Slackware 13.1 Released 155
Several readers made sure we are aware that Slackware 13.1 release is out. Here's the list of mirrors. "Slackware 13.1 brings many updates and enhancements, among which you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.6.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy-to-use desktop environment, and KDE 4.4.3, a recent stable release of the new 4.4.x series of the award-winning KDE desktop environment."
wow version 13.1 thats quite a lot of slackin (Score:3, Interesting)
cheers to the developers. they really work their slacks off.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, it's for us old farts who have long since stopped worrying about whether we're considered 'cool' but know how to spell 'Kernel' in addition to being able to build one.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, and we're so old-fart'ish that at the time when we installed it on our system Slackware was the hottest new thing around.
Over the years every component in our systems might have been replaces 2-3 times each, yet the soul of the machine is still slack.
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At least I don't have to find 40 floppies to do the install...
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Oh those great old days LOL
When bad floppies ruled and a root/boot floppy was needed to get your system off the ground.
Kernels took forever to compile and modelines in X were a bitch and one feared the burning smell from their monitor.
4MB VRAM video cards ruled the day, 3d was a novelty that virge made painful
oh and dotmatrix printers, fanfold paper and cassette tapes too
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I nuked a monitor once by transposing the horizontal and vertical modelines... man, it was crisp for about half a second, then *pop*! A learning experience, that one was...
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I tried using my hard drive as an soundcard once while encoding MP3s. That was a pain in the ass to recover. It did teach me to check the device in a commandline a couple times before hitting enter though.
40 floppies... (Score:3, Interesting)
I haven't been around Slackware in a while. I thought Slackware's main selling point back in the day was that it was an 18 floppy install. What's up with this 6 cd / 1 dvd thing? I get modern distros come with apps and stuff, but it just seems a sad day when a slackware iso is larger than a Windows iso (yes, I know the Windows iso doesn't come with apps, that's besides the point). Just saying. My first Linux box was a 486 with 12 meg of ram, 500 meg harddrive, I ran X, an FTP server and a webserver off of
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ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-3.3/ [slackware.com] :-) Floppies!!!!
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Thanks. Yeah, if installing on an older system, really do not want KDE on it.
As for the old one, the old 486 I was using but the dust a few years back (lightning storm). Got an old k5 that I am thinking about getting up and running, though.
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Thanks, that answered my question. :-)
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So, tell me, Oh Wise One, how do do you properly spell 'Kernel'?
-dZ.
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*Whoosh!*
-dZ.
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So, tell me, Oh Wise One, how do do you properly spell 'Kernel'?
Easy; "Colonel"
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No, I think you're confusing it with Gentoo.
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But Slackware is still my preference for any kind of server. It's so simple, I can set it up from bare d
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isnt that Gentoo?
Slackware is slightly more hardcore AFAIK, if you just want to compile to max out ur MEGAHURTZ, gentoo is the way to go
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If by "max out our megahertz" you mean sit there with your CPU at 100% capacity, waiting for a source-based install to compile then yes, I would suggest using Gentoo Linux for that.
For me, on the other hand, I trust the uniformity of the x86_64 architecture and Patrick Volkerding's willingness to listen to those who find bugs in the Slackware-Current tree.
Comfort food (Score:1)
After a half dozen distros (Score:5, Interesting)
As the adage goes, Give a man Debian, and he'll learn Debian. Give a man SUSE, and he'll learn SUSE. But give a man Slackware, and he'll learn Linux. I certainly picked up more *NIX tricks from Slack than the other distros combined.
Re:After a half dozen distros (Score:5, Funny)
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I LOLed because my sig is almost like that... maybe there was someone else or you mistook my sig for that (btw, I got my sig from another slashddoter)
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Re:After a half dozen distros (Score:5, Insightful)
Patrick ("The Man") is also a stand-up guy who has been doing basically everything for the distro from the very beginning. He's a living legend in Linux history, and he had the guts to make the right call to drop GNOME when it became too convoluted to maintain. He also gave Slackware the Subgenius trappings, and is otherwise a true long-haired geek who really GETS the Unix philosophy and does things the Right Way.
Re:After a half dozen distros (Score:4, Informative)
For one thing try and get Ubuntu to StartX with no screen attached. With older distros some level of xconfig would allow me to run X on a virtual framebuffer, but not Ubuntu. If Ubuntu isn't able to detect it via hotplug it just doesn't exist. Suppose you manually massage your fstab file then the gui filesystem utility in ubuntu breaks. In my case it's able unmount but not remount any file systems.
Re:After a half dozen distros (Score:4, Informative)
Pat's a great guy, but his dropping GNOME pissed off a lot of people too, though I understand his reasoning. KDE was at the time a lot easier to build, while GNOME was riddled with circular dependencies that made maintaining it a bitch of a job.
Fortunately for GNOME fans, the job was ably taken up by maintainers of the Dropline GNOME [droplinegnome.org] distribution. I have the impression they're getting a bit tired of it now, but others are around to fill the gap.
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> Fortunately for GNOME fans, the job was ably taken up by maintainers of the Dropline GNOME distribution.
Well, for the record Dropline had already existed at that time. In fact, BECAUSE it existed Pat saw the need for GNOME on Slackware already taken care of and chose to remove it from the main distro ('if you want it, then install Dropline!).
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Re:After a half dozen distros (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so sure I'd agree that. Most people I know who learn Gentoo are simply following a cookbook. If you really want to feel that you're in control, giving Linux From Scratch a try is a good idea, but most of us wouldn't want the burden of trying to maintain a desktop system with that.
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He will learn Linux (and other Unixes), but he will use other Linux distro later. In my case I started with Slackware and ended up with Debian.
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Slackware was my second distro, after Red Hat. I tend to flit around and change distros almost at will, but I am running Slackware 13.0 on my main desktop at the moment. I also ordered the 13.1 CD set, and will install that when it arrives.
I have to agree with the parent, I have certainly learned a lot about Linux from Slackware.
Re:After a half dozen distros (Score:4, Interesting)
Give a man Slackware, and he'll go right back to Microsoft. Good lord those were terrible experiences the two or three times I tried Slackware.
Speak for yourself. In 1998, I was dual-booting Windows 95 and Linux. When my Windows caught the Chernobyl virus, I lost my partition tables, and the rest of my data with it. I went 100% Linux, Slackware at the time, and never looked back. I did explore other Linux distros over a 4-year period (2002-2006), but eventually I came back to Slackware. You never forget your first love.
Amazingly enough, in 2001, I had set up my parents with a Mandrake system. It was my mother's idea, based on my high praise for Linux's transparency and comparative stability. I tried to talk her out of it, but when she pointed out that it wouldn't crash as often as Windows (making lighter support work for me), I was convinced. Today, she uses Fedora 12 and loves it.
Even back in 1998, I could see that there were great possibilities and ideas that could make a wonderful OS, and Linux was a lot closer to them than Windows was. Now, twelve years later, I still haven't seen any reason to allow a Microsoft OS under my roof.
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Amazingly enough, in 2001, I had set up my parents with a Mandrake system.
Ah, Mandrake. My first real attempt to use a distro (I mucked around with RH5 for a few hours). 8.1. Good distro.
I still have a soft spot for Mandriva -- in fact, my EeePC runs Mandriva One 2010.
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By 1998 I had learned enough Unix from running Slackware to switch to NetBSD. Things were getting shrill by that point in Linux-land. There came a day when I wanted to install a freenix on my laptop over NFS. I used a Slackware based NFS server, but the PC-Card services for Linux were an ugly side-car diskette that you had to insert. NetBSD had the PCMCIA NIC I was using simply built into the base installer kernel.
And... almost everything I need to do to use and configure my NetBSD systems, I can get fr
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No, you are wrong, you still dont understand slackware...
if YOU want to *learn*, you MUST get the hands dirty and do the needed things... research, read scripts, read man pages and howtos, even compile.... slackware is perfect for that!
if you dont want to to learn about the details, then slackware is not for you, no matter how "c00l" it might make you look!
if you want a distro to use and dont care how things work, use ubuntu, mint, mandriva and use the mouse, bullets and drop-down boxes
if i want to learn ho
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I had my wife using Slackware 8.0 through 10. She is not a techie of any kind, but there is nothing unfriendly about Slackware once it is fully set up as a desktop machine. She eventually went over to using Macs because she decided she wanted to use EndNote [endnote.com] to handle bibliographic referencing in her PhD thesis, since at the time there was nothing available that was
I love me some Slack (Score:5, Interesting)
I started using Slackware when I began college, and I still use it today. I'm sort of a "medium" user. I can work the scripts and the config files, and I even compiled some custom kernels in the past. But I'm not a CS guy - I majored in music. Even I, with my liberal arts degree, find Slackware delightful to use and I appreciate it's lack of fluff and its overall feel of being MY computer.
I salute you Pat. May you keep on Slacking.
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Me too!
(Well, I majored in Chinese. But during my first month in China, before I knew any of the language, my preferred method of coping with culture shock and homesickness was recompiling some 2.4.2x kernel to try to get my laptop to work with the weird networking setup they had at the school I was living in. Trial-and-error style too since their computer guy didn't speak a lick of English, he only knew how to click the buttons on Windows 95 in Chinese. Fun times!)
(Oh yeah I played a bunch of Unreal too.)
Congratulations to the Slackware team (Score:3, Informative)
I've been running current, which is now equivalent to 13.1 and it's working well.
A reminder to all: please seed the SW torrents and come to Linux Questions [linuxquestions.org] to discuss problems.
Damn, now I'm two versions behind! (Score:2)
I'm still using Slack 12.2 on my work laptop. The trouble is that VMware Workstation has to work, and new kernel versions inevitably cause problems for VMware until they catch up. Pain in the ass, really.
At home, I migrated over to BSD years ago, which was easy to do after learning all of Linux's internals running Slackware.
Keep up the great work Patrick!
Re:Damn, now I'm two versions behind! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Another modest announcement from Slackware (Score:4, Insightful)
Another modest announcement for a release that doesn't promise to change the world or make you hip.
Slackware: It gets the damn work done. Without the fancy.
Gah! (Score:3, Funny)
Just freakin installed 13.0 on my computer yesterday!
Thanks Patrick! ;)
Re:Gah! (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, no problem. Have a lot of fun!
I salute you Pat (Score:2, Informative)
recent convert (Score:2, Interesting)
award-winning KDE desktop environment... (Score:2, Insightful)
Can someone enlighten me as to what awards KDE has won since it started with version 4?
As far as I can tell KDE 4 is still an overcomplicated mess and a long, long way behind the simple elegance of KDE 3.
Re:award-winning KDE desktop environment... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously though "simple elegance" is not a description i would use for kde 3.5 kede 4 or gnome. I say this typing on kde 3.5 and the other machine in the room uses kde 4 (its fine, don't know what the fuss is about). When i want simple elegance outside a command line, I stick with icewm.
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Nominated for Darwin award. "How to f*** up things" category.
Awesome (Score:2)
Thanx to Pat and all other folks for the great work!
Already?? (Score:2)
Man, and I was just getting used to 13.0 13.0-64... I should really read the ChnageLog more often!!
Great job Pat & crew, and here is to another great release of the best Linux distro ever!
Still running Slackware 11 (Score:2)
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Slackware 13 ran just as well as any other Slackware has, I doubt 13.1 will be any different.
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Diskettes (Score:3, Funny)
Looks like I'm going to need to purchase a 50 pack of diskettes today
Re:No GNOME then? (Score:5, Informative)
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You're acting like it's either KDE or GNOME. Neither is also an option, you know.
Even for regular users, it's easy to pull together a simple workable desktop using for one example, a ~/.fvwm/.fvwm2rc file that has everything they need. New programs are easily added to the start menu as needed with a simple text editor. But that isn't even necessary for regular users.
But I know. I know. It doesn't have the complexity of a 'modern desktop' from Microsoft or Apple. It's not at all 'cool.'
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And if it doesn't take four hours to start.
Seriously, installed Ubuntu 10.04 and I can't believe how fucking long it takes from login to a ready desktop in my quad-core AMD - it's slower than Win7!
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However most likely I've been trolled, Gnome is the default desktop in Fedora, including Fedora 13, you have to go out of your way to get a roll with KDE as default or use yum and install it later.
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Obvious troll is obvious.
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Ok, what's with excluding GNOME?
IIRC it is too hard to build. I also have the impression that the user base for GNOME and Slackware don't have much overlap.
Re:No GNOME then? (Score:4, Informative)
The "lightweight" desktops (of which XFCE is probably the heaviest) don't involve as much code, or configuration management, so they are shipped in their stock forms. Bugs found in Slackware's XFCE/Blackbox/Fluxbox/etc. should be reported to the programmers.
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Re:No GNOME then? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, Slackware hasn't carried GNOME since 2005. Mr. Volkerding dropped it because it was "too much work". There are other third party GNOME packagers for Slackware. However, GNOME isn't just a desktop - it needs support from underneath X for some things, so any set of GNOME packages makes changes to Slackware that are more or less compatible with a basic Slackware install. I used Dropline for a while, but came to the decision that I wanted my desktop to be officially supported on my distro, not an afterthought. And, in the end, the "one-man-distro" concept that Slackware is just wasn't enough any more.
This really made me sad. Slackware is the garage-built Apple II of the Linux world (I figure SLS was the Apple I). Unfortunately, Linux has moved on from what one person can really package together. Slackware losing GNOME was just a symptom of this larger issue. I know for a fact that many people have offered to help Mr. Volkerding with various aspects of Slackware. I know at least one of the major GNOME packagers for Slackware has offered to do all the GNOME work for Slackware. I myself have made the offer too. Mr. Volkerding just doesn't seem interested in a community for Slackware. As I said, a one-man garage OS just isn't enough, unfortunately.
I ended up standardizing on Debian for all my machines. I've ugraded two production machines across three versions of Debian now - it just works, always. Debian is conservative, which is perfect for production machines. And it has real package management.
Every time I see a new Slackware version it makes me sad. Like seeing an old man wheezing on for another birthday. I'd rather see it go now, than continue to bleed marketshare into complete irrelevancy.
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Yup - 100% true... it's well-known that Slackware has not had any sort of GUI-support since 2005 when they dropped Gnome.
It's amazing that they even keep X.org packages in mainline.
Oh wait - someone just told me KDE and XFCE are fully-supported! How in the world did you and I both miss that?
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Hey, I hear you. My first Linux installation was with Slackware - stack of 3.5" floppies and a green CD with Bob.
I moved on to Debian ages ago, but I share your warm feeling for Slackware.
Thanks for the replies to other guys here. As for that AC rambling on about Patrick kicking the bucket, the fuck, why are you even here?! Go hang out in MSDN or Apple bullfuckingshit or whatever it's called.
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So you're deploying to servers and yet you're crying a river about the lack of Gnome? What am I missing here?
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you're not missing anything my good sir!
the grandparent is missing a boot in his ass.
(lights pipe)
what a wonderful day.
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You know, it's almost 2AM here right now. But you've inspired me.
My wife is fast asleep, so I can do this. I'm lighting up a pipe of burley tobacco, in the house. Something strictly forbidden, but nobody will ever know.
Praise Bob.
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What am I missing here?
This: "I ended up standardizing on Debian for all my machines.", because Linux distros are almost the same except for all the tiny little ways they aren't. Particularly if your own desktop doubles as the development/experimental box, it makes perfect sense to run your server distro on your desktop. Of course you can complicate it by running Slackware on your desktop and either work remotely on a Debian machine or deal with any distro variations later in the process, but it's not the KISS solution.
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Hm, I always thought that Slackware's conservatism is what made it one of the most stable and unix like that kept it ahead of the pack for me. The server market also doesn't need a lot of extra packages installed either. Gnome libraries would be nice though. I wouldn't mind if he dropped the KDE window manager also. I want stability, not pretty. Xfce is fine. Back to his "roots" on the server/developer side. Easier for one guy to handle. It might sound a bit "Apple" like, but having that kind of control is
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Some assembly required :-)
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In defense of Slackware, keeping both Gnome and KDE is redundant. The Ubuntu team (to name just one), apparently, agrees with me. Both DEs serve the same basic purpose: to GUIfy the system configuration and file management. Why would anyone need both? Do you like Gnome? Get a distro with Gnome. Like KDE? Get a distro with KDE. Then there are distros with both of them working, more or less: get one of those if you need to switch every day. But you wouldn't get Slackware anyway, if having a nice DE was that c
Re:No GNOME then? (Score:4, Funny)
to GUIfy the system configuration and file management.
Get real. That's what curses is for.
or TCL/TK if you insist on being fancy.
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Curses? I don't think GUI means what you think it means.
Whoosh!
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This really made me sad. Slackware is the garage-built Apple II of the Linux world (I figure SLS was the Apple I). Unfortunately, Linux has moved on from what one person can really package together.
Has it? Somehow PV manages just fine with KDE and XFCE. Apparently, GNOME is the only thing that has moved on from what one person can really package together. I'd say that says a lot more about GNOME than it does about Linux, or Slackware.
(Never mind that, contrary to popular belief, PV has a team of helpers, residing mostly at slackbuilds.org.)
Every time I see a new Slackware version it makes me sad. Like seeing an old man wheezing on for another birthday. I'd rather see it go now, than continue to bleed marketshare into complete irrelevancy.
Boo hoo. You're just whining because PV is still snubbing GNOME for being a convoluted piece of crap.
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I ended up standardizing on one size fits all tees for all the family. The dog looks stupid but they're a better fit on him than the goldfish.
I use Arch which has a rolling release cycle, the entire concept of upgrading through OS versions is a holdover from the days of physical media.
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As for adding outside stuff to Slackware, that has gotten a lot easier over the past couple years, thanks to SlackBuilds.org [slackbuilds.org] and its nice TUI add-on, sbopkg [sbopkg.org].
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I'd rather see it go now, than continue to bleed marketshare into complete irrelevancy.
Slackware isn't about "market share." Neither Pat nor users of his distro care about their share of the market.
Slackware is about doing things right. And as the last remaining distro that places correctness ahead of feature bloat, Slack must continue to exist.
The fact that it doesn't run GNOME is irrelevant. I don't need my Exim box to run GNOME. I don't need my SpamAssassin box to run GNOME. I don't need my WebDAV/CalDAV server to run GNOME. I don't need GNOME to run screen and vim.
It's all well and
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> Unfortunately, Slackware hasn't carried GNOME since 2005.
Not packaging GNOME [cat-v.org] is a feature, not a bug.
Why anyone would want to use such a ridiculously bloated mess is beyond me.
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YOU BITE YOUR FORKED TONGUE.
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Better than Gentoo?
Well, I'd say that it's different but similar; not better or worse. Gentoo is great when you want to spend hours building and configuring the ultimate speed machine you don't have to update too often. Slackware is great if you want to get a simple, reliable and (not quite as) fast system up and running in about an hour (sometimes less). I switched from Gentoo to Debian then hastily to Slack back in about '00 and have been using Slack since. Other distros just feel bloated now; I recently tested out Ubun