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I know there are comments here that mention Slackware as a joke but I'm actually serious. OK; maybe the install procedure could be intimidating, but then one could use a live variant such as Eric Hameelers' Slackware Live in its Plasma 5 or MATE variants. These could run flawlessly from an USB stick without the need for a complex installation procedure.

Slackware, contrary to what many people assert, is fundamentally simple and easy to maintain. Most problems could be solved with simple commands or by editing text configuration files; and problems are rare. The distribution is rock-solid, stable and fast. And in many cases is a "non-distro", in the sense that what you usually get is unmodified upstream software, without any "optimizations" (?) applied by many distros. It's the Linux distribution which is closest to a classical Unix and thus it provides a great learning environment, but its simplicity and stability means peace of mind and freedom to learn.

And Slackware shines as a learning environment: a full set of dev tools, a vast array of desktop environments (most of them provided by third parties but very up to date) and a simple architecture that just works. And whatever you'll learn, it will be applicable in just about any Linux, not just Slackware. Try it, and you will not be disappointed.

I'm running Plasma 5.7, live... You can't go wrong with Slackware..

You mean factory fresh that has a whole pile of adware which most PC's appear to have when purchased brand new.

:-) You assume much. By "factory" I meant this. I don't believe it contains any adware, but maybe I'm not looking hard enough. I do know that most Linux applications do install into more than one directory, and some of the pieces have really weird names. Not that I mind or anything, but I still prefer the simplicity of static links. You know, to reduce that whole dependency thing.

I haven't tried Windows to go. As a matter of fact, since I found the Slackware setup, I just quit looking, but now you got my curiosity up. Looks like a busy day tomorrow

Now with Plasma 5! You can plug the stick into any machine, and it runs perfectly right out of the box, two monitors, weird audio, doesn't matter, everything works.

Once you go Slack, you never look back!

That sounds good and I'll definitely give it a spin. One question; can you install Slackware from the live media? On the Slackware site, under Install Help, step 3 says "You need to have a diskette with a root filesystem and the setup program in order to install Slackware Linux". Really? I haven't owned a machine with a diskette drive in years. Have I missed some way of installing it from a bootable CD/DVD/USB device?

Now with Plasma 5! You can plug the stick into any machine, and it runs perfectly right out of the box, two monitors, weird audio, doesn't matter, everything works.

Once you go Slack, you never look back!

Can you grab nearly any piece of hardware made in the last 5 year, plug it in and have it just work?

Kinda... In fact, I'm soaking in it

http://thinkinghard.com/blog/H... http://www.hecticgeek.com/2013... http://alien.slackbook.org/blo... There are lots more blogs, website etc that have solutions

Until some key functionality used by people is no longer available in that distro due to decisions made upstream to no longer support the code base, or other dependencies.

If I use KDE - which I do - then packages for that become unavailable at some point in Slackware given the above. That means I will be forced to use systemd if I want to continue using KDE; which also means I will have to change distributions, assuming Slackware remains systemd free, as well.

First, KDE like all other main DE's are officially committed to supporting non-systemd distros and BSD. The only ones believing otherwise are alarmist systemd-detractors.

Second, the KDE component mentioned in the rather whining blog, isn't a central component, but just a login/display manager. There are other options to use.

Third, the reason why SDDM hasn't got CK support is quite understandable; KDE doesn't have big corporate sponsors, they are volunteers and are stretched to the limit regarding developers. Investing costly developer resources in using a dead and deprecated module like CK is simply insane.

But here is what KDE/Gnome developers and many others have said for years: it is up to the non-systemd distros to support upstream projects, just like the systemd distros does. Don't like systemd software, fine, but develop your own software stack so that upstream projects work on your distro.

Yes it will suck for small non-systemd distros that they just can't leech software development from the big commercial distros anymore. But the answer to that isn't trolling every systemd thread about how bad systemd allegedly is (not so credible to hear from non-users you know), but to get organized! Why is it that you only hear from systemd-dislikers in systemd threads? Why don't you create your own _positive_ community that is about creating cross distro non-systemd software? Why no "New SysVinit alliance created" threads?

The small non-systemd distros will have to cooperate for the first time in Linux history; if they play "every distro for itself", they will sink.

Not trivial. Not easy. Not freedom of choice.

No, things won't be easy for the non-systemd distros. Some of the development needed in order to have even some feature parity with systemd isn't trivial either (cgroups etc). But there is a freedom of choice, the point is that the non-systemd distros and their users are solely responsible for creating such choices.

It simply solve a lot of real world problems and makes life easier for both upstream developers, distro makers and end users.

That is simply a lie.

It is almost tragic so badly the non-systemd users like you are analyzing the situation. I really like systemd, but have no problems with people not using it, and in fact wished that systemd had even a tiny bit of competition.

If the non-systemd crowd don't understand that systemd actually both work, is good, and have compelling features, you will never be able to make an alternative to it. You won't even be able to have status quo. Know your enemy and all that.

For those who think SysVinit style init systems is what Linux should be using the next 30 years, there is Slackware. It is a nice general purpose distro that is very traditional. So nobody is forced to use systemd if they don't want to.

Until some key functionality used by people is no longer available in that distro due to decisions made upstream to no longer support the code base, or other dependencies.

If I use KDE - which I do - then packages for that become unavailable at some point in Slackware given the above. That means I will be forced to use systemd if I want to continue using KDE; which also means I will have to change distributions, assuming Slackware remains systemd free, as well.

Not trivial. Not easy. Not freedom of choice.

It simply solve a lot of real world problems and makes life easier for both upstream developers, distro makers and end users.

That is simply a lie.

But, why can't I just rip out systemd? Oh - because so many service projects/distros are only supporting systemd today that you have to have it around if anything you download in the distro happens to use the API of the non-POSIX POS that is systemd.

systemd core files are not written to disk as files - they are written to the binary log file - you have to extract the data first to run debug.

systemd log files are binary; you can't run grep or other text parsing tools against it for automation - unless you extract the data first.

systemd encourages abandonment of POSIX compliance - which is a key component of the interoperability between various flavors of Unix and Linux (I loved being able to write a shell script on a Unix machine, and copy it over to a Linux machine with little to no modification). Dennis Ritchie must be spinning in his grave right now at this bastardization of his brain child.

The only way to avoid this is to roll your own distro - or support distros that stay clear of it (I was shocked to hear even Slackware was considering support for systemd - given that it has always been as close to SystemV Unix-like that you could get in the Linux world. Thankfully - so far they have not succumbed.)

For people who run desktop machines for their own use - running applications in user space for the most part - systemd may be fine. For those of us running servers, with many man hours of system administrative automation in place - this spells catastrophe in the form of forced obsolescence of our custom code and automation.

As I read in one article - if systemd is allowed to prevail, then we can all kiss the days of an administrator controlling his system his own way goodbye. It will split the work of people who do development - and at some point they will not be able to continue; one case in point: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/on-lkml-an-open-letter-to-the-linux-world/

From that article:

Last week I asked the SDDM developers to reconsider their decision no longer to support ConsoleKit because Slackware does not have systemd or logind and thus we need to keep using ConsoleKit. The answer could be expected: “answer is no because ConsoleKit is deprecated and is not maintained anymore” and therefore I had to patch it in myself. Of course, the ConsoleKit successor systemd-logind, written by the same team that gave us all the *Kit crap, depends on PAM which we also do not have in Slackware. One of the fellow core developers in Slackware, who is intimately familiar with the KDE developers community, has heard from multiple sources that KDE is moving towards a hard dependency on systemd (probably because they are going to need the functionality of systemd-logind). We all know what that means, folks! It will be the day that I must stop delivering you new KDE package releases for Slackware. That’ll be the day.

So this turn of events might be nice for some script kiddie sitting in his mother's basement....but for the rest of us who have to get work done with and through Linux - this is a royal pain in the arse.

If the user really want to learn and don't mind reading and experimenting, slackware is a perfect distro!

unlike ubuntu, where you have almost everything configured and hidden in GUIs and several mysterious layers of "user-friendliness", slackware is simple and direct.
there is no hidden config and the few user-friendly menus are just plain bash scripts, easy to read and understand. for a user that wants to learn, this is precious, as the KISS principle makes things isolated and easier to learn, step by step
Even the package manager is just a script to execute tar, you only have standard unix tools, and so, you will learn the unix way: do one thing, do it well

slackware is ready to use after install, but everytime you need something, you have simple scripts, good and commented config files and a great community.
missing a program? great, grab the sources and compile... you dont know how? great, you will learn (usually its just wget url/program.tar.gz; tar zvfx program.tar.gz; cd program; less README; less INSTALL; ./configure --any-option-you-may-need-or-like && make ; su ; make install).
in slackware there is no -dev packages, everything is there, ready to compile everything.

yes, one apt-get install program is faster, but you dont learn anything with that, and you learn a lot by installing a program by hand.

Everytime you hit a problem, stop and research, learn about it and you will understand why are you doing it instead of "copy&paste" a new ubuntu PPA repo

After learning slackware, you will do well in all other distros... learning ubuntu, you still dont know anything when using other distros

you have a working system, just like you want? fine, start thinking in new things, like web server, database, firewall, proxy, etc
in each idea, you will learn more.

After playing with slackware, you can jump forward to debian or arch (or using sbopkg on slackware) to have a easier system for day to day usage, or jump to LFS (Linux from Scratch) to learn the lower level of a linux system.

Documentation, you have the slackware book: http://slackbook.org/ and the foca linux (Portuguese, but is very complete and you can use the translator): http://www.guiafoca.org/

After playing with slackware, you not only will understand how many things work, but also learn how to think about and solve a linux problem, how to search for logs and errors messages and read man pages and howto's

This is a difference between a desktop user (ubuntu) and advanced user or linux administrator (slackware, but also gentoo and arch).

but hey, take the test: http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

It has been out for awhile, courtesy of Alien Bob: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/survey-results-for-linux-gaming-on-steam/#comments

Installing packages for another distro is not hard for me. And I don't care to install Ubuntu.

The problem seems to be Steam's insistance on glibc_2.15. My Mageia2 system only provides glibc_2.14; I need to wait for Mageia 3 for a distro-supported glibc_2.15.

What miracle has 2.15 wrought that makes it essential for Steam? I suspect that it does nothing special and since steam is not FOSS, I can't recompile it to find out. But that would be OK if Steam would give me a way around this.

Perhaps you should try a more modern distro, like Slackware.

But seriously, why should Valve build against a glibc that was released a year and a half ago?

-stable is dated, you can try to load the kde 4.8.4 from alienbob:

http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/kde-4-8-4-last-in-the-4-8-series/

dont know if it required -current or not, but you can go back in the blog to find the latest kde release that works on -stable (or just upgrade to -current)

Orly? I think the slack guys might disagree with you on that.

Really? I think the slackware guys might disagree with you as to the role of a package manager.

How old are you actually? Slackware discontinued Floppy support a long time ago!

<quote from http://www.slackbook.org/html/installation-requirements.html#INSTALLATION-METHODS%25gt;
While it was once possible to install all of Slackware Linux from floppy disks, the increasing size of software packages (indeed, of some individual programs) has forced the abandonment of the floppy install. As late as Slackware version 7.1 a partial install was possible using floppy disks. The A and N series could be nearly entirely installed, providing a base system from which to install the rest of the distribution. If you are considering a floppy install (typically on older hardware), it is typically recommended to find another way, or use an older release. Slackware 4.0 is still very popular for this reason, as is 7.0.

</quote%gt;

The website is not updated. If you actually read through the book [1], you will realize that it needs CD drive, and Floppy installation support was discontinued really really long time ago (when it was at version 7).[2]

[1] http://www.slackbook.org/html/installation-requirements.html

[2] http://www.slackbook.org/html/installation-requirements.html#INSTALLATION-METHODS

The website is not updated. If you actually read through the book [1], you will realize that it needs CD drive, and Floppy installation support was discontinued really really long time ago (when it was at version 7).[2]

[1] http://www.slackbook.org/html/installation-requirements.html

[2] http://www.slackbook.org/html/installation-requirements.html#INSTALLATION-METHODS

No, you don't need a floppy. The ISOs are bootable.

In addition to keeping with the spirit of Linux distributions circa 1995, Slack seems to keep actual documentation from that era as well. The system requirements you list, plus:

Q11: Is it possible to install this operating system without a floppy drive?

The only answer involves using LOADLIN to jump into a linux kernel from DOS. Wow! I appreciate the simplicity of Slack, but their main FAQ could include at least reference bootable CDs - it has been 14 years.

What parental control software IS there for Debian?

There is, iptables, privoxy, dansguardian, among others.

Again, Red Hat is NOT Linux.

Try this instead:
http://www.slackbook.org/html/index.html

You're better off studying something that is at least somewhat standard, as opposed to the abortion of Linux that RedHat sells. Train on Red Hat and you are locked in. Avoid it like the plague.

Your best bet is to start with Slackware 11, it's a manual distribution which will force you to actually get involved with it and learn how things work under the hood.

For example, you have to write your own iptables firewall script. But by doing this, you'll be able to understand the output of "iptables --list" on any distro out there and see what it's doing behind the scenes (for instance, amusingly, what holes does it leave open if any?).

You can download the distro here, for free:
http://www.slackware.com/
(my favorite mirror is: http://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/slackware/slackwa re-11.0-iso/)

There's a good book on it available here: http://www.slackbook.org/

Think of it this way (using a car analogy like the other guy, but more seriously):

If you learn to drive in a car with a five speed stick and a clutch, you'll be able to drive almost any wheeled vehicle on Earth with very little futzing around. It's almost like having a superpower.

But if you start out driving an automatic, you'll ONLY be able to drive automatic until somebody teaches you manual. And you won't have any reason to learn it, so you'll miss out on a potentially important skill.

It's better to start out with something challenging and switch to the easy stuff later.

Go Slackware, be a nerd like us! You'll thank me later.

Yup. TLDP is a great resource, especially for broad overview questions or cases where one starts off without enough keywords to make a meaningful search. Some information is old, but everything is dated, so it's usually relatively easy to stay clear of dangerously misleading material.

I usually spent a while on google and then try a mailing list. When searching, error messages or whole phrases that someone is likely to use when describing a problem tend to pull up worthwhile results.

For mailing lists, choosing the most specific mailing list possible is always a good idea. Sending mail to some generic linux list with a detailed question about some specific software package isn't likely to get you anywhere. Local user groups are a decent place to ask a question when you haven't enough information to know which specific list is appropriate.

For someone brand new to linux, starting out with a fairly brief overview of linux or unix-like OS's in general isn't a bad idea. The Slackware Book works rather nicely as a free option, even if you aren't a slackware fan. (But then, I am - so my judgment may be questionable.) http://www.slackbook.org/

I recommend Slackware (www.slackware.com) along with the official book, Slackbook: www.slackbook.org. Slackware and Slackbook is a nice introduction to Linux. You can view it online or download a PDF.

Slackware is, as far as I know, the oldest Linux distribution in existance. It is simple and clear. I hear comments say that it is very close to pure Unix (I can't say myself, I haven't used Unix, nor any of the modern BSDs). It's a a "do it yourself" fashion, it doesn't rely on configuration "wizards". From an educational point of view, I think that it is the best way to go.

There is a "slogan" saying, "When you learn a X/Y/Z distribution (Fedora, Suse, etc), you know that X/Y/Z distribution. When you learn Slackware, you know Linux."

One suggestion: You can have a dual-boot with Slackware and another, more "automated", distribution, like Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora, etc.

You should try actually visiting the links in the summary - this one http://www.slackbook.org/ has the following visible without even scrolling:

The Book
* Split HTML
* Single-page HTML
* DocBook Source
* Post script
* PDF

I guess it's a bit much to ask for someone to do a little bit on their own - perhaps that's why Slackware isn't as popular as some other distros...

RW