People who are reading Slackware ChangeLogs out of habit will have noticed this in June, but others may still be unaware.

Slackware has a history of releasing patches for versions of the distro going back as far as Slackware 8.1 (which saw the light on 18 June 2002). That is a longer “long-term support” (LTS) than any other Linux distro out there!

With each release that followed, the work load of backporting patches to old Slackware versions became bigger – naturally so, since Pat saw this as his sole responsibility and none of the others in the team were involved. This summer, the point was reached where decisions needed to be made in order to keep the work manageable when yet another release is going to be added: version 14.

And so, almost 10 years to the day after Slackware 8.1 was officially released, the following text appeared in the ChangeLog.txt of all releases from 8.1 upward to 12.0:

Thu Jun 14 05:02:39 UTC 2012
####################################################################
# NOTICE OF INPENDING EOL (END OF LIFE) FOR OLD SLACKWARE VERSIONS #
#                                                                  #
# Effective August 1, 2012, security patches will no longer be     #
# provided for the following versions of Slackware (which will all #
# be more than 5 years old at that time):                          #
# Slackware 8.1, 9.0, 9.1, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 11.0, 12.0.           #
# If you are still running these versions you should consider      #
# migrating to a newer version (preferably as recent as possible). #
# Alternately, you may make arrangements to handle your own        #
# security patches.  If for some reason you are unable to upgrade  #
# or handle your own security patches, limited security support    #
# may be available for a fee.  Inquire at security@slackware.com.  #
####################################################################

Yes folks, this is Pat’s EOL announcement for all Slackware releases prior to 12.1. The aforementioned date of August 1st ihas come and gone. From now on, you will only see new patches arriving for Slackware 12.1 , 12.2 , 13.0 , 13.1 and 13.37 (and of course any newer version that follows). Rest assured that your favourite distro will remain strong, focused and secure as ever!

Eric