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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.
Probably because bandwidth isn't free...just a guess.
One of the things that makes Slackware so well put together is that it's a one-man show.
"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
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.
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
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.
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"
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!
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.