Submitted by Today Patrick J. Volkerding
announced Slackware Linux 12.0 RC2. There are no big new features, this is almost a collection of bug fixes. A review of the RC1 can be found here (translation). A review of the Slackware-based Vector Linux 5.8 SOHO can also be found here.
Slackware Linux 12.0 RC2 Released; Reviews
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Just in time for my new build – result!
BTW, the review isn’t in English
Best translation I could find…
http://fets5.freetranslation.com/?sequence=core&language=Spanish/En…
Interesting that Compiz and Beryl are included, I would not have thought them stable enough for Slack.
Thanks mate.
RE Compiz & Beryl: Me too. I thought they went against Slacks charter. Not that I’m complaining though as I would only have installed it afterwards anyway
Nice work Patrick and everybody else that has contributed to Slackware. Slackware is one of my favorite distros.
Me too!
I just went to the Slackware store and pre-ordered the Slackware 12.0 CD set.
Keep up the good work Patrick & crew!
i tried in earnest to get that set up under 11.0, that udev stuff is pretty nasty, this was running on vmware fusion on my mac pro. i’ve been a long time slack user since 2000, too, not having a default 2.6 kernel has always been a problem. in the earlier 2.6 kernel series before udev took over, i could just drop in the 2.6 kernel latest code and compile, but since they introduced udev, it’s been tough getting a kernel that loads all my device drivers properly. of course that doesn’t mean the slack distribution is at fault, more like the kernel, but the fact that slackware was still based on the 2.4 kernel just made me turn to other distributions (gentoo). but even with gentoo, i still loved slack, i feel like i have complete control over the environment and that it’s simple, stable, elegant.
ideal linux would be a slackware optimized for the latest hardware with the latest kernel which of course goes against the original charter which is to work with even i386 hardware. but come on, how much of that old equipment still works and with the price coming down on new hardware, why even deal with it.
i don’t like slamd64 because to me i don’t know how long it will be around.
Edited 2007-06-26 09:36
Slackware is defaulting to 2.6.21 now, with the option to choose an SMP kernel at install.
I’m running it on my desktop now, and it feels much quicker than Ubuntu.
I liked Slackware before, and I still love it now!
Thom, maybe its an idea to in the future check submissions as to whether they’re actually written in English or not? This place is getting more and more like Slashdot every day, including lame jokes. Or do you aspire to be Zonk 2.0?
Edited 2007-06-26 11:44
What’s wrong with Spanish?
It’s not that hard to read.
What’s wrong with Spanish?
It’s not that hard to read.
Unless you don’t know any.
If you are looking for the translation, check out the other post.
Edited 2007-06-26 22:08
I can read Spanish, but thanks.
I’m running RC 1 with the first round of updates (not RC2 until I get home tonight). It’s kind of weird, in that it’s still Slack — speedy and simple — but I’m getting pop-up windows asking what I want to do with my MP3 player. It’s like I’ve booted into one of the Windows-converts distros, except that it’s faster, cleaner…you get the idea. And because it’s Slackware, it’s fast enough that I can actually stand to use KDE. I think with the default 2.6 kernel, HAL and DBUS it’ll be moving Zenwalk off my laptop.
Kudos to Patrick Volkerding. From what I’ve seen so far, he’s done a great job of bringing the system up to date without losing the Slack spirit.
There are a few mistakes in the article.
Slack -current (I´m running it actually) does not use SystemV init scripts, it includes a compatibility mode, but slack init scripts are BSD style.
Beryl IS NOT mentioned in the changelog, nor is any package with that name. Compiz is included and works nice, specially under XFCE.
Slack is still great, go Patrick!!
Slack -current (I´m running it actually) does not use SystemV init scripts, it includes a compatibility mode, but slack init scripts are BSD style.
Actually, Slackware does have SysV-style init. The “init.d with symlinks”-approach was only introduced in SysV Release 4. Characteristic of SysV are runlevels, and Slackware Linux does have runlevels, and per-runlevel init scripts. BSD does not.
So, Slackware’s init is a SysV-style init, without the SVR4-style per-runlevel symlinks.
So, Slackware’s init is a SysV-style init, without the SVR4-style per-runlevel symlinks.
Actually, as krasnolin pointed out, Slackware’s init scripts are BSD style with SysV compatability included.
this is from the rc.sysvinit located in /etc/rc.d.
This file provides basic compatibility with SystemV style
# startup scripts. The SystemV style init system places
# start/stop scripts for each runlevel into directories such as
# /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/ (for runlevel 3) instead of starting them
# from /etc/rc.d/rc.M. This makes for a lot more init scripts,
# and a more complicated execution path to follow through if
# something goes wrong. For this reason, Slackware has always
# used the traditional BSD style init script layout.
#
# However, many binary packages exist that install SystemV
# init scripts. With rc.sysvinit in place, most well-written
# startup scripts will work. This is primarily intended to
# support commercial software, though, and probably shouldn’t
# be considered bug free.
#
# Written by Patrick Volkerding <[email protected]>, 1999
# from an example by Miquel van Smoorenburg <[email protected]>.
That’s true. I’ve modified the review. Thanks!
I meant composite works great under XFCE. Compiz works quite well under KDE, by the way.
It looks like you´re right. My mistake.
It’s somewhat required for some applications people would like to use Slackware for due to its stable nature.
For instance, I would LOVE to use it for a Samba/LDAP PDC, however, the solution I want to invoke requires PAM.
I’m not quite sure if Patrick still feels that PAM still isn’t up to snuff in terms of security, despite the fact that other distros have embraced it, but if this doesn’t change, I don’t see Slack being a viable distribution 5 years from now except for people who are hardcore users of Slack, and I used to be one that swore by it.
Dropping Gnome was another black eye involving PAM and other factors that could be worked around as well.
Don’t get me wrong – I love Slack, but for me, it’s somewhat useless at this point in time.
IIRC, Pat doesn’t include PAM because he feels the increase in usability it offers would not justify the security risks.
I can’t really comment personally as I don’t use it, but the only case where I needed it recently was installing vmware and I only needed to create a couple of PAM directories in /etc to fool the installer.
Wtf? Volkerding reckons PAM is a “security risk”?
He should read the recent review of distros in Linux Format. Slackware came last in security because it leaves **five** ports open in the default install…
He should concentrate on the security of his *distro* first, before worrying about it in third-party packages…
Edited 2007-06-27 06:43
“He should read the recent review of distros in Linux Format. Slackware came last in security because it leaves **five** ports open in the default install… ”
Was those ports exploitable? What was running on them?
No offense, bit I trust Patrick more on security than Linux Format.
“He should concentrate on the security of his *distro* first, before worrying about it in third-party packages… ”
You realize that a distro is made up of 3-rd party packages, right?
Found the quote I was thinking of, from Slack’s 9.1 changelog:
“If you see a security problem reported which depends on PAM, you can be glad you run Slackware. I think a better name for PAM might be SCAM, for Swiss Cheese Authentication Modules, and have never felt that the small amount of convenience it provides is worth the great loss of system security. We miss out on half a dozen security problems a year by not using PAM, but you can always install it yourself if you feel that you’re missing out on the fun. (No, don’t do that.) OK, I’m done ranting here. :-)”
See, I’m not sure I can agree with his assessment that Slackware is better off without PAM. I think I’ve seen more OpenSSL vulnerabilities from the notification emails they’ve sent out in the past year than I have seen PAM vulnerabilities in the past TWO.
What does that say about OpenSSL? A (secure) website with malicious intent that could exploit a hole in OpenSSL (while browsing) is every bit as dangerous as a remote exploit against PAM, and even moreso when the user doesn’t know about it or is just plain careless. What disturbs me is nobody seems to want to “rant” about it.
As for the ‘swiss cheese’ reference, that’s trademarked to Microsoft.
You can always kill those two issues with one install. Dropline Gnome provides both Pam and Gnome. Slackware 12 support should come soon enough.
I noticed that when I did a Slack install at the beginning of March using the current tree that XMMS wouldn’t start. I checked the packages that were installed and noticed that XMMS was missing.
So I went to XMMS’ web site to grab the source and was greeted with this message.
http://www.xmms.org/
Bye Bye Slackware!
XMMS has been removed from the Slackware distribution.
Thu Mar 15 19:43:10 CDT 2007
xap/xmms-1.2.10-i486-3.tgz: XMMS developers: THANK YOU for your years of
dedication. We look forward to considering a new GTK+2 based design some
time in the future. (Package removed).
No, thank YOU for keeping a clean and tidy version of XMMS around without a gazillion insane patches. We will always love you! It’s unlikely we will cross paths again, but we’ve enjoyed the lack of support cases the Slackware distribution has caused us. Much love <3 <3 <3.
I guess audacious will be my player of choice.
Guys, the English translation is here: http://circolinux.blogspot.com/2007/06/slackware-12-rc1-review_26.h….
Sorry for the over-posting, but many people asked about the translation. You could find it on the link to the news, too.
Thanks for excellent feedback people.
I think I know the answer to this but can you update to the latest slackware with out having to download the latest ISO and perform some kind of upgrade. This is one thing I like about gentoo is the fact that you can install once and keep your system completely up to date.
1. Read change log
2. Downloaded needed packages from an ftp mirror
3. Use installpkg to install
If you are using Slack11, then it is not a good idea to just download Slack-current and installpkg/upgradepkg it.
Should read CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT first:
ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/CHANGES_AN…
Beryl looks really nice.
Linux native installer for “The Witcher”game: http://www.petitiononline.com/7730722/petition.html
Fallout 3 for GNU/Linux: http://www.petitiononline.com/fo3linux/petition.html
Edited 2007-06-27 11:26
I’d certainly hope no new features are added to a Release Canidate. If you’re adding new features you aren’t adding to the stability of the release. New features IMO belong in the alpha releases, maybe if there is a major show stopping missing feature in a early beta. However RCs should just be aimed at getting a stable product out the door.
Edited 2007-06-27 15:15