Slackware 7.0 (Stable) Released

Anonymous Coward writes "The ChangeLog as well as a readme for Slackware 7 are out and ready. Proceed with caution, ftp.cdrom.com's server has a new limit on the number of simultaneous user's (5000)... " It's out apparently - I cannot get on the servers though. Have fun!

Comments

So should I upgrade?

[leiz]

are there any features I would _really_ want / need, I'm quite happy with slackware 4, should I stick with it or upgrade to 7.0?



_______________________________________________
There is no statute of limitation on stupidity.

Re:So should I upgrade?

[Traxxas]

Speed my good man speed. When I installed the 6.3-beta. It was much faster than 4.0. Plus q3test will work and you don't need hacks for realaudio and stuff of the like.

Re:So should I upgrade?

[leiz]

actually I already installed xmms (downloaded, using the thread aware? libs)

A better question would probably be _how_ to upgrade, which is covered in another thread...



_______________________________________________
There is no statute of limitation on stupidity.

Re:So should I upgrade?

[Rendus]

Yes, there are several key features this time around:

- glibc2.1, you can run xmms (I believe it's actually included this time around, but I'm not sure), Mozilla, and other fun things...

- Gnome -AND- KDE included, as well as WindowMaker (an older version though, 0.60.0 as opposed to 0.61.1, but the later may be a devel version. Dunno) and a few others.

Um.. There's other stuff.. I'm very happy with the 6.5 beta I'm currently running. But if you've installed glibc2.1 on your own, you may want to examine the changelogs to see what's in it for you.

Re:Out to dinner!

[Lx]

What, is their web server powered by a hand generator? Someone has to be there to keep it up? Or maybe (unlikely) they're running it on NT somewhere...

-lx

Re:Slackware was hacked today

[leonids]

Serious? From what I see on attrition.org they supposedly "hacker" replaced their site with a IIS page. Now which no brainer hacker would support Microsoft by replacing a hacked site with their stuff? And furthermore he replaced not just the default first one page, but even all the link pages!! Anyone figured this out?? Could be true with the stupid dinner notice now up there...

Waste of bandwidth

[kzanol]

Ok, so you got your iso image - and tomorrow there'll be an update where 3 files in the whole download tree change; What do you do now, download another iso image to stay up to date?

At a guess, using mirror might save some bandwith in this case :-)

Bye

Re:Waste of bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

rsync ? :-)

Ask some specialists...

[smash_phase]

Appearantly, the web masters who run the M$ IIS site, DO know how to mirror..

p.s. I take it the 5000 are anonymouse connections
and the web masters of the mirrors have an account?

SlackWare is becoming more alive then ever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yepz SlackWare isn't death. Is more alive then ever. Almost everyone I know is switching back to SlackWare or goes for Debian, but they are leaving RedCrap behind. And the few who are stying with RedCrap just don't know how worse that distro is.

We're currently developing a package-system thats goes beyond the normal package-systems currently in use. When we have a stable release we'll give Patrick the chance to use it as first of all distro's.

And remeber, SlackWare is the longest running distro and its the best. We're using SlackWare for a longtime now and the only other who can competed with SlackWare is Debian.

Re:SlackWare is becoming more alive then ever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian 0wns....enuff said

Re:SlackWare is becoming more alive then ever...

[way_out]

Uhhmm. Could you be more specific on that package-system? I rather curious... Website perhaps?

wayout

Not A Hack !

[FauxPasIII]

I just talk'ed one of the three developers of Slackware (we're both students at Georgia Tech, he lives within walking distance. ;-)

The website WAS NOT hacked, they went thru various pages as a hoax to keep people from bugging them while they put the finishing touches on Slack 7.0. It is being moved over as we speak.

Re:Not A Hack !

[FauxPasIII]

> I work about 30 feet away from attrition.org

Excellent, the traffic between our 2 subnets must be enormous ;-)

As for Slackware, hells yeah, I'm running a (very busy) mirror OF slackare, ON slackware right now, and it's not missing a beat... thank you, Ultra-Wide SCSI =)

Re:Not A Hack !

[Phroggy]

That makes sense. Considering Slackware's stability and security, I can't imagine their Web site getting hacked like that.

I work about 30 feet away from attrition.org, on the other side of a door. It's the one with the bumper stickers on it. :-)

Slackware 7.0 a rumor?

[Rendus]

The topic for #slackware on irc.slackware.net implies that Slack7.0 final is a rumor... But the rumor is just a rumor, so... :/

Re:Slackware 7.0 a rumor?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is a rumor then my mirror is mirroring a rumor. I don't think so. Luckely my mirror was pretty up-to-date so it wouldn't take long before he is ready.

Re:comment about philosophys..

[yorkie]

Agree totally.

My system used to be loosley based on an old Slackware (can't remember the version, but it came with a 2.0.0 kernel). I gradually upgraded over time, installing and upgrading everything from source, but in the end I built my own from scratch, using an old slakware to compile the basics. I also needed glibc2.1.

I have tried other distros, SuSe, various Redhats and a couple of other lesser ones. It seems to be the case the most of the packages are misconfigured, or not properly tuned. And there are also problems with dependencies upon particular libraries. I now build everything from source - the only binary install on my box is Netscrape, and I had problems with that due to the C++ runtime libraries.

Modern distros seem to be attracting the moron market - the users that think that all config is done through a GUI, To extend this, a UK Linux magazine hit the newstands. Pages and pages of screenshots of dialog boxes on how to setup IP addresses, with not a script sample in sight. A complete waste of £5, as the cover CD contains Redhat 6.0.

If Redhat continues in this way, we are going to end up with a lot of clueless Linux admins, who havn't a clue whats going on underneath, in the same way now that the NT world is full of useless idiots. Point, click, drool, euch! Even where I work now there is a so-called Unix admin who can't extra a tarball. I dread to think what will happen in the future.

Go Slack Go!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, Go Slack Go!

Breaking the barriers of misinformation

[FauxPasIII]

Slack 7.0 is not out, not yet. I just talk'ed one of the two Slack developers who, like me, are students at Georgia Tech. Here's the deal.

They are basically done, and are coordinating the last-minute shenanigans with Patrick. They are now moving the finished product into a publically accessible area as I type this (probably done by now). Then it will go live.

On a related note, the web page has NOT been hacked, they've been playing around with it today for fun, and to keep people from bugging them while they get the release ready.

Re:Linux and OpenBSD do count as "something else"

[IntlHarvester]

Hmmm, what about Solaris?
--

Released on CD?

[battery841]

I am wondering when Slack 7 will be released on CD. I know last time it took a bit for Cheapbytes to get it on CD. Will CD-ROM.com also have the $1.99 CD's and all for 7.0? Will CD-ROM.com get em faster?

Re:Released on CD?

[smkndrkn]

The cdrom.com site states it will be available in November...doesn't give a date though.

ncftp!!!!!

[cthonious]

ncftp is the best ftp client in the world and of course allows continuous retries. This little console app beats the crap out of the 'doze clients I've tried.

What the hell is CuteFTP? Can't find it at freshmeat :-). Does that run on unix?

Re:5000 user max

[Digital_Fiend]

I sure hope you don't do that to warez and mp3 servers.. hammering SUCKS.

-Warren

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[Anonymous Coward]

there's also some guy doing an install at 28k (me) - last time I tried getting an .ISO at this speed, the mirror sites hosting redhat6.iso would remove the file after a couple days, so I would never get the whole thing - since I've always had the best luck with slackware on my laptops, I'll give this a try - also cdrom.com is less likely to remove the file

the cool thing is that in my rural area, the phone company is also laying digital cable lines in addition to offering DSL soon, and the cable company is offering cable modems also soon - hopefully with this competition, prices/services will be great; so this maybe the last time it takes days to download an .ISO

Re:5000 user max

[mduell]

Ok, sorry, I didnt realize that this was a pure Linux/UNIX site. CuteFTP is by far the best FTP client for Windows 9x/NT. And, no, I dont waste my time at warez servers.

mduell

Re:Any ISO's ?

[TyFoN]

Iso image is awailable in the slackware-7.0 directory on cdrom.com...

Al hails to Patrik... been using slackware the past 5 years... simply love it.

Øyvind, tyfon@alfanett.no

Re:mirror

[Bushman624]

those mp3s were only on there temporarily for a friend of mine. they ftp is meant for the slackware downloaders. i might have left them if someone didnt hammer me and kill my bandwidth. sorry

Slackware.com up and redesigned.

[Rendus]

Slackware.com is back up with a new design and the official announcement of 7.0 stable...

Re:SLACKWARE SUCKS!!!!!

[SyniK]

No they didn't die.... they're getting Slackware 7, duh! :)

Re:YES!

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, the coolest distributions are the ones willing to sacrifize their image in order to get the highest major number of a distribution on the market.This just shows how awesome Slackware is these days.

Re:ftp.cdrom.com

[Timothy Chu]

cdrom.com's ftp site has always been slow for me (Vancouver), and I'm on a 33.6 modem. The fewer the number of users, the better, I think.

<tim><

Re:Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

Emacs version numbers are wierder than you know.

It started off as usual : 1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, but around 1.7 I gather they realised "oh, we have no plans to do a 2.x ever", and made it v17 instead. Since then, they've been doing 17.1, 17.2, 18, 18.1, etc...

Strange world.

glibc 2.1.what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it use 2.1.2 or one of the 2.1.2preX's or what?

Re:glibc 2.1.what?

[Rendus]

I don't think Patrick would allow a Pre-anything to be included in Slackware (That's why we're just now going to glibc2 actually. glibc2.0 was beta, 2.1 is final).

Re:Whoops...

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded the prelease (2 updates past beta 3) about 2 days ago. I have to update just one file and I'm good to go :) Here is mirror of the last Slackware-Current on Linuxberg. As far as I know that yp-thingie was the last thing updated... so that directory should hold the sacred Slackware 7 minus the extra frills (like a readme7.txt :) ) ftp://ftp.Linuxberg.com/pub/distributions/Slackwar e/slackware-current/ -Synik

Re:Slackware was hacked today

[leonids]

Heck I think this "hacked Slackware.com" is probably a joke. At the time of writing Attrition.org's Mirror Index says 10-28 for the newest entry, whereelse URL in the post above says 10-29.

Could be Attrition.org noticed this weird change and is trying to mirror it, and IIS kinda supply a default page for them first.

Shrugs

another ftp.cdrom.com question

[emmons]

I've always been curious of this... who supports/pays for cdrom.com? Is it the people that mirror on it, or what? Do they make any money or is it purely a service? Also, what OS and how fat of a pipe do they have? Can someone give us some interesting info about them?

-----

Re:another ftp.cdrom.com question

[Anonymous Coward]

They sell various CD-ROM's, which include Slackware, FreeBSD, and other Unix/Linux stuff. They even have some Windows/Dos stuff, too. So that is how they pay for it. They are on a 100mb pipe, hosted by some ISP I don't remember. =) Look in the welcome message for it. Oh, and it runs FreeBSD.

Re:another ftp.cdrom.com question

[howardjp]

Walnut Creek owns cdrom.com. They makes their money selling CDs. Checkout www.cdrom.com for more information. As for their system, they run a single server with FreeBSD.

Re:another ftp.cdrom.com question

[kkenn]

Walnut Creek CDROM is www.cdrom.com. They're one of the principal sponsors of FreeBSD (and also support slackware, I don't know how extensively), and make their money selling stuff.

Check out the webpage (kind of an obvious place to look for your information ;-). The OS is FreeBSD and the machine is a single-CPU Xeon, which quite happily maxes out the network bandwidth serving up to 5000 users at once.

Machine configuration information is here (again, you could have found it for yourself in about 2 seconds of looking, but what the hell ;-)

Transfer stats for the machine are here (This one you can probably be excused for not finding yourself..)

Re:another ftp.cdrom.com question

[NovaX]

CRL provides the internet connection. They run SunOS boxes, and I assume FreeBSD PCs (many ISPs have that mix, especially ones that aren't startups.. CRL has been around since the early 80s). I never had a problem with CRL... my old ISP which I really aught to get around to stopping the account.

Re:another ftp.cdrom.com question

[Bryan_Crowl]

ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/archive-info/wcarchive.jpg" Check out a Pic of the Server

Re:YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[Neph]

Volkerding (sp?) has shown excellent judgment, methinks. While glibc 2.0 was very nice, and indeed very stable, it was never meant to be put to such wide use as it has. People have bitched at the glibc team for breaking compatibility between 2.0 and 2.1, but that's entirely their prerogative, especially since there were warnings attached to 2.0 anyways. The blame really belongs with all the distros that put what they knew (or at least should have known) to be pre-release software into such heavy use.

I understand this is the same reason the XFree team has closed their development process as well...

Steve 'Nephtes' Freeland | Okay, so maybe I'm a tiny itty

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, version numbers used to mean something, but noone really wants to put .0041 as a version number. Ahh the evolving os's now for a fully graphical verision of linux. One can only wait.

/.'d

[emmons]

If they were hacked or not I don't know. Either way, attrition.org's server _cannot_ handle getting /.'d.

-----

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[bubu]

It is more like
3.5
3.6
3.9 [4.0 compiled with 2.0.x headers]
4.0 [compiled with 2.2.x headers]
5.x [beta testing]
6.x [beta testing]
7.0

The 5.x and 6.x versions were needed because the libc5 -> libc6 transition is not easy ( remeber Redhat 5.0 ?)
Vlad

Define "quality distribution"...

[osu-neko]

Just because a distribution doesn't mean your needs doesn't mean it isn't a quality distribution.

RedHat has different goals than Slackware or Debian. I started using Linux with Debian 1.3 (IIRC, seems like an eternity ago), but I switched to RedHat 5.1 because I got antsy waiting on Debian's glacial release schedule. I wanted all the newest toys and I wanted them NOW! :) These days, I run Mandrake on my desktop (even more bleeding edge and buggier than RedHat, in my experience) but Debian on my servers. Proof positive that there's no single best distribution, the question is meaningless unless you qualify it which "best for what?" Debian and Slackware's conservatism is a bug for some, a feature for others (both for me, depending on which machine I'm using).

I know someone's going to say: "Why did you switch to RedHat rather than just use Debian unstable?" Before I got DSL, it wasn't really an option. I needed a nice CD-ROM to install from. Now, it's just inertia. I may ultimately switch back to Debian on all my machines, but for now I'm happy with the mixture as is.

The point I'm getting at is, RedHat is both a much higher and a much lower quality distribution than Slackware. It all depends on what qualities you're looking for in a distribution.

--

redhat = watered down

[Anonymous Coward]

Every box in my office ( an ISP ) running Linux...runs Slackware. RedHat has beome the defacto "newbie" distro. Readhat doesn't even come close to Slackware in all around performance. In fact..I can't think of one category that RedHat even competes with Slackware.

Re:I am mirroring

[FauxPasIII]

Okay, I've stopped allowing new logins. Anybody that's already on can finish, but there will be no new connections for now.

Slackware's deader than Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake up already.

Re:Slackware's deader than Star Trek

[SaDan]

Wow, that was intelligent.

Slackware is the best distro for me because it is compact and doesn't have as much (or any?) fluff like some of the other distros have.

Care to list at least one rational reason you DON'T like Slackware?

Re:The glibc2 problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been successfully running a Slackware 3.5 install w/ glibc2.1 libraries for the past 6 months. There was a pretty good (and generic, I believe) how-to on the subject of upgrading to glibc2 which I used for reference. Pretty straight-forward process, albeit it took three installs of slack 3.5 to get it right (but now that I know how to do it, it's pretty much failsafe).

I guess this doesn't mean much now that 7.0 is out, but this is basically how to upgrade to glibc2:

1. Install Slack = 4.0
2. Get glibc2 libraries
3. Compile glibc2 libraries
4. Backup libc5 library directory (copy to new dir)
5. Add libc5 library directory to /etc/ld.so.conf
6. You might need to backup old header files too
7. Install glibc2 libraries

If memory serves, that's all there is to it. I think you might have to recompile gcc to get it to use glibc2 to compile your programs against, but you'd probably want to upgrade the gcc from an older slack anyway.

Say what?

[Zico]

ISO's are handy if you're burning a CD and don't care about wasting bandwidth.

If you're downloading the entire distribution, how is it a waste of bandwidth to grab the ISO image instead? You're still downloading the same amount of data. Actually, downloading the ISO image will use less total bandwidth than downloading the individual files because of all the extra GETs, etc., involved when you're doing the latter.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Say what?

[Johann]

Actually, downloading the ISO image will use less total bandwidth than downloading the individual files because of all the extra GETs, etc..

Uhh, good try, but at least half of a Slackware ISO image is not needed for every kind of install. When I downloaded 4.0, I pulled all the directories in the slakware directory and 2 files that I dd'd onto install floppies. The total amount of disk space was about 300 MB. Clearly not the 650 MB max for a cdrom.

Thus, if you have experience with Slackware installs, you only have to pull what you really need. For example, the 30 other install kernels that are built for various types of hardware is not needed, but would be included in an iso image. Later

--

Re:Say what?

[Zico]

Sounds like a waste of time to me. For those of us with CD-ROM burners, if I'm going to spend the time to download 300MB, I might as well just grab the whole thing so that I can use it on any computer and can make copies for friends, thereby helping the spread of Slackware. Seems pretty short-sighted on Slackware or CDROM.com's part.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:New Slackware Site!

[osu-neko]

... Look at the new Slackware site. It got a refreshing new look, but I actualy prefer the previous black background. White background gives me a headache with all the glare.

Turn down the brightness on your monitor. Make it so nothing ever gets any brighter than a dull grey. Improves the look of all your applications across the board. :-)

I actually rather like the new look...

--

Re:october gnome?

[Kagenin]

According to the slackware.com, yes.

Kagenin

YES!

[Anonymous Coward]

Slackware - the best dist ever!

Re: How Do I Upgrade?

[miahrogers]

yeah devel versions are cool. and the neatest thing (to me) is that i've (unknowingly) been using slackware 7.0 for about 3 days now. It just makes me all fuzzy inside.

matisse:~$ cat .sig

ftp.cdrom.com

[RavenWolf]

What did the limit use to be on ftp.cdrom.com? What did they upgrade?

Re:ftp.cdrom.com

[copito]

If it's slow for you it's probably the intermediate hops and not the server. We have a 100Mbs connection to the internet here and an ftp.cdrom.com download can fill a large chunk of that.
--

Re:ftp.cdrom.com

[Rendus]

ftp.cdrom.com had a 3600 user limit before they upgraded to a Xeon 500 with 4 gigs of RAM, then they went to 5000 users. Then, they went to 6000 for awhile, and they're back at 5000. Don't know why they went back down (speed?)

Re:ftp.cdrom.com

[NovaX]

Bandwith actually. They were doing fine on the Pentium Pro, but they were filling the pipe. When they upgraded the pipe, they also upgraded the machine to make sure it could handle it (I remember it was origionally going to scale to 10,000 users). The first day they broke the record, which they had set, for the most bandwith in 24 hours. They're well over 1 terrabyte a day. It would have been nice ti have 10,000 users, but its already to slow at times with 5,000.

Re:ftp.cdrom.com

[Listerine]

Bah! Who do they think they are, putting a limit on their FTP Server! Those gastardly fools! That should be forbidden by law! (So far, four sentences ending with exclaimation marks!)

But seriously, do they ever reach that limit? I never noticed any mention of it before, but then I usually don't download from them...

No October GNOME

[boc]

I just looked at the package script, and it only includes the 1.0.4x beta of October GNOME.

Pity.

So it seems the only distro that will ship final OG will be Debian.

For now at least.

Out to dinner!

[Riktov]

Check out the www.slackware.com home page (as of 16:18 PDT):

"The site is currently down while we eat dinner. If anyone wants to join 50% of the Slackware team and you are in Atlanta,
come to:

El Torero Mexican Restaurant
2484 Briarcliff Rd NE
Atlanta, GA 30329 "

Re:Out to dinner!

[Traxxas]

Yeah before that it was a mirror of the microsoft IIS page

Re:Out to dinner!

[toast0]

if i lived in GA, i'd wonder if they were buying


free food is the best food :)

Glibc based slackware!

[qbwiz]

Finally, a Glibc based slackware. And it comes with October Gnome! Yeah!

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.

Re:Yay!

[osu-neko]

Seriously, what happens when you get past version 9?

Whadayamean? You just increment to the next digit: A

--

Whoops...

[Cebert]

Almost makes me sorry I got impatient and grabbed the prerelease of it. :/

(Not like I'd be able to get through anyways. ;))

Re:Whoops...

[Traxxas]

Hell yeah man im in the same boat. I need tcpip2.tgz for the ypserv update before I can burn.

Re:Distro wars

[Johann]

Last I checked (today, actually), the "latest" Debian was running 2.0.36 kernel?

Hello?

--

Oh yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, an exuse for a procrastinating, anonymous, Windows llama like myself to install a better, beefier OS. Yes! 51

Re:Oh yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

good luck surviving.

Re:Distro wars

[noop]

the "latest" debian can be running a 2.0.36,
2.2.10, 2.2.11 or 2.2.12 kernel, depending on what the users wants

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[hakker]

Way to go patrick and team! Good job! For all of you who thought Slackware was out dated, here comes the cavalry with glibc2.1 and all the cool stuff you come to expect from a professional distro but with all the fun of being slackware!

Re:YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[Anonymous Coward]

For all of you who thought Slackware was out dated, here
comes the cavalry with glibc2.1 and all the cool stuff you come to expect from a professional distro

You mean like ftp install? Oh wait, Slackware 7 doesn't have that.

Changelog and slackware.com

[Rendus]

Slackware.com has a mirror of slackware-current's changelog. Unfortunatley, the guys at slackware.com are out to lunch (literally), and for some reason took down the site because of it.

Blah. Oh, and the changelog is currently blank...

Slack's website

[Gorth]

Now look at their website. www.slackware.com

Everybody just chill until we've released 7.0

Anyone else get the feeling that they're just messing with our minds? :)

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[rmull]

That's not entirely correct - my first distro was Redhat 2.2.

DON'T YOU GET IT ??????

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be Attrition.org noticed this weird change and is trying to mirror it, and IIS kinda supply a default page for them first.

No you idiots! The IIS page IS THE HACK. Don't you see the irony in going to slackware.com and seeing the IIS page?????

changed

[emmons]

I guess they got back from dinner, now the site says: 'Everybody just chill until we've released 7.0'

-----

No direct profit.

[Forge]

It's supported by Walnut Creak CDRom. They don't make money off the server directly but most of the stuff on it is available from them on CD-ROM at sane but not dirt cheap prices.

They run FreeBSD and will happily tell you they couldn't maintain the current performance while switching to anything else without dubbleing the Hardware cost. ( Linux and Open BSD don't count as "something else" :).

They had 3 T3s at one stage but are at something like 200MBPs now. The server is practically on the Internet Backbone and the ISP doesn't actually charge them for the bandwidth it sucks. ( Somebody estimated $750.000 per year.

a tad more info

[Anonymous Coward]

if you view the http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/1999/10/ 29/ directory, it shows the slackware site being added at 14:49. I assume this is one of the north american times. It's not in the list yet, though. Hmmm....

btw... emmons is right, this site cannot handle load at all.

Re:SLACKWARE SUCKS!!!!!

[osu-neko]

Let's talk about Redhate Linux. ...[Huge amount of text snipped]...

Hahaha! Gosh, I'm not sure if this post should be moderated down as flamebait or up as funny! Luckily, I'm out of moderator points, so I don't have to be faced with that decision.

It's truly impressive, either way. I've never seen a post on /. that went on this long without actually saying anything! I got a huge laugh out of it, whether it was intended as humor or not...

--

Downloading at slow speeds

[Anonymous Coward]

Some time ago, I d/l'd Debian base at 9.6kbps; set up a command string to rm the files after the sz was done, a du -s, and finally a logout. Went to sleep, and the screen showed all OK next morn. Seems it was ~11 MB, maybe less. Btw, worked beautifully, until I deleted some essential modules. // Nicholas Bodley // nbodley@tiac.net

Re:How Do I Upgrade?

[farrellj]

Here's what I do:

I put both /home and /usr/local on their own partitions...that way I can wipe the current version, and upgrade to a new without loosing anything. If I have a package that *NEEDS* to be installed somewhere else, I just add symbolic links to where it wants to be. I guess, in some ways, I am treating /usr/local link the /opt dir in Solaris/SunOS.

ttyl
Farrell

i think i may take a hit.

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm switching to FreeBSD and will never install slack again, but for appreciation, i will mirror it bravely... briefly, like half a day, on my box.
128M RAM 400MHz CPU etherexpress with edu i2 backbone running linux. can serv 1000kbps.

cdrom.com is too damn slow really. anyone can send the install iso file let me know. hyc at purdue dot edu

How one counts the ways

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you just use a different numbering system from me and my base ten, but I would say there were five(5) sentences ending with exclamation marks(!).

Re:Slackware was hacked today

[Wah]

agreed, a very interesting index...



oh the irony.

I just net installed THIS MORNING..

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD. 250k to 420k speed. smooth. :) can't get slack to install? try FreeBSD! yay!

Re:5000 user max

[Zico]

I sure hope you don't do that to warez and mp3 servers.. hammering SUCKS.

Am I supposed to care whether not I inconvenience some little warez kiddie? I think not.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[Anonymous Coward]

down

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

does anyone have any bugspray?

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, 4.0 has been out a while. I'm currently running it on a 486 40MHz (20MB RAM, 1.45GB HD). I'd been running Slack 2.3 up until about 1.5 months ago when I boosted RAM from 4MB and HD from 250MB. I'm going to stick with 4.0 until I get a machine that it's worth running X on.

RedHate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a Sinux distro?

a mirror of their hacked page

[Juln]

can be found at attrition.org 's page. this is the IIS page tht had been put up on slackware's page.

Hmm..

[morbid]

Slackware is my favourite distro for many reasons, but it's the one I started on back in '95, however, shouldn't this new release be 4.1 not 7.0?

I've had a quick shufty at the ChangeLog and it's not much different to my 4.0 distro plus a few downloads.

If the 7.0 label is for marketing purposes, I hope it works.

Slackware is very comfortable to work with and easy to administer. I hope there are many more Slackwares in the future.

Re: How Do I Upgrade?

[Johann]

IMHO, Red Hat (NASDAQ:RHAT) is hardly a quality distribution. In my experiences with RHAT, it is buggy and always rushed out the door. 6.1 is a good example.

Just check out the RHAT 'errata' page on their web site. The Slackware maintainers do not have a fetish for installing the latest (and sometimes buggy) packages. Hence, Slackware is the most stable distribution around.

While RHAT, SuSE, Caldera, et al rushed out distributions based on the beta version of glibc (2.0.x), Slackware stood firm and waited until glibc was production (the 2.1.x versions). As it turns out, Slackware is the wiser because of the decision of the glibc maintainers to break compatibility between 2.0.x (beta) and 2.1.x (production). This forced RHAT users to quickly upgrade when 2.1 went live.

This is why I have run Slackware for the past 4 years. It is stable and reliable. Only the best packages make it into the distribution, unlike SuSE or RHAT.

This is why I think Slackware has the highest quality of any distribution.
Later.

--

Re:mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you !!
100 k/s all the way!

Re:redhat vs slack

[SaDan]

Care to explain why one distro is so much better than the other? What the heck to you people have against Slackware, anyways?

No direct profit.

[Forge]

It's supported by Walnut Creak CDRom. They don't make money off the server directly but most of the stuff on it is available from them on CD-ROM at sane but not dirt cheap prices.

They run FreeBSD and will happily tell you they couldn't maintain the current performance while switching to anything else without dubbleing the Hardware cost. ( Linux and Open BSD don't count as "something else" :).

They had 3 T3s at one stage but are at something like 200MBPs now. The server is practically on the Internet Backbone and the ISP doesn't actually charge them for the bandwidth it sucks. ( Somebody estimated $750.000 per year.

What happens after 9?

[copito]

You go to X.
--

Re:What happens after 9?

[Phroggy]

http://publicsource.apple.com/

Re:SLACKWARE SUCKS!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's talk about Redhate Linux. It is worth noting at the outset that Redhate Linux has no great love for democracy or egalitarianism. Redhate Linux, you are welcome to get off my back this time and stay off. I consider Redhate Linux's credos antithetical to my principles as a person concerned for the good of all. There is no defense against ridicule.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I resent Redhate Linux's proposed social programs. Is this anything other than soporific emotionalism? Redhate Linux seems incapable of understanding that the underlying reasons and causes for its jaundiced shenanigans must be defined, examined, and resolved, or they'll never cease. The picture I am presenting need not be confined to Redhate Linux's obiter dicta. It applies to everything it says and does. What is often overlooked, however, is that the continuing misunderstandings that some lame-brained credentialism enthusiasts seem to have merely underscore this point.

While I know very little about pigheaded loan sharks, we must recognize that I, for one, cringe at the thought of how Redhate Linux might some day lead to the destruction of the human race. What is happening between Redhate Linux's cronies and us is not a debate. It is not a friendly disagreement between enlightened people. It is a sententious attack on our most cherished institutions. On balance, Redhate Linux is too egocentric to reason with. Still, only Redhate Linux can praise an institution that is as lecherous and ignorant as it itself. I believe, way deep down, that it is not my goal to represent heaven as hell and, conversely, the most wretched life as paradise, but the opposite. All of this once again proves the old saying that Redhate Linux's lackeys are profoundly influenced by what Redhate Linux says and does.

Slackware 7

[Anonymous Coward]

ftp.cdrom.com is swamped, I'm only getting ~8kB/s

Anyone with an ISO mirror?

[SmilieZ]

Looking for a fast ISO mirror.. Anyone? Rsync. ftp.. whatever

Re:Any ISO's ?

[TheSlack]

I correct myself. The *NEW* FAQ says that they are in the slackware/iso directory...and low! They are.

Jack Neely

I am mirroring

[FauxPasIII]

I just put my mirror online.
ftp://thewalrus.gt.ed.net/pub
I will probably take it down after about 24 hours. Georgia Tech OIT will core me a new asshole if I take up that much bandwidth for long ;-)
The source iso is not complete yet, just wait for it to become readable and that means it's done. ;-)

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[AME]

Hmmm. This could actually be the solution to the inter-distro versioning problem everyone complains about. If all the distros did this then we would always have higher versions chronologically newer than lower numbers regardless of which distro.

Could be a good thing. We just need to get all the other distros to agree to do the same thing.

Re:comment about philosophys..

[xpurple]

After working with several distros, I agree fully with you, In my opinion, the whole .rpm thing takes away a *LOT* from the linux experence. Decide to upgrade something? Just get the RPM! It's compiled by somebody you don't know, and with compile time options that you may not even want (and some you do not included). Saddly enough, I am currently on a RH5 machine, but I have kept it upgraded for the most part manualy, only use rpms when I can't find any other way to get the job done, and spend lots of time tweaking the source. With RPMs, you just can't do that. It's the dumbing down of the linux world.

Feel free to flame...

mirror...update

[Bushman624]

update... i just got the iso images up. took me awhile to get them downloaded from cdrom.com but they are there and available now ftp://cl081.dhcp.ttu.edu

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ?? but think about windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

3.x to 95!!!... oh my that was quite a jump! You think that the OS would have actually gained some functionality after such a mammoth leap.

Re:Distro wars

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't check very well. Of course, you were probably too busy backing up /home and /usr/local so you can wipe your disk and reinstall 7.0 from scratch. Nice upgrade strategy!

Re:redhat vs slack

[way_out]

Better check bugtraq for RH specific bugs...

You DO know what bugtraq is, don't you ?

wayout

Re:Why egcs-1.1.2?

[Dagmar d'Surreal]

Actually, the latest version of gcc would be 2.95.2 and I've been using it and a binutils beta (2.9.5.0.14) for the last few weeks while carefully trying to rebuild everything in Slackware 7.0 for the target i586-pc-linux-gnu to get some speed and memory tweaks. I have had no problems whatsover (once I figured out why my package creation script was missing some of the files when I rebuilt gcc and tried to make it back into a package). I'm not interested in trying to distribute these as packages (since the point of doing them is to get the optimizations for your particular CPU, and I don't have a 686 anywhere, just a lot of K6-2's) but I will probably put instructions for rebuilding the two online somewhere soon. I would suggest that those that know how go ahead and rebuild gcc-2.95.2 and give it a whirl (just be sure and use the same target platform as your binutils, or rebuild your binutils to the same target platform as the new gcc, or you will severely break things)

New Slackware Site!

[leonids]

Hey as some have mentioned above no hacking was done! Look at the new Slackware site . It got a refreshing new look, but I actualy prefer the previous black background. White background gives me a headache with all the glare.

Regarding the IIS pages, did Patrick and friends actually bought NT and fooled around with it for this page? Or they just rip it off a NT hosted site elsewhere? Anyway nice joke.

Re:New Slackware Site!

[FauxPasIII]

They just downloaded the stuff from another server here on campus (Georgia Tech) as a joke.

Network install

[hakker]

Aye, it does mate. As well as NFS and others.. Get a clue.

Re:Distro wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... the Linux File System Standard was designed specifically so as to make it possible to do just that... what's wrong with using the system as designed?

...Tell me about it!

[argentus]

Hell, it seems like I just purchased the v3.6 commercial package just a few days ago. I guess that Patrick and his clan have to eat, too, though. Where's my credit card again!?

-Argentus
"'Twixt the optimist and the pessimist the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut while the pessimist sees the hole."
-McLandburgh Wilson

iso images

[Kwikymart]

iso images are available at
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware-7.0/iso/

Attrition is not "/.'d" - that IS THE HACK

[Anonymous Coward]

duh!

Re:SLACKWARE SUCKS!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

damn you for saying that...mark my words you shall burn in the bloody pits of hades for making such comments...get redhate now or you will suffer the consequences of being a farget...i would also like to mention this: doodoo

thanky

Re:Yay!

[alpinist]

Agreed! It's time to adopt the versioning they use at Jane's Combat Simulations. We're patiently awaiting the arrival of:
Red Hat v6.1 '99 Gold Anthology (Limited Edition)
Or pretty soon they'll just start naming them after the year. Slackware 2001, here I come!
--

Version numbers

[djarb]

Frankly, I rather enjoy telling people that I use emacs version 20. You can stick /that/ in your silly little version 6.x (really 4.x) IDE's pipe and smoke it.

Seriously, though, when version numbers are used as intended, they convey useful information about the maturity of a program. I don't think that there's any good argument for dropping them, except in situations where that useful information has already been lost.
--

Re:SLACKWARE SUCKS!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Huhh ??

Re:5000 user max

[CodeRed]

IE? CuteFtp? What planet are these apps from ;)

Alternatively for those that use Linux, ncftp could be used. or gftp, or wxftp.

Maybe CuteFtp runs under Wine?

Re:Slackware was hacked today

[sporty]

Perhaps they used a default install of redhat or slackware?

Why egcs-1.1.2?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am very puzzled as to why egcs-1.1.2 was included (along with gcc-2.7.2 and gcc-2.95). gcc-2.95 is directly derived from the egcs code. It is more stable (afaik) and provides (slightly) better optimizations. I would be very interested to know why this intermediary version was included.

-- Guges --

Re:Why egcs-1.1.2?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you. This is exactly what kind of answer I was looking for.

-- Guges --

Re:Why egcs-1.1.2?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you spend a little time reading the kernel mialing list archive you'll see that most of the kernel developers consider it bad form to compile your kernel with 2.95. Some talk that there is some strange intereactions between binutils and gcc-2.95 that create kernels that don't run right. There are also a few kernel folk that think gcc-2.95. is just plain buggy. Who knows but in almost every instance that someone built a kernel with 2.95 and it fell over, once they built one with an older compiler it would work. I don't know that this is the full reason for egcs but I imagine Patrick took it into account when he was putting things togeather. gcc-2.95.1 and gcc-2.7.2.3 are in the contrib directory.

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[jfunk]

You started out late on both Slackware and Redhat.

I remember using Slackware 2.x. I believe it started it's version numbering quite normally.

The first Red Hat I heard about (and installed as well) was 3.0. I believe it started around there to catch up with Slackware.

Patrick is perfectly justified in his jump since he's been around much longer than any other currently popular distribution.

Re:Any ISO's ?

[stump]

ISO's are handy if you're burning a CD and don't care about wasting bandwidth. If you really must have the entire directory tree, I'm sure you can figure out how to get it and build your own ISO.

Oh yeah...Way to go Patrick and the rest of the Slackware team!

Dada Text Engine?

[Anonymous Coward]

Was that post generated by the "Rant" script of the Dada engine?

shane sml13@cornell.edu

Re:Dada Text Engine?

[Anonymous Coward]

nein

Re:Linux and OpenBSD do count as "something else"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it is impressive...but not nearly as impressive as all those stats, benchmarks and technical documentation you posted to prove you're correct.

october gnome?

[pixel fairy]

does this release include the october release of
gnome?

How Do I Upgrade?

[ewhac]

I've consistently used Slackware for the last few years, and have grown comfortable with it. It runs on both my desktop and laptop. However, one of Slackware's biggest shortcomings is the difficulty in upgrading system components. The only "sure-fire" way I've found to do this is with a complete re-install, then copy back my stuff.

Since the rest of the world is moving away from libc5 and toward glibc, I'm going to have to upgrade at some point. It's for these reasons that I've been flirting with Debian and RetHat, which appear to be a bit friendlier with their package management. Nevertheless, since I'm most familiar with Slackware, I'd prefer to upgrade what I already have.

So. Can anyone offer any hints/suggestions as to how to make this process as painless as possible? (Yes, I read the Slackware upgrade HOWTO, and it's depressing. Isn't there a better way? If moving to Debian/RedHat turns out to be the best way, then so be it...)

Schwab

Re: How Do I Upgrade?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rock on! Ive been a hard core slackware user starting at 3.0,.. I must say, slack is the most down to earth distrib Ive used so far. Although, I normally do not use releases, but rather the deveopment versions (slackware-current baby, yah).. even the devel versions are damn stable... gota love it :)

Re:How Do I Upgrade?

[Catatonic Dismay]

Actually Slackware is not too hard to upgrade...

What you do is you get all the current packages on your filesystem ( your older running slackware version ) off the ftp. tar tvfz them to look to see that they're not overwriting anything important. There is one script that 'installpkg' runs after it has uncompressed and unarchived the .tar.gz. I think it's tarred in to an /install directory, I forget exactly. You might want to look at the to make sure it doesn't do anything strange. It is a regular sh shell script. then finally installpkg [name of file].

I've successfully upgraded a slack 3.1 install to 3.5 over the net from accross the country. Didn't even have to reboot. Gotta love unix. Furthermore after checking each package briefly to see if it installs any files I don't want, I didn't have to skip any packages. Please be aware though that since slack 7 is all based on glibc 2.1, if you use this method to upgrade from a libc 5 based system to a libc 6 based one ( libc is located in the 'a' disk set, see below ) it could possibly bring your box down and you may need to choose your fate with the almighty boot disk

One note though. You might not want to install the a disk set this way unless you really know what you're doing.. but then if you -really- know what you're doing you'd compile and upgrade the critical libs yourself.

. Hope this sheds some light

Re: How Do I Upgrade?

[Johann]

Slack 7.0 is glibc 2.1 based. In this case, no matter what distribution (Slackware, Red Hat, SuSE) you use, you are going to have to reinstall.

This is because mixing major release versions of the operating sytem libraries (libc5 and glibc2) causes a lot of pain. You'll try to incrementally update packages only to find that part of your system stops working.

--

Re:5000 user max

[Anonymous Coward]

no.. but we ARE talking about a version of linux,.. And most people interested in this, are either old time slackware people (like me),.. or people who moved away from slack to another distrib (or never used it at all) and are interested in moving over.. yes there is a small percentage of non unix/linux people interested.. but (shrug).. most people will be using a unix app to download this :)

Slackware Website, Slackware 7.0 ISOs

[[Col]]

The brand new slackware website is now up, I think perhaps David Cantrell and company were just playing with everyones heads.

Also, there now _ARE_ ISO images available for slackware, they are on ftp.cdrom.com in the 'iso' subdirectory of slackware-current (which might soon be changed to slackware-7.0 I suppose...). One is for install, one is the source and zipslack. Due to popular demand no doubt.

Re:YES October GNOME

[Anonymous Coward]

your in the wrong directory or something YES this does include October GNOME. Check out the changelog

Re:Distro wars

[Johann]

Really? Then what is this link? According to the debian website, it is the release notes for the latest version, 2.1. http: //www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-note s/ch-whats-new.en.html

Look at the 9th line: Debian 2.1 ships with kernel version 2.0.36 for the Intel x86 architecture.

The link to the 'latest' release notes is right there on the Debian home page.

So, you think Slackware is lame? How about updating the kernel to something released in the past 9 months?

Debian...Is it a great distro with a lame, out of date web site or is it a lame distro with a lame web site?

--

Re:Any ISO's ?

[leonids]

look at the ftp.cdrom.com site. There is an ISO image for Slackware 7

4.0 -> 2000

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows NT 4.0 to Windows NT 2000, an even bigger version bump. (should be called 2001 actly becoz it wont be released this year :)

Re:YES October GNOME

[boc]

You know........

When I checked the web page before, it said gnome-core 1.0.41, and I just checked and it said 1.0.53.

Cool.

Look at the Changlelogs!

[PsychoKiller]

Everyone take note:

There will be very few updates to the Changelogs. Is this becuase Patrick doesn't care? No. It's because he puts out quality distributions that don't need bugfixes. What a concept!

Alex

Attrition Mirroring

[gleam]

This is off topic, blah blah blah.

Attrition recently changed the way its mirror information is sent out. Formerly, emails were sent to defacement-l when the index was updated. Now, emails get sent out by the bot that archives the hacked page. I got the slackware.com news today, as well. Had I checked it immediately upon receipt, I would have seen the IIS page at slackware.com.

Attrition knows what they're doing, and odds are this is a legit hack.

Regards,
-efisher
---

mirror

[Bushman624]

okay everyone ftp.cdrom.com full??? i got a small solution. I have a mirror running at ftp://cl081.dhcp.ttu.edu/pub/ i dont know if the last few packages have been added to make it the full stable but i know it is at least up to date as far as earlier today goes. cause i checked thi s morning. I dont have a limit set yet but it wont take much to kill my bandwidth. my machine is a AMD K6-2 400, 64 megs of ram. and i am running two ethernet cards on a 10 mb/s service. so good luck if i get too bogged down i will probably put a limit up. email mlaplant@ttu.edu with questions

Re:SHUTUP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried RedHat. It's okay, and it runs the home gateway/firewall system, but for my personal workstation I prefer Slackware.

-- Guges --

5000 user max

[mduell]

ID software (the people who brought you quake, doom, etc.) also have a 5000 user limit on their FTP servers. To get around this, rather than clicking on a link in IE and getting a too many users message, I use CuteFTP. It says too many users in the log and tries again. It tries forever (unless you quit or stop it) and I can usually get in to any FTP server after about 2 minutes. Much easier than clicking on the link 100 times like a monkey would...
mduell

mduell

Re:5000 user max

[Anonymous Coward]

HEH, I sure hope you don't actually connect to juarez and mp3 servers. Stealing isn't too good. Just because they can't catch you, doesn't mean you are not stealing.

Re:5000 user max

[jeremy f]

gftp is almost a joke (no offense if the designers are in the crowd ^_^). Besides Mozilla, I've never seen a program crash so much.

I've been using IglooFTP Pro for the past few months now. It's GTK based, stable, supports cut & paste quick sites (very useful, the windows boys will know what I'm talking about). Unfortunately, it's nagWare(tm). I'm not sure how much the author wants for it, but considering he's distributing it from a nonprofit site, I'm in very little hurry to open up my wallet to pay for it.

I'd use IglooFTP (vanilla; GPL, I think), but it had quite a few bugs last time I checked, such as no domain name lookup. However, both clients are just about as easy to use as CuteFTP, and are quite powerful.

Re:5000 user max

[Anonymous Coward]

mduell ,Wow i am glade u found the wonders of an FTP client. I have 2 words for you. DONT BREED

happy happy joy joy

[PimpSmurf]

word up kids!!!!
Slackware 7.0 is out!
Maybe this release will make those glibc2 junkies chill out ;)
I am happy to see slackware 7 finally stable, I have been working with slack 7 for weeks, and weeks. At least Pat lets everyone in the beeding edge community/wanna be beta testers stay in touch with whats happening... Slackware 7.0 (dont mind the meth induced version number change) is out with a vengence with glibc, the MOST updated, and secured deamons. Pat maynot have a crew of linux heavyweights to make kernel patches every 10 minutes, but it is still one of the best distros ever!

cheers!!

Re:SHUTUP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

it is ok
damn you for saying such things about redhate

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[willfe]

Oh yes, I always judge the respectability of an operating system (or a distribution of it) solely on its version number scheme. &lt/sarcasm&gt I don't suppose people have anything to say about, oh, how the new release compares to other distros, do they? :)

HPUX 11

[Patola]

The title says it all. HP-UX is already at version 11. Does this sound dumb?

The matter is that there is no rule that says: go 1, then go 2, then go 3 and so on. I could make a program/distribution/something thats starts at 13.1, then goes down to 2, then go 3.14159265358979, then 3 billion, and so on.

Anyway, I think it's counterintuitive. I just feel that it would be less deceptive if it weren't for the odd versioning.

Patola.

Full release of glibc-2.1.2

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the subject line says.

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[Anonymous Coward]

Official mirrors never are refused connection at ftp.cdrom.com. Try ftp.highrise.ca/pub/slackware/ It has slackware-current (from 3am this morning) - it's mirror will be updated at 3 this morning again. a.

ET Rocks!

[gatzke]

I love good old ET. Drank many a cervesa there in Atlanta. In fact, I had my fist gallon night there. 4x32oz=1 usg

Glad to know some other nerds dig El Torro's too.


ed

Slackware IRC Discussion

[TrbleClef]

Slackware.Net, an unofficial Slackware site (with Slackware Linux news and information, along with other features) is currently running an IRC server at irc.slackware.net. Slackware discussion is in #Slackware. Feel free to come stop by and chat.

Other architectures?

[cide]

Nothing would make me happier then to see a port of slackware to the alpha...

After being forced to install debian onto my AS200, I tried to port slackware 4 over... with some sucess, but it was just too time-consuming...

Has anyone else heard of or actually created a port of slackware for the alpha? Or maybe Pat will be looking into something like this for the future...

Maybe if I ever get time I'll finish the job...:P

Goto their ftp

[Anonymous Coward]

ftp://slackware.com its the standard experimental server.

Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority...

[Christopher B. Brown]

There's a need, on this sort of thing, to forbid public access for a few hours, denying to all other than those that are formally mirroring the site.

At this point, you've probably got:

• A thousand people doing non-Slackware-related stuff,
• 400 guys with cable modems doing online installs,
• 3600 guys doing installs at 53K, and
• 15 annoyed sysadmins that are trying to set up mirrors but that can't because ftp.cdrom.com is out of connections.

There otta be a protocol...

redhat vs slack

[Anonymous Coward]

time to switch!
ive been waiting for a glibc2 distribution of slack for a long time (and using redhat in the mean time), there goes my 50day uptimes, o well, SLACK!!!!!!!

Re:redhat vs slack

[Zulu]

omg, go away kiddies.

Slackware was hacked today

[Anonymous Coward]

go here to see the mirror at attrition.org

Re:Slackware was hacked today

[Rendus]

Uhg.. That would explain why they put the current page on while they go eat dinner.

I wonder what Slackware version they were using and what allowed the breakin...

Re:Slackware was hacked today

[Foogle]

Well I'm sorry to see a nice distribution hacked, but the only time I'll really be worried is if the OpenBSD server get's hacked.

-----------

"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

Re:Slackware was hacked today

[Anonymous Commando]

*chuckle*

That was one of the better site defacements I've seen in a while - what better thing to do to a Linux site than replace their page with the default MS IIS page? Pity that it's too late to make CNet's list of "Top 10 Hacks"...

And no, I'm not condoning cracking (are you kidding? I'm a sysadmin, for crying out loud), and I'm in no way saying that IIS is a better web server (it's a piece of crap). All I'm saying is that this one made me laugh a lot more than the usual "\/\/3 0\/\/n U! \/\/3 R 3773t3!" bull...
________________________

version increase justified?

[leonids]

I see lots of people now despising Slackware just because Patrick increase the version big time from 4 to 7. But hey everything has to have a reason. So I quote this post by Patrick himself from the slackware.com forum:

=====
Author: Patrick J. Volkerding
Date: 10-10-1999 21:43

I've stayed out of this for now, but I do think I should lend a little justification to the version number thing.

First off, I think I forgot to count some time ago. If I'd started on 6.0 and made every release a major version (I think that's how Linux releases are made these days, right? ;), we would be on Slackware 47 by now. (it would actually be in the 20s somewhere if we'd gone 1, 2, 3...)

I think it's clear that some other distributions inflated their version numbers for marketing purposes, and I've had to field (way too many times) the question "why isn't yours 6.x" or worse "when will you upgrade to Linux 6.0" which really drives home the effectiveness of this simple trick. With the move to glibc and nearly everyone else using 6.x now, it made sense to go to at least 6.0, just to make it clear to people who don't know anything about Linux that Slackware's libraries, compilers, and other stuff are not 3 major versions behind. I thought they'd all be using 7.0 by now, but no matter. We're at least "one better", right? :)

Sorry if I haven't been enough of a purist about this. I promise I won't inflate the version number again (unless everyone else does again ;)

Pat
====

Meaning? We are seeing more sad people who have been dumb down by other brain dead over commercialised distributions. Not that they should not commercialise, but they are overdoing it.

3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhmm, this sounds too much like MSWord going from 2.0 to 6.0 just to
look more modern .... I always thought Volkerding has another
image of the medium Slackware user, but as linux is
becoming more and more popular maybe his tipical client has also changed.
Just a thought on this silly (IMHO) marketing ideas

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[Rendus]

Actually, it was 4.0 to 7.0, and Patrick has said it's because everyone else is doing it and he's tired of fielding questions about when he's "going to upgrade Slackware to -insert latest RH version here-"

Look at Slackware's versioning though...

3.0
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5 -- I started here.
3.6
3.9
4.0
7.0

Then look at RedHat's...

4.0
4.1
4.2
5.0
5.1
5.2
6.0
6.1

If Patrick were to version like RH, we'd already be 7.0+ anyway. He's just catching up.

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[Rendus]

No, it's at the very least 5.0 if you don't want to go by the way Patrick numbers.

4.0 has been out for quite a while now...

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, this is like Patrick selling out, to me. I've lost all respect I had for Slackware. It's pretty sad, really.

Re:3.5 -> 7.0 ??

[Anonymous Coward]

3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.9
4.0
7.0
So, in fact this is Slackware 4.0! way to go, Patrick!

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[Rendus]

You can drop the 400 cable guys, since Slackware doesn't do FTP installs as far as I know.

Also, 53Kbytes/sec is nearly impossible on cdrom.com, no matter the time...

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[hpa]

There is one. It's called rsync. It is the only sensible way to operate a mirror network these days.

ftp.cdrom.com is busy because..

[dgp]

... everyone is downloading the newly released demo for Ulitma IX: Ascention. cdrom.com is the only "big" server that has it at the moment.
(ftp.cdrom.com/pub/3dfiles/games/u9 - over 400MB)

The glibc2 problems...

[Timothy Chu]

Over the last year or so, I've tried to upgrade to glibc2, either by compiling it myself (there aren't enough docs to discuss how to do this painlessly) or by packages (just recently, when the 4.0 kernels were released). I've failed both ways, and at one point last week had both gcc and g++ breaking and even ./configure core dumping. I haven't been able to compile anything with g++ in months, and that's because until recently, Slackware didn't have glibc2.

The problem with Slackware isn't so much the packages as it is with documentation. I don't mind doing a little tweaking here and there as long as there's information on how to do it. Slackware.com and slackware.org are both shabby web sites with no information on the actual packages, other than the short ones on the disk?? files. There aren't any docs on how to upgrade from the 3.x to the 4.0 versions, which I want to do desperately (I want to get g++ working again!). For the longest time, my two biggest questions were (and still are) what the differences are between glibc2 and libc5 (functionally) and the differences between egcs and g++. I know there are other docs around, but slackware doesn't seem to provide much in terms of quickie summaries so the user who doesn't know anything can get something working, then learn it afterwards. There isn't even a simple, non-Changelog description of what the differences are between versions. I only remember from newsgroup and /. discussions that 4.0 is finally glibc2, but I can't find this information at all on either of the slackware web sites.

I hope to get this resolved soon. It's been driving me crazy for over a year.

<tim><

Re:Linux and OpenBSD do count as "something else"

[gargle]

It's a given that no MS operating system could support the greater than 1 terabyte of data transferred in a day at ftp.cdrom.com

Is this really so? MS's ftp and http downloads (for updates, IE downloads,etc) are very snappy, usually much faster than cdrom.com

Re:Distro wars

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just an artifact of Debian's stable/unstable track system. You should compare to the "unstable" branch, which is the counterpart of the latest Redhat or Slack releases. Anyway, I can't believe I'm arguing about up-to-dateness with a Slack advocate. Where were you a week ago?

Re:Linux and OpenBSD do count as "something else"

[Anonymous Coward]

But MS has several hundred servers handing out that "snappy" data. Walnut creek has 1.

Re:Linux and OpenBSD do count as "something else"

[[Col]]

Thats because they have numerous servers. Used to be like 16 Pentium Pro's (over a year ago). Not sure what it is now. Cdrom.com have just the 1 dishing out over a terabyte a day.

Anyone actually know what MS use (hardware/OS) for microsoft.com?

Not quite.

[Inoshiro]

I have a wonderful InfoMagic 4-CD Linux Developer's Resource kit from August 1995 (CD date, I bought it in late 1996). It has what I used first, Slackware 2.3. I then moved to Slackware 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6 over time (experimenting with it). My firewall/IP Masq system started life as 3.6 (then 2.2.x came out, and I upgraded). Lukily, Slackware 3.6 came with most of the userland support 2.2 needed to be good (hooray). Removepkg, installpkg (and now, upgradepkg) mean that Slackware has as much package management as I care to have in a distro ;-)

Onto Red Hat, I have a copy of Red Hat Mothers' Day release +0.1 on the same CDROM (but, yes, they still jumped 4 version numbers for no reason).

As is, 3.x to 4.x was because of a big change (new kernel). 4.x to 7.x is another big change (serveral, actually) -- KDE 1.1.2, October Gnome (Gnome in general, as it wasn't there before), Glibc (big big big change), and stable 2.2.13, XFree 3.3.5, and a bunch of minor changes that should equal a "big" change :-) 3 big changes, 3 major ver numbers, and general version number parity. I like it.
---

Re:SLACKWARE SUCKS!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

i will really distribute my fist into your face if you don't install redhate you farget..you must be destroyed

Any ISO's ?

[mAIsE]

I thought Slackware 7 was going the way of everyone else to reduces confusion and allows non guru types to install it, with ISO's. ?

anyone seen a slackware 7 ISO image ?

Re:Any ISO's ?

[TheSlack]

The FAQ on www.slackware.com states that there will be no ISO images made avalible of the Slackware CDs. The reason given is that it would take too much bandwidth, I believe.

Jack Neely

Re:FTP or NFS install?

[jfunk]

NFS has always been supported. It's my favourite method, too. The entire distribution isn't too large to mirror on my small network.

As for FTP, I'm not sure...

Since the distribution is quite small, downloading it and doing it over NFS would be a good bet. If you have a cable modem, leave it on your server and let all of your other cable friends install it from yours. I'm sure they'd appreciate the speed.

To set it up is simple. You only have to mirror the "slakware" directory and provide the network boot and the appropriate root disks (colour, almost always).

Re:SLACKWARE SUCKS!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, point proven.

Re:drool

[Anonymous Coward]

YES! And who said we can't go home again!!!

Re:Linux and OpenBSD do count as "something else"

[jemfinch]

When they say that they couldn't support the current performance on anything other than FreeBSD, I believe them. And they do mean *anything* else. This includes Linux and OpenBSD.

It's a given that no MS operating system could support the greater than 1 terabyte of data transferred in a day at ftp.cdrom.com. And based on the current state of the tcp/ip stack in linux, there's no way linux could beat FreeBSD. And from what I hear, OpenBSD's focus on security leads to it being quite a bit slower than FreeBSD.

I do believe that FreeBSD is the only OS that could run that server. I think their record currently stands at 1.35 terabytes in one day. That's pretty *damn* fine for a single Xeon 550 with 4gb of ram.

Jeremy

Re:Linux and OpenBSD do count as "something else"

[jemfinch]

Find it yourself if you're not convinced. I personally am happy to take walnut creek, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, and apache.org's word for it when they say (by using it) that "FreeBSD is the best OS for the job.

Jeremy

Moderators!

[Anonymous Coward]

(Score:5, Funny)

comment about philosophys..

[Catatonic Dismay]

I have to say something about the philosophys that distributions follow. Slackware's philosophy is driven from the 'do it yourself, no bull shit' ideology. That's why I love it so much.

I saw another poster saying that 'while he doesn't have a dozen people under him to update kernels, blah blah it's still a good distribution.' This is quite true, it is a good distribution, but he doesn't need tons of people to help him out. This comes from the philosophy that people out there should not depend on him or the distribution to get them through their entire existance while using linux. You're supposed to compile new kernels yourself, etc. Why do you think you don't see slackware 'tgz' packages floating around rabidly every where like rpms ( well you do see them sometimes like on kde's site i think ) ? Because slack users know how to get by on their own knowledge. This might also be why there isn't a good way to upgrade through the install process.. because most people only need to install slack once and they can then maintain their own box. hell, my box is a slack 3.4 install and it has been glibc 2.1 since that version of the GNU C library came out. Ok well it took a bit of time to recompile everything gradually.

A word for the newbies.

the philosophy that a distribution uses is very significant to those that are picking out a distribution for the first time. It should probably be one of the most significant things actually. How do you wish to live your life in the world of linux ? you should be picky as it is your environment that you will be playing/working in for a while. Second to that should be the packages it comes with. Weigh everything out before investing your time ( notice i didn't say money ) into a distribution.

Catatonic .. irc.aye.net:6667

Re:comment about philosophys..

[Jefe]

the philosophy that a distribution uses is very significant to those that are picking out a distribution for the first time.

Makes sense. Care to sum up the philos of the major distros for me? I have a sense of them, but have only used LinuxPPC and need to select one to install on a friends x86 machine. Thanks!

Re:Second reply to first

[Zulu]

bahahaa

Re:NO!

[Zulu]

bahaha, you redhat people are entertaining.

Re:SLACKWARE SUCKS!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be right, haven't checked really.
But something really annoying is people who assume that you're an idiot just because you make a typo or wasn't born in a English speaking country.

(and sometimes one may be in a hurr yand doensnt care bout typos n stuff!)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

horay for slackware!

but why skip only two major version numbers? Instead of jumping from 4.0 to 7.0, they could have jumped from 4.0 to 14.0 then we could brag about having a version number that is more than twice as big as those little weiner distros.

Slackware - the big weiner distro. yea!

Re:Yay!

[Foogle]

Yeah, but I'm really waiting for OpenBSD version 564.3 - it's supposed to be really good.

Seriously, what happens when you get past version 9? You could go to 10, but I think versions over 10 sound stupid. Like Emacs 20.blah.blah -- it just looks dumb. I hate to say it, but I think MS had the right idea of dropping the version numbers on Office after 6.0. I don't know how I feel about the years replacing them, but it's better than Office 10.0

-----------

"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[blackwizard]

And what about the girls downloading slack? =)

I totally agree, though, I really wish there were better mirrors for slackware than cdrom.com. Oh well, I can wait a few days, look at the changelog, and grab what I didn't grab from slackware-latest last week.

Any Mirrors Yet?

[Kwikymart]

Any Mirrors Yet?...... Mmmmmm.....Cable

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[moonboy]

Why exactly don't they tell the mirrorers (is that a word?) about it before anyone? Is it that hard to keep a secret for about 24 hrs.? I guess so.

----------------

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein

Lucky Sevens-- no Solaris for Alpha? :(

[Kartoffel]

Yeah. Can't blame slack for going to 7.0. After all, the previous beta was 6.5 *g* But seriously, my department (which runs Solaris heavily) recently got two hand-me-down Alphas which we _desperately_ need to replace aging pizza boxes. The admins are understandably annoyed that Solaris is not available for Alpha. I'm a bit hesitant to suggest BSD (or even -gasp- Linux) because the folks in charge have a rather narrow and negative view of OSS. However, management also happens to have a negative view of the $$$ it takes to license DG/UX. Any ideas?

Re:Lucky Sevens-- no Solaris for Alpha? :(

[copito]

I have admined an Alpha workstation with Digital Unix and one with RedHat. I have not had experience with either in production environment.

Your choices on Alpha are currently
OpenVMS (great, but only if you're into that kind of thing)

Digital Unix (I refuse to call it Tru64. It's nothing spectacular, but it is stable and certainly commercial.)

NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD (Which are probably fine but which are going to annoy admins used to System V)

Linux (Closer to Solaris in terms of administration than either of the other two unicies. Alpha port is older than FreeBSD, but younger than Net/OpenBSD.)

NT (no longer under development apparently, and you know the rest)

My recommendation, based on my limited experience and limited knowledge of your application would be to purchase RedHat 6.1 for Alpha with a support contract. That should appease the PHB's, be reasonably easy to migrate for the admins, and be cheaper than Digital Unix.
--

Re:NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Zulu]

You 13 year olds are abundant...

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[drazi]

% showmount -e sunsite.org.uk
Exports list on sunsite.org.uk:
/public Everyone

Don't expect it to be quick though ;)

Re:Linux and OpenBSD do count as "something else"

[Anonymous Coward]

The original web site used BSD/OS. No idea what the hardware was.

Re:BOO!

[Zulu]

go away fool.

.

[Zulu]

this guy has too much time

Distro wars

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only see a lamer speaking nonsense about RedHat, and nobody speaking about Debian. Come on, people. Where are the _logical_ and _well-reasoned_ distro flame wars we had here earlier?

Or is everybody busy trying to get the ChangeLog?

Re:SLACKWARE SUCKS!!!!!

[Zulu]

^LOL^, I think the moderators died...

ftp.cdrom.com limit

[copito]

They are nearly always at or near the limit during normal US business hours, and are fairly near the limit at other times. If you log in, they will tell you you are user 4998 out of 5000 or what have you.
--

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[WhiteDragon]

I thought they did... guess I'll have to find out now...

not as bad as 2.6 -> 7

[copito]

Solaris (an otherwise good OS) has done this too.
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.5.1
2.6
7

not to mention that
SunOS 4.x == Solaris 1.x (retroactively)
Solaris 2.x == SunOS 5.x
Solaris 7 == SunOS 5.7

--

FTP or NFS install?

[Improv]

Does the installer support FTP or NFS installs?

Re:Seems to me mirroring should be First Priority.

[toast0]

as of the previous release version (4.0) and one of the prereleases i checked for it does nfs but not ftp installs
and theres nowhere to do an nfs install from unless i d/load it myself