Slamd64 12.0 Released

Slamd64 Linux 12.0 release, an unofficial port of Slackware Linux 12.0 to the AMD64 architecture, was announced by Fred Emmott.

After nearly two and a half years of development, the new distribution comes with some interesting features:

￭ Linux kernel 2.6.22.8
￭ GCC 4.1.2
￭ Support for booting the installer by USB or PXE (netboot).

It is compatible with programs created for 32-bit architectures:

￭ FHS-compliant multilib system
￭ Reworked 32-bit compatability libraries
￭ Support for building 32-bit binaries (gcc -m32)
￭ Seamless support for most 32-bit applications, including Cedega and OpenOffice.org
￭ nspluginwrapper allows the usage of 32-bit browser plugins, including Flash Player

These were the common features for both Server and Desktop version of Slamd64 Linux 12.0. Some of the features present only on the Desktop edition are:

￭ HAL automounting
￭ KDE 3.5.7
￭ XFCE 4.4.1
￭ X11R7
￭ Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6
￭ Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.6
￭ Mozilla Seamonkey 1.1.4
￭ Pidgin 2.2.1

The Server edition has the following:

￭ The Apache Project's httpd, version 2.2.4
￭ PHP 5.2.4
￭ Perl 5.8.8
￭ mysql 5.0.37

Slamd64 12.0 will have security updates for at least the next two releases, and the previous version, Slamd64 11, will be supported at least until the next release.

Slamd64 was started from slackware-current in 2004, created from scratch by cross-compiling, rather than using an existing 64-bit distribution as a base. It is a multi-lib distribution, so you can run 32-bit applications without problems. Almost all packages targeted for x86 Slackware can be installed on Slamd64. The compiling support for installing 32-bit applications is only supported on version 12.0 and above of Slamd64.

If you encounter any bugs, you can report them, or search in the bugs database, to see if there's a fix for your problem. The distribution has its own forums, so you'll surely find someone who can help you out.