00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GE Force Go 7800 GTX (rev a1) 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5705M_2 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03) 03:01.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b3) 03:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C552 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 08) 03:01.2 Class 0805: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 17) 03:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2915ABG Network Connection (rev 05)
I have shrunk the Windows XP MCE partition that the laptop came with to the smallest possible size. This gives about 90GB free space for the test distro's to play with.
Installation and Configuration Since it's first release in 1993, Slackware has featured a text-based installer and it hasn't changed much since then. Patrick and the rest of the Slackware developers could certainly move to a GUI installer if they wanted - there are many to choose from - but that would go against their goals of simplicity and stability. By keeping the text-based installation program, it helps keep the minimum supported system spec's down. Slackware only requires a 486 with 16MB of RAM! Props to the developers for not bloating the distro simply for bloat's sake.
With version 11, this is the first version that has officially been available on DVD which simplifies the install process somewhat. CD ISO's are still available, of course, as are disks from the official Slackware store. As with any distro, I recommend that you purchase an official copy to support the developers who donate countless hours of work to product such a good product. You can purchase a subscription to Slackware which will automatically send you the latest official version when it's released - that's the method that I personally prefer.
This release has s slightly larger footprint than 10.2 due to quite a number of new packages added. Here's a summary of what has been added to Slackware 11 since the last release:
a/pcmciautils
a/sharutils (split from bin)
a/acl (split from xfsprogs)
a/attr (split from xfsprogs)
a/sysfsutils
a/sysstat
ap/diffstat
ap/dmapi (split from xfsprogs)
ap/linuxdoc-tools
ap/lm_sensors
ap/xfsdump (split from xfsprogs)
d/git
d/mercurial
d/ruby
kde/amarok
kde/qca
kde/qca-tls
l/apr
l/apr-util
l/cairo
l/db42 (for backwards compatibility)
l/db44 (upgrade from db4; see "Package Removals" and "Other Notable Changes and Hints"
l/desktop-file-utils
l/freetype (split from x11) - see note in "Other Notable Changes and Hints" below
l/gd
l/gnome-icon-theme
l/hicolor-icon-theme
l/libgpod
l/libmtp
l/libmusicbrainz
l/libnjb
l/libtheora
l/libtunepimp
l/libvisual (library only, no plugins yet - but this should allow for compiling audio visualization plugins for amarok without a recompile of amarok itself)
l/mm (split from apache)
l/mpfr (split from gmp)
l/neon (split from subversion)
l/slang1 (renamed from slang)
l/slang (Added slang 2)
n/mailx (renamed from nail)
n/rdesktop
x/dejavu-ttf
x/fontconfig (split from x11) - see note in "Other Notable Changes and Hints" below
x/ttf-indic-fonts - see note in "Other Notable Changes and Hints" below.
xap/seamonkey
xap/vim-gvim (renamed from xvim) - this package now depends on ap/vim
kernels/huge26.s/
- added a 2.6.17.13 kernel to the official (supported) package set. The user will be given a choice of whether to install the 2.4.33.3 or 2.6.17.13 kernel. If a 2.6