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• Post #4253759

  After a few months of work, slackfetch has reached a mature 1.0 release. A minimal and readable system information utility for Slackware, inspired by ufetch. The normal output and a cowsay -n composition are shown below. https://forge.slackware.nl/r1w1s1/slackfetch #Slackware #Linux #Unix

• Post #3797608

  Trying out NextSpace on Slackware -current with XLibre. A modern implementation inspired by the classic NeXTSTEP desktop. It's interesting to see how its design and workflow still feel relevant decades later. Definitely a fun project to explore. #Slackware #NextSpace #XLibre #Unix #X11

• Post #3774708

  Before USB sticks, before cloud storage, there were floppy disks. Which one was your first? Mine was the 5.25-inch, and I still remember the sound of the drive reading it. I'd also love to hear what machine you used it with.

• Post #3568013

  A short but thoughtful post about cwm. I particularly liked this sentence: "cwm is the only one amongst the minimalist window managers that has managed to make me think the least." Whether you agree or not, it's an interesting way to think about window managers—not in terms of features, but in terms of cognitive load. Worth the two-minute read. https://williamjansson.com/posts/cwm/ #cwm #OpenBSD #Unix #Linux

• Post #3365899

  XLibre has landed in Slackware-current's testing tree. Thanks to Patrick Volkerding for making the packages available for testing, and to the XLibre developers for their work. Looking forward to seeing how the project evolves. #xlibre #slackware `Thu Jun 11 23:52:08 UTC 2026 ap/vim-9.2.0620-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded. d/cbindgen-0.29.4-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded. l/cairomm1-1.18.1-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded. l/gmm-5.5-noarch-1.txz: Upgraded. l/libmpc-1.4.1-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded. l/meson-pytho...

• Post #3365898

  Plasma 6 has officially landed in Slackware-current. Mon Jun 15 23:27:31 UTC 2026 Well folks, it seems that the stars have aligned to bring us a bunch of long- awaited updates, including ffmpeg8 and Plasma 6! This has been developed in a side tree for several weeks, and I'll be happy to get that off my plate and have a greatly reduced todo list. Many thanks to alienBOB for getting the tree in good shape, helping when I got stuck, and for being a good manager who inspires me to do my bes...

• Post #3365897

  Plasma 6 has officially landed in Slackware-current. After years of community testing and development, Plasma 6 is now part of the official Slackware-current tree alongside the ffmpeg8 transition. Many thanks to Patrick Volkerding, alienBOB, LuckyCyborg, and everyone who contributed code, packaging, testing, and bug reports along the way. Mon Jun 15 23:27:31 UTC 2026 Well folks, it seems that the stars have aligned to bring us a bunch of long- awaited updates, including ffmpeg8 and Plasma 6! T...

• Post #3365896

  Are you familiar with dwm's powerful tag feature? THE TAGGING MODEL Many desktop environments organize windows using rigid workspaces: Workspace 1 Workspace 2 Workspace 3 A window belongs to a single workspace. dwm uses a different model, treating workspaces as bitmask labels (tags). This allows a single window instance to hold multiple tags simultaneously, acting as a persistent visual anchor across different contexts: Firefox -> Tag 1 (Web Browsing) s...

• Post #3365895

  19 June 1984. Bob Scheifler announces the first release of the X Window System: "I stole a fair amount of code from W ... and called it X." Forty-two years later, I'm still running X11 daily on Slackware. Happy Birthday, X. Source: https://www.talisman.org/x-debut.shtml #X11 #Unix #Linux #Slackware #XLibre

• Post #3260698

  Someone in IRC asked when dwm would be rewritten in a memory-safe language. I think we're only a few decades away: "First rewrite Xlib, Xft, and all the Linux kernel dependencies." :) #suckless #dwm #linux

• Post #2634050

  The UNIX shell is still one of the best IDEs ever created. grep/find/sed/awk/make/ssh/git/nvi often compose better than many modern “integrated” environments. Small programs connected together still scale surprisingly well. https://repo.or.cz/code-notes.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/notes/Unix_As_An_IDE.txt #unix #linux #slackware #vi

• Post #2280876

  Reading an old UNIX Review article from September 1984 about termcap. Fascinating how much modern terminal software still inherits ideas from this era. vi depended heavily on terminal capability databases to remain portable across different hardware terminals. Bill Joy originally wired vi only for Lear Siegler ADM-3A terminals, and termcap was born from the flood of requests for support on other hardware. "Termcap Unveiled" by Douglas R. Merritt, pages 42-48. https://archive.org/deta...

• Post #2104681

  the secret: sxhkd handles the keys. the WM handles the windows. dmenu handles the launching. swap any one. the others don't notice. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ sxhkd (global, WM-agnostic) │ │ ├─ super+space → menu │ │ ├─ super+p → dmenu_run │ │ ├─ super+l → slock │ │ └─ media keys → volume / brightness │ └─────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ ┌──────────┴──────────┐ ▼ ▼ ┌──...

• Post #2104680

  Spent the day exploring heirloom-ex-vi (n-t-roff). It's essentially the cleaned-up 1985 ex/vi 3.7 code — small (~25k LOC for the editor itself vs ~38k for nvi), simple, and very readable. Memory footprint is lower (~3MB RSS vs ~6MB for nvi in typical use). Feels snappy. Limits are by design: fixed temp-file blocks, line pointer table capped at LBLKS=900 in the default build (~230k lines, ~30MB of text). Above that: "Tmp file too large". Trade-offs: no set ruler, single-level und...

• Post #2104679

  Spent the day exploring heirloom-ex-vi (n-t-roff). It's essentially the cleaned-up 1985 ex/vi 3.7 code, brought forward by Gunnar Ritter and Carsten Kunze: small, simple, and very readable — about 25k LOC for the editor itself, versus 38k for nvi. The memory footprint is lower too, around 3MB RSS against nvi's 6MB in typical use, and it feels snappy in daily use. The limits are by design rather than oversight. Fixed temp-file blocks and a line-pointer table capped at LBLKS=900 in the de...

• Post #2006513

  Slackware Patches "Copy Fail" Kernel Bug — CVE-2026-31431Slackware has issued a kernel security update for CVE-2026-31431, the Copy Fail vulnerability disclosed April 29, 2026. It's an out-of-bounds write in the AEAD userspace crypto interface (AF_ALG) that lets any local user get a root shell via a setuid binary — the same 732-byte Python PoC works on essentially every Linux distro shipped since 2017. If you can't patch right away, Slackware ships the affected code as a modul...

• Post #1790164

  the secret to surviving years of WM-hopping: sxhkd handles the keys. the WM handles the windows. dmenu handles the launching. swap any one. the others don't notice. #suckless #unix #dwm

• Post #1780538

  Wrote a howto on ZRAM configuration for Slackware -current, covers compression algorithms (lz4, zstd, lzo-rle, etc), device sizing for different RAM scenarios, and monitoring. Useful if you're tweaking the defaults in /etc/default/zram. https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:slackware_admin:zram_configuration #Slackware #Linux #ZRAM

• Post #1443996

  Slackware has always been a fantastic environment for development, and officially adding QEMU 10.2.2 to -current just confirms that! 🐧 ap/qemu-10.2.2-x86_64-2.txz: Rebuilt. Recompiled against libcacard-2.8.2, libslirp-4.9.1, spice-0.16.0, and usbredir-0.15.0. Thanks to Daedra. ap/qemu-guest-agent-10.2.2-x86_64-2.txz: Rebuilt. l/graphviz-14.1.4-x86_64-1.txz: Upgraded. l/libcacard-2.8.2-x86_64-1.txz: Added. Needed by qemu-10.2.2. Thanks to Matteo Bernardini. l/usbredir-0.15.0-x86_64...

• Post #1087372

  Finally tested wayback with dwm on Slackware -current! 🎉 wayback is a stub Wayland compositor that hosts a rootful Xwayland server, letting you run your full X11 setup unchanged on top of Wayland. Built from source, wrote a small launch script and dwm came up fine with st. Still experimental and needs some tweaking but the core concept works — keep your dwm, st and all your suckless tools, just drop Xorg underneath. If you're a minimalist X11 user not ready to jump to a Wayland WM, keep a...

• Post #925525

  If you really know your GNU coreutils, you probably don't need as many extra tools as you think. 🐧 KISS isn't just a design principle — it's already built into your system. A comprehensive review of every coreutils command, with examples and honest opinions. The lobste.rs discussion is also worth reading. Article: https://ratfactor.com/slackware/pkgblog/coreutils Discussion: https://lobste.rs/s/xqf5ex/coreutils_comprehensive_review_2023 #linux #unix #coreutils #gnu

• Post #878266

  Ever wonder why vi uses hjkl for movement? It's not arbitrary—it's hardware history. The ADM-3A terminal had arrows printed directly on those keys. ESC was also where Tab is now. Vi wasn't designed for ergonomics, it was designed for the keyboard that existed. http://www.slackware.com/~r1w1s1/nvi.html#_curiosities #nvi #vim #vi

• Post #781166

  Slackware and age verification laws People are worried about laws like AB 1043 (and now similar discussions in Brazil), but they assume a centralized OS with accounts and app stores. That’s not how Slackware works. No forced onboarding, no app store, full user control. Patrick said it best: “my code is my speech… government compelled speech” https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/how-is-ab-1043-going-to-impact-slackware-4175762747/page15.html#post6626190 Slackware wi...

• Post #736655

  Kernel 6.19.9 running on Slackware -current I updated the kernel guide build. https://git.sr.ht/~r1w1s1/code-notes/blob/main/notes/Slackware_Kernel_Build_Guide.txt #slackware #kernel