Slackware 11.1 or 12... both?

zetabill · 11-10-2006, 12:57 PM

I just caught the changelog today on my lunch break and I'm curious to see what everyone thinks about it.

Code:

Thu Nov 9 18:16:50 CST 2006
Q: Hey, what's the deal with -current?
A: Renovations are underway to the toolchain (gcc, glibc, binutils, etc),
       and it makes little sense to update what is essentially Slackware 11.0
       only to do the work all over again once the new toolchain is ready.
       In addition, these things aren't going as smoothly as anticipated.
       I'd like to put the NPTL version of glibc into /lib and the LinuxThreads
       version into /lib/obsolete/linuxthreads (since some old binaries are
       going to need them), but doing this prevents the use of a 2.4 kernel.
       Perhaps it's finally time to drop support for Linux 2.4? Personally,
       I'd rather not as 2.4 is more forgiving of flaky hardware and thus
       tends to get better uptimes (at least on the servers I run ;-).
       Comments about this issue are welcomed.
       glibc-2.5 has also been having some problems with locale support here
       that need to be investigated and dealt with. I'd rather base the glibc
       in Slackware on an official glibc release, but using the development
       repo is also something under (slight) consideration if it works better.

What would be the issue with splitting Slackware into a 2.4 based 11 series and concurrently maintaining a 2.4-free 12 series? It seems like a logical progression if 2.4 cannot be discarded so soon but I'm just trying to get a feel for what's going on. And I realize that it won't go very far until the "toolchain" is working properly. When I get some free time I'll have to play around with LFS and do some research because now my interest in this is raging.

So if Slackware doesn't "split"... which it probably won't... how long do we stick with the 11 series?

Sorry for the noobish question... 11 was the first release I've experienced since I started using linux and I'm curious as to how this process goes. I'll be watching for sure.

Thanks.

Zmyrgel · 11-10-2006, 03:27 PM

I think it would be great to have 2.6 kernel only release as 12.0.
Personally I haven't had a single issue with 2.6 series kernels. Also the update to gcc, glibc and others are welcome as Slackware seems to drag behind all other distros from these packages. GCC 4.1.1 worked without problems for me in Gentoo except for Qemu which doesn't compile with it.

Atleast I'm waiting for this as I am converting to a slacker by the minute... with every distro I try I seem to eventually wander back to slack

XavierP · 11-10-2006, 03:32 PM

I seem to recall reading somewhere that 11.0 will be the last distro which installs a 2.4 kernel by default. Or I may have dreamt it.

Ilgar · 11-10-2006, 05:05 PM

Once I said 11.1 could come out with 2.4, too, but everybody disagreed (even I finally got convinced that 11.0 was the last). Maybe a quick 2-4 based 11.1 with little updates (XFCE 4.4, KDE 3.5.5 etc.) and then a 2.6-only Slack 12.0 would be the best way to go. It seems that trying to keep 2.4 compatibility is going to cost time and I don't think it will be worth the effort since 2.4 will surely be dropped in one of the next couple of releases anyway.

zetabill · 11-10-2006, 06:53 PM

The only reason I even asked is because I kinda got from the changelog entry that he's completely rebuilding everything from scratch. Firstly, I would like to know if that's a normal thing... like I said I'm a fairly new slacker. It just seems like a lot of work to build everything all over again just to run into the same problems that arise with trying to make the two kernels co-exist. This is why I don't see any problems with splitting the 11 and 12 series and maintaining both. If you're going to rebuild everything again then it's kind of silly to try to include a 2.4 like 11.0. Why not build on 11.0 for 11.1 and so on in the 11 series with significant upgrades like KDE and scripts and kernels, etc. while making the real headway with 12? The foundation for the 11 series has already been set and it works pretty well so how much more difficult is it?

I must really sound like an idiot to some but I'm just looking for more info. It's great that Slackware is still around to support some of that really old hardware but given the restrictions of having the two kernels coexist it just seems too possible to miss out on some of the "newer" good stuff that's actually pretty stable.

Either way I'll still be a Slacker. "Adapt and improve" I suppose

davidsrsb · 11-11-2006, 03:54 AM

gcc and glibc upgrading knocks on to everything else.
It is looking like keeping 2.4 compatibility is reaching a dead end as too much needs 2.6, hal etc.
A critical server should not be running "current", just tracking 11.0 security updates. Even this is going to be problematic soon enough if security fixes are not backported to old versions of programs. Pat probably does not have the resources to do it himself.