The long development process of Slackware Linux 11.0 is about to conclude - that's according to Patrick Volkerding who has declared the "current" tree as RC1: "There are still a few changes yet to happen, but let's call this Slackware 11.0 release candidate 1." Other recent changes include upgrade to stable kernel 2.4.33; upgrade to udev 097, and rebuild of glibc 2.3.6 for both 2.4.33 and 2.6.16.27 kernels. Update: Screenshots.
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2005-10-09
Keep it up! 
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2005-06-29
In the past, some folks griped about 2.4.x kernels as the default in 10.2, so I thought I'd pass along an fyi. This release will support both 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels out of the box. One will be able to select either kernel (among other kernels, too) during the installation process. Pat V. announced this in the -current changelog a few weeks back.
Member since:2005-06-29
That's excellent news, jackson. I've tried 2.6-based Slackware derivatives in the past and none of them seemed to get it right. Zenwalk was the best, but even it had too many bugs for my taste. It will be a wonderful feeling to select a 2.6 kernel image from the Slackware installation without the word "test" attached to it.
Member since:2006-01-31
Member since:2006-03-06
That is fantastic. I've never had any (major) problems dropping in a 2.6.x kernel, but having it available as a simple choice in the installer will definitely get rid of a couple headaches.
I'm still kind of amazed that 2.4.x is the default, given how long the 2.6.x kernel has been out. I know Pat says stability is the reason, but does anyone here who follows Slackware more closely than I know of the specific issues keeping it from becoming the default?
Member since:2006-01-10
Member since:2005-06-29
True, but it was not truly a "supported" kernel. That's why it was called "test26". You had to install the modules manually, for example.
This new "huge26" kernel is a supported one just like all the others.
From the 7/14 -current changelog:
"The name of the big kernel with many built-in options has been changed from test26.s to huge26.s to reflect that Slackware 11.0 will consider the 2.6.16.x kernel series to be a supported kernel series."
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2006-06-20
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2006-06-06
I've a working qemu image and you know what? It feels exactly the same as the recent versions. 0.99.15 kernel simply rocks, and it is true what Greg KH says: I can run a binary (statically) compiled on Slack-1.1.2 (gcc-2.5.8) on my Ubuntu box and it simply works.
http://greblus.go.pl/media/images/timetravel.png
Edited 2006-08-15 13:08
Member since:
2005-07-12
wow, that's great, i love slackware, have been using it since slackware 4. i have tried many other distributions since: gentoo, debian, ubuntu, red hat, suse, knoppix, etc but i still think slackware gives me the most flexibility and stability. i love how they don't modify the kernel sources so the kernel you get is virgin from www.kernel.org, it's just as easy to drop in the 2.6 virgin sources from kernel.org, just unzip it into the /usr/src/ directory and softlink that to /usr/src/linux. the packaging/installation is the easiest for me to use. i have learned so much about linux by using slackware, it's the closest thing to linux from scratch to me except it has safe boundaries so that you don't do anything crazy. yeah, you'll probably say that gentoo is closer to lfs because you can compile everything, but i'm just talking about the layout of the entire distro, its amazingly simple. maybe i can say this because i've been using it for several years now, i remember in the beginning it was very difficult, but now that i've learned everything, the thing just works. i feel lost when i install suse, you follow the wizard, and then if you want to make any changes or whatever, it's hard finding things. i think that's probably more my being used to slackware more than anything else.
the best thing is that everything i need fits on one cd. maybe that's not such a big deal with dvds, but i only need just a miminalist set of packages, windowmaker is fine for me.
if anyone needs help learning slackware, post here, i'll see if i can help out. you'd think that linux was stable, but i can't tell you how slow/bulky some of the other distros can get.
slackware packaging is a little bit sparse, for example, there's no mplayer pre-compiled package unless you go to a third party site, and i don't really trust those, not that they're bad, but i'd rather just compile the sources myself. my greatest success has been stock slackware distro + compiling my own sources. you seem to get eaten up by rpm's and overly bloated package managers. why not control everything? maybe that's the winning formula.
at the end of the day, it's all linux, so it's all great, freedom to choose and tune your system with exactly what you need, mostly for free.
i want to see how well this version of slackware runs on my mac pro, triple boot: mac os x, windows xp, slackware. 64 bit slackware running on xeon 5160s.
actually is this slackware going to have a 64 bit native pre-compile? maybe i'll have to go to that slamd64 distro...
maybe it's time to move onto LFS.
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2005-07-06
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How hard/easy is it to install the full Java 5 Jdk (and Tomcat5) on Slackware?
I tried Slackware once, and really liked it. But I tended to always fall back on the convenience of Debian based Kanotix.
But I really really like the philosophy of Slackware - stability over the latest goodies, cleanliness, simplicity, etc.
Frankly, most other distros will be really convenient and beautiful at first, but then quite often you run into annoying problems of some sort. Debian (and derivatives), for instance, is awesome with apt-get. But at some point I always end up with something borked when installing/updating/upgrading via apt. RPM distros are usually quite nice (I like PCLinuxOS in particular), but those can be too limiting, and too inefficient.
Thus, I want to go Slack, but I have other needs, like Java programming. And I don't want it to be a big hassle, and have to use open source crippleware versions of Java. I want the fully functioning real-deal.
Member since:2006-08-15
JeffS:
The latest Sun Java 1.5 update 8 package is in the /extra folder, so simply remove the jre and install the jdk.
Tomcat 5 is not included in Slackeware. If you use it for development I recommend get it from tomcat.apache.org, extract it to your home folder and run the startup script.
The new Eclipse 3.2 release with WTP (eclipse.org) btw works well with tomcat in development.
To run Tomcat 5 with Apache in front you need to compile mod_jk available from tomcat site.
Member since:2005-07-12
"The new Eclipse 3.2 release with WTP (eclipse.org) btw works well with tomcat in development."
That's nice to hear. Every time I've attempted to use previous versions of the Eclipse WTP, it failed in miserable, time wasting, mind-numbing, head banging on wall, fingernail peeling, power drill in ear, frustration and futility. ;-)
Based on my past experiences with Eclipse WTP, I considered it a misirable heap of dung that was dead on arrival. But it is good to hear that it's improved.
That said, I usually do Tomcat stuff with a simple programmers editor, Ant, and the Tomcat manager utility - it's easy and fast.
Anyway, enabling the standard jdk on Slackware sounds like a no-brainer. After that, installing anything Java (Tomcat, Eclipse, NetBeans, jEdit, JBoss, etc) is a snap.
I'll give Slack another shot when 11 is released. Hopefully, the installer will run on my Thinkpad this time (I could also give it the noapic nolapic acpi=off kernel arguments).
