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Slackware 14.0 Arrives
First time accepted submitter SgtKeeling writes "After 5 release candidates, a new version of Slackware has been released. From the website: 'Yes, it is that time again! After well over a year of planning, development, and testing, the Slackware Linux Project is proud to announce the latest stable release of the longest running distribution of the Linux operating system, Slackware version 14.0! We are sure you'll enjoy the many improvements. We've done our best to bring the latest technology to Slackware while still maintaining the stability and security that you have come to expect. Slackware is well known for its simplicity and the fact that we try to bring software to you in the condition that the authors intended. We will be setting up BitTorrent downloads for the official ISO images. Stay tuned to http://slackware.com/ for the latest updates.'"
Torrent files are now available here: http://www.slackware.com/getslack/torrents.php
Then I know all is well with the world.
Thank you, Patrick!
-> I dislike sigs...
For slack's a jolly good distro...
For slack's a jolly good distro...
For slack's a jolly good diiiiistrooo...
Which nobody can deny!
You can still install via floppies... In fact looking at the FAQ page it looks like they haven't changed anything in the 16 years since my first install of Slackware. You can install through serial if your heart so desires.
I downloaded and installed it onto my system from DVD. The system booted up. It found my network card and configured itself via DHCP. I didn't edit xorg.conf but startx loaded up the KDE desktop using the full resolution of my monitor. Plugged in a USB stick and it opened up a file manager with it's contents loaded. I used the system for quite a while and I only had to fire up the terminal to edit /etc/inittab to change the default runlevel to 4 so KDM would load at boot time. Fully an hour into this and I only had to edit one text file?!? What is this? I wanted Slackware, not Yoobuntoo or some other watered down, hand-holding, pick-out-my-clothes-for-me distro! Where's the pain? Where's the challenge? How can I project my true alpha-geek status by casually mentioning that I run Slackware if it's going to be this easy?? If this keeps up I'm going to have to switch to one of the BSDs or Linux from scratch. With my luck, they'll probably automate that process with shell scripts or something as well.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
LOL, I wonder just how many of us have installed it from floppies?
It's only within the last 3-5 years that I threw out the 100 or so Slackware floppies from the very first time I installed Linux way back in '92 or '93 -- a 0.99a kernel, a huge pile of floppies, and the best fun to be had at the time.
Ah ... installing Slackware with X-windows onto a 486-DX33 with 8MB of RAM and 320MB HDD. Good times that was.
Xv for porn^H^H^H^Himages, slip to multi-task on a dialup connection, xdvi to preview output from LaTeX, gcc for coding, netscape for the few wbe sites that existed, usenet, ftp, and all the goodies to go along with it. I still remember the sheer awesome of having that environment.
At one point, my computer had more CPU and RAM than the Sun workstations my friend could access at school ... of course, we had it tough, we only had VT100 access to old VAXen and printers with green-bar paper. And the DOS/Windows machines of the day were largely useless and crashy.
The fact that everything is now mostly three orders of magnitude bigger is kind of amusing in retrospect. But at the time, it was some pretty cool stuff.
Knowing UNIX and C got me my first job out of school. I may need to spool up a VM to put this on, my Ubuntu box is getting a little creaky and I've been hearing some things that make me want to find another distro anyway.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My system at work: Redhat Enterprise 6.
My primary system at home for the last sixteen years: Slackware.
If you use it, and you love it, please buy a DVD or contribute if you can. I do.
Remember, Patrick isn't some big conglomerate screwing everybody out of money; he's just a good guy putting out an old school yet quality distro and trying to make a living. He's got a family too.
I'm sorry I left you for that whore Redhat but she was much easier (she came with the book). I went around the block a few times and am happy with Arch now... I'm sure you wanted to know that. I still think of you and your floppies from time to time...
at one point I was left with a shitty old laptop, no cd drive, a hard disk with the slackware files on a dos partition, and a copy of "running linux". I learned a LOT over the next few weeks
and would not want to do it again ... but totally suggest that anyone interested in linux does it at least once.
Good question. For me, purity, everything being in the 'right' place. After using SCO Unix for so many years (pre-crazyness), slackware felt right. The install was the same, it put things pretty much in the same place, tons of scripts/code I had just worked right off, and when they didn't, it was intuitive to fix. Also used to keep up to date with linux kernels more actively than others (probably because it assumed it's users were more techy and wouldn't have a problem editing what's needed). As to why to use it today compared to more friendly distros? Hmm, tough call. I'm not aware of anything it does that others don't do these days (though it's been a few years since I've used it in anger, probably a VM laying around somewhere with it). I'll download it, set it up in a VM (always useful to have for various reasons), and get back to the thread!
Waiting for an amusing sig.
Tradition, Slackware is the real thing. Nostalgic. It is the oldest distribution out there. It is ported to S/390. It follows the unix principles.
A friend of mine in college gave me my first slack. He built his own computer (very cutting-edge in those days) 486-33. Got slack running on it. And used it for one of the greatest pranks I've ever seen.
Two other friends of ours were roommates. One worked day shift, the other worked night shift. The only communication they had for months on end was a chessboard. First roomie was a chess nut, and quite a good player. Second roomie wasn't so great.
So the Slackbox was devoted to running Gnuchess turned up to max. It would take 10 hours to compute a move. Second roomie would call Slackbox, get his move, and go to work. When he would come home from work he would dial up Slackbox and input First roomie's move.
This went on for months. First roomie had no idea how he was getting his ass handed to him. Was a great laugh when everyone came clean about the prank.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This only matters if you use KDE. (In which case you're going to get Nepomuk no matter what distro you use.) Also, Nepomuk is easy enough to disable,
If you prefer not to use KDE, Slackware comes with several other DEs and WMs, like XFCE and Fluxbox, out of the box. In fact, you don't even need to install KDE when you install Slackware. And if you're a Gnome user, there are several Gnome slackbuilds available. This is really a non-issue.
Well Slackware was in the 2nd generation of distributions before even Debian and RedHat baed on SLS. So an Ubuntu user can't really complain about Slackware causing fragmentation.
The Slackware documentation has a summary on what makes it stand out:
http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:philosophy
In other words, it really doesn't have a lot of inconveniences after all. I think the biggest reason I moved to Slackware in the first place was the glut of dependencies that were installed whenever I installed a package in Ubuntu. With Slackware, you start out with a good portion of the packages you need, and manage the rest when you do third party installs. And while that may seem challenging, it ends up being fairly easy, since once you have your install set up and customized the way you like it, you can run it for years without having to make any drastic changes.
Also, the packages are all plain vanilla software, with very few distro-specific patches. While this tends to make the distribution seem less "uniform" out of the box, you also end up with more stability.
Full version upgrades also tend to be easier and more stable overall. Granted there's more work done under the hood, and there's always a chance you can mess up, but I've found that every time I've made a mistake, I've been able to rectify it using some simple method.
And that brings about the most important aspect of Slackware. It's the distro that puts you the closest to working with Linux, without having to delve through layers of "convenience" UI. It may seem harder at first, but after a bit of learning, you'll know Linux better than just about any other distro. (Excluding Linux from Scratch.)
That said, Slackware isn't for everyone. If you just want a distribution that takes the minimum effort to get going, you're probably better off with some of the other big names. But if you have the time and a bit of spare hard drive space, I recommend giving it a try nonetheless. Just be patient.
So you're saying that Slackware is Mayan Calendar Rollover compliant?