Reasons to upgrade to 9.1?
 

I wanted to hear why it is worthwhile to upgrade to 9.1 from you guys. I ordered it a few weeks ago, but am wondering if I want to bother with it yet. I started with Slack 9 2 weeks ago and worked really hard getting it optimized for my box. I got my hard drive reading/writing fast, got DSL working perfect, compiled 2.4.22 optimized for my setup, installed Dropline-Gnome and other must have apps, went through editing various config files and now I am learning how to secure and seriously tweak Slackware (and having a little fun playing with it now that it works great!). Notice that I am using an nForce2 motherboard that took plenty of work to get running properly. I even have multiple apps sharing the nForce sound which people seem to be having a huge problem with. I would love to say how, but I don't even know what I did for that one ;)

So although I enjoyed setting it up and learned a TON, it is still too fresh I think for me to upgrade unless there is enough in 9.1 to warrant starting over again.

So let me know what really made you happy with the new version so I can make a good decision.

If your happy with your box and install now, I'd vote don't upgrade. You could probably easily just upgrade anything by installing and upgrading it manually on the things you want to upgrade, and of course upgrade anything being used that is or has a security flaw.

I have several boxes I'm still running 8.0 on.. just updated what I needed to update.

ALSA is included now. I finally have sound.

I can see snocked is totally stoked about having sound as this is the 2nd thread I saw that in ;)

After reading around here a bit more and hearing from trickykid the guru mod, I think I will stick with my install. The main reason I ordered 9.1 (well, other than to support the cause... i have broadband...) was because 9 wasn't working out well at all with 2.4.20 on my hardware. But, after all the research, help from the kind ppl here, and late nights pulling out hair it is running great. Better than XP ever did.

At least I'll own the authentic cd's anyway...

I suggest u install it in another partition then multiboot them. This way u can even compare wut is on old partition, which on new install not worked .. That give u a refresh of wut u did not realized u have made to make thing working ..

Many thing/packages are updated/upgraded in 9.1, that don't make the older release bader .., therefore just multiboot them .. :-)~

Well, you can always update later or install packages from the cd's you ordered. Also, if you don't end up installing it, you did however help support a great distribution and project.

Thats exactly how I feel about it. I think I got a HELL of alot more than I did when I paid $180 for XP Pro. Shit, I KNOW I got a hell of a lot more. The fact that these people are willing to give it away for free just makes it that much more enjoyable. I have no qualms about forking over a few bucks for things I believe in, or that are based on quality :)

Both of which are Slackware.

here is the quote of the day, even tho I have a Slackware subscription, I'm gonna keep 9.0 up for awhile, it is solid as a rock and I have a spare P3 850 box pulling double duty as a Juke box.......It still sounds Great and I have had no probs since I put 9.0 on it back in April!! The Juke box does not access the "NET" so it is still a virgin, with the orginal 9.0 packages, no updates at all.

Personally, the biggest things were ALSA and GNOME 2.4. My sound card does hardware mixing with ALSA which is much better than having to use esd or arts to have multiple programs play sound simultaneously and, well, GNOME 2.4 owns. But if you use Dropline-GNOME then you have 2.4 anyway, so maybe there is no real reason for you to upgrade.

Something also changed with FreeType2/Xft or something. My fonts look a bit different (read much clearer) in 9.1.

Thanks toth. I just figured out the sound issue (booted to KDE and it didn't work properly) and was just about to post so others could use 'search' and find it. Let me throw out some keywords: The reason my nforce2 audio is allowing multiple programs to play sound simultaneously is due to ALSA. ARTS doesn't work worth a damn with this setup.

I think maybe this was an obvious one that was overlooked....


I am in the same boat as you, I just installed 9.0, got it all customized and runing sexy like I wanted it, and then 9.1 was released. The real cool thing is this though, slackware now has swaret, so you can stay bleeding edge without having to reload the whole distro.

It can be gotten from www.swaret.org and is starting to get pretty robust. Its a tool somewhat like that from gentoo that checks dependencies and downloads and installs packages. Its a great thing for us slackware users, and IMO puts slackware right up to the front of kickass linux distros.

Anyways, I hope everything works out for you, and I'm glad you're liking slackware.
-Flecko

Thanks Flecko. I have been meaning to check out swaret but I keep forgetting! Everyone has been saying good things about it. I'll have to devote some time tonight for it.