14 DAY TRIAL // Slackware developer Patrick Volkerding has rolled out the second RC (Release Candidate) version of Slackware 14.2 to early adopters with a clear indication that this new build is likely to become the final shipping version of the anticipated Linux OS.
Slackware 14.2 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) comes approximately one month after the first RC build, and from the looks of it, the developer is now using the latest maintenance version of the long-term supported Linux 4.4 kernel (4.4.7). Since this was announced by us just a few days ago, it means that Linux 4.5 remains in testing.
Among other updated packages, we can notice the latest ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) 1.1.1 sound server with a patch from upstream to fix the infamous EBADFD (Bad file descriptor) error, GStreamer 1.6.4 multimedia backed, GnuTLS 3.4.11, nfs-utils 1.3.3 with support for kernels without IPv6 support, and Samba 4.4.2.
"Finally got some fixes we were waiting for in this new kernel," said Patrick Volkerding, Slackware Linux maintainer. "It's been almost a month since 14.2rc1 so we'll call this Slackware 14.2 release candidate 2. Almost there. Get in any last-minute bug reports quickly."
Slackware 14.2 coming soon to a PC near you
Among other updated packages that have landed for the upcoming Slackware 14.2 release, we can mention X.Org Server 1.18.3, Mesa 11.2.0, Mozilla Thunderbird 45.0, Mozilla Firefox 45.0.2, lvm2 2.02.150, SQLite 3.12.1, QScintilla 2.9.1, libpng 1.6.21, Sip 4.17, Apache 2.4.20, Nmap 7.12, ProFTPD 1.3.5b, Git 2.8.1, TigerVNC 1.6.0, BlueZ 5.39, and Subversion 1.9.3.
Slackware is one of the oldest and most appreciated GNU/Linux operating systems amongst system administrators and advanced users, and considering that it is still maintained by a single person (with collaborations from various users) after being on the market for more than 22 years, we think it totally deserves our attention.
And judging by the software packages mentioned above, we believe that Slackware is a very up-to-date Linux kernel-based operating system. If you want to help the developer patch the last remaining bugs, please consider installing the Slackware 14.2 Release Candidate 2 build by downloading the new installation ISOs for either 64-bit or 32-bit systems right now via out website and report any issues you might find.