Slackware Linux 14.1 Released

An anonymous reader writes "According to the official announcement, Slackware 14.1 includes the following: 'Slackware 14.1 brings many updates and enhancements, among which you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.10.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 4.10.5, a recent stable release of the 4.10.x series of the award-winning KDE desktop environment.' Installation ISOs can be found here."

Comments

amused that they talk about the DT environs

[themushroom]

when real Slackware users only use command lines :)

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[ShanghaiBill]

when real Slackware users only use command lines :)

Real Slackware users use a Desktop so they can run command line shells in six xterms simultaneously.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[SigmundFloyd]

Hi, I'm a real Slackware user and I run ctwm and GNUscreen.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[evilviper]

Real Slackware users use a Desktop so they can run command line shells in six xterms simultaneously.

You only need a window manager (like Fluxbox, fvwm, xfwm, sawfish etc) to manage multiple xterms, not a full desktop environment.

And you don't need X11 at all, since tmux will allow you to do all of that from a text console.

eg.: http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux3.png

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[Charliemopps]

No, real slackware users use punch cards for input and have a single red blinking LED for output. Although I used to know this guy that shaved, thought he was better than the rest of us... he had a green LED. Fucking pretentious asshole he was.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[farrellj]

Actually, us Slackware Users us whatever the fsck we want, because we know how to do it all! CDE, KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, raw X, screen, and anything else we can dig up. We not only know how to use it, we customize it so that other users on the same machine have a hard time time using it! What's more, we probably also know how to use Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, SUSE, Debian, Arch, *BSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Mac OS (7-10), and another dozen operating systems that most of you haven't heard of! We can even make Windows useful! We Kick OS BUTT!

All single OS users must cringe in the shadow of our awesomeness!

Really!

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[slack_justyb]

They put it there for the casual on-lookers. For whatever people bang on it, when you say Linux in an interview and they ask you which distro, you say Slackware. If you know how to hold it together with Slackware, things like installing 3rd party drivers from the command line on Ubuntu or SuSE or knowing the entire purpose of everything in /proc is the kinds of things they know you do 300% better asleep and drunk than most admins could muster running full steam.

Here's to the release of yet another amazing version of the best Linux distro to date.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[Skapare]

Six?? ... no way ... I use seventy two xterms.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[wiredlogic]

That's what screen is for.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[goarilla]

He's not fat, he's highly specialised for the job.

Re: amused that they talk about the DT environs

[captjc]

Pfft, noob. Use real professionals have over 9000 xterms open and each one of those has screen running with over 9000 command prompts. Every one of those command prompts has over 9000 commands running as background tasks!

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If he's a Slackware user, he's not fat; he's most likely ext2.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[Trigun]

I would just like to take the time to point out that we have a 3-digit User ID here... So by default he knows what he is talking about.
He remembers the 23 disk A-series of slackware.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[arfonrg]

Only six? Amateur!

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[dpiven]

We not only know how to use it, we customize it so that other users on the same machine have a hard time time using it!

You let OTHER USERS on YOUR MACHINE? They should get their OWN machine!

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[evilviper]

I would just like to take the time to point out that we have a 3-digit User ID here... So by default he knows what he is talking about.

IIRC, it only took about a year to go from single-digit to 6-digit UIDs, so it's largely a matter of timing (or luck), and all the lower-numbered UIDs were created about the same age, and only means we were on the internet, reading about Linux circa '98.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[farrellj]

Thanks...:-)

As usual, the newbies are clueless about humour/sarcasm...mixed with a bit of truth.

I've been using Linux since kernel 0.12 or so...and was using Slackware before it was Slackware!

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[farrellj]

Truth!

I do know all of those operating systems, and many more. But, I was trying to inject a bit of humour too! If you take Linux, or anything (hint *BSD/Debian users...) too seriously, you annoy people, and make them less likely to use your operating system. Slackware (come on, *think* about the name!!!) is never going to be able to take itself too seriously! And that is why I still use it, as well as Mint, Mac OS, and Windows 7 (at least on this system...). One of the few nice things you can do since Apple switched to Intel from Motorola/PPC hardware!

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[farrellj]

Do I detect a green sheen of envy, mr 135100? :-)

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[evilviper]

Fwiw, I've also got a lower-UID account than this (not 3-digit, though), that I prefer not to use.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[TheTurtlesMoves]

you can't watch porn on a text terminal.

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[evilviper]

you can't watch porn on a text terminal.

Yes you can!

mplayer -vo aa $FILENAME

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAlib

Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs

[Galrion]

Real Slackware users use screen so they don't need to waste resources on a desktop.

"Award-winning"

[krkhan]

Please stop using arguably the most useless of marketing slogans. Every desktop environment which has been around long enough has won an award of some kind. (Yes, even Gnome.)

Re:"Award-winning"

[Chris Mattern]

If necessary, the marketing department will simply *create* an award in order to give to their product. Usually they can dredge up something a little less blatant, though.

Re:"Award-winning"

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

How about "Industry-Leading"?

packages

[dmbasso]

I used slackware from 97 to 2000 -- too long ago -- so I was curious about the state of package management:

One of the major complaints by new users is the fact that Slackware does not automatically track dependencies and install dependencies when you install a file. To many this may seem like a negative mark against Slackware, but I prefer to know exactly what is installed on my system and what it is for.

So, no, thanks. I'll stay with my Debian based distros. Which btw I know exactly what is installed... I'm not sure why one would assume automatic dependency installation imply the dependencies are installed secretly. :p

Re:packages

[mark-t]

The problem with automatic dependency checking is that because the computer is doing that checking for you, you are less likely to personally know what, exactly, what all those dependencies are for packages that you've installed, unless you've installed them very recently... which means that if you want to uninstall a package, and you don't want to keep around any other packages whose only purpose for being installed was to support the package that you no longer want, if you had to manually install those dependencies in the first place, you are in a good position to be able to know which packages you should be removing as well.

Re:packages

[seyyah]

The problem with automatic dependency checking is that because the computer is doing that checking for you, you are less likely to personally know what, exactly, what all those dependencies are for packages that you've installed, unless you've installed them very recently... which means that if you want to uninstall a package, and you don't want to keep around any other packages whose only purpose for being installed was to support the package that you no longer want, if you had to manually install those dependencies in the first place, you are in a good position to be able to know which packages you should be removing as well.

The problem with automated dependency checking is that when it breaks you are often fucked. So it's not so much that dependency checking is bad, but that it is very hard to get absolutely right, more so when you throw in extra repositories into the mix.

Re:packages

[rusty0101]

Good dependency management keeps track of such things for you over the long term as well. apt-get _will_ tell you of libraries that were installed in support of applications that you've since removed, and gives you the ability to remove those libraries as well with the auto-remove function. It does not automatically remove them with the application, which can leave cruft on your system, but has the advantage that if you've found the library handy for some program you're writing, but haven't explicitly toled the package management system that your app depends on it, you're not breaking your own application.

Re:packages

[Chris Mattern]

No, that's actually not generally a problem. Package managers remember which packages you asked to be installed and which packages it installed automatically to satisfy dependencies. When an automatically installed package has no more packages dependent on it, it gets uninstalled.

The real problem is, as another poster pointed out, is the same as any automated procedure--if something goes wrong enough, it can put you in a very deep hole very quickly and if you don't understand what it was doing for you, you'll have a great deal of difficulty digging yourself out again.

Re:packages

[mark-t]

Well, that was my experience using a distro with auto-dependency checking... I gave up on it after a year and went back to slack.

Re:packages

[TheRealMindChild]

You were a slackware user and you used packages? Either you are/were a filty casual, or you were of the very few who depended on such.

Installing things on slackware was/is almost always 'tar xvjpf source.tar.gz && cd source && ./configure && make && make install', aside from the initial system install, of course

Re:packages

[dmbasso]

You misunderstood me. I used slackware until 2000, when a friend suggested to me to try Debian, which he had installed in a computer of our lab. The first thing I tried was to edit a configuration file using midnight commander (mc -e), which was not installed by default. I pointed to the screen and made a face implying "is this what you call a decent OS?", but he said "wait", and typed the magic words "apt-get install mc".

From that moment on, I would never use an OS without package manager again... at least not by my own volition.

Re:packages

[jones_supa]

The problem with automatic dependency checking is that because the computer is doing that checking for you, you are less likely to personally know what, exactly, what all those dependencies are for packages that you've installed, unless you've installed them very recently... which means that if you want to uninstall a package, and you don't want to keep around any other packages whose only purpose for being installed was to support the package that you no longer want, if you had to manually install those dependencies in the first place, you are in a good position to be able to know which packages you should be removing as well.

Under Ubuntu/Debian those supporting packages are marked "automatically installed" and can be removed with "apt-get autoremove".

Frankly, I thought Slackware already had a package dependency system in place. If not, I have better things to do than manually track dependencies. It's not productive work for me.

Re:packages

[reub2000]

How often do users get into that type of hole? It might happen if you enable too many addon repos or are running a development branch.

Re:packages

[ApplePy]

The problem with automatic dependency checking is that because the computer is doing that checking for you, you are less likely to personally know what, exactly, what all those dependencies are for packages that you've installed, unless you've installed them very recently...

That much is true, I reckon. And it's all fine and dandy to know every package on your machine... if you only have one machine. When you start administering a few hundred different servers that serve different purposes and have different software and belong to multiple clients... good luck with that. Old systems get crufty, sure. But I'd rather backup & reinstall once in 5 years than to fuck with trying to manually remove orphaned packages all the time. Just seems like an enormous waste of time. As far as I'm concerned, APT and YUM are godsends. So... I'll just bow to your enormously impractical 1337-ness and go on my merry way.

Re:packages

[Clsid]

Wait I must be on drugs or something, but during the brief period I used Slackware, I thought you were supposed to create Slackware packages yourself from every source install, which is extremely easy to do and one of the major reasons I liked Slackware in the first place. Hell, there was even a website called Linux Packages or something like that, where you could just share whatever packages you created if anybody didn't want to go through the process.

In my case I ended up using Gentoo for personal use even if the install is burdensome, Debian or OpenBSD on servers and Ubuntu for desktop installs.

Re:packages

[seyyah]

Installing things on slackware was/is almost always 'tar xvjpf source.tar.gz && cd source && ./configure && make && make install', aside from the initial system install, of course

Slackware is never that. Slackware is all about packages. Always.

Re:packages

[CronoCloud]

Wait, you wanted to use Midnight commander to edit a conf file instead of vim or emacs? Freak!

Probably easier to use for simpler edits though.

Re:packages

[Skiron]

Linux packages is now gone, but there is http://slackbuilds.org/ today!

Re:packages

[SigmundFloyd]

but he said "wait", and typed the magic words "apt-get install mc".

Just FYI, on Slackware that would have been "slackpkg install mc".

Re:packages

[dmbasso]

mc was installed by default, and in 2000 there was nothing resembling "slackpkg". But nice to know it exists now!

Re:packages

[dmbasso]

Back at that time I was still dual-booting, and used to code in the IDE of Turbo C and DOS edit... mc's editor was the closest match.

In 2006 I forced myself to use vim during one month. There were some things that I fell in love with, but overall I didn't like the experience. So I just made a plugin for gedit with everything I liked in vim, and that's what I've been using since (now with Pluma, because gedit3 broke compatibility).

Re:packages

[geminidomino]

Pretty much this. I love Slackware, I cut my linux teeth on Slackware, Slackware held my hand as I plunged into the world of FreeBSD. Unfortunately, manual dependency tracking (and, gods forbid, updating) dozens of machines...

Sadly, I don't have time for that (who does?). That's the only reason I haven't dumped ubuntu-server in the bin.

Re:packages

[arfonrg]

This is the biggest FUD out there about Slackware.... You want automatic dependency resolution? USE DAWNRAZOR'S SBOTOOLS

http://dawnrazor.net/sbotools/

Re:packages

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

For those that otherwise recognize the awesomitude of Slackware but have gotten too old and feeble to track dependencies themselves, I would recommend Arch. (Yes, that does include me...)

To me, it's got a very Slackware-like feel to it (including a SlackBuild-like system called ABS), but also a pretty comprehensive repository.

Re:packages

[dmbasso]

"FUD" implies that I was intentionally spreading misinformation, which was not the case, so please tone down. Btw, have you read my comment above?

Re:packages

[TheTurtlesMoves]

I use slackware because of that. I hate when i get 5 gigs of crap update that is 99.9% not needed, and then breaks things. Its like people are taking the worst of windows and putting it on linux.

My last slackware install has need just 2 packages updated because of security advisories in the last year. JUST 2. I get work done, not piss around on the internet with updates every 3 hours.

Re:packages

[TheTurtlesMoves]

It has happened to me more than once with nothing but default settings and repos on Fedura and Debian i think?

Re:packages

[TheTurtlesMoves]

God no. You compile to a slackware package. Either with a Slackbuild script someone has already written (true of just about everything out there), or write one yourself and release it to the community.

Like the Eveready Rabbit

[stox]

It keeps going and going.

True to its users.

Congratulations, on another fine release, to the Slackware Team!

Re:Like the Eveready Rabbit

[Hillgiant]

I am embarrassed to say that I stared at the screen for some minutes before realizing that "Eveready Rabbit" was not some cutsie release name for the latest Slackware release.

Yawn!!!!!!

[AntEater]

I've been anticipating this release for several weeks now. What's funny, is that there's not much to say about it here. Predictable. Reliable. Maybe even boring. Still, Slackware is an awesome system that is a joy to administer. I'll be updating several machines as soon as my DVD arrives in the mail.

Still tarballs?

[oldhack]

Slackware still uses tarball packaging?

Re:Still tarballs?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they install in seconds.

(If you are surprised by this, then you probably aren't familiar with the slackware philsophy. It's founded on simplicity and vanilla-ism, which is a lot different than, say, debian.)

Re:Still tarballs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, now go back to your noob distro.

Re:Still tarballs?

[mishehu]

OMG they're not using $flavor_of_the_month!!!

Re:Still tarballs?

[Nimey]

More importantly, it still doesn't use a dependency-resolving package manager. If that works for you, great, but it doesn't for me.

Re:Still tarballs?

[Nimey]

Well, you know. Some people need to do things the hard way to prove how manly they are; also nerds aren't stereotyped as being ill-socialized for nothing.

Re:Still tarballs?

[bencollver2]

A tarball is hard, but 2 tarballs wrapped in an ar achive is easy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deb_(file_format)#Design

From the 14.1 release announcement: "Have fun! :^) I hope you find Slackware to be useful."

I see a happy smiley face and friendly tone, but we shouldn't let empirical evidence get in the way of a good stereotype.

Re:Still tarballs?

[Nimey]

Obviously I wasn't talking about Patrick, but the subset of Slack users who are aspies.

You're perpetuating the stereotype (ill socialization) a little bit.

Re:Still tarballs?

[Nimey]

No, I'm using "still" in the sense of "Patrick hasn't made this change and he may never, but until he does I'm not interested". I used Slack for a year or so before giving up and switching back to Debian because the lack of package management drove me crazy.

See the other reply I made in this thread where I mentioned the stereotype about nerds? You're reinforcing that a little too.

I can't see how a dependency-resolving package manager would be /that/ complex. I mean, Debian's had a very good one in apt since '99, and that's an eternity in computing terms... but I know that Slack is basically Patrick, he's one person, and he's got his priorities (and there are tons of distros with that feature anyway), so I don't really expect it to change, it would just be a nice feature.

Re:Still tarballs?

[higuita]

Yes, tgz (or txz) is just a tar.gz (or tar.xz) ... just like a .deb is just a .ar achive (try ar x name .deb) ... but this is a good thing, you can open then with standard tools if the pkgtool or dpkg or apt-* don't work.

rpm can only be open by rpm (or converted to standard archive by tools that usually require again the rpm), making very hard to open if the rpm really dont work.

Re:Still tarballs?

[bencollver2]

Aww shucks, tried to have reasonable discourse and all I got was an armchair diagnosis of a mental disorder. Makes me feel all warm and social.

Re:Never used

[BringsApples]

It's all I've ever used. It was version 10.5 when I first got heavy into it though. I use it as my only desktop now. I'm able to do anything that I need to do, it just takes me about 5 hours longer than it should. ;)

They have come a long way as far as updates however (slackpkg). Rolling things from source is really cool and makes you look old-school, or so I'm told. I work for myself doing IT work locally, and even other "Linux guys" tell me that I'm hard-core, simply because I run slackware, do to it's very mechanical nature. I just go with it.

Re:SystemD vs SysV

[epyT-R]

openRC supports both already. Last I checked, none of the bsds use it, and the only linux distro to use it as a default is gentoo.

No its not

[ArchieBunker]

The config files in Slackware are pretty straightforward. These days its near impossible to set up a Ubuntu or Debian install via the command line. Nothing but a pile of scripts that call for more scripts. When something doesn't work you can't even look in the logs because its not reported.

Re:No its not

[ulzeraj]

I could be wrong but booting with network without X11 on Ubuntu requires Grub command line arguments. What the hell man.

Re:Never used

[jmccue]

I think the hardest part of the install is disk partitioning, if you opt for a full install you will have a fully functional working system. All you need to do is run useradd after the install and your are ready. Anyway I understand what you mean by 'useto', for me I am very much use to Slack and haven't tried a different distro in a very long time :)

Re:Never used

[FuegoFuerte]

Anyone who told you it's hard to configure was either running it on a VERY oddball hardware setup, or was lying to you. I originally switched to Slackware (in 2001) because it was so much easier to make everything "just work" than it was with the other distros. I still use it for that reason. I can go from bare metal to fully working system in a half hour or less.

Also, I got tired of the circular dependency hell from the other distros of the time. Maybe they're better now, but Slack's package management works just fine for me, thankyouverymuch.

Re:Never used

[Clsid]

You should try Gentoo when you get the chance. The install process alone will make you understand a lot more about your computer than you ever wanted to know.

And there was much rejoicing in Slacker Land...

[Noryungi]

Here is to another great release!

Thanks to Patrick Volkerding and the entire crew - I am going to buy my CDs and DVDs right now to support Slackware.

Re:Never used

[goarilla]

There never was a 10.5, you might mean 10.2.

Nice

[Slackhead]

Another fine release. Not that I'm biased or anything...

Re:Bundled with proprietary software...

[Wild Wizard]

To get on that list you only have to include the full unmodified kernel.

Since Slackware always uses the full unmodified kernel then it will always be there unless the kernel devs fix it up.

I also believe there is a special agreement regarding the non-free program xv.

Re:FTP Download Available on Floppy Disk

[SalafranceUnderhill]

Been there, done that, was amused.

Slack is the God of linux distros

[satan666]

If you are a real SA, then you use slack.
This is my quick, 1 line, summary of most
distributions today:

1. Fedora -- Fuck no. I want my video to work.
2. Centos -- Not too bad actually. The only thing I would run other than Slack.
3 RH - No! I dont have $10,000.00 a month for support.
4. Debian -- De-what ? Die motherfucker!
5. Ubuntu -- Ubu-suck-my-dick -- another African word that means suck-my-dick
6. BSD -- Hey, listen to me: Fuck off. Go play with OSX... bitch!
7... Whatever...

Yeah, I run Slack, I compile my own kernel, I build my packages from source.
I kill and eat my food. I live in the woods. Grrrrr....
Now leave me alone people. I have a Word document I need to finish,
for management :P

Re:FTP Download Available on Floppy Disk

[hodet]

I'm not laughing but reminiscing. I am going to d/l it and give it a spin. Nothing but respect for slack, even if I haven't used it in ages. Time to correct that.

Re:Bundled with proprietary software...

[unixisc]

No mainstream distro passes the FSF tests if you look there - only some fringe distros like gNewSense (Stallman's favorite), Trisquel and a few other Latin America specific distros available only in Spanish (English is a separate localization download for them).

Which means Slackware was easier

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it was installed by default. That is kinda the point. Slackware has a decent selection of packages preinstalled so no need to have to type such a command. Surely that makes it even easier. Before you reply you might wan to read this:

http://my.opera.com/ruario/blog/2011/09/26/slackware-package-and-dependency-management

Re:SystemD vs SysV

[fisted]

none of the bsds use it

What a surprise.
Either you didn't read my post, or you didn't understand what it implies. OpenRC is a reimplementation of the BSD RC-system. Designed to sanitize the various substandard init systems commonly used with Linux. Dropping the (very well-engineered) original and using OpenRC would be a ridiculous thing to do on a BSD.

Re:SystemD vs SysV

[fisted]

Designed to sanitize the various [...]

Well, that should of course read: Designed to sanitize the insane situation which arose due to the various [...]

Re:FTP Download Available on Floppy Disk

[JackieBrown]

Ubuntu does have DVD versions.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/alternative-downloads

Slackware 96

[srobert]

I'm grateful for Slackware because that's how I discovered that it was possible to use a PC without being trapped in the tyranny of MSWindows and various other expensive proprietary software. I still have the 4 CD set Slackware 96 from Walnut Creek as a souvenir. I wonder if old software CD's are a collector's item like baseball cards or comic books.

Re:Yep, Slackware

[higuita]

Of course it installs... you have to fix the script to stop thinking that everyone is using redhat or debian

Re:Never used

[BringsApples]

Hell, yes I did mean that. Now that I think about it, I don't know if there's ever been a .5 of any release since I've been involved. Thanks!