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I love Slackware so much I can not decide whether to be on top or on the bottom.
Now that that's out of the way: So far Slackware64-current in pretty stable on 3 boxes (intel i7, AMD Ryzen 7) with AMDGPU. I'd say we are pretty damn close to RC1. I would like a kernel up in the 5.8/5.9 area due to AMD's NAVI 2 later this year, but its no big deal if I have to roll my own kernel for my gaming box. The other current boxes are for "office stuff" and I see no significant user experience there between current and 14.2.
I still have 14.2 on one box (gopher server!), and my web site runs in a linode with 14.2. I have qemu VMs with 14.2 as well. As for those who complain stuff on 14.2; dude(s), all the software shipped with 14.2 still works on 14.2. Sure, you can cry about not having the "latest version" of some software, but unless there is a security patch or dep that won't work or is missing, the old version works pretty much the same as the new. There are specific use cases were 14.2 is getting a bit old (kdenlive, mlt, libindi...), but those are specific use cases that appliy to a select few - and there are workarounds/alternating software.
Slackware is definitely not dead nor obsolete.
Bindestreck, look for me on Steam (linux client), and I'll raise a pint of Full Sail Session Lager.
@philanc - I think the "Don't feed the trolls" concept is out of date. It is in line with "Don't wrestle with a pig, because the pig likes it and you will both get dirty". If the specific and false targeting of "Swift Boat" didn't convince anyone that false witness can cause great harm and have little or no negative blowback, then the era of "Fake News", real and imagined, should be the final nail in that coffin. It has become so polarized and often ruthless that most if not all people suffer some confusion as to what or whom to trust. Therefore negative trolling cannot be allowed to stand unopposed as dialogue is essential to the truth or at the very least a balanced view.
I think the reason why this and other troll threads don't get shut down is that they are generating advertising revenue for the board. The trolls and the mods are on the same side.
Stable 14.2 works great for many users. I'm using it and have with over 500 packages from SBo. The only things I've need to do to the actual distro are upgrade a few packages because I upgraded some of my hardware within the last few years and it is newer than what 14.2 supports. I needed a newer kernel (easy) and a newer graphics stack (not that bad -- mesa, amdgpu xorg driver, llvm, libdrm and 3 packages from SBo). Other than that lack of supporting the latest hardware (which anyone with a 4+ year old computer won't even notice), I'm not feeling the age of 14.2 at all. Not to mention it is still getting regular security updates. That sounds dead, right?
As you well know, SBo isn't intended for -current. Ponce's unofficial repo does support -current and who cares if it is "one man"? Many are contributing to it via his thread on here and changes are typically made quickly. If something is broke, either point it out or don't complain about it.
Why do old versions bother you? If they work, then what does the age matter? If they are missing valid new features from those newer versions, reach out to the maintainers and see if they're willing to update their scripts. If those users are no longer using the scripts, you could take over maintainership and *gasp* give back to the community. I am specifically choosing to keep a few of my scripts at older versions unless requested to move to newer ones to prevent introducing new dependencies (like qt5).
But the fact that you're able to take the relatively modern -current release and tailor it to your needs shows it isn't dead. But if you really feel this project is so dead, you really should move on and let us enjoy the coolness of the morgue.
there have been numerous discussions about the next stable release being delayed. Yes, it's been too long, but this is not because the distribution is dead. As you can see from the ChangeLog, it is actively developed.
there have been numerous discussions about the next stable release being delayed. Yes, it's been too long, but this is not because the distribution is dead. As you can see from the ChangeLog, it is actively developed.
I already posted timeline of releases somewhere. For the last 10 years there is very visible rule: each new release date is delayed with increasing delta, so Slackware has been slowing down. There is a dying tendency.
Obviously there is a lot of development going on in the Slackware community, and it is not dead. Great.
However ...
I have two slackware64-14.2 systems and would really like to have upgrades of a number of packages, list too long and probably too specific to me to be worth spelling out. I am not an experimenter and don't follow all the good things that alien-bob and others provide (although I've installed a few); I just want a more up-to-date slackware64. In the past I have always simply slackpackaged every new release in full as it shows up. Now none shows up.
Just supposing (**not** assuming) that no new release will ever show up - what is the recommended keep-it-current process? Please be specific - e.g. "use current" is not a helpful answer - how would I do that - how often? what testing etc etc
I.e. what should I do? (Facetious answers are fine in keeping with this channel).
John Lumby
John, I would suggest you start another thread. It is possible to upgrade from slackware64-14.2 to slackware64-current using slackpkg. I have done it before with no issues.
John, I would suggest you start another thread. It is possible to upgrade from slackware64-14.2 to slackware64-current using slackpkg. I have done it before with no issues.
It's probably not very good idea, because a lot of things will stop working. It's possible to fix all the issues, but it will be much easier to install fresh -current.
Just a few examples of problems which come to my mind quickly:
- krb and pam dependencies
- cc1 requires isl, and it's not just for compiler. Cc1 is used at runtime by several programs like xdm
- python2 and python3 mess
Slackware as people used to know it - releases every year to two years, with a development series which ramped up before a new release - is dead. But slackware is still developed with great energy in the form of slackware-current, and former releases are still maintained.
Whether there will ever be a version 15.0 release, or whether the adoption of a "rolling release" approach is to be a permanent feature of Slackware, remains to be seen. There has been plenty of opportunity to create a 15.0 release if that were the intention. Mere users are not told what the future plans for the distribution may be: in the absence of information as to such plans, questions along the lines of "is slackware dead" seem inevitable, and indeed reasonable. Not everyone is a troll.
Slackware as people used to know it - releases every year to two years, with a development series which ramped up before a new release - is dead. But slackware is still developed with great energy in the form of slackware-current, and former releases are still maintained.
Whether there will ever be a version 15.0 release, or whether the adoption of a "rolling release" approach is to be a permanent feature of Slackware, remains to be seen. There has been plenty of opportunity to create a 15.0 release if that were the intention. Mere users are not told what the future plans for the distribution may be: in the absence of information as to such plans, questions along the lines of "is slackware dead" seem inevitable, and indeed reasonable. Not everyone is a troll.
That was one of my thoughts I expressed in similar thread recently. No surprise, I was accused as a troll by these BSD games fans too. If Slackware team can't proceed with usual release model, probably it's better to simplify things with:
- switch to rolling release model
- dropping 32bit support, but including 32 bit multilib in the base as an option like FreeBSD does
- Centralized SBo -current where maintainers can update their SB scripts
This way Slackware would show "still alive" signs, and no one would have to endure this disgusting necrophilia.
Centralized SBo -current where maintainers can update their SB scripts
this is not ideal as -current is moving targets, so it's giving a hard time for maintainers and admins to make sure the script works.
That's why -current is not officially supported by SBo and Ponce is doing it on his personal repository instead of in SBo repository.
This way Slackware would show "still alive" signs, and no one would have to endure this disgusting necrophilia.
Just for the record, that is not how I would view it. In a rational world users would be told about the direction in which slackware is heading, but I don't think necrophilia has anything to do with it.
But Windows XP is no longer receiving updates from Microsoft. Just like 13.37 and earlier. Those are no longer receiving updates and can be considered dead even if people are using them
Microsoft also hasn't released a new Windows since 2015. That must be dying too, right? Wrong, it's still receiving updates by Microsoft and their dev channel is still moving (like -current).
Quote:
Originally Posted by I.G.O.R
I already posted timeline of releases somewhere. For the last 10 years there is very visible rule: each new release date is delayed with increasing delta, so Slackware has been slowing down. There is a dying tendency.
Slowing down doesn't mean dying. If you look at the actual number of updates, -current has had 928 updates since 14.2 was released. There's been 1481 days since 14.2 is released. This means that Pat averages an update a little more than every other day. Sounds dead, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by I.G.O.R
- dropping 32bit support, but including 32 bit multilib in the base as an option like FreeBSD does
If 32bit is dropped, multilib won't be offered by Pat. He doesn't even offer multilib now, but Alien Bob does by simply repackaging 32bit Slackware packages. I doubt Alien Bob will be willing to maintain a 32bit distro just to provide multilib.
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