I would have said I don't like having to configure my wireless through inet1.conf (Wicd doesn't work well with my laptop), but now that NetworkManager is on SlackBuilds.org I don't really have any complaints.

Slackware 13.1 is nearly perfect.

I'm not spreading FUD, Pat V is, because that's what he said in the changes and hints:

ftp://ftp.slackware.at/slackware64-1..._AND_HINTS.TXT

If you call this FUD, take it up with him not me. You can also search this forum.

generic + initrd should boot with any filesystem, the filesystem modules being part of the initrd.

P.S. I don't like people saying I'm spreading FUD.

I discovered a couple of weeks ago that the Hitachi 250GB drive I bought from Maplins for £60 was the source of many unexplainable problems,the drive shows no errors with any of the tests I have run on it but I have disconnected it for the second time and alls well...even my XP was freezing for moments at a time,I am pretty sure that it was this drive that screwed up my partition table at the time I was writing to the other drive so much so that I could,nt recover any of the logical ones,the primary partitions on both drives survived...
Lucky for me that I don,t keep anything of any value on my box...to me its like a Rubix cube,I could do the cube in around thirty seconds... it pulls apart and you just reassemble it correctly... in fairness to Slackware it does rather well considering the constant change in developing programs utilities,Pat dos,nt write these changes but he and the others have to continually accommodate them,considering the constant flux of change Slackware is doing rather well... LOL

Yes, but why can't -generic have *one* default filesystem built into it? If you don't want to mess with an initrd, you could just use the default filesystem and -generic would work fine. Everyone's probably got their own preference on what the "Slackware default" filesystem should be, but something bland like ext3 would suffice. If that's not your personal preference, then you'll have to use an initrd.

It seems more "slack" to just build your own kernel to fit your needs if you don't want an initrd. It's not a big deal to build in a file system. I like the fact that slackware keeps things general and let's me make my own decisions. JMO of course.

Sure, there's always that option. We're encouraged not to run custom kernels anymore though - at least if we want to report bugs. And it's even more effort than setting up the initrd. Seems like just adding one filesystem to -generic would add a major convenience, and it would also remove a stumbling point for new users. The only disadvantage I can see is a non-removable driver for people not using that fs. I don't see that causing a noticeable or even measurable performance hit though. It's not like the -generic kernel is all that small anymore anyway. It's now over 2.5MB - the days of it fitting on a floppy are long past. I'd say that if anyone is really bothered by a single default filesystem driver, they can be the ones to recompile to get rid of it. JMO, also.

I understand why -generic is built that way, and mkinitrd isn't that much of a hassle. It's just one more step to set up a new installation that I think could be avoided with a very minor kernel config tweak.

I have another idea.

Slackware's installer knows what the filesystem of the boot drive is (it uses that information to set up that fstab). Therefore, it can build an initrd with just that filesystem and then set you up with the generic kernel.

When you consider that the initrd might need to support things other than filesystems, though, it gets more complicated.

Doesn't that pose a problem for people who need special RAID drives for instance?

Too much trouble to update from one version to the next. It could be simplified without causing any kinds of problems, I'm sure.

I've tried to do in-place upgrades of Mandriva, Ubuntu and Slackware. Slackware is the only one that ever worked or worked right when it was done.

Agreed. Upgrades are well documented with Slackware. If you read the upgrade how tos you can avoid pitfalls.

Slackware is basically a rolling binary release. It's based upon constantly being upgraded, so it's a natural thang.

So you would have a -generic-xfs, a -generic-ext2, a -generic-reiserfs, etc., right?

But I often use an ext2 /boot and the rest as xfs - it was bad enough when I had to load support for xfs from a floppy.

Dude, that's going backwards. Really.

About kernels shipped with Slackware
 

The situation is good enough for me as it is.

After all it's not forbidden to chroot /new_slackware_root, make an initrd, edit lilo.conf to add a -generic entry and run lilo before rebooting after having completed Slackware's installation.

@H_TeXMeX_H:
- still waiting for a few examples of the _ton_of_problems_ you mentioned about using -huge
- I was prepared to hear that not everybody likes me, don't worry and be happy

Alright, at your request I have removed "tons of" from that post. I hope you're happy now. If you're not, I don't care, because I am right, that's why it is recommended that you use the generic kernel. If you're too lazy to search, and want me to do it for you, that's your problem.