Slashdot Mirror


Slackware, Oldest Actively Maintained GNU/Linux Distribution, Turns 25

sombragris writes: Slackware, the oldest GNU/Linux distribution which is still actively maintained, turned 25 this week. The latest stable version, Slackware 14.2, was released two years ago, but the development version (-current) is updated on a fast pace. Today the development version offers kernel 4.14.55, gcc 8.1.1, glibc 2.27. mesa 18.1.4, xorg 1.20, and the Xfce and KDE desktop environments as default, with many more available as third-party packages. Other points of note are that Slackware is systemd-free, opting instead for a simple BSD-style init.

Since its first release ever, this has been a distro with a strong following due to its hallmarks of simplicity, speed, ease of maintenance and configuration. Happy birthday Slackware!

1 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is Slackware usable? by junk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Slackware was my second distro but the first (RedHat) was only on the box for a couple days before my really geeky friend shamed me into using Slackware. Soooooooooo painful. Soooooooooo hard to use. I was soooooooooo lost. I'm so much better off for it. I've been using Linux since the 90s and haven't ever stopped. I've run Slackware on laptops, desktops and servers for a lot of that time. I'm much lazier now and much more employed, so I use something with a native package management system that handles dependencies and laziness. When my home racks are online though, they're Slackware because it works, has always worked and will always work without any BS.

    Patrick and team have done a great job for a long time and they deserve a lot of thanks for their work.