Pre-Beta Slackware 4.0 210
Langston01 writes "According to
LinuxToday, a pre-beta of Slackware 4.0 is out. "
I remember Slackware. Wow, its been years since I used
it. I still need a Debian 2.1 CD. Or a T1.
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Pre-Beta Slackware 4.0
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It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.
libc5? (Score:1)
David Lang
dlang@digisnite.com
Slackware is for Tinkerers (Score:1)
If you have lots of time to waste go ahead and use slackware but many people have better things to do instead of trying to figure which programs have security problems and how to upgrade them or how to install new libs
In fact if you can't stand rpm based distributions or debian, FreeBSD might even be a better choice
Slackware properties (Score:1)
2) it has disksets for those people *downloading* it as opposed to those with a cd
3) packages are ordinary gzipped tape archive so they can be tested with say winzip
4) doesn't have dependencies (this is usually a bad thing)
Requirements? (Score:1)
Slackware gets slack (Score:1)
Currently I'm using Stampede (which really is just
a current version of Slack regardless of what its promoters say.) Its packging system is a non-packing system. And, I find myself doing too much by hand so I'm considering Debian, again, this time on my 586. Many of the Stampede libs are not in synch. The important ones are, but enough aren't to be very aggravating and the documentation at the Stampede site is not current with what's there, the bug tracking system is often non-functional, etc. I'm very impressed with the Debian package directory at their site - it looks well maintained.
Getting back to Slack, Pat Volkerding is missing a golden opportunity by not including more current applications with ZipSlack, and including X. Sure, X can be downloaded separately and installed one piece at a time, but it also could be in one zip package for people coming from Windows. Forget glibc, what I mean is that the X applications Pat has included are absolutely the worst ones - some must be 10 years old and haven't been worked on for 10 years. Mostly motif and athena and ugly as sin. Sure, an experienced Linux user can find the newer, spiffy looking apps (and libraries needed to run them) elsewhere, but not a newbie with a non-technical background. Almost all the newer apps will work fine with libc5 if you will only make them available!
The way to really help Linux take off with Joe and Jane user is umsdos. It's so, so easy to install, and the performance is not significantly degraded except for some very file-intensive operations. I doubt they'd even notice with the hardware most pc users now have.
Anyway, I will always respect Slackware. And, the web site looks good. It suits what Slackware could be at its best, minimalistic and "cool" in the true sense of the word.
Pat, get some advice from whoever did your web page design about some current apps that will show off Linux to include in your distro and at your ftp site.
I will bet big money that is the zipslack package is upgraded (to include zipXslack with current apps as a separate download) and advertised a little it will be the largest installed distro of Linux in the world. The only thing keeping more "average" users from trying Linux is fear of disk
partitioning. If they can install and use Linux a little without taking that risk, then there is plenty of time for them to partition their hard drive or buy a second hard drive later, when they have more experience and confidence from using Linux.
Get Slack!
libc5? (Score:2)
If so, I've really got to wonder why the latest-and-greatest kernel (2.2.3) is being shipped with such antiquated libraries.
Teach an old dog a new trick... (Score:1)
Slackware (Score:2)
I still use a system with 4 MB (Score:2)
You can do a lot in 4 megs, you just can't do it all at once...
any other platforms? (Score:1)
Makes me kinda nostalgic. (Score:2)
I just built some new systems at work based on Debian 2.1 and got my first taste of apt ... what a piece of cake to keep the system up to date.
apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade
There your system is now right up to date. I did it at home as well; installed apt, and upgraded from Debian 2.0 to Debian 2.1 ... all automatic, no reboots, no problems, just a lot of time (60 MB and a 56k modem don't mix too well).
I haven't installed a Slackware system since the Slack 3.1 days and just took my last one out of operation (thank goodness ... it was so full of holes it was silly). From what I remember you just cannot keep a Slackware system up to date ... perhaps I was missing something. I'd hear about an exploit and try to find an upgraded slack .tgz ... they might be there but in slack 3.4 ... would that work in 3.1 ... do I want to guess, or chance it, on a production web server? Basically it seemed to me that once installed everything on a slack system had to be hand installed/configured and compiled or you'd never be sure things would work. Has slack added any maintenance / package management features??? With 10 servers running Linux who can afford to be compiling and installing by hand?
Slack certainly had it's place - without it where would Linux be today - however it has been far surpassed by many other distributions now ... time to let go!!!
I disagree with the disagreement! (Score:1)
Slackware - Manly Linux (Score:1)
Seriously though, I've always liked Slackware. If it wasn't for a particular project I'm working on having certain dependancies for Debian, I'd move back to Slackware.
Slackware lends itself to the tinkerer more than anyone else. If you like compiling your own packages, don't wanna screw up your fancy smancy dependancy list deal, Slackware is your best friend.
--
Teach an old dog a new trick... (Score:1)
Some things to think about:
1) Every config file in Red Hat Linux can be edited by hand if you so desire. It's not like in SuSE Linux, where the config files are auto-generated and you don't touch (you use YAST).
2) Nothing stops you from compiling stuff as
3) Today's computers are so fast that it don't matter what your binaries are compiled for
But if you like Slackware, you'd probably like Debian over Red Hat. With Debian, if you want to update a
I have created updated versions of several Red Hat
-- Eric
Good ol' SunSite/MetaLab!! (Score:1)
They've made provisions to mirror the new slackware! metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/slackware has two directories, one 3.6/ and one current/. current/ is empty right now, but I'm sure in the morning there'll be some files. Rock on SunSite/Metalab! I love those guys!
Probably not. (Score:1)
Ummm, debian is a non-profit organization, ran by voluteers.
-Andrew
Requirements (Score:2)
It would appear as though you can still install Slackware 4.0 beta on a 4 meg machine. All you need is the lowmem.i. And for those who wonder about Slack being glibc based I quote from the www.slackware.com FAQ.
Q: Will the next version be based on glibc2 or libc5?
Slackware-current is still based on libc-5.4.46, and there may well be one more official Slackware release based on libc5. A glibc-2.1 based version of Slackware is in the works, but getting a stable version out with the 2.2.x kernel and KDE-1.1 may end up taking priority. Slackware 3.6(and -current) do contain runtime support for glibc2.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
<sigh> (Score:1)
Installing Debian in 4 megs (Score:2)
I 've only gotten Debian to install in 8 meg successfully when it was installing from a local harddrive.
I have installed Debian 1.2 and 2.0 in four MB successfully. You did use the low-memory boot disk, I hope?
Will someone *please* get CmdrTaco a Debian 2.1 CD (Score:1)
Been running it myself since a couple days after the release
I have to say... (Score:2)
Slackware - Manly Linux (Score:1)
Heaven!
I'm still on 3.1 (Score:1)
I'm using 3.1 also. No real need to upgrade when you keep everything up to date.
"In true sound..." -Agents of Good Root
Slackware properties (Score:1)
Cheap*Bytes is shipping as of today! (Score:1)
Just as I headed over to check /. one last time before heading home I got mail from C*B saying that my 2.1 CD's (along w/a few more RH5.2 CDs) have shipped. Deb 2.0 was cool, but not enough to get me to switch all my RH machines. Wondering how 2.1 will stack up. Sounds good so far...guess I'll know this weekend!
--
"First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Nope...libc6 (Score:1)
Stop the glibc2 FUD (Score:1)
Does that make sense to you?
A glibc2-based version of Slack is next, after 4.0. (Based on an actual, honest-to-god release of glibc2. Go figure.)
Hey! (Score:1)
Clearly, I switched.
Teach an old dog a new trick... (Score:1)
--
I have to say... (Score:1)
Teach an old dog a new trick... (Score:1)
I just don't care to use it, myself...
Requirements? (Score:2)
Installing in 8 should be quite easy. 12 is flawless.
redhat is that bad with mem? (Score:1)
The RedHat installer seems to load itself into a ramdisk, and then load any additional modules into a second ramdisk mounted into the filesystem. That plus the kernel tends to eat 5-6 meg of RAM, and with the libraries and such their Disk Druid program and fdisk both can't load, which are prerequisites for mounting the swap space.
As an alternative, documenting how it can be done from the command line in the shells thats opened would help. As I said in another post, I wasn't able to find what program it was using, since the usual utilities don't seem to be there.
Thanks for the info. (Score:1)
I don't have any experience with that model, but Debian is probably easier to get installed, it seems to give a lot more flexibility in the install process.
Another option you might have is to boot the system off something else -- if the kernel loads (I assume it does, since that's a BIOS thing, not a Linux thing), then you could always boot the kernel off the floppy and provide some other device to boot from. I assume the system doesn't have a CD-Rom, but if you can boot to DOS on it, you could install the packages you need on a DOS/umsdos partition and try booting it from loadlin.
I'm very impressed with the way the LinuxPPC demo thats in MacWorld works -- it contains all the filesystems and stuff in a single MacOS file, and the system can boot and run from that file itself. That strikes me as a good installation method that is not supported by most (all?) distributions... Put the install system (3-5 meg probably) into a file, and boot linux using loadlin and mounting that file as root. It'd run fine obviously off a CD, and in cases of wierd installs you could in a worst case scenario, split the root file into 1.44 meg chunks, copy them into a small DOS partition on the harddrive, cat them back together and boot from the harddrive into it.
But the idea that RedHat can't install onto laptops is just silly. I'm sure there are thousands of
Installing Debian in 4 megs (Score:1)
Requirements? (Score:2)
Debian is better -- it lets you mount a swap parition if you've already created one. In the previously mentioned install, I was able to boot off a RedHat install disk, load no drivers for anything, and just squeak by after killing the installer to be able to load fdisk and partition the drive. My hope had been to mount the swap before getting to the partitioning step, but I was unable to find the program that's actually mounting the swap space. I'm assuming RedHat isn't using swapon / mkswap for it, but I might've just missed it.
I ended up ordering Debian CD's and got it installed on that system with no troubles. I remember I had to install the barest minimum I could, then reboot to get it to handle the full install. I never did figure out why that was the case.
Part of the autoLinux [bangsplat.org] stuff I've been working on is getting a good mid-size distribution together. (Bigger than the various router projects out there, but smaller than what I remember the Slackware "A" series being...)
Requirements? (Score:3)
I know Linux on a 4 meg system may not be reasonable any more, but it seems 8 should be doable, but 8's too small to install RedHat, and I 've only gotten Debian to install in 8 meg successfully when it was installing from a local harddrive.
Is the minimum (A) set still fairly small? It'd be nice to have a standard distribution that can get a core system installed in 15-20 meg.
8 MB is a joke (Score:4)
Now, where 8 meg is concerned, 8 meg most certainly isn't a joke. Back in the days of the pre-1.0 kernel, I ran a rather useful system for several years in 8 meg of RAM. When I was in school, virtually all of my papers were written on that with vi and nroff/groff. It handled e-mail serving and reading, usenet reading and posting, and I was running a mailing list getting almost 30 postings a day to 200 people on it. I also gave user accounts to friends who needed a machine to work on from terminals around the campus.
Never had a problem with it, at one point had nearly 9 months uptime on it.
I currently have three systems here with only 8 meg RAM. One's being used as a development platform for embedded linux POS applications. One handles my internet dialup, masquerading, routing, firewalling, fax sending and receiving, and voicemail. The third is the system I mentioned above, which is an old notebook computer. Slow, low in RAM, small screen, but the battery lasts almost five hours, and its great for writing when I want to be outside. The router box used to handle printing too, but ghostscript eats too much RAM, so I moved it off to the system I've been experimenting with Oracle on.
All three of those applications don't need more than eight meg of RAM. They're providing important functions for me without costing me any excessive amount of money, using old parts I've scraped up.
Its a lot of functionality in not a lot of hardware. If you want to know why the ability to run in 8 meg is important, that's the exact reason. There's lots of very inexpensive hardware that people can buy or have laying around that can be made useful as print servers, or any of a dozen other functions, and 8 meg is enough for many of them.
Don't be afraid! (Score:1)
I was skeptical, too, of the whole RPM thing at first. Coming from a windows background, this is not surprising. Let me assure you that RPM may not be perfect, but it kicks the pants off of InstallShield or any other windows equivalent.
You can always manually remove a package and install the corrosponding
I'm sure you would get similar functionality from Debian's package manager as well. And you still can't beat Slackware if you want to get down and dirty (and repetitive.)
Teach an old dog a new trick... (Score:1)
Binary RPMs contain the binaries (like tgz packages of binaries), plus information about what versions of which libraries and what other stuff is required (e.g. Perl, /bin/sh etc). When you install the RPM, /usr/bin/rpm checks you have all the prerequisites, and then installs the package. It updates its records to indicate what package these files belong to.
This means that to delete the stuff in the "cheops" package, you just rpm -e cheops. This is quote a bit easier than figuring out where alll the files got put in the first place. It also makes it harder to break your system by deleting something that another package relies on. However, this is Linux, so if you want to do that, you just use the --force option.
If you have an RPM of "foo" installed and want to upgrade it from a binary tgz file, just uninstall the old package (rpm -e foo) and unpack the tgz as usual. No problem.
No, Red Hat keeps the rc scripts which start suff separate from the config scripts. Each rc script will read a config script and the start a daemon or whatever. This means that when an upgrade occurs, the rc script is upgraded, but your configuration information is not lost because it lives in a separate file.
All the normal Unix config files live in /etc, as usual. /etc/hosts, /etc/resolv.conf and so on, just like on all other Unix systems. The config files that are specially for use by the /etc/rc.d startup scripts are all held in /etc/sysconfig.
All those various config files can be edited with Linuxconf, but you can still edit them by hand. You can change something with Linuxconf, and then tweak stuff by hand. Back to Linuxconf, and then back to vi if you feel like it. The two methods are completely compatible.
Personally, although I have used Red Hat for years now, I still edit the config files by hand, because that is what I am used to (I started with MCC Interim Linux after being an HPUX administrator for a bit). Red Hat is every bit as vi-configuration-friendly as Slackware and MCC, but the difference is that it also has optional configuration tools.
Eh? Red Hat is not a binary-only distro. It comes with the source for everything, the kernel, X, the /usr/bin/* stuff, the installation program, everything.
Can't be *that* manly...Sηʡ (Score:1)
(Let's see if Sparc/Linux NS4.5 screws up the Subject: again
No rescue disk? ... a rescue partition! (Score:1)
Now when you've compiled a new kernel, first time you call it 'new.z' or something, only after a successful boot and some testing you cp it to current.
Whenever your production file system is seriously fsck'd up (power failure maybe), boot from the emergency partition, fsck it or otherwise fix your stuff and reboot into your newly fixed production fs.
Obviously you still need a rescue disk when the boot record is really ill so lilo won't boot, but at that time chances are your disk has crashed.
BTW I always use Slackware - for tinkering and out of habit. I dislike RedHat for the encapsulation of everything, have yet to give Debian a go. On 'production systems' one seldom needs to upgrade libs, and if really necessary one can mostly find a suitable binary tarball (doesn't need to be slack tgz - just do a 'tar -tzf' and see if it's what you want). Thank Linus Torvalds, big distributions and Patrick Volkerding for Choice - Just my $.02
Slackware 4.0 carrying current versions? (Score:1)
I think that must have been the main reason for Patrick to bring out 3.6, other changes were not so important, like you mentioned.
5 MB (Score:2)
Also, Netscape is a memory hog if there ever was one (but that obviously doesn't concern the above machine).
Still no glibc2? (Score:1)
Yes. Debian unstable (aka potato) uses glibc 2.1. I upgraded from v2.0 just the other day. Painless upgrade. I didn't even have to reboot. :)
He doesn't need one: USE FTP! (Score:1)
Best way to install Debian is through ftp or http. Install a few files to get started, select the packages you want and let debian take care of the rest. :-)
Nostalgic & Busy (Score:1)
But times change, now instead of having plenty of free time like I did when I was just getting started in the industry I have actual work to get done and it always seems to be more than I have time for. Playing around with stuff is fun, but not if I want to actually prove my point that I can be productive with Linux instead of Windows.
I still have my complaints with RedHat 5.2 though, it installs and discovers everything nicely, but I don't understand how come they've decided to put things in non-standard places and create dedicated files that aren't supposed to be edited. I still wonder why Netscape is in
libc5-based, glibc2.0.7 support, no glibc2.1 (Score:1)
FTP.CDROM.COM slashdotted... (Score:1)
libc5? (Score:1)
I disagree. (Score:1)
Makes me kinda nostalgic. (Score:1)
I disagree. (Score:1)
Makes me kinda nostalgic. (Score:1)
Makes me kinda nostalgic. (Score:3)
Slackware is at best a teaching tool, at worst time consuming and insecure. It allways seemed to me the people who had lots of time where the loudest proponents.
I like RedHat, but its a love hate thing (Score:1)
Makes me kinda nostalgic. (Score:1)
It was included in PCW november 1996 (I guess)
I fidled with it for two days until I got it somewhat working (it didn't want to support my 1.6G WD hard disk) I ended up with booting from floppy. I was a 14 years old boy back then who just wanted to look at something different.
I guess I was one of the first latvians to use it.
Now I'm using Linux for server purposes in my dad's office and getting paid for it.
Slackware as a newbie distro (Score:1)
I love the "Keep it simple, stupid" philosophy but I really like they way RPM works. I really dislike the fact that everything in RedHat comes with everything preconfigured the way they want it. It's great for those that want to have a server up and running in minimal time but sucks to learn on.
I like the way Debian asks questions for settings during the package install so that it can configure your system.
Redhat also has this problem with it's kernel; setup. The first time I compiled a kernel under it I went nuts. I'd rather not have to go read through a ton of shell scripts and checking symlinks in order to get the kernel set up "the way redhat likes it" True I can change the scripts, but it's really a pain.
libc5? (Score:1)
If this is true, it may be what finally moves me away from Slackware and towards something else (leaning toward Debian at the moment, for no particular reason).
Schwab
Makes me kinda nostalgic. (Score:1)
I will say this again.
Blaming one's incompetence as a system administrator on the distribution you run is lame. If you can't keep your own systems up to date, you have only yourself to blame. In any case, how hard is it for someone to type ./configure --help and/or ./configure && make && make install?
I disagree. (Score:1)
Furthermore, RH 5.2 still attempts to install everything under the sun fully open and accessible by the Internet from it's default installation. People who live in glass houses should not be throwing stones.
I disagree. (Score:1)
Time to squash misunderstandings about slack. (Score:1)
I installed Slackware about over 2 years ago (3.0 I think it was, not sure now) and have never looked back. I too am pretty much bleeding edge, lastest kernel, glibc 2.1, XFree86 3.3.3 and so on. I have no problems at all, and its pretty fast (as fast as a P120 gets I guess). It's taught me a great deal about Linux and Unix in general. If I wanted a OS that I could just install and leave alone, I'd use Winders. I don't. I want an environment in which I can tinker, break things, complain to my friends that I broke something, fix it, lather, rinse, repeat
8 megs and Red Hat (Score:1)
Then I go to install Red Hat. It hung. I tweaked. It hung. I cursed. It hung. I found it very depressing that the Red Hat install wanted more hardware than the windoze 95 install.
(I *finally* got it installed, with much tinkering, and it runs just fine. Now why should the install take more memory than actually *running* the OS?)
Now I've done it... bring on the RH flames. (sigh)
redhat is that bad with mem? (Score:1)
You're exactly right - if there was a way to enable swap early on, I would have been fine. I had already created swap space with a rescue disk, hoping that it would help, but the install doesn't even look for swap until after the whole disk druid thingy, and the ramdisk they load up doesn't include swapon (at least I couldn't find it...) so I couldn't enable it myself.
Thanks for the info. (Score:1)
I'm curious about those versions of redhat that don't install on laptops - that's very interesting. I'll have to look for them. Would that be version 5.1? Hm, no - a friend of mine did that one. 5.2? Well, not that one either - because I have a laptop with 5.2 humming along. I'll have to look at the site a bit more closely to find those "desktop-only" versions.
As far as trying to get things to work - all I did was get updated boot/supp images, try backpack CDroms, HD installs, network installs via smb, nfs, and ftp, create a swap partition prior to the install, make a custom ramdisk, exit the provided shell to save memory, and finally contemplated modifying the source for the install program.
Thank you for your valuable information, next time I'll *try* to get it to work - perhaps things will get done.
(This one's ripe for the picking, moderators!)
Come home to daddy (Score:5)
If you want to USE your computer, and get things done, then Redhat is more suitable. RPM is nice when you just want to use something...
Call me crazy (go ahead, I think I am too) but I still enjoy the headaches of compling stuff on my own. I think going bald at 21 can be 75% contributed to Slackware, but its worth it.
If slackware never came out with another release, I'd still be happy with 3.6 (okay, if they would come out with a glibc2 first, then quit... i'd be REALLY happy).
Anyways, that my 2 shinny pennies (do you take credit cards) on Slackware.
---
My 0x5a Cents. (Score:1)
hrmmmm.... how strange. My first time with Linux was last September with Debian 2.0 . I got PPP to work before I knew what a shell script was...
.
What's the deal with libc6? (Score:1)
Slackware 4.0 carrying current versions? (Score:2)
Also, are there any major changes, considering it's moved to 4.x series?
Can't keep a good distro down.. :) (Score:2)
I've got many fond memories back in my Uni days of slaving over an old 386 in my flat, shoehorning the floppies into the drive, drooling over the fact that I could now code all my coursework at home, and dammit, I had _UNIX_ at home..
I cut my teeth on Linux using Slackware, and look forward to seeing what they've got coming out now..
*Blush* But I must have to admit to using Red Hat, 'cos it seems to be the easiest way to get new people into it, and I tend to use it a lot in places I go out on contract to (whenever I can persuade 'em to drop an NT box in it's favour, which is becoming increasingly easier..
I think it's time to go back to my roots for a while tho, and see what gives with this release..
Whatever else gets said about the distribution competition, It's still Linux, and at core, it beats the pants off just about everything else..
Malk..
No SuSE boxes in the states? (Score:1)
Distribution distribution function (function) (Score:1)
<DRAWL>You can take my Slack box from me when you pry it from my cold, dead hands, buster.</DRAWL> :)
The oldest machine I own is based on Slackware 3.0, and is now upgraded (after toil and sweat and much cursing) to the latest glibc, kernel, X, and so on. I couldn't have learned how to do any of that from scratch on Debian. (Well, maybe the kernel. Most of the kernel, at least.) I wouldn't have once deleted /lib/ld-linux.so.1 because I thought I didn't need it anymore (yeah, that was a while ago... sheesh), but I also wouldn't have learned what ld-linux.so did. (Did anybody get through a libc5->glibc or a.out->ELF transition without resorting to rescue disks? There's gotta be somebody!) Slackware takes you by the balls (or whatever) and drags you down into the guts of the machine; it's a hell of a ride, and if you want to learn you gotta go there anyway...
I think the ideal distribution for the geek with N computers is one Slack machine, and N-1 Debian/SUSE/RH/Caldera boxes. I can't imagine the time it would take to upgrade plural Slack boxes, so my other machines run Slink. I get work done with the N-1 boxes, I learn stuff on the Slack box, and I can try the latest tarball-only apps on any distribution. Hey, works for me... :)
--
Slackware - Manly Linux (Score:1)
the libc question answered by the man himself :) (Score:1)
And as far as kernels are concerned, I've kept right with the pace of development, and have yet to have anything go buggy on me with this Slack 3.5 system.
Nice to see this show of force from the Slackware community btw!
Time to squash misunderstandings about slack. (Score:1)
I run an older version of slack, many updated libs, etc. The system is fully functional. For those of you who like eye candy, I am running XFree 3.3.3.1, Enlighenment as the window manager, GNOME (YES GNOME) 1.0, Gimp 1.1, and many other "bleeding edge version" applications.
You can run anything on it. So nuts to you people who are surprised that slackware can run GNOME, etc. It is fast, compiled myself, and has a small memory footprint. Keep your dependecies and default installs. I'll be in the corner with the rest of the loons scaring the rest of ya.
Ni who lilly fa ling ling cha!
any other platforms? (Score:1)
I doubt it. There's only one Patrick Volkerding to go around, unfortunately.
I still find the idea of one person putting out an entire Linux distribution to be a rather frightening thought. Brrr...
One problem that I really hope Patrick takes care of is a formal upgrade procedure. Last time I checked, the READMEs still recommend whiping the machine, and loading Slack on an empty disk. Yes, I suppose you can try reinstalling on top a previous version, but that's going to be messy.
Teach an old dog a new trick... (Score:2)
RPM is definitely a timesaver from a sysadmin's point of view. One constant pain sysadmins have is upgrading a package - remembering where all the config files are - what needs to be changed. God forbid if a directory or a file that belongs to a package has moved from one place to another.
When you upgrade with RPM, your old version is cleanly deinstalled, and a new one installed, all automatically. A few intelligent things are done with configuration files, and you have a complete record of which file came with a package.
You can certainly compile and install stuff yourself, by hand, on Red Hat. But, over time, that tends to break things. If you install a later version of something that was already installed as an RPM, when you later upgrade to a newer Red Hat version, you will find that Red Hat's installer will automatically scribble a newer RPM your installed app. Perhaps that's not such a bad idea anyway, but you may not've wanted to do that, for some reason. Plus you're likely to lose any changes to the configuration file that you've made.
It's also quite easy to stay up to date with the latest versions of everything you have installed. There are scripts out there that can automatically poll the updates directory on a Red Hat FTP site, and notify you when updates become available. I don't think that there's anything similar to that for Slackware.
Here's a real good example of what kind of a benefit you get from RPM.
I needed to repartition my main box. I dumped everything to tape, and I put together a boot disk that comes up with a bare kernel, the kernel tape drive module, and the minimum of tools that I need to load the system back from a tape. I go ahead, rewipe the hard disk, format it, partition it, then go ahead and reload everything back from tape.
I reboot, the system comes up fine, but after logging in, it's acting kinda funky. I normally have a button to run Pine within xterm. Pine comes up briefly, something flashes on the screen, and it exits. I'm getting some real weird messages from "su" that I have never seen before in my life. All sorts of things suddenly give me real strange error messages, out of nowhere.
I did some digging around. Hoo-boy -- looks like tar doesn't know how to properly restore the permission and ownership of device files. My entire /dev is completely fubared.
No problem.
rpm --setperms dev
Back to normal. Carry on.
If you intend to work heavily with a Red Hat system, I strongly recommend that you buy the book "Maximum RPM". The entire Red Hat distribution is based around their package manager. That book gives you all you need to know about creating your own RPMs, and is an invaluable source of information.
Teach an old dog a new trick... (Score:5)
Question: So what's the deal with RPM's? I understand that they are binary only and have dependency tracking. Does that mean if something is installed via RPM I can't manually download a tgz and build over it, I have to use RPM's? Do I really care? I always thought I was getting better performance by compiling myself, in that the compiler would optimize for newer P2 instructions rather than being 486 compatible
Is RedHat scary for Slackware people?
I guess I could live with a binary only distro. With GNU/Linux, it just seems wrong though. But the thought of quick upgrades and fixes is to much to pass over. I mean...there never used to be binaries at all...and you get used to one thing for so long.
And the only reason I say RedHat (not Debian, Suse, etc) is because it seems to be the most actively maintained in terms of current stuff. I'm thinking about Starbuck/6.0 here. It also seems easy to find RPM's for everything now.
I guess after this I have to sort out all this Gnome/KDE stuff. I think I will stick with good old FVWM. Who needs all the fancy schmancy themes and crap...just bloat anyhow
I disagree. (Score:1)
Still no glibc2? (Score:1)
Debian 2.1 (Score:1)
8 MB is a joke (Score:1)
<sigh> (Score:2)
I was drug kicking and screaming to the eternal judgment La-`Z'-Boy of `Bob', and he told me to install Debian! I could hear Mike Enlow's voice in my head! But I did as `Bob' commanded, and am indeed happier now. (Fear potatoes.)
Still, if Slackware 4.0 doesn't have modern compiles of everything, I won't use it. I just had too many bad experiences with Slackware 3.6 (Slackware 98) of horribly old, crusty, buggy, and vulnerable executables. (Don't even get me started of when I had my Slackware machine connected directly to the Internet and was using it to gab on IRC.)
OTOH, Slackware, along with OS/2's kernel debugger and DEBUG.COM has made me what I am today, and I am grateful.
I just want to see a revival of SLS Linux! Now those were the days! (Geesh. I was 10 years old then. Youngstuff. I didn't know what I was doing--gosh, I wish I could go back in time and help myself out!)
Cheers--Joshua.
Slackware is for Tinkerers (Score:1)
Brian
libc5-based, glibc2.0.7 support, no glibc2.1 (Score:2)
Glibc is in a state of flux, particularly with 2.1 being recalled. 2.0.6 is, so I hear, buggy. 2.0.7 is still a -pre6 release, though everyone seems to pretend that it is a real release. 2.1 is another big step, but it's not clear that it is ready for stable systems.
So the choices are:
Use libc5. It works, is stable, but not trendy.
Use glibc2.0.7-pre6. It works, is stable, but you'll have to transition to 2.1 soon, anyway.
Use glibc2.1.1-pre1. It might work, is relatively untested, but is what everyone will eventually be moving to.
Personally, I think Slackware made a reasonable choice. I wouldn't compile for glibc2.0, as that's a dead-end library. Why bother making that transition? Instead, provide the runtime support for the binaries that require it, release another libc5 system, and focus development on glibc2.1.
Teach an old dog a new trick... (Score:2)
Redhat's not scary, alot of Slackware die-hard's seem to be using it nowaday's cause the novelty of maintaining the system isn't as rewarding as it once was for them. I think since Debian 2.x hit the streets that most of the Slack die-hards that were using Redhat have switched to Debian though. I started with Slackware and I always preferred it. But when I bought the Debian 2.0 CD it blew my mind, dpkg and dselect are just awesome for maintaining the system. dpkg packages tend to prompt you for all config information during the install, saving time for rooting around for
But for my Pentium boxes I use Stampede. If you want pentium-optimized code, as you said above, you should check it out, since that's what it is built for. After running Stampede one tends to shy from 386/486 bins since they are so slow in comparison. Stampede's gzip is like 50% faster than standard gzip. It has its own package management format too, but you can setup pgcc and compile stuff yourself if ya want. Stampede comes w/ alot of kickass packages the other dists don't so it's worth a look. Cheapbytes has CD's for $2, or go to www.stampede.org.
It was the first dist w/ 2.2, and is probably the most actively maintained except for Rawhide.
ANd yeah I agree w/ you about FVWM(2). It's the best WM ever, fast as hell even when loaded w/ pixmaps. And who needs themes when the best one is the one you do up yourself. And as far as GTK/GNOME themes go, I haven't got that stuff to work but it looks great. Cvs stuff never compiles for me so I've given up till the stuff is out of devel. Stampede is beta as all hell but they got a kickass bugtrack that answers most problems.
Good luck on getting your system up and running. I recommend you do some security checking tho cause RH5 has some exploitable configs/apps w/ the default setup.
Good 'ol days! (Score:2)
Those were the days, I stayed up all night trying to figure this new beast out.. what a thrill! (err.. what a geek!)
What's the deal with libc6? (Score:2)
Requirements? (Score:2)
What's the deal with libc6? (Score:2)
My first distro... (Score:2)
Admittedly, Slackware doesn't interest me anymore. However, all of Rob's comments on Debian make me wonder if maybe I ought to check that distro out.
-zack
Teach an old dog a new trick... (Score:2)
First off, everything in RedHat has an associated "Source RPM" (SRPM). You can download that and use RPM to recompile..
Second, almost anytime you compile anything from a source tarball, it usually defaults to installing in /usr/local or /opt. In both RPM based(Redhat, etc) and Debian distros /usr/local and /opt are specifically reserved for stuff you compile yourself.
To me, packages give me the best of both worlds. I be lazy and download the latest RPM's to keep all the misc. stuff on my system up to date, or, for stuff I really like to mess around with (like perl), I can compile from source.
I still have yet to see a *valid* reason a distribution should NOT have a package manager.
Debian (Score:3)
Once installed you can install a new package via:
apt-get install
And it will determine what it depends on, dialup and download the stuff and install it on-the-fly. If you are upgrading (for example) lpr it will stop lpr, install the new one and bring it up again.
The key word with Debian TCO. Once running... it is the closest to zero that you can find.
Cheers
LinuxToday slashdotted, download URL here (Score:3)
(LinuxToday appears to be slashdotted, at least from here)
My first distro - and still using it!!! (Score:3)
My current setup is loosley based on a basic Slackware 3.4 with a lot of extras on top - the only binaries I have downloaded being Netscape and a glibc2 Xfree.
I still prefer slackware to any other distro - I have tried Debian, Redhat, S.U.S.E and FTlinux in the past with poor results.
I just hope that a glibc 2.1 Slackware release appears soon. I would then reinstall removing all libc5 from this machine for once and for all.
My slackware experiences... (Score:2)
Slackware has always worked best for me. It installed perfectly on all my hardware (no SIG11's) from a lowly 386/4mb/120mb (yes, it'll still run on 4meg hardware) to my current 350mhz/32mb/2gb.
Package maintenance on Slack? Too much of a hassle. It's always seemed logical to just download the source for a new program, fix the Makefiles to the right path and install it over whatever old version was there. Never had a problem compiling anything on libc5 either... not even on the current Slack3.4-based server at my school. (If you could still call it Slack-based... I've replaced about half of everything from TGZs =])
Yes, I know Slack doesn't have any fancy control panel Xapp or one-click installation, but those have always seemed a little too simplistic. Better to open up pico and fix the config files yourself... you learn better that way =]
Oh well, enough of my rambling...