Announcing Slack/390 Linux 10.0!

The first Slack/390 release of 2005, Slack/390 Linux 10.0 follows in
the more than ten-year Slackware tradition of simplicity, stability,
and security.

Slack/390 uses the 2.4.26 kernel bringing you 
advanced performance features such as the ReiserFS journaling 
filesystem, and SCSI volume support.  Additional kernels allow 
using any of the journaling filesystems available for Linux, 
including ext3, ReiserFS, IBM's JFS, and SGI's XFS. A precompiled
Linux 2.6.7 kernel, modules, and source code are provided (along
with complete instructions on how to install the new kernel).

From the beginning, Slack/390 has offered a stable and secure Linux 
distribution for UNIX veterans as well as an easy-to-use system for 
beginners.  Slack/390 includes everything you'll need to run a 
powerful server or workstation.  Each Slack/390 package follows the 
setup and installation instructions from its author(s) as closely as 
possible, offering you the most stable and easily expandable setup.

Here are some of the advanced features of Slack/390 10.0:

- Runs the 2.4.26 version of the Linux kernel from ftp.kernel.org.
  The performance of the 2.4.x kernel series along with
  Slack/390's track record of careful attention to system security
  make it the perfect choice for running your production servers.

- As an alternate choice, Slack/390 10.0 includes Linux 2.6.7
  source, kernel modules, and binary packages, along with a new
  mkinitrd tool and instructions on using it to install the
  new kernel (see /boot/README.initrd).  When running a 2.6
  kernel, Slack/390 supports udev.  This is a system for
  creating devices in /dev dynamically, greatly reducing device
  clutter and making it easy to see what devices are actually
  present in the system.

- System binaries are linked with the GNU C Library, version 2.3.2.  
  This version of glibc has been patched to improve compatibility
  with existing binaries.

- X11R6.7.0
  This is the current release of the X.Org Foundation's X Window
  System based on XFree86 4.4.0RC2.  The 6.7.0 version is a new
  release that includes additional hardware support, functional 
  enhancements and bug fixes.  Font rendering is improved yet
  again with recent versions of fontconfig and freetype.  Through
  the generosity of Bitstream, Inc., the Vera truetype font family
  is included as well providing pleasing default fonts out of the 
  box.
     
- Major enhancements to the printing system include new versions
  of CUPS (1.1.20) and LPRng (3.8.27).  The Ghostscript interpreter 
  has been upgraded to ESP Ghostscript version 7.07.1 which offers
  several improvements over the GNU release of Ghostscript, including
  more drivers and better integration with CUPS.  Two IJS servers
  (printer driver suites for Ghostscript) are available in this
  release:  HPIJS, which supports more than 200 HP Inkjet printer 
  models (compared with 60 supported in Slack/390 9.1), and 
  Gimp-Print, offering support for hundreds of printers from Canon,
  Lexmark, HP, Epson, and other manufacturers.

- Installs gcc-3.3.4 as the default C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran-77,
  and Ada 95 compiler.  gcc-3.4.0 is available as an alternate choice.

- Support for fully encrypted network connections with OpenSSL,
  OpenSSH, and GnuPG.

- Apache 1.3.31 web server with Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) support,
  SSL, and PHP.

- New development tools, including Perl 5.8.4, and Python 2.3.4.

- Updated versions of the Slackware package management tools make it
  easy to add, remove, upgrade, and make your own Slack/390 packages.
  Package tracking makes it easy to upgrade from Slack/390 9.1 to 
  Slack/390 10.0 (see UPGRADE.TXT).  The slackpkg tool in /extra can 
  also help update from an older version of Slack/390 to a newer one, 
  and keep your Slack/390 system up to date.  In addition, the new
  slacktrack utility (in extra/) will help you build and maintain 
  your own packages.

- A repository of extra software packages compiled and ready to 
  run.  This includes cmsfs, cpint, THE, Regina and more.
  
- Many more improved and upgraded packages than we can list here.  For
  a complete list of core packages in Slack/390 10.0, see this file:

  ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/slack390/slack390-10.0/PACKAGES.s390.TXT

     
Downloading Slack/390 10.0:
---------------------------

The full version of Slack/390 Linux 10.0 is available for download from
the central Slack/390 FTP site hosted by our friends at www.ibiblio.org:

   ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/slack390/slack390-10.0/



Have fun! :^)

---
Mark K. Post    <markkp@slack390.org>

Visit us on the web at:  http://www.slack390.org