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Slackware 7.1 Beta 1 101

Posted by Hemos from the patrick-rocks-my-world dept.
tiny69 writes: " Slackware is now in beta. The announcement is on Slackware's Homepage. You can pick it up here. The ChangeLog is here. "
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slackware 7.1 Beta 1 More

Slackware 7.1 Beta 1

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  • troll (Score:1)

    by emir ( 111909 )
    observe this guy is not bruce perens , there is a . after perens.
    ppl like him should be moderated down because of the abuse of other ppl's name

  • Re:nifty (Score:4)

    by java_sucks ( 197921 ) on Monday June 19, 2000 @06:25AM (#992993)
    wow.. been reading for three years and this is my first post, which also happens to be first post...

    Ah.. such a shame... three years of training.. three long years of awaiting that special moment.. that one shining point in your life where it all comes together. Ah to score that elusive and coveted first post that we all scoff at but secretly dream about...

    So you hit the Read More link and you see NO POSTS...and your heart starts to race.. palms begin sweating... you quickly type your gibberish in then grope madly for the mouse... with high hopes you click the submit button then pray to the geek Gods..."Oh dear God.. just let me have it once.. please God.. just this one time"

    Then the page loads and you are left looking at this:

    (#8)

    Ah well...always a bridesmaid and never a bride.
  • Debian, more than any of the other distros, follows the GNU philosophy.

    And if that is your philosophy, then Debian is a good distro for you. Not everybody is as committed to GNU as RMS, and the idea of the GPL is that *you* (not a big conglomerate) have the choice to pick your software. If you choose to run Slackware and simply not install nonfree software, that's your *choice*. It's all about *choice*.

    Oh, did I mention that you're free to choose? Well, you are. :) You heard it here first. (Yes, you're even free to choose your distribution based on its lousy name.)

    --keith

  • Chuckle, I appreciate your drive for Debian, don't quit. However, I must disagree. In my experiance I have found that Slackware is definately NOT for newbies. To quote from the Linux Journal (issue ?) when they last reviewed the major distributions, Slackware is really the "Roll your own" Linux distrubution. This isn't to imply that Debian isn't, rather that a "roll your own" is definately not for newbies. I personally find it much more Unix like that most (do not translate as all) other distributions. As for stability, well, its all Linux. I suppose that 8 months isn't really long uptime in the Linux world, but I had to reboot 8 months ago when I upgraded to Slackware 7. Finally, power? Heh, what can I say? I've got it. Ultra trim kernel, plenty of memory, full SMP, and nothing extra on my drives that I don't know about. Red Hat, Debian, and Mandrake are all good Linuxes and I have no problem letting them play with the Slackware bigboys anyday. ;)
  • You know that a linux distribution is really doing marketing stuff when it has its own /. icon!

  • Iso (Score:2)

    by 9th ( 37374 )
    Anywhere you can download a bootable iso image?
  • linux wasn't meant to be an 'enterprise' operating system. It was written as an experiment on the memory management capabilities of the 386.
    The reason linux is getting so much recognition in the b2b world and in ecommerce is because linux stands on it's own merits. That's why we all use it, not because of some marketing hype.
    Okay...linux distributions start changing there name's to appease the suits. what next? 'value' added features, fragmentation of the distro's, focusing on marketing insead of programming...where does it end?
    no...slackware should keep it's name, and be judged on it's merit as an operating system (well...distribution). If the suits don't think 'slackware' if professional enough let them use NT. But we'll all laugh at them when their server goes down.
  • No, it will have 64,000 undocumented bugs. As it's OSS, you can look at the source for documentation. That is, until the Linux Bug-Documentation Project gets into full swing. ;)

    Note for humour impared: This is a parody/bastardization, not a knock at Linux. Of course it won't have 64,000 bugs.
  • I don't know what 2.x fixation you have. Another poster suggested that you were talking about 4BSD and its development. I'll accept this as such and explain why what you said was wrong.

    The fact that BSD revisions have been at 4.x has nothing to do with AT&T licensing issues. With the disbandment of the CSRG as we knew it, 4.4BSD (Encumbered and Lite) became the final release under the CSRG and that was that. No new BSD releases have been made since 4.4BSD, as the CSRG doesn't exist in the manner it did as recently as 10 years ago. Now, you said that "*BSDs" will release under 4.x for an eternity. Bullshit. OpenBSD is at 2.7, FreeBSD is at 4.0, and NetBSD is at 1.4.2. The versioning of these projects is fully up to their release engineers, as AT&T (Well, USL) can't touch them: the settlment placed 4.4BSD-Lite in the clear, and all projects based on it are therefore in the clear (And Net|Free both updated their sourcebases to come complaint, it was only the removal of two encumbered files that entailed. OpenBSD came up after this legalization of Free|Net, therefore it is unencumbered as well).

    The *BSDs have no legal trouble now from USL. 4.4BSD is in the clear, as are all of the *BSDs.

  • Slac is a very fine dist, it nice not to be forced to use gnome or kde (both of which I do not like, I am a fvwm man) Red Hat amlost forced you to use those 2, last time I installed RH I had to deinstall gnome then kde before I could even get it to bring up fvwm (and that when I mad a link from twm to fvwm.) I hope slac never changes!

  • Re:Real geeks use Debian! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    slackware uses bsd style booting (/etc/rc.d/rc.*)... now you know.

    Guess what? You're a clueless git. That's SysV style subsystem initialization, dipshit. BSD just uses one or two files directly off of /etc. It (slak) has an inittab.

    Moron.
  • I'll bet you didn't write that rant in ed.

    --

  • Linux is nice but something called "Slackware" sounds as though it enables slacking. Not something to be admired in corporate America.

    On to the trolling.

    Linux.com had a link to an interview with one of the KDE authors saying that the major impediment to the acceptance of Linux was device support -- or more specifically, device driver availability.

    For example, Creative still does not have any Linux drivers that enable their SoundBlaster Live! card to produce sound that is better than a SB16. Why? Foot dragging and reluctance. (I'm sure that M$ fits in there somewhere :) ...)

  • If you had 50 people a day asking you when you were moving slackware to "linux 6", you'd probably justify the jump in version numbers too.
  • Slackware is sooo pimp. Partially because he hangs onto the stable software, partially because it doesn't depend on X, and partially because it's the most BSD-like distro. You have to appreciate a distro that doesn't die when you don't want to install X.
  • ...you can't convert Windoze victims to a real operating system if the crotches are not supplied to make it simple.

    I couldn't agree more. All this focus people are putting into various Unix technologies really aren't progressing the popularity of Linux very much. What they really need is a crotch, preferrably Natalie Portman's, that will lure them to into using a "real operating system".

  • I am not saying there is anything wrong with kde, I am just saying if I don't want to use it I should not be force to like RH trys to do
  • Uh, you could grab the full distro tree with ftp, and then burn the cd with an "El Torito" pointer to the boot image. Not at all difficult.
  • I'm sorry this is a bit off topic, but its related to Linux.
    I hate people who don't have a clue what Linux is!
    My moms secretary say my Redhat 6.2 box today, and said "Oh you use Linuz" (no typo).
    When I asked here if she knew what it was for, she said something like "its kind of like windows, it runs on top of Dos right?", I said no, it is a totally different operating system based on Unix.
    She said "so its really new?" I said no, Unix has been around before Dos. She still didn't grasp the idea that it was a different OS, not on top of Ms-Dos.
    Same thing as the people where I go to school, I was carrying around a Linux for Dummies Book as reading material, and they actually made fun of me because they couldn't grasp the idea of what Linux was, a different OS, and when I finally explained it enough to them, they said "why would want to use that, Windows comes free when you buy your computer" when I explained thay I build my own computers, they called me a liar because they think you have to have a Microsoft Tech degree to even be able to figure out how to unscrew the back of the case.
    Rant Over
  • Yes, if you tell it to install everything, it will install KDE, but you can choose whether or not to install just about anything, plus the installer lets you choose your default window manager, which is pretty cool. I prefer FVWM myseld. And for the people who say slackware is for advanced users only, it's really not any more difficult to install than the other distributions, you just pop in the cd, reboot, and follow the on-screen instructions. The install script will let you configure the basic settings with a menu-based configuration, then after you are done, reboot, and you have yourself a working Linux distribution. you are pretty much on your own from here. I would recommend people who have never used Linux before to get a book. O'Reilly has an excellent book called "Running Linux", which is good for beginners as well as expert users. I also like the way Slackware has left most of the configuration up to the user. Just about every other distribution these days has some sort of proprietary centralized configuration tool that tries to configure everything. This is not good. How the hell are they supposed to keep up with standards?
  • It is suprising that the next distro is not 8.

    Patrick promised not to artificially inflate the version numbers anymore.

    I'm guessing that a higher-than-usual proportion of Slackware boxes don't run X at all; thus, upgrading to X 4.0 isn't as significant as it would be on, say, RedHat.

    --

  • but will it have 64,000 documented bugs? or will they even bother to document them? =]
  • >Slackware uses SysV init binaries, but the actual init scripts are more BSD-like.

    Ok... I can deal with that. Who wouldn't want the best of both worlds? Simple BSD init scripts with SysV binaries... sounds OK with me. :-)

    Of course what the end user sees is probably more like BSD (although I can't say... I really do need to try it out sometime).
  • Slackware isn't about it's name, it's about a quality distribution that works the way you expect it to work because you hand-hacked the config files yourself, not prayed to the gui-config god...
  • Live discussion is available, as always, at our lil empty unofficial irc.slackware.net, in #slackware. Have fun.
  • i have been a linux user for roughly 4+ years now. i've been through every distribution known, at one time or another. i keep coming back to slackware. it's the only distribution that is stable, coherent, and doesn't treat me like a microsoft-bred moron. for the past few weeks i've been hanging out in the /slackware-current directory on freesoftware.com ... waiting for a new official release. patrick, you rock! keep up the awesome work!
  • no....GNOME is by far the best linux there is.


    Why win9x really sucks [cjb.net]
  • Actually I started with Slack 4. I got a little frustrated setting up X so I switched to Redhat.. woowoo got X working right away, but was really confused with most of the rest of it.

    So I went back to Slack. Give me a newbie, I'll give him a Slack distro with a book. They will be much better off in the long run ;-)
  • ah, poetic justice....
  • Debian, more than any of the other distros, follows the GNU philosophy. It is committed to supporting free software released under the GNU, BSD, or similar free licences. Unlike the others, they respect Richard Stallman's wish to call Linux GNU/Linux. See more about this on their social contract page [debian.org].

    Its not that its technically more advanced, it just follows the GNU philosophy more than the other distros.

  • This is one of the best trolls I have seen in a long long time.
  • Micro: Small Soft: Flacid Small and flacid I'll stick with Debian thanks.
  • Personally, I don't care what the CTOs think. I'm a geek, and Slackware appears to be the best geek distro of Linux. For those of you who aren't geeks, there's Debian, Corel, SuSE, and, um, a couple of others.

    If the CTO really wants the business to succeed, he'll find geeks to run the servers - not business-oriented people who happen to know computers and will try to keep them working because they're geting paid, but geeks who are passionate about what they do and would probably keep doing it for free if they didn't have bills to worry about. These are the people that will pour their soul into making things run smoothly - and these are the people who run Slackware.

    (Note that I'm not advocating letting them do it for free, nor am I claiming that all geeks only run Slackware.)

    --

  • HAiKU (Score:1)

    by Daeron ( 4056 )
    Version Number Hype
    Slackware Goes 7.1
    You Upgraded Yet?
  • You can still run the base install from floppy disks, downloadable over the Internet, as for ordering it from floppies, I think that it is only available on CDROM at this point. The A directories are sized for distribution onto floppy disks. :-)
  • Or the *BSDs which due to an, uhh, interesting licensing conundrum with AT&T will continue releasing 2.x updates for an eternity (or until the copyright expires, which under the DMCA is the same thing as infinity).

    Your statement that all BSD-based operating systems must remain within the 2.x versioning regime is mistaken. You probably meant to say that they must stay within the 4.x regime, but that is also untrue. For a time, the actual Berkley distribution (not the *BSD's, which didn't exist at the time) was confined to the 4.x range. But that hasn't been the case for many years now.

    These days, the code used in all currently produced and maintained BSD-based operating systems is entirely unencumbered by legal restraints arising from AT&T copyright claims. Thus, for example, OpenBSD is at version 2.7, while FreeBSD is at version 4.0.

    The code has moved forward quite a bit since the 4.4BSD days, and the versioning for each BSD project reflects that. Each follows its own versioning rules.

    You might want to check into the history of the BSD side of the UNIX story. It's actually quite interesting.
  • It includes Kleopatra (KDE 1.91) just released a few days ago! Rewly.
  • That's funny...when I installed Slack 7 on another partition I had KDE as the window manager. I was impressed that they joined the 21th century (I know, it hasn't really started yet but who cares?).

  • Changing your versioning conventions just because of this is just fucking stupid. Anyone who is stupid enough to think that RedHat 6.1 is more advanced than say Debian 2.2 just because of version numbers is a moron and shouldn't be using Linux anyways.

  • 8" floppies? (Score:3)

    by matticus ( 93537 ) on Monday June 19, 2000 @06:05AM (#993031) Homepage
    anyone know if you can still get Slack on 8" floppies? (wink)
  • There would be an iso, but right now, slack-current is a quickly moving target.
    If you really want an iso, you have two options.
    One, get the iso for 7.0 and use 'upgradepkg' to upgrade to -current.
    Two, wait until 7.1 is released and get its iso.

    Naturally, this comment brought to you by Slackware-current.

  • Oh No! (Score:3)

    by blane.bramble ( 133160 ) on Monday June 19, 2000 @06:10AM (#993033)

    And I'm only on RedHat 6.2 - I'd better upgrade to Slackware, as it's obviously a newer and better release!

    Seriously though, why are the Linux distro's playing the (MS approved) numbers game? Do we really need this sort of numbering system (i.e. people jumping numbers to "keep up"). Is there a better way that actually provides a useful comparison (other than the kernel number, which in itself isn't that useful).

    Does any site have a list of Distro releases, kernel versions, and major software versions (sendmail, gcc, etc)?

  • CP/M was way too consumer to be worthy of a geek. MP/M was for the real geeks!

    --

  • Mirrors (Score:5)

    by titus-g ( 38578 ) on Monday June 19, 2000 @06:13AM (#993035) Homepage
    Just a selection, more are in the MIRRORS.TXT file on any of these sites, FTP isn't slow if you use a server near you...

    UK/European Users:
    The Slackware distribution is mirrored nightly at:
    src.doc.ic.ac.uk in directory /packages/linux/slackware-mirror
    ----------------------------------

    USA:
    ftp.freesoftware.com: /pub/slackware/ is the home site. Also:
    uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu: /pub/systems/linux/distributions/slackware.
    ftp.cps.cmich.edu: /pub/linux/packages/slackware
    sunsite.unc.edu: /pub/Linux/distributions/slackware. mirrored nightly.
    ftp2.netis.com: /pub/linux/slackware
    ftp.nlife.com: /pub/linux/slackware/
    full mirror of
    ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/
    ftp.cs.umn.edu (160.94.277.144) mirrors nightly in /pub/Linux/slackware.
    ftp.linux.locus.halcyon.com/pub/linux/slackware: Updated daily at 08:30 Pacific.
    ftp.halcyon.com mirrors the distribution at 400 PST daily.
    ftp.thedalles.net: /pub/linux/slackware
    ftp.thepayne.com: /pub/unix/slackware-3.6 daily mirror @ 01:00 Pacific.
    ftp://ftp.cs.unm.edu/dist/mirrors/slackware-3.6 updated daily around 1:00am MDT.
    ftp.cs.columbia.edu: /archives/linux/Slackware mirrors the distribution daily (in the early morning). (they also have slackware_source)
    ftp.ccs.neu.edu: /pub/os/linux/slackware. Updated: Nightly

  • How did you put 8'' drives in 5 1/4 '' slots? (Just curious ;-)

  • Re:Oh No! (Score:4)

    by Animol ( 120579 ) <jartis&gmail,com> on Monday June 19, 2000 @06:13AM (#993037) Journal
    Remember that was Patrick's whole argument? The only reason he went to 7 in the first place was that RedHat had a higher version number and people were asking him questions like "When will you catch up to RedHat?" Since there are enough people out there that don't get that different products with different version numbers don't compare, mainly because they're *DIFFERENT PRODUCTS*...
  • no, "thank you" was the trademark of the dumb marketing guy, not the dumb consultant. osm occasionally uses "thank you", but if you need a trademark to recognise his style, you're mad. gnarphlager says "thankyougoodnight", and I say "fucken" a lot.
  • The slackware website had a good explanation for that with their last release... It went something like "..everyone else is doing it, so we figured why not:)"

    It does, however, seem like there have been some huge advances lately, that sometimes do need a new major version number... ie: kernel 2.2 was a big change, going to XFree 4 or something like that might be another.

    It seems like a lot of packages and such do ahve inflated versions, however, some of them still don't, so that's good at least.

    (stuff like gnome, gcc, kde, etc.)
  • anyone know where i can get an 8 inch floppy drive? ive got the disks, just need the drive.
  • Hey, you're right. I was thinking of 5.25 floppies. Sorry. I wish I did have one.

    Actually what I wish I had was a 9 track mag tape drive. We have literally HUNDREDS of brand new tapes at work that are used once and then tossed. Our HP 3000 has a SCSI version of this drive that is self-loading -- just shove the tape reel in and it threads and winds a takeup reel automatically.

    I'm sure the storage isn't worth the cost, but it'd be fun just the same.
  • For your 6502 linux you might want to take a look at Lunix [netsurf.de]

    It is a development for the C=64. Maybe you could port it to the 6502?



    ---
  • The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any list of what software in Slackware (or any other distribution for that matter, besides Debian) is non-free.

    I wish there was an easier alternative for finding out what non-free is in Slackware than going through package by package...

    • This file seems very out of date, quite a few of the mirrors don't have the distro anymore, and the ones that do have often moved it.
    • None of them seem to have added 7.1 yet, but hey what are the chances you are going to get into the main site anytime soon . . .
  • PAM is garbage. If you wanted something strong use kerberos or something along the lines of a one time password like s/key.
  • Err! You don't want to pull anybodies leg right ?

    Alright, here's my two francs worth: What means better ? Frankly, I never worked with Slackware but from what I get it's pretty much do it yourself, which might be a tad tricky for a newbie.

    Get one of the semi-commercial packages. They have pretty nifty setup tools which will make life much easier. SuSE is the best distro of course, don't listen to what other people say (ho!ho!, incoming...)

    Seriously, it doesn't really matter and everybody has his preferences.

    KDE is not a distro, but one of the two desktop architectures (GNOME being the other). As with distributions there's a wholy war going on between people involved into a nasty urinating competition. Again, it doesn't really matter. Both have their pros and cons and it's a matter of taste and what you're used to.

    gimp is probably the only thing where everybody agrees. Probably because there's no real alternative...

  • its not 2.X its 4.X

    4.2BSD (1982)
    |
    4.3BSD (1986)
    |
    4.3BSD TAHOE (1988) -------------|
    | |
    4.3BSD RENO (1990) Net/1
    |
    |--------------------------|
    | |
    4.4BSD (1993) Net/2
    |
    |
    4.4BSD-lite (1994) aka Net/3

    get your facts straight next time, you always act like you know everything but usually half of the stuff you write is wrong
  • I prefer "GNU/Linux" to just "Linux" because Linux is just a small piece (the kernel, specifically) of the overall OS puzzle. Without the GNU software that is typically bundled in a distribution, Linux (the kernel) wouldn't be of much use. If your CTO is so "tech-savvy", then he/she should realize that a name means nothing. What counts is what's under the hood. Any software should be evaluated on its ability to solve whatever problem you are facing. Patrick has done an awesome job with Slackware, and the product quality speaks for itself. "GNU/Linux" is not trying to gain a professional image. Some companies, such as Red Hat, are trying to put a professional image to their distribution of Linux. Typical open-source developers (who develop and distribute their products for free because they enjoy doing so) don't give a fsck what some corporate bigwig dweeb in a suit thinks about the name of their software, or whether or not said dweeb "respects" their software. While I'm at it, contrary to what ignorant newswriters report, GNU/Linux is not trying to gain any sort of market share. Rather, various companies (e.g. Red Hat) are trying to gain market share by selling software that you can get for free. Reporters would be more correct in saying "Linux distributors" are trying to gain market share, or "Linux distributors" are trying to gain a professional image.
  • It's really how you like your Linux presented and how close to the core you wan't to be. I personally prefer it because it feels so Unix like to me that I can easily jump back and forth between other professional Unixes. On a daily basis I have had to work on/administrate AIX, Solaris, SCO (eech), Ultrix, BSD, etc boxes. By starting with Slackware as my center point I found the jumps to be relatively easy. Your ultimate answer is this. Give Slackware a try. If you like it, excellant. If not, just jump to another distrubution that you like. Under the hood they are all Linux and they can all be tweaked. Just enjoy the distibution and the Linux power.
  • I assume that by "GNU philosophy" you mean pointing how KDE depends on libraries written by Satan (and how gnome is somehow better) and that our entire commerce-based society should come crumbling down around "free information" and that every piece of software should be rewritten under the "GNU" banner, including KDE (Gnome) and even the Linux Kernel (Hurd) so that somehow it will be "freer", yes, I suppose Debian follows the GNU philosophy.

    Anyways, the last thing I would want to do is to respect Stallman's wish. I'm not running GNU/Linux anyways, since I use KDE.

    Donny

  • C'mon people, this is guy is funny. Don't get bent out of shape... just let sleeping trolls lie.

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • Re:HAiKU (Score:1)

    by 9th ( 37374 )
    No fake Haikus please.

  • Explaination (Score:3)

    by Dungeon Dweller ( 134014 ) on Monday June 19, 2000 @07:15AM (#993053)
    There is an explaination on the site as to the jump Here. [slackware.com]

    All of the information on what the current release includes is here, on slackware.com [slackware.com]

    You can always get all of the newest stuff by looking in the "current" directory on any slackware mirror.

    Pretty much, Slackware went to 7 because Patrick was getting bugged by people who didn't realize that the numbers are just numbers, and thought that RedHat was eons ahead of Slack. Also, several major changes were made in that release, including shifting to glibc.

    Slackware is very friendly to local compilation of software, if you don't like how far up to date a piece of software, just compile it yourself, also, you should always compile a customized kernel to get optimal performance from your machine with any distibution.

    It is suprising that the next distro is not 8. I held off on submitting the beta as a story. The beta is actually an excellent product. It includes X4 and the newest verions of just about everything that there is to have the newest version of.

    BTW, Slack is the best distro ;-)

  • No... (Score:1)

    by bags ( 78273 )
    Actually, it's Patrick Volkerding.
  • How about Tauntware (What I think your doing). Or Straightware (What you claim you wanted), Tightware (something about sex here...), Hardware (intimidating?), Rigidware(sex sex sex), Stiffware (lets just leave that), or last but not least Stressware.
    .
    Yeah, troll boy, your on to something. We could add definite Chick-Value(tm) to the product...
  • >>KDE is not a distro, but one of the two desktop architectures (GNOME being the other) you mean gnome is ANOTHER not _the_other_...
  • You're probably quite right from a (ok, I kick that term in losely) purists point of view.

    Where I came from was the newbie assuming that he/she has not too much U*X background.

    What actually stunned me after installing the SuSE distro (which indeed is good overall) is the standard kernel that they provide you with.

    That thing is so bloated like Word 2317 with the Kisuaheli spell checker enabled. Can you spell BLOATWARE

    That said, I can see where they are coming from. Installation is neat however, and due to the massive kernel probably everything and then some is supported.

    I agree that python (or perl or whatever) scripts should not be your system administrator, but again, that's in an ideal world and you can't convert Windoze victims to a real operating system if the crotches are not supplied to make it simple.

    Since I'm rather happy with my current installation (2.2.16 self-compiled, very modular so to speak) and don't see a reason to tinker with other distros. But yast is as good as yanked. Neverless it provides for a (more or less) hassle free start...

  • "Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'".

    andyschm@norbert:~$


    ... the login quotes.

  • it's people like you that makes /. what it has become today.
  • I created that statistics page myself ... it's Rather BSD-specific
  • http://www.opensound.com ... OSS 3.9.3l supports the SB Live! cards.

  • Newbie question: (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is Slackware better than Red Hat? Or KDE?
  • Actually Slack artificially inflated their last version by a couple because they were sick of being asked if they were compatible with "Linux 6".
    It's a pretty funny article, if you poke around on the slackware site I'm sure you'll find it.
  • I have two of them sitting in boxes. I finally pulled them from my main workstations when I ran out of 5.25 bays in my cases and needed the space for more contemporary devices, like CDR, Jaz and DVD.

    I didn't really use them all that often, although with a compressed RAM drive image they did make very reliable boot floppies compared with 3.5" floppies. Being able to burn 2.88MB boot images onto el-torito Cds kind of moots even this advantage.
  • Once again, my fav distro beats the others to the punch! I really like the way they are doing things, with a live, ongoing beta (aka slackware-current). Programs are kept current, and you can be on the b/leading edge if you want.

    ttyl
    Farrell
  • I thought death was nature's way of saying:
    # shutdown -h now

  • Maybe they need a change of name (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19, 2000 @06:17AM (#993067)

    As a professional consultant for a major Fortune 500 software company, I've recently gotten involved in the whole open source phenomenon as started by Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman with the release of the GNU/Linux operating system (or is it Linux? I'm not too sure on this point).

    Anyway, after having compiled a report on the commercial viability of open source as an alternative to closed source in the e-commerce/b2b world, I've become quite interested in Linux myself, and thanks to a handy Corel Linux distribution, consider myself to be someway to becoming a "guru" as people here like to call themselves.

    Anyway, my point is that Slackware, as a distribution, doesn't give out the professional image that Linux is trying to gain at the moment. On one hand, you've got respectable players like Red Hat, Corel and SCO pushing Linux's corporate image to new levels of respectibility, but on the other hand you've got a distribution named "Slackware", hardly the name your tech-savvy CTO wants to represent a core part of their enterprise solution.

    The whole name seems to give the distribution a half-finished, "slack" even, image, surely not one that's in anybody's best interest, whether they be the average long-haired Linux sysadmin or a suited CTO looking for the next big thing. And this image taints all of Linux.

    No, whilst Slackware may produce a decent distribution, they definitely need to think about a name change to ensure continued acceptance in the increasingly corporate-driven Linux market.

  • Re:Oh No! (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Monday June 19, 2000 @06:18AM (#993068)
    It's a marketing thing - like "Oracle 8i" which sounds cool.. until you realize they haven't gone through 8 revisions. Then you have Microsoft's calling everything by years - which works rather well if you overlook the fact that they've never released it in the year that the product was named after. :)

    Totally marketing. That's why I like the linux kernel - "We're at 2.2.16!" which obscures the fact that they have, infact, gone through dozens of development cycles by now. Or the *BSDs which due to an, uhh, interesting licensing conundrum with AT&T will continue releasing 2.x updates for an eternity (or until the copyright expires, which under the DMCA is the same thing as infinity).

    Since linux seems to emulate first, innovate second with code, it seems logical that developers would follow in the naming schemes of major (proprietary) vendors as well. By emulating first I mean no disrespect - there have been legit free software projects that did come up with something original (ex, emacs).

  • I can understand why it's done (although I don't agree with doing it!). Hence the question about is there a better way (and anyone who suggests using the year of release will be shot :-)

    I would assume that most of the techy Linux users are above simple number comparisons, so presumably the reasoning behind playing "catch up" (and I'm not aiming this at Slackware any more than any other distribution), is for the corporate users - does it really make that much difference at the moment given that (I assume) Linux in corporates is driven by technical people more than marketing people?

  • Re:Newbie question: (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 19, 2000 @06:39AM (#993070)

    When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi
    *and* Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like,
    'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor
    that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.

    Ed, man! !man ed

    ED(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual ED(1)

    NAME
    ed - text editor

    SYNOPSIS
    ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
    DESCRIPTION
    Ed is the standard text editor.
    - ---

    Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first
    alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed
    because it's ED!

    "Ed is the standard text editor."

    And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

    - -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
    - -rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
    - -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs

    Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed.
    Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog
    message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K;
    and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

    "Ed is the standard text editor."

    Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

    golem> ed

    ?
    help
    ?
    ?
    ?
    quit
    ?
    exit
    ?
    bye
    ?
    hello?
    ?
    eat flaming death
    ?
    ^C
    ?
    ^C
    ?
    ^D
    ?

    - ---
    Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is
    generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
    the novice with verbosity.

    "Ed is the standard text editor."

    Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.

    ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED
    AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS
    BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN
    SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

    When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless
    help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!!
    Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED!
    ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!

    TEXT EDITOR.

    When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their
    "edlin" on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely
    you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.

    Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on. If you
    are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should
    not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE
    SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE
    FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!
  • [Ignoring for the moment that your post is marginally off-topic] Could you innumerate exactly what gives Debian "real power" over all the other distros?

    --
  • my post got fucked up
    RENO != net/1 (both originate from tahoe)
    4.4BSD != net/2 (both originate from reno)
    4.4BSD is sometimes reffered as net/3
  • "The long run". Now thats the real point isn't it. I definately agree! After the initial period I have found that most Slackware users really advance in their computing capacity. Good point, glad you pointed out that I didn't mention it.
  • you've got a distribution named "Slackware", hardly the name your tech-savvy CTO wants to represent a core part of their enterprise solution.

    A ''tech-savvy'' CTO would be choosing Slackware on its technical merits, not on its lousy name.

    If a CTO is choosing software based on name, why wouldn't s/he choose Microsoft? After all, nobody was ever fired for choosing IBM^H^H^HMicrosoft, right?

    --keith

  • I decided to do as I usually do, and enlighten and entertain the /. masses:

    slack (as an adj.)
    1 : not using due diligence, care, or dispatch : NEGLIGENT
    2 a : characterized by slowness, sluggishness, or lack of energy (a slack pace) b : moderate in some quality; especially : moderately warm (a slack oven) c : blowing or flowing at low speed (the tide was slack)
    3 a : not tight or taut (a slack rope) b : lacking in usual or normal firmness and steadiness : WEAK (slack muscles) (slack supervision)
    4 : wanting in activity : DULL (a slack market)
    5 : lacking in completeness, finish, or perfection (a very slack piece of work)
    Interesting rootwords include the greek lagnos meaning lustful.

    Mandrake(we all know it's the magician, though)
    1 a : a Mediterranean herb (Mandragora officinarum) of the nightshade family with ovate leaves, yellowish or purple flowers, and a large forked root traditionally credited with human attributes b : the root of a mandrake formerly used especially to promote conception, as a cathartic, or as a narcotic and soporific
    2 : MAYAPPLE

    yellow-dog
    1 : MEAN, CONTEMPTIBLE
    2 : of or relating to opposition to trade unionism or a labor union

    grammar nazi's conclusions:
    None of the other Linux distros had worthwhile names to list here. Slack is probably not a hotword for a productivity application/OS. However, it is a catchy word and it represents the exact opposite of how I perceive the linux kernel. I can think of one particular OS that is fitting to be called slackware. Any guesses?
  • The best thing about Current is that the a and n disk sets are folded into one big set.
  • :)

  • Re:Maybe they need a change of name (Score:3)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Monday June 19, 2000 @08:52AM (#993078)
    Are you kidding about the marketing hype part? Linux is not popular because it stands on its own merits. In all fairness, BSD did it a long time before Linux became a plausible solution. Linux's increasing popularity in the business world is simply a byproduct of people reeling from Microsoft looking for another solution. Linux happened to be one of the only free OSs that were viable at the time, and also the only one that had a community vocal enough to hype it (Unlike BSD.) As such, there is nothing technical about Linux that makes it stand out. Its popularity with business is ENTIERLY hype related. In this end, the hype that OSS and the FSF create help a great deal.
    PS: I'm not saying that Linux has no merit for people who like the OS. I'm also not saying that OSS and the FSF is just hype. I'm saying that these things are true in the business world. (Are you going to tell me that these companies give a damn about the GPL and the philosophy behind it?) Linux and the FSF are very meaningful the members of the community, just not the business world.
  • Yeah, a current tree, what a ground breaking idea!
  • Argh, what a dillweed remark ;)
    Slack roxors,simply do a base install and then homebrew compiler / binutils and your set for all
    other tarballs from the progs u like to install.

    Slackware 7 / 7.1 are verry mature distros comparable to all other major ones that seem to suck more, never used them, never will.

    Planet Penguin, home of the slack melange....
    3 houses fought for controll of Penguin, only slackware prevailed.

    annyway, nuff said.
  • You forgot the obligatory "thank you" at the end of your post, which used to be an earmark of this type of troll...
  • What? SLACKware? I like it very much, since it remainds me of the sound of my tentacles crushing pathetic humans in one single hit! And I also like cruching humans. I think I'll do some of that right now, chrlghhrnhuh!
  • Lo' and behold, for mighty 'leet linux user spake from his cluelessness throne. And thus hath His cluelessness proved, by 1) responding to an obvious (though humorous) troll; 2) cheering for Slackware;
  • Just to clarify, he didn't write that himself. He got it from here [gnu.org] i.e. the GNU website. Don't moderate up what's obviously redundant.

    Cheers,

    Matt

  • The low down of the init directory structure for slackware (and I've never used no BSD... but I do LOVE Slackware's CLEAR and CONSICE way of initializing the system):

    Inside /etc/rc.d:
    rc.0 (linked to rc.6) -- Run level 0/6 (computer is rebooted)
    rc.4 -- Run level 4. For XDM.
    rc.K -- Run level 1. Single user mode.
    rc.M -- Run level "multiuser". Guess... :-)
    rc.S -- System initialization script. Run at boot time.

    less important (but still necessary) files in /etc/rc.d include:
    rc.cdrom -- Makes the CDROM automount at boot.
    rc.inet1 -- Starts up base INET system.
    rc.inet2 -- "This shell script boots up the entire INET system."

    Slackware uses the BSD system (according to slackware themselves). This is pulled from rc.sysvinit (the basic sysv compatibility script):

    "rc.sysvinit: This file provides basic compatibility with SystemV style startup scripts. The SystemV style init system places start/stop scripts for each runlevel into directories such as /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/ (for runlevel 3) instead of starting them from /etc/rc.d/rc.M. This makes for a lot more init scripts, and a more complicated execution path to follow through if something goes wrong. For this reason, Slackware has always used the traditional BSD style init script layout."

    Patrick Volkerding doesn't like SysV init. So no, I have a feeling there is NO similarity between slackware init and SysV init (to quell the previous argument too). And Patrick Volkerding HIMSELF says "Slackware has always used the traditional BSD style init script layout".

    There you have it. Slackware == BSD init. I like it. :-)

  • ..because you missed it in your sentence. You may also need to replace your comma with a semi-colon when you add this very necessary word in. The word such could also be used in place of what, if you prefer.

    "You seem very fond of the word 'definitely,' what a pity you can't spell it correctly."

    BTW: I am sorry if this is posted twice. I get "buffer socket errors" from slashdot lately. Is something else broken?

  • depends whether you are:
    (a) an 3l33t hA>0r
    (b) a male zebra.

    Abashed the Devil stood,
    And felt how awful goodness is
  • No way man! Real geeks use CP/M!

    (And if slashdot wasn't so goddamn broken I wouldn't have to resubmit this OVER AND OVER AGAIN until their goddamn post timer runs out. You have to type two or three comments at once because you have to keep waiting for the ERRORS to be transmitted so you can REPOST AGAIN AND AGAIN until slashdot isn't broken for a minute.)

  • Re:Maybe they need a change of name (Score:3)

    by medicthree ( 125112 ) on Monday June 19, 2000 @06:20AM (#993089) Homepage
    You use Corel linux and think you're on your way to becoming a guru? Bwhahahahhaha...

    I'm sorry, I'll take the karma hit on this one. I'll even start it at 2.

  • Bah, i'm not upgrading. Every knows Redhat 2000 will be available by the end of the year! ;)
  • and anyone who suggests using the year of release will be shot :-)

    Oh darn...i was really looking forward to Linux 2002. Kernel 2.6.0 sounds so boring. And hey, if M$ havn't released a version of Windows with the same year, we're in the clear! ("Oh, you're using Windows 2000? That's two years old now! I have Linux 2002") :)

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