I sent an email ages ago to try to get a bit of Slackware action, lacking in an otherwise great magazine (Linux Format), and I believe the email has been published as 'Letter of the Month'. Not sure which issue of the magazine this is, hopefully somebody has the most recent copy? My own copy comes from my local library so I am always a little behind...

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I guess I speak for all of us when I say that I'm becoming quite excited about the new release. It has been a long time coming, but I'm sure it will be epic. I was tracking current until about 6 months ago - but then things moved (too?) fast and I got cold feet.

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I've got current on a couple of old Thinkpads (core duo vintage). One has 4Gb ram, an SSD and a full install of 32 bit, the other only has 2Gb ram and spinning rust so xfce4 only but 64 bit. These machines don't matter if the installation gets clobbered but I do read the change log and posts here before updating to try and keep ahead of the radical changes one associates with a development project.

Posting off the full install using Plasma - I'm pretty impressed with the range of KDE applications now included in a default install...

A usable GUI sound recorder, a well-known video editor, image editors and painting and vector art programs, and various tools for writing documents, including Kate and a good chunk of LaTeX as well as the venerable groff and gnuplot. My project over the weekend is to see if Krita and Karbon want to work with an old Intuos graphics tablet we have in a cupboard.

You also get perl, php, mariadb, apache, two Pythons complete with IDEs and two Lisps. Not to mention gcc and llvm/rust! And a choice of vi-like editors, That Other Editor and the likes of nano/pico.

Slackware truly is an operating system for learning.

I reckon that a jdk and LibreOffice might at a stretch be the only slackbuilds I need to support my normal computer use (which is fairly basic) because alas Calligra Words remains unusable for me which is a real shame. Nothing to do with Slackware, and I understand the reasons for not having LibreOffice in a default install. Krita, Karbon and the flowcharts app are useful to me.

I'll probably add audacity from alienbob's repository as I am familiar with its interface. SoX is hilarious good fun for sound generation.

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My colleague tells me that this short advertisement for Slackware is in the March 2021 edition of Linux Format...

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Good letter andrew.46 and good plug. It's a shame that release cycles drive publicity and interest. I'm still happily using 14.2 and only have the kernel upgraded to 5.4.105 to ensure I had the necessary drivers for my Acer laptop. Though I am eagerly awaiting 15.0. I am a little concerned over the upgrade process as I haven't been following current but have been following that a lot has changed.

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The imminent release of v15 is creating substantial churn. I'm seeing quite a few posts in the Slackware sub section of Reddit this month. Cool leter, BTW. Kudos.

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LOL

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I like the way you think! I certainly hope it's imminent.

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I noticed while updating yesterday that slackpkg now comes with a new mirrors file that includes a repository for Slackware 15. But if you uncomment it, you just get a 404 error.

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Slackware 15.0 has not been released yet. Slackware 14.2 users cannot upgrade to slackpkg 15.0.1 so no need to keep those mirrors in /etc/slackpkg/mirrors.

Thanks for doing that, Andrew! I will also reach out to them next week.

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That Gotcha got me too for a minute but I finally figured it was just preparation and that maybe "imminent"was too strong a word or our sense of Time and Patience vary substantially

BTW, hazel, not meant to be too personal at all but I would like to say it's been a pleasure to see someone with a strong computing background but somewhat new to Slackware adapt so quickly and contribute effectively to LQN. ... just a heartfelt "Welcome Aboard".

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