Slackware 11 is Coming

ejd3 writes "In the slackware-current changelog Pat has stated that 'Although there's still quite a bit in the TODO queue here I'm making my steps carefully as -current is very stable, and I think it should ship as a stable 11.0 soon so that we can get back to the business of breaking things in -current. :-)' How much longer will the slackers have to wait?"

Comments

No need to wait

[iiiiiiii]

Slackers just run what's in -current

Re:No need to wait

[ejd3]

Slackers just run what's in -current

Quite right, its certainly it is stable enough. There even many many unofficial ISOs of the current tree you can grab at various sites including slackware.no

Re:No need to wait

[the unbeliever]

Or just install 10.2, then install slapt-get and add your favorite slackware mirror's -current as a source.

Re:No need to wait

[tsa]

I usually run the distribution I installed for years and years until I can't run new programs on it anymore, because of library issues and such. Then it's time to upgrade.

Re:No need to wait

[goarilla]

that's a bad idea
swaret and slapt-get can bork your install very easily
unless you know exactly what slapt-get does

it's much wiser to rsync the current tree
then following the instruction in UPGRADE.TXT
which is basicly go to init 1
upgrade glibc shared libs, sed and pkgtools
then the rest: for i in a ap ...; do cd "$i"; upgradepkg --install-new *.tgz; cd ..; done; updatedb && ldconfig; init 3

Re:No need to wait

[Skater]

One of my problems with Slackware is that -current isn't really what I want in many cases. I recently updated my laptop to Slackware 10.2, then searched for all of the security updates to install. I did those, but things broke, like apache (well, php, actually) because I didn't have the new-since-10.2 Cyrus-imap library, updated libpng library, etc. installed. Those weren't updated as a result of a security problem; they were updated for other reasons. I know this because I searched the changelog for "security update" and grabbed all of those packages that I use.

It's like we need a -stable-security that is security updates ONLY to a given release. I know that's a lot more work for Patrick but it's frustrating otherwise. (I've never gotten around to using a dependency management system under Slackware.)

Ideally, when a given package has a security issue, it would be compiled against what was in 10.2 AND -current. And yes I do subscribe to Slackware so I get the CDs automatically, so I feel I have some right to complain. :)

Re:No need to wait

[Skater]

I was down that road with the 3.x series. It was hell to upgrade from that!

Re:No need to wait

[sonixtwo]

There is a utility is slackware-extras called scalkpkg which can be used to upgrade to current without borking the install like swaret and slapt get. It has been majorly updated recently, and has a partial ncurses interface.

Re:No need to wait

[martinultima]

And a lot of third-party developers using Slack as a base for their own distribution also use the -current tree. I've been doing my own distribution lately (yes, you know, I never shut up about it...) and I just base everything on -current, making a few tweaks and changes as I deem necessary – it really is rather nice and stable, and since it's significantly more up-to-date, I see no reason not to use it. As far as I care, the releases are mostly milestones between updates.

Quick tip to any fellow would-be Slack developers, by the way – keep at least one previous version just to be on the safe side, and "torture test" the current one before you release it. This means updating your dev box, preferrably a couple others as well, using it every day, etc., as well as doing an extensive test of everything (my own procedure if anyone's interested). That way, you know for sure if it works – and if it doesn't, you can just go back to one that does. Simple as that.

By the way, just a personal opinion, but I'd rather trust Slackware's "unstable" -current branch than any Microsoft, Fedora, or Ubuntu release – I've had bad experiences with all three, so I may just be biased, but may as well put in my 2 cents anyway.

Re:No need to wait

[tsa]

I always backup all my data and format the SW partition. Aesy, but some work to get all the settings right. Then again, I only have to do that once every 4 years or so.

Re:No need to wait

[Bert64]

Gentoo, and to a lesser extent debian, are very good at letting you run them for years and keep them up to date as you go along...
The only trick with gentoo, is to update regularly rather than all in one large chunk. You also don't have the typical problems that occur with binary updates being linked to particular versions of libraries and thus needing to install those libraries too.

For instance, anything compiled against glibc 2.4.x will depend on that version of glibc, but the same programs will still compile when using much older versions. A binary distro would require you to upgrade glibc too.

Re:No need to wait

[Slayk]

Pat already does that.

Change your slapt-get sources over to the stable branch, and you'll get security updates.

Re:No need to wait

[sgt scrub]

Or you can pre-order 11 here http://store.slackware.com/cgi-bin/store/slack11.0 ?id=7qg7pUeb:mv_pc=27 support the project, and look forward to 12.

Re:No need to wait

[zsau]

Thing is, those of us who do stick to our distributions don't want to upgrade as we go along. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Updating regularly isn't what I want, it keeps changing things. Even if the change is for the better, it can still interrupt your workflow...

With Gentoo or Debian/Sid or the like, you have to continuously maintain your computer (as packages change) to keep it up-to-date with security (or even to able to upgrade easily in a few years time). With Slackware or Debian/Stable, you just sit around and once every few years, you upgrade. The upgrade might be a bit narky, but one day every few years is a lot less time than an hour every few weeks. It just works in-between times!

Re:No need to wait

[joedoc]

Heh, this reminds me of the web server I managed at my last job. When we finally went on line locally, I demanded that we not use Windows, but Linux, and specifically Slackware. I installed version 8.0 and ran it with literally no changes (expect for occasional security patches and application updates to Apache, PHP and MySQL) until this past January. I shifted to a new box due to some hardware issues and installed 10.1. That site has now closed. I often wonder how long I could have run that Slack 8 box if the hardware had held up.

Re:No need to wait

[Skater]

See, I don't even use slapt-get. :)

Why doesn't it appear on ftp.slackware.com? That's where I was looking for it... Ooooh, I see - he puts them in the tree for the most recent version (in this case 10.2). I never noticed that before. Thanks!

Re:No need to wait

[tzanger]

that's a bad idea swaret and slapt-get can bork your install very easily unless you know exactly what slapt-get does

I hear this again and again. While I can see it being dangerous for an upgrade, I have also heard the general "swaret will eat your system" under normal use. Do you have any proof to this end?

Re:No need to wait

[ejd3]

and with a post like that I think I forgot english

Re:No need to wait

[Anonymous Coward]

"Gentoo, and to a lesser extent debian, are very good at letting you run them for years and keep them up to date as you go along..."

Plain bullshit.

I have Debians that haven't been reinstalled from year 2000. You just needed to install security upgrades, guaranteed not to break anything (because that's what they focus on, and because of my own experience from those six years), change the tag name for the distribution some time within one year after the next Stable release (that means once about every two years on average, from Potato to Woody to Sarge), read the release documents and go for an smooth upgrade of maybe one hundred packages. This means that a Debian box can make you spend about four hours each two years and, maybe, one hour a month on maintenance (usually less than that).

On the other hand, I "inherited" a Gentoo about four months ago (a 2005.0) which has been a PITA to maintain; in two or three "incidents" a forced upgrade (forced because there were security bugs involved) broke something (like PHP, Jabber or Postfix), even while we were within 2005.0. By the end of this month 2005.0 falls out of support, so migration to 2006.0 is mandatory. Currently I have about a dozen bloking packages (mainly related to PHP) and an horrifying upgrade of kernel, libc, etc. I surely could manage the upgrade, probably at the cost of about one day of downtime, only for the upgrades, and then an undefined amount of time to recover everything than surely will badly break. All in all I had to spend in four months *much* more time on that single 2005.0 Gentoo than on the other nine boxes based on Sarge I maintain *together*.

"The only trick with gentoo, is to update regularly rather than all in one large chunk."

And d'you know why? Because even "simple" upgrades on Gentoo tend to break so badly, that the only solution is babysitting the damn box dayin-dayout. Thanks, but I have other things to spend my time on.

Re:No need to wait

[Anonymous Coward]

I always backup all my data

"back up". ("backup" is a noun.)

Re:No need to wait

[tsa]

That is because we in Holland misuse English words all the time. You're right, thanks for letting me know. I also spelled 'easy' wrong, but that was a mistake :-)

64-bit official?

[Spydir Web]

Are we gonna see an official 64-bit release this go round? I had to switch to gentoo then ubuntu just to use my AMD64...

Re:64-bit official?

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that... Never tried Slamd64, but maybe Patrick could make it some sort of "official port" or something like that... I've heard Slamd64 was rock solid and very "conservative" (maybe that's not the right word to use, but what I want to say is that it follows Slackware's path/philosophy).

- English is not my native language, so please excuse me if I mess things up -

Re:64-bit official?

[troll -1]

I had to switch to gentoo then ubuntu just to use my AMD64...

All you need to do is rebuild your kernel. A Linux distro is just a bunch of programs and config files, its not 64-bit specific.

Re:64-bit official?

[badfish99]

You could use Slamd64. But regular Slackware will work fine on an AMD64: I believe that Pat is using one as his development machine. He wrote somewhere that he tried compiling 64-bit versions of various things, but he didn't see any performance improvement from it, so he abandoned the experiment. Of course it would be a different matter on a high-end server with lots of memory, but that's not Slackware's target market.

Re:64-bit official?

[Anonymous Coward]

I *have* been using slamd64 (from the beta versions onward) on a bunch of dual opteron (pizza ;-) ) boxen as number crunchers,
and it is indeed rocksolid. *All* of the slamd64 versions up to now.

I wish Pat would bless it as the official slack for AMD64.

Also, yes, stock slack runs on these well as well, only you lack 64bit stuff. Which comes in handy once in a while, if you develop your own machine learning algorithms, and test them on huge datasets. There are probably other applications where you don't miss 64bit ...

Re:64-bit official?

[1369IC]

There are a couple of slack-based AMD64 systems besides SLAMD64. I liked SLAMD64, but haven't found it as trouble-free as some others apparently have. Frugalware claims to be pretty much Slackware with Pacman bolted on, and I liked it a lot. I also just downloaded something called Bluewhite 64 Linux, another unofficial port. That goes on my testing partition this weekend (replacing STX Linux, another Slackware derivative I was testing for installation on a friend/potential convert's older laptop).

So if Slackware is a niche player now (which I don't believe), then one part of that niche is as a base for new distros -- the excellent Zenwalk (which I run on my laptop), STX, Frugalware, Voltalinux (Slackware with pkgsrc?), Slax and Vector, just off the top of my head. Not as many derivatives as Debian, perhaps, but certainly a healthy number and probably indicative of a healthy distro.

I think Slackware's biggest "problem" is that it has little to no "community," at least as far as vocal fanboys (you know, the kind who visit Distrowatch to click through and drive up its numbers). I think it tends to attract and keep a self-sufficient, quieter crowd, and therefore its presence isn't as great as its numbers, if that makes any sense.

And text, of course. As soon as I boot up and people see text instead of a pretty splash screen I see that sphincter-tightening look come over some of their faces.

But beyond the entertainment value it's probably a bad thing.

Re:64-bit official?

[goarilla]

there is community

you have the a.o.l.s usenet newsgroup and more importantly
the ##slackware channel on freenode :D

Re:64-bit official?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Slackware's biggest "problem" is that it has little to no "community," at least as far as vocal fanboys (you know, the kind who visit Distrowatch to click through and drive up its numbers). I think it tends to attract and keep a self-sufficient, quieter crowd, and therefore its presence isn't as great as its numbers, if that makes any sense.

It makes perfect sense, as I'm one of those of whom you speak. I'm a UNIX professional who works with Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and Redhat AS. I run Slack on my workstation and on a couple of smaller servers because it is about as unobfuscated (at least from my perspective) as you can get. No glittery anything, just a very solid Linux.

I need to send Pat money this time around as well as I think I purchased 10.1 but not 10.2. Anybody who seriously uses Slack should do the same if they can afford it. He puts out solid distro, and he's a nice guy.

Re:64-bit official?

[TheRev]

Slackware just doesn't have a rabbid following.

I for one prefer slackware as a linux distro, because when you want it done and you want it done right w/o BS, use slackware.

As nice as other distros are to configure your system, most distros screw up the NORMAL tools in favour of their own. Then there is package hell!

Then I switched from the dark side and went to the BSD's.

Re:64-bit official?

[Lumpy]

I think Slackware's biggest "problem" is that it has little to no "community,"

there is a huge slackware community, it's just very much like the BSD community. WEare simply too busy using it in embedded systems, and other places to take the time to run around posting to all forums "S1ac4war3 0wnz joo!" messages.

Slackware is the absolute best distro for doing really advanced things like stuffing it in an embedded device or making a super stripped down machine that makes an old useless 486 scream like a monster for a single important task... makes the best OS for a homebrew firewall that fits on a 8meg CF card.

I use it for developing apps for the gumstix embedded platform. installing the cross compilers for alpha processors is painless compared to a rpm or deb based distro.

Re:64-bit official?

[Kiaser Zohsay]

you have the a.o.l.s usenet newsgroup and more importantly
the ##slackware channel on freenode :D

Don't forget the wiki!

Re:64-bit official?

[bersl2]

Having more registers (x86-64 doubles the count of general purpose and SIMD registers) is never a bad thing.

Re:64-bit official?

[SpectreHiro]

Actually, the type of community Slackware has is precisely what drew me to it. Every now and again, a "Mine's Better!" flamewar sparks up, and Debian and Gentoo and Fedora and SuSe and more recently Ubuntu users slam and flame eachother to high heaven. Meanwhile, you can always find a thread of content Slackware users cordially chatting with eachother and sharing just how much they love Pat's plucky little distro.

That's it... The community is confident enough in the distribution that they don't need to tear anyone else apart. Slackers just love running Slack, and when it all boils down, that's a pretty attractive quality in a community.

Who needs a pissing match anyway?

Re:64-bit official?

[Rideak]

indeed, I and many friends use slackware. slackware isn't as dependant on a community because most users don't bother with the package system. this way when you have a problem installing a tar, you can go straight to the project forum to figure out what's wrong and missing rather than dealing with a distro forum who probibly doesn't know jack about the software you're trying to install anyway.

-collin

Re:64-bit official?

[badfish99]

True, but the acid test is whether it goes faster or not. From what I read, Pat tried it, and it didn't. Of course, your milage may vary.

I can imagine various possible reasons for this: for example
The 32-bit compiler is more mature, and produces better code.
64-bit variables use more memory, so the memory bandwidth is more of a bottleneck.
The hardware may be compensating for lack of registers by clever caching strategies

I've no idea whether these ideas are true or not, but my point is that the only way to find out is to try it.

Re:64-bit official?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ##slackware channel on freenode sucks big time. The ops are remarkably arrogant, ruthless and have no qualms about using their ops power to sort out personal spats or impose mere individual preferences. It's too bad they took the ##slackware name with freenode and that pretty much gives them an "official" aura.

Re:64-bit official?

[WilliamSChips]

The programs have to be recompiled as well.

Re:64-bit official?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Slackware is the absolute best distro for doing really advanced things like stuffing it in an embedded device or making a super stripped down machine that makes an old useless 486 scream like a monster for a single important task..."

It's only that Gentoo beats Slack on that realm (and it's probably the only professional realm for Gentoo too).

Re:64-bit official?

[wolf369T]

Don't want to troll here, but I've tried dozens of Linux distros, including big names like FC, SuSE, Ubuntu. My system is not very shiny and new, so speed is a big problem. From all, Slackware was the fastest, even faster than FreeBSD 6.1 (and yes, I did tweak the services and other hangs in FC&Co. It's true, I didn't have the guts to try Gentoo yet). I also plan to but some CDs or merchandise, Pat offered me the best Linux experience.

Re:64-bit official?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've tried dozens of Linux distros, including big names like FC, SuSE, Ubuntu."

See my previous post, just above yours.

Re:64-bit official?

[wolf369T]

I've tried pure Debian (3.0 and 3.1) too, but I forgot to mention (although Debian is a big name, sorry for this slip out). And also after Debian experience, Slackware continues to rock. Unstable is to unstable for me and the current in Slackware is more up to date than testing. Since the purpose of my Linux is not a server, stable has to old packages (qed). Offtopic: "See my previous post, just above yours." --Anonymous Coward.

Marketshare?

[Noodlenose]

Having huge respect and sympathy for Patrick Volkerding I nevertheless wonder whether Slackware is (after being one of the groundbreakers for Linux) is becoming a niche - distro. Shame, really.

Re:Marketshare?

[Jason1729]

IMO Slackware is still the best Distro. I've been using it since 2.3 back in the 1.0 kernel days. I love its simplicity; it's designed so you can edit the config files yourself, none of the GUI tools so many distros like now with the actual config files hidden all over the place.

Re:Marketshare?

[Erik Hensema]

It's been a niche distro for many years now. The only reason slack is mentioned on /. at all is because of its important place in Linux history.

Slack is for hobbyists. It's rarely used in production environments because where money counts, slack is almost always out of the question for being way too labour intensive. Even in the hobby market it's filling a niche. Only a few die hard nerds like to be exposed to the inner workings of their system as slack does. Most others will just use a more automated distro and custumize the parts of the system they're really interested in.

However, slack still serves a purpose. It's about as bare a distro as can be, and as such it's nice learning material when you like to explore the innards of a linux distro.

Re:Marketshare?

[NosTROLLdamus]

Every time I use one of those more "modern" distros and something goes wrong or I need to do something even slightly complex there always comes down to some nit-picky problem that's a complete pain in the ass to even deal with.

It's as if newer distros are so good at hiding things from you that even when you are looking for them you can't find them.

Re:Marketshare?

[myspys]

It's about as bare a distro as can be

and THAT is the beauty of slackware

no bloat, no extra crap that one doesn't need
just the pure loveliness that one needs :]

Re:Marketshare?

[RLiegh]

>It's about as bare a distro as can be, and as such it's nice learning material when you like to explore the innards of a linux distro.

I think you have slackware confused with Linux From Scratch.

Re:Marketshare?

[drange_net]

I love its simplicity; it's designed so you can edit the config files yourself, none of the GUI tools so many distros like now with the actual config files hidden all over the place.

Well, I use Debian at servers, Arch Linux at my private desktop, Kubuntu at my laptop and Ubuntu at work. Please tell me I can't manually edit my config files and that the "GUI tools [...] with the actual config files hidden all over the place"...

I call BS

Re:Marketshare?

[Poppler]

It's true that you don't need a GUI to configure Ubuntu. However, in my experience, if you're used to Slackware, the location of some config files in Debian-based distros can seem counterintuitive. Slackware is very simple once you understand it; I especially like the BSD style init system, it just makes sense.
Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu is great too (I'm using it right now), and I haven't had much trouble configuring it the way I want. But after using Slackware regularly for a while, I can understand why he feels the way he does.

Re:Marketshare?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to disagree with you, but you must be both misinformed *AND* smoking pretty powerfull shit ...

Slackware is _THE_ most rocksolid stable distro there is. Which is why slack fanboys can give mac fanboys a run for their money on sheer loyalty.
And also why a *large* proportion of slackware installs are servers. It is most definitively *not* just a hobby system, although you can learn a lot using Slackware.

If you really insist, you can automate Slackware just as well as any other distro (slapt-get?).

Somehow I start wondering what you mean by 'custumize'-ing ...

Re:Marketshare?

[Anonymous Coward]

I especially like the BSD style init system, it just makes sense.

Blasphemer! System-V init is the only true way to do startup scripts. It makes a SHITLOAD more sense than the BSD-style. How do you even restart a daemon under BSD? I have no clue. Under System-V I can just call the init script with stop and then start or restart or reload if those are available options. On BSD you... uhhh... manually kill the daemon and relaunch it hoping you remember the options it passed on the commandline?

You probably use Emacs to you heathen.

Re:Marketshare?

[SmurfDaddy]

well i can only say that we use Slackware at our company...and guess what we, are in the train control business and yes we handle ppl safety. Train control itself is done with propriatary solutions but sopport servers run slackware. regards SD

Re:Marketshare?

[jibjibjib]

You are obviously just trolling and have no idea how the BSD system actually works. It's just as simple as in SysV to restart a daemon. For example:

/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd restart

Re:Marketshare?

[cloudmaster]

I especially like the BSD style init system, it just makes sense

Yeah, having a bunch of scripts that call each other in an unclear order (unless you read all of the scripts) is a whole lot easier to understand than one directory - named after the current runlevel - full of scripts, all of which are run in the same order that ls shows them to you. "Hmmm, does lpr launch from rc.net1, rc.net2, or something else? When does nfs start relative to ssh?" The only "simple" thing about BSD-style init is that there's no scary case statement in the init scripts to handle the start and stop arguments, and no worrisome symlinks. I'd posit that, if someone doesn't know enough shell scripting to read (and maybe write) a case statement or make a symlink, perhaps they shouldn't be messing with the machine's init scripts. Just edit /etc/rc.local - both SysV and BSD use that one.

Re:Marketshare?

[wed128]

I don't think you've ever used slackware, it's not as scary as you think. Everything is much easier to configure if you're willing to read the documentation.

Re:Marketshare?

[cab15625]

Slack 10.2 was distributed in 2 iso's (4 if you wanted source) ... if that's what is called "bare" in linux community today, then we linux users might have to start eating our words when complaining about bloat in other people's software.

As for its use in production environments, I'd say it's one of the few distros I've tried that is serious competition for OpenBSD in terms of stability and security (and securability). Pat doesn't throw in stuff just because he can or because it looks pretty. He also doesn't mess with libraries the way some distros have in the past. The only problem I've ever had with Slackware is that it didn't always do as good a job at recognizing USB devices as some others.

It could just be due to a few local evangelists at the chem. and physics departments at the university where I work, but most of the linux users here seem to use slackware for systems where they need to do serious crunching or where they want to host some web pages. Number crunching in this case is not just a hobby.

Re:Marketshare?

[frinkacheese]

Bollocks. I use Slackware ina very production environment (Telecomms) where money counts and have never had a single failure or any issues whatsoever accountable to Slackware. Our RedHat servers often break and to fix them you either compile yourself and RedHat usually breaks or you call RedHat and get their official patches (for which you need to pay support). I know what I'd rather be using.

Re:Marketshare?

[freshman_a]

On my system...

Hmmm, does lpr launch from rc.net1, rc.net2, or something else?

Something else. rc.M

When does nfs start relative to ssh?

After. Both in rc.inet2, lines 101 and 82 respectively.

grep is your friend - Learn it. Use it. Love it.

BSD-style scripts really aren't hard to figure out. For Slackware, check out - http://www.slackware.org/config/init.php

Read through /etc/rc.d/rc.M. That will pretty much give you an exact idea of what order the scripts are called in.

Re:Marketshare?

[compass46]

You are obviously just trolling and have no idea how the BSD system actually works. It's just as simple as in SysV to restart a daemon. For example:
 
/etc/rc.d/rc.httpd restart

That's not traditional BSD style though. Only OpenBSD still uses that as far as I'm aware. Most OSes which use "BSD style init" use a BSD/SysV hybrid. In FreeBSD and NetBSD it's called rcNG.

Re:Marketshare?

[timbo234]

Slack 10.2 was distributed in 2 iso's (4 if you wanted source) ... if that's what is called "bare" in linux community today, then we linux users might have to start eating our words when complaining about bloat in other people's software.

Yeah but 2 CDs worth of Linux distro is worth a hell of a lot more than 2 CDs on Windows, for eg. in Windows you're first 2 install CDs give you Windows (incl. Media Player, Web Browser, IM program) and Office. Any Linux distro will manage to fit media player, web browser, CD burning, office, web server, mail server, database server, IM program and a tonne of other programs.

Re:Marketshare?

[gwait]

I mucked about with a Mandrake system, and those guys seem bent on hiding crud all over the place, and using proprietary gui tools to manage etc, even installs of common open source apps have been reconfigured (I call it obfusticated) and install in non standard directories so that you pretty much have to pay them the annual fee to get access to the mandrake updates.
All the power to them, but obfusticating other people's free software and then charging money to untangle it for you isn't something I want to support.

I've been using slack on my laptop for a couple years, and on home servers for many more. I started out in the workforce first using Suns (and an account on a Vax Unix box, serial terminal - yes there were cars then, just watch the Flintstones!) and then later on using Sun's around the time they switched from BSD to SysV.
Once you learn how these things are configured, it is not at all difficult to find your way around the scripts and make adjustments, and (one thing linux/unix has going for it) THINGS DON'T MOVE AROUND WHEN YOU ARE NOT LOOKING like they do under Windows. (I.E. the wife's XP home laptop suddenly decided there are "not enough resources" to load the device driver for her wireless belkin pcmcia card, Code 12, WTF!). Gui based wizards can be great as long as they don't randomly break software. Why would anyone enable automatic updates??? Would you want Toyota to open up the hood of your car every night and modify your engine with buggy new features? If a system is running stable and is doing everything you want why would you risk breaking it nightly?

Slack feels comfortable to me, but I did have to spend too much work getting the laptop resources running manually, which is why I am going to give Ubuntu a shot for the laptop.
As long as the gui tools A: Actually Work (which is rare for gui tools) and the resulting config is still visible ascii scripts in /etc/rc.something_or_other I will be happy with that.

Re:Marketshare?

[tzanger]

The only problem I've ever had with Slackware is that it didn't always do as good a job at recognizing USB devices as some others.

My only real problem with Slackware is that Pat won't modify the base vim install to

set nocompatible

in the global vimrc. Damn that bugs the shit out of me. I've emailed him and he was very nice about it, he simply said that he does the bare minimum mangling of any package configuration and if I could convince the vim maintainer to make that change that Slackware'd have it. Now the ball's back in my court. Damnit. :-)

Offhand, why is this not a default config option for vim? The cursor keys are totally useless without it.

Re:Marketshare?

[pyro_dude]

Exactly, it's like I always said of Slack Linux: It's not easy (to most, I suppose), you have to do your homework but everything will work. Sometimes I am without something for a few days but if I use google groups and read docs everything will work from my Laserjet and TV Tuner (when I had it) to webcam and hi res (1600x1200) monitor.

LIke another poster said, it's a straight up Linux distro, not compromises.

Re:Marketshare?

[Erik Hensema]

My first distro was slackware 2.0. My second was Slackware '96. I would have no problem at all installing and running any current slackware. Heck, I could install linux from scratch without Linux From Scratch. No problem at all.

Re:Marketshare?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's about as bare a distro as can be

and THAT is the beauty of slackware"

And Slack is beaten on this camp too. This time Linux From Scratch being the culprit.

So:
*If you want a production-ready, low maintenance system, you go with Debian.
*If you want a specific-purpouse system, not minding higher babysitting rates, you go with Gentoo.
*If you want real barebones and a learning experience along the way, you go with LFS.

Slackware's day passed long, long ago.

Re:Marketshare?

[cloudmaster]

I run slackware. I have, in fact, since 1994. It was my first distro, and it still runs my firewall + mail relay. But thanks for posting the tips - someone might benefit from them. :)

Anyway, the point was not that it's impossible to figure the scripts out - it was that the scripts are non intuitive. Look at "rc.M" and tell me that it's obvious how that filename's connected to lpr. It's more difficult to do simple tasks with BSD-style init than it needs to be. Envision, instead, a SysV-style init setup:

Lpr (actually lpd) starts from the lpd (or possibly "cups") init script. chmod -x to disable it in all runlevels, or remove the symlink in the runlevel you want it disabled in. No dicking around with grep to find which file it's in, finding the appropriate line, and editing the script. And it's possible to easily disable it in just one runlevel without affecting it in others.

To determine when nfs starts relative to ssh, just run ls on the directory corresponding to the runlevel you care about - the one that's listed first starts first.

There's a reason that almost every other distro has switched to a System V style init setup. It's easier to maintain and configure (both for people and automated scripts, which I'd rather see running "chmod -x" than inserting/removing comment chars), and it's more intuitive in almost every way. That, and it's a lot easier to have different, easily readable setups for differnet runlevels. Those "rc.N" text files aren't as easy to work with as a directory...

I'll just ignore the semi-screwball setup Gentoo uses, where scripts have things like "depend" and "provides" - almost like a RPM .spec for init... :) It works well for scripted startup configuration, though.

PS, on my slackware box, which has been upgraded a few times, lpr *used* to be started in rc.inet2. So did nfs and ssh - inet2 was network services, and inet1 was interface setup.

root@cloud120:~# grep -iRl lpd /etc/rc.d/
/etc/rc.d/rc.M
/etc/rc.d/rc.S
/etc/r c.d/rc.inet2
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet2.new
/etc/rc.d/rc .inet2~
root@cloud120:~# grep -iRl nfsd /etc/rc.d/
/etc/rc.d/rc.6
/etc/rc.d/rc.K
/etc/r c.d/rc.0
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet2
/etc/rc.d/rc.nfsd
/ etc/rc.d/rc.inet2.new
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet2~
root@c loud120:~# grep -iRl ssh /etc/rc.d/
/etc/rc.d/rc.sshd
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet2
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet2.new
/etc/rc.d/rc.inet2~

PPS, admit it - you had to look up "-n" in the grep man page, too (or you cheated and used a text editor to get the line numbers)... ;)

Re:Marketshare?

[Anonymous Coward]

admit it - you had to look up "-n" in the grep man page

1. A real geek uses grep often enough that he/she knows about both the -l and -n options.
2. A real geek uses fgrep, not grep, when searching for a constant (non-pattern) string.

I agree with you pretty much about the whole sysV vs BSD init thing, though.

Re:Marketshare?

[cloudmaster]

1) I just looked up -n, not -l, and a real geek doesn't need line numbers most of the time...
2) timing those commands, both took about .08 seconds of real execution time (with plain grep getting .076 once), so I saved more time by not typing the extra char in "fgrep". ;)

Distrowatch

[owlman17]

Despite the Ubuntus, Suses and Fedoras out there, Slackware is still going strong. Still #11 in http://distrowatch.com/ Will release 11 make it go up a notch or two?

Re:Distrowatch

[robw810]

Great post - I've thought the same for quite some time.

I won't necessarily argue that it should be different, but the popularity of a distribution is determined by several factors, of which stability and overall quality are not by default the most important. They certainly play a role in it, but ultimately, those distributions which do more "advertising" (whether intentional or not) on distrowatch have higher ratings.

It's a rigged system (in some ways), but I'm okay with it - I'll be using my trusty Slackware regardless of whether everyone else appreciates it or not... :)

RW

slack is cool even for n00bs

[arun_s]

A fairly new linux user who fiddled around with Ubuntu, Mandriva and a couple others, I finally settled down with slack and never looked back.
I found it much easier to manage through the config scripts than all the GUI wrappers the other distros put up: you know exactly what to change and where to change it. And my ageing comp runs perfectly with fluxbox (and enlightenment when I want to impress my friends).
Hats off to Pat for the neatest distro around.

Re:slack is cool even for n00bs

[jpardey]

That brings to mind one of the things that I think makes linux nice. As I want to keep my laptop happy, and as I am lazy, I just run windows. I do miss linux, though, mainly because with windows, you can't see the bones, so to speak. *nixes are more like gloves you can move your fingers about in, while windows seems more like... a hunk of wood. It is the control that makes it fun to use linux. An ease of use distro can reduce this fun and sense of control/accomplishment slack sounds like it can bring.

I tried suse, and was annoyed by the loss of control. Why isn't root's bash profile in /root? Because they want it to be easy, and not dangerous. For configure/make/install it is nice to add to path (gtklib I think it was, or something). Sure, I should stick to packages, and do things the suse way, whatever that is, but as I am not running a managed system of desktops, I just want to have fun and make it work.

RSN?

[User0x45]

I love Slackware. Other then a brief gentoo thing, I've used nothing
but Slack since putting it on my 486. But shouldn't this topic have
come out next week/month/year when Slack 11 is *actually* released?

It'll be ready Real Soon Now. Let's really discuss it then.

Think it'll have 2.6 as its default? Huh, huh, huh?

--User0x45

Re:RSN?

[bigberk]

I guess it's even exciting to wait. Slackware is THAT exciting... yes I am looking forward as well :)

Re:RSN?

[Poppler]

Think it'll have 2.6 as its default?

Or what about a highmem enabled kernel? At this point, I think it's reasonable for the kernel to support > 1GB RAM out of the box.

Re:RSN?

[Anonymous Coward]

shouldn't this topic have come out next week/month/year when Slack 11 is *actually* released?

Two theories come to mind.

It's a heads up for Slack fans; at the same time, think of this article as 'testing the waters': from these posts, one can tell there IS a fanbase for this distro. And some of them have been looking forward to new features e.g.AMD64

A preemptive announcement to avoid a Slashdot dupe?

Slow news day that 'Real soon now' constitutes a headliner?

Oh, wait, that's three. Damn this binary system!

Re:RSN?

[Reverend528]

But shouldn't this topic have come out next week/month/year when Slack 11 is *actually* released?

Duke Nukem Forever has made it to the front page twice in the past week. I think slackware deserves at least as much attention.

Health Issues

[maelstrom]

Was there ever a follow up about Pat's health issues? Is he ok now?

Re:Health Issues

[KwKSilver]

Other than noting that he is recovered, none that I've noticed. A private person, which I respect.

Re:Health Issues

[wed128]

Yes he recovered a while back. Thank god too, because I don't think slackware would be the same without him at the helm.

Re:Health Issues

[Lxcom]

--That may be part of the reason why some people feel reluctant to become too dependent on Slackware. I love it even though I use Apple hardware. I like raw simplicity. I purchased a "PC" just for FreeBSD use and installed Slackware as the secondary, Linux OS. I hope Slackware can survive in the long run.

Slackware makes sense.

[inflex]

I've seen a few comments above from people saying that Slackware makes poor economic sense. I say it can make economic sense in many cases.

Slackware is a distro, like any other - and just like any other distro you tend to have to be familiar with it in order to get things done efficiently. However, what Slackware does let you get away with is to update packages direct from the developers without having to worry about exploding the "package database" or maintainance system. If you want "fancy" package handling systems you can use the likes of slapt-get or similar. Slackware won't tear you apart or breakdown into a locked up mess if you install something from a "non-slackware-approved" source package.

The default relative daemon sparseness of Slackware makes it quite easy to keep an eye on, especially if you're trying to keep an eye out for malicious things. The whole start up script system is rather simple enough too (will we get a soft-linked /etc/init.d though?).

That said, there's a few things which I wish were included by default in slackware (and perhaps will be in the future) but no single distro is perfect. Nearly all distros require some degree of tweaking.

Best of all though, Slackware is quick to download, quite often you only need the first ISO and you've got yourself a fairly comprehensive system ready to go, for someone who knows what they're doing.

Re:Slackware makes sense.

[Skapare]

Why do you want a "soft-linked /etc/init.d"? Or better yet, why not just build one for yourself (and package it for others)? Slackware doesn't get in your way. I know because I actually rewrote the whole rc script system from scratch several years ago, and it's been working fine in several Slackware versions since then. My rc designs isn't based on symlinks, though.

Re:Slackware makes sense.

[just_another_sean]

(will we get a soft-linked /etc/init.d though?).

Man I hope not!

Re:Slackware makes sense.

[inflex]

Only because I've had quite a few apps looking for it when installing. No other reason. I do actually manually create a init.d tree anyhow.

Re:Slackware makes sense.

[atomic-penguin]

There is a script in the rc.d directory to handle SysV init scripts. I think it's rc.d/rc.sysvinit or something similar. It will parse and cycle through the SysV init directory structure. You just have to create the SysV directory structure manually. You would rarely have to use this, as you could just drop any init script in the rc directory and call it from rc.local or rc.X, where X is the runlevel you want to call the script from.

Re:Slackware makes sense.

[Skapare]

Ah, you mean applications that are not portable ... or at least the installer isn't portable. BTW, I do have a dummy /etc/init.d tree. It's never used during system startup. It just satisfies the craving by some programmers to make their installer automatically startup some daemon on my system. Yet the daemon will never run unless I set up the rc tree that really runs to do so (and I won't unless I know what the daemon does and have a need for it). BTW, the rc tree that really runs has no symlinks.

Slackware user

[silentsurfer]

I've always been a fan of slackware, its probably one of the most stable distros out there. It doesn't try to be bleeding edge and thats why hosting/developing on it is a real pleasure. I do wonder though why the 2.6 series kernel sat in testing for so long, then again maybe thats a stupid question, 2.6 isn't really a production kernel HA. I don't really like the way the LAMP stack is setup from the get go, I always ended up recompiling that stuff from source myself but I've done that with most of the distros I've used lately - maybe its just the wierd shit I do. Anyway good to see Pat is back at it giving us a rock solid and fairly politics free distro!

Re:Slackware user

[layer3switch]

Personally I don't think it really matters if Slack includes 2.4.x or 2.6.x in stable branch because most Slackers tend to recompile kernel anyway. But when it comes down to it, it has a lot to do with initial boot and installation on legacy hardwares. My experience is that Linux kernel 2.4 just works on every hardware so far while I can't speak same for Linux kernel 2.6 due to quiet a few drops in legacy hardware support.

I agree on Pat's great work, and he's such a drama queen. :P

Re:Slackware user

[wed128]

Yup. First thing i do on a new slack install is compile the newest stable 2.6 kernel.

Re:Slackware user

[in10d]

> most Slackers tend to recompile kernel anyway.
hmm
I do it only when I miss some important kernel feature.
Slackware kernel packages are something you can rely upon.
I'd guess most slackers stick with it.

Time for a poll, maybe?

Yes, RSN, but that's news for Slackware because...

[1369IC]

...it doesn't have a PR machine (even a volunteer one) behind it cranking out a steady stream of news. Look at Distrowatch Weekly's upcoming releases and announcements, and you see release roadmaps, schedules, plans, estimates and pre-order information going all the way out to December. Slackware is nowhere on there.

Even on userlocal.com, supposedly the Slackware community site, and the top items are from February and April (and the latter's about Zenwalk). Other distros start work on their next release before the current one is final, and we hear about it from one release right to the next. Hell, we heard about the Suse and Ubuntu delays for what would seem like forever if we didn't have all that "when is Debian going to release" and "Vista delayed again" coverage to compare it to. So Slack gets a RSN item on Slashdot. Seems small in comparison to all the coverage of alpha flights, umpteen betas, RCs and golden masters some distros get all over the web.

Personally, I'm happy to be using a distro done by a guy more interested in getting a solid product out the door than getting a good press release out the door.

linux, slackware, and text

[cab15625]

My sister's comment on seeing me boot up my laptop was along the lines of "Linux must suck. I saw his laptop turn on and it just had a DOS window come up with a bunch of junk flying past the screen." Gotta love how MS has some people programmed to think information is bad.

On a side note, I had sucked the battery dry on the plane home for Christmas, so it was the first boot in something like 3-months. Funny thing is I could never get standby to work properly when I still had an XP partition on the laptop. Works fine with Slackware 10.2 though (it's an Acer 1690).

Slackware Defector

[mightypenguin]

I used slackware from 9.0 till 10.2. Now I use Fedora Core 5 and I like it. For me, it's just as solid, but it has better hardware support and it was teh only real option for me when I went 64bit. Not to mention that I can get the latest software fairly quickly. With mainstream distros getting better and better over time (I used to HATE rpms) I wonder how much longer hobby distros will hang around. Perhaps for server stuff Slack is great, but for desktops, Fedora/SUSE are probably the way to go.

slackware is fun

[kokoko1]

Linux is fun and slackware more fun :)

Slackware: It just works

[spaceyhackerlady]

I too am a fan of Slackware, and am typing this on a Slackware 10.2 system with a 2.6.16.9 SMP kernel (built from the kernel source), to support one of those new dual-core Pentium 4 gizmos. In other words, it goes like stink...

Even though I can download the CD images, I always buy a copy of each new release.

It's not a crime for a Linux system to look like Unix, and if your hardware barfs over a text-based install, you really do have a problem. I like being able to download source (including kernels), build it and it just works. I still have nightmares about the time I tried to help somebody upgrade a kernel on a Fedora Core box. Shudder.

Slackware isn't a pre-packaged Linux system in a can: open the can and pour it out, ready to go. It's a construction set for building any kind of Linux system you want. And it's all the better for it.

Thanks, Patrick.

...laura

Re:Slackware: It just works

[Skater]

I'm with you on that. I've played with Red Hat, Mandrake, and Debian, and I always come back to Slackware. It can be harder to administer but the flexibility is well worth it.

I would add that if there's something Patrick didn't include that you need, it's easy to add it without problems. (Except GnuCash, but that's more a result of being based on old Gnome libraries, and I've figured out how to make it work reliably.)

Re:Slackware: It just works

[mnmn]

Slackware is how I got started on Linux in 1996.

We ordered an infomagic CD set of redhat, slackware and debian CDs. There were the 3 of us friends. We knew NOTHING of unix or linux.

So we distributed the CDs and tried installing it. I got redhat first and failed. It was too complex.

Then we switched CDs and tried again. I got debian. I installed it but the dselect packages and interface were way too much. I didnt know how the system worked. It was crazy and confusing at the time.

So the others gave up and I took all the CDs. I installed slackware 3.0 and it couldnt have been easier or more intuitive. Within weeks I was compiling my own kernels, changing sysctls and doing advanced advanced stuff like configuring ppp. When the system is simple enough, you can keep everything in perspective.

I admit I wouldnt use slackware for much. Too many packages are made for redhat and suse and too many drivers, scripts, other mechanisms have been stress-tested only on redhat and suse. Outside of these, I'd use ubuntu and knoppix for different reasons. And for embedded stuff I'd build my own distro using uclibc and busybox.

But should someone ask me for my favorite distro I'll say slackware. Shes like the linux of linux distros. For every major version release I download and install it once, doing all the rc script changes that I'm so used to doing, compile a new kernel, setup X completely, install firefox and use it for a day. Just for the old times sake. When Linux was not for the enterprise, but for people who wanted to play with it.

Re:Slackware: It just works

[glens]

When I started reading your post I couldn't remember having submitted it! Actually, I got the (that very?) Infomagic set for myself. I installed all three systems - I believe I still have them stored somewhere - and very quickly settled on Slackware as the best way to actually learn "Linux". The other two required way too much learning-the-cruft before I could get to what was ultimately happening. Slackware just let me get right down to it.

I heavily modified that installation through the years and still chroot to it on a fairly regular basis. The partition image has been on several hard drives and in several boxes. My Windows acquaintances can't fathom how that could be done...

I use Slackware for all primary OS purposes to this day. I've played with some of the others through the years but they all suck in comparison. Though I have been advocating and having great success with Ubuntu for non-tech-head conversions from Windows lately.

Slackware user turned FreeBSD

[killermookie]

My first real distro was Slackware several years ago. It was a great learning tool for me. It forced me to learn Linux from the command line. No GUIs of any sort to setup devices.

It was stable, it was simple, it was perfect for a beginner who wanted to really learn Linux.

Since last year I've switched to FreeBSD. I do love FreeBSD but I didn'at switch because I got tired of Slackware. Right now I have a Windows machine and a FreeBSD machine. Probably next year I'll get a third computer as a dedicated mail server and put Slackware on there.

Though I'm not using Slack now, I will return to it.

Keep up the excellent work, Pat!

Slackware and the Easiness Factor

[greatcelerystalk]

While I'm certainly more technically inclined than a number of people I know, I wouldn't describe myself as much more than a Linux power-user. I'm an Anthropology major with severe dyscalculia and have had little inclination to learn much more than Python, a little Lisp, and HTML + CSS; I'm not the 'typical' programmer geek or system administrator, but I wouldn't say that Slackware is any more difficult to use than SuSE, RedHat or FedoraCore. I originally started using Slackware (3.2) because I was careless with my Windows 95 installation media, and I couldn't re-install it after I had to replace the harddrive. It was pretty hellacious back then, but I was still using AOL for dialup and had never touched *nix of any flavour before. I ended up going right back to Windows. However, when Slackware 7 was released I decided to give it another go. On my circa 1997 PC, I didn't even have to recompile the kernel. Everything in the install worked out of the box (including X). Eventually, as I began to learn more about how Linux functioned, I taught myself how to re-compile the kernel and to do various other basic system administration tasks; I'm not sure I would've managed to learn quite as much about Linux had I started off using a distribution with an integrated package manager and so-called "hand holding" system administration utilities. I'm writing this post on a low-end Inspiron running Slackware-current. Yeah, it took me longer to configure the Slackware install than it did the XP install or the Ubuntu install, but Slackware is very easy to configure once you learn how. I gave my largley computer-illiterate mother an old desktop running Slackware with IceWM (I later switched it to KDE), and she hasn't had many problems with it. I doubt she could configure the system herself, beyond the options in KDE's control center, but it's certainly as easy to use as any other OS.

Fedora has better hardware support?

[turgid]

Eh?

Linux is Linux is Linux. www.kernel.org has all the hardware support you need. Get a tarball, extract, configure and compile

Friendly suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Put timescales in your comment if you want to boast about uptimes and stuff. Nobody knows "when (you) finally went on line locally"

Re:Friendly suggestion

[linvir]

Slackware 8 was released in July 2001, so there's a minimum timescale for you. Smartass.

Finally

[geekoid]

slackware 3

Agreed: Pat's a good guy

[pr1268]

Well Said!

Slackware is the most straightforward, uncluttered, trouble-free, and generic (in the nicest sense of the term) Linux distribution I've every tried (and I've done SUSE 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, RHEL 4, RH9, Mandrake/Mandriva, and Knoppix). I do plan to send Pat some $$$ because he consistently provides a wonderful Linux experience.

Re:Agreed: Pat's a good guy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Slackware is the most straightforward, uncluttered, trouble-free, and generic (in the nicest sense of the term) Linux distribution I've every tried (and I've done SUSE 8.2, 9.0, 9.1, RHEL 4, RH9, Mandrake/Mandriva, and Knoppix)"

It's curious how many people that says "Slack rocks. I can tell this because I use quite a lot brands of unix/linux" don't put Debian on their "known unix/linux" list.

I said "it's curious", but surely I shoud say "it's enlightning".

Re:Agreed: Pat's a good guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh. I've tried Debian. I wasn't much impressed.

Re:Agreed: Pat's a good guy

[linvir]

I've tried Debian, and you do kind of have a point. Debian is probably the closest I've ever come to using a non-Slackware distro for longer than a few days. But when apt-get finished up I got this spine-chilling shiver in my spine at the blasphemous prospect of well-implemented package management, and promptly switched back to Slackware. Maybe I'll give Debian another try.

Re:Don't use -current packages on stable

[robw810]

The subject line says it all.

Sometimes you can get away with it (early in the development cycle before big changes; some packages are just repackaged binaries; etcetera), but generally speaking, you're asking for trouble by using -current packages on a stable release. For example, this development cycle has seen major upgrades to glibc and gcc as well as several new library dependencies, so a package plucked from -current that's been built recently almost certainly won't work on 10.2.

Anyway, what you're wanting is the ./slackware-10.2/patches/ directory on the mirror - keep an eye on the ChangeLog.txt for your release, as security/stability patches are always announced there.

RW

Slackware Current is Good Enough?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah,

Patrick, isn't the 1.2.10 version of SDL broken significantly? Many users are having problems, i.e. segmentation faults, running programs such as Blender. I believe this bug is number 242 in SDL database.

Re: Sending Pat money the easy way ....

[Anonymous Coward]

... involves ordering the subscription with a credit card you plan on keeping for a while.

New release, new jewel case in the mail ($ + shipping).

I have a server running Slack 8, plus a couple of workstations running between 10.0 and 10.2 and my personal machine running Mutagenix http://mutagenix.org/Mutagenix (LiveCD based on Slax+Freerock Gnome and kernel 2.6 that's installed to /dev/hda).

Even though I don't upgrade all of the machines whenever a new release comes out, whenever a computer dies it gets fixed and updated to the new release. Works good for me, and Pat keeps getting paid for each release (whether I use that particular CD or not).