Slackware 14.2slackware-14.2

Thu Jun 30 20:26:57 UTC 2016
Slackware 14.2 x86_64 stable is released!

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.

The ISOs are off to be replicated, a 6 CD-ROM 32-bit set and a dual-sided
32-bit/64-bit x86/x86_64 DVD.  Please consider supporting the Slackware
project by picking up a copy from store.slackware.com.  We're taking
pre-orders now, and offer a discount if you sign up for a subscription.

Have fun!  :-)

1 files changed, 40 insertions, 49 deletions

diff --git a/RELEASE_NOTES b/RELEASE_NOTES
index ef1aad34..01eb6ad4 100644
--- a/RELEASE_NOTES
+++ b/RELEASE_NOTES
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 
-Slackware 14.1 release notes.  Mon Nov  4 16:09:25 UTC 2013
+Slackware 14.2 release notes.  Thu Jun 30 22:37:15 UTC 2016
 
 Hi folks,
 
@@ -8,9 +8,9 @@ information, but once again Robby Workman has covered the important
 technical details in CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT.  Thanks!
 
     After jumping ahead through various Linux kernel branches over
-the course of this development cycle, we ended up on the 3.10.x
+the course of this development cycle, we ended up on the 4.4.x
 branch and decided to stick with it.  Greg Kroah-Hartman's
-announcement back in August that the 3.10 series would be getting
+announcement back in October that the 4.4 series would be getting
 a long-term support for two years helped to cement this decision
 and should be good news for anyone wanting to keep a maintained
 stable kernel on their system.  As usual, the kernel is provided in
@@ -23,31 +23,25 @@ On the 32-bit side of things, there are both SMP (multiple processor
 capable) and non-SMP (single processor) kernels.  The non-SMP kernel
 is mostly intended for machines that can't run the SMP kernel, which
 is anything older than a Pentium III, and some models of the Pentium M
-that don't support PAE.  On 32-bit, it is highly recommended to use the
-SMP kernel if your machine is able to boot with it (even if you have
+that don't support PAE (although it seems that these might support PAE
+but just lack the CPU flags to advertise it -- try booting with the
+"forcepae" kernel option).  On 32-bit, it is highly recommended to use
+the SMP kernel if your machine is able to boot with it (even if you have
 only a single core) because the optimization and memory handling
 options should yield better performance.
 
     If you'd like to try out the latest kernel branch, you'll find
-.config files for Linux 3.12 in the /testing/source/ directory.  There
-are also .config files for Linux 3.4.66 (the previous long-term support
-kernel series) which might be useful for anyone wanting to drop back
-to a 3.4.x kernel, but I doubt there will be many people who will want
-to do this.  The 3.10.x kernels have been stable and working well for
-many releases now.
-
-    One of the big changes in Slackware 14.1 is support for systems
-running UEFI firmware (x86_64 Slackware edition only).  We've added
-several new packages for UEFI, including elilo, GRUB 2, and efibootmgr,
-and all of the installation media supports booting under UEFI, as do
-the USB boot sticks generated during installation.  At this point
-there is no support for running the system under Secure Boot, but a
-dedicated user could add their own Machine Owner Key, sign their
-kernels, modules, and bootloader, and then use shim to start the
-bootloader.  We'll be looking into adding support for this in the
-next development cycle.  Documentation for installing on UEFI machines
-is provided in a README_UEFI.TXT found in the top-level Slackware
-directory.
+.config files for Linux 4.6 in the /testing/source/ directory.
+
+    Slackware 14.2 has support for systems running UEFI firmware (x86_64
+Slackware edition only).  Packages that help support UEFI include elilo,
+GRUB 2, and efibootmgr, and all of the installation media supports
+booting under UEFI, as do the USB boot sticks generated during
+installation.  At this point there is no support for running the system
+under Secure Boot, but a dedicated user could add their own Machine Owner
+Key, sign their kernels, modules, and bootloader, and then use shim to
+start the bootloader.  Documentation for installing on UEFI machines is
+provided in a README_UEFI.TXT found in the top-level Slackware directory.
 
     Slackware ISO images (both the ones available online as well as
 the discs sent out from the Slackware store) have been processed using
@@ -55,7 +49,7 @@ isohybrid.  This allows them to be written to a USB stick, which can
 then be booted and used as the install source.  This works on machines
 running both regular BIOS as well as UEFI.
 
-    Slackware 14.1 contains updated versions of both KDE and Xfce, and
+    Slackware 14.2 contains updated versions of both KDE and Xfce, and
 both of these have been split as much as possible into their component
 packages rather than larger bundles.  This not only makes it easier to
 remove software that you don't need, but also makes it easier to
@@ -66,18 +60,18 @@ the updates.
 
     Although Slackware does not ship the GNOME desktop, we can recommend
 a couple of places to look if you're interested in trying to add it to
-your system.  The Dropline project ( http://www.droplinegnome.net ) has
-put together a set of packages for running GNOME 3.x on Slackware.
-There's also the MATE desktop, which is a fork of GNOME 2.x.  SlackBuild
-scripts are available to compile MATE packages for Slackware from
-http://mateslackbuilds.github.io - thanks to Chess Griffin and
+your system.  The Dropline project ( http://www.droplinegnome.net ) will
+be putting together a set of packages for running GNOME 3.20.1 on
+Slackware.  There's also the MATE desktop, which is a fork of GNOME 2.x.
+SlackBuild scripts are available to compile MATE packages for Slackware
+from http://mateslackbuilds.github.io - thanks to Chess Griffin and
 Willy Sudiarto Raharjo for making this option available.
 
     Need more build scripts?  Something that you wanted wasn't included 
 in Slackware?  Well, then check out slackbuilds.org. Several of the team 
 members work on the scripts there.
 
-    There's a new community driven site for Slackware documentation,
+    There's a community driven site for Slackware documentation,
 http://docs.slackware.com -- check it out, and join in to share your
 knowledge!
 
@@ -86,30 +80,27 @@ great help -- Eric Hameleers for major work on the KDE SC packages, init
 scripts, installer, documentation (especially getting docs.slackware.com
 up and running), and all the extra packages like multilib compilers
 (read more here: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/), Robby Workman for
-following X.Org, udev, NetworkManager, wicd, Xfce, and tons of other
+following X.Org, eudev, NetworkManager, wicd, Xfce, and tons of other
 projects, building and testing all that stuff, writing documentation, his
 work with the team at slackbuilds.org, and lots of package upgrades,
 Piter Punk for slackpkg work, Stuart Winter for more updates to
 linuxdoc-tools, slacktrack, and for all kinds of fixes throughout the
 installer and system (he finds my bugs all the time while porting packages
 to ARM for the Slackware ARM port: http://www.armedslack.org/), Vincent
-Batts for keeping Ruby working well, for helping kickstart our
-transition to MariaDB, and other miscellaneous fixes, Heinz Wiesinger
-for working on PHP, MariaDB (especially!), icu4c, LLVM, and lots of other
-stuff, Amritpal Bath for various bugfixes and helping with release torrents,
-mrgoblin for testing RAID, bluetooth, and being a master of regex, and to
-mancha for patching many packages to handle the changed crypt() function
-in glibc-2.17+ (and for backporting many security fixes over the course
-of the development cycle).  Other very honorable mentions go to Alan Hicks,
-Erik Jan Tromp, Karl Magnus Kolstø, Mark Post, Fred Emmott, and NetrixTardis,
-and anyone else I'm forgetting (including the other team members who 
-contributed little fixes and suggestions here and there along with 
-general moral support).  Special thanks to the folks who mailed in bug
-reports (and fixes) and helped collaborate on this release.  This was
-another great release cycle for community participation, especially on the
-LinuxQuestions.org Slackware forum.  Thanks for the help, for keeping
-this project fun, and making it possible for us to keep up with the
-rapid pace of Linux development.  Thanks to Honeypi and Doodle, too!
+Batts for keeping Ruby working well and other miscellaneous fixes,
+Heinz Wiesinger for working on PHP, MariaDB (especially!), icu4c, LLVM, and
+lots of other stuff, Amritpal Bath for various bugfixes and helping with
+release torrents, mrgoblin for testing RAID, bluetooth, and being a master
+of regex.  Other very honorable mentions go to Alan Hicks, Erik Jan Tromp,
+Karl Magnus Kolstø, Mark Post, Fred Emmott, and NetrixTardis, and anyone
+else I'm forgetting (including the other team members who contributed
+little fixes and suggestions here and there along with general moral
+support).  Special thanks to the folks who mailed in bug reports (and fixes)
+and helped collaborate on this release.  This was another great release
+cycle for community participation, especially on the LinuxQuestions.org
+Slackware forum.  Thanks for the help, for keeping this project fun, and
+making it possible for us to keep up with the rapid pace of Linux
+development.  Thanks to Andrea and Briah, too!
 
 Have fun!