Slackware Linux 10.2 Released

excelblue writes "Slackware Linux 10.2 has finally been released. This release comes with Linux 2.4.31, with 2.6.13 available in the testing packages and glibc 2.3.5. This time, they've decided to get up with times and switch to Firefox, Thunderbird, and subversion instead of using the Mozilla suite and cvs from the previous distros. Here are Torrents of ISO images."

Comments

YAY!

[frinkacheese]

Time to test the 2Gb/s Internet connection with some torrent seeds :)

Well done to the Slackware team on another nice release of the nicest, most stable and most usable (for admins) Linux release there is.

Really, the completr lack of package management and silly whizzy clicky admin tools makes Slackware a lllot easier to admin when you have 120 servers running it.

Re:YAY!

[DenDave]

OMG you have 120 slackware boxes?

*bow down* we're not worthy!

Is it not easier to use gentoo for such a monstrous installation base?

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

The complete lack of package management makes dependacy hunting even worse than that stupid RPM format.

I grew out of Slackware 10 years ago.

Re:YAY!

[gowen]

nicest, most stable and most usable (for admins) Linux release there is.

YAY!

Let's all pull so-subjective-as-to-be-meaningless statements out of our butts in order to promote a "my distro is cooler than yours" dick-waving contest!

YAY!

Re:YAY!

[RiotXIX]

But there are package management tools. They've been working on it. And they're useful when you want to mass upgrade several packages on your system without having to uninstall (yes I still don't know how to uninstall a generic packages..like when I download something, untar; make; make install : where can I find out where it put all it's stuff?). Having a database/registry of where an application put's it's files is a damn good idea.

"Updated versions of the Slackware package management tools make it
    easy to add, remove, upgrade, and make your own Slackware packages.
    Package tracking makes it easy to upgrade from Slackware 10.1 to
    Slackware 10.2 (see UPGRADE.TXT). The slackpkg tool in /extra can
    also help update from an older version of Slackware to a newer one,
    and keep your Slackware system up to date. In addition, the new
    slacktrack utility (in extra/) will help you build and maintain
    your own packages."

Seriously many have a perception of slackware as being dated/non-user friendly, but it's one of the most integrated/structured distros I know - it DOES move forward/evolve with the times, it just keeps it's releases at stable versions.

Re:YAY!

[KiloByte]

The complete lack of package management makes dependacy hunting even worse than that stupid RPM format.

Dependency hunting is one thing. Try to actually upgrade something on a Slackware box!
Hadn't I try to migrate to the rape-my-entire-filesystem-on-a-whim reiserfs, a frozen Slink box that was upgraded to what Sid was 2 years ago would be still in perfect working order...

Re:YAY!

[m50d]

a "my distro is cooler than yours" dick-waving contest!

You mean you came to slashdot expecting something else?

Anyway, stories about a particular distro or piece of software always promote the software in question. The cinelerra story described it as the best linux video program, firefox stories often call it the best open source web browser (even though that's patently not true, IMO) etc.

Re:YAY!

[EddyPearson]

gotta luv the old school linux system. still maintained by a single person ;) the open source dictatorship :p

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to actually upgrade something on a Slackware box!

upgradepkg

Hadn't I try to migrate to the rape-my-entire-filesystem-on-a-whim reiserfs, a frozen Slink box that was upgraded to what Sid was 2 years ago would be still in perfect working order...

And in English?

Re:YAY!

[Galaxie]

haven't heard of swaret? give it a try sometime, you might be suprised on how easy package and dependancy management is.

Re:YAY!

[Mr. Underbridge]

Slackware is a bit more mature and less prone to change. You also have a lot of people who use Slackware because they know it inside and out.

Basically, if people haven't stopped using Slackware yet, they're not likely to.

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

(yes I still don't know how to uninstall a generic packages..like when I download something, untar; make; make install : where can I find out where it put all it's stuff?)

make uninstall?

Re:YAY!

[part_of_you]

I am a newbie learning slackware. Many people have warned against it, but I am not having any problem with it, other than the fact that I STILL can't find the c:\ and I can't get ANY of the *.exe files to do anything

Re:YAY!

[a.different.perspect]

Let's all pull so-subjective-as-to-be-meaningless statements out of our butts in order to promote a "my distro is cooler than yours" dick-waving contest!

I'm confused by your metaphors. Are you saying you pulled a dick out of your butt?

Re:YAY!

[Mr. Underbridge]

That's hilarious. Good luck with that. I hear CYGWIN works well.

Re:YAY!

[Beek]

When I compile a program, I put everything in it's own directory in /opt (use the --prefix option when you run the configure script)
It makes for some long PATH and MANPATH variables, but it works for me
Since there are only 20-ish extra programs that I need, I find it quite managable

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

The complete lack of package management makes dependacy hunting even worse than that stupid RPM format.

Cluefull admins don't tend to install that many applications, even then I can list the dependancies for almost everything on my servers. Package management is simply not a problem unless your a hosting company looking to employ monkeys; or an actual monkey.

I grew out of Slackware 10 years ago.

Pity you didn't grow out of the baby clothes at the same time; if you've nothing useful to add why whine?

Re:YAY!

[MikeDawg]

Too bad there isn't a "completr lack of package management". pkgtool is a package management tool, it scares me to think you admin 120 boxes, and you aren't familiar with the pkgtools suite of tools.

Re:YAY!

[MikeDawg]

There isn't a complete lack of package mangement, it is the pkgtool suite (upgradepkg, installpkg, removepkg, etc.). That is one thing I like about Slackware, you should look to see what the dependencies are. The problem I've been having administrating Red Hat machines is the endless levels of dependencies that are compile against any random package. It is like a slippery slope installing a package on Red Hat, when it would be easier just to compile stuff from source, or not link it against so many things.

Such that to install package a, you need to install package b, which requires packages c and d, which also require additional packages. Compiling from source can be less time intensive if you ask me.

Re:YAY!

[Markus_UW]

Yeah, I think he just did.

Re:YAY!

[Lumpy]

not just for admins! Slackware completely and totally rocks for the real nitty gritty linux tasks like embedded linux development.

I can create a testing linux install in less than 20 meg with slackware as it is. using slack on my development pc makes it easier to make the embedded linux device work through the testing phases and I have only been able to get cross compiling and uclibc cross compile to work easily under slackware instead of the rpm or deb based setups. it's great when you download GCC and simply type ./configure; make; make install and it works instead of a convoluted string of modifications so that things go where some nutcase thinks they should go in other distros.

Slackware is the #1 choice for people wanting to really tinker on the bleeding edge but not have to have a ream of paper telling you what changes and command line switches to have to se so that app will install correctly on the distro that does not follow the software developers wishes.

I also found it's easier to design your own embedded distros under slackware than under mandrake,fedora,ubuntoo, etc... (never had the time to dink with gentoo)

i equal slackware to other commercial unices for heavy design work.. it's just easier in it.

granted, my servers at home run centOS, my desktops use Mandriva but for the real nitty gritty, it's slackware...

like today, I'm hacking the firmware/linux install on this 4 video input Ethernet video device I found on ebay. and am 1/2 way to getting a tiny slackware install running on it for a complete redesign of how the thing works.

Re:YAY!

[ajs318]

Simple solution: Don't use Slackware's precompiled .tgz files. Just download the sources and compile them yourself, exactly the way you want them. Then, ./configure will do all the necessary dependency checking for you. Just don't forget that, because it's Slackware, you need PREFIX=/usr and not /usr/local.

If you really must use Slackware .tgz files, use ldd on any binary that fails {it won't take the kernel down with it ..... this is not Windows, you know} and see what libraries are missing. Then go back to the Slackware website, find the packages to which they belong, and download them.

I'd actually like to see someone adapt apt-get to work with source packages, but I've a feeling it's been done before somewhere.

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

>yes I still don't know how to uninstall a generic
>packages..like when I download something, untar;
>make; make install : where can I find out where it
>put all it's stuff?

For source packages, try GNU Source Installer:
http://www.gnu.org/software/sourceinstall/sourcein stall.html

Then you can say:

$ sourceinstall --add whatever.tar.gz

or

$ tar -zxvf whatever.tar.gz
$ sourceinstall --add whatever/

and then you can get the list of all installed files:

$ sourceinstall --check whatever

But you do not need it if you just want to remove it:

$ sourceinstall --remove whatever

If you want the whizzy GUI you can run

$ sourceinstall

without args.

Re:YAY!

[evilmegaman]

part of you, You can't really be that stupid can you? That's a joke right? I mean... if it's not.. you should seriously go back to windows and give linux a try AFTER you know what it is.

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a joke right?

Well, the (+5, Funny) might be a hint. The sheer absurdity of it might be another. A previous poster responded, "That's hilarious," perhaps that's another hint?

Considering the evidence, I think he was being serious. He probably is that stupid. Good call.

Re:YAY!

[part_of_you]

come on buddy, if you can't detect any humor in what I said then maybe you need to go just lighten up a bit?

Really I am a newbie, but I am finding Slackware to be something that seems to be what I've always wanted in out of computing. Also, everyone that is Slackware hip has been a tremendous help, and most seem to respect one who is brave enough to give it a shot. I would recomend it to anyone that dares look out the Windows.

Re:YAY!

[MaskedSlacker]

I upgrade to current every day with no problems. You simply don't know what you're talking about.

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you don't need PREFIX=/usr instead of /usr/local. If you are creating you own packages to install, then using /usr is fine, if you are just installing with make install I'd recommend using /usr/local just so you can keep a distinction between what you have installed by hand and what you installed with the package manager.

Re:YAY!

[Mr. Underbridge]

Oh, you really are giving slackware a try? Good job, most people aren't willing to try something without a graphical install. It has its charms though, namely that you learn not to rely on web-based and other graphical configuration tools (Yeah, I'm looking at you SuSE! Stick your YAST up your A...!).

I'm glad my fellow Slackware-ians have been helping you out. Lemme know if you ever find that C:\.

So why did you decide on Slackware, as opposed to the myriad other options?

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

So why did you decide on Slackware, as opposed to the myriad other options?

He decided on slackware because slackware is a cool distro that coool people use. You know, slackware is a trendy distro like Gentoo and Debian. Never mind the fact that Fedora Core, Mandriva or SUSE would be far better for most peoples needs. Too bad they are corporate so they are not coool.

Fanbois suck. Fanboi operating systems suck. People who don't even work in IT, the ignorant computer hobbyist, who say shit like; "Why are you running RHEL in your datacenter? You should be using GENTOO!" are some of the biggest fuckwits on the planet and they infest slashdot like maggots in the snatch of a drowned New Orleans crack whore.

Re:YAY!

[mrogers]

It's the BSD of Linux.

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, do you have anything at all to substantiate that, or just trolling? Slackware hasn't been the "cool" distro for over 10 years.

Re:YAY!

[mister_jpeg]

Using pointy clicky whizzy admin tools to manage 120 boxes is stoopid, friend. You're wasting your time. Let me help you out.

A smarter way to do things:

• Designate a master server. Make a share. Put an empty script in it and call it doSomething.sh.
• On the other 119 hosts, make a cronjob to either mount this share or copy the contents to a local dir. Make a second cronjob to run a bit later and have it execute doSomething.sh.
• When you want to globally update some software or config files, write a script to do so and place the script and software/config files in the share on the master.
• Update doSomething.sh as appropriate. You're done.
• Go home on time.

You edit one script on one box and your changes are pulled out to all the clients. Easy, no?

Your quality of life is proportional to your scripting skills. Check for errors and trap them, have it page you if something's totally borked, mail the results to you or update a db somewhere.
This is the traditional UNIX way. I admire all the programmers that made gui toys to edit httpd.conf or ifconfig up/down eth1, but you shouldn't be using them when you're administering 120 boxes. That's just stupid.

Re:YAY!

[Barrakketh]

Keep the source around and try "make uninstall".

Re:YAY!

[Lesrahpem]

(yes I still don't know how to uninstall a generic packages..like when I download something, untar; make; make install : where can I find out where it put all it's stuff?).

I had the same problem for a long time until I found out about checkinstall. Basically, you install it and do your whole build process as normal except you type checkinstall insetad of make install. It makes a package for your distro from the newly compiled software and then installs it. That way, you can later uninstall such software using your distro's built-in tools.

I believe it currently supports the package systems for Debian, Red Hat, and Slackware.

Re:YAY!

[unixbugs]

Good one. When people complain of package management and administrative time when talking of Slackware I it just gives me a headache because I then I know I am not dealing with someone who would understand how it works anyway. And like you say, have it page you, jeez...

Great going Slackers! I've been using Slack since 7.0 and never looked back as my personal choice because I can make it do anything I want. I've installed dozens of other Unices/Linuces but I'm sure you'll find that those who know would use only FreeBSD in place of Slackware, if they had to.

But I am only talking about a certain portion of the community who does things a certain way, who likes to have their cake and eat it too, and like you said, go home on time.

My first slack box went from version 7.0 to 9.0 through manual upgrades over the years. It spanned 3 kernel release numbers and the only reason it isnt around any more is because I built an entirely new box and just wanted to start from scratch again. I get paid to do it because of Slackware, fellas. Thanks to all of those who make it possible!

Re:YAY!

[Lord Kano]

I like the fact that Slackware is a 'purist' distro, it's difficult to use and that forces you to learn more about the underlying OS. If you've used Slackware you'll know how to fix things in other flavors of linux when they break.

When linuxconf's config files get buggered, if you don't know how to manually configure things you're stuck. If you understand how to manually edit config files for the various other services you can make due until you fix linuxconf(or your administration tool of choice).

Really, the completr lack of package management and silly whizzy clicky admin tools makes Slackware a lllot easier to admin when you have 120 servers running it.

Maybe my sarcasm detector is broken, please tell me that you're joking.

LK

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is O/T, but how is Patrick Volkerding? I know he was gravely ill for a long time. Is he still the chief software lead for Slackware? He had been through at least release 8 or 9. I remember getting slackware 3.6 (both original and recut when Walnut Creek didn't use rock ridge the first time). And also the version (platypus version) before that --the first Linux I ever used, with the 1.2.13 kernel. Great stuff.

Re:YAY!

[glens]

Maybe I'm silly because I read this site with a +3 filter and this has already been stated, but here goes nonetheless...

(yes I still don't know how to uninstall a generic packages..like when I download something, untar; make; make install : where can I find out where it put all it's stuff?)

make install 2>&1 | tee Log.make.install

or better:

make install DESTDIR=`pwd`/.made 2>&1 | tee Log.make.install

then

• change to .made, add the /usr/doc/whatever directory and populate it with the appropriate files
• change back to .made and use makepkg
• use either upgradepkg or installpkg, as meet

Of course, there are the occasional silly sources which want to install directly to the main file tree, in which case use the first suggestion above.

Slackware is hands-down the best distro for a newbie who wants to learn GNU/Linux. When trying to discover how everything actually works it's not necessary in Slackware to first learn and then dig below all the convoluted cruft most every other distro lays on top.

Re:YAY!

[slashdot_commentator]

swaret is deprecated by Volkerding.

Re:YAY!

[Curtman]

"It's the BSD of Linux."

That would be Gentoo probably.. Ports and Portage are very similar.

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine moved to /dev/hda1, and you need to chmod +x the .exe files ;)

Re:YAY!

[tomhudson]

It has its charms though, namely that you learn not to rely on web-based and other graphical configuration tools (Yeah, I'm looking at you SuSE! Stick your YAST up your A...!).

You know that YaST works from the console as well, right? Oh, you didn't? Well, it does, and its a lot quicker than using the graphical crap that takes so long to do anything.

But, yeah, go slack go!

Re:YAY!

[Mr. Underbridge]

You know that YaST works from the console as well, right? Oh, you didn't

Well, no, I avoided YAST when I had the misfortune to have responsibility for a SuSE machine. Seems to be to be a layer of abstraction between you and the config files used by the applications themselves.

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

benevolent dictator to you sir!

and the nice thing about slack? it's so easy to wholesale rip out pieces of it and put your own versions of stuff.

cause pat v. don't F around with the sources as much as other distros do.

wonder why you can get that eclectic piece of software to compile on suse 7.3, but not suse 8, on redhat 8, but not redhat 9,...or debian woody but not sarge, but sid works just fine? it's because there's several middlemen between you and the author(s) of your favorite software. these middlemen are distro maintainers. they are good people. some really like to tweak the original code cause they want to put their stamp on it. some HAVE to tweak the code because there's such a chain of tweaks, that it's required to tweak downstream dependencies cause of the monkey business upstream. on and on it goes.

do you find yourself jumping from distro to distro, just to make software package xyz work? or piece of hardware abc to work?

on slack, this isn't nearly the problem on other distros.

if you want your servers to have VERY SPECIFIC behavior, there's no easier to distro to use. you will get your hands dirty, you've been warned.

if you need default off the shelf behavior from your server..yawn..excuse me, you need redhat, mandrake, suse, debian etc.

have fun learning the isms.

redhatism, debianism, mandrakis^H^H^H^H^ mandrivism, etc etc etc.

want to learn unix/linux? slack.

emerge?

yea. that'll get you a job where the job requirements read: unix, specifically aix and solaris, linux and some working knowledge of freebsd.

joe_linux: "but but...I can emerge!!!"

interviewer: "uh huh. good talking to you. good bye"

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

to mass upgrade you merely have to

$rm -rf /usr/bin

Re:YAY!

[h4lphl33tor]

I know Slackware is an American distro, but... ... ... shouldn't that be "120 boxen" ?

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I hear CYGWIN works well."

Except that sockets don't work in the latest version, and the X-Windows implementation also has problems (again, related to sockets).

Re:YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to hear about your mom drowning. :-(

Re:YAY!

[kaiidth]

Patrick is much, much better.

They finally figured out what was wrong with him (an infection, pretty much what he thought in the first place) and his health has been improving since then. He's not quite cured yet, but well on the way there.

So we can look forward to quite a few more years of slackware yet :D

Re:YAY!

[part_of_you]

So why did you decide on Slackware, as opposed to the myriad other options?

I chose Slackware really because Fedora Core 4 was being a bitch to install. I built a new box that has 1 SATA drive, and one IDE. The whole time, my friend that was doing the install for me kept mumbling something about Slackware. Had I known what slackware is, I would have originally chosen it.

Accually I do have a C:\ it's just spelled differently. Now it's my /mnt/hda1-c drive. I'm running WinXP on the same box, different drive.

Thanks for the warm welcome.

Re:YAY!

[cloudmaster]

Best to stick with the abstraction - it generally structures things so that your changes aren't blown away when you upgrade a package (RPM is a poop package manager). You'll be happier when you learn to work *with* the tools rather than working around them, and YaST is really a nice, handy tool once you decide that it's worth learning (since SuSE's not getting rid of it any time soon).

Re:YAY!

[inode_buddha]

Every single version of "make install" that I can recall offhand will default to /usr/local anyway. Of course, some things (mozilla, OOo) tend to be easier to do with just /usr.

Keeping a distinction with /usr/local is a good idea IMHO, I did that for years. More recently I started simply putting a /bin and /lib in the /home dir (classic style).

Re:YAY!

[inode_buddha]

"When linuxconf's config files get buggered, if you don't know how to manually configure things you're stuck. If you understand how to manually edit config files for the various other services you can make due until you fix linuxconf(or your administration tool of choice)."

God lives somewhere in /etc, with the occasional trip to /var and /proc.

cvs & mozilla still available

[richlv]

well, if i understood this submission correctly, it implies that mozilla & cvs now are missing - that's not true.

it contains mozilla-1.7.11 and cvs-1.11.20

at least in latest-current that should be identical to 10.2 :)

Re:cvs & mozilla still available

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy mod points, What a slacker!

Re:cvs & mozilla still available

[strredwolf]

They're also complied for 486. Patrick only includes the binaries for Firefox and Thunderbird, so if you have a Pentium I with 64 megs of RAM, you'll have to compile it yourself.

Re:cvs & mozilla still available

[richlv]

um, if they are compiled for 486, shouldn't they run just fine on pentium ?
and how does ram amount affect cpu optimisation choice ?

Re:cvs & mozilla still available

[187807]

at least in latest-current that should be identical to 10.2 Indeed. I run slackware-current. After using slapt-get to update my machine last night I noticed that /etc/slackware-version now contains 10.2.0.

Re:cvs & mozilla still available

[Anonymous Coward]

They are compiled to run on a minimum of a i486, but optimiszed for the i686 (ie gcc flags -march=i486 -mcpu=i686)

The amount of RAM really should make no difference unless you start looking at the other types of flags .

Retro Linux - Sweet!

[Zate]

This release comes with Linux 2.4.31, with 2.6.13 available in the testing packages

I didnt realise anyone made a Linux distro that didnt use a 2.6 kernel .. how retro !! now I can relive all the hoots and woots of 2003.

Re:Retro Linux - Sweet!

[richlv]

until 2.7 will be split and 2.6 stabilized a bit, i agree that 2.4 should be the default - that's what most people use in servers where they don't want to upgrade kernel in a couple of weeks.

and slackware is fully 2.6 ready, to use it just compile it, dropin replace, lilo & it's done.

oh, i forgot that you also have a precompiled one in testing that also should be easy to deploy :)

Re:Retro Linux - Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, so ... let me have the "hoots and woots" of 2005 and be upgrading on a regular basis.

I think being consistant and stable is more preferable.

Re:Retro Linux - Sweet!

[millwall]

Well, from the announcement :

A precompiled Linux 2.6.13 kernel, modules, and source code are provided (along with complete instructions on how to install the new kernel).

Re:Retro Linux - Sweet!

[LiquidCoooled]

People still use Windows 2000 servers/workstations because they have proven reliable, whereas the newest latest whizbang systems have yet to undergo full hardening (if such a thing can be done with windows)

As of now, like the 2.4 kernel, windows 2000 may be old, but it certainly isn't retro (just yet).

Re:Retro Linux - Sweet!

[parasonic]

Developer: ualuealuealeuale
Me: LOLOLOL

Re:Retro Linux - Sweet!

[Wonda]

You're in for a long wait, the development model changed and now 2.6.x is unstable, 2.6.x.y is bugfixes, so the latest 'stable' version is 2.6.x.y where x is one lower than the current development version and y is the highest you can find. 2.7 can be years away, if it ever happens at all.

Re:Retro Linux - Sweet!

[richlv]

yep, but lately because of several large scale changes (for example, reiser4) there are more and more calls for 2.7.

also, people are resisting 2.6 on stable servers - i don't mind running it on workstations, but for servers it is a race to keep up. given that each kernel upgrade requires a reboot, it's not a nice situation.

Re:Retro Linux - Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps, but I found it necessary to install module-init-utils before my 2.6 kernel works. Since I need 2.6 or I'm missing some hardware drivers (like network), this was quite fun to do.

Re:Retro Linux - Sweet!

[richlv]

um, i think some time ago modutils was replaced by module-init-utils, so you need them for 2.4, too as there now is only one package for both 2.4 and 2.6

i'm not exactly sure about this and too lazy to google, but if you are interested i'm sure information can be found :)

This is nice but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting for "Slackware Enterprise Linux" to come out.

Re:This is nice but...

[Punk Walrus]

I'm still waiting for "Slackware Enterprise Linux" to come out.

Slackware has 28 distros based on it (29 if you include the new PocketLinux), some of which are trying to be "Enterprise Level."

Re:This is nice but...

[Budenny]

Vector Soho, a slackware derivative, is worth looking at. KDE, OpenOffice etc. As fast and light as you can be, with KDE. Has the very nice personal database package tellico with it. A collection manager, but you can customise it to be anything you want. In a small office environment this is a very reasonable choice on older hardware. Installs very easily. You can get used compaqs or dells with P3s and run this stuff quite acceptably fast, and be very secure and stable. Easier for ordinary users not to have multiple file managers, mail clients etc. Great for charities and small low budget educational insititutions.

Re:This is nice but...

[Your Anus]

You can also try SlAMD64, a Slackware-based distro compiled for AMD64. They just updated for Slackware 10.2.

My (quick) distro of choice

[Punk Walrus]

I am looking forward to trying this out. Slashdot alerted me to Slack fans, and I have been using it steadily in personal and professional environments for years now. I like LFS and Gentoo, just because I can tweak every living thing out of my hardware and software, but if I need a "quick set and forget" distro just to get a box running, Slackware is hard to beat.

I don't know why people claim the installation is so hard. I guess the disk partition thing might be intimidating, but then again, I have FDisk'd so many times because Windows/DOS had issues back in the day, I find the two-tone ncurses thing to be a positive boon!

A hearty congratulations to Pat and all the people who worked for this!

And in other news....

[Rob_Ogilvie]

slamd64 has been released with many quite similar changes. What a coincidence, 'eh? Grab it now if your CPU is of the x86-64 persuation.

Re:And in other news....

[fred87]

You just beat me :) Here's a bit more info:

Slamd64 is an unofficial amd64 port of Slackware. Slamd64 10.2 has also been released today, with 2.6.12.4 kernel (with reiser4 support), but otherwise very similar changes.

Re:And in other news....

[Rob_Ogilvie]

You realize I set my alarm for 05:45 to beat you, right? ;-)

Good for Pat

[Artie_Effim]

It is nice to see that he has rebounded enought from his odd illness to keep up with what I think is the best server distro of all time. Low overhead, fast and stable, all I want.

Up with the times

[bwaynef]

Re: up with the times... Slackware has never tried to be up with the times. They're just now allowing 2.6 kernel (from the installer). Firefox is still a 1.0.x release so its not as stable as the mozilla suite has been (though its pretty good). I think Pat just lets everyone else work out the bugs before he incorporates it into his release. Stability and Ease of Use.

Re:My (quick) distro of choice

[richlv]

installation of slackware as a gui workstation _is_ harder than suse, mandrake and probably fc and some other distros :)

also, it might be harder for novices because of lack of dependacy system. other than that (and partitioning mentioned by you) it probably isn't much harder, i think.

Glad they stuck with 2.4

[m50d]

Others will disagree with me but I still find 2.6 kernels to be unstable more often than not (see my journal). As a more server-oriented distribution, stability is perhaps more important with slackware than many distributions, and it's good to see Pat's priorities reflect that.

Re:Glad they stuck with 2.4

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been using the 2.5 and now 2.6 kernels in production heavy load web environments for some time with very very few crashes on whitebox hardware. I find very few issues over all.

Re:Glad they stuck with 2.4

[m50d]

Good for you, but with some 2.6 releases I've had trouble getting it to stay up for more than an hour. A stable kernel should be stable for all hardware and kernel configurations (or at least any kernel configuration with "prompt for development code/drivers" disabled)

Re:Glad they stuck with 2.4

[planetoid]

I upgraded from the default 2.4.x kernel that came with my Slackware 10.1 distro to 2.6.13, and I now notice that glibc halts execution of programs in which it detects a memory leak (at least that's what I understand that "corrupt double-linked list (blah blah blah)" error is about, correct me if I'm wrong).

I find it curious that this didn't happen in 2.4.x -- why would the kernel I use affect how glibc operates and detects potentially fatal memory errors? Wouldn't glibc recognize it regardless of kernel?

Anyway, this rendered a few programs (all unofficial ones that didn't come with Slackware, of course) unusable; setting environment variable MALLOC_CHECK_ to 0 is supposed to let the program run without problem from glibc but it just segfaults. But then again, maybe that's for the better? None of those programs were must-haves; of course it would be nice if people learned how to debug their programs and be more hawk-eyed about their use of new and delete/malloc and free.

I would go back to the 2.4.x kernel for the slightly-better stability but it didn't include hyperthreading, and Doom 3 was running like a slideshow. Doom 3 now has better performance on my Linux system than it does in Windows, and KDE doesn't take forever to start up either (like 3 seconds as opposed to the 10-15 from before). I'm pretty sure Einstein@Home, LHC@Home, and ProteinPredictor@Home also are benefitting from the significant increase in speed as more of the processor's potential is utilized when I run it.

Re:Glad they stuck with 2.4

[m50d]

I find it curious that this didn't happen in 2.4.x -- why would the kernel I use affect how glibc operates and detects potentially fatal memory errors? Wouldn't glibc recognize it regardless of kernel?

2.6 introduced a new and improved threading library, which presumably allows glibc to trace things better. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of nice features with 2.6 that I would like to use - but features mean nothing when you can't run the damn thing for more than half an hour.

Re:Glad they stuck with 2.4

[Anonymous Coward]

2.6 seems to work fine in the more popular distros. Your original post didn't mention anything more than it being vanilla, so who knows what configuration you were running.

Did you compile it yourself. What version of GCC did you use, etc? Otherwise, your little complaint seems to be a whimper.

Slackware was cool back in 1994, but things have moved along to better things (IMHO)! Some of us appreciate distros that keep track of all the dependencies with most of the options turned on. Saves compiling, building, and managing dependencies to get a more full version. Slackware is dream for minimalists, but hasn't ceded much to today's middle ground.

While it is not impossible to run a well patched and configured Sendmail, why haven't they moved to a more secure and scalable MTA? Some of the configuration files are much more simple and should appeal to a minimalist mentality.

I'll do my part by leaving my torrents on for awhile, since I still have to deal with some Slackware installations.

Re:Glad they stuck with 2.4

[m50d]

2.6 seems to work fine in the more popular distros

In the case of redhat/fedora and many of the "big" distros it's because they have their own kernel team who maintains a heavily patched and often significantly stabilised kernel.

I can see that not everyone is having the problems I'm having, but that doesn't do anything about mine. Presumably these are problems that only show up in some configurations.

Your original post didn't mention anything more than it being vanilla, so who knows what configuration you were running.

I used a vanilla version because some people were blaming instabilities on distro patched kernels, compiled myself with the kernel.org source. I have tried many 2.6 versions, patched or otherwise. I used gcc 3.3.6 for this particular kernel, earlier ones were 3.3.5. If you're referring to the kernel config, it just has drivers for the hardware and filesystems I use built in, everything else left out, and in an effort to achieve stability I've even begun leaving out drivers for hardware I have but don't use much e.g. parallel port. Hardware wise this is a pretty normal desktop system, 800mhz duron, 384mb ram, FIC AZ11EA mobo, all of it fine under windows, linux-2.4*, and linux-2.6.11.

YAY!

[Anonymous Coward]

YAY!

You missed the joke!

YAY!

Good work, sport.

Download it from Planet Mirror

[evanism]

http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/slackware/slack ware-current/

Warning: Subversion does not scale!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please be careful if you plan on using this system for version control. The default configuration of the latest version scales even worse than previous ones (using their fsfs datastore which completely sucks nuts for scalability). The devs even admit that there are scalability problems in their mailing list threads.

Making me a Slacker again . . . . .

[failure-man]

I could:
a) Get some work done tonight so I don't fail classes.
or
b) Install some new Slackware on my primary beast.

I think I hear the torrent's call . . . . .

Re:Making me a Slacker again . . . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

You will have plenty of time to do your homework, the torrents are slow as balls.

Re:Making me a Slacker again . . . . .

[bersl2]

That's funny. I find that when things fail on heavily packaged distros, they fail miserably.

I am in charge of a Gentoo server. I've fucked a service up on it, precisely because I was able to carry out a partial upgrade without knowing what I was doing. Now, the former maintainer is on my ass about it, and even after trying everything I know, short of rebuilding the entire box (on an PII, nonetheless), I am going to end up building a copy of the whole mail system on my own (Slackware) system.

Yeah, as usual, I am to blame for my own problems. But at least Slackware doesn't let me fuck up like that. It's not that much extra work for the added protection against myself.

Re:Making me a Slacker again . . . . .

[emsearcy]

Well, for those of you who'd like a straight (non-bittorent) download, The OSU Open Source Lab mirror (USA) has them. Check out:

http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-10.2-iso/

or for ftp:

ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/slackware/slackware-10.2- iso/

Slackware's purpose?

[Zemplar]

Now that you can get a 'real' UNIX for free, what are the compelling reasons to use Slackware GNU/Linux whose primary function is to be "...the most "UNIX-like" Linux distribution out there."

Re:Slackware's purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the compelling reasons to use Slackware?

I am compelled to use Slackware for religious reasons. Praise "Bob"!

Re:Slackware's purpose?

[Brainix]

Linux has surpassed traditional Unix in many ways:

• O(1) scheduler
• aggressive virtual memory subsystem
• /proc filesystem
• quality documentation
• active developer/user communities

I enjoy these Linux features. But I prefer traditional, Unix-like distros. I use Slackware.

Re:Slackware's purpose?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Too many distributions try to be a Windows clone and appeal to the unwashed masses. Slackware, on the other hand, makes no such appeal. It doesn't need approval from anyone.

Re:Slackware's purpose?

[evilviper]

Now that you can get a 'real' UNIX for free, what are the compelling reasons to use Slackware GNU/Linux whose primary function is to be "...the most "UNIX-like" Linux distribution out there."

Nice to see trolls are getting more and more positive moderation lately...

Your reading of that statement is completely wrong. Slackware doesn't try to imitate any other OS. It's really just a statement that Slackware doesn't try to be another almost-Windows clone, as just about every other major Linux distro does.

The reasons to use Linux instead of a Unix distro are too numerous to list in any single post. This has been rehashed so many times I'm sick of hearing it.

The BSDs are also "real UNIX", in every sense of the word except actual trademark licensing.

Support Slackware and Subscribe...

[p.rican]

(yes I still don't know how to uninstall a generic packages..like when I download something, untar; make; make install : where can I find out where it put all it's stuff?)

Try this:

user@darkstar $ whereis <packagename>

or as root:

root@darkstar # updatedb
root@darkstar # locate <packagename>

Hope that helps. Slackware subscriber since 7.0

Re:Support Slackware and Subscribe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look into checkinstall. You do ./configure; make; checkinstall -si -S; and it tracks all the files that get installed, and makes a nice slackware tgz package you can install with installpkg (and later remove with removepkg).

Re:Support Slackware and Subscribe...

[richlv]

for the checkinstall supplied with slackware (in extras) i usually supply no parameters, it just creates slackware packages.

but there is one thing i've been unable to find in checkinstall - is there any way to create package but _not_ to install it ?

or does make install imply that i just have to install it while making a package ?

Re:Support Slackware and Subscribe...

[cloudmaster]

If you pass a -t in there, does that cause the package to be empty, to not be installed, or barf? :)

Re:Support Slackware and Subscribe...

[richlv]

hmm. -t is supposed to only set package type - can this really change the way final product is handled ? well, i think i could give that a try with the next package that i will install :)

Re:Support Slackware and Subscribe...

[cloudmaster]

I was hoping that it'd behave like lots of other programs ("make -t install" included) where it was more like a test mode. Though, in retrospect, that *still* wouldn't do what you wanted... Remind me to check on an actual machine before posting suggestions in the future. :)

quit being a baby

[Anonymous Coward]

Just install Swaret and shaddap.

Re:Up with the times - ala M$ style?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Mozilla suite is unfashionable now, but I started with Netscape suite (3.x IIRC) back in the late 90's (or so), and have had my email in that mode ever since, thus now in Mozilla Suite. Do we really need to emulate the M$ style of killing backward compatibility???

Since I see another post indicating 1.7.11 IS included, that encourages me to consider Slackware in my endless quest for a distro that "does it all" without me having to tweak/twiddle settings past my (admittedly limited) patience and time - been doing that since the Yggdrasil days with a Mitsumi 1x CD ROM drive. Even then Slack on diskettes was fairly straightforward if time-consuming.

I get paid to tweak and twiddle Solaris and various server packages, and don't really enjoy having to continue in that mode on my own time when it gets to be significant. The BSD's look better all the time with their uniform approach and consistent ports packaging. NOw if they could allow installation to logical partitions instead of primary only to allow replacement of an existing linux partition, and get on better terms with JavaOne to keep their Java port up to date...

Another Nod to Bob

[Anonymous Coward]

You kids and your 2.6 kernels...
Slackware fits like a warm pair of slippers.
Its the Perfect distro for posting dupes and trashing M$

Is this true for Slackware?

[bogaboga]

Is the following true about Slackware?

Is the snappiest distro out there in terms of overall responsiveness?

True that it is the oldest Linux distro?

If so why does it not seem to have the mind share that Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva and [K]ubuntu appear to enjoy?

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the snappiest distro out there in terms of overall responsiveness?

Yes.

True that it is the oldest Linux distro?

No.

If so why does it not seem to have the mind share that Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva and [K]ubuntu appear to enjoy?

Because Slack is the most unforgivingly Unix-like of all the distros. If you want to use Slackware, you'd better be ready to spend a lot of time at the command line, compiling, swearing, and learning more about your OS and your computer than you ever wanted to know.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[BenjyD]

If so why does it not seem to have the mind share that Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva and [K]ubuntu appear to enjoy?

If my experiment with Slackware 10.0 a while back was representative, it's because of : lack of good automatic package management, lack of newbie-friendly administration tools, lack of all the advanced stuff like Project Utopia etc. and the relatively small selection of official packages

Of course, Slackers would probably say that all those things are the reasons they use Slack, which I don't understand.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[FauxPasIII]

> If so why does it not seem to have the mind share that Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva and [K]ubuntu appear to enjoy?

If you're used to Windows or Mac, it requires you to do more learning of Linux up front.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, Slackers would probably say that all those things are the reasons they use Slack, which I don't understand.

You're right! Those are the reasons that I use Slackware. Slack refuses to hold your hand; it forces you to learn how your system works, and I like that. I learned more about Linux and my computer during my first day using Slackware than during all of my Red Hat and Debian time combined.

Now that I've learned all that, newbie-friendly administration tools, package managers, and things like that just insult me and waste hard drive space, so I stick with Slack.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[SimilarityEngine]

According to good old Wikipedia, Slackware is not quite the oldest distro. The earliest were MCC Interim Linux, TAMU and SLS (Softlanding Linux System). AFAIK Slackware is, however, the oldest distro that is still under active development.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually many of the solutions in other linux distros (the ones you listed with silly names) are a waste of time when you're maintaining servers and workstations running custom applications. Likely you don't understand because you're a desktop user. SysV inits make allmost all other linux distro's unusable for me.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[Anonymous Coward]

because it takes an IQ over 120 to be able to use it.

the others are simply intellectually inferior to us Slackwarians.

All hail the great slackware! ooohmay! dooomay! Durka!

seriousally, it's "harder" because there is no click and drool configuration options. and many want to be appliance operators instead of someone that understands how it works.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[lelkes]

Slackware is the oldest maintained distribution, Slackware 1.000 was released on July 16, 1993. The first Linux distro was MCC , which was made available to the public for download on the ftp server of University of Manchester in February, 1992, and the second was SLS (founded in mid-1992). Pat decided to modify SLS. He called the finished work Slackware. That's it.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Is (it) the snappiest distro out there in terms of overall responsiveness?

Short of using a source-based and optimized distribution (LFS, Gentoo, etc), yes. That being said, VectorLinux (a slackware offshoot with a focus on minimalist desktops) can give Slack a run for it's money.

>> True that it is the oldest Linux distro?

Nope.

>> If so why does it not seem to have the mind share that Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva and [K]ubuntu appear to enjoy?

Those are heavily desktop-centric distros, looking for the elusive users crossing over from Windows and aiming to provide a comfortable environment. Slackware has never been aimed at the point-and-click crowd, instead of nice GUI's and new features, you have stability and a very low level of distribution-introduced bugs. I know quite a few people who use Slack for servers, whereas few of us would consider the distributions you've listed suitable for that purpose.

You'll have to sit down, read and play with your Slackware box to get it set up just right but that experience stays with you and when things go wrong in other distributions, you've often got a good frame of reference for fixing the problem.

Disclaimer: Slack was my first Linux distribution and I've had an on and off again love affair with it.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[joshdick]

If so why does it not seem to have the mind share that Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva and [K]ubuntu appear to enjoy?

Oh, plenty of us have heard of it, but it can be a real pain if you don't take the time to learn some things. Basically, it's got a pretty sizable learning curve.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[sadtrev]

The snappiest is going to be some homemade combination, tuned to the individual machine and software requirement. However, the default Slackware environment will be better than most Gentoo/LFS users could conjure without a great deal of tweaking.

Slackware is not the oldest, but is certainly the oldest surviving currently-maintained distribution.

It doesn't have the mindshare because there are relatively few active developers and because the installer is a bit too much of a culture shock for it to be a sensible choice for those unfortunate souls who were exposed to MSWindows before they encountered Unix.

I used Slackware myself from 3.2 onwards and only switched to Gentoo when Slackware stopped supporting OpenLook. I can still use /usr/openlook on a symlink to my slackware partition and it works much better than the xview ebuild.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[Anonymous Coward]

SysV inits are teh suck.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[RandomJoe]

I won't necessarily say I use Slackware because those items don't exist, but I do use it because of frustration with many of those things on other distros.

Preface to say, I have been using Slackware since I first started with Linux, back around 1994 or so, so I've had plenty of time over the years to get used to "bare metal".

However, I have frequently wished I could just "apt-get install whatever" so I've tried various distros over the years. Used Red Hat for quite a while, really enjoyed Mandrake, never could get Debian going for whatever reason, Gentoo is nice but I don't like to wait that long! Every one of them, though, I wound up hitting a bunch of annoying problems, mostly related to package managers. I'd be going along fine until I wanted some one thing that I couldn't find in just the right form as a premade package. After I had installed it manually, things seemed to unravel slowly from that point on. Gentoo surprised me most, everyone extols the beauty of "emerge -u world" (if I'm remembering right) and the one time I had a great system running (with no custom packages by me) I did that and X refused to compile or run after that...

With Slackware, I just compile and install everything as I desire, and have almost never had a problem. Occasionally I have to recompile something to add this or that support that I forgot but still no great shakes. The only time I ever really got frustrated was back when I wanted to upgrade Gnome or something (can't remember exactly, I just remember it was big) and there were so many little things I had to donwload and compile I just decided heck with it. (This was one of the points where I tried a new distro!)

And the newbie-friendly admin tools I've never really trusted (not that I gave them much of a chance). It's old hat for me to edit a text file, even my Windows desktop here at work almost always had a terminal window open, so I'm not concerned there. But the few times I used GUI tools they either saved things in a bizarre format, or they couldn't parse the edits I made, making them useless to me.

I've never cared to follow the pack, and I really dislike a lot of hand-holding ("you-need-this!") so Slack's definitely been the long-term favorite.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[h4lphl33tor]

> > True that it is the oldest Linux distro?
> No.
Which Linux distro is older than Slackware ?

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[nickos]

Yggdrasil was probably the first, but it's been dead for a decade or so.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[koekepeer]

sls - slackware is based on it. slackware is the oldest *maintained* distro, though.

Re:Is this true for Slackware?

[slashdot_commentator]

Who is the idiot that upmodded this anonymous clown?

Is the snappiest distro out there in terms of overall responsiveness?

Yes.

It uses the same damn kernel that comes out of kernel.org that everyone else uses. You're bound to get more tweaks out of Red Hat and SuSE, but neither commercial entity tweaks to run slower. Volkerding doesn't make special changes to the apps or the libraries for performance purposes. You're talking out of your ignorant ass.

Its one thing to hear the cud chewers support politicians because they have "integrity", or "luxury" cars for their "cachet", but what bullshit to see assholes claiming to be technical stating "distro X has more overall responsiveness". There's not that much difference between distros for that quality to make it any form of criteria for choosing between distros.

Because Slack is the most unforgivingly Unix-like of all the distros.

What a horror! "I run Slackware because it most closely resembles UNIX." You'll get a much better luser experience running XP. "Use Mandrake, because it has all these whizzy buttons to do things like mount a filesystem, or burn a CD."

If you want to use Slackware, you'd better be ready to spend a lot of time at the command line

You'll HARDLY use the CLI any more than any another other linux distribution. Awww, go run OSX or XP if you're too illiterate to function by typing in a command.

compiling

That could be true if you MUST have obscure package X, or game Y. If this is such a horror to contemplate, why the hell are you using linux? Because you want to look techno-kuell to your luser friends?

swearing

Only if you're a luser that's better off using XP or OSX.

and learning more about your OS and your computer than you ever wanted to know.

Oh the pain! Look newb, this is Slackware, not Gentoo. If you want to pretend there is no underlying structure, go back to OSX or XP where you belong.

Yes, I was working on UNIX machines before linux was a twinkle in Torvald's eye. But I don't pick Slackware because its snappy (marketing bs), unforgiving, uses the command-line, makes me compile (like gentoo), enjoy swearing, or know everything about UNIX.

I use Slackware because only an old-school UNIX user can appreciate that Slackware is the closest thing on a computer that resembles a finely constructed UNIX distribution by a master craftsman. Volkerding does not push out defective software in order to meet a marketing deadline. Volkerding has a competent enough appreciation of security issues that no software package is shipped with defaults that would lend itself to an exploit. Any software package put in will work as advertised; the only configuration a user do will be because its minimally required. And its so conformant to UNIX standards and philosophy, modifications are "intuitive" for me.

There may be many reasons not to adopt Slackware, but not because of this poser coward's marketing answers.

Sad there's no GNOME

[a.different.perspect]

Pat's done an excellent job keeping Slackware fast and stable, but it's a shame he didn't put an equal premium on flexibility. As someone that just feels most comfortable in GNOME, the unfortunate fact is that Slackware can't even be a consideration for my primary desktop.

Re:Sad there's no GNOME

[richlv]

check changelogs - there were mentioned reasons for dropping gnome, also alternative places where you could get gnome for slackware

Re:Sad there's no GNOME

[a.different.perspect]

Thanks. I assume you mean this?

From the changelog, and for anyone else interested:

gnome/*: Removed from -current, and turned over to community support and distribution. I'm not going to rehash all the reasons behind this, but it's been under consideration for more than four years. There are already good projects in place to provide Slackware GNOME for those who want it, and these are more complete than what Slackware has shipped in the past. So, if you're looking for GNOME for Slackware -current, I would recommend looking at these two projects for well-built packages that follow a policy of minimal interference with the base Slackware system:

http://gsb.sf.net/ http://gware.sf.net/

There is also Dropline, of course, which is quite popular. However, due to their policy of adding PAM and replacing large system packages (like the entire X11 system) with their own versions, I can't give quite the same sort of nod to Dropline. Nevertheless, it remains another choice, and it's _your_ system, so I will also mention their project:

http://www.dropline.net/gnome/

Please do not incorrectly interpret any of this as a slight against GNOME itself, which (although it does usually need to be fixed and polished beyond the way it ships from upstream more so than, say, KDE or XFce) is a decent desktop choice. So are a lot of others, but Slackware does not need to ship every choice. GNOME is and always has been a moving target (even the "stable" releases usually aren't quite ready yet) that really does demand a team to keep up on all the changes (many of which are not always well documented). I fully expect that this move will improve the quality of both Slackware itself, and the quality (and quantity) of the GNOME options available for it.

Folks, this is how open source is supposed to work. Enjoy. :-)

I'll look into the alternatives, though it's still sad I won't be able to depend on their stability as I would the base system.

Re:Sad there's no GNOME

[Anonymous Coward]

The mentioned Freerock Gnome works fine:

http://gsb.freerock.org/

download tgz packages and install/upgrade just if they were part of Slackware. No problems noticed last time I did it :) (Sep 2005)

Re:Sad there's no GNOME

[rmjohnso]

I've been using Gware. I've not had any stability problems, and I run on slackware-current. I checked out some of their build scripts, and they seems to be pretty sane.

Patricks Health

[nighty5]

Last time I heard he was very ill, anyone have the latest?

Re:My (quick) distro of choice

[rugger]

Yep, the more I have used to slackware install, the more appreciative of it I am. It doesn't go to great lengths to guide disk partitioning, swap making ect, extensive configuration. Instead it just gets to the job of installing files onto the hard drive you want, and does it without wasting time I could be properly configuring the box. :-)

It may be imtimidating to first time users, but if you are going to be installing linux more then a few times, you don't need the time wasted by complex installers. (like windows XP's installer)
You already know how you are going to set everything up, and the slackware setup lets you express this very consicely.

Great!

[J-Doggqx]

Right after I installed 10.1 on all my home systems this past weekend. Oh well, guess I know what I am doing this weekend.

Re:Great!

[richlv]

actually it's pretty easy to upgrade straight to 10.2

some configuration parameters might be left over, some packages might be changed (for example, see ff & mozilla java links), but overall i have just upgraded my systems sinze slackware 9, i think.

before each release i tell myself that i should do a clean reinstall, but as it just works...

lately though some strange things have happened because of old user config, so i have wiped them for some apps - but i can't even start with a fresh user config - so now i'm telling myself that i will reinstall when kde 4 comes out. well, at least on the laptop...

Nice one Taco

[big_groo]

Instead of linking to the torrents, which are easy enough for anyone to find, why not link to the Slackware Store and try to support Pat's efforts.

You have no problems pimping ads and subscriptions on /., but you won't link to the store of the oldest linux distro out there.

Re:Nice one Taco

[Cro Magnon]

Great, slashdot the store so nobody can get to it! You insensitive clod!

Re:Nice one Taco

[tjw]

Somehow I doubt that it would have boosted sales. I would be willing to bet that most of Slackware sales are to loyal users, not first time users.

I signed up for the Slackware subscription service to support Pat, not for the CDs which still sit in the shrink-wrapped cases they were mailed in.

Promoting the torrents is probably a good thing. It wasn't an FTP link to slackware.com after all.

Re:Nice one Taco

[h4lphl33tor]

I've been a long time Slackware user and decided to subscribe to support Pat too last year when he got really sick (that, and also because I only have dialup from home ).
I bought a couple of t-shirts too, you might want to consider doing that rather than ordering CDs that you won't use.

Vector Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Vector Linux, based on Slackware, is the best personal-use distro I've seen. Got all of Slack's stability, basic package management system that doesn't try to do anything for you, but set up a bit more for desktop use. And it's FAST, the fastest binary-based distro I know of by a long shot.

http://www.vectorlinux.com/

Now I just need to wait for them to update so they're compatible with 10.2...

Re:Vector Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I love vector's speed but unfortunatly I can't use it in good conscience because it has propriatry software mixed in.

Re:Vector Linux

[Hydroksyde]

Whoa... I think that might be the distro I've been looking for all this time. Thanks.

Slackware's purpose is different

[Anonymous Coward]

The real purpose of Slack (at least as far as i'm aware) has always been so Pat could poke around with a Linux distribution of his own back when there weren't many more than Yggdrasil and one or two others. He kept using it I assume because it's what best fit his tastes as far as security, simplicity and size is concerned.

Slackware does not try to be like UNIX. If it did, it would have no documentation, no support, never update its packages and arrive at work in a nondescript brown paper bag.

make uninstall

[Flooded77]

I seem to remember a few packages that have make uninstall option that will remove everything for you. I think Gaim and PHP each have this option.

Check out the documentation for the package.

Re:My (quick) distro of choice

[cerelib]

What is so complex about the XP installer? I personally like it as much or better than any linux distro installer I have used.

Re:Patricks Health(Actinomycosis)

[Anonymous Coward]

He had Actinomycosis.
Brave guy to keep working as sick as he was.
You can rad about it here-
http://linuxreviews.org/news/2004/11/17_0_slackwar e_PAT/

History of slackware?

[hackstraw]

Slackware was my first linux distro. I learned a bunch from it when I first got into linux in 1994 with Slackware 1.something. It used the kernel version 0.99pl13. That was a long time ago.

I'll tell you, it was the best OS I could run at the time. I also thought it was cool that the default computer name back then was "Dark Star", which is a Grateful Dead song for those that don't know. The system was very modular, and it was relatively easy to install. Yes, I installed via sneakernet on 1.44meg floppies. The second time I installed it, I downloaded it over a 14.4 modem, possibly slower.

I did more reading when downloads took days at a time :)

Re:History of slackware?

[Anonymous Coward]

default computer name still is darkstar

Re:History of slackware?

[BetaJim]

I also thought it was cool that the default computer name back then was "Dark Star", which is a Grateful Dead song for those that don't know.

I may be mistaken, but I thought the use of the name darkstar refered to the movie Darkstar. BTW, every geek should see this movie! It is hilarious!!

Re:History of slackware?

[gid]

Slackware was my first distro as well. I ordered the slackware '96 cd set from cdrom.com way back when. It took memforever to get my video card (stb lightspeed 128?) to work under x.

It came with kernel 2.0.0 I believe, not quite as old as yours. :)

After that I tried RedHat for awhile, which I was kind of happy with, but it was a pain to upgrade. Then RedHat wanted money from me for upgrades, so then my cheap ass switched to debian which solved my upgrade problems and my cheap problem, and allows me to be on the cutting edge with unstable/sid. Some packages are a bit slow to upgrade, but I don't mind manually installing a few things myself.

Re:History of slackware?

[hackstraw]

http://www.userlocal.com/phorum/read.php?f=2&i=490 72&t=49065

Re:History of slackware?

[BetaJim]

Oops, I was mistaken! :)

Re:My (quick) distro of choice

[rugger]

XP installation is not that bad .... it is still shows signs of its ancient NT 3.51 history though.

Also, the second stage, where you enter your details and devices get configured, sucks, mostly due to poor feedback and how painfully slow it is. Give me a Windows 95 install process anytime over XP install. And then, once you get it going, you still have to configure > 90% of your important hardware because the OS doesn't have adequate drivers for them.

Whereas the slackware install, I can tell it what partitions to use for swap and install. Then tell it what packages (in detail) I want installed, and once it has installed the packages get it to install LILO. And thats about it. Its much faster then an XP install, and lets me choose all what to install.

Once the system reboots, I can actually go about configuring the hardware and network, without a slow or buggy interface in the way.

Floppy or MS Windowe required(?)

[Random Walk]

The installation method looks truely ancient: seems that you need a floppy drive for installing. Is there any slackware-based distro with installer CDs?

The FAQ actually suggest an alternative method through MS Windows (with loadlin), but needing Windows to install Linux seems pretty silly.

Re:Floppy or MS Windowe required(?)

[Anonymous Coward]

The installation method looks truely ancient: seems that you need a floppy drive for installing. Is there any slackware-based distro with installer CDs?

No, you don't have to install with floppies. Maybe their docs are ancient :-)

Disk 1 is bootable, you can install from that.

Re:Floppy or MS Windowe required(?)

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Read the documentation again.

Of course you can install Slackware from a CD.

Re:Floppy or MS Windowe required(?)

[Budenny]

No, you just boot from the installation CD (or the DVD of 10.1 that was on magazine covers lately) and away you go.

Re:Floppy or MS Windowe required(?)

[kosibar]

I've been installing Slackware from bootable CDs for a number of years now. Making a boot floppy isn't as easy as it was in the past either because kernels and such have grown beyond the space limitations of a floppy.

Burn the ISO to CD and boot it. Disc 2 has (at least in the past) a number of troubleshooting tools on it when you boot. It's sort of a rescue disc. (I say at least in the past because my 10.1 discs are not working that way, though I suspect it is a bad burn.)

I was looking for the point at which they switched to bootable CDs and more info on the boot/root floppy situation, but Slackware.com is coming up blank. Maybe somebody else knows.

Rich

Re:Floppy or MS Windowe required(?)

[Cro Magnon]

I know I used a bootable CD for Slackware 7.0. I don't know whether they had one before that.

Re:Floppy or MS Windowe required(?)

[schon]

I don't know whether they had one before that.

They did - 3.9/4.0 was bootable (it's the oldest version I have handy) and it even came with a live CD (way before Knoppix thought of it.)

Re:Floppy or MS Windowe required(?)

[Alan Hicks]

I was looking for the point at which they switched to bootable CDs and more info on the boot/root floppy situation, but Slackware.com is coming up blank. Maybe somebody else knows.

Ask and ye shall recieve.

Slackware has had bootable CDs since at least 3.9/4.0 (4.0 was basically 3.9 with a 2.2 kernel) using floppy emulation all the way up to 8.0 (which gave you a choice of a 2.2 or 2.4 kernel). Starting with 8.1, Slackware has used el torito (I think I spelled that right) bootable CD images. Lots of older BIOS's won't boot an el torito CD, so I always keep one 8.0 live CD handy for rescue operations on those. IIRC, some AMD64 724-in motherboards shipping with a flakey BIOS that didn't like el torito CDs either. Again, IIRC, these were mostly Emachines, which would explain everything.

Bit OT, but I can't resist

[rsilvergun]

how do you get that 2.6.13 kernel installed? For the life of me I can never figure it out, and always cop out and just compile my own. I don't remember there being an option during install and I seem to remember it taking more than just installpkg afterwards.

Re:Bit OT, but I can't resist

[Markus_UW]

You just install the packages from the testing directory and type lilo. It's really easy, actually, i'm running that kernel in my slackware now.

Re:Bit OT, but I can't resist

[ajs318]

Compiling your own kernel is the proper way to do it. You just need the sources from kernel.org -- Slackware does not rely on a patched-to-christ kernel like some distributions (*cough*) SuSE (*cough*). Then, if you get every one of the steps right, in the right order, it will Just Work. I mostly use Debian so I don't have to remember them {Debian has a funky tool that makes kernel images into a .deb package which you can just install}; but you should start with "make oldconfig" and "make menuconfig".

Final tip: don't go leaving loadable modules around for things you later compile right into the kernel. You will regret doing that. And don't put anything USB-related into the kernel -- it all wants to be in modules, so you can rmmod and modprobe the drivers for any appliances that misbehave.

Re:Bit OT, but I can't resist

[MikeDawg]

I've never felt really comfortable NOT compiling my own kernels, I hate RH, compiling everything, and every single module. I only trust a kernel that I compile myself. I have my own revision system, I save the kernel's .config file from the past couple kernels I've used, look at the changelogs to the kernel and see if anything applies to me, if not, I throw in the old .config file, and do a quick readthrough making sure all the options are selected that I need, and it is going, the whole process of configuring a kernel for compiling takes less than 10, maybe even 5 minutes.

Umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yippy?

Use Checkinstall

[petabyte]

(yes I still don't know how to uninstall a generic packages..like when I download something, untar; make; make install : where can I find out where it put all it's stuff?)

Easiest way is probably to use Checkinstall. I'm using 1.5.3 and 1.6.0 doesn't seem to like me, but its as simple as ./configure, make, checkinstall -S (instead of make install) and it'll make install a slackware package that you can remove with pkgtool like everything else.

Re:Use Checkinstall

[Aeiri]

I'm using 1.5.3 and 1.6.0 doesn't seem to like me, but its as simple as ./configure, make, checkinstall -S (instead of make install) and it'll make install a slackware package that you can remove with pkgtool like everything else.

I think Checkinstall 1.6.0 just plain doesn't work. First, you have to make sure you use the new "--install=yes" option, but even then only about 1% of programs work with it. The only one I got working was TightVNC, so I switched back to 1.5.3 again.

I hope nobody looks into Checkinstall, downloads 1.6.0, and thinks it's utter crap immediately after trying it...

On that note, here are links for all the relevant packages:

Source
SlackPack TGZ
RedHat RPM
Debian DEB

slackware - upgrade/reinstall?

[soop]

I didn't think people -reinstalled- Slackware ...

All this talk about going home and reinstalling 10.2 over 10.1 ...

Why not just update your packages or kernel and be done with it

Re:slackware - upgrade/reinstall?

[Markus_UW]

Just download swaret and get it to upgrade all your packages. Way less effort that way.

Re:slackware - upgrade/reinstall?

[RandomJoe]

While that would be the ideal, I usually take the "reinstall" as an opportunity to clear out all the cruft I've accumulated over the months or years. I just back up to the server, maybe make a dupe on a USB HD, then pull data over as I need it. After a while, I burn what's left to CD and delete.

I'm bad at housekeeping, so having an opportunity to sit around and remember just what I did to get everything working last time (for whatever reason, an enjoyable experience to me! ;) gives me an excuse to tidy up at the same time.

As for not even trying the upgrade, probably a leftover from my Windows years. Upgrading Windows was always an unmitigated disaster...!

Magnet URI links

[Danathar]

Here are the Magnet URI links. The trackers are having problems. Connect this way...

Note that slashdot mangles URI's so ther is NO space before the last two charachters like it prints here...just get rid of the space

Disk 1
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:YYXZAJR2B3WFBOZCWCFXUSZBOA2MRA 5L

Disk 2
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:YWPGO6H445YQILY5A5XYGSZATPQCPW ES

Disk3 Source
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:FVUYDWUGGYSDXS3CH6KU4SDOEJIJKQ ZK

Disk 4 Source and Extras
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:PVCGFALOO52JJOSEHJA7YCIHHWERHG SN

I just installed 10.1

[Ximok]

Crap, I held out for 2 weeks hoping they would come out with 10.2. So got tired of waiting, downloaded and installed 10.1 LAST NIGHT until 11:45! GRRRR.... I just wasted 2 cds on 10.1... Oh well, at least I don't have to download firefox now... seperately...

Re:I just installed 10.1

[Gleng]

Just use swaret to upgrade your box to either 10.2 or current. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Re:I just installed 10.1

[Jane_Dozey]

Read the update notes. They'll tell you the best (and most reliable) way to get that 10.1 install over to 10.2.

I know the above poster suggested swaret, which is pretty nice, but for a version upgrade (and not just a few packages) I'd recommend reading the upgrade notes and following the instructions there.

Checkinstall

[Gleng]

Checkinstall is your friend. You'll never have to type "make install" again. Instead, run checkinstall at the "make install" stage, and it builds a package for your distro (it handles .rpm, .deb, and .tgz based distros) and installs it. You can then just use your distro's package management tool, in Slack's case pkgtool, to remove it at a later time.

I think it's in the extras directory on the second Slack CD, if memory serves correctly.

Re:Checkinstall

[Gleng]

Fuck it. Beaten like a cheap whore.

Re:Checkinstall

[program21]

It's a great idea; it's just a shame that it's never worked for me. It does "make install," prompts for the package info, and created a .TGZ package--with only the description. It's somewhat useful for just keeping track of what version of something is installed, but since the packages are devoid of actual files, it's less than useful for actual upgrades.

Re:Checkinstall

[Martin Blank]

Oh, NOW you tell me about this after I went through an annoyingly painful installation of Gimpshop that went bad twice before working right.

I need a time machine.

Re:Checkinstall

[fLameDogg]

This happened to me a while back, and darned if I can remember what the problem was, but rest assured it's not the proper behavior. I think it was a bug in the particular version of checkinstall--drat, I wish I could remember what the fix was.

At any rate, I've used checkinstall on Slackware (and Mandrake, when I was fiddling with it) for a long time, and--mostly--it works great.

Re:Checkinstall

[RiotXIX]

According to this [ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/distributions/slackwa re/slackware-10.2/extra/checkinstall/README.1st%5D ,

they're aware of having issues, but working on slackware specific patches, and I guess eventually it will become a standard tool when it's a bit more reliable.

Re:Checkinstall

[petabyte]

Though you were modded up and I got nothing!

Damnit! :)

No More Gnome

[bender647]

I follow slackware-current, so I guess as of today I am running 10.2. I find the development (-current) version of Slackware more stable than the "enterprise" distros I am forced to use at work.

Anyways, I thought I'd mention that this is the first official release of Slackware in which there is no Gnome. Patrick has (perhaps wisely) left Gnome to be an add-on supported by 3rd parties.

Re:No More Gnome

[DonJoe]

Oh, bo hoo! Forced to use a linux distro at work. Have some compassion, man!

For the player haters

[CatsupBoy]

Come on, i'm tired of hearing the same old misconceptions about slackware here on /. (wait, i think thats why i stick around)

MISCONCEPTIONS

1: Slackware doesnt have a package management system

FALSE: Slackware uses a very simple package management system that accomplishes two things. 1. it allows you to track files installed. 2. allows you to upgrade to newer versions (yes there is versioning). And as a bonus, your not bogged down with dependancies.... oh wait you want cyclical dependancies???

2: Slackware is outdated/behind the times.

FALSE: Why? because it still uses 2.4 kernel? Please! stability is the issue here. Purchase a RedHat Advanced server and you'll find it STILL uses 2.4. You cant please everyone all the time, but you can still produce a quality product with proven technology.

3: Slackware is too hard to use for newbies and/or my grandparents

AD-HOMINIM: This argument is too often used against Slackware in general. For what it is, an "everything is a file" operating system, you must expect to have to get to the command line eventually. If your using it as a server in place of another Unix OS, its not any harder to manage. If your using it to replace RedHat or SuSe, still, its not any harder, and with the added bonus that you dont have as much bloat (did i mention cyclical dependancies?).

4: Pat is a selfish dictator and I dont like his direction

TRUE: So is Linus Torvolds, and as far as direction, every company, ceo, lead developer must make thier own decisions and you just cant please everyone all the time.

Before the mods make me -1 troll, let me just say Slackware is not perfect, but nothing is. I dont like the fact that PAM will probably never be added :(

I use it as a desktop and a server. My servers are usually stripped down and single serve boxes, and slackware is a perfect fit. By trade, I work with Solaris, AIX, and RedHat. The only reason I dont push Slack at work is that my company wants to spend the money to have a finger to point at (specifically a large company to point at) when a problem arises.

But in the 5 years i've been using slackware, I've never encountered a show stopper.

Re:For the player haters

[chez69]

2: Slackware is outdated/behind the times.

FALSE: Why? because it still uses 2.4 kernel?
Please! stability is the issue here. Purchase a
RedHat Advanced server and you'll find it STILL
uses 2.4. You cant please everyone all the time,
but you can still produce a quality product with
proven technology.

keep in mind that the latest version of redhat AS does come with the 2.6 kernel.

Re:For the player haters

[Anonymous Coward]

Being PAM-Free is one of the greatest advantages of slackware. KISS

Re:For the player haters

[milimetric]

Word bro,

Slackware was the thing that kept me with Linux. After destorying both my Gentoo and Ubuntu installations countless times because of pesky gcc and libc requirements from new versions of packages and basically shitty dependencies, I posted here and someone told me to try Slack. IT'S THE SHIT.

Every time I want to install something, it just works. I go to the website, get the Slack package for it, pkgtool and I'm done. None of that "we could not install this package because such and such packages are not available, please run whatever with dist-upgrade option.... and after you run it ....failed blah blah.... and so you go and upgrade gcc or libc.... blalaiewa3l2 9*qaw9w8el aliw439238243... BOOOOOM!!!!", you know? It's like that Ellen Feiss apple comercial. I switched to Slack, yeah, I'm a switcher.

Thank you Pat, thanks for the login quotes and the stability!!!

Re:For the player haters

[wolf31o2]

2: Slackware is outdated/behind the times.

FALSE: Why? because it still uses 2.4 kernel? Please! stability is the issue here. Purchase a RedHat Advanced server and you'll find it STILL uses 2.4. You cant please everyone all the time, but you can still produce a quality product with proven technology.

Funny...

[root@satellite02 mnt]# uname -r
2.6.9-11.ELsmp
[root@satellite02 mnt]# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 1)

Re:For the player haters

[aaronl]

One of the reasons that Slackware doesn't come with PAM is because of security issues. A lot of people feel that PAM is inherently insecure, and don't want anything to do with it. Not including it also keeps the distribution a lot more simple.

OTOH, I've added PAM to a Slackware system before, and it didn't require all that much effort.

I love Slackware because it lets me easily configure things without using some distro-specific tool, and without breaking any of the same by doing it manually. I also prefer the BSD boot process to SysV.

I find that I use Slackware on boxes that need special things, like some of the nicer filesystems, since OpenBSD doesn't support those. I'm not very happy with the way that Linux is headed. It is becoming much heavier every day, and I have noticed that stability is going down along with that. At least you can still strip a lot of that out. Four years ago, I would've preferred Linux for all my servers, but now I'm using BSD based things more and more. Slackware is hands down my choice for Linux in the situations that I do use it.

All in all, I'm still happy to be a Slackware user, ten years later.

Re:Patricks Health(Actinomycosis)

[nighty5]

Thankyou AC.

I use Slack on all my home PCs...

[zenmojodaddy]

... and the only big problem I have with it is that in order to get it just how I like it from a stock install, I have to do a lot of customisation. This is one of Slack's strengths - it's easy to tweak - but it does take time.

From time to time I think about trying a Slack-based distribution which is focused more narrowly on desktop use, but the package selections are never quite right... so I'd end up trying to tweak them as well. In which case, might as well stay with the original.

Ah, Slackware. Frustrating. Beautiful. Just like a woman, but without the breasts. And, in all probability, the closest most of us will ever get to a woman.

Re:I use Slack on all my home PCs...

[Mignon]

Ah, Slackware. Frustrating. Beautiful. Just like a woman, but without the breasts.

Did you check the extra directory?

Re:I use Slack on all my home PCs...

[dohcvtec]

Ah, Slackware. Frustrating. Beautiful. Just like a woman, but without the breasts.

Did you check in the man pages? ;-)

Mirror performance

[AshPattern]

We use slackware as our primary distro for our servers, so I set up a private mirror of slackware with a slackware-mirror-making-tool that syncs with multiple mirrors simultaneously. The tool keeps track of successful transfers and errors. Apparently, some mirrors aren't really pulling their weight (slackware.com is when it couldn't find the file on any host):

Rcvd Err Host
100 0 slackware.mirrors.easynews.com
87 0 slackware.cs.utah.edu
18 7 ftp.slackware.com
8 0 slackware.mirrors.tds.net
7 99 carroll.cac.psu.edu
0 105 ftp.oceighty.net
0 106 mirrors.usc.edu
0 105 ftp.cs.stevens-tech.edu

Re:Mirror performance

[Anonymous Coward]

You may want to search out:

"Unofficial Slackware Mirrors" because there are about 20 of them, fairly good ones, and definitely all keep up-to-date.

BitTorrent Defeats Slashdotting

[onetruedabe]

Isn't this everybody praises BitTorrent, and flaunts their DL/UL speeds?

My peak was 480KB/s down, 207KB/s up (That's ~3.5Mbps x ~1.7Mbps)

Thanks to Verizon's FIOS (Fiber To The Premesis), I've seen BitTorrent speeds up into the ~700 range. I guess as more people fetch Slackware 10.2, this number will increase (but by then, I'll have finished downloading it, and will only be seeding.)

Right now I'm connected to 36 / ~300 systems online. I'm *SURE* that bottom number should go up...

I know FIOS can handle more; I have enough bandwidth to support downloading multiple CDs at the same time, without having them slow each other down. Yummm...

-- .erutangis

Re:My (quick) distro of choice

[reclusivemonkey]

I don't know why people claim the installation is so hard. I guess the disk partition thing might be intimidating, but then again, I have FDisk'd so many times because Windows/DOS had issues back in the day, I find the two-tone ncurses thing to be a positive boon!

It always amazes me that someone will attempt to install an operating system without understanding the most basic aspects of disk partitioning.

Great to see Slack going strong after all the craziness a few months back. It looks like Slack is no longer a one man band, hopefully this most have much of an affect on the ethos (which I don't think it will).

When I was first looking around for distros to choose, most of them had a few paragraph's worth of description. Slackware's said;

"Not so much an operating system as a hobby"

I think it was meant to intimidate people; I took it that Slackware was fun and easy! I wasn't dissapointed :-) What can you expect from a distibution maintained by a Dead Head!

/usr/local

[toby]

yes I still don't know how to uninstall a generic packages..like when I download something, untar; make; make install : where can I find out where it put all it's stuff?

There have been de facto standards for this for decades, and standard layouts for Linux for years. If package developers pick random install locations, that's their foolishness. (This applies to any O/S, not just Linux.)

Having a database/registry of where an application put's it's files is a damn good idea.

Having standard places is equally important.

Re:/usr/local

[fbjon]

Same thing in Windows, but there's a problem sometimes:

Usually you'll find all applications in "C:\Program Files\*". So some smart novice then thinks, "ok so the default is C:\program files\ so let's install there by default", which is a bad mistake.The actual default prefix should be "%systemdrive%\Program Files\", not to mention that there is even an environment variable for it: %programfiles%.

The devil is in the details.

Re:/usr/local

[cloudmaster]

That's what the --prefix option in ./configure is for - to specify that you're usign a root other than /. Similarly, there are --bindir, --mandir, etc arguments for installers. In fact, most package managers just change those parameters around to build their package in a temp dir using their preferred paths, bundle the files up, and go.

quibble

[toby]

Point 4 is arguably ad hominem; point 3 isn't.

Got Slack? The Linux that switched me from Windows

[MindPrison]

Slackware is a special Linux distribution, the fact that it's being maintained and directed by one man (of course with a lot of other contributors) is baffling to me.

It's baffling because with the 8-10 years I've got behind me now...trying and TRYING to get Linux distro's to work for me...so I can leave Windows forever - Slackware is the ONLY Linux that made me switch completely.

Yes... I'm now officially an Slackware Fanboy! But what's wrong with being a fan? I love this distro - it just works!

Back in the heydays when I used Mandrake (now Mandriva) and SuSE ...I used these because they offered a Quick-Fix...everything worked from scratch...well...nearly everything that is...except from compilation of other sources, windows mediaplayer formats etc. etc. And hoo-and-behold if you should dare to venture into compilation on your own....then you'd be in knee deep with problems, why? Because these packages makes you dependent on packages, it makes you a slave to downloading RPM for "your-package" and if you want to do things on your own...there's simply too much to learn for a beginner because of all the dependencies and installs you must do (and KNOW) before you can do anything useful at all.

It's possible that a lot of you reading this using (insert-your-favourite-package-here) will go into "flame-shock" and tell me that (your-package-will-do-this-and-that-and-I-dont-kno w-jack) but that's not the point here. The point is that Slackware comes with tools to make you independent! It already installs a TON of utilities, libs, devs, compilers etc. to make your life easier when you want to do stuff on your own instead of being a package-whore.

That's what I like about Slackware! I'm free here, not "strategically" controlled by a corporate that figures out WHAT to bring me so I can "somewhat" be steered into the direction they want me to take by handicapping me doing stuff/learning on my own!

It's also the only package that made myself completely independant from windows, I can see whatever I want in Slack, configure the heck out of it, because of all the utilities and (smart hints and docs by the man himself) I've learned gradually what Linux is all about...and now I don't need to sit in a user-group and feel like an idiot just because I don't know jack even after 10 years with Linux...simply because Slackware teaches me to do stuff on my own and in fact encourages it.

Got slack?! Yeah - you bet!

This is not funny, it's insightfull ...

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Parent is joking, but actually, no fancy config tools is a greate feature of Slackware. It let's you do the job without getting in the middle. If you know what you are doing, dependency checking and clicky clicky interfaces are a waste of time and resources, plus, they are not as flexible as the old good shell.
BTW: Slackware has a package management system, and it rocks. What it lacks is dependency management, and that's not a lack of a feature, it's a design choice, and it's a greate decition.

Re:This is not funny, it's insightfull ...

[Deadguy2322]

If only it had a spellchecker.....

netinstaller with ftp/http support for slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wanna install straight from ftp/http try tukaani (one of the slackware forks) installer that already supports slackware 10.2 (list of mirrors included)

http://tukaani.org/installer/download

Re:Still on a 2.4 kernel?

[idonthack]

2.4 doesn't need patches every other week, and it's more stable.

I love my slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Patrick

Re:I love my slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, thanx Pat and keep up the good work!

Is it THE developer distro? Python support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Weary of crippled distros; I'm looking for a better distro for developers, a neglected market segment of late. As an old fan of Slackware the latest release is good news. Is the default Python support up to date and comprehensive? Lots of functionality ready to go out of the .iso? No need to rebuild servers or apps, no need to track down development packages? You know what I mean if you know what I mean.

Patrick's illness

[mary_will_grow]

Did Patrick ever tell the FOSS community about his illness? I remember he sort of called on everyone for help in diagnosing his problem, and then when he finally got it squared away, he never told anyone what the result was. Kind of against the whole "you tell me what you did, and if I learn something new, I'll tell it to you" spirit of F/OSS...

Re:Patrick's illness

[planetoid]

Well using the skill of logical deduction, Patrick isn't dead; ergo, I'm pretty sure he survived the disease.

Or is that logical induction? I never can remember what's what.

Re:Patrick's illness

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm. what /was/ the disease.

If someone asked what 1+1 was, and you told them 1=1, would you consider yourself logical?

I'd consider you an insecure twit who feels a little better about himself by writing "logical" non-answers to anonymous peoples problems, pretending your non-answer is such an obvious answer that the question wasnt even worth asking. Wow, congratulations, you brilliantly DIDNT answer my question. Why did you waste the words?

I hope you choke on your coke

Re:Patrick's illness

[planetoid]

You could stop being lazy and look it up; the disease he caught is mentioned in the Wikipedia article about him. Don't know where Wikipedia is? Google it. Don't know where Google is? Throw your computer out the window.

Red Hat vs Slackware

[cranky_slacker]

It's story time....and before the flamewar begins, let me just say I am telling this story to illustrate my point...so cool it.

In the spring of 2003, I decided I was ready for Linux and somehow I ended up with discs for Redhat 9.0. Yes boys and girls, this is in the days before Fedora. A little disc partitioning, a few questions and a half hour of waiting later, and Red Hat was up and running. When it was done, I had a fully working Linux system....almost. I couldn't listen to my vast mp3 collection, but I know my audio card worked because I could play the random .wav file I had lying around. And how do I change the appearance of my desktop? What if I want to change my window manager? I couldn't answer these questions or any of the many others I had. Over the next week or so, I poked around on what felt like 100 different websites/fourms and was able to solve a few of my problems. I even learned all about RPM hell when I tried to install the proper mp3 codec package. As you might imagine, it didn't take long for me to abandon Red Hat. It wasn't that I didn't like it, I simply didn't know how to use it.

Rewind a few months to when I was investigating the various Distros. I looked at Suse, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware, Gentoo, Debian, and probably some others. For whatever reason, I remember thinking that Slack's site just looked right. My impression of Linux at the time made me feel like it shouldn't be a product of a big company, but rather the efforts of a dedicated person(s). This notion ruled out Suse and Mandrake. At the same time, Gentoo and Debian seemed too hardcore. I'm not sure why I didn't go with Slack to begin with, but after the failed RH attempt, I went for it. Oddly enough, I reached this conclusion the day after Slack 9.1 dropped. Add to that the fact that I discovered the forums at LinuxQuestions.org right around this same time (if you're a linux newb, these _are_ the forums you need), and I had a shiny new distro, and a community of people working through the same kinks I was.

The Slack install was definitely more involved than RH, at least so much as to require a lot more input from me. By the time it was over, I already felt like I knew more, and little did I know what was waiting for me. When the install was done, I had a linux system which worked, but instead of staring at a highly customized KDE, I was looking at the command line (gasp!!). Bring on the fun...While I still didn't know how to config X, how to chose a window manager, how to set up ALSA or countless other things I needed to do, I also knew that I had to find out. RH did it for me and kept me ignorant - it took decisions out of my hands, which is one of the things I don't like about M$. Slack made me do it and in the process, learn it.

I've been on Slack ever since (except for my job and the wife's PC, where switching isn't an option) and although some things were a challenge, I couldn't be happier.

The point of this story is that Slack is a worthwhile distro and IS accessible to newb's.

Re:Red Hat vs Slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree, started as a newb on Slack 8.1 after suffering deps hell with Suse 7.0, havn't looked back since.

This box started as a 10.0 install in apr'04, upgraded to 10.1 and now 10.2. Yes, upgrade, NOT re-install.

Still running nicely.

As a newb, Slack is simple, clean, reliable. You learn how to use the apps as they were built by the developers, not so much how to use the distro and how the apps have been changed to fit in it like other distros.

make DESTDIR=/tmp/install install

[hopeless case]

You have at least two simple options for figuring out where a source package puts it stuff when you do a make install.

The first is using the DESTDIR variable, the second is using the --prefix= option when you run ./configure.

If the DESTDIR variable is supported by Makefile the source tarball comes with, then you invoke it like this:

make DESTDIR=/tmp/install install

That has the effect of prepending "/tmp/install" to the destination path of every file the makefile copies. /usr/bin/some_file becomes /tmp/install/usr/bin/some_file. You can then do things like "find /tmp/install -print" to get a comprehensive list of files that would be installed.

If you look at the slackbuild scritps slackware uses in its source directory to compile packages into binary tgz's, you will see this being done as a first step. Then makepkg is run from within /tmp/install to capture the binary files,

Your second option is to run configure like this: ./configure --prefix=/tmp/install/usr/local

This won't always work, but usually does. The reason is that some packages have files that need to know where other files in the package are and have this information hard coded into them during the build process through the prefix variable.

I've written several slackbuild scripts for packages slackware doesn't come with and I've had to do it both ways. I actually, in the case of the R language, ran into the issue I warned you about with --prefix. Fortunately, it was just a single bash script that the R build process had hard coded the path into so I added a sed command to my build script to remove the /tmp/install part of the hard-coded path in the script.

This is one place where slackware really shines. Everything is done with straight forward, easy to examine, bash scripts. The slackbuild bash scripts located in slackware-10.1/source/ are very easy to read and learn from.

Once you've build a binary package this way, and you run installpkg some_package.tgz on it, the full list of files installed is written to /var/adm/packages/some_package, which is another way to peruse the list of files installed.

My friend is a slackware sys admin but I'm a newb.

[crovira]

(and proud of it,) and, since my box just died, I'm thinking of replacing it all and changing the guts to an Athlon64 (or maybe dual Athlons?).

Does it make sense. Can slackware handle it? (I think it should, but, like I said, I'm still a Linux newb.)

I know it'll mean a new MoBo, 2GB RAM, 2x15GB & 2x120GB HDs (I LIKE redundancy,) a new power supply, new fanage, probably a new video card, new ethernet card(s? should I make it my firewall and phase out my use of a LinkSys router as a firewall?) a new DVD-RW drive, and using NFS and Samba (I think?) to use the box as a storage server for my Macs(2) and my wife's Win2K box.

Backups would be incremental on DVD-RWs, (with one set per day, complete and off site once a week.)

Re:My friend is a slackware sys admin but I'm a ne

[PenGun]

You need Slamd64 the 64 bit slackware dist. Get the current, it's basicly 10.2.

http://www.slamd64.com/

    PenGun
  Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

switch

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.ubergeek.tv/article.php?pid=54

Re:My (quick) distro of choice

[fistfullast33l]

Slackware was my first distro of Linux that I installed. The non-graphical install was definitely a challenge, but I'm sure I didn't run into any more problems that any other new user might run into with linux at first.

I did end up installing it a few times, however when I ended up playing with Gentoo a few months later, I ended up installing that a few times as well.

The only thing I wish Slackware had that Gentoo, Debian, and SuSE (among others) has is a system update feature similar to portage. There are a few third party solutions that aren't too bad but I'd prefer one supported by Slackware itself. All I want to do is dial up a server, check the changelog, and install the new packages. I think it's safe to say that Slackware is one of the few major distros that doesn't have this feature as part of the system. It's the number one reason why I ended up trying Gentoo, along with being able to compile everything from source.

This is true for Slackware!

[TTK Ciar]

lack of good automatic package management, [..] lack of all the advanced stuff like Project Utopia

By omitting nonessential bells and whistles, Patrick Volkerding doesn't have to waste his time and energy QA'ing them. He puts more QA hours into features essential to the operation of a production server, instead. This is of critical importance. QA effort cannot entirely eliminate the bugs and incompatabilities within and between packages, but the more hours are spent doing it the closer the distribution can get to this ideal form. Stability and security are the most essential characteristics of a production server.

lack of newbie-friendly administration tools

Don't need them. You may be right that their absence has prevented newcomers from adopting Slackware, though. It would be nice if more companies based their services on Slackware machines -- their services would be more robust, my skills would be more in demand :-) and it would result in more third-party QA'ing of Slackware packages. But I can't bring myself to care too much because the more popular Slackware has become over the years, the more packages Patrick has agreed to incorporate into the distribution to satisfy a wider audience. "More packages" is bad because ...

the relatively small selection of official packages

"More packages" is bad because the number of relations between packages increases in proportion to the square of the number of packages, and the number of incompatabilities between packages is proportional to this number of relations. The smaller the package set, the more effective Patrick's QA hours are at weeding out incompatabilities in the distribution as a whole. In fact I think Slackware has gotten somewhat overbloated with packages, and would welcome a little trimming of the fat. (Of course, what I consider fat might be necessary to someone else's business, so perhaps it's best that this is left up to Patrick, who gets a more gestalt picture.)

As an aside, I suspect what is hurting Slackware's wider adoption the most are its de-emphasis on desktop environments (it actually does pretty well at this, just not as well as some other distributions) and the popular misconception that the newest possible version of software is necessarily the best. In my experience, the decision to press a distribution into production service is often driven by what the IT elite at the company have running on their desktops. (This is more true in small companies, and less true in larger companies, where issues like availability of support by contract are more important. Though, here too Slackware comes up short.) Since Slackware holds little appeal to the desktop user, it does not take advantage of this vector. Also, since Patrick follows the sound, traditional practice of selecting for inclusion only those versions of software which are stable, the software which ships with Slackware is usually not the newest. If you look at the Slackware changelog, you can see various notes of the form "foo version x.y.13 exhibited such-and-such problems, reverted back to foo version x.y.12". Which is the way it should be done.

Inserting gratuitous plug here for my Code of Engineering.

-- TTK

Re:My friend is a slackware sys admin but I'm a ne

[Kehvarl]

Another poster already mentioned SLAMD64, and I have to say I agree it's a good distro, since it's essentially slackware compiled for 64 bit CPUs. However, slack 10.2 for 32 bit systems will run just fine on an AMD64 system, you just won't have a 64 bit OS or toolchain.

If you're going to get all new hardware I recommend against getting a SATA DVD/RW drive. mine has been nothing but trouble (as SATA ATAPI isn't entirely stable yet).

As to making your slack box your firewall, I don't see a point to that. if you already have a solution that you're happy with stick with it. Slack would be happy enough acting as a firewall/router, but I don't see the reason at the moment.

Bearing that in mind, Slackware has handled every piece of hardware I've tried it on, though there have been times when cheap third party peripherals had flaky operation.

And you call yourself a Slackware veteran????

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on!

If you want to know what packages are installed on your Slackware machine, `ls /var/log/packages|grep `

You want to know where the stuff is put? `cat /var/log/packages/| more`

Yay, finally!!!

[martinultima]

I'm seriously going ecstatic now... I've been waiting forever for the final release of Slack 10.2! (The reason being that I myself am a Linux developer, mine's based on Slack, and I've just been wondering and wondering why there haven't been any changes... I ended up basing mine on the latest -current, it's been out for a couple weeks now.)

FINALLY! Time to update a few more things...

I'll bite

[Crag]

Every day I tell myself I'll only READ /., but sometimes I just can't resist replying...

"And as a bonus, your not bogged down with dependancies.... oh wait you want cyclical dependancies???"

apt-get resolves cyclical dependancies. Dependancy handling only fails in cases where humans would have trouble too: incorrect package information, or impossible situations.

None of the other three points interest me. I don't care of my distro is behind (obviously, since I'm comparing Slack with Debian). I don't care if it's hard for other people to use (I'm not them). I don't care if the leader is Our Lord Satan. As long as it's Free Software, the leader's quirks are immaterial.

But the one thing a distribution SHOULD do is integrate packages in a way that does something for its users. Slackware does not compete in this regard. The only rational reason to use Slack is that it's what you're used to.

Looking for a reliable desktop operating system?

[martinultima]

Ultima Linux, my distribution, is a very customized little Slackware-based distribution designed for both desktop and server functionality. Very good reviews, too.

Re:History of slackware? - Darkstar

[karearea]

... "Dark Star", which is a Grateful Dead song for those that don't know.

And there I was thinking it was the Dark Star written by Stephen Stills and done very well by Crosby Stills and Nash.

Oh well, each to their own in terms of music, distro, religion and government ;-)

Re:Even numbered kernels are odd kernels.

[slashdot_commentator]

Also note that Torvald said at the onset of 2.6, that the kernel developer group would not be ultimately responsible for stability issues. (If you have a bug, and they don't see it on their hardware, its not their problem.) He expects the Linux distributors to follow up on undesirable bugs in varying configurations. That is also part of the reason for the four digit releases; they give distributors a way to track their changes to the kernel.

So, when Patrick puts out a 2.6 kernel, if he's only going by what kernel.org releases, there are bound to be bugs; which either he fixes, or you will have to go to Red Hat, SuSE, or someone else's kernel implementation for the fix.

What it means to Slackers: just because its an even number kernel, doesn't mean its a stable kernel, or even a kernel that will not undergo significant change in a few months. Not encouraging for someone who insists on kernel stability and an entity accountable to address bug problems (the OSDL is not). Me? I don't run 2.6 kernels, though I'm looking forward to do so soon (even before 2.7 is official).

I am duty-bound to say:

[Hosiah]

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! to the mighty Slackware, noblest of operating systems!

No DVD ISO?

[Doppler00]

I'm surprised there is no DVD iso of slackware yet. I've made DVD+RW drives standard on all my systems for quite awhile now, and I'm always annoyed when I have to burn 4 CD's just to install a new distro.

Re:No DVD ISO?

[Mike Zilva]

You'll only need the first 2 CD's the other 2 are sources, actualy if you don't want X and some other packages U'll only need the first CD...

When will we see a CD-Rom emulator using an HD full of ISO's and an LCD to select the ISO to use... (maybe a USB-2.0 botable device)

Re:No DVD ISO?

[dadragon]

DVD ISO Torrent

I love Slackware - Thanks Patrick - Please Google!

[Mike Zilva]

Also tryed some of most famous distros, but always come back to slack. Completely replacing my all* my windows for about 3 years now and couldn't be happyer* ;)

*exept Google Eatrh and Google Talk :( at least gaim lets me login to google talk, but I'd love to see a Google slack.tgz package for Google Earth and Google Talk... I know, I'm asking too much, but please Google, give Linux users the respective native apps......

Re:I love Slackware - Thanks Patrick - Please Goog

[Mike Zilva]

It's been a long time :) not 3 years, but 5, we are in 2005, how could I ever forget the day I started to control my computer :) Actualy I started this millenium using Slack, maybe we all end it using Slamd256, who knows :P AmigaOS was also a good OS before Windows trashed the world...

Re:Patricks Health(Actinomycosis)

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, there was this in the RELEASE_NOTES:

Well, that about covers the major changes. A couple of non-technical things that people might be interested in... folks are asking how I'm doing these days. I'm doing much better, thanks. I'm also getting asked just what it was that got me last fall. Well, the docs found H. Flu in a culture, so that's the best guess.

Re:Actually, that's a good thing...

[robw810]

I'll look into the alternatives, though it's still sad I won't be able to depend on their stability as I would the base system.

Actually, I would expect the quality to be even better than when gnome was maintained by Pat, as both the gware and frg developers can (and do) spend a lot more time on it than Pat can/did.
In fact, based on what I've seen ##slackware (freenode), that is indeed the case for both of those alternatives. Disclaimer: developers from both the FRG and GWare are regulars on the channel, so maybe I only hear the good stuff! :-)
RW

Re:No DVD ISO? read on...

[AetherBurner]

Go here and partake: http://boncey.org/2004_12_23_make_your_own_slackwa re_10_bootable_dvd I have used his procedure to burn my own dvd's. My IBM T42 case has a dvd of Slack 10.1 for recovery purposes plus my own software stash to get me going again in no time. I built it mounting the .iso on loopback, adding my own touches and tweaks, then burning the bootable disk. One disk and 25 minutes - viola! Slackin' since SLS...

Re:Got Slack? The Linux that switched me from Wind

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliantly stated and summarized!

Re:My friend is a slackware sys admin but I'm a ne

[snikulin]

Do NOT phase out your LinkSys firewall!
Software-OS driven firewalls in front lines are insecure in general
Embedded dedicated firewalls make the best firewalls.

Re:Racial discrimination

[Anonymous Coward]

they are also pains in the arse

Use more lube next time, you'll be fine.

iso torrent Corruption Arg

[spudgun]

my torrents finished downloading

Argh , my disc 2 seems to be corrupt , i mounted -o loop my iso and couldn't read most files on it

so I killed my torrents so as not to share did iso files :-( anyone else have trouble ?

Slacking for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using Slackware since ~8.1 and I think the best term to describe the distro in general is 'comfortable'.
Stable packages, sane file layouts, easy package management, trouble-free source compilation for 99% of programs, great performance without sacrificing stability...I like it a lot.

Oh, and if you want a good Slackware packages repository for when you can't be arsed compiling something and want it to 'just work'; check out www.linuxpackages.net

..just fine on P-75/40mb RAM

[newr00tic]

Slackware 10 runs nicely on an old Pentium 75mhz, with 40mb's of RAM, and 3gb HDD.. -The onboard Cirrus Logic (1mb version) graphics card even allows for 800x600@16bit, if you stick with either wmaker, bbox or fluxbox (I'm on WindowMaker, btw).

Naturally, the original chipset BIOS clips the HDD at 2gb, but I installed using a PCI hdd controller (/dev/hde), and changed back the entries in /etc/fstab to read "/dev/hda" once I'd moved the disk back onto the internal HDD bus, using a "rescue" disk and pico..

Just set /boot to be within the DOS size-limit (20mb is fine/overkill), and it'll boot up fine, using "all" three gigabytes.. =)