Softlanding Linux System (SLS) was one of the first Linux distributions. The first release was by Peter MacDonald in May 1992. Their slogan at the time was "Gentle touchdowns for DOS bailouts." SLS was the first release to offer a comprehensive Linux distribution containing more than the Linux kernel, GNU, and other basic utilities, including an implementation of the X Window System.

History

SLS was the most popular Linux distribution at the time, but it was considered to be rather buggy by its users. It was soon superseded by Slackware (which started as a cleanup of SLS by Patrick Volkerding) and Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X, among others. Similarly, Ian Murdock's frustration with SLS led him to create the Debian project.

Series

The system consists of the following series which were installed via floppy disk:

  • a1-a4: The minimal base system
  • b1-b7: Base system extras (man pages, Emacs, etc.)
  • c1-c3: The compiler(s), gcc/g++/p2c/f2c
  • d1-d2: Documentation
  • s1: Source
  • t1-t3: TeX document processing
  • x1-x10: X Window System distribution, documentation and idraw

Version History

Known SLS releases
VersionRelease date
1.0012 August 1992
1.0118 April 1993
1.0228 April 1993
1.035 August 1993
1.0421 October 1993
1.055 April 1994
1.06Late 1994

External links