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Patrick Volkerding Interviewed by The Age
boa13 writes "The Age, a major newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, has published an interview with Patrick Volkerding, The Man behind Slackware. Covered are the early history of Slackware, its business model, its current state, Patrick's plans for the future and his opinion about the commercialisation of Linux. "
Here's a good companion piece, from the second issue of the Linux Journal way back in 1994:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=2750
Read the shocking truth about Patrick's Grateful Dead tape collection, and the possibility of a Slackware/Debian merger!
in his teaming up with Bob to work on Slackware?
From the Article: "I don't have a problem with commercial versions of Linux (Slackware is one, after all). My main concern is that everyone plays by the rules, and I've heard about things (like binary only releases and beta testers forced to sign non-disclosure agreements) that just don't seem compatible with the GNU General Public License. Hopefully the Free Software Foundation is keeping a close eye on the situation."
I hear many fl4mz0rs spouting off about how this distro 'blows' and this other one '0wnz0rz', etc. And many times their beef with the distrobutions is that they cater to the mainstream (Windows?) users, rather than to the old-school-bloatless-speedfreak user.
I just want to clear this up for any fl4mz0rz listening. GNU/Linux will not ever be ruined by any company who releases a distrobution.
Anyone can make a linux distrobution, and because of this, if you ever see that all the distrobutions of linux are heading down the road to Redmond, you can learn (now thats a novel idea) how to make your own (if it's important enough to you). The atrocities mentioned abover are not good practice for companies, but do not hurt the GNU/Linux community very much because educated users will not support companies who do them.
If it's not one thing, it's Steve's Mother
What were you doing at the time you started Slackware?
I was finishing up my bachelor's degree in Computer Science at Minnesota State University, Moorhead.
It's MinnesotaLinux, dontchaknow!
Here
I found it by searching for the subject line he mentioned in interview mentioned here.
Slackware is still going on with the latest 9.0-beta still the first choice of Slackers!
:)
Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
debugger on Sun gear, and later ported it to Linux.
ESR was the world's expert on Unix for Intel IA32 hardware, long before Linux was invented.
He maintained the definitive Usenet list of i386 Unix. He personally tested and reviewed them all.
Before Slackware, my first association with Patrick Volkerding was when he took up a collection to help Linus Torvalds financially when Linus was still a student. Patrick collected several thousand dollars in dontations for Linus, and very penny of it went to Linus. Very cool.
I like all these guys. If they weren't doing Linux, they'd be doing something else equally fine.
But I don't think slackware is for everyone. Linux is going to see huge growth in the next couple of years, and the n00bs can't reasonably be expected to do everything from a command line. There is a place for the relatively bloated redhats and mandrakes of the world that automagically work in (nearly) every case. If you were just getting started with linux, which would you prefer?
A best-of-both-worlds type compromise: slackware and webmin. Small, fast, stable, with an easy web-based configurator.
Here is my experience with slackware.
.......Now all my machines run Slackware ( including my Sony VAIO XG18). When i got my Sun E250 last month , it took me only 2 hours to get it all set up with Solaris 9 ( Having NEVER worked on Solaris at an admin Level ). All this because i did not have a automagic install and had to learn/piece it all together.
The first linux CD i had was Slack 2.0 in the fall of 1995 and the Windows partition survived only 2 days. I can't say it was the easiest distro to work with but it forced me to buy the Linux bible and RTFM to get it working.
The memory of having my first X-session after hacking modelines etc for 2 days
Keep the good work going Patrick.
YJ87
The VCs will give you money to expand, but then if the climate turns, they might not be willing to keep funding. Now you have made lots of commitments to customers, employees and supliers that you just can't keep up.
About three years back I got a great job with a dotcom just when they got funded by a VC. By the end of the year, the company had doubled in size and by the next spring they had to lay off about half of the current staff. When I shook hands with the CEO on my way out I could tell he was very sad that he had let all of us down this way. The CTO that I reported too couldn't even look me in the face, but that's another story. Recently I heard the were absorbed by the VC and pretty much closed up their operation.
The best native package management is a combination of three things:
1) BOFH
2) tar -xzf
3) gcc
At least, that seems to be the view I get from using Slackware. (And I love it!)
I really like slackware's simplicity. I agree. Myself, I went from DOS to slackware (in the 1.2 kernel days). Configuration flipped from editing autoexec.bat/config.sys to rc.d files.
/. crowd would be why someone chooses Debian over slack or vice versa. I'm not trying to start a "which is better" war, but although I've tried Debian, I keep coming back to slack.
Using slackware in those early days made me LEARN how the whole system works (since, like today, there are no GUI tools for anything). Over time I've tried most of the other distros, but I keep coming back to slack because I know what file to edit to get the job done.
Don't get me wrong, GUI tools are great and are required to bring Linux to a larger audience. However, they never quite have the flexibility, and at times are unusable (shell only).
My question for the
i started using linux a little over two years ago. i went to linuxworld 2000 in nyc and came home with free copies of several distrobution's cds. i went cold turkey off of windows and into redhat. after about a month, i realized that i wasn't really learning much from redhat.
that night i decided i was going to find a distro that i liked. i installed everything (suse, turbolinux, debian, conectiva). finally, i installed slackware an was amazed at its simplicity. it was remarkably voodoo-free. there were no crazy scripts to confuse me, everything made sense.
now i use debian. i forget when or why i made the switch. i still love slack, but i'm hooked on debian's package management and software availability. slackware is the best distro to *learn* linux on. it forces you to do things yourself, and that's important. it's not quite as hardcore as linux from scratch, and i've heard crux and gentoo are similar, but slack will always hold a special place in my heart.
Thanks Pat.
//radiotakeover.
Debian is more what GNU/Linux is meant to be :)
I've been using Slack for about 2 years now. I've tried various other distributions (Mandrake, Red Hat, Debian, Gentoo), but I just love Slack so much I can never leave it. It's the way Linux was meant to be... I know exactly where everything is, and my filesystem isn't dirty like with the rest of the distros.
:B. I guess Joe Sixpack isn't really into that idea, but hey, Slack's not for everyone.
I'm glad to see something like this getting some press... keeps me knowing that Slack is still going strong, despite what some trolls like to say. (Slackware has no money left!)
On a side note, who needs a package manager? I never use packages, except when installing the distro... compiling is better
Happy New Year, it's 1984!
There is one. It's called "autopkg". A great tool, can do something quite similar to apt-get.
Red Hat and SuSE have had the excellent RPM system for a decade now, while Debian's apt-rpm system is equally impressive.
/etc/ are much easier to deal with, but they miss the point that they're married to the exact same concept with the RPM database.)
And all of them lose, hands down, when compared to Slackware's package management.
Slackware's package management (and yes, it IS package management) conforms to the principles on which Unix is based.
Instead of one (nonstandard, multifunction) tool, Slackware uses standard command line tools, such as grep, ls, and cat. These are commands that every sysadmin already knows. The package database is a list of plain text files, not a binary mishmash (I've seen Redhat people bitch about the Windows registry, and how plain text files in
Ever had the RPM database become corrupt on a Redhat box?
How about if the RPM command itself gets hosed?
If you have, you'll appreciate the simplicity of Slack's system. If not, pray that you never do.
Slack vs Deb (Slack!)
:)
/etc files. This is not a dis against RH but I think that to anybody who takes a gander at all the setup files involved it's obvious that if you prefer hand editing your config files to other options Slack is VERY friendly in that regard. Deb configs seem friendlier to me then RH.. but nothing beats the straight forwardness of the Slack configs.
... if you haven't tried Slack yet DO IT. Listen not to the naysayers.. if you can cfdisk/fdisk then you can get it running.. no sweat. And if you have any problems just email me :) (anotherlamenick@yahoo.ILOVEPAT.com) (and to finish.. all distros have pluses and minuses... try them all!)
Ok.. for one.. just to say.. fighting over these is stupid... but you know that.. just want to agree with you and get on with it
I think Slack's big advantage over all other popular distros is it's simplicity. The nice sexy init, the easy to edit
Size. In a help chat I heard someone about to try Slack ask where the 2nd cd was... 'only 1 cd? How does Slack get away with 1 when every other (major) distro uses 2 or more?' My response.. 'Funny, I always wondered how every other distro got away with 2+ cds when Slack works so well with 1'. I think this is a BIG DEAL. What should come on a distro and what should not? Personaly I like nice slim installs. Anybody who's installed Slack knows damn well you can get a fully working distro on one cd AND have plenty of programs you don't want on it. My debian install wanted CD2 just to install the console mouse server. Knowing there isn't 2 or 3 cds worth of extras I'll have to sort through is a big plus to me.
Updating. And this is the clincher. Ok.. so yea.. no apt-get. But I think people make this seem a lot worse then it is. Is hopping on an ftp and upgradepkg * really that hard? Some would say its not automated enough.. But then.. some would say it's perfect. I know what gets updated... every single package. And yes.. I WANT to know. But even if I didn't... a) it just isn't as hard as people make it out to be and b) it doesn't require any setup (you can spend hours in dselect to automate something that never took much time and maybe shouldn't be automated anyway. Yes.. going from distro to distro isn't as easy as it could be... but I hardly see such a move to be taken so lightly as to be typed in one command (although that is an option I envy).
So in the end.. I install Slack.. no cd flipping, a lot less sorting through crap.. setup scripts that are amazingly easy to comprehend. Nab that patch directory and I'm secure and updated... head to current if I want more. Updating mulitple computers is as easy as apt-get... excepting you have to d/l the files by hand (or you could automate it.. if it's worth your time).
Ask yourself.. what do you want out your Linux install.. a working system ready for installation of choice software... or a system with everything and the kitchen sink installed whether you want it or not. Yes... you can make any distro fit the former.. but never so easily as you can with Slackware. For users/admins who want to know what's on their system.. what is not.. and don't want any surprises... Slack is the way.
And that's my $0.02
sigs are for the weak
A good package management system doesn't necessarily need to include a plethora of automated utilities that allow you to forget how to be a system administrator. RPM actually discourages thorough knowledge of your system in the same way M$ approaches updates / "package management." With RH, you'll eventually need to reboot (unless you're very good; but the distro discourages you from being very good).
I've upgraded glibc on a slackware server 2000 miles away before without a reboot. And, yes it worked just fine for another couple hundred days until I got on a plane and traveled to where it was so I could get it.
People put way too much emphasis on package management. I prefer to maintain my own as closely as possible. Creates much less work in the long run...
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
Patrick, your Linux distribution got me truely interested in the OS a few years ago, and recently I decided to use it as my exclusive desktop OS. Slackware is just perfect! It is lean and fast, and everything just makes sense. I love 8.1, and am really excited about 9.0. You'll always have my $40 when a new release comes out. 8.1 really did it for me, totally outdoing 7.x (which got me started). You are the man! Keep up the good work! My Linux using friends and I all love Slackware.
Even then, the cool thing about Slack is that you can still get a machine up and running with just understanding a few simple things. Uncomment a soundcard in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules and change the permissions for all the users. Then run xf86config, and your machine is up and ready to go. The cursed based Slackware installer takes care of pretty much anything nowadays,even networking.
The most difficult thing about learning to use Slackware was learning to use FDISK. After you read about the basics of the UNIX filesystem, it is super-easy, and is even easier today with CFDISK. At the time, I was still new to Linux but realized that I was never content with the other popular distributions. I totally fell in love with Slackware after that day.
Slackware just draws you in after that with its simple configuration script system. I love how much it is like BSD in that respect. Its easy to use and just works perfectly. It's simplicity at its best, but there is no end to what you can do with it. You can make it as complex as you wish, but run it in its most basic form for almost any task.
I just put Slackware 8.1 on my friend's notebook (P233 with 32 MB of RAM). Gnome runs pretty well on it, even with such a small amount of RAM. Just don't run anything that relies on Mozilla (including Nautilus), or you will realize what slow is. 40 MB of RAM will cut it well for Gnome or any lightweight desktop interface. KDE (my preferred desktop for Slack 8.1) runs like molasses with less than 64 MB RAM.
I was really impressed with the results though. I would probably be perfectly content with it, had I not been used to running it on an Athlon 1400 with 1024 MB RAM and 3 40GB - 7200 RPM Deskstars at home.
Can't wait for Slack 9 though, especially with the inclusion of the new Gnome 2.0.
If you read the alt.os.linux.slackware FAQ you will see that some of the regs there have added a few new options for installing such as an ftp install. It is all in the FAQ.
Faux_Pseudo
Offical a.o.l.s. cult member.
Ascii artist &