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Upgrades Software Linux

Slackware 9 Unleashed to World 351

Posted by CowboyNeal from the bob-dobbs-and-patrick-v dept.
kiltedtaco writes "Slackware Linux 9.0 is out! Based on gcc 3.2, and equipped with kernel 2.4.20 (ptrace-patched), XFree86 4.3, GNOME 2.2 and KDE 3.1. You can read the full announcement, or just go grab a copy for yourself at either the Slackware Store or these lovely mirrors." I know a lot of people who first cut their teeth on Slack when trying Linux. It's cool to see that it's still around.
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Slackware 9 Unleashed to World More

Slackware 9 Unleashed to World

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  • darn (Score:3, Funny)

    by k0nsept ( 443329 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:43PM (#5560487) Homepage
    darn i just downloaded the beta yesterday!

    • Re:darn (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <hcteks.retsim>> on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:51PM (#5560570)
      No you didn't because it was actually released on Wednesday (technically late Tuesday), so if you downloaded anything Wednesday from -current it would have been 9.0final. I knew about it, but didn't want to post it to Slashdot until I got it all downloaded :).

    • Re:darn (Score:3, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 )
      it's amazing that Slackware hasn't included some sort of automatic update like apt-get or RHN. I feel that it is not a wise descision to not allow users to keep w/the bleeding edge in this day and age of Linux.

      I prefer that my system is running the latest and greatest.. Someday, when apt-get isn't broken, and you can easily use CVS X *and* automatically update programs it will be nice.

      Please no comments from the Debian policy freaks. It's my system, I should be able to do what I want w/it whether Debia

      • Re:darn (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Sh0t ( 607838 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @07:10PM (#5560747) Journal
        You mean besides the fact you can:

        Download and use apt-get
        Download and use Rpm
        Download the sources of the most bleeding edge

        Chances are the latest and greatest is going to be SOURCE anyway, not a package.

        CVS is always available.

        Please learn. Don't give people the wrong about slack.

  • fp (Score:5, Funny)

    by volkerdi ( 9854 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:44PM (#5560488)
    Hey, do I get fp? :-)

    • Re:fp (Score:3)

      by BRTB ( 30272 )
      Well... maybe not in the real order, but we'll give you honorary FP anyway. =]

      And while I'm posting... I think I speak for all of us loyal Slack users everywhere in thanking you for your hard work in making yet another fine release. Slackware forever!

    • Re: fp (Score:5, Informative)

      by ThePurpleBuffalo ( 111594 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @07:02PM (#5560672)
      I'd just like to point out that user "volkerdi" is Patrick Volkerding - the head Slackware guy.

      Personally, I laughed out loud when I saw this post.

      I think it's unfortunate that Mr. Volkerding, who has worked very hard for MANY years to help Linux, is rarely recognized.

      Or maybe it just seems that way...

      Beware TPB

    • Re:fp (Score:2)

      by Sh0t ( 607838 )
      UP the irons to you bro thanks for the good work even tho I use freebsd I appreciate your efforts to put out a nice bohemian distru

      • Re:fp (Score:2, Interesting)

        by RLiegh ( 247921 )
        "FreeBSD is for people who love unix..."
        Isn't slackware's motto something along the lines of "the most unix-like linux"?
        Even though I switch between XP and NetBSD, I would not have gotten into NetBSD if I hadn't gotten into FreeBSD. And I wouldn't have gotten into FreeBSD without having learned on slackware.

        So thank you, Pat. :^)

    • Re:fp (Score:2)

      by ankit ( 70020 )
      You may not get the fp, but you surely get a big thank you from thousands of loyal slack users worldwide!

    • Re:fp (Score:2, Insightful)

      by spickus ( 513249 )
      Great job as usual. Thank you.

    • Saints preserve us (Score:4, Funny)

      by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @09:22PM (#5561758)
      The last name doesn't sound very Irish, but Saint Patrick to be sure. And you just missed your very own day, tis a shame to be sure.

    • Re:fp (Score:3, Insightful)

      by deadsaijinx* ( 637410 )
      wait. Maybe if I were to spend years developing a dependable and rock-solid linux distribution, then I could make FP postings and not get modded down! Then, with this now power, I will slowly take over all of /.!!!!! MUHAHA (specifically two "ha"s)

      Or I could just come up with something meaningful to contribute to /. .... yeah, that would be a lot less work.

  • man... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by intermodal ( 534361 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:45PM (#5560503) Homepage Journal
    its amazing the popularity slackware maintains despite its simplicity. Just goes to show how desireable simplicity can be for some.
  • Why should I use it in preference to RH or Debian or any of the countless other distros? Does it have some special features? Is it easy to install? Does it have some packages you can't find elsewhere? Have they made some amazing customizations to the kernel?

    • Re:What's so special about Slackware? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by punkmac ( 89506 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:48PM (#5560539) Homepage
      it dosent hold your hand, so you learn the right way

    • Re:What's so special about Slackware? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eryk ( 6051 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:52PM (#5560581)
      The answer to all your questions is no and that's exactly what makes Slackware so attractive.
      It is clean and tidy distribution which keeps everything as simple as possible. It is beautiful.
    • I run redhat when I do not want to mess with things like drivers or configuration. Slackware is simple, and there are not any darn rpms that get in your way.

      RPMS can be your best friend or you worst enemy depending on what you are doing.

      I have a fetish for compiling everything from source, so a minimal slackware is a step above LFS.
    • It's simple. It is easy to install, though it's not as pretty as Redhat or Mandrake. It's got a very simple package management system, and it's got a much simpler directory structure. I started on Slackware and switched to Debian a few months ago. I'd say that what I miss most about Slackware is how easy it is to make it work the way you want (it's really easy to mix source and binary packages) and the layout of the startup scripts. I don't like this giant mess of symbolic links that most distros use. But i
    • It's very easy to install - the installer is to a lot of people the easiest to use (myself included).

      I think most of the people who use or want to use Slackware is for the challenge - for the most part you generally have to edit config files yourself to administer it, or upgrade stuff. Compiling new packages yourself is done more often than using the package management system - it isn't anything like apt-get or rpm (though rpm is available and I've noticed quite [wanwanscappel.free.fr] a few [yorku.ca] package [sf.net] management [xbone.be] tools [slackware.com] around).

      For
    • Stability perhaps, it's produced by one person.

      Slack has had a reputation for being difficult, but compated to installing Gentoo it's quite simple to install.
    • Yes it's easy to install, but Slackware never strived to have that illusion of simplicity that other distros tried and (IMO) have failed at. This scares some newbies, but teaches you Linux in the most straightforward way.

  • YES!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:46PM (#5560516)
    The only thing that makes me happier than FreeBSD releases is Slackware releases. Always clean and small, always reliable, always complete. My first and favorite distro.

    Thank you Patrick.

  • Of *course* Slackware is still around! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Silroquen ( 609767 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:46PM (#5560517)
    I love Slackware! It's simple and it gives me complete control--just what I want in a Linux distro. If it ever *ceases* to be around, I'll have to take up the Slack myself. ;)
    • Seems like Slackware has always been around... it's alive and well today, and it will continue thriving forever. I'll bet that after the nuclear holocaust, the mutant cockroaches left wandering the planet will be running and maintaining Slackware still.

  • I love Slack! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by miketang16 ( 585602 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:48PM (#5560535) Journal
    I'm running an upgraded, 9.0 Slackware right now. It's awesome, everything works great, and how you would expect it too. btw.. Does anyone know if there's an automatic update utility for Slack, like Debian has?

  • First useful post? (Score:5, Informative)

    by BRTB ( 30272 ) <slashdot@NOSpam.brtb.org> on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:49PM (#5560545) Homepage
    Since the official Slack FTP is a bit slow from everyone trying to grab it, here are a couple (unofficial) mirror lists:

    alphageek.dyndns.org [dyndns.org]
    AbnormalPenguin.com [abnormalpenguin.com]

    I've already downloaded mine, so everybody have at it. ;)
  • Actually, it's been out since Tuesday... but anyway, to us freaks, who kept up to date with -current branch, it was nothing new.

  • Real-World Experience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joel Rowbottom ( 89350 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:51PM (#5560571) Homepage
    Over at Fotopic [fotopic.net] and CentralNic [centralnic.com] we've already been using the Slackware pre stuff in production environments and it's pretty damn solid. It's also quite nice that automake and such deals with the Slack package format.

    I've also got it running nicely on my laptop (HP Omnibook 9000), it's damn fine. Kudos to Pat and the gang.

  • Waiting for Zipslack/Bigslack (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phavens ( 573333 ) <slashdot@@@thehavens...net> on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:52PM (#5560583) Homepage Journal
    I've used Slackware for many things... But I have to say that Zipslack and Bigslack are two things I've enjoy and use the most.

    Have a old computer that doesn't have a whole lot of space? ZipSlack.

    Have no CD-Rom on a computer or just want a FAST easy ready made distro? Big slack. (just extract the zipped files over from a zip disk on the Hard Drive. Edit a text file... reboot :-) Fully functional Linux Distro.

    The problem is that usually it takes a bit after the main release before the goodies really come out.

    I use SuSE for most everything else but these ready made Distro are great.

  • Damn you... (Score:2, Funny)

    by pcbob ( 67069 )
    ...Buzz Lightyear, i just started downloading and was wondering why it slowed down to a crawl. Can't
    you keep your mouth shut for at least few days? :)
  • Slackware is one of the few major linux distributions that I can install on an old 520MB hard drive.

    I haven't tried version 9.0 yet. Have they improved the installation process? I found the text mode one took quite a bit of time to select the individual packages I wanted.
    • What? I just installed Debian unstable on a 64MB flash card. Any distribution can pull that stunt, the only matter is what packages to install. I actually find Slackware's packages to be a bit coarse. In the past you couldn't install emacs without a lot of associated crap, or you installed tetex in one huge chunk. I remember in 1995 one of my friends thought he was hot shit with his 1GB SCSI hard disk, so he went with the "Everything" option in the Slackware installer. After nearly an hour of installi

  • Speaking of cutting teeth... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pongo000 ( 97357 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @06:56PM (#5560622)
    I know a lot of people who first cut their teeth on Slack when trying Linux.

    I almost didn't become a Linux convert thanks to Slackware...I made the mistake of trying to install Slackware as my first Linux O/S back in '96. It was a nightmare straight from the bowels of O/S hell. I spent weeks trying to get my 486 running with X (this with no prior Unix knowledge). I finally gave up, and a few years later discovered SuSE and their YaST installer.

    Ironically, I now run Slackware on most of my machines...go figure. It's a slick distro, and I've learned a lot since those dark days of '96.

    • Re:Speaking of cutting teeth... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sziwan ( 601855 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @07:07PM (#5560720)
      Slackware was my first linux distro, and I'm grateful to my friends for showing me The Right Way to use linux. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against other distros, but when it comes to learning, nothing beats Slackware.

      Provided, of course, you do want to learn :P

      • I started with Slack (version 3.something), too, because the Red Hat installer wouldn't detect my CD-ROM drive for some reason. I'm SO glad that happened...I tried Mandrake 8.2 once, but just had to come back to Slackware.

        As the distrowatch.com page said: "If you want to know something about Linux, ask a Slackware user."

        --RJ
    • I tried Slackware around that time too. However, I didn't really have enough HD space for a decent Linux (there was too much missing from my install), and I ended up going back to Doze. When I finally had enough room for Linux, I tried RedHat, but wasn't quite satisfied. After jumping from distro to distro, I found Slackware (7.0), and I've been Slacking ever since.
    • My first distro was Slackware, in February 1997, and apart from using pine and vi from time to time on Solaris 2.5.1, I had no Unix or Linux knowledge. However, I had a lot of NetWare experience, and guess what? I installed Slackware the same day I downloaded it to the hard disk. Yes, my first install was from the hard dis, and it went perfectly well, including all the network settings.

      Then I tried RedHat 4.1, and it was OK, and then RH 5.2, which was worse (quality went down, overall) and OpenLinux Lite 1
    • The first experience I had with slackware was on a 486 DX2/66 with a cheap 1MB trident video card that was unsupported by X. I felt so l33t when I finally got it configured and working with the SVGA server at 320x240 and playing doom at 8-bit.

      Then 3DFX and all those ex SGI engineers just had to go and start a 3D revolution that left my l33t slackware game box in the dust.

  • Beta (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rjoseph ( 159458 )
    Been using the beta for about two weeks now, and I'm incredibley impressed, this may be one of the best Slackware releases yet (and I've been using it since...like, 3.0 days, or 'round there. Damn, I'm getting old).

    Check it out - Slackware is still alive and kicking ass!

  • ISO image available anywhere yet? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lawrence_Bird ( 67278 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @07:06PM (#5560703) Homepage
    In fact the 9.0 was on mirrors last nite, but the only ISO image was for 8.1

  • A true throwback distro (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bogie ( 31020 )
    I am always amazed that people are into distros like Slackware. No easy gui install that anyone can do without effort. No way to automatically update the system for security updates. And that's the way they like it.

    Usually this is when a Slackware user starts crowing about bloat and spewing phrasing like "redhate". Slackwares's installer and system maintenace methods were normal in 1993, a bit dated by 1996, and positively outdated by 2000. Now that were in 2003 I'm still amazed that anyone wants to deal
    • It depends what you're installing the distro for.

      All the linux boxes in my home run slackware (save my coyotelinux based router), because they are all headless; a samba based PDC, a squid proxy, a VPN host, a couple more samba based storage machines. All are built out of spare parts.

      None require X, only one has compilation tools. None need the plethora of stuff that come with other distros.

      Slackware works just the way I want it. All I want is a kernel and a few basic utilities.

      I've never considered i

    • Re:A true throwback distro (Score:5, Insightful)

      by .com b4 .storm ( 581701 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @07:17PM (#5560811)

      Some people think the ease of use found in modern distros is a sign of weakness. I think its a sign of progress.

      This is such a troll, but I'll bite anyway. Slackware is not a "throwback" distro. It is all about simplicity. Believe it or not, some people don't WANT to use lots of GUI stuff, and they don't WANT everything set up for them from the start. Slackware is great for building a system that does what YOU want, and ONLY what you want. It also does so while being more UNIXy than other distributions, which is either a feature or a curse depending on your point of view.

      And IMO, the installer is not hard to use. It's very straightforward and offers details that make it pretty simple to get things set up the way you want. Okay, it's not going to go through and auto detect your sound card for you, and it's not going to resize your partitions. But honestly that's not what Slackware is for. It's about being simple, clean, and full featured (or not, as you desire).

      There is without doubt elitism in the Slackware community, but that is not what Slack is all about. And for the record I have never seen someone use the term "Redhate". If they did, they still wouldn't be half as trollish as you, my friend.

    • >Now that were in 2003 I'm still amazed that anyone wants to deal with all of that manual work in order to get everything completely working.

      Que?

      The installer is simpler than simple. Fdisk, setup, choose formatting & swap, autodetect cdrom, select full from packages (unlike many other distros this will fit on all but the worst sized hard drives, yet will provide you with just about everything you need, including MP3 decoding [wow]), select to probe for your network and voila! All done!

      That's har
  • I'm thinking about throwning down on Linux install, what's the vibe with this distro--I mean is it designers, programmers, newbies? Like to make sure I'm not stereotyped...any help greatly appreciated.

    God Bless America
    • Slackware was my first distro (~1994). I loved it but there were some difficult install issues with software packages so I bailed for an RPM-based distro.

      I am thinking of heading back to Slack. I miss the hacking.

  • I'm sitting here waiting for Mandrake to announce 9.1 and instead Slack steals their thunder. Tell me again why we need all these distros...

  • Heh (Score:2, Funny)

    by SILIZIUMM ( 241333 )
    I began downloading the ISO about an hour ago. It was downloading at a wonderful rate of 365kb/s and I left to eat. Now I come back and see a little 90kb/s. I said to myself "Huh?" and fired up Mozilla on /. to find out this story...

  • Oh the memories ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WeeBull ( 645243 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @07:25PM (#5560878)
    October 1994, issue 97 of "PC Plus". Almost 80MB of Slackware 2.0.0, kernel v 1.0.9. Manna from heaven, considering I only had a 9600 baud modem at the time. (Insert fancy maths here for calculating how long 80MB would take to download at 9600bps - about, what, 20 hours?)

    Happy memories.

    *raises glass* This one for you, Patrick, thanks.

  • "unleashed" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Thursday March 20, 2003 @07:28PM (#5560907) Homepage Journal
    Why not "untethered, and allowed to float free into the stratosphere," or "set free, to gambol and frolic in the fields with all the other happy, furry distros?"

    I remember back when software was soft and cuddly, with short little legs; we didn't need leashes for it. And we *liked* it that way!

  • W007 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 0x1337 ( 659448 )
    Slack has been my first - and my current. I played around with SuSe - it was godawful. By the way Patrick - I have been able to install your 1995 Slackware (3.2?) Onto an IBM MCA PS/2 M55SX with a 60 GB ESDI disc, and 2.9 MB of memory (Thats right - 2.9mb !!!) Too bad I fried the machine later... :( Oh well ! Time to go dload the 9.0

    • Re:W007 (Score:2, Funny)

      by MoOsEb0y ( 2177 )
      that's a damn big hard drive for a PS/2. Not to mention a weird interface for a 60 GB drive. Where'd you get it? :)
  • I remember my first time. With linux, that is.

    Yep, Slackware was my first try at a distro. I bought the 4-disc set of Slackware 3.0 in January '96 because I wanted to buy something but I didn't have enough for a music CD and hey, this was FOUR CDS for ten bucks! Awesome!

    So I got it home and read the exhaustive 48 page installation manual-cum-liner notes and figured out how to make the boot disc for my Sound Blaster OmniCD.

    I never got PPP to auto dial and never had sound, but I somehow managed to wrap m

  • Could any of the 'not easy to install' posters please elaborate? Is a curses-style interface really so difficult?

    To me, 'not easy to install' means something like a GUI where you can't navigate to the list of packages because your mouse is unsupported.

    • The installer is fine. It would be better if it recognized convenience keys such as PGUP and PGDN.

      What I REALLY want is, a way to upgrade from version n to version n+1 without reinstalling from scratch. It is saddening that no easy way to do it exists, while Debian users are just a "apt-get upgrade" away from a complete upgrade.
      • What I REALLY want is, a way to upgrade from version n to version n+1 without reinstalling from scratch. It is saddening that no easy way to do it exists,

        Slackware has had an easy-upgrade capability since 8.0. I upgraded from 7.1 to 8 with absolutely no problems. And it was easy.

        Check this out [ryerson.ca] - easy upgrade instructions. While it's not as simple as "apt-get upgrade", it's hardly a nightmare. Give it a shot.
  • It's simple to use, no RPM Hell, and if something is broke, you are only a ./configure ; make ; make install away from a fix!

    ttyl
    Farrell

  • Enlightenment? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tekniklr ( 319275 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @07:43PM (#5561038) Homepage
    Looking at ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-9. 0/PACKAGES.TXT [slackware.com], it looks like this version of Slack doesn't include Enlightenment....

    Anyone know why?
    • ... cannot be found inside a linux distro, even as one as cool as Slack. I'd mention a few of the ways to find Enlightenment here, but I bet it would only get me modded down.
    • Enlightenment comes from within...
    • That really sucks. Not like I haven't downloaded and built Enlightenment seperately many many times before (it runs much faster on my 233Mhz iMac than either KDE or Gnome) but one of the things I likes about Slackware was that when you were choosing your default window manager during install, Enlightnement was one of the choices.

      Oh well. It will just add a few steps to the process of a new install for me.
  • Only way I could find a decent server. Don't use anything from the first page until I'm done. :)

    Here ya go [google.com]

  • Slackware - a sharp tools distro (Score:5, Informative)

    by spaceyhackerlady ( 462530 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @08:01PM (#5561198)

    My first "real" computer was a 486/66. I bought it used, and it came with Windows 3.1 on it. After firing it up and marvelling that people actually paid money for such a piece of crap, I went to the local bookstore and came home with a book that included a Slackware CD. Dunno what distro, but it would have been an old one (3.0?). I've run Slackware ever since.

    I had no difficulty getting the thing going, PPP, sound (an excellent excuse for boning up on DSP!), the works. It ran fine in 8 MB RAM. OK, except for Netscape, which page-thrashed for about 2 minutes then ran fine. Upgrading to 32 MB (the capacity of the motherboard) cured that. Now I run a Pentium 3 with 768 MB RAM, plugged in to ADSL. The OS started as Slackware 8.0, but I've upgraded many packages, and run a 2.4.20 kernel. It flies...

    To this day I recommend Slackware as a "sharp tools" distro - if you know what you're doing, it's immensely powerful and flexible. If you don't know what you're doing, you're screwed.

    FWIW, my most recent Slackware install was Slackware 8.0 on a Toshiba laptop that RedHat 7.3 (the company standard) refused to install on. It would get to about 3 packages before the end, crash, reboot, say GRUB and sit there staring at me. The PCMCIA network card did all the right things, automagically. I had to fiddle a bit with the X configuration to set up yet another weird-ass laptop video card. Big deal.

    Thanks, Patrick. Well done!

    ...laura

    • slack was my first, too, on a P133. I think I moved to a package-based system after the first time I tried to upgrade my libc from source and I buggered the whole system. That was before I discovered /bin/sash :-)

      one thing slack teaches you is to build packages yourself and actually take the time to find/report/patch compile-time bugs. I can't count the number of times I had to fix the netpbm headers...
  • does no one recognize the feat that slashdot accomplished this year by not jumping the gun and announcing the pre-release as many other sites did (linuxtoday). they waited nicely until the official announcement on the slackware site, thereby letting mirrors propagate, instead of pouncing on the changelogs.

    does no one remember what happened last time around when michael posted early? good times.... (and then was rude about it to top it off...)
  • Does anyone know a SAFE way to work Gnome 1.4 back into this (assuming a fresh slack 9.0 install) so as to get legacy GNOME apps like Galeon and Evolution working?

  • I trust slackware for servers (Score:3)

    by bigberk ( 547360 ) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Thursday March 20, 2003 @08:43PM (#5561483)
    I've set up a number of Internet and LAN servers, including one for my own business. What I like the most about slackware is its simplicity and transparency in installation and configuration. I can reliably get an installation up and running properly in very little time, and configuration and customization is easy - all off 1 CD, in one go.

    Pat Volkerding has done a great job with this distribution; it really is carefully put together. I've been a fan since version 7 and I have already purchased Slackware 9 to show my support. If you like Slackware, please buy a copy from the Slackware Store [slackware.com] to help keep the project alive.
  • I'm a relative n00b to all of this. My first distro was Slack 3.4. One of the 5 CD sets. Cool stuff. Now, I'm a full time Linux user. Thanks a lot Slack devs!

  • Slackware Linux Essentials (Score:5, Informative)

    by Alan Hicks ( 660661 ) on Thursday March 20, 2003 @09:56PM (#5561988) Homepage

    You'll notice at the slackware store that there is a wonderful paperback book licensed under the GPL entitles, "Slackware Linux Essentials". It is perhaps one of the best linux books I have ever read and am thankful to be involved with.

    Mysel and many of the "BOZOs" in alt.os.linux.slackware are currently working on a revised edition to bring this book up to date with the latest release of Slackware Linux. You can take a look at our (so far meager) progress here [yoshiwara.org.uk]. I encourage anyone who wants to participate to give me an e-mail, you can find my address at that link, as well as a mailing list for this project. Any contributions would be greatly appreciated.

    Slack on!

  • Good for older systems too (Score:3, Informative)

    by cascadefx ( 174894 ) <morlockhq@@@gmail...com> on Friday March 21, 2003 @10:51AM (#5564611) Journal
    I know a lot of people who first cut their teeth on Slack when trying Linux. It's cool to see that it's still around.


    Still around?!?!

    Of course it is still around and it is really good. I use it for older or "non-standard" systems that other distros won't install on without a lot of hand-holding and research into why the next newest and greatest graphical installer for distro X keeps hanging.

    Two things that are great about Slack. First, it doesn't assume much about a system, but at the same time holds your hand enough that you don't have to know the scan rates (et al) or other specs your hardware intimately unlike *cough*debian*cough* (though I really like debian). Second, it fails gracefully. If something doesn't launch or was scanned improperly (or whatever) Slack will try to bring it up. If it can't, it throws and error exception, and continues about its way as best it can. I HATE when many systems just hang on installs. THAT is the WORST behavior. Graceful failure is an art and Slackware is very good with its paint brushes.

    Case in point. Work gave us these crappy IBM laptops that actually are ACER low-enders. I love IBM and hoped for a better model, but we got these. Having a dual-boot situation of 2000 and Linux woud be really helpful for the types of problems these laptops were meant to help us troubleshoot, but getting SuSE (one of my favorites), RedHat, or Debian to load was a nightmare... mainly due to the USB configuration (it uses an internal hub architecture to split the USB ports... or something... whatever, Linux doesn't like it) among other things. Slackware (the distro that I cut my teeth on, Slackware 96 from Walnut Creek) was mentioned as a possible route. After grabbing the CDs, It installed (with a much easier to use installer than I remember) without one hitch. I love it.

    So... give it a try. It is stable, it looks a lot like System V Unix and it is a great little OS.

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