Lots of updates

PiterPUNK has released updated packages and sources of udev-104 and sysvinit-2.86 for testing on Slackware 11.0 - nearly identical packages are also hosted here.

I've released updated packages of Xfce-4.4rc2 with vte split from the main package; you will need to install the vte package after upgrading to the new Xfce package. If you were using the Xfce package built against dbus and dbus-glib, it's been removed - the Xfce /testing package now requires all of dbus, dbus-glib, and gamin (plus the common dependency of vte), so be sure to get all of those if you want all of the "bells and whistles" in the new 4.4 release candidates. I debated moving this out of /testing into the main repository, as it seems very stable and usable here and in feedback I've gotten, but for the time being, I'm going to leave it in /testing.

I've also rebuilt quite a few packages in the last few days after cleaning up the build scripts; I caught at least one bug in my patch to apcupsd, so that was a productive exercise. Check the ChangeLog to see the full list.

I've rearranged the site a fair amount over the last few days too - the SlackBuilds Section is now much less populated, as package sources are no longer placed there. Instead, I moved all of the package sources here to maintain better compliance with the GPL (which means I don't have to bother with email requests for sources any more) :).

Finally, we've been busy over at SlackBuilds.org too - we had more than 25 new commits in the last ChangeLog there. Thanks to all of the other admins and all the submitters for the great work!

New udev and friends

PiterPunk has just released some new packages and source tarballs for udev-103, sysvinit-2.86, and sysfsutils-2.1.0. I have packages and sources available if you're interested in testing.

Slackware 11 release - soon!

Well, it looks like Slackware 11 will be releasing very soon. I'm rather anxious, but not because of the normal reasons - I'm running -current, so a new stable release means we can get back to some new and exciting changes in -current instead of just stability upgrades.

One thing that I'm going to be working on is an experimental version of sysvinit 2.86 while PiterPunk is working on udev >097. There were quite a few changes to the rules syntax in 098, and while the old stuff will still work right now (while logging warnings), it's best to go ahead and get them implemented now so people can start getting used to them. I don't mean to scare anyone - the changes are good, and they're not so major that they require massive rewrites of anything - a simple sed substitution will probably do the trick (here's hoping, anyway).

On another note, the SlackBuilds.org project is coming along well; we've added quite a few new scripts since going live, and we have several more in the queue to be added soon. Thanks to everyone for your support!

Recent Developments

There are quite a few things going on right now:
1. I'm enrolled in graduate school working on my Master's degree in Educational Administration, and I'm taking four classes this summer - as should be readily obvious, I'm quite busy with those... :)
2. I'm working with a good group of people on a project (SlackBuilds.org) to provide build scripts for additional software applications not included with Slackware "out of the box." We're not at all happy with new users of Slackware becoming dependent upon third-party sources for precompiled packages, as they tend to introduce unnecessary dependencies on other applications (and occasionally security problems), and new users don't yet know enough to tell the difference. Our goal is to provide both scripts to compile the source code of those needed applications as well as educate new users on how to work with the scripts.
3. The release of Slackware 11.0 will be coming soon; Pat Volkerding (the maintainer) has indicated in the ChangeLog that the -current tree is stable and that a new release is close at hand...
4. I've been testing some experimental work on "bleeding-edge" udev | sysvinit | sysfsutils | pcmciautils stuff done largely by Roberto Batista (aka PiterPunk), and based on my results, it looks promising. The decision is ultimately up to Pat, but we're hoping it will be stable (and reliable) enough to hit -current sometime after 11.0 releases; if not, we'll keep working until it *is* stable enough... :)
I've recently done some hacking to the newest version of sysvinit (2.86) and forwarded the results to PiterPunk, so maybe it will hit the experimental tree at some point...
5. My preferred window manager, xfce, is approaching the release of version 4.4. The beta 2 was released yesterday, and after hacking around on Pat's script for the 4.2 series, I've got a package built for -current. While it's much more usable than the beta 1 release (in fact, I'm now using it exclusively), there's no hope of it being included in the 11.0 release of Slackware - it's nowhere near ready for that. There's still a problem where some kde icons don't show up in the various menus, and I've had one random crash that had no rhyme nor reason :)