Slackware 13.0 Officially Supported on x86_64 Processors

After a long wait, Slackware fans are finally able to rejoice, as Patrick J. Volkerding announced late yesterday that Slackware 13.0 was available at last. The changes definitely warrant the major version bump, since this release has a number of unique features that its predecessor wasn't capable of, like running natively on 64-bit processors, improved X Window System that doesn't require an xorg.conf file and a massively overhauled set of build scripts.

Volkerding's enthusiasm about this release is visible in his announcement: "Yes it's that time again! After many months of development and careful testing, we are proud to announce the release of Slackware version 13.0! We are sure you'll agree that the improvements made in this release more than warrant the major version bump up from the 12.x series. We've done our best to bring the latest technology to Slackware while still maintaining the stability and security that you have come to expect."

The low-level functions are provided by the Linux kernel, version 2.6.29.6, which makes the system faster and includes support for the X Direct Rendering Interface that enables the display of hardware accelerated 3D graphics. Also, the kernel is patched to support speech synthesizers, a very useful function for the visually impaired users. A core change since Slackware 12.2 is that some devices, like network hardware, are now initialized at install time, and the new udev scripts are tweaked to give normal users a seamless experience when managing their devices.

On top of that kernel you can have by default one of the two supported desktop environments: KDE 4.2.4 or Xfce 4.6.1. GNOME fans won't feel totally stranded, as Pidgin 2.5.9, Gimp-2.6.6 and xChat 2.8.6 are included. The other applications are what you would expect from a modern operating system, with Firefox 3.5.2 on board, as well as Thunderbird 2.0.0.23. Programmers will surely enjoy the new development tools, like Perl 5.10.0, Python 2.6.2, Ruby 1.8.7-p174, Subversion 1.6.4, Git 1.6.4, Mercurial 1.2.1.

Download Slackware 13.0 right now from Softpedia.