Core System Libraries

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This section will discuss the core software that ships with Slackware Linux. Because Slackware's goal is simplicity and stability, Slackware Linux is a bit conservative in tracking the latest and greatest software. However, this is certainly not to say that Slackware doesn't keep up to date. In fact, Slackware follows the latest releases of software regularly—just not aggressively.

Slackware Linux ships with a selection of software similar to Red Hat's—in fact, similar to most modern distributions. Table 5-2 lists the major packages that come with Slackware Linux 8.0. For comparison, see also Table 4-9 in Chapter 4.

Table 5-2: Slackware Linux 8.0 Core Libraries

PACKAGE	VERSION	COMMENT
XFree86	4.1.0	X Window System. v4 contains 3D acceleration and new rendering extensions.
glibc	2.2.3	Core runtime system libraries. Contains linker/loader, math libraries, security libraries, network libraries, and multithreading libraries.
bash	2.05	Bourne Again Shell. Primary system shell (used by root).
gdbm	1.8.0	File database libraries. Used by other programs to index and store data.
fileutils	4.1	File manipulation utilities. Contains basic programs like ‘ls‘, ‘cp‘, ‘rm‘, etc.

There are a few points worth making about Table 5-2. First, Slackware 8.0 does not include the Pluggable Authenticating Modules (PAM) libraries that Red Hat and others include. (This software is only an alternate way to handle system authentication, which is in a certain sense "reinventing the wheel.") Also, Slackware has different names and contents for other packages. For example, the user management tools are found in the "shadow" package on Slackware. For a full list of packages that are installed and their contents, simply look in the /var/log/packages directory on a running Slackware Linux installation.

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