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Is Slackware Fading Away?
A reader writes "I just read over on userlocal.com about how David Cantrell announced he is no longer actively developing protopkg and autoslack (these are 2 apps that could have brought slack out of the stoneage but still kept to slacks philosophy of K.I.S.S.). So is it almost "game over" for the first commercial linux distribution which used to be the heavyweight champ?"
And just cos a couple of apps are no longer going to be developed, the distro doesn't end. It'll keep on going for as long as the project developers want to, simple as that.
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
There will always be slackware fanatics to keep it alive.
;-)
There will always be linux hobbiest that will have slackware installs.
There will always be one developer working on some part of it.
It might not always stay up with the rest of the distros (especially large ones like debian, redhat, and SuSE), but it won't "die".
This ask slashdot sounds a touch like the *BSD is dying troll
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
slackware was the first distro i used as well and in my prolific distro trying out faze i got very used to the standards used in most other distros for things like /etc/rc.d/init.d symbolic links.
now i have it (slack) running on my router because i wanted it to be simple and "bare knuckle" as one user expressed it. and it is. everything seems like a huge deal to get it going over there.
cron is not working properly, and has no default logging. (they don't use vixie).
but most other problems i have worked out.
it's just not as shiney, but as a DIY kinda guy i gotta say i like it that way. for all the power and ease of the big distros they have stuff that is big and just gets in the way sometimes.
From the: But-we-need-you-around,honest! dept.
Slackware has been a stalwart distro for me ever since I discovered Linux, and continues to be the #1 distro I run on my machines. Now, I have many, many vintage machines, as I'm into collecting and restoring older machines. Slackware works very well for this, as well for various servers that I maintain.
Mind you, the setup and interface has never been stellar, and leaves most normal users coughing in the dust. However, for those who need max flexibility and a thin system (like these 386 machines and such need), this is an excellent one. I personally don't see any huge loss by not having these tools....come to think of it, I've never used them anyway.
On the other hand, if Slack exists because of commercial sales, then the loss of these tools and others will be its demise from lack of revenue.
Blog,Twitter
I have to say I'd still consider myself a newbie when it comes to linux, well not quite but definetly not an expert. I love slackware because it's what you make of it. It isn't bloated like many other distros (Mandrake SuSE, etc...). It comes with a good assortment of apps and doesn't take 2 gigs of your drive installing things which A) aren't documented, B) aren't referenced and C) you have no clue they're there till you go digging and find out they are just peices of crap. It's simple, and it is configured exactly how you want it. People say it's dying because it doesn't cater to the brand spanking newbie like windows does or mandrake is trying to do. I did not start out on slack and would like to thank mandrake for giving me that start in linux life, but at some point you have to take off the training wheels, and move to that 10 speed.
So what if one developer is stopping work on some tools? It's opensource right? Isn't part of the point that if they are needed and people want them someone will pick it up and finish them? 2 tools don't make a distro, and 2 tools stopping development by their primary guy doesn't kill a distro. GO SLACKWARE!
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
...somewhere in between the "full desktop" linuxes and "build your own linux." Slack doesn't need fancy apps or installations to justify its existence. All it needs is, every few months, to:
-Upgrade to the newest kernel, make sure everything is compatible
-Upgrade to the newest compiler and basic libs, and make sure everything is compatible
-Make sure the system is compatible with the latest, greatest hardware.
A bonus would be up-to-date GNOME and KDE, but is it really necessary? For Slack fans like myself, it's better to get a simple, basic OS and then add whatever desktop stuff I see fit. It's build-you-own, without most of the pain of build-your-own.
Redhat, Mandrake, and SuSE have been pissing me off lately with installs that take 1800 MB of disk space, and 10,000 background daemons that eat up 80% of the available RAM. If I want to install a useful system with X and FVWM to do Web browsing, check e-mail and log into remote UNIX boxen, all on a Pentium-90 with 16 MB RAM and a 600 GB hard drive, the ONLY current distribution good for the job is Slackware.
Slackware is for folks like me, who remember when Linux was *Linux*, and not a Windows wannabe.
dinner: it's what's for beer
Slackware goes through its slow times (more like lulls), but overall it's a distro that's best suited to server admins and people with a Unix background. Slackware isn't a distro for people who love RPM or apt-get, but if you prefer downloading tarballs and building the app yourself (and the extra control you get by DIY), it's the stuff.
Autoslack was cool, but not essential to the "mission" of Slackware. And perhaps someone will pick it up. I've been using Slack 8 since release, and I prefer hand-building anyways (then again, it's stable enough that all I've done is upgrade kernels and Mozilla so far). If you want it all done for you, you can always use Mandrake or Red Hat, and if you love apt-get, then go ahead and use Debian.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
IMO, the automatic updates and package management should be used by sysadmins that know what they are doing in the first place. I learned from compiling source code and it's helped me out a lot over the years.
As far as security updates for packages that are included in Slack, what's so hard about downloading it and typeing:
upgrade newpackage.tgz
Personally, I don't trust something that "updates itself".
Don't even get started about Linux on the desktop for the newbies. It's not ready yet...but that's another discussion entirely.
Every once in a while slashdot comes up with a story that says things like "the distribution that just won't die" (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/01/13162 22&mode=nested), as if it should have died long ago!
I fail to understand why there is such an attitude against slackware.
It is a really good distribution. It is simple, it is smart, and it is up to date!
The only thing that is not present in slackware are things for which MS windows is (in)famous for). Fancy installs, dumb control pannels, etc.
Slackware is as close to unix you can get using linux. There are no fancy 'linuxconf' like security holes, and wverything works as advertised.
I use Slackware 8, and have switched to it AFTER trying Redhat 7.1 and Mandrake 8. Before this I was using Redhat for many years, and I regret the time I have wasted with it.
And oh yes, like MANY others, I started linux with slackware... back in the days of kernel 1.2!
Don't Panic
*Flame on*
I've noticed the majority of posts on this topic seem to be against distro's that use package management. I say wtf is wrong with package management? I use Debian for one reason, I like to use my computer, and not spend time compiling and configuring. When I want to upgrade, I want it done quickly. Call me lazy, I know I am...but I just feel I should spend more time enjoying my computer, and less time trying to get the software to work.
*Flame off*
protopkg and autoslack were interesting concepts, but really little more that than in my view. As a long time (5 years) user of The Slack, I have come to know how to maintain the package database with simple tools like ls and grep, how to build new packages from source with only 1-2 minutes overhead on the normal build time, and how to use rsync and wget to keep my package store current. David's tools were just a way of automating what I do automatically anyway.
I don't mean to down-play his work, just emphasise that these were tools to make life a little easier -- especially for those with a little less time and/or experience. They were not there to bring Slack "out of the stoneage", and the are not necessary for the continued vitality of the distribution.
(By the way, what stoneage is the poster talking about? The lack of framebuffer eye-candy in the install? The lack of a package management system that can't handle alien packages? The lack of non-standard compilers, kernel and C library?)
I don't see Slackware dying any time soon. Things have surely slowed down on the official development front since the developers stopped being paid to work on the distro, but security patches and updates to important packages (kde, vim, emacs) are still coming out.
Slack has gone through some slow periods before, but often there is work going on behind the scenes. Just recently there was a long but very active "unstable" cycle, with many updates and improvements, leading up to the release of 8.0 (which contrary to popular belief DOES contain recent versions of core software). I think it is understandable that the distro is now in a "maintenance" phase, keeping important thing up-to-date but not embarking on major changes or attempting to keep every package at the bleeding edge. I'm confident that development will begin again when Patrick sees value in it.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
Slackware is an excellent distribution, which I hope never goes away. I prefer it over anything Red Hat, Mandrake, or SuSE have to offer.
However, it's not the qualities of the distribution that have me worried about its future (so what if it doesn't do RPM?). After the "layoff" Patrick's helpers (David, Chris, Logan) have been forced to get paying jobs elsewhere and only help out on a part time basis, leaving Patrick to handle the bulk of development by himself. He's started a slackware-current which has a few package collections in there, but nothing close to a new distribution tree. I'm also concerned that the latest patches put out for 8.0 were in August.
They've always been on time with security patches, but they've yet to release a patch for the kernel issues found a couple weeks ago. While, I don't mind so much downloading the new kernel source and recompiling it myself, I imagine there are many out there who don't know to do that. And yes, the newgrp exploit thing doesn't work in slackware because it uses shadow passwords instead of PAM, but the kernel bug is still there for exploitation by other means (su perhaps).
The fact that David is no longer developing autoslack and protopkg is unsettling, but it doesn't concern me as much as the seeming lack of activity at the slackware site. Please, Patrick, tell me I'm wrong and that you've got something big cooking up back there...
+++
NO CARRIER
While i think Slack will always have its place, i do believe it is fading...
.rpm and .tgz) to actually freakin install on it.
I just downloaded Slack 8 last week, hoping to replace Caldera on my main system. I couldnt get Caldera to install very lightly, and after that i couldnt get a whole lot of programs(both
So load the ONE cd into the drive.. go through the install. Not quite as nice of an install as other distros, but i managed to get it going.
To my amazement, it seemed to install everything i wanted, KDE, XMMS, X, sound support, usb support, mozilla, and the latest and greatest versions of the kernel, libraries, etc. So i thought: Great! this'll be perfect, everything i need, nothing i don't!
Then i rebooted, WOW what a fast boot time. Logged in, typed "startx". Nothing.
Basically none of my hardware was set up, except my NIC. Now i do like Slack's KISS philosophy, however, if i want to install an OS, i want it to actually use the hardware i install it on.
Every other current distro i've thrown on that machine(Athlon 1.2, SBLive, Geforce2, USB mouse, Linksys NIC) like RedHat, Mandrake, Caldera, SuSE... all the basic hardware worked after the install (granted to get 3d accel on the geforce i had to set it up with the detenator drivers, but at least X came up)
So if slack is going to stay fairly used, I'd say it has to have better hardware detection at least.
It has everything else going for it, but i'm not spending an additional 4 hours setting up my hardware post-install, its not worth it.
However, I didnt waste the CD-R i put slack on, I had an old k6-300 i put it on to act as a router. So, yes, Slack still has its place, so i dont think it should just dissapear, but its not my first place for a workstation machine.
I've been running Slackware for quite a long time, and have tried Debian several times over the past couple of years. It seems like a decent distro, but I absolutely hate distros that are built around package systems like Debian and RedHat (and all the variants) are.
:-)
All I want in a distro is a basic install with a simple package system to get me running. After that, I never want to see a package again.
I did like Debian more than RedHat, though. I'd have to say that Debian reminds me of other SysV style Unix distros, while RedHat reminds me of penguin dung.
I'll use Slackware until the very end because it suits my needs and my administration style more than other Linux distros. If Slackware were to go away at some point, I'd roll my own distro, or try to take up the Slack.
So what do the trolls do? Work harder and come up with articles like this.
Or like the one about "Cesium". Or the "How ESR built a bad motherfucking computer." Or the "Look how quiet my ThinkGeek(tm) computer is" article.
There's tech news happening every day. Are the readers here really more interested in this trivial shit? It's like a site for professional carpenters reprinting the instructions for a birdhouse kit from a craft store, for crissake.
Oh, and many thanks to the fuckwit who modded my last post "Overrated". When you're finished eating oatmeal and shaking on the short bus, you might want to look up what the Score +1 Bonus is, you grannyfucking slophound.
--saint
I can't see how anyone can assume Slackware would "fade away" because two applications cease development. That is similar to saying that if Netscape and IE decided to stop development, the Internet would "fade away." Slackware was not built or marketed for its new and innovative package management system, but for it's similarity to a truly GNU/UNIX environment and it's ability to show the user/administrator what goes on "under the hood" of a linux box. There are no bloated and clunky interfaces to hide the operating system from you, what you see is what you get. Some of the distro's out there (I'm not mentioning any names) are beginning to take on many of the aspects that keep users/administrators in the dark about the inner workings of Windows.
Now if you already have "users", what do you call /usr?
/usr can still be called "user" as it should be.
Well, since there is a difference between "users" and "user,"
Dinivin