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-Slackware 13.0 release notes. Tue Aug 25 23:40:18 CDT 2009
-
-Hi folks,
-
- Historically, the RELEASE_NOTES (at least in recent releases)
-had been mostly technical information, but once again Robby Workman
-has covered the important technical details in CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT.
-Thanks!
-
- Probably the first thing to mention about the release of
-Slackware 13.0 is that it marks our first release with an official
-64-bit port! Thanks to the hard work of Eric Hameleers, Slackware
-for x86 is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit (x86_64) editions.
-Eric did incredible work on the 64-bit port. The SlackBuild scripts
-were so much of an improvement over the originals from the 32-bit tree
-that they were imported over on the 32-bit side -- the only difference
-in the build trees is whether $ARCH is set to i486 or x86_64. These
-scripts are finding use in other ports too, like Stuart Winter's
-ARMedslack port to the ARM architecture (the ARM Versatile platform
-emulated by QEMU, and the Marvell SheevaPlug), and Mark Post's
-Slack/390 Linux Project for IBM S/390 G2 class systems and above.
-The goal of a unified source tree for these projects seems to be coming
-into focus. For more information about these Slackware ports, see
-http://armedslack.org and http://slack390.org. Getting back to the
-x86_64 port (nicknamed Slackware64), we also have to thank Fred Emmott
-who helped us solve a number of tricky problems having been there
-before -- without his help things like getting ncurses right so that
-the nVidia installer worked, and laying the groundwork for future
-multilib support would have been much more difficult. Thanks Fred!
-
- About the only things to mention here are that Slackware requires
-a recent 2.6.x kernel (I believe 2.6.22.x is a minimum), but
-as usual unless your needs are specific you're probably better off
-running the included kernels that we've tested things against.
-The best kernel to run (even on a one CPU/core machine) is the generic
-SMP one, but that needs an initrd, so be sure to read the instructions
-in /boot after installing with a huge* kernel if you plan to switch.
-We've used the well-tested and recently patched 2.6.29.6 kernel, but
-the 2.6.30.5 kernel is also available as packages in /testing. If
-you decide to give that a try, be sure to read the information about
-LILO in there.
-
- I would not suggest trying to run without udev. Consider it the
-userspace portion of the kernel. It *is* possible, but if you must
-do that you'll have to tweak a couple things here and there. The
-specifics are left as an exercise for the advanced user. Wait, an
-advanced user would just use udev. Really, it works and makes things
-a lot easier.
-
- Another huge change in Slackware 13.0 is the move from KDE3 to
-KDE4. KDE4 has been out for about a year and a half now, and it has
-come a long way since KDE 4.0. The KDE 4.2.4 release included in
-Slackware 13.0 is a very fast and polished desktop. It looks great
-and achieves its goal of making the Linux operating system as nice
-a desktop OS as anything that is available at any price! With KDE3
-pretty much winding down (probably there will not be further releases)
-and projects dropping KDE3 support in favor of KDE4, the time was
-right to make the move to KDE4 in Slackware. I'm using it on all of
-my own machines (including an Intel Atom with compositing enabled),
-and I've really fallen in love with it once I got used to it. The
-tools are integrated better with the desktop, Qt4 seems to be a
-faster and more stable platform, and nearly everything that was
-available for KDE3 has been ported to KDE4 and works great. Huge
-thanks to the KDE team for producing the great desktop environment
-they promised to deliver! As with any major rewrite, there are,
-however, still a few quirks, but these are few and the improvements
-have been coming fast. One of the issues we're aware of is that
-k3b hasn't been working as well as the KDE3 version for some people
-(it works fine here, but we have heard some reports), and there are
-some other KDE applications where people still prefer the old versions.
-To help with this, there are KDE3 compatibility packages that can
-be found in /extra/kde3-compat/. With these installed, most KDE3
-programs will run. A KDE3 version of k3b is also included in that
-directory.
-
- Xfce has been updated as well, and continues to be a great
-lightweight desktop that doesn't get in your way. You'll notice
-improvements in Xfce immediately upon starting it. If you haven't
-looked at this great desktop environment lately, you might want to
-give it another try. Thanks to Robby for tracking the Xfce
-development closely and making sure everything was just exactly
-right in the Slackware Xfce packages.
-
- If you prefer GNOME, there are teams online producing GNOME
-for Slackware. Here are a few places to look:
-
- http://gnomeslackbuild.org
- http://www.droplinegnome.net/
- http://www.gware.org/
-
-If any of these replaces some system components, using them voids
-your warranty. ;-) But it should work, *if* you absolutely must
-have GNOME. I'd suggest Xfce instead if you want a GTK+ based
-desktop. If you do want to use GNOME, remember that there may be
-some updates needed after 13.0 releases, so it might be best not
-to rush into it. Thanks to these teams for making the GNOME
-desktop a viable option for Slackware users.
-
- Need more build scripts? Something that you wanted wasn't
-included in Slackware? Well, then check out slackbuilds.org.
-Several of the team members work on the scripts there.
-
- Thanks to the rest of the team (and other contributors) for
-the great help -- Eric Hameleers for x86_64, help with networking
-improvements, documentation, LVM, the installer, and encrypted
-partition support, Piter Punk for udev and slackpkg work, Stuart
-Winter for help with linuxdoc-tools, Heinz Wiesinger for helping
-to clean up the Qt build script, and other stuff, Erik Jan Tromp
-for updating the populate_tftpboot.sh script in the PXE install
-to work with the new package formats, and instructing us on the
-correct use of umlaut \ö/, Amritpal Bath for coordinating torrents
-for the release, suggesting fixes and improvements, and trying to
-keep me sane (good luck), Robby Workman for docs, X, Xfce, wicd,
-his work with the team at slackbuilds.org, and helping to keep
-tons of other packages updated, mrgoblin for troubleshooting the
-installer and being on call to help in the middle of my night
-(handy having someone from .nz on the team!), and lots of fixes
-here and there, Karl Magnus Kolstoe for letting me know when I
-needed to sleep, NetrixTardis and element-x for helping with
-bandwidth and trackers for the release (and assorted testing and
-Q/A), Fred Emmott for so graciously assisting with obstacles we
-encountered porting to x86_64, and anyone else I'm forgetting
-(including the other team members who contributed little fixes and
-suggestions here and there along with general moral support), and
-all the folks who emailed in bug reports (and especially fixes).
-Thanks for the technical assistance (*you* make this possible),
-and for keeping the project a good time. And, of course, thanks
-*much* to the upstream developers for such nice building materials.
-
-As always, thanks to my wife Andrea for putting up with
-development that began to stretch to every waking hour and
-deadlines being pushed back for one reason or another way too
-many times. We'll try to get a little more family time over
-the next month or so. Hi Briah!
-
-Have fun! :-)
-
-Pat Volkerding <volkerdi@slackware.com>
-
+ +Slackware 13.1 release notes. Wed May 19 04:40:19 UTC 2010 + +Hi folks, + + Historically, the RELEASE_NOTES had been mostly technical +information, but once again Robby Workman has covered the important +technical details in CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT. Thanks! If you are +upgrading an existing installation, don't miss the section on the LIBATA +SWITCHOVER. + + I'll mention a few technical items here. Slackware's userspace does +require a recent 2.6.x kernel (I believe 2.6.27.x is a minimum for +udev), and as usual unless your needs are specific you're probably +better off running the included kernels that we've tested things +against. The best kernel to run (even on a one CPU/core machine) is the +generic SMP one, but that needs an initrd, so be sure to read the +instructions in /boot after installing with a huge* kernel if you plan +to switch. We have chosen to use the 2.6.33.4 kernel after testing the +2.6.33.x kernel branch extensively. I would not suggest trying to run +without udev. Consider it the userspace portion of the kernel. It *is* +possible, but if you must do that you'll have to tweak a couple things +here and there. The specifics are left as an exercise for the advanced +user. Wait, an advanced user would just use udev. Really, it works and +makes things a lot easier. + + Slackware 13.1 contains version 4.4.3 of the KDE Software +Compilation. In the nearly 8 months since the release of Slackware +13.0, the KDE team made some huge improvements, including better +handling of netbook screen resolutions, a new authentication framework +based on standards from freedesktop.org, and a new tabbing feature that +allows applications to be grouped in a tabbed interface. You'll notice +a snappier feel, helped also by the improved performance of Qt version +4.6.2. + + Several Xfce components have been updated as well. Xfce continues +to be a great lightweight desktop that doesn't get in your way. If you +haven't looked at this great desktop environment lately, you might want +to give it another try. Thanks to Robby for tracking the Xfce +development closely and making sure everything was just exactly right in +the Slackware Xfce packages. + + If you prefer GNOME, there are teams online producing GNOME for +Slackware. Here are a few places to look: + + http://gnomeslackbuild.org + http://www.droplinegnome.net/ + http://www.gware.org/ + + If any of these replaces some system components, using them voids +your warranty. ;-) But it should work, *if* you absolutely must have +GNOME. I'd suggest Xfce instead if you want a GTK+ based desktop. If +you do want to use GNOME, remember that there may be some updates needed +after 13.1 is released, so it might be best not to rush into it. +Thanks to these teams for making the GNOME desktop a viable option for +Slackware users. + + Need more build scripts? Something that you wanted wasn't included +in Slackware? Well, then check out slackbuilds.org. Several of the team +members work on the scripts there. + + Thanks to the rest of the team (and other contributors) for the +great help -- Eric Hameleers for major work on the KDE SC packages, init +scripts, installer, documentation, and all the extra packages like +multilib compilers (read more here: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/), +Robby Workman for following X.Org, udev, wicd, xfce, and tons of other +projects, building and testing all that stuff, writing documentation, +his work with the team at slackbuilds.org, and lots of package upgrades +(like the switch to the bluez4 bluetooth stack), Piter Punk for udev and +slackpkg work, updating the shadow password system, writing the initial +patch for polkit to use a shadow authentication backend so we could +consider using KDE 4.4.3, and making tap-to-click work with Synaptics +touchpads out-of-the-box, Stuart Winter for more updates to +linuxdoc-tools, and for all kinds of fixes throughout the installer and +system (he finds my bugs all the time while porting packages to ARM for +the ARMedslack port: http://www.armedslack.org/), Alan Hicks for +testing the installer on Apple hardware, Vincent Batts for keeping Ruby +working well and other miscellaneous fixes, Andrew Psaltis for work on +the polkit/shadow patches, Heinz Wiesinger for Qt (and other) fixes, +Amritpal Bath for various bugfixes and helping with release torrents, +mrgoblin for testing RAID, bluetooth, and well, everything (and fixing a +lot of it, too), other very honorable mentions go to Erik Jan Tromp, +Mark Post, Karl Magnus Kolstoe, Fizban, Fred Emmott, and NetrixTardis, +and anyone else I'm forgetting (including the other team members who +contributed little fixes and suggestions here and there along with +general moral support), and all the folks who emailed in bug reports +(and especially fixes). Thanks for the technical assistance (*you* make +this possible), and for keeping the project a good time. And, of +course, thanks *much* to the upstream developers for such nice building +materials. As always, thanks to my wife Andrea and daughter Briah (who +is becoming a surprisingly good beta tester already!) + +Have fun! + +Pat Volkerding <volkerdi@slackware.com> + |