Slackware 13.1 Released

Several readers made sure we are aware that Slackware 13.1 release is out. Here's the list of mirrors. "Slackware 13.1 brings many updates and enhancements, among which you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.6.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy-to-use desktop environment, and KDE 4.4.3, a recent stable release of the new 4.4.x series of the award-winning KDE desktop environment."

Comments

wow version 13.1 thats quite a lot of slackin

[Rivalz]

cheers to the developers. they really work their slacks off.

Re:wow version 13.1 thats quite a lot of slackin

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it.

Re:wow version 13.1 thats quite a lot of slackin

[Anonymous Coward]

You're one of those people that stops people laughing at a joke by admitting to some sick personal fetish at a party, aren't you? I can practically hear the humor being sucked out of the air while reading your post. I mean it's not often you see comedy that's more dead than Leno's Clinton jokes, but wow...you've managed to create a fucking rotting corpse here.

Re:wow version 13.1 thats quite a lot of slackin

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange... They didn't release version 13.0.13.

I guess the conspiracy must have had something to do with this.

Re:wow version 13.1 thats quite a lot of slackin

[Bing Tsher E]

Thirteen isn't really very important, and it's a long, long way to version 23 yet.

No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how the summary says nothing about including GNOME, which pleases me greatly.

Re:No GNOME then?

[adbge]

Slackware hasn't officially packaged GNOME since 2005. There are various community projects which allow you to use GNOME on Slackware, however.

Re:No GNOME then?

[h4rr4r]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

comprehension fail....

Re:No GNOME then?

[oldhack]

Ok, what's with excluding GNOME?

Re:No GNOME then?

[MichaelSmith]

Ok, what's with excluding GNOME?

IIRC it is too hard to build. I also have the impression that the user base for GNOME and Slackware don't have much overlap.

Re:No GNOME then?

[ChipMonk]

It created a lot of extra test/patch load for Pat. He uses KDE typically, so it gets a lot of daily use on his desktop. Not so much GNOME.

The "lightweight" desktops (of which XFCE is probably the heaviest) don't involve as much code, or configuration management, so they are shipped in their stock forms. Bugs found in Slackware's XFCE/Blackbox/Fluxbox/etc. should be reported to the programmers.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

and that's its failing. I used to love kde until they fouled it up with release. 4. That's when I switched to fedora core 12, now fc13 uses kde so I switched over to Ubuntu just today and WOW blown away really. It's the most polished human friendly awesome thing I've ever had the pleasure of using - the missing link of OS'

Re:No GNOME then?

[Excelcia]

Unfortunately, Slackware hasn't carried GNOME since 2005. Mr. Volkerding dropped it because it was "too much work". There are other third party GNOME packagers for Slackware. However, GNOME isn't just a desktop - it needs support from underneath X for some things, so any set of GNOME packages makes changes to Slackware that are more or less compatible with a basic Slackware install. I used Dropline for a while, but came to the decision that I wanted my desktop to be officially supported on my distro, not an afterthought. And, in the end, the "one-man-distro" concept that Slackware is just wasn't enough any more.

This really made me sad. Slackware is the garage-built Apple II of the Linux world (I figure SLS was the Apple I). Unfortunately, Linux has moved on from what one person can really package together. Slackware losing GNOME was just a symptom of this larger issue. I know for a fact that many people have offered to help Mr. Volkerding with various aspects of Slackware. I know at least one of the major GNOME packagers for Slackware has offered to do all the GNOME work for Slackware. I myself have made the offer too. Mr. Volkerding just doesn't seem interested in a community for Slackware. As I said, a one-man garage OS just isn't enough, unfortunately.

I ended up standardizing on Debian for all my machines. I've ugraded two production machines across three versions of Debian now - it just works, always. Debian is conservative, which is perfect for production machines. And it has real package management.

Every time I see a new Slackware version it makes me sad. Like seeing an old man wheezing on for another birthday. I'd rather see it go now, than continue to bleed marketshare into complete irrelevancy.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup - 100% true... it's well-known that Slackware has not had any sort of GUI-support since 2005 when they dropped Gnome.

It's amazing that they even keep X.org packages in mainline.

Oh wait - someone just told me KDE and XFCE are fully-supported! How in the world did you and I both miss that?

Re:No GNOME then?

[oldhack]

Hey, I hear you. My first Linux installation was with Slackware - stack of 3.5" floppies and a green CD with Bob.

I moved on to Debian ages ago, but I share your warm feeling for Slackware.

Thanks for the replies to other guys here. As for that AC rambling on about Patrick kicking the bucket, the fuck, why are you even here?! Go hang out in MSDN or Apple bullfuckingshit or whatever it's called.

Re:No GNOME then?

[abigor]

So you're deploying to servers and yet you're crying a river about the lack of Gnome? What am I missing here?

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

now fc13 uses kde

Grab a different ISO. Fedora's "default" build is with Gnome. Yes, even 13.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use different distros for different purposes. I even use different operating systems, gasp, for different purposes.

Never really used Ubuntu for mysel

I used to throw Ubuntu on friend's computers that were like, in the guest room, or the family room, or the condo, often the kids' computers.

but the writing was on the wall. with each release that passed ubuntu got a little slower, a little more automagic, which fouled up things in ways that would take hours to fix, compared to seconds in slack.

the latest bruised colored release from canonical is the last straw. i'm done. and fedora? please. i gave that shit up after trying it for an hour after the redhat 10 fiasco.

so my choice of operating systems are slack, centos, freebsd, snow leopard, xp.

ubuntu days are done.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're not missing anything my good sir!

the grandparent is missing a boot in his ass.

(lights pipe)

what a wonderful day.

Re:No GNOME then?

[fustakrakich]

Hm, I always thought that Slackware's conservatism is what made it one of the most stable and unix like that kept it ahead of the pack for me. The server market also doesn't need a lot of extra packages installed either. Gnome libraries would be nice though. I wouldn't mind if he dropped the KDE window manager also. I want stability, not pretty. Xfce is fine. Back to his "roots" on the server/developer side. Easier for one guy to handle. It might sound a bit "Apple" like, but having that kind of control is kind of a good factor in the stability arena. And I don't see him really shutting people out. Otherwise you would be lucky to see an X server at all on his distros (minor exaggeration ok?) But I sure wish he'd please load the vesa driver into the xorg.conf file, since Xorgconfig seems to have gone missing. It works on everything, and I do like using graphical partition managers.. :-)

Re:No GNOME then?

[melikamp]

In defense of Slackware, keeping both Gnome and KDE is redundant. The Ubuntu team (to name just one), apparently, agrees with me. Both DEs serve the same basic purpose: to GUIfy the system configuration and file management. Why would anyone need both? Do you like Gnome? Get a distro with Gnome. Like KDE? Get a distro with KDE. Then there are distros with both of them working, more or less: get one of those if you need to switch every day. But you wouldn't get Slackware anyway, if having a nice DE was that critical to you. Slackware's main strength is transparency; I use Slackware because I want a very fine level of control, and I don't want the system to do anything without me telling it to. Ergo, I use neither Gnome nor KDE, but WindowMaker, a WM so sublime, it still feels like a modern desktop, even though not a single update came through in 4 years.

And like others noted, what are these "production systems" that need Gnome? What part of Gnome is so critical to your server or build environment? If you know what you are doing, or if you are poised to learn how the system works, you will be using XFCE or lighter. There is nothing I can think of that KDE or Gnome will do for you that you cannot accomplish in seconds in bash. (Some tasks may require scripting, but that's what Gnome does too, right? Except that it does a lot of other things, which screws you over in the long run.)

Re:No GNOME then?

[Riddler Sensei]

I, personally, would drop my jaw if he dropped KDE from the default package. I may be a rarity but I do use Slackware for my day to day email reading, movie watching, and music listening. It is nice to have that extra bit of eye candy available as an option for us who want to use it.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Obvious troll is obvious" is a troll.

Re:No GNOME then?

[fustakrakich]

Some assembly required :-)

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, enough of the 4chanese already.

Re:No GNOME then?

[McDutchie]

This really made me sad. Slackware is the garage-built Apple II of the Linux world (I figure SLS was the Apple I). Unfortunately, Linux has moved on from what one person can really package together.

Has it? Somehow PV manages just fine with KDE and XFCE. Apparently, GNOME is the only thing that has moved on from what one person can really package together. I'd say that says a lot more about GNOME than it does about Linux, or Slackware.

(Never mind that, contrary to popular belief, PV has a team of helpers, residing mostly at slackbuilds.org.)

Every time I see a new Slackware version it makes me sad. Like seeing an old man wheezing on for another birthday. I'd rather see it go now, than continue to bleed marketshare into complete irrelevancy.

Boo hoo. You're just whining because PV is still snubbing GNOME for being a convoluted piece of crap.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Bing Tsher E]

You're acting like it's either KDE or GNOME. Neither is also an option, you know.

Even for regular users, it's easy to pull together a simple workable desktop using for one example, a ~/.fvwm/.fvwm2rc file that has everything they need. New programs are easily added to the start menu as needed with a simple text editor. But that isn't even necessary for regular users.

But I know. I know. It doesn't have the complexity of a 'modern desktop' from Microsoft or Apple. It's not at all 'cool.'

Re:No GNOME then?

[Bing Tsher E]

You know, it's almost 2AM here right now. But you've inspired me.

My wife is fast asleep, so I can do this. I'm lighting up a pipe of burley tobacco, in the house. Something strictly forbidden, but nobody will ever know.

Praise Bob.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Bing Tsher E]

to GUIfy the system configuration and file management.

Get real. That's what curses is for.

or TCL/TK if you insist on being fancy.

Re:No GNOME then?

[melikamp]

Curses? I don't think GUI means what you think it means.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

No Gnome, as it sucks a**, as does Python, Kde is waaay more efficient!
And if You think Slack is lame, switch to Mega-Little!
My production servers run Slack - ye ancient versions.
Troll haha!

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so sick of hearing this shit in regards to linux. "Market Share"

Fuck that, Slackware is not about market share, nor is linux. Linux is technology, and slackware is a prime example of that technology in a raw form. It's never been for everyone.

It's a fine distro for those who want to get their hands dirty and learn. I'm also sure Mr. Volkerding has fun building slackware as well. It is actually a great feeling when even in 2010, you can still build a linux system the old way, and it works. In stark contrast to ubuntu, which is becoming as complex as windows and OSX. It's a testament to how flexible linux really is.

With Slack, it's about technology, not marketability. Get the fuck out.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

first sane post this thread, and i use ubuntu.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Curses? I don't think GUI means what you think it means.

Whoosh!

Re:No GNOME then?

[icebraining]

But I know. I know. It doesn't have the complexity of a 'modern desktop' from Microsoft or Apple. It's not at all 'cool.'

And if it doesn't take four hours to start.

Seriously, installed Ubuntu 10.04 and I can't believe how fucking long it takes from login to a ready desktop in my quad-core AMD - it's slower than Win7!

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Curses! Foiled again.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I ended up standardizing on Debian for all my machines.

I ended up standardizing on one size fits all tees for all the family. The dog looks stupid but they're a better fit on him than the goldfish.

I've ugraded two production machines across three versions of Debian now - it just works, always.
  Debian is conservative, which is perfect for production machines.

I use Arch which has a rolling release cycle, the entire concept of upgrading through OS versions is a holdover from the days of physical media. The only OS version should be the date of the snapshot you use to bootstrap. That whole conservative distro thing, as applied to Debian, is nonsense. Running stable software does not and has never practically implied running last years software releases.

And it has real package management.

I never understood the criticisms of slackware there. I used to package stuff for servers, for desktops I used to maintain (compile) everything manually. That was the idea, Slackware was the no-nonsense base system and the administrator took care of the rest. With Arch, I package everything because it's so easy. With Debian and derivatives, the majority of users appear to use the default packages; OpenSSL for example :-o

a one-man garage OS just isn't enough

Really? I've been thinking of doing one to address some of the braindeadisms that afflict most distros. No PAM, no UUID identifiers for drives, no KMS switching to non-24*80 text resolutions unless specifically configured to do so... Or perhaps the time has come for me to check out Slackware again?

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I see a new Slackware version it makes me sad. Like seeing an old man wheezing on for another birthday. I'd rather see it go now, than continue to bleed marketshare into complete irrelevancy.

Sorry but you're just wrong. You are entitled to your opinion of course but you're plain wrong in the analysis that it's bleeding market share or getting worse and worse. What does market share even mean when talking linux distros??! Why does it matter how many people use a specific distro? As long as Pat himself and as many other people as he feel is necessary is happy with Slackware, that's all Slackware needs.

As for my opinion: Slackware 13 was the best one yet, maybe with exception of 12.2, and I'm going to upgrade to 13.1 as soon as I can, probably tonight after work :) And dropping Gnome btw. was the single best decision he made in a long, long time. KDE is simply light years ahead of Gnome now so there is no reason to keep flogging a dead horse (Gnome).

Re:No GNOME then?

[Kjella]

What am I missing here?

This: "I ended up standardizing on Debian for all my machines.", because Linux distros are almost the same except for all the tiny little ways they aren't. Particularly if your own desktop doubles as the development/experimental box, it makes perfect sense to run your server distro on your desktop. Of course you can complicate it by running Slackware on your desktop and either work remotely on a Debian machine or deal with any distro variations later in the process, but it's not the KISS solution.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Slackware 13 and Fluxbox on a 1.6 gig deskdop, using xterm, xvdial, XMMS, chrome and thunar as my first choice tools. I can use the xfce or KDE apps if I need further detail or don't fancy hacking text files - which doesn't happen a lot these days! I Slackbuilt OpenOffice specific to my CPU and it opens in six seconds. Oh, and the whole system looks as sexy as Hell, in a polished, utilitarian sort of way (thanksv Deviant Art!). I've even got iTunes running on it as a joke.

With a new lightweight, non-SMP kernel and some processor-specific Slackbuild tweaks, the bastard thing's so responsive it almost pre-empts my fingers, let alone my frop-addled brain. I can only hope 13.0 has a die-hard community out there, 'cause I ain't migrating anywhere if I can help it.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather see it go now, than continue to bleed marketshare into complete irrelevancy.

Slackware isn't about "market share." Neither Pat nor users of his distro care about their share of the market.

Slackware is about doing things right. And as the last remaining distro that places correctness ahead of feature bloat, Slack must continue to exist.

The fact that it doesn't run GNOME is irrelevant. I don't need my Exim box to run GNOME. I don't need my SpamAssassin box to run GNOME. I don't need my WebDAV/CalDAV server to run GNOME. I don't need GNOME to run screen and vim.

It's all well and good that you want a thick GUI layer on top of your OS. It's okay to want contortionist "integration" changes to enforce a distro configuration regime. There are a lot of options for you if you like those things. However, if you don't, Slackware is your AAA Ace A #1 option.

A GUI-less Debian install is still Debianized (not that this is a bad thing intrinsically but could be undesirable) . A GUI-less Centos install is still full of Red Hat crap (this is a bad thing). BSD is, well, fine if you're interested in that sort of thing, but most of the useful stuff is in ports anyway.

Slackware has none of that garbage. It's pure, unadulterated Linux, carefully crafted to not just work, but work right.

Pat is The Man. The only better Linux is the one you handcraft yourself from a ttso boot/root floppy and a mini-gcc binary.

Re:No GNOME then?

[mehemiah]

im not a fan boy but i use Ubuntu on a 933mhz pIII and 512 mb ram. i was at 128 and having a problem, so i had slackware. some how I dont think the ram performance is better but, there should be comparisons done soon. Phoronix anyone? Im sure there's already been a slack vs arch right?.

Re:No GNOME then?

[mehemiah]

are you really nitpicking over the definition of graphics over characters. Ok, so nethack doesn't have any graphics, u happy?

Re:No GNOME then?

[mehemiah]

Amen! but i think we may be feeding a troll anyway. that guy was clearly talking out his A** WTF is marketshare for a product that doesn't sell? Haven't you heard? This is voluntary Communism, there is no market!

Re:No GNOME then?

[0racle]

Slackware dropped packaging Gnome themselves because others were doing it better. Dropline was the group pointed to when it happened, but I doubt they're the only ones.
However most likely I've been trolled, Gnome is the default desktop in Fedora, including Fedora 13, you have to go out of your way to get a roll with KDE as default or use yum and install it later.

Re:No GNOME then?

[ChipMonk]

Only if you can't do it in C or C++ and you need the speed.

Re:No GNOME then?

[ChipMonk]

I have comments all over this discussion, so I can't mod you way up.

As for adding outside stuff to Slackware, that has gotten a lot easier over the past couple years, thanks to SlackBuilds.org and its nice TUI add-on, sbopkg.

Re:No GNOME then?

[FreonTrip]

It's doubtful that Patrick would drop KDE. It's too widely used, the build system is (relatively) straightforward, and the horrors of Gnome were well-known before he made the decision that brought its issues into stark relief for the community. Dropline and company have worked very well in its absence.

Re:No GNOME then?

[melikamp]

Nethack does have a GUI.

Re:No GNOME then?

[mehemiah]

then what r u talking about? You can make a "Graphical" user interface based on curses. Unless your talking about that sprite package for nethack.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh. Learn to spell the words "you" and "are", jackass. Or just go back to posting Youtube comments.

Re:No GNOME then?

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be reading things that aren't there rather than missing anything. He never mentioned servers, he said "production machines", not what they were used for.

Re:No GNOME then?

[melikamp]

I am talking about this.

Re:No GNOME then?

[CondeZer0]

> Unfortunately, Slackware hasn't carried GNOME since 2005.

Not packaging GNOME is a feature, not a bug.

Why anyone would want to use such a ridiculously bloated mess is beyond me.

Re:No GNOME then?

[arfonrg]

I'm a Slacker and I have NEVER missed Gnome. Just got a new netbook and Slackware 13.1 works like a dream on it.

I friggin' HATE Debian (and it's derivatives) because of stupid things like their affinity for sym-linking EVERYTHING and goofy-shit like Enabled-Sites with httpd.

Re:No GNOME then?

[enorbet2]

IMHO anyone knocking Slackware while touting some other distro exalting "real package management" is a troll at best and either never actually used Slackware or never did long enough to begin to understand the concept of "real" OR "package management". Additionally they still haven't a clue as to the price one pays for "dependency auto resolution". I'm not trying to denigrate any other distro, they all have their place with benefits and limitations, but basically there are numerous RPM based distros and a plethora of DEB based distros... and then there is Slackware, all by itself, head and shoulders above the rest - as solid as BSD and with a better license. Take your phony sadness elsewhere.

Comfort food

[oldhack]

Slackware release announcement on slashdot is like fried chicken dinner to me. Is Patrick still at it?

Re:Comfort food

[Anonymous Coward]

patrick is deader than bSD, and that's sayin something!

Re:Comfort food

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but there is annual speculation in a.o.l.s. about what will happen when he is inevitably hit by a bus.

After a half dozen distros

[by (1706743)]

on 4 architectures, I still have a special place in my heart for Slackware (though I use Arch and Debian on my main boxes now). Great distribution -- I even sent Pat "The Man" Volkerding home-made cookies when he was sick.

As the adage goes, Give a man Debian, and he'll learn Debian. Give a man SUSE, and he'll learn SUSE. But give a man Slackware, and he'll learn Linux. I certainly picked up more *NIX tricks from Slack than the other distros combined.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[gmrath]

It's a little early yet, but I wonder: will there be any comments written by the slashdotter whose sig is '"Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "Slackware is too hard for me"'?

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I have been using Slackware since '96, a few months ago I tried several distributions to revive my wife's broken Toshiba notebook mainly hoping to find a distro that is "more user friendly" than Slackware, and after two weeks I just gave up and installed Slackware 12. She found it more pleasing than Windows XP that was on it earlier.
The internal WiFi card gave some trouble but worked fine after some tweaks. Sure, there are some "Pleasing" distros out there but if functionality and stability are of higher priority, nothing beats Slakware.

Thank you Patrick and the team!

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, should he come, you can tell him that the original version with Debian made a lot more sense.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[crusty_architect]

Agree 100%....

Re:After a half dozen distros

[plasticsquirrel]

I also cut my teeth on Linux with Slackware and used it for years, and it's the only reason I learned what I did about Linux. After switching to Ubuntu, I naturally got lazy and now I barely know what is happening on my own system. I can't remember the last time I compiled my own kernel, or really dug through "/etc" to figure out what everything does. That quote about Slackware has been around for a long time, and it has really earned the reputation as being THE distro to learn if you want to understand Linux. Its design is so clean and simple that it isn't nearly as intimidating as some people would expect. It also gives you a true appreciation for the elegance of the Unix design. Slackware is old school, from the era of beige boxes and Linux people who did things the old Unix way. It comes from the best place in the Linux tradition.

Patrick ("The Man") is also a stand-up guy who has been doing basically everything for the distro from the very beginning. He's a living legend in Linux history, and he had the guts to make the right call to drop GNOME when it became too convoluted to maintain. He also gave Slackware the Subgenius trappings, and is otherwise a true long-haired geek who really GETS the Unix philosophy and does things the Right Way.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's how it is for me too. On Ubuntu now, but still have fond memories of Slackware and, IIRC, downloading the A, AP, D, N and L series and throwing them on floppies for each release. I started out with the first Linux that could use UMSDOS, which outside of minor speed issues and incorrectly creating filenames in the DOS tree with the + character in them worked quite nicely for running Linux on top of a MS-DOS filesystem. Even remember using slirp to run SLIP over a dialup shell account to get the computer online properly like any Unix system, rather than accessing everything through a shell prompt on a terminal. I can't remember if Trumpet Winsock was even out yet.

Good times. Wish I could say they taught me deep things about Linux, but I did learn C and C++ out of the deal. Glad to see Slackware is still going.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[uvajed_ekil]

But give a man Slackware, and he'll learn Linux.

You misquoted, I think. It should probably be: Give a man Slackware, and he'll go right back to Microsoft. Good lord those were terrible experiences the two or three times I tried Slasckware. Granted, that was years ago, and I'm sure it's come a long way.

Or: Give a man Linux Mint and he can get shit done without having to worry about learning every last detail about how and why his expensive tool occasionally works and usually doesn't work; it just works.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is a smelly turd.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[eosp]

Learn Slackware and you learn Linux. Learn Gentoo and you are Linux.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[thegarbz]

Lazy may have little to do with it. Between fundamental changes in the way kernel handles various parts of the systems (what the heck is /sys anyway) and the move from actually setting something up to having things automated there are very few underlying fundamental things you can now change yourself when tinkering with a modern user friendly system like Ubuntu.

For one thing try and get Ubuntu to StartX with no screen attached. With older distros some level of xconfig would allow me to run X on a virtual framebuffer, but not Ubuntu. If Ubuntu isn't able to detect it via hotplug it just doesn't exist. Suppose you manually massage your fstab file then the gui filesystem utility in ubuntu breaks. In my case it's able unmount but not remount any file systems.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[ChipMonk]

Give a man Slackware, and he'll go right back to Microsoft. Good lord those were terrible experiences the two or three times I tried Slackware.

Speak for yourself. In 1998, I was dual-booting Windows 95 and Linux. When my Windows caught the Chernobyl virus, I lost my partition tables, and the rest of my data with it. I went 100% Linux, Slackware at the time, and never looked back. I did explore other Linux distros over a 4-year period (2002-2006), but eventually I came back to Slackware. You never forget your first love.

Amazingly enough, in 2001, I had set up my parents with a Mandrake system. It was my mother's idea, based on my high praise for Linux's transparency and comparative stability. I tried to talk her out of it, but when she pointed out that it wouldn't crash as often as Windows (making lighter support work for me), I was convinced. Today, she uses Fedora 12 and loves it.

Even back in 1998, I could see that there were great possibilities and ideas that could make a wonderful OS, and Linux was a lot closer to them than Windows was. Now, twelve years later, I still haven't seen any reason to allow a Microsoft OS under my roof.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[sconeu]

Amazingly enough, in 2001, I had set up my parents with a Mandrake system.

Ah, Mandrake. My first real attempt to use a distro (I mucked around with RH5 for a few hours). 8.1. Good distro.
I still have a soft spot for Mandriva -- in fact, my EeePC runs Mandriva One 2010.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Bing Tsher E]

By 1998 I had learned enough Unix from running Slackware to switch to NetBSD. Things were getting shrill by that point in Linux-land. There came a day when I wanted to install a freenix on my laptop over NFS. I used a Slackware based NFS server, but the PC-Card services for Linux were an ugly side-car diskette that you had to insert. NetBSD had the PCMCIA NIC I was using simply built into the base installer kernel.

And... almost everything I need to do to use and configure my NetBSD systems, I can get from reading the 'classic' Unix books and manuals. For configuring X11, for instance, volumes 3 and 8 of the X Window System manuals published by O'Reilly have almost all the answers.

All the fancy new shit is just people huffing Microsoft's tailpipe fumes, IMHO. But I don't really care much.

Slackware was and is cool. It's about the only version of Linux I'd ever have interest in checking out these days.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[xtracto]

I LOLed because my sig is almost like that... maybe there was someone else or you mistook my sig for that (btw, I got my sig from another slashddoter)

Re:After a half dozen distros

[BrokenHalo]

...mainly hoping to find a distro that is "more user friendly" than Slackware, and after two weeks I just gave up and installed Slackware 12.

I had my wife using Slackware 8.0 through 10. She is not a techie of any kind, but there is nothing unfriendly about Slackware once it is fully set up as a desktop machine. She eventually went over to using Macs because she decided she wanted to use EndNote to handle bibliographic referencing in her PhD thesis, since at the time there was nothing available that was nearly as good.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[BrokenHalo]

He's a living legend in Linux history, and he had the guts to make the right call to drop GNOME when it became too convoluted to maintain.

Pat's a great guy, but his dropping GNOME pissed off a lot of people too, though I understand his reasoning. KDE was at the time a lot easier to build, while GNOME was riddled with circular dependencies that made maintaining it a bitch of a job.

Fortunately for GNOME fans, the job was ably taken up by maintainers of the Dropline GNOME distribution. I have the impression they're getting a bit tired of it now, but others are around to fill the gap.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[BrokenHalo]

Learn Gentoo and you are Linux.

Not so sure I'd agree that. Most people I know who learn Gentoo are simply following a cookbook. If you really want to feel that you're in control, giving Linux From Scratch a try is a good idea, but most of us wouldn't want the burden of trying to maintain a desktop system with that.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

Re:After a half dozen distros

[muckracer]

> Fortunately for GNOME fans, the job was ably taken up by maintainers of the Dropline GNOME distribution.

Well, for the record Dropline had already existed at that time. In fact, BECAUSE it existed Pat saw the need for GNOME on Slackware already taken care of and chose to remove it from the main distro ('if you want it, then install Dropline!).

Re:After a half dozen distros

[tokul]

But give a man Slackware, and he'll learn Linux.

He will learn Linux (and other Unixes), but he will use other Linux distro later. In my case I started with Slackware and ended up with Debian.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

Give a man Slackware, and he'll go right back to Microsoft

It's a feature. Slackware does a great job at selecting its users.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[higuita]

No, you are wrong, you still dont understand slackware...

if YOU want to *learn*, you MUST get the hands dirty and do the needed things... research, read scripts, read man pages and howtos, even compile.... slackware is perfect for that!

if you dont want to to learn about the details, then slackware is not for you, no matter how "c00l" it might make you look!

if you want a distro to use and dont care how things work, use ubuntu, mint, mandriva and use the mouse, bullets and drop-down boxes

if i want to learn how a car work, you have to pick your ass up, release the steering wheel and go check the engine, the bottom of the car, the breaks, the gears, fuses, etc... if you feel like it, disassemble the motor!! no matter what, you will need to get your hands dirty.

a blinking oil lamp and break lights might be easy, but is not enough to "learn how stuff works".
so you dont want to lean how a car works? fine, don't mess with the engine, please!

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Enigma23]

Not that I'm wanting to hijack this thread and make it all about different distros, but I'll put in a recommendation for using Easy Peasy, which I've got installed on my EeePC and runs quite happily. :) I simply had to try something different; the Xandros distro that it came preinstalled on it was just too twee for words...

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story.

Bro.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

I see what you did there, eosp. Perhaps you should change it to "Learn Ubuntu and you learn little; learn Slackware and you learn Linux; learn Gentoo and you are Linux; but learn *BSD and you are Unix.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

You know... I think you were a second late making that username... :)

Re:After a half dozen distros

[BrokenHalo]

Well, for the record Dropline had already existed at that time.

IIRC, I was running Slack 8.1 when GNOME 2.0 came out. You can still see from the package lists at the time that Pat was still distributing GNOME, but only one of the 1.x versions.

I spent way too much time trying to build GNOME myself, and then a guy called Todd Kulesza released Dropline into the wild. I think it got too much for him too in (IIRC) about 2004 when Dropline was taken up by a bunch of other maintainers.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a little early yet, but I wonder: will there be any comments written by the slashdotter whose sig is '"Ubuntu" is an African word meaning "Slackware is too hard for me"'?

Slackware and *BSD are for those who like Unix.

Ubuntu and SUSE are for those who like Windows.

(Flame away...)

Re:After a half dozen distros

[DoctorPepper]

Slackware was my second distro, after Red Hat. I tend to flit around and change distros almost at will, but I am running Slackware 13.0 on my main desktop at the moment. I also ordered the 13.1 CD set, and will install that when it arrives.

I have to agree with the parent, I have certainly learned a lot about Linux from Slackware.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[Anonymous Coward]

I did explore other Linux distros over a 4-year period (2002-2006), but eventually I came back to Slackware. You never forget your first love.

I agree. I started using Slackware in 2000 with Slackware 7.0. I had CentOS 5 on my server for a few years. The hard drive died on Friday, so I spent part of the Victoria Day weekend installing 13.0. Had I known, I would have just used my Linksys router and installed 13.1 this weekend instead.

I agree. Slackware is like a boyfriend who always welcomes you back when one wanders off to an (apparently) sexier OS.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[omarius]

No, the other one is a real poster.

Re:After a half dozen distros

[jerichod]

This really resonates with me. Slackware 96 was the thing that started me on the road to living MS free. I will never forget the feeling as i watched my first slackware install boot. Power, control, enablement - all that but more importantly computers got fun again. Today i run redhat at work, 'cause the government think redhat=linux, i run ubuntu on the desktop 'cause i just want something that works, but i run slackware when i need it to be buttoned down, or when i just want to play and have fun. so - thanks Patrick! you probably got more linux people started than you will ever know! i think i will install 13.1 this weekend just for the sheer fun of playing again.

Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't slackware that thing for teenagers who just want to look cool and never develop anything, but instead spend all their time recompiling new kernals?

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, it's for us old farts who have long since stopped worrying about whether we're considered 'cool' but know how to spell 'Kernel' in addition to being able to build one.

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think you're confusing it with Gentoo.

Re:Wait...

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Yeah, and we're so old-fart'ish that at the time when we installed it on our system Slackware was the hottest new thing around.

Over the years every component in our systems might have been replaces 2-3 times each, yet the soul of the machine is still slack.

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

So same thing as my Windows then? Ok.

Re:Wait...

[Yert]

At least I don't have to find 40 floppies to do the install...

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically same thing as my Windows.

Re:Wait...

[BrokenHalo]

True, but I always did do a lot of hand-compiling on my Slackware boxes. The thing is, Slackware offers a great platform for tearing stuff down and tinkering with it, while leaving enough of a world to stand on while you do so. I used Slack on my desktop systems for many years (from 1995) until I discovered Arch, which is similar in everything I like about Slack, but with a more powerful package system.

But Slackware is still my preference for any kind of server. It's so simple, I can set it up from bare discs in less than 30 minutes.

Re:Wait...

[Vectormatic]

isnt that Gentoo?

Slackware is slightly more hardcore AFAIK, if you just want to compile to max out ur MEGAHURTZ, gentoo is the way to go

Re:Wait...

[dzfoo]

So, tell me, Oh Wise One, how do do you properly spell 'Kernel'?

        -dZ.

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh those great old days LOL
When bad floppies ruled and a root/boot floppy was needed to get your system off the ground.
Kernels took forever to compile and modelines in X were a bitch and one feared the burning smell from their monitor.
4MB VRAM video cards ruled the day, 3d was a novelty that virge made painful
oh and dotmatrix printers, fanfold paper and cassette tapes too

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, tell me, Oh Wise One, how do do you properly spell 'Kernel'?

        -dZ.

"Linux" ;)

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gentoo is dead.

Slackware is alive.

Re:Wait...

[mehemiah]

who ever's modding today has no sense of humor. I haven't had mod points in a year WTF? and where's the metamoderation button, all i see is the friend foe pill/gem button and the permalink link, but no metamoderation. what gives?

Re:Wait...

[mehemiah]

read the parent of your parent, they spelled it kernal

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

who ever's modding today has no sense of humor. I haven't had mod points in a year WTF? and where's the metamoderation button, all i see is the friend foe pill/gem button and the permalink link, but no metamoderation. what gives?

Can't mod and post in the same discussion, maybe?

Re:Wait...

[dzfoo]

*Whoosh!*

        -dZ.

Re:Wait...

[H3xx]

If by "max out our megahertz" you mean sit there with your CPU at 100% capacity, waiting for a source-based install to compile then yes, I would suggest using Gentoo Linux for that.

For me, on the other hand, I trust the uniformity of the x86_64 architecture and Patrick Volkerding's willingness to listen to those who find bugs in the Slackware-Current tree.

Re:Wait...

[damien_kane]

So, tell me, Oh Wise One, how do do you properly spell 'Kernel'?

Easy; "Colonel"

Re:Wait...

[Yert]

I nuked a monitor once by transposing the horizontal and vertical modelines... man, it was crisp for about half a second, then *pop*! A learning experience, that one was...

Re:Wait...

[toolie]

I tried using my hard drive as an soundcard once while encoding MP3s. That was a pain in the ass to recover. It did teach me to check the device in a commandline a couple times before hitting enter though.

Re:Wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't a joke. You can install newer versions of Windows on old hardware and depending on how lucky you get with drivers, you'll still have the "Windows spirit" after upgrades.

Re:Wait...

[IrquiM]

Without 'X'

Re:Wait...

[mehemiah]

hmm, suspiciously, I have mod points the DAY after posting that.

Re:Wait...

[omarius]

I had the floppy wrangling down to a science. I'd take over a row of stations in the 24-hour computer lab late at night, moving all but one rolling chair out of the way. Start one disk...next...next, rolling along, and by the time the last one was running the first one would be done. I had 19200 IVDM service at the apartment, so all I needed were A, AP, and N, and I'd go get the rest @ home.

I love me some Slack

[Riddler Sensei]

I started using Slackware when I began college, and I still use it today. I'm sort of a "medium" user. I can work the scripts and the config files, and I even compiled some custom kernels in the past. But I'm not a CS guy - I majored in music. Even I, with my liberal arts degree, find Slackware delightful to use and I appreciate it's lack of fluff and its overall feel of being MY computer.

I salute you Pat. May you keep on Slacking.

Re:I love me some Slack

[xandroid]

Me too!

(Well, I majored in Chinese. But during my first month in China, before I knew any of the language, my preferred method of coping with culture shock and homesickness was recompiling some 2.4.2x kernel to try to get my laptop to work with the weird networking setup they had at the school I was living in. Trial-and-error style too since their computer guy didn't speak a lick of English, he only knew how to click the buttons on Windows 95 in Chinese. Fun times!)

(Oh yeah I played a bunch of Unreal too.)

Yeah but it is jvgdpoius gjbsaat99

[For a Free Internet]

My cat as super mental powers and he commands you to dfhw y;p942 yt;l4ewgr,sfdxzlf on your mnbvhvJVMmsjvkivhwakvlf PIwaf9ipi with the 9yr4320yr5432 t42\g w -e\-fw-f-fewq\- !!!!!!!! DO NOT DELAY or you will be DOOOOOMERD!!!!

But...

[NetServices]

Better than Gentoo?

Re:But...

[/dev/trash]

YOU BITE YOUR FORKED TONGUE.

Re:But...

[shadowknot]

Better than Gentoo?

Well, I'd say that it's different but similar; not better or worse. Gentoo is great when you want to spend hours building and configuring the ultimate speed machine you don't have to update too often. Slackware is great if you want to get a simple, reliable and (not quite as) fast system up and running in about an hour (sometimes less). I switched from Gentoo to Debian then hastily to Slack back in about '00 and have been using Slack since. Other distros just feel bloated now; I recently tested out Ubuntu 10.4 and although it is very polished and great for non technical users I still just can't get past the fact that it seems overweight to me and I don't like the fact that I have to set the root password after install. The whole "protect the user from themselves" philosophy just doesn't wash with me.

Congratulations to the Slackware team

[seyyah]

I've been running current, which is now equivalent to 13.1 and it's working well.

A reminder to all: please seed the SW torrents and come to Linux Questions to discuss problems.

Damn, now I'm two versions behind!

[GRH]

I'm still using Slack 12.2 on my work laptop. The trouble is that VMware Workstation has to work, and new kernel versions inevitably cause problems for VMware until they catch up. Pain in the ass, really.

At home, I migrated over to BSD years ago, which was easy to do after learning all of Linux's internals running Slackware.

Keep up the great work Patrick!

Re:Damn, now I'm two versions behind!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been running Vmware Workstation 7.0.1 on 2.6.34 for a while with Arch, zero issues, just fyi!

Re:Damn, now I'm two versions behind!

[DamnStupidElf]

Is VMWare a work requirement? If not, is kvm an option? I'm using kvm on slackware64 13.0 at work with no problems. An Ethertap bridge or qemu's userspace NAT works fine with Windows in an AD environment (although there are some limitations with userspace NAT). The Windows VirtIO drivers for disk and network were pretty easy to get working.

Re:Damn, now I'm two versions behind!

[TheTurtlesMoves]

One reason i am using slackware on all my home machines, is that you really don't need to upgrade. One desktop is running slack 13, the laptop and one more desktop is running 12.2. If its not broke --don't fix it.

Re:Damn, now I'm two versions behind!

[0racle]

The latest VMWare player works fine on 13, I doubt Workstation will have a problem. The hosted VMWare products work fine on the latest Fedora, I think it will be able to handle the more stable versions of Slackware.

Another modest announcement from Slackware

[Anonymous Coward]

Another modest announcement for a release that doesn't promise to change the world or make you hip.

Slackware: It gets the damn work done. Without the fancy.

Gah!

[DoctorPepper]

Just freakin installed 13.0 on my computer yesterday!

Thanks Patrick! ;)

Re:Gah!

[ChipMonk]

On behalf of Patrick:

Hey, no problem. Have a lot of fun!

Is he ok?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope he's doing well.

I salute you Pat

[kokoko1]

Being a slackware users and still love to follow slackware release and love to see that 'The Man' the living legend is working hard to give the community the stable and secure Linux. I salute you Pat and congrats on releasing Slackware 13.1

recent convert

[DreadPirateShawn]

I'm admittedly a Johnny-come-lately Linux user, a mid-ish 20's (three cubed!) developer who switched to Linux (openSuSE) last spring. Loved it. Then a month ago, I (re)stumbled upon Slackware, which the online distro choosers (I know, I know) said was a match for me -- great performance mixed with not-quite-crazy learning curve, and even the learning curve would give me oh-so-adaptable "purity of Unix" skills. While downloading this new toy, I met Bob, who truly changed my life -- I became a fledgling member of the Church of the SubGenius. Later, while installing, upon seeing that one of the options was "Newbie: Use verbose prompting (the X series takes one year)"... that, my friends, is when I knew I was truly home.

award-winning KDE desktop environment...

[1s44c]

Can someone enlighten me as to what awards KDE has won since it started with version 4?

As far as I can tell KDE 4 is still an overcomplicated mess and a long, long way behind the simple elegance of KDE 3.

Re:award-winning KDE desktop environment...

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Well there was the "cool background image" award from '03, the "don't release dev version to the public" award for KDE 4 (though i understand that has more to do distros carrying it too early). Then there was "doesn't sux as much as gnome and doesn't use the memory of windows" award in '05.

Seriously though "simple elegance" is not a description i would use for kde 3.5 kede 4 or gnome. I say this typing on kde 3.5 and the other machine in the room uses kde 4 (its fine, don't know what the fuss is about). When i want simple elegance outside a command line, I stick with icewm.

Re:award-winning KDE desktop environment...

[tokul]

Can someone enlighten me as to what awards KDE has won since it started with version 4?

Nominated for Darwin award. "How to f*** up things" category.

Awesome

[muckracer]

Thanx to Pat and all other folks for the great work!

Already??

[Noryungi]

Man, and I was just getting used to 13.0 13.0-64... I should really read the ChnageLog more often!!

Great job Pat & crew, and here is to another great release of the best Linux distro ever!

What is this obsession?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this obsession with insisting that technology "die"? Slackware has a strong core following, and many other people find it perfectly suitable, even preferable, for what they do. I know I do -- both on my desktop at home and my servers at work.

You find that Debian better suits your needs. That's great, but why does that give you the urge to claim that slackware is "dying"? There's no contest here. Nobody is in competition with you.

Do us a favor and lose the immature "everything is dying but my favorite technology" chip on your shoulder. It doesn't do us any good -- we're going to keep on using slackware because it sure as hell isn't "dying" for us.

40 floppies...

[gravis777]

I haven't been around Slackware in a while. I thought Slackware's main selling point back in the day was that it was an 18 floppy install. What's up with this 6 cd / 1 dvd thing? I get modern distros come with apps and stuff, but it just seems a sad day when a slackware iso is larger than a Windows iso (yes, I know the Windows iso doesn't come with apps, that's besides the point). Just saying. My first Linux box was a 486 with 12 meg of ram, 500 meg harddrive, I ran X, an FTP server and a webserver off of that thing.

Not trying to be a hater, just don't get this size thing. I guess I won't be installing this version of slackware on an old system I pull out of storage. Need to go find RedHat 6 I guess.

Re:40 floppies...

[gravis777]

ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-3.3/ :-) Floppies!!!!

Re:40 floppies...

[mehemiah]

actually, I really wish they would advertise this more but you can stop at the first CD which normally has a good WM on it like xfce or fluxbox. I figured this out myself. You can install KDE from the net. I just stopped using it when i did a mass upgrade and it segfaulted. That happened once and hosed my install i think. I would like them to fix that. I've tried installing zenwalk sense but that didn't like my graphics card (an ancient ATI) so I stuck with Ubuntu. This reminded me to compile a kernel for it. you can still use the old one through the grub menu right?

Re:40 floppies...

[FreonTrip]

Times and expectations change. Slackware is now capable of meeting the needs of a very wide range of people, and showcases lots of new functionality. However, nobody said you have to install everything, and if you're installing onto an old system it's still i486-compatible. The best bet is to pop a DVD-ROM drive into Ol' Bessy (or whatever you call the system liberated from storage) and install only those applications you're likely to use. It's a much safer bet than dealing with RedHat 6.

Re:40 floppies...

[gravis777]

Thanks, that answered my question. :-)

Re:40 floppies...

[gravis777]

Thanks. Yeah, if installing on an older system, really do not want KDE on it.

As for the old one, the old 486 I was using but the dust a few years back (lightning storm). Got an old k5 that I am thinking about getting up and running, though.

Still running Slackware 11

[SphericalCrusher]

I'm currently still running Slackware 11, but I've been considering making the jump to 13 for quite some time. The only thing though, is the laptop I'm running 11 on has a 32 bit processor. My desktop, which is only meant for gaming, runs Win7 Ultimate x64 and I don't want to bother with dualbooting/virtual machine or just running it on that. We purchased a new Dell laptop which has a 64 bit CPU, but I don't think the wife wants touching it, ha. One of the biggest factors that I love about Slackware 13 is the way it works with 64 bit CPUs in the RISC architecture. Just by reading up on it, I think Windows could use a few tips from the way it micro-manages and multi-tasks applications. The way it handles CPU usage for an influx of applications open also is awesome, considering when I used Slackware 13 once, I had a ton of programs open. Now, Slackware with KDE... I don't know. My Slackware 11 was a base install, and I installed XWindows for GNOME separately.... just because I HATE the look and feel of the new GNOME. Anyhow, just throwing my opinion out there. If anyone loads 13.1 and has a good opinion about it, feel free to leave me a reply or send me a message.

Re:Still running Slackware 11

[0racle]

What exactly is your problem? Slackware's default DE is technically KDE and has been for a very long time. Slackware 13 moved to KDE4 as it's default, but there are people that packaged up KDE3 if that's not what you want to run or it also ships XFCE, or several plain window managers if the full on desktop environment isn't what you want.

Slackware 13 ran just as well as any other Slackware has, I doubt 13.1 will be any different.

Re:Still running Slackware 11

[SphericalCrusher]

KDE was just too flashy for me. I've always been a huge fan of GNOME. It's just a personal preference. Thanks.

Diskettes

[blantonl]

Looks like I'm going to need to purchase a 50 pack of diskettes today

Re:Diskettes

[Anonymous Coward]

at 1.44MB per disk i think you'll need a few more than 50.

Marketshare?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're confused about the point of Slackware.

What no release version of KOffice

[salemboot]

What really pissed me off with 13 was that Koffice was a freaking beta. Stable my ass. No spell check capabilities. Which shows Pat don't even use his own product. He's probably using Windows 7. I read somewhere in an interview he used XP.... Nothing new, Deb' Ian uses a Mac. Red Fedora Bob forgot his name, uses a Mac. Linus is probably using Windows. It wouldn't at all surprise me these guys doing the kernel development do so in VirtualBox. 10.2 was the last solid release of Slackware.