“The first release candidate for Slackware 8.1 is now available on ftp.slackware.com (and hopefully some mirrors by now). Recent additions to -current include Mozilla-1.0rc3, KDE-3.0.1, and gcc-3.1. This is all leading up to what we’re hoping will be the best Slackware release ever!” Changelog, mirrors.
Slackware 8.1 RC1 Now Available
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Hehe, Elvis and Slackware arent dead !
The best distro!
the most “powerful”-like distro avauable in the world!
I was a long-time user of Slackware that just eventually migrated to Debian. (I forget why…)
What advantages does Slackware offer nowadays? With “new kids on the block” like Gentoo, does it offer anything that the new “source distros” don’t?
Thanks in advance.
There was an interview on this site earlier with Gentoo’s creator. He said that Gentoo is still a not the best choice for a server OS (for now atleast). So Slackware is still one of the best if not THE best Linux distros as far as server OSes go.
Stabillity would be a big one, id assume. The newer “source distros” tend to throw every program and the kitchen sink they can get there hands on into the available for download catagory (usually just with a check to see if it’ll compile on a system), whereas slack is very selective about which packs go into its releases.
Don’t get me wrong, I prefer Gentoo over slack but my slack machine perfers the extra uptime it gets over my Gentoo box.
In Short: Stability and Simplicity
Slackware releases are usually conservative and undergo
extensive testing to ensure that almost all of the
components work well independently as well as together.
In that sense it is somewhat like Debian. Recent releases
have had a healthy mixture of newer releases of the Kernel,
GCC, glibc, KDE, XFree86, etc. and are yet very stable.
Simplicity is really why Slackware has been my personal
favourite since 1996 – and will be for times to come.
It just does not come in your way and everything is
very simple and straightforward – from the startup
scripts to the packages – it is the most UNIX-y of
the Linux distros. On the other hand, if you really
don’t know what you’re doing, it does let you shoot
yourself in the foot. Much like C, I would say.
Ranjit.
I don’t really like Slackware only because of it’s rc scripts. The only bsd style rc scripts that I have liked are in freebsd (uses an override file). I would prefer if they stuck with system v style rc scripts. I don’t like to have to change the contents of the actual scripts as it’s difficult to track down changes which naturally results in mistakes, and is just generally a headache.
This is in no way bashing Slackware, it just a preference of mine. The only linux I have ever liked was Debian… however, I have tired of the fragmented nature of linux and returned to the far more sane world of freebsd.
Yay for devfs in freebsd-current. The only feature I missed from linux.
Slackware was the first Linux distro I tried, it was fairly easy to install (slackware 3.4) because I had a lot of experience installing NetWare 3.x and 4.x. I frankly couldn’t understand those who bitched about Slackware being hard to install?
After all these years (7 or 8 years…), after trying all sorts of easy and convoluted distros, I find myself liking the simple, clean design of Slackware.
And BTW, I saw Elvis ;o))))
Does anybody know, how many RCs is planned before final release comes?
I cut my Linux teeth on Slackware, back in 1995. It didn’t seem all that simple back then! One nice thing about it was that it offered floppy installs long after everything else was CD-only. When you’re installing onto a laptop with oddball PC Card hardware and no CD drive, it’s a life saver. Good to see that it’s still kicking.
As that Android says to Sigorny Weaver in Alien …
SW : “You admire it …?”,
And. : “I admire its purity ….”
OK slackware is not a gestating alien, but slackware seem to keep the UNIX ethos in mind and don’t forget it comes with a cracking little book too.