Slackware 15

Talk about other linux distributions, or even other OSes.
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Papasot
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by Papasot »

According to Slackware-Current changelogs, Current can be considered 15.0 "alpha 1" since February 15, 2021. They also say that they wait for a new release of Firefox compatible with the latest Rust compiler, plus "a few more scheduled upgrades". So I guess 15.0 may not be as far as a few months more, but we will see.

My complaint about 15.0 is the introduction of elogind, a crappy login daemon extracted from systemd as a standalone package. Well, at least it's not systemd - otherwise I would already be migrating to another distribution or FreeBSD. They wanted to do so in order to have Gnome and KDE, the two desktop environments dependent to systemd. I couldn't care less about those resource devours, but it seems they want them. The part I don't like is elogind would be in your system even if you don't have KDE or Gnome installed.
Other than that, it seems a nice new release with (finally) a up-to-date gcc 10.2, considerably improved to the one used in 14.2.
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Van_Vinkle
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by Van_Vinkle »

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gapan
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by gapan »

Yes, we're definitely getting closer! Although if I would have to guess I'd say we still have at least a few months to go. I think that's how long it usually takes from an RC1 to an actual release.
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Papasot
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by Papasot »

Looks like Salix is getting ready... already. See this. :D
But gapan is right, the gap between RC1 and an official new release is usually a few months long. I am not holding my breath.
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mimosa
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by mimosa »

I've been using it for two or three weeks now, and it doesn't feel too much like a hair shirt.

The only major annoyance has been trouble with NM and Wireless. I'm not sure how to approach package management, so I balked at switching to Wicd, which normally fixes such problems. It's also possible it was the wireless card in my new box. So instead I am just using a "client" router to connect via ethernet.

At some point I will probably try using Ratpoison instead of KDE, which will I think get rid of most of the other niggles.

Regarding package management, I suppose the royal road is to use slapt-get, obviously, pointing at Slackware repositories only; but with a local repo for my own builds, which is how I do it on my Salix box.
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Van_Vinkle
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by Van_Vinkle »

mimosa wrote: 21. Oct 2021, 10:22 ...it doesn't feel too much like a hair shirt.
For these, like me, who are not language English native, what do you mean?
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gapan
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by gapan »

Van_Vinkle wrote: 23. Oct 2021, 15:34
mimosa wrote: 21. Oct 2021, 10:22 ...it doesn't feel too much like a hair shirt.
For these, like me, who are not language English native, what do you mean?
It means it's not too annoying.

A hair shirt is by definition, annoying and uncomfortable. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilice
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by EricC »

Slackware has hit the RC2 stage. So hopefully before the end of the year.
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gapan
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by gapan »

That's great! Honestly, I'm surprised!
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Papasot
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Re: Slackware 15

Post by Papasot »

I guess "it's close" but frankly, it is already late. Slackware is notorious for their slow pace but this time they overdid it. Don't get me wrong, I am perfectly ok with Slackware stable repos (and a personal local repository for a few packages I want up-to-date) --- for a few years. However, 14.2 shows its age in the sense that even that becomes more and more difficult to manage lately.
I have several packages I just can't build from source either because (a) they require a more recent glibc (usually 2.27) or (b) they just have too many dependencies, which are also outdated. In the first case, well.. just forget it; replacing the built-in glibc version is looking for very-very serious trouble. And in the second case, it leads to a dead end or a nightmare, when a package has many outdated dependencies - which most probably have their own (also outdated) dependencies.
Notable examples of software I just have to wait for 15 to use is Ardour, Qtractor, and libtcod. I could name quite a few more, especially the last 12 months or so. Surprisingly, gcc is not in the list. I was able to keep that one up-to-date, whenever needed (keeping the original system's gcc intact).

So yes, we need 15... yesterday. On the other hand, maybe that's the price for phenomenal, rock-solid stability. I still think this time they overdid it though.
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