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SlackPack News
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2022-02-09T08:17:57Z
Georgi D. Sotirov
https://sotirov-bg.net/~gsotirov/
gdsotirov@gmail.com
Copyright © 2005-2023 Georgi D. Sotirov
SlackPack
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=57
Slackware 15.0 released!
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>After <em>the longest</em> wait ever (of just <a
href="https://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?d1=30&m1=06&y1=2016&d2=2&m2=2&y2=2022">over
5 years and 7 months</a>) the next major release of Slackware -
Slackware 15.0 - was born on <strong>2022-02-02</strong> at
<strong>22:22:22</strong> <abbr
title="Universal Time Coordinated">UTC</abbr> (you get the
catch ;-)). There were <a href="/news.cgi?id=52">one alpha</a>,
<a href="/news.cgi?id=53">one beta</a> and three <abbr
title="Releace Candidate">RC</abbr>s (see <a
href="/news.cgi?id=54">RC1</a>, <a href="/news.cgi?id=55">RC2</a>
and <a href="https://slackpack.eu/news.cgi?id=56">RC3</a>) in
this <q>long development cycle</q> that came out in about a year
time. It is a release I <a href="/news.cgi?id=50">waited since
2020</a>, because even then Slackware 14.2 was already old and
though time for <a
href="https://gdsotirov.blogspot.com/2018/06/time-for-slackware-15.html">two
years earlier</a> for the changes already accumulated. However,
I do understand the Slackware team in their best efforts to make
it modern <q>without changing the character of the operating
system</q> and against all the odds (see my requests <a
href="/news.cgi?id=48">for donation</a> and <a
href="/news.cgi?id=49">for becoming a patron</a>).</p>
<p>Well, Slackware 15.0 is here, so let's see what it offers:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Base system</em>:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://kernel.org/">Linux Kernel</a> 5.5.19
<abbr title="Long Term Support">LTS</abbr> (with configs
for building 5.16 kernels included in <code>/testing</code>
directory);</li>
<li><a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/"><abbr
title="GNU's Not Unix">GNU</abbr> C Library</a> 2.33;</li>
<li><abbr title="Pluggable Authentication Module">PAM</abbr>-based
user authentication;</li>
<li><code>elogind</code> (obsoleting ConsoleKit2);</li>
<li>pkgtools was developed as well (updated with file locking
against collisions from parallel installs or upgrades. The amount
of data written to storage was minimized to avoid extra writes on <abbr
title="Solid-State Drive">SSD</abbr> devices. There is now also support
for uninstall scripts through <code>/install/douninst.sh</code>);</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><em>Networking</em>:
<ul>
<li>Networking scripts now use <a
href="https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/networking/iproute2">iproute2</a>,
instead of <a href="https://net-tools.sourceforge.io/">net-tools</a> and
<a href="https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/networking/bridge">bridge-utils</a>
and friends. Previous functionality is still supported with the same
configuration syntax. New functionality includes:
<ul>
<li>support for creation of virtual interfaces (e.g. tun/tap) and
adding them to bridges;</li>
<li>support for binding additional IP addresses to virtual and/or
real interfaces;</li>
<li>support for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_LAN"><abbr
title="Virtual Local Area Network">VLAN</abbr></a> (<a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.1Q">802.1Q</a>);</li>
<li>support for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_aggregation">Link
Aggregation</a> (bonding);</li>
<li>support for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6"><abbr
title="Internet Protocol 6">IPv6</abbr></a> (<a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Stateless_address_autoconfiguration_(SLAAC)"><abbr
title="Stateless Address Auto-configuration">SLAAC</abbr></a> is
disabled by default);</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><em>Servers</em>:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.postfix.org/">Postfix</a> 3.6
(replacing Sendmail as <abbr title="Mail Transfer Agent">MTA</abbr>,
which is still available in <code>/extra</code> directory);</li>
<li><a href="https://www.dovecot.org/">Dovecot</a> 2.3
(replacing old <code>imapd</code> as <abbr
title="Internet Message Access Protocol">IMAP</abbr> and
<code>ipop3d</code> as <abbr
title="Post Office Protocol 3">POP3</abbr> daemons);</li>
<li><a href="http://www.proftpd.org/">ProFTPD</a> 1.3.7c
(with <code>mod_sftp</code> and <code>mod_facl</code> support);</li>
<li><a href="https://httpd.apache.org/">Apache httpd</a> 2.4.52
(with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2">
<abbr title="Hypertext Transfer Protocol 2">HTTP/2</abbr></a>
support);</li>
<li><a href="https://www.samba.org/">Samba</a> 4.15;</li>
<li><a href="https://mariadb.org/">MariaDB</a> 10.5.13;</li>
<li>Bind 9.16, dhcp 4.4.2, ntp 4.2.8p15 (now running as ntp:ntp)
and more;</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><em>Development</em>:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://gcc.gnu.org/"><abbr
title="GNU's Not Unix">GNU</abbr>'s Compiler Collection</a>
11.2 and <a href="https://llvm.org/">LLVM</a> 13.0;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.perl.org/">Perl</a> 5.34;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.php.net/"><abbr
title="PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor">PHP</abbr></a> 7.4.27 by
default (with 8.0 and 8.1 in <code>/extra</code>);</li>
<li><a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> 3.9
(with <a href="https://pypi.org/project/pip/">pip</a> and
some basic modules like <a
href="https://docutils.sourceforge.io/">docutils</a>, <a
href="https://pypi.org/project/setuptools/">setuptools</a>, <a
href="https://pypi.org/project/cffi/">CFFI</a>, etc. Python
2 is still available, although strongly <strong>NOT</strong>
recommended as it is <a href="https://www.python.org/doc/sunset-python-2/">not
supported</a> since more than two years ago);</li>
<li><a href="https://www.ruby-lang.org/">Ruby</a> 3.0.3
(with <a href="https://rubygems.org/gems/asciidoctor">asciidoctor</a>
gem);</li>
<li><a href="https://www.rust-lang.org/">Rust</a> 1.58.1 (new language);</li>
<li><a href="https://git-scm.com/">Git</a> 2.35.1 and
<a href="https://www.mercurial-scm.org/">Mercurial</a> 6.0.1;</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><em>Multimedia</em>:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://pipewire.org/">PipeWire</a> 0.3.44 (as
an alternative to <a
href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/">PulseAudio</a>);</li>
<li><a href="https://www.ffmpeg.org/">FFmpeg</a> 4.4.1;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.libsdl.org/">SDL2</a> 2.0.20
(with some core libraries like gfx, image, net, etc.);</li>
</ul>
<li><em><abbr title="Graphical Users Interface">GUI</abbr></em>:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/xorg">X.Org</a> 1.20;</li>
<li><a href="https://wayland.freedesktop.org/">Wayland</a> 1.20
(in addition to X11);</li>
<li><a href="https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/">KDE Plasma</a> 5.23.5
and <a href="https://www.qt.io/">qt</a> 5.15.3 (yeah!);</li>
<li><a href="https://xfce.org/">XFCE</a> 4.16;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.seamonkey-project.org/">SeaMonkey</a> 2.53,
<a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/">Firefox</a> 91.5
<abbr title="Extended Support Release">ESR</abbr> and <a
href="https://www.thunderbird.net/bg/">Thunderbird</a> 91.5;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.gtk.org/">GTK+</a> applications such
as <a href="https://www.pidgin.im/">Pidgin</a> 2.14.8, <a
href="https://www.gimp.org/"><abbr
title="GNU Image Manipulation Program">GIMP</abbr></a> 2.10.30, etc.;</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There are many (over 250) new packages among them FFmpeg 4.4, new
libraries like opus, lame, libbluray, speex, id3lib, libwebp and various
Python modules (e.g. idna and six), which I was previously building and
publishing here for previous major releases. I will stop building these,
but I would post another news specificity on this later. I'm already
preparing my build infrastructure, so packages for Slackware 15.0 would
start to pop up in the following days. My initial focus would be on
basic tools and libraries and then MySQL, because I would like to finally
bring 8.0 to Slackware stable.</p>
<p>Slackware 15.0 is a great new release, so download and start using it
or go upgrade your installations!</p>
<p>Happy upgrading!</p>
<p>References and further readings:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.slackware.com/announce/15.0.php">Slackware 15.0
Release Announcement</a></li>
<li><a href="https://alien.slackbook.org/blog/slackware-15-0-has-been-released-on-2022-02-02/">Slackware
15.0 has been released on 2022-02-02</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Updates:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>2022-02-09</strong>: Added Networking changes, fixed several
spelling errors.</li>
</ul>
2022-02-08T20:22:22Z
2022-02-09T08:17:57Z
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=56
Slackware 15.0 RC3
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>Earlier today, RC3 the <q>final release candidate</q> for Slackware
15.0 was announced in the ChangeLog. The new major release is thus
<q>99% frozen</q>, so it is now mostly about <q>regression or other
bug reports</q> before it goes <q>stable</q>. Hopefully, we have the
whole 2022 for the new stable release in more than 5 and half years.</p>
2022-01-13T21:13:39Z
2022-01-14T09:28:40Z
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=55
Slackware 15.0 RC2
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>Yesterday, RC2 for Slackware 15.0 was announced in the ChangeLog, which
promises <q>a much harder freeze</q>. We're still patiently waiting for the next
stable release in more than 5 years...</p>
2021-11-18T05:05:15Z
2021-11-18T11:38:08Z
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=54
Slackware 15.0 RC1
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>For all of us that are still <a href="/news.cgi?id=50">waiting</a> for the
next major Slackware release the waiting continues as this morning Slackware
15.0 Release Candidate 1 was announced on the ChangeLog. In the new release GCC
was bumped to 11.2.0, but GLibC would remain at 2.33, because of a "<em>risky
change of moving all functions into the main library</em>" and an
"<em>inconvenient change of renaming the library files</em>. From now on
"<em>most things</em>" should be considered "<em>frozen</em>" and only some
"<em>remaining blocker bugs</em>" would be focused on.</p>
<p>So, keep waiting for Slackware 15.0 "<em>to reach the standard of excellence
demanded from a Slackware release</em>" ;-)</p>
2021-08-16T17:39:39Z
2021-08-16T17:46:46Z
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=53
Slackware 15.0 beta
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>After just one <a href="/news.cgi?id=52">alpha release</a> two
months ago the beta of Slackware 15.0 was announced in the ChangeLog
yesterday. This release comes on April 12, which is the <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Day_of_Human_Space_Flight">International
Day of Human Space Flight</a> and this year it's also a round
anniversary - 60 years since then. I'm slacker and I'm also interested
in astronomy and space exploration, so it doubled the fun for me :-)</p>
<p>There were no build regressions with the upgraded to 10.3 GCC
compiler, but there is no fix "<em>for the illegal instruction issue
with 32-bit mariadb</em>" yet, which seems like the only blocking problem
before the stable release unless of course other issues arise.</p>
<p>Hopefully the new major and stable release is coming, but when it
would arrive knows only one man and you know who ;-)</p>
<p>Stay tuned until then and of course test the new beta!</p>
2021-04-13T18:16:40Z
2021-04-13T18:23:26Z
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=52
Slackware 15.0 alpha1
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>Yesterday, something interesting appeared in the ChangeLog -
the first alpha of Slackware 15.0 was announced. Apparently we'll
have a new major release this year. GLibC was upgraded to 2.33,
which triggered a mass rebuild (of about 1550 packages). The alpha
release includes updated Rust compiler, but it is not yet used
by Firefox and Thunderbird, which would hopefully happen in
future.</p>
<p>Stay tuned for more "<em>scheduled upgrades</em>" that would
move the new release closer to beta.</p>
<p>Cheers!</p>
2021-02-16T20:15:01Z
2021-04-13T18:04:36Z
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=51
SlackPack.EU is back
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>As I <a href="news.cgi?id=41">announced</a> back in December
2016<sup>-th</sup> I bought the <a href="https://slackpack.eu/">SlackPack.EU</a>
domain for the site. However, at the end of 2017<sup>-th</sup> I forgot
to renew it and unfortunately I lost it as someone else had managed to
register it meanwhile. As I was recently renewing my other domains I
noticed that the domain is free for registration again, so I acted
quickly to return it back.</p>
<p>The domain is active since several days, but I had not had the time
to re-configure it and I had some problems with rewriting the home page
<abbr title="Uniform Resource Locator">URL</abbr> as the site would remain
accessible from it's original address, which is <a
href="https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/">sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/</a>.</p>
<p>Cheers!</p>
2020-12-13T17:18:23Z
2020-12-27T08:32:46Z
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=50
Waiting for Slackware 15
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>Would this be the year for Slackware 15? I <em>really</em> hope so,
because I'm <u>not</u> building packages for -current (since it's moving
constantly) and it became harder to build new packages for Slackware 14.2,
which is already almost 4 years old (released 2016-07-01). This is quite long
for a modern operating system, because software releases now move faster than
ever. As I <a href="https://gdsotirov.blogspot.com/2018/06/time-for-slackware-15.html">wrote
back</a> in 2018 there were already big enough (and long awaited) changes for
a new release in -current, but then came <a
href="https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=48">the financial woes</a>
for Patrick and I started supporting the distribution also financially in a
hope that it would continue to exist and manage new releases. I also <a
href="https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=49">encouraged others to
become patrons</a>).</p>
<p>Of course, we'll have to wait some more until the new release is fully
ready. However, I already started preparing for the new release. I've
recently bought a second hand Dell PowerEdge R330 and moved my build server
over it. I'm pleased with its performance so far and I hope it would allow me
to build more packages more quickly in future. I'll have to think about build
automation, but this requires also usage of a modern version control system.
So, in February and March I managed to migrate all my build scripts from CVS
(see <a href="https://sotirov-bg.net/viewvc/viewvc.cgi/cvs/projects/sh/slackbuilds/">my
old and no longer used CVS repository</a>) to Git and GitHub (see <a
href="https://github.com/gdsotirov?tab=repositories&q=SlackBuild">my SlackBuilds</a>,
but beware these are not self-sufficient - you'll need <a
href="https://sotirov-bg.net/viewvc/viewvc.cgi/cvs/projects/sh/slackbuilds/slack-package.conf?hideattic=1&view=log">slack-package.conf</a>
file, which I still haven't found the time to migrate). I also manage to add
some packages that I should have built long ago like <a
href="/slackpack/search.cgi?q=xrdp&lo=1">xrdp</a> and today <a
href="slackpack/search.cgi?q=open-vm-tools&lo=1">open-vm-tools</a>. I hope
I'll add even more packages, because Slackware 15 should include some of
the packages I'm currently building, so I won't have to build these anymore.</p>
<p>So until we're waiting for Slackware 15 stay safe and keep going
with what makes you happy!</p>
2020-05-24T16:39:12Z
2020-05-24T16:44:46Z
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=49
Become a patron of Slackware and Patrick
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>As I <a href="news.cgi?id=48">wrote</a> last year, Slackware's founder
Patrick Volkerding is struggling financially since he stopped receiving money
from Slackware's store a few years back. It was discussed that he should
probably open a <a href="https://www.patreon.com/">Patreon</a> account and
start receiving monthly donations for his work on the <a
href="https://slackware.com/">Slackware project</a>. Well, it's a fact now
as Patrick himself <a href="https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/is-this-patreon-account-legit-4175658493/page4.html#post6021503">confirmed</a>
on LinuxQuestions a month ago.</p>
<p>I'm catching a little bit later, because I was busy myself putting some
updates on the site planned since long ago, but I've become a patron
yesterday. And I suggest you become one as well if you love the distribution
and are still using it. Slackware is the oldest active Linux distribution
and your support would keep it running. I personally hope that this would
finally bring Slackware 15 out, because I have postponed many package
upgrades since Slackware 14.2 is really old now being released more than
3 years ago.</p>
<p>Please, consider becoming a Slackware patron (the account is <a
href="https://www.patreon.com/slackwarelinux">slackwarelinux</a>),
because your support would be important no matter how much you could
afford, so the distribution continues to be maintained.</p>
<p>See also <a href="https://alien.slackbook.org/blog/patreon-account-for-patrick-volkerdings-slackware/">Patreon
account for Patrick Volkerding’s Slackware</a>.</p>
2019-09-10T18:19:33Z
2019-09-11T07:48:22Z
https://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/news.cgi?id=48
Please, donate to Slackware and Patrick
Georgi Sotirov
gdsotirov@dir.bg
<p>As it <a href="https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/donating-to-slackware-4175634729/#post5882751">become
clear</a> last week, <a href="http://slackware.com/">Slackware</a>'s creator
and maintainer Patrick Volkerding, is having financial woes after <a
href="https://store.slackware.com/">Slackware's Store</a> stopped paying him
money. The man is practically broke not being able to do home and car repairs,
take care of his health and keep doing the Slackware project, which requires
new hardware and spare time.</p>
<p>I never really liked the store and I now have the reason to hate it. I
remember trying to buy something in the past. I placed the order, but then
received nothing. Apparently, they didn't deliver to Bulgaria, which is fine,
because I could always burn CDs or DVDs, print T-shirts, etc. Anyway, this
really wasn't my way for supporting Slackware.</p>
<p>In the thread <a href="https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/donating-to-slackware-4175634729/">Donating
to Slackware</a> on <a href="https://www.linuxquestions.org/">LinuxQuestions</a>
a lot has been written in the past 10 days and I would save myself from
suggesting how Slackware should be managed, how money should be raised, etc.
The most important is that there is now an <a href="https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/donating-to-slackware-4175634729/page11.html#post5883695">official
way</a> to donate money electronically, which is via <a href="https://www.paypal.me/volkerdi">Patrick's
personal PayPal account</a>. The other <a href="https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/donating-to-slackware-4175634729/page31.html#post5886096">official
way</a> (if you are in the US) is to send money via the post. So to
summarize the official ways for donating to Slackware and Patrick are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Via PayPal (<a href="https://www.paypal.me/volkerdi">https://www.paypal.me/volkerdi</a>);</li>
<li>Via US Post (PO BOX 172, Sebeka, MN 56477).</li>
</ul>
<p>If you use or used Slackware, if you like the distribution or if you are
just a normal human please, consider donating to the project and help the man
that build it and continues to develop it although in difficult financial
situation. I hope more ways for supporting the project would be made available
in future and published on slackware.com, so that even more people could become
aware and participate.</p>
<p>Please, support Slackware!</p>
2018-08-01T19:10:15Z
2019-08-10T09:53:21Z