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Slackware 11 is Coming

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the tarballs-and-more-tarballs dept.

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?"

5 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No need to wait by ejd3 · · Score: 5, Informative
    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
  2. Re:No need to wait by the+unbeliever · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  3. Re:64-bit official? by 1369IC · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:64-bit official? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.
  5. Slackware: It just works by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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