x86-64 Slackware Clone Released

Rob_Ogilvie points out that another distribution for x86-64 (AKA AMD64) has been released: "This time it's Slamd64. Slamd64 10.1 is based off Slackware 10.1. Developer Fred Emmott ported Slackware to AMD64 in his spare time, trying to keep the distribution as close to Slackware proper as possible (even keeping binary compatibility for many existing packages). Finally x86-64 users have some real viable choices out there!"

Comments

yes

[Anonymous Coward]

As an AMD-64 user, I couldn't wait for this to happen. Definately going to try it out right now.
-Countach44

Re:yes

[Johnny O]

PERFECT FRIGGIN TIMING!

I just ordered an AMD 64 today and will get in 2 days and I only use Slack. I really didnt want to build the distro myself but I was willing to try if I had to...

BLESS YOU FRED! /me bows in awe

Re:yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise. Not exactly the most entertaining of projects to start out on.

This man is the dude!

debian

[Anonymous Coward]

i dun care about breakage!

Good things are happening in the world of PC OSes.

[CyricZ]

The past few weeks have been fantastic for PC operating system developments. Between the new Fedora release, this, the release of open source Solaris, the release of FreeBSD 5.4, Mac OS X on Intel machines, and the upcoming release of BeOS, things have really been happening at an amazing pace. We are truly coming up to a time of great innovation and change in the PC desktop/workstation landscape.

Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[Anonymous Coward]

you would think it would of been embraced
imagine multi core x64 processors....yum

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[theendlessnow]

Slow to take off because analysts are pretty much in agreement that Microsoft won't be truly ready for 64bit until Longhorn.

All recommendations I've seen are to hold off using WinXP 64 and wait until Longhorn.

On the conpiracy theory side... Microsoft's slow adoption may strictly be at the bequest of Intel (who know they don't really have anything that can compete with AMD right now).

By delaying "good" support for 64bit, Microsoft is actually helping Intel in making sure the 64bit revolution doesn't take off in a massive way... gives Intel more time to catch up. Most Intel shops are pure Microsoft shops (e.g. Dell.. well.. Dell does give Linux some lip service, but it's just a marketing thing).

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[malfunct]

There is also the fact that 64bit preforms slower in many cases than 32bit. Add that to the fact that there were a great deal of 32bit shortcuts built into code that break if you recompile for 64bit and you suddenly lose a lot of software on 64 bit. My thoughts are unless you need massive amounts of memory or you need to do calculations on huge numbers stick with 32bit until you can't any more.

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[petermgreen]

32 bit userland code can run on amd64 anyway.

the two real issues are drivers and 16 bit userland code (which there is still quite a bit of sloshing around: i wan't to play microsoft tetris and chips challange damnit).

as for the speed argument remember that amd64 has other changes. Most importantly it has far more general perpose registers for the compilers to use. so even in code that doesn't gain anything from the 64 bitness there can still be a speedup (doubtless you can find some benchmark thats slower you always can).

also i seem to remember that i386 took some time to be fully taken advantage of. why is it worrying that its taking amd64 a while.

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[Klivian]

I have been helping out a friend who have a small company selling computers and equipment, and to me it looks like 2 out of 10 computers sold are AMD64s. Much the same as for P4's, the AMD's are actually slightly ahead. The rest of the systems sold are various AMD Semprons, mainly the 2500+ on motherboards with on-board graphics. Looks like cheap are what most people want.

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[Mechcozmo]

I recently built three 2500+ Semprons on motherboards with built in graphics for a business. They were cheap, didn't need large cooling systems, and 64-bit wasn't something this company needed. Heck, they have a saw that uses an 8-bit processor. 32 bits is plenty for most people save the ultra high end.

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[(H)elix1]

the two real issues are drivers and 16 bit userland code

It is not the drivers, it is the bloody applications hard coded to the OS versions. I've got a AMD64 system with a handful of HDD's for testing software. Just got done giving the first rounds of testing with Win2003-64 (still beta I think) and the GA version of WinXp-64. Since I am using an Nforce4 mainboard and Nvidia video card, I've got drivers for all of the on-board kit of a fully loaded box. The Adaptec controllers got picked up by the OS as well.

The real fun started when I started trying to run applications. Being clever, Microsoft thought to default the 'program files' to something like 'program files (64-bit)'. The parenthesis caused several installers (take steam for instance) to give grief. Rational Application Developer had all sorts of trouble trying to spin up, and the DVD burning software was a total loss. I've got a free copy, and I won't mess with it again for a few months.

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[Miguelito]

There is also the fact that 64bit preforms slower in many cases than 32bit.

This just isn't the case for us, when real-life tools are run by our engineers. In fact, many see speed bumps (same exact boxes, older rh73 on some vs sles9) when run on the 64bit hosts. I'm sure 2.6 kernel helps but can't explain it all.

Not to mention that things built 64bit have access to more registers so tend to get a bit of a boost because of that.

I'm actually running Win x64 at home now.. on my opteron gaming box. Seems fine so far. Only had one app that refused to install yet (mysonic DVD software for tivo show burns). Games are fine, FarCry 64bit looks nicer.. When I boot into linux, it runs fine.

I think Intel really is trying to slow the adoption as much as they can since AMD is going 64bit across the board already, and Intel is still only selling EM64T on the high-end.

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[Miguelito]

Being clever, Microsoft thought to default the 'program files' to something like 'program files (64-bit)'.

ALmost.. program files is program files just like before, for 64bit code. 32bit programs go into "Program Files (x86)" Yes... it's stupid.

I just change it in the install wizard whenever I install anything.

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[Guppy06]

"Microsoft's slow adoption may strictly be at the bequest of Intel (who know they don't really have anything that can compete with AMD right now)."

Except that AMD outperforming Intel's offering has become old news. Everybody who's into building PCs knows that AMD's policy is to name their chips with numbers based not on the chips frequency but on the frequency of the equivalent Intel chip, and it's only a matter of time before word of AMD's performance against Intel starts to trickle down to the general masses. It's going to take some sort of magic wand on the part of Intel to fix that one now, and so far it doesn't seem Itanium is that magic wand (especially when AMD beat them to the punch).

Besides, I don't see Microsoft being particularly maried to Intel at the moment, especially if Intel is getting buddy-buddy with the creators of OSX. So long as most of Microsoft's customers (the ones that refer to the computer case as the "hard drive") don't care about what's running all that nifty Windows software, there's no real reason for Microsoft themselves to care. There's no advantage to sucking up more to one processor manufacturer over another, especially when you look at the consequences of making the wrong bet.

OTOH, the Microsoft documentation I've seen says that WinServ2k3 Enterprise can support twice as much ram on an Itanium box as a 32-bit box, but no mention of AMD64. Maybe I haven't seen everything, but it seems odd that they've latched on to the product name "Itanium" here instead of AMD64 or the older x64 (which they referred to in the name of the 64-bit version of XP).

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[deathguppie]

Microsoft has nothing to sell in the x86 market, that's all. If ISV's were willing to port all of their applications to XP64 then I'm sure people would use it. As is they have an operating system with little or no app's that run on it

That's why they can't sell it, and Ironically that's what I can't seem to find out about Slamd64. Where's the package list??

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[mlippert]

I haven't used 64bit XP but you're giving the wrong people (Microsoft) a hard time in this case. "Program Files (x86)" is a perfectly valid file name and has been for years. You really should be getting on the case of the people who wrote the software that can't handle that file name. Mike ps I do think it's an odd decision of Microsoft's to separate out 64bit software from 32bit software. It's not like you could use that information to copy the program to a 32bit Windows machine (stupid registry!)

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[mlippert]

(reformatted, oops I should have used preview!)

I haven't used 64bit XP but you're giving the wrong people (Microsoft) a hard time in this case. "Program Files (x86)" is a perfectly valid file name and has been for years.

You really should be getting on the case of the people who wrote the software that can't handle that file name.

Mike

ps I do think it's an odd decision of Microsoft's to separate out 64bit software from 32bit software. It's not like you could use that information to copy the program to a 32bit Windows machine (stupid registry!)

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[malfunct]

My discussion was based on perf tests that we ran on our product. The 32bit compile of the code was faster than the 64bit compile of the same code on the same 64bit machine.

Re:Why is x64 so slow to takeoff ?

[theendlessnow]

Old news.. eh.. I guess true, but really that's less than a year old (mostly).

90% of high server sales, where the higher margins are... are done on Intel. AMD has just started making inroads into the datacenter (it's growing at a good pace, but still definitely the much, much, much smaller of the two).

Microsoft is VERY married to Intel. The Apple deal is big.. but nothing in comparison size wise to Microsoft+Intel.

Actually, Itaniums support more memory than you or I can imagine (32TB or more)... naturally, it means is supports more memory than is actually practical, unless somebody figues out how to access racks of memory directly.

AMD64 (especially Opteron) is a better design in that it preserves the large software base and has a could basis for large numbers of CPUs with less glue logic than Intel (even if it can't handle the large ammounts of memory).

Itanium is not OP code compatible (1st gen Itaniums had a 486 on core.. that was their soln!)... newer ones assume you'll do software emulation for x86. Itanium architecture is actually called ia64, old Intel 32-bit is ia32. AMD is often referred to as x86_64 (to avoid some confusion). Intel's "attempt" at 64bit on top of the older 32bit is EM64T (and although there are some differences... most people just work thru the exceptions and call it all x86_64).

Intel and AMD's contractual cross licensing allows Intel to do this EM64T. Ah the pains of being the little guy sometimes comes back to bite you when you are the one that is innovating in new tech.

Finally we have choices?

[kwiqsilver]

I've had AMD64 Gentoo running for over a year.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[repruhsent]

...and it's STILL compiling!

Re:Finally we have choices?

[pete19]

I've had AMD64 Gentoo running for over a year.

Indeed, I've been running AMD64 Fedora 3 since it was released.

What about the 64-Bit version of Windows XP?

Re:Finally we have choices?

[kwiqsilver]

:)
I'm on package 353 of 397.
Why did this get modded down? It was funny.
For the record it does take 3-5 days for me to do a stage 1 install.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[stone2020]

Only on Slashdot

This is a troll:

I've had AMD64 Gentoo running for over a year.

But this is funny, not redundant or a troll: ...and it's STILL compiling!

Re:Finally we have choices?

[Anonymous Coward]

It DIDN'T get modded down, the posters karma is just that crappy.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[mrchaotica]

No kidding -- I'm a Gentoo user, and my first thought upon reading that was "Why is this news? All you have to do is recompile..."

Re:Finally we have choices?

[thynk]

What about the 64-Bit version of Windows XP?


Crap for drivers. Only been running an AMD64 for a few weeks now, so I've yet to try out the flavors of linux for it, but only ran XP64 for about an hour before formatting the drive. Doesn't do much good to run 64bit OS if you can't talk to your printer and you have to use hacked up inf files to get the on board NIC working.

Give it a year or so to get some freak'n driver support and then give it a shot. Till then, stick with XP pro or Linux.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[quantumraptor]

Then you have some problems. My dual opteron 244 can go from booting the intall disk, a stage one install, and to top it off KDE and gnome, in under 6 hours. Load averages top out at about 74.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[Beatlebum]

It takes more than a recompile to port an O.S. To get the best out of the processor the Kernel must be adapted to make use of the native memory management, process switching, thead synchronization and interrupt handling. The 64 bit Pentium is backwards compatible with the 32 bit, therefore a recompile suffices but is not optimal.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[NuShrike]

FreeBSD has been running on AMD64 for over a year.

Again, Linux-weenies (much like Windows-weenies) see their OS as the "only" world view worth noting.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[codeguy007]

You know there's an easier way to install undecorated drivers than decorating them yourself. Disable the requirement for decoration in your registry.

But either way so far there's little point for WinXP 64. No real apps yet and only a few wireless nic drivers. Yeah and I haven't tried to print yet.

Hehe. Of course if it weren't for the odd game I would even have windows installed. Running a good X86-64 Distro like FC is great. 64Bit Goodness. Now if only I could only get a 64Bit Flash plugin, 64Bit versions of all the Windows...er Mplayer codecs, and hey a 64Bit java plugin would be nice.

Oh anyone looking for a wireless nic with WinXP 64 Drivers should look at something using Ralink's RT2500 chip. They have a 64Bit driver on their website.

http://www.ralinktech.com/supp-1.htm

Re:Finally we have choices?

[TCM]

NetBSD likewise. You could actually do a complete cross-compile of amd64 2 years ago.

Can you compile a complete Gentoo for a slower alpha on a fast dual i386 box? Real question here.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[codeguy007]

Yes but most of this work has already been done. The fun part is fixing code that was hardcoded 32Bit by brain dead programmers who never thought their code might be run on an Alpha or Sparc system let alone an Opteron.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you compile a complete Gentoo for a slower alpha on a fast dual i386 box? Real question here.

Sure, checkout distcc (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/distcc.xml) and crossdev (emerge crossdev, then just read crossdev --help).

Re:Finally we have choices?

[c0p0n]

3 days on a AMD64 engine? How embarrasing! My compy lasts for maybe 7 days, therefore my computer is better than yours.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Due to the extra time you gain by home-brew software, it compiles soooo fast, you won't even notice that it did compile...

ow I just love my distro, srry.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[da]

and hey a 64Bit java plugin would be nice.

Compile 5.0 yourself from source, available here or get a compiled version of 1.4.2 from Blackdown

Re:Finally we have choices?

[toad3k]

Ok that made me laugh when I realized I was emerging evolution and its 30 dependencies in the background just now.

But seriously, I've had gentoo amd64 up and running with a fully functional mplayer for like 6 months now. I don't know if I could have managed that with any other distro.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slackware is pretty UNIX-like, those other distros wanna make me vomit with shit scattered to-N-fro. Stupid linux kids.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[codeguy007]

Yeah but since I still want a flash plugin to work, I need to stick with 32Bit Java as having both the 32Bit and 64Bit Java's installed breaks both. I really don't feel like fixing Sun's lame linked Library Issues or compiling and running static versions of 2 different JVMs.

Man java vms are such crap.

Re:Finally we have choices?

[djdanlib]

Exactly. My single-CPU (unless you count hyperthreading) 3GHz Pentium 4 takes less than 8 hours to get from booting and selecting Stage 1 to a fully working 2.6 kernel, with KDE, Firefox, Apache, and MySQL.

Try throwing a 7200+ RPM hard drive and 1GB of good quality RAM in that slow AMD64 box and see what happens. Corsair XMS is good. Lots of other RAM is good. PNY is bad, K-Byte is worse. Anything with "value" in the name is BAD. Get a matched pair of low-latency 512MB PC3200 or maybe even PC3500 sticks. And remember, all PC3200 is not created equal.

Also please remember: Just because you have 200GB hard drive space and a fat pipe to the 'net, does NOT mean you need to install all the packages.

What about non-free apps?

[Peeps In Da House]

Does any know what the status of the non-free apps like Acrobat and Flash are? I don't know of any x86-64 versions at the moment.

Re:What about non-free apps?

[metallicagoaltender]

I run SuSE 9.2 Pro on an AMD64 - Acrobat's not a problem, but there's no 64 bit version of Flash.

You can kind of get around that by installing a 32 bit version of your browser, with appropriate 32 bit plugins (Flash, Java mainly) and fire that up when you need those plugins, but it's definitely an annoyance.

Re:What about non-free apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

so why not *just* use a 32 bit browser if you need flash, and all your other proggies 64 bit?

Re:What about non-free apps?

[Sique]

You might still try the libflash for Linux, which covers a good part of Flash, (but not fscommand for instance).

Re:What about non-free apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not having native flash binaries is currently the greatest single benefit of the platform.

Cool

[dangermen]

I've been waiting for something like this. I use Slackware V10.1 and have been for years. I'll finally be able to pickup my AMD64 and run a real Linux. 8)

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been running Slackware v10.1 for years? Slackware.com claims it has only been out since early 2005. Explain your math please.

Re:Cool

[TerminaMorte]

One might want to assume that he mispoke, and meant that he's used Slackware for years, and is currently using 10.1

Re:Cool

[codeguy007]

Hmm BSD init scripts are just loads of fun. Nothing like searching through one big script in hopes of finding a line of text to uncomment so you can start that special daemon on the next boot.

Re:Cool

[pe1rxq]

grep?

Atleast its better than searching through a pile of seemingly random numberred symlinks....

Jeroen

Re:Cool

[freaksta]

Ehh..

slackware 10.1 has not been out for "years"..

I think you mean to say you have been running Slackware for years. :)

Re:Cool

[fafaforza]

Symlinks that point to all kinds of scripts with conditional if, else, fi statements at that.

Re:Cool

[codeguy007]

Hmm like I deal with the symlinks myself. Chkconfig does that for me. The only hassle is if I have to write a startup script myself but they are very straight forward and I rarely have to do that.

Heck it's alot easier looking for the sendmail initscript in /etc/init.d to edit the startup than searching through one massive script.

Re:Cool

[Viol8]

"Heck it's alot easier looking for the sendmail initscript in /etc/init.d to edit the startup than searching through one massive script"

Yeah , its real tough doing grep /etc/rc.d sendmail

And there isn't one massive startup script , thats BSD itself you're thinking of. Perhaps you should check out how Slackware actually does it before you critiscise.

Re:Cool

[codeguy007]

No there's just one for different runlevels and rc.local. I ran slackware for years. I am quite aware of how it's setup.

Re:Cool

[Viol8]

If thats your only gripe you might as well complain that theres only 1 process that carries out the functions of init. Geez.

Re:Cool

[codeguy007]

Well if you want to get into it.

1) How about package management? No one can tell me Slackware has good package management.

2) How about lack of hardware detection?

3) How about lack of commercial support? Yes some exists but I wouldn't be surprised if Linspire has more than slackware now.

4) How about commercial application support? Do you think if I install Oracle on Slackware, Oracle would actually provide support for that install?

5) How about the lack of good administration tools? Sure somethings like webmin and linuxconf can be installed but I hardly call them good admin tools.

I have nothing against Slackware personally. However as a Linux professional, I cannot recommend slackware as anything more than a hobbyist's distro.

Re:Cool

[Viol8]

>1) How about package management? No one can tell me Slackware has good package management.

It uses .tgz which for me is a godsend. No farting about with irritating package management systems that don't tell you what their doing.

>2) How about lack of hardware detection?

I'll agree thats an issue for a novice but setting up the correct modules for an experienced admin isn't in issue. Besides which hardware detection has a nasty habit of going tits up on install and boot as I've seen in mandrake and redhat occasionally.

3) How about lack of commercial support? Yes some exists but I wouldn't be surprised if Linspire has more than slackware now.

Come on, thats hardly slackwares fault. As for oracle i used to run an Oracle 8.1 server on a slackware box. Apart from tweaking a couple of install files I had no further problems.

>5) How about the lack of good administration tools? Sure somethings like webmin and linuxconf can be installed but I hardly call them good admin tools.

Sorry , you've lost me here. You can't claim to be a serious professional then gripe because something only has standard unix admin tools. Sure , go learn COAS or Yast etc. Fat lot of use they'll be too you on Solaris or HP-UX or AIX etc etc. Any serious unix professional uses more than one version of unix and we don't bother learning every 2 bit admin tool for each one , we learn the standard tools and use them everywhere.

>I have nothing against Slackware personally. However as a Linux professional, I cannot recommend slackware as anything more than a hobbyist's distro.

I think you'll find its the other way around. Suse etc with their easy install for dummies and pretty GUI tools and for the clueless hobbiest. Slackware is for people who know what they're doing and want a fast, efficient, uncluttered system to run 24/7 unmonitored in a server enviroment.

Re:Cool

[codeguy007]

>2) How about lack of hardware detection?

I'll agree thats an issue for a novice but setting up the correct modules for an experienced admin isn't in issue. Besides which hardware detection has a nasty habit of going tits up on install and boot as I've seen in mandrake and redhat occasionally.


Hardware detection works most of the time. If necessary it can be disabled. When it does work though it really speeds up the install.


3) How about lack of commercial support? Yes some exists but I wouldn't be surprised if Linspire has more than slackware now.

Come on, thats hardly slackwares fault. As for oracle i used to run an Oracle 8.1 server on a slackware box. Apart from tweaking a couple of install files I had no further problems.


Granted but it is a major issue for someone running commercial software. Sure it may run on slackware but you'll never get commercial support which with some apps is needed. Also the bean counters like it when your 50 Grand software package comes with support.


>5) How about the lack of good administration tools? Sure somethings like webmin and linuxconf can be installed but I hardly call them good admin tools.

Sorry , you've lost me here. You can't claim to be a serious professional then gripe because something only has standard unix admin tools. Sure , go learn COAS or Yast etc. Fat lot of use they'll be too you on Solaris or HP-UX or AIX etc etc. Any serious unix professional uses more than one version of unix and we don't bother learning every 2 bit admin tool for each one , we learn the standard tools and use them everywhere.



Sure I am able to support different distros and Unixes but my clients aren't. We sell hardware and I need a distro that my clients can administer. It costs us money if I need to spend a lot of time supporting the software.


>I have nothing against Slackware personally. However as a Linux professional, I cannot recommend slackware as anything more than a hobbyist's distro.

I think you'll find its the other way around. Suse etc with their easy install for dummies and pretty GUI tools and for the clueless hobbiest. Slackware is for people who know what they're doing and want a fast, efficient, uncluttered system to run 24/7 unmonitored in a server enviroment.


No really I don't think so. Sure slackware is fairly stable but it is more work to administer. That's fine for small installs (much better than trying to administer lots of gentoo boxes) but it doesn't scale well to a large install. The key to managing large installs is efficiency.

Also when I say recommend, I am refering to my clients. If I was hired to admin a small network maybe I would choose Slackware.

Yet if I am recommending a distro for a department of chemistry cluster, I most certainly won't. Especially when most of the Beowulf tools are packaged for RedHat distros. Sure you can setup a beowulf cluster with any linux distro but most of my clients are university profs not Linux administrators. They have classes to teach and don't have the time to fool around getting a cluster running on slackware.

Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian on AMD64

Re:Why not Debian?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Maybe because the release they call "stable" is actually a euphemism for "hopelessly obsolete"?

This is my actual opinion, not a troll. I've had too many incompatibilities because one year old software was TOO NEW to work with the latest "stable" release because "stable" used libraries a few versions old.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Maybe because the release they call "stable" is actually a
> euphemism for "hopelessly obsolete"?

If you feel two week old software is "hopelessly obsolete" then you have more problems than which OS to choose.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian woody was released on August 2002, which makes it 3 years old soon. That's what I call hopelessly out of date in computing. Where do you pull the two weeks figure out of your ass from?

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is my actual opinion

Then you're a dumb fuck, because otherwise you'd know that Debian testing or unstable are both very much up to date.

This is my actual opinion, not a troll.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Man in Spandex]

Maybe because that doesn't answer the fucking question which was "Are there any 64bit version of Slackware" that many would probably be interested in. Instead you come up and say "Why not Debian".

It's like when I ask a question about compiling a certain program's source package and then the whole thing turns into a gentoo vs the rest of the world kind of conversation.

Why not Debian? Who ever said this was a replacement to Debian? That's what you make it seem! Some ppl will take Debian. Some ppl will take Slackware It's just more choices.

I want to use Slackware, why not Gentoo right? Those kind of questions are blindly asked without knowing what I really want and what I don't want. That's what you just did.

A person wants this, but you suggest that.... No, stfu. That's not what the person wants.

There's nothing wrong with Debian! (using Debian sarge on a fileserver) Your question was simply too vague and common among the OSS community where ppl like to steer away the conversations and start defending their favorite distro/software.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice troll. Well I expect you're well practised - plenty of time to practise trolling /. that is, looking at your low uid.

Re:Why not Debian?

[CapnGrunge]

• No dependencies
  
• If some package is outdated, download binaries or source and compile at will.
  
• No forced update of some other package I don't want/need
  
• Slapt-get and RPM are optional
  

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sarge is the new stable. It was released last week.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

because debian's package/dependency/automation management is bigger then many distros themselves! great for newbs whose first, only and obvious concern is "OMG dependencies, what do i do???" they go debian that's what they do. been around the block or twice, one goes gentoo or slack.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

because debian, is big, slow, dumb, and we'll see the next stable release in 2009. does anyone think that having the most number of binaries precompiled and the most architectures supported a good thing? joe maintainer for x, can't update, cause jimmy maintainer for y refuses to update his, cause he's pissed off at johnny, maintainer for z, whose doesn't give a fuck at the moment cause he's getting laid for the first time, and he'll get back to the terminal when he's ready. and none of this has anything to do with the actual authors of the packages in question. an army of package maintainers, with an army of politics. no thanks. funny thing is, the people who would benefit the MOST from debian (with it's monstrosity of a package manager) are new users. yet they really don't stand a chance. i'll take slack any day. learn more about linux/unix and less about the distro. The Slackware Philosophy Since its first release in April of 1993, the Slackware Linux Project has aimed at producing the most "UNIX-like" Linux distribution out there. Slackware complies with the published Linux standards, such as the Linux File System Standard. We have always considered simplicity and stability paramount, and as a result Slackware has become one of the most popular, stable, and friendly distributions available.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Why would I use testing or unstable on a production system? I want stable, not obsolete. Stable doesn't have to mean obsolete.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I had the misfortune of having to install "Debian stable" several months ago, when it WAS a few years obsolete.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

looking at your low uid.

Maybe he bought it on eBay...

Re:Why not Debian?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

/me slaps Man in Spandex around with a large trout!

Stop it! There you go making sense again!

:-)

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

From his ass, obviously. You answered it yourself.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

If you checked my info, you'd probably notice this:

Karma: Excellent

I don't think routine trolls get excellent karma.

The only other post I find in my post list that was modded down was for flamebait was another post putting down Debian for what I saw as a legitimate problem, that being geriatric software labeled as "stable".

I guess the Debian mindshare must be protected at all costs, even if it took them way too long to get Sarge out when other distributions had perfectly fine stable releases about every year.

Re:Why not Debian?

[queef_latina]

niggerniggerniggerniggernigger

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. You accumulate karma by appealing to slashbot biases and memes, then expend it on trolls where you're guaranteed to get more bites with a low UID and karma bonus. Standard trolling procedure.

Re:Why not Debian?

[no-karma-no-worries]

Why would I use testing or unstable on a production system?

Because testing is actually perfectly stable?

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

and 'unstable' is debian's worst marketing nightmare, making for an understandable confusion. "Stable" in debian terminology means apps don't change, which in itself gives stability in the traditional 'crash free' sense, as no version updates happen, no changes other than bug fixes - so no new problems can creep in unexpectedly - in theory anyway.

"unstable" doesn't imply 'crashy', rather that versions of software change from time to time. Apache will move from 1.3.26 to 1.3.27 and on as needed, for example. From my experience in several years of using Debian both 'unstable' and 'stable' are as un-crashy as each other - pretty damned good.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but... um... why not debian?

Re:Why not Debian?

[codeguy007]

Simple. No proper support for multiarch libraries.... Apt can't handle them.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not a gentoo file server?

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because the release they call "stable" is actually a euphemism for "hopelessly obsolete"?

Not any more. The new "stable" was released only a couple of days ago, including the "unofficial" AMD64 port.

When was the last time you checked out Debian stable?

Re:Why not Debian?

[johansalk]

What advantages does slackware have that would make other distros a no-no?

Re:Why not Debian?

[novakreo]

If you feel two week old software is "hopelessly obsolete" then you have more problems than which OS to choose.

Sarge might be only two weeks old, but many of its packages certainly aren't. It released with KDE 3.3.2, among others.

Re:Why not Debian?

[novakreo]

If you checked my info, you'd probably notice this:

Karma: Excellent

Just so you know, only the owner of a Slashdot account can see their karma on their info page. The rest of us have to make assumptions based on the initial scores of their posts.

Re:Why not Debian?

[ggvaidya]

The article summary said, "Finally x86-64 users have some real viable choices out there". The first thought I had - like the anonymous parent - was "Really? Aren't there any other distros?"

AC went, googled, and answered my question.

That's it.

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the best /. post ever!

Re:Why not Debian?

[Steven W00ston]

debian users drive like this, slackware users drive like this

Re:Why not Debian?

[ebuck]

And don't even start with the rpm / apt crowd. It seems that every question there is answered using the same template:

Well in all you have to do is . It's really superior in every way, so why don't you switch?

As if you really want to switch package managers, or use code to wrap the one your distro prefers with foreign command support. Of course, these people then follow up with, "That's why I use distro X, because I don't waste time doing what you are doing!"

Re:Why not Debian?

[jazzmans]

Debian Sarge is now stable, (which means the package versions are weeks old, not years) and they have released an amd64 port for it.

(debian plug)

I'm thrilled by the quality of the official release of sarge. It took less then an hour to fully install and configure and update (I use the net installer cd's) with complete gui and all my preferences from my previous installs of the testing and unstable releases.

My experiance only covers the x86 and amd64 architectures, but it has been virtually flawless at autodetecting.

Debian gnu/linux is the best, imo.

jaz

Re:Why not Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

no shit. i want to second the problem with maintainers: THE PENGUIN OPEN SOURCE PRODUCTS Important Note Regarding Supposed RP-PPPOE Vulnerability Several places have reported that rp-pppoe has a vulnerability that lets an attacker overwrite arbitrary files (for example, this CVE proposal.) This claim is completely unfounded and incorrect. rp-pppoe is "vulnerable" only if it is installed setuid-root, and it was never designed to be installed that way. Otherwise, one might claim that cat has a vulnerability because a suid cat allows attackers to read arbitrary system files. The claim arose because the Debian maintainers wrongly and without proper regard for security thought it was a good idea to install pppoe setuid-root. (I believe they have since backed away from this.) The proper way to achieve what they were trying to do (allowing end-users to bring PPPoE connections up or down) would be to write a secure SUID wrapper, just the way other Linux distros do (e.g. Red Hat.). Once again: If you're not running a broken-by-your-linux-distro installation of rp-pppoe the reported "vulnerability" is pure fiction.

Simplify your math dammit

[Anonymous Coward]

Call it "x22 Slackware".

Re:Simplify your math dammit

[mabinogi]

that doesn't work.

xa-b != x(a-b)

Re:Simplify your math dammit

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it does, it just means x=1

Re:Simplify your math dammit

[codeguy007]

Not necessarily. B could also equal zero. Then x could be anything.

YALD

[alanjstr]

Yet Another Linux Distribution

We need a whole subsection for everyone who wants to do this. Too bad the community doesn't actually build a few great ones instead of many many many mediocre ones.

Re:YALD

[SquadBoy]

You do know that Slack is one of the first distros ever. Now granted in the year of our Lord 2000 and 5 Slack tends to be for people who already run Slack but they do tend to be some of the best and brightest around. This is simply a new arch not a new distro.

And yeah there are a few great ones. Two to be exact Debian and Slack. Almost all of the mediocre ones are built off of Dabian.

So your point was supposed to be?

Re:YALD

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon now. This is a rather harsh generalization. (Or troll)

We all should know by now that the hundreds of available linux distros are the direct product of people wanting to do it their way. Want a source based distro? Sure! Go for it. CD based LiveCD distro? The tools are there. Have a ball! Like a distro, but want to make a change that the maintainers won't support? You can do it yourself.

Point is, you can't possibly fit everyone's vision in to "a few great" distros.

Re:YALD

[ozmanjusri]

Point is, you can't possibly fit everyone's vision in to "a few great" distros.

Except for T2 maybe? http://www.t2-project.org/index.html

Forgive My Noobness But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this news? Don't the big ones (SuSE, Fedora, Gentoo, etc) already support AMD64? I think SuSE 9.3 supports both AMD64 and EM64T (Intel's version of the 64 bit arch).

I'm not trying to troll, I'm just wondering if I'm missing something? I don't know much about 64 bit.

Re:Forgive My Noobness But...

[eclectro]

Don't the big ones (SuSE, Fedora, Gentoo, etc) already support AMD64

It's news because slackware *is* one of the big ones that has been around since pretty much the beginning of Linux.

Re:Forgive My Noobness But...

[foobarra]

You are correct, however, this is news for Slackware and 64-bit processor support. Working for a large hosting company, we get many requests for Linux operating systems that are not "the big ones", and not listed on our typical build pages. Users want an OS they are comfortable with, not just what we advertise. Thanks, Fred - a quick test install on my Opteron scratch box works as expected. (And it is Slack - not rpms or debs or ebuilds...)

Re:Forgive My Noobness But...

[JonLatane]

EM64T is basically AMD64, and you can run pretty much any AMD64 stuff on EM64T. It's not really what one would call "Intel's version." IA64 (aka Itanium), on the other hand, is Intel's 64-bit architecture. It was, obviously, not such a great success.

Re:Forgive My Noobness But...

[fred87]

I did no K8-specific optimisations, just generic x86_64, so it should work fine on EM64T.

Re: Forgive My Noobness But...

[NerdOfPrey]

From this article:

Intel was reluctant to swallow its pride and admit that AMD was defining 64-bit computing, so it announced a 64-bit instruction set of its own called Extended Memory 64-bit Technology (EM64T). Frothy name aside, EM64T is almost identical to AMD64, enabling it to run Windows XP x64. Newer Pentium 4s, such as the 600 and 800 series, support EM64T. The main difference between EM64T and AMD64 is that EM64T includes SSE3 support, which has been added to only the latest Venice core Athlon 64 processors.

Re:Forgive My Noobness But...

[codeguy007]

Slackware quit being a "Big One" when it ceased being commercially distributed. Patrick's done a good job keeping slackware alive but it's become even more of a hobbyist's distro than before.

With that said if you want to learn linux slackware is a good distro to work with.

Re:Forgive My Noobness But...

[Errtu76]

Even better, Slackware is the only distro that exists for so long (+12 years) and still is maintained.

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[master0ne]

cant forget about the relese of debian gnu/linux 3.1 finally!

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[CyricZ]

Oh my, of course! Indeed, the list just keeps growing. So many PC operating system developments have happened during these past few weeks that one even forgets some of the most major events!

This can't be right?

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to use Linsux on a newer CPU, you have to use some hacked-together distro by some acne-ridden teenager living by the glow of his monitor in his parent's basement?

Only one real choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Solaris

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[Anonymous Coward]

BEOS ?

where's the torrent

[tota]

Great news indeed.
Well done, even the site looks like slackware.com

I've always liked slackware because it is small and simple.
I've been using slack since 1995, then I tried all the other distros but I always go back to slack when I want something simple to build from: the CD is quick to get you to shell where you can chroot, the installation is quick and takes the minimum amount of space (why would you need >500MB for bash + ls?!! Fedora anyone?), etc
It will definitely have a place on my x86064 systems - if not as the main system, as a backup at least. Good work!

Only regret: where's the torrent? the mirrors aren't up to date yet..

Yes, BeOS. In the form of yellowTAB Zeta.

[CyricZ]

BeOS in the form of yellowTAB Zeta.

See:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/14/011920 3&tid=87&tid=190

Slackware not ready for prime time?

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked as an office junior for a guy once who refused to buy branded operating systems once he found out about Linux - in this case Slackware 9.

The installation and preliminary support cost about 2/3 of what it used to, and when our system worked it was pretty close to the quality of XP... when it worked. Between increased maintenance, broken email, and corrupt databases I can't see how the TCO was much less than double the price of XP Professional.

Viable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally x86-64 users have some real viable choices out there

What do you mean finally? There have been several viable choices out for a long time (Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu and Suse), or does slackware have the unique ability to make things offical in the linux world?

Re:Viable?

[SaDan]

Slackware is definately more viable than most distros in my opinion based on my past and present experiences with RedHat, Fedora, Gentoo, SuSE, and Debian.

Obviously, there are others who feel the same. Don't take it personally.

Re:Viable?

[Rooktoven]

I for one trust it (and use it). Pat serves as the same sort of benevolent dictator as Linus does on the distribution level. He has constructed a rock solid concept that could survive him, as Linux would survive the loss of Linus.

The point is that Pat has put together a system with a strong guiding philosophy holding it together, and as a result it has a lot of devotees who wouldn't let it go under.

IT pros who use it utilise it do so because it's not tied to any sort of BS abstraction layer (ie dependency checking systems), and as a result it gives administrators more flexibility for configuration.

As for viability, lets go down the list:
Red Hat-- Pay a lot for Enterprise, or use the (newly created) user community.
Suse-- Same RPM hell, albeit now with different corporate flagging (Not that Novell is bad, but there is an added complexity layer.)
Mandriva-- Strength through consolidation?
Debian/Ubuntu/Xandros-- Which community or corporation do you want making your decisions for you?

The point is, Slackware is as stable a choice (check longevity and changes to structure) as any Distro, if not the MOST stable.

Yeah, it's interesting and fun too, because it makes "viability" a whole hell of a lot easier for those with a clue...

Re:Viable?

[Bluesuperman]

How about Viable in that I do not need 6GB to install Slackware !! RH How about Viable in the sense that simplicty and consistency should play a major role in server roll outs and upgrades. RH,Gentoo I guess if you like spending about a week to build your Gentoo server or a few days trying to figure out why "this just will not work in RH" or "how the hell is RH modified this" then it would not be viable for you. There is a reason slackware is still one of the largest distro's around with the console install. Michael

Re:Viable?

[andyr0ck]

true, it doesn't quite come up to the standard that corporates expect but then again, not many do. as for something that no company would use, the BBC mux their teletext (strange UK info service through your TV) into their broadcast signal with Slack (http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/11 76/1/) regarding support, yeah, you have a good point, although Pat has taken steps to ensure that, in his absence, Slack will continue. i think his way of doing things is actually infectious and is influencing the way Slack users think about their OS. i would expect the project to continue, even without him.

Re:Viable?

[austinpoet]

I don't get the point. Why bother making any distro then? There's huge commercial ones out there that do everything. Slack is powerful and simple. Some of the other distros are simple. And that's good. Some of the other distros are powerful. and that's good. Slack might not be simple to the novice *nix user, but it's not too hard, and to get a real lean mean server going under Slack is much easier than what some of the 'big' distros require. Slack might not find a place in the IT center of a serious enterprise, but Trevor, that guy in IT who is the _one_ to call to fix your IT problem, that guy, he probably runs Slack at home. Isn't that viable/worthwhile?

Re:Viable?

[ifwm]

"But any serious enterprise would be beyond foolish to entrust their IT center to an OS developed, packaged and supported entirely at the whim of just a couple of guys with no real infrastructure behind them"

You just described not only the foundation of Linux, but the current operating state of most OSS projects.

Re:Viable?

[arfonrg]

"Viable" wasn't a good word choice. What he should have said was "FINALLY a Slackware(ish) AMD64 distribution!"

Now that being said....

For historical reasons Slackware has a special place in the hearts of many in the Linux community, granted. And it may even be a decent choice for enthusiasts and roll-your-own professionals. - How about us (the professionals) that don't want bleeding edge releases, a stable install, and LIKE the ease of configuring EVERYTHING with simple text config files.

But any serious enterprise would be beyond foolish to entrust their IT center to an OS developed, packaged and supported entirely at the whim of just a couple of guys with no real infrastructure behind them. - Why? Because he/they quit, we wouldn't get a new release/updates!?! How is that different from the Win2000 crowd's situation now? We run Slackware on all our servers here and all our custom scripts are written to work on ANY Linux distro (as they should be). If Slackware goes away, we'll just change to another distro (when we swap out machines).

Re:Viable?

[LongDistanceMan]

Slackware is a racehorse. The others are camels.

Yes, but...

[codergeek42]

...does it run Linux?

Choices?

[Tairan]

I've been using FreeBSD for quite a while! Linux is only now catching up? ..Not surprising..

Re:Choices?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. Nice try cockface, nice try.

Linux currently scales far better on machines with multiple processors and >4GB RAM, for one. The hardware support is wider, the user-base is greater.

Looks like if anyone needs catching up, it's you.

Uh..

[pherthyl]

This is good, but it's not like there was no choice for x86_64 before. Debian, (K)Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, Mandriva all have 64 bit versions out.

Re:Uh..

[ThatComputerGuy]

Yes, but then you're still stuck with Debian, (K)Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, or Mandriva..

Re:Uh..

[ozbird]

Gentoo. Download once*, install everywhere.

* almost (some platform specific downloads required.)

Re:Uh..

[lnjasdpppun]

The problem is none of them are Slackware.

I use and love Slackware because I find everything it does easy to understand and therefore easy for me to change as I need. The part I like best about Slackware is its init script setup, it's the only method I've actually come to understand from trying various other distros - and I didn't even need to RTFM to figure it out.

Slackware is fairly basic and just gets out of my way so I can do things the way I want. Thats what I want from an OS and none of the ones you listed (apart from maybe Mandriva as I haven't used it) can do that for me.

Re:Uh..

[SaDan]

Gentoo. Download once*, install everywhere.

Yeah, and compile forever. What a waste of time.

I don't need to compile everything myself if it's done right the first time.

Slackware tends to do just that, and it sounds like this unofficial port to AMD64 is keeping true to its source.

Besides, choice is good. You use Gentoo, I'll use Slackware and it's distos based on Slackware. I've got no problems with that.

Re:Uh..

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from a few particular packages (notably, Mozilla and Evolution), my machines compile the gentoo stuff nearly as fast as they download it on a 768k connection.

One great thing about gentoo is that it supports ccache and distcc in a fairly straightforward manner. On top of that, you can set up your other machines to point at the binary packages you've compiled. So you're using multiple machines to compile stuff once, and then sharing out the binaries to them all.

Oh and while I'm giving props to gentoo... how about rc-update! It's the best solution I've seen to init scripts. Every other distribution out there seems to think that an init.d / SystemV hybrid is actually a _good_ thing.

Re:Uh..

[doubleshot]

Also Gentoo has an AMD64 release as well...

x86-64 Slackware Clone Released

[coopaq]

Yeah but will it run on a Mac?
</fastforward>

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[smittyoneeach]

So many kernels, just the one GNU/Emacs...

Good question

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say that the odds are something like:

80% for Linux
10% for BSD
5% for HURD
4% for decompiled NT kernel
1% for OpenSolaris

One has to read the source code to know for sure what it is running.

not finally

[__aaitqo8496]

In case you hadn't heard, AMD64 distros have been abailable for a while now. Want something Debian-based? Try Ubuntu Hoary, which has been out for several months now.

ISO for AMD64

Re:not finally

[Johnny O]

I have tried RH, Suse, Debian and Gentoo. I keep coming back to Slack...

So much simpler

Re:not finally

[NOPteron]

Even the CHOICE isn't simple, anymore!

Keeerraighps!

DistroWatch's x86_64 tagged *active* distros

31 entries!!?!?

x86-64 Knoppix, though, hehehe. . .

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[electrofreak]

It's because school is out now, I guess.

Good lord that's a lot of Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because someone asks why this is news? Seriously, this is adding one more distro among how many? Looks like a bunch of goofballs out there taking offense at someone questioning slashdot.

Re:Good lord that's a lot of Trolls

[vidbot]

I agree with the anti-troll remark. People dance with who brung them. I learned, actually learned Linux on Slackware. So, naturally I will stay with Slack until I find something better. Everything else is spy vs. spy. The more the merrier as far as support of distro/architechture. The good ones will rise to the top and other will just be left behind.

Mirror problems

[fred87]

We've been having problems with rsync timeouts and I've not been able to get hold of the admin of the primary mirror. ftp.heanet.ie/pub/slamd64/ contains the .xdelta files for final compared to RC4 - full isos should have finished in a few hours. Sorry for the delay.

Viable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally x86-64 users have some real viable choices out there!

Viable? In what sense is a one-man fork of what is essentially a one-man operating system viable?

For historical reasons Slackware has a special place in the hearts of many in the Linux community, granted. And it may even be a decent choice for enthusiasts and roll-your-own professionals. But any serious enterprise would be beyond foolish to entrust their IT center to an OS developed, packaged and supported entirely at the whim of just a couple of guys with no real infrastructure behind them. One of whom has had some bizarre health problems of late, probably immune system related (no slight intended to Patrick).

The word you're looking for is "interesting" or maybe "fun," not viable.

Slack FAQ

[CapnGrunge]

Why is this news?
Well, it's slackware working in another architecture

Why not Debian/*buntu/Fedora/yadda?
I don't like [package] management getting in my way, that's why.

It's outdated!
Get some fresh source or search slackware-current or linuxpackages

If I wanted to compile I'd get gentoo!
Your choice.

Re:Slack FAQ

[glitch23]

if ($nobody==Perfect && god==Perfect) { print 'god = $nobody'; return; }

You are exactly right: God is nobody. God is not a human being and therefore has no body. He is omnipresent and thus exists as nobody.

Re:Slack FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a figment of your imagination... Guess it's all in how you look at it.

Re:Slack FAQ

[glitch23]

If he is just a figment of my imagination why should you care/worry enough to have to make a signature about it??

Not just 'free' distros

[ErikTheRed]

I've been running SuSe Linux Enterprise Server for x86-64 on production servers for several months now. Backwards compatibility with 32-bit apps has been flawless so far.

Gentoo....

[Tsunam]

You could also look at Gentoo as well, which has had 64 bit compatibility for a while. Course who'd want to look there for a distro who makes you compile things *gasp*

Re:Gentoo....

[Nasarius]

Gentoo really has the right idea here. They don't do "porting" or even selective patching. They write one ebuild per package and make it work for all architectures. No need to maintain multiple trees, no huge mess.

If Gentoo had the resources to make and distribute binary packages with every combination of architecture and USE flags, it would be perfect.

Re:Gentoo....

[chip_0]

There is no problem with "compiling things". Actually I end up compiling most of the software I use on Slack.

The problem I have is with compiling everything. I personally do not have the time to spend several days on the installation of my OS. Slackware gives me a great base of precompiled software, over which I can install software whichever way I choose, whether by compiling source or installing binaries.

But we seem to have too many people who think that slackware is outdated, not just for them but for everybody else. So you will keep seeing a "Why not Debian/Gentoo/Fedore/xyz".

Re:Gentoo....

[Lussarn]

You can do textmode work about 5 minutes after beginning install of gentoo. Then as software compiles you can do more and more. But it's not like you can't use the computer while it installs.

If you install Gentoo from knoppix you have full X server from the start, no need to wait at all.

Re:Gentoo....

[bfree]

Sounds like a project. Create a gentoo ebuild for a package which will (when it's running) connect to a central server and distribute all your binaries (by package and relevant use flags) with some form of p2p. Use checksums to verify that binaries are good (or at worst it takes multiple matching injectors to get a malformed package to look good). Add a paranoia option to let you control how many packages are actually rebuilt locally anyway to check the files match. Finally add an installer option which lets it pull available packages from this system.

Re:Gentoo....

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried to compile something the size of a slackware distro on say a ppro200? Nope didnt think so.

It will take many days.

Distros have their place. Because you *GASP* like to compile things. Does not mean everyone does.

I like to program things compiling is the boring bit where you wait to see if what you did works. Compiling is the BORING time of programming.

The only time I am recompiling a part of the OS is to get something the standard distro does not have. Or to get a small speed boost, or some security vulin. Everything else stays the same. Seriously how often do you realllllllly need to recompile 'ls'?

It was a matter of time.

[bersl2]

Looking at the build scripts, you realize that x86_64 support isn't exactly a gargantuan effort. Half of the packages even look at an environment variable to know when not to pass -march to gcc. I suspect that the only reason that Patrick himself hasn't rolled out binaries is because he doesn't have the hardware to test it.

Re:It was a matter of time.

[fred87]

It is true that for a large proprotion of the packages (probably 2/5), all that needed changing was $ARCH. The problem was the other 3/5.

This is Wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

This is essential for Linux. I have had an AMD Athlon 64 bit machine for about one year now. Having Mandrake, Suse and Red Hat support now for the same time; It's wonderful to see the elegance of Slackware for the x86_64 platform. Slackware was my first distro and I think using Slackware teaches one a LOT about Linux and how everything works.

Slackware in minimalist, quick and efficient if you want to get work done I highly recommend this project to our x86_64 toting friends. Congrats!

Why are the editors posting trolls?

[Some Random Username]

"Finally ... some real viable choices"? Come on, lots of different linux distros and all three BSDs have had AMD64 support for quite some time now. How much more blatent can you make a troll, and still get your "story" accepted?

Re:Why are the editors posting trolls?

[Rob_Ogilvie]

'cause they like me. Seriously. I'm two for three so far. And my first story was really crap (written horribly).

Look at other /. postings; this is the style of article they like today. It's hardly a troll... two popular linux distributions released x86-64 ports (er, well, sorta... Slack didn't release Slamd64) today... it's news. :-)

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[sconeu]

I thought GNU/Emacs was an operating system! :-)

wha...?

[KillerBob]

That's not a clone of Slack 10.1, it's an officially sanctionned port.

Furthermore, Slack 10.1 will run just fine on AMD64, because AMD64, and ia64 as well, are backwards compatible and will run code intended for 32-bit processors. The difference is that the code in slamd64 is optimized for Athlon64/Opteron, a feat which is entirely doable by anybody who knows how to compile a kernel and their own software.

Don't get me wrong. It's a great boon to people who prefer Slack and run AMD64, but that only comes in saving them the time to compile their own, but it's by no means the great saviour: I've been running Slack 10.1 on my Athlon64-based server for a while, and all I had to do was compile a kernel and recompile Apache/PHP/MySQL/Sendmail/UW-IMAP. Technically, I didn't even have to recompile those, either....

Re:wha...?

[Rich0]

The difference is that the code in slamd64 is optimized for Athlon64/Opteron, a feat which is entirely doable by anybody who knows how to compile a kernel and their own software.

Well, it is a little more painful than that since quite a few packages don't compile or run cleanly on AMD64 without patching.

all I had to do was compile a kernel and recompile Apache/PHP/MySQL/Sendmail/UW-IMAP

I notice you didn't put java anywhere on that list. I have had no end of java pains on AMD64 - half the packages sort-of-work on blackdown, the other half on sun 1.5, but sun 1.5 messes up all kinds of dependencies in general. For what should be the most portable language there is, it certainly gives me lots of pain...

Re:wha...?

[Rob_Ogilvie]

That's not a clone of Slack 10.1, it's an officially sanctionned port.

It is a port, but it's not official.

Furthermore, Slack 10.1 will run just fine on AMD64, because AMD64, and ia64 as well, are backwards compatible and will run code intended for 32-bit processors.

Yes, Slack 10.1 will run fine on x86-64 boxes, but it won't take advantage of any of the 64-bit extentions OOTB (nor ever as well as slamd64). And no, IA64 is not backwards compatible and will not run code intended for 32-bit processors without emulation. That's why x86-64 is so popular...

Re:wha...?

[zdzichu]

don't compile or run cleanly on AMD64 without patching.

One of the strength of Slackware (and for me, reason I stayed with it) is policy not to patch sources. Except some extreme cases, like broken glibc.
By applying patches, Slamd64 ruined Slack :/

Re:wha...?

[fred87]

I applied no patches which weren't required to make packages compile/run on x86_64. I do not see how this can be considered ruining slack, rather than a neccessity.

Re:wha...?

[StrawberryFrog]

. For what should be the most portable language there is, it certainly gives me lots of pain...

There's a big difference between porting java code and porting the java platform that java code runs upon: The former is (mostly) platform-neutral, the latter is the infrastructure needed to acomplish that, and it must know about platforms, so that java code doesn't have to.

Re:wha...?

[Eddy_D]

The difference is that the code in slamd64 is optimized for Athlon64/Opteron, a feat which is entirely doable by anybody who knows how to compile a kernel and their own software

To be truly an effective 64 bit OS, everything must be compiled for 64-bit, starting with GCC. This means that all apps, such as bash or the X-windows server/client are running natively in 64-bit mode. You can run the OS in 64-bit mode and everything else in 32-bit mode, but I don't see the point, other than a faster kernel.

Re:wha...?

[Rich0]

I agree - I just found the situation rather ironic...

Happy with Fedora

[j1mmy]

I've been using Fedora (and previously Redhat AS3) on my Opterons basically since they were supported. Save some bugs in past releases of gcc, I've never had any problems. It runs wonderfully.

All my x86 machines also run Fedora, so I basically have the same setup on all my architectures. Really easy to maintain.

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[Dolda2000]

Indeed -- only Windows is nowhere to be seen. ;-)

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[jpmkm]

The only thing it lacks is a good text editor.

32 Bit "Emulation"

[muixA]

My first question is "Do common 32bit binaries Just Work?". Anyone wishing to run 32 bit binary software would best stay clear of Debians port, as it has no real support for "multi-arch". This translates into ugly chroot hacks to get Realplayer, flash, and other binary-only apps working.

I ended up dumping it for Gentoo, which has decent emulation support. Gentoo problem is that many pacakges are marked as unstable for the ADM64, or worse have no support at all. (Not to mention the fact that I think building every package from source is a bit first-year)

Ubuntu has support that seems somewhat inbetween, it's missing libraries needed to run some gtk2 apps, I didn't try and debug it too much, since I was using the live-dvd (which is a great idea).

Were getting there.
--
Mu

Re:32 Bit "Emulation"

[cachimaster]

I just unpacked a .tgz with the latest 32-bit mozilla binary on my kubuntu amd64 install, and voila...working Flash. This qualify as a ugly hack?

Re:32 Bit "Emulation"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yeah. Why on earth do you need to unpack a tgz to install something on a debian-based system?

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[Strawser]

Yes, there are. I'm looking forward to the idea of Microsoft having viable competetion from several vendors for desktop and workstation PCs. When Linux started making inroads into the desktop, albeit small ones, Microsoft released it's first relatively stable OS, XP, shortly thereafter. It's amazing what a little bit of competition will do for your average behemoth.

The competition will do them a world of good, and that will do us all a world of good. We could potentially see some extreme innovation and advancement in the PC world over the next five years since it will (hopefully) become more and more competative as alternate OS's become more of a viable option to the common enduser.

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[superpulpsicle]

OUCH. That's harsh. You must have never been in the trenches with a need to type pages after pages with Vi.

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, Linux or nothing.

slack is so late!

[suncjs]

i rememeber that the 64-bit fedora was avaiable some time in last year. even i like slackware more, but it's obviously that slackware's influence is not as much as fedora's or debian's.

Re:slack is so late!

[SaDan]

It's not Slackware, it's Slamd64. It's a port of Slackware.

So, Slackware's not late. :-)

what's the best AMD64 hardware?

[ALpaca2500]

if i wanted to build a computer with an athlon 64 processor, specifically to run some sort of x86-64 compatible linux, what motherboard, video card, sound card, etc should i get to ensure maximum compatibility?

Re:what's the best AMD64 hardware?

[tweek]

I bought my beast from Micronux:

http://www.micronux.com/

This model:

here

It's a good system and it came with CentOS4 for x86_64 which I gave a few days before wiping and installing x86_64 gentoo.

I've since bought an additional GB of memory to dedicate to various vmware machines for envrionment testing and some work-specific windows stuff.

The only issues I've had with an all x86_64 system has been related to codeweavers and transgaming stuff. Oh and some issues with Flash. I spend most of time browsing with a native compiled firefox version and switching to firefox-bin under multilib when I need the non-64bit plugins.

I even did my first stage one install in a LONG time (I normally do a stage 2 on installs for obvious time reasons) just to see how it would perform and even with just the 1GB of ram at the time, I was done in a couple of hours and running X. The system really does scream. FYI, PCI-Express in SLI mode is non-existant under linux right now but dual-head works fine.

Micronux is a solid company and I plan on buying again from them in the future.

Re:what's the best AMD64 hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

PCI-express and SLI sure are useful on linux! I can't wait to get the support so I can play TUXRACER!!

Re:what's the best AMD64 hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Asus SLI deluxe,asus 6600GT SLI pair, good 650 Watt power supply. This setup with a bios change will also run the AMD64 X2 dual CPU

bigger pointers/instructions == worse l2 cache use

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many people realize that 64 bit equals worse desktop performance. Suddenly all your apps use up a bunch more memory because the pointers just got bigger, and amd64 instructions are bigger. Relatively worse L2 cache hit rates and more data to pull off of the disk means that running 64 bit will slow you down.

Of course, if you want to allocate more than several GB (depending on OS, flavor, etc...) in a single address space, then you need 64 bit.

Broken for 32 bit

[Anonymous Coward]

I've run Ubuntu for AMD64 which follows the Debian AMD64 branch/guidelines, and it is just too damn hard to get 32 bit stuff running. So that means no flash or other 32 bit binaries. This is just too annoying.

I want a 64 bit optimised kernel, etc, but I want to be able to seemlessly run 32 bit applications. Can't SOMEBODY in the Linux world provide this??? So I'm left with pure 32bit distributions because it is less hassle.

way to go fred!

[Sadsfae]

Grats Fred, I know you have been working on this a long time, glad to see its materialized for you.

Re:bigger pointers/instructions == worse l2 cache

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many people realize that 64 bit equals worse desktop performance

which is why everyone multilibs 32/64.

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not really. They have some bulk of fixes today, against virals, blabla, blabla, and so on :)

Finally ! *bows down*

[Digital Warfare]

No dis-respect to SuSE, Fedora or Mandriva, but their x86-64 versions just didn't cut it.

Now I'm officially going back to Linux. Slackware is fast, but damn, this baby should fly !

Mod this troll down

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice troll, troll.

any serious enterprise would be beyond foolish to entrust their IT center to an OS developed, packaged and supported entirely at the whim of just a couple of guys with no real infrastructure behind them

Are you talking about Slackware, or Linux in general here?

Choices already existed

[mwood]

Wow, I beat Slack by a week with my homebrew "distro". If you want an engaging puzzle, try building your own install kit by hand from bits you have lying around on a working system. (For extra points try it with no network and the only removable storage being on USB.)

Re:Choices already existed

[andyr0ck]

jeezus, that's a bit masochistic, innit? :-)

Re:Good things are happening in the world of PC OS

[Al Dimond]

If you are speaking of writing pages and pages of prose... then use the right tool for the right job.

Now if you're talking about code (or poetry, if that's your bag), where you don't go on for ages without a carriage return, vi is great.

The hits just keep on coming

[mstyne]

haha, slackware

1996 called it wants its distro back

Ahhh Gentoo users

[essreenim]

..powered by their own sense of self satisfaction.

You can compile (and people frequently do) all the most important elements of any FOSS OS - kernerl etc. There is absolutely no benefit if you know what to tweek. I do enjoy picking up flame points however. I need to lower my slarma!

Yay!! Now I can slack it up on my new AMD64 box

[Markus_UW]

Yay!! Now I can slack it up on my new AMD64 box! No more of this FC crap. Let the good times roll.

Gentoo has too many amateurs

[A nonymous Coward]

There have been two incidents recently which have really soured me on Gentoo, and I will probably migrate my opteron system to slamd64 soon.

One, someone added a /usr/lib library to /bin/ls. I think it was the console mouse (gm?) routines; everything had been ok, until some emerge -sync changed the ebuild. I had to explicitly disable it to fix te problem. The very idea that any boot partition command would link to a non-boot library ought to send shivers down any UNIX user's spine. There is no excuse for this. No matter what USE flags were set, or what packages were merged, no boot command should ever be linked against anything not on the boot partition. This was not some manually added command or library. This was completely the result of a Gentoo screwup.

Two, an update of LVM created a new lib, version 1.01, and deleted the 1.00 lib, without relinking everything that was linked against the 1.00 lib. The next boot failed. Luckily, a symlink from 1.01 to 1.00 fixed it well enough to boot and re-emerge the orphaned command. Another horror for anyone who has used UNIX for more than a few months.

There is no excuse for these two incidents. When I say amateur, I mean it in the derogatory sense. Any system which lets novices screw up basics like this is not ready for prime time. I have been too busy to investigate slamd64, but it is on my list ... I ran slackware for years, but had to switch for the opteron machine. Gentoo has a lot of nice features, and thankfully does not have shadow config files, and follows traditional UNIX practices nicely, but I cannot excuse these two cockups.

Anyone set up Torrents for the images????

[arfonrg]

I downloaded all four ISOs (for 10.1R4) a few days ago and it was SLOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW.

I'd gladly run a torrent if someone has a tracker set up...

It's still commercially distributed....

[arfonrg]

I pay for a subscription from Slackware! Just go to the Slackware store.

Good ones rising to the top...

[arfonrg]

The good ones will rise to the top and other will just be left behind.

Um, that's not always true...

VHS vs. Beta
C-Quam Vs. Khan
-and-
Microsoft

Are all examples inferior products rising to the top.

yee-haw!

[MasTRE]

> Finally x86-64 users have some real viable choices out there!

Yeah, finally! All you people that run more than 4GB RAM now have more choices! What's that, you don't have more than 4GB of RAM? Why are you running 64-bit then? You mean you'd purposefully trade stability and number of available applications for being able to say you run 64-bit and no other good reason whatsoever? Oh, you're "future-proofing" yourself? Riiiight.. Nevermind, sorry I asked, stupid me...