, I'm well aware of the feel of Slackware. I used it for quite some time (from circa kernel 1.1.59 through 2.0.x). I ditched it long ago in favor of more up to date distributions. In fairness, Pat & co. have improved in their level of currentness, but for a LONG time, they lagged severely.

      It's hackish by comparison. SysV init is way more evolved, evidenced by the tools that come along with it.

      Besides, how many times do you make a httpd.conf change, only to then have to kill the httpd processes, and manually re-invoke them? Quite often. With SysV, the worst is /etc/init.d/httpd restart. On RH/Fedora/Mandrake it's even simpler - service httpd restart.

    34. Re:I started with Slackware... by sysopd · · Score: 1
      how many times do you make a httpd.conf change, only to then have to kill the httpd processes, and manually re-invoke them? Quite often. With SysV, the worst is /etc/init.d/httpd restart.

      I have actually run across that same scenario recently, and I typed /etc/rc.d/rc.httpd restart. Slackware has had start/stop/restart functionality in their rc.d/rc.* scripts for as long as I can remember.

    35. Re:I started with Slackware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > "IMO SysV init is much simpler to use and administer one you understand what it is doing."

      Once you understand anything it's easy to use/do.

    36. Re:I started with Slackware... by PONA-Boy · · Score: 1
      quoth the brunes69
      Personally I like the fact that when I run "apt-get install mysql", it will install the package *and* ensure it is run at boot time, rather than me having to screw around hand-editing conf files.

      The "screw around hand-editing conf files" part is probably why most of us Slack users are _still_using the distro. I have used both SysV and BSD style init's on both free (as in beer) OS's and the pay-to-play variety and I much prefer the hands-on functionality within the BSD flavour.

      Taken as a group, most Slackware devotees have been doing things _much_ longer because we have been around the Linux block longer. That may be something of a glaring generality but, for the most part, it is accurate. We are happiest when we are able to "see" the guts of what is going on and we only trust what we have "made" to happen. I have been doing so since making disksets off images I was downloading through my SLIP account. As far as Linux itself is concerned, Slack users have been perfectly content with doing things this way for _quite_ some time.

      Storied past aside, I _like_ Patrick and I _like_ his distro. While I have tried (and been forced to use) others, I always come back to Slackware. That's the great thing about Open Source: use what YOU like, not what someone ELSE likes.


      -PONA-
      --
      +that's funny...I don't FEEL tardy.+
    37. Re:I started with Slackware... by DataSquid · · Score: 1

      Amen! (no mod points today)

      --

      DataSquid.net, a little about me.
    38. Re:I started with Slackware... by beakburke · · Score: 1

      That only applies to scripts though if you look at that slackware inits for example they follow a "if rc.startupscript +x then execute, else ;

      --
      ----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
  18. A question... by dinodrac · · Score: 0, Troll

    I haven't looked at slackware in a long time, but one of the main reasons that I didn't take slackware seriously is that other distributions were shipping with effective package management facilities. Last time I paid any attention to slackware, it had a very limited package management system that was able to install pacakages, but provided no easy way to uninstall them.
    Does slackware have facilities for cleanly removing packages yet?

    1. Re:A question... by ananke · · Score: 1

      Uhmm, I have no clue what you're talking about. removepkg installs cleanly packages that you installed via installpkg.

      --
      --- d'oh
    2. Re:A question... by hattmoward · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't even know what you're talking about-- slackware has had easy removal of packages nearly forever! Incredibly, it's called 'removepkg', but like any tool, you can shoot yourself in the foot if you're not careful. =) With the addition of Swaret to the mix, managing packages on slackware is too easy.

    3. Re:A question... by hazy_fakie · · Score: 0

      Yes, it does Use either the graphical (console based) pkgtool, or try using removepkg from a console. If you want to use a software for automatic updates look at swaret... That's what's good about slackware - it doesn't force you to use any packaging system, but you could still use pkgtool.

    4. Re:A question... by Paleomacus · · Score: 1

      Yup, try 'pkgtool'. Comes with slack standard.

    5. Re:A question... by ecc0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      man 8 removepkg

    6. Re:A question... by Marc+Desrochers · · Score: 3, Informative

      the others have answered your question, and I'll even add this, it even comes with RPM, should you feel the need to scream out loud.

    7. Re:A question... by boojit · · Score: 1

      Well, I can't say how it compares to other package management systems in the other distros, but I rather like the slackware package management system. It has improved, it sounds like, since the last time you used Slackware. It does allow package removal, and allow you to upgrade packages as well. Also there are tools to help youbuild your own packages.

      DaC

    8. Re:A question... by rudolfel · · Score: 0, Funny

      man rm

      --
      -- Segmentation fault. Core dumped
    9. Re:A question... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2, Insightful
      other distributions were shipping with effective package management facilities

      If you only use prebuilt binaries then I can see why this might be a problem. However, Slackware is designed with simplicity in mind for the user who is prepared to get his hands dirty compiling his own stuff (even if only from time to time). This almost by definition makes any package management system a la Debian or SillyHat redundant, since your database is out of date the first time you do this.

      If you want to stay current with Slackware and stay with pre-built binaries, there's always swaret (and it really is current). However, you'll never appreciate the simplicity of Slackware if you never try playing with it.

    10. Re:A question... by reallocate · · Score: 1

      Slackware has a nice set of tools to install, upgrade and remove packages.

      What Slackware doesn't do is automatically resolve dependencies. You're on you own for that. And, frankly, given my experiences using the Debians and RedHats of this world, automatic dependency resolution is a disaster waiting to happen.

      A little bit of reading before you install something should tell you about its prerequisites. If a maintainer can't be bothered to tell you what his code assumes is already on your machine, don't use hise code.

      --
      -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
    11. Re:A question... by devphaeton · · Score: 2, Informative

      the others have answered your question, and I'll even add this, it even comes with RPM, should you feel the need to scream out loud.

      Yeah, but RPM is a horrible awful thing and its implementation is a plague on the Linux world.

      No central repository, no consistent interface, sparse documentation, incompatible versions, etc. Debian's APT, Slackware's pkgtool, and the ports system the BSDs have have all been a much better working and better designed system, for much longer than RPM has been around.

      Just IMHO.

      Oh yeah, and shutup all you Gentoo Partyliners, you're way late in this game.

      --


      do() || do_not(); // try();
    12. Re:A question... by Marc+Desrochers · · Score: 1

      Oh I agree whole heartedly, hence the "scream out loud" part (I knew I should have put "rip your hair out"). I do wish that pkgtool would at least passively warn about dependancies. Something along the lines of "Hey you want to install FOO but we notice that you don't have BAR installed, you might want to install that or else FOO migght not work right" Just as a reminder that FOO needs an other package, which is now up to the user to install later.

  19. A giant leap into 2001! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Slackware lurches forward on the technological cutting edge.

    1. Re:A giant leap into 2001! by MikeCapone · · Score: 1

      What the hell are you talking about? Did you even bother to read anything about slackware? Did you intend to post in a Debian thread and your words got carried by the wind?

    2. Re:A giant leap into 2001! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slackware lurches forward on the technological cutting edge.

      You would be surprised what Debian is doing these days!

  20. Re:KDE by Tribbin · · Score: 1

    I can come up with only one reason to support your statement; xdm is not started at boot on default.

    It's a matter of changing one numer in /etc/inittab to turn it on.

    --
    If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
  21. If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 1

    I've been trying to find someone who has the Slackware 9.1 ISO files for a friend with no luck. All the mirror sites in the U.S. seem to have removed them, and I don't REALLY want to abuse the bandwidth of sites outside North America if I don't have to. It would be nice if distributions that don't want to do ISOs for downloads would adopt Jigsaw Download (jigdo), like Debian uses...

    1. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by ananke · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't think the mirrors sites have ever had them. Visit #slackware on irc.oftc.net or freenode.org, and we'll provide you with smaller unofficial mirrors, where you can get official 9.1 isos or even -current/10rc1 unoffficial ones.

      --
      --- d'oh
    2. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by Shadowlion · · Score: 2, Informative
    3. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by wetshoe · · Score: 4, Informative

      IIRC, no official FTP sites ever had the ISOs. Patrick did this for a reason, which he explained in great depth when 9.1 came out. I can't remember why, but I'm sure you can find it on the mailing list archives. He chose to release the ISOs using bitTorrent to save all the mirrors' bandwidth. Download yourself a bitTorrent client and point your browser to Slackware's official bitTorrent page. You can get the ISOs that way, like everyone else.

    4. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 1
      Yes, I tried linuxiso.org, but found that the mirror site they pointed to limits anonymous connections to 15... and I've never found a time when there were 14 or fewer connected. And, of course, the other mirrors pointed to by linuxiso.org didn't have them.

      My friend was going to order the 9.1 4-disk set instead.

    5. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by pla · · Score: 1

      IIRC, no official FTP sites ever had the ISOs.

      Funny, I downloaded them yesterday (at least, the d1 and d2 ISOs) from a site linked on Slackware's "Get Slack" page (don't recall which one, I had to try a dozen of them before finding one with the ISOs). No problems, reasonably fast, right checksums...


      Unfortunately, I downloaded the 9.1 install ISOs yesterday. Great, just wonderful - I wasted 1.3GB, two CDs, and two hours, and the very next day, the new version comes out.

      Just shoot me, it would hurt less.

    6. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 1
      Sorry, but I don't do IRC. The sites I work from would not tolerate the security concerns of allowing IRC to be run. This is the same reason I don't do bittorrent, the officially-listed way of getting the install ISO; if I want more than dial-up access speeds, it's from sites where privacy is either a corporate or federal requirement, and neither fit those requirements.

      If that seems a bit paranoid, it is. We don't trust Flash, because we can't seem to find any independent security analysis of the scripting language used. Macromedia's word that it is safe isn't good enough...

      [no, we don't use Microsoft-based servers, and use of Internet Explorer is limited to testing our websites for things that break IE.]

    7. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by ps_inkling · · Score: 2, Informative
      For users of BitTorrent, there are torrent files for Slackware 9.1 ISOs.

      Official Torrent Page

    8. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by reallocate · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, the new version is not out. He's just moved the -current branch along to the point of calling it RC1. New CD's will be available via Torrent when 10.0 is officially released. And, you'll also be able to buy a nice Slackware box, too.

      In the meantime, grab swaret or slakpkg and update yourself all the way to today's version of -current. Then, you will be at RC1. (If you use slackpkg, pull down the current 1.2.2 version from an updated mirror. It's in the /extra directory of their slackware-current tree. It will contain an uptodate list of -current mirrors.

      Also, don't be surprised if it takes the mirrors a few days to catch up.

      --
      -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
    9. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by wetshoe · · Score: 1
      From the official release announcement, "We will be setting up BitTorrent downloads for the official ISO images."

      Some mirrors put their own ISOs up, but they are not official ISOs from Patrick. Patrick did not release any ISOs on any of the mirrors, but some mirror maintainers probably got the ISOs through bitTorrent, then put them on their FTP sites.

    10. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by stecoop · · Score: 1

      I used jigdo in an attempt to grab debian DVD ISOs. I gave up with all the crashes, slow work, crazy user feedback, and unknown status - I worked on it, but couldn't get it right, I may try again someday. I went and downloaded the Fedoria DVD in about 3 hours. Fedoria RC2 had a few issues and found an older (6 months) slackware cd in the pile. Booted the entire system on a single cd and used dropline to update. Still running slackware today. I think in retrospect, the slackware bunch has things going pretty good - why the single cd concept (i know two now) and the massively wicked update features.

    11. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by ananke · · Score: 1

      well, considering that somebody already posted my small unofficial mirror, mind as well i post it in this comment:

      ftp://inferno.bioinformatics.vt.edu/slackware

      --
      --- d'oh
    12. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 2, Insightful
      While I applaud the concept of bittorrent, please tell me how I'm supposed to explain opening a hole in our firewalls to allow uploading unknown data to the security auditors checking our compliance with federal privacy regulations... And not uploading is not in the "spirit" of bittorrent. Quoting the official FAQ about blocking uploading:
      You could hack the source to not upload, but then your download rate would suck. BitTorrent downloaders engage in tit-for-tat with their peers, so leeches have very little success downloading.

      Ours might not be the most common circumstance, since most internet users aren't bound by HIPAA and other regulations to tightly control what leaves their networks. How many web programmers do you know that have (or should have) the official government Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act home page bookmarked, for assistance in deciding what can and can not be displayed under what security circumstances? Probably not that many, but, for those of us who do, it means that certain popular distribution methods are not kosher at this point in time.

      Jigdo is compliant, since it uses established protocols, and is inbound-only. Bittorrent may or may not be compliant, and I'm not in the mood to be the one who tries to get it approved.

      If someone HAS the ISOs, they can make and post the .jigdo and .template files required. And the load on the servers now hosting the ISOs would be lowered significantly, since any mirror that has the basic files for the distribution can be a "jigdo ISO mirror", using either FTP or HTTP.

    13. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 1
      Granted, I've only run jigdo on two systems - Windows XP (which won't do DVD ISOs, because they say they can't write files larger than 2GB), and Mandrake 10. Both worked just fine, although it did take a long time to download everything.

      What's especially nice about jigdo, though, is that building the next CD/DVD ISO in the release candidate chain will require a lot less downloading - if a file only changes position between two ISOs, it isn't downloaded again. Only a version change would trigger a package download.

    14. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by stecoop · · Score: 1

      Windows XP dosnt have a 2gb limit on a NTFS partiion. I know complied function like FTP have the 2^32 index size limit but I downloaded the 4gb DVD iso using cygwin's NCFTP.

    15. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Be creative. Rent a 99$/month colo somewhere with a ton of bandwith. Run bt there, fetch finished downloads over ftp/http or whatever is considere "trusted" by those standards.

      It's also rather fast too.

    16. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by norkakn · · Score: 1

      just run torrent under its own UID and SSH tunnel through to an outside computer. The UID only has access to the one folder and all connections go through 23, so this should be fully HIPAA compliant

    17. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by HaloZero · · Score: 1

      You're not alone. I did the same thing not more than four days ago.

      It seems like this swaret.org thing might be the way to go, though.

      --
      Informatus Technologicus
    18. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by MikeCapone · · Score: 1

      Quit your whining, I'm sure you know someone, somewhere that has an internet connection and can help you download 2 CDs worth of material.

    19. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by shufler · · Score: 1

      The Slackware Store (http://store.slackware.com) offers "Slack sub" (http://store.slackware.com/cgi-bin/store/slacksub next?id=vCka82m6&mv_pc=55) which sends you a box set of the latest version of Slack when it's released ("about once every 6 months").

      Granted this option costs more than downloading it, but isn't it great to support something you love? And hey -- it comes in a fancy jewel case!

    20. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 1

      NTFS doesn't have a 2GB limit, but the version of jigdo for Windows refuses to write more than 2GB files, exiting with a message suggesting you use Linux instead. Since cygwin simulates Linux under Windows, that's one way around the limitation, but I chose to go to a Linux box instead. Why fight with Windows when you have a REAL operating system around? The discussion is all moot, however, until/unless someone who DOES have the ISO files elects to run jigdo-file on them to create the .jigdo and .template files...

    21. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. :)

    22. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by clymere · · Score: 1

      I downloaded them from Linuxiso.org with no problems a few months back.

      i would consider waiting for the release of 10.0 though, if you're going to purchase slack. KDE 3.2 is nice, theres also newer versions of Gnome, GCC, better Wireless and Alsa support, and the 2.6 kernel is there if you want it.

      --
      once you go slack, you never go back
    23. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by GenSolo · · Score: 1

      You should be able to get it from UNC's distro.ibiblio.org (it which was metalab.unc.edu which before that was sunsite.unc.edu).

    24. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by GenSolo · · Score: 1

      Damnit. The one time I don't bother to preview, I left out a quotation mark!

      Slackware 9.1 ISOs

    25. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by Wild+Wizard · · Score: 1

      Eat your heart out with these mirrors

    26. Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice by WoodstockJeff · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the mirror list... but, the one US site with the 9.1 ISOs wasn't reachable, so I've been "enjoying" near dial-up speeds, downloading the ISOs from Brazil and Costa Rico...

  22. Slackware 10RC1 ISOs by Chaxid · · Score: 5, Informative

    ftp://inferno.bioinformatics.vt.edu/linux-distros/ slackware/slackware-current-iso/

  23. Need some help... by hot_Karls_bad_cavern · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Okay, i am a linux user of several years. Mostly Red Hat, but i've had Suse, Mandrake and Gentoo at various times, but never Slack or Debian.

    i'm told it doesn't get more stable than Debian Stable, but i normally hear people say Slack is hard to install or hard to work with. Why is that? And can someone please clear that up for me? i'm not trolling, i just don't know enough about Slack to see why people would want to run it. Is it small and fast and just less "junk" to worry about for security reasons? Help me out!

    heh, i've also heard Slack mentioned amidst some rather colorful expletives (i know the feeling though :(

    1. Re:Need some help... by Xpilot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      i'm told it doesn't get more stable than Debian Stable, but i normally hear people say Slack is hard to install or hard to work with.

      They are probably getting nostalgic from "back in the day" when Slack came on 2,545,645 floppies and you had to use a soldering iron, chewing gum, duct tape and copper wire to get the hardware to work with it.

      That's no longer the case, but a lot of people started out with the "hard" Slackware, moved on to the "easy" distro's like Redhat, and still assume Slackware is still the same as it was in days of yore. The truth is, even though the appearance of the installer hasn't changed much (still ncurses), it is extremely easy to use, straightforward, and as flexible as can be.

      --
      "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
    2. Re:Need some help... by Malc · · Score: 1

      I wonder how many of those people are like me and used Slackware a decade ago but not today. In those days everying came as a .tgz file and Red Hat was on the up with it's ubiqitous RPMs. I seem to remember having to download a lot of source packages and compiling them myself on my DX4-100.

    3. Re:Need some help... by kevin_conaway · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Slack is great for those users who like to be able to tweak their systems down to the bone. Not to say you cant do this in other distros, it is just easier in Slackware. Its a very bare bones, highly configurable distro. That appeals to many folks (myself included).

    4. Re:Need some help... by hot_Karls_bad_cavern · · Score: 1

      Excellent, that was the type of answer i was after. i think i'll give Slack a shot this weekend, thank you.

      Who says you can't learn a thing or two on Slashdot eh?

    5. Re:Need some help... by gregeth · · Score: 1

      Not too long ago I tried setting up Slack 9.2(or 1?) on my system and the install isn't all too horrible, however there were some little differences. One thing that really iritated me was that a lot of the config files were blank. Yes, that's right, completely blank. I went to go configure X (XFree then) and realized I was going to have to type in everything myself. No thank you! So then I just went to my Redhat box and copied the needed files over, and then made changes.

      Now don't get me wrong, I do think Slackware is a well designed distro, and they do very well at holding onto the true "tao" of UNIX. However, at the same time I think it couldn't hurt to do as some other distros do and include at least sample configuration files.

      Just as someone else mentioned earlier, they don't need some of the extra tools like Fedora, Mandrake, etc. I actually run Fedora and Mandrake currently and I've found that those distros try to set things up so much that you have to go back and fix the damage later. So I guess it's just all how you look at it. If you want to have complete control over your installation, then Slack is definitely for you. If you want an install to pretty much do everything for you, and hope that it was developed on hardware practically identical to yours, then go with something else.

      BTW, at work, being in a server environment, we definitely have been using Debian and Slackware. You can build a good kiosk using Slack too(x server and browser only).

    6. Re:Need some help... by reallocate · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Slackware does not do automatic package dependency resolution. Many people seem to consider that a sine qua non of using Linux. If you do, too, Slackware isn't for you. In the other hand, you'll never need to deal with botched automatic dependency resolution or trying to understand how installing from source will impact your dependency gizmo.

      Slackware does not do automatic hardware detection and configuration. You need to know how to partition your disk(s) with fdisk or cfdisk before you even run the setup program. You need to know if you want to use CUPS or lprng or something else with your printer and how to set it up. You need to know the specs about your video card and monitor, and you need to configure X yourself.

      I know all those things and can run thorugh Slackware's curses-based setup program as fast as I can use the keyboard.

      Slackware has a little configuration tool called "pkgtool" that allows you to do some basic configuration (set up your mouse, decide what services will run, etc.). Beyond that, well...the beauty of Unix is that everything is configured with a text file.

      I like Slackware because it doesn't get in my way with a big layer of poorly documented packaging and configured gizmos. Everything is visible. When I change something, I know exactly what has been changed. When I need to install software, I don't need to wait until someone releases it in the package format used by my distribution. I can download the source and install it myself. Case in point: When KDE 3.2.3 was released a few days ago, I might have downloaded the source and installed it myself as soon as KDE madeit available. As it was, the files were available on the Slack site within 48 hours.

      Finally, Slackware does minimal tweaking of the packages it offers. What you install is pretyt much exactly as it was released by the developers. That's a great boon when something breaks. You don't need to worry about what SLackware has done to the code and not told you about.

      --
      -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
    7. Re:Need some help... by maxbang · · Score: 1

      Dude, I've tried 'em all. Deb, redhat, drake, gentoo, knoppix, suse, *bsd, windows, all the major ones and a handful of smaller ones thrown in for good measure. I finally tried slack a while back and haven't looked back since. It's the easiest, best install I've ever used and everything worked perfectly after install. I've never, and I mean _never_, had any other distro setup so quickly and easily as slack. I used to love debian just because of apt, but once I got over my fears of compiling/installing w/o automatic dependency checking, slack has my vote all the way. I've learned so much from slack that it's insane, plus the online docs are awesome. Another thing, there aren't any of the distro specific stuff that used to confuse me when reading general linux documentation and trying to apply it to my specific flavor. Try it!

      --
      I also reply below your current threshold.
    8. Re:Need some help... by innit · · Score: 1

      Slackware is a MAN's Linux distro. RRaaaaaarrrggghhh!

      I've always used Slackware, since 1995. It teaches you how to be a real system administrator, with no giant 24-bit 200x200 pixel "click here to be teh unix expert!!!11" buttons that other distros seem to have. You have to get your hands dirty, which subsequently means you learn a lot more about your system that you would with the more "automated" distros.

      I'll always use it.

      Stuii!

    9. Re:Need some help... by happyfrogcow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      for what it's worth, todays slackware is easier to install than debian was 3 years ago, the last time i tried debian.

      i for one don't know how debian's install has progressed. it was just different the first time through, and took some getting use to. Slack is pretty straight forward, more or less intuitive (to me).

    10. Re:Need some help... by happyfrogcow · · Score: 1

      Yes, that's right, completely blank. I went to go configure X (XFree then) and realized I was going to have to type in everything myself.

      Not the case at all for me when i installed 9.1. The only files that may have been blank, or non-existing, were the config files in my home directory, such as .xinitrc. Those however are easily copied from /etc/X11/whatever and then tailored.

      also, i'm using not very standard or good hardware. no problems at all.

    11. Re:Need some help... by BenjyD · · Score: 1

      I've used a lot of distros - Debian, Gentoo, SuSE, Redhat, Arch, Mandrake - and I recently switched to slackware. I have to say it's probably the best I've used so far. I've hit no bugs at all on the two systems I use it on, unlike so many distros. The install was painless and upgrading is simple.

    12. Re:Need some help... by upsidedown_duck · · Score: 1

      Why is that?

      Mainly, they are opinions, and everyone's opinions vary because their needs vary and their outlooks on life vary. Also, needs and outlooks change with age.

      In the Linux realm, it isn't uncommon for someone to cut their teeth with distros like Red Hat or Mandrake and then move on to other distros as their needs and knowledge evolve. For example, I started with Red Hat back in the 5.0 days, stayed with Red Hat through 6.2, but, by then, began finding Red Hat too inflexible for my needs. I began finding their installation tools somewhat rigid and RPM too complex. That's about when I started using Slackware and, later, Debian and OpenBSD.

      The simplicity, logical arrangements, different approaches, and, frequently, better documentation, behind Slackware, Debian, and the *BSDs are really quite refreshing for an experienced person. For example, Debian's installer allows dropping to a shell at any time, it does not care whether /cdrom is actually a CD-ROM drive nor does it care what /target is. By replacing the installer's Linux kernel with an NFS-enabled one, I can have /cdrom be a share from another computer and /target be yet another share somewhere else. This makes installing Debian on a computer without a CD-ROM drive or a floppy drive possible (a SunPCi II Pro co-processor card is exactly this kind of computer), and Debian really hits the spot in this application and in workstation use, in general.

      For server use, I would not hesitate to use Slackware or OpenBSD, as they really are easier to administer and are less complex than other distros. With them, I don't have to navigate the "Enterprise Buzzword" maze of newbie-oriented installation tools or baroque configuration tools to just get things working. They tend to keep /etc in /etc and /var/log in /var/log, they tend to actually have up-to-date manual pages, they are more conservative in what software they package together, etc. All these things make people like these distros over all the others.

      --
      -- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
    13. Re:Need some help... by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      I doubt the Debian's install is any better than it was 3 years ago. In fact, I think Debian is still on the same version that it was then.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    14. Re:Need some help... by schemanista · · Score: 1

      Slackware does not do automatic hardware detection and configuration.

      As a minor correction: I've been using Slack since 8.1, so that makes me a young pup, but when I installed -current on my new Athlon XP, the install program correctly probed for and configured my system to load modules for USB, my SIS onboard NIC and onboard sound. Of course I had to configure X, but I expected that. I was actually mildly disappointed the first time I installed Slackware and everything worked since I had girded myself for battle and expected far more f*ckery.

      My personal datapoint suggests that Slack takes 20min-1h to install, 1 day to "customize" and then, except for security updates, I just use it for 9-12 months at which point I can upgrade again.

      --
      I saw that shot more than a few times back when Starbuck was a man. ~ lucabrasi999
    15. Re:Need some help... by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 2, Insightful
      i'm told it doesn't get more stable than Debian Stable, but i normally hear people say Slack is hard to install or hard to work with. Why is that? And can someone please clear that up for me? i'm not trolling, i just don't know enough about Slack to see why people would want to run it. Is it small and fast and just less "junk" to worry about for security reasons? Help me out!

      It's all a matter of expectations: if you want an installer that looks and feels like that GUI shell they make for MS-DOS in Redmond, Slackware probably isn't for you.

      I've always likened Slackware to a construction set for building Linux systems. RedHat et al are a Linux system in a can; open the can and pour out your system, ready to go. Slackware doesn't build system, but instead gives you the tools to build any kind of system you like.

      My only non-Slackware system is a Sun Ultra 5 (bought on EBay), which runs Debian. That UltraSPARC hardware, y'know. Debian is different, but I can certainly see where they're coming from. Both are good approaches, maintaining that lightweight minimalist approach that Linux is in serious danger of losing.

      ...laura

    16. Re:Need some help... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      That's no longer the case, but a lot of people started out with the "hard" Slackware, moved on to the "easy" distro's like Redhat, and still assume Slackware is still the same as it was in days of yore. The truth is, even though the appearance of the installer hasn't changed much (still ncurses), it is extremely easy to use, straightforward, and as flexible as can be.


      Don't be a liar. Slackware will crap in your washing machine, and then kick your dog. It is the anti-Christ.

      Just kidding. Actually, I love Slack as a full install of Slack comes with *just* the right number of "out of box" applications. I used to run Libranet (a Debian variant) but actually had apt-get break a few packages (Libranet has its own repository configuration which consist of its own AND some Debian). I just don't have the time to screw with things, so I went with Slack, which assumes you know what you're doing and generally doesn't try to save you from yourself.
    17. Re:Need some help... by Josh+Booth · · Score: 1

      I believe that my datapoint is fairly similar to yours. If you know what you are doing, the install's bottleneck is only the speed it takes to move data from the packages (unzipping) and putting it on your drive. It does take about a day to customize, plus about 4-8 weeks to get X to work right ;-).

    18. Re:Need some help... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slackware can be installed by a chicken... just keep pecking Enter.

    19. Re:Need some help... by Blnky · · Score: 1


      Case in point: When KDE 3.2.3 was released a few days ago, I might have downloaded the source and installed it myself as soon as KDE madeit available


      How interesting. I was just talking to a coworker who is very familiar with the RedHat side of things. He was unsure of how easy it was to upgrade things on Slackware without the rpm tool. I pointed out that within a half an hour of the KDE 3.2 release I had it downloaded and compiling. A few minutes after that it was installed. No issues. just a simple ./configure; ./make; ./make install. He had to wait for the rpm to become available before he could try it out. This isn't to imply that RedHat took forever to make the rpm available. It just shows that I can react faster than relying on someone else to package it up for me. I dind't even have to wait for an official Slackware package. Likewise I believe it demonstrates that upgrading something as large as KDE on Slackware is very non-complex even without an rpm style dependancy manager.

    20. Re:Need some help... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Slackware does not do automatic package dependency resolution. Many people seem to consider that a sine qua non of using Linux. If you do, too, Slackware isn't for you. In the other hand, you'll never need to deal with botched automatic dependency resolution or trying to understand how installing from source will impact your dependency gizmo.
      Slackware doesn't do dep resolution??? Get with the times, swaret does a great job of resolving dependency issues in slackware. It even downloads and installs all the needed dep files if you set it up to do so. Just try it, type `swaret --dep`, fixes most porblems :) `swaret --update`/`swaret --upgrade` are also very usefull and will upgrade all your packeges for you. I've been using slackware since 1996 and although it was difficult back in the day, currently it's just as easy as any other distro to do upgrades and dep resolution. The only part that's still hard is the fact that it is the most unix like linux, and thus more text config type stuff. Hardware detection comes with X.org though and I didn't have to set up much at all. Go try it out, http://www.swaret.org
    21. Re:Need some help... by reallocate · · Score: 1

      Swaret isn't part of Slackware. I use it to stay uptodate with -current, but that's it. It's fine to pull down the latest updates, but I'm not about to let it or any other tool have free rein to install software. I don't let Swaret install updates automatically (no "--update -a" stuff), and almost everything else gets installed from source. If I didn't like it that way, I wouldn't be using Slackware.

      --
      -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
    22. Re:Need some help... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      startx -- -configure (something like that... I haven't bothered in a long time since I haven't changed my old config file since 8.1) will probe your hardware and spit out a config file for you

    23. Re:Need some help... by Accipiter · · Score: 1

      Slackware does not do automatic hardware detection and configuration.

      Nonsense. It doesn't detect and configure all hardware, but the auto-detection of network devices has been in the installer for a while now. Also, recent releases of Slackware have hotplug support.

      You need to know the specs about your video card and monitor, and you need to configure X yourself.

      Apparently you're also unfamiliar with "X -configure"

      Slackware has a little configuration tool called "pkgtool" that allows you to do some basic configuration (set up your mouse, decide what services will run, etc.)

      What? No. pkgtool is a tool for installing/removing packages. It does NOT have configuration options (outside of startup script selection) or setup for input devices.

      --

      -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
      (If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't. :P)

    24. Re:Need some help... by reallocate · · Score: 1

      >> ..the auto-detection of network devices has been in the installer for a while now. Also, recent releases of Slackware have hotplug support.

      True. But most of the complainers want Slackware to find and configure everything.

      >> Apparently you're also unfamiliar with "X -configure"

      I know about it. It's part of X, not Slackware. I always use xf86config/xorgconfig.

      >> ...pkgtool is a tool for installing/removing packages. It does NOT have configuration options (outside of startup script selection) or setup for input devices.

      That's pretty much what I said:" (set up your mouse, decide what services will run, etc.)"

      --
      -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
    25. Re:Need some help... by Accipiter · · Score: 1

      True. But most of the complainers want Slackware to find and configure everything.

      Doesn't matter. You still said it doesn't do automatic hardware detection. That's wrong.

      I know about it. It's part of X, not Slackware.

      But you said "You need to know the specs about your video card and monitor, and you need to configure X yourself." which is again, not true.

      That's pretty much what I said:" (set up your mouse, decide what services will run, etc.)"

      I know that's what you said, and you're wrong. You CANNOT set up your mouse with pkgtool.

      --

      -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
      (If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't. :P)

    26. Re:Need some help... by reallocate · · Score: 1

      1. Slackware's installation routine does not detect or configure my monitor, my video card, my printer, my sound card, or my mouse. All that must be done by the user.

      2. As I said, you need to configure X yourself. Slackware isn't going to do it for you. Yes, there are tools with X that attempt to do that. My experience has been that they are faulty. In any case, those tools are only useful to someone who already knows they exist and how to use them. Nothing occurs during the SLackware install process to inform the user about these utilities, short of vague admontions in Patrick V.'s mail to root to check out the man pages. (My guess is that mail usually goes unread these days because new users don't have a clue how to read it and Slack doesn't give them any help getting a clue.)

      3. Run pkgtool, select 'Setup", then select "Mouse". Shazam, a way to configure your mouse. Of course, it just runs mouseconfig, but Slackware's not going to tell you that program even exists.

      --
      -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
  24. Hopefull the toolchain is fixed by Xpilot · · Score: 1

    There was some serious bugs in 9.1's toolchain (either binutils or the compiler), which caused a lot miscompilation of some kernel code I was testing. Quite horrible. I do hope this has been addressed.

    --
    "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
    1. Re:Hopefull the toolchain is fixed by ananke · · Score: 1

      The best was to make sure it was addressed, is to report it: support@slackware.com

      --
      --- d'oh
  25. Mod this one a troll Re:Slack by murderlegendre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Slackware is not so much a cousin to Gentoo, as it is Gentoo's *mentor*. That said, any further comparison strains credulity.

    Such silly, half-thought, cookie-cutter comparisons of the two distros only serve to further obscure the true nature and intent of Slackware.

    Trolly, trolly, troll-troll

    --
    There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
    1. Re:Mod this one a troll Re:Slack by ThisIsFred · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Who said this? Slackware and Gentoo appear to me as polar opposites. Slackware is simple and stable, Gentoo is fast and current. About the only thing the two have in common is that both are very powerful in the hands of clueful users, whereas RedHat/Mandrake layer on click-n-drool cruft that makes what should be simple fixes for simple problems into sheer frustration.

      --
      Fred

      "A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
      -RMS
    2. Re:Mod this one a troll Re:Slack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Hmm.. you seem to be claiming that Slackware is neither fast nor current. This is simply not true. Granted, Pat keeps "stable" releases slightly behind the bleeding edge (i.e. he hasn't merged the 2.6 Kernel in yet, though the system is 100% 2.6 compatable), but there' always Slackware-current which usually has all the bleeding edge stuff in it.

      I won't even bother trying to explain that/why Slackware is fast... it should be obvious to anyone that is at all cluefull.

    3. Re:Mod this one a troll Re:Slack by ThisIsFred · · Score: 1

      Hmm.. you seem to be claiming that Slackware is neither fast nor current.

      Yes, that's what I am claiming. Third-party source updates always come faster than the packages in the Slackware current tree, (not a problem, since it's really easy to find the third-party source and update ASAP). Gentoo appears to be updated faster and more often. As far as speed, I'm referring to the fact that Slackware is compiled/optimized for 486 processors.

      --
      Fred

      "A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
      -RMS
  26. Re:The only real linux distribution! by LnxAddct · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Don't speak until you've used it. I've used nearly every distro including slack, debian, and fedora. Fedora is the only one that "just works" and works really well. It doesn't hide things from the user but its simple enough for newbies. I like slack, but Debian and Fedora IMHO are slightly better. Fedora has been my distro of choice since its first release. I can just give it to friends and they can use it, I can use it as a secure server, or anything I pretty much want. Debian does have some advantages, which is why I run it on most servers. And slack has its place, as does every distro, but the only thing that I see slack has that the others don't is the history. It is a great distro, but hardly the best, or the only one worth using. Oh, and the best community support I've seen has come from the Fedora community, ask a question in a debian or slack irc channel and you'll get nothing but trolled and told how stupid you are, even for fairly advanced questions(at least thats been the majority of my experiences), where as fedora always has someone willing to help.
    Regards,
    Steve

  27. Re:X.org?!?!? by duckling42 · · Score: 1

    There's also a xfree86 4.4 package for those who want it too.

  28. Re:X.org?!?!? by Jane_Dozey · · Score: 1

    Um...right now it's the same thing. Same codebase, same product. Ok, since the license change in XFree86 the codebases haven't been _exactly_ the same (obviously) but all in all, you're talking about the same peice of software.

    --
    Silly rabbit
  29. Great News. by eigerface · · Score: 1


    Slackware (inthe form of ZipSlack) was my first experience with Linux. While I can't say it was love at first sight, it did encourage me to come back for more. I currently run 9.1 on my Toshiba laptop, and couldn't be happier.

    Can anyone say whether this release addresses or patches the latest kernel bug?

    1. Re:Great News. by 13Echo · · Score: 1

      I first started using Slack with DragonLinux, years ago. DragonLinux was Slackware that installed to a loopback filesystem on a FAT partition. It worked out quite well, but disk access times were not too great. I finally graduation to Slackware around the release of 7.0. It was a breath of fresh air after banging my head on the desk due to idiotic Redhat/Mandrake designs. Of course, those have improved quite a bit over the years. I still prefer Slackware on all of my machines though. It's fast and stable, and I really like the BSD-style init system.

    2. Re:Great News. by datadriven · · Score: 1

      Yes it was in the changelog.

    3. Re:Great News. by HaloZero · · Score: 1

      I don't think it does, because it explicitly states using the 2.6.6 kernel. However, given that a few stories down, there was a news item about the 2.6.7 kernel, which patches against the vulnerability, it shouldn't be too hard to recompile the kernel for 2.6.7 and use that. Further, it should be as simplistic for Mr. Slackware to release it in the next branch (10.0 RC2, 10.1).

      --
      Informatus Technologicus
    4. Re:Great News. by XeRXeS-TCN · · Score: 1
      Slackware Changelog:
      • testing/packages/linux-2.6.6/kernel-generic-2.6. 6-i486-5.tgz:
        Patched local DoS (CAN-2004-0554).
      • testing/packages/linux-2.6.6/kernel-headers-2.6. 6-i386-3.tgz:
        Patched asm-i386/i387.h.
      • testing/packages/linux-2.6.6/kernel-source-2.6.6 -noarch-3.tgz:
        Patched local DoS (CAN-2004-0554).
      :P
  30. Another great release! by Man+in+Spandex · · Score: 1

    I tried Slackware not long ago when my interest for linux grew. That was 8.1. I wanted to try it because everybody telling me their experience with slackware sounded "funny" such as
    "Oh u compile and u compile! It never ends!"
    "Slackware is a hard distro to learn and installing softwares won't be as easy as you think"
    "Slackware makes you work like in the Russia Regime. No fun, all work!"

    Those reasons were good enough to make me try Slackware since I was reading the opposite from the distributions which many people tried (and still do. mdk, rh, suse). I did not want to start with a distribution which made it easy. Making it too easy for the user sometimes avoids them from learning something that they should know.

    Slackware isn't hard to learn though. It's just about you finding the proper documentation and ready to learn using 4-5 xterms (or more?). Slackware is straight forward which doesn't do anything weird cause it's rock solid and it only provides you with useful software in the cd's. I've been using slack ever since and still today.

    Patrick, great job as always!

    1. Re:Another great release! by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      Slackware isn't hard to learn though.

      Absolutely correct. It does take some effort though. Anything worthwhile does.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  31. This is not news! by slashdot_commentator · · Score: 4, Funny


    This is not the release of Slackware 10! This is merely the release of the "release candidate version 1"!

    Worst of all, I was looking forward to rsync the update today, and now you've shot that idea to hell, Timothy!

    --
    There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
    1. Re:This is not news! by ananke · · Score: 1

      nope, imagine the idea: even the topic of the slashdot article clearly states "RC". sorry to spoil your little adventure with rsync, but overall it's good to get more testers before releasing final 10.0.

      --
      --- d'oh
    2. Re:This is not news! by slashdot_commentator · · Score: 1

      Well, I hope you're happy! Those poor Europeans will have to wait another day (or TWO) before they can get the complete version of Slackware 10 rc1. Now we got all those testers testing something pre-rc1.

      This place is sheer genius. Most news is 3 days to 3 months old. But when it comes to "news" of a pre-release, they'll report it in 12 hours, before all the other mirrors can update themselves. *sheesh*

      --
      There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
    3. Re:This is not news! by Grayswan · · Score: 1

      Tell me about it! I do too much work on my computer to keep it current. I've run Linux kernel 2.6.1-rc2 on slack 9.0 because it works fine. Maybe when the full Slack 10 comes out. Maybe. If I can get a rainy day.

      --
      If you open your mind too wide, people will throw trash in it.
  32. Re:X.org?!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ladies & Gentlemen, I think we should all pause for a second, take a deep breath and then in unison congratulate mw5299 for producing the single most retarded comment in the history of Slashdot.

    I'm not even going to bother explaining why you're so wrong. Hope that doesn't "disapiont" you...

  33. I thought something was up! by Helmholtz+Coil · · Score: 1

    I noticed this the other day while Swaret was running-I kept getting "Welcome To Slackware 10!" emails after it finished. Had me confused for a while there-guess that's what I get for updating against current. :)

    Hats off to both the Slackware and the Swaret crews-I use my old Slackware 9.0 CD all the time for installs. For whatever reason, my Linux installation success rate (which I define as "going from fdisk through to working X in one attempt") is highest when I use it, across all the computers I've ever tried it on. Then it's a quick swaret install for updates, and I'm up and running.
  34. Re:The only real linux distribution! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fedora is the only one that "just works" and works really well. funny tell that to the 5 members of my local LUG that cant get Fedora to install without a fight.

    mandrake just works.

  35. Re:KDE by Schrambo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I do. I'm only a newcommer to the loving arms of slackware(9.1) for about 4 months now. The non-bloatness. With slackware I am in total control of my system. so what slack is manaul configuring and it doesn't have the greatest auto hardware detection. In my eyes thats a good thing. it makes you learn, and with slackware you learn fast.

  36. Re:The only real linux distribution! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, I haven't been part of the Fedora community, but I could say the same about Gentoo -- I always have my questions answered.

    ...so...what's your point?

    People use the distros that give them what they want on their system. If it's not what they want, they won't use it -- it doesn't matter what anybody else says.

  37. Re:The only real linux distribution! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slackware didn't work for you?? Never heard of such a thing. I think Slackware didn't baby you. It didn't set up little default configurations for you. It's your system, YOU configure it. Slackware is for real MEN and WOMEN (*shrug*, could be...) who are capable of actually using/learning unix. Fedora is unix window-dressed as Windows. You're fooling yourself if you think that Fedora is anywhere near as stable as any Slackware release. Install Slackware and gain a real understanding of how unix works.

  38. Re:The only real linux distribution! by chez69 · · Score: 0, Troll

    yup, being technical means you want to fuck around for days and days before it works. some folks don't need to waste hours trying to get something to work to feel smart.

    --
    PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
  39. For those considering swaret... by gimlix2 · · Score: 1

    May I also recommend slaptget?

    It's like swaret, another package management for Slackware and is very similar to apt-get for Debian.

    A little while back there was a smear campaign against slapt-get by the developers of swaret. I think this issue has been resolved, but that's how I found out about slapt-get. You can read the comments (Nov 25th 2003) on the slapt-get link to freshmeat above.

    1. Re:For those considering swaret... by justinarthur · · Score: 1

      Yea, the appalling behavior of Swaret's previous developer has left a sour taste. Slapt-get is definetely a good alternative, and can delve into the -current branch just as easily.

  40. It just works by cresswell · · Score: 1

    I've been using linux since Redhat 4 (even still have the CDs for that). I've used Mandrake, Suse, Redhat, Debian, and experimented with Gentoo, Vector, Lycoris and a few others. I'm using Slackware 9.1 upgraded to current and I love it. Fast, easy to maintain, and keeping it up to date using Swaret is a breeze.

    The init style is so much easier to understand than other distros, and the community over at the Slack forum at linuxquestions.org is amazing. I think Slackware has an iffy reputation due to no gui tools. But the *.conf files are so well commented, actually Pat has a nice little firewall script in the comments in the /etc/rc.modules file!

    Anyway, I will buy a Slack 10 CD when it's released, but I doubt I'll need it. Slack just works.

    --
    Debian unstable Registered Linux user #226117
    My blog:Real Health
  41. Re:KDE (mod parent up) by murderlegendre · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You make such a fine point, I could hardly agree more. Slackware has contributed more to my general knowledge of *nix-like systems than any other single entity. Slackware *does* force you to learn, but allows one to do it at their own speed. After almost six years using Slackware, I can sit down at virtually any Linux distro (or for that matter, *BSD) and soon have the task at hand complete.

    I don't want to perpetuate the old myth that 'if you know Slack, you know BSD', but Slack does more to stomp out the learned helplessness that cripples most user's *nix experiences, especially those unfortunate enough to have grown up in Walt Microsoft World.

    I never thought that computing could ever again be as fun and rewarding as the days when I pounded out terrible BASIC on my C-64. Slackware has brought all of this joy back, in droves. I am forever grateful to Patrick for all his years of hard work. As an aside: visualize a distro maintainer that actually listens to user comments and wishes, and seems, by all accounts, to be a nice, regular person.

    --
    There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
  42. slapt-get by dxnxax · · Score: 1

    I haven't seen slapt-get mentioned. Like apt-get, it's a tool for managing packages, except for the slackware system. It is continually one of the most downloaded packages at linuxpackages.net or you can pick it up at software.jaos.org

  43. update with swaret in two steps by Chuck+Bucket · · Score: 5, Informative

    (1) edit /etc/swaret.conf so that VERSION=current
    (2) issue the command: swaret --update; swaret --upgrade -a

    and you'll basically have installed Slackware 10 RC1. Damn, I love Slack, and swaret just makes it easier to keep 'current'.

    CB

  44. Slackware is still being used? by eXoXe · · Score: 0

    Teehee! :)

    --
    This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    1. Re:Slackware is still being used? by Galaxie · · Score: 1

      dickhead...

      --
      <end/>
  45. Holy Crap! by Atrophis · · Score: 1

    You mean they are still putting this distro out?

    Got my start on Slackware.

    --

    i cant seem to come up with a sig.
  46. Actually...... swaret helps with that by simetra · · Score: 2, Informative

    One nice thing about swaret (swaret.sourceforge.net) is that you can set it to check dependencies, or not. I know it's not part of slackware proper, but is a very, very nifty tool. I run it every week or so to keep my slacks up to "current".

    --

    "Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
  47. YAY! YAY PATRICK!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slackware user since 1995.

  48. you might get slackware ISOs on eMule/eDonkey also by little_prince · · Score: 1

    just try searching for slackware isos on eMule, eDonkey etc. Couple of weeks back I saw the isos for disk 1 and disk 2 floating there :-)

  49. Re:The only real linux distribution! by elfstones · · Score: 1

    I'm glad Fedora really works for you! I was using Fedora Core1 and upgraded to Fedora Core2 breaking both my sound and video. I went back to slackware. I had been on RH since 8.

  50. Swaret? Please. by Scott+Lockwood · · Score: 1, Informative

    Patrick droped it from the distro because of the behavoir of it's author. Try something like Slapt-get instead.

    --
    But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
  51. Re:The only real linux distribution! by Malc · · Score: 1

    That's funny, I've always viewed Debian as the best distro for "just working". Perhaps it's more of a puzzle to install but during it's lifetime everything is just so easy and smooth. I also haven't tried Fedora, but that's because I haven't had any incentive to.

  52. Exactly by simetra · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've tried a number of other distributions and always come back to Slackware, mostly because other distributions feel the need to make goofy proprietary crap - er, I mean apps that might work, if you happen to know the exact name of the executable and know where it resides... and so long as you don't mind any customizations to be over-written willy-nilly. This is especially true of RedHat, which I'll never touch again. Suse was a bit better. Debian crapped out on the install for no good reason on a normal hardware configuration that worked fine with Slackware. Plus, the monstrous list of apps to install was impossible to work with. I'll never bother with Debian again.

    Slackware is simple. You boot it up and run "setup". How hard is that? If you want, you can use RPM's, and other package "utilities", but they tend to blow up after a while. pkgtool is simple and works. Swaret is the cat's pajamas - though not actually a part of Slackware (see swaret.sourceforge.net). Best of all, most Slackware knowledge is useful on other unix-like OS's; you don't go into a panic about not finding your distro's goofy-ass-proprietary app for configing something, you just know where to look. It's great.

    --

    "Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
    1. Re:Exactly by Josh+Booth · · Score: 1

      I agree. Since Slackware is so simple, you have no problem setting it up and you always wind up with a usable base system. From there, if you know all your commands (which you learned on that RH distro you put on the other partition, right?), and simply break out a simple editor (I prefer JOE for config files) you can learn how your system works and configure everything at the same time. RPM works because you ignore any warnings and dependancies it asks for. If the program doesn't work, look at its dependancy list and install that program. Slackware usually has all the header files and gcc installed by default and plays very well with Auto[make|config] software.

      It just works right without all the BS "Don't touch this file because its in a special format and we moved all these files all over so you have to use our config program...". Just edit the durn file and you're good!

  53. alphanumeric soup. by egarrido16 · · Score: 0

    (make sure you edit your /etc/swaret.conf prior of using swaret to allow for kernel upgrades and other options)." This release includes kernel 2.4.26 , Gnome 2.6.1+, KDE 3.2.3, GCC 3.4, XOrg 6.7 and more.

    Remind me again why Linux is ready for the consumer desktop?

    Ahem.

    -EG

    --
    "Brevity is the soul of wit." -Polonius, Hamlet.
    1. Re:alphanumeric soup. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the most stable version of Microsoft Windows was version 3.1 ;-) Hope that helps!

    2. Re:alphanumeric soup. by Stevyn · · Score: 1

      Go buy Mandrake 10 Powerpack or something like that. It's made for users not wanted to have to deal with all that junk. I used to get annoyed by the nomenclature of package namings in linux, but then i realized it just made things easier.

      Just because slack isn't best suited for your average consumer doesn't mean there are not other distros that are. Slack is and always has been a distro for people who like to tweak and pick apart until they've learned something new. For a lot of people running it on the main desktop, it's probably because they like the feeling of control it gives them that windows and probably mandrake or fedora don't. It's all about preferences.

      And by the way, it included, as you posted, KDE 3.2.3 which is designed to make using linux very easy. That and swaret will probably make maintaining the system easier than on windows.

    3. Re:alphanumeric soup. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      slackware isn't a neophyte linux distro.

      believe it or not, not all distros are trying to dumb themselves down for joe-average.

  54. Why is this a major release? by ecc0 · · Score: 1

    This current trend of only bringing minor release numbers up to 1 or 2 before hopping on to the next major only to keep up with other distributions is getting silly. If there was some major change in this, like a switch to Linux 2.6, that would justify a major number bump. This release doesn't really have anything of the sort.

    1. Re:Why is this a major release? by MikeCapone · · Score: 2

      I think that distros try to keep up with each other so that newbies don't go: "Oh, Slackware only has Linux 9, Mandrake is already at Linux 10!"

      In fact, I think it was one of the reasons Patrick himself mentioned for skipping a few version numbers with Slack.

      I love slack, btw! Keep up the good work, Patrick!

    2. Re:Why is this a major release? by Scott+Lockwood · · Score: 0

      And just to be clear about this, Red SHat started this version number pollution scheme. If we numbered Slackware releases the same way they do, we'd be in the 30's at this point.

      --
      But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
  55. May it never change, except to NetBSD style init by pschmied · · Score: 2

    I like slackware because it has captured the flavor of BSD very well. It has a cohesiveness that is the result of Pat's immense knowledge and steady hand.

    However, given that Slackware seems to be one of the prefered distros for BSD-o-philes, why not move its old-school BSD init style to be more in line with the other BSDs? The NetBSD rc scripts are not a huge leap for people familiar with Slackware's. That's because the new style is a logical evolution from the old. FreeBSD made the jump too. The new rc script style feels more "BSD" than the old feels to me now...

    -Peter

  56. Slack 9.1 NOT 2.6 compliant by r00t · · Score: 1

    You like "ps s" to be missing 3 columns?
    You like the ps "TTY" column to be missing stuff?
    Slackware didn't include all the required
    changes as listed in the kernel documentation.

  57. Re:KDE by happyfrogcow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    they are not at all mutually exclusive really, as far as applications go. If i have gnome libs installed and kde libs installed, I can run a gnome based app right alongside a kde based app.

    hell, i have kde installed in slackware and never actually use kde as a desktop environment. there are a few apps that are built for kde that I use.

  58. Slapt-get & Swaret are not official.. by murderlegendre · · Score: 1

    Just to clarify things a bit, neither swaret nor slapt-get are officially supported as part of the Slackware Linux distribution. These are 3rd-party addons, and are definitely used AT YOUR OWN RISK. As noted, swaret has been removed entirely from -current (and hence this RC). The author's behaviour and bizarre political views aside, swaret has been shown to mercilessly bork the odd boxen, on more than one occasion (yes, anecdotal). I cannot comment on the qualities of slapt-get, other than to say that I have not personally heard of any disasters involving it.

    Worth noting that #slackware@irc.freenode.net does not suggest that users perform updates with either of these tools, nor is any help whatsoever provided for same.. either in use, or in cleaning up the rubble.

    Be wise.. until you hear Patrick swear by it, chances are you will be swearing *at* it. ;-)

    --
    There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
    1. Re:Slapt-get & Swaret are not official.. by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      I've had good luck with swaret. It DID bork KDE once, but that was after some Slack-current changes, and that XFree/Xorg stuff. I'd say swaret is as reliable as Debian's apt-get, and more reliable than RedHat's RPM stuff.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
    2. Re:Slapt-get & Swaret are not official.. by over_the_bridge_and_ · · Score: 1

      I'd say your not well informed if you think swaret is more reliable than rpm. swaret is haphazardly written with design decisions that leave you wondering if they author thought about simplicity and consistancy at all.

      You may not like the added complexity that rpm employs, but it is designed and implemented better than swaret. RPM is a package format first. Swaret is a shell wrapper to slackware's native package tools.

      Swaret is not even in the same league as RPM, let alone apt-get, yum, and the others.

    3. Re:Slapt-get & Swaret are not official.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Be wise.. until you hear Patrick swear by it, chances are you will be swearing *at* it. ;-)"

      You may stop sucking Patrick's dick at any time now. :-P

  59. Bugger it... by zenmojodaddy · · Score: 1

    I've only just installed 9.1...

    My first experience with Linux was Mandrake 9.2 and all I learned from that was how to bite through my desk when I got locked into another dependency loop. Slack, on the other hand, doesn't attempt to do everything for you and there are lots of clever ways for you to bollock up your system - in other words, you get to learn a lot.

    Think of Slackware as the Linux equivalent of the Danger Room in the X-Men. If you survive it, you know you're good enough.

  60. Re:KDE by elfstones · · Score: 1

    More important, KDE is not broken or altered like with some distros.

  61. gentoo ebuilds by big+daddy+kane · · Score: 1

    packages aren't added to the stable branch until they are verified to be *stable* which can take some time. getting added to unstable branch isn't an instant process either. there are some gentoo specific bugs that might need to be worked out which takes time, and also someone needs to write the ebuild and add it. this is a pretty good guide on makeing your own ebuilds. if you get an ok one working submit it.

  62. No 2.6 ? by bushboy · · Score: 1

    I was really hoping that the next iteration of slack would have the 2.6 kernel as default - my hopes are dashed.

    I'm not an uber-geek, I like to meddle with Linux and really like Slackware - I managed to compile the 2.6 kernel with slackware 9.1 after a LOT of effort and reading up and the speed increases were amazing, however, I couldn't get everything working - too busy trying to earn a living.

    Damn - why the hell are they not adopting it for 10 ?

    Arrr, whatever, I'll wait till 10.1 :)

    --
    A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
    1. Re:No 2.6 ? by Chaxid · · Score: 1

      I asked Pat via e-mail why 2.6 wouldn't be supported in Slackware X, here's his response: "I'd have to do quite a bit to the installer, and then a lot of testing. I don't see any way to support 2.6 without an initrd, and the installer hasn't got any support for building one yet at install time. Plus, there's the issue of the changes to 2.6 disk geometry that I hear has caused some problems elsewhere. If people want to use the kernel, modules, and mkinitrd in testing, I'd consider that a supported configuration. However, to have support for using the 2.6 kernel in the installer might not be a good idea quite yet, and it would delay the release a lot. I'm planning to wait on that for the next one."

    2. Re:No 2.6 ? by Xpilot · · Score: 1

      Damn - why the hell are they not adopting it for 10 ?

      I'm wondering that myself. It's probably dues to Slackware being "conservative" or something. In any case it's downright trivial to compile a kernel from kernel.org. No crazy patches like Redhat.

      --
      "Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
    3. Re:No 2.6 ? by XeRXeS-TCN · · Score: 1

      I am currently running Slackware 9.0 on my old laptop, and it's currently running the 2.6.6 linux kernel. 9.1 was verified offically to be "2.6 ready", and Slackware-current has a 2.6 kernel in the testing section, I think it's fairly safe to assume that you'll be catered for if you're willing to put in a bit of work to get it ;)

      But lets face it, if you're the sort of person who would use Slackware in the first place, you're probably going to be confident enough to at least read up on a few tutorials and try a kernel upgrade, even if you've never done it before. Provided you have at least a fairly good idea of what hardware is in your system, a kernel upgrade really isn't all that difficult. Most of the selectable options specifically have a short help section to explain what the setting is for, and whether you would normally need to enable it or not.

    4. Re:No 2.6 ? by GenSolo · · Score: 1

      There are kernal-2.6 packages in testing/, so you can just install them instead of the 2.4 packages.

  63. Re:KDE by robertjw · · Score: 1

    I do, I'm writing this from a Slack 9.1 machine with KDE 3.1 at home. We have six machines in the office setup this way, and I have one at home.

  64. Thank You Patrick! by DrunkenPenguin · · Score: 1

    Thank You very much Patrick for your work on Slackware! When the official version of Slackware 10 is released I promise to open a bottle of champagne and drink to Slackware!

    In this insane world of distrowars Slackware is the only sane thing. Let them other distros have a war against each other, I'll stay out of it and stick with my good old Slackware! It's built on tradition! I like it! No, I love it! Using Slackware is like stepping into traditional, old Irish pub and it welcomes you warmly.

    Thanks to you all who have something to do with Slackware!

  65. Unofficial mirror list by ThatComputerGuy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Our unofficial Slackware mirrors are here. Some of us have been up to date with RC1 as of last night.. I'm sure the rest will be there soon, if not already.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  66. Re:The only real linux distribution! by ThisIsFred · · Score: 1

    That only applies to clue-bies. I've been using Linux (specifically Slackware) since 1995. I know how it works. I don't need to play with it "for days and days". I just do, and be done with it. Thanks for presuming I use Slackware to "feel smart". I use it because I can trust it. I'm no genius, so if I can do it, anyone can.

    --
    Fred

    "A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
    -RMS
  67. Re:KDE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I don't get it. How many people use Slackware and KDE or GNOME? They seem mutually exclusive to me!

    And why do you think so my young grasshopper?

  68. UNTIL SLASHCODE USES sha1 IP HASHES... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Until Slackware has a solid PAM implementation


    Until Windows has a working /proc filesystem...
    Until Redhat has the windows registry...
    Until FreeBSD has Active Directory...


    If you want PAM use any other distro, is it that hard?

  69. Re:Slapt-get & Swaret are not official.. So wh by Joseph+Lam · · Score: 1

    Yes they ain't official. But over the past 6 months of using swaret I found it to work extremely well once you know how to properly configure it (e.g. not to auto update kernel packages when you're using a self-compiled kernel). The important thing is that, as long as you know what it's doing and what u're doing, the risk is low no matter it's official or not.

    There're many good software that are not 'official' by ur definition (e.g. Apache 2 and Squid). Do they also deserve this big 'USE AT YOUR OWN RISK' sign that scares off potential users?

    The best way to learn the truth about the quality and reliability of any software is to test it yourself.

  70. Not on freenode by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've asked questions on #slackware on freenode and have always been helped by someone. Some of the questions, in hindsight, were newbish but I still got support. I was never flamed or kicked either.

  71. another hint by Joseph+Lam · · Score: 1
    I was speculating in the past few days about the coming of Slack 10 after I saw the following in my mailbox: (after upgrading to -current with swaret)
    Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 11:09:55 -0800 (PST)
    From: Patrick J. Volkerding <volkerdi@slackware.com>
    To: root
    Subject: Welcome to Linux (Slackware 10.0)!

    Welcome! Glad to see you've made it this far! :^)

    Here are a few hints to help you navigate through the Linux operating system a little bit better:
    ...
    ...
    That's the welcome email sent to root by the installation of every Slackware distro.
  72. Beginners Distro? by poppageek · · Score: 1

    I've heard several times that Slackware is not a good beginners distro. For the non-tech I would agree. But for the tech inclined I think it is great. My first distro was Slackware 2.3. Lots of work but I sure learned alot. Ran great too on a 66mz 486 with 16 megs and 400 meg hard drive.

    Those were good days. I remeber how excited I was when it first booted and then again when X was running and then again when PPP was connected.

    Don't seem to get that excited anymore. The thrill is gone.

  73. Moving from RedHat 7.3 to ??? by ngunton · · Score: 1

    I am still trying to figure out what to move to from RedHat 7.3. This is a very solid version that I am using, and I have it pretty much dialed in to do what I want. Since RedHat abandoned their users, I have resolved never to touch their products again (and yes, I was quite happy to be paying them for updates, I'm no freeloader). Anyway, I have looked at Debian as the main contender, but it seems to be perpetually stuck in older versions. I know it's entirely possible to mix and match to get what you want with Debian, but Woody is simply too old for me and I don't want to have to install testing or unstable just to get newer packages. I'm currently using the Progeny transition service, but that won't last forever... so, any suggestions? Is slackware a good candidate for switching from RedHat 7.3? Is it very different (I know a lot of the differences may be small, but it's the small details that kill ya when you're trying to get your server back to where it was before the re-install...). Also, I am a little nervous about a distribution that seems to depend on one person. What happens when Patrick decides to move on and go do something else, or just retire? Is there someone else who can take up the slackware cause with as much dedication and knowledge as he obviously has? I don't want to be left out to dry again, searching for another distribution...

    Any insights/suggestions welcomed...

    1. Re:Moving from RedHat 7.3 to ??? by DrunkenPenguin · · Score: 1

      Any suggestions? Well, wait till the official release of Slackware 10 is out, download it, install it and then just enjoy the ride! You'll enjoy it - and that's a promise!

  74. Re:The only real linux distribution! by Joseph+Lam · · Score: 1

    Since my first encounter of Slackware 10 years ago I never need to seek specific help from the community. Either Slackware just works, or my problems have been addressed and google-able. For other problems its always easy to trace through how Slackware is doing stuff e.g. by reading the doc or following straight-forward shell scripts.

    On the other hand, with mdk or rh I often found myself overwhelmed by a mess of auto configuration tools which subtly fiddle with scattered, obscure config files and soft-links. Recent versions seemed to have more standardized and consistent tools but I still prefer getting my hands dirty to make things just work.

  75. Why is everyone so bunged about ISOs? by schemanista · · Score: 1

    You could download what you need from the -current/RC10-1 tree and follow the simple instructions to create your own ISO.

    This is just a release candidate folks.

    --
    I saw that shot more than a few times back when Starbuck was a man. ~ lucabrasi999
  76. Re:The only real linux distribution! by koekepeer · · Score: 1

    hey fred! is that you?

    (probably now ex) as400 programmer living in the NL polder?

  77. Re:The only real linux distribution! by koekepeer · · Score: 2, Funny

    lol!

    10 years ago there was no google.

    funny guy

  78. HIPPA? Please. by Scott+Lockwood · · Score: 0

    What utter tripe. There are no HIPPA concerns with BitTorrent. Period. If you can't get your work to open a hole in the fire wall, then get them to shell out $25 and actually buy the CD set, just like they do with all the OTHER software they buy and use.

    Having worked for several healthcare organizations, I find your comment to be beyond rediculous - if someone is feeding you that load of crap, they're snowing you.

    --
    But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
  79. Ha! by Scott+Lockwood · · Score: 0

    Some of us are smart enough to get it working in minutes. If you're not that smart, use windows.

    --
    But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
  80. What the hell are you doing running as root? by std+deviant · · Score: 1

    Bad idea, no? -- "yes, i'm kidding. no, i don't care" -- angelsys

  81. Don't use Linux!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Microsoft just released a new ad with solid proof why not to use Linux. Get the facts!

  82. the real giant leap by commodoresloat · · Score: 1

    Come on.... everyone knows that slackware's real giant leap was when it jumped from version 4 to version 8, leapfrogging over the other popular linux distributions of its day, which were still at a lowly version 7.x....

    1. Re:the real giant leap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd be funny, but it jumped from 3.6 to 7.0, dumbass.

    2. Re:the real giant leap by commodoresloat · · Score: 1

      What should I do with my copy of Slackware 4.0 then, genius?

  83. A bit off topic ... but a Slackware question by thempstead · · Score: 1
    ... I thought i'd take a look at Slackware again the other day (having last run 3.5) ... so bunged 9.1 on a spare box.


    How do Slackware users out there keep their systems upto date, (I dont mean updating to this new release candidate I mean just 9.1 fixes) ?


    t

    1. Re:A bit off topic ... but a Slackware question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I get emails of changelog updates, then I run swaret to download the new packages and perform the upgrade for me.

    2. Re:A bit off topic ... but a Slackware question by Wild+Wizard · · Score: 1

      This is amazingly simple, there are 3 steps involved

      1. Get the new packages onto your system (I use rsync for this part "man rsync" you'll find updates on most mirrors in the patches directory for each version)
      2. Upgrade the existing package with the new ones with upgradepkg (Quick and simple is "upgradepkg patches/packages/*.tgz")
      3. Restart any running daemons that were updated so the the running code is the new code (most will have an /etc/rc.d/rc.DAEMON script for this)

    3. Re:A bit off topic ... but a Slackware question by thempstead · · Score: 1
      Great, thanks alot, I'd pulled down a copy of the patches directory for 9.1 but wasn't sure how to apply it ... i'll give updatepkg a go ....


      t

  84. Re:Slapt-get & Swaret are not official.. So wh by murderlegendre · · Score: 1

    There're many good software that are not 'official' by ur definition (e.g. Apache 2 and Squid). Do they also deserve this big 'USE AT YOUR OWN RISK' sign that scares off potential users?

    Last time I checked, neither Apache nor Squid were entrusted with automagically updating, upgrading or maintaining the entire system. There is more than a fine line of difference between a system service (or application) and a global adminstration tool.

    The old axiom applies: Never gamble more than you are willing to lose. By that token, I am not willing to lose a stable system on the bet that swaret will save me an hour or two. It just doesn't make good sense in production. In an experimental situation, then (just as big) BY ALL MEANS!

    The best way to learn the truth about the quality and reliability of any software is to test it yourself.

    Heh.. "learn".. as in, "That'll learn ya good!"

    Seriously, Pat has not failed me yet, and until some utility of this ilk bears his blessing, I'll be happy with vanilla pkgtool. It just works. Checkinstall is also quite handy.

    --
    There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
  85. slap-get for president, i mean update... by light101 · · Score: 1

    Im surprised that nobody mention slapt-get yet. You can check it out here. Its very simple to use. It can check more then one source, official or not like linuxpackages.net

    slapt-get --update
    slapt-get --dist-upgrade or --upgrade

    slapt-get --help

  86. soldering iron??? by Suchetha · · Score: 1

    SOLDERING IRON!!! i'll have you know you young whippersnapper that when WE installed slakware we didn't have no SOLDERING IRON. we had to climb the slopes of Mount Doom, dodging balls of flaming brimstone, and poke sticks of metal into the lava to heat them up and BRING THEM BACK IN OUR BARE HANDS!!!
    *koff*koff*
    and we had to LIKE it too. damn youngsters today. no appreciation for how easy they have it

    Suchetha

    --

    learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
    or one out of three ain't bad
  87. Some Torrents Links by Chaxid · · Score: 1

    Here are some torrents of 10RC1: http://abby.evilhack.com/slackware/currentiso/0615 04-cd1.iso.torrent http://abby.evilhack.com/slackware/currentiso/0615 04-cd2.iso.torrent May not be around long, get em while they're hot!

    1. Re:Some Torrents Links by Chaxid · · Score: 1

      btw, there is a space in the torrent link I just posted that doesn't belong there.

  88. Re:Slapt-get & Swaret are not official.. So wh by Joseph+Lam · · Score: 1

    I was NOT saying that Apache/Squid are safe to be auto-updated. I quote them to illustrate that software without the blessing by Patrick are not any riskier to use.

    What Pat has done is to kind of 'mark' things as stable (and I do think he's done a good job), but software without his chop are not necessarily unstable.

    btw, swaret uses the vanilla pkgtool for package handling.

  89. A better changelog link. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's faster. ;)

    http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?c pu =i386

  90. Test. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I still banned?