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Pre-Beta Slackware 4.0
Langston01 writes "According to
LinuxToday, a pre-beta of Slackware 4.0 is out. "
I remember Slackware. Wow, its been years since I used
it. I still need a Debian 2.1 CD. Or a T1.
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This distro appears to still be libc5 based (according to comments I saw elsewhere on the Web).
If so, I've really got to wonder why the latest-and-greatest kernel (2.2.3) is being shipped with such antiquated libraries.
I run a severely hacked up version of RedHat 4.2, and if I were starting from scratch again I think I'd use Slackware. Ever since I started using Linux, I have always found it more "natural" to grab the source tarball and compile myself whenever I want to install a new program. This way it's easy to ensure I'm running the latest (or close to the latest) code, and leaves the source sitting ina convenient location so that I can easily hack around with it should I need to. Whenever I've tried to do stuff with RPM's, I've run into failed dependencies, an outdated RPM database, etc. My system is almost fully glibc2 now, and very little remains from that original RH4.2 installation.
I have a 386Sx-16 with 4 megs, and an old slackware distribution that I still use quite often for various things. (network analysis, backup nameserver (once), controler for various weird projects...)
You can do a lot in 4 megs, you just can't do it all at once...
I just built some new systems at work based on Debian 2.1 and got my first taste of apt ... what a piece of cake to keep the system up to date.
apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade
There your system is now right up to date. I did it at home as well; installed apt, and upgraded from Debian 2.0 to Debian 2.1 ... all automatic, no reboots, no problems, just a lot of time (60 MB and a 56k modem don't mix too well).
I haven't installed a Slackware system since the Slack 3.1 days and just took my last one out of operation (thank goodness ... it was so full of holes it was silly). From what I remember you just cannot keep a Slackware system up to date ... perhaps I was missing something. I'd hear about an exploit and try to find an upgraded slack .tgz ... they might be there but in slack 3.4 ... would that work in 3.1 ... do I want to guess, or chance it, on a production web server? Basically it seemed to me that once installed everything on a slack system had to be hand installed/configured and compiled or you'd never be sure things would work. Has slack added any maintenance / package management features??? With 10 servers running Linux who can afford to be compiling and installing by hand?
Slack certainly had it's place - without it where would Linux be today - however it has been far surpassed by many other distributions now ... time to let go!!!
Posted by MattSullivan:
It would appear as though you can still install Slackware 4.0 beta on a 4 meg machine. All you need is the lowmem.i. And for those who wonder about Slack being glibc based I quote from the www.slackware.com FAQ.
Q: Will the next version be based on glibc2 or libc5?
Slackware-current is still based on libc-5.4.46, and there may well be one more official Slackware release based on libc5. A glibc-2.1 based version of Slackware is in the works, but getting a stable version out with the 2.2.x kernel and KDE-1.1 may end up taking priority. Slackware 3.6(and -current) do contain runtime support for glibc2.
I 've only gotten Debian to install in 8 meg successfully when it was installing from a local harddrive.
I have installed Debian 1.2 and 2.0 in four MB successfully. You did use the low-memory boot disk, I hope?
I wish that Slackware were developed by a *team* rather than one person. I love slack, but just try to get a relatively new distro ready for something like GNOME or KDE. (Come to think of it, KDE is *much* easier to shoehorn into a Slack distro ;^)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I don't know about 4.0, but it shouldn't be any harder than 3.6, which I managed to get installed on a 386 (and a 486 as well) with 4 megs of RAM. Just be sure to setup your swap space first, and follow the low memory install documentation Patrick includes. (Using /slakware/rootdsks/obsolete is probably best, since it's much nicer on memory). And this was over a LAN. With a CD drive things should be a bit easier.
Installing in 8 should be quite easy. 12 is flawless.
Unfortunately that doesn't help with RedHat. RedHat doesn't give you the ability to mount a swap partition until after you have partitioned the drive -- regardless whether or not the drive is already partitioned. The real problem in the RedHat install with 8 meg seems to be the amount of memory it takes to fork Disk Druid or even fdisk. The very next step is mounting the swap space, but in one attempt I made to install it onto a 486/80 (AMD) with 8 meg ram, I let it run swapping for two hours just to see if it'd ever actually manage to get fdisk or Disk Druid to load up. It never happened.
Debian is better -- it lets you mount a swap parition if you've already created one. In the previously mentioned install, I was able to boot off a RedHat install disk, load no drivers for anything, and just squeak by after killing the installer to be able to load fdisk and partition the drive. My hope had been to mount the swap before getting to the partitioning step, but I was unable to find the program that's actually mounting the swap space. I'm assuming RedHat isn't using swapon / mkswap for it, but I might've just missed it.
I ended up ordering Debian CD's and got it installed on that system with no troubles. I remember I had to install the barest minimum I could, then reboot to get it to handle the full install. I never did figure out why that was the case.
Part of the autoLinux stuff I've been working on is getting a good mid-size distribution together. (Bigger than the various router projects out there, but smaller than what I remember the Slackware "A" series being...)
Anyone know what the requirements for a system are going to be for Slackware 4? I've been disappointed lately to see they keep growing with Redhat (in particular) and to some extent with Debian.
I know Linux on a 4 meg system may not be reasonable any more, but it seems 8 should be doable, but 8's too small to install RedHat, and I 've only gotten Debian to install in 8 meg successfully when it was installing from a local harddrive.
Is the minimum (A) set still fairly small? It'd be nice to have a standard distribution that can get a core system installed in 15-20 meg.
I have 176 meg of ram in my system at work, and those applications do tend to swell in size (particularly Netscape). I actually try to close Netscape once every hour or two (figuring it doesn't crash on its own) to keep memory bloat down. I don't know if its a "feature" or just a bad memory leak, but it is bad.
Now, where 8 meg is concerned, 8 meg most certainly isn't a joke. Back in the days of the pre-1.0 kernel, I ran a rather useful system for several years in 8 meg of RAM. When I was in school, virtually all of my papers were written on that with vi and nroff/groff. It handled e-mail serving and reading, usenet reading and posting, and I was running a mailing list getting almost 30 postings a day to 200 people on it. I also gave user accounts to friends who needed a machine to work on from terminals around the campus.
Never had a problem with it, at one point had nearly 9 months uptime on it.
I currently have three systems here with only 8 meg RAM. One's being used as a development platform for embedded linux POS applications. One handles my internet dialup, masquerading, routing, firewalling, fax sending and receiving, and voicemail. The third is the system I mentioned above, which is an old notebook computer. Slow, low in RAM, small screen, but the battery lasts almost five hours, and its great for writing when I want to be outside. The router box used to handle printing too, but ghostscript eats too much RAM, so I moved it off to the system I've been experimenting with Oracle on.
All three of those applications don't need more than eight meg of RAM. They're providing important functions for me without costing me any excessive amount of money, using old parts I've scraped up.
Its a lot of functionality in not a lot of hardware. If you want to know why the ability to run in 8 meg is important, that's the exact reason. There's lots of very inexpensive hardware that people can buy or have laying around that can be made useful as print servers, or any of a dozen other functions, and 8 meg is enough for many of them.
8 MB is no joke, I used to have a 386 SX 16 with 5 MB and a 30 MB hard disk, with Slackware 3.x on it and a 2.0.x kernel, as a router between two ethernet segments. Sure, it would swap something out when you logged in, but that's what virtual memory is for.
Also, Netscape is a memory hog if there ever was one (but that obviously doesn't concern the above machine).
It makes me kinda nostalgic for about three minutes, then I remeber the fools that almost rooted me because of a old bin, or the hours it took to upgrade fairly simple stuff, and the realization that the first time I upgraded a lib I learned somthing... the second time I did not... The third I resented that it took as long as it did, and I had 10 other things to do.
Slackware is at best a teaching tool, at worst time consuming and insecure. It allways seemed to me the people who had lots of time where the loudest proponents.
"Think of it as evolution in action."
I've been using slackware for what seems like forever now. Its almost gotten to a point where I can't remember a time NOT having Linux installed on my computer. If it wasn't for slackware's stubborn way of doing things (you know, not doing them for you) I would have never gotten this far with linux. I have installed RedHat on my Laptop, mostly to see why its so well liked... I do have to say, if you want POWER, and you want control, then slackware is your distro. To me, its the hacker's distribution. When I think of Linux, I think of Slackware.
If you want to USE your computer, and get things done, then Redhat is more suitable. RPM is nice when you just want to use something...
Call me crazy (go ahead, I think I am too) but I still enjoy the headaches of compling stuff on my own. I think going bald at 21 can be 75% contributed to Slackware, but its worth it.
If slackware never came out with another release, I'd still be happy with 3.6 (okay, if they would come out with a glibc2 first, then quit... i'd be REALLY happy).
Anyways, that my 2 shinny pennies (do you take credit cards) on Slackware.
---
I'm a bigtime fan of slackware, and I was a little dissapointed when I downloaded the latest slackware 3.6 to find it had old versions of the x server, kernel, and many other little programs. I can't get into cdrom.com, it's packed, has anyone downloaded it? If so do you know if it comes with the latest x server, along with various other utilities? I'm sure it has, but I'd just like to be sure before I invest my 56K modem to a day long downloading adventure.
Also, are there any major changes, considering it's moved to 4.x series?
May this post be indexed by spiders, and archived for all to see as my Internet epitaph.
Good to see that Slackware is still pulling their weight.. :) :) :) :) ).. :) :)
I've got many fond memories back in my Uni days of slaving over an old 386 in my flat, shoehorning the floppies into the drive, drooling over the fact that I could now code all my coursework at home, and dammit, I had _UNIX_ at home..
I cut my teeth on Linux using Slackware, and look forward to seeing what they've got coming out now..
*Blush* But I must have to admit to using Red Hat, 'cos it seems to be the easiest way to get new people into it, and I tend to use it a lot in places I go out on contract to (whenever I can persuade 'em to drop an NT box in it's favour, which is becoming increasingly easier..
I think it's time to go back to my roots for a while tho, and see what gives with this release..
Whatever else gets said about the distribution competition, It's still Linux, and at core, it beats the pants off just about everything else..
Malk..
RPM is definitely a timesaver from a sysadmin's point of view. One constant pain sysadmins have is upgrading a package - remembering where all the config files are - what needs to be changed. God forbid if a directory or a file that belongs to a package has moved from one place to another.
When you upgrade with RPM, your old version is cleanly deinstalled, and a new one installed, all automatically. A few intelligent things are done with configuration files, and you have a complete record of which file came with a package.
You can certainly compile and install stuff yourself, by hand, on Red Hat. But, over time, that tends to break things. If you install a later version of something that was already installed as an RPM, when you later upgrade to a newer Red Hat version, you will find that Red Hat's installer will automatically scribble a newer RPM your installed app. Perhaps that's not such a bad idea anyway, but you may not've wanted to do that, for some reason. Plus you're likely to lose any changes to the configuration file that you've made.
It's also quite easy to stay up to date with the latest versions of everything you have installed. There are scripts out there that can automatically poll the updates directory on a Red Hat FTP site, and notify you when updates become available. I don't think that there's anything similar to that for Slackware.
Here's a real good example of what kind of a benefit you get from RPM.
I needed to repartition my main box. I dumped everything to tape, and I put together a boot disk that comes up with a bare kernel, the kernel tape drive module, and the minimum of tools that I need to load the system back from a tape. I go ahead, rewipe the hard disk, format it, partition it, then go ahead and reload everything back from tape.
I reboot, the system comes up fine, but after logging in, it's acting kinda funky. I normally have a button to run Pine within xterm. Pine comes up briefly, something flashes on the screen, and it exits. I'm getting some real weird messages from "su" that I have never seen before in my life. All sorts of things suddenly give me real strange error messages, out of nowhere.
I did some digging around. Hoo-boy -- looks like tar doesn't know how to properly restore the permission and ownership of device files. My entire /dev is completely fubared.
No problem.
rpm --setperms dev
Back to normal. Carry on.
If you intend to work heavily with a Red Hat system, I strongly recommend that you buy the book "Maximum RPM". The entire Red Hat distribution is based around their package manager. That book gives you all you need to know about creating your own RPMs, and is an invaluable source of information.
Background: I have been running Slackware, since 1994. So everyone has been clamoring over how cool RedHat is, so I tried it, kinda. Before I go on, let me qualify that I am a full time Java developer, using Java 1.2, and have thus since I graduated a couple years ago, and until recently been forced to use Windoze (which I hate) most all of the time. I still keep a Linux partition, and am now going to attempt to move my system primarily back to Linux, and get all my fancy new hardware running. So, last year I did an FTP install of RedHat 5.1 which really impressed me, as it autodetected everything, DHCP'd and FTP'd and was up and running (with X, wow) without me doing anything, no dot clocks, no rc files, nothin. Not that I minded Slackware, after about 50 installs, you get the nack for it (don't touch _anything_ while it's installing, and if anything goes wrong (even blinks), start over). I have, since then, not actually touched a thing on the RedHat partition, due to lack of time, and waiting for 2.2 before investing any time. I haven't even updgraded a single RPM, I'm not even sure I remember how. However...I am one with gzip, tar, and make.
:-) I don't have the time to build and tweak much anymore, so RedHat sounds like it is for me. It's just that...well...rules scare me. I'm scared that when I get down to actually using RedHat, all the rc files and stuff is going to be a bunch of auto generated stuff I shouldn't touch, or that will get written over when I upgrade something. I guess I imagine a RedHat config file like a Microsoft Visual C++ source file, compared to Slackware's Linux C++ file..."Don't touch this...or that...or edit this". It's the people that keep warning about how they have to edit dependency files and stuff, and it is a pain.
:-) The only reason I even run X, is cuz I can't see Rob's cute Icons using Lynx :-) Hmm...someone should port Mozilla and thus GTK to GGI...then I woulnd't need X at all....mmmm....fast.
Question: So what's the deal with RPM's? I understand that they are binary only and have dependency tracking. Does that mean if something is installed via RPM I can't manually download a tgz and build over it, I have to use RPM's? Do I really care? I always thought I was getting better performance by compiling myself, in that the compiler would optimize for newer P2 instructions rather than being 486 compatible
Is RedHat scary for Slackware people?
I guess I could live with a binary only distro. With GNU/Linux, it just seems wrong though. But the thought of quick upgrades and fixes is to much to pass over. I mean...there never used to be binaries at all...and you get used to one thing for so long.
And the only reason I say RedHat (not Debian, Suse, etc) is because it seems to be the most actively maintained in terms of current stuff. I'm thinking about Starbuck/6.0 here. It also seems easy to find RPM's for everything now.
I guess after this I have to sort out all this Gnome/KDE stuff. I think I will stick with good old FVWM. Who needs all the fancy schmancy themes and crap...just bloat anyhow
I was drug kicking and screaming to the eternal judgment La-`Z'-Boy of `Bob', and he told me to install Debian! I could hear Mike Enlow's voice in my head! But I did as `Bob' commanded, and am indeed happier now. (Fear potatoes.)
Still, if Slackware 4.0 doesn't have modern compiles of everything, I won't use it. I just had too many bad experiences with Slackware 3.6 (Slackware 98) of horribly old, crusty, buggy, and vulnerable executables. (Don't even get me started of when I had my Slackware machine connected directly to the Internet and was using it to gab on IRC.)
OTOH, Slackware, along with OS/2's kernel debugger and DEBUG.COM has made me what I am today, and I am grateful.
I just want to see a revival of SLS Linux! Now those were the days! (Geesh. I was 10 years old then. Youngstuff. I didn't know what I was doing--gosh, I wish I could go back in time and help myself out!)
Cheers--Joshua.
--jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
My understanding is that this is a libc5-based distribution, but has runtime support for glibc-2.0.7-pre6, but no runtime support for glibc-2.1 or glibc-2.1.1-pre1.
Glibc is in a state of flux, particularly with 2.1 being recalled. 2.0.6 is, so I hear, buggy. 2.0.7 is still a -pre6 release, though everyone seems to pretend that it is a real release. 2.1 is another big step, but it's not clear that it is ready for stable systems.
So the choices are:
Use libc5. It works, is stable, but not trendy.
Use glibc2.0.7-pre6. It works, is stable, but you'll have to transition to 2.1 soon, anyway.
Use glibc2.1.1-pre1. It might work, is relatively untested, but is what everyone will eventually be moving to.
Personally, I think Slackware made a reasonable choice. I wouldn't compile for glibc2.0, as that's a dead-end library. Why bother making that transition? Instead, provide the runtime support for the binaries that require it, release another libc5 system, and focus development on glibc2.1.
You can install over your redhat rpm binaries, it won't hurt anything but might make the system bitch if you try to uninstall the rpm package later.
.conf's. I like Debian, it's great on my firewall/gateway 486 box.
Redhat's not scary, alot of Slackware die-hard's seem to be using it nowaday's cause the novelty of maintaining the system isn't as rewarding as it once was for them. I think since Debian 2.x hit the streets that most of the Slack die-hards that were using Redhat have switched to Debian though. I started with Slackware and I always preferred it. But when I bought the Debian 2.0 CD it blew my mind, dpkg and dselect are just awesome for maintaining the system. dpkg packages tend to prompt you for all config information during the install, saving time for rooting around for
But for my Pentium boxes I use Stampede. If you want pentium-optimized code, as you said above, you should check it out, since that's what it is built for. After running Stampede one tends to shy from 386/486 bins since they are so slow in comparison. Stampede's gzip is like 50% faster than standard gzip. It has its own package management format too, but you can setup pgcc and compile stuff yourself if ya want. Stampede comes w/ alot of kickass packages the other dists don't so it's worth a look. Cheapbytes has CD's for $2, or go to www.stampede.org.
It was the first dist w/ 2.2, and is probably the most actively maintained except for Rawhide.
ANd yeah I agree w/ you about FVWM(2). It's the best WM ever, fast as hell even when loaded w/ pixmaps. And who needs themes when the best one is the one you do up yourself. And as far as GTK/GNOME themes go, I haven't got that stuff to work but it looks great. Cvs stuff never compiles for me so I've given up till the stuff is out of devel. Stampede is beta as all hell but they got a kickass bugtrack that answers most problems.
Good luck on getting your system up and running. I recommend you do some security checking tho cause RH5 has some exploitable configs/apps w/ the default setup.
"Unix is a proprietary operating system intended to compete against Microsoft Windows" --Patrick Reilly
Those were the days, I stayed up all night trying to figure this new beast out.. what a thrill! (err.. what a geek!)
What *is* the deal with libc6? I've been running Slackware for several years and I have never run into problems compiling tarballs on any package yet. Are there any examples that people have?
You could always try Linux Router you don't need a hard disk to use it.
I have no idea why people would shy away from a release based soley on the libraries. I have Slackware 3.4 and wanted to install StarOffice. I didnt want to trust my machine to their libc6 upgrade, so I went ahead and did it myself. In about 45 mins or so, I had both 5 and 6 set up. There are some awesome pages on the web that helped along the way (I think I started from slackware.org :P ). The point is, don't let the libraries dictate your choice. If libc6 is the only reason your staying with RH (heaven forbid), trash it and try Slackware. Its easier to keep track of where everything is installed, the initialize scripts make sense, its easy to tweak until you have it set up perfectly for yourself.
-- toolie
Admittedly, Slackware doesn't interest me anymore. However, all of Rob's comments on Debian make me wonder if maybe I ought to check that distro out.
-zack
First off, everything in RedHat has an associated "Source RPM" (SRPM). You can download that and use RPM to recompile..
Second, almost anytime you compile anything from a source tarball, it usually defaults to installing in /usr/local or /opt. In both RPM based(Redhat, etc) and Debian distros /usr/local and /opt are specifically reserved for stuff you compile yourself.
To me, packages give me the best of both worlds. I be lazy and download the latest RPM's to keep all the misc. stuff on my system up to date, or, for stuff I really like to mess around with (like perl), I can compile from source.
I still have yet to see a *valid* reason a distribution should NOT have a package manager.
Debian is well worth trying out...
Once installed you can install a new package via:
apt-get install
And it will determine what it depends on, dialup and download the stuff and install it on-the-fly. If you are upgrading (for example) lpr it will stop lpr, install the new one and bring it up again.
The key word with Debian TCO. Once running... it is the closest to zero that you can find.
Cheers
DOWNLOAD Slackware 4.0 here
(LinuxToday appears to be slashdotted, at least from here)
--Coke
I first came across Slackware EONs ago - I recall downloading it from Compuserve at work a couple of years before we had an internet connection.
My current setup is loosley based on a basic Slackware 3.4 with a lot of extras on top - the only binaries I have downloaded being Netscape and a glibc2 Xfree.
I still prefer slackware to any other distro - I have tried Debian, Redhat, S.U.S.E and FTlinux in the past with poor results.
I just hope that a glibc 2.1 Slackware release appears soon. I would then reinstall removing all libc5 from this machine for once and for all.
I started using Linux about 2 years ago. Back then I kept hearing all these really bad stories about Slackware ("ick, that's the LAST distro you should get..."). Being new at it, I tried to download RedHat. I don't think I even got to the copying-the-software step because of repeated SIG11 errors... For some reason, I just didn't like Debian. =]
Slackware has always worked best for me. It installed perfectly on all my hardware (no SIG11's) from a lowly 386/4mb/120mb (yes, it'll still run on 4meg hardware) to my current 350mhz/32mb/2gb.
Package maintenance on Slack? Too much of a hassle. It's always seemed logical to just download the source for a new program, fix the Makefiles to the right path and install it over whatever old version was there. Never had a problem compiling anything on libc5 either... not even on the current Slack3.4-based server at my school. (If you could still call it Slack-based... I've replaced about half of everything from TGZs =])
Yes, I know Slack doesn't have any fancy control panel Xapp or one-click installation, but those have always seemed a little too simplistic. Better to open up pico and fix the config files yourself... you learn better that way =]
Oh well, enough of my rambling...