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The Slackel 7.4 distribution has been released today to kick off 2021 for fans of the Slackware Linux operating system by bringing all the latest updates, a newer kernel, and USB stick installation support.
Coming six months after Slackel 7.3, the Slackel 7.4 release is now available in a lightweight form with the Openbox window manager by default. KDE Plasma and MATE editions may follow in the next days or weeks, but for now let’s have a look at the general changes that apply to all of them.
First and foremost, Slackel is now powered by the latest and greatest Linux 5.10 LTS kernel series, which means top-notch hardware support. Slackel 7.4 includes the recently released Linux kernel 5.10.4 by default, and also comes with all the latest updates from Slackware’s ‘Current’ tree for the best possible Slackware Linux experience.
Popular apps include the Mozilla Firefox 84.0.1 web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird 78.6.0 email and news client, LibreOffice 7.0.4 office suite, GIMP 2.10.22 image editor, SMPlayer 20.6.0 media player, FileZilla 3.51.0 FTP client, and the latest Openbox release with the fbpanel GTK2-based NETWM compliant desktop panel.
Second, and the biggest part for Slackware/Slackel fans, is the fact that the GNU/Linux distribution can now be installed on an external drive, such as a USB flash drive, just like you’d install it on your personal computer.
“It’s a real installation,” says developer Dimitris Tzemos, who notes the fact that you’ll need a 16GB or 32GB USB stick to install Slackel, or an external disk drive. For more details on how the USB disk installation work, check out the forum announcement.
“Persistent become slow after installing programs. Doing a real installation on a usb stick or external ssd disk you will have a portable Slackel usb in your pocket. You will even notice you run from a usb. It is fast.”
On top of that, the Slackel 7.4 release adds persistent file encryption, the medialabel="USB_LABEL_NAME" parameter for those who want to install Slackel on a USB drive alongside other distros, as well as frugal install support for those who want to boot off the local drive and transfer the ISO image to a USB stick.
Slackel 7.4 is available for download right now for 64-bit or 32-bit systems from the official website or by using the direct download links below. Slackel is based on Slackware Current and uses salixtools from the Salix distro.
Last updated 3 years ago
