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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.
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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!
If you want Redhat you know where to get it. Leave Slackware alone.
Slackware is for people who want to learn. In fact, slack almost forces you to learn linux the way its supposed to be used. A) know where all the configuration files are B) know the syntax of the configuration files C) knowing command line seems to impress the less computer savy ;-)
And i think screen shots of a linux distro are kinda pointless anyway because; one of my favorite things about linux; you can have it look anyway you want because of the numerous window managers.
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 */
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
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"
yeah, god forbid someone want a Linux distro to, you know, just use.
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