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Linux Software

Slackware 7 Beta Out 112

Posted by Roblimo from the forward-ho! dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "Check the current tree changelog and you'll notice that Slackware 7.0.0-pre1 beta is out. Seems it won't be too long before the next major release; now completely based on glibc2."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slackware 7 Beta Out More

Slackware 7 Beta Out

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  • I first installed slackware with the release that came with the kernel 2.0.29 I can't rember what
    version. About a year later I bought 3.5 and I downloaded 4.0 last may.

    I just found it easier to update slackware all at once then have to do each little seperate library, binary etc by itself it was just getting to time
    consuming for me.
  • I have yet to see a system (well, an Intel system) where SlackWare fails to install. I've running it from a 386SX-16 up to PIII-450 with absolutely no crash no nothing (except for what I myself 'tuned' a bit too much). Installation is crisp, terse and clear. Configuration is simple (no tarzan rain-forests of rc.duh and rc.dah where your favourite command is 'find / -type f -exec grep -il "duh" {} \;').

    I (a little pervert) am using SW 4.0 with kernel 2.0.37 (hey, see that dork? A downgrader!).

  • Ahem, you can use it, as long as you remember to ASK PERMISSION FIRST. The canadian guy (Bob Dean, I think his name was) was passing himself off as J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, as some sort of odd marketing stunt to get people to listen to the Media Ecology CDs...despite the fact that he had nothing to do with the Church of the SubGenius, and preached an odd doctrine that was largely at odds with...well, everything.

    What Dean did with Media Ecology was the equivalent of putting GPL'ed software in a commercial release and ignoring the GPL. Very bad thing...
    --
    "HORSE."

  • Please elaborate on how, precisely, Debian evolves at a "snail-like pace". Debian is rather conservative with what it labels as "stable", but the unstable branch (which, despite the name, is quite stable) is almost always up to date. It has been using glibc2.1 for quite a while now. Slackware, OTOH, hasn't even managed to support non-intel platforms yet.
  • I disagree.

    Yesterday was the first time I had ever upgraded a Linux box, or any operating system really, for that matter. Before, I always backed everything up, reformatted, and reinstalled. Windows taught me that lesson (How can I upgrade and have my sound card not work, but fresh install it works fine? Grrrr.)

    I was upgrading a server from RH 5.2 to RH 6. Nothing could have been easier. I popped in the CD, told it to upgrade, and 15 minutes I was (almost) modern again. It was literally that easy.

    The problem most people have with RedHat is they don't use RPMs. The whole secret to working with RedHat is to use RPMs for anything you install that isn't something trivial. Then your life is infinitely easier. Mixing the RedHat stock RPMs with a bunch of tarballs is a recipe for nightmares and headaches (I learned the hard way 8 months ago.)

    Note that I'm not advocating anyone jump on the RHAT bandwagon. I just felt that a good, comprehensive package management system like Debian and RedHat have make things a LOT easier. Especially compared to the Windows world...
  • I use Slackware on my Laptop I like two things
    about it. First is Zipslack, which is a very easy
    way to install on any playform, and a good way to
    install if you don't have a CDROM drive. The other
    is that it comes with a selection of kernels,
    including one which has APM built in, save me the
    trouble of building one.
  • I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks!
    I started with SW 3.0 and am now running 3.6. Everything works so why upgrade?
  • How about an .ISO image? Any of those out yet?

    (I won't even ask if cdrom.com will provide one, of course. . .
  • I've been using slack for ages, probably the last 6 years - I forget the version I started on. :&)
    I've always found it a nice distrib, with the only niggle being upgrading from one version to the next - I only did the upgrade from a muchly upgraded 3.2 to 4 the other month.
    It doesn't take as long as you'd think to get things back how you like them, and if anything, it clears out the drive a bit - you have no idea how much space you have tied up in programs you never use!
    Just do `df` then `cd /usr/src; for a in *; do cd $a; make clean; cd /usr/src; done` then another `df` - I had abour 400Mb in .o's! It's something you don't think about till you run low on disk space.
    In short - slackware has always installed like a breeze for me, upgrades from one distrib to the next might be a bit more of a pain, but let's see how we go :&)
    Keep it up Pat!
  • The problem I have with RedHat is all the handholding they code into all those Python scripts. I am NOT interested in any of it. I used Redhat 4.2 and 5.1 for awhile. Then ripped it all out and went back to the Slack.

    Slackware is not for the pink. (Bob reference)
  • Slackware 3.9 includes 2.0.36 as it's default kernel. It's not a beta or prerelease, but 4.0 with a 2.0 kernel and probably 2.0-specific tools.
  • I simply love Slackware! I started out on Slackware back in v3 days. RedHat and Debian are nice, but too complicated to admin without the GUI... And I don't like to admin through a GUI. Slackware is SMALL, very simple, and easy to manipulate to get what you want out of a Slack based system.

    Keep up the good work, Patrick!
  • to sync up with visual studio 6
  • not to sound like I'm Microsoft-bashing, but having their software version numbers be the (supposed) year of release was icky and gross.
    it doesn't give you any idea of what sort of development activity has gone on since the last release, like a "normal" versioning system does.
  • > Sun Solaris went from 2.6 to 7.

    well, not exactly.

    Solaris 2.x was really SunOS 5.x. and I think perhaps SunOS 6.x as well. so, going from Solaris 2.6 to Solaris 7 wasn't quite the leap that it seems.
  • Is the moderator on crack?

    Slack 4.0 *does* include support for running glibc2 binaries, and support for compiling with glibc2 is available as an add-on package. (In the "contrib" directory.)

    --
  • Please stop spreading misinformation about glibc. Glibc2.0.7 was never officially released in a tarball, it is true, but it was certainly stable, and recommended for use in shipping systems.

    Contrast with libc5, which has not been maintained for years.

  • They have the tgz packages. Which are extremely easy to install. And I have been running this beta for some time now and it actually has a RPM. I haven't used it yet. I always just use 'rpm2tgz' to convert rpms then install them.
  • I love slack so much I am mirroring the site myself. I have a little script in my root crontab that checks cdrom.com every hour and downloads anything new. So everyday I rush home and check to see whats new and use 'upgradepkg filename.tgz'. So I am as current as they get.
  • sorry forgot to post the ftp site. my site is ftp://129.118.188.81. check it out. Im on an 10mb/s ethernet so downloads shouldnt be too bad. expecially if you happen to be on Texas Tech campus. then I have seen 600kps downloads.
  • slack is wasy to upgrade. maybe not from 4.0 to current. cause those are completely different. but i use 'upgradepkg' everyday to upgrade to the new packages taht are released
  • If someone sends Patrick Volkerding, the -only- Slackware developer, a non-x86 box, I'm sure he'd make a non-x86 version of Slackware.

    That's right. There's only one "core" Slack guy.
  • I have installed SW 3.6, 4.0, Redhat 4.2, Redhat 5.1, and Mandrake 6.0 on different systems, and have found as well, that with Slackware you have much more control over exactly what software is installed. Also with configuring and upgrading, the 'do-it-yourself' attitude comes into play. You learn more about what does what and what is on your computer. A note on the install of SW... you can even pick what size inode you want... Mandrake and Red Hat don't even to bother asking you.
  • I'll second that. Slack was my first Linux. I liked the install, but gave up when I couldn't get the kernel to work properly. I shelved it for a couple months. It was only after a lucky guess that I got it to work, and now I feel silly because I'd just installed the wrong kernel. I needed SCSI, somehow I'd installed the IDE kernel. Which goes to show that Slackware doesn't make everything obvious. But it was worth it. I'd never learned so much from or had so much fun with a piece of software. I either didn't realize I could or was too lazy to do all the work to (probably the latter) upgrade to ELF, so I picked up Slackware 3.3. Then 3.2, cause the 3.3 was from Linuxmall and wasn't official. (I wanted the archive CDs...). And then I heard about SuSE and I thought, gee, maybe wussy distributions aren't so bad after all. Turned out they were. Hated it. Went back to Slack. Tried SuSE again later. Still hated it. Went back to Slack. Third time was a charm though, and I've been running SuSE pretty much ever since. Nevertheless, I've never had experience with a distribution working perfectly on install (except Slackware of course) or at least some things weren't immediately obvious. I know what I'm doing, though, and it's because of Slackware. OK, I may not use ed. And to be honest, I never even took the time out to figure out sed. Or even perl (although I've tried... I just never took ENOUGH time out...). And I never really needed to use complicated regular expressions with grep, so I use regexps inexpertly. I'm not a vi expert, though it's still my favourite editor. And I never even tried hacking my kernel. Nevertheless, I thank Slackware for what I do know. I wouldn't know half of what I do now if I hadn't turned my nose down at RedHat. I'd heard it was easy to install, and popular. So naturally it wasn't even an option. :-) Praise Slackware.
  • I also used to run Slackware in my early Linux
    childhood - this was a system were you had to really "learn" Linux, only having at hand your favourite text-editor and the config-files - atleast this is how I remember it..


    Now I am running Mandrake, and happy with that, especially with easy to use packagemanager (rpm) and neat config-scripts...


    And about just suddenly taking the jolt to version 7 is something to be expected from this lot, remember they did (or do have) a small icon of "Bob" on the cover of their CD :)


    Anyway, it's a pitty the whole ordeal with glibc took too much time - I think it kinda died with struggling with libc.
    =-kiOwA

  • My first Linux install was Slack (don't remember the number now) but the kernel was a 0.99.x release... Mind you I'm a bit of a gearhead so I always liked the down-and-dirty that slack provides. RPMs I loathe with a severity unseen by mere mortals. Never tried Debian's package tools but I've heard great things of them.

    I personally did the great a-out to ELF conversion one night way back when... and it was painful. Utterly totally horrendously painful. I was pretty much still a Linux newbie and it showed in #linux that evening :-) However, that experience really gave me a good understanding of shared libs and how things acutally were put together on a unix-style system.

    I installed libc6 on a slack3.4 box too, but that wasn't as ... fun? Just last night I fought for five hours installing PAM on Slack 4.0. does anyone know where libpwdb is maintained anymore? There are no active sites! I think that this down-and-dirty nails-in-the-metal experience that Slack is centered around is a very good thing.

    If you're real used to Redhat, stick with it. In fact, that's what I advocate to anyone "looking at" Linux... if you're just there to get a feel for it, go with Redhat, as it's pretty user-friendly and support is everywhere. Personally I can't stand it and won't be of much help if you run into trouble with those blasted RPMs but it's good for the newbie.

    Every system I set up is Slack. 3.6 and now 4.0. I'll take a look at 7 but really people, it's only a distro... if you don't like one, go to another. I've found what I like and will probably stick with it as long as it's around.
  • Hrm. I tried compiling glibc2.0-something.
    It curled up and died.
    Same for 2.1
    Same results for 2.1
    Ditto for 2.1.1
    See a trend here? :)
    It's arguable that I dunno enough to do this right. Or maybe the machine I was on wasn't quite up to it, tho it was a 486 so it -should- have been. But anyway, that's why I didn't just upgrade from source. If someone cares to share with me the trick to getting glibc2 to compile right, I'd be happy 'cause then I can consider the time I spent trying it an educational experience. =)
  • Sounds more to me that they wanted to compete with Red Had 6.x by making the version sound newer and greater.

    Take this as a flame if you will, seems obvious to me though. (The explanation of the new version seems totally inadequate and ridiculous).
  • Ahh its time for the man who's been using Slackware since 3.1 just came out to step up.

    First of all, no, there are no 5.0 or 6.0 versions, once I saw them go above 5.0, I knew they were trying to play catch-up, but after all, if they had gone the way of Red Hat or SuSE or [Distributor here] then they would be by, oh, 12.0, or 13.0 by now? Because they only upped their numbers by .1, not by .5, which makes a big difference.

    Next, a lot of people have many misconceptions about Slackware (and Linux, too) and what it's like and what it's all about. But, what can you do? The Red Hat and Mandrake scene is for those who just don't want to try hard enough to get something kick-ass and working on their own. However, things have changed now. It is much easier to install Slackware and get it up and running than it was with earlier versions. I really like the way things are going with this new 7.0 version.

    They have more than DOUBLED the size of Slackware! They added a WHOLE lot of stuff, not to mention BETTER stuff. This includes but is not limited to Gnome with all the GTK stuff, as well newer and better versions of the Linux kernel, XFree86, and KDE. They are doing really good to keep up with the new stuff now, and it was about time.

    Packaging system? Hah! I have something to say here. As soon as I got Slackware 6.3.0 beta on my hard drive, I tried to install a bunch of RPM packages, and all of them worked! From the smallest tiny utilities to even the RealPlayer G2 alpha, everything I have tried has gone smooth and flawlessly (I had to make some mods, like download the RPM packages of RPM, BZIP2, and GnoRPM as well as make a link to ncurses 5 as ncurses 4, etc...)

    I also like the kernel coming with all (or most at least) modules compiled, so that its easy to just go from there. This new Slackware is glorious, and it marks a real change in Slackware as a whole. It sais "WE ARE STILL THE BEST!!!"

    I am going to write a lot more about Slackware for linuxnewbie.com soon, including a Slackware 7.0 review, a comparison of exising Linux distros, and I'm also going to have a list of RPMs which work under Slackware (with enough work, we'll get every RPM to work under Slackware perfectly).

    That's it.
  • The two most usefull RPM switchs, are:


    --nodeps => No dependancy checking.
    --force => Force the installation/removal.


    I use Red Hat, after starting with Slackware,
    but I still have to force RPM to install some packages, after its messed up..

    Steve

  • Good god, but slack was my first attempt at a Linux install. What an absolute nightmare. Is it valid to still be a bit gunshy about retying something that caused me severe emotional distress? I am real used to the Mandrake/Redhat way of doing things. Might be a good idea to broaden my experience though, and try some new flavors.

  • Straight from the horse's mouth: (Score:5)

    by patrikr ( 1360 ) on Saturday October 16, 1999 @04:15AM (#1609211) Homepage
    Here's what Patrick Volkerding said about it in the slackware.com forum:

    -----------------------------------------------
    I've stayed out of this for now, but I do think I should
    lend a little justification to the version number thing.

    First off, I think I forgot to count some time ago. If I'd
    started on 6.0 and made every release a major version (I
    think that's how Linux releases are made these days,
    right? ;), we would be on Slackware 47 by now. (it would
    actually be in the 20s somewhere if we'd gone 1, 2, 3...)

    I think it's clear that some other distributions inflated
    their version numbers for marketing purposes, and I've had
    to field (way too many times) the question "why isn't
    yours 6.x" or worse "when will you upgrade to Linux 6.0"
    which really drives home the effectiveness of this simple
    trick. With the move to glibc and nearly everyone else
    using 6.x now, it made sense to go to at least 6.0, just
    to make it clear to people who don't know anything about
    Linux that Slackware's libraries, compilers, and other
    stuff are not 3 major versions behind. I thought they'd
    all be using 7.0 by now, but no matter. We're at least
    "one better", right? :)

    Sorry if I haven't been enough of a purist about this. I
    promise I won't inflate the version number again (unless
    everyone else does again ;)

    Pat
    ------------------------------------------------

    --
  • I think you're quite confused.

    While glibc2.1 (devel version of glibc2) has been out for some time, and you can use it with slackware, as with any other distribution, the rest of the support binaries (such as bash) in slackware have been linked and compiled to libc5, until this slackware 7 beta.

    Again, you're confusing glibc2.1 "beta" with Slackware 7 beta.

    -- iCEBaLM
  • My first-ever Linux install was Slackware 3.0, and I didn't have much trouble with it. I'm now running 3.6, and personally I've found it easier to use (in some ways) than RedHat - on a friend's RH 6.0 installation, I tried for about half an hour to get it to even access the Internet through a LAN. The same thing on Slackware took me about five minutes, without prior experience. Now, if only Slackware had some sort of package manager..

    --Raereth, who often gets very irritated trying to compile and install source tarballs..
  • I have been a faithful Slackware user from my very first Linux installation, but I've been disappointed that it has always used libc and not glibc (for programming reasons). I have tried to install the packages along with it for glibc support but that only brought problems (the sort of which I don't remember any more). I didn't even bother to upgrade to Slack 4.0 just to get kernel 2.2.x, but now that this problem is changing, I'll be sure to switch first thing.

    The only bothering thing is 2.4 hopefully coming out before the end of the year... ;)


    Thanks, Patrick!
  • Now, if only Slackware had some sort of package manager..

    Use the pkgtools, which are easily accessible from the setup utility. Standard .tar.gz files for Slack are easy to handle this way, even for an OS/2 developer like me. Slack 3.2 was my first Linux ever, and I still prefer it over DeadHat and all other distros.
  • I use slackware, and have been using a glibc2.1 beta for quite some time now. On the abouts of 3 months. This new beta isn't that big of news, 'specially since the beta I've got works perfect and I have never had a problem. I figure this new beta is better, though. It has to be, the version went up :)

  • Re:Straight from the horse's mouth: (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I think it's clear that some other distributions inflated their version numbers for marketing purposes, and I've had to field (way too many times) the question "why isn't yours 6.x" or worse "when will you upgrade to Linux 6.0" which really drives home the effectiveness of this simple trick. With the move to glibc and nearly everyone else using 6.x now, it made sense to go to at least 6.0, just to make it clear to people who don't know anything about Linux that Slackware's libraries, compilers, and other stuff are not 3 major versions behind. I thought they'd all be using 7.0 by now, but no matter. We're at least "one better", right? :)

    I have to agree, this is too familiar.

    A few years ago, I worked trade shows as the resident geek for a commercial software company.

    When our main competitor started to release new versions slightly faster than us, we ended up with a version # mismatch. Constant questions of "So, when are you going to come out with your version 5?" drove the point home that the version number mattered...

    ...and this was for a fairly technical system tool; a memory manager. (Yep, RIP. Never again. Don't blame me, blame Bill.)

    As for the hecklers, be rest assured. You'll forget the version mismatch soon enough. If it wasn't changed, someone -- sooner or later -- would make a point of it. Even if ignorant and misguided, the myth of "Slackware is less than other Linux distributions...just look at the number" would prevail. Best to get it out of the way now.

  • > Now, if only Slackware had some sort of package manager..

    % ls -1 /sbin/*pkg*
    /sbin/explodepkg
    /sbin/installpkg
    /sbin/makepkg
    /sbin/pkgtool
    /sbin/pkgtool.tty
    /sbin/removepkg
    /sbin/upgradepkg
    --
  • ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware-current/

  • Is there a compelling reason to run Slackware these days? Since the slackware glibc2.1-based release is supposedly near, they are at least faster than the snail-like pace of Debian, but it's hard to imagine them ever being more up to date than Red Hat.

    I'd just like to hear from Slackware users about the install experience, how easy it is to upgrade, that sort of thing.

  • ah, slackware.... (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 16, 1999 @07:26AM (#1609227)
    Slack was a great distribution to learn on, I remember the fun I had upgrading 3.4 to glibc (and consequently reinstalling 3.4, and upgrading again. The 2nd time i managed to not fuck it up).. but I've learned, I've prospered, and nowdays i simply don't have the time to do all of that stuff by hand. apt-get dist-upgrade has made me incredibly lazy, as well as incredibly efficient. I remember not being able to do a ton of things when I had 3.6, that really pissed me off (things like running mozilla, compiling xmms, and compiling a kernel (?!) on my laptop). Ah well, those days are long gone, I'm quite happy w/ debian. I still think every new linux user should be *required* to run slackware for at least a year, though, so they actually LEARN something.
    -dilinger (who's been up for over 24 hours now)
  • I've been using the beta for awhile now too, and from what I can tell, RPM on Slack fails at almost every attempt because it can't find the dependencies it needs. Of course, rpm2tgz && su -c "installpkg foo.tgz" will always get the job done.

    I'm sure there's a switch to use with RPM to make it ignore dependencies, but I'm too lazy to care :)
  • Alright, Slack doesn't come up on /. very often, but...am I the only one who thinks it'd be excruciatingly cool to have a Dobbshead logo for Slack posts? I was so disappointed by the generic tux logo on this one...
    --
    "HORSE."
  • Does that mean you upgrade you distro to upgrade your kernel? You can download kernel patches from a very large network of mirrors, and they aren't that big (maybe the biggest one is a meg).

    And, as you mention that you were disappointed for "programming reasons", a programmer, like you, shouldn't be affraid to recompile a kernel.

    That is unless you are talking about the fact you think the only thing that changed with slack4 is a new kernel, which is wrong; the new versions feature more important things like security and bug fixes.

    Although a libc=>glibc change is huge, it is probably opening up a can of security holes. I can garauntee that you will be unpleased with the performance and reliability of slack7 if you expect a library change to change the world.
  • OK, that's a good reason not to use Slackware, but there are many others.

    You know, it's a myth that the other distributions don't let you reach in and tinker with things. It's still allowed; it's just not always necessary.
    --
  • I'm running Slackware 3.5 with Linux 2.2.12. Slackware 3.5 came with Linux 2.0.34. Upgrading the kernel to 2.2.x required updates to a handful of stuff (pppd, ipchains...) and was mildly annoying. A new distribution with new versions of all of these would be nice. Also, I need glibc for things like XMMS, StarOffice and apparently Apple's QuickTime Streaming proxy server (the only protocol I haven't gotten to work over masquerading). I'm really looking forward to Slackware 7, and I hope the final stable version will be out before I get fed up with what I've got and start upgrading things manually.
  • This is bizarre. SCO UnixWare went from 2.x to 7. Sun Solaris went from 2.6 to 7. Now Slackware jumps to 7.

    It's not so bizarre they they all skipped version numbers, but the choice of 7 is strange.

  • The reason that they can't use the JR "Bob" Dobbs head is that the Church of the Sub Genius has TRADEMAKRED it, and they go Nazi on anyone who attempts to make use of it. That is why you can't get the "Bob's Media Ecology" CDs any more, and you don't see the Dobbshead on the offical Slackware CDs either. These guys should remember their roots in the Discordian movement where everything is Kopyrite (K) All Rites Reversed!

    ttyl
    Farrell McGovern
    Discordian Priest
  • learning the slack way is learning the real way. its good to have stuff like RPM to help you keep track of installed software, but to really learn something, you cant really have any second hand help, except stuff like books and documentation, and word of experienced mouth.

    ----------
    Have FreeBSD questions?
  • i doubt every beta release will be announced everytime on /., its just that they want to inform the masses that changes are happening with slack, and not to give up all hope, and when its all said and done, itll be slack 7.

    ----------
    Have FreeBSD questions?
  • hmmm freebsd != big corporations. what the hell are you talking about?

    ----------
    Have FreeBSD questions?
  • you've never heard of the phrase 'lucky seven'? :)

    ----------
    Have FreeBSD questions?
  • That isn't really true. People learn lots of different ways. Some prefer a top-down approach, where they learn an easy or automatic way to do things first (like RPM) and get into the deeper stuff like compiling later. I mean, some people do say "the only way to learn to program is to do it in assembly" but for most people, starting with C or C++ or some HLL makes more sense, but of course, to become a real programmer, you'll have to learn asm eventually. Tho learning asm is usually easier once you understand high-level programming concepts.

  • Or... (Score:1)

    by patrikr ( 1360 )
    ftp://ftp.linuxberg.com/pub/distributions/Slackwar e/slackware-current/

    --

  • I think half the reason for posting the story was to keep people up to date with where the version numbers are now... I know I had to re-read the paragraph to make sure I read it right. I even blinked a few times :)

    "Version 7?? Say *what*?"

    Ah well. If you're going to accelerate your version numbering, do it properly :)

  • Is there a compelling reason to run Slackware these days? Since the slackware glibc2.1-based release is supposedly near, they are at least faster than the snail-like pace of Debian, but it's hard to imagine them ever being more up to date than Red Hat.
    *dons the flamesuit* Hmm.. I assume you mean BESIDES the inherent superiority of Slackware over all other distros :) *removes the flamesuit*

    Anyways, the best part of Slackware for me is the utter simplicity of doing anything I want, everything is easily accessible if I want to play with it, and its not hard to modify. I've tried other distros and it just doesn't seem the same. The install is nice and simple, and the only thing I've found missing is the FTP install, which I've been trying to hack something up for, but I'm hitting a brick wall.. ahh well.. maybe I'll just leave it to Pat :p What it all really seems to come down to in the end is your personal preference however, and so I can't really say more than "Try it for yourself".
  • Ohhhhhh... a slackware-current mirror? I've been waiting for that.. any others you want to share? ;p
  • Incorrect.
    The beta version of slackware that has been available for quite a while (I've been running it for probably close to two months) indeed uses glibc2.1. This fact was posted on slashdot about that long ago, actually.

    dillinger:~$ ldd /bin/bash libtermcap.so.2 => /lib/libtermcap.so.2 (0x4001a000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4001e000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)

    dillinger:~$ ls -l /lib/libc.so.6 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Aug 27 07:54 /lib/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.1.1.so*
    Looks like 2.1 to me.

  • glibc2.1 is not the development version of glibc2. It is the stable version, and the only currently maintained version. glibc2.0 maintainenence has ceased, and libc5 maintenence was halted ages ago.

    Not all projects use the kernel version numbering system.

  • Nope, that's the only one I know.

    --
  • Hmmm. Then you'd get the situation that they have with computer magazines now where the November issue comes out at the end of September because they don't want to appear out-of-date ... basically the version number padding is here to stay however abominable we think it is. (I'm tempted to download Slackware 7, burn it to CD and label the CD "Slackware 5").
  • I would like to see the distributions move to a year/release versioning system instead of the current point incremental version that they are all using now. So RedHat 6.1 would be RedHat 99R2, SuSE 6.2 would be SuSE 99R3 (or is it 2?), Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 would be Caldera OpenLinux 99R2, etc... At least it would be easier to pinpoint when a given release was made and would help eliminate the current versioning problems. Of course, distributions could tarnish this scheme by slightly post-dating their version numbers a bit too...
  • Hehe... the first slackware i installed was 3.0.
    Never failed... even got X to run on it =)
    Now... i'm on 4.0... i installed it and been
    running it since it came out. I am not
    sure if i will move to the glibc dist.
    Have they really made glibc as fast as libc5?
    And as stable?
    I thought the reason for using glibc was that
    it is multiplatform... but sacrafies some speed
    compared to libc5 which is i386 only...
  • SuSE did this some years ago, bu then they switched to 4.x

    SuSE started at 4.2.

    SuSE's YaST started at 0.42.

    See a pattern? Gee, I wonder... :-)*
  • It was my first linux experience and I have stuck with it since 1.1.58. That's why I guess I think the install is so good. Because it is some much better than back then :-). I am planning to get back into some real coding so the glibc upgrade is cool to me so I won't have to learn the difference of one over the other, plus I can really use threads now. And I can use more software now. Can't wait to finally run Mozilla source. Guess I will have to install gnome to now huh :-(.
  • Actually, we just kinda don't put Bob's head on our stuff because we just kinda don't do that. We're Church-sanctioned, man. :)
  • The SlackBuild script can do it.

    Takes a _long_ time though :)

    It isn't quite FreeBSD's make world, but it a hell of a lot closer to it than anything any other Linux distribution has.
  • Simplicity and extreme stability.
  • The advantage of using Slackware is that you tend to be more in control over what you actually have installed on your system. I used to be a Slackware user, then tried Redhat, now SuSE, and the latter take care of many things for you; if that is good or bad depends on your personal taste.

  • Re:Slackware advantages? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've used both Debian and RedHat. Neither one of them even comes close to Slackware in QUALITY and STABILITY. Other distributions that jumped on the bandwagon and based releases off of the newer glibc libraries sacrificed quality and stability at the expense of their users. glibc2.07 was a "beta". glibc2.1 was the official release. glibc2.1.2 is finally reaching the point that it is stable. Is it foolish to wait for a "stable" library release or is it foolish to jump in with both feet and base a distribution off of a "beta" library release. Installing Slackware was much easier than installing either Debian or RedHat. Configuration after install was a piece of cake. Even though Slackware does not use Linuxconf or other graphical configuration utilities, their scripts do an outstanding job of helping you to set up the system. Upgrading software on Slackware is, at least in my opinion, much easier than upgrading on either Debian or Redhat, and it leaves "me" in control, not the dpkg or rpm package managers. Slackware's philosophy is "KSS" and it works. Some distributions are overly complicated because of the elaborate schemes the maintainers come up with in trying to simplify things for their users. *NIX ain't hard if you site down and read the doc's, unfortunately most people seem unwilling to do that today.
  • I've noticed a bunch of ppl saying how they started with like 3.0 and now at 4.0 or somewhat and just wondered why? I mean i started on 3.2, i'm still at 3.2, but its all glibc now with alot of upgrades from source.

    Just wondering, because slackware doesn't really lend itself easily to upgrades, why restart from scratch? Doesn't it take alot of time to get it back to the way it was? I know mine would.
  • LinuxPPC is doing it today.
  • Have they really made glibc as fast as libc5?
    And as stable?

    Odd.. I was under the impression that libc5 was slower than glibc...
    (which is why benchmarks show SUSE and Redhat outperforming Slackware
    and Caldera (1.3)...)

    Is there anyone 'in the know' (one of the developers, perhaps?) that
    can clarify this?

    Long live Slackware!

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