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An Old Hacker Slaps Up Slackware
cdlu writes "What do you get when you mix an old hacker with an old distribution? A good old review of the recently released Slackware 10.2." Joe Barr over at Linux.com (owned by the same company as Slashdot) lays down his thoughts on everything from the install to reliability and user loyalty.
Think there's any chance we'll ever see a ppc port of this distro? Once upon a time, there was an unofficial project, and slackware.org for a while had an announcement up that an official ppc distro was in the works, but that was long ago...
Redhat 5.0? I cut my teeth on Yggrassil. An add in Nuts & Volts magazine featured the Yggdrasil release way back. I believe it was 1992. I've been running Linux ever since!
And the maintainer is fantastic. I deal with him often.
While I appreciate Slackware getting press (I used to run 8.0 on my server) this isn't much of a review. He talks about ever step of the installer, which hasn't changed in years, so there's nothing to tell here. He talks about how he adds a root password cause he always does (?) and goes on to tell about how since Slack doesn't support dependancy checking for installs he doesn't use any of the other tools (swaret, slapt-get) that do this for you (?). So don't get me wrong, Slack is still my fav Linux for servers since it paved the way for me to move to FreeBSD, but this isn't much of a review. (oh, and I commented on the article cause he says that RPM handles deps, but it doesn't; yum does. right? I haven't used RPMs for a time, but I'm pretty sure I'm right there)
fak3r.com
I slacked off, so forgive me since this isn't the true FP.
I thought Slackware was only for leet hackers, so why do they need a HowTo?
Old Hackers don't die
They become a zombie process and have to be kill -9
What do you get when you mix those two?
Um, I get Hacktribution or distribacker.
It was about 60 floppies. My first crash was several weeks later when I ran GnuChess under X on my 486DX2/66 w 8MB RAM, and made my second move...
It'd be with slackware, it's the one distro that I used in college that was stable, that didn't have a massive error out of the package (this one the age when RedHat came out with a distro where GCC was broken!!!)
I have to say slackware's name is perfect in a number of way, it's easy to get into, interesting to use, good to learn from, and good to modify how you want it to be modified.
Kudos I might actually have to get the new version and get my old linux box back on it's feet.
...I also learned to hate BSD-style init. I have found memories of Slackware since that's what I cut my Linux teeth on. I was too noob to even know there were easier distros to start with, but in retrospect you learn a heck of a lot more when the OS installer isn't slathered in wizards and GUIs.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
If this is the same Joe Barr who can't even install and use MPlayer, do I really give a shit about what he thinks about Slack? I mean if he can call the best video player ever "The Project From Hell", he's just proven himself to be entirely unreliable.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Just because almost everyone who uses it on the desktop happens to have a neckbeard doesnt make it a bad desktop distro.
Where does this review say it's not for the desktop? It says it's not for everyone, which I certainly agree. But it makes a great desktop OS for its very niche userbase.
I've always thought of Slackware as sort of the HeathKit hobbyist version of Linux... sort of the build your own robot dog, vs. the Aibos of Linspire, SuSE, or Mandrivacoriscalifragilisticexpialidocious.
When I first decided to play with Linux, many many moons ago, I think I bought the Walnut Creek CD-ROM of Slackware at Fry's or by mail order. I got a decent install up and running with XFree86 and a window manager. But it was very definitely a steep learning curve.
Recently, trying out a free copy of Linspire, it was probably the easiest install of any OS (Microsoft, BSD, or Windows) I've seen. Ubuntu was pretty simple too. I could have given my parents Linspire and had them up and running almost without my help.
But if you want to learn Linux, not just install it, Slackware is probably one of the best for that. IMO, Despite all the up-and-comers, it's still a good starter kit for the people who want to learn a little about how it works while getting it working.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
That's the number one reason I've been using it since 3.6 or so. The installer is good and simple, with no multi-level dependencies to get tripped up on, or to cause unwanted bloat. The defaults are all "wrong" for what I want, but deselecting them is quick. And if you need to add just one package, mount the CD and do an installpkg. The number two reason is it's a great distro if you absolutely don't want a GUI.
I had actually given up on Linux in favor of OS X on cheap older Macs, but I needed Linux for something recently, so I downloaded and burned the first two CDs and it installed nice and quick. The only problem I had was that the hard drive had an earlier Slackware install, and I ran a full install on top of that. I had already moved the /etc directory out of the way, but the package lists were still in /var. So I nuked them and installed it again with no more problems.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Depends who's "desktop" you're talking about. Slackware us actually easier to use for those of us who like to have more control over our systems--Slack's initscript setup is so simple to manage compared to the mess of symlinks and directories found in most other distros, and its package management system is very unobtrusive and understandable compared to the complciated GUI setups, distro-specific patches and dependency lists. That said, Slackware always comes with the latest KDE and makes a fine distro for newbies provided you set it up for them beforehand--not having all the extra layers makes it more reliable and less likely to require maintenance. It's also much faster on old hardware compared to the likes of Ubuntu.
Strict glibc compliance and relatively few efforts to make it palatable to the desktop crowd is exactly what has made it perfect for a task specific server platform. Having stuck with it since 1994, when I first started down the road of discovering what Linux could do. I've never been disappointed (in terms of uptime, security and resource control) I will probably keep using it as long as it can be maintained. A learning curve isn't a bad thing. That's why I got into this in the first place. I'll leave Red Hat to the '1337'. This just works.
Can somebody please explain why every single Linux review has to spend so much time on installation? Monday's post of a SuSE review spent a third of the article just on installation. Today's Slackware review spends half of the review on installation (actually a bit more than half if you cut out the conclusion that takes up a quarter of the last page). People, installation is a solved problem! SuSE and Redhat have had competent installers for nearly a decade. Even Debian is slowly getting into the act. When Corel first integrated a game of tetris while packages installed, installation was a done deal. What possible reason can there be to spend all of your time reviewing the installation process, rather than everything else? (and by "everything else", I mean the integration that a distribution brings -- how well are menus configured in your chosen desktop environment, does it have a good package installation story that keeps those menus up to date, does it provide you with recent and stable versions of popular software, etc)
Yes, I know that installation of Linux is critical since you can't easily go out and buy a PC with Linux pre-loaded. I get that. However, the installers for pretty much every distro are simple and clear enough that it doesn't take a genius to use them. Skim your chosen distro's installation manual and have a go at it. Just please stop wasting review space writing about the installation process! Here's a hint: If your review is too short when you leave out the installer part, maybe you don't need to be writing a review.
When I first decided to play with Linux, many many moons ago, I think I bought the Walnut Creek CD-ROM of Slackware at Fry's or by mail order. I got a decent install up and running with XFree86 and a window manager. But it was very definitely a steep learning curve.
Keep in mind ALL of the distros have come a long way since the old Walnut Creek CDs. Back in the day Red Hat was no picnic to install. I'm sure a Slackware install is more difficult than Linspire, but the 10.x versions are really not that hard to install. Most common tools are included, and many of the ones that aren't can be downloaded from linuxpackages.net.
That said, there can still be challenges. Hardware configurations are the primary obstacle I sometimes have difficulty getting around, especially for X. That said, I am writing this from a Slackware desktop, I run a Slackware desktop at home and have three testing machines at work running VMware under a Slackware desktop.
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I'll see your Yggdrasil and raise you Soft Landing Systems on 50 floppies.
Anyone else who's first Linux system was called "darkstar"?
But if you want to learn Linux, not just install it, Slackware is probably one of the best for that. IMO, Despite all the up-and-comers, it's still a good starter kit for the people who want to learn a little about how it works while getting it working.
Well said. Slackware was the first distro I personally installed (around version 9.0 IIRC) and I still use it on my webserver that just sits there and I rarely touch (I think the uptime is about 8 months now). It is not necessarily for the light-hearted, but if you're a CS, CE, or EE student who wants to get down and dirty with operating systems and knows enough to be dangerous, Slackware is definitely an excellent distro to start on because it is simple yet robust. The other distros (outside of maybe gentoo and debian) are getting away from complexity and are moving towards usability. This is just fine for the wider market, but if you want to play with the inner workings, it's harder to find anything easier to start with than Slackware. Once you master Slack, you can head onto Gentoo and make a relatively smooth transition if you really want a customized box. You could also migrate back towards Ubuntu, Red Hat, or SuSE and be able to get that much more from those distros. Don't count Slackware out just yet.
Isn't it interesting that, for all the bitching Slashdotters do about corporate-owned shills, advertising, poor service, and biased reporting, they turn none of that critical eye toward Slashdot?
You must read a different slashdot than I do. There aren't any articles I've ever read on this site where the comments don't bitch about dupes, shills, "slashvertisements" (advertisements disguised as stories), bought and paid for stories from pro bloggers (there are bloggers who make a career out of this site, like pipsquelle or whatever his fucking name is).
We're all aware of the problem, and we all bitch about it; but when presented with Viable Alternatives we don't follow through on them.
Therefore, it's fucking obvious slashdotters get what they deserve.
http://www.arouse.net/despair-linux/slackware.jpg
Slackware ports have the worst names. Ok, maybe Slackintosh is pretty cool, but Splack sounds like you dropped a slimey thing from a great height.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
I read that as "An Old Slapper Slacks up Hackware"
It must be time for coffee...
C17H21NO4
A real hacker ( the old style MIT kind, not the current model of a criminal ) would write his own OS from scratch.
Or at the least choose BSD, which is much older and mature then the very idea of 'linux'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Neckbead (n):
See "RMS"
What isn't pointed out by this review is that Slackware version the reviewer installed is still a 32bit version. The computer he installed it on is an AMD64. Personally, I would have found the review much more helpful if it had addressed the 64bit issues that Slackware has#151;which is what most new workstations and servers have under the hood.
There is an 64bit port of Slackware out there, Slamd64. Unfortunately, it has no where near the stability of Slackware current. Just keeping the installer from crashing can be a huge headache. I ran into this first hand after purchasing an AMD64 server. It's hard to give Slackware a glowing review until the 64bit port is up to par.
The one thing that really made me go "Ahhhh" when I was first exposed to Slackware was the fact that the packages included with Slackware are much closer (or almost identical) to what you would get if you downloaded them direct from the original maintainer (SSH, Apache, ect...).
Consequently you don't find stuff hand hacked and installed in strange places. If the man page says its in "X" location, that's where it is. Too many distros take a third party app, modify it so that the way they install it is different from what the original INSTALL file says, which makes it fustrating to troubleshoot.
Having using Slackware since its first release on a computer that dual booted OS/2, I can say for certain Slackware has staying power. DOS 6 was easy to install, Slack is too.
/etc files in vi right there before you boot into Linux.
Slack 10.2 makes it tons easier to boot from CD and even get the network up before you even boot into your installed OS, to be able to download any patches or setup NFS you need or copy special conf files down.
If you want to do a complex install like I have (setting up software RAID on a 2.6 kernel running an AMD64-Dualcore with a Shuttle ST20G5), you can setup the raid from the boot CD, install everything, and patch your
Without Slackware, I probably would have never been interested in Linux at all.
(1) "Open Source" means "you can access the source code". Source code is nearly useless if all you can do is read it - you have to be able to compile it/interpret it. Do not strip out every single possible file having anything at all to do with source code. Slackware keeps the compilers and interpreters and libraries and header files and documentation needed for programming in about 15-20 different languages. You'd think that is a given - "Open Source" - "programming tools" - DUH! - but in fact, it's an exception. Damn near a freak.
(2) "Following the herd" is for lemmings. Slackware has kept it's text mode installer while the whole world has gone GUI-crazy. Listen, GUIs are a great idea when you're watching a movie or editing graphics or surfing the web - get it? That's what you need a GUI for. When all you need is to read and write text, a GUI is a useless, superfluous, wasteful, unnecessary overhead.
(3) "Popular" is for homecoming Queens. Slackware has gone halfway to divinity by ditching Gnome. Now I'd love it if it took the other step and ditched KDE, too. Check out the two-disk distro - know why you need two disks instead of one? KDE. The other window managers are any one better than Gnome and KDE combined, but if nobody ever tries them, no one else will ever know.
(4) Distributions are released on disks for a reason - to put the operating system ON THE DISKS! Not putting in a patch-work kernel that's just enough for it to wheeze it's way online and download the other 99.99% of itself. I don't know which I get more annoyed with with other distros - wasting the money to burn all those disks, or discovering I am expected to pay for another internet connection just because the system is helpless without the umbilical cord of the internet connected to it. You can take a computer, an electric generator, and your two Slackware disks to a desert island and end up with a complete system ready-to-go - and able to reproduce copies of itself if need be, thanks to those handy programming tools. I just can't figure out how Slackware does so much more on two disks than other distros do in five.
(5) Read docs - documentation good. Slackware has the full compliment of man pages, info system files, docbook, and various contents of /usr/share/doc, and in addition includes HOWTOs and FAQs from the Linux documentation project.
(6) Keep it simpler than simple. I've practically thrown up when I explore the directories of soem distros. Pointers to pointers to pointers to nothing, programs missing half the files they need to run, everything scattered to hell and gone. Then people wonder why their system can't detect it's hardware and freezes up. Slackware follows the traditional directory structure and abides by it, going by the rule that conventions form over time because they make sense, and are not to be disregarded in the pursuit of arrogantly asserting how bold and creative you are.
(7) There is no Slackware For Dummies. And well there should not be, because this distro is one that actually *compliments* your intelligence. And you'd be amazed how smart you are, when you're given the chance to be! So the package manager is minimal, and I hope it never changes. Packages are un-needed anyway, when the system can handle any source-code tarball you throw at it.
Thank you all for glancing through it. We now return you to your regular grandstanding about Photoshop, Ubuntu, and Star trek.
they are the articles...
You're right as rain - but there's a problem. See, 99% of the distros are now "dumbed down" so much that they're useless for a power-user. To make a NEW Linux distribution, or write a NEW Linux program or make an update/bugfix/patch for existing examples of same - guess what? - you need one of those distros you can "fsck with" because that's the only system you can program on. Right now, that's down to Slackware, Debian (allegedly), Gentoo, and Linux From Scratch. Now, when the Great Steamroller of Group Opinion has flattened Linux out into One Big Ubuntu - where will we get more Linux? And what will be the difference between Linux and a proprietary, closed-source system?
I'm looking to keep my Slackware disks in a safe in a secret location. So that if present trends continue, I'll eventually own the only free development platform left on Earth. And I promise to make an insufferable dictator!
That looks like Trumpet Winsock from the windows 3.1 days. Are you sure that's even a linux screenshot?
Meh.