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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."
Slackware has always been my favorite distro, so I'm really excited to see what's in store in this release. For a supposedly "hard" distro, I've always found it quite easy and painless to install.
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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needs better package management. otherwise it is sweet
It has great package managment, no dependencies, swift upgrades, simplistic interface, doesent use some obscure packaging format or anything like that either, just plain tar.gz =)
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
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.
Slack was the first distribution I used when i became a linux devotee. It was great for learning the guts of the system in ways i probably would not have if i had started with something "easier". I don't think i could go back to it without an adequate package management system. Debian and Red Hat are still leaps and jumps ahead in that department.
I say I ain't giving you no tree fiddy you goddamned Loch Ness monster, get yo own goddamned money!
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 sure hope osnews.com isn't running slack as proof of concept ;-)
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
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.
I want the same stability that people want in a server on my desktop. If there are a few programs that are missing, usually a trip over to Linux Packages is enough. If not, take the time to learn about compiling (however use 'checkinstall' rather than just installing the compiled program--makes it much easier to maintain a clean system). Package management tools such as Swaret and slaptget have made it easier than ever to maintain an up to date system (with options to update to the latest security fixes in the specified version (say 10.0) or to the -current tree.
Slack on!
Yes, agreed with the idea that it's best for servers. I use it to power all my web servers, and without all the bells and whistles, I can really keep a firm grasp on the very few things I actually need running. No 5 CD install, just a very narrow footprint perfect for hosting. All my mentors used Slackware too, so how could it be wrong???
Nothing is foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
As to the purpose of these screenshots? I find the article moderately informative- ie if I want a desktop I won't go Slack, if I want a server I probably do, but, what are the screenshots meant to illustrate? They do not illustrate any point of the paper, reminding me instead of the screenshots of yore when men were men and windowmanagers were windowmanagers, showing just a big heap of windows on a screen trying to look cool. In all, IMHO not a very good article with lousy illustrations. If I were interested in Slack I wouldn't waste any time reading beyond the first two paragraphs.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
really not all that much different from Slackware 9.1 as far as I can tell. Just the usual package updates as you would expect. The core of what makes Slackware Slackware (installation, directory layout, config files, pkgtools) is pretty much the same. But maybe for me the difference seems even less, since I've been synching with Slackware-current every few weeks for about a half year now.
But that's slack. No bloat. Anywhere. You want it bloated, punk, you put it in your frikking self.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I have it in use since day one (including the excellent Dropline-Gnome suite. Pat did a great job as far as it concerns me. One downside is that OpenOffice.org and Evolution are not included due to space restrictions. Another one maybe, that you can't install the 2.6.7 kernel from within the installer. No big deal, though, since all you need to do for an upgrade is a simple installpkg.
Aside that, it's a lightning fast distro that hasn't failed on me yet. Also, IMHO the greatest distro for starters since learning under Slack is learning it "the right way" and will help you later on with other unixlike systems.
I started on with RedHat, which was a good start and introduction to Linux. I used it for a while, ditched the configuration tools because they were at the time buggy as all hell. I can't remember why I switched but it might have had something to do with them shipping beta GCC in a stable release--a colleague recommended I go to Debian.
:) And I actually wear it sometimes.
Debian was okay but didn't "take". I felt like I was joining a political party by using it. Nothing about it particularly impressed me, and I used it for a short time before I upgraded my machine and decided to try something else.
Due to my experience with BSD, a friend suggested I try out Slackware. I did and haven't looked back. (At work I've used RedHat and Fedora for the past year on my workstation, but that's to get reacquainted with it now that I'm a sysadmin over a number of RH boxes. I'm going back to Slackware as soon as I get a free lunch hour.)
Slackware's clean and lean. The configuration files are where I want them, it never installs something I didn't ask for, it's stable, and I basically get good vibes from it.
I'm such a devotee that a friend bought me a Slackware cap for my birthday last year...
I have to admit, I've been using Slackware since 7.1 as my desktop OS. I was a total n00b when it came to linux, and it took me a week or so to get my X display setup and lovable, but it was a head-first dive into linux anyway. Slackware had most of what I needed; Mozilla for mail and browsing, KDE for a desktop (even though Steven seems to lean towards GNOME), and Gimp for the pictures. I just had to add OpenOffice for the wordprocessing and rlpr to print to our OpenBSD print server. But the thing that saved me the most was the beloved documentation in /usr/doc. Almost every How-To was stuffed in there! I'd recommend it for any newbie that wants to go hard-core fast. I can't wait to try Slackware 10, but I'll probobly wipe out my boxen first (as I've been using the -current branch for so long).
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
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.
Or, in other words, it needs package management.
Slackware has had swaret for quite some time. I've been using it since 9.0 and it's come in handy many times. It checks each package install to see if all libraries are up to date and recommends, downloads and installs whatever you're missing.
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
First thing I noticed which was different was when the setup detected my ntfs partition /dev/hda1 and added it automatically to /etc/fstab to mount at startup. I thought this was a nice feature especially for the newcommers who always need this feature when dualbooting and not knowing much about linux.
Overall, the difference is updated packages with the obvious replacement of xfree to xorg which was a great move by Pat. (like he's done any wrong move! pfft).
Slack 10 is a great solid distro which I reccomend also for people with slow connections cause it comes with source packages like the source of 2.6.7 kernel.
IMO, the best distro to learn the basics in & out of linux.
Why I need package system if I have ./configure, make and make install?
I've tried plenty of linux distros(slack, RH, gentoo, deb, mand, suse) and freebsd, out of all of them slackware is by far my favorite. Some peopel complain about a package manager, but ive never been a fan of those anyway, i prefer to do it all by source. i honestly havent noticed too much of a difference between 9.1 and 10 aside from updated software(most of which i had already updated) I, personaly, see slack as a straight-to-the-point distro; which is exactly what i want. Plenty of oportunity to update anything you want. kernel 2.6.8-rc1 works great with slack 10 =) [/rant]
how does it perform on sun sparc boxes? i've had a couple of ultra60's come my way and I'd like to test it out on them. How's the install on it? So far the only thing (besides Solaris) that I've been happy with on an ultra60 has been FreeBSD. Gentoo was Not A Fun Install and debian was equally unimpressive (sadly.) But I'd like to see how slack performs on it -- I started to install slackware 9 on one and something shiny distracted me for a few weeks, but this makes me curious about it.
FreeBSD for the impatient.
There are package management systems out there for slack that even check dependencies. I recommend checking out swaret or slapt-get
I'm fairly new to the Gnu/Linux world and I have to agree with those who say that Slackware is NOT difficult to install and use, especially for geeks who have put in a lot of time on other platforms. I have tried all of the major distros, and have found that Slack posseses the best of all worlds. It is not only simple and stable, but it seems to me to be the most flexible distro.
I have had the most luck getting things to work in Slack. Sure, I don't have the benefits of something like apt-get or emerge (swaret and slapt-get don't quite measure up) but I'm also not limited by those tools. I installed and configured my Slack in under an hour, everything worked, and I have been able to get, install and use every piece of software that my heart has desired.
Coupled with Dropline Gnome, I have found Slack to be an excellent, complete and attractive desktop, even for the beginner/intermediate Linux user. I think that many of those who hold outdated, or second-hand impressions of Slack would be impressed by Slack 10.
To summarize, I love Slackware and want to marry it.
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.
Boney M ! Man, Slack really does have it all.
I've been a linux user since 1996 and I downloaded all four cds and installed slackware; and then replaced it with mandrake 10!
I had two problems with slackware; first, switching from X to console mode (using ctrl-alt-fX) locked up my computer; the other one being that upon exiting X my terminal would be totally borked (meaning that it would be set to a bizarre resolution) which would only be cured by a reboot.
I didn't have the patience to track this down when I already had a ready, working and viable alternative (several, in fact). I'm rather sad as slackware was what introduced me to linux and got me going with it...but I would recommend XP, mandrake, knoppix, debian or openbsd over slackware at this point (depending on the user, their requirements, etc)
Slackware is for people who want a classic UNIX system. Debian, Red Hat, etc. all have their places, but Slack is for people who grew up on, administer, use, and love UNIX.
If you want Redhat you know where to get it. Leave Slackware alone.
There's also the matter of standardization - once you have learned to configure your own system without a 3rd-party kludge to hold your hand and do it for you in a point-and-drool interface, you can then apply that knowledge to pretty much any Unix-like system. If all the configuration you've ever done was accomplished via a distribution-specific GUI tool, then all you've learned to do is configure that specific version of that specific distribution.
Slackware uses a sophisticated software update system comprised of the pkgtool utility (and its attendant installpkg, removepkg, and upgradepkg cousins) and an incredible A.I.system abbreviated as "S.Y.S.O.P."
Through its amazing abilities, the S.Y.S.O.P. system monitors a steady feed of bug reports (the famed B.U.G.T.R.A.Q. system, first implemented in 1997 as an experiment in networking S.Y.S.O.P. systems over long distance, high latency networks in an asynchronus way) for information on what to do with the system. A S.Y.S.O.P. system will tirelessy maintain and care for your server installation, and can even create whole new bits of software, in the form of shell scripts or what have you, in the pursuit of its goals!
While those Debian people may be happy to just blindly apt-get-upgrade their BIND installation every few weeks, and those poor Redhat users are forced to rpm -i --force --nodeps nearly every single package they want, it has been found that through proper use of a S.Y.S.O.P. system, you can ditch the automated upgrades and truly secure your system(s) once and for all time! These amazing devices will also help end users if they are clustered sufficiently to prevent burnout.
An intelligient S.Y.S.O.P. -- no server should be without one!
Large parts of the previous few paragraphs were stolen from the alt.os.linux.slackware mod-fortunes file
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
That the security out of the Box is excellent and Patrick checks everything out before releasing it.
Yes Slackware is never the first out when a new kernal comes along, but how often does Slackware get hacked versus Redhat? Or other versions? Everytime I see a 'vulnerability' published, I go and check and find my Slackware box isn't running that version.
And it's not like people haven't tried to hack my server (it's been tried a lot over the years), but so far with Slackware I've never had a problem (fingers crossed!) I reccomend it to everyone worried about security, out of the box it's head and shoulders above everyone else IMHO.
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
why is it i cringe when i see open source apps GUI's in a "screenshot" everytime i read the spec get all excited then i see the screenshots and think "nahh ill stick with OSX/WinXP
Because you think being a power user is using Outlook rather than Outlook Express?
Because you ditched that baby AOL stuff and signed up with Earthlink DSL, so now you're the hacker in the family?
No, no, lemme guess... you ordered the Slackware disks but when you put one in your CD drive it wouldn't Autostart so you decided it sucked.
(yeah, yeah, I know... don't feed the trolls...)
Not sure what you mean by "free", but Patrick V. has been selling Slackware online for quite some time. It would be nice if people actually bought it.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
One week at work using "that enterprise" system with RPM, writing those silly spec files for software I was never going to distribute and I was ready to pull my hair out.
The worst thing about installing Gentoo is waiting 15 hours to find out you screwed up.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
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"
Slackware posts its changelog on the web. All you need to do is stop by every so often and see what's been updated. Then you download what you want and install it. I suppose if you really want it to flash at you like other distributions, you could jury rig one of those webpage trackers to go "beep" when the page is updated.
Seriously, this illustrates one of the attractive features of Slackware. I don't need to turn over control of my machine to some unknown update script on some unknown server. I install what I choose to install. For example, I compile my own Mozilla rather than installing the version that comes with Slackware. The last thing I want is for some whizbang tool to install its version of Mozilla on top of mine.
-- 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
Exactly. I generally have a USB drive with a full (development) system on it for my slackware installs, and then my individual servers have about a 250-300M minimum install. Anytime I need something (kernel, asterisk, perl module, etc.) I plug in the USB drive, mount it and chroot. I build what I need, use checkinstall and make a slackware package for it... now all my servers can use it. Having a full development system on every server is not only wasteful, but a huge intrusion vector.
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.
Looking good as in:
screenshot 1
screenshot 2
even more screenshots
Don't confuse what the article creator was using (default looking Gnome) with what you can make it look like, and how you can make it preform.
"We're breaking out the ramen noodles. . . "
"Really? Is it someone's birthday?"
No, you have to do a capture of the datastream (1's and 0's) and then feed them back into your machine via serial cable. Kind of looks like the Matrix computer readouts of the grid itself....
It beats the old way of installing (actually flipping the switches on and off to generate the 1's and 0's). Then along came those pussy punch cards and it was all down hill after that.
WTF? Over?
Yes, it was easy to bootstrap pkgsrc when I used it on Slackware. I do not remember any major problems. It helps to be comfortable with make and autoconf tools - the good and bad of open source is it's such a moving target.
Pkgsrc can coexist with other packaging systems. In one case, we had a couple aging Slackware 7 servers running. We did not want to take them out of service but needed to run a new program on them. By adding a pkgsrc tree, we got a whole new generation of compiler, autoconf tools, etc without affecting the legacy bits.
What would probably not work well would be mixing an interpreter from one packaging system (Perl, Python, Erlang, etc) with modules from another packaging system.
There may be more software available in the "native" packages for a given OS than with pkgsrc. OTOH we like that pkgsrc gives us a consistent interface for config management across several OSes. YMMV.
I keep my sources for most of my programs. If I want to remove the program, I simply go to the source directory, switch to root, and type:
"make uninstall"
Viola.
The majority of programs that use a Makefile for installation will have no problems uninstalling a program with "make uninstall". I've been doing this since I started using Slackware 7, and have never had a problem.
A more conventional way is to simply make a Slackware package with "makepkg". It only takes a few seconds more. "Checkinstall" is another option, but it doesn't come with Slackware by default.
... Slackware ages well. I have to admit that I'm in the 'old fart' camp and love the chance to 'karma whore' whenever a good Slackware story comes up. Slackware 10 is not different. (And we can all thank Patrick for *NOT* calling it 'Slackware X' :)
Seriously. I keep looking at new distros, but when it comes to my box, I'll never stray. I keep coming back to it for the same reasons. Slackware people know their boxes and know their software. (generalization, yes, but you try watching the screen as you're doing a floppy install and *NOT* know everything thats on your box.)
Slackware 9.1 was a breeze to install, and I'm sure 10 will be no different. Keep up the good work Patrick. Let the wipper snappers have their new fangled distros. I'll keep mine, thank you.