Linux Distributions

Slackware 12.0 RC2 Is Here

Got Slack?

By Roxana Popa, Linux Editor

26th of June 2007, 11:35 GMT

Adjust text size:

Slackware is one of the earliest Linux distributions created by Patrick Volkerding of Slackware Linux, Inc. One of the things Slackware is best known for among the open source community is the fact that it takes in only the stable releases of applications; stability and simplicity being the two fundamental concepts Slackware is based on.

Recently, Patrick Volkerding has revealed the change log for the so-called RC2 version of Slackware 12.0. This second release client is said to come along with some more bug-fixes and upgrades, rather than with new features or other additions.

Highlights:

- upgraded Linux 2.6.21.5 SMP kernel source
- kde/amarok-1.4.5-i486-5.tgz: Recompiled against new libraries
- a/util-linux-2.12r-i486-6.tgz: Patched a problem where umounting by UUID would cause umount to segfault for non-root users.
- kde/k3b-1.0.2-i486-1.tgz: Upgraded to k3b-1.0.2.
- usb-and-pxe-installers/: Updated with fixed umount
- recompiled Linux 2.6.21.5 SMP kernel modules
- recompiled Linux 2.6.21.5 SMP hugesmp.s (full-featured) kernel.

There has also been added an installer script to create the "/usr/bin/htmlview symlink" if one does not already exist (programs in Slackware are starting to expect htmlview, which is not yet a standard but which seems to become an ad-hoc one).

The KISS ("Keep it Simple, Stupid") concept that stands at the grounds of Slackware points mainly to the viewpoint of system design. The distribution cannot actually be called "simple" in what concerns the ease-of-use and there are few GUI tools to configure the system. But this makes Slackware a fast and stable distribution which compensates the lack of user-friendliness.

A thing that would definitely need improvements would be its package management system which installs, upgrades, and removes packages but does not have the ability to track or manage dependencies. If any of these are missing, there may be no indication until one attempts to use the newly installed software.

TAGS:

Slackware | Linux | Distribution

SEARCH THE NEWS ARCHIVE :

Today's News | Yesterday's News | News Archive

User opinions:

Comment #1 by: Andrew_C on 12 Apr 2008, 19:45 GMT

reply to this comment

I am afraid you have jumped the gun. Slackware -current is still at RC1 for Slackware 12.1

to quote the changelog for 03 April 2008:

Thu Apr 3 01:16:15 CDT 2008
OK, we're going to call this Slackware 12.1-rc1, though there is still some
more minor work to do. Please help test! And if we're missing anything major,
please let me know at volkerdiATslackware.com. Thanks. :-)

PS: The lack of dependency resolution is also part of the KISS principle. Automated dependency resolution complicate things.

Share your opinion:

SUBMIT PROGRAM \| ADVERTISE \| GET HELP \| SEND US FEEDBACK \| RSS FEEDS \| ENTER NEWS SITE \| ENGLISH BOARD \| ROMANIAN FORUM
© 2001 - 2008 Softpedia. All rights reserved. Softpedia™ and the Softpedia™ logo are registered trademarks of SoftNews NET SRL.	Copyright Information \| Privacy Policy \| Terms of Use \| Update your software \| Archive

NEWS CATEGORIES: