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Ask Patrick Volkerding, Slackware Founder
Ask him what? About the Walnut Creek/BSDI merger? Sure. About what's happening with Slackware in general? Go ahead! Boxers or briefs? The moderators probably aren't going to let that one through, but almost anything else is fair game. Questions will be selected (as usual) slightly after 12 noon EST Tuesday; Patricks's answers are scheduled to appear Friday.
C'mon... lets see if moderation REALLY decides what gets asked of Patrick... or if Roblimo just does it himself...
If you had one wave of the wand and could change only one thing about the Linux community (in the traditional and/or the new, more business-oriented sense), what would it be?
How did you come to the name Slackware? DId it hit you during a long nights of smoking from the holy frop with bob? Did stang climb in your window and wisper it in your ear while you were asleep? Was it the Xists?
Hi Patrick!
I was an avid Slackware user in the mid-nineties, but after a few years I moved over to other distributions due to the lack of easy upgradability and package management. How upgradable will future versions of Slackware be? Are there any plans for Slack to move to FreeBSD style packagement management (which rocks imho)?
EraseMe
I have been a loyal user of Slackware for many years. I have always wondered why isn't the development process more open. For example, Debian has a very open process in which volunteers can contribute to the packaging of the distribution. Slackware does not seem to allow for that, that is, you seem to be in complete control of what goes out the door. Do you plan to allow for users to assist in development or do you wish for things to remain the same?
Now that "Slackware Linux Inc." is being spun off, are there any plans to honor J. Robert "Bob" Dobbs by designating him Chairman Emeritus? What kind of poison-pill-defenses are going to be included in the corporate bylaws to prevent being taken over by X-ists, or for that matter, anyone from Cupermond or Redtino?
This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
I've always viewed Slackware as the all purpose workhorse of the Linux distributions. It's always done things better and faster in the server role. Now as everyone is pushing to get Linux on the desktop, I'd like to know what Slackware's Direction in this area. Will it remain focused on playing the server role, or will the distribution splinter into different job roles, or will it follow the crowd and push for the desktop?
Thanks and Regards,
- Nick
I've been a Slackware user since 3.4 and absolutly love it. I don't like most package management systems out there and am glad that Slack doesn't use one (well, if you don't count pkgtool). Unfortunately this seems to be a bit of a problem when it comes to upgrading, seeing as you usually have to just reinstall from scratch and hope you have a good backup of your config files. How do you plan on addressing the issue of upgradability in future releases of Slackware, and do you think a better solution can be achieved through the install scripts without having to revert to an rpm-style package management system.
-Lee
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GIT d? s: a-- C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E- W++ N o-- K- w--- O- M+ V PS+ P
Are you considering any packaging and dependency system, or do you consider tarballs as all a true hacker needs?
Now that you are a separate company (spinning merrily off...), what will your distribution channel be? Will it still be handled by Walnut Creek? What about the Slackware-by-subscription option?
OTOH, keep up the good work, and good luck - from a _very_ satisfied Slack user.
With the formation of your company, will this give you the resources to port Slackware to the PPC and Alpha? Are there any plans for this?
Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
I was wondering if Slackware would include an ftp install method in some future version similar to FreeBSD, NetBSD, Redhat. I realize ftp has some serious drawbacks compared to NFS or CD install but I found it quite handy when I wanted to give FreeBSD and NetBSD a try. If not ftp, what about the possibility of opening up an public NFS server that will export the latest stable version of Slackware since many of us may not have an extra machine to set up NFS on. It could just run off the same machine as the ftp server for Slackware, right? Just a couple of thoughts.
Thanks Patrick
Ken J.
Hi Pat,
I've been using slackware for years now, it was my first distribution back in the 2.x era and other then my little stint with debian for about a month I've been running it ever since.
It's been my observation that slackware has been the most "download friendly" distribution, by that I mean it's segmented into disk sets and you only need to download the ones you want to install it. Other distributions seem to obfuscate this process (redhat complains during install if it cannot absolutely find every package, as do many others).
The reason behind this I think is that they want people to buy it, so they obfuscate and make it difficult to download the distribution.
Now wil Slackware apparently getting spun off into a seperate company, will there be more pressure to sell more units, and will this "download friendliness" change?
-- iCEBaLM
Hi, Partick,
I understand that you have chosen
not to participate in the LSB. The reasons
mentioned were:
a) That you prefer the old "unix" way of
doing things.
b) You feel that these ways should be
THE standard.
There must be good technical and marketing
reasons behind your preferences. Could you please
elaborate on both? Thanks.
Hari.
Most (all?) of the other "major" distributions have gone the way of commercial and public acceptance (meaning ease of installation, and ease of use). Slackware, on the other hand, is still very much geared towards the linux user that already knows what they're doing. Do you plan on making Slackware "pretty", like the others, or do you plan on honing it into a development environment for power users? Or perhaps something else entirely?
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