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Slackware Linux 14.1 Released 136

Posted by samzenpus from the brand-new dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to the official announcement, Slackware 14.1 includes the following: 'Slackware 14.1 brings many updates and enhancements, among which you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.10.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 4.10.5, a recent stable release of the 4.10.x series of the award-winning KDE desktop environment.' Installation ISOs can be found here."
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Slackware Linux 14.1 Released More

Slackware Linux 14.1 Released

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  • amused that they talk about the DT environs (Score:4, Informative)

    by themushroom ( 197365 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @08:09PM (#45362697) Homepage

    when real Slackware users only use command lines :)

    • Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs (Score:5, Funny)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @08:15PM (#45362753)

      when real Slackware users only use command lines :)

      Real Slackware users use a Desktop so they can run command line shells in six xterms simultaneously.

      • Hi, I'm a real Slackware user and I run ctwm and GNUscreen.

      • Real Slackware users use a Desktop so they can run command line shells in six xterms simultaneously.

        You only need a window manager (like Fluxbox, fvwm, xfwm, sawfish etc) to manage multiple xterms, not a full desktop environment.

        And you don't need X11 at all, since tmux will allow you to do all of that from a text console.

        eg.: http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux3.png [sourceforge.net]

        • Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs (Score:5, Insightful)

          by farrellj ( 563 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @10:21PM (#45364079) Homepage Journal

          Actually, us Slackware Users us whatever the fsck we want, because we know how to do it all! CDE, KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, raw X, screen, and anything else we can dig up. We not only know how to use it, we customize it so that other users on the same machine have a hard time time using it! What's more, we probably also know how to use Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, SUSE, Debian, Arch, *BSD, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Mac OS (7-10), and another dozen operating systems that most of you haven't heard of! We can even make Windows useful! We Kick OS BUTT!

          All single OS users must cringe in the shadow of our awesomeness!

          Really!

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Trigun ( 685027 )

            I would just like to take the time to point out that we have a 3-digit User ID here... So by default he knows what he is talking about.
            He remembers the 23 disk A-series of slackware.

            • I would just like to take the time to point out that we have a 3-digit User ID here... So by default he knows what he is talking about.

              IIRC, it only took about a year to go from single-digit to 6-digit UIDs, so it's largely a matter of timing (or luck), and all the lower-numbered UIDs were created about the same age, and only means we were on the internet, reading about Linux circa '98.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by farrellj ( 563 )

              Truth!

              I do know all of those operating systems, and many more. But, I was trying to inject a bit of humour too! If you take Linux, or anything (hint *BSD/Debian users...) too seriously, you annoy people, and make them less likely to use your operating system. Slackware (come on, *think* about the name!!!) is never going to be able to take itself too seriously! And that is why I still use it, as well as Mint, Mac OS, and Windows 7 (at least on this system...). One of the few nice things you can do since App

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by dpiven ( 518007 )

            We not only know how to use it, we customize it so that other users on the same machine have a hard time time using it!

            You let OTHER USERS on YOUR MACHINE? They should get their OWN machine!

        • you can't watch porn on a text terminal.

      • Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs (Score:5, Funny)

        by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @10:02PM (#45363931)

        No, real slackware users use punch cards for input and have a single red blinking LED for output. Although I used to know this guy that shaved, thought he was better than the rest of us... he had a green LED. Fucking pretentious asshole he was.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Skapare ( 16644 )

        Six?? ... no way ... I use seventy two xterms.

      • That's what screen is for.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by arfonrg ( 81735 )

        Only six? Amateur!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Galrion ( 990969 )
        Real Slackware users use screen so they don't need to waste resources on a desktop.

    • Re:amused that they talk about the DT environs (Score:4, Interesting)

      by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Friday November 08, 2013 @12:24AM (#45364891)

      They put it there for the casual on-lookers. For whatever people bang on it, when you say Linux in an interview and they ask you which distro, you say Slackware. If you know how to hold it together with Slackware, things like installing 3rd party drivers from the command line on Ubuntu or SuSE or knowing the entire purpose of everything in /proc is the kinds of things they know you do 300% better asleep and drunk than most admins could muster running full steam.

      Here's to the release of yet another amazing version of the best Linux distro to date.

  • "Award-winning" (Score:5, Funny)

    by krkhan ( 1071096 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @08:15PM (#45362749) Homepage
    Please stop using arguably the most useless of marketing slogans. Every desktop environment which has been around long enough has won an award of some kind. (Yes, even Gnome [linuxquestions.org].)

  • Panic! (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 )
    Another version of Linux released!

  • The 3472 1.44MB floppy disk set will be available immediately. :-) Ah the good old days downloading 30 diskettes all night on my dialup connection.

  • packages (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dmbasso ( 1052166 )

    I used slackware from 97 to 2000 -- too long ago -- so I was curious about the state of package management:

    One of the major complaints by new users is the fact that Slackware does not automatically track dependencies and install dependencies when you install a file. To many this may seem like a negative mark against Slackware, but I prefer to know exactly what is installed on my system and what it is for.

    So, no, thanks. I'll stay with my Debian based distros. Which btw I know exactly what is installed... I'm not sure why one would assume automatic dependency installation imply the dependencies are installed secretly. :p

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )
      The problem with automatic dependency checking is that because the computer is doing that checking for you, you are less likely to personally know what, exactly, what all those dependencies are for packages that you've installed, unless you've installed them very recently... which means that if you want to uninstall a package, and you don't want to keep around any other packages whose only purpose for being installed was to support the package that you no longer want, if you had to manually install those de

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by seyyah ( 986027 )

        The problem with automatic dependency checking is that because the computer is doing that checking for you, you are less likely to personally know what, exactly, what all those dependencies are for packages that you've installed, unless you've installed them very recently... which means that if you want to uninstall a package, and you don't want to keep around any other packages whose only purpose for being installed was to support the package that you no longer want, if you had to manually install those dependencies in the first place, you are in a good position to be able to know which packages you should be removing as well.

        The problem with automated dependency checking is that when it breaks you are often fucked. So it's not so much that dependency checking is bad, but that it is very hard to get absolutely right, more so when you throw in extra repositories into the mix.

      • Re:packages (Score:5, Informative)

        by rusty0101 ( 565565 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @09:01PM (#45363251) Homepage Journal

        Good dependency management keeps track of such things for you over the long term as well. apt-get _will_ tell you of libraries that were installed in support of applications that you've since removed, and gives you the ability to remove those libraries as well with the auto-remove function. It does not automatically remove them with the application, which can leave cruft on your system, but has the advantage that if you've found the library handy for some program you're writing, but haven't explicitly toled the package management system that your app depends on it, you're not breaking your own application.

      • No, that's actually not generally a problem. Package managers remember which packages you asked to be installed and which packages it installed automatically to satisfy dependencies. When an automatically installed package has no more packages dependent on it, it gets uninstalled.

        The real problem is, as another poster pointed out, is the same as any automated procedure--if something goes wrong enough, it can put you in a very deep hole very quickly and if you don't understand what it was doing for you, yo

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mark-t ( 151149 )
          Well, that was my experience using a distro with auto-dependency checking... I gave up on it after a year and went back to slack.

        • How often do users get into that type of hole? It might happen if you enable too many addon repos or are running a development branch.

      • The problem with automatic dependency checking is that because the computer is doing that checking for you, you are less likely to personally know what, exactly, what all those dependencies are for packages that you've installed, unless you've installed them very recently... which means that if you want to uninstall a package, and you don't want to keep around any other packages whose only purpose for being installed was to support the package that you no longer want, if you had to manually install those dependencies in the first place, you are in a good position to be able to know which packages you should be removing as well.

        Under Ubuntu/Debian those supporting packages are marked "automatically installed" and can be removed with "apt-get autoremove".

        Frankly, I thought Slackware already had a package dependency system in place. If not, I have better things to do than manually track dependencies. It's not productive work for me.

      • The problem with automatic dependency checking is that because the computer is doing that checking for you, you are less likely to personally know what, exactly, what all those dependencies are for packages that you've installed, unless you've installed them very recently...

        That much is true, I reckon. And it's all fine and dandy to know every package on your machine... if you only have one machine. When you start administering a few hundred different servers that serve different purposes and have different software and belong to multiple clients... good luck with that. Old systems get crufty, sure. But I'd rather backup & reinstall once in 5 years than to fuck with trying to manually remove orphaned packages all the time. Just seems like an enormous waste of time. A

        • Pretty much this. I love Slackware, I cut my linux teeth on Slackware, Slackware held my hand as I plunged into the world of FreeBSD. Unfortunately, manual dependency tracking (and, gods forbid, updating) dozens of machines...

          Sadly, I don't have time for that (who does?). That's the only reason I haven't dumped ubuntu-server in the bin.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by TheRealMindChild ( 743925 )
      You were a slackware user and you used packages? Either you are/were a filty casual, or you were of the very few who depended on such.

      Installing things on slackware was/is almost always 'tar xvjpf source.tar.gz && cd source && ./configure && make && make install', aside from the initial system install, of course

      • You misunderstood me. I used slackware until 2000, when a friend suggested to me to try Debian, which he had installed in a computer of our lab. The first thing I tried was to edit a configuration file using midnight commander (mc -e), which was not installed by default. I pointed to the screen and made a face implying "is this what you call a decent OS?", but he said "wait", and typed the magic words "apt-get install mc".

        From that moment on, I would never use an OS without package manager again... at least

        • Wait, you wanted to use Midnight commander to edit a conf file instead of vim or emacs? Freak!

          Probably easier to use for simpler edits though.

          • Back at that time I was still dual-booting, and used to code in the IDE of Turbo C and DOS edit... mc's editor was the closest match.

            In 2006 I forced myself to use vim during one month. There were some things that I fell in love with, but overall I didn't like the experience. So I just made a plugin for gedit with everything I liked in vim, and that's what I've been using since (now with Pluma, because gedit3 broke compatibility).

        • but he said "wait", and typed the magic words "apt-get install mc".

          Just FYI, on Slackware that would have been "slackpkg install mc".

          • mc was installed by default, and in 2000 there was nothing resembling "slackpkg". But nice to know it exists now!

            • Which means Slackware was easier (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              Yes it was installed by default. That is kinda the point. Slackware has a decent selection of packages preinstalled so no need to have to type such a command. Surely that makes it even easier. Before you reply you might wan to read this:

              http://my.opera.com/ruario/blog/2011/09/26/slackware-package-and-dependency-management

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Clsid ( 564627 )

        Wait I must be on drugs or something, but during the brief period I used Slackware, I thought you were supposed to create Slackware packages yourself from every source install, which is extremely easy to do and one of the major reasons I liked Slackware in the first place. Hell, there was even a website called Linux Packages or something like that, where you could just share whatever packages you created if anybody didn't want to go through the process.

        In my case I ended up using Gentoo for personal use eve

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by seyyah ( 986027 )

        Installing things on slackware was/is almost always 'tar xvjpf source.tar.gz && cd source && ./configure && make && make install', aside from the initial system install, of course

        Slackware is never that. Slackware is all about packages. Always.

      • God no. You compile to a slackware package. Either with a Slackbuild script someone has already written (true of just about everything out there), or write one yourself and release it to the community.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by arfonrg ( 81735 )

      This is the biggest FUD out there about Slackware.... You want automatic dependency resolution? USE DAWNRAZOR'S SBOTOOLS

      http://dawnrazor.net/sbotools/ [dawnrazor.net]

    • For those that otherwise recognize the awesomitude of Slackware but have gotten too old and feeble to track dependencies themselves, I would recommend Arch [archlinux.org]. (Yes, that does include me...)

      To me, it's got a very Slackware-like feel to it (including a SlackBuild-like system called ABS), but also a pretty comprehensive repository.

    • I use slackware because of that. I hate when i get 5 gigs of crap update that is 99.9% not needed, and then breaks things. Its like people are taking the worst of windows and putting it on linux.

      My last slackware install has need just 2 packages updated because of security advisories in the last year. JUST 2. I get work done, not piss around on the internet with updates every 3 hours.

  • Like the Eveready Rabbit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stox ( 131684 ) on Thursday November 07, 2013 @08:56PM (#45363199) Homepage

    It keeps going and going.

    True to its users.

    Congratulations, on another fine release, to the Slackware Team!

    • I am embarrassed to say that I stared at the screen for some minutes before realizing that "Eveready Rabbit" was not some cutsie release name for the latest Slackware release.

  • Yawn!!!!!! (Score:2, Redundant)

    by AntEater ( 16627 )

    I've been anticipating this release for several weeks now. What's funny, is that there's not much to say about it here. Predictable. Reliable. Maybe even boring. Still, Slackware is an awesome system that is a joy to administer. I'll be updating several machines as soon as my DVD arrives in the mail.

  • Slackware still uses tarball packaging?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And they install in seconds.

      (If you are surprised by this, then you probably aren't familiar with the slackware philsophy. It's founded on simplicity and vanilla-ism, which is a lot different than, say, debian.)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes, now go back to your noob distro.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mishehu ( 712452 )
      OMG they're not using $flavor_of_the_month!!!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Nimey ( 114278 )

      More importantly, it still doesn't use a dependency-resolving package manager. If that works for you, great, but it doesn't for me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by higuita ( 129722 )

      Yes, tgz (or txz) is just a tar.gz (or tar.xz) ... just like a .deb is just a .ar achive (try ar x name .deb) ... but this is a good thing, you can open then with standard tools if the pkgtool or dpkg or apt-* don't work.

      rpm can only be open by rpm (or converted to standard archive by tools that usually require again the rpm), making very hard to open if the rpm really dont work.

  • Here is to another great release!

    Thanks to Patrick Volkerding and the entire crew - I am going to buy my CDs and DVDs right now to support Slackware.

  • Another fine release. Not that I'm biased or anything...

  • If you are a real SA, then you use slack.
    This is my quick, 1 line, summary of most
    distributions today:

    1. Fedora -- Fuck no. I want my video to work.
    2. Centos -- Not too bad actually. The only thing I would run other than Slack.
    3 RH - No! I dont have $10,000.00 a month for support.
    4. Debian -- De-what ? Die motherfucker!
    5. Ubuntu -- Ubu-suck-my-dick -- another African word that means suck-my-dick
    6. BSD -- Hey, listen to me: Fuck off. Go play with OSX... bitch!
    7... Whatever...

    Yeah, I run Slack, I compile my o

  • Slackware - still proudly refusing to be virtualized. VMware Tools won't install.

    Still, according to some people here its better than sex - but how would they know?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by higuita ( 129722 )

      Of course it installs... you have to fix the script to stop thinking that everyone is using redhat or debian

  • I'm grateful for Slackware because that's how I discovered that it was possible to use a PC without being trapped in the tyranny of MSWindows and various other expensive proprietary software. I still have the 4 CD set Slackware 96 from Walnut Creek as a souvenir. I wonder if old software CD's are a collector's item like baseball cards or comic books.

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