Slackware 12.1 Has Been Released

A new stable Slackware has been released. Its Slackware version 12.1, a must-have upgrade for any Slackware user. This first Slackware edition of the year combines Slackware's legendary simplicity (and close tracking of original sources), stability, and security with some of the latest advances in Linux technology. Expect no less than the best Slackware yet.

Among the many program updates and distribution enhancements, you'll find two of the most advanced desktop environments available today: Xfce 4.4.2, a fast and lightweight but visually appealing and easy to use desktop environment, and KDE 3.5.9, the latest version of the award-winning K Desktop Environment. The Slackware development team have added to Slackware support for HAL (the Hardware Abstraction Layer) which allows the system administrator to add users to the cdrom and plugdev groups. Then they will be able to use items such as USB flash sticks, USB cameras that appear like USB storage, portable hard drives, CD and DVD media, MP3 players, and more, all without requiring sudo, the mount or umount command. Just plug and play. Properly set up, Slackware's desktop should be suitable for any level of Linux experience.

Slackware uses the 2.6.24.5 kernel bringing you advanced performance
features such as journaling filesystems, SCSI and ATA RAID volume support, SATA support, Software RAID, LVM (the Logical Volume Manager, and encrypted filesystems. Kernel support for X DRI (the Direct Rendering Interface) brings high-speed hardware accelerated 3D graphics to Linux. It have switched from the older one-piece X11 Window System to the newest modular X11 from X.Org, which should be simpler to maintain and will likely speed up development of new features for X (such as translucent windows and a few other things that are on the horizon).

More information about this new release can be reached at Slackware's site. Btw, you can download it at Here.