Slackware Blog

It’s stories like this that make me very happy I’m not dependant on any sort of Microsoft product.

There are reports of Microsoft introducing a kill switch to WGA. The “kill switch” functions exactly as you would expect: if you don’t have WGA or your WGA authentication fails, Windows will stop functioning, totally.

This would probably be a good time for those of you using pirated versions of Windows to switch to Linux for good.

Technorati Tags: windows, microsoft, linux

Tamim knows what he needs and wants out of Slackware. He seems very happy with his current Slackware setup, he’s even got a few screenshots of his Dropline Gnome desktop. He’s got a great list of applications for Slackware that can replace pretty much any common application found in Windows.

And, a note on Slackware 11, I think my earlier release date estimate is a little late. There’s some people over at the LinuxPackages forums suggesting the release date will be July 15th.

Technorati Tags: slackware, linux, open+source, software, windows

I know, I know, Slackware doesn’t ship Gnome anymore. That doesn’t change the fact that lots of people still use gnome on their slackware boxes. I’ve been a long-time user of Dropline Gnome, but will probably be give Freerock Gnome a shot next time I have to install slackware on a machine.

Anyway, the new Gnome main menu is the topic of this post. Reverend Ted posted some screenshots of the new Gnome main menu to his blog the other day. There was a lot of unexpected interest in the screenshots too, as seen by Reverend Ted’s blog stats graph.

Now, slackers, don’t get too excited about this new Gnome menu. You probably won’t see it for a while as it’s currently only included in Suse Linux 10. The menu looks very clean and it sounds like it’s based heavily around what a user would “expect” out of a menu:

The menu is accessed from a single button, labelled “Computer.” There is no “My Computer” on the desktop, as our testing found that newer computer users expected anything but a file system browser to come up when they clicked on the one on Windows. We also found that having a name like “Start” (as Windows does) confuses users when presented with tasks like “shut down your computer.” Nevertheless, a lot of users look to the bottom left for a single all-access button. Hence the Computer button. That’s how the origins of the Computer button have been explained to me.

Reverend Ted also has a post in which he details customization of the menu. Apparently some Digg.com users think this menu is a rip-off of the new menu in Windows Vista. Others are assuming the menu tries to choose what programs the user wants to run, hence Reverend Ted’s post about customization.

Technorati Tags: slackware, linux, open+source, gnome, suse

Version 2.6.17 of the linux kernel came out today. The last 2.6.16 kernel we saw was 2.6.16.20, and the 2.6.16 was the latest stable release for a good period of time.

I know a 2.4 kernel is still default in slackware-current, but I think we’ll see a kernel out of the 2.6.17 series make the debut as the default kernel in Slackware 11. I don’t have any specific reasoning behind that statement, I just feel it.

Patrick was hard at work yesterday uploading new packages to slackware-current. Take note of the following ChangeLog entry:

xap/fluxbox-1.0rc-i486-1.tgz: Upgraded to fluxbox-1.0rc.
I considered using –prefix=/usr here since X.Org will be moving from
/usr/X11R6 to /usr when Slackware absorbs the modular release, but I
think it will be best to wait and make those changes all at once.
This, BTW, will be sometime after the 11.0 release. This current to
stable cycle has already taken too much time (10.2 is in need of
replacement), and introducing changes that might break things at this
point would be foolhardy. Although there’s still quite a bit in the
TODO queue here I’m making my steps carefully as -current is very
stable, and I think it should ship as a stable 11.0 soon so that we can
get back to the business of breaking things in -current.

That’s exciting! Sounds like Pat is wanting to get 11.0 out the door so he can get back to breaking things in -current! Along with the upgrade to Fluxbox, yesterday saw a security update for Sendmail. The complete advisory from Sendmail can be found here. We also got new versions of XChat, ImageMagick, and nmap.

Well, we’re getting closer to a Slackware 11 release. What kind of software goodies can we expect from this release? On May 31st, KDE released KDE 3.5.3, which has since been included in slackware-current. Unless KDE makes another release soon, I expect we’ll see KDE 3.5.3 included in Slackware 11.

Slackware 11 is still using a 2.4 kernel by default, with the 2.6.16.20 kernel in “testing”. Chess Griffin is guessing Slackware 11 will be released on June 25th. I don’t think that’s gonna happen, but Chess made that guess back in May. I am guessing that Slackware 11 will be released around August 11th. I say that because we haven’t even seen Slackware 11 Beta 1 yet.

I would expect to see a 2.6 kernel as the default kernel in Slackware 11. Having a 2.4 kernel as the default is something people like to poke fun at Slackware for. Now that kernel 2.6 has been around for a few years, I expect Patrick will set it as the default. Patrick will make the right decision, as he always has, no matter which kernel he chooses to set as the default.

Other new software that will be included in Slackware 11 is MySQL 5.0, Apache 1.3.36, PHP 4.4.2, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4, Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.4, and X11 6.9.0. Now, this is software that’s currently included in slackware-current, so the version numbers may change slightly before Slackware 11 is actually released.

So far, it looks like we can expect a nicely polished release of Slackware 11, as usual. I’m just hoping Patrick decides to go with a 2.6 kernel by default.

On a somewhat releated note, this guy here at wordpress.com seems to be addicted to his Slackware box. Apparently it’s caused him to miss a few lunches, he’s having trouble dragging himself away from the beauty that is Slackware.

Somebody should drag me away from my PC. Ever since I installed Slackware on it, I could not get myself to stay away from the damn thing. My eyes are hurting, and my stomach is grumbling from missed lunches.