Happy Birthday to 14.2
 

Yes all, 14.2 is three years old today [this is going by the changelog, not the official announcement on the website].
Thanks to a fantastic stable distro, a great community, and most of all to PV. Have a great Sunday, all, and raise a glass for Slackware tonight.

Excellent service for 3 years! Not only did it run great as main desktop OS that whole time, but the same installation also has been "replicated" into work desktop and a few laptop computers. And still offer decent libs for modern applications. Cheers!

It has certainly felt like longer. I moved all my servers to -current a few months ago because some libraries were too old to compile anything anymore. Coincidentally, I just bit the bullet and moved to Slackware -current last week on my main desktop (short of the 3rd anniversary!) to support new hardware. Thank you 14.2 for your service :hattip:

Well said! I moved all of my Slackware units to -current a year or two ago. Current is running well. Looking forward to 15.0. :cool:

Still running 14.2 on my daily driver. Although, I've seen interesting things in -current Changelog, nothing has stood out as enough to change over to -current yet. When Pat tells us its ready, I will - until then 14.2 just works!! (for me)

Three years of uninterrupted service with no surprises in /patches. Just everyday quiet and peaceable usage. :)

I realize some people with newer hardware need newer driver modules. I suspect those of us who don't have newer hardware are content with 14.2. I am. As a side comment, three years is a relatively short cycle, less than 5 and much less than 10.

I wish Pat's methodical pace and thoroughness was copied more upstream. Rapid release is irritating for many users.

I'm still on 14.2 on my main desktop computer (which doubles as a home server), but I had to move to -current on my HTPC since the hardware is too new for 14.2. I may need to move my desktop over soon since I have a newer video card that I should install, but it needs a newer mesa and amdgpu driver (I'm already running a 4.19.x kernel), and I'm not sure how far the dependency tree will take me (I know on 14.1 it required upgrading all of X as well, and I don't want to go through that again).

Do it. In my experience, it's much easier to just go with -current and the updated libs than trying to beat 14.2 into submission.

Case in point: I was stuck on Gajim 0.16 for a long time because 1.0 requires a newer GTK3 and some Python 3 stuff. I tried for a bit to write some SlackBuilds but took a look at GTK3 and decided I have better things to do. I upgraded to -current and compiling Gajim was easy: most of the required python packages were already in -current and so was the new GTK3. Same for my RX 580: -current already has mesa 19.1 and drivers are in the kernel. No setup required.

That's the thing. 14.2 has been working fine for my usage except for hardware limitations (and the latest version of kodi needs some tweaking to compile on 14.2 and you can't enable VAAPI decoding since it requires a newer mesa, but that's only on my HTPC and wasn't a factor on my desktop). I prefer to not run -current since I know I won't keep up with updates. My HTPC running -current hasn't been updated since I installed it at the end of May and will likely stay that way unless I see/hear of some major security vulnerability that makes me feel it needs to be updated. Last time I did this (I think it was -current leading to the release of 14.0), I installed -current and didn't update it until the next stable release was announced.

I've always been bad at updating my systems. I'm more of a set it and forget it type of person, even though that mentality isn't great with the current security issues constantly being announced. Plus with the constant changes in libs with -current and the occasional breakage they can cause with ponce's unofficial SBo repo, I just tend to sit at a version until I feel it's worthwhile to dedicate my limited time to manage it. With my current job usually taking up 50-60 hours a week and a house and yard that is in need of some TLC, not to mention spending time with my family, I don't spend nearly as much time working on the computer as I did a few years ago. Spending the time I should with maintaining -current is just unsustainable for me. (I used to install pretty much every CyanogenMod nightly version for my phone for several years, but my time is spent elsewhere now.)

I'd rather just spend a few hours once to go through and try to manually upgrade mesa, libdrm, and hopefully only a few other packages to try and get that card to work on 14.2 and then just wait until 15.0 is released before I finally upgrade.

Happy birthday! Hopefully it will have a little sibling before the next one.

I've tried moving --Current twice and both times it broke, once after a period of months, the other time after a period of days. I have no animosity, because, if one chooses to run a testing version, stuff may happen--live with it.

But for now I'm sticking to 14.2. It's proven rock-solid stable for me.

As someone posted here when I was very new to LQ, "Slackware--the distro of iron; it always works and it never breaks."

It's rock solid release 14.2, but obviously I compiled some new things for general features/usability of the system:

Among other things: Thunar-1.6.17 with gtk2, most of xfce4-4.12.x with gtk2 (except the terminal/vte)
Furthermore; qt5-5.9.8, ffmpeg-4.1.3, libvdpau-1.2, libdrm-2.4.98, and mesa-19.0.6

Regarding mesa-19, it's fine with either meson or autotools, but I use the latter because it's part of /d/ standard install.
Tested a meson build too, but as long as autotools work there's noo rush for this addition.

About new drivers etc, in most cases it's only a matter of new kernel and new hwdb rules (I just unpack from current eudev package).
As usual, hardware straight from assembly line probably won't work with old kernel, but FWIW new kernels work fine on 14.2 (I tested 4.14.x, 4.19.x, probably around 50 versions)

Flexible system, easily extended, modular, seams like a rare thing these days.

For what its worth the autotools build is gone now in the mesa git master, moving forward meson will be the only choice.

Many times you won't even need to get the new hwdb rules (this was the first I'd even heard of it, but thanks for the info!) for that hardware to work. You can also update your PCI ID list using update-pciids to most likely fix any items that don't have proper names in lspci.

While just updating the kernel will provide support for most hardware, video cards can be a little different. To fully benefit from newer graphics hardware, you usually need an updated X driver along with an updated mesa and any dependencies for those that might need to be upgraded (mesa typically requires fairly new libdrm).

I have used 14.2 for years but when I got a new laptop early this year, I had to move over to openSUSE because of the newer hardware, but I have a partition all laid out and ready for the next stable version of Slackware. Now if we can just convince Pat to put it out.

No need to go to SUSE, -current is very solid if you want something for newer hardware. Update it at your convenience.

As much as I would like to keep with Slackware as my distro of choice, I really don't want to be running current. I'll keep checking in the hopes that something happens, but I'm about done. I hope there's something important that is holding up the next release. It would be a shame to see another year or 2 go by, all for the sake of perfection. I will keep checking in, but I'm not hopeful.

I feel the same way. I will be evaluating Debian 10 on Saturday. This is a change of heart for me.

I so want a London Slackware party when 15.0 comes out.

hitest, does this mean you're thinking of migrating? -current is very solid and stable. Moreso than Debian Buster, I would imagine.

If you want to run 14.2 on newer hardware, just boot with the installer from current for setup then install the rest from 14.2/slackware64/
easy-peasy

Hope That Helps
John

Yeah, I'm the least risk-adverse person ever when it comes to operating systems, and I hated Arch for the 3 months I used it. I've been on Slackware current for a few weeks, and it's not bad, all things considered. At this point in time I'd recommend it, if you've got newer hardware. (Although it really does need to ship with qt5...)

I’m thinking of moving some of my 5 current work stations to Debian 10.

Come on, guys. We all know that Pat and Team are working hard on the next release (just look at the -current change log) and we all know that it won't be just 14.3. It's going to be 15.0, when it's ready. Let's not forget that 2018 was a difficult year for Pat and his family, so let's be patient: he deserves it.

For the record, I've been running -current for more than one year now, with no issues.

Surely this is shiny new stuff syndrome. What can you not do on Slackware -current which you feel you can do, and do better, on Debian 10?

I think part of the problem, I'll admit, is the fact that this is the longest gap between releases ever and comms have been absent from the main tent of the Slackware camp. At least some kind of roadmap would be interesting to know of, Slackware core team.

That said, I can literally see no reason for moving to Debian, let alone any systemd distro. And I dare say you won't get much in the way of quality support from the mediocre Debian community.

:D:party::hattip:

Ease up there big fella. You're being a bit dramatic, don't you think?

Debian 10... That's just crazy talk.

Yeah, a little, I guess. just venting. :)

Heh-heh. True, true. I get easily bored. I will take it for a test drive and likely discover something that isn't quite right. It's all good.

Updated all of my -current boxen. Running well. :)

I'm based in Coventry, but could be convinced to visit London for a get together if one is arranged.

You should also join some of us UK lot in the #slackware.uk channel on Freenode - I'm trying to build up a UK Slackware channel.

Yes I've seen this, that's why I've mentioned it. Meson in 14.2 does work, but there some circular dependencies.
Not in a rush to do this on 14.2, maybe in few years.

It's just old eudev with new rule set, I didn't know either but was forced to do something because of some new ssd (sata, no pci).
It'd show in dmesg with an error, it was not in the database until I bumped the 14.2 rules from -current eudev rule set.

X driver is no problem, I've used a template SlackBuild to compile only libdrm and xf86-video-nouveau-1.0.16 without recompiling all of /x/ so that's settled.
I use the 32bit legacy binary driver too, but on another x86 system which never gets any new features or updates. It works fine, but I would not recommend it.

settle

Not based in UK, but I would be tempted to visit London once more on such occasion :thumbsup:

I've been hanging out on ##slackware but it's not very active. I'll check out #slackware.uk. Woo Coventry - you have some nice medieval pubs there [the ones the bombs missed].

Ah, looks like I've picked up the gauntlet here. I'll get on with arranging one when the time comes. I'll see if I can twist ruario's arm as well, and one or two other Norwegians.

Think not in terms of the time spent moving over to Debian, but in the time spent moving back from Debian.

There would be a lot less to do in Debian stable than in Slackware -current. As far as I remember, part of Debian stable's raison d'être is for there to be as little to do in the way of maintenance as possible.

Very good point, my friend! Yes, after a short evaluation period I invariably do find myself going home to Slackware.

True. Now that does sound boring! I appreciate your thoughtful, logical counter points. :)

Out of desperation, I briefly considered switching to Fedora 30 until Slackware 15 came out. My wife talked me out of it: "I know you. You'll get frustrated. It will try to do things for you and you'll have a bad time!". Switched to -current instead :). Left Fedora on her desktop.

Agreed! Many people are forgetting this isn't Canonical or Red Hat. It's a one man shop aided by some community volunteers here and there. LTS releases are typically 3-5 years, and I consider 14.2 more stable than other distro's LTS releases ;)

ruario is Brit, Ødegaard is his wife's last name. Also an unicycler.

I've run current in the past, but that was always with the expectation that a release was imminent (months). I just don't have the bandwidth for never ending current maintenance. That's just my situation - I know others feel differently and Pat has no obligation to meet my needs.

But here's the thing. I wanted to build a NAS using Slackware. Ran into hardware issues with 14.2 and I ended up using FreeNAS and XFS. Runs great, meets my needs, easy upgrades... That's a box that Slackware owned and now it doesn't. On top of that, a loyal paying customer was pushed into looking elsewhere. That is just bad business.

I had a subscription for quite some time. I would gladly pay MS prices for the next Slackware release. I don't care if it's perfect. Good enough is good enough.

I've read through threads here. I've seen people much smarter that me (Alien) seem to be equally frustrated - if I'm reading that wrong my apologies. I want to support Pat, but for God's sake give me something to buy!!!

I just don't understand. Somebody explain it to me. I probably wouldn't understand, but at least I would know there's a reason.

Happy Birthday 14.2! Also thanks to or BDFL. The only time 14.2 breaks is when I do something stupid, or some 3rd party package is screwy, or Nvidia!. Thus, I tend to stick with what Slackware provides OOTB and only hit up SBo as needed.

As for the "ageism," 14.2 is really not that old. Very rarely do you need the very latest bleeding edge software package to get work done. Hardware is the one exception (as mentioned above), as when on 14.1 I needed 14.2 for the all the new fangled stuff on the new X99 LGA 2011-v3 system I built. heck, the old P4 hobby server stayed on 14.1 until last year! Only reason I upgraded that was to drop the 14.1 tree and free up HD space.

Slackware 14.1 is more solid than Windows7 on the corporate overlord provided laptop. Later this year, I'll be "upgraded" to a new Lenovo laptop with Win10. The HORROR!

I feel your pain, mate. I have 5 Linux work stations/laptops, and an OpenBSD laptop. I also have a Lenovo laptop running Win 10 Pro. You can probably guess which unit requires the most maintenance and TLC. :)

Happy?! It is TREE YEARS!! Next release after 15.0 over 5 years? Or more? It is only taking more and more time between releases. What is going on with Slackware? 14.2 is out of date. Certainly for servers.
I don't want to make people upset, but I am worried about Slackware's future.

There have always been people worried about Slackware's future, and I bet the first one has always been Pat. Let's not turn this into one of those threads, please.

It is ONLY three years old (thanks for those!), I can't imagine being any less happy if it were four, or five, or...

Out of date? Well, perhaps I am too! Maybe that is one way of expressing one of its best qualities which appeals to me so much! Another way might be, "Continuing to prove its technological philosophy!" or "Never abandoned ideas which worked!", or my favorite, "STILL, and always, respectful of its users Freedom!"! ;)

Only three years old but rock solid and places no arbitrary hurdles in the way of my ability to continue to maintain and use it as I please. The fact that its design principles greatly facilitate my ability to continue to extend, maintain and use Slackware-14.2 largely independent of what the rest of the world decides to do in the mean time is the very expression of software FREEDOM, and the primary reason I use Slackware!

Slow and steady Pat*, THANKS, and Happy Birthday 14.2!

* And Eric, Robby, SBo contributors and the many others not mentioned by name or unknown to me! Thanks!

Glad you love Slackware. If you had a family to support, wouldn't you prefer cash?

I do have a family to support, and Slackware has long facilitated my ability to do that, consistently!

I prefer the FREEDOM to do it myself, as I please, over anything as transient as box of cash!

Slackware users donate between releases as well, to support Patrick's maintenance work (currently down to 14.0) and because they care about Slackware's existence and about its future. Not only about the DVD.

When my computer died, I used my partner's laptop (windows 10...it's a mixed marriage) to play Guild Wars 2. Honestly, I think performance was about the same on GW2 as Slackware 14.2 with WINE and d9vk. :D My problem is that I use the keyboard to do a lot of things, and Windows 10 has different key commands than xfce.

???

How's that work for you when you when the rent is due? I would prefer the box of cash myself, but that's just me.

Look, I don't really care what PV does or doesn't do. TBH, I've given up on Slackware. I think PV is a perfectionist that is shooting himself in the foot and screwing over anyone who put faith in him. It's extremely sad and I hope I'm wrong.

Goodbye folks.

Seriously - take a gander at thread and possibly (oh, I don't know) maybe Donate.


14.2 is good as it is, 15 will ship when it's ready.

There obviously is a reason but you are not going to be told it. Secrecy is the thing: say nothing and you can never be wrong, and you can possibly have a bit of fun and/or a power trip on the way. Having said that, possibly it is connected with the former (seemingly inadequate) contract with slackware's former distributors which prevents a release until a given period after it expired. Who knows: you won't.

I spent an enjoyable morning tinkering with Arch. However, it isn't Slackware. I earlier in this thread expressed frustration. I don't regret that. I value and appreciate the positive and negative comments I received for thinking out loud. I love the LQ community.
There's nothing more satisfying than setting up a new Slackware system; I'm enjoying installing Slackware64-current at the moment.
I am going to stay with Patrick and Slackware. It has been an enjoyable 15 years, and I look forward to running Slackware for years to come.
I'm looking forward to 15.0 and plan to donate to Slackware this month using Pat's paypal account.

Slackware is like Hotel California, isn't it?