Slashdot Mirror
First Impressions of Slackware 10
Eugenia writes "Michael Hall wrote an informative article about the first impressions of the recently released Slackware 10, mostly discussing the domain Slack excels: the server. Michael concludes that 'Slackware 10 is a well-rounded distribution that will continue to make a first-class Linux server platform. Changes in the new release are incremental, not radical, and Slackware remains one of the most stable, reliable and flexible distributions available today.' The article also sports 14 screenshots."
I loved Slack 10. Its install isn't half as bad as people make it out to be. Its 20x easier than the debian install. Then, its fast, stable, and if your not new to Linux, its not really that hard to use. I wish that it had some Apt-Get sort of thing (besides Swaret/Slapt-get which have a low package base in comparison. They don't have even bzflag if I remember correctly(correct me if I'm wrong)). Ignoring package management, i'd say its one of my favorite distro's. Its just so stinkin fast to install and use.
Help Fight SPAM today!
Slackware 10 did something previous versions did not - it automagically configured my X server (thanks to the new XORG, I think) so after install all I had to type was startx and I was ready to go.
I'm currently backing up data on my local network fileserver box and going to wipe the HDD (was running Red Hat 7.3) and upgrade to Slackware 10. I've used Slackware before in server enviornments, and thats where it shines the most.
I have been using Slackware since not long after it officially became Slackware. I have tried out other distros, and while each has its strong points, the part of Slackware that I like so much is:
1. Simplicity
2. Customization, and ease with which that you can build your own packages
Slackware has always cut the fat from the install, and if you *really* want library-foo, you can find it either as a premade package, or build it yourself.
My clients' servers run on slackware.
I can't believe I wasted so much time running Redhat 8.x, 9.x, and Fedora Core before installing Slackware 10. I will never go back to RPM hell. Slackware 10 rocks on the desktop IMHO. KDE 3.2.3 works and looks great. One minor hiccup moving to kernel 2.6.7 regarding removing ide-scsi emulation and everything is working great. What a dumbass I've been all this time... Thanks Patrick.
Slackware users are generally addicted ones, and (as a long time Slackware user, since 1996) I'm seeing that Patrick (is the main and in many cases the only Slackware developer) is taking Slackware to the modern world without giving up any classical Slackware ideology (Simplicity, security etc.). Many people looking over my desktop (with plain KDE 3.2.3, Noia icons and Plastik theme) is being shocked by the responsiveness (of the 2.6 series with mm patches) and the eye candy. They don't believe that this is Linux. They're used to the ugly (please no flamebait mods) Bluecurve of Red Hat.
No I'm not against any graphical configuration tools or this and that. I'm just against breaking the rule of changing the default UNIX tradition of configuration files. Any graphical tool should be like Webmin, which leaves the structure as it is.
Slackware is beautiful with its simplicity, please leave it as it is.
Maybe if you installed from the 50 diskettes it used to take 10 years ago, you'd know why it was considered 'hard'.
Tedious, yes, but not 'hard'... to me, a hard install would be having to spend hours upon hours configuring/tweaking/swearing at the thing to get it to do even just a basic install. At least I can watch a movie while popping in disk after disk.
You don't want a compiler on most servers. Strike one against Gentoo, and it's a biggie.
And using swaret/slapt-get, updating is a no-brainer. Besides, why do you need a package manager on a server. Are you really installing/changing a whole lot? Maybe you need to rethink your concept of a server
Anything else?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I use Slackware 10 on my laptop and have used all versions since 8.1. It is the best distro for the technically minded people who like to be in control. Sure it's nice to have programs write config files for you, but I often find more mess than hand tuned. Slackware leaves the control (as an exercise) to the user and if you have to tune anything (it works out of the box) you'll only do it once and probably learn a little too.
.tgz is just a substitution for .tar.gz, it's not!
Another thing some people seem to dislike is the lack of strongly enforced package management like RPM or apt. However this is absolutely in line with Slackware's no-fuss, user-in-control filosophy. With no dependency checking source and binary packages walk hand in hand and impossible legacy dependacies are a non-issue. Sure the package base could be better, but much can be found at certain repositories (like http://www.linuxpackages.net and some times at the developers site.
OT: I absolutely hate people who seem to think
Look a monkey!
I always make a point to purchase a copy of the latest Slackware release. It's been a great distribution over the years, for server and desktop for me and my clients.
Definately my server distro of choice. I still prefer 'djbdns' for my external authoritative and internal caching servers system, and they run great on Slackware.
Keep up the great work!
sig mind freed
We have a consultant that's big on trying to push us to SuSe.
He asked, "why don't you use anything big like RedHat or SuSe or even Mandrake?"
My response was, "because that's the problem - they're too big with RPM dependency issues that occasionally rise - plus, it costs too much."
I have been using Slackware 8.1 since it came out for all of our production servers and I've not had a single problem upgrading them from the core distribution base.
I'm also not fond of the fact that SuSe isn't free, RedHat, for all intents and purposes, is no longer "free." Mandrake is faultering a bit in terms of being a cash-strapped company.
Slack, for all of my knowledge about it, has never had these kinds of problems because Patrick never decided to make it a "corporate" puppet like the other distros are. Granted, it may "look nice" in terms of big names being linked to your services and such, but for ease of use, stability, etc, give me Slackware any day.
I would use Debian, but it doesn't "fit" into our infrastructure the way Slackware does.
I would use Gentoo, but I don't like being locked into specific compile-time flags. (Yes, I know I can change them, but why should I be bothered with that?)
Why I need package system if I have ./configure, make and make install?
Wow. Nice tone.
Too bad you can't read. Notice where I said swaret/slapt-get? Yeah, that takes care of security updates.
You may apologize now.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
If you want Redhat you know where to get it. Leave Slackware alone.
I've pretty much gone exactly the opposite way. Started with Slackware 0.96 back in the day. Configured my machine day in day out, messed with X modelines on black and white monitors and 386's, configured everything just because I could.
These days I run Fedora core. I issue "yum install monodevelop" and the system downloads and configures a whole damn new development toolchain and runtime environment for me, probably downloads a hundred megs of binary software distributed over twenty packages or so. 10 minutes of Slashdot reading later I've got a new development IDE to play with. You know what? I don't miss the bad old days at all.
It's not that I can't configure anything you throw at me. But for all that configuration over the years I've got zip to show. You've configured something once, why in the world would you ever want to do it again? If you're writing your CUPS config by hand in this day and age you're a damn fool or have too much time on your hands. If you're using lpr, well... let's not go there. Now writing software, that gives you something quite tangible. To that I end I choose a distro that doesn't require me to babysit every damn little thing and just lets me get stuff done. I get a feeling that all these newbiews who rave about Gentoo and what not (heh, I like an old fart now, "get off my damn lawn you kids...") aren't actually doing anything with their machines except running Linux as a self serving purpose.
It's like deja vu all over again.
I was able to whipe my root partition of Slack 9.1, install Slack 10, overlay my old known modified /etc/ configuration files onto the new system, and be ready to go after installing a handful of unofficial desktop packages. Apache w/https, samba, nfs, iptables, courier-imap, and so on. Basically, all server functions were available within less than an hour after install because the infrastructure of Slack 10 remained the same as Slack 9.1. That to me is absolutely critical to my happiness.
:-)
The compile environment is top notch and so zero problems occured while packaging software from source (such as courier-imap). Everything went off without a hitch. I attribute that to lack of automated configuration systems and keeping everything virgin. I'm glad LILO is still being used, because in Debian-Testing, when selecting to use XFS for the root partition, it complains that GRUB may have issues. I'm glad Slack is keeping it real
-Drache Kubisuro
First of all, it was far less than 50 diskettes to get a running system.
Second of all, how else would you recommend installing it back then? Did you have a CD burner in 1994?
Third of all, while there were CDs that you could install slackware from back then (usually attached to books or magazines, that is how I got slackware 3.0, while I had installed a previous version from floppies) not that many people had CD drives back then. I still have a stack of Windows 95 installation floppies (which I'm not going to dig out and count) but there were more of them than the number of disks it took to get slackware working with X and devel tools.
I realize you probably weren't being serious, but please explain what's so 'hard' about using a floppy disk. If you meant the distro itself was 'hard' then you probably haven't used it.
/* still uses slack to this day */
Some time ago, when installing a Slackware for a customer, my sister using our main computer, and our second one had its HD broken.
/mnt, then configured eth0 and launched lynx to surf a little bit while the installation keeps copying things.
So, I changed vt, chrooted into
I dare Windows to allow me to do that!
Got Pike?
What is the point of screenshots of a distro? The screenshots are of X and whatever WM/DE you use. Screenshots of KDE make sense. Those of Slackware dont.
1) When you had no choice but editing the config files, you'll learn. Is not bad to have the choice, though.
2) When you edit configuration structure made to be understood by humans, and not by a GUI config tool, you won't refuse so easily to do it. The smaller amount of bell and wistles helps too.
Got Pike?
Package management is not dependency resolution. Stop displaying your ignorance.
Some of us don't like letting a script we didn't write decide what gets on our machines.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
If you use the tools it provides, Slackware tracks the packages you install and allows you to cleanly remove or upgrade each package. That's a long way from simply expanding a tar file and installing from source.
Slack doesn't do automatic dependency resolution, which is not at all related to package management. A lot of us are glad it doesn't.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
After using slackware for several years I've finally gotten around to cough up the money for a subscription.
After all, slackware has proven itself valuable again and again so it's about time I start contributing some money to the slackware team. If you use slackware regularly, I suggest you do the same. Patrik has to eat you know.
Harald
Or, in other words, it needs package management.
Don't be an ass; I prefer my package manager to keep track of what files are in what package and That's It. RPM and Deb and whatnot just don't cut it. In the 7 years I've been using Slackware I've never run into a problem with requiring a package ... You try to run a program, it says "can't open libfoo.so" and you go "Hmm, libfoo, I bet that's in FooWare-4.18-i386-1.tgz" -- Piece of cake.
And TBH I don't know of ANY software suite whose dependency lists are so bizzare that you need a dependency tracker to keep them straight... Well, short of Gnome, anyway. Even KDE isn't bad -- if you want KDE, you install the KDE packages... no dependency hell. Oh you need Qt? No problem, it tells you. It's all fairly well organized. All the dependency trackers seem to do is screw up.
Well, you can use a tool like CheckInstall which rolls everything out in a nice Slackware package. Then, you use the Slack package tools and install, upgrade or remove as per usual.
Or, you use locate and find and remove everything manually. Takes a while, but it isn't rocket science.
I've installed X, KDE and Gnome, among others, from source, and updated them.
For that matter. most decent akefiles can be executed in dry run mode so you can get a record of what's being installed where.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It is a great thing. installpkg installs. removepkg removes intelligently. upgradepkg upgrades intelligently. Dependency trackers are more hassle than they're worth, IME.
The only thing I wish removepkg allowed as an 'uninstall.sh' execution from the package. That's it. I don't want another damned thing out of the package manager. No interactivity, nothing.