Why do IT pros use long outdated versions of Linux while we're told to keep updating and upgrading?
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Having said that, the purpose of a college or university is to TEACH. If that is too hard for the academics, then maybe they should be doing something else.
When I went to university many years ago I had some professors who were great teachers. A professor isn't primarily motivated to teach well, they must publish original research if they want to keep their jobs. Publish or perish.
Hopefully you'll have a professor that you enjoy. Enjoy learning about Slackware!
Distribution: Slackware 64 -current multilib from AlienBob's LiveSlak MATE
Posts: 1,000
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Quote:
Originally Posted by beancounterx
I checked in with my local uni's computer science department and many of their professors were using long outdated versions of linux, one was using Slackware 12.0.
Back in 2019 I retired after 20 years as Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor and I find it hard to believe that any professor today would rely on Slackware-12 as their everyday OS. In the academic world of today you're dependent on a lot of tools (e.g zoom, learning platforms, and so on) that would be very hard to get running on Slackware-12 (if they can be made to run at all).
Maybe some kind of misunderstanding? If you ask a Prof in Computer Science if they use slackware (and if so what version), I guess that someone may come up with the answer "Slackware-12", meaning that they have it installed and use it (maybe very rarely) for certain tasks. But it will probably not be their only OS. Had you asked a prof in the History department, the answer would probably have been "No" (unless you've asked me back in 2018, when you'll have got the answer "Slackware-current").
As to the questions: as other has stated already, the answer to your first question is "It depends". Slackware-12 might be perfectly safe for some things, but unsafe for others. Second question: Because there are (1) security flaws that need to be addressed, and (2) new functionality added. If you look at the changelog for Slackware-15 (stable) you'll find seven security fixes released only this month.
but I would like to ask if it is probable that upgrading to a modern Linux may confuse the compiling of "old" code, even when trying to compensate by setting various CXXFLAGS (like "-std=gnu++=0x" et.c.)?
In my experience, it is rather common that old code breaks when upgrading the compiler, this is especially true for C++ code but might also happen to plain C code.
As you say, using the "-std" flag mostly helps against this, or at least the kind of trouble showing up as compile errors caused by changes in the standard of the language.
Another kind of bit rot is the one caused by changes in APIs to different libraries like gtk och qt. Those problems cannot be solved by instructing the compiler to comply to a specific version of the language.
As part of a research career, I have used some old - but expensive to replace - laboratory or field equipment with old software. At times, that equipment is out of date and has no drivers, etc. for a more modern OS, or uses specialized software that is no longer offered by the manufacturer (who may no longer be in business).
The choices are to either replace everything (good-bye to major chunk of available money), spend major time re-writing software (good-bye to major chunk of available time), or continue to run it on old hardware, old OS, and old software. Since the computer is not being used to connect to the outside world, security is a minor issue. The system may not even be connected to an internal network.
Not everyone needs to live on the bleeding edge, and stability/reliability of well-used and well-tested software/OS is more important in an operational setting than riding the crest of current technology.
One advantage of Slackware is that the basic administration method has not changed much over the years so the information at the Website above might help you on your way. The graphical desktop layer (Xorg/wayland) in Slackware 15.0 has seen changes (PAM, dbus, loginctl, pulseaudio/pipewire and all).
I have learned a lot from the OldTechBloke's Slackware videos.
Offtopic:
Quote:
Originally Posted by beancounterx
Having said that, the purpose of a college or university is to TEACH.
When you learn the synapses in your brain make new connections and pathways. In order to do that you have to work with the material and try things out and see if you can reason about the outcomes. Like you want to with Slackware.
In academia (I worked in such for several years), there are many factors than can influence this:
1) they are mostly using the machine for a multi-year research project, and their software "works" on Slack 12.0. Who knows if they can track down versions of all the open-source libraries they are using for Slack 15, and even if they're still supported? The easiest way to break old software using lots of 3rd party libraries is to try to upgrade it to a newer release. Why ruin your ticket-to-tenure/publication when you don't have to? If they only check internal email and look at on-campus web pages (which should be mostly secure), then it's probably not a safety issue.
2) the general web isn't *THAT* unsafe, that every website is going to bite you.
3) If their hardware is old, newer versions might run slower
4) They might have had the machine set up by a grad student long ago (grad students did a lot of IT work for our research group), the grad student has left, and the official campus IT doesn't support Slackware. I know our official IT group was *VERY* strict about touching *THEIR* machines (if you had a support contract), and only supporting one version of Unix / Linux per architecture (this was in the late 90s, so we were still mostly Sun Unix, some PCs were supported running Solaris X86, no Linux yet). Or, the machine was so old, IT would not support it anymore / they let their support contract expire (profs usually have to pay out of their own yearly budget for IT groups, etc - it's not covered by the department for everyone, since every prof will have different computer needs), etc. Why pay for it, if you can use the $$ for more grad students?
5) It might run / connect to an old piece of hardware that doesn't have a driver for a newer kernel version. This happens all the time in research.
Why do some people upgrade cars every few years, while others drive a 25-year-old clunker and others drive a 50-year-old restored model in perfect condition? It suits their needs / budget.
Not all updates are security related. For example, if you're using Slackware -current vs the -release version, program updates will be constant and the upgrade process will be more substantial. Depending on the distribution you use, some are rolling-release which will be like Slackware -current where program versions are constantly being upgraded, and not necessarily for security reasons. This almost always guarantees every update process will be sizable compared to a distribution/release that only pushes out compatibility/security updates between releases.
The release model can run into issues if it becomes long-in-the-tooth like 14.2 did and 4 year old hardware won't work with compiled versions of applications/libraries of that particular release. Sometimes applications can also become too dependent on new library API calls that a lot of software will no longer compile with the older library versions.
Not all updates are security related. For example, if you're using Slackware -current vs the -release version, program updates will be constant and the upgrade process will be more substantial.
Your post here highlights an important issue, which *I think* hits lots of people new to Slackware. Please pardon me if this post seems like a rant. I ask you to consider it as the input of someone who has been running Slackware as his main operating system for over 20 years.
The issue is this: Slackware-current is not intended to be used in production. The so-called "updates" you mentioned are not actually updates. They're changes made in the development tree of an operating system.
If you use Slackware-current, you should expect it to break. This is because changes to things like critical system libraries can be made without notice.
You should not use Slackware-current if you require stability. It's not Debian Testing. Nobody will think you're a "clueless noob" because you're running stable. At this point, there is very little difference between stable and current... except that stable promises stability, where current does not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zaphar
Depending on the distribution you use, some are rolling-release which will be like Slackware -current where program versions are constantly being upgraded, and not necessarily for security reasons.
Slackware-current is not a rolling release. You should not consider it to be such.
It's a development tree.
If you would like to contribute to the development of Slackware by running current and reporting bugs, please do so... I'm near 100% sure your input will be heard (and possibly acted upon) by Patrick. There is no other reason at all to be running current.
Your post here highlights an important issue, which *I think* hits lots of people new to Slackware. Please pardon me if this post seems like a rant. I ask you to consider it as the input of someone who has been running Slackware as his main operating system for over 20 years.
The issue is this: Slackware-current is not intended to be used in production. The so-called "updates" you mentioned are not actually updates. They're changes made in the development tree of an operating system.
If you use Slackware-current, you should expect it to break. This is because changes to things like critical system libraries can be made without notice.
You should not use Slackware-current if you require stability. It's not Debian Testing. Nobody will think you're a "clueless noob" because you're running stable. At this point, there is very little difference between stable and current... except that stable promises stability, where current does not.
Slackware-current is not a rolling release. You should not consider it to be such.
It's a development tree.
If you would like to contribute to the development of Slackware by running current and reporting bugs, please do so... I'm near 100% sure your input will be heard (and possibly acted upon) by Patrick. There is no other reason at all to be running current.
Oh, I'm familiar with -current isn't a rolling release, but in certain situations, it may be the only way to run Slackware without recompiling large parts of the distribution. In my particular case, I bought a new video card not long after the release of 14.2 and the version of llvm and mesa shipped with 14.2 didn't support it. Switching over to -current allowed me to use it with Slackware without the need to recompile those packages. I rather not use -current for reasons you mention, and also because I usually do not need to be on the bleeding edge.
Ironically, I do have a specific use case where I use a rolling-release Linux distribution and it suffers from the problems you attribute to -current, so they may not actually be that much different in regards to stability. The only time I remember having problems with -current was when the switch was made from devfs to udev, it was a while ago so I don't really remember the problem that well, but even then I think it may have been more of an error on my part from not installing new packages.
Your post here highlights an important issue, which *I think* hits lots of people new to Slackware. Please pardon me if this post seems like a rant. I ask you to consider it as the input of someone who has been running Slackware as his main operating system for over 20 years.
The issue is this: Slackware-current is not intended to be used in production. The so-called "updates" you mentioned are not actually updates. They're changes made in the development tree of an operating system.
If you use Slackware-current, you should expect it to break. This is because changes to things like critical system libraries can be made without notice.
...
It's worth clarifying that yes, some of the updates in Slackware-current are security updates and when they occur are called out in the changelog.
Code:
n/php-7.4.30-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded.
This update fixes bugs and security issues:
mysqlnd/pdo password buffer overflow.
Uninitialized array in pg_query_params().
For more information, see:
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2022-31626
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2022-31625
(* Security fix *)
However, what you are saying still applies since -current also includes upgrades to software packages to newer versions that have yet to be tested or configured. As per the confusion in the original post, having a "secure" system isn't just about staying up to date. It's about hardening your system and closing potential attack vectors which. -current is not intended for production because there is no guarantee that a backdoor wasn't opened when sshd gets upgraded with fancy new (untested) features.
A helpdesk is the place to ask simple system questions, or just use the internet like everyone else. If you're going around calling people arseholes for not catering to your admitted cluelessness, maybe try having a look in a mirror.
Academics like almost everyone (including most software developers) are for the most part completely clueless as to the details of computers. I worked in academic settings for 20 odd years, and well I don't think i'd be going out on a limb to state that academics are a bit `special'. They'll possibly have one or two tools they know very well and will get cranky AF if they have to go outside their comfort zone. This is just human nature - you can't be good at everything and just learning let alone keeping up with the constant pointless grind of software changes is not a good use of everyone's time. Also universities are places were you learn how to learn, they are not supposed to be vocational colleges which just teach you procedures and facts required for employment. If you don't have any interest or aptitude in teaching yourself then perhaps you've paid for the wrong thing.
Constantly upgrading is just a huge pain in the arse. Simple dealing with menu's being moved around or icons being changed - almost always for no good reason other than a new UI designer or middle manager wants to make their mark - is extremely frustrating after the 3rd let alone 10th time it happens. And that's assuming no fundamental features have gone missing or the upgrade didn't just break your system. If you have installed 3rd party tools or libraries which is almost always the case after a long-term install and particularly with slackware due to it's package set it also might turn into much much more work.
Any ANY upgrade is a potential point of friction. If you use any critical software (and by definition if you use it it is critical) it should be validated and confirmed to still work BEFORE one performs the upgrade. Just running 'make check' is not adequate. Or at least that's how it used to happen before we all became perpetual beta-testers of never-finished shit-tastic software. Somehow 'stable' become a dirty word, synonymous with 'unmaintained', but nobody wants to work on someone else's software as it's usually more difficult and less rewarding than working on new stuff.
In all fairness everyone has to start somewhere and the whole point of educational institutions is to provide that starting point. In the US K-12 education stops at basic GUI usage and dumps the rest on higher education. So yes, unless you are like me and have family/friends that taught you basic UNIX philosophy, package building, and Web-Of-Trust then your only option is to rely on people who likely aren't interested in walking you through the baby steps.
The OP had really good questions, but both of them are pretty time consuming to answer so I'm not exactly surprised he got a shitty response from people at his school. I wanted to chime in earlier so by now people have probably moved on, but for the record!
Depends - this is a good question for a distro agnostic forum. 12.0 is an odd one to stay on unless there is a hard dependency on the kernel or toolchain. This is usually the result of bad software design or the guy running it is suffering from an extreme case of laziness. The bad attitude could easily be the result of someone not wanting to confront years of bad decisions
Slackware tracks upstream as closely as possible. Other distros... not so much...
For #2, you managed to run headfirst into the very thing that makes all distros different. Slackware updates a given package less because A) we don't do a lot of backporting and B) we don't split packages into pieces and install them individually. Slackwares core "repository" is also significantly smaller than the distros like debian and fedora so it looks less busy in general.
Simple dealing with menu's being moved around or icons being changed - almost always for no good reason other than a new UI designer or middle manager wants to make their mark - is extremely frustrating after the 3rd let alone 10th time it happens.
That. And it appears a lot of times software is changed just because. Maybe so it appears it's up to date and the programmers are actually working? The new icons sure look great - too bad it now sucks on some stuff.
Moving the 'Next' button on a prompt from the lower right to the top left and calling it 'Forward'. And Forward is a term for those of a certain political ideology. One I despise with a passion. Those are the types that think it's best that they determine how things should work and remove options for you. Since they know best.
How about removing the Cancel button on the setting windows on browsers? Ever made a lot of changes and decided maybe you don't want to save them? lol - tough for you. No more Cancel.
Maybe sometimes people don't like changing just because some software is getting crappy. Firefox anyone? I still use Firefox but think it's going to crap.
Security? I'm all about that. Good web habits, a decent router (most peoples routers are crap), not opening attachments in emails from people you don't know, etc, etc, can save you lots of grief. And have you ever read the security bulletins about the software changes? Lot's of those don't apply in my case.
Linux Kernel - lol - Code of Conduct crew and they no longer give a crap about merit. It's all about diversity. And before you call me a racist you probably ought to know a bit about me.
So there are lots of reasons. I like some new changes. And don't like others at all.
On this as said is a by use case, I would trust any Linux online over Windows,
If it's online use an up to date browser, I use
Slack 15 and current on my main and other distros on certain machines for a "live".
Moving the 'Next' button on a prompt from the lower right to the top left and calling it 'Forward'. And Forward is a term for those of a certain political ideology. One I despise with a passion.
Does everything have to be political? Every Web browser in history has had "back" and "forward" buttons.
It's software. Use it or don't use it. It's entirely your choice. There's nothing political here.
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