Salix Forums

Hello everyone -

Could Salix possibly be used as a platform to follow Slackware -current, using their binaries? This idea of a rolling release came up in a recent discussion on Google Plus.

One Salix team member commented that there would be compatibility problems, and that building everything from source would be the best way to resolve this. (Frankly, if I had to compile everything from source, I'd go with Gentoo, Linux From Scratch, or FreeBSD )

It was also mentioned that Salix -current would be discontinued after the upcoming release. Does anyone else see that as a missed opportunity for a SalixOS Rolling Release?

Some inspiration, from the theme song of an old TV Western series:

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Keep movin', movin', movin',
Though they're disapprovin',
Keep them doggies movin' Rawhide!

First of all, slackware-current is not a "rolling release". It's an unstable release meant for preparing the next stable release.

And the answer is absolutely no way. If you want something as unstable and breakable as that, use Arch.

jayseye wrote:Does anyone else see that as a missed opportunity for a SalixOS Rolling Release?

No Salix team members prefer stable systems and also there is always the possibility to upgrade some specific software to unstable versions using SLKBUILDS.

Have you looked at Slackel? I imagine that for the time being, it's hardly different from Salix; but earlier on in the release cycle, it had the current kernel and a recent KDE. Very nice

Thanks mimosa, I did notice another post here in the forum about Slackel being a rolling release. So I will check it out. Should mention though, that I have a lot of old PCs (and Macs) which require the old non-SMP kernels; and that my love affair with KDE lasted only through the 3.x series.

Will respond more later, gotta run for now. Thank you, everyone, for all the replies here so far.

thenktor wrote:

jayseye wrote:Does anyone else see that as a missed opportunity for a SalixOS Rolling Release?

No Salix team members prefer stable systems and also there is always the possibility to upgrade some specific software to unstable versions using SLKBUILDS.

All is said. We all agree with that.

++

With respect, I'd strongly prefer a binary rolling release, following Slackware -current. As mentioned in my previous response here, I will check whether Slackel meets that need.

The rationale, or use case for Salix Rolling, is for advanced users wanting to keep up with the latest software releases, and willing to make the tradeoff with the reduced stability of Slackware -current. PatV, AlienBob and RWorkman already take the time and effort to make -current available in binary form.

So why don't I just slink away and use straight Slackware -current? I very well may do that on a dedicated PC. However, I also strongly prefer the dependency resolution offered by Salix, among other features which you guys handle so well.

The other part of this use case for Salix Rolling is being able to dedicate older PCs for this, hardware which lacks the resources to build all packages from source. Again, for anyone wanting to do that, something like Gentoo might yield higher benefits for the same amount of effort.

There is ongoing discussion on this topic on a Google Plus thread; unfortunately it's switched to French, and the technical nature of the topic makes Google Translate ineffective: https://plus.google.com/u/0/11780191755 ... 7TnkQSwdTj

Thanks for your time and patience in discussing this here.

fredg wrote:

thenktor wrote:

jayseye wrote:Does anyone else see that as a missed opportunity for a SalixOS Rolling Release?

No Salix team members prefer stable systems and also there is always the possibility to upgrade some specific software to unstable versions using SLKBUILDS.

All is said. We all agree with that.

++

jayseye wrote:PatV, AlienBob and RWorkman already take the time and effort to make -current available in binary form.

Everything said here: it takes a lot of time. But as soon as somebody is willing to pay my monthly bills I'll do everything you want for Salix

Also, as I understand it, Slackware current isn't really intended to be used. It's just the place where the next Slackware release is prepared. Salix has exactly the same thing, but it only exists from the moment the Slackware current repos enter RC (correct me if I'm wrong here) to the next Salix release, because Salix is built on top of the latest Slackware *release*. Not only would changing this be a lot of work; there wouldn't really be any point. It wouldn't be usable.

Neither Slackware nor Salix aims to be "bleeding edge". The whole point is that stability is given precedence.

Slackel isn't really rolling release either (though I may have used those words on this forum at some point). It's just a way of having a more recent kernel and KDE. For really old hardware, though, neither is an advantage.

From the main page at < http://www.slackel.gr/ >:

"Slackel current rolling release (32 and 64 bit)"

"Would you like to have a Slackware-based distro which informs about updates happened to Slackware 'Current' and update your system with one click? In the end you will end up with Slackware stable. The latest Slackel has been synchronized with the Slackware repositories and has become 'rolling-release'."