Slackware, the grand daddy of Linux distributions, has released a new version: Slackware 12.2. This new version runs the 2.6.27.7 version of the Linux kernel. The other updates include Xfce 4.4.3, KDE 3.5.10, HAL support etc. You can get Slackware 12.2 from one of their mirrors.
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Member since:2006-12-05
Ah, I see. Looks like the best way (for me) would be to bookmark the page on Slack's site. The main page might take some getting used to (ie. knowing which dependencies are used by a package I use regularly), but each item in the list appears to lead to a well-written description, md5sum and download link... quite clean, yet completely manual. Sounds like Slack alright.
Thanks for the answer. 
Edited 2008-12-11 15:49 UTC
Member since:2005-06-29
No, a much better way of managing updates is to use slackpkg which was in /extra for a long time and now is included as part of the base Slackware installation. Slackpkg will let you install extra software from the official Slackware mirrors, including updates in the /patches directory.
For third party software, I encourage you to check out the site mentioned in Patrick's announcement: slackbuilds.org. This site is run by several members of the Slackware team and provides a repository of slackbuild scripts that are vetted by the admins for tons of third party software. You can also use a tool called 'sbopkg' (www.sbopkg.org) that provides a nice dialog-based front-end to slackbuilds.org. Slackbuilds are simply shell scripts that are used to compile third-party software into Slackware packages. As a long time Slackware user, I do not use unknown binary packages from places like linuxpackages.net (those packages often break people's systems) or outside tools like slapt-get etc. that are poorly bolted on to the official Slackware package manager and package tools.
Slackware + slackpkg + slackbuilds.org + sbopkg is all you need. ;-)
Edited 2008-12-11 16:09 UTC
Member since:2007-11-17
Thanks for adding this information, I meant to lookup slackpck when I wrote my comment but somehow mixed it up with slapt-get in my memory (talking about embarrasing things, ... )
As I mentioned earlier, my knowledge about additional packaging systems is rather limited, since I have not used anything besides pkgtools + slackbuilds.org in the past five years or so and my scripts for handling the updates in a semi-automatic way are pretty much unchanged since 10.0 .
I would still recommend subscribing to the security advisory list, though.
Member since:2006-07-24
Member since:
2007-11-17
The traditional way of doing this is to subscribe to the slackware security mailing list (cf instructions at
http://www.slackware.org/lists/
) or, alternatively you can access the security alerts directly from the homepage:
http://www.slackware.org/security/list.php?l=slackware-security&y=2...
The entries in this list (usually) contain links to locations where you can download the relevant slackware packages.
Alternatively, you can use third party systems that sit ontop of the slackware package system like for example slapt-get to keep your machine secure, e.g.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6y3bk6
altough I have to admit that I have no experience with these tools and how reliable things work.