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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."
cheers to the developers. they really work their slacks off.
Slackware hasn't officially packaged GNOME since 2005. There are various community projects which allow you to use GNOME on Slackware, however.
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.
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.
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.
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.
YOU BITE YOUR FORKED TONGUE.
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.
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.
No, I think you're confusing it with Gentoo.
So you're deploying to servers and yet you're crying a river about the lack of Gnome? What am I missing here?
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.
Just freakin installed 13.0 on my computer yesterday!
Thanks Patrick! ;)
No matter where you go... there you are.
you're not missing anything my good sir!
the grandparent is missing a boot in his ass.
(lights pipe)
what a wonderful day.
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.
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.
- These characters were randomly selected.
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.
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
http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
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.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
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.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
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.
Nominated for Darwin award. "How to f*** up things" category.
So, tell me, Oh Wise One, how do do you properly spell 'Kernel'?
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
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.
Looks like I'm going to need to purchase a 50 pack of diskettes today
Lindsay Blanton
RadioReference.com