
Slackware 14.2 released - Jeaye
http://www.slackware.com/announce/14.2.php
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kbenson
Slackware 3.0 or 3.1 was my first Linux distro. I remember spending many hours
tweaking my XF86Config file to get my Diamond Stealth64 video card working,
while worrying about the comment in the config about how the Vsync and Hsync
params could cause your monitor to smoke if specified incorrectly...

I also remember in 1999, while installing servers with it, that you had to be
careful to lot boot it on an open internet connection without first securing
it. The number of running network server daemons the distros of the day
started with is sort of mind-boggling now, and since inetd made it as simple
as writing a shell script, there wasn't necessarily a lot of thought put into
security. This, of course, wasn't a problem limited to Slackware.

~~~
mangamadaiyan
Slackware 2.1 in my case, and the (in)famous SiS 6215C video card. And yes, I
too worried about the Vsync/Hsync comment :)

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cyphax
Congrats to the Slackware team! I've been following the change logs so I was
eager to see this release! Still my favorite operating system after many
years. :)

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slackersc
Awesome! I've been using the release candidate for a while now and its been
rock solid. Congrats Slackware team!

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hodwik2
I've worked with a lot of linux distros. I'm a Fedora person myself, but
enjoyed Debian and Gentoo also.

For Slackware heads, why should I look at Slackware?

~~~
ovt
I used to run it, and I'm not sure there's value in it anymore. They often
don't stay on top of security updates, and compiling anything just got worse
and worse.

The last straw was the fanboys at the linuxquestions forum. It was cultish and
creeped me out.

~~~
jsizz
Three negative comments on this submission, that's some impressive anti-cult
thing you've got going.

Slackware doesn't do "security theatre" updates. Whenever there's both a
credible risk and a reasonable fix, you'll see an update, and it'll be quicker
than distros that are multiple steps downstream from Debian.

~~~
ovt
You know, I felt really troubled to have been using something for 20 years and
realize things had changed and it was no longer right and no longer good for
me. I felt like a fool for having stuck with it for quite so long.

I realize that sounds like someone talking about a bad marriage, and I suppose
we can generalize usefully on relationships of whatever type.

I think we must end up with longer-lasting bad feelings about anything we used
to value.

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jmclnx
Congratulations to the Slackware team for their hard work!

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chinarulezzz
Would be nice, if slackware went to a public VCS for greater transparency and
assistance in the development process.

~~~
ovt
I've certainly wondered why they weren't interested in being more transparent.

~~~
groovy2shoes
The development _is_ pretty transparent, if you know where to look. The
ChangeLog.txt is the main place where development updates happen (especially
the -current ChangeLog, but security updates for stable happen in the
respective release's ChangeLog). There's also the mailing lists, and the key
people in Slackware hang out on the linuxquestions forums and ##slackware
(freenode).

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wooptoo
I've used Slackware back in the day. Nowadays it feels like it's a terribly
outdated distro. Why would anyone still use it?

The packages are pretty much up to date but the distro itself feels dusty.

~~~
orthecreedence
I've used this analogy before, but here goes: Slackware is the muscle car of
linux distros. If you own one, you're going to need to know how to get your
hands dirty, but once you do the thing is going to be fast, lean, and stable.
If you enjoy tinkering, swapping things out, compiling from source, editing
configs without GUIs...Slackware is for you. If you just want to spin up a
linux, install some packages (including all the default-to-on dependency trash
that comes with them), and be on your merry way...I'd stay away.

If you want to learn Ubuntu, get Ubuntu. If you want to learn CentOS, get
CentOS. If you want to learn linux, get Slack.

~~~
chpatrick
Why not use Arch and get the same benefits, along with extremely up to date
binary packages and build scripts for basically everything?

\- former Slackware and Gentoo user

~~~
buzzrobot
Because Arch is different and more complex.

A Linux distro is a Linux distro, of course, so differences are subtle and
particular. Any distro can be manipulated as much as anyone wants as long as
they know how and they can deal with the implications of their changes.

Arch has more scaffolding -- dependency resolution, etc. -- which is all very
nice but presents its own Arch-specific learning curve and tends to get in the
way if you want to do something that the "Arch Way" does not encompass.

Slack users can build and install the very latest source from upstream if they
wish, or they can choose not to.

Dependencies obviously exist in Slackware. They are how Linux is structured.
But, for some strange reasons, perhaps, Slackware packages seem to have fewer
of them.

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mrottenkolber
Yes! I have been waiting for this. Awesome!

To the people in this thread that claim Slackware is outdated and has no
security updates: what are you on about? Neither is true.

~~~
Esau
I think part of the blame for this impression lays on a lack of communication
on the main website. The last news update to the website, prior to the 14.2
release, was nearly three years ago.

I feel that it gives the impression that nothing is happening; at least to
those not inclined to seek out Slackware related forums or mailing lists.

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jimjimjim
Slackware is still my distro of choice.

Simplicity, reliability and everything is still very unixy.

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9214
Should I pick up Slack as my first distro?

I've tinkered a little with Arch before and liked that bare bone terminal
experience, meditations on man pages and wikis, but it turned out that I
didn't learned anything from that, except for how to do google search.

I want OS to force me do some dirty work with my bare hands and to
thoughtfully grasp the *nix way, while be opened for tuning and flexible
modding without enforcing me to do things in one strict manner, and it seems
that Slackware is a way to go. I also like that, as I heard, it's is very well
documented, old-fashioned and more BSD-like than any other linux distro. What
can you guys say about that?

I know that as a newbie I'll suffer a lot, but as long as it's a good pain -
I'm ready to live with that c:

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gregatragenet3
Does it still fit on 30 3.5in floppies?

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ythl
Well done. Who knew that what basically amounts to a searchable cloud-based
chat service could reach a billion dollar valuation. Amazing.

~~~
jcd748
You're thinking of Slack. Slackware has been around since the very early days
of Linux.

