rm -rf Whoops, Slackware 14.2 RC2, Shuttleworth Interview

Mark Shuttleworth said in an interview published today that Linux would be difficult to use everyday if not for Ubuntu. Elsewhere, Patrick Volkerding announced Slackware 14.2 RC2 and one sysadmin had a real bad day after accidentally running rm -rf. Reiserfs creator and convicted murderer Hans Reiser is featured in a new motion picture that's getting mixed reviews and Neil Rickert shared his thoughts on btrfs.

One of the biggest stories today must be of the poor man who deleted his entire company with an accidental rm -rf {foo}/{bar}. The man owned a web hosting company and apparently his server housed over 1,500 customers' sites. Everything was deleted included his mounted backup shares. The Independent reported today that one commenter on a technical help site told him he didn't need technical assistance, he needed a lawyer. Man, oh man, poor fellar.

No one would deny that Ubuntu expanded the reach of Linux to everyday lay people, but not everyone would agree with Mark Shuttleworth's assessments. He told Bryan Lunduke in an article posted today that "it would be very difficult to use traditional Linux every day" if not for the availability of Ubuntu. He continued by saying, Ubuntu "essentially keep(s) GNU/Linux relevant for the desktop and power developer." I wonder if Red Hat/Fedora, Debian, and SUSE/openSUSE would agree.

Slackware 14.2 RC2 was announced today by head slacker Patrick Volkerding. In the changelog he said:

Finally got some fixes we were waiting for in this new kernel. It's been almost a month since 14.2rc1 so we'll call this Slackware 14.2 release candidate 2. Almost there. Get in any last-minute bug reports quickly. :-)

No hints as to when the final will hit, but AlienBob has some builds for testers. It looks like Slackware 14.2 will feature Linux 4.4.7, KDE 4.14, Firefox 45, and GCC 5.3.

In other news:

* My assessment of “btrfs”, Tumbleweed – Review 2016/14 & 15

* How Badlock Was Discovered and Fixed

* Film review: 'The Adderall Diaries', Review The Adderall Diaries