14 DAY TRIAL // Slackware Linux, a complete 32-bit and 64-bit multitasking "UNIX-like" system that is currently based around the 4.4 Linux kernel series, has been upgraded to version 14.2 Beta 1 and is now ready for download.
Slackware Linux is probably the oldest Linux distribution that’s still being maintained, and it managed to keep the same kind of development model for a very long time. There are no official repos and most of the changes, fixes, and new features are added by its creator, Patrick Volkerding.
New Slackware versions don’t happen all that often, or at least not as often as the community might want, which would normally mean that the distribution doesn't always include the latest package. That’s not the case with Slackware, which just received Linux kernel 4.4, the newest version available and present in just a small number of distros.
Slackware Linux 14.2 Beta 1 is ready for testing
“After upgrading to BlueZ 5 recently, everything seemed to be working great, but then it was pointed out that Bluetooth audio was no longer working. The reason was that the newer BlueZ branch had dropped ALSA support and now required PulseAudio. So with some trepidation, we began investigating adding PulseAudio to Slackware,” reads the official announcement made by Patrick Volkerding.
According to the changelog, the Linux kernel has been upgraded to the new 4.4 LTS release, user (pulse) and group (pulse) for PulseAudio have been added, a default /etc/asound.conf redirecting ALSA output to PulseAudio has been added, support has been implemented for GTK+3, a newer version of the xXorgserver has been added (2.10.1), Mozilla Firefox has been updated to version 43.0.4, and a number of other packages have been updated or rebuilt.
More details about this release can be found in the official changelog. You can download Slackware Linux 14.2 Beta 1 right now from Softpedia, but please keep in mind that it’s a development release and it’s not meant for production machines.