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Linux Software

Slackware Turns 10 341

Posted by michael from the that's-a-lot-of-slack dept.
Sir_Stinksalot writes "DistroWatch is reporting that Slackware is 10. 'Yes folks, it is exactly 10 years today since the release of Slackware Linux 1.0, complete with a brand new Linux kernel 0.99pl11 Alpha, XFree86 1.3 and even a PS/2 mouse support!' Let's all say happy birthday to Slackware."
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Slackware Turns 10 More

Slackware Turns 10

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  • Anyone tried it out? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DavidNWelton ( 142216 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:20AM (#6461323) Homepage
    It would be interesting to hear if it still runs, and how it stacks up - "then vs now".
    • Well, it still runs pretty well on all of my machines. I have had a few forays into playing with RedHat, Debian and even (!) Mandrake, but Slackware is still the simplest to tweak for the machine's purposes, and thus by far my favourite of the distros I've tried.

    • Re:Anyone tried it out? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Drakker ( 89038 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:35AM (#6461561) Homepage Journal
      The first challenge is to find an archive that still has it.

      I suppose by "does it still run?" that you mean does it run on brand new hardware? I dont know, when you check today's hardware, say, the NForce2, you need kernel 2.4.21 to have everything supported... and it wont even boot with 2.2, so I seriously doubt that slackware 1 would run on anything more recent than a K6 or P2/3 on an old motherboard. Architechtural changes in the Athlon and P4 would probably not be supported.

      Just a guess though, I'd love to be proven wrong. :)

      • Re:Anyone tried it out? (Score:3, Informative)

        by cyb97 ( 520582 )
        nForce does boot, but you'll run into trouble trying to get your nForce audio, nForce network, nForce gfx-card to work.

        Mostly because the drivers are closed source, making them troublesome to backport to 2.2...

        I booted 2.2 myself the other day, worked like a charm, in some respect even better than 2.4 as 2.4 is less forgiving about faulty DMA than 2.2...

        2.4 just went into a lockup while 2.2 at least continued and then just complained about trouble with DMA and didn't initialize the devices that created t

    • Re:Anyone tried it out? (Score:5, Informative)

      by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:40AM (#6461621) Homepage
      I've still got my Slackware 1.2 CD, and I have it running on a 486/66 on my LAN. It fits nicely on to a small hard drive and there's tonnes of archive software that runs fine on it. It ran my multi-user BBS stable for years. It hasn't got all the latest bells'n'whistles, and I don't know if I'd expose it to the Internet, but it does the job.

      Why shouldn't it still run??

    • I installed Slackware about 9 years ago on my P90. I had never used a UNIX operating system for an extended period of time at all either. I wasn't from a CS background. Didn't go to school for CS...yet it was kinda easy to get this up and running way back when.

      My intro to the world of UNIX basically. Yes, I said it...UNIX. U-N-I-X.

      Anyway, happy birthday Slack.
    • I know that *I* am alot lazier now than I was 10 years ago... does anyone have an ISO image of the slackware 1.0 distribution? I'm almost willing to try and dig up a few floppies to do the base install, but I'd much rather try it from cd (even though most bios's (biosi?) wouldn't let you boot from a cd back then).

  • First Release Annoucement (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:20AM (#6461326)
    From: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding)
    Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
    Subject: ANNOUNCE: Slackware Linux 1.00
    Date: 17 Jul 1993 00:16:36 GMT
    Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
    Lines: 76
    Message-ID:
    Reply-To: bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Patrick J. Volkerding)
    NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu

    The Slackware Linux distribution (v. 1.00) is now available for
    anonymous FTP. This is a complete installation system designed for
    systems with a 3.5" boot floppy. It has been tested extensively with
    a 386/IDE system. The standard kernel included does not support SCSI,
    but if there's a great demand, I might be persuaded to compile a few
    custom kernels to put up for FTP.

    This release is based largely on the SLS system, but has been enhanced and
    modified substantially. There are two main disk series, A (13 disks) and
    X (11 disks). Some of the features:

    Series A:
    About what you'd expect from SLS series A, B, and C. Plus:
    Source for the Linux DOS emulator version 0.49.
    The FAQ for kernel level 99pl10.
    Kernel source and image at .99pl11 Alpha.
    [compiled with these options: math emulation support, normal hard drive
    support, TCP/IP, System V IPC, -m486, minix fs, ext2 fs, msdos fs, nfs,
    proc support, and PS/2 style mouse support. You may need to recompile if
    you have some other type of busmouse. The kernel was compiled with libc
    4.4.1, g++ 2.4.5]
    The new keytable utilities.
    The NET-2 networking package, preconfigured to use loopback.
    A public domain version of ksh, and tcsh 6.04 (with the bugs worked out)
    GNU gcc, g++, and Objective-C at versions 2.4.5
    Includes and libraries at version 4.4.1
    mailx, quota utilities, experimental winapi source, sound drivers.
    The TCL toolkit and samples.

    In addition, the installation program has been improved to offer more
    information about the packages (and the installation procedure itself)
    as you install.

    The install program can also automatically install LILO, configuring it
    to boot either from your master boot record or from OS/2's Boot Manager.

    Series X:
    Also, all the packages you would get in the SLS X series, plus:
    XFree-86 version 1.3.
    Open Look Virtual Window Manager made the default window manager.
    XS3 server offers support for S3 based video cards.
    XV 3.00 Image viewer is included.
    PEX files from the XFree-86 distribution are included.

    Although TEX support is not included in the Slackware release, the you may
    install the SLS T series from the install program.

    At this point, the install disk itself is running .99pl8. I'm working on it :^)
    Also, installation from other than a 3.5" floppy has not been tested, but might
    work. 5.25" floppy will not work because of file sizes. At this point, I have
    no plans to support a 5.25" version.

    How to get the Slackware(tm) release:

    The Slackware release may be obtained be anonymous FTP from
    mhd3.moorhead.msus.edu in directory /pub/linux/slackware. At least initially,
    this release will be in the form of 3.5" disk images which should be copied
    to floppies using the RAWRITE.EXE program, or dd under Linux.

    Please note that our FTP software does not support limiting the number of
    concurrent anonymous logins. PLEASE try to go easy on this machine. If things
    get out of hand, access may be restricted.

    Other sites are, of course, welcome to help out with the load by mirroring
    the distribution.

    If you find any problems with the distribution, or if you have any suggestions
    for improvements, please let me know. If you know of more up-to-date versions
    of software in the distribution, I'd like to hear about that, too.

    --
    Patrick Volkerding
    volkerdi@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu
    bf703

  • I remember ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisumNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:21AM (#6461348) Homepage Journal
    ... when Slackware was released... I think it was by SLS, no, which mean "Soft Landing Systems".

    Of course, happy with my Yggdrasil installation (woohoo, a bootable CD distro - in 1992! With X!) I scoffed at the notion of there being yet *another* Linux distro around.

    Little did I know, 10 years later, that there would be thousands of Linux choices around. Wow.

    Happy birthday Slackware! One of these days, I ought to give you a try ... :)

    • Re:I remember ... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by djrisk ( 689742 )
      hahahaha, cool, I started off with Yggdrasil too! Though, I never could get X to work. Booo! But it was cool to have a bootable CD (who knew CDs were bootable, at that time!).

      Having used Slackware almost exclusively for a year or two, and then switching amongst various OS' afterwards, I found it hard to go back to "old school" ways of Slack, esp. in recent times.

      Regardless, Slackware is a great distribution, and contributed to my general understanding of Linux and how things operate within it. It's alwa

    • ... when Slackware was released... I think it was by SLS, no, which mean "Soft Landing Systems".

      SLS was a separate outfit (and distro) that predates Slackware a bit. My first Linux system was SLS...unlike Slackware, you could install SLS from 5.25" floppies. I had a binder with somewhere around 20-30 disks that held the entire thing.

      I even ran my BBS on SLS for a while...made a cheesy menu-driven shell for callers that called a mail reader, news reader, etc. If they wanted full-up csh access, that

  • Version (Score:3, Funny)

    by pheared ( 446683 ) <kevin@nOSpAm.pheared.net> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:22AM (#6461351) Homepage
    Slack 9 released (roughly) 10 years after 1.

    I'm sure Max from Pi would see something in that.
  • Slack was the distro I fell in love with first. as of lately, i've been impressed with the portability of Knoppix LiveCDs. But I'm still a Slackware fan. Happy Birthday! w00t!
  • Still running on an old 386SX NSF server with 125MB of HD and NE2000 card. :-)

  • WHAT? SLACKWARE 10?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by strredwolf ( 532 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:23AM (#6461375) Homepage Journal
    ALREADY?!?!? Geesh oh wiz, I got to upgrade *AGAIN*?!?!?

  • HB, Slack... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GeckoFood ( 585211 ) <geckofoodNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:24AM (#6461383) Journal
    In spite of some serious competiton by Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE and other very good distributions, a lot of people still prefer Slackware as their distro of choice. That's a nice 10-year birthday present.

    • Distro of choice (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rutledjw ( 447990 )
      Lemme see here, I started looking into Linux with RH 5.something, but wasn't able to get 'X' up and running. At least it managed to screw up my Win-pbbbbt install, so I had to redo that. I tried it again with 6 and didn't really care for RH again.

      I tried Mandrake and that was better, but my contractees wanted RH if they were to use Linux. RH 7 had enough custom C libraries that I couldn't do a simple Apache build. About that time (~ 3 years ago) I tried Slackware and loved it!

      My ONLY irritation is m

  • my first (Score:5, Interesting)

    by shokk ( 187512 ) <ernieoporto @ y a h o o .com> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:24AM (#6461385) Homepage Journal
    Slackware 0.99blahblah was my first Linux. I had two boxes of 50 floppies that I spent hours downloading and copying at a computer lab at school. All of that fit onto one of the two 100MB partitions on my 200MB disk (the other had Windows 3.0). I still have the boot floppy and every once in a while I pull out the boot floppy to see if it can boot on new hardware. Still works on most!

  • Darn new fangled Slackers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:24AM (#6461390)
    Hell...I was using SLS (SoftLanding System) Linux from Victoria Canada in 1992/1993 even before this young upstart Pat started his distribution (I think it was even based on SLS)...ahhh the days of distributions on floppy.
    We used v0.95, we downloaded it direct from the Finland FTP site over a 14.4 modem, took all night, and we liked it!
    All I wanted to do was run my favorite Unix game: "rogue"
    I tried Minix, but rogue wouldn't compile, so I tried Linux and have been using it ever since.

    Thomas Dz.

  • Okay for retro purposes (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jack Wagner ( 444727 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:25AM (#6461393) Homepage Journal
    I can't, in good faith, offer slackwear up as an option to any of my clients though. They need a world class installation and they need cutting edge features like Gnome 2.2 and Mozilla 1.4.

    Sure, slack is fun to dink around with and it's nice for a sense of history and all that but today as a business about the only distro I can quote out is Linux 9.0. In todays market customers want support and they want to see a product comes in a box with decals and installation books. Fortuen 500 companies don't really care about the "cool" factor.

    Warmest regards,
    --Jack

    • Re:Okay for retro purposes (Score:4, Informative)

      by bmj ( 230572 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:32AM (#6461518) Homepage

      I can't, in good faith, offer slackwear up as an option to any of my clients though. They need a world class installation and they need cutting edge features like Gnome 2.2 and Mozilla 1.4.

      Download Slack 9. It's got more cutting edge software than my RedHat 8 machine at work. Gnome 2.2, KDE 3.1, Mozilla 1.4. You name it...

    • Re:Okay for retro purposes (Score:5, Informative)

      by BrokenHalo ( 565198 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:38AM (#6461608)
      Have a quick google for Dropline Gnome then. You'll get by far the slickest and most current distribution of Gnome there is, specifically for Slackware, and it comes with Moz 1.4.

      Though you'll find Pat keeps everything very much current all by himself; take a look at slackware-current.

    • Without going into a huge rant about how completely wrong the poster is on every point he attempts to make, I think all enlightened Slackware users should step back and ponder whether this shmuck is trolling or just has a really bad sense of humor.

      For a quick rebuttal of the normal arguments RedHat users and their brethren use against Slackware, you can refer to my handy-dandy already composed never-sent reply [darktech.org] to this message I found on Google. To sum it up: If you don't think Slackware is a serious distr

    • Sure, slack is fun to dink around with and it's nice for a sense of history and all that but today as a business about the only distro I can quote out is Linux 9.0.

      Last I heard, there was no "Linux 9.0" distribution. So much for your sig of getting it right the first time. Best of luck with your endeavours.
      • Like others here, I sincerely want to believe the original post was a joke (a lame joke, but a joke nonetheless).

        However, if it wasn't...

        Having spent more than my fair share of time in Linux tech support, I can say with a fair degree of certainty (in case there are those who have not encountered the original poster's confusion) that whenever "Linux X.X" is mentioned it's probably a reference to Red Hat. Crap like that used to drive me nuts. No matter how many times you tell these folks that Red Hat != L

  • Good reusable announcement (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:27AM (#6461429)
    From the initial Slackware release announcement :

    There are two main disk series, A (13 disks) and X (11 disks).

    In a not-so-distant future, Linux distros will also come on 13 disks. Only not on floppy disks. That's how much GNU/Linux has evolved since the early days ...

    • Debian 3.0 came on 7 CDs. Actually 8 if you include the international version of disc 1.

      And then there are the source CDs...

      The future is now. Time to start using DVDs. Now if all the business with DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW was sorted out...

    • That's how much GNU/Linux has evolved since the early days...

      If that were evolution, then we'd all weigh 73 tons.

  • The Best Distribution (Score:3, Insightful)

    by turgid ( 580780 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:29AM (#6461456) Journal
    For me Slackware is the best Linux distribution period. It's the first one I tried back in 1995 and I've yet to find one that's better. Slackware is compact yet comprehesive, stable, simple ans user friendly. If you're an old-timer like me and you don't mind a non-GUI installer, Slackware rules.

  • Bah Humbug! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by paul.dunne ( 5922 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:30AM (#6461472)
    Shut up! Stop making me feel old! You'll be celebrating the anniversary of MCC's (that's MCC as in Manchester (university) Computer Centre, not Middlesex Cricket Club) mini-distribution next -- or SLS...

    Linux newbie's log, stardate Thursday 9th June 1994:

    "Installation of SLS Linux system [sic]: disks a2-4, b1-8, c1-2, c3 (partial), d1-, t1-3. Disk s1 was corrupt."

    And I never looked back...

    However, looking over that old notebook now, I see it did take me until December of that year to get my head round sendmail enough to have working mail!

  • Installed on a ZIP disk (Score:5, Interesting)

    by luugi ( 150586 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:31AM (#6461487)
    Slackware was my first linux distribution. I used to work at "Bureau en Gros" ( I think it's "Business Depot" in english). I was working in the computer section and this guy ask me about Linux. I thought it was a game at first. But then he told me that it was something new and cool but very complicated. I found the CDs for him in bin. That same day I got myself a copy and wanted to install it on my computer. By then I just thought it was an application. Reading on, I realised that I need a different partition. I read up on it and installed my first Linux system on a 100 Meg zip disk. It was the coolest thing for me. I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to do the simplest things but it was really fun. I had an slow computer at the time ( Pentium 60Hz) and the newer games didn't install on my computer anymore so I had to find myself another way of having fun.

    And now I get paid to program device drivers on Linux!

  • Many peoples first (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smcavoy ( 114157 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:33AM (#6461527)
    Like many, Slackware was my first distro.
    Oh what hell it was to get it installed, being that I knew very little about hardware.
    Many years later, I laugh at how trivial the setup is now. But had I not had the slackware experience all those years ago, I would probably be a MS monkey, instead of a Linux Geek.

    Thank you Slackware (Patrick and all).

  • The only thing I would change.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by haplo21112 ( 184264 ) <haplo AT epithna DOT com> on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:33AM (#6461536) Homepage
    ...about slackware is what I would change about most linux distros I have used...

    Upgrades do not work as smoothly as they ought to
    work needs to go into some code in the upgradepkg utility that can migrate the settings, rather than plopping down a new copy of the file and saying you might have to look at it....

    Gentoo, my other favorite distrobution suffers from the same problem...

    And yes I know if I really want this feature I oughta code it myself and submit patches etc....
    I'm to lazy, and my real job takes more time tahn I'd like, so between work and having a life I just haven't got the time...OK...OK

  • My First Time... (Score:5, Funny)

    by nfdavenport ( 599530 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:33AM (#6461542)
    I remember my first time with slackware way back when in college. I couldn't download it, because I needed to get linux up and running in the first place so I could dial-up to the CS modem pool and PPP. So I went the bookstore, bought a huge stack of floppies and tried 3 times to copy all the distro disks before I got it right - back and forth all day to campus.

    Problem was I was copying *.* instead of * to the each floppy having come from a DOS background. That wasn't nearly as bad as blowing my $800 monitor the next day trying to setup X timings. Ahh, the good old days.

  • Slackware 1.1.2 (Score:5, Informative)

    by subuni ( 264682 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:35AM (#6461559)
    While it's not v1.0, you can download Slackware v1.1.2 at http://linux.ka.nu/ [linux.ka.nu], as well as some other historic Linux distributions (Debian 0.91, SLS 1.05, and MCC Interim 1.0+)
  • Slackware Linux was my first introduction to Linux way back in 1995, when I installed it on my Toshiba 486DX/25 Laptop, though it had reached Kernel 1.2.something by then!

    I still prefer slackware to this day, particularly where I need to tweak and change things quickly and easily - it doesn't have any of the "newbie-helper" kruft which the big-brand distro's have, which tends to hinder more than it helps after a while. It is a small, fast, reliable distribution well suited to both Desktop and Server wor
  • Jeeez.....look up your titles, plz... For a moment I thought that Slack 10 is out, and I even didn't bother to read any further and instead rushed to the slack site to see what's in it....well, as you already suppose I didn't find much....
    Next time you may include a "(no pun intended)" in the title, to avoid scaring the shit out of people imaging how 50% of the /. crowd is already downloading _the_ distro...

  • Hopefully.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dook43 ( 660162 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:37AM (#6461592)
    Slackware users and experts can make a vow, on Slackware's 10th birthday, to be more helpful to new users and Linux newbies. Many a new Linux user has been turned away from Slackware because, although a geek friend might have pointed it out, there is no help or regard for the newbies. RTFM/RTFD!!! is the most common phrase heard in #slackware on many different IRC servers everywhere. This is the same situation for Debian. New users to Linux who want an extremely powerful distribution, complete with friendly help and knowledgeable users who aren't afraid to help a newbie, even if they ask a duplicated question, should check out Gentoo [gentoo.org].
    • Actually, on the Debian site there is a really long, informative guide for people really new to Unix commands. I went from "isn't cd .. one of those commands?" to being able to move stuff around, find things, run everything from the command line. That's pretty good newbie help from my point of view.

      I actually don't use Debian though, I use Mandrake, and though I haven't checked out Gentoo, I find that Mandrake was very, very helpful to my overwhelmed newbie mind. Knowledgeable users are great, but whe

      • Yes, and Slackware also has an entire book [slackware.com] devoted to helping new users with slackware and linux in general. It's usually the first thing I point new users to when they ask question in #slackware, because it's almost always documented right there.

    • Re:Hopefully.... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by General_Tso ( 664343 )
      Slackware--and Debian, for that matter--people have been friendly with me. I heard so much of a stink about how tough and unfriendly their installations were that I avoided it for a long time, and I'm not sure it is fair. I think there's too much "RTFM" in a lot of Linux-related discourse. Hell, the MPlayer FAQ has the phrase "RTFM" in it!!! That's ridiculous. BTW, I think I'll try Gentoo next--I do hear good things about it as well. --GT

  • I started with Slackware 2.0... (Score:3)

    by Noryungi ( 70322 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:38AM (#6461605) Homepage Journal
    At least, I think that's what it was. It came with the first edition of "Linux Unleashed".

    Today, several years later, I am still using Slackware, version 9.0, on several computers of mine, and it's still one of the best distros around. (And yes, I have tried Mandrake, Red Hat, Caldera and several BSDs)

    Thanks a ton to Patrick Volkerding... May your slack prosper and grow forever more!!
  • Now it's a jolly good distro!
    Now it's a jolly good distro!
    Now it's a jolly good distro!
    Now it's a jolly good diiistrooo!
    And so say all of us.
    And so say all of us.
    And so say all of uuuuuss.

  • Maybe they need to change the name.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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 Lin

  • link your website to slackware (Score:4, Interesting)

    by donutz ( 195717 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:41AM (#6461626) Homepage Journal
    Webmasters: If you'd like to keep the awareness of slackware up, grab a banner from here: Slackware Propoganda [slackware.com] and link it back to Slackware.com.
  • It was when I was a Win95 support person for the evil empire that I was turned on to Slackare. This was back in... oh, 96 or so. My cube-mate turned me onto it. That was my first Linux distribution. I've since tried a few others, but always end up going back to Slack, and now enjoy 9.0.

    Viva Slackware! Thanks also to my cube-mate, Pete.
  • I'd never bought so many floppies before in my life...

  • Happy Birthday Slack! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You never forget your first love.

    I first heard of Linux in "Unix Review". It was very tempting. I got Slackware on a CD that was included in "The Linux Bible", which I got for $19.95 at a local Barnes and Noble that had just opened. It was the cheapest book with a Linux installation CD that they had. My heart sank when I figured out it was mostly a bunch of HOWTO's, typeset (some very incorrectly). But...

    For three hours before I ever put the CD into my machine, I read, checked hardware, and took notes. It
    • This brings back memories. The Chernobyl virus is what ended my dual-booting as well. Now Ive been running Slack for, what, 5-6 years now and have had no viruses. Funny how that works...
  • I only tried it out in '01, but I fell in love with it ever since. Previously I had used Redhat, Mandrake and SuSE, but the minute I laid my hands on Slackware, I knew this was the distro I had been looking for.

    Happy birthday Slackware. Live long and prosper.

  • happy birthday to Slackware
  • Slack was one of the first that I used for a while. I first tried Redhat, but didn't feel enough control. I really liked slack, and only left it for Gentoo. Still, If I had to do a mass server install (where source only distros are useless in a non-hemogenous environment), I'd probably use slack or debian.

    Incidentally, I keep an old slack cd in my laptop bag, as it makes a nice partitioning tool. And it can be a quick startup kit if you want to go through the LFS stuff.

    Happy B-day Slack, keep up
  • Goddamnit, there's a "BSD is dying" joke in here somewhere, but I just can't find it!
  • I've only been using Slack since 8.0 but I really enjoy it as a distro. Many thanks to Patrick!!! The only problem that I have found so far has been with gpm. When exiting out of X the mouse behaves erratically. This happens in the versions included in 8.1 and 9.0 so I just downgrade to the 8.0 one.
  • And thank you for the wonderful conrtibutions you have made to the community. The world is a better place because of your efforts!

  • My first contact with Linux ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Etyenne ( 4915 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @11:46AM (#6462427)

    darkstar login :

  • I still have the disks I used for my first Linux install. Can't recall what the labels mean and doubt the disks are still readable, but they are labeled SLS A1.3, A2 - A4, SLS B1 - B7, SLS C1 - C3, SLS D1 - D2, SLS S1, SLS T1 - T3. A total of 20 1.44 floppies. Ran these on a 25mhz 386sx w/ 9 MB RAM and a 100 MB disk. SLS A1.3 claims to using kernel 0.99pl11. These must have been done right about the time Slackware forked off from the SLS dist.

    Maybe I'll try and auction them off on ebay and see if th
  • Slack was my very first distro.

    I feel old.

  • Long live SLACKWARE! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DrunkenPenguin ( 553473 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @12:14PM (#6462756) Homepage
    Happy birthday SLACKWARE and a GREAT BIG _THANK YOU_ to you Patrick for your awesome work!

    With tears in my eyes I remember all the great moments Slackware has brought to my life. Patrick and others who work on Slackware, you should be proud! When a job is done well it is done the way you guys do it.

    LONG LIVE SLACKWARE!
    ----

  • Slackware was the first distro I used, and guess what - I just installed 9.0 and I love it.

    I met Patrick once at a LinuxWorld Convention, and he was such a nice dude. Happy Birthday Slack!!!

  • The Nintendo Entertainment System turned 20 this week.

    Anyone up for a port?

  • The "Non-GUI" Installer on Slack (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Punk Walrus ( 582794 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @12:38PM (#6463034) Journal
    That's all I kept hearing before I tried Slack, whining about the "Non-GUI" installer. "You'll never figure it out. It's primative and incomprehensible."

    Bollocks.

    This is what they mean by "non-GUI" installer. Instead of pretty windows and shiny icons shaped like big-eyed penguins, you get something that looks like this:

    __________________________________________________ _
    Here is our completely and utterly incomprehensible non-gui installation screen:

    [ ] I can't stand it, help! What? Where are my shoes? Stupid Slack!
    [ ] I think my mouse is broke... stupid Slack!
    [ ] Hmmm... I think I may have to use the keyboard... Stupid me!
    [ ] Hey, I found the space, arrow, and tab keys! Yay me!
    [X] This is pretty easy!

    [ OK ] [ Cancel ] [ Back to other Distro ]
    __________________________________________________ _

    *That's* "Non-GUI?" The way people bitched, kvetched, and whined, I thought when I put in the CD, I'd get a flashing cursor, waiting for me to do some "pull out of the air" command like LOAD"$",8 and enter in the hex value of the primary IDE boot sector address or something. Dude, that may not be mouse-enabled or have fancy anti-aliasing, but it's "GUI" to me because:

    - It is graphical (it has lines and colors!)
    - It is a user interface (it's for me!)
    - It's how I have been installing Red Hat via Serial interface/low RAM anyway - Back when I started computing, the only GUI we had was a menu system like that...

    There he goes again... "back in the day" man...

    I think Slackware is a pretty tight distro, I wouldn't call it non user-friendly. I'd say it's friendlier than Debian! [not to knock Debian, it also has great uses and noble goals]

    I'd say anyone who knows Liunx/UNIX, and has an i386 box should give this a try at least.

    __________________________________________________ ____
    www.punkwalrus.com - They'll only take away my gun when they pry my cold dead fingers off Logitech gamepad

  • Tanj, things are so much nicer now...but Slackware was a good idea back then, and it is still a good idea.

    Hail Slackware, Hail Bob! Hail Eris!

    ttyl
    Farrell

  • And the journey continues... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Zerbey ( 15536 ) * on Thursday July 17, 2003 @03:55PM (#6465232) Homepage Journal
    I've been using Slackware since around about the 2.x series (I forget the exact version). I've tried Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE and Debian. I keep coming back to Slackware.

    Why? It's the most streamlined and simple ditribution there is and always has been. After 10 years it still has not succumb to the bloat that all the other distributions have done so far. I don't have to fiddle around with the silly "tools" that other distributions (Linuxconfig, ugh! Yast, ugh!) insist I use just to get my system running, Slackware let's me do it my way.

    Long may it continue!

  • I just wanted to say (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Phibz ( 254992 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @05:18PM (#6465995)
    I just wanted to say thank you to Patrick and all the other fine slackware developers. You got me started with Linux. It has been a hobby, a passion and now a career. Thank you.

    Trey

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