“Slackware 8.1 is a four-disk set. The first disk in the set is the only one you really, absolutely need to install Linux. The second CD is a live filesystem CD that can be used to boot into Linux without installation. Disks three and four contain source code and the “contribs” — software that’s not part of the main distribution, but that you might want anyway.” Read the review at UnixReview.
Review: Slackware Linux
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Are you really sure you quit? Looks like you keep the news coming…
December 12th – read up boy.
…I’m more than a bit worried about the steady flow of news without Eugenia. Time will tell though.
I wonder why slack review appears(although as a link) almost six months after the distro has been released. Red Hat is usually reviewed on the first or second day after the release. If I were You I wouldn’t post such a link. If UnixReviw reviews slack 8.1 six monts later, fine. But why should You make news from it. It’s actually not news, it looks more like
book for dos 3.3. Anyway, If You need a review of Slackware current I would be glad to write one for You.
Well , I think Slackware need a deeper level of review than the one described.Personally I couldn’t install X server in Slack on my computer due to a SR9 video card.And I don’t thinks (as mentioned on the review) that Slack automaties the installiation of X server.
No slackware 8.1 doesn’t do it. What it is, is just a very genric XF86Config file that works with a lot of systems (I could be wrong about that). If your card doesn’t work you may need to run the X setup manually. Use
X -configure
or
xf86Config
Support (accelerated) for the Savage3D, Savage3D/MV, Savage4, Savage2000, and SuperSavage, is provided by the “savage” driver.
You need the savage driver for this card SR9
Yup, If I remember correctly, the default XF86Config in Slack use generic vesa driver. Thus, most card that support this will be able to start X without any problem.
However, I think there is no acceleration by using the default X setting. User need to select the appropriate X driver to get a better performance.
Anyway, most people will comment, Slack is not meant for newbie. Infact, only people really know what they are doing should use Slack.
Slack (IMHO) is the most flexible Linux distro, yet maintain a certain sense of ease in installation/configuration. It is not design as window/Mac replacement, nor it is design to behave like gentoo where everything compile from source.
It is rather easy to install Slack that take up < 200M of disk space. (Actually, it is possible to reduce even more.) This make ideal for installation on older hardware like 386/486 system. Packages are arrange in are more logical structure.
Configurations are all follow the tradition of text base configruration files. This mean configuration files are all human readable. Everything can be done by vi. No fancy UI nor messy configuration files.
No need X, just a simple console and we can everything on it. I still remember setup one of my old Cyrix 233 system as a dialin server via mgetty and use the office network to get internet access. That was fun…
And, this a good distro for anyone who really want to learn about Linux/Unix.
A bit late for a Slackware 8.1 review, don’t you think?
I loved this line from the review: “Unlike most of the “major” linux distributions, Slackware will still install on a 386 machine if you still happen to be nursing one along.”.
Jeez…with open-minded folks like this, I wonder why Slack isn’t more popular than those other “major” distros? Too “condescending”? Maybe too “overbearing” and “precious”? Hmmnnn…
As mentioned previously, if your card isn’t supported by the default “VESA” device in the XF86Config, you have to either edit the config by hand or run the xf86config program (And then do tweaking afterwards if you know what you’re doing, like enabling the mousewheel).
Also, the reason Slack isn’t so popular in the mainstream is because it’s far more advanced in terms of having very few GUI tools but a real nice set of tools otherwise. Administration is easy, the distro is solid because it takes a year or so for each release (Usually). Keeping the distro up-to-date isn’t much of a problem, either, because Slackware’s pkgtool supported upgrading packages. It’s not because us Slackware users are snobs or anything, it’s just that most of us don’t really care to say “Hey, we use Slackware” unless it comes up. And it hardly ever comes up on IRC or regular web discussions (Linux distro discussions are a BAD idea most of the time).
I have to agree the review is a good 6 months after the release and it was rather brief in fact it lacked depth. Usually when RedHat and Madrake are reviewed there is a full page alone on how Gnome or KDE or X are implemented as if to make people believe its all thats included w/ the Distro.
I can install slack w/ choosing packages in under 10 minutes. I don’t see much of a point in describing how much time it takes to install. Hopefully when 9.x or 8.2 is out in a few months, a more in depth review will be posted on unixreview.
OK, well two more things about Slack:
1. Whenever you have a problem with an unsupported video card, just try the Framebuffer driver. It has worked every time I installed Slack on a laptop with some wierd graphics card. Also, a plus with Slackware: it gives you the opportunity to have Framebuffer handle your console, so you can have a 800X600 or 1024X768 resolution, even in text mode. This rocks, especially for laptops ;-).
2. Like FreeBSD, Slackware is a *system*, not just an OS. This means they take the standard Unix filesystem hierarchy seriously. (Try “man hier” from your Bash console, and count the ways RedHat breaks compatibility…). Everything on the system is handled through the same standardized startup scripts (BSD-style), and no one is presented with that annoying mix of text-based and GUI-based configuration you find with most Linux distributions. (Yes, I know that all Linux systems can be handled with text-only configuration, but many of them tempt the user into relying on GUIs, which is a mistake, IMHO.)
Why is this Unix hierarchy thing so important? If you really want to do something besides rely on the applications and configurations provided by your Linux distribution, this becomes paramount. I can’t tell you the number of RedHat users I have had to help out, just because they couldn’t uninstall the RPM for Apache/PHP/whatever and compile their own version. Half of the dependencies are not in the standard place. Things are in /usr that should be in /usr/local. and vice-versa. It’s impossible to track down all your libraries and includes, because they could be anywhere. It’s a mess, once you start trying to really customize your OS. This is not what Unix was meant to be.
BTW, we’re waiting for Slackware 9 to come out in the next 4 to 6 months. Yet, I stil have a couple boxen that run Slack 7.1.
An interesting thing I noted(this may be the case in other distros, I’m a newbie and have only used Slack so I don’t know) the base diskset and the network diskset can still actually be installed via floppies. Which is particularly handy on older machines.
You all are right about X, it’s default vesa stuff works w/most cards, but for mouse wheels, full screen tv, and the like you have to hand tweak the config file.
I love the console!
In slackware, use xfree86setup to configure X. It does everything automatically. When it is done, X will be configured for the max resolution that your video card will support. Works well, though I usually don’t run my card at it’s max resolution due to refresh rate being low. YMMV.
There is also Vector Linux, that is build on Slackware but should be easier to install. I’ve ordered it and will run aranym with it.
regards, Ludwig
“BTW, we’re waiting for Slackware 9 to come out in the next 4 to 6 months. Yet, I stil have a couple boxen that run Slack 7.1. “
OK, lets’s try that again….
“BTW, we’re waiting for Slackware 9 to come out in the next 4 to 6 months. Yet, I stil have a couple boxen that run Slack 7.1. ”
So do I.
I am currently running the Slackware 9.0 beta, and it is fast!!! I’ve been using Slackware since version 2.1, and with Slack 9 on board, my machine is phenominally fast.
It’s never too late. If a review pops up at a site suddenly, even if the product has been out for six months, why shouldn’t Eugenia post it? For some, it may be the first review of it they’ve seen.
check out http://www.gnomedesktop.org and http://www.dropline.net/gnome
Slackware runs the latest GNOME 2.0.3 release and has binaries for KDE 3.0.5. Can’t wait to see what KDE 3.1 is like, trying to automate the compilation of it on my box. That’s the best thing about slackware, its stable and designed to be a usable build environment. For people who like doing that sort of thing.
Slackware 8.1 is rock solid imho. I haven’t had any problems with it yet and It runs very smooth on my inspirion 8000 laptop. I had it up for 75 days with out a problem. So its stable and the install process is hands down faster. I can install slackware and have it configured to my liking in 20 minutes as you said. Its much faster install and you get most of the software you need at 2.1gb about for the first cd install.