Alien Pastures

 The glibc packages in Slackware -current were updated to 2.14.1 a few days ago. Unfortunately, a couple of issues were reported, you will find them in this LinuxQuestions thread. Since I had to compile my multilib version of glibc still, I decided to wait a bit with releasing them, and that allowed me to find [...]

… perhaps even to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Just kidding of course. From today’s ChangeLog.txt for Slackware “current“: Sun Mar 27 08:28:47 UTC 2011 There have been quite a few changes so we will have one more release candidate:  Slackware 13.37 RC 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716. Very close now!  But we’ll likely hold [...]

We have progressed to the second release candidate for the upcoming release of Slackware stable (version 13.37 no less). There is probably not going to be a lot of other updates before final release; the TODO list should be quite short now. The only one to know for sure is Pat Volkerding… I am only [...]

Hi folks! Slackware -current’s kernel has been updated to 2.6.37.3 (something many of you probably did not expect) as part of the large update leading to the first release candidate for Slackware 13.37. This newer kernel seems to work better on all the developers’ computers especially for X sessions.Also speakup (a kernel driver for speech [...]

Patrick Volkerding has been busy again. See the Slackware ChangeLog.txt for a series of big updates! There’s a new kernel. Slackware tries to stick to the 2.6.35.xx “long term support” kernels for the next release. The new kernel along with updated mesa and xf86-video-ati packages should make the owners of Ati graphics hardware happy. And [...]

After a period of silence, Pat updated the Slackware ChangeLog.txt again! Apart from the latest in stable KDE4 releases (4.5.5), you will find a new kernel. The choice for 2.6.35.10 was made because the 2.6.35 series has long-term support and Pat is probably trying to stabilize toward a new release. More on-topic for this article, [...]

Barely a week has passed, and we have yet another local root hole in glibc that needed patching. The Slackware ChangeLog said it like this: a/glibc-solibs-2.12.1-x86_64-3.txz: Rebuilt. Patched “The GNU C library dynamic linker will dlopen arbitrary DSOs during setuid loads.” This security issue allows a local attacker to gain root by specifying an unsafe [...]

New glibc packages for Slackware arrived on the mirrors last night. They close a serious local root hole. From the ChangeLog: Patched “dynamic linker expands $ORIGIN in setuid library search path”. This security issue allows a local attacker to gain root if they can create a hard link to a setuid root binary.  Thanks to [...]

As you may have noticed already, there are interesting updates in the Slackware ChangeLog.txt ! A new kernel, and new glibc plus gcc packages means there has to be an updated set of multilib packages too or else you bunch of hybrid lovers would be left out in the cold. Well actually there is an [...]

Just to add another message to the turmoil of cheering blog posts Slackware 13.1 has been released today. Read all about it in the official announcement or  read the ANNOUNCE.TXT directly. As usual, it is recommended (but not mandatory) to buy a copy of the DVD or CD-set which helps funding the development of the [...]