Well, udev in this development cycle has certainly been interesting. A fair number of odd bug reports have been coming in, and we hadn't really been able to get a handle on the source of the issues. Quite some time ago we started testing udev-182, and noticed that it caused some issues with the persistent net and CD rules.

Howdy! Lots of shiny stuff here, including the long awaited Xfce 4.10. Thanks to Robby Workman for the initial set of build scripts, and lots of testing (plus some very helpful notes about things such as the proper build order). I'm calling this a beta (finally!), and it's really very close to what we expect to release. Test away.

Recent Related News and Releases

Distribution Release: Slackware Linux 14.2 The Slackware project has announced a new stable release of the world's oldest surviving Linux distribution. The new version, Slackware Linux 14.2, ships with Linux kernel version 4.4, KDE 4.14, Xfce 4.12 and the 64-bit build of Slackware supports booting on UEFI-enabled hardware. " Slackware 14.2 brings many updates and enhancements, among which you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.12.1, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 4.14.21 (KDE 4.14.3 with kdelibs 4.14.21) a stable release of the 4.14.x series of the award-winning KDE desktop environment. These desktops use eudev, udisks, and udisks2, and many of the specifications from freedesktop.org which allow the system administrator to grant use of various hardware devices according to users' group membership so that they will be able to use items such as USB flash sticks, USB cameras that appear like USB storage, portable hard drives, CD and DVD media, MP3 players, and more, all without requiring sudo, the mount or umount command. " Additional information can be found in the project's detailed release announcement. Download: slackware64-14.2-install-dvd.iso (2,645MB, MD5, signature, torrent, pkglist).

Development Release: Slackware Linux 14.2 RC2 With the release of Slackware 14.2 quickly approaching, the project has released a second (and probably final) release candidate. The new development snapshot, Slackware 14.2 Release Candidate 2, includes a number of kernel fixes as well as an update to the latest version of the Thunderbird e-mail client. " Finally got some fixes we were waiting for in this new kernel. It's been almost a month since 14.2-rc1 so we'll call this Slackware 14.2 Release Candidate 2. Almost there. Get in any last-minute bug reports quickly. " This snapshot also features a keyboard layout fix provided by Jean-Philippe Guillemin. The full list of changes can be found in the changelog. There are no official ISO images to download, but Slackware developer Eric Hameleers continues to provide his builds of unofficial installation DVDs from Slackware's "Current" branch Download: slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso (2642MB, MD5).

Development Release: Slackware Linux 14.2 RC1 In the world of Linux, no St Patrick's Day would be complete without an interesting note in the Slackware changelog and this year is no different as Patrick Volkerding announces the availability of the first release candidate for Slackware Linux 14.2: " Good hello, let's call this Slackware 14.2 release candidate 1. We still have a bit of work to do before this is fully ready to go, but we're done doing every little upgrade that comes along. Well, mostly. Have a great day, and beannachtai na Feile Padraig oraibh! " Other recent entries in the changelog include an upgrade to the Linux kernel 4.4.6 (with long-term support), upgrades to Firefox 45.0.1 and nmap 7.10, security fixes to SeaMonkey and OpenSSH, and upgrade of X.Org Server to version 1.18.2. As always, there are no official ISO images to download, but Slackware developer Eric Hameleers continues his weekly builds of unofficial installation DVDs from Slackware's "Current" branch; interested testers can download the most recent one for the x86_64 architecture from here: slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso (2,634MB, MD5).

Development Release: Slackware Linux 14.2 Beta 2 The second beta release of Slackware 14.2 is ready for testing: " Welcome to Slackware 14.2 beta 2. Getting closer. " The above was published in Slackware's changelog earlier today, together with a note on the upgraded Linux kernel 4.4.1 and security updates to OpenSSL, PHP, Mozilla Firefox and xine-lib, as well as some notes on SysVInit scripts and MPlayer: " rc.6 - change command variable to shutdown_command to avoid conflicting with a same-named variable in rc.networkmanager. Added new script rc.cpufreq to enable CPU frequency scaling. ... This is the latest MPlayer-1.2 branch, identical to the 1.2.1 stable release. The bundled FFmpeg has been upgraded to 2.8.5, which fixes two security issues by which a remote attacker may conduct a cross-origin attack and read arbitrary files on the system. " Those readers interested in helping to test the new release should download Slackware developer Eric Hameleers' unofficial installation DVDs which are built weekly from Slackware's "Current" tree; here is the link to the x86_64 flavour: slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso (2,623MB, MD5).

Development Release: Slackware Linux 14.2 Beta 1 Following a large number of recent updates, Slackware founder and lead developer Patrick Volkerding finally announced today that the distribution's development branch (called "Current") had reached beta status. The brand-new Linux kernel, version 4.4 LTS, is included too: " Enjoy a shiny new LTS 4.4.0 kernel and consider this 14.2 beta 1. " The above line can be found in today's Slackware changelog which starts with a commentary on the state of Bluetooth audio in the distribution following some recent updates: " After upgrading to BlueZ 5 recently, everything seemed to be working great, but then it was pointed out that Bluetooth audio was no longer working. The reason was that the newer BlueZ branch had dropped ALSA support and now required PulseAudio. So with some trepidation, we began investigating adding PulseAudio to Slackware. After several iterations here refining the foundation packages and recompiling and tweaking other packages to use PulseAudio, it's working well. " As always, there aren't any official beta images to download and test, although Slackware developer Eric Hameleers continues providing unofficial installation DVDs built from Slackware's "Current" tree; download from here: slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso (2,621MB, MD5).

Distribution Release: Slackware Linux 14.1 Patrick Volkerding has announced the release of Slackware Linux 14.1, a new version of the world's oldest surviving Linux distribution: " After over a year of development (including the beta release and several release candidates to get everything polished up) we're proud to announce the availability of the new stable release. You'll find updates throughout the system, with the latest compilers and development tools, and recent versions of applications, window managers, desktop environments, and utilities. The Linux kernel is updated to version 3.10.17 (part of the 3.10.x kernel series that will be getting long-term support from the kernel developers). The x86_64 edition of Slackware also adds support for installing and booting on systems running UEFI firmware. " The new versions ships with KDE 4.10.5 and Xfce 4.10.1 desktops. Please read the full release announcement and check out the release notes for further information. Download: slackware64-14.1-install-dvd.iso (2,326MB, MD5, torrent).

Development Release: Slackware Linux 14.1 RC1 Patrick Volkerding has announced that the "Current" branch of Slackware Linux has reached release candidate status in preparation for the release of stable version 14.1: " And with this batch of updates and fixes (clearing the rest of the important stuff from the TODO list), we have arrived at Slackware 14.1 release candidate 1! Please test and report any remaining issues. UEFI (with the exception of Secure Boot, which will have to wait until we have real hardware) should be fully implemented in the installer now, which will detect and warn about common problems, set up the EFI System Partition under /boot/efi, and install ELILO and a UEFI boot entry automatically. Several useful netfilter and networking utilities have been added. With this batch of updates, everything should be considered frozen (including the kernel) unless there's a good reason to change something. " See the full changelog for all the recent updates and fixes. Interested testers can download Eric Hameleers's unofficial installation DVD image built from Slackware's "Current" tree: slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso (2,018MB, MD5).

Development Release: Slackware Linux 14.1 Beta Today Patrick Volkerding declared the "Current" branch beta which means that the upcoming stable Slackware Linux 14.1 is in the final stages of development. Quoting from the changelog: " Hey folks, I'm calling this a beta! Really, it's been better than beta quality for a while. There will probably still be a few more updates here and there (and certainly updates to the docs). Enjoy, and please test. " Other important changes include update to Linux kernel 3.10.12, the introduction of GRUB into the main tree (" Welcome GRUB! "), and updates to the just-release Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird 24.0 (the extended support releases). This will be the first stable version of Slackware Linux in over a year. As always, there are no official installation DVD images during this development period, but interested testers can download the latest unofficial build of the "Current" tree provided by Slackware developer Eric Hameleers: slackware64-current-install-dvd.iso (2,331MB, MD5). Pre-orders are also available.