After a long wait, Slackware v11.0 has been released!

The first Slackware release more than a year in the making, this edition of Slackware combines Slackware's legendary simplicity, stability, and security with some of the latest advances in Linux technology. Expect no less than the best Slackware yet.

Among the many program updates and distribution enhancements, you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.2.3.2, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 3.5.4, the latest version of the award-winning K Desktop Environment.

Get your Slack on via BitTorrent.

Nice to see the old war horse still churning out releases.. do you still compile everything from source?

sweet. thanks for the update.

/patiently awaits bigpond mirror ;)

Damnit, I've just upgraded mine old file server to Slackware 10.2 about 2 months ago :( Oh well didn't look like that much different. Going from Klunky redhat 7 to Slackware 10.2 was huge, things just seem to run so much better with Slackware 10.2. :)

Damn I only just installed v10 a few weeks ago.

do you still compile everything from source?

I was never aware you needed to. For the last two years at least it's been a binary install.

Again I must stay that I still think this is the best distro to quickly install and start software development on. As much as I also love Gentoo, you really can't install an up-to-date version of that within a day. Being such a barely-modified distro, almost all generic man-pages and tutorials can be used if you need help with Slackware.

This is in contrast to Redhat/Ubuntu, etc where you need to download specific guides since they abstractify everything with overly-simple and buggy GUIs that hide what's really happening. Granted, Ubuntu isn't meant to be a development distro (gcc isn't even installed by default!), but my argument stands. If you want a Windows clone, stick to Windows!

do you still compile everything from source?

My slackware box @ home hasn't been updated for a while, but what I personally do is install the core base OS off the install ISOs and then other stuff that I want (apache, mysql, etc) I compile from source and install into /usr/local/[application name]. I hate having crap scattered all over the place.

edit: bpfiles is up

fantastic. thumbs up.

(DVD ISO and the source ISOs still coming)

eh grabbed the dvd too.. nothing like excessive downloading at the expense of your provider.

do you still compile everything from source?

Short answer no, long answer yes if you really wanted to optimise the application or have some customisation you wish.

Also speaking of maintainability, I only just recently discovered a Debian-eque apt-get for Slakware called slapt-get. It's pretty good little apps to update the Slackware packaes.

slapt-get is an APT-like system for Slackware package management. It allows you to search Slackware mirrors and third-party package sources (such as www.linuxpackages.net) for packages, compare them with installed packages, and install new packages or upgrade installed packages, all with a few simple commands.

And for the CLI gumby, you can also get a GUI version called gslapt-get which is GTK version of this app.

eh grabbed the dvd too.. nothing like excessive downloading at the expense of your provider.

that's why local mirrors are awesome - because the only expense is the first-time download. After that everything is gravy.

death to sysV :(

sysv ftw!

You've got to be kidding, unless software development consists of "Hello world" in C.

What's your argument?

You install slackware, most *common* development libraries are installed and you can begin coding straight away.

You install Ubuntu, well you don't even have gcc or most of the development libraries on there by default, so you can't even create your precious "Hello world" in the first place.

With Debian or Ubuntu its trivial to get every library or tool you could ever want without understanding the dependency tree

You have to manually install them all, which I would guess would take longer than installing a development-friendly distro in the first place, which was my point.

Ubuntu isn't aimed at developers. If your goal is programming, then why would you chose a distribution that is mostly focused on multimedia, office applications and eye-candy?

Anyone can download a tarball and compile the software.

I can't really argue because I have absolutely no idea what the point of your post is.

why don't ya just ban him?

Well I'll be installing it tomorrow. I'm a linux newb, and Slackware is the goodest for thats. (Thanks to recommendations from here). I learnt more from my slack install then all others combined (debian, ubuntu, gentoo).

Debian package management was cool, but really frustrating when you're clueless. Ubuntu was a bit too idiot proof for my liking, and Gentoo... well let's not go there.

Can you do the equivalent to "apt-get dist-upgrade" (ie, upgrade from one release to the next) with slapt-get?

Yes you can

http://slackwiki.org/Upgrade_Using_Slapt-get


last edited by Opec at 00:51:40 06/Oct/06

Well I'll be installing it tomorrow. I'm a linux newb, and Slackware is the goodest for thats. (Thanks to recommendations from here). I learnt more from my slack install then all others combined (debian, ubuntu, gentoo).

heh so true, it's because Slackware doesn't treat its users like an idiot - unfortunately this is why it's not "popular/mainstream" distro. But I must say it's definitely getting so much easier to maintain the system now with the improvement of the package manager and the likes of application like slapt-get.

There's a classic comment on slashdot about slackware:

Use RedHat for a year, and you know RedHat really well.
Use Slackware for a year, and you know Linux really well.

I also like FreeBSD, maybe there's a pattern here, I just loath SysV *nix.....

I was a slackware fanboi for eons before playing with ubuntu.

ubuntu is what i use now but mainly because slackware's userbase has shrunk and ergo their support by other software vendors for example, vmware.

their support by other software vendors for example, vmware.

Yeah that's a problem when it became a "niche" distro. Pity really I reckon vmware server + slackware would really rock hard.