Slackware 14 Released
After five beta cycles, Slackware 14.0 arrives with many improvements and enhancements. The latest version offers two desktop environments: Xfce 4.10.0 and KDE 4.8.5.
According to the website, these desktops utilize udev, udisks, and udisks2, as well as many specifications from freedesktop.org. These allow admins to grant use of hardware devices according to users’ group membership, thus enabling use of USB flash sticks, portable hard drives, CD and DVD media, etc., without requiring sudo, the mount, or umount command.
Slackware uses the 3.2.29 kernel, with performance features such as journaling filesystems, SCSI, and ATA RAID volume support, SATA support, software RAID, LVM, and encrypted filesystems. Kernel support for X DRI (the Direct Rendering Interface) brings high-speed hardware accelerated 3D graphics to Linux.
Slackware has two Linux kernel options: huge and generic. The huge kernel contains built-in support for just about every driver in the Linux kernel. In the generic kernel, nearly every driver is built as a module. Slackware’s Linux kernels come in both SMP and non-SMP types. The SMP kernel supports multiple processors, multi-core CPUs, HyperThreading, and other optimizations. The developers recommend using the SMP kernel – even on single processor machines if it will run on them. Note that on 64-bit machines, all kernels are SMP capable. You can read the long list of changes and additions at: http://www.slackware.com/announce/14.0.php. Slackware Linux 14.0 is available for download from the central Slackware FTP site.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Rhino Linux Announces Latest "Quick Update"
If you prefer your Linux distribution to be of the rolling type, Rhino Linux delivers a beautiful and reliable experience.
-
Plasma Desktop Will Soon Ask for Donations
The next iteration of Plasma has reached the soft feature freeze for the 6.2 version and includes a feature that could be divisive.
-
Linux Market Share Hits New High
For the first time, the Linux market share has reached a new high for desktops, and the trend looks like it will continue.
-
LibreOffice 24.8 Delivers New Features
LibreOffice is often considered the de facto standard office suite for the Linux operating system.
-
Deepin 23 Offers Wayland Support and New AI Tool
Deepin has been considered one of the most beautiful desktop operating systems for a long time and the arrival of version 23 has bolstered that reputation.
-
CachyOS Adds Support for System76's COSMIC Desktop
The August 2024 release of CachyOS includes support for the COSMIC desktop as well as some important bits for video.
-
Linux Foundation Adopts OMI to Foster Ethical LLMs
The Open Model Initiative hopes to create community LLMs that rival proprietary models but avoid restrictive licensing that limits usage.
-
Ubuntu 24.10 to Include the Latest Linux Kernel
Ubuntu users have grown accustomed to their favorite distribution shipping with a kernel that's not quite as up-to-date as other distros but that changes with 24.10.
-
Plasma Desktop 6.1.4 Release Includes Improvements and Bug Fixes
The latest release from the KDE team improves the KWin window and composite managers and plenty of fixes.
-
Manjaro Team Tests Immutable Version of its Arch-Based Distribution
If you're a fan of immutable operating systems, you'll be thrilled to know that the Manjaro team is working on an immutable spin that is now available for testing.