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GNU is Not Unix Operating Systems Software Linux

Slackware 10-RC1 Released 346

Posted by timothy from the john-henry-of-distros dept.
Chaxid writes "According to the latest Slackware ChangeLog, release candidate one of the next iteration of Slack is upon us. I asked Patrick Volkerding via e-mail if the 2.6 series of the Linux kernel would be included in this version, and this was his response: 'To have support for using the 2.6 kernel in the installer might not be a good idea quite yet, and it would delay the release a lot. I'm planning to wait on that for the next one'. It's worth noting the Slackware 10 RC1 is fully 2.6 compliant however." As TouchOfRed writes, though, "A test kernel 2.6.6 option is offered via the 'testing' tree. Slackware does not offer ISOs for the RCs (however there are some third party users that compile the RCs or the -Current tree regularly as ISOs), so if you are already running Slackware 9.1, you can use the excellent Swaret to upgrade to the latest packages (make sure you edit your /etc/swaret.conf prior of using swaret to allow for kernel upgrades and other options)." This release includes kernel 2.4.26 , Gnome 2.6.1+, KDE 3.2.3, GCC 3.4, XOrg 6.7 and more.
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Slackware 10-RC1 Released More

Slackware 10-RC1 Released

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  • Can anyone say why they don't release... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dagny Taggert ( 785517 ) <hankrearden&gmail,com> on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:49AM (#9441835) Homepage
    ISO's of RCs? Is it to help the guys selling ISO CDs? Seems to me they would want to make it easier to get and test.

    • Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pestilence4hr ( 652767 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:52AM (#9441874)
      Probably because bandwidth isn't free...just a guess.

    • Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... (Score:5, Informative)

      by boojit ( 256278 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:02AM (#9442015) Homepage
      Because their current form of distribution is superior to ISO download. By using an rsync mirror, you can not only easily download an entire distro, but update that distro with any changes as they occur...without downloading the entire ISO again. For instance, when RC2 comes out, by using rsync you'll be able to easily download just the changes from RC1 to RC2. (I don't use swaret as i've got some custom scripts built to use some rsync mirrors I know of, but I'm sure it works on this concept and uses rsync).

      Also: this distro method allows you to pick only those packages you want to download. Don't like GNOME? don't download it. Don't want any gui at all? skip gnome, kde, and X.

      Once you've downloaded your distro, just do an NFS export on the distro dir on the host machine. Then build yourself a boot CD or boot floppy (as you prefer). Once you've booted on the target machine, you can install straight off the NFS share to the target. Works great, I do it all the time...I did my first ever Slackware install this way, even though the host machine was a Windows box.

      Honestly, ISO downloads of distros kinda sucks, once you start doing things this way.

      DaC

      • That doesn't really help those of us who burn ISOs at work in order to take them home, where we don't have an internet connection. (Yes, Linux is still useful without the Internet. :)

        • Re:Can anyone say why they don't release... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by boojit ( 256278 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:31AM (#9442371) Homepage
          Sure it does. Just download the distro at work (using straight rsync or swaret or even FTP if you want but that doesn't work very well) and then build your own ISOs from the distro. It's a piece of cake, there is even a text file there to tell you exactly how to build the ISO. You can even build your own CD with just the packages you want on it, so you can have the whole thing on 1 CD if you want.

          If all else fails, unofficial sites do release ISOs of the current releases. Some have been mentioned in this forum.

          DaC
    • To my recollection, a torrent was set up for a 9.1 ISO at its release.
    • What's so bad about a Slackware subscription for $25 a year? Consider it a donation to the Slackware Project.

  • Slack (Score:2, Insightful)

    by wobedraggled ( 549225 )
    Cousin to Gentoo I guess you would call it. Glad to see it's still chuggin along. I may just have to install it again one day.

    • Re:Slack (Score:5, Funny)

      by ananke ( 8417 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:53AM (#9441885)
      more like grandfather. slackware predates gentoo by ages :)

    • Re:Slack (Score:2, Interesting)

      by gorre ( 519164 )
      Cousin to Gentoo I guess you would call it. Glad to see it's still chuggin along. I may just have to install it again one day.

      No offence, I have used Gentoo myself for some time, but what makes you think Slackware is a cousin to Gentoo? The only thing that I can think of that they have in common is they're both Linux distributions.

      • Re:Slack (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Dan Ost ( 415913 )
        They both have a clean feel that is lacking in the commercial distros.
        Also, they both claim to be "BSD inspired" or somesuch.

        Even so, I would never have thought of calling them cousins.

      • Re:Slack (Score:3, Insightful)

        by The Conductor ( 758639 )
        Perhaps Debian is a more apt comparison, if you look past the glaring exception of how they manage packages. Though Slack is still very much the elder cousin. The strongest parallel to Gentoo seems to be that both are most popular in academia. (Just like Slack's eponymous Cult of the Subgenius)

    • Mod this one a troll Re:Slack (Score:5, Insightful)

      by murderlegendre ( 776042 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:06AM (#9442062)

      Slackware is not so much a cousin to Gentoo, as it is Gentoo's *mentor*. That said, any further comparison strains credulity.

      Such silly, half-thought, cookie-cutter comparisons of the two distros only serve to further obscure the true nature and intent of Slackware.

      Trolly, trolly, troll-troll

  • How odd (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This release includes kernel 2.4.26 , Gnome 2.6.1+, KDE 3.2.3, GCC 3.4, XOrg 6.7 and more.

    Not much interested in those. Half the reason I run Slackware is because it's not bleeding edge and bloated. Good to see they don't force 2.6 on the users.

  • Fully 2.6 compliant (Score:5, Informative)

    by mpitcavage ( 655718 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:51AM (#9441857)
    Slackware 9.1 was fully 2.6 compliant, too.

    • Re:Fully 2.6 compliant (Score:5, Informative)

      by ananke ( 8417 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:58AM (#9441961)
      this new release has a couple of things that will help with 2.6.x kernel more than 9.1 release did. first udev packages have been added, second, updated hotplug packages seem to work better with 2.6.x

      • Re:Fully 2.6 compliant (Score:4, Interesting)

        by 13Echo ( 209846 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:22AM (#9442267) Homepage Journal
        I'm currently using 2.6.6 with Slackware 9.1, but I noticed this too... While it works fine, the hotplug system seems to not work as well as it did with 2.4.22. Most specifically, ALSA seems to act a little goofy, but it's nothing that can't be fixed by adding a specific init command to load the proper modules. As for the rest of the important stuff (power management, networking, etc.) - I just built all of that into the kernel instead of making it into modules.

  • Happiness :) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Killjoy_NL ( 719667 ) <slashdot@@@remco...palli...nl> on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:51AM (#9441858)
    It fills my heart with glee that a fellow dutchy is making (among other people of course) one of the more popular linux distros.

    Congrats to him (and the team)

  • Swaret (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tribbin ( 565963 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:51AM (#9441870) Homepage
    I swaret my way to the newest versions. (swaret.org)

    It's nice to have an up-to-date installation-CD though.

  • Obligatory complaint (Score:3, Funny)

    by Shadowlion ( 18254 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:52AM (#9441872) Homepage
    And I just installed 9.1... *grumble*

  • Terminology nit-pick (Score:3, Interesting)

    by johnw ( 3725 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:53AM (#9441892)
    Surely you can't release an RC? You can issue an RC, but once it's released it's a release, not a release candidate.
    • A released release candidate that is released for testing purposes is still a release candidate for release to the big world.

    • Re:Terminology nit-pick (Score:5, Interesting)

      by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @11:09AM (#9442780) Homepage
      It seems like everyone is going "release candidate" crazy lately. It seems to me that "release candidate" used to mean "we think this may end up being the 'final' version, but we're going to do some testing, just to make sure. If we don't encounter any HUGE bugs, this will be final." Developers didn't even hit RC2 unless there was some big and unexpected bug in RC1.

      Now, people are releasing release candidates as "a full release that we don't yet guarentee is free of bugs", but they don't exactly guarentee the final release is bug-free either, so I'm never sure what the difference is. Plus, they plan on going through 3 release candidates before the final release, which means that "Release Candidate 1" is never really a candidate for release as "final", and yet it is released. It seems like either the terminology or numbering schemes could use some revision to reflect what the developers actually mean.

  • PAM? 2.6? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hkb ( 777908 )
    Until Slackware has a solid PAM implementation, it will be delegated to my smaller, simpler tasks. And yes, I've read Patrick's rants about his dislike of PAM.

    And 2.6 is quite stable, not to mention a hell of a lot faster than 2.4... so why are we still stuck in the stone age? If you want to be really elitist about it, stick with 2.2...

    • Re:PAM? 2.6? (Score:5, Informative)

      by hattmoward ( 695554 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:58AM (#9441965)
      If you want PAM, you can roll your own and make packages of it, or you can use the PAM packages from Dropline GNOME [dropline.net]. I still don't recommend it! =)

    • Re:PAM? 2.6? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jane_Dozey ( 759010 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:00AM (#9441992)
      "And 2.6 is quite stable, not to mention a hell of a lot faster than 2.4... so why are we still stuck in the stone age? If you want to be really elitist about it, stick with 2.2..."

      This is one of the benefits of slackware. It's picky about new versions. Mature software is bound to be more stable. Like the article states, the new RC is 2.6 compliant but it's a Good Thing that it's not forced on users. It's not about elitism at all.

      "Until Slackware has a solid PAM implementation, it will be delegated to my smaller, simpler tasks. And yes, I've read Patrick's rants about his dislike of PAM."

      Why put in the work when there are some major problems with PAM? If you want it, you can either look for packages other people have made, or you can impliment it yourself. Yes, it's annoying not to have that option in the official distro, but then again, it's a whole lot of effort just for the sake of making a handful of people happy.

    • Re:PAM? 2.6? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by BrokenHalo ( 565198 )
      If you want PAM, use it. Pat doesn't stop you, and it's a one-liner to get it running. And Slack has worked fine with 2.6 since, err, since 2.6 was released.

      And if you don't want to roll your own colonel, then don't. Pat has built one for you. Otherwise, just do what the rest of the Slackware crowd has been doing for the last 10 years and roll your own. After all, ease of customisation is what Slackware is all about.

      If you must have an out-of-the-box solution, you're probably better off with that *other* OS

    • I haven't read his rants. What are the problems with PAM? I use Debian and it seemed to me for a server here on my LAN at home that PAM was the most obvious choice. I don't even know what the consequences would be to chose something else.
      • it's another layer of failure. I don't run it on my slack box, and Patrick has more of less eschewed it's use because of the added unnecessary complexity, I believe. If you use it and you like it, then go for it. If you want to use biometric security, use it. If md5 passwords are good enough, then don't worry about it.

  • Wow, 10 already? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nick of NSTime ( 597712 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:54AM (#9441906)
    Slackware was the first distro I ever used, way back in 1995. I had read about Linux in a small InfoWorld article, back when InfoWorld was tabloid size instead of regular magazine size. The article said you could run an entire operating system on a single floppy disk. Of course, I had to try this on my 386SX with 4M RAM. I downloaded Slack over a 14.4 modem and then copying it all to a set of floppy disks. I wish I could remember the name of that tool. Anyway, I ended up installing Slackware using UMSDOS so I could keep my DOS/Windows data.

    I remember I had to completely reinstall Slackware any time I wanted to add a new piece of software because I didn't know how it all worked. The very first question I asked on a Linux newsgroup was, "What's darkstar?" It, of course, was the default hostname for a new Slackware install. Heh. Starting X would dump you into fvwm with only an xterm and a pager; not much has changed there. :)

    Ultimately I used that Slackware machine to learn about Unix and make the move from client-focused to enterprise-focused. Those were fun times.

    • Re:Wow, 10 already? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ism ( 180693 )
      The tool to write the images to floppy, rawrite?

      I used that the other day for an old machine that couldn't boot from CD. First time I used that was about the same time you did. I got Slack 2.2 or 2.3 (can't remember) off a Linux Unleashed book. I give more credit to that book since it pointed me to the right distro for learning. Turns out it's a great server distro too!
    • Yeah, we're at 10 because Patrick likes to count 2, 3 4, 7 , 8, 9, 10 =)

    • Re:Wow, 10 already? (Score:3, Informative)

      by baywulf ( 214371 )
      The reason Slackware is release 10 is because they jumped numbers a few years back because they thought they were falling back in the "numbers game."

    • Re:Wow, 10 already? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Unique2 ( 325687 )
      Well, not really, Slackware did a version jump from 4 to 7 because people did not realise the difference between the Slackware version and the component packages version. See: Why the jump from 4 to 7? [slackware.com] from the Slackware FAQ.
    • Slackware was my first introduction to Linux, too. Back then the only real choice was either Slackware or FreeBSD, and other people on campus recommended at least 8 megs of RAM for FreeBSD. Since I only had 4, Slack it was...

      I still use it on my server simply because I got used to upgrading and installing packages manually, and Slackware puts minimal interference between me and the package's own standard configuration methods.

  • Memories... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:54AM (#9441915)
    I can still remember my grandpa telling me stories about this distro.
    • I can still remember my grandpa telling me stories about this distro.

      Ahh yes... but did he conveniently leave out the 12 BSD users that said "Linux is Dying(tm)"? :-D

      (Disclaimer: I use debian, slackware and fbsd and love them all)

  • I started with Slackware... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Noryungi ( 70322 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:56AM (#9441933) Homepage Journal
    I think it was way back in 1994-95 that I downloaded my first version of Slackware. It was love at first install, or something like that.

    And I am still using it today. Why?

    • The KISS (Keept It Simple, Stupid) principle of Slackware makes it a breeze to use.
    • Slackware tries to be as UNIX-ish as possible.
    • Slackware -- with its BSD-style init -- is easy to configure.
    • Slackware is a complete system, and yet one that is still reasonbaly lean, since it includes only the most important software.
    • Slackware does not include any of the cutesy-yet-useless GUI thingie that are supposed to 'help' you configure your system while treating you like a jerk.


    All in all, thanks Patrick ! Another great version of a great distribution !
    • Agree. I've been using Slack just about as long as you. Everytime I use another distribution I eventually bang my head against their packaging and configuration schemes. Life's too short to waste it learning about proprietary voodoo.
      • Agree. I've been using Slack just about as long as you. Everytime I use another distribution I eventually bang my head against their packaging and configuration schemes. Life's too short to waste it learning about proprietary voodoo.

        Well said. And interesting to note, it seems that the Linux camp is getting more and more divided into the "everything by console and text editor" and the "eyecandy clicky clicky" types. There used to be somewhat of an integration, but now it's looking like some huge rift b

    • Re:I started with Slackware... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@nOSpam.keirstead.org> on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:37AM (#9442442)

      Slackware -- with its BSD-style init -- is easy to configure.

      I would take issue with this. IMO SysV init is much simpler to use and administer one you understand what it is doing. Since each daemon has its own startup and shutdown script, and since the order they are being executed in can be determined by a glance. It is also very easy to re-order daemon startups, and to start / stop /restart individual processes while the system is running through /etc/init.d. BSD style init does not have this benefit, and since everying is all mismached together it is also often quite cumbersome to manage dependancies.

      From my experience the people who prefer BSD init because it is "simpler" are just people who do not want to take the 5 mins to understand SysV and set it up properly. Investing a few mins setting up your SysV will save you hours of headaches you'd have later on with BSD style.

      • MO SysV init is much simpler to use and administer one you understand what it is doing. Since each daemon has its own startup and shutdown script, and since the order they are being executed in can be determined by a glance. It is also very easy to re-order daemon startups, and to start / stop /restart individual processes while the system is running through /etc/init.d. BSD style init does not have this benefit, and since everying is all mismached together it is also often quite cumbersome to manage depen

        • Re:I started with Slackware... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by jcostom ( 14735 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @12:19PM (#9443577) Homepage
          Don't want mysql to startup on boot? In SysV init you mave to rename six symbolic links to begin with the leter "K", and possibly reorder them. In BSD init, you just remove the executable permission from rc.mysql.

          Why on earth would you do that? Use the tools your distro provides: RedHat/Fedora/Mandrake: chkconfig mysqld off Gentoo: rc-update del mysql default Debian: update-rc.d -f mysql remove Those things are much simpler IMHO than tracking down some filesystem permissions issue later. Suppose they change the behavior to not directly exec rc.whatever, but rather do something like /bin/sh /etc/rc.d/rc.whatever, now you're sunk. Your rc.whatever will be run even if +x isn't set..

    • Exactly (Score:3, Informative)

      by simetra ( 155655 )
      I've tried a number of other distributions and always come back to Slackware, mostly because other distributions feel the need to make goofy proprietary crap - er, I mean apps that might work, if you happen to know the exact name of the executable and know where it resides... and so long as you don't mind any customizations to be over-written willy-nilly. This is especially true of RedHat, which I'll never touch again. Suse was a bit better. Debian crapped out on the install for no good reason on a norma
  • I've been trying to find someone who has the Slackware 9.1 ISO files for a friend with no luck. All the mirror sites in the U.S. seem to have removed them, and I don't REALLY want to abuse the bandwidth of sites outside North America if I don't have to. It would be nice if distributions that don't want to do ISOs for downloads would adopt Jigsaw Download (jigdo) [atterer.net], like Debian uses...
    • I don't think the mirrors sites have ever had them. Visit #slackware on irc.oftc.net or freenode.org, and we'll provide you with smaller unofficial mirrors, where you can get official 9.1 isos or even -current/10rc1 unoffficial ones.
      • Sorry, but I don't do IRC. The sites I work from would not tolerate the security concerns of allowing IRC to be run. This is the same reason I don't do bittorrent, the officially-listed way of getting the install ISO; if I want more than dial-up access speeds, it's from sites where privacy is either a corporate or federal requirement, and neither fit those requirements.

        If that seems a bit paranoid, it is. We don't trust Flash, because we can't seem to find any independent security analysis of the scripting

      • For users of BitTorrent, there are torrent files for Slackware 9.1 ISOs.

        Official Torrent Page [slackware.com]

      • Yes, I tried linuxiso.org, but found that the mirror site they pointed to limits anonymous connections to 15... and I've never found a time when there were 14 or fewer connected. And, of course, the other mirrors pointed to by linuxiso.org didn't have them.

        My friend was going to order the 9.1 4-disk set instead.

    • Re:If not ISOs, .jigdo would be nice (Score:4, Informative)

      by wetshoe ( 683261 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:10AM (#9442102)
      IIRC, no official FTP sites ever had the ISOs. Patrick did this for a reason, which he explained in great depth when 9.1 came out. I can't remember why, but I'm sure you can find it on the mailing list archives. He chose to release the ISOs using bitTorrent to save all the mirrors' bandwidth. Download yourself a bitTorrent client and point your browser to Slackware's official bitTorrent page. [slackware.com] You can get the ISOs that way, like everyone else.
      • IIRC, no official FTP sites ever had the ISOs.

        Funny, I downloaded them yesterday (at least, the d1 and d2 ISOs) from a site linked on Slackware's "Get Slack" page (don't recall which one, I had to try a dozen of them before finding one with the ISOs). No problems, reasonably fast, right checksums...


        Unfortunately, I downloaded the 9.1 install ISOs yesterday. Great, just wonderful - I wasted 1.3GB, two CDs, and two hours, and the very next day, the new version comes out.

        Just shoot me, it would hurt l
        • No, the new version is not out. He's just moved the -current branch along to the point of calling it RC1. New CD's will be available via Torrent when 10.0 is officially released. And, you'll also be able to buy a nice Slackware box, too.

          In the meantime, grab swaret or slakpkg and update yourself all the way to today's version of -current. Then, you will be at RC1. (If you use slackpkg, pull down the current 1.2.2 version from an updated mirror. It's in the /extra directory of their slackware-current tr
      • While I applaud the concept of bittorrent, please tell me how I'm supposed to explain opening a hole in our firewalls to allow uploading unknown data to the security auditors checking our compliance with federal privacy regulations... And not uploading is not in the "spirit" of bittorrent. Quoting the official FAQ about blocking uploading:

        You could hack the source to not upload, but then your download rate would suck. BitTorrent downloaders engage in tit-for-tat with their peers, so leeches have very littl

  • Slackware 10RC1 ISOs (Score:5, Informative)

    by Chaxid ( 772696 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:02AM (#9442017) Homepage
    ftp://inferno.bioinformatics.vt.edu/linux-distros/ slackware/slackware-current-iso/

  • Need some help... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hot_Karls_bad_cavern ( 759797 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:04AM (#9442027) Journal
    Okay, i am a linux user of several years. Mostly Red Hat, but i've had Suse, Mandrake and Gentoo at various times, but never Slack or Debian.

    i'm told it doesn't get more stable than Debian Stable, but i normally hear people say Slack is hard to install or hard to work with. Why is that? And can someone please clear that up for me? i'm not trolling, i just don't know enough about Slack to see why people would want to run it. Is it small and fast and just less "junk" to worry about for security reasons? Help me out!

    heh, i've also heard Slack mentioned amidst some rather colorful expletives (i know the feeling though :(

    • Re:Need some help... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Xpilot ( 117961 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:11AM (#9442123) Homepage
      i'm told it doesn't get more stable than Debian Stable, but i normally hear people say Slack is hard to install or hard to work with.

      They are probably getting nostalgic from "back in the day" when Slack came on 2,545,645 floppies and you had to use a soldering iron, chewing gum, duct tape and copper wire to get the hardware to work with it.

      That's no longer the case, but a lot of people started out with the "hard" Slackware, moved on to the "easy" distro's like Redhat, and still assume Slackware is still the same as it was in days of yore. The truth is, even though the appearance of the installer hasn't changed much (still ncurses), it is extremely easy to use, straightforward, and as flexible as can be.

      • Excellent, that was the type of answer i was after. i think i'll give Slack a shot this weekend, thank you.

        Who says you can't learn a thing or two on Slashdot eh?
        • for what it's worth, todays slackware is easier to install than debian was 3 years ago, the last time i tried debian.

          i for one don't know how debian's install has progressed. it was just different the first time through, and took some getting use to. Slack is pretty straight forward, more or less intuitive (to me).

    • I wonder how many of those people are like me and used Slackware a decade ago but not today. In those days everying came as a .tgz file and Red Hat was on the up with it's ubiqitous RPMs. I seem to remember having to download a lot of source packages and compiling them myself on my DX4-100.
    • Slack is great for those users who like to be able to tweak their systems down to the bone. Not to say you cant do this in other distros, it is just easier in Slackware. Its a very bare bones, highly configurable distro. That appeals to many folks (myself included).

    • Re:Need some help... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:44AM (#9442530)
      Slackware does not do automatic package dependency resolution. Many people seem to consider that a sine qua non of using Linux. If you do, too, Slackware isn't for you. In the other hand, you'll never need to deal with botched automatic dependency resolution or trying to understand how installing from source will impact your dependency gizmo.

      Slackware does not do automatic hardware detection and configuration. You need to know how to partition your disk(s) with fdisk or cfdisk before you even run the setup program. You need to know if you want to use CUPS or lprng or something else with your printer and how to set it up. You need to know the specs about your video card and monitor, and you need to configure X yourself.

      I know all those things and can run thorugh Slackware's curses-based setup program as fast as I can use the keyboard.

      Slackware has a little configuration tool called "pkgtool" that allows you to do some basic configuration (set up your mouse, decide what services will run, etc.). Beyond that, well...the beauty of Unix is that everything is configured with a text file.

      I like Slackware because it doesn't get in my way with a big layer of poorly documented packaging and configured gizmos. Everything is visible. When I change something, I know exactly what has been changed. When I need to install software, I don't need to wait until someone releases it in the package format used by my distribution. I can download the source and install it myself. Case in point: When KDE 3.2.3 was released a few days ago, I might have downloaded the source and installed it myself as soon as KDE madeit available. As it was, the files were available on the Slack site within 48 hours.

      Finally, Slackware does minimal tweaking of the packages it offers. What you install is pretyt much exactly as it was released by the developers. That's a great boon when something breaks. You don't need to worry about what SLackware has done to the code and not told you about.

    • i'm told it doesn't get more stable than Debian Stable, but i normally hear people say Slack is hard to install or hard to work with. Why is that? And can someone please clear that up for me? i'm not trolling, i just don't know enough about Slack to see why people would want to run it. Is it small and fast and just less "junk" to worry about for security reasons? Help me out!

      It's all a matter of expectations: if you want an installer that looks and feels like that GUI shell [microsoft.com] they make for MS-DOS in Redm

  • There was some serious bugs in 9.1's toolchain (either binutils or the compiler), which caused a lot miscompilation of some kernel code I was testing. Quite horrible. I do hope this has been addressed.

  • This is not news! (Score:5, Funny)

    by slashdot_commentator ( 444053 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:13AM (#9442145) Journal

    This is not the release of Slackware 10! This is merely the release of the "release candidate version 1"!

    Worst of all, I was looking forward to rsync the update today, and now you've shot that idea to hell, Timothy!
    • nope, imagine the idea: even the topic of the slashdot article clearly states "RC". sorry to spoil your little adventure with rsync, but overall it's good to get more testers before releasing final 10.0.

  • I noticed this the other day while Swaret was running-I kept getting "Welcome To Slackware 10!" emails after it finished. Had me confused for a while there-guess that's what I get for updating against current. :)

    Hats off to both the Slackware and the Swaret crews-I use my old Slackware 9.0 CD all the time for installs. For whatever reason, my Linux installation success rate (which I define as "going from fdisk through to working X in one attempt") is highest when I use it, across all the computers I've e

  • update with swaret in two steps (Score:5, Informative)

    by Chuck Bucket ( 142633 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:43AM (#9442509) Homepage Journal
    (1) edit /etc/swaret.conf so that VERSION=current
    (2) issue the command: swaret --update; swaret --upgrade -a

    and you'll basically have installed Slackware 10 RC1. Damn, I love Slack, and swaret just makes it easier to keep 'current'.

    CB

  • May it never change, except to NetBSD style init (Score:3)

    by pschmied ( 5648 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @11:15AM (#9442838) Homepage
    I like slackware because it has captured the flavor of BSD very well. It has a cohesiveness that is the result of Pat's immense knowledge and steady hand.

    However, given that Slackware seems to be one of the prefered distros for BSD-o-philes, why not move its old-school BSD init style to be more in line with the other BSDs? The NetBSD rc scripts are not a huge leap for people familiar with Slackware's. That's because the new style is a logical evolution from the old. FreeBSD made the jump too. The new rc script style feels more "BSD" than the old feels to me now...

    -Peter

  • Unofficial mirror list (Score:3, Informative)

    by ThatComputerGuy ( 123712 ) <amrit@transamri t . net> on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @11:51AM (#9443274) Homepage
    Our unofficial Slackware mirrors are here [dyndns.org]. Some of us have been up to date with RC1 as of last night.. I'm sure the rest will be there soon, if not already.

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