Time brings change, but do we always want change? Is a puzzlement.
Namely, all I do in my Slackware 14.1 is text or reduces to text fairly
easily. I work in a twm environment; I use emacs and in extreme cases
I'll go to TeX. I have a template node that whenever I open another
topic or tree, populates in one stroke the (text) files I'll probably
need for the work there. Over years past I've seen a lot of new and
abstract development I do not need, so I'm not interested in that. Over
the past 40 years or so I've come to feel, why do I need anything new?
How about, more attention to saving files into something, like flash
memory? Speaking of which, *what is* the reliably expectable life of
flash memory? ??
This is much like the practical experience of working on a typewriter,
except Slackware and its malleable text, are *very* much faster and
powerful. Typewriter tech is obviously finished; it looks to me like
today, my Slackware could be finished. Oops, by 'finished' I mean
'complete' not 'no longer usable.'
I was just now looking at the old aolsfaq.txt file, which is dated 2015
Feb 04. I wonder if today's Slackware has arrived at a state of
practically -- *finished.* Is my howto thinking calcified, or,
is the topic finished and I want to go out and get on with the work? ??
Titeotwawki -- Martha Adams [Sun 2020 Mar 08]
You are aware even Slackware's stable versions always have changelogs
(since long ago) on Slackware.com, right? One generally needs to be
upgrading to those changes, because most are security. They might've
added some new packages, but unsure: that may only be for Slackware-
current.
So, no: stable Slackware doesn't date to 2015, rather than maybe earlier
this week.
That being said, mostly things remained same (like KDE, etc., branches
from 2015 or '16) and on newer and current versions, some things are
changing too fast (like I saw people earlier say they're sticking to
older stable versions, like I did for a time to use KDE3, because I hate
things about KDE4,5. Some people on freenode IRC ##slackware described
KDE0 was great then things degenerated from there. I'm younger than them
so only transitioned from popular GUIs (though I used DOS) to KDE3.5,
then KDE4, and I must say I do like KDE4's main, Dolphin, file manager
more, and so do some of those older programmers/scientists, even.
However now KDE requires PAM... and probably already required emulation
of systemd... I do not like how that is headed. I could do with
something like (NsCDE) replicating Windows 3, or (less likely now) the
Trinity Desktop Environment (TDE) fork of KDE3... I don't want PAM and
even might not want systemd emulation if I'll be quitting newer KDE.)
I don't know why you didn't upgrade to 14.2, but Slackware definitely
still is usable, despite people talking of forking it (or switching to
something such as a Free/Libre/Opensource Software (F/LS, OSS, FOSS,
FLOSS) Unix like *BSD/Solaris)... and Slackware-current definitely is
even usable in more ways as long as you don't try to be 'bleeding-
edge' (doing too many kernel updates too fast without keeping an old one
installed, which is possible but takes a minute or few longer.)
In the '00s when USB flash drives came out (and portable machines using
it, like cameras) I didn't start using it until my computer science
majoring classwork no longer fit on floppy/stiffy discs. I'm surprised
people haven't moved to flash storage, while maybe keeping a backup hard
disc drive (HDD.) Smaller flash might be cheaper, easier to keep more
duplicate copies of important stuff, and faster than making an entire
backup (though one should daily.) Current flash is much, much faster to
boot an operating system (OS) than HDDs.
I still find it easier to boot strictly Unix[-like] OSes like Slackware
from CD/DVD because from USB flash (ud) drive or pre-mounted filesystem
(fs,) you always have to remember to finish the 'chosen directory' (even
USB!) with /slackware64 (like /mnt/ud0/slackware64, or /mnt/fs0/
slackware64, which you won't see those unless you had setup BSD-style
mount-points yourself, but might see something similar (/mnt/*)... I
often forgot that then it said it installed in like 1sec but didn't... so
I want to stick to CD/DVD installations, because I still need to make
those possible for classic PCs.
So you may or may not find flash better in some ways (worse in others.)
2020s flash is higher-quality than 2010s flash is higher-quality than
00's flash like takes longer to go corrupt/dead/non-bootable... but I
don't know the expectancy. You won't know (in contrast to knowing with
HDDs) soon before it's dead, and will have zero recovery; it's just
faster, more convenient, and sometimes cheaper.
Flash really isn't much of an issue as much as other updates for better
with 14.2, and maybe other updates (also maybe for worse) so far after
that.
Anyway, Slackware is far from dead; it now has a larger, more productive
official team, updating stable version (for download) daily/weekly,
whenever necessary for bugfixes/security. In the future, one may want to
disable/remove PAM for server usage (or if one is worried about PAM
updates also for desktop, which may or not be a problem) but other than
that everything is normal and improving (well, besides having a less-
flashy more-powerful desktop environment, DE, but prominent Slackware
developers/team-members are working on other ones people can try.)
What other reason would there be that it's 'no longer usable?' I
understand wanting KDE3/TDE so staying on 13.* or whatever, but
basically, 14.2 is an improvement on 14.1 with no recognizable
differences other than improved/newer/bugfixed versions of the same
software... you probably won't get user-oriented updates to 14.1 (no
upgrades for usabilty,) only security updates, so it's worth upgrading
(you can even do it another way without reboot! ... as described/
documented by a Slackware team member) to 14.2 unless I missed something
major that only works on 14.1?