A good mirror for Slackware is ftp://ftp.eunet.be/pub/slackware/slackware-8.1. I have heard that despite its far away location for most of us that it has worked well for many broadband users. I know that when Slackware 8.1 first came out, it was about the only mirror that anybody could get into. As for the changes in Slackware 8.1, I like some and dislike others. I fully agree with others that the 5 root disks issue should have been handled more gracefully, perhaps by using older libraries or some such. However, I feel that the UMSDOS-based install.zip combined with a kernel will help some people such as those who have laptops with no floppy drive. As for software changes, not making ISOS of the extras and source disks is no big deal to me as you can download the packages you want from the extras directory and most people are not all that interested in the source code, but it is in the source directory should somebody want to look at it. The extras directory (which corresponds to the fourth CD of the official set,) has some interesting software, like Emacsspeak, Brltty, and some ham radio tools. However, as I said, it can easily be downloaded if desired. It's not like SUSE where unless you pay for it, you get a demo that runs only from the CD. Doesn't that violate the GPL? The things I like about Slackware 8.1 are that pkgtool can now run some of the post-install scripts for you so that if you should need to reconfigure something and can't remember the command, you can do it without having to go through all the reconfiguration that the old setup tool did. I like the inclusion of logrotate and a good configuration for it. I like the cron.daily, cron.hourly, etc system that has been added and the default entries do what needs to be done. All that the user needs to do is adjust the time for root's crontab to something they feel is appropriate and they are off and rolling. /etc/rc.d/rc.modules is now much less messy and IMHO, a cleaner script. The default services that are enabled on a stock install are much more secure. There are now default entries so you can mount floppies and CDROMS by typing "mount /mnt/floppy" or "mount /mnt/cdrom." Pat has finally removed the annoying "set IGNOREEOF" from the default /etc/profile so you can logout with control-D without having to reconfigure. If you misstype your password, the next time you log in, you will be told when the last failed login was and how many have taken place. This is great for a server as it could provide early warning of hack attempts. My complaints besides the root disk? Well, Slackware seems to have gotten a bit bigger. For example, I had nearly everything from Slackware 8.0 installed plus several local modifications. This was still under 2GB. With Slackware 8.1, I am now right at 2GB. The default kernel in Slackware 8.1 is huge and the name "bare" is misleading. I don't really know if using Syslinux is a good or bad idea for boot disks, as I haven't decided. The version of Lilo included in Slackware 8.1 prints some bizarre warning messages but seems to work OK. Although, as mentioned, Pat removed "set IGNOREEOF" from /etc/profile, he left the even more annoying "biff y" in the file. This is totally pointless as it clutters the screen and the shell does a much better job of informing the user of incoming mail. As usual, it is the first thing that goes in a new install. Lastly, although Pat made the entries in /etc/fstab to mount floppies and CDROMS, he used "owner" instead of "user" for the options. His change log indicates that he regards this as more secure, but I regard it as a nuisance and I changed it right after removing "biff y." So in general, I have mixed feelings about Slackware 8.1, but for me, the good outweighs the bad and this is the first version of Linux that I have actually purchased mainly because of the great support for Speakup and inclusion of other alternatives. Things I'd like to see in a future Slackware release are: the dump and restore backup utilities, mgetty, and perhaps a few other screen readers. Also, I think biff should be removed entirely. Lastly, some scripts to set up sound and X at install time. I know Slackware is about doing it yourself, but easily 70% of questions on alt.os.linux.slackware involve X and sound not working.
