Why do you trust software developed and distributed by people you don't know? Phil and I are sharing our insights and experiences into this topic, in the latest episode of the SlackChat podcast

Happy new year (although I'm not sure if there's a date by when you need to stop doing that!).

Some news on the Slackware ARM port. I have had a number of donations to the project since it began and once again I thank all of those who have made them.

As with all Open Source projects, there's a great deal of commitment from the developers to continue to maintain and support the project you're using. In the case of Slackware we have Patrick Volkerding and the rest of the team (including myself) donating their time free of charge.

As always, without Patrick Volkerding, Slackware ARM would cease to exist; so please in the first instance please show your support and commitment.

I've also set up a Patreon account for the users of the ARM port to provide a commitment and demonstration of support and a recognition of the value.

I'll be continuing to maintain and develop the port and distribute it free of charge because I enjoy the creative challenges. However, it has to now contend with other projects. Therefore I've set up a Patreon account for the users of the ARM port to provide a commitment and demonstration of support, which helps me prioritise.

Thanks
Stuart Winter (MoZes)

A sneak peak in to what the Slackware ARM build machines are currently up to:

Slackware branch	Status
slackwarearm-current	Enqueued activities
slackwarearm-14.2	IN SYNC with public repository

[ Build host: Linux mojo.arm.slackware.com 5.4.81-armv7 #2 SMP Wed Dec 2 15:19:47 GMT 2020 armv7l Allwinner sun8i Family GNU/Linux ] OS installation date..: 09-Nov-20 Slackware distribution: slackwarearm-current Machine designation...: current vice lead - desktop tests, Orange Pi Plus 2E (H3) v1.1, 2GB RAM Present date..........: Sat Dec 5 02:10:01 GMT 2020 Uptime................: 1 day, 17 hours, 3 minutes Load average..........: 0.02, 0.03, 0.00 r2b build status......: Batch completed successfully First build began on..................: Wed Dec 2 14:03:52 GMT 2020 Most recent package began building on : Wed Dec 2 14:03:59 GMT 2020 Build pass......: 1 of 1 Activities......:- Running OS command and ignoring exit value: cd ~/ac/source/k&&./build_all.sh Total elapsed time....................: 398 minutes / 6 hours / 0 days *** Complete.

[ Build host: Linux zaden-142 4.4.240-armv5 #2 Tue Oct 20 12:40:17 BST 2020 armv5tel Marvell Kirkwood (Flattened Device Tree) GNU/Linux ] OS installation date..: 08-Feb-18 Slackware distribution: slackwarearm-14.2 Machine designation...: 14.2 stable builder, SheevaPlug, 512MB RAM Present date..........: Sat Dec 5 02:10:01 GMT 2020 Uptime................: 6 weeks, 2 days, 2 hours, 43 minutes Load average..........: 0.21, 0.20, 0.17 r2b build status......: No state log.

[ Build host: Linux zippy.arm.slackware.com 5.4.81-armv7 #2 SMP Wed Dec 2 15:19:47 GMT 2020 armv7l Allwinner sun8i Family GNU/Linux ] OS installation date..: 09-Nov-20 Slackware distribution: slackwarearm-current Machine designation...: current lead, Orange Pi Plus 2E (H3) v1.1, 2GB RAM Present date..........: Sat Dec 5 02:10:02 GMT 2020 Uptime................: 1 day, 16 hours, 44 minutes Load average..........: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 r2b build status......: Batch completed successfully First build began on..................: Fri Dec 4 10:27:41 GMT 2020 Most recent package began building on : Fri Dec 4 18:21:40 GMT 2020 Failed count....: 1 (8%) [ recently: d/gcc ] Success count...: 10 (83%) [ recently: l/PyQt5, l/glibmm, x/mesa, xap/geeqie, ap/cups-filters ] Build pass......: 3 of 3 Activities......:- Building package ap/nano [ 12 of 12 ] *************************************** **** SOME PACKAGES FAILED TO BUILD **** *************************************** Total elapsed time....................: 477 minutes / 7 hours / 0 days *** Complete.

Linux 5.4.2 packages are now available in the main tree for all supported systems. That was the easiest and smoothest major upgrade in about fifteen years! Hats off to the Linux developer community.

The Slackware ARM world rebuild for -current is complete. Updates resume!

The Slackware ARM world rebuild is happening in -current presently, so there won't be any updates for a while. First build began on..................: Mon Apr 23 15:39:32 BST 2018 Time spent building since first build : 5248 minutes / 87 hours / 3 days Most recent package began building on : Fri Apr 27 07:08:24 BST 2018 Failed count....: 11 (1%) [ recently: l/qtscriptgenerator , l/libtheora , l/libmsn , l/gegl , d/perl ] Success count...: 692 (90%) [ recently: a/bzip2 , a/btrfs-progs , a/bin , a/bash , a/attr ] Build pass......: 1 of 3 Current activity:- Building package a/acpid [ 704 of 765 ]