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Slackware 12.2 Released
pilsner.urquell submitted a quote from the announcement saying "Well folks, it's that time to announce a new stable Slackware release again. So, without further ado, announcing Slackware version 12.2! Since we've moved to supporting the 2.6 kernel series exclusively (and fine-tuned the system to get the most out of it), we feel that Slackware 12.2 has many improvements over our last release (Slackware 12.1) and is a must-have upgrade for any Slackware user."
I'm sure both of you still using Slackware will be very pleased! ;)
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As a 10 year veteran of Slack, I really like that Patrick is still doing the work, but I don't even have to go to the page to know that PAM still isn't supported, and that there's not a package manager that can compete with yum/apt-get/ports.
Last year I switched to Ubuntu on the desktop and CentOS on the server. I look back at Slackware with a lot of fond memories, but managing even a medium sized installation of Slack machines was just too time consuming to continue.
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It's nice to know that some things just don't change. Niagara Falls keeps falling, the New England Atlantic is always just a bit too cold to really enjoy swimming in, and my first Linux distro keeps on going.
Kudos, Patrick! Long may you release! (And, since I just found out about 20 seconds ago that he's a month younger than me, I look forward to seeing Slack releases into my nursing home years. "Why, when I was your age, youngster, we used xf86cfg to set up X; none of this X.org junk! You kids have it so easy!")
wow. are you assuming that every person from a windows backround does not have the mental facilities to actually learn how to use linux as he goes? Slackware actually taught me to use linux instead of its interface. you may aswell be a Mac user.
You make me feel like a third wheel!
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
One of the plusses of this distro was that it was able to run on ANYTHING from the 80386 on up... with the move to the 2.6 kernel, is that still possible or do I need a Pentium as a minimum machine?
(yes, I have 25 80386 machines out in the wilderness (solar powered) of Canada doing remote sensing work all running Slackware)
The rugged individualists all left Slackware and went to Gentoo. After the fighting got out of hand, those that didn't move off to one of the Gentoo forks went to one of the BSDs.
The rest of us got sick of spending most of our waiting for our system software and applications to compile and moved Debian. Some of us got sick of Debian's lack of polish and went to Ubuntu. Probably a few went back to Slackware.
In the meantime, predictably so, a bunch of n00bs started using Ubuntu mostly because we told them it was a good idea. Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer', etc.
Personally, I'm getting sick of the whole mess. Slackware is looking cooler by the minute... ;)
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I started with Slackware, from my memories, Slackware is from a time when "distribution" had another meaning. The idea was: "here, I compiled the main stuff for you", and from that point you were alone, compiling almos everything (gcc, libc, making the ELF transition by hand)...
Not that there is anything wrong with that. I find OSX makes a far better SSH client than Windows.
"Ubuntu ate my computer" is a great phrase. I've got to figure out how to work it into daily conversation ;-)
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Make a typo entering your monitor's scan rate? Too bad. Try again from the beginning, or edit the file with vi.
After procuring a new monitor, natch.
The opposite of progress is congress
In the meantime, predictably so, a bunch of n00bs started using Ubuntu mostly because we told them it was a good idea. Now the Ubuntu forums are filled with n00b posts flaming the world because 'Ubuntu sucks' and 'it ate my computer', etc.
Well yes, because the Linux zealots discredit or moderate down any part that states that Ubuntu isn't as user friendly as Mac OS X in any area. So when a person who wants to, or forced (via system crash and lost CD's or key) to get off Windows they read up and see oh Ubuntu is the second coming of Jesus. Install it and shortly after using the basic features (Grandma Level computing) they find they hit a wall where they need some more expert level to do things that in other OS's were either automatic or a right click away.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/27/1212214&from=rss and so on. It's nice to see that some distro maintainers have the "right" values about what to focus on. In a world of wussies, Slackware still stands tall and proud!
xf86config is old-school now? I guess I'm getting old, when I started using *nix the standard practice was to run through xff86config as accurately as possible and then manually editing your config to make everything work properly (trying to run X immediately after running xf86config generally resulted in some pretty odd behaviour or if you weren't so lucky, broken hardware).
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Not everyone from a windows background...just everyone left after all of us smart guys moved on.
My solution. Use ubuntu, ignore the forums. File bug reports and use man pages. WHy bother even reading the noob posts.
Used it many years ago and recently installed 12.1 on my eeePc. Surprised to see nearly nothing had changed, but I think that's a good thing. I like the fact that I essentially get a base system that I can just take over and manage myself. It doesn't install a bunch of stuff I don't want, and installing new software from source is pretty simple. Maybe it's just me, but package managers always end up giving me issues with certain software (ruby comes to mind) and I end up having to build certain things from source anyhow.
PenguiNet FTW!
I don't care why you're posting AC
Thank god there was a floppy option. Can you imagine downloading a 640MB CD image at 14.4?
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Slackware was my first experience with Linux many years ago...(1997/98ish?). Especially installing from floppy disks.
However, I now use Ubuntu & Mint linux on my pcs at the moment.
The way to look at the Slackware "distribution" is to see it as a bare bones, vanilla-type system.
Not having a "package" system is a *feature* of Slackware and it still uses tarball-type packages to this day.
Slackware is based on a different philosophy from today's distributions and I think it's refreshing to see this.
As far as I know there are no "corporate sponsors" funding Slackware's development - Patrick does it in his spare time.
One thing that most people on Slashdot seem to miss is that this is the original spirit of Linux and any software associated with it.
In fact I may install it on an old 450mhz PIII laptop I've got kicking about.
Good Luck Patrick you have my utmost respect and I hope Slackware continues for a very long time.
One simple example would be : getting the hardware to work. Followed closely by getting the wifi to work.
Ubuntu is getting much more user-friendly with every incarnation, but it still has a rather long way to go before it will reach the ease-of-use of a recent Windows platform IMHO.
Seriously, I like Ubuntu and I have 2 portables running myself + have put it on my mom's computer since she wanted a localized OS. The personal ones are for me playing around with it a bit since I'm curious what's all the fuss about. The other one is in use by my toddler-girl who enjoys to play GCompris on it or watch some DVD-rips of Dora The explorer on it. My moms is being used solely for a bit of mailing (Thunderbird) and browsing (Firefox).
In the old days, those 3 computers (all dell portables btw) ran Windows2000 Professional. Setup was simple : put in Wind2k cd in the tray, startup, go through the setup, download the driver installations from Dell and run those too. At worst you had to fiddle around a bit with tcp settings. After that the system was up and running and I'd lost half a day at most per machine... (format + setup + setting up mail accounts etc takes a bit of time).
Getting Ubuntu running on them has been a hassle for all 3 of them.
* getting video running has been HELL : with only 1 out of 3 I managed to get the nvidia blob to run after reading days and days of forums, trying out every single trick they propose. The two others still run in 'software' mode, which is fine for firefox/thunderbird or GCompris (more or less), but has cost me several days trying anyway.
* wifi wasn't always (properlty) recognized : pcmcia went mostly fine, usb was hell. Finally got it working via ndiswrapper
* each time there is an upGRade something breaks and I'm back in the 'problem-chasing' game =(
As a side-note : people always complain about Windows Update pushing lots of bytes, but boy oh boy, same is true for ubuntu IMHO. Not that I find that a bad thing per-se, but then again, stop complaining about Windows.
If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
This is the lesson for all linux distros. When forums are full of "it ate my computer", figure out why. Don't be so quick to get pissy with the user.
I started with slackware in the late 90's and have been using various distros ever since. I use Ubuntu now. I still get pissed when I run updates in Ubuntu and have to spend another 30 mins fixing my vid driver.
All the silliness about binary drivers aside, we're talking about a VERY common video chipset here, and honestly, the vast majority of video cards in the world come from a very short list of manufacturers who only release closed binaries. It's time to start being a little more realistic about making sure the upgrade processes account for that.
First Linux I tried was Slackware. I downloaded a slew of 1.44 diskette images, 14 or 15 I think over a 14.4 modem connection on a 386sx25 with 4 meg of ram running win 3.1. My ISP had a usage limit except from midnight to 8 am. It took we over a week to download because I would start a disk downloading at midnight and maybe stay up to start the second disk and go to bed. Once it was all downloaded I used rawwrite to write all the images to disk, put in an extra 20 meg hard drive to avoid trashing my system. I installed with no problem and was able to connect to the net and access email and Usenet, I was impressed.
That was the last time I installed Slackware.
"Slackware sucks, it has no package manager."
"Slackware sucks, it takes so much time to get an uber elite desktop with avant and spinning cubes."
"Slackware sucks, it's so much harder to install than Ubuntu."
"Slackware sucks, you spend way more time on the CLI than other distros."
There are still some of us left that don't think the primary goal of every linux distro is to become a clone of the Windows desktop. There are less and less of us left that want to kick the hell out of anyone that thinks the command line should go away or be used as little as possible. Slackware is what it is - a robust linux system that tries to be as unix-like as possible.
If you want your hand held for you, and you don't understand what *nix truly is and can do and don't really care - if all you want is a simple drop-in replacement for Windows - go download Ubuntu. Each distribution achieves a different goal. THAT's the real beauty of linux, not its potential to become "grandma's operating system".
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
I was considering flaming you, then I remembered that Ubuntu did the same to me. I'm a fairly hardcore linux user (Software Engineer, posix threads, C and crypto, amatteur and professional Linux sysadmin) and *I* got pissed off with it.
Could not get any of the nVidia blobs playing nicely with my laptop, alsa sound needed rebuilding to detect the headphone jack, a bunch of other stuff. And then on upgrade it would undo all the work I'd done to get it going and I'd have to solve the same problems again.
I solved it by switching to Debian, but then I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty, just annoyed when I can't see how or why things are broken.
What about 64-bit Slackware?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
She left him and took the child processes with her.
And thanks for the Ubuntu Fanboys, we have wikipedia saturated with Ubuntu, on articles where it does not belong etc. And Ubuntu has gone over "Linux" on them. Even the normal user ask "Where I can get Linux" and stupid Ubuntu fans yells back for that "I is just a kernel you idiot!".
In few years you dont have device drivers for Linux, but for Ubuntu. You dont have commercial software available than few commercial distributions and Ubuntu. And all the n00bs keeps talking that "You can have Ubuntu or Linux, those are two different Operating Systems, Ubuntu altought is much better because the browser and office applications are integrated to operating system itself".
So thanks a lot Ubuntu users what you have done to promote the Linux, but no thanks for negative attitude against Linux community, just being so annoing and blind Ubuntu fans...
"Ubuntu ate my computer" is a great phrase. I've got to figure out how to work it into daily conversation ;-)
Well, I successfully found a way to work "circus midgets ate my balls" into most of my daily conversations - so the Ubuntu line shouldn't be too difficult.
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
I'm not convinced that the normalization on a "standard" distro is a bad thing. Choice is freedom for some and confusion for others. I like the fact that Ubuntu provides a standard interface for hardware manufacturers to say "here are the working drivers", and they release a .deb for the hardware. I'd love to get the source code too, but that's not possible all the time, so I'll take binary. And it's possible to create packages for other OSes by using the files contained in the .deb package and recycling them, which allows other more knowledgeable users to take advantage of them.
Given a choice between "We release drivers for Ubuntu (and/or maybe some RedHat derivative)" or "We don't release drivers for linux", I know which one I'll take.
And it's not a false dichotomy, because lots of companies don't have the resources to release packages for every distro out there, and many of them don't own all of the IP to release open source drivers, so binary is the only option. In those cases, I welcome the Ubuntu packages.
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"Ubuntu ate my computer" is a great phrase. I've got to figure out how to work it into daily conversation ;-)
How about "Edubuntu ate my homework." ?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Why the negativity ? Why can't everyone in the Linux/BSD/OpenSource communities raise their glass and say "Congratulations! Good work!" I thought we were on the same side here. Today, you pop in a "modern" linux distro and 97% of the time, it just works. Some kid grabs an install disc for fedora or ubuntu, and he boasts to his friens "yeah, I run linux". Yet they have learned nothing. I am proudly a slackware and debian user and always will be. Run RedHat/Fedora and you learn RedHat/Fedora. Fine. Run Ubuntu and you learn Ubuntu. Run Slackware and you learn Unix/Linux. Slackware is run at many universities as a major portion of the network. It is run in libraies, schools, and even some business. Not to mention many many home users around the world. There were 3,000 visits and downloads to the slackware site in aug 08. Some say there is no package management. Well yes there is. There is no dependency checking but the most needed dependencies are already part of the install. And if you get a message saying you need something, then go get it. [rhetorical] Whats the big deal? Dont blindly follow the script kiddies into ubuntu land. "Yeah dude, I run Linux." No, you clicked "OK" or "Continue" a few times and ripped a DVD. Ooooo you're a linux god. :p
Go get Slackware or pure debian.
Slackware: Myths and Cliche
http://www.osnews.com/story/3329/Slackware_Myths_and_Cliches_--_Another_Newbie_s_Point_of_View
> I'm not convinced that the normalization on a "standard" distro is a bad thing.
> Choice is freedom for some and confusion for others.
A 'standard distro' IS a bad thing. Distro's come and go whereas the UNIX aspect of any distro remains in large parts. Hence it makes much more sense to sensibly invest in FHS and similar efforts than to focus on the current fashionable packaged distro. I agree with your comment on freedom for some and confusion for others, but the same way that I don't want to ever see gasoline released just for the 'standard Ford Focus' I don't want to see drivers for a specific distro only (which is not to say, that it can't be pre-packaged for certain distro's since there is a convenience factor involved. But the source should compile on any sane distribution).
I had a 14inch monitor I originally used with my Amiga but with X managed 1240x968 (or something like that). It was interlaced, and whined a bit. Every few months it needed a slightly different setting as for some reason it could no longer handle the frequency. I had to adjust vertical stretch to minimum and have the horizontal control all the way over to one side, and iirc a few lines along one edge were funny colored.
Been using Slackware for over 10 years ;)
Seems to be two camps in this discussion... The hardcore slack users who hate on the Ubuntu "noobs", and the Ubuntu users who claim Slack should only be viewed as a piece of nostalgia.
I have used both distributions quite a bit and enjoyed both. I started out with Slackware, and one things for sure, I learned a lot about navigating Linux systems. Eventually, I got sick of manually compiling/installing every package so I made the switch to Ubuntu. I was actually quite impressed with Ubuntu and its ease of use. I would say the best things about Ubuntu would be ease of use and installing packages using Synaptic. However, you don't really learn how the underlying system works. Recently, I've re-installed Slackware to get back to my roots. I think Slackware is much better as a server or as a simple desktop.
I think both distros have their own place. To the Slackware veterans, you can't deny that Ubuntu has made a huge impact on converting Windows users to Linux. Even if they may be noobs and flood forums with noobie questions, converting users to Linux can be only a good thing, right? Also, personally I have found Ubuntu forums to be some of the most helpful and friendly. Pat and Slackware are keeping it real as usual, enough said.
People complain about Slackware's usability all the time. What I always see neglected is the fact that Slackware, as a distro, Just Works far more often than any other distro I've played with.
Slackware will install and work on a wide variety of exotic hardware, both modern and obsolete. It can be easily installed on machines that don't boot from CD, or even have a CD drive.
I've never encountered a machine that wouldn't install and boot slackware, with a working command line and network support, just by using the scripts that come on the install discs, and following the instructions.
Legalize recreational marijuana. Seriously.