sombragris - Slashdot User

Submission + - Slackware, Oldest Actively Maintained Linux Distro, Releases Slackware 15.0

Submitted by sombragris on Thursday February 03, 2022 @07:23PM

sombragris writes: Slackware, the oldest actively maintained Linux distributon, released version 15.0 yesterday after a long release cycle which comes all the way back from 2016, where the last version (14.2) was released. As the release notes said, the whole spirit of this release is: "Keep it familiar, but make it modern".

Among the news, this release offers kernel 5.15.19, PAM, PipeWire and PulseAudio, and Wayland and X11 graphical systems, Rust and Python 3. As graphical environments, both Xfce 4.16 and the latest Plasma 5 (Plasma 5.23.5, Frameworks 5.90, KDE apps 21.12 running under Qt 5.15.3) are available, with Cinnamon and Mate also available from third parties. The main compilers are gcc-11.2 and llvm 13.0. The default browser is Firefox 91.5esr, with Chromium available as a third-party repository. And... no systemd at all.

Slackware can be downloaded from a variety of mirrors, with a list available at http://mirrors.slacware.com./ BitTorrent dowloads are going to be available too.

I've used Slackware for 20 years and always impressed me with its stabilitty and speed. I encourage everyone interested to try it.

Submission + - TweetDeck is experiencing outage, issues (cnet.com)

Submitted by sombragris on Tuesday October 01, 2019 @10:07PM

sombragris writes: TweetDeck, the popular tweet management console owned by Twitter, began experiencing several issues at about 18:00 EST. Currently it is down for many users worldwide. There is no yet comment from Twitter on the issue.

Submission + - KDE Connect removed from Google Play Store over new SMS policy

Submitted by sombragris on Tuesday March 19, 2019 @01:25PM

sombragris writes: KDE Connect, a project designed to enable seamless communcation and control between a desktop computer and a mobile phone, was suddenly removed from Android's Google Play store. According to a Twitter thread by Albert Vaca, KDE Connect's maintainer, the removal was allegedly because the app was in breach of Google's new SMS policy. There's an exemption which applies to KDE Connect, but the maintainer was unable to contact anyone at Google to provide support. "There is simply no way to talk to a human being at @Google", he said.

Vaca had an interim version with the SMS functionality removed but so far he was unable to upload this new crippled version to the Play Store.

Meanwhile, those who want the full uncrippled app can still get it at F-Droid.

Submission + - Slackware, oldest actively maintained GNU/Linux distribution, turns 25

Submitted by sombragris on Tuesday July 17, 2018 @10:29AM

sombragris writes: Slackware, the oldest GNU/Linux distribution which is still actively maintained, turns 25 today. The latest stable version, Slackware 14.2, was released two years ago, but the development version (-current) is updated on a fast pace. Today the development version offers kernel 4.14.55, gcc 8.1.1, glibc 2.27. mesa 18.1.4, xorg 1.20, and the Xfce and KDE desktop environments as default, with many more available as third-party packages. Other points of note are that Slackware is systemd-free, opting instead for a simple BSD-style init.

Since its first release ever, this has been a distro with a strong following due to its hallmarks of simplicity, speed, ease of maintenance and configuration. Happy birthday Slackware!

Submission + - Browser extension Stylish logs and reports browsing history; banned by Firefox

Submitted by sombragris on Wednesday July 04, 2018 @04:43PM

sombragris writes: Stylish, a popular extension available for Chrome and Firefox which allows for easy customization of any website, now phones home and shares its users' browser history with its corporate parent, according to blogger Robert Heaton. This prompted Firefox to ban the extension from its addons site and prompt all users to disable it. The discussion can be seen in the relevant bug report. In Heaton's words:
Stylish is no longer a well-meaning product with your best interests at heart. If you use and like Stylish, please uninstall it and switch to an alternative like Stylus, an offshoot from the good old version of Stylish that works in much the same way, minus the spyware.

Submission + - Slackware, Oldest Linux Distro Still in Active Development, turns 24

Submitted by sombragris on Friday July 21, 2017 @12:52PM

sombragris writes: July 17 marked the 24th anniversary of Slackware Linux, the oldest GNU/Linux still in active development, being created in 1993 by Patrick Volkerding, who still serves as its BDFL. Version 14.2 was launched last year, and the development version (Slackware-current) currently offers kernel 4.9.38, gcc 7.1, glibc 2.25, mesa 17.1.5, and KDE and Xfce as official desktops, with many others available as 3rd party packages. Slackware is also among the Linux distributions which have not adopted systemd as its init system; instead, it uses a modified BSD init which is quite simple and effective. Slackware is known to be a solid, stable and fast setup, with easy defaults which is appreciated by many Linux users worldwide. Phoronix has a small writeup noting the anniversary and there's also a nice reddit thread.

Submission + - WhatsApp: Users Report Worldwide Outage

Submitted by sombragris on Wednesday May 03, 2017 @05:15PM

sombragris writes: WhatsApp, a proprietary instant messaging platform owned by Facebook and used by billions of users is currently down according to user reports from various parts of the world. There's no official world yet but I'm among the many affected by the outage.

Submission + - MS Signature PC Requirements Now Blocks Linux Installation

Submitted by sombragris on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @10:56AM

sombragris writes: According to a well-documented /r/linux thread on Reddit, the Signature PC program by Microsoft now requires to lock down PCs. This user found out that his Lenovo Yoga 900 ISK2 UltraBook has the SSD in a proprietary RAID mode which Linux does not understand and the BIOS is also locked down so it could not be turned off. When he complained that he was unable to install Linux, the answer he got was: "This system has a Signature Edition of Windows 10 Home installed. It is locked per our agreement with Microsoft."

Even worse, as the original poster said, "[t]he Yoga 900 ISK2 at Best Buy is not labeled as a Signature Edition PC, but apparently it is one, and Lenovo's agreement with Microsoft includes making sure Linux can't be installed."

As some commenter said: "If you buy a computer with this level of lockdown you should be told."

There is also a report on ZDNet which looks very understanding towards Lenovo, but the fact remains: the SSD is locked down in a proprietary RAID mode that cannot be turned off.

Submission + - Slackware 14.2 Released, Still systemd-Free

Submitted by sombragris on Friday July 01, 2016 @06:28PM

sombragris writes: Slackware, the oldest GNU/Linux distribution still in active maintenance, was released just minutes ago. Slackware is noted for being the most Unix-like of all Linux distributions. While sporting kernel 4.4.14 and gcc 5.3, other goodies include Perl 5.22.2, Python 2.7.11, Ruby 2.2.5, Subversion 1.9.4, git-2.9.0, mercurial-3.8.2, KDE 4.14.21 (KDE 4.14.3 with kdelibs-4.14.21) Xfce 4.12.1... and no systemd!

According to the ChangeLog:
The long development cycle (the Linux community has lately been living in "interesting times", as they say) is finally behind us, and we're proud to announce the release of Slackware 14.2. The new release brings many updates and modern tools, has switched from udev to eudev (no systemd), and adds well over a hundred new packages to the system. Thanks to the team, the upstream developers, the dedicated Slackware community, and everyone else who pitched in to help make this release a reality.

Grab the ISOs at a mirror near you. Enjoy!

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