slackware-current out-to-date?
 

Hello!
Someone could explain me why the /slackware-11.0 is receiving contant updates while the /slackware-current is out to-date?

Shouldn't be the contrary?
I really don't got it. :scratch:






Take a look:

ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackwar.../ChangeLog.txt

ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackwar.../ChangeLog.txt

I have to admit, I think slackware-current is overdue, but here is the official explanation

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.

The updates that go into Slackware 11.0 (as well as all previous releases down to 8.1 even which received 3 updates in 2007!) are part of the usual process of keeping the versions of Slackware secure and safe to use after their initial release.
New features and packages are by tradition only added to the Slackware-current tree. So far, this development of adding or upgrading packages, and changing the way Slackware works (think of the boot process, hardware detection, network support and so on) has been an incremental, evolutionary process - the day-to-day changes that you see reflected in the ChangeLog.txt are fairly small and if things break, theya re usually fixed very fast.

Now, with the new post-slackware 11.0 development, things were due for a major reshuffle. Expect to see a lot of things changed - all of that may not be visible to the casual end user but under the hood, things change much!
Simply stated, when such a significant change happens, it is not easy to let it all come together again as a working distro ;-) When the slackware-current release is fit for the general public, Pat _will_ release his updates, and they are many!
That this is not being reflected in the ChangeLog.txt of the moment does not mean that development has slowed down or even halted. Pat Volkerding of course decides when a new slackware-current will hit the servers, but my estimate is that it can't be long.

My advice to people who use Swaret, Slapt-get and others to automatically keep their PC up to date is: please configure that program to get updates from a Slackware-11.0 mirror and not use Slackware-current! We will probably hear a lot of moaning from people otherwise, although there will be a CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT file like there was for Slackware-11.0 in case you need information about the upgrade.

Eric

Could this next release possible be the most significant release of slackware yet? I have used slack since 7.1 but these new changes sound very interesting.

Thanks for the update, Eric:-) I've been curious about this as well and suspected that a lot was happening behind the scenes.

From what I've read so far I expect the next Slack release to be very different from what it is now. I'm really curious to see it and to see if Pat does shift from the 2.4 kernel series to 2.6

With so many changes at the most basic level it's to be expected that packages will be slow to show up in -current. Pat doesn't like to just toss bad/broken packages out there willy nilly. That's why I trust Slack.

Other than the note in the the Changelog, do we have any info on the state of development from sources close to Pat?

Alien Bob is "close". Check out http://www.slackware.com/~alien

Eric, do you happen to know, will the support for 2.4 cease in -current, or not?

Maybe some of the most curious readers on this thread will be interested in reading this IRC-log ;)

http://wigglit.ath.cx/slackware_botl....log.08Mar2007

Yes, questions asked about the new default kernel (2.6), modular X (yes), and the state of -current (busy busy... coming real soon to a server near you) are all answered in that IRC log.

I should add, I am running this slackware-current for a couple of weeks now, and it is only getting better ;-) It is just so rough at the edges that some major polishing still needs to be done - especially to the installer. I do have my USB/PXE installer scripts finished already.

Eric

Wow, that is great to hear! This is the information I was lacking... Thanks a lot! Now I can go back to sleep... :D

erklaerbaer, KleB and Alien Bob, thank you so much for the information...

It sounds like 12.0?? will need to be a clean install

I'm sure you wanted to thank Yalla-One instead of me... ;)

Thanks KleB for pointing out his mistake :)

Exactly. Yes, I meant to say Yalla-One. So my thanks to you were there for a reason KleB (I was testing you :P).

I thought so... :D

Do you guys realize it is St. Patrick's day today?

Eric

Yummy little update to -current tonight :)

It's not so "out of date" any more!

Little :-) Is there anything at all that hasn't been updated ?

And there my planned Sunday outdoors went out the window...

-Y1

I was wondering when this would happen. The changelogs been hiding for a while. I don't think upgrading is going to work. I'll have to burn a new current disc I think.

upgrading shouldn't be a problem as long as you read and follow the instructions in CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT and UPGRADE.TXT

I'm upgrading as we speak - should anything fail I'll let you know ...

-Y1

Yipee!!! Upgrading is gonna be a lot of fun :-)

OK - upgrade complete, and the system works like a charm. It's dependant on following the upgrade recommendations though.

The only thing that took some extra tweaking was /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which needs a quick path and driver update. The quickest way is probably to do a Xorg -conf and use the new file as basis while incorporating the customizations done previously (ie for 100DPI fonts etc)

Happy 12.0-beta slacking...

-Y1

Good!
Good to see some actual upgrade feedback, too.

Cheers, Eric

Well, that's been a pleasant read :)
Pretty much nirvana...
Now I'm just waiting for my nearest mirror to fully sync, as I don't want to attack Slackware server just when everyone else needs syncing. ;)

http://slackware.osuosl.org/slackware-current/
http://ftp.scarlet.be/pub/slackware/slackware-current/

are two complete and fast mirrors.

Eric

Maybe this is a good time to recommend your infamous mirror-slackware-current.sh script, which also contains a good list of up-to-date mirrors

http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tools/

Slackware-users in Scandinavia may want to add ftp.slackware.no which is also fast and current

-Y1

Thanks, I now trying rsync://rsync.scarlet.be/slackware/slackware-current/, as I usually use rsync://rsync.slackware.at/slackware/slackware-current/, which is my nearest mirror, but not always the first to get synced.

Thanks Yalla-one, added that rsync server to the script's header.

By the way, during the non-public stage of slackware-current testing I expanded the script quite a lot.

Show the available commandline switches:
Create a Slackware-current DVD ISO if you have a local copy of the Slackware tree without going out over the Internet to check rsync server updates (i.e. you don't need to have an active Internet connection for this command):
The same, but for Slackware 11.0:
Show the changes in the ChangeLog.txt on the server compared to your local copy without actually sync-ing anything and without creating new ISOs:
Put this in your (or root's) crontab so that it silently checks for updates every night at 04:25 and syncs only if neccessary - creating CD and DVD ISO images after the sync (you will get an email if any changes were found in the ChangeLog.txt):
... and more.

Eric

Coolness.. Will make sure to update your script!

I've ran into some other minor issues with the new -current as well, all of them X related.

Having updated the xorg.conf, the system boots fine into X, but fails to come back after a Ctrl-Alt-Backspace restart.
Furthermore, after logging out of KDE after the first login, the cursor gets all messed up, and finally - my former fool-proof way of getting 100DPI seems to have gone out the window as well.

Here's what I used to do:

Calculate height and width:
Width = (screen width * 25.4) / DPI
Height = (screen height * 25.4) / DPI

For a 1024x768 that should give the following line under Then change /usr/lib/X11/fs/config:

default-resolutions=100,100,75,75

(instead of the other way around).

And then - finally edit /etc/fonts/local.conf:

Despite all of that, xdpyinfo tells me the resolution is 83x113 dots per inch... go figure

-Y1

I'm absolutely thrilled to see all of the development that has happened over the last few months:-)
Congratulations, Eric on your involvement in the development cycle! Very cool stuff indeed:-)

I started this Wiki page: slackware:current to address issues when installing (and later, using) Slackware current.

For now, it only contains the extra steps needed when you install from scratch and choose a "generic" kernel.

Eric

Good initiative - that's definitely a better place to put it.
Speaking of the wiki - that reminds me to finally upload (and update!) the work I've done so far on the Slackware Powertools section :)

I've had a few issues. I'm running it now, but when I initially tried to install the huge26 kernel it wouldn't boot. Lilo reported that the kernel was BIG and it overlapped lilo's second sector. So instead of upgrading I installed from scratch. So far I can't get X to work with the nvidia drivers installed, but that's the only major issue I've got at the moment. It's a lot quicker booting this kernel compared to the 2.4.

Also works like a charm :)
Nice to see some pre-release apps in slackware for a change :)

Argh... I'm very eager to try it out, but I can't risk b0rking my system in the coming few moths...

Btw, what is this new sysvinit-scripts package? The init system didn't change, did it?

The other thing that grabbed my attention was:
My tears for such a useful and unbloated app :(...

Then use audacious (I think that's the name...).
And, no, the init is still the same, I's been such for I while, I think... You must just know that init scripts are _not_ sysv-like (although there is a compatibility script in there). That's all, and it's good... :)

Ok so that was only for separating the compatibility part. Thankfully the BSD style init is still there.

I installed audacious 3 months ago but it was a bit buggy (the GUI part). It's the light weight of Gtk+1 that I like so much about XMMS. I know, my computer with 1G RAM and AMD 64 wouldn't care about the extra weight of Gtk+2, but I do (yes, I'm a bit on the crazy side :D ).

Yes, he just put the scripts in a separate package, that's all.
And if you mean lightweight, why not use mp3blaster or mocp.

Yeah I'm just testing audacious on 11.0 and its definitely less responsive than xmms and takes more CPU to run. It looks nice tho. I could'nt find any difference to xmms yet besides that it uses GTK2.

i am a bit surprised about this huge upgrade to current :)
I am very glad with the development and couldn`t be happier with my distro.

has anyone else had trouble getting nvidia driver running, for me they install but when I startx x I get

can't load glx (no such module)
can't load nvidia (no such module)

even though nvidia is listed in lsmod.



NEVERMIND :)
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=538799

> NEVERMIND
> http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=538799

Or,just type like below will be easier.
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9755-pkg1.run --prefix=/usr --x-module-path=/usr/lib/xorg/modules

Happy St. Patrick's day to you.

May the Guiness flow freely.

Thanks to St. Pat for releasing the updates to Slackware-current!

Oooh boy, that is a lot of changes. When I first saw the changelog I pretty much just assumed this was going to be a reinstall job, but the CHANGES_AND_HINTS doesn't actually look to bad. I suspect I will have to fight with X for awhile, and I will almost certainly forget to install some of the new packages that have been split, but it looks like it will be worth the effort.

I have sort of mixed feelings on some of the changes made. For instance it looks like floppy installs are not going to be supported anymore. USB booting is wonderful, but only one of my motherboards actually supports it. I have used the floppy installs a lot on older machines, and I will be sad to see it go. I'm not actually sure what I am going to do about that. Within the last month or so I installed Slackware on a machine with no CD-ROM or USB, just a floppy drive and a NIC. Now it looks like that won't be possible anymore. I might have to move machines like that over to BSD.

The splitting out packages is great from a modularity stand point, much better for keeping things updated, but it is also going to add more complication to the system. It was always comforting that you only needed a relatively small collection of packages to have a core system with full functionality. The larger packages also helped out a lot with the lack of dependency checking. I could easily memorize which packages were needed for what when there were so few. Now it seems like that is going to be much harder to do.

Floppies are a dead technology.

Slackware 11 will continue to be supported for some time. If you are administering such old machines, do you really need the latest & greatest software on them?

"Old" is highly subjective. I personally consider anything above 100 MHz a viable machine for almost any purpose.

My current full time laptop is only 266 MHz.

MS3FGX: But how are you going to run Windows Vista? It's the latest greatest operating system by the friendly software company Microsoft.If you don't have Vista then your simply not computing! Because of technological advancements the latest PC hardware is required, so run out now and get yourself a dell to run this awesome Operating System on!


.....For those that don't realise I was being sarcastic.