[2024-feb-29] Sad news: Eric Layton aka Nocturnal Slacker aka vtel57 passed away on Feb 26th, shortly after hospitalization. He was one of our Wiki's most prominent admins. He will be missed.

Welcome to the Slackware Documentation Project

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slackware:faq [2013/12/09 09:17 (UTC)] – Add URL, some formatting. alienbobslackware:faq [2020/08/11 17:58 (UTC)] (current) – alienbob
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 ==== Can I buy copies of Slackware Linux? ==== ==== Can I buy copies of Slackware Linux? ====
  
-Absolutely, just go to the [[http://store.slackware.com/cgi-bin/store|Slackware Store]].+Slackware Linux official installation media can not be bought at the moment due to the demise of the Slackware Store. The distro survives on [[https://www.patreon.com/slackwarelinux/​overview|donations to the project]] ​at the moment.
  
 ==== Can I buy Slackware gear? ==== ==== Can I buy Slackware gear? ====
  
-You bet, just go to the [[http://store.slackware.com/cgi-bin/store|Slackware Store]].+Check out Pat Volkerding's official [[https://www.cafepress.com/volkerdi|Cafepress Store]] sporting the flippy logo, and somewhat harder to find, his product line [[https://www.cafepress.com/profile/13904775|featuring the original logo]].
  
 ==== Why spend money if I can download Slackware Linux for free? ==== ==== Why spend money if I can download Slackware Linux for free? ====
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 If you want to know when the next version will be released (at time of writing the most recent stable release is 14.1), it will be ready... when it's ready! There are no fixed release dates, as the Slackware goal is to deliver the most stable Linux experience. If you want to know when the next version will be released (at time of writing the most recent stable release is 14.1), it will be ready... when it's ready! There are no fixed release dates, as the Slackware goal is to deliver the most stable Linux experience.
 +
 +
 +==== Can Slackware be recompiled from scratch? ====
 +
 +Short answer: no.\\ Several other distros (including [[http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/|Linux From Scratch]]) are capable of being rebuilt from scratch using the publicly available sources and scripts. Fedora habitually recompiles itself completely from time to time. Slackware is //not// like those other distros: there is no "master build script". The Slackware distribution grows and evolves "organically" and the utmost care is taken that all software in the distro is in working condition. Slackware does not need "rebuild from scratch" in order to achieve that goal. To the contrary: recompiling an older package may introduce new bugs or incompatibilities when the recompiled package picks up undesired new dependencies and/or functionality.
 +
 +That does not make Slackware a "binary distribution", not does this philosophy violate any license. In order to comply with Open Source licenses such as the GPL (and also because, why not?), Slackware makes the complete source code and build scripts available for all the packages that are part of the distro. You will find these sources in the ''./source'', ''./extra/source'', ''./pasture/source'' and ''./patches/source'' subdirectories of any release. These sources and scripts are exactly what was used to build the accompanying package at the time of its release - no more and no less.
 +
 +Note: It is essential that you understand these sources and scripts have produced a package using the system libraries available at the time of its creation. Over time, with all the library updates and introduction of new packages, the source code of any package may lose the capability of being re-compiled into that same package successfully. But that is perfectly normal: a Slackware package will //never// be recompiled unless its binaries stop working (due to dynamic library conflicts for instance) or because that package is upgraded to a new version. Only then, the sources and scripts for any package are re-evaluated. If patches are required at this time - to make the sources compile successfully or to make the resulting binaries work correctly - then patches will be added.
  
  

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