“Slackware is old-school Linux. Back in the day – before Red Hat seized the throne – Pat Volkerding’s Linux distribution was the undisputed king of the hill. Many still use it today. By the time I started playing with Linux in 1995, or running my Web server with it in 1996, Slackware’s slump in market share had already begun. I’ve tried a lot of different Linux distributions during the years since then, but until recently I had never tried Slackware. Here’s what I’ve learned about Slackware while installing and using the recently released Slackware 10.2.”
The article dispels the myth that Slackware is difficult to install. It also hits the nail on the head as to the reasons why people use Slackware.
Slackware is great, I’ve been using it daily for about 3 years now
Simple, fast and stable.
I just love the bsd style init scripts. At work I also have some red hat boxes, but just looking at /etc of those boxes, already gives me a headache
As for the article, well, if you’re a total newbie regarding Slackware or linux in general, then it might be interesting.
W00t! Me too, I’ve used SlackWare for like 2 1/2 years, of course I’ve tried other distros, but I always come back to Slack. Server, desktop ,file/print server, whatever, Slack fills all the niches for me, my laptop runs SlackWare. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I LOVE SlackWare, and always will use it. 😀 It’s fast, stable, and a pure joy to use.
the install-time of Slackware beats every distro i know.
(if compared with distros that have the same level of user-friendlyness)
i recently installed slamd64 in only about 2 hours, with a GUI and all apps i needed.
sure Slackware doesn’t have dependencies. i remember a quote of Pat himself (it’s not exact, but it’s the bottomline): “you don’t need dependencies if you install all packages on this cd”
Slackware is also based on the KISS (=keep it short and simple) principle. just make sure the packages are solid and not broken. if you want other apps, fine, go get the source and compile. (or get a contributed package @ http://www.linuxpackages.net/ ).
why let some package-management tool decide which dependencies you need? if you want to work with linux you might figure it out yourself!
also the fact that just ONE man eventually is developing a distro, has to be admired. therefor only you should try Slackware!
finally i want to make a comparison:
1) Apple: “Steve jobs knows what’s good for you”
2) Slackware: “Pat knows what’s good for you”
Dj Comidi
Bzzzt! Wrong acronym. KISS = Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Bzzzt! Wrong acronym. KISS = Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Acutally it’s “Keep Installing Slackware, Silly”…
What’s so good about someone thinking they know what’s “good for you?”
What about the people using a GNOME desktop under Slackware that now have to download it separately from another page (myself included)? That seemed more like a case of, “Pat doesn’t want to bother any more” to me.
“What about the people using a GNOME desktop under Slackware that now have to download it separately from another page (myself included)? That seemed more like a case of, “Pat doesn’t want to bother any more” to me.”
Unlike KDE, Gnome requires a lot of tweaking to get it working properly. Pat can’t maintain Gnome and the rest of Slackware by himself. It takes a team of people to support Gnome these days. Even the original Dropline maintainer had to give up and turn the project over to a team.
Before knocking Pat why don’t you try downloading the tar files from http://www.gnome.org and making them work. I’ve done it and it’s not a simple configure and compile job.
It’s dead simple building GNOME from sources. You use the same ./configure && make && make install for most (if not all) packages.
The only problem is figuring out the build order, and you don’t have to do that, just look at jhbuild:
http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/jhbuild/modulesets/gnome-2….
To me the best part of the article is the “Why they love Slackware” box on the second page.
Also, Slackware became much easier to handle after hotplug was included, not much configuration is needed after install (well, at least if hotplug detects your hardware).
Check it out. A lot of effort has gone into it, and I hope it will attract new users like the excellent Gentoo Handbook, then FreeBSD Handbook and the NetBSD Guide have done for those distros.
Yes, Slackware is a great distro, just like all the others. We’re all unique human beings, so there’s a distro to fit everyone’s needs and tastes.
This is the best linux distribution to: learn, develop, study, etc. There is no other like this one.
PV is The Man, no doubt. I love my Slackware. Just freaking love it. My box is _exactly_ how I want it to be and I have learned more about Linux while using Slackware than all my years using other distros combined.
PS I would like to provide 3 other excellent Slackware resources:
Daniel De Kok’s excellent Slackware Basics book:
http://slackbasics.org/
MadPenguin’s Slackware Handbook:
http://slackersbible.org/
The fantastic and very friendly official Slackware forums at Linuxquestions.org:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/forumdisplay.php?forumid=14
Enjoy and keep on Slackin’.
I quit the whole Dos/Windows 31337 scene when I was 17 in 1996 (luckily I was still a minor). I uploaded Slackware 3 as my last release to all the boards. I have never looked back.
I am a long time Slackware user and linux zealot. Thanks for everything, it has been a great trip.
I resent the implication that I’m an old dinosaur because I use Slackware. For me, the printing with slackware just worked while with kubuntu it didn’t (HP Deskjet 5150) and I had problems with Samba in kubuntu, but Slackware “just works” so that’s why I stayed. That, and I like the idea that when something goes wrong, it’s easy for me to fix it and not have to figure out the spaghetti setup that most “easy to use” distros seem to have.
Granted it may be the same old dung but I for one would like a new bag.
Not that long ago Pat was pretty sick. What I heard of the sequence of events went something like this:
1- Pat was sick
2- He figured there was some dental bug that had escaped into the rest of his body or something.
3- He was somehow stuck at the Mayo clinic, they were ignoring stuff, and he was in serious problems.
4- He was thanking the Mayo team and better.
I’ve been dying to know what actually happened (and what the actual problem was). Anyone? Thanks in advance!
WTF? This is OSNews and not Your-Beloved-OS-LeaderNews. Mark Shuttleworth’s breakfast anyone? OMG! Theo de Raadt got a new haircut! Get a clue.
I, for one, would also be interested to know what actually took place regarding Pat’s health. I don’t find my curiosity odd, nor do I bow down to my Pat idol each evening to pay homage to the great demi-god of init scripts.
Pat’s health problem was widely publicized, but the cure was not. It is therefore understandable that people who heard the first part of the story are also curious to hear how it all turned out.
What I do find puzzling, however, is the need for some people (you for instance) to lurk on public comment sites, waiting for somebody to post something that will give you the opportunity to toss out your sarcastic and highly irrelevant WTFs, OMGs, and get-a-clues.
Does doing that increase the size of your iPenis or something? Is your own personal life so meaningless that the only personal satisfaction you can gain is by tearing down somebody else who did you no harm whatsoever? If so, that is quite pitiful (I know, because I’m doing it to you).
Does doing that increase the size of your iPenis or something?
My iPenis is huge. I could make an ASCII representation of it, but I would get banned ;^)
Theo de Raadt got a new haircut!
Theo’s barber had to pass a battery of core compentency tests as well as verify that there were no known exploitable vectors for infection in the entire process. In addition, he was only allowed to use scissors. Now that is truly off topic!
As the original poster, I must say I’m not sure I understand your response. What exactly is it that you are saying?
Actinomyocosis
I’ve installed Slack vs. other distros and it is also IMHO easier to use. If you don’t want to do something, it doesn’t make you. Sure, it’s text only, but it’s still easier (and faster) than even Redhat. Dependency resolution gives me a headache. Even under RedHat, I still use –nodeps when installing RPMs. And why? Because it gives me more info then.
This is what I’ve always loved about slackware: The packages are vanilla, the installer is never afraid to ask, and they don’t have unecessary packages on the discs.
The author should know, upgrading to 2.6 is pretty quick and painless in Slack 10.2. There are packages on the second disc, then you have to edit lilo.conf and do a mkinitrd I think.
Been using for a long time now..
http://www.linuxpackages.net/
Any serious distribution nowadays should consider what happens when it is time to upgrade.
Upgrading debian or other distro with dependency is as simple as one or two command lines, sit back and enjoy. Upgrading distributions without dependency is hell, as to be properly planned, tested and finally attempted just to find out that.. oops, that once in a month application required a new lib.. therefore a new compile.
I can understand that a distribution is “easier to install” or even “easier to fix problems”, but it should also be easy to keep your packages up to date and upgrade from one major version to the next. Not re-install everything all the time.
just my 2 cents!
Have you ever tried updating slackware? It IS as easy as a few commands (maybe 5 instead of your 2 on debian). Check out UPGRADE.txt (cleverly named eh?). Also, if you just run -current, you WILL be running the most up-to-date / stable distro you can find, guarenteed.
>Theo’s barber had to pass a battery of core
>compentency tests as well as verify that there were
>no known exploitable vectors for infection in the
>entire process. In addition, he was only allowed to
>use scissors. Now that is truly off topic!
This is the hardest I’ve laughed in a while. The fact of which simultaneously increased my earning potential while decreasing my overal sex appeal.
Well said.
Really, Slackware is NOT difficult to install. The installer may not look fancy but it is in fact user friendly and when it asks questions they are sensible ones 🙂
Just for the record, some really difficult installation experiences I had:
– MINIX, it was my first ever install of a UNIX-like OS and I was not used to doing calculations involving cylcinders and hdd geometry!
Manual was very very good though.
– Windows98 Turkish. Language problem, don’t speak a word of Turkish.
– Windows95 Greek. A language which I absolutely cannot not read except for something that looked like “Ne” which I thought meant “No” but in fact means “Yes”! Great fun answring dialog boxes..
/L
I like slack because it uses, as a previous poster noted, vanilla packages. You can read man pages and the packages follow the documentation – no weird redhat configuration files and patches. The only other distro i’ve experienced that comes close is debian. (haven’t used gentoo). and it works on my old pentium 75MHz, 32MB RAM :O)
slackware obviously sucks, it did not detect my oobertech hover-mouse, nor can i mount my tricorder.
I’ve loved Slackware for as long as i’ve loved Linux. If you use any other distro, you’re learning THAT distro. But if you learn Slackware, you learn Linux. But lately, i’ve cooled on it. Ubuntu’s incredible useability has made me realize all the headaches of Slack that i’d just grown used to.
But Ubuntu isn’t as “clean” as i’d like it to be. Its a great desktop system, but its not very nice to tinkerers and programers.
I’ve been using Arch lately, and it pretty much gives me what i’m looking for: Slackware + ease of use.
I’ve been using Arch lately, and it pretty much gives me what i’m looking for: Slackware + ease of use.
Ditto here with Frugalware. Frugalware is Slackware’s init scripts, Arch’s pacman package manager, plus improved localization/internationalization plus extra ease-of-use for desktops. If there’s a “Just Works” distro, then IMO it’s Frugalware. Arch does some weird things with their packages but Frugalware is just like Slackware — you get what the application developers intended you to get.
I’ve been using Linux for over 3 years, with distros like Red Hat, Mandrake, and Debian (and various derivatives). At the moment, I’m a big Debian fan, particularily derivatives Mepis, Kanotix and Knoppix.
However, I’m big on software purity (I’m a programmer/Systems Analyst by profession), simplicity, stability, and efficiency. I hate complex, bloated crap like J2EE, MS Office, OO.o, and Fedora Core (I know, completely different things, but they all have two things in common: Bloat and Complexity).
Thus, I’ve always been very attracted to trying out Slackware. I’m quite comfortable with the fact that it’s command line driven and has a text based installer (I had no problems with Debian’s installer, or configuring video from the command line). However, I’d like to get an idea on how Slackware does on some things:
1) Run on a Thinkpad 600 (or similar) laptop
2) Configure LCD video
3) Configure DHCP and connect automatically to YahooSBC DSL through a Xircom pcmcia ethernet card (Red Hat, Knoppix, Ubuntu, and Mepis all did this just fine)
4) Install Apache, PHP and MySQL, and have PHP autoconfigured to run in Apache, and autoconfigured to connect to MySQL (it’s a separate PHP module).
I can do all of this stuff manually, but I have limited time to diddle with stuff (I’m a father of a a 3yr old and a 4month old).
Anyway, Slackware looks like it is just awesome, and I’m very eager to try it out. But I want to get an idea ahead of time just how much diddling I’ll have to do before I’m fully up and running.
Any help on this will be greatly appreciated. 🙂
Yes I have run it on 2 Stink Pads without a problem. The only thing I couldn’t get to work was the dual screen setup on my latest T40.
DHCP support is straight forward, Not sure about that specific card but the pcmcia stuff is loaded by default. For Apache etc I didn’t use the packages on the CD (This was slack 10) but downlaoded the packeages from linuxpackages.net which included those things you asked for.
Thanks!
Another question – for anyone 😉
Has anyone done the “Install Everything” option? If so, how did it perform?
“Ditto here with Frugalware.”
I’ve been doing the same thing, only with Rubix ( http://www.rubix-os.org ), it pretty much does the same thing. As far as I can tell Frugalware and Rubix has somewhat the same goals.
I prefer to do “Install Everything” . When I tried to do a package selection sometimes I did broke some dependencies. For example : Once I’ve wondered where are the icons from the desktop. That was a fresh install. After some troubleshooting I discovered that I had to install cdparanoia packages. After doing that everything went wright. It is difficult to suppose that desktop icons and cdparanoia have something to do but that was the case.