Slackware is the oldest surviving Linux distribution out there. For those who believe that Slackware was the first Linux distribution I have news, because SLS was before Slackware, but that is another story. It is the most
*NIX like distribution and has borrowed many of the things we can find in
BSD *NIX. Here is a mini-review of their latest release, 9.0.
Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
Test hardware: eManchines T2200 with:
AMD AthlonXP 2200+ CPU
512 DDRAM @ 266 (2×133)
WD 100Gb Hard Disk
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro accelerator
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2
Realtek RTL8139 NIC
Samsug DVD Rom 16x
Sony CD-RW 48-16-40
USB Keyboard
PS/2 Wheel Mouse
Cable Modem (connected to NIC)
Samsung SyncMaster 171v LCD Monitor
HP PSC 2110 Printer&Scanner (USB)
Installation Process
I would like to say for the first that I didn’t only download
*just* the official ISO released by Slackware; I also downloaded all of the
other stuff from the /slackware-9 directory including zip-slack (which by
the way I’ve never tried). I also did not upgrade from 8.1 to 9.0 for two
reasons:
1) I don’t like to upgrade distributions, unless it is
absolutely necessary that I do so.
2) This release is compiled with gcc 3.2.2 so everything
needs to be replaced anyway.
The installation process we all know from 8.1 and earlier releases hasn’t *Notice for newbies and those who don’t know: every Linux distribution I selected my keyboard mapping and logged in as root without introducing I will not get into depth with the package installation, but I do want to mention After installing what I needed, the installer asked me if I have a modem, Usage After rebooting, the system Lilo gave me only one option to boot: Linux One more thing needed to be done: XFree86 configuration. This is done with 1) It didn’t set any resolution for any color depth (I’ve selected 2) I have a wheel mouse, but the wheel didn’t work. There is a Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5” Then I created an user and fired up KDE. Everything worked fine,: The reason why I’m not saying much about Slackware’s hardware Java suport was easier to install than in Mandrake. I downloaded In the /extra directory there is more useful stuff, like checkinstall, Many of you will say that Slackware is old, or that this distribution First of all, let me say that it comes with the latest packages like:
changed much. In fact, it is almost the same with some
improvements. After the CD booted, I was asked to select a kernel and press
hardware and filesystem needs. I’ve used ReiserFS with the previous release,
and I don’t use SCSI or RAID, so I’ll select bare.i. I would like to
mention that Slackware 9.0 supports all 4 journaling file systems: ReiserFS,
ext3, XFS and JFS. After loading the bare.i kernel, I was surprised that my
USB keyboard worked perfectly. With 8.1 I had to load USB.i and with other
distributions, I had to use “Linux noapic”.
loads a kernel before the install process starts, but Slackware just asks
before so that it can load one with specific drivers for specific hardware.
any password. This may seem a little strange to people who are used to
distributions like Mandrake or Red Hat, but it is normal. I’ve typed cfdisk
(utility for partitioning a hard disk, pretty intuitive IMHO), and made a
Linux partition and a swap partition. This is not a server, only a desktop,
so I won’t make any extra partitions like for /usr or /home. After this I
simply typed “setup” and I’ve entered in the installation program. The
program looks a little like the install from Free BSD, but it is very
intuitive, although text based. Many users get scared when they see text
based installers and very often they don’t take a Linux distribution into
consideration only because of this particular reason. So, after the
installer formated and mounted my swap partition, it did the same thing to
my Linux partition. Before formatting, it gave me 3 choices: ext2, ext3 or
ReiserFS. Only these three filesystems are supported by the default bare.i
pre-compiled kernel. I formated my Linux partition as ReiserFS
(quickformat).
this to those who are new to Linux or Slackware: Slackware’s package
management system doesn’t check for dependencies, so when you install just
make sure you install the bases system and all the libraries if you are
unsure what to install, but I’m sure that everybody will get along here
because the install process is intuitive as I said before. Actually,
Slackware is mainly focused on simplicity.
and I said no, and then it asked which kernel to use. But I already
installed the kernel-ide package, so I didn’t need any kernel from the CD.
After that it asked me about how to install Lilo (the boot manager). You can
configure Lilo manually at install or let the software install it for you. I
choose “Simple Install” and I was done with Lilo. Next step was the network
configuration. I think this is much easier than in some other distributions.
It asks for hostname, domainname, IP configuration, static or DHCP, and then
it autodetects the NIC and installs the driver for it (well, actually it is
a kernel module, like all other drivers 🙂 ). After this, console
fonts, mouse type, and time zone configurations followed. Finally it asked me
for a root password and I was done.
(yeah, I’m also on dual boot like many others). I easily fixed this by
adding my NTFS partition to /etc/lilo.conf. Later I’ve found out that this
is not a bug, Patrick Volkerding has removed the NTFS autodetection from the
installation program because it always got confused and wasn’t unsure if it
is NTFS or HPFS.
“xfree86setup” which detects and configures the graphics accelerator. It
detected perfectly my ATI Radeon 9000 Pro and configured my mouse and
keyboard, with 2 little problems:
24 bit as default). I’ve added the like < Modes "1280x1024" > to
/etc/X11/XF86Config.
workaround also for this:
I’ve added the following line in the Mouse Input Device area in
/etc/X11/XF86Config:
graphics, sound (I have a Creative Audigy 2, even Mandrake 9.1 didn’t work
with it!), mouse, keyboard…except for 3D hardware acceleration. This is
due the agpgart module. I have a VIA KM266 chipset and agpgart doesn’t know
how to handle it. So I’ve added the following line to /etc/modules.conf:
“options agpgart agp_try_unsupported=1” and rebooted. After trying glxinfo
again, I had some acceleration. Lets hope the DRI team will write better
drivers for the Radeon.
support is that Slackware supports all hardware that the Linux kernel does,
and usually the kernel is not bloated with unnecessary stuff. Supporting my
Audigy 2 was nice enough:)
Slackware 9.0 comes with USB utilities and PCMCIA utilities. It is also
configured out of the box to mount the USB filesystem on /proc/bus/usb. I
mention this because I also have an USB printer/scanner. I’ve installed CUPS
and configured my printer via the browser interface it provides. For those
who don’t know it is: http://[hostname]:631. I was done very fast, and my
USB printer works great. The only thing that I couldn’t get to work is the
scanner, and I probably won’t for a while. But I don’t use the scanner much.
Blackdown Java 1.4.1 RE, compiled with gcc 3.2 and installed it. I just had
to link the java plugin to the Mozzila and Netscape plugin directories in
/usr/lib. I also added the path to /etc/profile.
which can be used to build packages or to install software from source (so
that the user is able also to uninstall), cups, emu-tools for creative sound
cards, debug version of glibc, aumix, libsafe and much more. By the way,
libsafe is a great tool. It is mostly usable on a server to prevent attacks
that make use of the “stack overflow vulnerability.” It just needs to be
installed and it takes care of the stack at no performance cost.
doesn’t follow the trends. Many will say that package management is weak or
that the distribution is compiled for i386 and that’s why it is not as fast
as other distributions that are optimized for i586 and i686.
Kernel 2.4.20,
Gcc 3.2.2,
GLibc 2.3.1,
XFree86 4.3.0,
KDE 3.1,
Gnome 2.2,
Cups 1.1.18,
Mozilla 1.3 ,
Netscape 7.03,
and many more….
Package management doesn’t check dependencies and it has not the
functionality of rpm or deb packages, but tgz files are smaller and they can
be very easily build up. Slackware has package management tools like:
pkgtool, installpkg, removepkg, rpm2tgz and so on…
Almost the whole distribution is compiled with the CFLAGS set to:
“-O2 -march=i386 -mcpu=i686”
which means that it is i686 optimized and i386 compatible.
Conclusion
Slackware 9.0 is overall a very up to date release, rock solid and damn stable. Out of the box it comes pretty “Vanilla” configured, and the package management system and install system could be improved. I recommend it to the intermediate Linux users who want to learn Linux to the bone. For more control than available with Slackware you should probably consider a source distribution such as LFS (Linux From Scratch) or Gentoo. I also recommend it to the advanced users who want to have a good development environment with the latest development tools. It is also very suitable for servers, especially due the fact that Slackware 9.0 performs pretty well on older hardware. Configuration files and init scripts are simple to reconfigure because there are explanations inside these files. All in one this is another great release from Slackware and it follows the same development path as it always did. Remember people, “Simplicity is Divine.”
About the Author:
Marc A. Mironescu has been using Linux since 1997. Back then, when he was 16, he started with Red Hat Linux 4.2 which he found bundled with a Computer Magazine. Now 21 with a degree as Computer Analyst Programmer Assistant which he earned after 4 years of high-school, Marc has studied Pascal, C/C++, Delphi, programming algorithms, Windows, DOS, Linux, Word processing, Excel and Fox Pro. He also did 2 years of college with the Specialization in Industrial Design and 1 year in Computer Programming, both simultaneously before I’ve moved to the US. Mark has worked with computers since he was 10 years old and his first development environment was Amiga Basic on an old Amiga 500 running… Amiga OS. His current occupation is preparing for the Act test and looking for a job in IT. Slackware is his favorite distribution.
Got my official cds today! Mmm..slackware.
Slackware 9.0 is overall a very up to date release, rock solid and damn stable.
Given that 9.0 has been released on March, 19th, i.e. less than two weeks ago, don’t you think the last part of that statement might be a bit rash? I don’t want to troll, mind you, I just think 12 days or less (when did you install it?) is too short for such a broad judgement.
I’m surprised about the audigy 2 support – afaik there’s no driver for that chip out yet. Could you please tell me the name of the memory module (via modprobe or a look into ‘modules.conf’)? I’m really interested in that. Thanks.
Last, what’s up with that *NIX thing? The name’s UNIX. I know about the trademark stuff, but maiming the name thusly won’t protect you or anyone else from infringements suits if The Open Group were to pursue such infringements.
Cf. http://www.opennc.org/trademarks.htm
Linux is not UNIX, but it is a *nix. As in “UNIX(tm) and/or UNIX(tm)-like”.
.. if The Open Group were to pursue such infringements.
I believe The Open Group and UNIX trade mark are now owned by SCO…
I Remember SLS nice little distro, the floppies, the frustration, the Cheer joy of toying with a free *nix ;D
I liked th review , do some more and you’d be a-o-kay in my dept.
I have to disagree that slackware’s net config is one of the best. I have had a lot of trouble with getting it to do certain things the way I want.
I have two slackware machines right now, one running 8.0 and the other 8.1. I use the 8.1 machine as a file server.
The file server is hooked up to an 8-port switch and has 3 ethernet cards (to take advantage of the switch–I can get very fast streams out of it from multiple systems this way). HOWEVER, slackware 8.1 made it very difficult to get all of the ethernet cards working. Use of the default tools only configures eth0; I had to manually edit my rc.inet1 to get the other two cards working properly. Hopefully the tools for this have improved…
I still like slackware because it’s easy to find my way around the /etc directory; but I’m thinking of converting to Gentoo because of the package management issue which (IMHO) was glossed over a little bit in the article and is a major achilles heel for Slack as it tries to keep up with more modern distros.
Just my 0010 cents.
KOMPRESSOR
Nice minireview!
About this:
>The program looks a little like the install from Free BSD, >but it is very intuitive, although text based. Many users get >scared when they see text based installers and very often >they don’t take a Linux distribution into consideration only >because of this particular reason.
Yeah, you’re right, many people don’t take a distro into consideration just because of its text-based installer.
Slackware runs pretty fast and eats little resources. I also like Red Hat Linux. Both of them are my favorites.
n0dez
A lot of people complain about the package management, but really I’m finding it to be a lot more flexible than people seem to think of it :> As an example, earlier on I was moving around files as root, and I accidentally wiped out one of KDE’s subdirectories while it was still running (yeah, I know..don’t ask ;>). Anyway, I just removed the package that the files were in, installed it back again, and that was it..everything worked fine. I can’t really see it being an “Achilles heel” to be honest, so far I’ve upgraded successfully to KDE 3.1.1 and installed a number of packages from source that weren’t included with the distribution at all. If you meant in the way of mainstream acceptance, however, that would make more sense..I don’t think Slackware’s goal is mainstream acceptance anyway, so much as it is to make Slackware users happy :>
I can understand it not being for everybody though, not everyone wants to keep track of dependencies and things on their own. I think there’s a different distribution that caters to everybody, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with choosing one that you enjoy using more over another :>
Audigy2 support has been available in the emu10k1 project since January.
“I believe The Open Group and UNIX trade mark are now owned by SCO… ”
How about 15 seconds of fact-checking before posting stuff like the above? SCO acquired the old AT&T UNIX source code from Novell in 1995. The UNIX trademark was transferred to an industry consortium, X/Open, which is The Open Group nowadays. (with Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi, IBM and Sun being the main sponsors).
The hotplug subsystem recognized my laptop’s WPC-11 wireless card as eth1 (using the Orinoco driver) right off the bat, making Slackware the only Linux distribution to automatically set up my card (FreeBSD was able to also), short of asking me for an SSID. It’s surprising how many distributions ignore wireless cards. I have since changed to the HostAP driver, but the hotplug system is a nice addition to Slackware.
By the way, xstow and Slackware make an excellent team. And don’t forget to hit SourceForge for a copy of SlackPkg (http://sourceforge.net/projects/slackpkg/).
Slackware is still the same great distribution it has always been, so if you have been away awhile, come back and see how much nicer it is now that you don’t need to make 35 floppies.
I’m surprised about the audigy 2 support – afaik there’s no driver for that chip out yet. Could you please tell me the name of the memory module (via modprobe or a look into ‘modules.conf’)?
What is this ‘modules.conf’ file? I am trying to get my SBLive card to work. The Slackware FAQ says to enable the appropriate modprobe line in rc.modules, which I have done, but still no sound. I haven’t looked into this too deeply yet though (just started playing with it last night).
Also, if anyone knows of any useful documentation to get TrueType fonts enabled on Slack 9, that would be spiffy
Stick the command to load the module in your rc.local file.
I have slackware but I havent installed it, SuSE has a special place in my heart and I just cant bear to lose it.
Marc: are you Romanian (Mironescu)?
In regards to Darius’ SBLive card, you can quickly compile support into the kernel, or just load the module. The module name is emu10k1. Audigy2 support is *indeed* supported in the kernel. I believe (though you’ll have to take this with a grain of salt) that if it isn’t based off the old emu10k1 chipset, a patch has been released. Slackware has patched the vanilla kernel with this to enable support for this popular sound package.
Slackware is undoubtedly the reigning champion. I have used it for years; you can learn on Red Hat and use it to good success, but you aren’t truly learning about unix. Working with Slackware, you can have a great personal/professional box(es), and additionally gain transportable skills, that can be moved to Solaris, BSD, etc…
My advice: don’t! make it a separate filesystem. There’s really no reason, and doing so might in fact only cause problems. The stuff in /usr can be crucial to revive a system that can only be booted into single user mode, so you want it there, together with /
Otherwise, nice review. And, oh, of course: Slackware rulez!
What will be next Slack, Red Hat and Mandrake?
E.g., Slackware OS X?
Well, pretty nice review. I agree with somebody (sorry, do not remember who it was) who suggested to stick to certain protocol when writing a review. I do not want (and most people either) to hear grandma’s stories about how I had an old dusty drive lying on the shelf of my shed and decided to use it (whoa, look, I am smart and funny at the same time), lengthy digressions (I have this nice case, I love it, I mean, do you have the same, whoa, I am good), and stupid reasonings. Stick to the point, people, save your time and our time (your readers). Save all colourful stuff for your girl/boyfriend, do not **** our brain.
I’ve been trying to find the slackware iso, but I can’t seem to find it. Is there an actual iso, is do I have to make one my self by following the instructions in iso-linux? If someone could help me out with this I’d appreciate it. Thanks
Or are the users SOL with this distrubtion also? I am very disappointed with Redhat and Mandrake for using the glibc 2.3.x, as it breaks more then just wine. The gentoo website has a grow list of software that is broken by glibc 2.3.x
If someone who was installed Slackware 9 and Codeweavers’ Xoffice and Xplugin and knows that it works. Then I will move delete Mandrake 9.1 and install Slackware, instead of Mandrake 9.0.
G
Here is the link to ISO mirrors
http://www.abnormalpenguin.com/slackware-mirrors.php
You bring up a good point.
The number of rule of all library is to NEVER BREAK THE CLIENT CODE.
Anyone understand why glibc is breaking so many client code?
Maybe its time that linux libraries start using versioning.
ln -s lib.so.2 lib.so.1 should always work it might require more work for them to maintain ,but its hell of alot better than static libraries.
How does wine and Codeweavers products work with Slackware 9?
See for yourself
http://balinier.dyndns.org:8088/~worknman/coslack9.jpg
I haven’t tested Crossover Plugin (I don’t have it yet), but I’m sure it works too.
And for whoever suggested putting the modprobe line in rc.local to make my soundcard work, it worked great – thinks!
Now I am starting to see the value of Slackware. Like in the case of the soundcard, it took a little work to get it going, but at least it didn’t ‘auto-detect’ the wrong sound card like I’ve heard some other distros do
hehe
BTW: For anybody else who’s new to Slack (or Linux in general) here are a couple of tips:
To switch window managers:
Type ‘xwmconfig’
To mount the CD ROM:
Type ‘mount /mnt/cdrom’
Don’t ask me how to mount it permanently or eject the fucking thing once you’ve mounted it …. baby steps here
Maybe I should write up a ‘Stupid Slackware Tricks’ kind of thing when I’m done
[i]To mount the CD ROM:
Type ‘mount /mnt/cdrom’ [i]
lol, how did you mount the cdrom previously?
to umount type
‘umount /mnt/cdrom’
to eject type
‘eject /mnt/cdrom’
I think slackware has automount somewhere.
Or just right ur own script so that when you click on the cdrom you can mount and open via konqueror or the other thing gnome has Nautilus or something.
linux documentation project for the brave
http://www.tldp.org/
to eject type
‘eject /mnt/cdrom’
Cool, thanks. I got tired of having to reboot the computer just to eject the damn CD
heh
inux documentation project for the brave