Slashdot Mirror
Slackware 10.0 Officially Released
BRTB writes "Slackware 10.0 is out! X.org 6.7.0, kernel 2.4.26 (2.6.7 optional), KDE 3.2.3, GNOME 2.6.1, GCC 3.3.4... it's all new, and just as stable as you'd expect from Slackware, if RC2 was any indication. There's an official announcement, as well as some ISO BitTorrent links, and a mirror list. Of course, the non-cheapskates among us should go buy the CD-set to support the project. Have fun, everybody..."
You do realize that Linux itself is a "garage basement project"?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Just what Linux needs... Yet Another Distro
Please, keep these garage basement projects out of the news... we already have enough distros. Thanks.
Yep, that's right, the distrobution that was out before kernel 1.0 is now considered Yet Another Distro. Oh how the times have changed.
What do slackware users perceive as its strengths? My perception is that slackware is the distro where you install everything from tarballs, with no automatic system for satisfying dependencies (as you'd have in Debian, Gentoo, or FreeBSD, for instance).
Actually I'm starting to feel that automatic systems for installing software and satisfying dependencies are more trouble than they're worth. In FreeBSD, I often feel like a prisoner of the ports system. If I want to run application A, it forces me to upgrade library B. But then the new version of B breaks application C. Oops! Try recompiling C. No, that doesn't work. Oh, it's because C depends on library D, which then depends on B, so you really need to recompile D. Note how the whole story started because this automated system felt it was so important for me to upgrade library B, when in fact I would have probably been fine not upgrading it.
The real issues are (a) software needs careful testing, and (b) open-source hackers are sloppy about making changes that break stuff. If slackware is really thoroughly tested, that could be great...
Find free books.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
Slightly off-topic, but hey. The site is slashdotted with a "too many connections error"
<rant>
This is why just about no-one should use php's mysql_pconnect function. It sounds great, "Oh cool it will keep the connection open so apache doesn't have to reconnect to the server." The connection overhead when mysql is running on the same machine is minimal, and you don't run into this problem where apache spawns 50 child processes, each of with its own persistent connection, and eventually you get the "too many connections error".
</rant>
:wq
"non-cheapskates among us should go buy the CD-set to support the project"
If you want to support the project you dont need to buy anything, donate directly and all the money you wanted to donate (not just part of it) you reach the end you wanted.
Why are some linux releases still hanging onto the 2.4.26 kernel
:)
The 2.4 kernel has had 26 revisions in it fixing bugs.
The 2.6 kernel has had 7.
That's why
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
So why does it have the most posts at LinuxQuestions? Why was it voted best distro in last years LinuxQuestions awards? Why, after 10 years, has Slack survived when countless other distros have failed? Why is Slackware looked to for being secure, stable, and a great way to learn Linux? Sounds like a lot for a distro that is "no longer wanted". I don't know what Linux community you're part of, but most of us respect and enjoy Slackware.
Stability. It has always been extremely stable for me.
I also never liked things like 'apt-get' and slackware is mainly gzipped tar. Although there is 'pkgtool', I don't really use it that much. I like configuring, compiling, and installing on my own.
I guess Slackware just gives admins more 'admin' power, rather than putting it all into a bunch of programs. Use RedHat or Gentoo for a while and you'll forget how many different options you have when configuring or compiling something.
Consider my opinion biased though, as I have only used Gentoo for a month, the last time I used RedHat I was in junior high, and any other distro I don't even remember.
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
Now if the slashdot effect would take effect on the following torrets, we'd be in business much quicker:
/testing, live rescue disc) /extra , Slackware book) /pasture)
Slackware 10.0 Installation ISO disc 1
Slackware 10.0 Installation ISO disc 2 (GNOME/KDE/KDEI,
Slackware 10.0 ISO disc 3 (Sources part 1,
Slackware 10.0 ISO disc 4 (Sources part 2, ZipSlack,
Please download and keep your torrents open to at least a 1:1 ratio! I do it, so can you! LEave it on ALL NIGHT BABY!
Offtopic: I for one welcome our slashdotting overlords.
Slack appeals to the "traditional UNIX" group of people. I actually started on Slack 3.(5|6) that came bundled with a book. The book said it came with a complete UNIX system. I didn't really believe it - I was assuming it was some sort of trialware - and learning about people who actually shared code with each other freely really changed my perception of the field of computer science while I was in college.
.tar.gz formats
:)
Slackware today still has a lot going for it:
* it doesn't assume much about you, except that you know what you're doing
* it is built for speed - it attempts to be cruft-less (and from what I've seen it succeeds quite well)
* it's packages are backwards-compatible w/
* BSD-style init for those who like it (I'm a SysV guy, myself)
* a competent community
It's kind of a do-it-yourself kind of environment, which, for some reason, Linux people often enjoy
Engineering and the Ultimate
After trying many different distributions I have settled on Slackware. The BSD-style configuration is, I find, straightforward and powerful (even though I wasn't a BSD user before Linux). Slackware does not impose specific configuration styles, layouts, interfaces or layers on you and I enjoy the resulting flexibility and freedom. I like the "EZ"
Security notices are rapid, accurate, and to the point thanks to Pat himself. Things in the Slackware installation work properly, without embarassing-looking glitches. It is intelligently put together, and tested to perfection.
Overall the distro is the lean and the easiest to tweak in the least amount of time. I personally found it the easiest to install of all Linux distros. Slackware is a winner.
Hey, my first linux distro back in around '98 was Slack, downloaded and copied to a whole box of floppy diskettes over a 28.8 modem! The installer was the same one as recent distros (haven't seen 10 yet) and was a pain to run, and of course you had to feed it all those diskettes, but I got it working on an old AMD boxen I'd built from spare parts.
I ran across the diskettes recently while cleaning up the garage, but the irony is that none of my current systems seem to have floppy drives any more.
Sadly, I think I tossed the diskettes out.
And in the end, have our systems really improved that much over the years? You would think so. But I look back and I'm not so sure. Even back then, there was so much to work with.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
support Patrick's effort...
I was using Slackware from its inception in 1993 (ahhh... I remember downloading a large set of floppy images over night at work from my Ultrix machine, storing the "large" files on my DEC/VMS diskspace).
After a long digression over FreeBSD, RedHat, I came back to Slackware last year...
I already ordered the CD, not that I couldn't download the iso's but this a great distribution and if I can help to keep it going I'll do so.
"I bet with Windows, I can add my friend's music collection to my playlist! Oh... DRM."
If you can't afford the songs, then you don't really want them, do you? Borrow an album, sure, but do you think fair use should really include "permanently borrowing" thousands of songs?
"I bet I can create a wireless network without an access point! Oh... Need Linux for that."
Linux and roughly twenty pages of howtos. Which wireless cards work with which distros? Oops, I meant which revisions of which wireless cards works with which distros?
I really wish I could use some sort of "wizard" in XP to "share" my connection. Oh wait, I can.
"I can't even change the MAC address on my ethernet cards."
Gosh, I wish there was an item for around $100 or so that allowed me to "route" all of this "internet" traffic. Guess I'll just have to read the howtos and learn how to use all the unix commands.
"And my sound card skips and crackles, because it's older and not well supported. Same with my old video card, damn. No solution except to downgrade to Windows 98, huh?"
I would have tried downloading drivers, but you sound like you've got better ideas.
"To install a sound card: plug it in, hope it works, swear if it doesn't."
It sure is easier to look for modules, compile them, and then add them to the kernel, isn't it?
"Then buy a new card, but be sure to buy a brand name card, or the drivers will suck."
Gosh, you're right. I've never heard of anyone trying to make sure pieces of hardware worked with linux.
"I think I'll write some software!"
I do it every day, honest. Oh wait, I'm 95% of computer users. I don't think I write software, do I?
Bzzzzzzt! Wrong, using one of those click and point distros will help you learn linux like running XP will, the issue with using one of the handicapped distros you mention is that it hides SO much of the internals, new people will start using the GUIs and never learning whats going on in the end, then when they move to slack, they are lost, and immediatly run back to something that can hold their hand, a BETTER idea is to START with slackware, then you'll learn the internals, so when that cool webadmin crap ruins a config file you can actually FIND the file and fix it, then later if you want, move to somehthing like half-a-mandrake or redshit, or that joke, gentoo, you'll have the knowledge to fix what those wannabe distros' gui tools break. I'll wager you use SuSe with KDE, why not just run windows XP if you're gonna use that garbage.
OTOH, it is definitely not a beginner's OS. Sort of like how no novice rider could ride a Ducati even close to it's peak, but with experience, a rider can do amazing things with the same bike.
Plus, Slackware (and Debian) are the only distros left that can install on really old PC's - 486's and 386DX's. 'Bout the only thing they're good for is a poor man's remote terminal server, tho...
If I had a geekgirl..too bad I'm stuck with the average woman.
:)
I suspect that if she ever stumbles upon this comment you will not have her much longer
Finkployd
That's what I love most about Slackware... It's about the only Linux distro left where you can mix source and packages. All slackware packages have the devel stuff, not just the binaries, so you don't have to jump through extra hoops to get the -dev packages like with all other distros.
The Slackware package manager doesn't screw with you on dependencies either. If you want to install a package of XMMS, and you installed libmp3 from source, it won't stop you from installing XMMS just because it didn't detect the libmp3 package as installed.
It may sound trivial when you are just reading it, but it can be a massive pain in the ass. With RedHat or something else, a certain package doesn't work on your system, so you have to install from source. Then it won't let you install anything depending on that library you compiled. Even if you force it to do so with --nodeps, it might install the first package that depends on the lib, but when you install another package that depends on that package, which in-turn depends on that lib, you're usually just screwed, and no combination of switches to RPM will work.
You can't blame slackware (or unprofessional packagers) for this problem. It is an inherent limitation of binary packages. Functionality like LIRC must either be compiled in (in which case you must have the LIRC libs), or it must not be compiled in (in which case you can't get your remote working if you have one).
The solutions to that problem are all unpleasant.
Have hundreds of different packages for each program, all with different options compiled-in, and different dependencies.
Have programs statically linked, so you have all the libs built-in, and the binary is huge and wastes lots of memory.
Compile with the lowest-common-denominator options, which gives you absolutely bare-minimum functionality, and many people will have to compile their own.
Compile with the most popular options, in which case some people need to install more libs than they have or want, and others need to compile their own to get more features added in.
Frankly, with applications that have various dependencies, you're just best off compiling from source. No package manager can fix these problems.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I think it's simple. Slackware is the most simple of all distros. It doesn't have SysV scripts, just the basic /etc/rc scripts, which are incredibly simple, easy to configure, etc.
It has the simpliest package manager of any. It doesn't get in your way, and it's trivial to make a package. In fact, it's trivial to install a slackware package without the package manager.
All packages come with the dev files (headers, libs) so you don't need to mess around with all the roadblocks other distros put in your way that make it harder to install the dev files for your programs.
There's plenty more reasons, but I find that to be a good run-down of the biggest reasons to use it.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It depends if you want an OS for getting things done or to play around.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
By that I'd pay for:
- The packaging (materials and handling)
- The delivery
- Possibly the store which almost certainly will NOT give any support.
I don't want to cut out the middle man for the sake of it but in small distros (currently all linux distros can be considered small compared to windows) the delivery overhead is out of proportion. Most people involved in the deal will make much more money out of the deal than Slackware themselves.I also think the resources in this process are almost completely wasted.
I recall wanting to buy a copy of Tux Racer. The retail price here in Europe was way above what I wanted to pay for it. The retail price in USA was better but shipping amounted to US$20. So emailed the Tux Racer guys telling them I don't need the box and the manual. I also told them that I'd be happy to pay them full price if I could download the game. That was useless because it didn't change anything at all. They probably thought I was crazy.
When possible I try paying the people/bodies that make/package/service my software directly. And I do!!
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
What a bunch of nonsense. Tell me why Slack isn't as good as RH, SuSE, or Mandrake for a beginner? Any serious reason or are you just repeating some prejudice you heard somewhere else? Have you even tried Slack?
It's not user-friendly? How so? Because the installer runs in text mode? Please.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.