SlackwareThis Forum is for the discussion of Slackware Linux.
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Not true. The servers are all hosted at a hosting company and that costs money for rack space and bandwidth.
Eric
The site doesn't need as much bandwidth as the ftp servers. Why not host it in house on a reasonably priced computer ? Maybe the hosting company is bad, I mean with all these outages. I know I've tried to host a site with many companies and nearly all of them had significant down time and the prices were high. I would say it would be more stable and economical to use an in house computer as a server, then you just pay for the domain name. It's just a suggestion, and may not be accurate considering I have very little info on the situation.
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Not true. Slackware is a commercial business, and sales from the Store are Pat's only income. It also feeds other people who work at the store. The rest of the "core team" does not get money out of Slackware sales.
Not true. The servers are all hosted at a hosting company and that costs money for rack space and bandwidth.
Eric
You are right, I forgot to mention the store. I didn't know that was Pat's only source of income though. So slackware.com is being hosted by a hosting company? Does the hosting company have an ETA as to when they will be back up? I was saying that it doesn't cost much, as the website itself could probably be hosted on a shared hosting plan for quite cheap. I don't think that slackware.com requires something like a dedicated server or anything like that.
It looks to me as if the most obvious way for Pat to raise money is to do another Slackware release. That would result in subscriptions being charged, people buying the DVD upgrades, etc.
So:
If Slackware starts having funding issues, then wouldn't we expect releases to come more often, rather than less?
It seems suboptimal for me. I don't want another fast_release_cycle distribution out there, I much prefer to have a good distribution once a year that having a not-so-good distribution once each season. I would vote to raise the prices of the subscriptions, but that would make prices unacceptable, so it's not an option.
As for me, I have depleted my money for non essential uses of this month and the next, self-publishing a lot of books, so extraordinary financial support from me won't happen soon unless the Slackware Team itself states clearly that there is real trouble (or I sell a zillion books, becoming rich in the process). I already have my subscription, and I hope that it helps.
That said, when supporting non-profit organizations, I have always thought that it is better to contribute with something but money. I suppose an animal protector association needs more volunteers, equipment and supplies that actual money. Sad I have not equipment to share with Slackware.inc or knowledge to volunteer other than SlackBuilding simple software.
Not true. The servers are all hosted at a hosting company and that costs money for rack space and bandwidth.
Eric
Hmm.
Than it's better it's down. I've scratched my head before reading parts of the website, and wondered: Is this still accurate?
I have a quote from the website here, it's from the ' about ' section:
Quote:
Curious about the machine running this site, eh? Also fairly high on the importance scale (for this site, anyway) is the box itself. The machine is a Pentium III, 600 MHz, with 512 megabytes of RAM. It runs (of course) Slackware Linux, and does an efficient and reliable job even with moderately old hardware. The slackware.com site has been known to run for well over a year without a reboot.
There where other sections that were out of date, like installation how-to's that explain how to setup your cd-rom drive when this isn't connected to an I/O controller card but on a Creative Labs 16 bit sound card, and other stuff from the previous millenium My guess is, only the changelogs where up-to-date and visited a lot. The rest wasn't up-to-date anyway.
There where other sections that were out of date, like installation how-to's that explain how to setup your cd-rom drive when this isn't connected to an I/O controller card but on a Creative Labs 16 bit sound card, and other stuff from the previous millenium My guess is, only the changelogs where up-to-date and visited a lot. The rest wasn't up-to-date anyway.
That's strange, because if it were true, it could explain the outage. A machine that old is bound to break some time.
Being unfamiliar with slackware a few years ago (about 3 or 4 at most) I was ignorant enough to search the website for tips and tricks and the FAQ didn't help really.. I noticed no changes in the FAQ since then...
Being unfamiliar with slackware a few years ago (about 3 or 4 at most) I was ignorant enough to search the website for tips and tricks and the FAQ didn't help really.. I noticed no changes in the FAQ since then...
It's true, the site is not up-to-date. Maybe someone should be in the position to maintain it.
I was not going to respond to this thread. Guys, the subject that Slackware.com is down is not that important as far as getting information. Sure, it would be nice to have a site that is reliable. Slackware was without a site in the past and still survived.
Everyone has access to the mirrors and the Changelog.txt is the same as it would be at Slackware.com. Just not as immediate. For new Slackware users or people that just do not realize;
Pick a mirror and look at the Changelog.txt for the desired version or '-current'(http://slackware.oregonstate.edu/). Does the Slackware.com site need a revision or update? Sure! I remember the time everyone was up in arms for a Slackware Logo change that was to be made, what a stir.
Alien_Bob has provided enough information for anyone to realize that the problem is hardware. How 'PV' decides to correct the situation is his decision to make, not ours.
Speculations and worry warts just fuel people like 'Caitlyn' & the rumor mills(DW). Does not help the situation! Enough harm has been done that has not been rectified/corrected and if we continue to act/present information that is speculative then a unsettled state will continue. This will just fuel the fire thus doing more harm.
Look at how fear has driven the market lately. Stop stirring the pot!
I'm always amazed by the lack of knowledge about Slackware from non-Slackware users.
They think it's outdated, retro, running only 486 etc... :^)
After ~10 years of usage, also working with other distros, i can say it's by far the best i've ever tried.
And i always proudly buy stuff from the store at every release.
In addition to the links onebuck posted, slackpkg already has a full list of mirrors for many countries in its config files. Though admittedly that presents a chicken and egg situation for new users, since they wouldn't have slackpkg/Slackware yet.
However, you can also use the mirror list within the slackpkg package on one mirror to find out about the others, e.g.:
Code:
$ wget -qO- http://slackware.oregonstate.edu/slackware-13.37/slackware/ap/slackpkg-2.82.0-noarch-5.tgz | tar -xzOf- usr/doc/slackpkg-2.82.0/mirrors-x86.sample
Alternatively, here is a full list I already extracted:
Maybe slackware.com should be made a wiki. That way it stays up to date and you don't need an official maintainer, and you can get a free server if it is for educational purposes (which it is).
First, I'd rather be accurate and tell the truth than have fans. Sometimes the truth hurts.
Here is a little bit of truth for you. I'm just an ordinary outside user who has been following all the conversation over the past couple of days. Caitlyn, your comments about Slackware and pretty much everything you say is completely off-base. It reminds me of bad local new reporter who tries to break a story on one sentence of information obtained from a stranger on the street corner. You attempt to formulate fifty conclusions from one forum statement and repost all your unconfirmed opinions as first hand information. I can understand why people have written you off because you are leech attempting to suck the life out of other peoples hard work by posting negative and outright bogus comments. In my opinion the Slackware community is much kinder than they should be to you. I would recommend doing something more constructive with your time because the posts you have made in the last couple days are nothing more than background noise.
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