On Wednesday, the Slackware developers published the first release candidate (RC1) of their next upcoming stable release, Slackware 13.37. It should have been time for version 13.2, but the developers raised the version number to 13.37 ("leet") – partly so it could have a codename like other Linux distributions often do, whereas Slackware has never had one. Slackware is one of the earliest distributions to be built on top of the Linux kernel and is the oldest still being maintained.

There is no specific roadmap for publication of the next stable release, however. Like Debian developers, the Slackware project does not stick to rigid time-lines, but instead waits until developers are satisfied with the current state of development. The latest stable release with version number 13.1, which was published at the end of May 2010.

The upcoming version will probably be shipped with 2.6.37.3 Linux kernel; the developers have updated the KDE desktop to version 4.5.5, and X.org 1.9.4, Firefox 3.6.15 and Thunderbird 3.1.7 are also included. For more details, see the change log.

There is no official ISO image of the release candidate – users wanting to test the release can simply install the current stable release and then update to version 13.37. As with all development releases, use in production environments and on mission critical systems is not advised. The unofficial snapshots of the distribution are another option.

(crve)