130-767: Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System (SLS), Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distributions, and is the oldest distribution that is still maintained. Slackware aims for design stability and simplicity and to be the most " Unix-like " Linux distribution . It makes as few modifications as possible to software packages from upstream and tries not to anticipate use cases or preclude user decisions. In contrast to most modern Linux distributions, Slackware provides no graphical installation procedure and no automatic dependency resolution of software packages. It uses plain text files and only
260-431: A douninst.sh uninstall script that can be launched when removing or upgrading a package. This allows package maintainers to run commands when a package is uninstalled. The package manager maintains a local database on the computer, stored in multiple folders. On 14.2 and older systems, the main database of installed packages was maintained in /var/log/ , however, during the development of 15.0, Volkerding moved two of
390-507: A TFTP boot server or from a mini-root filesystem. Slackware ARM can also be installed on a PC running QEMU using the same technique. Slackware AArch64 (ARM64) is installed directly from SD card images in a similar fashion to installing Slackware x86 off a DVD. Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro ) is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although
520-527: A Wayland compositor such as Sway , KDE 's KWin , or GNOME 's Mutter ), a desktop environment (most commonly GNOME , KDE Plasma , or Xfce ), a sound server (usually either PulseAudio or more recently PipeWire ), and other related programs may be included or installed by the user. Typically, most of the included software is free and open-source software – made available both as binary for convenience and as source code to allow for modifying it. A distro may also include proprietary software that
650-439: A CD with only a small amount of data on it. New users tend to begin by partitioning a hard drive in order to keep their previously installed operating system. The Linux distribution can then be installed on its own separate partition without affecting previously saved data. In a Live CD setup, the computer boots the entire operating system from CD without first installing it on the computer's hard disk. Many distributions have
780-526: A Live CD installer , where the computer boots the operating system from the disk, and it can then be installed on the computer's hard disk, providing a seamless transition from the OS running from the CD to the OS running from the hard disk. Both servers and personal computers that come with Linux already installed are available from vendors including Hewlett-Packard , Dell and System76 . On embedded devices, Linux
910-558: A conscious effort to use a different operating system, and they must either perform the actual installation themselves, or depend on support from a friend, relative, or computer professional. File Transfer Protocol Early research and development: Merging the networks and creating the Internet: Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to the modern Internet: Examples of Internet services: The File Transfer Protocol ( FTP )
1040-527: A core member of the Slackware team between 1999-2001, and described that period on the Slackware ARM Vlog. Patrick Volkerding provided further information about the time period in two interviews. The design philosophy of Slackware is oriented toward simplicity , software purity, and a core design that emphasizes lack of change to upstream sources. Many design choices in Slackware can be seen as
1170-406: A description of the packaged software, as well as a doinst.sh file, which is a post-unpacking shell script allowing creation of symbolic links, preserving permissions on startup files, proper handling of new configuration files, and any other aspects of installation that can not be implemented via the package's directory structure. During the development of 15.0, Volkerding introduced support for
1300-512: A distribution, an administrator may create a "distributionless" installation. It is possible to build such systems from scratch, avoiding distributions altogether. One needs a way to generate the first binaries until the system is self-hosting . This can be done via compilation on another system capable of building binaries for the intended target (possibly by cross-compilation ). For example, see Linux From Scratch . In broad terms, Linux distributions may be: The diversity of Linux distributions
1430-652: A diversion from the pain of recovering from surgery in September 2008. Volkerding tested the port in December 2008, and was impressed when he saw speed increases between 20 and 40 percent for some benchmarks compared to the 32-bit version. To minimize the extra effort of maintaining both versions in parallel, Slackware's build scripts, called SlackBuilds, were slowly transitioned to supporting either architecture, allowing for one set of sources for both versions. Slackware64 saw its first stable release with version 13.0. Between
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#17327943191301560-449: A far shorter development cycle since the "tricky parts" were resolved during the development of 15.0. Slackware's latest 32-bit x86 and 64-bit x86_64 stable releases are at version 15.0 (released on February 2, 2022), which include support for Linux 5.15.19. Volkerding also maintains a testing/developmental version of Slackware called "-current" that can be used for a more bleeding edge configuration. This version will eventually become
1690-411: A few weeks. During that time, many SLS users on the internet were asking SLS for a new release, so eventually Volkerding made a post titled "Anyone want an SLS-like 0.99pl11A system?", to which he received many positive responses. After a discussion with the local sysadmin at MSU, Volkerding obtained permission to upload Slackware to the university's FTP server. This first Slackware release, version 1.00,
1820-467: A heritage of the simplicity of traditional Unix systems and as examples of the KISS principle . In this context, "simple" refers to the simplicity in system design, rather than system usage. Thus, ease of use may vary between users: those lacking knowledge of command line interfaces and classic Unix tools may experience a steep learning curve using Slackware, whereas users with a Unix background may benefit from
1950-569: A humorous name, which stuck even after Slackware became a serious project. Slackware refers to the "pursuit of Slack", a tenet of the Church of the SubGenius , a parody religion. Certain aspects of Slackware graphics reflect this—the pipe that Tux is smoking, as influenced by the image of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs ' head. A humorous reference to the Church of the SubGenius can be found in many versions of
2080-455: A less abstract system environment. In keeping with Slackware's design philosophy, and its spirit of purity, most software in Slackware uses the original configuration mechanisms supplied by the software's authors; however, for some administrative tasks, distribution-specific configuration tools are delivered. There is no formal issue tracking system and no official procedure to become a code contributor or developer. The project does not maintain
2210-431: A network sniffing attack . If the information provided by the client is accepted by the server, the server will send a greeting to the client and the session will commence. If the server supports it, users may log in without providing login credentials, but the same server may authorize only limited access for such sessions. A host that provides an FTP service may provide anonymous FTP access. Users typically log into
2340-404: A network or the internet is slackpkg . It was originally developed by Piter Punk as an unofficial way to keep Slackware up-to-date. It was officially included in the main tree in Slackware 12.2, having been included in extras/ since Slackware 9.1. When a package is upgraded, it will install the new package over the old one and then remove any files that no longer exist in the new package. Once
2470-653: A new SLS-based distribution, Slackware , was released by Patrick Volkerding . Also dissatisfied with SLS, Ian Murdock set to create a free distribution by founding Debian in August 1993, with first public BETA released in January 1994 and first stable version in June 1996. Users were attracted to Linux distributions as alternatives to the DOS and Microsoft Windows operating systems on IBM PC compatible computers, Mac OS on
2600-515: A new type of passive mode. FTP may run in active or passive mode, which determines how the data connection is established. (This sense of "mode" is different from that of the MODE command in the FTP protocol.) Both modes were updated in September 1998 to support IPv6 . Further changes were introduced to the passive mode at that time, updating it to extended passive mode . The server responds over
2730-464: A package are present (and either notify the user to install them, or install them automatically). The package can also be provided as source code to be compiled on the system. Most distributions install packages, including the kernel and other core operating system components, in a predetermined configuration. A few now require or permit configuration adjustments at first install time. This makes installation less daunting, particularly for new users, but
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#17327943191302860-492: A package has been installed with slackpkg it can be managed with pkgtool or other package management commands. When running upgradepkg , it only confirms that the version numbers are different , thus allowing downgrading the package if desired. Slackware packages are tarballs compressed using various methods. Starting with 13.0, most packages are compressed using xz (based on the LZMA compression algorithm), utilizing
2990-417: A package is removed or upgraded, the old install logs and scripts found under packages/ and scripts/ are moved to removed_packages/ and removed_scripts/ , making it possible to review any previous packages and see when they were removed. These directories can be found in /var/log/ on 14.2 and earlier, but were moved to /var/log/pkgtools/ during the development of 15.0. On systems supporting
3120-404: A proprietary operating system or by translating proprietary API calls (e.g., calls to Microsoft's Win32 or DirectX APIs) into native Linux API calls. A virtual machine can also be used to run a proprietary OS (like Microsoft Windows) on top of Linux. Computer hardware is usually sold with an operating system other than Linux already installed by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). In
3250-403: A provided software tarball. Since SlackBuilds are scripts, they aren't limited to just compiling a program's source; they can also be used to repackage pre-compiled binaries provided by projects or other distributions' repositories into proper Slackware packages. SlackBuilds that compile sources have several advantages over pre-built packages: since they build from the original author's source code,
3380-399: A public code repository. Bug reports and contributions, while being essential to the project, are managed in an informal way. All the final decisions about what is going to be included in a Slackware release strictly remain with Slackware's benevolent dictator for life , Patrick Volkerding. The first versions of Slackware were developed by Patrick Volkerding alone. Beginning with version 4.0,
3510-583: A remote file timestamp, there's MDTM command. Some servers (and clients) support nonstandard syntax of the MDTM command with two arguments, that works the same way as MFMT FTP login uses normal username and password scheme for granting access. The username is sent to the server using the USER command, and the password is sent using the PASS command. This sequence is unencrypted "on the wire", so may be vulnerable to
3640-533: A small set of shell scripts for configuration and administration. Without further modification it boots into a command-line interface environment. Because of its many conservative and simplistic features, Slackware is often considered to be most suitable for advanced and technically inclined Linux users. Slackware is available for the IA-32 and x86_64 architectures, with a port to the ARM architecture . While Slackware
3770-466: A specific instruction set , while some (such as Gentoo ) are distributed mostly in source code form and must be built before installation. Linus Torvalds developed the Linux kernel and distributed its first version, 0.01, in 1991. Linux was initially distributed as source code only, and later as a pair of downloadable floppy disk images: one bootable and containing the Linux kernel itself, and
3900-716: A specific application or service. Examples of packages are a library for handling the PNG image format, a collection of fonts, and a web browser . The package is typically provided as compiled code, with installation and removal of packages handled by a package management system (PMS) rather than a simple file archiver . Each package intended for such a PMS contains meta-information such as its description, version number, and its dependencies (other packages it requires to run). The package management system evaluates this meta-information to allow package searches, perform automatic upgrades to newer versions, and to check that all dependencies of
4030-559: A technical one, as XFree86 was proving to cause compatibility problems. Slackware 10.0 was the first release with X.Org Server. In March 2005, Patrick Volkerding announced the removal of the GNOME desktop environment in the development ChangeLog. He stated this had been under consideration for more than four years and that there were already projects that provided a more complete version of GNOME for Slackware than what Slackware itself provided. Volkerding stated future GNOME support would rely on
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4160-464: A testbed for future upgrades to Slackware, most notably, Hameleers provides "Ktown" packages for newer versions of KDE . He also maintains Slackware's "multilib" repository, enabling Slackware64 to run and compile 32-bit packages. Slackware's release policy follows a feature and stability based release cycle, in contrast to the time-bound ( e.g. , Ubuntu ) or rolling release ( e.g. , Gentoo Linux ) schemes of other Linux distributions. This means there
4290-459: A username and password may be found in the browsers' documentation (e.g., Firefox and Internet Explorer ). By default, most web browsers use passive (PASV) mode, which more easily traverses end-user firewalls. Some variation has existed in how different browsers treat path resolution in cases where there is a non-root home directory for a user. Most common download managers can receive files hosted on FTP servers, while some of them also give
4420-575: A vulnerability to the following problems: FTP does not encrypt its traffic; all transmissions are in clear text, and usernames, passwords, commands and data can be read by anyone able to perform packet capture ( sniffing ) on the network. This problem is common to many of the Internet Protocol specifications (such as SMTP , Telnet , POP and IMAP ) that were designed prior to the creation of encryption mechanisms such as TLS or SSL. Common solutions to this problem include: FTP over SSH
4550-416: Is a Linux distribution that can be booted from removable storage media such as optical discs or USB flash drives , instead of being installed on and booted from a hard disk drive . The portability of installation-free distributions makes them advantageous for applications such as demonstrations, borrowing someone else's computer, rescue operations, or as installation media for a standard distribution. When
4680-762: Is a Linux distribution; others, such as Google engineer Patrick Brady, disagree by noting the lack of support for many GNU tools in Android, including glibc . Other Linux-kernel-based operating systems include Tizen , Mer / Sailfish OS , KaiOS and Amazon's Kindle firmware . Lightweight Linux distributions are those that have been designed with support for older hardware in mind, allowing older hardware to still be used productively, or, for maximum possible speed in newer hardware by leaving more resources available for use by applications. Examples include Tiny Core Linux , Puppy Linux and Slitaz . Other distributions target specific niches, such as: The Free Standards Group
4810-605: Is a port of Slackware Linux for the Macintosh New World ROM PowerPC architecture, used by Apple's Power Macintosh , PowerBook , iMac , iBook , and Xserve lines from 1994 until 2006. The last version of Slackintosh was 12.1, released on Jun 7, 2008. Slackintosh's website is still active and version 12.1 is available for download for those who have older PowerPC Macintosh computers. The project developers announced in February 2012 that development
4940-418: Is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network . FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data connections between the client and the server. FTP users may authenticate themselves with a plain-text sign-in protocol, normally in the form of a username and password, but can connect anonymously if
5070-496: Is about 3.67%. Many Linux distributions provide an installation system akin to that provided with other modern operating systems. Other distributions, including Gentoo Linux , provide only the binaries of a basic kernel, compilation tools, and an installer; the installer compiles all the requested software for the specific architecture of the user's computer, using these tools and the software's source code. Distributions are normally segmented into packages . Each package contains
5200-537: Is an extension to the FTP standard that allows clients to request FTP sessions to be encrypted. This is done by sending the "AUTH TLS" command. The server has the option of allowing or denying connections that do not request TLS. This protocol extension is defined in RFC 4217 . Implicit FTPS is an outdated standard for FTP that required the use of a SSL or TLS connection. It was specified to use different ports than plain FTP. The SSH file transfer protocol (chronologically
5330-552: Is an organization formed by major software and hardware vendors that aims to improve interoperability between different distributions. Among their proposed standards are the Linux Standard Base , which defines a common ABI and packaging system for Linux, and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard which recommends a standard filenaming chart, notably the basic directory names found on the root of
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5460-671: Is due to technical, organizational, and philosophical variation among vendors and users. The permissive licensing of free software means that users with sufficient knowledge and interest can customize any existing distribution, or design one to suit their own needs. Rolling Linux distributions are kept current using small and frequent updates . The terms partially rolling and partly rolling (along with synonyms semi-rolling and half-rolling ), fully rolling , truly rolling and optionally rolling are sometimes used by software developers and users. Repositories of rolling distributions usually contain very recent software releases —often
5590-483: Is mostly free and open-source software , it does not have a formal bug tracking facility or public code repository, with releases periodically announced by Volkerding. There is no formal membership procedure for developers and Volkerding is the primary contributor to releases. The name "Slackware" stems from the fact that the distribution started as a private side project with no intended commitment. To prevent it from being taken too seriously at first, Volkerding gave it
5720-422: Is no set time on when to expect a release. Volkerding will release the next version after he feels a suitable number of changes from the previous version have been made and those changes lead to a stable environment. As stated by Patrick Volkerding, "It's usually our policy not to speculate on release dates, since that's what it is — pure speculation. It's not always possible to know how long it will take to make
5850-489: Is not always acceptable. For specific requirements, much software must be carefully configured to be useful, to work correctly with other software, or to be secure, and local administrators are often obliged to spend time reviewing and reconfiguring it. Some (but not all) distributions go to considerable lengths to adjust and customize the software they include, and some provide configuration tools to help users do so. By obtaining and installing everything normally provided in
5980-545: Is not available in source code form, such as a device driver binary . A distro may be described as a particular assortment of application and utility software (various GNU tools and libraries, for example), packaged with the Linux kernel in such a way that its capabilities meet users' needs. The software is usually adapted to the distribution and then combined into software packages by the distribution's maintainers. The software packages are available online in repositories , which are storage locations usually distributed around
6110-424: Is often referred to as "distro hopping". Virtual machine software such as VirtualBox and VMware Workstation virtualize hardware allowing users to test live media on a virtual machine without installing to the real system. Some websites like DistroWatch offer lists of distributions, and link to screenshots of operating systems as a way to get a first impression of various distributions. Some distributions let
6240-627: Is only recommended for small file transfers from a server, due to limitations compared to dedicated client software. It does not support SFTP . Both the native file managers for KDE on Linux ( Dolphin and Konqueror ) support FTP as well as SFTP. On Android , the My Files file manager on Samsung Galaxy has a built-in FTP and SFTP client. For a long time, most common web browsers were able to retrieve files hosted on FTP servers, although not all of them had support for protocol extensions such as FTPS . When an FTP—rather than an HTTP— URL
6370-516: Is sometimes possible on closely related distributions. There are several ways to install a Linux distribution. The most common method of installing Linux is by booting from a live USB memory stick , which can be created by using a USB image writer application and the ISO image, which can be downloaded from various Linux distribution websites. DVD disks, CD disks, network installations and even other hard drives can also be used as "installation media". In
6500-408: Is still in use in mainframe and minicomputer file transfer applications. Data transfer can be done in any of three modes: Most contemporary FTP clients and servers do not implement MODE B or MODE C; FTP clients and servers for mainframe and minicomputer operating systems are the exception to that. Some FTP software also implements a DEFLATE -based compressed mode, sometimes called "Mode Z" after
6630-464: Is supplied, the accessible contents on the remote server are presented in a manner that is similar to that used for other web content. Google Chrome removed FTP support entirely in Chrome 88, also affecting other Chromium -based browsers such as Microsoft Edge . Firefox 88 disabled FTP support by default, with Firefox 90 dropping support entirely. FireFTP is a discontinued browser extension that
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#17327943191306760-401: Is the practice of tunneling a normal FTP session over a Secure Shell connection. Because FTP uses multiple TCP connections (unusual for a TCP/IP protocol that is still in use), it is particularly difficult to tunnel over SSH. With many SSH clients, attempting to set up a tunnel for the control channel (the initial client-to-server connection on port 21) will protect only that channel; when data
6890-574: Is transferred, the FTP software at either end sets up new TCP connections (data channels) and thus have no confidentiality or integrity protection . Otherwise, it is necessary for the SSH client software to have specific knowledge of the FTP protocol, to monitor and rewrite FTP control channel messages and autonomously open new packet forwardings for FTP data channels. Software packages that support this mode include: FTP over SSH should not be confused with SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). Explicit FTPS
7020-471: Is typically held in the device's firmware and may or may not be consumer-accessible. Anaconda , one of the more popular installers, is used by Red Hat Enterprise Linux , Fedora (which uses the Fedora Media Writer ) and other distributions to simplify the installation process. Debian, Ubuntu and many others use Debian-Installer . The process of constantly switching between distributions
7150-480: The .txz filename extension . Prior to 13.0, packages were compressed using gzip (based on the DEFLATE compression algorithm), using the .tgz extension. Support for bzip2 and lzip compression was also added, using the filename extensions .tbz and .tlz respectively, although these are not commonly used. Packages contain all the files for that program, as well as additional metadata files used by
7280-406: The douninst.sh uninstall script, those scripts will be stored in the /var/lib/pkgtools/douninst.sh/ directory while the package is installed. Once removed, the douninst.sh script will be moved to /var/log/pkgtools/removed_uninstall_scripts/ . The package management system does not track or manage dependencies ; however, when performing the recommended full install, all dependencies of
7410-536: The Apple Macintosh , and proprietary versions of Unix . Most early adopters were familiar with Unix from work or school. They embraced Linux distributions for their low (or absent) cost, and the availability of the source code for most or all of their software. As of 2024, Linux has become more popular in server and embedded devices markets than in the desktop market. It is used in approximately 58.9% of web servers; its current operating system market share
7540-414: The IA-32 distribution. Slackware64 is a pure 64-bit distribution in that it does not support running or compiling 32-bit programs, however, it was designed as "multilib-ready". Eric Hameleers, one of the core Slackware team members, maintains a multilib repository that contains the necessary packages to convert Slackware64 to multilib to enable running of 32-bit software. Hameleers started the 64-bit port as
7670-554: The URI prefix " ftp:// ". In 2021, FTP support was dropped by Google Chrome and Firefox , two major web browser vendors, due to it being superseded by the more secure SFTP and FTPS; although neither of them have implemented the newer protocols. The original specification for the File Transfer Protocol was written by Abhay Bhushan and published as RFC 114 on 16 April 1971. Until 1980, FTP ran on NCP ,
7800-477: The install.end text files, which indicate the end of a software series to the setup program. In recent versions, including Slackware release 14.1, the text is ROT13 obfuscated. Slackware was originally derived from the Softlanding Linux System (SLS), the most popular of the original Linux distributions and the first to offer a comprehensive software collection that comprised more than just
7930-425: The software development process , standard releases require significant development effort to keep old versions up-to-date by propagating bug fixes back to the newest branch, versus focusing on the newest development branch . Also, unlike rolling releases, standard releases require more than one code branch to be developed and maintained, which increases the workload of the software developers and maintainers. On
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#17327943191308060-400: The 1990s, Linux distributions were installed using sets of floppy disks but this has been abandoned by all major distributions. By the 2000s many distributions offered CD and DVD sets with the vital packages on the first disc and less important packages on later ones. Some distributions, such as Debian also enabled installation over a network after booting from either a set of floppy disks or
8190-951: The 32bit hardware was unable to keep pace with the development of Slackware and was inhibiting development, and the limitations of the hardware became a blocker to the adoption of the latest technologies. Additionally since most of the other mainstream distributions ceased support for 32bit ARM, some of the applications failed to build and were no longer supportable. There is however the unofficial Slackware port BonSlack that provide both soft (ARMv5) and hard float (ARMv7) ports for 32bit ARM, with development and updates (from 14.2) aligned with official Slackware. This project also provides ports for Aarch64 (ARM64), Alpha , HPPA (PA-RISC 1.1), LoongArch (64 bit), MIPS (32/64bit), OpenRISC , PowerPC (32/64bit), RISC-V (64bit), S/390x , SH-4 , SPARC (32/64bit), and x86 (32bit with 64bit time_t) architectures. On Dec 21 2022, Slackware ARM 14.2 had its EOL (End of Life) declared as 1st March 2023. Slackintosh
8320-525: The ARM port, and proceeded to announce that a 32-bit hardware floating port was in development. The port was released in August 2016 in "current" form. On 28th December 2020 work began on porting Slackware to the 64-bit ARM architecture (known as 'AArch64'), with the initial Hardware Model targets being the PINE64's RockPro64 and Pinebook Pro. It was functionally complete by May 2021, and has many improvements over
8450-453: The DNS for the store". Slackware ISO images (2.6 GB) for installation can be downloaded for free at the Slackware website via BitTorrent , FTP mirrors, and HTTP mirrors. Slackware port for IBM S/390 ( EOL : 2009)) can be downloaded, and installs from a DOS Partition or from floppy disk. Slackware port for ARM architecture can be downloaded, and installed via a network, using Das U-Boot and
8580-541: The FTP client to the server. This is widely used by modern FTP clients. Another approach is for the NAT to alter the values of the PORT command, using an application-level gateway for this purpose. While transferring data over the network, five data types are defined: Note these data types are commonly called "modes", although ambiguously that word is also used to refer to active-vs-passive communication mode (see above), and
8710-508: The IA-32 architecture and releases were available as 32-bit only. However, starting with Slackware 13.0, a 64-bit x86_64 variant is available and officially supported in symmetrical development with the 32-bit platform. Prior to the release of Slackware64 users wanting 64-bit were required to use unofficial ports such as slamd64 . Slackware is also available for the IBM S/390 architecture in
8840-587: The Internet towards internal hosts. For NATs, an additional complication is that the representation of the IP addresses and port number in the PORT command refer to the internal host's IP address and port, rather than the public IP address and port of the NAT. There are two approaches to solve this problem. One is that the FTP client and FTP server use the PASV command, which causes the data connection to be established from
8970-465: The Linux kernel. Commonly, it includes a package manager , an init system (such as systemd , OpenRC , or runit ), GNU tools and libraries , documentation, IP network configuration utilities, the getty TTY setup program, and many more. To provide a desktop experience (most commonly the Mesa userspace graphics drivers) a display server (the most common being the X.org Server , or, more recently,
9100-655: The November 2013 release of 14.1 and June 2016, Slackware saw a 31-month gap between releases, marking the longest span in release history. During this time the development branch went without updates for 47 days. However, on April 21, 2015, Patrick Volkerding apologized on the ChangeLog for the absence of updates and stated that the development team used the time to get "some good work done." There were over 700 program changes listed on that ChangeLog entry, including many major library upgrades. In January 2016, Volkerding announced
9230-526: The RockPro64, Pinebook Pro and Raspberry Pi 3 & 4, with online installation documentation and video installation guides. Also the unofficial slarm64 project has a port for AArch64, and an additional port for riscv64 architecture. In March 2022 official development of the ARM 32bit port of Slackware ceased, with future development concentrated solely on the AArch64/ARM64 port. This was because
9360-447: The SSH file transfer protocol as well. Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a simple, lock-step FTP that allows a client to get a file from or put a file onto a remote host. One of its primary uses is in the early stages of booting from a local area network , because TFTP is very simple to implement. TFTP lacks security and most of the advanced features offered by more robust file transfer protocols such as File Transfer Protocol. TFTP
9490-418: The Slackware project for several years." In his release notes for Slackware 10.0 and 10.1 Volkerding thanks Eric Hameleers for "his work on supporting USB, PCI, and Cardbus wireless cards". Starting with version 12.0 there is, for a second time, a team building around Volkerding. According to the release notes of 12.2, the development team consists of seven people. Future versions added people. Since version 13.0,
9620-557: The Slackware team seems to have core members. Eric Hameleers gives an insight into the core team with his essay on the "History of Slackware Development", written on October 3–4, 2009 (shortly after the release of version 13.0). Slackware's package management system, collectively known as pkgtools, can administer ( pkgtool ), install ( installpkg ), upgrade ( upgradepkg ), and remove ( removepkg ) packages from local sources. It can also uncompress ( explodepkg ) and create ( makepkg ) packages. The official tool to update Slackware over
9750-463: The URL ftp://public.ftp-servers.example.com/mydirectory/myfile.txt represents the file myfile.txt from the directory mydirectory on the server public.ftp-servers.example.com as an FTP resource. The URL ftp://user001:secretpassword@private.ftp-servers.example.com/mydirectory/myfile.txt adds a specification of the username and password that must be used to access this resource. More details on specifying
9880-503: The additional metadata files and they encourage package maintainers to not deviate unless necessary. Two Slackware team members, Eric Hameleers and Robby Workman each have their own repository of pre-compiled packages along with the SlackBuilds and source files used to create the packages. While most packages are just additional software not included in Slackware that they felt was worth their time to maintain, some packages are used as
10010-606: The case of IBM PC compatibles , the OS is usually Microsoft Windows ; in the case of Apple 's Mac computers, it has always been macOS ; Sun Microsystems sold SPARC hardware with the Solaris installed; video game consoles such as the Xbox , PlayStation , Wii , and the Nintendo Switch each have their own proprietary OS. This limits Linux's market share: consumers are unaware that an alternative exists, they must make
10140-427: The changelogs for versions 8.1, 9.0, 9.1, 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 11.0, and 12.0 stating that, effective August 1, 2012, security patches would no longer be provided for these versions. The oldest release, version 8.1, was released on June 18, 2002 and had over 10 years of support before reaching EOL . Later, on August 30, 2013, announcements were made on the changelogs of 12.1 and 12.2 stating their EOL on December 9, 2013. It
10270-511: The command that enables it. This mode was described in an Internet Draft , but not standardized. GridFTP defines additional modes, MODE E and MODE X, as extensions of MODE B. More recent implementations of FTP support the Modify Fact: Modification Time (MFMT) command, which allows a client to adjust that file attribute remotely, enabling the preservation of that attribute when uploading files. To retrieve
10400-471: The community. The community responded and as of October 2016, there are several active GNOME projects for Slackware. These include Cinnamon , Dlackware, Dropline GNOME , MATE , and SlackMATE. The removal was deemed significant by some in the Linux community due to the prevalence of GNOME in many distributions. In May 2009, Patrick Volkerding announced the public (development) release of an official x86_64 variant, called Slackware64, maintained in parallel with
10530-535: The computers at school. Volkerding had made notes describing fixes to issues he found after installing SLS and he and his professor went through and applied those changes to a new installation. However, this took almost as long as it took to just install SLS, so the professor asked if the install disks could be adjusted so the fixes could be applied during installation. This was the start of Slackware. Volkerding continued making improvements to SLS: fixing bugs, upgrading software, automatic installation of shared libraries and
10660-501: The control connection with three-digit status codes in ASCII with an optional text message. For example, "200" (or "200 OK") means that the last command was successful. The numbers represent the code for the response and the optional text represents a human-readable explanation or request (e.g. <Need account for storing file>). An ongoing transfer of file data over the data connection can be aborted using an interrupt message sent over
10790-435: The control connection. FTP needs two ports (one for sending and one for receiving) because it was originally designed to operate on top of Network Control Protocol (NCP), which was a simplex protocol that utilized two port addresses , establishing two connections, for two-way communications. An odd and an even port were reserved for each application layer application or protocol. The standardization of TCP and UDP reduced
10920-447: The directories to a dedicated location under /var/lib/pkgtools/ to prevent accidental deletion when clearing system logs. Each Slackware installation will contain a packages/ and scripts/ directory in the main database location. The former is where each package installed will have a corresponding install log file (based on the package name, version, arch, and build) that contains the package size, both compressed and uncompressed,
11050-522: The form of Slack/390 and for the ARM architecture under Slackware ARM (originally known as 'ARMedslack'). Both ports have been declared "official" by Patrick Volkerding. However, the S/390 port is still at version 10.0 for the stable version and 11.0 for the testing/developmental version, and has had no updates since 2009. Also, on May 7, 2016, the developer of Slackware ARM announced 14.1 will be EOL on September 1, 2016 and development of -current will cease with
11180-458: The installation media. However, there are many third-party repositories for Slackware; some are standalone repositories and others are for distributions that are Slackware-based but retain package compatibility with Slackware. Many of these can be searched at once using pkgs.org, which is a Linux package search engine. However, mixing and matching dependencies from multiple repositories can lead to two or more packages that require different versions of
11310-424: The interface to retrieve the files hosted on FTP servers. DownloadStudio allows not only download a file from FTP server but also view the list of files on a FTP server. LibreOffice declared its FTP support deprecated from 7.4 release, this was later removed in 24.2 release. FTP was not designed to be a secure protocol, and has many security weaknesses. In May 1999, the authors of RFC 2577 listed
11440-481: The kernel and basic utilities, including an X11 graphical interface, TCP/IP , UUCP networking, and GNU Emacs . Patrick Volkerding started with SLS after needing a LISP interpreter for a school project at the then named Moorhead State University (MSU). He found CLISP was available for Linux and downloaded SLS to run it. A few weeks later, Volkerding was asked by his artificial intelligence professor at MSU to show him how to install Linux at home and on some of
11570-438: The kernel image, fixing file permissions, and more. In a short time, Volkerding had upgraded around half the packages beyond what SLS had available. Volkerding had no intentions to provide his modified SLS version for the public. His friends at MSU urged him to put his SLS modifications onto an FTP server, but Volkerding assumed that "SLS would be putting out a new version that included these things soon enough", so he held off for
11700-459: The latest stable versions available. They have pseudo-releases and installation media that are simply snapshots of the distribution at the time of the installation image's release. Typically, a rolling-release OS installed from older installation medium can be fully updated after it is installed. Depending on the usage case, there can be pros and cons to both standard release and rolling release software development methodologies . In terms of
11830-583: The modes set by the FTP protocol MODE command (see below). For text files (TYPE A and TYPE E), three different format control options are provided, to control how the file would be printed: These formats were mainly relevant to line printers ; most contemporary FTP clients/servers only support the default format control of N. File organization is specified using the STRU command. The following file structures are defined in section 3.1.1 of RFC959: Most contemporary FTP clients and servers only support STRU F. STRU R
11960-517: The name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro, if distributed on its own, is often obtained via a website intended specifically for the purpose. Distros have been designed for a wide variety of systems ranging from personal computers (for example, Linux Mint ) to servers (for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux ) and from embedded devices (for example, OpenWrt ) to supercomputers (for example, Rocks Cluster Distribution ). A distro typically includes many components in addition to
12090-415: The need for the use of two simplex ports for each application down to one duplex port, but the FTP protocol was never altered to only use one port, and continued using two for backwards compatibility. FTP normally transfers data by having the server connect back to the client, after the PORT command is sent by the client. This is problematic for both NATs and firewalls, which do not allow connections from
12220-435: The need to change the contents of the system's hard disk drive. The website DistroWatch lists many Linux distributions and displays some of the ones that have the most web traffic on the site. The Wikimedia Foundation released an analysis of the browser User Agents of visitors to WMF websites until 2015, which includes details of the most popular Operating System identifiers, including some Linux distributions. Many of
12350-399: The next stable release, at which point Volkerding will start a new -current to start developing for the next release of Slackware. While this version is generally known to be stable, it is possible for things to break, so -current tends to not be recommended for production systems. Currently, Slackware has no officially stated support term policy. However, on June 14, 2012, notices appeared in
12480-444: The official Slackware announce files list David Cantrell and Logan Johnson as part of the "Slackware team". Later announce statements, up to release version 8.1, include Chris Lumens. Lumens, Johnson and Cantrell are also the authors of the first edition of "Slackware Linux Essentials", the official guide to Slackware Linux. The Slackware website mentions Chris Lumens and David Cantrell as being "Slackware Alumni", who "worked full-time on
12610-797: The operating system is booted from a read-only medium such as a CD or DVD, any user data that needs to be retained between sessions cannot be stored on the boot device but must be written to another storage device, such as a USB flash drive or a hard disk drive. Many Linux distributions provide a "live" form in addition to their conventional form, which is a network-based or removable-media image intended to be used only for installation; such distributions include SUSE , Ubuntu, Linux Mint , MEPIS and Fedora Linux . Some distributions, including Knoppix , Puppy Linux , Devil-Linux, SuperGamer , SliTaz GNU/Linux and dyne:bolic , are designed primarily for live use. Additionally, some minimal distributions can be run directly from as little space as one floppy disk without
12740-485: The original design and implementation of the ARM port - particularly in regards to the management and enablement of new Hardware Models by the Slackware ARM community. Additionally, the boot and installation processes were improved significantly - making the installation process far easier and more streamlined. On Mar 29th 2022 Slackware AArch64 was publicly released in -current (development) form with support for
12870-450: The other hand, software features and technology planning are easier in standard releases due to a better understanding of upcoming features in the next version(s). Software release cycles can also be synchronized with those of major upstream software projects, such as desktop environments . As for the user experience , standard releases are often viewed as more stable and bug-free since software conflicts can be more easily addressed and
13000-450: The other with a set of GNU utilities and tools for setting up a file system. Since the installation procedure was complicated, especially in the face of growing amounts of available software, distributions sprang up to simplify it. Early distributions included: The two oldest, still active distribution projects started in 1993. The SLS distribution was not well maintained, so in July 1993
13130-620: The package manager doesn't manage dependencies, it will install any and all packages, whether or not dependencies are met. A user may find out that dependencies are missing only when attempting to use the software. While Slackware itself does not incorporate official tools to resolve dependencies, some unofficial, community-supported software tools do provide this function, similar to the way APT does for Debian -based distributions and yum does for Red Hat -based distributions. They include There are no official repositories for Slackware. The only official packages Slackware provides are available on
13260-415: The package manager. The package tarball contains the full directory structure of the files and is meant to be extracted in the system's root directory during installation. The additional metadata files, located under the special install/ directory within the tarball, usually include a slack-desc file, which is a specifically formatted text file that is read by the package manager to provide users with
13390-475: The popular distributions are listed below. Several operating systems include the Linux kernel, but have a userland that differs significantly from that of mainstream Linux distributions: Whether such operating systems count as a "Linux distribution" is a controversial topic. They use the Linux kernel, so the Linux Foundation and Chris DiBona , Google's former open-source chief, agree that Android
13520-467: The predecessor of TCP/IP . The protocol was later replaced by a TCP/IP version, RFC 765 (June 1980) and RFC 959 (October 1985), the current specification. Several proposed standards amend RFC 959 , for example RFC 1579 (February 1994) enables Firewall-Friendly FTP (passive mode), RFC 2228 (June 1997) proposes security extensions, RFC 2428 (September 1998) adds support for IPv6 and defines
13650-463: The release of 14.2, however support for 14.2 will be maintained for the foreseeable future. The EOL announcement for 14.1 was added to the changelog on June 25, 2016, and the EOL announcement for 14.2 was added to the changelog on December 21, 2022. In July 2016, the developer of Slackware ARM announced that the development and build tools had been enhanced to reduce the manual effort involved in maintaining
13780-424: The release progression became more stable and typically occurred once per year. After that point, the only years with two releases were 2003, 2005 and 2008. However, since the release of Slackware 14.1 in 2013, new releases have slowed down drastically. There was a more than 2-year gap between 14.1 and 14.2 and over a 5 year gap to 15.0. Upon the release of 15.0, Volkerding stated that Slackware 15.1 will hopefully have
13910-401: The reluctant addition of PulseAudio , primarily due to BlueZ dropping direct ALSA support in v5.x. while various other projects were in turn dropping support for BlueZ v4.x. Knowing some users would not be happy with the change, he stated that "Bug reports, complaints, and threats can go to me." These changes culminated in the release of Slackware 14.2 in June 2016. David Cantrell worked as
14040-448: The rolling release model can have advantages in timely security updates, fixing system or application security bugs and vulnerabilities , that standard releases may have to wait till the next release for or patch in various versions. In a rolling release distribution, where the user has chosen to run it as a highly dynamic system, the constant flux of software packages can introduce new unintended vulnerabilities. A "live" distribution
14170-516: The same dependency, which is a form of dependency hell . Slackware itself won't provide any dependency resolution for these packages, however some projects will provide a list of dependencies that are not included with Slackware with the files for the package, commonly with a .dep extension. Due to the possibility of dependency issues, many users choose to compile their own programs using community-provided SlackBuilds. SlackBuilds are shell scripts that will create an installable Slackware package from
14300-464: The second of the two protocols abbreviated SFTP) transfers files and has a similar command set for users, but uses the Secure Shell protocol (SSH) to transfer files. Unlike FTP, it encrypts both commands and data, preventing passwords and sensitive information from being transmitted openly over the network. It cannot interoperate with FTP software, though some FTP client software offers support for
14430-790: The server is configured to allow it. For secure transmission that protects the username and password, and encrypts the content, FTP is often secured with SSL/TLS ( FTPS ) or replaced with SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). The first FTP client applications were command-line programs developed before operating systems had graphical user interfaces , and are still shipped with most Windows , Unix , and Linux operating systems. Many dedicated FTP clients and automation utilities have since been developed for desktops , servers, mobile devices, and hardware, and FTP has been incorporated into productivity applications such as HTML editors and file managers . An FTP client used to be commonly integrated in web browsers , where file servers are browsed with
14560-505: The service with an 'anonymous' (lower-case and case-sensitive in some FTP servers) account when prompted for user name. Although users are commonly asked to send their email address instead of a password, no verification is actually performed on the supplied data. Many FTP hosts whose purpose is to provide software updates will allow anonymous logins. Many file managers tend to have FTP access implemented, such as File Explorer (formerly Windows Explorer) on Microsoft Windows . This client
14690-473: The site and, once approved, they become the "package maintainer". They are then responsible for providing updates to the SlackBuild, either to fix issues or to build newer versions provided by upstream . To ensure all programs can be compiled and used, any required dependencies of the software not included with Slackware are required to be documented and be available on the site. All submissions are tested by
14820-501: The site's administrators before being added to the repository. The administrators intend for the build process to be nearly identical to the way Slackware's official packages are built, mainly to ensure Volkerding was "sympathetic of our cause". This allows SlackBuilds that Volkerding deems worthy to be pulled into regular Slackware with minimal changes to the script. It also prevent users from suggesting Volkerding to change his scripts to match SBo's. SBo provides templates for SlackBuilds and
14950-407: The software description, and the full path of all files that were installed. If the package contained an optional doinst.sh post-installation script, the contents of that script will be added to a file in the scripts/ directory matching the filename of the corresponding package in the packages/ directory, allowing the administrator to view the post-installation script at a future point. When
15080-507: The software stack more thoroughly tested and evaluated, during the software development cycle. For this reason, they tend to be the preferred choice in enterprise environments and mission-critical tasks. However, rolling releases offer more current software which can also provide increased stability and fewer software bugs along with the additional benefits of new features, greater functionality, faster running speeds, and improved system and application security . Regarding software security ,
15210-544: The source, verify the source is not corrupt, and calculate additional dependencies that are not part of Slackware. Some repositories will include both SlackBuilds and the resulting Slackware packages, allowing users to either build their own or install a pre-built package. The only officially endorsed SlackBuilds repository is SlackBuilds.org, commonly referred to as SBo. This is a community-supported project offering SlackBuilds for building software not included with Slackware. Users are able to submit new SlackBuilds for software to
15340-444: The stock packages are met. For custom installations or 3rd-party packages, Slackware relies on the user to ensure that the system has all the supporting system libraries and programs required by the program. Since no official lists of dependencies for stock packages are provided, if users decide to install a custom installation or install 3rd-party software, they will need to work through any possible missing dependencies themselves. Since
15470-462: The testing/ directory of -current as a replacement for the XFree86 packages currently being used, with a request for comments on what the future of the X Window System in Slackware should be. A month later, he switched from XFree86 to X.Org Server after stating that the opinions were more than 4 to 1 in favor of using the X.org release as the default version of X. He stated the decision was primarily
15600-435: The tree of any Linux filesystem. Those standards, however, see limited use, even among the distributions developed by members of the organization. The diversity of Linux distributions means that not all software runs on all distributions, depending on what libraries and other system attributes are required. Packaged software and software repositories are usually specific to a particular distribution, though cross-installation
15730-467: The upgrades needed and tie up all the related loose ends. As things are built for the upcoming release, they'll be uploaded into the -current tree." Throughout Slackware's history, they generally tried to deliver up-to-date software on at least an annual basis. From its inception until 2014, Slackware had at least one release per year. Release activity peaked in 1994, 1995, 1997 and 1999, with three releases each year. Starting with version 7.1 (June 22, 2000)
15860-406: The user does not have to trust a third-party packager; furthermore the local compilation process allows for machine-specific optimization. In comparison to manual compilation and installation of software, SlackBuilds provide cleaner integration to the system by utilizing Slackware's package manager. Some SlackBuilds will come with an additional file with metadata that allows automated tools to download
15990-467: The user install Linux on top of their current system, such as WinLinux or coLinux . Linux is installed to the Windows hard disk partition, and can be started from inside Windows itself. Virtual machines (such as VirtualBox or VMware ) also make it possible for Linux to be run inside another OS. The VM software simulates a separate computer onto which the Linux system is installed. After installation,
16120-644: The virtual machine can be booted as if it were an independent computer. Various tools are also available to perform full dual-boot installations from existing platforms without a CD, most notably: Some specific proprietary software products are not available in any form for Linux. As of September 2015, the Steam gaming service has over 1,500 games available on Linux, compared to 2,323 games for Mac and 6,500 Windows games. Emulation and API-translation projects like Wine and CrossOver make it possible to run non-Linux-based software on Linux systems, either by emulating
16250-724: The world. Beside "glue" components, such as the distribution installers (for example, Debian-Installer and Anaconda ) and the package management systems, very few packages are actually written by a distribution's maintainers. Distributions have been designed for a wide range of computing environments, including desktops , servers , laptops , netbooks , mobile devices (phones and tablets), and embedded systems . There are commercially backed distributions, such as Fedora Linux ( Red Hat ), openSUSE ( SUSE ) and Ubuntu ( Canonical Ltd. ), and entirely community-driven distributions, such as Debian , Slackware , Gentoo and Arch Linux . Most distributions come ready-to-use and prebuilt for
16380-460: Was designed as a full-featured FTP client to be run within Firefox , but when Firefox dropped support for FTP the extension developer recommended using Waterfox . Some browsers, such as the text-based Lynx , still support FTP. FTP URL syntax is described in RFC 1738 , taking the form: ftp://[user[:password]@]host[:port]/[url-path] (the bracketed parts are optional). For example,
16510-681: Was distributed on July 17, 1993, at 00:16:36 (UTC), and was supplied as twenty-four 3½" floppy disk images. After the announcement was made, Volkerding watched as the flood of FTP connections continually crashed the server. Soon afterwards, Walnut Creek CDROM offered additional archive space on their FTP servers. The size of Slackware quickly increased with the addition of included software, and by version 2.1, released October 1994, it had more than tripled to comprise seventy-three 1.44M floppy disk images. In 1999, Slackware saw its version jump from 4 to 7. Slackware version numbers were lagging behind other distributions, and this led many users to believe it
16640-517: Was frozen and 12.1 would be able to receive security patches for one month. The next month, it was announced that the stable release is frozen and won't receive any further updates unless someone else decides to take over. This never happened and Volkerding officially declared the project dead in July 2021. Slackware 14.2 CD sets, single DVDs, and merchandise were available from the third-party-controlled Slackware store, but due to underpayment, Patrick Volkerding , "told them to take it down or I'd suspend
16770-429: Was out of date even though the bundled software versions were similar. Volkerding made the decision to bump the version as a marketing effort to show that Slackware was as up-to-date as other Linux distributions, many of which had release numbers of 6 at the time. He chose 7, estimating that most other distributions would soon be at this release number. In April 2004, Patrick Volkerding added X.Org Server packages into
16900-596: Was stated in the changelog entries that they had at least 5 years of support. On April 6, 2018, versions of 13.0, 13.1 and 13.37 were declared reaching their EOL on July 5, 2018. It was stated in the changelog entries that they had at least 7 years of support (13.0 had been supported almost 9 years). On October 9, 2023 the changelog for 14.2 stated that 14.0, 14.1 and 14.2 will be EOL effective January 1, 2024. While there have been no official announcements for versions prior to 8.1, they are no longer maintained and are effectively EOL. Historically, Slackware concentrated solely on
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