Yep
Slackware 14.2 has been released today, July 1st of 2016. Don’t fall off your chairs.
More than two and a half years have passed since the previous stable release 14.1 but the long wait was definitely worth it. Actually, the timestamp for 14.2 finalization is “Thu Jun 30 20:26:57 UTC 2016” but Pat needs time to prepare ISO images, torrent trackers, set up mirrors, write the announcement blurb etcetera… plus the team is spread over several timezones which makes it hard to pick a time to raise the glass.
This is a stellar release, go read the release announcement, and start preparing your upgrades. People whose computers have been in sync with slackware-current are in fact already running 14.2 at this moment. CD and DVD masters have been sent to the replicators and official ISOs can be expected to show up on mirrors soon.
No doubt there will be another festive thread on LinuxQuestions.org, I am sorry there was no “guess the release date” contest this time around. It would have been a hard one to win anyway, considering the fact that Slackware’s first Beta release for 14.2 happened on January 13th… five and a half months ago, which is about the length of a typical release cycle for some other software projects out there.
Let’s mention some more Slackware goodness. Check out the Wiki of the Slackware Documentation Project where content is being added all the time. The Wiki’s virtual server had some serious stability issues last year, so it was replaced with a real-iron one with lots of CPU and bandwidth to spare. Thanks to all for the donations which allowed me to rent it for years to come. Another project that saw the light last year was Slackware Live Edition. This new approach to creating a live version for Slackware allows you to take the distro out for a test drive (in a virtual machine, or using bootable DVD or USB media) without having to install it first. Slackware Live Edition comes in several variants, containing desktop environments not found by default in Slackware: Plasma 5 (the cutting edge of KDE) and Mate (an enjoyable Gnome 2 fork). An ISO image for Slackware Live 14.2 is here: http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackware/slackware-live/slackware64-14.2-live/ .
And don’t forget the SlackBuilds.org project. It contains a wealth of package build scripts for just about any software you can think of.
If you are the owner of an ARM computer like the Raspberry Pi or a BeagleBoard or such, the latest Slackware ARM 14.2 created by Stuart Winter will become available soon. Stuart announced that this release will be his last, but you never know.
What’s new in Slackware 14.2?
The new stable release of Slackware contains X11R7.7 (X.Org server 1.18.3), KDE 4.14.21 (KDE 4.14.3 with kdelibs-4.14.21 and modularized i.e. many more – but smaller – packages), XFCE 4.12, the Linux 4.4.14 kernel as default, but with sample kernel configs for newer 4.6 kernels included as well. Slackware now uses PulseAudio in order to support bluetooth audio devices properly. ALSA is also still supported. And tonnes of other upgrades can be found too.
Time for some statistics: in the 970 days since Slackware 14.1 was released, only 259 packages out of a total of 1332 (not counting /extra and /testing) have remained untouched. The other 1073 packages were either added , upgraded or recompiled.
And what’s not…
We still do not include systemd – we are quite happy with Slackware’s init system. In order to remain competitive, Slackware’s udev was replaced with eudev and ConsoleKit was replaced with ConsoleKit2. That should keep the distro fit for the future.
During the next development cycle I am going to look into elogind (another component of systemd which was forked and made independent just like eudev). It is needed for KDE Plasma’s Wayland support. Indeed, Wayland is not part of Slackware 14.2, as we think X.Org is doing a good job.
Upgrading
People upgrading from Slackware 14.1 have multiple options. You should definitely read the CHANGES_AND_HINTS file to get a good picture of the many package additions and removals. The UPGRADE.TXT file is an invaluable source if you want to perform a manual upgrade. The Slackware Documentation Project contains an article called “upgrading Slackware to a new release“. It describes how to use the slackpkg tool (which is part of Slackware) to perform the upgrade with a large degree of automation.
Get Slack
Download your official ISO images from any of the Slackware mirrors. We use mirrorbrain to ensure that a visit to mirrors.slackware.com will lead you to a server that is near to you. In light of previous load issues with Slackware’s primary server at slackware.com, Akamai have generously provided Slackware Inc. with extensive global content caching and Internet routing performance enhancements, allowing us to keep the site up, even at peak times.
You can use bittorrent too if that allows you to download at larger speeds. Our tracker is ready on http://www.slackware.com/getslack/torrents.php.
Torrent files for the Slackware Live Edition are available too: http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackware/torrents/slackware64-14.2/slackware64-14.2-live.torrent (64bit edition) and http://bear.alienbase.nl/mirrors/slackware/torrents/slackware-14.2/slackware-14.2-live.torrent (32bit edition).
Or you create the ISO image yourself: our buddy alphageek created a set of “sligdo” templates which is a fast way to recreate a bit-for-bit copy of the official Slackware DVD ISO using the “jigdo” tool and a full copy of a Slackware release directory structure. The MD5 and GPG signatures will check out OK for an ISO created with sligdo. I have copies of all the sligdo files in case alphageek’s computer is offline.
And please consider buying a subscription at the Slackware Store – it will help keeping the distribution alive. You must understand that Pat is the only one in the core team who is financially dependent on the sales of Slackware DVD’s and other merchandise. I do not think anyone who ever used Slackware wants to see this great distribution die through lack of funding. The rest of the team does this for fun, not for profit – we buy our own subscriptions from the Store, just like you do.
Have fun! Eric
What a great time, indeed a long wait.
Now I finally maked my suscription to slackware.
Thanks to you Eric, to Pat, and all the guys working hard around the world in this great distro.
Thanks a lot.
Cheers
Pablo.
Makes my Independence day even better. Thanks to Pat, Eric, and the rest of the team for a wonderful release. Truly a labor of love from all involved in decisions of what to upgrade, what to maintain, what direction for technology inclusions. And I don’t want to forget zerouno and his slackpkg+ program which I’ll be using to upgrade two machines! Nor the Slackbuild.org maintainers and testers. This is truly a community project with a BDFL that is earned as far as I’m concerned. Best Regards, BrianA_MN
Congrats to all involved!!
A few weeks ago I renewed my subscription, along with a bulk order of bumper stickers and case plates. Now I can resume work on my Slackware-based Linux book. I’ll keep you posted.
Eirc !! 🙂 Congrats ! 😀
Thanks for your Slackware 14.2 wares: Slackware live, various packages repositories.
Will you also provide 14.2 packages for repository “restricted_sbrepos”? I know that I can use “current” for now so no need to hurry 🙂
Eric, *REALLY* glad you kept out systemd–THANK YOU GUYS!!
One sad part, just read here and in the announcement that Stuart is ending Armed Slack (I still call it that). I saw you have a port as well, but it doesn’t look like it’s getting much work.
Is ARM officially done for Slackware? Say it ain’t so! 🙁
storkus, Stuart is still considering to continue with developing Slackware for ARM, but he is being consumed by “real life” at the moment.
gegechris99 I forgot about those, but a “restricted” repository for 14.2 will be up & available soon.
What a great news!!
Thanks to Pat, Eric and all Slackware crew.
Best time of the year again! Thank you! Slackware rules!
Thank you Eric. You have already prepared the new 14.2 packages repository! You have done a huge job again. Thank you.
Just great news!
I was waiting for this a loooong time 😀
p.s. just one question – why there is no SINGLE dvd sith both – 32 and 64bit release on it?
Martin, check the Store please:
On https://store.slackware.com/cgi-bin/store/slackdvd14.2?id=nGj8BLAj&mv_pc=26 you can read the following:
Wonderful news. I have my bittorrent client up and helping spread the load.
Speaking of which, any chance of getting an official torrent for the live edition?
Since the Live ISO is not an official Slackware product, you will not be seeing an official torrent.
But I will ask around about how to setup a tracker for that Slackware64 14.2 Live ISO. Never done that myself.
Lol. Thanks. When I said official I was thinking an official (as from you) Slackware Live ISO torrent. Not official Slackware.
I’m aware of the Xorg vs Wayland situation but i have this craving for the latest kde version. What is the latest kde version possible to install on 14.2?
Hi Guest.
Check out my articles in this blog about Plasma 5. You can run the very latest of KDE on Slackware 14.2: Frameworks, Plasma and Applications get a refresh roughly once every month in my ‘ktown’ repository.
Support for Wayland is not present in my Ktown packages though.
Right now I am experimenting with a rebuilt mesa and xorg-server (to add Wayland support) in order to see how far I can get on Slackware, but the snag I hit is that kwin_wayland has a runtime dependency on the DBus API of systemd-logind. I have hopes for ConsoleKit2 to add this part of the logind API but Erik Koegel informed me that he has yet to start this work. He promised to implement the missing parts ASAP.
I am currently also looking at elogind which is the standalone forked version of systemd-logind. No luck so far, because I seem to be having an issue with cgroups, something systemd (and therefore also elogind) relies on a lot.
I may just add these packages to a new “testing” repository for those who want to help.
OMG, the world is coming to an end
Hi Eric,
can you recommend a european store? $15.95 for airmail seems steep…
kind regards
Andreas
Hi, the only purchase of Slackware media that actually benefits Pat is through http://store.slackware.com/ . All other purchase locations are phony since the ISOs can be downloaded for free.
I have a DVD subscription, which lowers the price considerably and compensates somewhat for the airmail fee. And please consider that there are not that many releases per year 😉
Note: I added links to the .torrent file locations for the Slackware Live Edition (both the 32bit and 64bit editions) and I am seeding both from the ‘bear’ server.
Hi Eric, great job !!
just a question. I am trying to install Slackware from Sslackware64-14.2-live USB using setup2hd.sh. My laptop (Lenovo G510) has UEFI and GPT disk. Then I choose ELILO during setup, but nothing is written in /boot/efi and restart the system can not find bootloader. I have two partitions:
/dev/sda1, 100 mb UEFI (ef00)
/dev/sda2, ext4
Thank you
emidevices, I never worked with elilo so I can not comment in a meaningful way. The post-installation steps in “setup2hd” are just the regular Slackware scripts lilke lilosetup, so perhaps if you ask this question in the Slackware forum on linuxquestions.org you may get useful answers.
I installed Slackware64 14.2 and elilo works well.
I’ve noticed that mount points during installation are different in the two versions:
Slackware64 14.2:
/dev/sda2 (/) –> /mnt
/dev/sda1 (efi) -> /mnt/boot/efi
LiveSlack64 14.2:
/dev/sda2 (/) –> /setup2hd
/dev /sda1 (efi) -> /boot/efi
Should not it be /setup2hd/boot/efi?
Another thing I’ve noticed is about partition’s UUID where creates “EFI BOOT ENTRY” does not correspond to the UUID of the EFI partition. (blkid command), so nothing is written in /efi
Sorry if turned annoying, I just want help
There isn’t subforum for SlackLive on LQ. I think LQ admins should open one.
Thanks again.
There is no subforum for liveslak on LQ and I hope there will not be one, because I do not want to keep track of questions both there and here.
LQ is for the Slackware questions, this blog is for questions about liveslak and the Slackware Live Edition.
I looked at the elilosetup script and it has hardcoded “/mnt” as the mountpoint for the harddive-installed Slackware. On Slackware Live, the /mnt directory structure is used for the Live system and can not be re-used for the installer (hence the /setup2hd directory).
You should be able to run “elilosetup /setup2hd” to inform eliloconfig about the actual location of the installation. Else the script has to be edited to get rid of the hardcoded /mnt .
Hi Eric, finally I was able to install elilo. Before running setup2hd.sh I typed the following commands:
mkdir -p /setup2hd/boot/efi
mount /dev/sda2/setup2hd
mount /dev/sda1 /setup2hd/boot/efi
eliloconfig /setup2hd
Once the installer is launched, the steps are completed and intalacion done correctly.
Thank you very much for your help!!
Good info emidevices, thank you for this feedback.
I looked at the elilosetup script and it has hardcoded “/mnt” as the mountpoint for the harddive-installed Slackware.
Up and running about a week on the new version of slackware. Everything worked great once I quit using pulse, but I didn’t anticipate it working for my setup and gear. (I’m an edge case among Linux users.) I seriously owe you a beer for how easy you make multilib installations. 🙂
Slackware64-14.2-live >>> what wm/DE are available? kde perhaps ??
thanks in advance !
darkstar – RTFM.
Hi istanbul bo?az turu – fixing eliloconfig for Slackware Live is on my TODO. I hope to find some time for that.
About elogind vs cgroup,
According to:
– https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-commits/2016-03/msg00166.html
– https://github.com/wingo/elogind/blob/master/src/shared/cgroup-util.c#L436
elogind need a cgroup entry at /sys/fs/cgroup/elogind for it’s controller. So I mount it manually like this:
mkdir -p /sys/fs/cgroup/elogind
mount -t cgroup -o none,name=elogind cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/elogind
After that I can start (my own build) gnome3 session with elogind.
Is there another way to mount elogind cgroup automatically in Slackware? I’ve never playing with cgroup before, so I absolutely have no idea about cgroup.
Walecha, that is useful information! So you have gnome3 running without systemd?
I think the mount of that elogind controller should happen in /etc/rc.d/rc.S but I would assume that “something”, perhaps a dbus service definition, announces the availability. By default, Slackware already has a lot of controllers in /sys/fs/cgroup/ and something must be putting *those* in.
Like you, I have no knowledge of cgroups…
Yep. This is my gnome3 screenshot: https://postimg.org/image/mdddq6h7t/
And this the elogind cgroup in sysfs:
root@wls-lm:~# ls -lha /sys/fs/cgroup/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 300 Jul 31 13:50 ./
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 ../
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 blkio/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 Jul 31 13:50 cgmanager/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 cpu/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 cpuacct/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 cpuset/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 devices/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 elogind/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 freezer/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 memory/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 net_cls/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 net_prio/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 perf_event/
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 2016 pids/
root@wls-lm:~# ls -lha /sys/fs/cgroup/elogind/
total 0
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 31 14:07 ./
drwxr-xr-x 15 root root 300 Jul 31 13:50 ../
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Jul 31 14:07 cgroup.clone_children
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Jul 31 13:54 cgroup.procs
-r–r–r– 1 root root 0 Jul 31 14:07 cgroup.sane_behavior
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Jul 31 13:54 notify_on_release
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Jul 31 13:54 release_agent
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Jul 31 13:50 tasks
Hi Eric,
I need to use Windows SO (sometimes), because PHP 7 version. Is it possible upgrade PHP on Slackware Current to version 7? If so, how can i do it ? or … where can I find some help?
Thanks a lot,
Rafael
PHP 7 is not 100% backwards compatible with PHP 5 as far as I know. So when you upgrade the PHP on your computer, I can not tell you if anything is going to break.
On the other hand, there is not much in Slackware core that uses PHP anyway, so it is probably OK to upgrade it if you need it.
How to upgrade? You can start by downloading the php source directory in slackware-current, change the PHP version number in the SlackBuild script, download the php-7.x sourcecode tarball, and see if the php.SlackBuild script is able to compile the new version into a working Slackware package.
Hi Eric,
I did as you told me, unfortunately the script doesn’t able to compile the new PHP version. I’ll wait for new releases.
Anyway, thanks for help 😉
Rafael